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 NOTES OF 
 
 A PROFESSIONAL 
 
 EXILE 
 
BADEN-BADEN. 
 
NOTES 
 
 OF A 
 
 PROFESSIONAL 
 EXILE 
 
 E. S.^ADAL 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 impressions of london social life ' 
 "essays at home and elsewhere" 
 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW Ybl^*ASH«>$ 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. , ^ 
 
 ,895 d^^^f^ 
 
 N^ 
 
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 Copyright, 1895, by 
 The Century Co. 
 
 li-3(of(fi/ 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS. 
 
DEDICA TION 
 
 As a child honesty, authority, 
 and a disposition to be siletit were 
 your characteristics — the expres- 
 sion of the delicate conntenance 
 atid Jignre being thonghtfnl, di- 
 rect, a little stern, and above ev- 
 ery th ing n ice. A II felt the force 
 of these qualities, and people who 
 watched yotir gesttires, move- 
 ments, and especially your quiet 
 attitudes, found you exquisitely 
 attractive. But to those of us 
 exposed daily to the inftueiice of 
 these traits, they existed with a 
 comic charm that incited to violent 
 manifestations, which yoii were 
 swift to punish. Now a young lady 
 g7'own, your life for some years 
 past has been with the se? vices of 
 the church j coitent with the lilies 
 and the azaleas on the altar, the 
 incense and the lights that shine 
 like stars in the darkened temple 
 
which is the place of your chief 
 affection. A tranquil, still thought- 
 ful, expression has replaced the 
 rather more intense one of child- 
 hood. There is a slight figure^ 
 somewhat tall, and there are graces 
 of form and co7intenance ; but these 
 qualities, of which we think so 
 highly, are what they are because 
 of the delicate and pervading soul 
 that possesses them, just as the rich 
 coils of abundant and fine brown 
 hair niusthave the sun upon them 
 before they exhibit their tinge of 
 gold. In contrast with the self- 
 effaciiig disposition, which saints 
 are supposed to have, and I dare 
 say do have, and which is yours, 
 there is a taste for graceful and 
 nice things. One quality is an 
 elegance of mind, which {unless I 
 am mjich mistaken) I have not 
 seen excelled in the classic societies 
 of the older laiids; sweet aplomb 
 suitable to those assemblies j a 
 shy sense that that manner and 
 life is yours. Th is gift is infinitely 
 removed from ajiykind of self-seek- 
 ing or worldlinessj not that that 
 is surprising^ however j I suspect y 
 
indeed, that there is a relation be- 
 tijueeii the spirit of the devote and 
 the elegant mind, and that a fine 
 speech, manner and person are 
 talents appropriate to those altars 
 luhich are in yonr keeping and 
 which yon tend with flowers. Btit 
 I think it is rare to find this gift 
 united with a sympathy so quick, 
 warin and various as yotirs. You 
 are charmedwith the common and 
 the real, your humor being of the 
 kind where love plays tipon the 
 facts of hiimanity , upon children, 
 animals, nature j skilled in the 
 use of slaiig, of which you are 
 fond, which grows fine upon your 
 lips, and which beco7nes yo7i and 
 sets off the finish of your qualities; 
 sharing the kind of cynicism that 
 belongs to the good, inclined to 
 hear in sile7ice and with incre- 
 dulity and perhaps a little dis- 
 dain professions, sejitimeiits and 
 fine language; with the softest 
 heart and the closest attention 
 and sympathy for any sad story. 
 Charined with other countries, you 
 have, what is rare atnong your 
 countrywomen, a tenacious love 
 
and preferetice for your own. 
 I have spoken of your comic, 
 childish expression of trnth afid 
 sincerity: till this moment I had 
 never brought together in the 
 sanie thought with you the idea 
 of the reverse of these qualities; 
 what an incojigruous association ! 
 There is also a very sure percep- 
 tion, a strong common sense, a 
 judgment apt to light in the cen- 
 tre of the mark. Avoiding obser- 
 vation and silent before people in 
 general.^ you have in the company 
 of the half a dozen persons with 
 whom your days have been passed 
 the nimblest tongue I have ever 
 k7iown; in particular we never 
 tire of a sweet gift of mockery, — the 
 voice, a slight clear treble, rising 
 in laughing discourse till it strikes 
 a certain joyous note and capti- 
 vates the ear with a peculiar cry, 
 familiar to its ; a wit a7id fancy 
 light as the spray filing from a 
 mountain rill in its rushing 
 among the rocks and laurels blos- 
 soming in the heart of the woods. 
 There is no difficulty or infelicity ifi 
 that gift; all is fresh, natural, and 
 
to the mome7it. Yet^ notwithstand- 
 ing the delight which these charac- 
 teristics inspire in us, there has 
 never beeti discoverable in yoit. a 
 trace of self-conscioiisnessj the af- 
 fectio7iate applause and sympa- 
 thetic pride with which from in- 
 fancy the youngest of us has been 
 heard and regarded has not made 
 the slightest mark upon the firm 
 and constant Mimility of that na- 
 tiire. Then, just as we are about 
 to take you in this high key, yo2i 
 surprise and please us with so7ne 
 very human qualities, a good deal 
 of self-will, a shade too much 
 pride, some fe7ninine prejudices 
 a7id you7ig-ladyish tastes, se7iti- 
 77ients a7id e7ith7isias77is, which 
 bid us hope that you are 7wt so 
 diffe7'ent fro77i others after all. 
 All of which see77is to i7ie to 77iake 
 up a total that is very perfect. 
 
 It is very early 77ior7iing in a re- 
 77iote 77iou7itai7i village, the 77ior7i- 
 i7ig still dark, a7idthe air chill a7id 
 strong. I a77i goi7ig up07i a jour- 
 ney, the stage waits at the door, 
 
and you have come down. I mark 
 the wan cheek {with no thought of 
 what is so soon to be), I hear y our 
 little jokes, spoken with illimitable 
 grace and softness, — and see you 
 no more. But such as I have 
 rudely sketched above you were 
 when you were with tis, and such 
 it is difficult to think you are not 
 nozv. Shall this changing and 
 shifting universe be unending, 
 and you, with your complete and 
 gracious reality a fid delicate dis- 
 tinction of soul, not live ! 
 
NOTES OF 
 
 A PROFESSIONAL 
 
 EXILE 
 
NOTES OF 
 
 A PROFESSIONAL 
 
 EXILE 
 
 Zwieback, August, 189-. 
 T HAVE often come to Zwie- 
 -*■ back, and I have always liked 
 it. I have a feeling of hope and 
 exhilaration as the train moves 
 into the little station. At the 
 same time I am always on each 
 successive visit afraid I shall 
 not enjoy it as I have done be- 
 fore. But it has never failed 
 to amuse me, and I have always 
 left it with regret. 
 
 Of course, I don't know how 
 it will be this time, but it prom- 
 ises well. The tradespeople on 
 the Louisen Strasse recognize 
 1 1 
 
me. That is one of the good 
 points of the place. I find my- 
 self among old friends. I like 
 knowing the people who give 
 me my letters at the post-office 
 and the young woman at the 
 barber's shop. When I aHghted 
 at the station, the porter of my 
 hotel recognized me with a 
 shout of welcome, which seemed 
 to be sincere, and actually shook 
 me by the hand. The hotel I 
 go to is not one of those with 
 English names, but an honest 
 German place, which is cheaper 
 and better than the smart ones. 
 At the door I received from the 
 landlady that welcome which is 
 proverbially warm. I don't at 
 all think less of kindness from 
 landlords and landladies be- 
 cause I know I am to pay for 
 my entertainment. 
 
 The town is full of EngUsh 
 and Americans, although there 
 are, of course, a great many 
 Germans. I am here to see 
 
the Americans. Being an exile 
 by profession, a few weeks with 
 my compatriots who are here 
 is almost like a visit home. 
 Some of them are old friends 
 whom I meet after a separation 
 of years ; others, again, I shall 
 meet for the first time; and 
 there are still others whom I 
 may not have a chance of meet- 
 ing at all, but whom I may at 
 any rate look at from a distance. 
 There are but few men among 
 them. They are almost all of 
 the other sex, and I am de- 
 Hghted to see how much they 
 look like women. 
 
 The sitting-room they have 
 given me here is certainly not 
 dear from the English or Ameri- 
 can point of view. It is good- 
 sized, plainly but freshly and 
 agreeably furnished, and always 
 clean and neatly kept. It opens 
 upon a well-cared-for flower- 
 garden, filled with the common 
 
German flowers, acaules, stock- 
 gillies, anemones, primroses, 
 and has beyond the Zwieback 
 lawns and foliage. When I 
 come into it in the morning for 
 breakfast, I find it full of light 
 and sweet air, which are nov- 
 elties to those whose spring and 
 winter have been passed in town 
 lodgings. It is sufficiently re- 
 tired, and yet within easy call 
 of people whom I see passing 
 in the street which divides my 
 flower-plots from the Kurhaus 
 gardens ; some of whom, more 
 sociable than the rest, look in 
 at my windows for a word or 
 two, but do not stop to pay me 
 a visit. I try to fill my morn- 
 ings with reading or writing, 
 and thus give the day a little 
 substance and character. 
 
 I have come on here from 
 Switzerland, where it has been 
 
 hot. I stayed with H at 
 
 his villa on the Lake of Ge- 
 
neva. H 's house is suited 
 
 to hot weather. The lawn comes 
 down to the edge of the lake, 
 with the colors of which the 
 large basins of carnations make 
 a pleasant contrast. The din- 
 ing-room is upon a level with 
 the lawn, and opens directly 
 on it. Its mosaic floor, of in- 
 tricate pattern, and the marble 
 columns match well with the 
 blue water. It is rather like 
 a house a Roman gentleman 
 should have had on the banks 
 of Como. H let me break- 
 fast in a small room on the up- 
 per floor, which had no col- 
 umns, it is true, but which had 
 some books, and which looked 
 out on the lake, with whose 
 pervading azure the room 
 seemed to be filled. I sat in 
 the midst of this azure and read, 
 usually from some volumes of 
 the Queen Anne essayists I 
 found there, and had a very 
 good breakfast of cutlets, fruit. 
 
and red wine. There were no 
 women about, nothing to affect 
 the shade, the silence, and the 
 hberty of the house, except the 
 voice of Gustave when he said : 
 " Monsieur est servi." 
 
 On the day I left I said to 
 
 H : " My dear fellow, I 
 
 have been very well treated 
 here. You have given me a 
 horse to ride over these hills in 
 the morning, and a boat to sail 
 on the lake in the afternoon. 
 How I have enjoyed this break- 
 fast-room! Your permeating 
 azure has taken possession of 
 my being. I have been, al- 
 lowed as much of my own so- 
 ciety as I liked. With the 
 exception of giving me your 
 soothing company at dinner, 
 you have kept yourself out of 
 the way. And all this for the 
 twenty francs which I shall give 
 to Gustave ! It is the cheapest 
 and best thing I have seen on 
 my journey." 
 
H 's dinners were excel- 
 lent. There were two or three 
 snow-peaks in sight. I may not 
 admire Swiss scenery profound- 
 ly, but I agree that these peaks 
 are good things to have over 
 your shoulder if you are din- 
 ing rather well. They have 
 the effect of a pretty label on a 
 bottle of German wine. (That 
 snow gorge between the ai- 
 guilles of Lechaud and Char- 
 moz would make such a capi- 
 tal champagne-cooler!) But I 
 have no respect for them — 
 not the slightest. 
 
 The fact that Switzerland is 
 such a place for holiday-makers 
 has given its scenery a kind of 
 frivolity. It was a lovely day 
 when I came in the steamer 
 through the Lake of Thun. The 
 boat was crowded with sight- 
 seers, and Switzerland was de- 
 termined they should not be 
 disappointed; for there on our 
 right were the white peaks dec- 
 
orating the blue heavens and 
 gUstening for the entertainment 
 of the lakes. 
 
