WITHIN MY H0R1ZO HEffiilBiSBlIT BRIDGMAN CJ Bis- As CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY [V h. "\>< Cornell University Library CT275.B85 A3 Within my horizon by Helen Bartlett Brl olin 3 1924 029 807 009 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029807009 WITHIN MY HORIZON HELEN BARTLETT BRIDGMAN WITHIN MY HORIZON BY HELEN BARTLETT BRIDGMAN ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1920, By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (incobfobated) 3^ S TO FORREST HALSEY WITHOUT WHOM THIS MIGHT NEVER HAVE BEEN ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Helen Bartlett Bridgman . . . Frontispiece " Little Nelly " 10 " John " 48 " Mother " 166 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I In a Lichi Nut i II I Am Born and Bred 6 III An Old-Fashioned Childhood ... 14 IV Keene the Beautiful 24 V The First Flight 30 VI Marriage 38 VII At Guffanti's 47 VIII Rus in Urbe 52 IX Woods of Arden 57 X Men of Action 63 XI The Artistic Temperament ... 72 XII Notable Women Writers . . . . yy XIII Rudyard Kipling 89 XIV The Mandalays 95 XV Richard Hovey 106 XVI The Dirge 114 XVII A Word About Travel 119 XVIII The Land of the Sky 126 XIX Peaks of Travel 134 XX Java 148 XXI Southern India 154 XXII The Prince of India 159 XXIII My Mother and My Gems 165 XXIV Zona Gale 170 XXV Peary 179 Contents CHAPTER PAGE XXVI On Sea and Land 185 XXVII In the Balkans " Just Before the War" 192 XXVIII Picking Up Lost Threads .... 204 XXIX A Dainty Vagrant 209 XXX Grand Opera 216 XXXI Gems in the Sky 225 XXXII The Wonder of Storm 233 XXXIII Smell of the Green 237 XXXIV Dream 240 XXXV Love 243 XXXVI The Poet's Will 246 Appendix " Lyddy," by Theodore Bartlett (the Story That Won the Prize) . . 248 WITHIN MY HORIZON IN A LICHI NUT Once upon a time a Mighty King fell ill. Recov- ery from his evil, said the Learned Physician, could come to his Majesty only through wearing the shirt of a Contented Man. So messengers were sent forth, and at last, after many days and many leagues, near those formidable peaks which shut out lands of snow from lands of sun, the Contented Man was found and lo, he had not a shirt to his name ! Haec fabula docet: contentment comes not from without but from within. One morning, in the midst of the coal panic and the war, this truth came home to me, when I discovered that out of a lichi nut, costing nothing, I could, if I would, obtain such a world of delight. I was melancholy. Only a ton of coal of the wrong size in the cellar and the air so sharp ! I begged an- other of the right size and was curtly refused. So I took to wraps, and a dull asbestos grate, dull because the gas works, too, needed coal. I felt very blue, in- deed, huddled in one room, with many colder ones around. Then there came a special providence in that lichi nut. You know it — a rough reddish-brown husk, as 2 Within My Horizon easily broken as an egg-shell, and inside a fruit rather than a nut. The gentle cynic with whom I live can not feel the magic of it — he snubs it as "a measly raisin around a big seed." It does resemble a raisin, but it is far from contemptible. On the contrary, it is wonderful. Instantly it transformed the bleak house and avenue into a comfortable steamship gliding on the Pearl River from the Anglo-Chinese port of Vic- toria to the amazing city of Canton. Many years before, towards the close of December, just in from Nagasaki and the stormy Yellow Sea, everything seemed as cold and dreary as now. That Christmas and Shanghai half a world from home are not a happy combination you must concede. Yet when at last we entered the entrancing mountain-girt harbor of Hongkong, the picture was changed as by sleight-of-hand. Imagine, these forbidding days of our latitude, the days in which the Old Year with sighs and groans gives birth to the New — imagine on all sides, instead of leafless trees, bare brown fields, ice and snow, the most vivid green, air as balmy as our June and a dulcet stream sparkling in the radiant sun ; rice paddies, lusty in wet nourishment, far as eye can see, and everywhere a wealth of subtropical vegeta- tion hung with fruits, flowers and nuts. All this rich beauty the Pearl River invades with the confidence of a conqueror, carrying upon its breast every kind of craft, fine, foreign, modern, not less than the native sails of woven grass, often as ragged as the garments of a beggar. Oh, the wonder of that day's journey; the charm of being the only passengers, the three of us, I the only In a Lichi Nut 3 woman, on a boat which might have been our yacht — idly drifting into the heart of Cathay. At tiffin came those double hot-water plates which in America are associated almost exclusively with Welsh rabbit or some special dish requiring a contin- uous high temperature. In the Orient there is always time to take pains — to bring every art as close as possible to perfection. The various courses were served by soft-footed Chinese, and each was the best of its kind, but it is the dessert which lingers in my memory. That consisted of crystallized ginger and lichi nuts. You never know at the time what definite object will haunt your mind. Not once did it occur to me that henceforth China would mean to me not pottery, pig- tails, pagodas; not teakwood, temples and tombs; neither Confucius nor curved roofs; not even jade, wrested from the wrists, ears, hands and hair of the humbler blue-garbed folk — but that pearl of rivers; that quiet, restful, sun-flooded deck; that swish-swash against the steamer's hull of a lazy, lapping stream, a stream penetrating an unexpected world of living, breathing verdure ; and finally that which f ocussed and explained it all — the lichi nut. Taste one and see what happens! A young friend who has crossed neither Atlantic nor Pacific under- stands by sheer sympathy. Her thumb crushes the shell, she bites the fruit, heavy with its peculiar flavor and fragrance, languorous as a cocktail, luxurious as Hungarian wine, and instantly rise up before her quaint little women with slanting eyes and refined hands, the smallest, sweetest hands in all the world, and alien men, 4 Within My Horizon leading an existence far, far from this rushing world of ours. She closes her eyes a moment and then says : " I see it all. You need tell me nothing. It's enchant- ing, but is it right? " It is wholly Oriental — that's what it is. The per- fumed food, rich, drugged, mysterious, makes you re- member when you would forget and forget when you would remember. Everything is a million miles from the thought and the habit hereabouts, and there is deep incongruity in its entrance at Christmastime — the memorial of one whose basic principle was conflict with, rather than surrender to, the things of the senses; one who would struggle not only with the snare of the houri but the inertia of Nirvana. There is where the West and the East can never meet ; for the one makes a god of action while the other's heaven is cease- less repose. The lichi nut in the New World visual- izes the undying struggle between sentiment and service — between him who dreams and him who does. But I believe I set out to say that to celebrate your holiday properly you need not be a millionaire. To be sure, somebody might ask the awkward question : " How much did it cost to eat that first lichi nut on t'other side of the globe? " Yet even so I stick to my guns and reiterate that it is possible to be happy though married and with a limited income in the expensive hemisphere. The philosophers declare, " We are not, we only seem." In other words, the idea is more real than the thing. A palace might fail where a pipe would arrive. In a Lichi Nut 5 So, if Santa Claus has not been kind to you, do not repine, but look the New Year in the face with a brave smile, and remember the Search for the Shirt of the Contented Man. II I AM BORN AND BRED My arrival on earth was a small matter to the earth, of course, but much to my mother and me — that dear mother whom I still can hear saying in her firm, sweet way, especially when the spring came on and I pined for something " different " : " Count your blessings, little Nelly, count your blessings ! " In time, this I came to do. I learned to be thankful for every phase of life, harsh and kind, good and not so good ; since each taught me something, through disci- pline or delight, and all brought me the realization, as mother said, that happiness is not a strange, distant thing, to be obtained some time en bloc, but a flower at one's feet, to be picked or kicked, treasured or de- spised, according to one's bent or intelligence. While I have been a contented woman, had I continually dwelt on what the Lord did not see fit to bestow on me, I might so easily have been the reverse. As so many are now saying, but not really believing, the greatest thing in the world is not what millions think it is, money and the pleasures that spring therefrom, but Love — the love that serves, that goes out from our- selves to others, seeking no selfish end. Practically we must be somewhat selfish or die, but morally, until self shall be eliminated, until nothing is considered save the other's need, we do not in the true sense live. 6 I Am Bom and Bred 7 I was born in Milwaukee, but if you asked me sud- denly, likely I should answer : Keene, New Hampshire. For it was there, in my mother's old home town, that the ten impressionable years from seven to seventeen were beautifully passed. They say that home is where the heart is ; but before seven a child has no heart — it is merely a little bundle of physical wants and fleeting impressions. My primary recollections of Wisconsin necessarily are vague. From Milwaukee my brother and I were taken to Saint Croix Falls, whose water power had attracted the attention of the Attorney-General of the United States sufficiently for him to invest in it heavily. For three years my father, Frederick Kin- lock Bartlett, a promising member of the Boston bar, and after that something of a political power in Wis- consin, had received a salary of $10,000 a year for cer- tain difficult legal services connected with getting this property out of chancery and into a clear title. He had bought land too, and was fatuously dreaming of the life of a grand seigneur, in this desolate frontier town which he believed to be on the eve of a boom. Under this illusion he had built for himself at the head of the grassy slope above the falls (where years later I stood on the solid foundation surviving its devasta- tion by fire) an expensive residence, the materials for which had to be brought across the State of Wisconsin from Milwaukee and up the two rivers Mississippi and Saint Croix. It proved a wild undertaking, for before the great task of utilizing the water power was even begun — and who knows if there was one chance of success? — 8 Within My Horizon my father died. He died a convert to Roman Catholi- cism, which he had embraced a few years before, con- tending that it was the only logical creed, and in his last hours regretting that he could not live long enough to see his son a priest and his daughter a nun. As all his people, and my mother's, were Unitarian, his wishes were disregarded, though eventually I joined the Epis- copal Church, which at least responded to my love of color. The particular creed, provided it be sincere, is to me a matter of indifference. Father became a Catholic through reading in the original French, of which he was a master, a continuous abuse of that faith. This perversity in inclining to the object under attack is an inheritance from him and also from my mother's father, in full force to this day. They say, you know, that while dead fish float with the current, only the live swim against it! Our forefathers on both sides of the house migrated to New England long before the Republic was founded, and none seemed to have gone farther afield. The Shaws came to England from Scotland and John Shaw was knighted there in 1485 for military services on Bosworth Field in the War of the Roses. One of the clan, in the early eighteenth century, depressed by some disfavor from his sovereign, had the courage to seek America, where in this new land his descendants be- came important. Major Shaw served in the Revolu- tionary Army. He was a shipbuilder of Bath, Maine, where he made a large fortune, only to lose it under the Embargo Act. His daughter Eleanor married Dr. Benjamin Dixon Bartlett, the president of the Medical College at Bangor, who became my grandfather. I Am Born and Bred 9 Originally the Bartletts were Normans, the name spelled Barttelot, and fought in the battle of Hastings. My mother's family was Scotch, north of Ireland and French-Huguenot, the names Alexander, Fuller and Conant, but while good citizens and patriots, there is no noble blood there, except in one small instance. From the Scotch Alexanders I have the right to the motto, among land and water creatures, of " Per Mare Per Terras," which may explain my fondness for travel. But this is little beside the imposing coat of the Shaws, when the first knight, Sir John Shaw, was allowed, along with other heraldic devices, the formid- able battle-cry used by his followers, " IN THE NAME OF SHAW." Aside from the excitement of the first serious differ- ence with brother Theodore, something that shook my small world to its fundament, papa's pride in my abil- ity to lift if not drink a glass of wine with the assem- bled guests at table, and one ignominious maternal spanking, which filled me with thoughts murderous, I have no distinct recollection of Saint Croix. I was but little more than a baby, yet towards the close of that nebulous condition came a vague realization that this life is not all. Suddenly something seemed to happen; I saw my father's tall, beautiful form, a form that in- stead of giving way at thirty-eight should have lasted long, lying white and still in its winding-sheet, the dark, curling hair framing a face of marble — and though I was but three I remember the fear, the strangeness, the solemnity, to this hour. It was almost the last day of December, and the body was taken by fellow Masons ( father wa§ a past-master 10 Within My Horizon in that society) through a severe snow-storm to Hud- son, Wisconsin, where in the picturesque cemetery on the hill we owned a lot, and at the base of the hill a cottage, soon to be our home for a year. But that winter was passed in the great half-empty mansion where father died, and a winter under such conditions in that frigid, lonely land is no joke. Indians went by regularly, pressing their noses against the window- panes, frightening us well at first but doing no harm. My mother made the best of everything, according to her delightful mental habit, and we children were happy enough, drawn successfully over the snow in a sled improvised out of a champagne basket. Finally the postmaster called, curious about this nondescript fam- ily dumped suddenly on a simple community, and ex- pressed astonishment at the rare and beautiful things, books, pictures, jewels, furnishings, gowns, piled helter-skelter in the dismantled rooms, and all belong- ing to the little woman in a hood who so long and for- lornly had inquired for letters that seldom came. In the spring, as soon as navigation opened, mamma left to hunt a house for us in Milwaukee. While she was gone brother fell seriously ill with dysentery. Good Cousin Sarah, a beloved young woman of twenty- three, not over intelligent but faithful as a dog, fol- lowed to the letter the explicit directions : "If sick- ness comes, never send for that country doctor, but read the medical book and give little pills." Mother was an enthusiastic homeopathist as well as hydro- pathist, both wonderful new things then, after the rigors of the old school ; and it is a fact that the doctor- less boy survived many stricken children around him; "LITTLE NELLY' I Am Bom and Bred 11 but it also is true that a year later, in Milwaukee, when cholera infantum attacked the same child, the distin- guished physician asked sternly: "Why did you call me so late ? " the boy then pulling through only by a close margin. The year in Milwaukee contained no notable fea- tures, but it at least was human. Old friends there were for mother and their children for Theodore and me. Nevertheless, it was the life of a distracted young widow with no confidence in a weird administrator who quietly pocketed the insurance on the Saint Croix house the neighbors said he set on fire; a widow with no clear outlook, no fixed plans, yet of decided char- acter, great personal beauty and charm, and absorbed in her children. Mother was highly industrious in a domestic way, but while she could save money, she could not make it, and was bound to be the prey of those whom, in her utter lack of business knowledge, she trusted. A legal complication sent us flying the following year to the nest awaiting us in Hudson, which was only partly furnished, our normal condition at that period, for while always keeping house, thank God, we seemed unable, through no fault of our own, to " stay put." But the place contained an old-fash- ioned garden, which was to become for me, in its pinks, portulaccas and syringas, its roses and mignonette, to say nothing of two trees with a swing between them, the garden of the world ! The sad beauty of another Arctic winter we faced with insufficient everything, and with a temperature that made mother stretch out her arms at night to make sure our ears and noses were not frozen. Of this I 12 Within My Horizon remember only the snow up to my neck, which seemed a matter of course, and at the end of a long dark period the balm of a sudden spring, with the marvelous com- ing up of the flowers ; and later a grand platter of honey in the comb — the grocer kindly loaning the platter, for again a move was imminent. Also I remember ears of green corn, of which as guests in a humble house we ate so much that we were ashamed, and the hostess leaving the room for a time, Cousin Sarah, ostrich-like, threw the cobs out of the window. Among solemn things, I remember a baptism, an all-over immersion in the river; and when I was six, left behind at church- time, I surreptitiously did up my hair after the manner of a past age, plastered over the temples and straight behind the ears into a tight knot, a style I unaccount- ably admired, and in the midst of service paraded up the aisle alone, to the intense mortification of my mother, who took her revenge by having it cut short thereafter for seven long years. Think of it — my beautiful brown hair, with the sunshine running through it, and the curl which was Nature's own ! These were the little personal things, but oh, the hills, and the sweet mystery of the woods, where dan- gling honeysuckles grew, and the wide reaches of the prairie beyond the hills, radiant with tiger lilies ! And somewhere along the way was a farm, and a mug of warm milk straight from the cow, which turned my little " tummy '' sick. Then, I remember nothing at all to eat for two long days, at the end of which Spar- tan discipline a kind lady brought me a fine big ripe blackberry in a thimble! One day in September we sailed away on such a I Am Born and Bred 13 long, long journey, made tolerable only by constant promises of delights to come in the home of the fairy grandfather who had snatched us out of a cold world, and with whom we were to be happy ever after, — and so at last life began. Ill AN OLD-FASHIONED CHILDHOOD Life with me began as a boy. I never cared for dolls. Only the exploits of two lively families, housed with their gowns, their crockery and their furniture on the lower shelves of a convenient bookcase, held for me any interest at all, and that solely because my chum, the daughter of a clergyman to whom the outfit be- longed, possessed the knack, since developed into first- class fiction, of keeping up a running commentary on the little people's doings that created illusion. Beside this thing of life and action the wax or wooden images lugged around by children seemed absurd. Not only did I care nothing for dolls but I cared little for clothes. By both men and women have I been up- braided for a lack of vanity. Vanity, I am told, is not a fault or a weakness, but a stimulant, the absence of which is to be deplored. 'Tis true, 'tis pity, but while a stickler for cleanliness, I always have been fond of my old clothes ; new ones do not seem to be mine until I have worn them some time — the joy of putting them on straight from the dressmaker I never have known. Here I am like a man : what attachment equals that of a man for his old clothes? Yet men tell me I am strikingly feminine — so there you are ! I am tempted by fine materials, by beautiful lines, by the changeless art of the Orient ; and I desire to look well in the eyes 14 An Old-Fashioned Childhood 15 of those I love — but fashion per se has stood to me for a weary and stereotyped institution which all the world, and especially New York City, would do well without. Just think of the time and money a woman wastes in trying to excel others and make herself what she seldom can from without — beautiful. But sermons about clothes, as has wisely been said, are of no avail to women. Argument they rarely heed, advice they sometimes take, praise they absorb, no matter how ill-deserved; but criticism of their clothes is like grain upon the sea — notwithstanding the fact that no matter how many styles come forth not one is free from discomfort. It speaks well for Amer- ica that in the interregnum due to the war our women were more logically and healthfully dressed, and for a longer consecutive time, than most of us ever have known. France with her long, tight corsets, her high heels and pointed toes, her commercial passion for every novelty and caprice, has been the worst foe to the health of womankind — one might well say, to the American race itself; for every injury to woman is harmful to the child. Few have the courage, the nerve or the strength to swim against the tide ; and Fashion, to most women, is as remorseless a master as Death; therefore, lucky it is that for four years at least, even though the price paid was monstrously high, our poor racked bodies, to say nothing of ransacked purses, were comparatively free from attack. Our young men were dying for us, alas ! but we were wearing what we wanted to, walking without pain and breathing freely. Fortunately, in that small town of Keene, it was easy enough to follow the call of the wild. Little did my 16 Within My Horizon brother do that I did not do with him; and in this mutual living he grew gentler and I stronger. My re- lations with him were almost romantic; I doubt if brother and sister ever loved each other more ; I don't remember one cross word ; and on shipboard more than once, the ships of the Great Lakes, Puget Sound and the Pacific Coast, he was taken for my fiance. Ah, but if he had not died so young, what a lover for some fair lady, what a gallant, sympathetic knight he might have become! Even as it was, before he was taken away by that malignant typhoid which so feeds on and fells the youth of our land, more than one woman cared for him. He too was buried in the sweet Hud- son cemetery, beside our father ; and if his body could have been cremated, as was mother's, all of us might lie together at the base of those New Hampshire hills we loved so well. Yet what matters it, when to live in the heart and mind of one dear to you, one who guards your name and memory well, is to live more vitally than ever before? Yes, from the time we reached Keene, I lived the life of a boy — I was brother to my brother. On the Ashuelot and on many a pond we skated together, studying not only the svelte outer edge, but the pace itself, throwing the foot sideways instead of back- wards, that the minimum of effort might attain the maximum of grace and power. In Milwaukee, at the rink, there was a dainty American skater, Kitty Hoyt, and a robust German-American, Lulu Goetz, and of these two, while liking both, Theodore used to prefer Lulu Goetz, and when I asked him why, he answered that it was because she had " such a luscious swing " An Old-Fashioned Childhood 17 about her. I am sorry to say that he ranked me in the rather cold, if skillful, Kitty Hoyt class — there was not enough venture to me : I know I never quite forgot the possible cracked skull. On this same New Hampshire river, in summer we rowed the long slender wherry, I learning at last how to feather properly the graceful spoon oars, whose beautiful stroke made all ordinary oars seem tame, and fettered ones altogether despicable. This lovely River Ashuelot made Theodore a swimmer, but that accom- plishment was not mine until again we were living in Milwaukee. How grateful I am to good old Rohn, whose school was on the Milwaukee River just above the dam, for teaching me so well — such a fine stroke ; how to float easily in any position and to tread water ; but, alas ! I never had the courage save once for a dive. Even the straight jump from a dizzy height I did not dare twice after a lad I knew became per- manently deaf through ruptured eardrums. Rohn had a standing joke on me because when I was free from the rope, three weeks after I began, I tried to float on my back even as he, and like him, while so doing, to whistle. Each morning after that when I went in, he would throw out his big chest and roar out his big laugh and ask : " How's the vistling, Mees Bartlett, how's the vistling?" Water was something like a passion with me. From babyhood my portion has been a cold bath before breakfast throughout the year. Mother believed in it profoundly; and there is no likely spot in Keene's Beaver Brook, in the dangerous depths below the Falls, in the lovely natural stone basins above them, then 18 Within My Horizon shaded thickly as a forest pool, but now sacrificed to the State Road, that has not known me — not to for- get sequestered lakes everywhere. Fresh water is my delight; but from the harshness of the salt, and espe- cially the insult of the surf — deliver me ! Often we went far afield, sometimes with lunch-bas- kets on our arms, climbing the long hills which in win- ter we slid down on sharp-nosed pickerels, no fear in our hearts, whatever the height of the jounces, while girls' sleds and girls' ways, feet in front, we scorned. In summer we fished in the brooks and ponds; caught poor little minnows in a handkerchief; dace, sunfish, delicious bull-heads, our catfish, with line and hook, and Theodore speared suckers. How often have I heard him sing out : " 'Ucker, 'ucker, 'pear 'im, 'pear 'im ! " On one august occasion I alone conquered an eel, though the battle was fearful and it nearly squirmed in again; and every string of fish we proudly carried home was by our dear mother as proudly fried. No fried fish since has tasted like that fried fish ; crisp, dry, yet rich and savory — except once in a native inn at Shidzuoka, Japan. The Japanese are artists in fish, because they cook it slowly and long. Their little squares of raw fish, too, in spicy pickled flavor are culinary delights. How many times since have I pitied the children brought up in streets of stone, and said so publicly without knowing until a few days ago that De Quincey had been before me in dubbing the city a " stony- hearted stepmother." In that joyous youth, simple almost beyond belief, I never woke in the morning without a keen sense of anticipation as, to be honest, I An Old-Fashioned Childhood 19 do often to this day. It might be no technical pleasure at all, no concrete expectation, unless some little thing promised or hoped for accentuated the vague general feeling; but whatever it was, whether of earth or heaven, it came as something delightful in store for me, and throughout my whole being rushed a special glow. Mother did not believe in house-plants, and when not in school it was outdoors all the time, no matter how the rain fell, the winds blew or the thermometer flirted with zero. To this and the plain wholesome food, which we had to eat or go without, I owe my lifelong health. While not robust, I have seldom been even slightly ill — and how many can say that ? Along with this regimen went the public school educa- tion, in which my democratic grandfather fully believed and which justified his belief. A decade of such in- struction in a New England town under admirable teachers is no small boon. My grandfather, a man of standing in Keene, presi- dent of banks and the first president of the Ashuelot Railroad, now amalgamated with the Boston and Maine, a road he was instrumental in building and which, as a link in the journey to New York, meant a good deal to Keene, made a small fortune in the whole- sale wool business and in real estate. He transformed the entire northern section of the town from a swamp into comfortable little homes for the poor. He had a strong conviction that every man, rich or poor, should own his own fireside, and without pauperizing the hum- ble folk, using as much as possible of their labor in the building of these dwellings, he succeeded in establish- 20 Within My Horizon ing, by a roof over their heads, the first step towards independence — to him, and to all, the most important thing on earth. The sad tramp of these grateful friends past the bier of the man who had loved and believed in them lasted for hours. The press said at the time of his death : " John H. Fuller, Esq., was a native of Walpole, N. H., and when comparatively young came to Keene and estab- lished himself as a merchant here and lived and labored to the end of his long life, and died in the midst of his labors, having attended to his usual business up to the eve of his departure. It is probable that no business man was so well known as Mr. Fuller. In our railroad and financial institu- tions he was a leading mind, while our churches and schools have all been the recipients of his bounties, and to the poor he lent willing hands and valuable counsel. In his removal the town loses one of the best of its citizens, and his children a counsellor whose wisdom they never questioned." Grandfather Fuller was rather a remarkable man in his way, refined and punctilious in manner and dress, with the natural courtesy of the aristocrat, which by birth or conviction he was not. I well remember the fine materials of his clothes, and his love of his horses and carriages. He was the kind of man who in a modern city would have rejoiced in his club, if the men were genial and interested in the questions of the hour, and his fondness for dancing continued into old age. Yet he was also reserved, highly sensitive and with a temper of his own. He was noticeably abstemious, did not care for meat, and whether that had anything to do with it or not, he went to his death at seventy-seven with a full set of perfect teeth which had never known a cavity ; though one was broken and all slightly ground An Old-Fashioned Childhood 21 down by the action of time. This broken tooth saved his life in a serious illness, when nursed by one who was an adoring friend as well as hired man. On the watch in the dead of night this attendant observed symptoms of the death rigor. He seized the brandy, but could not pry open the jaws. At last, finding the broken tooth, he dipped cotton in the fiery liquor and squeezed it through. The patient swallowed, choked and thereby returned to earth for many a long year. Early in life Grandpa married a daughter of the Rev. Ezra Conant, a descendant of Roger Conant, who founded Salem, Massachusetts. Ezra Conant was a graduate of Harvard College in the days when her graduates were fewer than they are to-day. His daughter Pamela inherited the beauty of the Alexan- ders, as did my mother and one of her sisters — elo- quent dark eyes framed in abundant hair — as well as two handsome but unruly sons. Grandmother mar- ried at sixteen and died at thirty, leaving seven chil- dren. Grandfather, who was eight years her senior, fell in love with the young beauty while she was at boarding-school, and offered himself at once. " Then when will you marry me? " she asked archly, and he replied promptly, " To-morrow." The will of my grandfather left his property to his four surviving children and his two grandchildren, my brother and myself. I am the last of my race on that side of the house, and practically on the Bartlett side, only the children of a daughter remaining; and when I see nations as they recently have been, tearing savagely asunder that which mankind so laboriously has put together, I can hardly regret that this is so. 22 Within My Horizon If no better solution of national problems can be found than to fly at one another's throats every half-century, the sooner we are out of a world so tragic and dis- jointed the better. Yet I take this back when I consider how the great news came to us November 7, 19 18, and a hundred mil- lion people, in sharp and sudden joy, instantly became as one. It makes no difference that at the moment the glad word was not true — the response to it was as true as anything this life contains ; so absolutely true, in its overwhelming power, that the actual fact, a few days later, left one comparatively cold. That " first free careless rapture " could not be repeated in its essence, for it and not the official pronouncement was the real- ization of our hope and dream. Never can I forget the thrill that ran through us, as Swedish Anna served luncheon, when the storm broke: the strange, distant, portentous roar, bells, horns, sirens, everything, with thrice the force of that sublime hymn of every New Year's Eve, whose shrill confusion as it beats upon the battlements of our Brooklyn so miraculously resolves itself into perfect harmony, becoming less a thing of man than music of the gods — while through it all, by some mysterious instinct breaking the silence of the autumn, sang the birds ! To the four corners of this broad land at once flashed the great conviction: WAR IS AT AN END. As that " deep diapason," that pseon of praise, went on and on, seemingly eternal, the awe-struck maid ex- claimed : " All should kneel down and pray ! " and then burst into tears. An Old-Fashioned Childhood 23 Next there was a rush for the flag. We imagined ourselves the first: but no, our astonished gaze from the housetop met the colors everywhere : simultaneously from homes and sky-scrapers, from automobiles racing through the streets, from men, women and children, burst forth our beautiful Stars-and-Stripes — while complete strangers grasped one another's hands and even kissed each other. After this, how can one say life is not worth the living — since fundamentally we are all of the same heart if not of the same mind. IV KEENE THE BEAUTIFUL New England, knowing that happy mean which is neither poverty nor riches, was a model for all who came after, in those early days when its men fought incessantly to humanize the wilderness, and its women baked, brewed, spun, wove, and raised families of ten. Later, descendants of these sterling pioneers emigrated to the West, under the delusion that the best lies ever just beyond — a good thing for the settlement of new lands, but hard on the hearts and backs of the more conservative members of the family, mainly the women, who cling to the comfort, sentiment and beauty of old hearthstones. To-day foreigners are pouring into the abandoned farms and strange languages are heard along the village streets where once at worst flourished the Irish brogue and that generally in the kitchen. The bone and sinew of New England has carried its ener- gies towards the setting sun, while the Old Families have flown farther still — even to the moon and stars. Yet these proud and gentle lives were not lived in vain, since their white hands gave to the growing town a touch of refinement, their cultivated minds created an atmosphere ; and to this day, though a different class rules, no section of America is better governed, under intelligent civic laws, no people are more sober, thrifty, industrious or more nearly approximate that human 24 Keene the Beautiful 25 equipoise for which great-hearted men strive and which is the proof of a nation's happiness, whether autocracy, plutocracy or so-called democracy. Half a century ago, New England seemed the New World expression of an Old World idea. In its de- cline as a national feeder, it became a milestone along the way. With an upper class that gave it social tone, Keene and many of its fellows might have been the setting to the English country novel of the Mrs. Gas- kell, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte type. While the spacious mansions dominated less land, demanded less service and knew no titles, the people in such stories seem amazingly familiar. The shell, the surface beauty, is still here, but gone is the essence of the rose — different people live in the old houses and far dif- ferent walk under the trees. The Civil War, the panic soon following it, various circumstances broke the for- tunes of the few reigning families, and blue blood moved out as red blood pushed in. The change came about insensibly but none the less surely. Hardly a representative is left of the Dinsmoors, Edwardses, Elliots; hardly a tradition of the manly men and beau- tiful women of an earlier day — the day when the clans had it all their own way and our mothers were wooed by Boston's distinguished sons. A state of things is in progress here not less than in the monarchies of Europe which may make for the ulti- mate good of mankind but which strips the world of much that is picturesque. In the seasoned aristocracy of New England, the women seemed more beautiful, the men better bred and better read, than is likely to occur again. By their removal through property 26 Within My Horizon losses, restlessness or death — all those exigencies Father Time seizes in his great levelling process by which in the years to come we shall be as alike as ten- pins — the entire existence and meaning of these older generations, who exerted a profound influence on the imaginative young, is taking on the aspect of legend. In the eighties rose groups made rich by the preceding national strife, generally through the factories within Keene's periphery, and these prosperous manufactur- ers, with more money than education, less taste than business acumen, began to build expensive piles they in no sense adorned, or acquired the historic residences to their undoing. But these too passed away, their mushroom fortunes dwindling, their children migrat- ing, their real estate, through the general lack of money and demand, landing in the city's hands. Thus both the old aristocracy and the modern plutocracy within half a century have gone the way of all flesh, and their earthly tenements, with nobody to buy, are procurable for a song. For to dwell in these fine houses with one serv- ant or none is to be laughed at, to keep a retinue is im- possible ; so a Governor's mansion, which cost $60,000, will bring for a Normal School only a fifth of that sum, while both buyer and seller are ashamed to tell the price of a unique home, rich in antique furniture and modern bath fittings, ending its days as a " Lodge." Neither a metropolis nor a summer resort, beautiful Keene has a hard row to hoe. But to me it still is the loveliest spot on earth. It was lovely when my little feet thought its circumfer- ence a long day's journey, and so it is when I can easily compass its length and breadth in an hour. On three Keene the Beautiful 27 sides the hills hug close, guarding jealously its mighty elms and mosslike meadows, with the drowsy Ashuelot leisurely winding through, while to the southeast, in full view twelve miles away, its flanks covered by the virgin woods, its sharp peak piercing the clouds, in all majesty looms Monadnock. From the " Square " and the " common," the little round park that marks the centre of the town, spread out, star-like, the five prin- cipal residence streets, all lined with great glorious trees continually growing greater and more glorious. The view of this greenery from the top of Beech Hill, a long mountainous ridge overlooking the tall church spires, never fails 'to thrill me. Each one of you, you old New Englanders, knows such a view as that : the heavily embowered town at your feet, practically hill- surrounded, with the tips of distant mountains in fainter tints above and beyond, the golden shimmer of midsummer like a royal canopy over all. Yet this wonder of light and shadow, of hill and vale, is subor- dinate to the penetrating human note ; it would be mere panorama without the stately homes, permeated with the atmosphere of long and pleasant living; and that is why Keene now is the saddest place in the world to me — those who made it a living thing are no more. Yet ever it is a symbol — my sweet old home town. Since those happy young days I have been many times over pretty much the whole world, but Keene has re- mained the standard to measure by. There might be Alps or Himalayas, but Monadnock was the perfect peak ; there might be forests more vast, yet the naked whiteness of the birch, the grand spread of the wine- glass elm, the autumnal flame of the sugar-maples, the 28 Within My Horizon eternal fragrance of the balsams and pines, were such as no other ; while even the Isar rolling rapidly did not surpass in my mind the wild rush of the Ashuelot over its rocks in the wilderness. Earth's famous spots, you must remember, I saw in passing ; but with this varied beauty I had lived — and who can forget the spot where he first met nature face to face ? I never leave Keene without a visit to my Fountain of Trevi, as it were. In Rome it is a thing of pipes and marble into which you throw pennies and drink that you may return. Here it is a living spring at the base of Page's Hill, between two giant white pines that must have been old when the Republic was young. Hoary relics of the forest primeval these arboreal monarchs undoubtedly are, yet still green and vigorous, still protecting the eternal spring below. Once I stretched out my arms and fairly hugged one of the grand old twins, though his girth was several times the length of my embrace. Was it my fancy that the ancient evergreen, left alone with his brother these many, many decades, felt this tribute to his unique supremacy ? Around these two wonders are thick woods where all good things abound : the crimson-studded partridge vine; the glossy-leaved wintergreen, with its red checkerberry ; the snow-white fungus known as Indian Pipe ; besides the sweetest blossom of them all, the trailing arbutus, the pink Mayflower. These woods are softly carpeted with moss and pine needles, and in their depths is silence, except when the winds blow and the tall pines sway and sigh, making the music of Keene the Beautiful 29 the world. Oh, the vast sweetness of this life of the woods and hills ! It was late when I arrived on my last visit, alone. But you do not feel afraid in woods like these even though the shades of night are falling fast. They seem strongholds of peace and security. As I came into the open again, and stood beneath the great guar- dian pines, the west was like a Colombo sky, the clouds that same wonderful gray-blue, the gray-blue of the star-sapphire, with rose linings. Less intense in tone than those splendid masses haunting the Indian Ocean, they yet suggested them strongly, poised above the dark heights of West Mountain. I took my last drink of the spring, insuring my re- turn. There was no sound save the chorus of the crickets, the occasional sleepy call of a bird, and a child's curving cry distant enough to suggest music. Beauty everywhere: in the sky, the forest, the air; under the pines, along the line of the hills, in the depths of that mysterious little water springing out of the earth. It was difficult to leave, especially for New York, which is beatiful, like Life, only in what you put into and get out of it - — what it has come to mean to you. To me, though once it seemed as if it never could, so chaotic, so unkempt, so noisy and hard, it has come to mean Home. When that is said, all is said. V THE FIRST FLIGHT The concatenation of events; have you ever given them much thought — how things come about as they do? Zona Gale once told me that all the luck of her life followed hard on her offering an unknown lady, at a Wisconsin University festival, a welcome glass of water. So I might declare that the most important happenings in my life came from learning to play an instrument I can't abide — the piano. To be sure, you can infer from Zona's act that she has good man- ners, and from mine that it is possible for me to do what I dislike — but there the obvious ceases. From this drudgery in my girlhood, done merely because every girl did it, came not only the mastery of the magnificent church organ, whose pedals and stops and glorious volume of sound affected me like a phe- nomenon in Nature, but my first use in a public way of the pen. This facility, as it developed along a modest but well-defined path, brought me not only a world of delight in music, notably the true grand opera which so long flourished at the Metropolitan, but Her- bert Lawrence Bridgman, a dear home in the Brooklyn end of New York, and the Standard Union, of which my husband has now been business manager for nearly thirty years. It also brought me fruitful travel over a good part of the globe, with the journalistic corre- 30 The First Flight 31 spondence springing therefrom, but little more than letters to my family, yet a boon at that time to the struggling newspaper as well as good exercise for my struggling mentality. Not only this, a New York home, a New York husband, and all the arts, oppor- tunity to roam the world, applauded not derided by husband and editor, but to meet countless interesting people among whom are some of my most valued friends today. By accident I discovered that while every journal- ist considers himself a competent dramatic critic, few venture with confidence into music. Here I found my chance, on one of the leading papers in one of the most musical cities in America, Milwaukee. For upon graduating from Keene High School, we were back there again, after grandpa's death our little trio de- ciding to tackle life in the new West rather than the old East. Milwaukee proved an excellent city for a widow of limited means with children approaching maturity. The symmetrical development from the centre made rents reasonable, and the thrifty German population, with ample farming districts beyond, did the rest. Without going through college my brother easily obtained a position, first as draughtsman, next as civil engineer, with the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, and soon was advanced to a responsible post on the Northern Pacific; while I, as I have said, managed to attach myself to one or another of the dailies, thus hearing the best music and having the run of the theatres at no cost at all. Every Sunday evening, also, for two or three months, I reported the extemporaneous sermons of an eminent divine in a 32 Within My Horizon piquant way that instantly crowded the lonely evening service to the doors, and for this rather difficult feat, by memory alone, without notes of any kind, they promised to pay me in hard cash, but I learned all too soon that " promises like pie-crust are made to be broken." Perhaps that is why I render myself ridicu- lous at times by sticking to the word which once given I will not retract, whether it be given to friend, lover, maid or cat. The cat knows about it just as well as the lover! It