 There is scarcely anything 
 here to write about but women; 
 so that I presume my diary will 
 be full of them. 
 
q^HERE are two faults I have 
 -*• to find with American wo- 
 men. OneisthiSjthattheyareapt 
 to be deficient in a positive fe- 
 male character. This is certainly 
 true of many New England wo- 
 men. I do not mean that they are 
 in the least masculine. On the 
 contrary ,they are often people of 
 a dehcate and refined sort ; but 
 they appear to be neuters. Their 
 womanly character is rather 
 negative than positive. Now 
 I think that the feminine nature 
 should be as distinct and posi- 
 tive as the male. The female 
 mind should be as strong after 
 its kind as the male's is after its 
 kind. The fault I refer to ap- 
 pears, by the way, to be a qual- 
 ity of well-born and well-edu- 
 cated women. Another fault I 
 
have to find with our women is 
 perhaps the quahty of women 
 of inferior education. Many of 
 our women, and particularly our 
 young girls, seem to be wanting 
 in courtesy. Our girls are often 
 rude. A crabbed bachelor of 
 my acquaintance, who lives in 
 Paris, ascribes this rudeness to 
 the fact that American women 
 find it easier to get husbands 
 than the women of other coun- 
 tries, and therefore do not think 
 it worth their while to be civil 
 to men. Whatever the cause 
 may be, there can be no doubt 
 of the fact. I say that these 
 girls are of inferior education in 
 whom this rudeness appears. 
 Well-bred women are often 
 rude, but their rudeness is of the 
 thought rather than of the speech 
 or behavior. It is perhaps near- 
 ly as unpleasant to the recipient 
 as the more outspoken sort, but 
 of course it is more consistent 
 with ladyhke pretensions. The 
 
 10 
 
rudeness of some girls that one 
 sees seems almost to be an ex- 
 pression of a consciousness of 
 vulgarity. 
 
 But it is not enough that 
 women should be civil in speech 
 and bearing while their minds 
 are proud and contemptuous. 
 There is an ideal courtesy in 
 women which is a quality of the 
 soul; it is one of the most beau- 
 tiful of female attributes. It 
 was this quality in his Beatrice 
 which first struck the delicate 
 and reverential mind of the 
 youthful Dante. I have myself 
 so high an estimate of this qual- 
 ity that I hesitate to say that 
 our girls are wanting in it. 
 
 Zwieback is dear for Ger- 
 many, but really cheap. My 
 breakfast of coffee and eggs in 
 my rooms costs a mark and a 
 half. At the Conditorei, where 
 many people lunch, there is a 
 dreadful clatter of hungry young 
 
women, and it is not always 
 easy to get a seat. But the 
 cakes and pastry are as good as 
 can be. A greedy compatriot, 
 ten years old, who sat at the next 
 table, told me, however, that it 
 was nothing to the cake-shops of 
 Genoa. Some cold meat, a bot- 
 tle of Pilsener beer, and enough 
 of the cakes to give you an in- 
 digestion can be got for a mark 
 and thirty pfennig. If one 
 wishes to be luxurious and ex- 
 travagant, one can have for no 
 great sum a late breakfast on 
 the piazza of the Kurhaus, in 
 the midst of quiet and of a plen- 
 tiful sunlight which is delightful 
 to anybody who has been spend- 
 ing the year among cold, win- 
 try fogs, as I have been doing. 
 There are tables d'hote where 
 you can dine for five marks, in- 
 cluding a half-bottle of wine 
 and a fee for the waiter. Be- 
 sides, there are many Americans, 
 EngHsh, and Germans and a few 
 
 12 
 
French here who are giving 
 dinners. 
 
 I was glad to meet in the 
 street this morning an old 
 friend, a person of great humor, 
 and the best company in the 
 world. Her presence here has 
 always been one of the attrac- 
 tions of the place to me. She 
 was left a widow early in life, 
 and, although much pursued by 
 men, has preferred indepen- 
 dence and the sole control and 
 enjoyment of a handsome prop- 
 erty to a return to the married 
 state. I asked her about her 
 new house in New York, which 
 she has just moved into. She 
 said, " What it needs is a man. 
 I told a friend so the other day, 
 and she said: ' The So-and-So's 
 have a man they think a great 
 deal of, and are trying to get a 
 place for; why don't you find 
 out about him ? ' But I told her 
 I did not want a man to look 
 
 13 
 
after the furnace and that sort 
 of thing : I had a good man for 
 that already, was very well 
 suited, and had no wish to make 
 a change. What I wanted was 
 a man for up-stairs." This she 
 said in her deliberate and com- 
 ical drawl. I do not believe 
 she has the slightest intention 
 of changing her condition. So 
 
 C and R , who are here 
 
 on that business, might as well 
 be away. 
 
 I find that the great superi- 
 ority of our women is in the 
 fact that they are themselves. 
 I do not say that they are su- 
 perior in individuality to Eng- 
 lish women. The truth is, I 
 fancy, that the people of one 
 country are about as individual 
 as those of another, and that 
 most people are more individual 
 than we suppose. If you go to 
 live in any family, or to work in 
 any office, you will find that 
 
people whom at first you take 
 to be commonplace, become, 
 afi;er you have known them a 
 little while, more and more in- 
 dividual. I have never yet 
 lived in any community which 
 I did not find to contain a good 
 many of what are called " char- 
 acters." I would not therefore 
 quite say that our women are 
 superior in individuality. Their 
 superiority is that they express 
 their individuality. It is for 
 this reason that they please to 
 such a degree. Other women, 
 no doubt, exhibit their individ- 
 uahty in their own families, to 
 their husbands and brothers. 
 Our women exhibit their indi- 
 viduality in society, where we 
 all get the benefit of it. The 
 charm of girlhood is freely ex- 
 pressed among us. The differ- 
 ence between European girl- 
 hood and our own is that be- 
 tween game in regions hunted 
 by man and the animal life of 
 
 15 
 
some virgin island of the sea. 
 In the first instance the game 
 is very wild. But the island bird 
 will settle on your shoulder. 
 The downcast eye, flushed 
 cheek, and low voice are charm- 
 ing ; but I am not sure that I pre- 
 fer them to the bright confidence 
 of a Yankee maiden. I am not 
 proof against that refined timid- 
 ity of a nursery-bred young lady 
 of the Old World ; but is the 
 charm she communicates quite 
 so lively as that of her Ameri- 
 can sister ? 
 
 The repression of the indi- 
 viduality of English women is, 
 of course, due to the necessity 
 they are under of conforming 
 to a standard of manners which 
 they appear always to have be- 
 fore their eyes. The more I 
 see of English women here, the 
 more sure I am that this is true. 
 I observe it not only on com- 
 paring them with the women of 
 our own country, but on com- 
 
paring them with those of other 
 countries. Perhaps to this cause 
 is due the fact that Enghsh wo- 
 men cannot smile with the force 
 of French women. Yet there 
 is often something admirable 
 about this very repression. Take, 
 for instance, some neat matron or 
 some still comely maiden lady 
 young enough to wish to be 
 handsome, — a class in which 
 England abounds, — who has 
 her tea-table opinions upon 
 politics and what not, and 
 whose accents, gestures, and 
 sentiments even are modish, — 
 one is often pleased to notice, 
 beneath the bonds which con- 
 fine her mind, an elastic, vigor- 
 ous, and charming nature. In- 
 deed I think that a fault of our 
 women is that they are too 
 much expressed ; they are too 
 tense. This may be due in 
 some shght degree to the edu- 
 cation which some of them re- 
 ceive in high schools and col- 
 
 2 17 
 
leges. I went once to the com- 
 mencement of an American 
 female college. I did not like 
 what I saw — the young ladies 
 looked to me so wound up. 
 The life they led seemed un- 
 natural and unreasonable. Why 
 should they be made to read 
 essays to a thousand people in 
 a great hall ? This practice is 
 of course borrowed from that 
 of the male colleges. The cus- 
 tom began, I suppose, with the 
 notion that the ability to make 
 a speech was the peculiar abil- 
 ity of a public man, that he was 
 the highest kind of a man, and 
 that colleges were intended for 
 the education of pubHc men. 
 The graduate got up on com- 
 mencement day and showed 
 what his college education had 
 done for him. This notion has 
 been very much modified, but 
 perhaps it is even yet a good 
 custom to be pursued by male 
 colleges. There will come times 
 
 18 
 
in the life of almost any man 
 when it will be necessary for 
 him to make a speech ; and he 
 will present a very poor ap- 
 pearance if he cannot do it. 
 Perhaps he may be called upon 
 to attempt that most difficult 
 kind of oratory, an after-dinner 
 speech. In that case, it is im- 
 possible for the best of men 
 without this ability to keep from 
 being ridiculous. If he refuses 
 to speak, he is ridiculous. If he 
 speaks foolishly — as he is likely 
 to do — he is also ridiculous. 
 But on what occasion is it neces- 
 sary for a woman to make a 
 speech ? Is it when she is en- 
 gaged or when she is married ? 
 Is it when she becomes a mother 
 or a grandmother ? 
 
 At this commencement the 
 young ladies all read essays, and 
 I will admit that they were not 
 so much frightened as they 
 should have been. Apart from 
 any objection to their appear- 
 
 19 
 
ing at all, I objected to the 
 character of the appearance 
 they made. I was shocked at 
 the conventional pertness which 
 they seemed to have cultivated. 
 They had adopted in their es- 
 says a silly fashion of joking. 
 Now I am always interested in 
 the humorous perceptions of 
 my compatriots. It is often a 
 source of surprise to me, when at 
 home, to find how many people 
 there are who have a humorous 
 way of looking at things. But 
 the jokes of these young ladies 
 were not good. They consisted 
 of commonplaces put into long 
 Latin words. The recipe ap- 
 peared to be this, that that 
 which in Saxon English is a 
 mere plain statement becomes 
 very witty when turned into 
 Latinized English. They kept 
 this up incessantly, the only re- 
 lief being when some serious 
 allusion to their approaching 
 separation would recall them to 
 
 20 
 
their proper employment of 
 shedding tears. 
 
 There was one of these essay- 
 ists, a young lady who really 
 seemed to have some natural 
 humor, who awakened my keen 
 commiseration. Her tense mind 
 seemed altogether too much for 
 her slight body. I wanted to 
 tell her to go and sit at her 
 grandmother's window, near 
 the shadow of the lilac-bushes, 
 to immure her mind and thin 
 hands in deep dishes of pump- 
 kin batter, to stay a whole sum- 
 mer in some still village, with 
 only a little poetry to read, and 
 away from all stimulating so- 
 ciety. 
 
 I have said that American 
 vulgarity exhibits itself in rude- 
 ness. English vulgarity, on the 
 other hand, generally appears 
 under the form of undue con- 
 formity. I cannot describe to 
 you how strong my sense is of 
 
the prevalence of this quahty 
 among many of the EngUsh 
 people that I see here. There 
 is a rather underdone young 
 Englishman here, a very good- 
 natured fellow, in whom this 
 conformity has settled down- 
 ward to the very soles of his 
 boots; you see it in the things 
 he says, in the tones of his voice, 
 in his gestures and attitudes. 
 Want of breeding, by the way, 
 is much more easily discernible 
 in men than in women. Among 
 young women, rosy cheeks and 
 a pair of bright eyes and the 
 feminine adaptability cover up 
 this quality very much. But 
 you will see the imitation in 
 them also, if you look closely. 
 
 I went this afternoon to take 
 tea with some English people 
 who are at the hotel opposite. 
 There was an amiable, fresh- 
 looking girl who poured out the 
 tea. She was an exceedingly 
 nice girl. If manners must be 
 
 22 
 
imitative, I don't think any 
 could be better than hers. But 
 it was true that you could see 
 by her way of sitting, by her 
 way of holding her shoulders, 
 and by the manner of her refer- 
 ences to the accidents of Eng- 
 lish fashionable life, as if they 
 were, and as if they were not, 
 quite her own, that her mind 
 was sat upon by some standard 
 of behavior to which she felt 
 herself obliged to conform. Per- 
 haps this imitation might be- 
 come tiresome if one lived in 
 England, but with people who 
 have such good nature and such 
 good looks as this family one 
 does not mind a little of it. 
 
 The young Englishman just 
 referred to is a plain young fel- 
 low. But I find the same vul- 
 garity exhibited by him in an 
 accomplished person I have met 
 here, a university man, and, I 
 beHeve, a poet. What faces he 
 
 23 
 
makes; how he screws up his 
 mouth, and how imitative are 
 the inflections of his voice! 
 One might expect this from 
 my Brummagem rosy-cheeked 
 youth ; but a scholar and a man 
 of genius, even without other 
 quaUfications for the part, should 
 have the intellectual discrimi- 
 nation and decision of character 
 to be a gentleman. 
 
 English women of the upper 
 class fancy that they are hand- 
 somer than those of the middle 
 class, or, at any rate, that they 
 possess more attractions. They 
 have, of course, finer manners. 
 One of them said the other 
 day, " We are the freest class," 
 which is probably true ; and free- 
 dom is necessary to pleasing 
 manners. They are more agree- 
 able and have more and better 
 conversation. But I doubt if 
 they are handsomer. There is 
 often upon the faces of women 
 
 24 
 
who lead a life of fashion an ag- 
 gressive expression which is so 
 far unfavorable to fern ale beauty . 
 I speak now of the woman who, 
 although she has four balls for 
 the night, is wretched because 
 she has been denied the fifth. 
 
 I see I have written rather 
 slightingly about the manners 
 of certain English women. I 
 admire them greatly, however. 
 The qualities of the British na- 
 ture are such as are particularly 
 suitable to women. Those qual- 
 ities, — benevolence, sense, dig- 
 nity, decency, rectitude, — when 
 combined with feminine soft- 
 ness, make up a character which 
 is like balsam to the mind. The 
 mental dullness proper to the 
 nation is also to some degree 
 refined away in them. When 
 these qualities are united with 
 beauty, with high breeding, and, 
 as is sometimes the case, with 
 majesty of form and counte- 
 
nance, you have indeed a fine 
 object. The Enghsh women 
 here are almost altogether of 
 the middle and upper classes; 
 but what strikes you when you 
 visit England is the high aver- 
 age of female beauty. You see 
 there exceedingly fine persons 
 among the lower classes. One 
 of the most beautiful women I 
 ever saw there was a lodging- 
 house keeper. I went to look 
 for lodgings in Green street. 
 The door was opened by a large 
 woman of thirty-five, fair and 
 rather full in figure, whose mild 
 beauty of countenance and as- 
 pect astonished me. For the 
 moment I thought I had before 
 me one of the grand illusions 
 of Rubens. She seemed to me 
 a figure such as the joyful 
 humor of some great painter 
 might have perpetuated from 
 one of those times and places 
 of happy repose which the cen- 
 turies conceal. Her beauty was 
 
one which preferred to flourish 
 in the shade. This good man's 
 house, which no doubt did as 
 well as any, she had selected 
 for her sojourn. She was con- 
 tent here to be cutting bread 
 and butter, glad to be shielded 
 from the eyes of the world. A 
 peculiarity of this woman was 
 that she had an air of habitual 
 perturbation. She was one of 
 that class of women who find 
 their beauty a burden, and la- 
 ment the necessity they are un- 
 der of having to carry it about 
 with them. The lodgings were 
 extremely nice, and I thought 
 how pleasant it would be to 
 take them and give tea-parties 
 at which she should bring in 
 the things ; but I found this 
 was out of the question. She 
 asked five guineas for the 
 rooms, with three and sixpence 
 for the kitchen fire, and linen, 
 bath, hghts, and boots extra. 
 
 27 
 
I CAME across the other day, 
 in "Frank LesUe's Illus- 
 trated Paper," which I found in 
 the Kurhaus reading-room, a 
 poem written by some girl of 
 about twenty-three (I suppose), 
 who thought herself very old. 
 The poem was addressed to a 
 young man with whom she ap- 
 peared to have had a flirtation, 
 we will say, at the age of twenty. 
 She tells him that the love they 
 threw away so lightly was not a 
 thing to be met with every day, 
 and was worth keeping. The 
 title, I think, was " Rags." At 
 any rate, the thought was that 
 this love had now become rags. 
 It had gone into the old rag- 
 bag, the Past ; " Time" she said, 
 was the "old Ragman." You 
 can fancy the poetess to be 
 
some rather high-pressure Yan- 
 kee girl, clever, perhaps satir- 
 ical, a little romantic, and 
 what you would call intense, 
 with a brow of premature 
 thought, a sallow cheek (such 
 is my notion), and a face and 
 figure in which is ill concealed 
 the energy of her disposition. 
 What particularly strikes you is 
 that the young lady is evidently 
 her own mistress. There is no 
 chaperon or a suspicion of one 
 anywhere about. I may here 
 say that I think this indepen- 
 dence an advantage to an inter- 
 esting female character. Do 
 not all the heroines of poetry 
 and romance have it ? The Ho- 
 meric Nausicaa, the Chloes and 
 Phillises of pastoral poetry, and 
 in later times Shakspere's Rosa- 
 lind and the Angelina of Gold- 
 smith's ballad, are, in this par- 
 ticular, much like American 
 girls. Any really fine young wo- 
 man of modern societv should 
 
have the same independence. 
 She should be like the princess 
 of a small kingdom. She 
 should have ministers and a 
 standing army, and should have 
 at her command the sinews of 
 war. She should be able to 
 form treaties of amity and 
 friendship with the surround- 
 ing princes. She should have 
 power to make war, or, if love 
 is to be made, it should be from 
 the same high vantage-ground. 
 The interesting women one 
 knows at home have been much 
 in this position. I cannot im- 
 agine them with chaperons. 
 Their liberty is an essential ele- 
 ment of their superiority. 
 
 Take the fine women I know. 
 There is the gentle and pro- 
 found Helena, and there is M. 
 L . The last was the daugh- 
 ter of a Quaker family whose 
 farm-house overlooks Long Isl- 
 and Sound. They see at noon 
 the cheerful blue of its ghtterirtg 
 
 30 
 
wave and the white rim of the 
 distant shore. She was ex- 
 tremely pretty. She talked in- 
 cessantly. But it did not seem 
 hke talking; conversation, or 
 rather monologue, was her nor- 
 mal state of existence. It was 
 only another sort of silence. I 
 say that she was a Quaker. As 
 a matter of fact, I believe that 
 her family had separated from 
 the Quaker faith, but she was 
 sufficiently near the Quaker 
 character and mode of life. Her 
 eloquence must have been de- 
 rived from generations of 
 preachers of that denomination. 
 Her language, although truth- 
 ful, was full and fluent. She 
 read you with introvertive eye, 
 from the tablets of her mind, 
 numbers of thoughts which 
 seemed to my bewitched ears 
 beautiful and original, upon 
 poetry, art, books, people, etc. 
 She repeated these in a voice 
 the most charming I have ever 
 
listened to — poetical quotations 
 sounded so very fine when she 
 uttered them, as she did now 
 and then in her simple way. 
 She even imparted a certain 
 magic to the flinty meters of 
 that pedant, W . She ad- 
 mired widely, and you yourself 
 came in for a share of the lively 
 interest with which she regarded 
 creation. The air of wonder 
 with which she listened to what 
 you said excited your self-love 
 to the highest pitch. I visited 
 their farm-house twice. I re- 
 member an orchard near at 
 hand which stretched along the 
 crest of a broken hill. I saw 
 this once when the spring had 
 sent a quick wave of bright 
 verdure over the sod cropped 
 short by the cows. The orchard 
 was cut into three or four small 
 patches, but there was a break 
 in each of the separating fences, 
 so that you could walk the or- 
 chard floors from room to room. 
 
 32 
 
I went again later one hot mid- 
 summer morning, when ourpath 
 led to a wood through a blazing 
 wheat-field, in which I stopped 
 to pull a branch of wild roses. 
 We came soon to a brake on an 
 abrupt hillside, where, shut in 
 by masses of dense and bril- 
 liantly painted greenery, mov- 
 ing incessantly with the forest 
 zephyrs, and not far from a 
 white dogwood tree, which 
 overhung the source of a wood- 
 land pathway, we rested from 
 the heat. I began to cut away 
 the thorns from the branch of 
 wild roses, an action which I was 
 half conscious was mistaken. I 
 had better have let her prick 
 her fingers, for she said: "You 
 can't care for wild roses if you 
 would cut away the thorns." 
 
 Another recollection I have, 
 of walking along a country 
 roadside in that twilight which 
 is almost dark. The daughter 
 of the Quakers wore a blue silk 
 
 3 33 
 
cape with long fringes. She 
 was talking her " thees " and 
 " thous " to a half-grown lad, 
 her cousin, as if she were no 
 better than other women. The 
 tall white daisies, thickly sown 
 by the roadside, wheeled and 
 swam in ghostly silence. It 
 seemed that the slight figure 
 that stepped briskly before me 
 had a cosmic might and force 
 residing among and descended 
 from those stars and planets 
 wliich had begun to strew the 
 black heavens. 
 
 The family to which this girl 
 belonged seemed to me to be 
 people who practised a very 
 high order of civilization. She 
 was the most obedient and duti- 
 ful of daughters ; but for all that 
 she seemed to dominate the 
 whole connection, and the land- 
 scape too, I should say. Her 
 liberty was so a part of herself 
 that I could not imagine her 
 without it. 
 
T TRIED last night to walk 
 A through a quadrille at the 
 dance at the Kurhaus. We made 
 a great many mistakes ; nobody 
 knew it except a young English 
 lady, a thoroughbred little crea- 
 ture, evidently very exact and 
 conscientious. She knew her 
 part perfectly and executed her 
 steps with the greatest preci- 
 sion, holding her skirt with 
 thumb and finger and advanc- 
 ing and retreating among the 
 blunderers with an expression 
 of gentleforgiveness,fi*om which, 
 however, was not wanting a 
 due sense of the culpabihty of 
 such conduct. She sat next me 
 in the English church this morn- 
 ing, and she knew her places 
 in the Prayer-book as well as 
 her steps in the quadrille. 
 
There are few things which 
 give me so rauch pleasure as 
 looking at good dancing. And 
 I prefer the dancing of respect- 
 able people to the best ballets. 
 I do not find (with a few ex- 
 ceptions) that ballet-dancers are 
 graceful. Their posturing and 
 prancing are inane and stupid. 
 Then to me the great attraction 
 of dancing is that it is so ex- 
 pressive of people's individual- 
 ity. Now individuality among 
 professional dancers is rarer 
 even than grace, the effect of 
 their usual Hfe being to reduce 
 them to so much human pulp. 
 It is natural that people should 
 become less individual as their 
 bodies predominate over their 
 minds, since people's minds are 
 capable of infinite variety, while 
 their bodies are made up of the 
 same kind of blood, bones, and 
 tissue. There is, on the other 
 hand, a great deal of variety to 
 be met with at an average ball. 
 