was my own idea, this innocent exchange of com- modities, which meant an education and pleasure our economical mother would have permitted on no other terms, and the discipline led to a remunerative position on the Milwaukee Sentinel — that of literary editor. I soon built up the book department until from every publishing house in the land came tons of matter right along. Not till then did I realize how many people wanted to write, and what masses of mediocre stuff were foisted upon a long-suffering public. I think this experience had a dampening effect on the usual girlish ambition to become " an author." When my salary had risen to $21 per week, I left my birth-place never permanently to return. Milwaukee is a handsome city, with good educational privileges, and the first year or two of swimming and boating on its sylvan river and symmetrical bay, of seven-mile walks daily in those streets of distances and along Lake Michigan's shores, were unalloyed delight; but after the formative years we seemed to outgrow it — or out- grow the taste for it, which means even more. My brother, young and enthusiastic, had overworked him- The First Flight 33 self in superintending the extensive improvements on the Northern Pacific, and I too was tired, so we took a winter off together and found ourselves in Washing- ton — our first visit to the capital of the nation, and our last. For never yet have I been able to return to a spot where we were so happy together and which without him would be so sad. How often during the succeeding year, the last of his life, have I heard him exclaim : " Washington was a romance ! " No experience could have been more astonishing. Arriving with little baggage, the minimum of a ward- robe, thinking only of sight-seeing, expecting soon to go to Florida, we were landed in Aladdin's Palace, as it were. A few letters of introduction and an old family friend turned the whole thing into an adventure, a glorious dream. Never did I conceive that mere youth and personality, with a nod here and there from on high, could so open up everything to us. Dis- tinguished people passed in shoals, not a few paused beside us and some we came to know intimately; but of all these the figure that stands out most distinctly through the years is Frances Hodgson Burnett, who proved a fairy godmother to me — silver gown, glass slippers and all. Mrs. Burnett had a tender heart. I can never for- get her kindness to me that radiant winter. She loved anything savoring of the romantic. Despite her numerous cavaliers, she lived almost exclusively in her imagination — that imagination which accomplished so much. The world rated her at her worth, and re- fused to be scandalized, which proves that Society is a great deal keener than many believe. She was the 34 Within My Horizon Bertha of her own " Through One Administration." A born story-teller, she couldn't be dull, not even when readers began to fear that the serial would last as long as its title indicated! At that time, when she might have been almost any age, she was short and plump, with beautiful arms which could " make elbows," as she proudly pro- claimed. I was young and thin, and regarded my own elbows with alarm. They were unmistakably sharp. " You are pretty, my dear," she ran on amiably, " and your arms are pretty, but you can't make elbows. Few women can." I didn't care either to make elbows or to be pretty, but I did so long to be thought beautiful; and for one fleeting moment I realized that dream. A certain young woman, famous for her beauty and soon to wed a French duke, stood near me at a function, when my chaperon whispered, " Listen to those two men," who were looking at us both, the beauty and myself, one replying, " Well, for my part, I don't think she com- pares to that dark-eyed girl with Judge Blank's wife." That set me up for days. Mrs. Burnett was very fond of lace. Once she sighed : " Oh, I do love lace so. I never have enough. It should be bought not by the yard but the mile. Think how fine it would be to go into a shop and say : ' Seven miles of lace, please! ' " I loved her simplicity. She never fussed about things — took everything as it came. A picnic suited her as well as a banquet. She resembled Ada Rehan, /her countrywoman, almost, in face, in figure, both a bit heavy, and in hair. Her reddish hair was always The First Flight 35 fluffy, and she liked to be called Fluffy. With her large blue eyes looking up at you wistfully, on the ripe lips an engaging smile, she seemed little more than a child. Yet under this softness there was the strong will, the unyielding purpose which leads to great achievement. She had ways that clung to you. When she began to speak, especially in a happy mood, the smile in her eyes was accompanied by a sort of gurgle, something like the beginning of a singer's trill, suddenly met in the throat by laughter. This fascinated me so that I caught it, quite subconsciously, until my brother brought me up sharply. Theodore admired her im- mensely and she was very fond of him. She called him Feodor, after the Russian, and her Sir Galahad. It was my first glimpse of " le mariage a la mode," and made a deep impression on my young heart, alas ! She had so many affairs, from her first " little one for a cent," as her satirical husband characterized it, to what she considered " la grande passion," that her health gave way — for of all dissipations emotional dissipation is the most insidious and exhausting. No tribute to her brain pleased her half so much as one to her body ; so Dr. Burnett used to say — yet she took all her friends into her confidence, not excepting her husband, who was none too gentle, when it became necessary to discover why the dark lover on the white charger came no more. At such times it was difficult to take either her or it seriously, but it was all real to her, as real as her delightful stories were to others, and therein lay the contradictions, the absurdities, per- haps the insincerities, of a great artist. You cannot 36 Within My Horizon expect everything in one human being. Mrs. Burnett's genius has appealed to millions. She is one in a mil- lion. Must she have cold common sense besides? Her young sons called her Dearest, like the small hero in " Little Lord Fauntleroy." New Year's Day she was magnificently arrayed in white brocaded velvet, with a Mary Stuart collar. As she stood up to receive, two boisterous hounds came rushing in out of the driz- zle, eager for her caresses and jumping all over the costly gown with muddy paws. Everybody exclaimed at once and made dashes for the animals ; but she only looked down a little ruefully and cried out implor- ingly : " Don't punish them ! They didn't mean to hurt my frock. They love me and want to tell me so." That was the truth not only with the dogs but her friends. They did love her, the true friends; for whatever her faults they were not petty — they were the forgivable kind. Her disposition was perfect, her amiability supreme; I never heard her speak ill of anybody, though others did of her, sometimes near friends whom she had benefited — nor did I see one flash of envy, though many envied her. But what they envied was not hers to give had she the wealth of a queen — her genius, her success, her fame. To me her everlasting blessing was not any one of these, precious though they might be, but that gentle nature, that fine courage, that large belief. She was peculiarly one who made the best of everything, though often sur- rounded by harpies who wrung her dry; and this in addition to those emotional jousts which were none too good for her — draining still further a vitality which, The First Flight 37 while great, was continually drawn upon, especially financially, at home and abroad. Well, it was a great time, but it palled at last. The peculiar life at Washington breeds peculiar people. Caviar is appetizing, but there comes a day when you prefer plain potatoes. Then, with color gone and liver seriously deranged, after feasts from morn till midnight, a fierce longing seizes you for a simpler, healthier land, and you get away to home and mother as fast as the train can carry you. VI MARRIAGE After my brother's death, I felt as if life were over. In March, at the end of a six months' sojourn in Cali- fornia, and a year after Washington, we rented a house in Saint Paul, where we had friends, thinking to make it our home. It was a refined, beautiful city, and ad- vantageously situated for Theodore's profession, which was gradually resolving itself into architecture. A young man's career in the West at that time, especially the career of one whose draughtsmanship seemed equally valued in railroads or in civil life, was much more empirical than in the East now. Theo was of a type which always has excited my keenest interest — perhaps just because the world acts as if it would have none of them. Fortunately he had a little money, a sufficient income for his actual needs, which kept him from undue worry, yet his tastes and his employment were often at odds. Still, he recognized the necessity of the quid pro quo, in a world which measures service exclusively by dollars, and was invariably liked by his employers, never lacking a job. At the same time his real being was elsewhere; if he had lived, I am sure he would have been a successful novelist; for even in his early twenties he possessed that greatest of all powers for a writer of fiction — the power to touch the heart. He used to sav that humor was but the 38 Marriage 39 bright side of a tear. A few weeks before his death, he wrote and sent to an important newspaper syndicate, which had offered substantial cash prizes for the best short stories submitted, something that caused one of the judges, Brander Matthews, to exclaim : " Here is a new novelist ! " The story won the first prize, but Theodore never knew it, for when the news reached us, he was dying. This was late in November. In August, mother had been stricken with typhoid fever, that scourge of dis- heveled American cities, yet despite three long months of serious illness she had pulled through, when my brother succumbed to the same disease and died in a week. The Canadian trained nurse who had been with us for the first month or so, awaiting another call, when she returned and saw crepe on the door inferred as a matter of course that mother was gone. All through that week of delirium Theodore kept asking in his thick, fevered utterance if his story had taken the prize, which made me fear his hard work on it had lowered his vitality, none too great at any time. Like so many exceptional human beings he seemed doomed almost from the start by the very wonder of him. He not only wrote and drew well enough to command a price but he excelled in music. As I have said, the piano is to me unattractive, but not under Theodore or Paderewski — and, believe me, between them there was much in common ; in their touch if not their technique; in that exquisite singing tone, that oneness with the instrument, that rich orchestral shower of melody which comes forth from those cold 40 Within My Horizon are called but few chosen ; and the verdict as to Theo- dore Bartlett comes not only from the sister who loved him but from others. His Milwaukee music-teacher, a man educated in Europe, said that when this favo- rite pupil came to his quarters for his lesson, at once all doors were opened that the occupants of the various other studios might hear him more distinctly. I think that such rare aptitude cannot be thrown away — that somewhere beyond the stars it is in beautiful fulfill- ment. Theo's death was the first great sorrow I ever had known, and the anguish of it made me sympathetic not only with all who lose their dear ones, but with those refined and lonely souls who find life as it is lived to- day, under pressure and with sharp, exacting, com- mercial standards, more than they can bear. If I were a Carnegie or a Rockefeller I know that not on li- braries and laboratories, and more libraries and more laboratories, would I pour out my millions, but in sustaining that which makes libraries possible : brains, for a change; creative brains, not the musty fusty things savoring of the tomb. If anything on earth is of supreme importance, it is not the shell but the life within; and until America perceives this, and mental superiority is rated at its true value, the United States is bound to be dominated by the mediocre and the shal- low. After that troubled winter, and the restorative of the brief summer, its fructifying heat alternating with stupendous electrical storms, Minnesota being sur- charged, at all seasons, with the source of life, we started in September for New York. If you asked Marriage 41 me why, I could not tell you; possibly a friend, who, however, did not live there, influenced me ; but more be- cause we were desolate, free from interfering rela- tives, the sport of circumstance. Nothing special called us anywhere, one place was as good or as bad as another, for you cannot get away from grief — only time can conquer that. Never shall I forget the blank when the things Theodore and I knew together were superseded by the things in which he had no part. Yet this strange flight to a great city in which we had no interests proved the best move I could have made. The East as a whole is home to me — no Western birthplace can change the feeling; though New York at that moment seemed no more than a whirling dervish — heaven knows what its effect would have been on me as it is now! Listlessly we crept into a top apartment in West 38th Street, lonely as women could be, except that we had each other. Mother bore up rather better than I, demonstrating again her remarkable recuperative powers. At first, still in bed, when we had to tell her, weak with long illness, that Theodore was no more, she wept inconsolably. Next day, she told me how all night long she had held him in her arms — her little satin baby. His flesh was like satin, as indeed was her own, and perhaps mine. Mother was conspicuous all her life for a happy wit, a gay humor, which did not desert her even in this terrible fever. She once told me that as a girl when she entered a room, people would say : " Here comes Sophia Fuller ! Now we'll have fun ! " Which un- 42 Within My Horizon happy prelude would instantly reduce her to abject silence. I recollect well how the physician, shaking his forefinger as to a child, said to her, hardly free from the delirium : " Now remember, I shall call again on you to-morrow exactly at this hour." To which she, with amused eyes, responded : " Well, I'll be here." Her son's death brought at least this good thing — that she seemed nearer to her daughter, who with the selfishness of youth had been absorbed in him alone. Now I turned with far greater appreciation to my mother; and she, to whom affection was the breath of life, and who like all who give much received little, thrived on my increased love for her as a flower in the sun. This affection, which was to gather strength with the years so that no mother and daughter could be nearer, was heightened at that period by my almost complete indifference to men. Mother always had been my best woman friend; I confided to her prac- tically everything, and her sound judgment and tender sympathy saved me from heart-burnings innumerable — since so few women know the definition of friend- ship for other women. Any woman, even a bad wo- man, can be loyal to some man; every man needs at least one woman ; but, with exceptions so few as only to prove the rule, it is not in the female animal to be strictly honorable with her own sex — certainly not where there is the slightest competition. So it hap- pens that my chief friendships not less than affairs have been with men; and most of them lifelong — while Marriage 43 feminine intimacies often proved but the things of a day. Life seemed so empty without Theodore that no man interested me; yet it was in this singular and I may say fortunate mood that after five months of New York I met an intensely masculine man who liked to do his own courting ; and when September came around again married him — twenty-two months after my brother's death. It was my first offer from a man who was at once attractive and reliable; the worth- while man I called him — as do some of my friends to this day. My inclination, I am sorry to say, was for the fiery, venturesome, young Lochinvar type; the kind that the last week of vacation broke into the High School building of Keene, and stole the tongue of the bell in its tower, smashing three doors to accomplish the valiant deed — and all because I dreaded to hear the clang summoning me to work again! Of this bold adventure I was entirely ignorant until it was crowned by confession in the dark of a Saturday evening just before the term began, under the open windows of a curious neighbor, where in the grass he dropped the offending tongue, while she promptly reported at headquarters, bringing plenty of trouble to both our respected families. Such a brave if brainless assault on established in- stitutions seemed to me at sweet sixteen exactly the sort of thing a gallant knight should do for his fair lady. While I recovered rapidly from this particular delusion, I was attracted by the glitter more than once, but luckily was destined for something better. This 44 Within My Horizon new man of action, a widower with one son and much older than myself, was all that could be asked and more, for a delightful humor pervaded his sobriety and a winning liberality mingled with his principles and ideals. Then his reserve, his calm, challenging man- ner, rather piqued my curiosity, and indifference soon gave way to no ephemeral interest. Seven months from the first meeting, late one hazy seventh of Sep- tember, amidst the dim, mellow beauty of Old Trinity, I was married to him, and, after a brief, beautiful honeymoon in the White Mountains, went to his quiet home in Brooklyn, with its snowy fruit blossoms in the springtime, its spreading horse chestnut a mass of floral candles, and in summer the swaying ailanthus, that strange tropical Tree of Heaven in a northern clime; hardy ivy running all over the soft brownstone front — a cool and woodsy retreat within which, al- most without a break, especially in the warm months, I have dwelt in peace and content ever since. As the wife of the business manager of the Standard Union, I was able to continue those book reviews, music criticisms and sketches of travel begun in the newspapers of the West. The S. U. was then in a state of reorganization, with insufficient means and circulation, and my freely offered services were gladly accepted. For many years John and I (I called him John in print as I called my mother Jemima) were the best of comrades, and as we wandered about suburban New York I fell into writing up our simple outings. A constant reader returning from his summer vacation pronounced one of these the breeziest thing he had struck yet: and another volunteered the opinion that Marriage 45 if the S. U. kept along that line long enough it would soon have a big circulation — which happy prophecy, whether due in part to your humble servant or not, has abundantly been fulfilled. It was about this time that a bon-mot of John's ran around town. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, a friend of the old Milwaukee days, not long married and very much in love with her travelling husband, told me that twenty-four hours before his return from his various journeys her circulation began to increase. This, in the presence of Mrs. Wilcox (but not of her husband) at one of our little dinners prevalent at the time, I audaciously repeated, together with John's rejoinder: " That's just the man we want on the Standard Union." Ella's blushes struggled with her sense of humor. It has been said that if a man would give half the thought to marriage that he does to business divorce would be unknown. Once in a blue moon comes a realization of something like the ideal. I know one marriage where passion as well as tenderness live on and on, but it is the case of a woman with a youthful heart older than her husband and a man of consum- mate understanding who has wrung the world dry. About her there is an Indian Summer sort of beauty and charm, a little elusive yet filled with richness and spice, while in him burn those slow fires that never die ; and both have vision, both keep in touch with a world they do not care too much for — while neither im- poses will or person upon the other. In the midst of deathless love individuality has been preserved, so much so that at times each seeks freedom from too 46 Within My Horizon close companionship. Since both are fond of soli- tude, both have work to do, and both know the blessing of salutary absence and return, this is not difficult. Where there is perfect confidence, never can there be anxiety, and the rush together again is like water to thirst. Moreover, they know and respect the power of Dream. When apart they are together, as together they sometimes are apart. Nothing can separate them save death, and they believe in unity, in reunion, in reincarnation, after death. They say : " We have known the stars too long to fear the night." VII AT GUFFANTI'S John and I have had our good little times as well as our good big times ; our days simple not less than complex; and some of them were voyages into what we called our Rus in Urbe — inexpensive excursions into humble resorts within the radius of Greater New York. These modest exploits, which often saw print, were not, as some serious friends seemed to think, a revelation of family secrets; rather were they an at- tempt to visualize the irrepressible conflict between the Eternal Masculine and the Eternal Feminine — to which camouflage John's and my oppositeness lent it- self readily. Despite the fact that our opinions often clashed, without which stimulus we should have been lonesome, there was no skeleton in the closet, even though everything happened just as I say, and prac- tically in the same words. While I may be ashamed of the things from a literary point of view, I am rather proud of them as specimens of our bloodless bat- tles and undying camaraderie. My writings would never set the Hudson on fire, but sometimes John would condescend to say they were " good newspaper stuff." Well, anyhow they were great fun, and here is a sample of a little " urbe " one, which I am fond of as a relic of the old, old Guffanti's : " What is better, after all, than your own coun- 47 48 Within My Horizon try? " asked the woman who had been half a year in the East Indies. " Nothing," answered the man who had spent the winter near the source of the Nile. Guffanti's was then a modest restaurant in an un- fashionable quarter of Manhattan, but now it is a thing of sports and automobiles and six courses. For half a dollar in the early days of this century, one had quite enough, but not too much for twice as much. Every dish then as now was delicious ; but judgment in quan- tity as well as quality was in evidence; for infinitely superior are a few well-cooked essentials to any num- ber of the " a la " variety. The pace was set by the crisp freshness of the onions and radishes, served with sardines and an- chovies, as a snappy prelude to a heaping platter of the best spaghetti that ever was, enriched by a red sauce that cannot be surpassed in Italy itself. It is said, indeed, to be a combination of Italy and Ireland, the genius of the Italian proprietor enhanced by that of his Irish wife. Oh, the delight of that savory mix- ture of tomato paste, chicken livers, peppers green and red, onions, oil, lemon and spices on this peren- nial Italian food! In those days spaghetti, except by special order, alternated with minestra, that red soup which alone is a full meal. The Latin races are ab- stemious; it is only the Teutons and Anglo-Saxons who gorge — and they not just now. Then came the choice between impeccable chicken and rare roast beef in its juice. Fresh salad, Gorgon- zola and black coffee in a big cup completed the per- fect repast. A pint of red or white wine was thrown "JOHN' At Guffanti s 49 in. Every seat was filled, with many waiting ; for the public knows a good thing when it sees it. Guffanti must be a millionaire by now, yet I seldom go there, for it is a case of enforced repletion — and waste I abhor. When the two wanderers burst into sudden patriot- ism, they had proceeded no farther than the magical cocktail, not seen for many a day and known to have an effect. Moreover, after long separation, they were looking fondly into each other's eyes. A husband and wife, if they be the right sort, can have a better time, even after years of marriage, than those tame and timid souls who, sunk in egoism, dare not venture. Sometimes I think the married, at least those who have learned mutual toleration, are the only ones who do have a good time. That evening every Jack had his Jill, some young, some old, all apparently unyoked; yet the men seemed to have but one god, the god of self, while the women, with those hard, impenetrable eyes — well, if they imagined themselves in glorious freedom, each surely was bound hand and foot by her limitations. " A man is a fool who thinks he can go it as well alone," John burst out, as he looked around — and our eyes met. Three musicians filed in, two with mandolins and one with a guitar. This was a new move on the part of Guffanti, and John smiled wickedly, knowing how I detested music at meals. But it's not so bad when the feast is strictly matrimonial, with plenty of time for talk at home; nor so bad with a trio of string instruments, playing softly. It may have been the 50 Within My Horizon cocktail, with its inevitable glamour, but it did seem as if this tiny orchestra was a marvel of sensuous charm. By and by one of the mandolin players, with Hebraic features, rose and sang in a remarkably good baritone, walking back and forth as he did so, while his companion joined with zest in the chorus, giving " O Santa Lucia " with a yearn in the prolonged " O " and a tender pride in the " Lucia " which I have never known before or since. The rhythm of it haunts me still, in the most unexpected place — the unutterable longing of it, the aching nostalgia. Ah, how alike are all in love of home! The young fellow evidently was a Jew, the one who sang alone, who gave the cue. From this race so many artists spring, sensitive to the atmosphere, to the slightest appreciation, no matter how humble the environment — and ever ready to work and work hard. That's the clou, the driven nail, which makes all the rest combine to full fruition. "If you were a gentleman of the artistic tempera- ment," said I, as the feast drew to a conclusion, toying with an American two-dollar bill, the first I had handled in many moons, " about this time I should gently shove the wherewithal across the table." " I am of the artistic temperament," declared John promptly, seizing the scrip without ceremony. Soon after we were invited to dine at our own Ham- ilton Club and, decorated with apple-boughs and blos- soms, no table was ever more beautiful, no guests more interesting, no food more delicious, — or at least so it seemed to me after six months' continuous travel. Why, oh, why, drag yourself over vast continents and At Guffantis 51 boundless seas, with all the attendant discomforts and inconveniences, to meet folks far less congenial than those right at home? I am convinced that the best people do not travel. Indeed, no less an authority than Emerson says that only a light mind loves travel. Well, he doesn't catch me there, for I don't love it, though unaccountably I do it — pursued by a geo- graphical curiosity beside which that accorded your neighbors isn't a circumstance. So I went and went, though I well knew better. The few who go " put it over " on the many who re- main behind — thus revenging themselves for all the expense, all the trouble, all the boredom at the time; Pierre Loti told the truth when he said that the Orient was never so fascinating as over a cup of coffee in his own French den. VIII RUS IN URBE " How long since you blew me off? " asked John. I answered with that certainty as to matrimonial dates which ever is woman's triumph and man's de- spair. " Would you do it again ? " " It is dangerous, you know," I began cautiously, " to try to repeat — " but I did and he came ; to Coney Island. First I weighed him, he who is so shy of the scales. Yet the result was a credit to his years, his habits and his Maker. I laid down the penny with no regret. But the astonishment of the attendant, as he saw a small slight woman paying for a tall solid man, was hard to bear. " I think it would be better for you to take this dollar," I suggested. " When you have spent it I will give you another. Our originality seems to attract attention." John fingered the bill with that wide smile which must have been his on similar occasions in boyhood's halcyon days. Along Surf Avenue we wandered metaphorically hand in hand. Finally we paused with watering mouths before the now familiar sight of a long roll of beef turning on a spit against a background of red 52 Rus in Urbe 53 hot coals. The sight and smell proved too much for us, though my companion I am sure, had dreams of dining in great splendor, even to the tune of terrapin and champagne. As we inhaled the appetizing fumes it began to rain, and John, in a straw hat and with no umbrella, hesitated no longer. Words fail to convey any idea how good those sand- wiches, soaked in their own juice, hot, tender and rare, loads of them, did taste. Then there was ice- cold lager and a delicious cup of coffee, in the good old days of Stubenbord, who knew what was what. In the rear of the restaurant were table-cloths and conventions, but we were in the front row of the dress- circle, so to speak, and snug, dry, comfortable, watch- ing the passing show in the rain. When the shower ceased we went forth to the Midway and there I lis- tened for the first time to a barker, and this is what he said, looking exactly like a clergyman, serious and smooth-shaven : " Ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you right now that this is no show for Sunday School teachers. One of these dancers whose name is withheld for professional reasons, danced at a famous dinner, a dinner at which every man present laid down a hundred dollar bill — A HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL ! But though some have pronounced against these dances, they have been proved by competent authority to be not immoral — only scientific. There is no reason why a woman with a liberal turn of mind should not see them. Here is an up-to-date danseuse from France who gives us the can can and the Passion Dance. The next, who conceals her face behind the veil, is the lady who danced at the dinner, and in her you will find something racy and rare. This other woman, as you will see, is not voluptu- ously built, but she is strong on a contortion. Last," with 54 Within My Horizon a wave of the hand and an impressive pause, " is SHE, the terpsichorean artist of the age, who dances in bare feet, for ten inches above the ankle, and gives you the dance doo vaunt, bringing into service all the muscles of the stomach, tri-cuspid, tri-cutting, amazing. Now for all this expensive entertainment, well worth one dollar, and for which one dollar will be returned at the box office if the show is not satisfactory, we charge only one dime — one little stingy dime." But Coney is not all fake. In the old Sea Beach Palace you could see for nothing, the guest of the rail- road, the fire dances of Carmencella, a perfect illusion, after the manner of Lois Fuller, the fierce flames lick- ing the gleaming limbs of the ballerina, beautiful in her youth and purity, and apparently consuming her as they cleaved the sky. However, this second feminine treat, as I surmised, proved a failure, John kicking a good deal over the omission of terrapin and champagne. Thus it came about that, to impress me with his own generosity, in constrast to my conspicuous economy, he invited me the next week to Woodmansten Inn, an old manor- house quite new to me, situate in Westchester, near the Morris Park race-tracks, and noted for its extrava- gant prices. John led me with pride up the winding path and through the wide hall to a glass-enclosed verandah with all windows open. It was just that lovely hour when the day is dim and yet lights are not needed, when the vague quiet of evening is struggling with the gorgeous colors of the setting sun. " Now," said John, his face wreathed in smiles, " isn't this a trifle better than Surf Avenue and Stuben- bord's?" Bus in Urbe 55 " But it's a long way — and you haven't paid the bill yet," I added slyly. The menu was produced. I was invited to select, and yet I was not. Each dish was gone over and com- pared with its price at home. John floundered over the items in a strangely undecided way. " What is the matter with you ? " I asked. " I have known you to give a hundred-dollar dinner with less concern. Is it because I am your wife?" " It is not," he answered indignantly, " but I don't seem to have much appetite. Bring us chicken cro- quettes and peas." " But the order carries only two little croquettes," expostulated the waiter. " Very well, that's enough," snapped my husband. " They come here from the races with their pockets stuffed with money," John explained. " I think the lad is used to that kind," I murmured softly. The minion returned, saying there were no more croquettes, and darted off to a more profitable cus- tomer. " It seems to me," I began in calm, measured tones, as John's perplexity obviously increased, " that the best thing you can do is to order at once two cock- tails. After a cocktail I don't care what I have to eat. Heaven descends." The cocktails were ordered instanter, and while in that exalted mood I proposed cold roast beef, spa- ghetti and potato salad, these articles being sterling, nutritious and much the same price the world over. John 'lutched at the list as a drowning man at a life- preserver. In addition he ordered for himself a bot- 56 Within My Horizon tie of beer. When it came to dessert we hesitated be- tween ice-cream and a Welsh rabbit, but the waiter had lost interest in us by that time, and after tinkling the glass for some time, we passed out, John paying a light bill, and receiving a tooth-pick gratis, besides the privilege of sitting under the trees in a comfortable wicker chair. It was quite dark now, the birds curled up in the branches, only the fireflies awake and alert. In the open spaces we picked out the Great Dipper, circling always around the Pole, that pole so soon to be discovered by our best friend. " It seems as far from home as the Adirondacks," John said ; " as far and to fare worse. Why not stay here ? Isn't it beautiful ? " " Yes, it is. The stillness and the solitude of it. But the most beautiful thing of all is the expression of your face. You look as if you were the lord of the manor." " I feel so," he said, twirling his toothpick elegantly. Yes, it was a charming spot, and even without the promised fleshpots I had a good time, but it had been, as I said, a long way, with Spartan fare as well as discipline, and if I were to be quite truthful, I should have to confess that in the middle of the night I woke hungry. IX WOODS OFAKDEN Once upon a time, many a year ago, John went a-Maying, one pleasant evening, with his best girl. This I was told in an expansive moment, soon after the honeymoon (my honeymoon, not the best girl's), and the joy that o'erspread my husband's usually im- passive countenance, as it bore witness to the charms of a dinner in Arcadia, was exasperating in the ex- treme. Yet, as my spirit is poor, as I seldom experi- ence the pangs of jealousy, instead of loathing the thought of that feast in the forest, I longed for it, and begged John again and again to take me thither. In vain did he inform me that Arcadia was only another name for Staten Island ; that the restaurant, the profit- less enterprise of a speculative New Yorker, died al- most as soon as it was born; that the special glory of it lay in the mood of the hour — always I could see as in a dream the lovely woods, the shimmering bay, the hedge of arbor vitas, the thick walls of the old colonial mansion, the table spread with fine linen and heavy silver, the culinary triumphs and delicate wines. " Of course I can take you," John finally admitted, the picture of resignation, " but it won't be the same. That sort of thing, Delmonico in the rural districts, couldn't pay. It busted wide open the first season." 57 58 Within My Horizon John's expressions sometimes pain me, but I only the more persistently pleaded : " Perhaps in the place of that fine cafe there is now a dear little inn, which would be even more romantic and just what I most love." " Well, now I tell you what," suggested John, evi- dently under the influence of a sudden inspiration. " You go down there some forenoon — you know how busy I am — and find out. Then, if it's all right, I'll take you there to dinner any night you say." I looked at him doubtfully. It seemed too much like what the theatrical managers call " trying it on a dog." Still I consented. He told me to go to the ferry, get an excursion ticket to Eltingville, ask at the station for the Woods of Arden, and there I was. The Woods of Arden! I hesitated no longer. To walk in woods that recalled Rosalind I would go far. Then Jemima was anxious to see the battle-ships, fresh from the Spanish war — dear little patriot that she always was. Indeed, when we followed the crowd and mentioned Eltingville instead of Tompkinsville, the ticket agent looked at us inquiringly; but that did not prevent his accepting the dollar with a finality that betokens " no change " — highly embarrassing to my miscalculating, nickel-accustomed soul, since between us and actual want lay but one more. When well past Governor's Island, a queer craft, a sort of super-ferryboat was coming rapidly toward us. On and on it came in ominous gray paint, which first caused me to doubt, and with its ring of white- clad sailors, which settled the matter beyond dispute. A mighty shout went up, as the passengers rushed to Woods of Arden 59 port, while the Jackies grinned and doffed their caps. Then it was that we plainly read Oregon and realized how fortunate we were to pass the famous battleship within speaking distance and at full speed. Jemima, whose knowledge of affairs was not vast, observed how terribly it had been injured — that " the front decks had been completely swept away " ; and when you come to think of it, a modern warship does resemble a ferryboat more than the formidable floating fort of which landsmen and especially landswomen dream. A swift run of half an hour, through villages, vegetable gardens and sunny groves, with glimpses of the harbor on one side and on the other the restful line of low hazy hills, for all the world like the real country, though strictly within the city limits, and we were at Eltingville and enchanted Arden. The woods were lovely, quite lovely enough for Rosalind and all that merry company in the play. While not the giant first growths of Old England, of which man has long since denuded the occupied portions of this new world, the trees were tall and thick and green, the sunlight penetrating hesitatingly, and the air was deliciously fragrant. As we sauntered along the quiet cart-road, so shady that the earth was still wet in places from showers three days old, there fell upon us a peace that comes only with silence and solitude. Not a house or a person was to be seen, not a creature save the birds and squirrels — until we struck the mosquitoes ! You may guess what a mosquito is in Brooklyn; you may have a speaking acqaintance with him in all parts of Long Island; but for graduation and a full diploma in his iniquities nothing can surpass these 60 Within My Horizon same Woods of Arden. They settled on our hands, our faces, our necks, our backs, our skirts, our shoes, in clouds ; they rose into our umbrella so it looked as if peppered ; we stamped, we screamed, we beat handker- chiefs, perhaps we swore. Out of the woods in the sunshine it was the same as in the shade. Whenever we closed the umbrella, preferring sunstroke to lacera- tion, they sought our ankles rather than our necks. The day was very warm, and the atmosphere, as Jemima expressed it, " tight." It was about this time, when my companion began gasping for breath, and looking as though she had gone through a siege of smallpox, that we caught sight of a stone dwelling, evidently the long-sought inn. My mind hurriedly ran over the possibilities that lay in that lonely dollar, but alas, for the dreams of bird or salad or even the humbler curd or pie. Rough un- covered tables greeted our astonished eyes, rickety old chairs, conspicuous signs denoting the sale of beer, a host and hostess plainly devoted to the beverage, and seven dogs. All that could be obtained, in fact all I wanted in the circumstances, was sandwiches and beer, served on the clothless boards. The proprietor explained that the menu was more varied under the influence of boarders ; that up to a day or two before he had fif- teen ; but there were several " sets " and they " got mixed up " and " left in a body." He had lived there five or six years; he had heard of that season " when things were so swell"; the place had been built 150 years ago by the English for a fort or block-house or something. Woods of Arden 61 It was an interesting building. The walls, of ir- regular stones and two or three feet thick, as well as the woodwork of the first story, were exactly as before the Revolution. Around the house stretched the tall hedge of arbor vitee, open spaces cut at intervals to af- ford a view of the sea. But it was all keenly disap- pointing. Nothing was satisfactory save the beer and the dogs — the former Milwaukee and very cold, the latter Saint Bernard and enormous. One, a puppy of seven months, was as large as a pony and looked down on his own mother. They were kindly animals to inoffensive guests; I could well understand what their strength and intelligence must mean to lost Al- pine climbers — great helpful creatures with a world of sympathy in their affectionate eyes. A small terrier lay on the landlady's breast as she lolled in the hammock and told her husband it was al- together too hot to do anything of the kind when he suggested that we wait awhile and be driven by his wife to the station. So, following the directions of the well-meaning man, we tried a new road to the vil- lage, as beautiful as that by which we came, but haunted by the same bloodthirsty insects, from which we had been free while on the inn's breezy porch. As we passed out of the woods into the highway, we looked back to read on a high post beside the gate : " Persons : ar : forbidden : gunning : and : trespas- ing : on : these : grounds : under : penelautey : of : the : law." My last bout with the mosquitoes was at New Dorp. One flew in from the station, sunk his artesian well deep in my wrist, pumped himself full of my gore, 62 Within My Horizon then instantly paid for his greed with his life. After the anxieties of Staten Island, the Brooklyn home, so cool and comfortable, so free from pests, seemed a paradise. When I recounted my adventures to John, he smole his inscrutable smile and observed senten- tiously : " It will teach you the value of time, dollars and vitality, to say nothing of the tyranny of illusions." Nevertheless, I still dream of that Arcadian feast, and sometime, somewhere, it may yet be mine. X MEN OF ACTION Society as such never interested me much. It has its uses : outside a refined and well-ordered home, there is no better school of manners; but its vision is so limited, its mental equipment, if superficially brilliant, is actually so tiresome that John and I, he for refresh- ment and I for interest and pleasure, gladly turned to something possible only in a great city — the world of those who achieve, who " do things." And when I say this, as I did to a noted man of the world on board an ocean steamship, I do not forget his response: " Well, look out that in the end they don't do you! " I am not always on the lookout; life would be in- tolerable if I were; and besides I have a sneaking sympathy for those indolent, exasperating, yet pa- thetic souls, who are forced by circumstance or tem- perament to live by their wits — I can't help imagin- ing myself without a legitimate penny, and wondering if I would sail through half so well, as of course I should not. New York is the great melting-pot, especially as to the arts, of all America. At one time it did seem one constant round of those confident and aspiring crea- tures forever trying to " express " themselves — to make themselves felt by a cold and indifferent public ; in painting, in music, in architecture, in the drama, and especially in literature. None meant so much to 63 64 Within My Horizon me as the writers : they stood first and the actors last — indeed usually down and out ! The whole thing palled in time, as must any exclusive diet; but for the moment, at home or in club, sometimes on week-ends by train or boat, John proving unexpectedly Atlas- like in what he could financially endure, the little fes- tivities to which these colorful personalities were bid constituted a unique thing in polite gatherings — in- deed, made all else seem tame. Then while the com- pany may have been of varying worth, always a few fine souls, generally male, were met in an unrestraint not permitted to the crowd. When the beginning is over the mahogany, or our old oaken table, often there develops a friendship, an intimacy even, of rare under- standing. Some have said that these gatherings were a modest expression in the New World of the Old World " salon intime." Nothing seems bolder or balder than to speak of prominent men, whether in terms of praise or blame, when they are still living, and particularly when they are your friends. Yet, how omit Peary, then looming, like the Arctic sun in February, just above the horizon; with his brave, devoted and pretty young wife, both full of the joy of living — and sometimes of its sorrow, too. And in Peary's wake, for birds of a feather will flock together, other high adventurers in icy lands : Amundsen, Nordenskiold, Shackleton, Arctowski, Stefansson; while John, but not I, broke bread with Stanley, Nansen, the Duke d'Abruzzi, and Conan Doyle, the last of whom had not ventured so far north as John, with his three relief expeditions to Etah, but who attested his enthusiasm by declaring, " Around the Men of Action 65 Red Lamp," that one never ceased wanting to go again. Etah is on the shore of Smith Sound, north of Baffin Bay, on the Greenland side, 77 north, I believe. It was a mere way-station to Peary, though the northern- most Eskimo settlement, and John's ultima thule. While my husband acquitted himself with credit, he was never sure that the ice might not close in on him for a winter in that desolate land, with insistent busi- ness awaiting him here, and he was mighty glad to see the shores of Labrador again. The meat had given out, and fresh water too, and the last morning coffee was made with sea-water, but never a complaint from him, said those who watched his impassive face. By the way, do you know that the Orientals add salt to their coffee? And who is so good a judge of coffee as a Turk — except an American ? The shadow of the Arctic