Dancing compels the expres- 
 sion of these varieties. Pride, 
 humility, delicacy, coarseness, 
 and vanity, with its many phases, 
 all express themselves. At the 
 hop yesterday evening, to which 
 the ladies came with their hats 
 on, there were a dozen people 
 I should like to paint. Some 
 expressed simply the joy of the 
 exercise, the sense of freedom 
 and the feehng that they were 
 doing the thing beautifully. The 
 best dancers were the Ameri- 
 cans ; and of all the dances in use 
 in pohte society, none is equal 
 to that in vogue in America in 
 giving opportunity for freedom. 
 Of these one could not help ob- 
 serving one young lady who is 
 both a good dancer and rider, 
 and who has that easy balance 
 of the body from the hips up- 
 ward which is, I believe, com- 
 mon to good horsemen an d good 
 dancers. Her movement was 
 remarkably flowing. A long 
 
 37 
 
skirt, by the way, enhances the 
 beauty of dancing. It is a good 
 register and indicator of the 
 movements of the body. The 
 swimming of this garment after 
 the young woman just men- 
 tioned, as if in pursuit of her, 
 made all the more fascinating 
 the agreeable flight with which 
 she traversed the room. 
 
 Dances like that of last night 
 are better than great balls in 
 town. At a place like this you 
 very quickly get to know the 
 people, by sight at least, in meet- 
 ing them half a dozen times a 
 day, and you get interested in 
 them as individuals. But very 
 little interest of that sort per- 
 tains to a big crush in town. 
 Not that one does not now and 
 then enjoy a smart town dance, 
 the smarter the better perhaps. 
 After months of abstention from 
 such frivolities, when, for the 
 first time in the season, at a par- 
 ticularly nice party, the fiddlers 
 
strike up and the young, the 
 beautiful, and the brilHant sweep 
 into the dance, one's fancy is 
 apt to be quickened a httle. 
 
 I recall at this moment one 
 big ball that was an interesting 
 sight. It was at one of the 
 greatest of the' London houses. 
 I had stayed on until very late. 
 In those spacious rooms, flanked 
 by the most famous canvases 
 of Rubens, there were scarcely 
 fifty people left, and these were 
 gathered in the room with the 
 musicians. Upon a small dais 
 was the orchestra, a perfect one, 
 consisting of half a dozen play- 
 ers, which seemed to partake of 
 the madness of the dancers and 
 added "extra" after "extra" 
 with the tireless movement of a 
 perpetual machine. The gal- 
 vanized action of the players, 
 from crazy repetition, caught a 
 swing which, it seemed, might 
 go on forever. It was past five, 
 and in that climate, and at that 
 
 39 
 
season of the year (it was June), 
 there had been some hours of 
 sunshine. The strange and garish 
 Hght gave the scene an almost 
 unearthly aspect. They danced 
 the " Tempete," and, as the mad 
 figures with hands joined rushed 
 shouting and sHding across the 
 floor, now slippery with the ac- 
 tion of vanished feet, it was in- 
 deed a striking spectacle. It 
 looked like a dance of witches. 
 But a beautiful woman came 
 and broke the spell which 
 bound the musicians, and re- 
 leased them ; the dancers with- 
 drew reluctantly, and I walked 
 home through the park in the 
 midst of sunshine as broad as 
 noon. 
 
 I should not think they 
 danced particularly well in Ger- 
 man society. I remember a 
 Silesian lady, married to an 
 Austrian, whose bold manner 
 of dancing, which her fine per- 
 
 40 
 
son and original character no 
 doubt assisted, was most strik- 
 ing. The best dancing I have 
 seen in Germany is that of the 
 peasants. The other day I was 
 walking in some hills above 
 the Rhine, near St. Goar, and 
 looking back upon a far finer 
 view than you get from the 
 banks of the river, when I heard 
 the tinkling of music and the 
 sound of voices in the Castle of 
 Rheinfels. I found my way into 
 the ruin. Some peasants and 
 townspeople were dancing upon 
 a platform in an open space. I 
 joined in, which any one may 
 do, the only condition being 
 that you pay a few pence for 
 your partner and yourself to the 
 musicians, who make a collec- 
 tion at the end of each dance. 
 The dance was a good deal 
 like a polka mazurka; this is 
 done by taking three steps in 
 one direction and then in the 
 contrary one. There was one 
 
couple who danced admirably 
 and in perfect time. The girl, 
 who appeared to be of a class 
 superior to the rest, — she was, 
 I believe, the daughter of the 
 village editor, — was very grace- 
 ful and had a charming manner, 
 smiling all the while with a 
 forcible sweetness and courtesy. 
 The young man was a stout, 
 thickset young fellow, and 
 danced well, as heavy people 
 often do, and with an expres- 
 sion of repressed joy. 
 
 42 
 
I HAVE spent the morning 
 reading "Pride and Pre- 
 judice " — that never-ending 
 source of pleasure. The effect of 
 Enghsh hterature of past times 
 upon the mind is heightened by 
 our knowledge that it represents 
 a civilization and society, as per- 
 fect as any we know at present, 
 which have departed. In reading 
 Miss Austen, one does not forget 
 this fact, and one also remem- 
 bers that, of all the interesting 
 people she described, none re- 
 main. The incomparable Eliza- 
 beth, Mr. Knighdey and Mr. 
 Darcy, the brisk and clever 
 Emma, and those charming im- 
 ages of Elizabeth's silly and vul- 
 gar sisters (those sisters have the 
 reality of fungi that have sprung 
 up in the moist ground over- 
 
 43 
 
night), all the characters, indeed, 
 which we owe to that beautiful 
 mind, have gone — folly and vir- 
 tue alike departed. They retreat 
 under those solemn oaks in the 
 somber but friendly gloom of 
 the British evening, amid those 
 simple first hours of the century 
 — none left to tell the tale. 
 
 Ho w English the story is ( Eng- 
 lish of the early century ), and ho w 
 unconscious of ideas that are not 
 English ! In the character of 
 Darcy is shown the intimate re- 
 lation existing between a su- 
 perior moral nature and ten 
 thousand a year, while in that 
 of Wickham is exemplified the 
 truth that vice and poverty are 
 synonymous terms. 
 
 I have brought on here from 
 the London Library some half- 
 dozen volumes of Hazlitt's es- 
 says, an extravagant thing to 
 do when one is charged for 
 all baggage over fifty pounds. 
 
They are rather disappointing. 
 They are too off-hand to have 
 much critical value. Hazlitt, 
 however, had a fine gift of 
 color, of which a good example 
 is his remark about Mrs. Inch- 
 bald, that "her novels were as 
 if Venus had written books." 
 She was a very handsome wo- 
 man. I have an image of her 
 in my mind, which is very likely 
 not in the least like the fact, but 
 which I have derived from "A 
 Simple Story " and " Nature and 
 Art." It is that of a person 
 with more ardor than discrimi- 
 nation, with "language large," 
 as the phrenologists say, her in- 
 cessant conversation enriched 
 by a full and peculiar voice; 
 looking at men who were clever, 
 or who thought themselves so, 
 with an animated recognition 
 which inclined the most pru- 
 dent of them to take themselves 
 too seriously — a charming va- 
 riety of the female character. 
 
I have said that EngHsh 
 women cannot smile. If they 
 cannot smile, they can frown, 
 and I like a frowning woman. 
 There is a lady whom I often 
 meet with her children in the 
 streets and at church. I cannot 
 conceive of her smiling. Her 
 face — a dark oval one — and 
 her carriage express the utmost 
 decision, and at service she 
 prays with such resolution ! And 
 there is a young girl here of 
 sometliing the same character. 
 Her concentrated gravity and 
 earnestness of expression mask 
 or reveal an honest mind. She 
 has this expression always. 
 When she dances even, it is 
 with a serious and energetic 
 face, her shoulders back, re- 
 volving like a soldier on drill. 
 
 I have heard the opinion ex- 
 pressed lately, that there has 
 been in modern times an ad- 
 vance in the beauty of women. 
 
Perhaps there has been, al- 
 though I should doubt it. Pliny 
 speaks of a young lady of his 
 time in the following manner: 
 " The youngest daughter of my 
 friend Fundanus is dead. I have 
 never seen a more cheerful and 
 more lovable girl, or one who 
 had better deserved to have 
 enjoyed a long — I had almost 
 said an immortal — life. She was 
 scarcely fourteen, and yet there 
 w^as in her a wisdom far beyond 
 her years, a matronly gravity 
 united with girlish sweetness 
 and virgin bashfulness. With 
 what an endearing fondness did 
 she hang on her father's neck ! 
 How affectionately and mod- 
 estly she used to greet us, his 
 friends ! With what a tender 
 and deferential regard she used 
 to treat her nurses, tutors, teach- 
 ers, each in their respective of- 
 fices ! What an eager, industri- 
 ous, intelHgent reader she was ! 
 . . . O melancholy and untimely 
 
loss, too truly ! She was en- 
 gaged to an excellent young 
 man." This was a long time 
 ago. The above-mentioned 
 theory to the contrary notwith- 
 standing, one may be sure that 
 there was something pretty 
 about this young lady. I have 
 no doubt she suited Pom- 
 ponius Rufus, the young man 
 to whom she was engaged. Her 
 face and form, at any rate, had 
 that evanescence which is of it- 
 self a beauty. The lines of her 
 countenance, her features even, 
 the expression of her figure, were 
 all new. She had acquired them 
 since the preceding year. Pliny 
 is writing perhaps in a. d. 109. 
 Three years earlier she was still 
 playing with dolls. Now she 
 has a " wisdom beyond her 
 years," " a matronly gravity," 
 and "a virgin bashfulness." I 
 think, too, there is something 
 pretty in the fondness for study 
 of this child of the accomplished 
 
 48 
 
Fundanus. She was not like 
 one of those pert daughters of 
 Hterary famihes that I have 
 known, who despise books, and 
 want only to know rich and 
 smart people, and go to balls 
 and races. I have no doubt 
 she had a bust of Virgil in her 
 bedroom. She probably had a 
 birthday-book of the poets' 
 works, and made people write 
 their names opposite their re- 
 spective quotations. 
 
 Apropos of the daughter 
 
 of Fundanus, the R s are 
 
 staying here, with all their chil- 
 dren. The youngest daughter 
 is about fifteen. Her sisters say 
 she is at the awkward age. She 
 is tall for her age, and her limbs 
 are long. Hers may be the 
 awkward age, but there is a 
 grace about her awkwardness 
 which it would be hard for more 
 completed beauties to match. 
 She exhibits this in walking or 
 standing, but especially in a 
 
 4 i9 
 
sitting position, for her body- 
 then falls into indolent attitudes 
 which are perfect in grace. Her 
 indisposition to break up any 
 position into which she has 
 fallen is not so much the result 
 of indolence as of what I be- 
 lieve to be an instinct that any- 
 thing so pretty should not too 
 soon come to an end. Her 
 figure at such times seems to 
 have a pleasurable conscious- 
 ness of repose. Her silence is 
 perpetual. I greatly enjoy it. 
 This beautiful mushroom has 
 grown to its present height 
 since I left college. 
 
 It is always a matter of 
 surprise to find how tall some 
 very young girls are. You know 
 they are young, and you dis- 
 count their inches unconscious- 
 ly. Your knowledge of their 
 age has the efiect of an optical 
 illusion. Speaking of tall wo- 
 men, there is here an extraor- 
 
dinarily tall young lady, who is 
 at the same time very pretty. 
 She must be considerably more 
 than six feet, and the fact of 
 her being very slender adds to 
 her apparent height. I was in- 
 troduced to her the other even- 
 ing. Her face is remarkably 
 pretty, the features being very 
 regular and perfect, and the ex- 
 pression charming. As I looked 
 up at it, it seemed to me like 
 some beautiful picture at the 
 Academy which had unfortu- 
 nately been hung too high. 
 
 It is interesting to observe 
 how gentle the minds of many 
 of these tall women are. If 
 there were somewhere a woman 
 a mile high, and you could, by 
 an arrangement of ladders, 
 climb up to a level with her 
 face, I believe that you would 
 there find a sweet and foolish 
 mind, an eye that would sink 
 with giddy pleasure under the 
 glance of admiration. 
 