has fallen over the greater part of my married life. How many have I seen go forth to that enigmatical night, from which not a few have failed to return ; but none so near and dear to us as the pair whose long quest knew not only triumph but pain — pain in the very triumph, alas ! They are close to us just because we have been through deep waters together. Next to the Pearys, Stefansson stands highest in my Arctic affections; and for what you would hardly guess — he of blond Eskimo fame, the very least of his achievements, as it happens, but the one which seemed to hit the public fancy before more important things. To say nothing of his indomitable spirit, what I love in Stefansson is his naturalness, his boyish sim- plicity, his young appetite and unaffected joy in little 66 Within My Horizon things — the delight of a hostess who revels in appre- ciation of her small offerings. In Rome, at the In- ternational Geographic Congress of 1913, our last bit of travel before the hapless war time, how sympathetic he was in the search for old places dear to my heart, and how sweetly he wandered with me in the gardens of the Hotel de Russie, under the shadow of the Pincian Hill, when even John's patience gave out, once the fine tea, the well-buttered toast-sandwiches and a dozen newspapers were annexed! But Stefansson loved the mellow atmosphere of the spacious place (such a surprise after the narrow, stony Via del Babuino) for its own sake, and he climbed with me among the palms and blooms and vines to the ivy-hung stone wall that shuts out the highway and the fashion- able world. For the old garden, while it called, through memory, to the youth in my heart, also brought the tears to my eyes — as I thought of the little mother who was there with me once, but can be with me no more. So it always must be, for the one who is left behind — the sigh with the smile. After the Russie, with its expensive tea, we three dined at a native restaurant in the Via Nazionale, only four blocks from our hotel, the Michel, where we ob- tained a delicious, parsley-sprinkled omelet, with a crust of brown sugar on top, so good that Stefansson ordered two, with romaine salad, Gorgonzola, plenty of crisp rolls and unsalted butter, a pint of wine and the most real coffee in Italy, for less than two dollars, including tips. Stefansson, who starved at the Grand on far more, was delighted, and told us a story. He found at the Michel an old Harvard classmate who, Men of Action 67 years ago, in time of stress, had borrowed $13 of him. Now, married and prosperous, he remembered the loan and paid it. The surprised recipient, in grateful ac- knowledgment, invited the couple to lunch with him at the Grand, ordering what he considered a simple meal. The bill came to exactly $13. I know because I saw it. Not the least likable thing about our guest was the fact that he returned to our hotel for the evening and, John having a three hours' function on hand, spent the time of absence with me happily, apparently quite un- aware that the place, while handsome and roomy, was unmistakably a bedroom — the big Japanese screen decorating rather than concealing the twin beds. Ever the man is himself, with no selfconsciousness, no back- thought, no trivial " remorse." Even while writing these lines, I found that blithe spirit just the same. Nearly dead of typhoid fever, Stefansson was brought on a sledge from the Arctic fastnesses to Port Yukon, and his first letter to me closed with this characteristic paragraph : I hope you will ask me to your house more than once when I come back, but once must be in the corn-on-the-cob season. I like it for its own sake, for association going back to childhood, and because of the evening we had it together, now nearly four years ago. Tell Anna I like it a trifle more ripe than common, and that a double ration for a civilized person would be about right for me. At least I feel so now. The letter was dated Liddon Gulf, Melville Island, Oct. 20, 1916, one year and a half in transit, for it reached me in the spring of 1918. Terra incognita to 68 Within My Horizon me is Melville Island, but not to Stefansson. That spirit of youth is eternal. It can be counted upon with absolute certainty. And what a delight it is to himself and his friends! Think of an almost dying man re- membering not only Anna and me but corn-on-the- cob! Once I sat beside Amundsen throughout a long din- ner, garnished by cold water alone, and this Norwegian sailor bore it like a hero — even with a twinkle in his blue eye. Later, after he had discovered the South Pole, at our own table I made up for the omission, which he well remembered but promptly drowned his past chagrin in the present flowing bowl. The Pearys were present, too; I remember Josephine's neck mag- nificent in wonderful green tourmalines, born in the rich mineral rocks of Maine, and set to her order, since it is now decreed that the green tourmaline, not less than the emerald, is a potent talisman for one born in May — as are both the Admiral and his wife. Also at the table was little Flo Field, another bird of May, with a tiny emerald on her tiny Southern finger. Amundsen was to lecture in the evening, introduced by Peary and flanked by John, but by this time all were so jolly that they were loath to take up business. At the time I resented Amundsen's butting in on poor Scott's prior Antarctic claims; it was neither ethical, sportsmanlike nor kind; yet personally he was such a good fellow, and with such red blood under his warm- colored hair, that I really think he did not understand. Shackleton also showed up once at the Hamilton Club, but for him I had no use. He was a typical Eng- lishman of the " get-all-you-can " kind, with a bullet Men of Action 69 head and a calculating eye, to say nothing of an un- dying conceit. When he appeared at our table, with his Lady, he had been knighted recently, and neither oi them was unaware of the fact. England is far from a republic, and therefore she is grateful, which accounts for some things that otherwise could hardly be so. A gentleman and scholar is Dr. Henryk Arctowski, of Poland, Belgium and the Antarctic. After much roving, he towards the South Pole, and she on Euro- pean operatic prizes bent, he married a foreign-appear- ing but true-blue and charming American, and as they joined the army of commuters, we saw a good deal of them; of him as the head of the scientific department of the New York Public Library, and of her lecturing and singing in aid of stricken Poland, for she possesses a beautiful voice, not unlike Destinn's in quality and range — altogether a talented and remarkable pair. Mme. Arctowska resembles Destinn not only in voice but in face and form — an odd duplication in appear- ance, temperament and artistic powers. Besides all this, Madame can do one thing that, in these times, is to me more than all — cook! She learned of her own chef in Brussels, when her husband was stationed there, and to be invited to her table is a privilege never to be declined. Two pictures, two homes, one at Hastings- on-Hudson, the other a step into New England, the antithesis of each other in civilization and conveniences yet equally rich in attractions for body and mind, rise up before me like Inness landscapes or Blakelock moonlight. In either retreat, as we lunched or lounged at noon or twilight on the verandah, in the direct line of vision towered a great, shapely, spectacular elm, an 70 Within My Horizon unquestionable hero of long ago; while in the more primitive of the two places a winding rough-hewn rock stairway, buried in rambler roses, led to the only- drinking-water — in a sunken well beyond the low stone wall across the lonely road. This fetching little camp, as it were, beside the ancestral dignity of the Hastings mansion, was christened Belair; but its gypsy accommodations, in which figured creamy pot cheese and butter just off the ladle, saltless as well, to say nothing of breads, soups and salads that Waldorf Oscars might envy, proved no more acceptable than the eager flow of conversation or the fairylike run to the station, through a narrow wooded highway where two could hardly pass, Arctowska herself the un- daunted chauffeur, in the midst of the dark, fragrant, mysterious night — scarcely a bird's flight from New York yet filled with all the romance, all the still beauty, of the Hudson Valley when Washington Irving was in his prime. Then there was Robert Bartlett, Captain Bob as he was intimately called, Peary's best man on the march to the Pole — he who exclaimed, as he trod those ex- clusive regions where none had been before: " Why, it is exactly like every day ! " Captain Bartlett never knew what he was eating, so absorbed was he in his ambitious plans, nor did he ever drink a spirituous drop — rarely a cup of coffee, scarcely a cup of tea. Perhaps that, his almost fanatical devotion to cold water, is the reason why, born in Newfoundland, he became an American citizen. An Englishman once said to me : " What quantities of water you Ameri- Men of Action 71 cans drink ! The stuff must be pure. Otherwise there would be an epidemic." Strong, unconquerable men are these, in time of need, far from the haunts of civilization; yet once free from the care and the strain — as simply happy as children. They love the dare. I know Captain Bob, who never drank, could get as intoxicated on a runaway motor car as most men on unlimited champagne; he positively sang when everybody else turned pale — and that explains a lot. XI THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT Indispensable as they may be for carrying on the work of the world and undaunted as they are in forging the way, men of action never interest me like men of letters — even the lesser lights ; indeed, the lesser lights the most of all. It is a queer fact that the poorer writers often make the richer companions, the notables religiously saving themselves for their books — there- fore, through their books alone should you know them. Richard Le Gallienne was one of the survivors of the exotic cult under the leadership of Oscar Wilde, whose friend he was and in whose wit he delighted — a cult that died a natural death with the nineteenth cen- tury. Starting as a revolt against the Victorian Era, its conventions, its literature, its furniture, its general lack of taste, and its uninteresting morals, the move- ment was not large enough, not strong enough, for its place and time, and finally some of its most conspicu- ous devotees got themselves into trouble and left a bad odor. Yet the first leading spirits did have both in- tellect and principle, and their theories about many things, and dress first of all, were illuminating and sound; for who that looks upon our soldiers in uni- form, as compared with the gloomy coats and hats and trousers of the civilian, can doubt the power of artistic 72 The Artistic Temperament 73 habiliments to improve both the appearance and effi- ciency of man or woman? I always thought and spoke of Le Gallienne as a blond, when in fact his hair was as dark as my own. This trick of eyes or memory he pronounced the re- sult of unusual psychological insight, since from child- hood, he said, he had believed and stated that his soul was blonde! Richard was considered handsome, but not by men. His eyes were a fine gray under pencilled brows, his profile almost classic, his mouth cold and very small, his complexion pale — altogether a fem- inine beauty, with a languor that insensibly drew on the sympathy. All this, added to a tall, lank figure in a frock coat, the long hair under a stove-pipe hat, when he first came to America, some twenty years ago, set our undisciplined small boys exhibiting very bad man- ners; but he received their jeers with complete com- posure. While Le Gallienne Americanized himself through continuous residence and his third marriage, the first wife released by death and the second by divorce, when he arrived he resembled somewhat Robert Hichens' hero in " The Green Carnation," that clever satire which was instrumental in starting its then anonymous author on the road to fame. Socially and morally these gentlemen are a recrudescence of the Trouba- dors, who toiled not neither did they spin, yet who suf- fered little from lack of appreciation or bread. Le Gallienne's literary output is an odd mixture of success and failure. The " Prose Fancies," which made his reputation, are delightful both in matter and manner; his critiques bear the mark of scholarship and 74 Within My Horizon reflection ; his " Religio Scriptoris " is as clear as it is profound — yet each of his so-called novels, the ulti- mate test of creative power, seems born of a hasheesh dream. In fact, I once accused him of using the drug, but he only shrugged his shoulders and murmured: " No, I am saving that ! " He wrote some interesting short poems. " The Cry of the Little Peoples " was inspired by his second wife, Julie Norregard, a Dane. The more thoughtful Eng- lish writers are out of sympathy with British Imperial- ism, feeling it to be a potent factor in provoking war. But the metrical composition that appealed to me the most of all, because it came nearer me personally, was his tribute to Peary — written haphazard, en route by train to a dinner we gave June 20, 1898, when again Peary was starting on his quest for the North Pole : Peary, Godspeed ! I hardly know The vast and intricate significance Of all that snow To which you go ; I only understand A brave man dares again. When heroes fight, Who asks his trivial why, So that they fight like heroes? Maybe, — it well may be — Peary shall find Fauna and flora quite unknown to me, And polar secrets wrest That shall unlock Dependent secrets of the East and West; But whatso science gain, The Artistic Temperament 75 Or whatsoe'er accrue to commerce, This I think is best: The courage of the quest, The fearless eyes, The dauntless soul, In them the Pole ! So that the Pole make Peary, As all such dreams Have power to make a man, I care not much that Peary find the Pole ! And perhaps the wish were kind He ne'er may find What with the finding Means a dream at end. For who so finds a dream, Strange though it seem, Must lose it as he finds — 'Tis so with dreams. Peary, Godspeed ! We let you go With hands that linger, Hands proud to hold, Reluctant hands to loose; And I, an idle singer, A recent friend of ancient admiration, Would venture thus to bid you A Godspeed full as kind As those who longer Have loved you, Peary, Longer, maybe, and stronger, Yet with no will more willing, Peary, towards you, — Gentlest of all the strong, Kindest of all the brave. When the reading of this was over, you could hear 76 Within My Horizon your own heart-throbs; while Peary, usually so calm, was visibly affected. Irregular in form, with halting rhythm, it yet exquisitely voices the truth. Its tender charm, its perfect appreciation, made us beat our breasts in shame that we ever were impatient with so gifted a creature. Le Gallienne in his early twenties seemed a writer of extraordinary promise; his style, like his beautiful penmanship, was a model of concise- ness and lucidity, and he had logic, delicate fancy and felicity of phrase; but he ripened early and, as he used to say himself, his message was delivered before thirty. The joy of life went out of him, the glow of first im- pressions, the desire to excel. Clever artifice, bizarre romances, even though clad in beauty, make no lasting appeal. In all his fiction, except the beginning of " The Romance of Zion Chapel," there is a lack of reality — of deep, true feeling. He had not the pa- tience to plumb that difficult art to its depths. Yet all these artistic temperaments are born with clear insight into everything save their own shortcomings. As one cynical observer puts it : " They see no lack in them- selves except the lack of cash." XII NOTABLE WOMEN WRITERS A number of women writers came here to break bread, some to become friends, but more to pass like ships in the night. All were well known at the time, but the fame of New York is often only for the day, and while I still remember their names and natures Manhattan may not. However, as I often observe, the better writers are by no means the better comrades. Mary E. Wilkins, now Mrs. Freeman, I met very early in my married life, at the home of Kate Upson Clark, who also unwittingly brought me my husband. At that moment we were all wild over Miss Wilkins' captivating tales of New England — especially those of us from New England; and while she was visiting Mrs. Clark she dined with us one evening in Carlton Avenue because Colonel Thomas W. Knox, the popu- lar " Boy Traveller " writer and a friend of John's, was eager to meet her — so eager that he was willing to leave his comfortable quarters at the Lotos Club for a few hours and tackle the wilderness of Brooklyn; for so New York always considers a sister city almost as large as herself and to us who live here far more pleasing as a place of residence. " Dolly," as her hostess affectionately called the author of " A Humble Romance and Other Tales," was on that occasion the surprise of my life; for while she seemed a demure little body at Mrs. Clark's, at our 77 78 Within My Horizon home she radiantly lived up to the splendid yellow she confessed herself so fond of. From her sweet fem- inine lips came one after another the most daring of amusing stories, not even a wince at the fateful word " damn," until the company, looking for something far less human, was carried by storm — hypercritical bachelor Knox the most of all. As I never met her again so informally, she stands out from the back- ground of that home dinner as a symbol of witchery rather than of the Puritanic conservatism we had imagined. It was indirectly through the ever hospitable Kate Upson Clark, herself a writer of no mean worth, that I came to know Mary Sprague, author of " An Earnest Trifler," which had a record success in its day, and also her sister, Frances Sprague Brown, daughters of Judge Sprague of Newark, Ohio. Mrs. Brown was one of the most brilliant if most eccentric intellectuals I ever encountered. She thought out everything for herself. Her life-study, though her life proved short, was na- tionality. With a large experience in European af- fairs, before any man had said a word on the subject, she put her finger on the disease of the times — that commercialism which was to grow and spread like a poisonous plant until it reached a height of world de- struction that would have appalled even her darkly prophetic eye. Her feeling towards America was a cross between love of its people and their ideals, and contempt for the practice that came forth from them. She used to say that Hearst's American, then the Morning Journal, was the true expression of the thought and feeling of the American people as a whole. Notable Women Writers 79 But out of all that has grown an ideality which was never more apparent than at this moment. Eliza Orne White, friend of my childhood in Keene, — whose beautiful and well appointed home, with large park-like grounds, though close to the square, growing almost every kind of tree, shrub and flower, was a second home to me, — like Mary Sprague of the meteoric " Earnest Trifler," is a favorite author with the Houghton Mifflin Company. Her eighteen New England novels and juvenile stories evince that sense of humor, that keen yet kindly perception, that sound education and high morality, which has meant so much to the life of this nation, to its homes and its literature, since the days of Hawthorne, Howells and Louisa Alcott down to Sarah Orne Jewett, Arthur Sherburne Hardy and Alice Brown. Of a totally different type is my erratic Southern friend, Flora Field. Temperament and mentality she possesses, but lacks so far the unremitting application that converts these dynamic forces into use. She has done things, several fine poems and short stories have been honored by publication, but nothing as yet to command wide attention — perhaps because for years her literary fancies, often highly beautiful in their way, have been lost in the daily press; the leading journal of the South, to be sure, but still a newspaper. At this moment, however, she seems bent on the task the Lord meant her to do, and if her iridescent humor can clasp hands with the deeper note of passion, and her individual style, that exquisite nacre de perle, as a friend calls it, which so beautifies the most prosaic facts, can voice the universal, she may fully come into 80 Within My Horizon her own. A tormenting diamond in the rough, with fitful gleams uttering a promise, when she feels the irresistible urge ■ — ■ look out for stars ! Elsa Barker, author of " The Frozen Grail " and other fine poems, as well as much thoughtful prose, stands out not only for her qualities as a woman, but for the glorious opera we enjoyed once or twice a week together for two or three Metropolitan and Hammer- stein seasons. Never was there a more sympathetic companion for those musical feasts nor one whose emotions were more quickly stirred. Music seems not the same to me with other women, and I miss her nearness, her soft little hand, in the dark auditorium as much as the Wagner which during war days we heard no more. " Thais " was especially congenial to us both, its beauty of sentiment as well as of song, and its endless orchestral melody. I well remember the first of a dozen times we heard it, how she looked at me, dissolved in tears, and said: "Helen, it is so near to me that I feel the monastic life must once have been mine." Mrs. Barker is a firm believer in reincarnation and the presence here of the life beyond. Then there was Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, that re- markable wife and widow whose " Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador," to accomplish the pur- pose for which her husband starved to death in those very wilds she later traversed safely on her way to Hudson Bay, a wilderness no white person ever trod before her, was the wonder of her hour in the fall of 1907. Her troubled days are over at last, so far as worldly anxieties are concerned, in her marriage to Harold Ellis, only son of the late John Ellis, Member Notable Women Writers 81 of Parliament, Under Secretary for India with Lord Morley, also a member of the Privy Council, and owner of large coal mines, who this year becomes the brother-in-law of Lord Parmoor ; yet that does not pre- vent her inquiring mind from still searching for the truth — in matters of the soul now, seeking some faith to cling to, midst this wreck of distraught worlds. That her studies have led her into the East, something she never dreamed of, I learned the other day, when she begged me to read Tagore's " Nationalism." Those great Oriental minds, the lamps of the world when Europe was sunk in darkness, may perform that im- portant mission again — at least India, the queen, and in a sense the victim, of them all, East and West. One day in June, 19 19, looking through the volume written by her when she was Mrs. Hubbard, I noticed for the first time on the map of Labrador attached, the author's own by right of discovery, tucked away in the heart of the Bridgman Mountains, that fine tribute to the friendship existing between her and my husband, these exciting words : " Helen Falls " ; proud honor for a woman even if wags see a joke in the heart of it ! All this I told in a letter to Mrs. Ellis, and she thus rallies me: " I have heard of Englishmen waking up to laugh at a joke the day after; but to think that it has taken you twelve years to recognize my compli- ment — you an American woman ! What is the world coming to ? " Such a lovely laurel handed to me on a golden plat- ter and I asleep ! I must lack, as I am told, a healthy conceit. Or is it just plain mother wit? Of Gertrude Atherton we saw much while she was 82 Within My Horizon writing "The Conqueror" in 1901. My review of that remarkable historical novel she generously pro- nounced the most intelligent she had seen. Her heart was deeply in her work and she has done notable things. She possesses in full measure the power to make her characters live; her people breathe and love and dare; their joys and sorrows stir us as our own; she has respect for the truth as she sees it, and if only her technique, perhaps I might say her taste, were as fine as her pen is impassioned, if she were as rich in tenderness as she is in color and invention — what miracles might she not perform! She could so easily, it would seem, be the greatest novelist of her time ; but with an exceptional brain goes a coarse fibre, a rude petulance, that repels even while she attracts. Personally Mrs. Atherton is or was a pretty blonde, with a fine profile and honest blue eyes. As an artist, she is an example to her kind: she keeps out of debt, stands on her own feet, is faithful to her engagements, and indulges in but one stimulant — the cigarette. She has a strong mind and body, but I am not sure she has a heart, and if she lacks lasting charm, it may be due to that little omission. A literary authority used to say that Ella Wheeler Wilcox was not a poet : that her verse was noticeable for thought, but not for poetic expression or feeling. He also declared that her continual harping on sex, the sex in trees, flowers, oceans, fabrics and precious stones, made him feel as chaste as Diana. But whether poet or not, her verses appeal widely and all her writings are a force for good. Somebody once said that she was a bigger woman than writer, and per- Notable Women Writers 83 haps that is true. There are far worse encomiums. I first saw Ella in the old Milwaukee days, before she was Mrs. Wilcox, before she was known as " the poetess of passion." In fact it was my fate to assist at the accouchement, so to speak, of those daring effu- sions which were to make her famous throughout the land. I read and reviewed the manuscript of the scarlet volume which eventually was to be talked about from Dan to Beersheba ; and years later it was she who first suggested my doing just what at this moment I am doing — writing my memoirs. She said I had done so many interesting things and met so many interesting people that this intimate viewpoint ought not to be lost. She thought me indolent and indifferent; she said, because I had no ambition, no high ideals, no pressing necessity — that in my next incarnation I would have to account for a mind I had failed to make full use of in this. Probably she was right, for it is a fact that I have no recognizable ambition; that I would rather live in peace and quiet with a few dear friends, tasting life slowly in its sweetness and its sadness, than become the most conspicuous lady in the land — oh, how much rather ! And that reminds me : she said my distaste for Society was due to the fact that in a former incarnation I had revelled in all that ; that a thousand signs pointed to my small self as once the Empress Josephine — just as she was Marion Delorme. Ella not only believed in reincarnation, which I fancy I do myself, but in the transmigration of souls. Both of us love cats, and she said we must once have been two tempestuous kittens, alternately cuffing and kissing each other ; and it is a fact that with 84 Within My Horizon all the long friendship we often fell out. With Ella it was everything or nothing, and so it sometimes hap- pened that the fuller feast was a fast. Yet about her there was nothing small; on the contrary, she never failed in appreciation, often over-appreciation — but she demanded exchange in kind; and never would she hold out the olive-branch ; always it was my fate to do that even when I still felt her to be in the wrong. They say I have no proper pride ; and it is true that I regard a friendship once formed as so important that usually I will go far to recover it when it seems to have lost its way; but Ella was preeminently one who took her- self seriously — which makes life so difficult for the other party. Take your work seriously, take the world, if you like, but never, never, yourself. When I first met this reddish-haired, topaz-eyed young poet, with her unusual fire and daring, her Swin- burnian color, music and glow, her sayings, though we knew it not, were soon to become household words. About that time a group of young singers arose in Wisconsin, most of whom were never heard of beyond the confines of the State, but Ella Wheeler was not that kind. She possessed not only a piquant, attrac- tive face, the eyes instantly alive to every passing mood, the nose unusually straight and good for an American, and a mouth of standard shape, if inclined to sneer, which she herself was not, but also that which her rather prominent chin instantly declared — tremendous energy. As I look back to her, standing on the threshold of her career, quivering with an electricity that needed a larger scope, she seems a sweet and winning figure. Notable Women Writers 85 She was so eager to live, to love, to achieve; and for this she was equipped with health, with undaunted courage, with every confidence in herself, and with the will to work, without which all else fails — but to work in her own way. Discipline, severe training, the long hard road to artistic perfection, were foreign to her nature ; she wanted her reward here and now, and she had it — and who, loving life, can blame her? Per- haps, after all, Nature knows better than we what is possible and what mere wish. Her career was remarkable for a singularly happy married life. Robert Wilcox, with his quiet humor, his serene philosophy, his enthusiasm for the role of lover, was the perfect mate to her emotionalism, to her sensitive egotism, to her sometimes nervous irrita- bility, to her thirst not only for love but for the in- cessant demonstration of it. Fortunately, on all im- portant subjects, he took her seriously, and as a rule her own dominant personality yielded to his superior masculine control, exercised judiciously through their mutual regard and affection. But now and then even Robert laughed or rebelled. Once in his absence, after a little dinner at our house, she spent the night here rather than accept the escort of a perfectly respectable and inoffensive young gentleman to her home in West 58th Street. Despite " Poems of Passion," Mrs. Wil- cox had her moments of intense conventionality — not to say provincialism. When her husband was told of this episode, which occurred something like a decade after the honeymoon, he replied, with a quizzical glance at her rather set countenance : "lam sorry Ella still takes marriage so hard." 86 Within My Horizon Mrs. Wilcox was very fond of entertaining at her beautiful place on the Sound, and the lure of " We Four and No More " was difficult to resist, so it came about that one Saturday dinner found us there. Her husband was like me in this dislike of numbers, so imagine the dismay with which we both heard, in suave contralto tones, but with steely resolution beneath them, that a party of fifty would arrive in an hour to exploit some musician obtainable at no other time. Yet in her almost childlike love of a crowd, Ella once had my sincere sympathy, when a cad of an English- man, one who apparently commands respect in the the- atrical world, stayed for a whole week at her house without addressing a word to her. This wonderful marriage, and it was one of the marriages of the world, just because they were both entirely human as well as divinely true, loyal and fine, lasted long. In its earlier stages Ella composed per- haps her most affecting poem, the one in which she foresaw the hour which eventually became her own. When voicing the cry of man or woman at crucial mo- ments, especially the cry of Love in ecstasy or anguish, Ella Wheeler Wilcox is a singer of unquestionable power : ONE OF US TWO The day will dawn when one of us shall harken In vain to hear a voice that has gone dumb; All morns shall fade, noons pale, and shadows darken, While sad eyes watch for feet that never come. One of us must sometime face existence Alone with memories that but sharpen pain ; Notable Women Writers 87 And these sweet days shall shine back in the distance Like dreams of summer dawns in nights of rain. One of us two, with tortured heart half broken, Shall read long-treasured letters through salt tears ; Shall kiss with anguished lips each cherished token That speaks of these love-crowned, delicious years. One of us two shall find all light, all beauty, All joy on earth a tale forever done; Shall know henceforth that life means only duty. O God ! O God ! have pity on that one. The sequel to this, with exactly thirty years between, appeared in a Hearst publication February, 1918, nearly two years after her husband's death. While lacking the melodic beauty of the older poem, and something of its universal appeal, it yet has some fine lines : Friend after friend goes out beyond our ken. Though faithful by intent, On their own pleasure bent, They are but human drops in seas of men, And in our times of need They cannot hear or heed. Why even Love, knowing all earthly bliss Lies in the clasping hand and clinging kiss, Goes out and leaves us clutching at thin air, And comes not back for any plea or prayer. But thou, O glorious Death, art ever true, Though hid from view. O Friend of mine, Thou white-robed keeper of the golden key That opens wide the gate 88 Within My Horizon Leading to Life abundant and sublime, I wait, I wait. But hark ye, Death, and mark well what I say, On that great day I shall push past thee at the Golden Gate And run, run, run, through Heaven until I find my mate. But the simplest truth in the fewest words voiced by Ella Wheeler Wilcox is the following, of which her editor rightly observed, as he read it upon imperishable metal, " This is packed for a long journey": So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, When just the art of being kind Is all this sad world needs. XIII RUDYAED KIPLING It was my good fortune, on my first trip to Europe, to know in London, rather intimately for a few weeks, and afterwards through letters from time to time, Rudyard Kipling. The best things can never be told ; for intimacy has its obligations not less than its privi- leges. A friend who looked over this manuscript suggested that it be called, " All the News that's Fit to Print." Everything in it I swear to be true, so far as I am able to discern the truth, but some things I have not said are true also. Anyhow, as the French put it, to tell all is to be dull. Though many years have passed since I met this then new and vivid writer, Kipling's striking person- ality can never be forgotten — his sensitiveness, his worldly wisdom, far beyond his years, and yet his something of the child. At that time he had only just become conspicuous. He was new to London, some- what homesick for the warmth of India, rather lonely in his bachelor quarters, and considerably disgusted with his compatriots that they permitted him to be lonely. Indeed I had quite a time finding him, and a worse time discovering anybody who had ever heard of him — as I had not myself until peremptory orders from home bade me look up the rising literary sun. This, after he had written the best things he ever 89 90 Within My Horizon wrote. As soon as his output deteriorated, the world took him fondly to its bosom — according to the way of undiscriminating worlds. Because of his appreciation only by comparatively few, and a good part of them our own Americans, for his note was almost too daring for the hidebound English, who are not in bulk an artistic people, Kip- ling was at that time still unspoiled, with buoyant self- confidence rather than the tiresome conceit which took possession of him later. He was not yet out of the twenties, with life all before him, and living in Em- bankment Chambers, a modest menage overlooking the Thames, the walls of which were hung with army pictures by Detaille and many well-used pipes of all sorts of sizes, while the tiger-skin covering a couch, sharp knives hanging above, seemed even in death not free from menace — though a great black cat, thor- oughly alive and happy, and much petted by her fond master, restored confidence. The living face before me was the one with which the world is now so familiar, sent out in the first au- thorized editions of his books (and alas, in some not authorized, over which he was highly indignant, and as to which certain American firms were leading cul- prits), the only photograph of him I could ever endure. For while the face with the eye-glasses looked older than his years, already beginning to tell the tale of per- sistent labor in a climate which must eat the heart out of a man, it had not then acquired the bitterness, the disillusion, that marked it later. Kipling, while born in India, passed a healthy boy- hood in England, returning to the opulent land that Rudyard Kipling 91 bore him at the impressionable age of sixteen. The son of a talented father who could draw almost as well as Rudyard could write; the nephew, on his mother's side, of Burne-Jones, who with the Rossettis, William Morris and their confreres tried to make England ar- tistically over, no wonder his brain seethed with as- pirations and images. He went at once into journal- ism, and for seven years worked harder in that climate than any young fellow before him. He worked from dawn till eve with the thermometer often far above one hundred, in places where no substitute on short notice could be obtained for love or money. Fever shook him, cholera took his nearest and dearest, plague looked him in the eye; but ever in his heart was that tumult of desire which is the lot of genius and saves it from despair. So he kept on, sure that his ideal sometime would be realized, though the deadly heat strained his vitality to the breaking-point. Imagine a man with his British nose to this kind of grindstone for nearly a decade, with little companion- ship outside the rough-and-ready soldiers, and their equally ready if not rough wives, except the natives whom I think he liked the best of all, particularly the sad and gentle women; imagine him with Tommies white and Tommies dark, English wives bold and In- dian maidens shy, men with whom he slumbered and fought, sorrowed and made merry, watched and broke bread, women to whom he made love or hate — try to visualize this and you will understand how his stories suddenly startled four continents. Physically, Kipling was not impressive, though his lithe frame exuded vitality, while the cleft chin, strong 92 Within My Horizon and prominent, told of many a battle fought and con- quered, and many a battle to come. The fine gray eyes, whose pupils dilated behind the constantly worn glasses, filled one with a vague alarm for their health and safety, yet they were eyes which got a great deal out of life. Never have I seen a human being more observant, more alive to every beauty of earth and sky, to say nothing of the ever-varying panorama of humanity. In a rambling walk through Regent Park on a bright day, first it was the shimmer of fair hair under the tall hat of a stately equestrienne to which he called attention; next to a pair of heavenly blue eyes owned by a little one of two; then a tender pause over the imprint of a baby's foot in the sand. Another turn of the walk, and he fell into an inspiring retro- spect on those wondrous white cities of the Orient, resting beside lakes of sapphire in an atmosphere of luminous gold — a vision I never had seen then, but which I promised him and myself should one day be mine ; as it has been over and over. These may seem trifles to record of a great man, yet it is by way of the little, unconscious things that you best understand people. A few days later, after a rush to Paris and back, he came to our hotel, gasping: "I've seen a man die, Helen, I have seen a man die! " Half an hour later, as we jogged along in a " growler " to a unique little cafe he affected, far from fashion and deep in " the City," it was a brief history of the church of Saint Martin's in the Fields, which we passed. At dinner he gave me kingfish done a certain way ; and he didn't care for sweets, but he did for rich old cheese, and Rudyard Kipling 93 champagne that went promptly to my head. But amidst it all I learned that he could be very cross in- deed when hitting the wrong evening for a dinner to which he had been bid. " No dinner to-night," the inopportune guest raged, " and why the devil isn't there a dinner?" Also, when overburdened with re- porters seeking interviews, he would calmly look them in the eye, as they inquired for Mr. Kipling, and reply : " Go up higher — fifth floor." Kipling had a pronounced taste for American women (he eventually, as you know, married one), but he did not like their voices, though graciously ex- cepting my own. He impinged on the subject and asked me why they were so loud, shrill and nasal. I couldn't tell him, since I had wondered myself. Be- side what a friend calls " that cool contralto " of well- bred English women, the American scream must indeed be distasteful. Kipling said his father was of Dutch descent, but that on his mother's side he inherited three nationali- ties, English, Scotch, Irish. I was glad to hear him speak of these as separate nationalities, though his fu- ture Imperialism was to turn a blind eye that way. I wound up the subject by saying that I believed there was an Asiatic sultana connected with his evolvement, to say nothing of a heathen goddess and a Bengal tiger or two — for his eyes were precisely like the tiger's in the zoo, both in color and expression. He fell in with the idea rapturously, and in a subsequent letter drew marginal pictures of these unconventional ancestors, with comments gusty and hilarious — a unique Kip- lingesque which I still possess. He is as expert in 94 Within My Horizon pen-and-ink sketches as his father, who frequently amused himself by illustrating his son's stories. Kipling is a devoted " family -man," first to his parents and later to his wife and children. He not only possesses the good old bourgeois instinct of fidel- ity to one's own, the heritage of well-balanced human beings, but with all his irritability he is tender and re- fined. Perhaps the most striking characteristic of Kipling's conversation is its insight. Every possible impulse or motive of human conduct seems as clear as day to him. This exceptional vision is indicated by the deep-set eyes under heavy brows, as dark as his hair, and is part and parcel of his unusual acuteness of hearing — like a hound's; as well as his almost feminine sensitiveness to odors. When I spoke of his insight, sympathy and understanding, as expressed in the story he read aloud to me in manuscript, " Without Benefit of Clergy," the most exquisite of his many fine things, he answered meditatively : " I have insight, but neither sympathy nor understanding." I wonder ! He impressed me as a man who could and would cling to the truth, and that is all the best of us can do. But he was a young man, just getting his pace as a writer of note, and not entirely above dis- sembling to himself. He certainly proved a dear and charming companion to the few to whom he was drawn, but good manners were not his strong point when his feelings did not coincide. Alas, that genius, unlike high rank, does not necessarily assume obliga- tions ! XIV THE MANDALAYS Along with those of the great world went lifelong intimacies hardly less notable in their way and often far more interesting than such as bore the bright hall- mark of fame. With all my running around in for- eign lands, the only people I have deeply cared for have been my own Americans, and of these two mature companions of my youth stand out prominently. Gen- eral Charles King, gallant soldier and loyal friend, came into my life on »a huge box of flowers, after I had reviewed his first novel of the army, " The Col- onel's Daughter," one of the most delightful military stories ever written. As I did not know he lived in Milwaukee, his quick response to my utterance in the Milwaukee Sentinel, his father's old paper, was not only a pleasure but a complete surprise. While he never again did anything quite so good as that maiden effort, he made a lot of money out of its many popu- lar successors, and his personality stands out as the maximum of varied talent and charm in an officer and a gentleman. Another friend of that early period, who, like King, has remained in my life to this day, is F. A. Carle, of Minnesota's famous Twin Cities, in both of which he was a journalistic power, until a fall from his horse a few years ago forced him to retire from active 95 96 Within My Horizon service. Mr. Carle was my superior officer on the Pioneer Press, for which I wrote a bit after leaving the Milwaukee Sentinel, and a mighty hard task-mas- ter he proved. With his pointed beard and dazzling wit, his caustic criticism and subtle philosophy, he realized to the life my conception of the Franco-Ger- man period of Romanticism, some of whose literature I keenly enjoyed. Carle was a man of fiery feelings who yet knew constancy, and if his play of thought at times was a little on ftie order of coruscation, it was at heart broad and sound. Nor should I omit the Cavalier of Virginia, who sometimes refers to himself as forty years of age but oftener as one thousand. While his great-grandfather was one of the most daring as well as profane officers in the Revolutionary Army, and his great-uncle was a respected professor of Princeton College, his own flamboyant youth in England, running through his substantial inheritance, ably assisted by our ever- ready English cousins, would be a sad commentary on these honored worthies had not the years following transmuted base metal into finest gold. Strange, how Providence turns even our acts of evil to good account if only the essential stamina is there. If this young Virginian of headstrong will and passionate desire had not dissipated his substance, the great lesson of self-denial would not have been learned; if he had not suffered, had not gone into the depths, he might never have known the glory of the heights — and so all works out for the fulfillment of the Divine Will. To-day, when he has learned through the cloister not less than the crowd, both thought and feeling dwell The Mandalays 97 within that slender frame, and while the lamp of life sometimes burns low, it may live to flash still lovelier radiance, because of the eternal vision, before this earthly round is done. General King unwittingly became the connecting link, one happy evening at our house, between Society and Bohemia. Almost accidentally he attended in amused bewilderment, the bewilderment of the West over certain pranks in the East, one of our Mandalay dinners which Osborne always thereafter referred to as " a peach." For that night Ella Wheeler Wilcox and handsome Kate Jordan each danced a captivating pas seul, Kate radiant over the success of her " Kiss of Gold," while Julie Opp, ravishing in pale pink, re- cited stirring poems, Martha Jordan tickled us with her inimitable humor, Howard Seely tried to look in- different to the fuss over " A Border Leander," and Duffield Osborne did not apologize for his somnolent " Spell of Ashtoroth." All these brave titles are but words to you now, though once they represented not only young heart-beats but such well-known publishers as J. B. Lippincott & Company, D. Appleton & Com- pany, Charles Scribner's Sons and, through Osborne's last and best book, years after, Henry Holt & Com- pany. The Lippincotts also were King's