THE poor Germans get very 
 little good of their royal- 
 ties, of whom there are several 
 staying here. The English cap- 
 ture them. They stalk them 
 daily on the promenade and at 
 the springs. I was present this 
 morning at a kind of still hunt. 
 I was at the Kurhaus, and found 
 a number of English waiting at 
 the door. They told me the 
 Grand Duke was having his 
 luncheon. A throng of twenty 
 or thirty people, most of whom 
 could boast some kind of ac- 
 quaintance with His Royal 
 Highness, were there, in the 
 hope that he would speak to 
 them. I got chairs for two aw- 
 fully nice women, who were old 
 friends of mine, and who said 
 very simply: "We shall feel 
 
very badly if he does not speak 
 to us." Old Wilkins produced a 
 letterwhich he had just received 
 from another eminent person- 
 age, saying: " I wonder how she 
 knew my address." The com- 
 pany seemed impressed with 
 this utterance. But the people 
 did not talk much; they were 
 silent and serious. Some of 
 them would now and then try 
 to push to the front, when there 
 were black looks from behind. 
 There was one lady, the wife of 
 a general, I believe, who did not 
 seem welcome among certain 
 more fashionable bystanders. 
 She held her ground, how- 
 ever. Her pale, determined 
 face seemed to say: "Did we 
 not entertain His Royal High- 
 ness at Aldershot; and did he 
 not send to inquire after our 
 daughter, who had the diph- 
 theria ? I think there is reason 
 to hope he will speak to me." 
 Presently the Grand Duke came 
 
out, walking fast and brushing 
 his beard. He walked through 
 the company, but did not speak 
 to any of them. 
 
 Old Wilkins really loves these 
 great ones. It is commonly held 
 that a courtier is insincere and 
 a flatterer. I doubt if that no- 
 tion is a true one. A man can 
 scarcely make another man, 
 who is an intelligent person, 
 believe for any length of time 
 that he admires and loves him, 
 if he does not. No man can be 
 a good courtier by simulating 
 admiration. It is part of a 
 successful courtier's stock in 
 trade that he really does ad- 
 mire. The courtier who would 
 succeed must not pretend to 
 a love he does not feel, but 
 must work upon his mind to 
 bring it to the proper condition 
 as regards the great ones. A 
 good courtier, however, does 
 not need to do this. Old Wil- 
 
 54 
 
kins, no doubt, has always 
 loved them. 
 
 An objectionable person has 
 arrived^ whom I wish I did not 
 know. It is a great misfortune 
 to have made the acquaintance 
 of a man to whom you are un- 
 able to overcome your repug- 
 nance. You can get on perfect- 
 ly with him, if you don't know 
 him. Knowing him, you must 
 speak to him, and it is difficult 
 to do that without manifesting 
 your aversion. If you avoid 
 him, and keep out of his way, 
 he observes that; and if you 
 cease altogether to recognize 
 him, he is, of course, your ene- 
 my. Now, if there were only 
 some ceremony of dis-introduc- 
 tion, after which your relations 
 with him would be just what 
 they were before you knew him ! 
 You would then say in a natural 
 way, and with no thought of 
 giving offense: " Will you please 
 
 55 
 
dis-introduceme to Mr. ? " 
 
 Were human nature the reason- 
 able thing it should be, and per- 
 haps will be in the millennium, 
 this would be perfectly practi- 
 cable. If such a custom now 
 existed, with what avidity would 
 I seek a dis-introduction to this 
 person ! 
 
 There is something that ap- 
 peals strongly to the humor in 
 the simplicity of the motives 
 which the old playwrights as- 
 sign to their characters. For 
 instance, in the lists of dramatis 
 persojics, a male character is 
 represented as "in love" with a 
 female character, and as " friend 
 to" another male character. 
 How much more complex and 
 intricate would a play be which 
 should describe the facts as I 
 see them to be here. The list 
 of dramatis personce. would be 
 something like the following : 
 
 Alonzo. (Inclined to fancy 
 
 56 
 
Maria, but is dissuaded by the 
 vulgarity of her relations. Ulti- 
 mately proposes to Olivia.) 
 
 Claudius. (Would really 
 propose to Miranda — or thinks 
 he should — if she had money. 
 Imagines he had better try for 
 Olivia, but, finding she will not 
 have him, falls back on Maria.) 
 
 Valentine. (A plain man 
 of some property, really in love 
 with Miranda.) 
 
 Miranda. (Rather likes 
 Claudius, but thinks she had 
 better take Valentine, as she 
 may not have so good a chance 
 again.) 
 
 Olivia. (Does not like men. 
 Thinks they are all after her 
 money. Prefers a man whom 
 she has left in America, and 
 who cannot get here within the 
 three days required by the 
 unities. Accepts Alonzo, partly 
 out of civility and compliance, 
 and partly because, Alonzo be- 
 ing a rich man, she erroneously 
 
supposes he is therefore not a 
 fortune-hunter.) 
 
 Maria. (An heiress.) 
 
 Isabella. (Mother to Mi- 
 randa. Has an eye, for her 
 daughter, on Alonzo, — who, 
 meanwhile, has no notion of 
 Miranda^ — is not disposed to 
 let go her hold on Vale7itine, 
 but is a strenuous enemy of 
 Claudius. ) 
 
 Antonio. (Friend to Clau- 
 dius. Is not, however, alto- 
 gether pleased in perceiving 
 that Claudius, with Maria's 
 money, will be a greater man 
 than himself.) 
 
 Angelo. (Friend to Valen- 
 tine. Is all the more earnest 
 in support of his friend's suit 
 for the reason that he secretly 
 believes that Valentine has little 
 chanceof being accepted. Hav- 
 ing been himself not insensible 
 to a certain dimple in the cheek 
 of Miranda, he is not particu- 
 larly happy to learn that the 
 
mind and person of that lady 
 are to be indeed the property 
 of Vale)iti7ie.) 
 
 The author's first intention 
 was to make " traitors " of An- 
 tonio and A?igeio rather than 
 "friends," but he reHnquished 
 this purpose on perceiving that 
 they were too good men for the 
 part. 
 
 (In the fifth act the characters 
 are with difficulty got to the 
 footlights; the orchestra makes 
 the conventionally festive flour- 
 ish; the house is expectant; 
 when suddenly they all scam- 
 per off the stage to meet and 
 repeat the performance the 
 next season.) 
 
 Right on the top of my re- 
 mark that the passion of love, 
 or that simple passions of any 
 sort, such as the plays describe, 
 are not to be met with in 
 Zwieback, comes the adorable 
 spinster Phillis, accompanied by 
 
 59 
 
Amyntas, who has been in love 
 with her for years. She is a really 
 fine person — a tall, full, blonde 
 woman, with a coquetry which 
 approaches philanthropy, it is so 
 amiable, so vague and elevated. 
 Her desire to please expands it- 
 self into a fine and gentle en- 
 thusiasm. She has a freedom 
 and a strength of position which 
 would be possible to no other 
 than an American spinster. She 
 is not emancipated, or peculiar, 
 or anything that is unbecoming, 
 but sits by her tea-table, like 
 Deborah of old under her palm- 
 tree. From this position,in which 
 I have often seen her, she radi- 
 ates her interest in mankind in 
 general, and the male portion 
 thereof in particular. 
 
 Amyntas has been in pursuit 
 of her for years, if that may be 
 called pursuit where she does 
 not fly and he scarcely dares 
 follow. The affair has reached 
 a state of suspended motion. 
 
 60 
 
He is quite content to be near 
 her, to listen to the sound of her 
 voice, and to be conscious of her 
 movements. Indeed, it is to 
 be doubted whether her actual 
 presence is necessary to him. I 
 should think he might sit very 
 comfortably in the same room 
 with one of her old dresses. 
 
 61 
 
I FIND that certain Ameri- 
 can women are very hard, or 
 tart, or both. I have spoken of 
 a want of a positive feminine 
 nature which some American 
 women have. It is upon this 
 basis that the character I speak 
 of is produced. Ammonia and 
 Lapidea are both here. Ammo- 
 nia is a woman who has been so 
 used to thinking tart thoughts 
 and saying tart things that her 
 face has a drawn and puckered 
 expression, hke that of a person 
 who has been eating persim- 
 mons. Not that I suppose she 
 has ever eaten them. The per- 
 simmon is Southern; I have 
 never seen it farther north than 
 Pennsylvania. Ammonia, on 
 the other hand, is from New 
 York. I have never heard of 
 
 62 
 
her farther south than the Hud- 
 son River. Ammonia, more- 
 over, is apoHte person, while the 
 persimmon is anything but a po- 
 lite fruit. It is never eaten ex- 
 cept by darkies or by very small 
 boys in moments of extreme 
 ejinui. So I doubt if Ammo- 
 nia has ever seen a persimmon. 
 Ammonia is unmarried. La- 
 pidea is married. She is a dis- 
 tinguished and handsome crea- 
 ture. She has been a great 
 heiress, but it was not on that 
 
 account A married her. 
 
 It was her distinction, good 
 connections, and unmistakable 
 fashion that attracted him. He 
 chose her because he is the kind 
 of man who likes to be well 
 turned out. She is ambitious, 
 and I don't doubt will have a 
 career. 
 
 The pretty American women 
 here are much admired by for- 
 eigners, especially by English- 
 men. It is not in the nature 
 
 63 
 
of women to resent this kind of 
 thing. American women have^ 
 moreover, an adaptabiHty which 
 few other women have, and they 
 like to practise their talents 
 upon the various orders and 
 races of men. But it makes the 
 American men jealous, and it is 
 not surprising that it should. I 
 find that I don't like it. I will 
 own that when I see one of them 
 surrounded by half a dozen 
 Englishmen, I feel like Troilus 
 when he saw Cressida flirting in 
 the camp of the Greeks. 
 
 Notwithstanding the adapta- 
 bility of our women, however, 
 they have a character of their 
 own, of which they are tenacious 
 — often, no doubt, against their 
 will — amid circumstances most 
 remote from those of their own 
 country. There are various 
 marks of this character. For in- 
 stance, there is a woman here 
 who lives abroad and at such 
 places as this, and who pursues 
 
the life of the third-rate watering- 
 place society to which she de- 
 votes herself with the same bust- 
 ling activity with which, were 
 she amid her native scenes, she 
 would be making pumpkin pies. 
 
 There is also a tall, dark, 
 
 slight girl. Miss B . She is 
 
 a young woman of undoubted 
 fashion and perfectly dressed. 
 Yet, as I see her walking through 
 a quadrille, I observe in her 
 mind a perception so vivacious 
 as to be almost unladylike. I 
 am aware of a Yankee incisive- 
 ness, a keen, dry light like that 
 of her native hills. I am con- 
 scious of her New England 
 origin whenever I am in her 
 society. Beyond her Worth 
 dresses, perfect French, and 
 mundane wit and manners, I 
 see a smart white farm-house 
 on a round, clear hill. 
 
 But I am just now thinking 
 especially of one characteristic 
 of American women. There is 
 
 5 * 65 
 
a school-ma'am basis in the 
 character of certain of our 
 women, particularly those of 
 Puritan origin. A peculiarity 
 of them is that they seem to 
 disapprove of you a little, and, 
 if they are charming, I find 
 there is something pleasant in 
 being the object of their disap- 
 proval. I see this character in 
 women who, of course, could 
 not have been school-ma'ams, 
 who indeed have hardly lived 
 in America. I know one — and 
 she is very pretty — who even 
 as a girl has passed most of her 
 days abroad. She is married to 
 a German and lives in Silesia. 
 The whole of the few years of 
 her married life she has spent 
 at courts. Yet I never meet her, 
 amid scenes so different from 
 those of the land of our com- 
 mon birth, without being con- 
 scious that she has this quality. 
 It always seems to me that 
 she is going to " keep me in." 
 