publishers, but Mrs. Wilcox, the biggest money-maker of them all, except King, had to be contented with The Belford Company, and later with Conkey of Chicago. So runs the course of talent in the hands of the publishers; a matter of luck, it seems to the onlooker — but maybe it is governed by immutable laws. More than once have I listened to the mandate that 98 Within My Horizon I tell something about the Mandalays, and more than once have I tried and failed; failed so badly that I am coming to think they were not so much people as a state of mind — like that invoked by the spring, in its mys- terious promise; by the sweet melancholy of the au- tumn; by summer noons in swoon or slumber. Still, there was a corporeal form to this brief reign df sen- suous delight ; there sure were a dozen charming human beings sailing for a moment on a seductive, uncharted sea; and if the time was short as to set days and months, it was long-lingering in the mind — just be- cause it could never return. Its beginning was casual enough — simply a man and a guitar ; the man Duffield Osborne, the guitar our Swedish maid's. Osborne was of a type continually growing rare in this workaday world. His great- grandfather was among the generals kissed by Wash- ington at the Farewell, he was the son of a gentleman whose code was Thackeray's own, and often did Os- borne hear it recited at his father's knee : " Come wealth or want, come good or ill, Let young and old accept their part, And bow before the awful will, And bear it with an honest heart. Who misses or who wins the prize — Go, lose or conquer as you can; But if you fall or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman." Orphaned early, he graduated from Columbia, and was trained for the law, which he came to hate. He used to say that he shivered with repugnance every The Mandalays 99 time he heard the step of a client outside his office door. So he deliberately turned his back on a pro- fession in which, with his combative instincts and his argumentative mind, he might have excelled, and be- gan to play a rather poor hand at the literary game. He could count upon the income of a small inheritance, and he forthwith coined a word and proclaimed him- self a " leisurist," and this in a country like America none but women can afford to do. Except for a few short stories of gossamer delicacy and subtle humor, the scenes laid in society's most select camping grounds, and as many poems, noticeable more for scholarship than feeling, he devoted himself to historical novels — safe refuge for those who want to write great fiction but lack the high creative gift. At last he found a medium congenial if not remunerative in engraved gems, at which he became an expert, and in time pub- lished a really valuable volume, doing in that line what I tried to do for precious stones — convert voluminous tiresome detail into a readable form. For almost a quarter of a century Osborne was Secretary of the Authors' Club and lived in the Tower of Madison Square Garden. A letter from Zona Gale indicates — what I fear I have failed to — a truer side to Osborne's somewhat complex nature, and as she saw more of him at one time than we did, and never was oblivious of his finer qualities, I want you to read her words, too : The last time I saw him was in 1912 or '13. I was at Professor Trent's one evening and Mr. Osborne came to call, and he and Dr. Trent walked home with me. He seemed quite the same then. There was something rare and 100 Within My Horizon fine in him, in spite of what the years may have done to him. I think his theory of life must have failed him — that " leisurist " business ; and yet it was a rational revolt against the brute mentality (as Foster Coates used to call it) of New York, and the eating of one's time by material affairs. " I have been in London thirteen years," writes Yoshio Markino in the last chapter of " A Japanese Artist in London," " but most of the time was wasted in getting my living." Here you recognize the eternal war of the artist with what he considers the non-essentials; and which were the non-essentials in an earlier and simpler age, before Commercialism bound us in its iron ring and came near extinguishing the modern nation's soul. In his " Nationalism " Rabindranath Tagore says : In our physical appetites we recognize a limit. We know that to exceed that limit is to exceed the limit of health. But has the lust for wealth and power no bounds beyond which is death's dominion? In these national carni- vals of materialism are not the Western people spending most of their vital energy in merely producing things and neglecting the creation of ideals? . . . The true distinction of man from animals is in his power and worth, which are inner and invisible. But the present day commercial civil- ization is not only taking too much time and space but kill- ing time and space. Its movements are violent, its noise is discordantly loud. It is carrying its own damnation be- cause it is trampling into distortion the humanity on which it stands. ... It has no fear of the chasm that is opening wider every day between man's ever-growing storehouses and the emptiness of his hungry humanity. Under the end- less strata of wealth and comforts, earthquakes are being hatched to restore the balance of the moral world, and one day the gaping gulf of spiritual vacuity will draw into its bottom the store of things that have their eternal love for the dust. The Mandalays 101 Let your crown be of humility, your freedom the freedom . of the soul. Build God's throne daily upon the ample bareness of your poverty. And know that what is huge is not great and pride is not everlasting. John Galsworthy believes as well as I that beauty and simplicity are the natural antidotes to the fever- ish industrialism of our age — that beauty of thought and feeling which transforms the earth, and that sim- plicity of life and living which, if we are to become a great power in the true sense of the word, must prove America's vital ally and inspiration. It seems as if I had known Duffield Osborne a life- time. Since that day when he appeared here at a din- ner of strangers to him, and proved at once the delight- ful guest so dear to the heart of a hostess, he became our " steady " and the unconscious founder of the Mandalays. Most picturesque he was in appearance, with his brilliant dark eyes, his prematurely gray hair, his well-shaped features and hands. Twanging the strings of the guitar for accompaniment, he would sing with beautiful effect Kipling's words to his own haunting tune, and follow " Mandalay " up with " Danny Deever," also to his own music, in a way that makes the popular version of either of these songs sound utterly lifeless. With " Mandalay " we would glow, as we would freeze with " Danny Deever," and our hair stand on end. The secret, mostly of dramatic power, though the melody was mighty taking as well, died with him; for write the notes out he could not, 102 Within My Horizon and have it done by an expert he would not — he was too lazy, indifferent and economical. Yet he was one who in the youthful ardors of a victorious Columbia boat-race almost ruined his voice with prodigal shouting — a voice which ever after was somewhat hoarse; though this did not seem to inter- fere with his unique singing — since the power was based on an appeal to the imagination. All we shall have of this now is what we remember, for Osborne died November 20, 1917. It would take an artist of high order to reproduce the languor of his manner, the deep introspection of his mood, the clear, youth- ful swing of " On the road to Mandalay," the lilt of the " neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land"; the profound contempt for the "beefy face and grubby 'and." No one on earth, in the circum- stances, could look more the captivating troubadour, more one with the song, the moment and the instru- ment, than just he. " Oh, all you hearts about the world In whom the truant gypsy blood Under the frost of this pale time Sleeps like the daring sap and flood, You whom the wander-spirit loves To lead by some forgotten clue Forever vanishing beyond Horizon brinks forever new " — Whatever came, good, bad or indifferent, lay it to Kipling. His " Mandalay " has set more pulses beat- ing than ours. Yet it troubled mine so much at last that I could bear it no longer, and packed my trunk The Mandalays 103 and went to Mandalay ; wherein I was a fool — to try to run down a dream. But that is another story. Wherever the Mandalays happened to live, when the lamps were lit and the stars came out, their souls burst the confines of New York and flew away to Cathay. As Richard Hovey put it, in those glad days when he was restless and alive: " I am fevered with the sunset, I am fretful with the bay, For the wanderlust is on me, And my soul is in Cathay, (And my soul's in Mandalay)." We dined, we supped, we saw Melba in " Lucia," Calve in " Carmen " and Emma Eames in " The Magic Flute " — those three wondrous singers with the cre- mona voice quality ; and one day John lugged the whole twelve of us to a Hygeia visit at Old Point Comfort, mercifully cut short by his sudden departure for the Arctic — since, as he said, another month of it would have sent him to the poorhouse. Years passed. Occasionally we met, but not pri- marily as Mandalays. Martha, the youngest and lit- tlest, married first, and ten years later her blithe spirit passed beyond; then came the marriage of my knight to John's lady, which gave us another gray hair, though subsequent divorce finally seemed to right the wrong; but before this Julie Opp married William Faversham, and we braced up and gave one more dinner — at the Hamilton Club, January 27, 1903. Many were the flowers, which Le Gallienne used to insist were a rank American extravagance, but which economical John 104 Within My Horizon believes have a distinct psychological effect on an as- sembled company; and in the midst of them was a small bronze Buddha of delicate workmanship, torn from its contemplation of the ages in Burmah by the valiant fist of Frederic Vermilye in his tour of the world, and presented gallantly to his host and hostess on the spot. Also there was the old-time guitar to string together the pearls of Kipling's song; there was the same modern troubadour to set the gems in har- monies of his own design; and there were the same dreaming souls to conjure visions out of the fragrant dusk and the haunted air; in short, there was again love and life and laughter. No wonder all seemed a shadow outside this influence which was the more potent that it could not be defined. Not only this, but Ella Wheeler Wilcox, an original Mandalay and jolly good fellow, traced for our edifi- cation the course of champagne as follows: first the Golden Mist; then, the Glorious Glow; last, the Mys- terious Maze. To which somebody responded that she had forgotten the sad ultimate phase — next morn- ing, the Gloomy Glums. As the evening waned, Mrs. Wilcox surprised us with these lines : ONE TO THE OTHERS On the road to Mandalay, Far the call and long the way, Years have used their cunning art Mandalays to keep apart ; Wanderers by sea and land, Every member of this band. Tropic skies and Arctic seas — Mandalays have gazed on these. The Mandalays 105 Time has sweetened all our lives, Maidens three have changed to wives, Lovers ten we number now, One to hymen yet must bow. Bridal spirit of the hour, Touch him with thy magic power; Hive him into homing ways — Troubadour of Mandalays ! After this I took out a letter from Kipling, with a sketch of himself in pen-and-ink, under which was written, " All spectacles and jowl." It was dated Capetown, South Africa, and it said his wanderings in that part of the world were like walking through the Book of Genesis. The closing lines were these : " What you tell me about Mandalay is surprising. It doesn't seem to be much of a poem to have any great in- fluence on any one but a soldier who has ' been there,' as the saying is; but I trust the influence was not altogether bad." Perhaps it is true, what he said to me of himself years before, that he had insight, but not sympathy or understanding. XV RICHARD HOVEY The summer of 1896 was a summer of music, emo- tional heat, gorgeous color and light airs; and right into the rich blaze of August, tempered by cooling drinks and Seidl-by-the-Sea, precisely at the perfect moment and entirely foot free, walked Richard Hovey — and into arms opened wide to receive him. For we had waited long ; at least being young, we thought it long; it seemed many months that we had been anxious to welcome the rising young poet amidst the informalities of home. Once from Boston we had received a telegram in place of himself as guest of honor at what became in spite of his defection a charm- ing dinner, but didn't the hostess rage and vow up and down that no more would Hovey be bid by her ! Then, one languid afternoon in June, he walked in unan- nounced, and stayed for hours, yet would break no bread with us. That was the last we had seen of him. He was stockily built, with broad shoulders, but of only medium height. His heavy dark hair inclined to length and curl ; his beautiful sombre eyes were ever fixed in dream or on one's own. Though given to reverie, to introspection, he enjoyed outdoor life, the life of the camp and the road, not a whit less than music and poetry. His was a broad and powerful 106 Richard Hovey 107 personality, yet not free from vanity, as when he ob- served to me : " At this time there are only three great poets in the world — Maeterlinck, Verhaeren and myself." He also said that instead of the " Rich- ard " I loved so well, he wished he had been named, like the men of France, Franqois-Marie or some such combination; but when I reminded him of it not so very long after, he exclaimed : " I must have been drunk ! " His self-laudatory remarks were uttered with the bland unconsciousness of a child; one couldn't, of course, dispute either the premises or the conclusions. Such things are embarrassing because they aren't done ; we leave it to the other fellow — and he knew it, too ! Hovey was a Psi U., which in itself endeared him to John, who met him at the Sixtieth Annual Conven- tion of the fraternity, at Dartmouth College, Han- over, his Alma Mater, where for the first time he read, in manuscript, perhaps the most telling of his achieve- ments — " Comrades." The original, a long invoca- tion in blank verse, begins : Again among the hills; The shaggy hills ! The clear arousing air comes like a call Of bugle notes across the pines, and thrills My heart as if a hero had just spoken — and towards the close the four beautiful stanzas, about all the general public knows of " Comrades," leap forth to startle you with their immortal stimulus and swing. He who loved life so, and was doomed to leave it early; he who would have thrilled to the terrible war 108 Within My Horizon as he did to all great and troubling things, still lives in these solemn lines : Comrades, pour the wine to-night, For the parting is with dawn, Oh, the clink of cups together, With the daylight coming on ! Greet the morn With a double horn, When strong men drink together ! Comrades, gird your swords to-night, For the battle is with dawn, Oh, the clash of shields together, With the triumph coming on ! Greet the foe And lay him low, When strong men fight together. Comrades, watch the tides to-night, For the sailing is with dawn, Oh, to face the spray together, With the tempest coming on ! Greet the Sea With a shout of glee When strong men roam together. Comrades, give a cheer to-night, For the dying is with dawn. Oh, to meet the stars together With the silence coming on ! Greet the end As a friend a friend, When strong men die together. While the manuscript was still quivering from the /author's fervent reading of it, it was placed in John's hands to be published for the first time anywhere in Richard Hovey 109 the Standard Union, after the proof had become the leading feature of a week-end passed with Ella Wheeler Wilcox at her home in Short Beach, where all were greatly affected by the organ-like rhythm, the fearless utterances, the majesty of its mountains and pines. During that glorious August when he was detained in town on some business, and we detained ourselves according to our wont, avoiding the resorts until emptied of their guests in September, Hovey came often for afternoon siestas at our home capped by summer dinners. Despite the prevailing opinion that he posed, I found him unaffected. One day he rushed in flushed and tired, saying that he had been working like a galley-slave. It was still some hours before dinner, and sorry for his discomfort, I asked him if he wouldn't like a bath. Indeed he would, and as happy as a boy he revelled in the cool water for the better part of an hour. Though I was a young matron then and he, with his heavy dark beard, looked rather mature, everybody shouted when I told later of this adventure. Yet what could be more harmless for me to propose and him to accept? His taste in food, too, was quite as simple and natural. When a steak a la Stanley was specially prepared for him as a surprise, I remember well how, like Peary, he calmly swept the snappy superstructure, horse-radish and fried bananas, overboard, saying he could not stand such hot stuff. Afterwards we went down to the adorable Seidl con- certs at Brighton Beach, whose enchanting pro- grammes, just popular enough, just profound enough, he enjoyed immensely. More than almost any other 110 Within My Horizon man do I associate Hovey with music. Yet it so hap- pened that I never took him to the opera, which I often wrote up, in desirable orchestra seats, at the exact balance of sound, for the Standard Union; though he appreciated Wagner not less than his friend Charles G. D. Roberts — a Nova Scotian who some- times listened with me to the great " Ring." In those ideal concerts at Brighton Beach, with the rhythm of the music meeting the rhythm of the waves, Seidl conducted all marvelous things, from the grandeur of the Teutonic Titans down to Mascagni's popular Intermezzo, whose urgent crescendo no other maestro living or dead has been able to bring forth with such fire and appeal. It was the stirring ballet music from " Le Cid " that caused Hovey to repeat " Pleurez mes Yeux " with far greater dramatic effect than did Lucienne de Breval — the tears were in his eyes not less than in his voice. His elocution was masterly and his French more fascinating than any native Frenchman's who came our way. Hovey loved France; he had lived there and its artistic spirit de- lighted him while its cold materialism did not disturb him — but for me, no matter what their faults, Amer- ica and the Americans, and never am I more sure of it than when in a foreign land. Our last music treat together, that August of crowded blessings, did not come off. It was again Seidl-by- the-Sea, on a lovely dark, rain-threatening day, and the programme embraced Raff's seldom given sym- phony, the melodious " Lenore." Though Richard was eager to come, an importunate telegram from home sent him flying to the train, so I went alone. Richard Hovey 111 Yet I was not alone — far from it ; for then and there I learned, in a vague way, the power of dream — my very real disappointment turned out a rich gain. " Lenore," with my friend absent yet seemingly by my side — never did those ghostly strains, that weird and tender love-story, the pomp and ceremony of the Mili- tary March which bore the hero to his doom, have such power to move me. On that dim day and in that softened mood it was all so unutterably beautiful that I seemed living on a star. Hovey came back to town the following winter, even occupied a Carnegie studio, and we saw him now and then, sometimes at his place, sometimes at our own, sometimes at French Charlie's, that bit of suburban Paris which had to die that the northern tip of Bronx Park might be born. French Charlie's was within a stone's throw of " Laguerre's," but we came too late to know that secret spot, except the shell of it, the weather-beaten little cottage, and the neighbors were not certain even of that. Perhaps again I tried to run down a dream ; Hopkinson Smith was clever, and as the poet says, " 't is so with dreams." Harrison Rhodes, in Harper's, August, 1918, has this appreciative word of one of the most engaging of all sketches, whether in book or on canvas : " Every writer with a taste for food and local color must have envied the early good chance of F. Hopkinson Smith, some twenty or twenty-five years ago, when in that delight- ful paper, ' A Day at Laguerre's,' he made a little restaurant by a little river famous. He knew his France and he knew New York, and his own affectionate, ebullient temperament 112 Within My Horizon made the two come close together, and the unknown little Bronx flowing peacefully down its green seem to his readers for a decade or so afterward like some small French river in that delectable land." For a long Sunday afternoon, I remember, John and I ran around trying to find French Charlie's, and nobody knew that place either, until finally my husband set his face sternly and at 7 p. m. said that he would dine at home; and as home was fully two hours away, all I could do was sigh and draw my belt a little tighter — but another, happier day we found it. It was di- rectly on the river bank at the sharp turn of the Bronx above which, on the main line of the New Haven rail- road, the heavy trains thundered past. Yet, in a thick little grove of its own, with the lazy country lane wind- ing by, we seemed nearer Saint Cloud than that noisy metropolis towards which all American eyes turn and upon which all transcontinental lines converge. In this ideal and sequestered spot was the perfect inn, and there dwelt French Charlie, a tall, heavy Alsatian, who dispensed welcome hospitality with a woman who was not his wife, though possessed of all excellence both as mate and cook; and when she suddenly died, not only did it sadden us to miss her kind manner and good food, but it broke up Charlie completely. To us it was the loss of a familiar face, and those simple yet admirable meals of French wine and salad, French omelet and fried potatoes, French bread, butter, cheese and coffee; but to Charlie it was utter demoralization — he never smiled again, his business went to pot, and the city stepped in. The French way looks odd to us, and seems wholly unnecessary when the strength of Richard Hovey 113 honest affection is like that, but I suppose those who knew were scandalized just the same. Fortunately we did not know, and never saw the difference, until just before Madame's death, when for a moment I was given a glimpse into her life and heart. Anton Seidl died as suddenly in 1898, and two years later, Richard Hovey himself. He looked so robust. and cared so much for life, dear Richard of the great heart, that little did I dream his coffin would ever pass me by. Once at a reception in his Carnegie studio, he came to me pale and tired, and I asked : " Why not just a congenial handful, with bread and cheese and beer ? " He looked at me with unseeing eyes for a moment, then with that return to earth, that dawning comprehension and tenderness so characteristic of him, answered : " A few, with bread and cheese, why that would be pleasure ! " The crowd closed in on him, and with a whimsical glance and sigh he girded his loins again and read one of his Arthurian dramas which he so much prized but which Tennyson did better and both purloined from Sir Thomas Malory. The glowing songs in " Vagabondia " and " Along the Trail," together with the sublime " Seaward," are all that truly survive to tell of General Charles P. Hovey's gifted son, — these inspiring lyrics, a few photographs of his speaking countenance, and in the hearts of those who knew him the undying memory of his vivid personality. XVI THE DIRGE " The tide is in the marshes. Far away In Nova Scotia's woods they follow me, Marshes of distant Massachusetts Bay, Dear marshes, where the dead once loved to be ! I see them lying yellow in the sun, And hear the mighty tremor of the sea Beyond the dunes where blue cloud-shadows run. "Alas he is not here, he will not sing; The air is empty of him evermore. Alone I watch the slow kelp-gatherers bring Their dories full of sea-moss to the shore. No gentle eyes look out to sea with mine, No gentle lips are uttering quaint lore, No hand is on my shoulder for a sign." Richard Hovey's " Seaward," one of the loveliest threnodies in existence, was the tribute by the poet to a fellow-poet ; but it might as well have been his own elegy — for, as I have said, before he had hardly begun to live, Hovey died. I am not sure that our friend ever saw Hook Creek and its salt marshes ; but he camped a whole summer at Rockaway Beach, to which the highway from Jamaica then, as the trolley now, goes direct, passing the Creek — and never are we there without thinking of him, everything is so as he would have had it. Hook Creek, not so unlike his description of Scitu- 114 The Dirge 115 ate, where dwelt the friend he mourned, is now a part of New York City, marking its extreme eastern bound- ary, though a dozen miles from Brooklyn Bridge. One inch beyond, the "city" ceases (and high taxes also) and it becomes rural Cedarhurst, but the keenest eye can detect no difference. In the many years we have gone there, to muse at a favorite inn and eat delicious clam fritters, the situation has changed almost none at all. It is still one of the loveliest, loneliest, homeliest of spots, yet within sight of the Woolworth Building — a veritable yet accessible retreat and solace for body and mind. " Far, far, so far, the crying of the surf ! Still, still, so still, the water on the grass ! Here on the knoll the crickets on the turf, And one lone squirrel barking, seek, alas ! To bring the summer back to me. In vain; my heart is on the salt morass Below, that stretches to the sunlit sea." Hook Creek comes in from Jamaica, describes a tre- mendous curve and turns back on its trail. A lakelike expanse that fishing-boats affect is both inlet and out- let to the onflowing stream, which encircles land enough to support a string of modern cottages, three small public houses, a few simple homes, two old bridges, a strip of road raised high out of harm's way to ac- commodate the trolley and what few land craft may pass — and beyond everywhere the lush green of the marshes. Just where the wandering " hook " rejoins its stem, forming a huge question-mark in water, is the beloved 116 Within My Horizon inn we have known so long, with its latch-string always out and its fare the best of its kind. At one time too there was Buster, a Chesterfieldian Maltese, but he is another story and a startling one, since he committed suicide from jealousy. Here, during certain days in August, the air is al- ways golden, the sun always sinks to rest like a great red ball, the breath of the sea is always soft and cool, the tide at the appointed time is coming in remorse- lessly. " I know that there the tide is coming in, Secret and slow, for in my heart I feel The silent swelling of a stress akin; And in my vision, lo ! blue glimpses steal Across the yellow marsh-grass, where the flood, Filling the empty channels, lifts the keel Of one lone cat-boat bedded in the mud." More motor-boats than cat-boats now, more cars than carriages ; yet the dream, the longing, is the same — as the magic drink transforms the ten punts into twenty, the prosaic steamer plying up stream into Cleo- patra's barge, and the firm tread of the young land- lord into the eager steps of the hero who comes no more. Oh, that wondrous youth which for two dimes could be evoked any time — that is, if your past had been without surfeit ! No noisy shore resort, swept by rough ocean winds, can compare to the mellow tone of these marshes, which is like the Hoffman Barcarolle. Then, the fritters are less the food of men than angels, so delicate they are, with the clams a flavor rather than a fact, — indeed The Dirge 117 the apotheosis of that often culinary nightmare. As I turn from the little feast, for we dine on the veran- dah, I notice that the dry marsh-grass below, as on the islands of Lake Champlain, is as fine as a woman's hair. "Mourn gently, tranquil marshes, mourn with me! Mourn, if acceptance so serene can mourn ! Grieve, marshes, though your noonday melody Of color thrill through sorrow like a horn." Even as I gaze the change comes. " Secret and slow " the tide is coming in ; and within no time at all, as dusk approaches, we are the centre of a vast lake — the hook, the creek, the island, are one ! Only the inn, the highway and the amateur bridge connect- ing them are safe from the flood. It is thrilling, this subtle transformation — brought about by the south wind, impelling still further the tide, always running like a millrace. Talk of the fury of fire or tornado — for power irresistible what is equal to water? It is as sure, as stealthy, as inevitable, as Death. " Stretch wide, O marshes, in your yellow joy ! Stretch ample, marshes, in serene delight ! Proclaiming faith past tempests to destroy, With silent confidence of conscious might." With all his joy in life, Hovey was deeply religious; not in the conventional sense, but in that profound un- derstanding which must have supported him when his hour came, far too suddenly and too soon, to drink the bitter cup — to cross that dark river which summarily 118 Within My Horizon separated him from the still greater work he hoped to do. Never did we seem more in the embrace of the ocean than one evening in the safe harbor of Hook Creek. An atmosphere prevailed that created all the illusion of a liner cutting through the fog — ■ only we were sta- tionary while the fog was moving; not only moving but caressing and alive. Oh, the intense masculinity of that saline air; the sharp kiss, the imperious clutch, the tender response of soft cheek and curling hair! The outside world was eliminated; we were in an ele- ment neither of land nor of sea ; it was if we were alone on this planet in all comfort and content — and oh, it was beautiful! Those who are forever on the go, who feel that day lost which brings them no new task, no differing sen- sation, no exciting outlook or piquant guest, do not know the meaning of such an hour; but I can give in- disputable evidence that beside its sweet intimacy and seclusion, the open day seems almost common, even the glory of the sunlight a bit loud and bold — and all the time I thought of the friend who is ever with us in the salt marshland, the friend who can be with us no more. "Alas, he is not here, he will not sing; The air is empty of him evermore. Alone I watch the slow kelp-gatherers bring Their dories full of sea-moss to the shore. No gentle eyes look out to sea with mine, No gentle lips are uttering quaint lore, No hand is on my shoulder for a sign." XVII A WORD ABOUT TRAVEL Soon after marriage, which desirable condition my husband explained to me should be one of perfect free- dom, the friend rather than the foe of individuality, I began to travel. Being more or less primitive, my own idea had been an exclusive diet of home and hold- ing hands, somewhat mitigated by excursions to the theatre — always together. These visions, hardly necessary to say, were rudely dispelled ; since John was not only the father of an almost grown son, and a man of affairs constantly increasing in importance, but as to the stage he was impatient as well as blase. " Pay to be amused ! " he used to exclaim, with a fine scorn. "Not on your life!" So I took my mother, never loath to go, until she too sickened of the theatre's ever- growing inanity, and we quit, after spending, as John said, enough money to found a hospital. From the point of view of mere pleasure, there was no reason on earth why I should at this time have be- gun to wander far afield, since everything of material comfort and physical beauty was contained within my own America — almost my own Brooklyn. I know this borough always has mercilessly been ridiculed by Manhattan, its highest praise from those supercilious lips being " a good place to sleep in," yet it possessed in full measure the one thing New York proper so 119 120 Within My Horizon conspicuously lacks — the spirit of home. In fact Manhattan does not belong to itself at all; it is the haunt and joy of strangers; while Brooklyn for many, many years had a distinct life of its own — the life of those who value families above visitors, residences more than apartments. I well remember my first bid to a dinner at the Hamilton Club, when that place was a thing of atmosphere and distinction, on a warm June day. As I walked along West 38th Street, all in white from pumps to plumes, the gamins cried out : " Oh, don't I feel proud ! " yet when I crossed the Bridge, into the charming region of the Heights, others too sauntered by in white and nobody stared or spoke. Covering a large, roomy, moderately priced area, this huge yet hidden metropolis borders perilously on the ugly or commonplace were it not for its many parks and neighborhood communities, refreshing oases in the vast desert of utility, and its proximity to the sea. First Place and Second Place, near Hamilton Ferry, with their massive white and brownstone facades, twenty years ago were exclusive sections, possessed of maples and elms that any city in the world might envy. Now these great trees, like our own block or two in Carlton, are dead or dying, perhaps killed by the as- phalt pavements, while Italians have crowded into the choice mansions of that earlier South Brooklyn settle- ment, and lodging-houses nourish everywhere. Only the Heights, despite changes through business, removal to Manhattan or death, fights bravely on for the re- tention of something like its old character and elegance. Again Harrison Rhodes, in that same article, " Loiter- ings on Long Island," writes : A Word About Travel 121 Much, however, lies between Manhattan and its play- grounds — a great unknown city. Brooklyn is not just the suburb that delays you on your motor way to Coney Island; it is the Long Island metropolis, a town of some individuality and pride. It possesses the Heights, an elevated plateau fac- ing nobly upon the great harbor, what should be, if logic ever swayed anyone in his choice of an address, the most desir- able of residential metropolitan districts. The view from the back windows of Columbia Heights down the bay and across to the fantastic towering cliffs of lower Manhattan is really one of the most amazing and beautiful in the world. And the quiet, almost prim elegance of the fashionable Brooklyn streets which lie back from the water view gives you the impression of a reticent unostentatious exclusiveness — after all, how far a cry is it really to the Faubourg Saint- Germain? Brooklyn, which is as little New York as New York is Brooklyn, awaits its chronicler and historian. Few women travel after marriage, and few young women travel at all. Yet I was both married and young when I began to see the world, and not one mile of these wanderings do I regret, either the expense or the fatigue of them — rather do I consider them among the best investments I ever made. Still from the point of view of pleasure, they were not at the time a screaming success; nor do I believe they are with any sane human being. I recall a charming Eng- lish couple, noticeably unaffected, well-educated and well-bred, returning from a winter in Burmah for the husband's health. It was in a crowded first-class com- partment running through Italy. The husband asked if we were traveling for pleasure. I looked at mother and mother at them and they at each other. Then in little spurts came first smiles, next gurgles and at last a veritable gale of laughter that shook the car. 122 Within My Horizon Italy was almost the grand tour to a Frenchman once upon a time, and Taine in his honesty wrote this from Rome : " I am glad I came, because I am learn- ing many things here, but for true pleasure, unqualified poetic enjoyment, I found it more readily when I sat with you, at eleven o'clock in the evening, turning over the contents of your old portfolios." That is what an American army officer, on my first voyage across, trying to discourage me from proceed- ing farther than Paris, his own home at the time, called " seeing Italy without the smells." People seemed to think it queer that I travelled so much. Some politely inquired if I had trouble with my husband — dear John, who patted me on the back for so doing. Until years after, and then only for brief business trips, he couldn't go with me, as we both hoped he would sometime ; the continual and exacting duties and demands of a daily paper prevented it; but he approved heartily of my contributions to the Standard Union, travel letters then being much in vogue with family newspapers, and about the only kind of writing, except book reviews and music criticisms, I could do well. If all my stuff during those twenty active years were in the form of volumes, I believe they would occupy a long library shelf; I am sure they would amount to more than a million words ; and that they were words rather than literature does not detract from the actual physical labor of them. Why, Le Gallienne, that mas- ter of sketches and style, used to say that while I needed editing, I had a very real literary gift, particu- larly in the epistolary line; and that I could and did A Word About Travel 123 make use of it under the conditions of rapid travel was to him astounding — for he never was able to do one thing when on the move. To this John replied that he thought my industry and persistence were com- mendable, since as yet the subscribers had not been paid to read the things ! Few are the beauty-spots of the globe that have not known the impress of my low-heeled shoe. Yet in only one or two ways was I differently situated from thousands of other women who don't do what they please. One was in having an independent income, not so large, but large enough to gratify legitimate de- sires at my growing time, and in these latter days to help some young struggler to do the same. Another was that I had no children; my husband cared for a thousand things more than for progeny — and life gradually resolves itself into a succession of choices. At that moment I craved nothing on earth so much as to see the world, to meet its most interesting people, to be married and still in a sense be free. Nor do I in the least regret these decisions; or find life growing the less interesting that I am growing old — indeed, quite the contrary. It has been almost the life that Frances Hodgson Burnett declared her ideal: the life of a happy young widow; and yet my husband and I had a deep and abiding affection for each other — probably far stronger and more sincere than if we were always talking about our intimate feelings and demonstrating them to an embarrassed audience. In the days of girlhood, as a relief from the rather severe courses of reading peculiar to a cultivated New England town, I was given Charlotte Bronte's " Jane 124 Within My Horizon Eyre," Augusta Evans' " St. Elmo " and Elizabeth Marlitt's " Gold Elsie," that romantic German story which for a time I loved madly. Of varying charm, quality and nationality, one feature runs through them all : a hero of cold and dignified exterior who within is a seething volcano. He haunted me, he became my prince, and as early as thirteen I began to plan for him; which caused mother to hurl this at my devoted head : " You will slip up on your tropical iceberg — you will find him cold not only outside but clear through." I remember well how this dread prophecy disturbed me. Nevertheless, it was not fulfilled ; John, so serious, reserved and dominant, realized my ideal fairly well — with the volcano toned down to a com- forting hearth fire. But to leave personalities and return to travel. I suppose I have journeyed by land and water something near 200,000 miles. I have been on every continent except Australasia twice and sometimes thrice. In this short life I don't believe in going over ground a second time, but sometimes you cannot avoid it. Naples is one of those pivotal points. I have been there six times, but only once with longing and rapture — the first. So believe me when I tell you, as a blunt man told me, that travel, like marriage, is not all it's cracked up to be. Life on the ocean wave, at twenty dollars per day, with its monotony, its scarcely appetizing fare, its eternal threat of seasickness, is something at which on land you would sneer. The very best that can be ob- tained is far from the comforts of home, be the com- forts never so limited and the home never so humble. A Word About Travel 125 In short, the pleasures lie largely in prospect and retrospect. The actual doing is a cross between en- forced idleness and hard labor. One half of it is simply waiting; waiting for trains, for boats, for con- veyances, for rooms, for servants ; sitting on the edges of things until you can be accommodated — while a good bit more is adjusting yourself to unfamiliar speech, customs, methods. Fortunately, the small residue makes up for all the rest, and becomes one of the greatest of your assets, which can never go wrong or be taken from you and grows in grace through kindly memory to life's end. XVIII THE LAND OF THE SKY Outside New York and Washington there are at least four impressive cities in North America, the out- posts of its civilization at the four points of the com- pass, which every good citizen ought to see: Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans and Quebec. Boston and San Francisco I saw young enough to thrill to the ride of Paul Revere and to lament that the Golden Gate was not really of gold. However, my mind was diverted by a summons to spend a week with friends on an estate at Point Reyes, once a Spanish-owned, then a New England-run, dairy-farm reaching down to the cliffs by the sea, where everybody was young and the butter the best in the land. The pungent odor of those moist, grandly wooded pastures close to the Pacific Ocean, where sunshine and shadow, as in Italy and Japan, so sharply contrast, while the tran- scendent vegetation differs from the tropics more in keenness than luxuriance, can never be forgotten; and to have it to the accompaniment of Chinese servants, a host under thirty and his sister scarcely twenty, who wore a fascinating red silk kerchief as a breakfast cap over her sparkling black eyes, yet who could use the broom as well as anyone, though admitting there was small satisfaction in sweeping bare floors — this 126 The Land of the Sky 127 seemed to me at that time the most piquant experience of my life. Quebec I did not attain until years after, and it is not ours anyhow, but its foreign appearance and pic- turesque individuality are well worth looking up, for it is an easy glimpse overseas, to say nothing of the wonderful Saguenay near by. Yet more than that, more than its triumphant Chateau Frontenac, more even than its high, fort-like location, far above the noble river St. Lawrence, did a simple stone monument impress me, on which were graved these few telling lines : Here Died WOLFE VICTORIOUS September 13th 1759 The last city, New Orleans, is not yet achieved, though I am told by my friend " La Belle Helene," otherwise Mrs. Christian Schertz, one of its first citi- zens, despite youth and a distinguished Yankee ances- tor, and always its ardent custodian and servitor, that I must sally forth before the old French quarter and various interesting Spanish things are no more. One of these is the Spanish Custom House, Mrs. Schertz's own home since her marriage, which can be seen in the film " The Light," of Theda Bara fame. Jack- son's headquarters, too, she is working night and day to secure for the generations to come. Helen of New Orleans is a patriot who acts rather than talks. Mother used to say of our first trip to Europe, the always wondrous " first " of anything, that we had 128 Within My Horizon taken a huge skimmer, in our carefully laid plans, and gathered up all the cream. So I have sometimes felt about our only visit to the South, which extended but a little below the Mason and Dixon line yet embraced nearly all the enchanting Southern mountains. It was a run through the seven wonders of the South, so to speak. The grandeur of the Pass over the Blue Ridge, twenty miles east of Biltmore, was a surprise, the loops and whirls in the steep gradient recalling the St. Goth- ard of Switzerland in a softened mood, the mood of rich forests as against sharp rocks, and forestalling similar engineering feats amidst the tropic splendors of India and Brazil. The second wonder was the French Broad River, with its blessed sing-song over the pebbly shallows, as provocative of dreams as Lake Champlain's singing sands, all the way from Kenil- worth Inn at Biltmore to that cup in the hills called Hot Springs, where the Mountain Park Hotel opened wide its hospitable doors. After an ideal siesta, re- luctantly we departed for Cumberland Gap, three States meeting there to no purpose after the lavish ex- penditure of English millions on a great, magnificent, abandoned stone hotel. That day we were eleven hours covering a distance of less than a hundred miles, but finally arrived at the Four Seasons in its bril- liant evening dress. Driving up to the grand entrance by a winding way, we faced a colonnade blazing with electric lights, and mounting the spacious stone steps entered a lofty hall where a full orchestra triumphantly announced our arrival! It was the strangest scene I ever had formed part of : a superb establishment in full working trim, a line of lackeys eagerly awaiting orders, The Land of the Sky 129 a host who had come from the Grand Union at Sara- toga to do the honors, and all for two weary, travel- stained women who longed only for bed, and some fifteen other guests in a place built to accommodate five hundred. Nothing could seem more melancholy than this splendid pile in the midst of bare fields and on the eve of collapse. There was no reason on earth why a hotel should be built there at all — a retreat without beauty and reached only by the roughest of railroads ; but the promoters would have it so, in a time of wild land speculation, when the whole Shenandoah Valley from Hagerstown to Roanoke, with scarcely a habitation for 240 miles and the country often six inches under water, was pictured to the " easy " as almost one solid metropolis — a chain of dream cities that never saw the light. The triangle enclosing the towns of Paris, Lexing- ton and Winchester is the heart of the Blue Grass region of Kentucky. In the spring and early summer, with the feathery tops in bloom, this blue-green grass must be a pleasant sight. It is not, however, peculiar to Kentucky, being found as far east as Virginia and in Ohio, but Kentucky seems to monopolize the fame of it. On that dull autumn day there was no beauty to it; not more than to the tall, rawboned women I met, when looking for the pink of femininity — yet here as everywhere in the South the people were kind. It was a warm-hearted ticket-agent at Lexington, tak- ing pity on our homeless condition, dropped from the train there at an awkward moment, when the October races precluded shelter, who suggested the quiet little inn at Winchester — twenty miles away. Here I 130 Within My Horizon found the famous beaten biscuit, a hard pastry rather than biscuit either in the New England or Old England sense of the word. The Winchester landlord was so pleased at our interest in everything, his quaint furni- ture not less than the restful atmosphere and revivify- ing food, that we were sorry to leave. May that Southern chivalry never die ! Cross-country fare one ought not to mind anyhow, but at such a place as White Sulphur Springs, even out of season, the amenities should exist. Beauty was everywhere: the New River in its autumnal robes proved as brilliant as anything of its kind in the North, where the magic of light frosts transforms into scarlet wonders the sugar-maple trees : and while we did not care for the caverns at Luray, which were to close our excursion, nor could we stand the wretched tavern that housed us there, we lost our hearts completely to Virginia's Natural Bridge in the days just before. The journey was one long chain of pictorial gems, the mountains in their soft shadows and imperial blue were a full feast for the eyes, but seldom was there a feast for the body — and when I say feast I mean simply palatable food. Afterwards I met a man who had solved the problem in boiled eggs and baked pota- toes, because as he said nobody could get into them! but with us everything seemed to be improperly fried. " They don't feed you as well at Asheville as in some places," one colored waiter said, " but oh, de view is the beautifulest you ever saw. It is dis way," earnestly arranging the table ; " dese flowers is de Bat- tery Park Hotel, perched above de town, an' de big mountings is all around here outside de table, an' dat The Land of the Shy 131 sugar-bowl is Beaumont Ridge, and dese knives and forks an' salt-cellars is de ribber and Five-Mile Sul- phur an' all de oder tings." He handed me my yam with a sigh. " I used to walk up dat hill fifty times a day to get dat view. It was all so pretty, wid de doplin' hills around, dat you could live widout eatin'." That is precisely what happened to me, towards the end of our outing, in West Virginia — I lived " wid- out eatin'." Yet never did I enter a place with more sentiment than that great hotel. Celebrated in song and story, resorted to by the elect of the Southern world, a stage on which for generations noted beaux and belles had played their interesting parts, White Sulphur Springs had stirred my Northern imagination to more than Northern warmth. It had been my pride on occasion to be taken for a woman of the South; how I rejoiced in the dark of hair and eyes and the red of lips that made the mistake possible — how pleased I was to be told that my voice surely was from Baltimore! This spot was the heart of the rose: this room, perhaps this very bed, had held the fairest flower of Southern womanhood. The smothered fire of dark eyes seemed to glow in the gloom, sweet perfumes to float on the air ; I could picture the pageant passing be- fore me — until I began examining my surroundings. Then, even before next day's meals, goodbye, illusions, goodbye, forever! Nature had done everything for that country, man almost nothing. The scenery was superb, the air an elixir, but the days were hard indeed, until we reached the Natural Bridge, run by a Boston syndicate — when as by a magic wand all was changed. Though it was 132 Within My Horizon years ago, the mellow beauty of that delectable spot, the solid, everyday comfort of that modest hotel, is still a refreshing memory. On our arrival in the eve- ning, how we loved those long doorlike windows which opened upon the verandah and made us and our rooms one with the sweet southern night! Fatigue, head- ache, the blues, departed as precipitately as thirsty men who can find no drink; and the next morning, what heavenly solace in the homelike breakfast-room, where, within the great fireplace, directly in front of which they kindly placed us, our plates were warming before the blazing logs, while the aroma of good coffee filled the air like a benediction ! All this hitherto unpurchasable joy was within a stone's throw of the Bridge, once owned by Thomas Jefferson, who pronounced it " a famous place that will draw the attention of the world," and which Henry Clay spoke of as " the bridge not made by hands," and Marshall as " God's greatest miracle in stone." George Washington, while a surveyor in 1759 for Lord Fairfax, mentioned it and cut his name on the stone, where I found it. The marks are already half ob- literated but the eloquent walls still stand. The wonder of the place should be felt more widely than it is. One unappreciative observer declared the thing was not worth looking at, while another, im- pressed only by size, calculated that the walls of the Yosemite were twenty times higher — when the Yo- semite is not a bridge but a valley. The Natural Bridge is one hundred and fifty feet high, tremendous for any kind of a suspension, but marvelous in a work of nature on the earth's floor ; and in the soft sunlight The Land of the Sky 133 of that early morning, which changed dew into jewels throughout the fairy glen, the great gray arch spanning a mountain stream seemed sublime. For from it spoke the voice of eternity — the wisdom of the ages. XIX PEAKS OF TRAVEL All travel is desirable, whether pleasant or ugly, be- cause all is knowledge ; yet there are salient points in each land, like snowcaps among mountains, standing out alone, silvery, half divine, which haunt me after many years, when much of greater worldly import has faded, and which I hope may a little stir you : Nikko, Japan Mountain-girt Nikko is memorable to me as one of the few spots that surpassed my expectations — always too extravagant. It is not the mountains, though they are superb ; neither is it the unique temples and tombs : it is the strange commingling of rare and wonderful things. Miss Scidmore expresses it perfectly when she writes : " With its forest shades, its vast groves and lofty avenues ; its hush, its calm, religious air, Nikko is an ideal and dreamlike place, where rulers and prelates may long be buried, and where priests, poets, scholars, artists and pilgrims love to abide." From my room at the hotel on the Sunday morning after arrival, I heard 'the deep tones of the great bell which, struck by a priest, informs Nikko of the pass- ing hours. Our orthodox old widow would not hear of the Sabbath desecrated by anything savoring of 134 Peaks of Travel 135 sight-seeing, yet what better way to pass the Lord's Day than by wandering in wondrous temple grounds freighted with the reverence of millions since the be- ginning of civilized time? No one could behold those sacred groves on any day or hour without longing to emulate the honored beings sleeping there — which is about all there is to any religion, Christian or Pagan, don't you think? Moss-covered stone steps endlessly mounting through the thick shade of cedars as tall as church spires, own cousins to the noble sequoias of California, led to the tomb of Ieyasu, who three or four centuries ago lived so wisely and so well that his mausoleum has been a Mecca for true believers ever since. At the base of those steps a Buddhist service was going on in a small wooden temple, elaborately carved outside but severely simple within, where on the floor, in true Oriental fashion, were seated the various priests, a high priest leading and standing, and all chanting rapturously in a deep monotone. The incense, the lighted candles, the continual murmur to the accom- paniment of the low note of a horn, not unlike the in- sistent bass pedal of a great church _ organ, suggested the Roman Catholic mass, to which the creed of Buddhism is not a little akin. In an open pavilion adjoining the temple, a woman was giving the religious Kagura dance. She had a face in skin texture like a Creole's, so smooth, creamy and sun-touched, with eyes that spoke of an unknown world. To slow rhythm she began a new phase, a fan in one hand, a wand of bells in the other, touching each now and then to her forehead, where the fingers 136 Within My Horizon often met; then bent, turned, crouched, with a dignity in keeping with the solemn ceremony, yet dreamy, sen- suous and remote — a whole world of allurement in her veiled eyes. It was the first woman's face I had seen in Japan that hinted of anything beyond the con- crete. I wondered what she did in her off moments; if she ever mingled with her kind; if she knew what it was to love and be loved ; and after her dances to eat, laugh and sleep. Hardly, with those eyes; yet, as a friend, a keen woman no longer living, used to say, when we discussed impassioned creatures, I dwelling insistently on the power of eyes : " It's not eyes that do it but nerves." The Buddha at Kamakuea Under God's own skies, defying wind and weather, in a little park of its own, fifty feet high and ninety-six in circumference, resting on a pedestal six feet from the ground, the great bronze Buddha of Kamakura is the most impressive thing of its kind in the world. " It is Buddha in Nirvana," said Raphael Pumpelly, one of its first foreign visitors, " — the successful ren- dering of a profound religious abstraction. It is the essence of the promise given by Sakyamuni to his fol- lowers, a promise which has been, during more than twenty centuries, the guiding hope of countless mil- lions of souls." From a little distance along the winding path, as the image reposes among the trees against the vivid green of the small hill, it is inspiring in truth and in suggestion ; but a nearer approach coarsens the features — is this an illusion or is it a sign ? Peaks of Travel 137 Sunrise at Darjeeling, India Everybody was awake at an early hour to be borne in chairs on the backs of men to Tiger Hill, with its fleeting glimpse of Everest, the highest peak in the world; but I was loath to see anything collectively when my own verandah offered almost as much — really more from the panoramic point of view, since at Darjeeling's best hotel, the Woodlands, you look both up and down. Sunrise in the mountains is al- ways an event, peak after peak lighting up as if touched by a gigantic torch, until the foothills and the valleys respond, and all stands revealed — when the poetry and the wonder vanish, and it becomes merely a view. This you know; but when those white summits are the Himalayas, monarchs of the globe, it seems a spe- cial privilege ; and seen as I saw it, quite alone, only a dark servant or two noiselessly creeping by, wonder- ing at the still, lonely figure, count that day blessed ! It was at Darjeeling that I met George K. Vander- bilt and William Bradhurst Osgood Field, the former in flannel shirts at all meals. Mr. Field was handsome, in a fine, manly, American way, very observant and interesting, and inclined to compare railroads and things in India to America's advantage. But more than his opinions did I care for his sunny manner and magnetic eye — surely there are no men like our men. The Taj Mahal The masterful Himalayas were followed by a quiet, restful, exquisite time at Agra. For years I had longed for the Taj — longed for it not only as a thing 138 Within My Horizon of supreme artistic loveliness, but because it was the memorial of a great man to a tender woman, and that woman his own wife; and strange to say, in a land of lax morals and abundant females, the one woman on earth to him. The strangest of all is that Mumtez-i- Mahal was no longer a young woman, as Indian women go, when she died and rent the heart of Shah Jehan ; she was no bride, with the glamour of early marriage about her and her destiny unfulfilled ; on the contrary, she had borne her lord seven children and died in giving birth to the eighth. Yet so unceasingly did he mourn his loss that he not only spent seventeen years and endless rupees in erecting this white wonder to her memory, but passed his own dying hours in a room of his palace across the river where he could continually rest his eyes on the shrine that held her loved remains. It was perhaps as well that the economy of his son prevented the completion of Jehan's own tomb, the black mate to his lady's white on the opposite side of the Jumna; for thereby he now lies beside her, a bit to the right of her grand central monument, marring the symmetry slightly, but ministering to that very human instinct to be near the beloved even in death. Here, in the mellow light of the hot Indian sun, tem- pered by the fretted stone through which it strikes the royal pair, sheltered by a high screen of wrought mar- ble and beneath the glories of carved and jeweled walls, rest these two who loved each other well. Outside, in a lofty niche, the bees make honey from the flowers in the garden, honey which in due time is eaten by men, and which should be the very sweetest on earth spring- Peaks of Travel 139 ing from such a soil — the blooms from an immortal passion. Yes, I had dreamed of the Taj, and now I was to see it, not by the pitiless light of day, but by that of the moon in its last quarter. In the dimness, through the small door of the great sandstone entrance, we were admitted reverently. Slowly, step by step, all alone, Abdul far ahead, I approached, pausing by the way, to take in the more surely those incomparable out- lines, crowned by that marvelous dome, pure white against the splendid Indian night. Over the garden hung a profound silence; not a sound could be heard save my own footfalls and the occasional flop of a fish in the long, • cypress-bordered pools — there was no light beyond that of the waning moon and the oil lamp which burns all night within the tomb beside the sleep- ing guard. As I stopped, breathless, before that symbol of all beauty, all mystery, heaven in love, Love in Heaven, there came a change. The crows began to caw, the birds to nestle and call, the pale moon to grow paler still, and at last a radiance out of the east — it was the dawn ! Little by little that adorable bubble of beauty came out of its delicate veil, revealed bit by bit the great arches, carved screens and precious stones, until all was suffused with the color of rose, the first blush of the young day. I saw it then as Sir Edwin Arnold saw it: Matchless, perfect in form, a miracle Of grace, and tenderness, and symmetry, Pearl pure against the sapphire of the sky. 140 Within My Horizon White as the cheek of Mumtez-i-Mahal When Shah Jehan let fall a king's tear there. White as the breast her new babe vainly pressed That ill day in the camp at Burhampur. Not architecture ! as all others are, But the proud passion of an Emperor's love Wrought into living stone which gleams and soars. Praising the name of Allah, and her name, And when she lived and died — -of all that time The glory, and the cynosure, and pearl. Cairo While Cairo is a water-color as compared to the gor- geous oil-paintings of India, Ceylon, Java, Rio, Bur- mah, it well stands repetition. One always is willing to go there again. Yet I think it is three times and out with me, for I have lost my dragoman and my hotel. Achmed no longer is in the business, and the Hotel du Nil, the most fascinating in the world to me, just off the Mouski in the native quarter, has been pulled down. Never, never shall I forget my first visit to an inn and a land as beautiful as a dream and as old as the world — at least the land is as old as 'that and both were as beautiful as a dream. Now the hotel, perforce, is but a dream. Why should a thing of perfect beauty inspire people with a passion, a veritable passion, to destroy? I have to fight the neighbors for my trees, in a city ugly with the lack of them, and now I mourn my one beloved hotel. The days in that enchanting spot seemed totally different from any travel days I had ever known. It was drifting, floating, through Peaks of Travel 141 the golden hours : waking to the songs of strange birds ; to the perfume of strange flowers; to unique coffee, bread and sweets; to dark servants in picturesque at- tire, for whom you clapped your hands, and who obeyed your orders silently. It was like no hotel on earth, more a palace than a public house, with its court and its antiquities, its mummy-cases, banyan- trees, kiosks, its garden of sub-tropical flowers and foliage. Then the novel sights in the streets, with their babel of peculiar cries. If your fancy was to drive to the pyramids in the early morning, you would meet the refreshing spectacle of a string of camels laden with dew-sprinkled alfalfa; at noon you could rest on your own terrace or in the dimly lighted bazaars; and the day might be wound up by a visit to the citadel, and that mosque close by like unto a poem, where stone becomes alabaster and the floor an exhibition of price- less rugs — and all in the name of Mohamet Ali. Then a yellow sunset, with pink flushes, and the priests in the minarets calling to the faithful, with a cadence that is a prayer. Last, the long bamboo chair on the stone terrace at home, munching Turkish Delight, and looking up, up, into a blaze of stars such as you never had conceived — a heaven that you will not forget as long as you live, not only because it is divine, but be- cause it has looked down on Cleopatra as well as you and has known the glory of Egypt in her prime. This on my first visit, but the next, while nothing was changed, everything was changed. I recognized my old room, though years had passed; I still found water in the ancient jar; the wooden grill as of yore 142 Within My Horizon tempered the light of my windows ; the broad stone terrace on a level with my floor, reached by broad stone steps from the garden, was as fascinating for prome- nades and siestas as before; and the same red-fezzed, white-robed Arab served the same thimbleful of thick coffee when I called for it. It was the same and yet not the same — ■ until I met Achmed, my old dragoman, who had made himself so necessary to me by his quick anticipation of my every mood. If I cared to be energetic, he helped me to activity; if I preferred to lag and rest and dream, nobody could play that role better than he ■ — indeed it takes an Oriental to respond intelligently to your desire to let the hours drift by like clouds upon the sky. So you can imagine my delight when in a boggle over fine perfumes, my makeshift guide proving wholly in- efficient, I looked up suddenly into the sympathetic eyes of Achmed — Achmed, who, I had been told, was up the Nile! At once we made for the old bazaars ; he took me to the same shop where I had bought before, kept by him of the refined features, courteous manners and mid- night eyes, who sells essences because he loves them and gives none but the best — Mahmoud El-Mawardi ; and wasn't I glad to see him, and didn't we have a lovely time, waiting for the long, slender bottles to be shaken, filled and waxed, talking and laughing like happy children! The homesickness, the harsh March wind, the uncongenial " party " were forgotten — for I had found a friend, two of them, and the warmth of home was almost at hand. Cairo in its sudden caprice of climate no longer played me a mean trick, and oh, Peaks of Travel 143 the joy of getting away from the Widow, the Doctor and the Financier ! The merchant sat cross-legged on the floor of his little shop surrounded by shelf after shelf of the sweet- est wares, (among which was that congealed attar of rose, looking something like camphor, melting with the warmth of the hand, a small bit costing an English pound), while we crouched on the steps at his feet. When he held the bottles high between his eyes and the light, that he might persuade the amber, attar, violet or sandal-wood through the needle-like aperture without waste, his silk sleeve fell back and displayed the shapely hand of the well-to-do Egyptian, with its handsome, henna-stained nails. At the end cigarettes were prof- fered from an ample supply, and the dark Eastern coffee in doll's cups, with the favorite gum of amber, and we sipped and smoked with joy. It was like the good old times, when the skies were blue, the air full of balm, nobody in a hurry and life well worth living. Achmed remembered everything; what I paid years before for my various souvenirs ; the night we went by moonlight to the pyramids ; my ride on a camel out into the desert; our evening with the whirling and dancing dervishes; the number of my room at the hotel. In- deed I might have been there yet had not luncheon called; and could it have been my imagination that when we came out the skies seemed bluer and the air more genial? The third and last trip to Egypt included Memphis, with a thrilling race on a donkey for the train ; Luxor and Assouan, also Philae, to say nothing of a bit of John — but that, too, is another story. 144 Within My Horizon Granada Calve's dance around Don Jose in " Carmen," where she used her arms and fingers so eloquently, was once explained to me as the result of a physical disability preventing much movement below the waist; but the little gypsy across the River Darro from the Alhambra danced precisely the same — a young nomad running along the road with a yellow shawl flung over her, a bit of feathery dried grass in her hand, and a flower in her hair. She danced right there in the highway, to the music of women and children singing and clapping hands, her eyes suffused with languor, her arms and fingers describing graceful curves, her yellow slippers, oblivious of refuse, twinkling in the dirt. She danced exceedingly well, quite yielding herself to the abandon of her own performance, at times joining in the accom- panying refrain ; but the minute the figure was finished, the languor in her eyes changed to pure greed, the hand was extended for the peseta before it could pos- sibly be offered, and the siren became the huckster. Spain is a land of violent contrasts; there exists no wholesome mean between the nobility, spending its rentes at Madrid or abroad, and the poor who are near brothers to the beggars — so heartily is work in this proud kingdom by all despised. Do you realize that Great Britain's vain boast, " The Empire on which the sun never sets," was cribbed from ancient Hispania? England should beware! Who is now so poor as to do Spain reverence? Yet always in the report to the King every evening are these few ominous words: Peaks of Travel 145 " Gibraltar still remains in temporary possession of England." Modern Spain has dignity but little originality. Her architecture, her dance even, is a heritage from the Moor; the operas most typical of her life and tem- perament are by two Frenchmen, — but she is herself in the fan, the mantilla and her definement of a fas- cinating woman as " salty." Old Spain had a great sovereign, a wonderful woman, in Isabella, who pre- sented her husband with an heir one week and rode to battle the next; who was undaunted by obstacles and never, never, gave up anything on which she had set her heart. In the Royal Chapel at Granada I saw her jewel-box and her crown, both poor beside such things of to-day, silver-gilt and without one gem, if I remem- ber aright, but authentic and capable of giving me a thrill. Think of what they mean to us! Without them we might never have been. Our debt to Spain is greater far than our debt to France, for France when she helped us was moved by selfishness, by the desire to stick a knife into England's back, while the noble Isabella responded to a vision. National Dances By the time I reached Spain, I had seen the dances of practically every country in the world. So I speak not without knowledge when I say that there are none more beautiful than those which come to our very doors. When music combines with drama, as in opera, or with pantomime, as in the dance, -the soul is on wings. It was to the swooning beauty of Leda's 146 Within My Horizon Swan, and the intoxicating swing of Glazounow's Bacchanale, that Pavlowa arrived, with the equally wonderful Mordkin. As a duo, in their languor, their line and color, their peculiar regard for each other, their spontaneous give and take, their thrilling orgies and poetic drift into the world of the fay — these two have never been surpassed. Together they were per- fect, an event in history; but alone, thereafter, each went lame ; and great was the public lament when, for some unfortunate reason, they separated. Mordkin was the apotheosis of the lover, Pavlowa the answer to his every call ; it was endless delight to watch each draw out the best in the other — a beautiful game of seek and find which may never come in such perfection again. Nijinsky was different. In the first place when he arrived in America he had recently married. He looked married ; he was heavier — no longer the thing of lightness over which Europe raved. His technique was still superb, but his body refused readily to re- spond. He seemed to care only for characterization, while the very heart of the dance, granting high skill, is emotion. He was sensuous, suggestive and haunt- ing in " L'Apres-midi d'un Faun," but only in " La Princesse Enchantee " did he spring into the captivat- ing rhythm of romance and love. Nijinsky surrenders himself beautifully to the beat of his measures and is unrivalled in his whirls, but he has little magnetism — Mordkin's special charm. For all the world, as you know, loves a lover. Peaks of Travel 147 In the Black Forest The prettiest thing Triberg did for us was to get up a thunderstorm ; and from our rooms at the Schwarz- wald, commanding prospects north, east, west and down the valley, it was like a front seat in the balcony at the play. Showers come up suddenly in this moun- tain retreat ; and cease, as in our own Adirondacks, as abruptly as a Spanish dance. Apparently, they do little damage, with all their black looks, and in this high yet sheltered situation one may watch them with- out fear. Yet the zigzags were vivid, the reverbera- tions immediate and startling, making at least for ex- citement. At four in the afternoon it was nearly as dark as at midnight, with the rifts in the hills full of smoking fog, and the clouds ugly and lowering. If the midst of the downpour, " raining up," as mother used to say, came the clang of church bells ; then the chimes played a tune above a solemn undertone whose one persistent note smacked of the Orient. At the moment, it seemed like a cry to God for protec- tion; and knowing the serious Teutonic jiature, espe- cially in the forest rgglonsf^where the religion of Christ has a strong hold, such may have been the truth. It remains with me, that strange outburst of melody, together with the lightning, the thunder, the porten- tous dark, the torrents and 'the scent of wet fir, as peculiarly an expression of the soul of things, beauti- ful, isolated, wild, in the depths of Nature's own realm. I never listen to " Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht." by the Nebe Quartet, that its rich and beautiful harmonies do not seem a reflection of our sweet Sunday at Triberg. XX JAVA " I'd seen the Tropics first that run — new fruit, new smell, new air — How could I tell — blind f oo' wi' sun — the de'il was lurking there ? By day like play-house scenes the shore slid past our sleepy eyes, By night those soft lasceevious stars leered from those velvet skies." Substitute Equator for Tropics and you have the feeling that came to me not less than Kipling's Mc- Andrew in his " Hymn " when the King Wilhelm I slid to Batavia from Singapore. The landing at the port of Tandjong Priok was attended, as are all such land- ings, by much tiresome detail, but finally we found ourselves in comfortable cars riding through succulent vegetation glistening from the terrific torrents so com- mon in the equatorial belt on both sides of the globe. In the Tropics it does not rain by the ordinary method of quickly falling drops'; the drops run together in one^ solid line — there seems a direct material connection between earth and sky. To keep a thread dry, if you happen to get caught in the shower, is impossible, but as a spectacle it is grand. The first glimpse of Batavia, nine miles from the 148 Java 149 port, with its high-pitched, softly-colored tiled roofs, all after the Amsterdam pattern, in browns and reds mellowed by climate and time ; and especially the sub- urb of Weltevreden, with its spreading tropical foliage, its great waringen trees, its bungalows and its canals — is captivating. At the Hotel der Nederlanden, I occu- pied an immense bed, large enough for four, eight feet by eight square, with hard pillows for repose, a short round bolster to play with, a lower sheet only and, suspended over the four tall posts, serviceable mosquito netting. The air was so//oppressive even at 6 A. M. that I gladly rose and went to the bath, many doors away on the wide verandah, which follows the great parallelogram of the court, a riotous park of flowers, shrubs and tall trees, on whose trunks and branches white orchids flourish luxuriantly, and all night watch with their unwinking eyes. After I entered the bath-house and bolted the door, the Malay attendant closed the huge shutters from the outside, leaving me in a lovely green twilight. On the stone floor stood a gigantic earthen jar, grace- ful in shape, generous in girth, and full to the brim of fresh clear water which I was supposed to dip out with a gourd and pour over myself. This is the only kind of bath, to let the water touch you but once, that the Orientals of all lands except Japan consider pure and clean ; and you must admit that there is something in it — in a way a shower-bath, as refreshing as it is picturesque. Then a cold, comfortless drink of coffee, poured from a small, glass-stoppered carafe into a cup, with double its quantity of milk, and sugar crystals. Brazil 150 Within My Horizon i is the only coffee land that knows how to make palat- able its own beverage — at least in hotels. It made me homesick, but I sipped it on the verandah, looking ^ out into the early morning beauty one cannot have irr New York, no one in sight save the unobtrusive Ma- lays. The scene, as Joseph Conrad says, is impalpable and enslaving, " like a whispered promise of mysteri- ous delight." At Moos, the Government Rest House where we passed the night on the way to Djogjakarta and Boro Boedor, it was the same; and on our way back, at Buitenzorg, Batavia's Sans Souci among the hills, it was more so — in that every prospect pleased and even the coffee was not so very vile. For the grounds at the Bellevue are like the woods themselves, with the bath at the end of a moss-covered, thickly shaded walk; while the view of great Salak beyond, and the river with its native village far below, where the little brown people do everything without thought of shame, is end- lessly alluring. Nor should I forget the rich aromatic curries; or the famous mangosteens of this hotel, and of the Nederlanden in Batavia, that white fruit in a blood-red setting which I deliberately went around the world to eat only to find that I liked the humble ram- boutan at Singapore better, with its prickly crimson husk and sweet-sour lemonade flavor; or the most luscious pineapples on earth, out of which the Prince of India made a heavenly drink. It was in Buitenzorg that we learned much about the sarong, but it was in Djogjakarta that we saw the greatest variety, old as well as new, for they never fade or wear out and the ancient cotton is almost like Java 151 silk to the touch, and by tourists the most sought for of all. In these days of Batik and Bakst wonders, we think we know something about the Orient, yet it is a revelation to see a sarong in full operation, particu- larly in Java, where they make an art of it in decora- tion. It is the universal native costume in Burmah and the Malay peninsula as well, but in the Dutch pos- sessions it is capable of freaks of fashion in coloring if not in cut. The garment is a straight piece of cloth wrapped tightly about the body and reaching from ankles to waist, the rest of the figure encased in a jacket, or bit of drapery, as the wearer may be inclined, the men frequently wearing trousers of the same ma- terial, with a handkerchief about the head. I had heard of the Javanese sarong, but I never dreamed it to be what it really is : the laborious painting, generally on fine cotton, by a woman's hand, of various intricate designs; a single, ordinary garment, of two yards in length, and about one in width, requiring for its com- pletion at least three months, and if the work is elab- orate, many more. The process was so interesting, as I watched it one morning, that a word about it might be so to you. First, the design of the centre is marked out on white cloth, then a peculiar instrument, looking like nothing so much as a Pompeiian hand lamp, only of tin, and dropping from its point a thick gum, is applied to all parts not desired to be colored. Next, the remainder is dipped in vegetable dye, the kind that never fades or " runs." This process is repeated many times, and while it is going on the article looks more like a piece of table oilcloth than anything else as it is hung on a line to dry, but the final outcome is a soft, 152 Within My Horizon flexible material, covered with sometimes beautiful, sometimes grotesque patterns, and every inch the result of a patient, definite hand labor. The designs and col- ors ordered by the Sultans and the upper classes are often exceedingly lovely, and the best sarongs are al- most as fine and delicate as the celebrated Indian " ring " shawls, though generally of cotton. There are sarongs of silk, but they do not " paint " as well as cotton, and the latter are fully as expensive. Have you ever watched a storm creep down a tropi- cal mountain not far away? Salak is an extinct vol- cano, and every afternoon while I was there in Febru- ary and March, the rain came on with fierce thunder and lightning. First, out of a clear sky, the clouds materialized from nowhere about the high, isolated peak; then the vapors would accumulate and unify and soon there was a majestic spectacle — a solid wall of rain, like a compact army, in slow, solemn precision passing from top to base and on and off to refresh the lower land. Salak lends itself wonderfully to this phenomenon, for between the hotel and the mountain there is nothing but a deep valley; the view is unob- structed, and I came to look forward to the shower as to an event. Nothing in all Java so fascinated me, unless it were the descent on horseback from Papanda- jan, the more or less active volcano at Garoet, where every step opened up vistas down into great tropical gorges. Here the tree ferns grow wild, bright orchids and creepers cling to every possible branch, and in the depths of the shadows fierce animals lurk sullenly. As Conrad said of a different continent, " It was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, Java 153 when vegetation rioted and the big trees were kings." I think of it often now that the Netherland Indies are a mere pinpoint on the map at the back of the world. To think that where these magnificent ravines thrill you with their sylvan beauty, on August 12, 1772, all was darkness and terror! Java is volcanic from end to end, from smoking Bromo on the east to the Strait of Sunda on the west; but no section is more danger- ous, with seven or more active volcanoes grouped in- side a radius of twenty miles, than that close to the dense green that was mine on that peaceful Sunday morning. Conrad speaks for me when he winds up his " Youth " with these lines : " I have seen the mys- terious shores, the still waters, the brown natives, . . . but to me all the East is contained in this vision of my youth. . . . And this is all there is left of it! Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamour. ... A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time for a sigh — goodby ! " XXI SOUTHERN INDIA Java was the far goal of my second world tour; the first following the stars from east to west, the sec- ond striking out boldly for the East Indies, via Naples, Egypt, Ceylon, Burmah, Singapore, and back again the same way. On this memorable trip I had a guest ; an artistic temperament, female — and thereby hangs a tale, several of them, which may never be told. Also on this journey, between Colombo and Rangoon, I met the Prince of India, whose friendship I hold to this day, and about whom more in the next chapter. The Prince went with us all the way to Java and return, changing his own plans to do so, was on the train that took us to Mandalay, and continued with us into Southern India, where I went to see the Dravidian temples, totally unlike the Moslem loveliness in Agra and Delhi. It was late in the season, the dry heat of April was upon the land, Cook's man shook his head, but go I would and did. That night on the small Aska, taken from its pearl fishing to replace the regular steamship, injured in a collision, I shall never forget. I am ac- counted a good sailor; but this time I made no bones of it — I simply lay down and died. The winds blew and the waves rose and our cockle-shell followed every 154 Southern India 155 caprice of both; I was either flat on my back in a berth that knew no repose or face downwards anywhere it happened, gasping and groaning. Yet with all the commotion there was not a breath of fresh air in our cabin, which was on the lee side, and I woke more than once from a troubled sleep in an oldfashioned sweat. It seemed as though the whole earth's atmosphere had gone somewhere else. In the morning, there being no stewardess, the " temperament " lay white and still, while I, too, matched the spotless paint that formed our background. I determined to get on deck; but oh, the despair with which I regarded my shoes and stockings — the hope- lessness of ever managing my brush and comb! That I did at last get into my clothes, even accomplished a bath, and wildly bound up my hair, tells the conquest of mind over matter more surely than many a greater deed. Once on deck, I became shamelessly supine again, on a narrow bench by the hatch, with the whole ship's company of chivalric officers and picturesque natives, not a woman but our two selves aboard, grouped help- lessly around. Upon each and all I fastened my wan eyes and begged to be let alone. Afterwards, the captain said I needn't be so mortified ; that for several hours in this brief passage from Colombo to Tuticorin there was nothing between our little boat and the Ant- arctic — that it was one of the windiest bits of sea off Asia. Breakfast was served at anchor in the harbor on the hatch, the ship's compass in the centre shining like a great brass samovar; the simple repast of tea, toast and jam pleasantly seasoned with the courtesy of 156 Within My Horizon the Scotch captain, the well-travelled engineer, and a very blue-eyed first-officer — all in impeccable white. Madura was reached by train the same afternoon, and the next day we stood before that renowned tem- ple, dedicated to the Hindoo god Shiva. From afar we had caught glimpses of the four huge towers or gopuras, each indicating a point of the compass, and within the walls were five other smaller towers, all seven pyramidal in shape and marvels of rich detail and bold design. Gazing upward, an infinitude of execution in stone, gods, animals, flowers, stood re- vealed to the topmost block. It was an actual orgie of Brahminic sacred art — a supreme and eternal tribute to the mystery of the unknown. Its effect on our Indian Prince, whose long absence from those of his own faith must have been hard for him, was plain to see. His was a deeply religious as well as an in- tensely patriotic soul. I remember on the Palitana, coming back from Singapore to Rangoon, again with kind and informal Scotch officers, the dream voyage of a lifetime in its blissful absence of passengers, how he would lie with closed eyes for an hour each morning before breakfast in solemn meditation; and one eve- ning on the Staffordshire, covering the next sea lap of. our journey, how his whole being seemed trans- formed by a talk as to how he best could benefit his beloved, sorely tried India. A sad, cold, reserved countenance was illumined into high beauty through the aroused heart and soul. On the edge of the sacred tank, the water a dull jade hue from the daily offerings of perfumes and oils, I mused long on the divers manifestations in all lands Southern India 157 of one idea. Which is right, who can determine? Perhaps none is wrong. In a world where character counts more than opinion, one should be slow to criti- cize any religious belief. The East, as it was cradle, may yet be crown, to civilization. The restless West may finally resent its cruel god of action which costs mankind so much. But just now the Anglo-Saxon is so sure! We wandered through the long galleries, one costing a million pounds sterling, crowded with sculptured divinities and beasts; peered into shadowy interiors where priests were moving about dimly, whence floated out the muffled sounds and alien scents of some rite possessing the charm of things forbidden — since be- yond a certain barrier we could not go. The intersec- tion of two corridors disclosed a vista of grand old columns decorated as no occidental mind could con- ceive, while approaching torches heralded a unique procession bearing idols to the accompaniment of in- struments quite out of our ken ■ — a spectacle as far removed from our own hemisphere as the Sacred Bull from Saint John the Divine. Yet this is the ancient religion of Brahma, which has a special hold on the native rulers of India, who in their long lineage and deep lore smile at the pretentions of the West and pity us as we never pity them. The Hall of the Thousand Columns, also full of strangeness and gloom, harbors bas reliefs in dark corners that prove a fillip to certain tourist minds, in that they are devoted to the greatest mystery of all — that which has to do with the origin of life. This is ever in the oriental consciousness in a wholly reverent 158 Within My Horizon way, yet of it we are afraid or ashamed to speak. The temple in its present form, with the marvelous gopuras, is the work of a mighty potentate, Teruinala Nayak, whose palace still stands, representing India at the climax of her wealth and power, when Peter the Great thought it worth his while to propitiate the ruler by presenting the house of worship with two splendid bronze doors. XXII THE PRINCE OF INDIA It was at Madura that we bade farewell to our Indian Prince, sorry enough to part with so kind and con- siderate a companion, who had now been with us on six sea voyages and in five lands. The first I saw of him was on the good old Lancashire, directly opposite me at table, as the ship was steaming out of Colombo for Rangoon. Then I noticed this dark-hued gentle- man, whom I thought to be a Eurasian, the offspring of a European by an Asiatic, simply because, to my knowledge, I had never seen one. Evidently a man on board thought the same, since he whispered to me : " A lick of the tar-brush there! " It just so happened that this man himself, an Englishman, was of that persuasion, with a dainty little Burmese wife. To me, Prince Lakhubha looks far more Spanish than Indian, and I should have inferred 'that if I had not met him on the Bay of Bengal. At first we knew him only by his informal family name of Jadeja, all the time believing him to be a Eurasian, because somebody said so. The English aboard evidently had made up their minds, and swept both him and us, as we often met, with glances of su- preme contempt. Even in Java, among the more kindly and careless Dutch, the proprietor of the hotel at Batavia saw fit to take me aside one day and warn 159 160 Within My Horizon me, saying the Eurasians were held in small repute throughout the whole Indies. It was not until the journey was nearing its end that Jadeja told us the truth ; that he travelled incognito because circumstances interfered with the use of the name and retinue to which he was entitled; that he was a prince of the blood, but had been deprived of his station and worldly trappings by the machinations of his own relatives as well as the injustice of England. The following, in brief, is the story he told us in the spring of 1905, and it was corroborated in every particular, during the two years succeeding, by the courts, the press and the British " Who's Who." Kumar Shri Lakhubha, the Most High Prince Lakhubha, our Mr. Jadeja, was the unsuccessful claim- ant in contests over the native throne of Nawanagar, Kathiawar, Rajputana, India. The final decision was given in the Indian courts February, 1907, in favor of Prince Ranjitsinhji, an heir by adoption only, but more or less a pal of Edward VII, because of his good cricket playing. Hence our Jadeja's tears. Prince Lakhubha is the only legitimate grandson of the great Vibhaji, Shri Sir Vibhaji, Jam Saheb of Nawanagar, from 1852 to 1896 the most forceful ruler since the British occupation. The only direct lineal descendant, Lakhubha would seem to take precedence of all others by every moral as well as legal right, yet he has twice been disappointed in his hopes to ascend the " gadi " or feudal seat of his ancestors. Nothing whatever could be adduced against him personally, nor any flaw be discovered in his right to the throne, ex- The Prince of India 161 cept that his father, Kalubha, Vibhaji's own legal son, had given cause for deep offence. The affair is one of those confused Oriental intrigues in which Kalubha was accused of conspiracy against his own father. His son claims this to be a rank in- justice, but Vibhaji lent ear to those in the plot and placed the victim in close confinement, despite the vehement protests of himself and his son to the day of his death — a death of which the son did not learn until two years after its occurrence. It is probable he was the unfortunate pawn in some terrible game of political chess during which treachery was rampant and poison not unknown. Certain it is that Kalubha's innocent son, the pres- ent Prince Lakhubha, was born in a palace when his father was in full power, and his father was sent to prison when he was three and one-half years old. Meantime, still unreconciled, Vibhaji adopted as his heir Ranjitsinhji, the nephew of a deceased cousin; but in 1882, Vibhaji once more became a father, through a concubine, and thereupon appealed to the Government to set aside Rangy's claims, which was done; and after Vibhaji died this son, though natural born, succeeded, when of age, to the throne, despite Lakhubha's protests, but died within a year. Then Prince Lakhubha again fiercely contested the right of succession with Rangy, but for some covert reason, the partiality of Edward the King or a better game of politics, he lost and Rangy became H. H. Maharajah, Jam Saheb of Nawanagar, by grace of England rather than of God. 162 Within My Horizon More, the half million dollars which Vibhaji, through some compunction, left to Prince Lakhubha personally in his will, was kept back by these pirates for the support of a wife whom he had never seen and who was married to him without his consent! Rather unhealthful these Indian thrones seem in vari- ous ways. Lakhubha has some reason to be glad that he is out of it. I told him so once, and he answered: " Yes, perhaps, for my own pleasure ; but I keep think- ing what I might be able to do for my people — and for India." These things make one ponder much on that England who rules these alien subjects of hers sternly without seeking to extirpate the general discontent by removing the cause. Personally, I have seen enough in Great Britain's conquered lands to make me smile at her pretentions to righteousness. Germany at least had the zeal of the convert; she was full of her dreams as a benefactor not less than a master of mankind — while England and the English, vain and weary, know it can't be so. More than one broad-minded English man or woman has said to me that there can be no true peace in the world as long as the British Empire stands. Returning to Ceylon, loud over Java's charms, that Java which was given to the Dutch by the English in exchange for Ceylon, " Yes," said the Englishman with whom I was talking, meditatively, " we ought to have kept Java too." I remember well how I wanted to cuff the ears of a young sprig of the British army, when he ordered my Egyptian dragoman off a spot, near the Mosque of Mohamet Ali, where he had every right to be, as if he were a dog. Nor shall I soon The Prince of India 163 forget the pitiful resentment of old Mahmoud, our kindly guide in Upper Egypt, when two Tommies jostled him and told him to get out, as he obeyed his master's orders to put me on the night train at Luxor. At Cairo I saw a white man crack over the head an Arab he himself had run into, and then call for the police when the victim showed anger. A British artist at Darjeeling, most charming to us in the eve- ning, at dawn beat mercilessly his native servant for some slight offence. And so it goes on in matters great and small. Prince Lakhubha said publicly in 1909: " The agi- tation in India is founded on the sense of profound injustice suffered at the hand of the authorities. It is impossible for those unacquainted with the methods of government employed by Great Britain in India to understand what takes place; to know how utterly in- adequate are the promises made in the King's message. In Western countries petitions would publicly be heard before recognized tribunals; in India no one has any right of audience, there is no public hearing, no rea- sons are ever given for the acceptance or rejection of a petition, the so-called judgment is a single yes or no. At least three thrones of India are occupied by rulers who would never be there if their claims had been determined by the usual rules of evidence, while numberless rightful claimants have been rejected by the British authorities. Let England prove her sym- pathy by deeds not words ; by appointing officials who understand the Indian people or who have a hereditary right to rule — then sedition will melt away as the snow in spring." 