 G6 * 
 
IT is very noticeable that the 
 min ds of many of our women, 
 especially those from New Eng- 
 land, are too much obtruded. 
 Their intellects are indecently 
 exposed. Is this, I wonder, the 
 result of higher education ? 
 The quality I refer to may not 
 be very pleasing, and yet it may 
 be useful. With the growth 
 of the mind should come the 
 growth of reason; and that 
 should be good, for we know 
 how much mischief can be done 
 by a foolish woman. 
 
 I am unable to express my 
 sense of the originahty of one 
 production of America — a type 
 of woman which, although not 
 universal, is still very prevalent 
 there. In particular there is a 
 
 67 
 
young girl, usually tall, that I 
 see very often, who has the look 
 of an effeminate boy. It looks 
 as if she is going to be every- 
 where. That sweetness, kind- 
 ness, and richness of mind which 
 was good enough for the artists 
 and poets that have gone before 
 us, it seems we are about to im- 
 prove off the face of the earth. 
 People tell me that this is a 
 crotchet of mine. But the fact 
 is so obvious that I am unable to 
 understand how anybody can 
 fail to recognize it. It is recog- 
 nized, I am sure. Only the other 
 day a young fellow who makes 
 no pretensions to be a critic said 
 (we had just been in the com- 
 pany of one of these young 
 ladies) : " They always seem to 
 me to be like another fellow." 
 
 There is something very sub- 
 lime in the infinite repetition 
 of human good qualities. There 
 is a young girl here to whom 
 
the care of an invalid father 
 is evidently a passion. She is 
 English, and addresses him as 
 " Dear," a pretty habit which I 
 believe to be especially English. 
 There are many daughters with 
 such traits. Nature deals in 
 these qualities as Chicago oper- 
 ators deal in grain. What a 
 great quantity of filial piety there 
 must be in the world ! 
 
 Heiresses are plentiful here. 
 An heiress is a humorous ob- 
 ject — she is such a mixture of 
 conventional with natural and 
 necessary attributes. She is 
 made up of stocks, smiles, 
 tears, mining property, blushes, 
 real estate, a complexion and 
 hair dark or blonde, as the case 
 may be. When she falls in love, 
 she is extremely interesting. It 
 is affecting to see the hopes and 
 fears of that passion rising in 
 her heart in complete indepen- 
 dence of those weighty matters 
 
which control men in great 
 cities. But some heiresses are 
 very rude. Diana D , a Bos- 
 ton girl with a million or 
 two, clever and learned, they 
 say, and handsome as well, is 
 staying here. She plainly re- 
 gards herself as something very 
 desirable, and considers men 
 proper obj ects of suspicion . She 
 takes a solitary morning walk in 
 the gardens, keeping her veil 
 down. If you meet her and 
 regard her with a natural and 
 proper curiosity, she returns 
 your glance with an expression 
 of countenance like that of the 
 ladies of Constantinople who 
 exclaim, on meeting an infidel, 
 — particularly if some of the 
 male faithful happen to be in 
 sight, — "Dog of a Christian, 
 Infidel, Giaour!" — these epi- 
 thets followed by a string of 
 Oriental metaphors which,when 
 translated, mean something 
 very rude. 
 
 70 
 
I shall begin to wonder pres- 
 ently who is n't here. I have 
 
 just met Mildred R in the 
 
 Ferdinand Strasse. Mildred is 
 a woman very characteristic of 
 America, but of an entirely dif- 
 ferent type from those I have 
 just mentioned. She is a Vir- 
 ginian. She is an inevitable 
 flirt, whose coquetry is of the 
 muscular, vigorous kind. I met 
 her first one evening in the par- 
 lor of an American house. It 
 was in one of those scenes the 
 participation in which has af- 
 forded me the keenest social 
 pleasure I have ever known. 
 She was staying in this house at 
 the time, or had dined there. 
 Two youths were sitting on 
 either side of her^ one holding 
 a spool of thread, the other 
 playing with the scissors. Miss 
 
 H said : " Do you see those 
 
 two boys ? They ought to have 
 gone hours ago to a dance 
 across the street. They prom- 
 
 71 
 
ised, and they want to go, 
 but they can't get away from 
 Mildred." She is a large, 
 finely proportioned creature, 
 and is particularly grand in 
 such things as cloaks, furs, etc. 
 Her movement is unusually 
 good. I have heard a friend 
 of hers say — it was a woman — 
 that some five years ago, when 
 she was at her best, it was a sight 
 to remember to see her walk the 
 length of the room. She is look- 
 ing very well now. I think she 
 is getting a little affected. Her 
 conversation is beginning to 
 take on an intellectual tone. 
 She is going in for a salon. She 
 now poses as the friend and con- 
 fidante of statesmen, like those 
 political ladies in the novels of 
 Bulwer and Disraeli. I think 
 this is a mistake. She is not 
 clever. Besides, it is unneces- 
 sary. I will guarantee her a 
 salon on the strength of the 
 qualities she really has. She 
 
belongs to a class of women 
 who are perhaps the most ef- 
 fective flirts in existence — wo- 
 men who are about one fourth 
 or one sixth man. A peculi- 
 arity of them is a generosity 
 of soul, a good nature, an al- 
 most infantile readiness to like 
 and be pleased, which contrasts 
 strangely with their contralto 
 voices and grand size. It is odd 
 to hear the language of gentle 
 and giddy unwisdom from the 
 lips of such superb people. 
 Mildred is like this. Her volatile 
 benevolence is bestowed upon 
 old and young alike. 
 
 Some friends who have lived 
 a great deal in France have 
 an apartment in the Louisen 
 Strasse. One sits about so 
 much here in gardens and on 
 piazzas, having coffee and lis- 
 tening to music, that one is 
 rather bored with outdoors and 
 is surprised to find how pleasant 
 
it is to be inclosed by four walls 
 and a ceiling. I feel as if I had 
 just discovered what nice things 
 lamps are. But the drawing- 
 room of these friends of mine 
 would be a particularly attrac- 
 tive one anywhere; it has the 
 bright hospitality of good so- 
 ciety on the Continent; it is 
 easy to fall into and hard to 
 keep out of. 
 
 They are Americans, of a 
 family which has performed for 
 the callow infancy of our giant 
 State much honorable service. 
 But they live very little in 
 America; they prefer France. 
 Their daughter, a convent-bred 
 young thing, has scarcely even 
 seen America. She is elegant, 
 hoyden, and charming. She 
 asks if you will have tea. You 
 say " No," with the decision of 
 a man who has little confidence 
 in his firmness of purpose. To 
 which she answers, " Well, 
 don't be cross ! " and, running 
 
to the sideboard, returns, and 
 (with her dog under her arm) 
 holds out some bonbons, and 
 tells you to take such a one. 
 She then resumes some piece of 
 superior needlework, at which 
 she is evidently clever. She is 
 on terms of perfect equality 
 with her mother, of whom she 
 seems the younger sister, and 
 appropriates the larger share of 
 the talk, running on all the while 
 with pert sallies. Her opinions, 
 which are shrewd and sound 
 enough, she advances smartly. 
 She has an attractive figure. 
 But what pleases you most about 
 her is that she is so completely 
 a product of the Old World and 
 has to such a degree the impress 
 of the elegant and perfect life 
 of good society on the Continent. 
 She is the child of the convent, 
 and has caught from her little 
 playmates the essence of their 
 young natures. And yet I be- 
 lieve that the success she will 
 
 75 
 
no doubt have at home (the 
 family are on their way to Amer- 
 ica) will be for her pretty face 
 rather than her fine manners. 
 My impression is that the graces 
 communicated by the best Eu- 
 ropean society are not appre- 
 ciated — or are, at any rate, over- 
 looked — in the United States 
 One might have thought that 
 the rarity of these quahties 
 would have given distinction to 
 the persons possessing them. 
 But I beheve this not to be the 
 case. Manners, no matter how 
 fine, must exist in a sufficient 
 mass, must be shared by a class 
 sufficiently extensive to be fa- 
 miliar to society at large, before 
 they will be admired. 
 
 This young girl's especial pet 
 is just now a monkey, which I 
 usually find sitting on its young 
 mistress's lap. It is of a very 
 small species ; but its Httle face, 
 scarcely larger than a half-dol- 
 lar^ is full of thought and ex- 
 
pression. Its eyes are very 
 bright and active. You may 
 sit and see it reflect, which it 
 does most obviously. The qual- 
 ity of its thought seems to be a 
 lively melancholy. This is its 
 habitual state of mind ; its eyes 
 emit continually the gleams of a 
 vivacious sadness. It will now 
 and then jump from its perch 
 and abruptly and in an inconse- 
 quent manner seize Frou-Frou's 
 tail, which it will as abruptly 
 let go, to resume its place and 
 pursue, upon Miss Emily'sknee, 
 the thread of its reflections. Did 
 we, I wonder, sit upon a bough 
 a good many millions of years 
 ago, thinking such thoughts. 
 
 This monkey, its young mis- 
 tress informs me, has lately re- 
 covered from an attack of pneu- 
 monia. During its illness it was 
 fed upon milk punch, which 
 was given it in the kitchen 
 by the cook. When the mon- 
 key got well, the treatment was 
 
 77 
 
of course discontinued. But 
 the monkey liked the treatment, 
 and still goes to the kitchen and, 
 sitting down before the cook, 
 will fetch from the depths of its 
 being a most distressing cough. 
 
 78 
 
I WENT to-day to the Hutfa- 
 brik and bought a soft hat 
 for ten marks. Everybody here 
 goes and gets one, the ladies as 
 well as the men. I had my 
 choice of a white, a black, a 
 brown, or a green one. The 
 girl who waited on me, an in- 
 telligent young person, gave the 
 hat a little knock on top and a 
 Jager twist to the rim. The 
 hat had in the crown on the 
 inside a map of Zwieback and its 
 surroundings. I asked the girl 
 if the map was her idea. I might 
 have known that it was not. It 
 was evidently a man's idea. It 
 was the thought of some keenly 
 attentive person. The girl said 
 that it was her young master's 
 suggestion. I thought also that 
 the notion was characteristically 
 
 79 
 
German ; it showed a German 
 intelligence, thoroughness, and 
 sense of the obligation to grasp 
 the situation perfectly. An Eng- 
 lish hatter would have wished to 
 know what authority there was 
 for doing such a thing; whether 
 it had ever been done by Lin- 
 coln & Bennett, or whether some 
 royal highness would care to 
 have it in his hat. 
 
 Is not some consolation for a 
 difficulty in speaking German 
 and foreign languages in general 
 to be gained from that passage 
 in St. Paul which says that some 
 are " discerners of spirits " and 
 some " have the gift of tongues," 
 as if these qualities were contrary 
 and inconsistent, or at any rate 
 widely diverse ? The late Lord 
 Beaconsfield, who was certainly 
 a discerner of spirits, was a bad 
 linguist ? A compatriot of his 
 who met him at the Berlin Con- 
 ference said, " There 's one thing 
 
British about him — that is his 
 French." I should think it hkely 
 that the silent, Oriental gaze of 
 Lord Beaconsfield would not go 
 along with that miscellaneous 
 activity of mind we commonly 
 see in a man who is good at 
 learning languages. 
 
 I have accepted an invitation 
 
 to dine with Madame L . 
 
 I have since been asked for the 
 
 same day by Mrs. R . Now 
 
 I should rather go to Mrs. 
 R 's. Why might I not pre- 
 sent my compliments to Ma- 
 dame L , and regret that a 
 
 subsequent engagement pre- 
 vents, etc.? 
 
 Like everybody else, I am 
 reading the absorbingly inter- 
 esting books of Stevenson. I 
 find that when I read them I 
 am always getting scared, usu- 
 ally about nothing. One trick 
 he has keeps me in a constant 
 
state of panic: this is a habit 
 of mentioning some trivial inci- 
 dent which turns out by and by 
 to be of special significance. 
 Thus, Mr. Stevenson will say, 
 " I observed he put salt on his 
 meat." At this the practised 
 reader of Mr. Stevenson begins 
 to scent danger. A few sen- 
 tences further on it is said, " I 
 again observed that he put salt 
 on his meat; this time, how- 
 ever, he added a little pepper." 
 At this the reader's hair stands 
 on end. 
 