164 Within My Horizon The ideality of this Prince of India, the serious re- flection, the delicacy and refinement of the man, his hatred of brutality and war, told me why his country so easily was conquered and kept under England's heel. Yet it was not through him, who naturally does not adore England for her scorn of all he holds dear, that I heard of the revolt against prevailing conditions, but from all over, once they knew me to be an Ameri- can, towards whose freedom their thoughts often turned; but what they think now, I have no idea. I know only that when I was there, in 1898 as well as in 1905, their hopes and affections were centered upon us as upon a promised land and star. XXIII MY MOTHER AND MY GEMS In the early spring of 1900 I lost my mother. Though she had been slowly fading away for over two years, the actual event was a heavy blow. It seemed impossible that she who had been with me always could be with me no more. The difference between the tenuous spirit within the frail body and this utter emptiness was enormous. For the second time I went through a great grief, but for the first time without my mother — that mother who had never failed me; who knew no weariness either with my troubles or joys — who had seemed as integral part of me and my life as my heart or my eyes. Even my marriage had not separated us ; she was invited to come and live in the roomy old Brooklyn house, and gladly did so — making it all the brighter and more comfortable with her cheerful spirit and her busy needle. Never, never, shall I forget, after a wild rush to the Island of Jamaica, hoping to lift the lead from my heart, the supreme desolation of coming home to no mother. When my brother died I was young. All of life was before me. I was sad, and for years, at his sud- den taking off, but the world still beckoned. Now I seemed to have come to an impasse. I set myself 165 166 Within My Horizon down and began to think. Queer, how I never had done that before. I had acted as if life were to last forever. In a sense I had never grown up. People used to say that I obeyed my mother as if I were a small child; good for me at the time, perhaps, but bad for me now — now that she had gone to that bourne whence no traveller returns. I suddenly real- ized, what often had been said before, but which, as with all truth, you do not understand until you find it out for yourself, that the only real, the only vital things in this life are the things you cannot touch or appraise. How cheap, how incredible after this, seemed the mad rush for money — gold for the sake of gold ; for ostentation, for the superfluities, not primarily for security and independence. I did not know then that this was Commercialism, the disease of over-crowding humanity, for which, in bulk, nobody is especially to blame. But I did know all at once that without love, the love that does not dicker or demand, the love that means service and sacrifice, all is dust and ashes, be- reft of the fire divine. The landing on that memorable return from Jamaica to New York was in the midst of as terrific a down- pour as any of the tropical rains I had left behind. I ran up the familiar brownstone steps, unlocked the big front door, and crept upstairs to my room. Oh, the silence of that empty house — the silence and the dread ! In that moment I drank as bitter a cup as the one I had run away from. Yet even as my heart sank, there came the sound of running feet, and Swedish Anna stood before me, f^'f ^Bcs^. "»»**Tj W£ 'WIK :^fl jg ■HBk » ■■'. , ■■ ;. | ' r A ■ 1 ^j :■ "MOTHER" My Mother and My Gems 167 all welcome in her shining eyes. It was good to see her, she who had been fidelity itself through the long illness, and the lead over my heart lifted a little. I was particularly struck when after dinner she said, " How cheerful it seems to see the rings on your fingers again! " Something to live for after all: a fine, manly hus- band and a faithful maid; and whether or not her re- mark about the psychological value of jewels influ- enced me, immediately I set myself a task, to relieve the ache of loneliness, and in four months completed the little volume growing in my mind for several years, called " Gems." It was an attempt in simple words and engaging manner, after the dull and ponderous treatises I had gone through, to interest men and women constructively in these wonderful mineral flowers; to acquaint them with some of their poetic features as well as their essential characteristics. More than one publisher looked the thing over, ad- mitted that it was interesting and that there was room for such a book, yet could not see in it " a commercial proposition." This may be, for books that are com- mercial propositions frequently have astonished me; so at last I put it out myself, as simple propaganda, and at least had the satisfaction of seeing there was a certain demand for it without any backing or push- ing. It also received the approval of the New York and other public libraries, as well as of Tiffany's ex- pert, himself a mineralogical authority of no small standing. All these people contended that such a volume on precious stones in a popular style was 168 Within My Horizon greatly needed, but the publishers did not agree with them — and so ! Anyhow, it was purely a labor of love, and in a sense brought me love, though I may not tell you how or why. It seems a sorry thing that the men who deal in stones and the men and women who wear them know so little about them as living things — as a part of the great family of Nature, having birth, growth, long life and interesting history; almost as interesting and beautiful as the stars of the sky, to which they seem akin ; and it was to a " lover of gems in earth and sky " that I dedicated the book — my friend, Zona Gale. The publication of this really-truly cloth-bound volume in 1916, marked the close of a series of pam- phlets, half a dozen of them, reprints of letters of mine to the Standard Union during the first eighteen months of the great world war, in which I sought to stem the tide of a public opinion as I thought gone sadly astray. Of course I failed, as must all fail who go against the prevailing trend in a time of popular excitement; but I am not the less glad that I made the attempt, for not only did I square myself with my own conscience, but unexpectedly made some of the most vital friendships of my life. The fact that our own beloved country was at last involved, whether for good or ill, is beside the point. While none can stifle his feelings as to an action so momentous, when it comes to a call from the mother who bore you — there can be but one re- ply. I regret nothing; for if I had not published my pamphlets in defence of Germany, it would never have occurred to me to make audible, so to speak, my manu- My Mother and My Gems 169 script on " Gems " ; and if any full-blown author takes more pleasure in the popularity of his latest novel than I do in my few appreciative readers, to say noth- ing of the dear human hearts that happily have become mine — he is fortunate ! XXIV, ZONA GALE " A lonely pine tree standeth On a chilly mountain height, The snow and ice while it sleepeth Weave round it a garment white. " It dreameth not of a palm tree That far in a southern land Alone and silent standeth On a plain of burning sand." When I sailed away for a fairer land, in that bleak March of 1909, I took Zona Gale with me — dear Zona, my friend of nine long years, who always in my mind stands for Beauty. I met her, a young reporter, and a friend of a friend, during a brief stay after long absence in old Milwaukee. There, at the Plankinton, she " interviewed " me; and the following winter she came for the first time to New York — a vision of loveliness in a charming gray gown and a mink turban capped by a pink velvet flower. She was one of the most beautiful young women I ever had met or seen; and I have met Modjeska and seen Lina Cavalieri and Cleo de Merode, the last of whom she resembled and even eclipsed — for Mind looked out from her soft dark eyes. It was a face to evoke dreams; and her slight yet delicately rounded figure did the rest — that 170 Zona Gale 171 and her manner, her fine courtesy, and the best part of her, as I found when I came to know her well, her intense filial devotion. Her complexion, a creamy olive, was southern, and she had the languor of the south, too; yet she was entirely northern, born and bred in Wisconsin, of New York and New England stock, and no girl worked harder, in all hours and weathers — as a special reporter for the New York World. She loved the work, she never shirked it, but she had the penetration to perceive that, as she ex- pressed it, she was not " getting anywhere," with all her gratifying returns, sometimes $100 a week. In a great city there are thousands of temptations, and she began to realize at last, as she wearied of the artificial life of the metropolis, that she could not do better than go back to her home town, Portage, Wisconsin, and fight the problem out on a different line. But first she spent a year at Lawrence Park, Bronxville, as secre- tary to Edmund Clarence Stedman, living with his family in that delightful retreat, where I found her amidst the books of Stedman's large library, which they both looked after with tender care. About this time she put out her " Pelleas and Et- tare " sketches, the fantasy of an old couple, in love with each other and with life, told in her own subtle way, with delicacy and humor, which made an im- pression; and after that came the connection with the Macmillan Company, the great popularity of " Friendship Village," her books in every library, the highest price paid in New York for short stories ; this, besides the natural outgrowth of it, her social and civic work in Portage, an artistic residence on the 172 Within My Horizon Wisconsin River, an income from her writings be- yond peradventure and at last the really big novel " Birth," — and best of all, her spurs won while she is young enough to enjoy them. Counting the youth- ful journalistic work upon leaving Wisconsin Univer- sity, which ended with some twenty months on the World, this has taken nearly two decades of per- sistence, concentration and industry. As Miss Gale is one of the few women who do not hesitate to tell their age, I think she will not mind this summing up of the years, since her career is a remarkable illustra- tion of what intense application can do, given no more transcendant gifts than a charming literary style, a kindly, observing eye and something to say. She also has the good sense to take care of herself, which may be one reason why she is still lily-like, still beautiful, and always exquisitely dressed, with an unfailing feel- ing for color, texture and line rather than the latest cry. In other words, while not ignoring fashion, she thinks for herself. Zona was with me in 1902 at Adirondack Lodge, ten miles into the woods from Lake Placid. The Lodge was a unique log-house with all comforts, built by a unique man, a bachelor whose romance of some twenty years before had ended in a tragedy. The lover was an American, able to support the girl, but not in the way the Canadian father, who forbade the marriage, desired. Separated from him, in her de- spair the girl jumped into Niagara; while he, desolate beyond words, left the world to cherish her memory in this lonely spot — lonely yet wondrous, and which she herself, from the peak of Tahawus with him, had Zona Gale 173 selected for their future home. It was in the heart of the Adirondacks, with a lake shaped like a heart and so named by him, as he named the mountain near by Jo, because she was Josephine. How we loved it all ; but soon after we left, everything was swept from the face of the earth by a disastrous forest fire which spared nothing in its wake from the immediate vicinity to the edge of the woods — and which Mr. Van, as we all called him, devoutly wished had not spared him. They thought he was lost, as he wandered in the con- tiguous forest for days, saved by instinct rather than desire. But these dread happenings were of the future when Zona and I dwelt there, that lovely week in October, after the guests were gone. She was Little Moon- stone in my journalistic stories then, as Mr. Van was Leather Stocking, because he was a hunter and, like Cooper's hero, wore them; and she because she was born in August, and the lucky moonstone of the Orient is her birthright. One day the three of us walked to Indian Pass, the source of the Hudson, and back again to Adirondack Lodge, a hard ten miles over a lonely trail, on the home-stretch in a pouring rain, nearly losing ourselves as night came on. Indeed, we should have been lost entirely, as we were soaked to the skin, but for the extraordinary woodcraft of our guide. On the ship to Jamaica, seven years later, Zona looked and seemed just the same, as bent on enjoying the warm scent of the tropics as once the cool spice of the balsam and fir. Yes, after many days she was with me in my wanderings again, still resembling Merode, but grown from thoughtless girl to thought- 174 Within My Horizon ful woman. At this moment we were tired, so tired, Little Moonstone and I, and simply to rest quietly on that quiet deck, watching the flying-fishes play, was like balm on open wounds. The soul grows in divers ways. One must be when, after the battle, the weary soldier can sleep on his arms. Then to him come visions, clarifying themselves into startling truths, which means new joy, the joy that must have met Columbus on this same stretch of water, when first he beheld the land-hugging ocean-flower that meant victory — this same gulf-weed drifting towards us then as toward him four centuries ago. The approach to Jamaica, wraith-like in the midst of its densely green background of mountains, was as beautiful as anything of its kind in the world. It was early morning, and the ship followed hard on the heel of a shower, which means that before we saw the enchanting isle we smelled the sweet breath of it. Then came the surprise that Kingston was one more of earth's star harbors, in that it embraces the moun- tains not less than the sea. A pocket Venus it is, like Little Moonstone herself, but it can hold up its head as proudly, in its effect on those who see it as we saw it, as grand Rio itself. We liked Kingston so much, particularly the Constant Spring Hotel, with its native food, its artistic setting, its atmosphere. Relying on the tales of travelers, we left it too soon, and hungered to get back to it again, despite the fact that the city had recently been almost destroyed by earthquake. The attractions of Jamaica, while manifold, are on a small scale as compared to greater countries, but they are most artistically grouped. It is not so much Zona Gale 175 the actual height of a mountain or depth of a valley as their relation to each other and to you. Thus the marvel of the view from Newcastle is as startling in its surprise, though of a different character, as that from our own Mount Willard at the Gate-of-the- Notch; while absolutely indescribable is the grandeur of the drive from Ewarton to Moneague over Mount Diablo, only 1,800 feet in altitude yet meaning so much more — especially under lowering skies near eventide after a tropic downpour. Never can one for- get the wonder of that prolonged gaze down into the deep valley which ends in the quaint parish of St. Thomas-in-ye-Vale, and forms the watershed of two important streams entering the sea in opposite direc- tions. Palms, creepers, tree ferns flourish there in abundance, and the almost equatorial luxuriance of this vegetation, heightened in the picture by the dark overhanging clouds and the refreshing moisture of the recent shower, had the effect in its pulsating beauty almost of pain. At dawn one day, after a little rest at Moneague's much-vaunted hotel, which recalled to its own undo- ing the lovely Bellevue at Buitenzorg in Java, we started for Port Antonio, running through the moun- tains on a hot, dusty train, eyes full of cinders, with no comforts, even ice-water at a price, until suddenly we came upon the Caribbean Sea. Then I understood as never before, having a passion for the mountains, how the Greeks, after the Retreat of the Ten Thou- sand, fell on their knees at the sight of their own blue water again, crying with all their hearts : " Thalassa ! Thalassa ! " 176 Within My Horizon The approach to Port Antonio, head of the United Fruit Company's industries, as we ran in and out among the bays, the mountains on one hand, the bright curving sands on the other, with acres upon acres of bananas and cocoanuts on the golden plains between, was notable for a sunset as eloquent as fine music. At one point we looked back, then hung together breathless, mute under the glory of a special scene. Two mountain ranges intersected there, to the right the turquoise Caribbean, and a bit of white, white beach on which the waves fell lazily. Towards them, against a ridge of dull old blue, itself backed by the more emphatic green of the higher hills, leaned one young cocoanut palm, at a hazardous angle, a little separated from its fellows, its feathery foliage hang- ing like a woman's hair. So might a maiden seem to droop and yield to the persuasion of her lover — in this case the Sea : eternally beckoning, infinitely mys- terious, forever vital and supreme. While the palm said so much, and also the sea, the great moment was above, in the glory along the line of the hills, concentrating the intense cosmic cry. For the heavens at that point were like a conflagration, the clouds huge masses of flame, while the sun dropped below the horizon stealthily, as after an evil deed well done. It was warmth and color and beauty and ter- ror in one; in a space that could have been covered by a small painting — and what, granting wealth, would not one give the artist who could adequately reproduce such a memorable scene? For to me it was so much more than a sunset. It was, in a picture and a moment, The Tropics. A Zona Gale 177 magic enwrapped the vision and out of it came the voice of the South; precisely as on another occasion it had been the voice of the North. My thought flew from this riot of color, from that palm and sea, to a tumultuous brook rushing down Mount Mclntyre near Adirondack Lodge — then living and beautiful; hills, woods, homestead, all. Under us was the elastic bed of the Adirondack forest, a marvelous mixture of moss, old roots and powdered wood — as easy for the feet as an old slipper. In the twilight of the firs, so pure, so virginal, so ineffably sweet, the clean sweet of the virile North, my friend handed me the cup of cold water, saying then even as now, " Helen, let us remember this!" At that moment, the intimacy of the North Woods ; in this, a more fevered land — and the two of us, the seven years between, though loving each other well, separated half the time by half a world. One day at Kingston, from our suite in the Con- stant Spring Hotel, Little Moonstone saw for the first time the Southern Cross. That night we clung to- gether in the enchanting moonlight by which you can read fine print till after ten. It was fairyland, with the mountains clearly visible, the sea sparkling five miles away, the palms turning to silver in Diana's rays, enormous stars all around, even that old friend of Indian Ocean days — great Canopus, with his gor- geous prismatic play, still trembling like a diamond on the ear of Night. Bright and true the Cross hung, at an acute angle to the sea, one of the magnificent things of the world, and the living expression of all that lies deepest in the 178 Within My Horizon human heart. Set forever in the southern sky, that high symbol cannot but help us, as God meant it should, to live: to know renunciation not less than happiness, and at last to meet Death bravely — not as foe but friend. XXV PEARY For some years, as you know, Peary's name was on all lips; not only because of his undeniable achieve- ment, the greatest of his time, but because of the hesi- tation, to put it mildly, to choose between this man of irreproachable standing, in the scientific not less than the social world, and a rank charlatan. The fact that the American public, without one scintilla of actual evidence on a highly specialized subject, could swallow such a falsehood and stick to in some measure to this very day (for there are still those who believe in Cook) leaves me with but little confidence in its de- cisions about anything, for it goes on its emotions rather than its reason. However, an important portion stood firm for Peary throughout, either through knowledge of him or the subject or the absurdity of any other conclusion, and one of these stalwarts was the State of Maine. One day in September, 1910, we undertook to visit the hero, at his home on Eagle Island, and even before reaching Portland we began to get whiffs of him, as it were. At Boston we ran into the Casco Bay fold- ers with pictures of the Island and " The Dog that Got to the Pole " — got there and back to civiliza- tion only to die of one of civilization's many diseases; and all along the line it became more and more evi- 179 180 Within My Horizon dent that Maine regards Peary with the pride and affection due a great and favorite son. The rock- bound State never was in doubt, never misunderstood either word or action, but always and forever stood staunchly by and wondered at the confusion abroad. It takes the strong to know the strong; they feel not impatience but something like pity for weaker beings — for such as are sure of so much that isn't so. Probably there is more of this sort of hysteria in the highly excitable United States of America than any- where else on the globe. This is somewhat due to the climate, which encourages nervousness, and more to superficial information, very common here in matters out of one's special line, but most of all to that na- tional cocksureness which scorns such a little thing as seeking knowledge humbly. Peary was the unfortunate victim of a national de- lusion simply because the counterfeit, having lain low in a comfortable corner while the other was doing the deed, got the ear of the public first. That is fatal in a country which, like most women, often acts on its intuitions rather than on patient investigation. The small minority of well-informed knew that the prepos- terous thing claimed by little more than a tyro was im- possible; that only an expedition marshalled as for a great battle, with every aid and equipment of ship, food, tools and men, to say nothing of endless dogs, could even hope to attain the end. Yet, when Cook coolly announced that it was as easy as falling off a log, that he had done it with no ship, little food, two lads with their sledges and a few dogs, child's play be- side Peary's tremendous preparation, the entire na- Peary 181 tion fell over itself to honor him; most of them harp- ing on Peary's bad manners, the more liberal declar- ing that both had got there — the unkindest cut of all, in a matter where priority is everything, and to which Peary had sacrificed over twenty years of his life. That needn't have been, however, had the generosity of America to her daring sons been as great as Eng- land's to hers; for a ship, an ice-ship like the final Roosevelt, is half the battle. I only wish the world could see Peary in his home ; how soon then would the conception of him as for- bidding, lacking all the gentler qualities, vanish. Dig- nity is his, of course, but a man of simpler tastes, of more frank, almost boyish, pleasure in all real things, the woods, the water, the sun, the storm, birds, ani- mals, stones, flowers, never lived. Children love him and that alone is a sign, while he will feed a faithful beast before himself. Throughout the house at Eagle Island are all sorts of interesting things showing Peary's early tastes and the habit of thoroughness even in boyhood. A col- lection of hawks, almost every variety in New Eng- land, testifies to one line of inquiry. The bronze hinge from the old Water Gate of Fort San Marcos at St. Augustine, swinging idly in wind and wave all the time he was there, tempted him one day to swim out and appropriate it — only to discover that constant fric- tion on the parts from above and below had worn the nail almost as thin as a wedding ring of pure gold. Ancient bronze cannon, of the time of Columbus, were also fished up by him from the Florida reefs. What originally took Peary there is an interesting 182 Within My Horizon story in itself. In 19 10, when there was still a grouch on, some skinflint Congressman, with paper and pencil in hand, figured out that the conqueror of the Pole had cost the United States, as an officer in the En- gineering Corps of the Navy, some $35,000; this vast sum representing his modest salaries since his first connection with the Government, including the part pay allowed his family while he was risking his life to win what all nations coveted — the great geo- graphical prize of the centuries. Little enough at best, one would think, yet it just so happens that the whole of this sum, the ordinary upkeep of a loyal servant of the Republic, he saved the Powers that Be on his first job! An iron colliery pier was to be built at Key West ; figures had been submitted, but the Government ordered Peary to examine the foundation, which he did intimately, sometimes in a diving-suit, sometimes in his birthday suit, as he puts it, and what he dis- covered and rectified proved an economy to Uncle Sam of just $35,000! In the Navy Department are the records covering the whole transaction. Pretty small potatoes, this calculation of what a great man and patriot has cost the country he serves in monthly installments laid end to end ; and only that — for the expensive enterprise of the Pole was financed by private means. But to what lengths will not a man go when he finds himself in the wrong and is too small to confess it? The bestowal of a Rear- Admiralty wrung from a reluctant Congress in no sense makes up to those who love Peary for the cruelty inflicted at a time which should have been his glorious triumphal hour. Peary 183 To return to«the pleasanter subject of Eagle Island. Less than a mile long and half as wide, it is a fit and beautiful home for Peary, all his own; " high, wave- washed, and intimate with the stars." It seems as remote from the haunts of man as a virgin wood, and is full of ferns and wildfiowers, and possesses springs. The little pink twin-flower, perhaps that which the Swedes call the Linnea, as sweet as the Mayflower, is found there, and in June wild roses, one bush that year with 148 blossoms. Beside a great square giant's bath-tub, as it might well be called, within whose stone walls the tide rushes and tosses the surf high on the beach, Peary pointed to a spot and proclaimed with almost oratorical emphasis, so important did it seem to him : " Right there I found a specimen of blue flag!" Yet sometimes 'the sea rages, the waves pound and throw their salt over the house and the cherished lawn, killing the grass, and then only strong men dare, take the trip to South Harpswell. I know we had a nervous time getting to the island, and two days later a still harder time getting away, but it is too long a tale to tell, with its phases both sad and glad, though the end of it was a race for the Portland boat which was as exciting as the race for the Pole. If only I could have snapped Peary then, standing high with his long legs far apart, holding a broom aloft in one hand, a bit of scarlet in the other, his red hair shining in the sun and his blue, blue eyes earnest enough to pull that craft towards him by sheer magnetism alone ! Anyhow, we won the race, with Peary as jubilant as a boy, for there is nothing he likes better. 184 Within My Horizon Years before, when he returned with mutilated feet, I asked: "Why go again? The walking here is good. You have fame already." " A man likes to get what he goes after," he an- swered doggedly. " But you may carry the pitcher to the well once too often." " Then it will be only a little sooner " ; with an un- forgettable look in his eyes — those eyes which have seen so much. Talking is not Peary's weakness. His words are few, concise, almost bitten out. On the other hand, he had just 'the trace of a lisp — though I suppose he would scorn the imputation. I asked him why he never discussed people or things and never criticized. He answered : " Sometimes it's because I don't know, and sometimes because I don't care." I told him the truth when I said he had fame enough without risking his life again. But once somebody said to me that while even at that time, the beginning of the twentieth century, Peary was one of America's most distinguished men, he was not what he would be if he gained the Pole. He would then, he said, be one of the great " world " men, of whom there were only about a hundred, mentioning Washington, Napoleon, Columbus and Julius Caesar as four. The man is dead now ; I never saw him after that talk; but I have remembered his remarks all these years, and now rejoice that Peary did not heed my timid words, and at last is enrolled among the glorious One Hundred. XXVI ON SEA AND LAND S. S. Aller, Mid-Atlantic, November 9, 1901 : That next day after sailing, beginning with the band and ending amidst the wails of wind and wave, passengers and engines, was a long, long day of increasing misery, and the next was even wilder, and the next and the next. But I determined to make a fight for the deck ; anything was better than that cabin — even if I could manage only bathrobe and slippers. Once there, with awnings down and chairs securely lashed, it was de- lightful beside that stuffy stateroom, with a bed wide enough to slide me back and forth continually. The air of the Gulf Stream was balmy and delicious, de- spite the commotion of the mountainous waves and the turbulent 'stream that rushed down the deck when the ship, one of those narrow clipper things, buried her nose too deeply in the sea. We were bound for the Azores, and the atmosphere was correspondingly damp and mild. This one moment; comfort and happy languor — • the next all was changed. Eorward, coming down upon me with the speed of an express train, appeared a wall of water as high as a house and relentless as fate. Never in my life did I realize as then the crush- ing finality of a flood when it is bent on a certain course 185 186 Within My Horizon and you are in the way. I grasped the rail back of me with both hands, and thereby saved my neck, but my heavy rug was wrenched off as though it weighed nothing, and I was yanked, twisted, whipped and soaked from head to foot. Foolishly rising after this immersion, thinking to gain the gangway before the usual repetition, I heard shrieks and instantly found myself lying helpless on deck, swallowing salt water by the quart, until the iron grip of a steward saved me from an ignominious end. After that no passenger, male or female, was allowed on deck, while the storm raged more furiously than ever, making sleep im- possible. Rails were bent and stanchions snapped, as you read of in the West Indies, whence this hurricane came, and a brand new trunk of mine in the hold was rusted by salt water beyond recognition. Sometimes the engines were stopped, and those were bad moments for me, as I had once been warned of 'their danger. But I began to argue that existence for all of us, ex- cept as we can do for others, is practically over by thirty-five ; at least Life is — and save for the love of one or two we might as well go as stay. The message is delivered, the days begin to repeat themselves, an- ticipations are few, disappointments many, and it can- not be so hard to pass on. Certainly it was a consola- tion so to think, in that uncomfortable cabin amidst the strange unsteadiness of a ship " hove to " in a wild Atlantic gale, but I shall have to confess that when the good old throb, throb, began again, hope sprang eternal in my very human breast. S. S. Cretic, Mediterranean, December, 22, 1904: On Sea and Land 187 Have you ever known the slow creeping out of New York harbor in a fog or snowstorm? The ominous feeling by the ship of its way; the constant bellow of the deep whistle, like that of a great frightened ani- mal; the distress and anxiety of the tugs from pier to channel — all this is something to experience and re- member. The last thing I saw, the last sound I heard, was the restless, bleating lightship sending forth her incessant warning to boats and men. When I grumbled to the steward, as the weather grew nastier outside the bar, he simply said : " Thank God we're moving." A second thrilling experience on the voy- age was in a " whole westerly gale " to hang on to a stanchion far forward and rise and fall with every dip of the ship into the angry sea. The waves were tre- mendous, and had they been the other way about, from east to west, I should have been drenched and swept from my post ; but as it was, they merely slid under the vessel and passed on, while she staggered and shud- dered and screamed with each .treacherous blow in the back. I would look behind and see a great black wave higher than the bridge pursuing us like an avenging demon; then a moment of suspense when I seemed poised between earth and heaven — at the mercy of the gray convulsive waste eager to destroy and devour. It is at such a time as this that you realize how well the word " cruel " applies to hungry, savage seas — even though they froth at the mouth in marvelous green-tinted foam. S. S. Bluecher, Caribbean Sea, April 7, 191 1: John and I are continually at loggerheads on the sub- 188 Within My Horizon ject of travel. He contends that progress by Pullman cars and luxurious steamships is not travel at all, nor is going from one hotel to another ; that for the real thing you can buy no ticket and for food and shelter must make shift as best you can — while to me that sort of thing seems less travel than adventure; nor do I consider it reprehensible that in seeking foreign lands I annex all the comforts I can afford to pay for. Off your legitimate base, up against the unfamiliar, missing the care and calm of home, the best is none too good. The place to economize is not abroad, but at your own fireside — where work and taxes go on for- ever and thrift counts. I am afraid John is a sad bluffer, and delighted when I take him seriously; for while he scorns people who do not kill and cook their own game, I yet have to see him pull a trigger or to taste one dish he imagines he can make. True, he has commanded small ice- fighters in two or three Arctic expeditions, with the laundry represented by soiled shirts trailing at the stern : and I understand he has eaten with a straight face questionable meat, and quarreled not with coffee made from sea-water; and this has left him with a haughty soul. I had hungered for South America: for Rio de Janeiro, the last renowned " world " harbor by me un- seen; for the storied wonders of the Strait of Ma- gellan; for the majestic Andean chain; for the very shape of the continent, like a lovely woman lying there — so I went, and despite John, in a floating hotel. Still, there is nothing like home. One day early in the voyage when I opened a book out fell a letter; a On Sea and Land 189 letter that had never gone to post — from the faithful Anna who had packed my things. It brought the wet to my eyes. Here it is : Whenever you open this little note, heaps of love meet you from Anna and Paul. We think of you all the time. Already we are waiting to hear your welcome footsteps, as we long to hear them when you are gone only for a few hours. And now — for so long a time ! But we will try to do our best — do much work ; take good care of the master, which we know will please you most. Wishing you a pleas- ant journey, with all the joy the world can give, Lovingly Anna and Paul. Could the best literary artist express himself with a finer feeling or simplicity? Anna is the Swede I may have mentioned before, who has been with me, though still young, more than a decade — the much valued prop of the household. Outside the domestic virtues she also excels, for she can play the guitar and sing like the lark — as befits one from the land of Christine Nilsson and Jenny Lind. And nowhere can you find a truer heart. Paul is a big, wonderful Maltese, handsome and in- telligent, and as dear as a lover. Even John, a mere man, is fond of Paul. He says he possesses two fine qualities that I lack — he can't talk, and he minds his own business. Besides that he smiles, has lovely golden melting eyes, understands both English and Swedish, and owns a thick gray fur coat, fitting him perfectly, which if he tired of it would command a price. No wonder the ancient Egyptians regarded this beautiful and inscrutable animal with reverence. The Bluecher was our home without a break, except 190 Within My Horizon as we went ashore to gaze, all the way from New York to Valparaiso, which we reached in a month via Ma- gellan, with its snow mountains and pendulous gla- ciers and air that was food, a Frost-King's realm. From Valparaiso we went to Santiago de Chili, and into beautiful, most beautiful, Santa Lucia, that historic fort, park and hill in one, and at the centre of the metropolis too ; thence to Buenos Ayres over the Andes. The Andes are extraordinary, but they lack the beauty we picture — they are, rather, stupendous. Still, beauty, even in Nature, is not everything ; power, mag- nitude, ferocity, have claims of their own; but you do not love them as you do fair and gentle things. Per- haps they do not care to be loved, though the abrupt change of the seasons, as you descend from chill peak to the warm embrace of the coast, seems to say yes ! These titantic rocks neither in structure nor in coloration are like other rocks; they seem to end where the rest began — huge conglomerates thrown helter-skelter, heaved up or tossed down by a world in agony. Masses from the fires of hell they might well be; the cold gray of iron; the red of copper; the yel- low of gold; in sprawling heaps, without purpose or order, disintegrating before your eyes — while here and there enormous stratifications, wrenched out of their sockets and thrust into the perpendicular, stare helplessly at heaven. For there is something bigger and more powerful than the Andes even, and that is, but none else — God. Yet amidst this wreck of dead worlds, amidst all this confusion of primeval Nature in the throes of travail, the hard precipices would now and then fall apart and On Sea and Land 191 reveal an enchanting vista, one of deep sapphire lead- ing up to Aconcagua; another to almost its twin in size and beauty, the volcano Yupungato — while be- tween frowning heights and flanks of horror smiled the calm little Lake of the Incas in its divine tur- quoise blue. Besides such paradisal things, there were impressive formations mimicking castles, cathedrals and other notable architectural feats by the hand of man — ex- amples of the blessed forgetfulness of an angry god in one of his dark moods, and they are needed to heal nerves torn by fear ; for to come so near the beginnings of things, to witness what this apparently solid earth is capable of, does fill one with terror. At Rio de Janeiro, Queen of Beauty, with her feet in the blue tropic sea and the grandest of mountains enfolding her in their strong arms, while the most pic- turesque of all, the hunchback Corcovado, rests in her very lap ; at Rio, lovely Rio, like a fair maiden dream- ing of the prince yet to come, we bade goodbye to South America — for, though Bahia and Para passed us by, where luscious mangoes, avocado-pears and per- fectly ripe yet green-rinded oranges were showered upon us, nothing thereafter seemed to count. XXVII IN THE BALKANS " JUST BEFORE THE WAR " When we left home in mid-March, 1913, for the International Geographic Congress at Rome, I had a vague idea that after the week of official business this strenuous husband of mine might be tempted to step over into Africa and bask in the sun for a while at Biskra. But not he; he had received a new light; he was going on and on, to do a man's work — even to the Balkans. I shivered, for the first Balkan war was hardly finished, and signs of the next were in the air. However, Fate is occasionally kind: I lost the spot immortalized by Hichens, but I gained infinitely more ; for John's plans became inextricably entangled with the dearest wish of my heart. For ages I had longed for Dalmatia, absolutely untouched by tourists, and had begged for it until John fiercely referred to it as Damlatia — which shocked me and shut me up. By taking the train for Ancona, crossing the Adriatic to Fiume, steaming down the coast to Ragusa and all that lies within her realm, with but a turn of the hand we could achieve several alluring things, to say nothing of the scene of war. So, goodbye to the Pearys, young and old, with bunches of English vio- lets, Roman cakes and pastry, snapshots, all kindly little things showered on us; while Stefansson went 192 In the Balkans " Just Before the War " 193 with us to the very gate — then off to a brand new land! The next morning, after a rough night in a small boat, found us at the now much talked of Fiume, a picturesque city against its surrounding crescent of commanding hills, with massive stone quays that put New York's cheap docks to shame. Here we discov- ered the best coffee since home, drowned in whipped cream, Viennese fashion, and accompanied by rolls but no butter. In Vienna, later, where the coffee is always excellent, as in France and Germany, and served with whipped cream-, a Russian visitor said Americans were too particular about their coffee. I know I do care much for it, as the Russians and Eng- lish for their tea — a poor beverage it seems to me. The trip down the Dalmatian coast in the excellent steamships of the Hungarian-Croatian line, the water of the Adriatic deep to its very shores, with three ranges of mountains in graduated altitudes adding their sub-tropical color and snow-capped grandeur to the exquisite scene, was like sailing through a still lake of many islands. Zara, the birthplace of Felix Wein- gartner, its white houses on the little peninsula blush- ing in the setting sun, was one of the pretty stops by the way. Yet all this, so beautiful at the time, faded into insignificance when, for reasons of convenience, we steamed by Ragusa early the next morning and passed on to Cattaro. Here, the beauty of the coast, which is second to none, culminates in a manner posi- tively theatric. Leaving the port of Castelnuovo, a miniature Naples, Saint Elmo and all, outside of which lay five Austrian warships, ready to blockade Mon- tenegro at any moment, it was said, we passed through 194 Within My Horizon the Bocchi di Cattaro, the Mouth, to first one moun- tain-girt bay, then another, like a wild, marvelous Swiss lake, and finally into a third — as if in a passage of secret chambers ; for each, with its frowning heights and white villages, seemed the very end. Here we paused, before cliffs above their own clouds, abso- lutely sheer, even bent forward, as though anxious to cast themselves, in their melancholy isolation, into the sea. It was an astounding spectacle, just across the way from laughing Italy, yet as wild and sombre as the Norwegian fjords. We wanted to climb up to Cettinje, the capital of Montenegro ; to linger about Cattaro itself ; to see it all at dawn and set of sun; to watch for days the feathery mountain mist play hide-and-seek with those deep ravines, those formidable heights, down which the peasants came to market by precipitous zigzag paths to sell their produce ; but we could not, for John seemed ever to hear the muttering of the Balkans — so I whispered " Auf Wiedersehn," though no lan- guage is understood in these parts save Croatian. " As behind a screen, on the sea's rim, Shadowy coasts in sudden glory swim. O land made out of distance and desire ! With ports of mystic pearl and crests of fire." Ragusa at last was mine, and wonder of wonders, the reality fell but little short of the dream. Every height, crowned by a medieval fortress, was a picture, every path a voyage of discovery. Along the base of the great mountainous background there is but one navigable street, the rest, as in Naples, being rough In the Balkans " Just Before the War " 195 stone steps up and down narrow alleys. On the white houses, and in all open places, the sunshine pours, but the shade is cool — and that is where Rome's " prog- ress," her new broad avenues, fail in comfort. Little Ragusa, unheeded by the countless thousands who pass regularly through Italy, happy in the backwater of her peaceful coast, resting on the proud history she made for herself long ago, has the best of it in health, comfort and simple joy. How balmy the air was, after a soft shower, as we landed at Gravosa, Ragusa's dainty little port, in a bewitching land-locked harbor! What charming pic- tures on every side — substantial buildings of cream color, with tiled roofs of the bungalow type, the tiles of a delicate terra cotta, stood out beautifully against the dark green of cypresses, as straight as the human sentinels forever on duty, and the young foliage of the early spring. Ragusa is an engaging survival of the Middle Ages. It has heavy walls and gates, massive forts and open squares, that suggest Florence, a strange round fountain of bronze with carved faces that used to spout water from the grinning mouths, bases of statues erected to patriotic citizens denuded of the figures lost in fortunes of weather or war, and streets full of Austrian soldiers, who added greatly to its smartness and color. Soldiers constantly marched up and down the main street, often gaily piping, some- times solemnly bearing the body of a dead comrade, before the garden of the Grand Imperial Hotel, from which the populace is barred by great iron locked gates; but the populace never fails to pause and take notice both of the soldiers and the hotel. 