 A few days ago I spent a 
 rainy afternoon in the reading- 
 room at the Kursaal. One or 
 two American papers are taken. 
 I am a great reader of Ameri- 
 can newspapers, which are per- 
 haps the most interesting in the 
 world, and which are conducted 
 with vast energy and ability. 
 But people are at home so used 
 to the tone the press has as- 
 
 82 
 
Slimed there that it does not 
 seem to them as pecuHar as it 
 sometimes appears to persons 
 in this part of the world. I 
 have been, for instance, follow- 
 ing with great interest the ac- 
 counts given in the papers of the 
 love affairs of an American cabi- 
 net minister. It was ascertained 
 that the object of this minister's 
 visit to a certain Southern town 
 was to obtain in marriage a lady 
 living there, who was a widow. 
 Accordingly, the leading news- 
 papers sent correspondents to 
 watch the progress of the court- 
 ship. Owing mainly, it seems, 
 to the opposition of her rela- 
 tives, the lady was not at once 
 able to come to a conclusion 
 regarding the minister's offer. 
 There is evident in the com- 
 munications of the correspon- 
 dents, written at this juncture, a 
 sentiment of vexation, perhaps 
 unconscious, at this delay and 
 indecision, which indeed was, 
 
no doubt, a cause of some in- 
 convenience to them. Why 
 could n't the woman make up 
 her mind ? At length, how- 
 ever, the lady decided to ac- 
 cept the minister. This intel- 
 ligence was promptly sent off 
 to the newspapers by their 
 agents. The representative of 
 a great New York daily (I saw 
 the paper on the reading-room 
 table) sends his paper a column 
 of interesting matter upon the 
 subject, introduced by a num- 
 ber of headlines, over which in 
 large letters are the words : 
 " The Widow's Last Scruple 
 Overcome ! " 
 
 The young reporters who do 
 the greater part of the writing 
 of our papers are usually not 
 educated men, which accounts 
 for their fondness for fine words. 
 They seem to prefer to the sim- 
 ple and absolute word some 
 word with a special or figura- 
 tive sense, which they think in 
 
 81 
 
some way finer. A congrega- 
 tion is called a " flock." Thus, 
 I lately read in one of the New 
 York papers the statement that 
 a clergyman in Brooklyn had 
 had his nose bitten off by a 
 member of his " flock." 
 
 There is here, among the 
 friends of His Royal High- 
 ness, Mr. Alfred Graham, C. M. 
 C. M. stands for Charming Man. 
 The distinction is in this case 
 well deserved, for Alfred Gra- 
 ham is one of the best-looking 
 and most agreeable of men. 
 But it is characteristic of Lon- 
 don society that a certain insti- 
 tution at the western extremity 
 of Pall Mall, and opposite St. 
 James's Palace, has the power 
 to confer such a degree, and 
 does do it. Moreover, by right 
 of this degree, Graham is C. M. 
 anywhere, and would be so if 
 he were not the attractive and 
 good-looking person he is. 
 
It surprises Americans to see 
 how very youthful men of ad- 
 vanced years often are in Eu- 
 rope. It is not uncommon to 
 find two or three generations 
 of beaux who are to every in- 
 tent and purpose contempora- 
 ries. There is here at this time 
 a handsome young gentleman ; 
 his father, Lord R , a bril- 
 liant person, also handsome; 
 and his grandfather, who is not 
 disposed to hide his light under 
 a bushel. It puts one in mind 
 of the state of society described 
 in the Old Testament when 
 Lamech, Cush, Phut, and Ra- 
 mah were about the world at 
 the same time. Cush (in this 
 
 case Lord R ) is at the 
 
 springs at eight in the morning, 
 dressed very bravely and flor- 
 idly, " bunching " the girls, as 
 the phrase is, and walking the 
 length of the shaded avenue 
 with one or another pretty wo- 
 man, full of gay laughter and 
 
 86 
 
conversation. He is much more 
 bent on amusement than either 
 of his contemporaries — Phut, 
 his son, or Lamech, his father. 
 
 W , who has come for a 
 
 fortnight to this frivolous place, 
 is a most interesting person. He 
 is able, learned, and virtuous. 
 Along with his virtue there is 
 also a certain worldly prudence : 
 because he is honest he is not 
 therefore going to be a fool. 
 But he is a passionate prig. He 
 has been all his life a professor, 
 and has a trait often to be met 
 with in teachers : he cannot 
 help instructing you. It is true 
 that his tone is one of great sim- 
 plicity and modesty; but it is 
 an enforced simplicity. You 
 perceive in him a feeling that it 
 is a praiseworthy thing in so 
 wise a person to be so catholic 
 and unpretentious. I believe 
 that he is half conscious of this 
 defect, and encourages and cul- 
 
 87 
 
tivates his simplicity; but he does 
 this to Httle purpose ; it has be- 
 come a necessity of his nature 
 that his way of thinking shall 
 override yours. That so great 
 a man should be the victim of 
 such a fault seems odd. A per- 
 son of the highest culture and 
 virtue, W — — would, of course, 
 wish his conduct to be gov- 
 erned by reason. But what has 
 his pride of opinion to do with 
 the subject he may be discuss- 
 ing? What has Truth to do with 
 the matter of his being great or 
 small ? 
 
 Even when W listens to 
 
 you, it is with an air of rating 
 or marking your observations. 
 I have noticed this peculiarity 
 in a number of professors. In- 
 stead of hearing the remarks of 
 another as a normal or healthy 
 person would do, a professor 
 seems to say : " I should rate 
 that observation at 7.60"; or, 
 " That is an excellent opinion ; 
 
I should be inclined to put that 
 at 9.15." 
 
 But I think that W 's 
 
 chief misfortune is that he does 
 not see and take note of other 
 people. He knows Sanskrit and 
 chemistry, political economy 
 and history ; but when he meets 
 men and women, his eyes dis- 
 chargeblank cartridges at them. 
 When a human being is to be 
 perceived, he is helpless. 
 
AN interesting recollection of 
 - Switzerland comes back to 
 me at this moment. You know 
 those bright, black precipices, 
 sheer and infinite, whose lower 
 chasms the sky fills to the brim 
 with pure sunlight; at times, 
 when I have got down from the 
 diligence and followed at some 
 distance walking, I have seen 
 those walls laugh with the glee 
 of noonday. It was amid such 
 fresh scenes I was walking one 
 day last month in the Engadine, 
 along a road aromatic with 
 morning balsam and Alpine 
 plant and earth perfumes, when 
 I met a young couple rid- 
 ing in a carriage and read- 
 ing together a book which, 
 from their absorbed manner, 
 could not have been Baedeker, 
 
 90 
 
but must have been a novel or 
 a book of poems. They were 
 neglecting the panorama which 
 was slowly unfolding on all sides. 
 At each turn of the road some 
 new peak would wheel slowly 
 into view. One after another 
 they came in sight, looking so 
 grand, so wise, and so simple. 
 " Look at me," said the Lurlie. 
 " I 'm the Tinzerhorn," said an- 
 other; "look up here where 
 my twin turrets blaze in the 
 pristine blue." They were so 
 close at hand that they all 
 seemed to be thrusting their 
 faces over the page and to be 
 reading the book together. 
 
 There are some hills — moun- 
 tains you might call them — to 
 the west of the town. Some- 
 times I walk in their direction 
 about sundown, at which time 
 their sides wear some fine col- 
 ors. These mountains, a broad 
 and well-cultivated plain, a 
 
 91 
 
flock of sheep met on the road- 
 way, a few soHtary kine driven 
 by peasants, and here and there 
 in the distance a Httle hamlet 
 with its tinkhng belfry, and a 
 sweet and ample Hght over the 
 whole, make up an agreeable 
 view. I like the scenery about 
 here better than most Euro- 
 pean scenery, far better than 
 the pampered and petty scenery 
 of England. But I miss every- 
 where I have been on this con- 
 tinent the sentient energy of 
 nature in America ; the dexter- 
 ous and pliant mind which I 
 saw in that country as a boy 
 and which I find again as often 
 as I return there ; the dazzling 
 sword-play with which that in- 
 vincible soul rains upon the un- 
 derlying evening world the pride 
 of its transcendent life. It is 
 one of my regrets that my life 
 has been passed away from 
 that nature. 
 
 I say that what I saw in 
 
 92 
 
American scenery as a boy I 
 find again whenever I return to 
 it. During a short visit home 
 a few summers ago I went to 
 spend the night with some 
 friends who Hve near West 
 Point. It was upon a day such 
 as is common in our semi-tropi- 
 cal summers. I had taken a 
 late afternoon train from New 
 York, and on arriving had but 
 ten minutes in which to dress 
 for dinner. My host had given 
 me a room facing to the south. 
 There was an airy and graceful 
 combination of hills in view. I 
 had Httle leisure to look out, 
 but could see them as they 
 ran upward in purple waves and 
 filled the sky with their irreso- 
 lute azure pathway ; there lived 
 among them a bird-like flight of 
 outHne, which soared, but did 
 not depart; which, although in- 
 finitely evanescent, did not van- 
 ish, but remained. This scene, 
 lying in the benign splendors of 
 
the golden south, and fraught 
 with the fairest tropic color, 
 bloomed beyond my open win- 
 dow. 
 
 A business errand took me 
 northward along the Housa- 
 tonic. The train follows for 
 hours the line of the mountains, 
 which run northward in waves, 
 broken at long intervals, as if 
 swept upward by the winds. I 
 found those mountains as I had 
 known them befbre. I saw 
 them from the car window, pon- 
 dering in their lucent bosoms 
 memories pure, vast, sedate, 
 profound, in unison with the 
 dewy stars and the streams that 
 rest for a moment in the midst 
 of the meadows and seem to 
 say, " We also remember." 
 
 The English wonder at this 
 German heat. I delight in it. 
 It has the same effect on me it 
 has on the moths ; it wakes me 
 up. But it is not the same thing 
 
 94 
 
as American hot weather, which 
 is more dehghtful because hot- 
 ter. In the midst of such un- 
 ripe summer weather as is usual 
 in Europe, I Hke to think of 
 certain villas upon the Ameri- 
 can seaboard. One of them 
 that I know is built upon a 
 point running out into the sea, 
 whose blue bulk, in its ascent 
 all about you to the horizon, 
 occupies almost the whole 
 scene. The sun, already some 
 hours high and very strong, 
 gives promise amidst his white 
 vapors of those boiling heats he 
 is soon to spread broadcast 
 over the land. It is the break- 
 fast hour, and the ladies have 
 come down in muslins and 
 lawns and other such fabrics, 
 with which they woo a coolness 
 that remains only in the bo- 
 som of the ocean mass. It is 
 one of those American days in 
 which nobody would think of 
 doing anything useful, and when 
 
 96 
 
one is, for the time being, re- 
 lieved from all restraints of 
 duty or custom. 
 
 American marine scenery, to 
 my recollection, has an advan- 
 tage over that of this part of the 
 world in the clearness of the at- 
 mosphere. Another difference 
 is that America has the sunrise. 
 Those marine sunrises are so 
 clear. I remember one I wit- 
 nessed when I was last home. 
 It was the morning of a cloud- 
 less day in midsummer. The 
 sun had just risen from the dark, 
 fresh body of the ocean, and 
 rested on the rim of the sea's 
 disk, — the quiet waves con- 
 versing with myriad whisperings 
 which the shore could not hear. 
 To get a better sight of it, I 
 went into the bedroom of a lit- 
 tle brother. I found the child 
 sitting up in bed and looking at 
 the new-risen orb, which in that 
 aspect he had probably not seen 
 more than two or three times 
 
 96 
 
before. The pair had complete 
 possession of the scene, and 
 were staring one another out 
 of countenance. Tommy was 
 much interested in his new 
 friend, the sun, and the sun 
 looked surprised to see Tommy 
 awake and in that position. 
 