196 Within My Horizon In the lobby of this house was to be seen often one of the handsomest officers ever, the son of the proprietor, who once looked at his offspring and said to John: " Yes, he is a fine boy, but," shaking his head mourn- fully, " I fear there is going to be war." Ragusa came and Ragusa went; everything passes, all flows, as those wise old Greeks used to say twenty- five centuries ago, and a friend of yesterday, " Noth- ing is changeless except change " ; and a modern poet, in a different way and with an added meaning : " O death of things that are, Eternity Of things that seem; Of all the happy past, remains to me, To-day, a dream ! " Long blessed days of love and waking thought, All, all are dead; Nothing endures we did, nothing we wrought, Nothing we said. " But once I dreamed I sat and sang with you On Ida hill. There, in the echoes of my life we two Are singing still." When I left Ragusa, sure that nothing in all this strange southeastern Europe could be more enchant- ing than the lovely Star of the Adriatic, " meet for love's regal dalmatic," we little dreamed what a long, startling, perfect day lay before us. For twelve hours we had every possible view of the most glorious moun- tain scenery in the world — through Herzegovina and Bosnia. It was like seeing the earth from a rocking cradle, so comfortable we were, zigzagging up, zig- In the Balkans " Just Before the War " 197 zagging down, or among the clouds. Dusk did not come until the last hill was passed, the last view ob- tained, and the train sidled down to Sarajevo, whose name was soon to be execrated throughout the world — since from the murderous deed in its streets sprung awful war. All that day there was not a moment when we did not stare, at the mountains and each other, to think so beautiful a world could exist and be known scarcely beyond its borders. It was a veritable wonderland of tumultuous masses and deep, enclosed valleys, with the road again and again returning on itself, in cork- screw circles, to climb still higher ; then, when we had reached the top, through a tunnel and off again to the depths, ready for another pass and another triumph. After we left the summer resort of Jablonica, with its thick groves and comprehensive views, for an hour or two we were in a recrudescence of the Dolomite region. There was a group in pudding-stone like a conclave of hooded monks, the same sharp-pointed hood you see everywhere there from priest to peasant. It was a terrestrial tumult that kept us exclaiming at every turn, until John finally declared that he was all worn out with looking and was not going to take in another thing; and we were both rather glad, after the fulness of the feast, when night shut down and nature too. Mostar, an old Turkish town, is capital of Herzegovina, as is Sarajevo of Bosnia, but we did not stop at either place — time was too precious. Next morning we changed cars at the Austro-Hun- garian town of Brod, snatched a cup of good coffee, caught the train for Belgrade, changed twice, and 198 Within My Horizon finally reached the Grand Hotel of Serbia, with its excellent beds, for the first comfortable repose. All Hungary is as flat as our prairies and almost as fertile, though with old-fashioned farming methods. I was fascinated by the woolly swine — with black or white or mixed coats of sheep's wool. We met a drove first at Vincovzce (look at those consonants!), where we took a cold, dusty walk between trains under an avenue of beautiful flowering horse chestnuts. Later, we passed through whole orchards of fruit blossoms, like a snowstorm, enchanting, as they almost brushed the car windows. Only the Russian or Cyril- lic alphabet is used in these parts, so you haven't the slightest idea what any sign says or anything is. The calendar, too, is thirteen days behind ours. But the Hungarian young women with smooth glossy braids wound over each ear were ahead of their time, 1919 rather than 191 3, and as comely and wholesome a lot as well could be. What interested me most in Belgrade was the new palace of King Peter, the still newer and handsomer one of the Crown Prince, and the eloquent garden be- tween the two- — all that is left of the old palace, de- molished by the Government, after the furious mob had murdered King Alexander and Queen Draga. Later, we visited their mausoleum, with the two crosses of malleable iron, the dead Queen's much mutilated by souvenir hunters. They do say Draga was a disrepu- table woman who had gained evil ascendency over a weak man. Sofia proved a queer mixture of the Cross and the Crescent; of the Russian and the Turk, which in a In the Bdlkans " Just Before the War " 199 sense makes the Bulgarian; with the climate of Con- stantinople, whose early spring I remember as like New York's worst, yet at moments with a heavy touch of sun — and over all the shadow of War. We first felt this approaching the frontier of Serbia; we felt it still more in the streets of Belgrade, with the mili- tary everywhere, not on parade but ready for action; we felt it keenly as our train pulled out of Belgrade jammed with soldiers, officers in the first-class of the two cars next the engine, every seat in the third-class occupied by the men, and on the station platform, drawn in regular line, a string of youthful veterans left behind — saluting their officers in the cars as they passed by. We were in the leading car and saw it all : the glory of the officers, returning to duty at Adrianople; the respect and seeming devotion of their men; the privates bidding goodbye to their own friends ; a mother or sister or sweetheart here and there with quivering throat and tears in her eyes. In the whole crowded train was not one woman; nor another, except the maids, in the Grand Hotel Bul- garie, at Sofia. As I descended the stairs, every man stared, whispered to his neighbor and all in unison watched my progress ; and didn't I thank my stars that I was in my best, from hat to heel — with a scarlet Spanish scarf for good measure ! As we emerged from the tomb-like hotel into the embrace of a lover-like sun, for the first time I realized that our street looked straight up to a glorious moun- tain, blue as Bethlehem below its glistening cap of snow. It was Vitoscha, and only a few miles away. That and the Royal Palace opposite us, with a 200 Within My Horizon public park near by, should make the fortune of any hotel, as I guess it did. The food those days in the hotels and stations throughout the land was good, but the butter was questionable. In all the Slav countries and Austrian provinces we passed through on that memorable journey, they did not serve butter at all, unless you called and paid for it; even then it was white and lard-like, buffalo butter, they said; and I learned, with milk scarce, too, to drink my coffee black, even at breakfast, with dry rolls, very good and a little sweet — though I preferred salt, as you will see. At India, our last change for Belgrade, I indulged in a lone kaffee-klatch, wonderful for a station. On the tray there was no cup, only one little pot of hot cof- fee, another of whipped cream, a glass of cold water and a goblet. When I looked for the cup, the waiter pointed to the goblet and put a spoon in it. Such a drink as that was, accompanied by a small, round, hard, hot biscuit, dark as if of rye, shortened and heavily salted. It was a cross between the tea-biscuit of America and pie-crust, and in a country without good butter (though, come to think of it, that might have been due to the war) the salty taste with the Vienna coffee was so refreshing that I should like to go back to India for that refection alone. The only thing American I saw in Sofia, except educational institutions and an occasional official man or woman, was a Standard Oil can — empty. Still, with all its foreign oddities, the world continued to seem small. When we were calling on a lady con- nected with missionary work there, the name of Mrs. Charles Lamson, widow of the late president of the In the Balkans " Just Before the War " 201 American Board, was mentioned, and John was asked if he had ever met her. " Often," he replied. " She is my sister." It is a Bulgarian custom towards the close of a call to offer a dessert-spoon spilling over with fruit pre- serve on a glass saucer, with water in a silver goblet, to wash down the cloying sweet in one mouthful. The fruits are such as plums, cherries, peaches, raspberries, melon-rinds, and in one instance small green tomatoes, scarcely larger than a cherry, which turn yellow when ripe. All these fruits, for the attainment of firmness in preserve, are soaked for an hour or so in lime-water, then stirred into hot syrup which has been boiling for a long time, until the exact honey-like consistency can be obtained, when a chemical, locally called lemon salts, is stirred in at the last to keep the mixture from sugaring. In this housekeeper's recipe, which pro- duces a far better article than that on sale, there may be a hint for us. The green tomatoes I tasted at the house of Dr. and Mrs. Count, our own representatives in Bulgaria at the time and for years before, and like a refreshing breeze from America in their cordiality did they seem, as well as a mine of information; while the raspberries were offered me in the home of a true Bulgarian, wife of Constantine Stephanove, the dis- tinguished patriot and Macedonian who, in a literary and political way, though a nationalized American citizen, and an ardent believer in our principles, is do- ing great things for his native land — as his wife is heart and soul with him in righting Bulgaria's wrongs. Those mountain raspberries, small and of a won- derful color and flavor, keeping their shape perfectly, 202 Within My Horizon as well as their wild, vivid, spicy tang, I never can for- get. Bulgaria also, as you may know, is noted for its roses, which in summer spread over the land like wheat, and produce an attar beyond compare. The blossom is similar to our cinnamon rose, half double, the oil at its heart and, covering acre upon acre, its scent can be detected miles away. From its higher men and women, the men sober and strong, the women virtuous, well-informed and pas- sionately religious, down to its loyal peasantry, hard at work raising cereals, and children too, with church, the market and Oriental embroidering the sole relaxa- tion, Bulgaria is as much superior to Roumania, so light and fickle, so heedless of moral claims and obli- gations, with all her artistic gifts, as is Roumania in her turn to half-savage Serbia — despite certain pre- conceptions in America to the contrary. The Balkan States should be, like our United States, one and indi- visible, but the eternal meddling of the Powers forbids — they will not stand for it. The key to these Eastern peoples I seemed to find later at Budapest when, wandering into the majestic church of Saint Stephen, we found ourselves swept away by the cyclonic breath of a full military High Mass. First the priest would chant a bit of the serv- ice, then the drums would rattle, the orchestra intone, and out of the rich chaos of it all would rise the sweet clear voices of the boy soprano choir, lifting to heaven with ardor the supplication of their song, while now and then the riper art of a glorious baritone would sound a deeper note. The combination of the venera- ble prelate's drone, the singing of the youthful devo- In the Balkans " Just Before the War " 203 tees, quickened by the skill of the older artist, the wild splendor of the military band, beneath which the giant organ throbbed out its profound meaning, was inde- scribably affecting — an expression of the mingling of races more or less akin, Turk, Slav, Austrian, Magyar, under the emotional control of music and God; held together, as it seemed, all that turbulence, by the two most powerful impulses of the human heart, outside that which carries on the torch of Life — those that respond to Religion and War. XXVIII PICKING UP LOST THREADS By the fall of 191 5, with the war in full force, I was glad to stay at home. I expected to travel no more. Before I opened a letter from Zona Gale, one day late in September, I had not one idea of attending the San Francisco Fair : I was brought to it solely by her alluring description, which instantly I spread, through the Standard Union, and the fifth of my six German pamphlets, far and wide. Meantime, 1 snatched a bag, a maid and a train before the vision should vanish; and the surprise of my life was that the dream came true. I shall never forget my first vivid impression, in the early evening, of the ethereal Guerin towers, one sparkling with jewels, and the richly dim medieval Mulghardt revival a little in the rear, each a pure carnation red glowing as through alabaster; when into the huge domes, one the largest in the world, crept the same unearthly fire ; and at last the illusion of enormous folds of cloth, in dark, exotic hues, alien browns, reds, greens, purples, like a weird aurora borealis, spread from zenith to horizon — an utterly novel phase of form and color, insubstantial as dream, yet in appearance as solid as the earth on which we trod. Not exactly beautiful, these great night passion flowers, but strange, provocative, overpowering — 204 Picking Up Lost Threads 205 hinting of a deeper, simpler, more ardent life and world. When I started for the Fair, it was not that alone I meant to see, though it was the moving impulse. In my five trips across the continent I had always missed three wonders of the world: the Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and the Canadian Rockies; and these I now determined to achieve. I had missed other big things besides, of course, but these were all I violently craved. The Yosemite, that fairy valley with a horizon 3,000 feet high, and the Big Trees on the glorious new Triangle drive, I especially desired. It is only in the still fastnesses of the Tuolumne Forest that the Yose- mite redwood monarchs grow. On the floor of the Valley, though 4,000 feet above the sea, where superb sequoias flourish, there is not one. The redwood, with its feathery leaves of prickly green, is always a king on a high, isolated throne. Ageless, eternal, they are the same now, as wild and free, as in the reptilian period — these solemn survivals of the earth's dim past. Over all is that hush which must have been when the earth was young, and the waters had receded from the high places, and man was not. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado proved so ex- traordinary, as indeed did the whole experience, that when I came home I sent my friend, Flora Field, then of the New Orleans Times Picayune, now a story writer of growing repute, whose piercing wails for a snatch of this beauty could be heard country-wide, over much the same ground, catching the Fair the week before it died, and here is her fine picture of the Canyon, that eighth wonder of the world: 206 Within My Horizon It is the beauty of life and the soul of death. It is the silence of aeons into which you look — it is Silence's self, delicate as a flower, vast as death. Out of a thousand square miles under your gaze, from the soft splash of sapphire chasms rises a world of crumpled rose and gold and violet in which no thought dreams ; an inferno it has been called — yet spectral as a vision. Like a lost bird your imagination flutters over the immensity — attempts to soar along such wonder for 200 miles, then sinks beaten into the changeless change. Miles away the thread of the Colorado shows amber with its churn of rocks and earth. So the work of erosion goes on. . . . An infinite solitude is upon you — always back you are drawn to look over that edge into the shifting beauty of life that lives yet does not breathe. . . . Evening comes, the sapphire shadows slip into deeper clefts ; the rose dies, becomes ashes of rose ; light fades first on this age, then on that — and it is the dusk of the gods. Two full days of this, from sunrise to sunset, leaves one not quite the same. It is a novel, a profound ex- perience, this intimacy with a world in the making. Simply to gaze from El Tovar to the opposite rim, so few and yet so many miles away, evokes dream; for there lies Asia, and a bit of Africa, in lofty mosques, temples and pyramids, with multitudes at prayer — no less true because eyes cannot see the swaying, pray- ing sea of heads within structures which even Thomas could not doubt : the work, century upon century, of wind and water, the slow siege of water, the furious onslaught of wind, until the very rocks gave way, the continent was rent and the passionate flood at last found calm in union with the sea. At the little station of Sisson, California, in the deep of a moonlight night, I discovered a great snow mountain, only twelve miles away, leonine in shape, Picking Up Lost Threads 207 milk-white from base to summit, which was Shasta; and from the comfort of my pillows I watched it play- hide-and-seek with the rushing train until the skies reddened as from a conflagration, the dawn came on and like Brunnhilde in her fire-girt slumber the moun- tain roused to the ardor of the sun. Wagner comes so often into these unusual scenes. In the Grand Can- yon we found Rheingold and Walhalla; at the Yo- semite the sequoia growing through the ceiling recalled Hunding's hut in " Walkure " ; Siegfried, with his eternal youth, darts everywhere in this new land ; while Canada's dark forests know well the ominous calm, the slow, solemn beat, the wild resounding agony of that impassioned threnody which is the transcendent climax and close of " Gotterdammerung." Homeward bound on the Canadian Pacific I picked up the last dropped stitch. Yet the Canadian Rockies were a disappointment rather than a delight. After the Andes, which they imitate but never equal, they seem tame. What caught my eye and still haunts my mind were not the much-exploited mountains, but the great wondrous unbroken wilderness that clothes their flanks. Below the snow peak, with its hanging chryso- litic glacier, below the rough, repellent rocks, came shoulder to shoulder, like armies of the gods in massed formation, endless forests of the pointed fir. Now, even in a garden a pointed fir is eloquent; so think what millions of them must mean, wild and free in that magnificent solitude, singing to heaven their glo- rious eternal song! As I stood above Kicking Horse Pass, still a lonely, impressive, evergreen-lined ravine, and gazed for the 208 Within My Horizon last time on those ugly, concrete, cyclopean mounds and masses which make up the Canadian Rockies, I recalled Whymper's remark, that here were fifty Switzerlands rolled into one. Yes, and you would not give the Jungfrau, the Matterhorn, Lake Lucerne, or even that far line of silver beheld from Bellagio on Lake Como, for the whole of them. For you love Switzerland, while for these excrescences you get no further than respect — and respect is a mighty cold proposition to live with. Then, too, you have to take them along with the British menu: too much meat, chilly breakfasts, exe- crable coffee — how could England win this war when after a thousand years she has not even learned to cook! XXIX A DAINTY VAGRANT My first interview with Ingomar was in the nature of a surprise. At least it was to me ; but I suspect that with him it was the result of a carefully laid plan — his shrewd little cat head must have told him that the mistress of that particular brownstone front was pe- culiarly susceptible to feline charms. Never is she able to resist the lovely curves, the furry warmth, the rich, delicious purr, the winning ways of this domesti- cated offshoot of the panther family. Still, a pet in the country is one thing, a vagrant of the city quite another; but Ingomar took his chances, and like all the brave conquered the fair. It was one of those mornings in early May, so in- describably luminous, balmy and fragrant even in town; the kind of morning to inspire man to grow new wings in the struggle for existence — to cause hope to spring up in the breast of despair. I stepped from the library into the drawing-room to let the sunshine in, when out of the murky depths softly towards me crept a dark object, conspicuously heralded by a patch of white. My amazement knew no bounds. Pussy's faith in me knew no bounds either. On and on he came, with noiseless, deprecating tread and head lowered as if to receive just punishment, yet with a tender confidence 209 210 Within My Horizon in his eyes which would have melted the heart of a graven image. And when a beautiful, helpless animal is in question, I am no graven image. A beautiful creature indeed, with a fine maltese coat stretching from his eyes to the tip of his tail, while behind the ears were five regular black stripes, forming a little head-dress not unlike that worn by Juliet in the play. Now and then, in effective places, these stripes were repeated, giving a still deeper tone to the dark gray coat. The paws were covered with white mittens, the little terra-cotta nose rose out of a bed of purest white, and under the chin was a snow-white collar as perfect as if made to order. The lovely gray-green eyes shone with an expression animal rather than human only in its deeper faith and gratitude. For I had taken the pretty thing in my arms, and was loath to let him go. He curled up into a soft ball, and gently pressed me with his paws of velvet, while his whole being trembled with the ardor of his happy purr. But alas, the street was his home, and to it he returned. A week or so later, as we sat at dinner we heard a plaintive wail. It was not the rasping miouw of the ordinary cat, but a gently importunate appeal. At the same moment I recognized the wonderful white collar pressed against the window-pane. He was let in and ran straight to me, the joy of recognition shining in his eyes. I offered him something to eat, but he passed by the food to rub against the hand that held it. It was then I said, though an unsympathetic audi- ence laughed : " It's not meat he wants but human affection." In the strength of his attachments he was like a dog. A Dainty Vagrant 211 He would spring a foot from the floor to receive a caress, and if I crouched to talk with him, directly he would creep into my arms. Once in a while he would lap my hand or face, not the most agreeable of attentions, but unmistakably sincere. After that eve- ning he came quite often. While he evidently be- longed to nobody, he affected our neighborhood, per- haps because of the noble maples which at that time made Carlton Avenue almost like a village street. This extensive greenery may have reminded Ingomar of some happier country home. Though a street cat, he was nice in his habits, keeping his fur clean and glossy, and in many ways manifesting self-respect. His beauty indicated gentle blood, and his manners that he was once somebody's pet — for blood and training will tell, you know. The most trivial things, like pulling an oyster out of a bowl by means of his pretty paws, was full of grace and purpose. In fact he possessed the qualities which among men command success. He neither wasted himself in fruitless endeavor nor did he fall into the mistake of retreat. And his delicacy in the acceptance of our hospitality was an example to women and men. He showed plainly that it was ourselves he craved rather than our bed and board. Never once did he make a convenience of us. Ingomar stood by us throughout the summer. He observed the exodus that takes place when the sun is high, and profited by our annual conclusion that sea- blown Brooklyn, freed of fashion and crowds, is about as comfortable a summer-resort as can be found — surely so if you own an airy, vine-covered, tree-shaded 212 Within My Horizon home. But in September, when the town begins to fill up again, we find our way to the woods. All through the autumn days the lakes, the leaves, the everlasting hills are at their best — with the herd far away and God very near. The tints are maddening, the air like fine wine, the peace profound. It is with laggard steps that we leave it all behind. Ingomar disappeared soon after our exit. Weeks passed without a glimpse of him. In fact we had quite given him up, when on a bleak November after- noon, as I opened the door, he rushed up the steps and into the hall. He was so changed that I scarcely knew him, with fur soiled and torn, eyes strained and watery, and one long tooth gone. The small boy had done his deadly work. One of them chased the cat into the house and that is how I found out. At the sight of the boy Ingomar became frantic and fought like a tiger — our once gentle pussy. The young tormentor howled to heaven as he felt the claws, while I strove to rescue the cat. But the animal was seeing red that day and flew out as fast as he flew in. The seasons came and went. I thought of him often, but as we think of the dead. How I regretted that my last sight of him could not have been sweeter, as we regret that the tender memory of our dear one should be marred by the set face in the coffin. Always before me rose that torn coat, those distorted eyes. It was fully a year from that dreadful day. The small boy had disappeared from our neighborhood, to tease cats and shatter glass in a more congenial clime. A Dainty Vagrant 213 Again it was November. The gas was lighted and the shades half drawn. Somebody called attention to the persistent mewing of a cat. I looked up and caught a glimpse of white fur. You may smile, but my heart leaped. A friend, even a cat friend, is not made every day. I had missed Ingomar more than I cared to confess. He bounded into my arms; rushed to each member of the family and gave effusive greeting; finally rubbed against fur- niture in lieu of human beings. Not only did he re- member us but he talked to us in the same old way — a sort of chirrup we were at no loss to understand. Then, with greetings well over, he threw himself full length on the rug, his little white mittens pawing the air, his eyes swimming with joy. How I wished he could really talk and tell us of his travels since last he fled from us in a delirium of terror. What adven- tures must have been his, what battles for life, what narrow escapes, what thrilling victories ! The wisdom learned in the hard school of experience shone out of his intelligent eyes, but could not come forth from his poor dumb lips. Strange how the privilege possessed by the veriest fool should be denied to the noblest beast. Yet is it not a pitfall rather than a blessing to be able to dissipate our feelings through unnecessary words ? This time Ingomar had come to stay. Nothing could tempt him into the street. Even the sight of it would excite him disastrously. When I first took him to the front windows, he sprang from me and sought the farthest corner, lowering his head and closing his eyes as if for a blow — that attitude which so delights the cruel small boy and so appeals to one of greater 214 Within My Horizon years and warmer feelings. In time he was willing to look out safely sheltered in my arms, but his little heart would beat fast. He had learned his lesson well. Of course we spoiled him, as women will, and what at first he was grateful for as a privilege eventually he demanded as a right. But there was one who never cared for him, who ignored him completely — the mas- ter. When Ingomar observed this, he seemed thought- ful and oppressed; he would leave his slaves at any moment to haggle for the notice of the one who loved him not — but to no avail. All the beauties of his coat, collar and mittens, all his rare curves and grace- ful ways, he displayed in vain. He purred and chir- ruped so seductively, he rolled himself into a soft, in- ert, delicious mass on the master's very knees — only to be betrayed; something very like a slap would send him flying to the floor. Yet he cared more for the fleeting touch of a finger from the one who was so difficult than for all the love accorded without stint. For thus is constituted the masculine heart. As the spring came on, he manifested a provoking tendency to disappear for a day or two at a time over the back fence. The blocks in our rear are so long that the enclosures, each with its own tree or flower or vine, look more like a park than a collection of prosaic back- yards, and within this enchanted quadrangle, espe- cially in cherry-blossom time, Ingomar would roam at his own sweet will, coming home much the worse for wear. But he was not to delight us with his very human ways for long. It is the boon or the bane of animal A Dainty Vagrant 215 life that it is short. First came a little cough, then a disinclination for food, accompanied by extreme lassi- tude. No longer did he bid for our attention with his agile movements, but would lie for hours in one spot, thinking unutterable things — for I doubt not he knew that he was going to die. Just as he had reached a haven of rest, he was to be seized by a power greater even than the pitiless small boy, and be hurled into the awful unknown. Certainly the cat seemed wrapped in a profound melancholy, searching our eyes with an appeal it was difficult to meet. The physician knows well what this look means. It is the beginning of the end. When Ingomar stayed out in a long rain, heedless of the wet, so distasteful to all cats, I knew he was doomed. The next day, one of those April wonders which bear within their deceptive warmth all the lan- guorous beauty of the heart of June, the end came. In the full blaze of the sun, upon a bed of hyacinths already exhaling sweet perfume, with his paws folded under him in what we used to call his attitude of prayer, our pet passed away. There can be a solemnity, a deep sense of loss, even in the death of a cat. Love is a strange thing. The most brilliant mind may leave one cold while a help- less animal nestles close to the heart. XXX GRAND OPERA Music has meant much to me as the most poignant emotional response to the human soul; but it also has meant much to me practically — my reviews of grand opera, as I have said, brought me that confidence with the pen which led to larger things. While the creature of a day, my writing was not all loss; it excited a little attention now and then, and some said it was " alive " : that I could make people see what I saw and feel what I felt. But I knew not the tonic of any discipline save my own — which, needless to say, was not severe. I was not idle, but it requires ceaseless toil to make the artist — added to what the Lord himself sees fit to bestow. Even as to music I followed my own inclina- tions : I did not impose my will upon myself enough to try to like what did not appeal to me — first impres- sions with me, as to people and things, are vivid and almost invariably final. If I do not care for a person or picture or play at once I rarely do at all ; and if I do care, I find that in the long run, even with a setback now and then, there is some vital reason why. Soon after reaching New York, I abandoned the concerts I had never loved, but to which in a small world I had practically been confined, and rushed into opera as a horse into the race. The concert stage has 216 Grand Opera 217 no magnetism for me — it seems cold and forbidding. Its glaring lights I particularly detest. Wondrous symphonies, such as Beethoven's Eroica or Tschai- kowsky's heart-rending Pathetique, not less than music dramas and all romantic harmonies, should be listened to in the dark. It is only then that we learn the full meaning of them — when we and the subject, left alone together, can become one. When he ordered lights out, Wagner knew what he was about ; he under- stood as few others the psychic value of the gloaming. As a road to the emotions there is nothing like it in music or in love. He also knew what he was about when he rested his whole system on the orchestra. For the full orchestra more than for any singer would I pawn my treasures. On the contrary, the ballet means less to me than its reigning kings and queens. The ballet gives color, creates atmosphere, but it is not superior to the individual — to the wonder of a Pav- lowa, a Mordkin, a Bonfiglio, a Rosina Galli. While the ballet intensifies emotion, the orchestra is emotion itself. Beside the tumultuous passion of those hun- dred men, how dare the greatest diva of her time con- sider herself indispensable? Yet out of many well-received operas, comparatively few have the power to stir me. " Boris Godunoff," though a new-comer, has this to the full. In its melan- choly choral splendor, as in the pictorial grandeur of its Kremlin, its churches, convents and palace halls, that marvelous set of unwanted scenes which Gatti- Cassaza bought in Paris for a song, the very aspect of it is unusual, setting the music aside. Yet the music, a true cry from the East, from the land of the Slav, 218 Within My Horizon is in itself a wondrously eloquent thing. From that Russia which still lives, though under a dark and lower- ing cloud, the piercing wail of millions of suffering souls rises to heaven from a strange folk choir express- ing an infinitude of burden and sorrow, and this from Moussorgsky who, like the unhappy Dostoyevsky, was one of them. Chorus and orchestra unite to voice a pitiful, a supremely tragic aspect of mankind, one that has known cold, hunger, thirst and the waste places — has, in short, been deprived perpetually of its just in- heritance. That a people like a person may learn and grow through trial is beside the point. The immediate impression is one of endless pain, of dark despair. How that woe penetrates, how it wrings the heart, while the stricken crowd laments and sings as before an open grave: Why dost thou abandon us . . . O Father! Here we implore thee . . . Good Father ! Deign to hear our sobs . . . O Father! Mercy ! Mercy ! Good Father . . . O Father! But grand opera is not all acute distress, though the best of it is sad. The great composers do not provoke laughter — hardly smiles : they fill you with remem- brance or longing. In this category may be placed those beloved relics of the past, Weber's " Oberon " or " Euryanthe," splendidly revived, and the great melodic Verdi in his immortal " Rigoletto," " Trova- Grand Opera 219 tore," " Aida," and in 1918, for the first time at the Metropolitan, " Forza del Destino," with Rosa Ponselle in her meteoric debut; Donizetti's " Lucia," deep trag- edy, when well done, not less than sweetest song; Gounod's undying " Faust " ; Bizet's all-human " Car- men " ; the tempestuous Cavalleria-Pagliacci twins, royal melody in spite of their modernity, — these hold us under a sway entirely absent from many of more recent vintage, not to forget the oldest of them all, that ancient wonder in a new dress, Gluck's " Orfeo," given so beautifully just before the war, with our own Louise Homer far excelling the French Delna as the Orpheus who weeps inconsolably beside the bier of his beloved Eurydice in that mournful opening number where the hand-maidens chant their solemn requiem beneath the dark firs against a setting sun. " Tosca," despite the touching story and rich or- chestration of " Butterfly," is the best thing Puccini has done. Of Scotti's Scarpia I never tire : the ele- gant sybarite, with his women, his perfumes, his wines ; the man of the world, in his faultless courtesy and cold intent; the high, complex official, hard on his men yet humble before his God — the Scarpia of Scotti lives as truly as any figure in history. When in the Cathe- dral Emma Eames dropped her tall stick, the first time I think accidentally, with what exquisite deference did he restore it to her! That perfect gallantry he no longer uses with Farrar, nor was he so brutal in his unwelcome love-making to the greater woman of the world — or at least so it seems to me. When Scotti offered the cane to Mme. Eames (at that moment, not long before her Farewell, doing the best acting of her 220 Within My Horizon career, because at last she was truly in love, with the glorious barytone De Gorgorza, whose name she now bears), into the eyes of the impressionable young matron at my side suddenly flashed a significant light as she whispered nervously : " He can have me." Wickedness never appalls a woman, you know, if the deportment is correct and the man compelling. Then the music of " Tosca " ! When all is said, it is the music, the music of any opera, that sets hearts going — not the mere dramatic clash of human wills ; though in Montemezzi's " Three Kings," as in De- bussy's " Melisande," both music and drama meet in high poetic degree — the degree that leaves you a nerv- ous wreck when all is over. " Tosca's " music in the opening scene is splendid from beginning to end ; from the turbulent passion of the lovers, contrasting vio- lently with the Commandante's sinister designs, to that tremendous finale, one of the most impressive in all opera, when the stream of church dignitaries, cardinals, bishops, archbishops, priests, acolytes, soldiers, pass endlessly the great altar of the Cathedral whose vast spaces speak eternally of eternal Rome, while Scarpia and the populace fall upon their knees and unite with organ, orchestra, church bells, cannon and drums in raising their lusty voices to God. Then the last act, beautiful in an entirely different way, as Mr. Finck of the Evening Post so well expresses it : " Puccini's best act was the third of ' Tosca,' written in the white heat of inspiration. There are two fine vocal numbers, but the chief charm lies in the orchestral coloring, which presents a mood picture unequalled in any other Italian opera. The sentinel walking up and down the Grand Opera 221 terrace overlooking Rome, with St. Peter's in the cen- tre ; the Italian flag fluttering in the gentle breeze ; the clanging of many church bells mingling with the calm yet richly colored orchestral sounds; the marvelously beautiful quartet of violoncellos, rivalling the famous 'cello quintet in the first act of Wagner's ' Walkure ' — these and other things unite into a scenic tone-poem of overwhelming fascination." Nothing else that Massenet has composed compares to " Thais." In the first place, the libretto is remark- ably good, the story by Anatole France of the sinner who became a saint and the saint a sinner. While the tale undoubtedly inspired the composer, it would be little without the ceaseless eloquence of the music — that is absolutely Massenet's own contribution. All moods are reflected in its limpid flow and all are made visible; the Greek triumphal scene, a vision of life and light in delicate pastel tints, even the small if effective part of Nicias in its hint of worldly protection through sexual fondness; the Meditation, that divine reverie of harp, strings and solo violin which should be played only in poetic twilight gloom ; the touching defense, in the rich and rolling periods of Mary Garden, of her little Eros ; the sad end under the palms of love's close companionship, in the bitter-sweet water duet with the gourd at the spring, a true page from the Orient — how wonderful all! I never think of Thais as by anybody but Mary Garden, whose charming American name heralds her own charm of person and person- ality; nor can I think of Athanael as by other than Renaud, he of the fire and pathos in action and eyes — so perfectly have the two identified themselves with 222 Within My Horizon these inexorable parts. The orchestration also is a constant miracle, picturing not only what is attractive but what is repellent, as the noisome violence of the priest's sensation when he realizes the truth after the woman he desires has by the sisters been led away. Isolde! The very name stands for love, uncon- querable love, love of man for woman, woman for man — and yet for so much more. The prelude hints of all that is to come: the rage of the woman scorned; the romantic duo in the subtle moonlight, whispering of voluptuous repose; the agonizingly impassioned crescendo and climax, the clash of Love and Law, with Love fatally wounded — then the immortal Liebestod. Lilli Lehmann was our first Isolde, but Lillian Nordica was our first love — our own ravishing Nordica, American from slipper to tiara! Of all great Isoldes she seemed to me the most unaffected and womanly, while in voice she was peculiarly gifted — her voice Seidl himself revered. The " dream " music, with Jean de Reszke, midst the dim beauty, the ominous hush, of the old Cornwall garden, a realization of life's mystery in which death seemed to pause, was an ex- perience for both eye and ear. As for the Liebestod, who could bring out its sad rapture like her? She sang it with full comprehension of its meaning, with unparalleled opulence of tone, and with sublime sur- render to death and the gods. No singer has surpassed her exaltation in this culminating moment, as none has displayed her physical endurance, since at the end of the long evening of exacting labor she seemed as fit as at the beginning. Her noble soprano, luscious in quality as limitless in power, rose and fell in melting Grand Opera 223 tenderness, in resistless urge and surge, far above the most forceful orchestra then known, sweeping her from the agony of the dead lover at her feet to reunion where beyond these voices there is peace. In 1913, when misfortune overtook my ears, I bought a victrola, which brought me, I believe, the keenest musical pleasure of all. As a friend said : " I have noticed that when one door shuts another is apt to open." Frequently I had contended that we did not listen to opera music right : that we should be at rest, even lying down, far from the distracting crowd ; that the long intermissions, with their meaningless gabble, the fierce illumination which is like a blow, the weary hour upon hour through so much to gain so little, were all wrong. If only one could have it, I used to say, like King Ludwig of Bavaria, in one's own opera house; or the heart of it, the well-loved passages, at ease, at home, alone — perhaps in that solitude of which Cowper speaks: " How sweet, how passing sweet is Solitude. But grant me still a friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet." This all came with my victrola, a sweet and power- ful instrument, the best of its kind. At last my dream came true : I had but to close my eyes, summer or winter, rain or shine, when lo! right at hand was the faintly glowing curtain, the wave of the magic wand, the sudden hush in the vast auditorium, the beautiful anticipatory moment in the dark, the thrilling har- monies of some great prelude, the rising of the great 224 Within My Horizon gold tapestry in its great gold frame. Then one after another the masterpieces of the world, of which this little wonder was the perfect essence and expression. My heaven was attained. XXXI GEMS IN THE SKY Why did not somebody teach me the Constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead and I don't half know to this day? Thomas Carlyle. Astronomy as a science is almost pure mathematics, but pictorially it is a cosmic marvel and poem. The skies are so infinitely lovely that one can scarcely be- lieve they really exist! They should become a near and dear part of every human being. But mere read- ing cannot accomplish this. By that road you will never be able to say : " Those are the Pleiades, these are the Hyades, that fine star is Denebola, dancing at- tendance on Berenice's Hair." One by one you must reverently seek and find them ; but to know them once is to know them for all time — like the swimmer's stroke, it never is forgotten. Home from the mountains one September long ago, depressed that I scarcely knew one star from another, a book of blessed diagrams fell into my hands and I went to work in earnest. Yet craning neck out of windows, rushing wildly into the street to gaze up- ward till pedestrians stopped and gazed with me; reading at corner lamps till everybody turned and stared — this had its drawbacks. Suddenly I thought 225 226 Within My Horizon of that common retreat in an Oriental home — the roof. Drawing a bolt, I climbed steep steps, lifted a heavy scuttle, fell on an expanse of tin — and found myself in heaven. Star upon star unseen below re- sponded to my appeal, and altogether it was a royal welcome from " That inverted bowl they call the sky Whereunder crawling coopt we live and die." To compare the diagram with the real thing took endless trips down and back again, there was many a seance on the roof before conjecture became certainty, but come the understanding did at last and to stay. Given the Great Dipper, the rest, if you care, is com- paratively easy. Although I had discovered Vega directly overhead and in the west Arcturus, that favor- ite of Peary who in the lonely Arctic watched it circling far to the south of him, the wider outlook of the roof revealed a distinctly foreign star, the first-magnitude Spica, in Virgo, glittering close to the southwest hori- zon before leaving for its winter home in the tropics. Vega, in Lyra, is believed to be the centre of our sys- tem ; millions of years hence it may be our pole star — instead of bright Polaris, so much more truly that, in its close proximity to the Pole, than those insignificant Antarctic worlds in like situation. The Southern Cross, which in the south sailors depend upon to steer by, is nearly thirty degrees from the Pole, while Polaris is practically one degree, and still approaching, so that in two centuries it will be less by half ! Polaris is conspicuous as the tip of the Little Dipper's handle, toward which Alpha and Omega in the bowl of the Gems in the Shy 227 Great Dipper always point, as do the eyes of every northern navigator on the globe. English captains who sail the Seven Seas refer to these figures by their scientific appellations Ursa Major and Minor, Big and Little Bear, not seeming to recognize the interesting dipper figures, though accepted by every school-boy in the United States. Across the Milky Way from Vega is another of first- magnitude, Altair, in Aquila, the Eagle, easily distin- guished by a faint equidistant star on either hand, while slightly northwest of Altair is that small architectural lozenge called Job's Coffin. Between Altair and Vega, lying in the Milky Way, which greatly enhances its splendor, with head pointing north, is the immense Northern Cross. Many prefer this to the Southern Cross because of its great size and perfect symmetry, though of its eight stars there is but one bright one — Deneb, at the top. A line drawn from Altair to Arc- turus passes through the Northern Crown, a sparkling diadem of five small stars with a larger gem appro- priately in the centre. South of Cassiopeia, that circumpolar constellation in the form of an open W, a line of stars leads to the great square of Pegasus, the Flying Horse, the whole thing not unlike a deep, long-handled sauce-pan. You can also witness in September the closing moments of Scorpio, which soon migrates, like the birds, to the south. It is easily identified by its stunning first- magnitude star Antares, which in its great size and red fire rivals the planet Mars — whence its name, anti- Mars. East of Scorpio you run against Sagittarius, the Archer, six of whose small stars form an inverted 228 Within My Horizon dipper perfect in shape and because in the Milky Way known as the Milk Dipper, while east of Sagittarius you can distinguish the three pairs of small stars repre- senting the head, tail and knees of the goat in Capri- corn, and still farther east looming above the horizon is Fomalhaut, the eighteenth first-magnitude on the list. Near Fomalhaut in September is Jupiter, glorious as Venus at her best, but minus her soft golden light — sharper, more electric, more masculine! In December comes the greatest display of all: glo- rious Orion, the Mighty Hunter, one mass of splendid gems, on knee, belt, shoulders, and along his sword; Aldebaran, red as Antares, in the head of Taurus; Castor and Pollux, the Twins, Procyon, the Dog Star, and Capella, queen of pentagonal Auriga — to say nothing of that finest " Jager " of them all, blue-white Sirius. No section of the heavens from Arctic to Antarctic is so rich and dazzling. In February this galaxy will be followed at a respectful distance by Regulus, in Leo, sometimes called the Lion's Heart. While not a first-magnitude star, Regulus is notably beautiful and advantageously set in the handle of one of the most perfect figures in the firmament, the Sickle. Each one of these now familiar friends I annexed laboriously, unable to get for love or money any aid beyond this old-time text-book, though I went on my knees to uninterested navigators, professors, publish- ers and Uncle Sam himself, who wouldn't sell! The faithful " Heavens Above," by J. A. Gillet and W. J. Rolfe, published in 1882 by Potter, Ainsworth and Company of New York and Chicago, was the only portable thing I could find except an old-fashioned, Gems in the Sky 229 fine-print atlas which took the eyes out of my head. But within the past few years various popular volumes have appeared. Garrett P. Serviss' " Astronomy with the Naked Eyes," Harper and Brothers, is perhaps the best, together with the Barritt-Serviss movable " Star and Planet-Finder," 150 Nassau Street. Still, I have an affection for my own little out-of-print book, with diagrams in dotted lines from star to star, and draw- ings indicating why the constellations are named as they are — a good thing for the lone beginner. At sea one can appeal to the skipper for informa- tion, but if he hands over for an hour his valuable charts, you may find yourself instructing him — so lit- tle do sailors care for any save a few conspicuous stars to steer by. Around the world I went to the Orient with its thrill- ing beauty of sky and sea and shore. There the stars are so near you need only stretch out your hand to touch them. Some of the loveliest moments were at Kandy, in Ceylon, when simply to look out into the night was pure joy. A thick mango shaded my win- dow and beyond along the lake were delicate taller trees in silhouette against the sky. One evening the lightning played, while large glow-worms rested on the air. As music drifted out from the hotel, a Cinga- lese in white drapery paused and watched the gayety within. The stars, the silence, the fireflies, the light- ning, the gleaming water, the tropical tree, the motion- less figure under it with face upturned, the penetrating fragrance of the sacred champak blossom, so much like our tuberose — cannot you see it all? That is Ceylon — a thing not to analyze but to feel. 230 Within My Horizon Here I met for the first time the Southern Cross. After a lifetime of longing its beauty enchanted me for nights together. Between midnight and dawn I had only to open my eyes to make it mine — this Christian symbol describing its small arc around the Pole. Even though it falls short of perfection, bereft of a central star to unite its four arms, " Croce Maravigliosa," as Pigafetta called it, is a thing of supreme loveliness and meaning. Besides its four sparkling brilliants, Alpha at the base one of the largest in the skies, there is within its diamond-shaped quadrilateral Herschel's " gorgeous piece of fancy jewelry," that nebulous cluster of many- colored gems about which astronomers wrangle. My last glimpse of Ceylon embraced her civilization in microcosm — the ocean, the Orient, in a single drop. It was then, with the sea breaking in long, creamy lines close to the rickshaw, the blood-red road leading into the wonder of green, that men, women and chil- dren sank into insignificance beside the supreme fact of a tropical land; a land which asks no odds of any human being, but conceives, blooms and fructifies with- out bargain or stint. It is not the Cingalese, alluring though they may be ; it is Ceylon herself — alive, eter- nally youthful, eternally fecund. Here, beauty is a vital, palpitating thing; here green shoots forth, buds blossom, fruits ripen, gems are tossed up, as you gaze. Nature need never be coaxed, she opens her arms wide and surrenders herself gladly. Thus will this para- disal isle ever rise before me — as a young ardent mother, with a stirring life always beneath her heart, and forever giving of her blood and substance for love alone. Gems in the Sky 231 Seven years later, starting from Batavia for the in- terior of Java at 4 a. m., I again met the Tropics and the Southern Cross. Never was a place, a time, a con- dition, more poetic than the green court of our hotel at that hour, all fresh and sweet from rain. In the southwest blazed the Cross, with the faithful Centaurii, while across the way from red Antares, high in the heavens, was red Mars. The strange, still hour; the scent of wet flowers and foliage, led by the insistent perfume of the frangipani; the white orchids staring from the trees with their thousand eyes; the noiseless natives in attendance, the crunch of carriage wheels upon the gravel, the landlord waiting patiently in trousers and bare feet to bid a kind goodbye — what a scene ! When after half a dozen years the Equator was crossed a second time, to the Strait of Magellan, an- other dream came true. Beside fifty-five degrees south, Java's nine looked small, and it was great to meet those Antarctic worlds guarding the virgin South Pole, and to see the resplendent Southern Cross almost overhead! One clear, dark night on the voyage to Valparaiso I was able to round up everything: the Coal Sack, that black deep in the Milky Way, close to the Cross, which even hardened astronomers regard with awe; the minor Magellanic Clouds, mostly in Hydrus, not only smaller but duller than the major in Dorado — contrary to the opinion of astronomic au- thorities. Every South Polar star hitherto dimmed by the moonlight stood out and sang its own eloquent song, while the Milky Way was a sight to make the heart stand still. Without effort I identified the con- 232 Within My Horizon stellations Crater; Musca; Norma; Lupus; Triangu- lum; the Crow, Eridanus, famous for Achenar, clean, cold, imperious; all the second-magnitude stars in Carina, keel of Argo the Ship, home of godlike Cano- pus, my first tropical luminary, adored long before I knew he was the biggest thing of his kind in the Uni- verse ! At Santiago de Chili, Scorpio with his bloody eye and wicked stinging tail followed me right into the open court of the hotel around which were grouped the dormitories; Los Andes, midst its lush vegetation at the foot of the Cordilleras, where you pause for breath before climbing those mighty flanks, still dis- ported southern stellar worlds; while at Buenos Ayres I noticed that the sunny side of the Avenue de Mayo faced north and that Orion in the zenith was — up- side down ! " Love, the fair day is drawing to its close, The stars are rising, and a soft wind blows; The gates of heaven are opening in a dream, The nightingale sings to the sleeping rose. " Shadows, and dew, and silence, and the stars ; I wonder, love, what is behind those bars Of twinkling silver — is there aught behind? — Venus and Jupiter, Sirius and Mars; " Aldebaran and the soft Pleiades, Orion ploughing the ethereal seas, — Which are the stars, my love, and which your eyes? And, O the nightingale in yonder trees ! " XXXII THE WONDER OF STORM How I love a dark day : how I revel in what Emerson calls " the tumultuous privacy of storm " — that cosi- ness like no other! Because of this, a sharp friend of mine used to say that I surely was a decadent — so strangely, in this only half grown-up republic, do we define joy; so inevitably do we associate the idea of it with something " gay," something gregarious, some- thing " doing," rather than an occasional communion with one's own soul. I have been fond of storm, Nature's storms, from my earliest years; going out into the snow, rain or wind as though they were not ; or better still, when the snow was sleet, the rain a flood, the wind furious, find- ing the fireside all the more delicious by contrast with the commotion outside. In the old country days it was the open log fire, with andirons of brass or iron, but of later years it has been the glowing bed of an- thracite or that completely modern invention, the square asbestos grate, so clean and handy, which in its broad expanse of bluish flame is like nothing so much as a living, shimmering fire opal; and which warms with a thoroughness, an intensity, known to no other form of artificial heat — so that our own household is wont to term the efficient, comforting, healing thing " the doctor," though its ministrations are as much to 233 234 Within My Horizon the mind as the body. But that is the characteristic of a good physician, don't you think ? Snow had been falling steadily for eighteen hours — all the afternoon before and all night. A thick pow- dery blanket, white and virgin, of the country rather than the town, covered everything as the world awoke that morning to the unusual beauty. Early in the game the previous day I had tramped through the blinding storm for an hour, and what a delightful tramp it was, in spite of the gale and deepening drifts — what tonic in the struggle, what pleasure in the clean air ! To this day I can feel the storm's damp fondling of cheek and lips, the rush of snow that curled the hair, tinted the complexion, and whitened the then whitest teeth ever — though I say it who should not. When morning broke, and the vision engulfed us, somebody sighed for a sleigh — but not I. Though born in the land of the " cutter," I remembered too well its miseries : the stiff lips, the feet like clumps of ice — with no escape. Beating one's way on foot through the worst storm ever is ecstasy compared to that enforced inertia. But that is sleighing in a low temperature, while this memorable Brooklyn morning was gray, mild, mystic, and, sleighs being rare birds, drew me on my two good feet to the Park. Here I found a path wide and even, that betrayed the old- fashioned snow-plow, pulled and navigated by man and beast. Henceforth everything was ideal — the easy going, the lonely way, the young day. The asphalt, with its thin layer of snow, took the impression of my foot-steps like wax, and no great explorer could have been more exhilarated at the sight than I — absolutely The Wonder of Storm 235 the first human being to strike out into a new, spotless, exclusive world; as much of heaven, this fresh fallen snow, as of earth. Thanks to God for the pines and all the evergreens ! What should we do without that touch of rich color to soften the winter austerity? They are growing less each year, these old everlastings, and unaided by man seldom come again in the same place, the seed-carry- ing power of birds being against rather than for them. The cream-white boles of the birches had value beside the gray trunks of apparently lifeless trees, but even the driest branches held their distinguished line of snow, while the cedars bore their silver crowns as proudly as an ancient marquise her daintily powdered hair. How many realize that the thick, glossy leaves of the rhododendrons remain green all winter; and only a shade less vivid than amidst the riot of June — which is only one of the secrets revealed by a surrep- titious look into Nature's heart. The rose garden seemed as blank and unvisited as inner Labrador; not the slightest sign of boy or man, not a breath of breeze, not the faintest sparrow twitter to break the great silence. Only a shining path, made as if by invisible hands, led on and on. At the lake, however, in a cleared spot gay little bodies were skat- ing, awkwardly as compared with the buoyant freedom on the old Ashuelot. But what of that, since here as there they all had Youth, the most adorable thing in the world, is it not? " You too had your ticket," John once reminded me ; " you had it and used it ■ — so why complain ? " Tired of the skaters, for even Youth can be tire- 236 Within My Horizon some, I struck out for the neighboring, forest-clad hill, and knew what it was, making my own path through the meadow, to have skirts as sopping as on that mo- mentous home-coming from Indian Pass, in the Adi- rondacks, when night came on and the trail was lost and we walked through brooks to our knees. In the frequent haze of the gentler months, the Park meadows remind me of England; but there was no hint of Eng- land in the sudden glitter of that noon sun, with its blinding reflection on the snow. The earlier charm, the gray reserve, the intangible mystery, abruptly vanished, and I turned homeward under the influence less of the mood than the mind. For beside me until then walked one whom the world might not see yet who thrilled with keenest life. She answers sometimes to one name, sometimes to an- other, but Wonder will do; and not always is she a wraith, but often masquerades as one we love — one, maybe, who has the power to trace " Under the common thing the hidden grace, And conjure wonder out of emptiness, Till mean things put on beauty like a dress, And all the world is an enchanted place." XXXIII SMELL OF THE GREEN " Christmas is rapidly becoming less the birthday of a King than an eleemosynary institution," said John. " It may be more blessed to give than to receive, but both are bad. Giving is often a form of self-indul- gence, you know." " Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance ; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath," I quoted. " It seems hard, if the Lord did say it." " The truth is hard," piped John. Yet, whatever his ideas about Christmas, that it is a boon to the children he admitted, while remarking it was little noticed when he was a child, that all power was expended on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was important to me also : the big turkey ; the stabbing of apples with a fork in a tub of water; the lighting of apple candles, with greased almond wicks, and the eat- ing of them by the elders before our astonished eyes; the great paper bag of candy, hanging from the ceil- ing, to be smashed by some blindfolded victor, who found his own share lost in the general scramble — all this attests that Keene was not behind on Pilgrim Fathers' Day. But Christmas was different ; though after learning 237 238 Within My Horizon the true nature of Santa Claus the once marvelous gifts in stockings failed to interest me — while the smell of the green stirs me to this hour. How it does call up the picturesque stone church, whose festoons of evergreen we helped to build ; and the lighted tree, with its strings of popcorn, its cornucopias filled with bon- bons, and the dazzling silver balls — the great organ all the time throbbing out its passionate undertone! Human nature is said to be much the same the world over, yet the shining eyes of those New England chil- dren looking up into that tree, a tree taken only a few hours before from the woods near by, did realize a cer- tain ideal. To them Christmas with its good cheer and simple tokens was a vital, exquisite thing. Modern city children, with their little old heads, their almost uncanny appraisement of values, miss so much, so much. Then the snowstorms, and the glorious walks under the stars. What joy the stars have been to me, from the time I could see anything at all to this day, when sometimes they seem nearer than the earth! It was Emerson who declared that if the stars appeared only one night in a thousand years men would believe and adore and preserve for generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown. The smell of the green last Christmas brought to me a strong nostalgia. I wandered again in the cool frag- rance of the northern hills, just as when the warm Gulf storms rage I feel in their caressing moisture the seduc- tion of the equatorial regions. Kipling, who knows so much, realizes the power of odors too, when he says : Smell of the Green 239 Smells are surer than sounds and sights To make the heart-strings crack — They start those awful voices o' nights That whisper, " Old man, come back ! " That must be why the big things pass And the little things remain, Like the smell of wattle at Lichtenberg Riding in, in the rain. It was so, I believe, with Mary the Mother who, even more than by the Star in the East, must forever have thrilled to the odor of frankincense and myrrh. XXXIV DREAM " Relentless Time, that gives both harsh and kind, Brave let me be To take thy various gifts with equal mind And proud humility. But even by day, when the full sunlight streams, Give me my dreams ! "Whatever, Time, thou takest from my heart, What from my life, From what dear thing thou may'st make me part, Plunge not too deep the knife; As dies the day and the long twilight gleams, Spare me my dreams ! " After Love, Dream is the greatest thing in the world, for Dream endures while empires crumble. The few people who mean much to me not only dream but have the power to make me dream ; but you know — you who do know. The success of " Peter Ibbetson," the play, was a symptom of the time; for the play is not much — not near so much as the novel and Du Mau- rier's state of mind. But it brought home to the world that thinks, yet does not care to read, and a world at war feverishly demanding such a message, something it could envisage, something tangible. A more sure relief many of us may obtain when we are more finely attuned, since all desire a glimpse of 240 Dream 241 heaven, if only a heaven on earth. A lonely woman, still charming in the youth of age, was once loaned a victrola for three days — and she told me that, as the days included the nights, she did not go to bed at all ! This so touched me that I made possible for her an in- strument of her own. Among the records sent was one very beautiful but not very well known, Caruso in " Core 'ngrato," to which she took violently, saying she was sure the poet 'meant unfaithful heart rather than ungrateful — that no mere ingratitude could cause such wild sorrow and fierce resentment. She told me she let the great tenor sing to her only in the evening, by moonlight when possible, putting on her few remaining laces and jewels. She listened to his golden tones, to his impassioned appeal, as never maiden to living lover, since to her he was the lover eternal, and she the woman who had won his heart. The love of romance in a woman dies hard. Once in a blue moon, you may find a human being, male or female, who has the power; and, given love, you may know the magic life, beside which all else is shadow. Through the aid of letters, of the imagina- tion, of mutual work and play ; o'f sympathy stirred by kindred interests, by a common joy or sorrow, there may be born a union of the spirit, not unmixed with the flesh, far transcending any rapture of youth and beauty in its prime. Its essence is perfect freedom; like swimming without garments or floating on the air — in absolute faith and with all joys won. Its in- fluence is to make one face Death without fear ; for if death is not annihilation, which at least would be rest — this must endure. 242 Within My Horizon While far from sensual, it is a part of all that lives and breathes : of the woods and the waters, the flowers and the showers, the stones and the stars. While purely of the mind, it can pass through the whole gamut of emotions and convey the most exquisite of physical sensations — as in dream. For it is dream ; as it is often love — love incarnate, love unbound. What passes for love in this existence is more often slavery; but no fetter can be conceived here — both give, both receive, both are faithful, in the heat of life as in the chill of death. Dream is veritably that " in the miz " which to one of our poets has been a symbol of mystery since child- hood, because of these words from a preacher to his flock too complicated to be understood by the dreaming little one : " Lord thou art God, which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is." That child was Ella Wheeler, later Ella Wheeler Wilcox, one of the most ardent of mystics. XXXV LOVE "The world is filled with folly and sin, And love must cling Where it can, I say : For beauty is easy enough to win; But one isn't loved every day." In a daily paper I came upon the following, and so entirely is it what I believe that, editing and abbreviat- ing it considerably, I feel as if I rather than the un- known writer were responsible for its sound definition of an impressive truth : Love Conquers All There is an old man with shrivelled skin, streaming white hair and a scythe in his hand against whom no man or woman can ever hope to prevail. It is Time. But there is One who is greater still, who causes old age, even the grave, to fade into insignificance; who can transform the desert into the Garden of Eden and death itself into everlasting life. It is Love. For Love is the greatest thing in the world. Love and Love alone can hold Time at bay. Time thinks he can conquer Love; that he can envelop the lover in his embrace and his cynical laugh will make the lover for- get. Even so he must bring to his aid his three allies — Absence, Silence, Age : but the whole combination 243 244 Within My Horizon cannot vanquish Love. Passion, the counterfeit, the herald, of Love's glowing self, yes; Time always con- quers passion — throws and throttles her and thrusts her out into the cold; but Time can never overcome Love. Love is omnipotent; it is the essence of life — the most luminous thing on earth. Love always has been and always will be ; it knows no beginning or end ; it was with the world before Time was born, and will be with the world when Time is done. Listen! Time makes a slave of you; Love will set you free. Time is a brutal task-master; Love makes all tasks glorious. Time rushes you hither and thither in search of your living; Love is a guiding-star holding out to you the horn of plenty. Time will work against you; Love always works with and for you. Time cries : " Hurry, hurry ! I am flying. You will miss success." Love takes your hand tenderly and leads you to the goal. Time is ruthless in his demands; Love asks for nothing. Time opens your eyes to the bad ; Love closes your eyes to all but the good. Time will bring progress ; Love and progress walk hand in hand. Time may bring you fame; Love is sure to bring you happiness. Time thrusts ugly old age upon you; Love puts her soft fingers over your silvering locks and they gleam with beauty. Time is a thief; smashes ideals, steals force, robs life of beauty when he can. Love creates new ideals, brings greater strength to endure and a shining loveliness that noth- ing can destroy. Time takes years to heal life's wounds; Love heals them instantaneously. With the understanding of love, life cannot wound. Time is mortal, while Love is eternal. Love 245 So which will you take for your own, the old cynic Time, who may prove your undoing, or the great and wonderful Love, who knows naught of bestial impulse ; who throws her loving arms around you and the radiance of her loving self through you; who will never listen to calamity for you or calumny about you ; who gives to you from her golden stores through all eternity, and whose resplendent beauty is the one thing hostile Time cannot dim. " I say unto you today, yesterday and forever — - Love is Truth, Beauty and Power." XXXVI THE POET'S WILL Emerson says, " Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it." So far as I know, this I am, as regards the behest of Dr. Frank Crane, published in the New York Globe, June 13, 1916. From this unique document, which greatly appeals to me, I quote a few sentences, with due apologies to the author and his copyright : I don't want a regular funeral. I don't want my body laid out and people looking at my dead face. I don't want a procession to the cemetery. Therefore please have my body cremated. Take the ashes and enclose them in an earthen urn. Keep them until there comes a warm, sunshiny day in sum- mer or spring. Then if there can be found a few who loved me, and felt my presence on earth enough to be sorry I am gone, let someone who loved me a great deal call them together, and let them all go out into some open place where the grass is green, and there are trees, and flow- ers are springing, and wild birds flying about. There let them sit on the warm grass and eat and drink, not stolidly and with gloom, but with sacra- mental joy, for they know that they are pleasing me, 246 The Poet's Will 247 and my spirit is in iheir midst. Let them recall the kind and unselfish acts I have performed, if they can think of any. Then when evening falls let someone open my urn, and, taking my ashes in handfuls, let him sow them in silence to the wind, so that some shall fall on the earth, and some on the flowers and trees, and some be dust on the clothing, and some be blown away. So when men ask for my grave it shall be said, " Earth, meadow, and all living things are his grave. You will find his spirit in sunny days." Above all, let there be silence, no prayer, no ritual, no word said. For the supremest expression of feel- ing is Silence. Here is my will, in these lines of Thomas Moult: When these tired eyes are closed in that long sleep Which is the deepest and the last of all, Shroud not my limbs in purple funeral pall, Nor mock my rest with vainest prayers, nor weep ; But take my ashes where the sunshine plays In dewy meadows splashed with gold and white, And there, when stars peep from black pools at night, Let the wind scatter them. And on the days You wander by those meadow pools again, Think of me as I then shall be, a part Of earth — naught else. And if you see the red Of western skies, or feel the clean, soft rain, Or smell the flowers I loved, then let your heart Beat fast for me, and I shall not be dead. 248 Within My Horizon LYDDY By Theodore Bartlett THE STORY THAT WON THE PRIZE My friend, we will not inquire about her past life; Joe Coble did not, and he married her, so why need we? Her laces were bought for a few cents a yard, and her silks came from an old clothes shop, but for what purpose she wore her little fineries, or how she paid for them, we will not question. You and I passed her with averted eyes. Not so, innocent Joe Coble. He found that Lydia had a heart, and he lifted a hat to it — an imaginary hat ; he seldom removed his own. Later on he found he loved her, and, in a blunt way, of course, — a rough man like Joe cannot make love in the refined way you and I can, — he told her so. " Eft hed n't ben fur you, Lyddy (really I can't help callin' ye familiar-like), ef 't hed n't ben fur you, these yer three days 't I've passed 't 'Frisco would n't hev ben nowhere ter me — 'cept fur the sights." He took her hand awkwardly in his, as though it were a piece of fragile lace, and regarded it admiringly. He did not see the black and blue spots her sleeve covered. " I live a kind o' lonely life up in the clearin' (it ain't all clearin', though I like ter call it so, for the sake of old Ca'liney), 'n' somehow the sosherable time I've hed yer's made et seem lonelier 'n usual. Yer see, when Lyddy 249 ye hauled me in out o' the wet that night, 'n" asked '£ I wouldn't come in V wring myself out," he laughed, " 't seemed 's tho' I was 'mungst m' old nebbors down ter the corners. 'N' then, arterwards, yer was so kind 'n' sosherable ! " She had bold, questioning eyes (you remember how defiantly they looked at us as she entered the old-clothes shop), but they had lost all their defiance while he was talking, and even gathered a little moisture. " The clearin' 's rether lonely," he continued, after a pause; "the nighest nebbor's five mile, 'n' the rail- road's ten. But it's right purty — 't's right purty ! Ther's th' old mount'n back on us a loomin' up, 'n' the valley before us a sweepin' down, 'n' not far off's th' ocean a peepin' over the cliff. 'N' all around's trees 't I left standin', 'n' flowers 't I planted 'th m' own hands. 'N' ye ken see all this from the v'randy. Oh, it's purty, Lyddy, right purty ! But," after a pause, " et does seem lonely now, does seem lonely." A more experienced observer would have noticed a strange little drop making a wet roadway down Lydia's cheek. " Ter tell the truth, Lyddy, I've begun to think thet — thet I couldn't go back without ye, 'n' thet's the long 'n' short o't." She withdrew her hand and coughed. " O' course," rubbing his chin, nervously, " this sounds a little forrard 'n' bold t' a lady like you, Lyddy, 'n' I know how attractive the city is; but I couldn't help askin' ye. 'N', re'lly, ye might like the clearin' better'n ye think. . . . But I wish ye would speak, Lyddy; et's kind o' nettlin' not to hear no answer." 250 Within My Horizon He looked up. She was sobbing. You remember, my friend, the night we passed that rather tall, round-shouldered fellow at the ferry buy- ing tickets for a way station up the coast (the night we tried to beat the company out of a pass), and you remember when he bowed to me how sweet his blue eyes were, in spite of the ticket agent's insolence be- cause of his two or three simple questions about the time-card. That was the night Lydia disappeared and Joe Coble was married. Poor Lydia! While Joe was talking to her so sweetly, she had pictured to herself a happy little wife, breathing fresh air, and singing under the trees, and picking red roses, away up in the " clearin' " ; such a happy little wife, with a real home and a real husband! No more wickedness, and trouble, and heartburns, but a life of unending bliss. And just before the hour came when she must bid Joe good-bye forever, she would be lying there on the green sod, — of course she would die on the green sod, with the blue sky above, — and she would take his hand in hers and tell him all — all about her past life. And then, of course, after she had been good to him so very, very long, then he would forgive her — when he knew all. But she needn't tell him now ; oh, no, not now ! He couldn't under- stand, and besides, he didn't know her well enough. She could tell him just as well as not, only — only — and then Joe had looked up and found her sobbing. But, after the first joy of the pure country air, and the green trees, and the yellow and red flowers, that vague, trembling fear the sobbing had smothered for a time burst forth with renewed life; and all at once Lyddy 251 every thing seemed changed. The trees bent their heads together and whispered mysteriously; the flow- ers that Joe had planted nodded this way and that, as if engaged in the most damning of silent gossip; and the old house, a shaky relic of days long past, answered her footfalls in echoes that made her look around with a shiver, and tread more lightly. " Joe," she whispered, in affright, one evening, " what's that pointing at me ? " They were walking under the trees, and she stood quite rigid before a few low bushes. " Nothin', Lyddy, nothin'," Joe answered, and he walked through and through the bushes till she was quite satisfied. " Ain't ye kind o' noshunal, Lyddy ? Mighty few bear 'round yer." Gradually she began to shun the house and the flow- ers and the trees, and to wander farther off down to the sharp cut in the cliff where the trout brook ran into the sea. Here there were no trees to whisper about her and no brilliant flowers to assert their purity over hers — nothing but the abrupt cliff and the dark pool below. And the little falls that plashed into the pool did not mock and scorn her as the trees and the flowers did. They talked to her as Joey talked, softly and soothingly. Oh! if she could but feel as calm and happy as the water seemed — if, perhaps, she could go to sleep down there in the deep pool — with Joey ! And, after a while, Joe always knew where to find Lyddy when she was not in the house. It was always at the Gate, as he called it, because it opened into the sea. Neither the tall pines nor the sunny garden seemed to hold Lydia. 252 Within My Horizon " Et's purty 't the Gate ter be sure," he said, one evening, " but ther's other places 's purtier. Seems ter me ye're gettin' more 'n' more noshunal, ain't ye, Lyddy?" " It's so quiet and peaceful like, Joe," answered Lydia ; " I love to come here and — and — think." Joe looked anxious. " I don't believe thinkin' 's so good for ye, Lyddy, ez gardinin' or — egg huntin'. I've noticed lately that ye wa'n't so smart as ushul." He sat down by her side. The sun was sinking in the sea, blushing as it disappeared, and the old moun- tain at their backs caught up its last glow and grew ruddy also. "When I think, Lyddy," — tenderly lifting a for- lorn little spray of lace from her neck, — " when I think how lonely th' old place was, 'n' then look 't you 'n' me together yer, why et seem's tho' I'd bin better done by than was right." Lydia threw her arms over her head and swayed her body slightly. " Joe," she said, " I don't like to hear you talk like that. Nobody has been good to you. Why do you keep saying so ? " " Ter be sure, ter be sure," he answered, hastily. " Thet is, p'raps I'm a little overratin' et." He re- mained silent for a minute. " I'm afeard, Lyddy, thet thet's my fault, overratin' things. When I begun ter talk up the clearin', I tho't then thet p'raps I was over- doin' it. But 't ain't preachin' 's brings things true; et's the showin'." Joe picked up a twig and broke it in pieces, trying to conceal a trembling in his hands. " I'm afeard, Lyddy 253 Lyddy," he began again, " thet I hevn't done right by ye. I talked up the clearin' high, 'n' p'raps I misled ye. But sho! don't take on so" (she was crying); " don't take on so. Ez sure's ye live 't'll be all right in time. Why, ye hevn't seen the big tree nor the lighthouse even ! " Lydia threw her arms about his bent shoulders. " Oh, it isn't that, Joe. I love this place, in my way, because — because it is yours, and you are so good. It is not that — " She hesitated. " Joey," she said at length, gently releasing him, " when you asked me to be your wife, if you had known I was holding back from you something I should have told you, would you — " "Why, Lyddy," broke in Joe, "a little holdin' back's nothin'. Now, fur instance, when I preached up the clearin' — " " Yes, yes, I know, but it was worse than that. I — I deceived you, Joe — just a little." She plucked nervously at a fringe on her dress. " Oh, 't didn't amount ter nuthin', I reckon." Joe looked away reflectively. " Talkin' about deceivin', Lyddy, there was onct a woman right yer 'n this county, 'n' she'd deceived a 'Frisco man. 'N' one night she kem up yer 'n' jumped int' the pool — this very pool yer — so's ter be drownded ! " "Oh, don't, Joe; don't!" moaned Lydia, covering her face with her hands. " Sho ! I was only instancin', Lyddy. Why, she was wicked, you know — awful wicked — was this woman." Lydia withdrew her hands. " Joe, if you thought 254 Within My Horizon I had deceived you bad like that, would you — would you drown me? " Her face was quite pale. "Drown ye?" — looking up — "why, what's the matter, Lyddy ? " " Oh, I was joking." She laughed dryly. "I — I wish ye wouldn't joke that way." " No, no. I won't, Joe, any more " (plucking again at the fringe) ; "but, speaking of this woman now — perhaps her heart was good ; she may have had a hard, cruel life. There are such women, Joe; perhaps you have met them" (Joe shook his head), "or — seen them somewhere. I have. I have seen women de- ceived and betrayed and abused. And this woman now, maybe her life had been made hard and wicked for her; she might have had a warm heart even if she did do — bad things." Joe did not answer. She caught his arm. " Per- haps, Joe, this woman had been outraged, ill-treated, you know; had black and blue spots on her as — as I had once — beaten, beaten, Joe, by a cruel father!" She clutched him with both hands. " You never met my father? I don't want you to. I wanted to get away from him ; and so I married you. I mean " (convulsively) "I loved you just the same, but I — I wanted to get away. Don 't you see? You de- ceived yourself, you know" (laughingly). "You never asked me any thing, and — and why didn't you ? You might have asked me all about — all about it — all about my — " She cried herself into hysterics, and Joe, poor, frightened Joe, was unable to comfort her. But when she had become calm again, and they stood Lyddy 255 there silent in the clear light of the rising moon, she drew his head to her and softly kissed him on his neck, on his coarse chin, and on his quivering lips. " Et takes time, Lyddy," said Joe, tremulously, " et takes time, and a heap o' showin' ter make things come right." One sunny afternoon during the rainy season's Janu- ary vacation, a party of sportsmen, evidently from the city, pulled up before the house and asked for water. Joe was sitting on the veranda alone, smoking his pipe. He invited them to the well and drew the water him- self. The members of the party were rather coarse- appearing men, perhaps from the bar-room, but they bore themselves with a quiet, good-natured enjoyment of everything that won Joe's heart. " I don't see much o' city folks," said Joe, as they finished drinking, " 'n' I'd like ter hev ye set yer fur awhile, ef ye like. I hevn't but the edge o' the v'randy 'n' the grass ter offer ye (o' course ye'd like ter set 'n the sun), but make yerselves 's comfortable 's ye ken. From 'Frisco, I s'pose? Was down 't the city myself nigh three months past." " Why, old boy," spoke up one of the party, " that's so ; how d' ye do ? " Joe looked at the stranger curiously. In spite of a low forehead and a certain hard cast to his face, he was a handsome fellow, and carried himself with a careless, jaunty swing. " Well, I swear," said Joe, " you beat me. I can't place ye." " My name is Howard. I met you going into 256 Within My Horizon Lyddy's. You remember Lyddy?" — with a leer. " I should say I did — I should say I did. Now sit down yer! all o' ye. Seems to me I do recollect seein' ye onct fur a minnit. Name's Howard; 'n' ye know Lyddy!" " Who's Lyddy? " inquired one of the party. " Lyddy ? " Howard tossed his head. " Oh, Lyddy was a gay girl ! " " So she was," put in Joe. " Expect we never knew her," put in another. " No, I think not. She was my — " Howard smiled significantly. "Oh!" His friends turned away indifferently. Joe relighted his pipe and sat down beside Howard on the steps. The rest threw themselves carelessly on the grass, laughing and joking with one another. " Ye must a been kind o' soft on Lyddy," Joe ob- served, puffing. Howard laughed. " Oh, well, if you call it that. But she gave me the slip, all the same." " I s'pose, Mr. Howard," — after a pause, removing the pipe from his mouth, — " I s'pose ye wouldn't keer ter meet Lyddy jest now? " " I should say I would ! " he answered. Joe turned around. " Lyddy ! " he called, softly. There was the sudden rustle of a dress within the house. Howard started. " I thought I'd s'prise ye," said Joe, his face beam- ing. " You don't mean to say," whispered Howard, in- credulously, "that Lydia is here — with you?" Joe nodded his head slowly with mingled pride and Lyddy 257 embarrassment. Howard laughed through his teeth — a disagreeable, grating laugh. Joe colored. " Seems queerish, does it? So 't did ter me 't first; reely, I couldn't reelize it more 'n you — sech a gel's Lyddy. But 't so, Lyddy's my wife." Howard ceased laughing. " What, married to you! " he exclaimed in a loud voice. The others looked up. Joe's face was hot. " I suppose marriage is one of your d — d high notions," he added, contemptuously. "How! Noshuns? What d' ye mean?" Howard looked amazed. " Is it possible that you don't know — " He bent forward and whispered in Joe's ear. "Hey? What d' ye say?" Joe smiled, with an effort, as though the point of an intended joke had escaped him. Then the meaning of Howard's words burst upon him. He sprang to his feet. " D — n ye, ye lie ! " he cried, striking the man a blow in the face. Howard, staggering to his feet, pulled out a re- volver, but his companions, who had rushed forward, seized his arm, and held him fast. His eyes were ablaze. " Curse you ! " he hissed ; " you'll be sorry for this ! " Joe hesitated. Perhaps he had been hasty. There was no mistaking the man's words, but, then, possibly he was not in earnest. " I'm rather blunt, mebby, but ye was lyin' — jokin', I would say — wasn't ye ? " " Not by a d — n sight ! " cried Howard. " I told the truth. Why not ask Lyddy ? ' Sech a gel's Lyddy,' you know, she'd tell you." 258 Within My Horizon There was the sound of a step within the bedroom. Lydia must have heard all. Joe's fingers twitched. How he would like to throttle this fellow; and yet, might it not be true ? There rushed through his mind what Lydia had said that night by the Gate. Then she had tried to tell him, but — her heart had failed. Poor Lydia, had she not suffered day by day in silence and alone ? Had she not been abused — great God, outraged ! by — by this wretch ? Joe clenched his hands. " Look ye ! Lyddy may hev been bad, ef ye call 't so, but she was true t' ye, I'll swear that; 'n' was ye true ter Lyddy? By law she wa'n't yourn; yet she gave ye her hull trust. Think ye! was ye faithful to it? — afore God!" Joe stood there, his hard-worked shoulders almost straight, in his simple dignity. The members of the little group surrounding Howard stood silent and ex- pectant. Howard shrugged his shoulders. " Oh, well, I don't claim to be an angel. When a woman makes a fool of herself — " Joe took a step forward. His whole body trembled. " There's times when the Lord Hisself'll smile on a woman's sin ; 'n' when 'n spite 'o 'buse, 'n' sufferin', 'n' downtroddin' a gel '11 cling t' a man till the last straw's throwed on; even ef there ain't no marriage, I'll drop down 'n' worship her. 'N' you — you that came yer t' sneer about 't — " Joe pointed to the road — " Go ! " Howard's companions pressed around and forced him away. Lyddy 259 " My regards to Lyddy ! " he called. " My regards to Lyddy, and — " Some one silenced him. Joe stood there till the party was out of sight, and then slowly entered the house. He stepped to the bed- room door; it was ajar; he thought he heard a move- ment within. "Lyddy!" he called softly. No answer. " Lyddy, be you ther ? " Still no answer. He pushed the door open. Lydia was not there. A window-shade fluttered by the breeze was the movement he had heard. He looked about the room. The bed showed an impress as though Lydia had knelt there, and a mat by its side was half upturned. On a bureau, lying in a pool of its own making, was a wet pen hastily thrown down. It lay by a sheet of paper ; and on the paper was written : " Good, kind Joe. Good-bye." That was all. Be- low lay the little gold wedding-ring Joe had given her. He took up the ring in a dazed way. The truth flashed upon him. " Oh, God — God ! " he groaned ; " she feared me, 'n' 's gone back ter him ! " He threw himself down by the bed, and the ring, slipping from his fingers, bounded, with a faint tinkle, across the floor. The breeze was yet stirring when Joe left the house. He bared his head to it, and walked away in feverish haste. The house was stifling, and so dreadfully still ! He came to the edge of the cliff. Here, where Lydia and he had sat and talked so often; here, where Lydia 260 Within My Horizon had so loved to think, he knelt down and looked earn- estly into the dark waters — the peaceful dark waters ! " Poor Lyddy! poor Lyddy! " he murmured, cover- ing his face with his rough hands, while tears, breaking through, one by one, fell to the ground. Once in a while, above the plashing of the falls, there arose a moaning sound, the evening cry of some bird, perhaps — oh, so sad and lonely, so much like a cry from his own heart! He leaned far over and listened. " It's the woman ! " he whispered. " She's comin' out to-night, V she's callin' for me. I see her face, but it's on the rocks, 'n' — " " Lyddy ! Lyddy ! " he shouted, in agony. He started up, looked around, and ran wildly to the old ford, half-way back to the house. Then springing over rocks, and slipping over wet stones, he rushed down the canyon, splashing the water right and left. " Lyddy ! Lyddy ! I'm comin' ! " he shouted, again and again. Nearer and nearer came his call, and at last, hot and panting, Joe threw himself by her side. He took her in his arms. " Don't, don't, Joe ! " she cried, in pain. " Don't move me ! " And he laid her down again, away from the rocks, on a clear place in the sand. " I think," she whispered — " I think it's most over." " Oh, Lyddy, don't say that ! I'll get help, 'n'— " but she whispered to him more faintly, and he had to keep still and listen. " It's no use ; I feel it. Stay by me ! " He took off his coat, and, rolling it into a pillow, placed it under her head. As he did so, he laid his Lyddy 261 hot cheek, wet with tears, on hers. She looked up, with pleading eyes. " I was going to jump into the pool; but I didn't — I fell." Joe covered his eyes with his hands. His throat seemed closed. " Joey," — weakly — " Howard told you all, and you cannot forgive me. You do not love me now." " God ! do you s'pose I could stop lovin' you, Lyddy?" A faint flush came into her cheeks. " He told you all, and you still love me? Oh, put my arms about you, Joey ! " He tenderly took her arms and drew them around his neck. A great sob shook his frame. "And you did love me all along, Lyddy? " With the little strength that was left in her arms, perhaps the very weight of them, she drew his head to her, and held him close. " Joey," she murmured, " next to the great God above, that perhaps I'll meet — next to Him, Joey, I love you! " And with her face close to his, she whispered : " That night — that you first said — you loved me — Howard wanted — me to get — your money. I wouldn't — and he — he beat me ! " Joe raised his head. She opened her eyes and looked at him. " Oh, Joey — I'm so glad — I didn't fall — into the — pool - — and — drown ! " Her arms fell from his neck. He took one poor 262 Within My Horizon hand, white and limp, and pressed it to his wet cheek. For a moment their lips met, and then her eyes, tender and moist with a last happiness, were fixed on the blue sky above. And the little falls in soft plashes whispered to the passing breeze, and the passing breeze caught up a fluttering soul and bore it away. And away off above the clouds — where you and I have no judgment, my friend — it was decided whether this soul was so very, very black. THE END