 The scene just mentioned is on 
 the American sea-coast, below 
 Cape Cod. East of Cape Cod 
 the weather is much colder. I 
 have always called the scenery 
 of the Maine coast which you 
 see near Bar Harbor hard and 
 churlish. But it is very clean. 
 There is absolutely no impurity 
 possible to those islands, bris- 
 tHng with theirsevere vegetation, 
 those clear bays and the rills that 
 pour into them from the bare 
 mountain-sides over a rock and 
 sand bottom covered with thin 
 soil. The sunsets of this region 
 have an arctic permanence. Be- 
 yond that lustrous^ crystal sky- 
 
wall are the reddening ice-fields, 
 the desolation and sublimity of 
 the polar zone. The stern dyes 
 are wrought upon the adaman- 
 tine heavens. The sullen crim- 
 son stains linger late into the 
 evening, their red reflections 
 still mixed with the flow of the 
 pallid sea waves, and frown upon 
 you from the horizon after the 
 stars are out and the night above 
 has been long in progress. 
 
 But put aside your curtain in 
 the morning, and what a smart, 
 clean face Nature wears, with- 
 out speck or blemish! What a 
 brisk,vivacious blue, how strong, 
 how bold ! In the bays and es- 
 tuaries you see currents that 
 have the life of mountain 
 brooks. But how active the 
 scene is ! What bright force ! 
 Why all this haste and bustle, 
 you blue seas ? 
 
 When I was last at Bar Har- 
 bor I heard there was an in- 
 
teresting church service con- 
 ducted by a bishop at a place 
 some miles distant, and on a 
 Sunday morning took the steam- 
 boat to go to see it. On the 
 boat I met a friend, who said 
 he would show me the way. 
 The bishop's church was one of 
 those bUthe little country struc- 
 tures whose light and cheerful 
 architecture and decorations 
 seem to suit the hoHday oc- 
 cupations of the worshipers. 
 The congregation at such 
 places is composed largely of 
 women, who, in order to be sure 
 of getting in, assemble half an 
 hour before the time for service. 
 There is in the interval a great 
 waving of fans and fluttering 
 of ribbons. The congregation, 
 in this case, had become alto- 
 gether too large for the build- 
 ing, and a rustic platform had 
 been erected without, where 
 people might sit and see and 
 hear the service. This plat- 
 
 99 
 
form was crowded, all the piety 
 and good clothes having burst 
 its confines; blossoming out 
 of the windows like some kind 
 of climbing rose-tree. I had 
 intended to stop here, but my 
 friend suggested that I should 
 come with him to the Unita- 
 rian service, which was held in 
 a school-house half a mile fur- 
 ther on, and I did so. The con- 
 gregation at the school-house 
 was not large. A pale, thin 
 man, who looked very good, 
 read a sermon, I think about 
 autumn. The hymns were 
 rather abstract in character. 
 The singing was apparently 
 led by a young man, who 
 was one of the best-looking 
 fellows I ever saw. I recog- 
 nized him at once. It was 
 Apollo, who had been con- 
 verted (a little reading and uni- 
 versity society would have 
 made easy the adoption of the 
 liberal deism required by this 
 
communion), and was assisting 
 in this docile manner at a 
 Unitarian meeting. It was so 
 nice of the god, with his hand- 
 some features, tall figure, and 
 gentlemanly air, to be raising 
 his fine tenor voice at such a 
 casual affair as this. I thought 
 there was discernible in the 
 congregation a latent assertion 
 of superior gentility, as if to say, 
 " We may not be so fashionable 
 as our neighbors at the other 
 church, but we should not be 
 surprised if we were really bet- 
 ter company." At the conclu- 
 sion of the service a gentleman 
 with a most interesting back — 
 it seemed made of whalebone 
 — rose and proposed that, as it 
 had begun to rain, they should 
 all stay and sing hymns. They 
 sang for a while, and it was 
 charming. Then followed this 
 incident. I had noticed that 
 the whitewashed walls of the 
 school-house were trimmed with 
 
evergreens. The evergreens 
 covered the blackboards. The 
 vacation was now over, and the 
 school was to open on the fol- 
 lowing day. It was necessary, 
 therefore, to remove the ever- 
 greens. A tall, slight girl, who 
 looked very jolly, removing her 
 gloves, brandished a pair of long 
 and capable hands, and attacked 
 the blackboard over the teach- 
 er's desk. Others joined, the 
 evergreens were soon cleared 
 away, and you saw underneath 
 the hard New England Mon- 
 day, the steep and thorny path of 
 knowledge, — grammar, chalk, 
 and arithmetic. 
 
 102 
 
AN American should not 
 spend the years of his early 
 and middle life in Europe. When 
 Americans first come abroad, 
 they are very much taken up 
 with associations. These are 
 often so attractive as to make 
 them think they could never 
 weary of such things. A day 
 or two after my first landing 
 in England as a youngster, I 
 went with a college friend to 
 the Haymarket Theatre. This 
 was in the time before the hand 
 of the improver had been laid 
 upon that charming abode of 
 Thespis. It was a dingy white- 
 and-gilt old place, stodgy and 
 full of drafts, still redolent of 
 old comedy and of the days of 
 the pit and "half price." We 
 sat in the stalls, in the second row 
 
from the orchestra, and were 
 very near the actors. Our com- 
 patriot, Mr. Vezin, who was 
 playing in "The Man of AirUe," 
 did us the great kindness to wink 
 at us. I wonder if he was sen- 
 sible of the effect upon our young 
 minds of his benevolent action. 
 In an instant I felt such " a man 
 about town." I was one with 
 the wits of Queen Anne, with 
 CoUey Gibber and Barry and 
 Betterton, and the dandies of 
 fifty and a hundred years ago. 
 We were very happy. 
 
 The next day I went to a levee 
 at St. James's Palace. A beef- 
 eater in the dress of three centu- 
 ries ago stood at a turn of the 
 staircase, and, recognizing my 
 black coat, motioned me in the 
 direction of the e7itree. I was 
 vastly pleased by the man's def- 
 erential manner. His semblance 
 was in some way familiar to me. 
 I had never been at court or 
 never seen a beefeater. Who 
 
 104 
 
could it be; why, surely Henry 
 VIII. himself — no longer proud 
 and vahant as in Holbein's pic- 
 ture, but contrite in mind, much 
 tutored by the lapse of time and 
 the course of events, having fully 
 adopted the view of the school 
 histories regarding his own ac- 
 tions, having acquired also a 
 sincere respect for the great 
 democratic community of which 
 I was a member. I was so 
 pleased with the May odors and 
 sunshine I had left in the park, 
 and with the novelty of the 
 brilliant scene indoors, that I 
 was ready to fraternize even with 
 him. So I said : " Tell me one 
 thing. How could you dine 
 with a man one day and cut 
 off his head the next ? That was 
 a habit of you people hard to 
 understand." He looked at me 
 as if musing upon the super- 
 ficiahty of my knowledge of 
 human nature. " Well, I dare 
 say you are right; really, though, 
 
such behavior as yours toward 
 ladies will not do nowadays. \ 
 But it 's a delightful morning." i 
 
 But one cannot live on associa- 
 tions. One has but a single life, 
 and cannot spend that on tradi- 
 tions. Associations and tradi- 
 tions soon weary. In England I 
 sometimes go and stay at the j 
 country house of an old lady who | 
 has known pretty much every I 
 European celebrity of the cen- 
 tury, and who has entertained ; 
 many of them under her most 
 hospitable roof. She likes to talk ; 
 about them. At first it was inter- , 
 esting to listen ; but it has come i 
 to bore me sadly. The kind old j 
 lady sits discoursing all day upon j 
 the past of these eminent peo- 
 ple — to me, who am altogether 
 interested in my own future. 
 
 I begin to want a country 
 badly. I have so long breathed 
 foreign air as to have begun to 
 
wonder whether the atmosphere 
 of my own land, Hke this, is made 
 of oxygen and nitrogen, and 
 whether our piece of ground has 
 as much of the sun, the moon, 
 and the stars as these countries. 
 I am aware that my country is 
 a great one, but I require in my 
 exile an outward and visible sign 
 of the fact. It has altogether 
 too much moral and future great- 
 ness. I wish it had more ships 
 of war and bands of music. I 
 would give some tons of moral 
 greatness and, as for the future, 
 would throw in an eon or two 
 for one smart drummer-boy. 
 
 A year ago a United States 
 ship of war visited the country 
 in which the writer holds a dip- 
 lomatic appointment. I accom- 
 panied my chief on a visit to 
 this ship. We were met at the 
 dock by a steam launch, com- 
 manded by a midshipman, a tall 
 youth with delicate and distinct 
 features and a complexion that 
 
 107 
 
suggested ague. He told us he 
 was from southern Ohio. The 
 chief, who is a poet, said he 
 looked like Nelson. A Nelson 
 from the shores of the Miami 
 seemed a funny notion; but I 
 think he did. I was expecting 
 nothing and thinking of nothing 
 when the launch reached a hole 
 in the side of the black object we 
 had seen in the offing. We ran 
 up the steps to the deck, which 
 had been hidden from us by the 
 ship's high walls, and which was 
 alive with a numerous company 
 drawn up in the smartest array; 
 the admiral to the front, an ex- 
 tremely handsome old man, in 
 uniform of navy blue and brass 
 buttons and white waistcoat, 
 looking very grand and clean 
 and bright, and not at all 
 pleased. (Perhaps we should 
 have been there before. ) There 
 was a violent discharge of mus- 
 ketry. My senses were shocked 
 by the sharp, rattling reports. 
 
 108 
 
The deck swam blushing with 
 ten thousand flowers. In the 
 twinkHng of an eye I had been 
 taken, after long absence, to a 
 portion of the territory of my 
 own country. It was her music, 
 from the guns of four hundred 
 thronging brothers, which tore 
 the morning air of that dis- 
 tant shore. It was her most 
 sweet thunder which reverber- 
 ated among those summer seas. 
 I looked upward and beheld the 
 flag floating supremely in its ele- 
 mental blue, 
 
 I never dreamed they could 
 make such a noise. The ship's 
 company went through their 
 manceuvers; and then we were 
 shown over the vessel. There 
 was something rather flattering 
 to ourselves, who were being 
 treated so verj' well, in the 
 " damn-your-eyes " manner in 
 which the officers hissed their 
 orders sidewise to the common 
 sailors, while we, so to speak, 
 
 109 
 
strode on superbly over their 
 prostrate necks. It seemed very 
 professional and quite the right 
 thing. The admiral asked us 
 to dine with him in his cabin. 
 He also asked the captain. It 
 was particularly pleasant to see 
 that the captain called him 
 " Sir," similar instances of just 
 authority and decent subordi- 
 nation being so rare among our 
 countrymen. At dinner the ad- 
 miral had several times told the 
 colored boy who was waiting at 
 the table to fill my glass, which 
 the boy was rather slow in doing. 
 At length the admiral himself 
 filled the glass, saying: "That 
 boy is determined you sha'n't 
 have anything to drink." The 
 moderation and self-restraint of 
 this impressed me greatly, when 
 I knew that at a word he could 
 have hanged the boy from the 
 yard-arm. 
 
 The ship's company were 
 again drawn up to take leave 
 
 110 
 
of the minister, who when about 
 to take the launch declared to 
 the admiral that it was the hap- 
 piest day he had spent in Eng- 
 land. As for me, I shall not 
 attempt to describe the lively 
 sentiments I entertained toward 
 the grand old admiral at part- 
 ing. 
 
 Ill 
 
I HAVE with me the autobio- 
 graphical works of Carlyle, 
 edited by Froude, which have 
 attracted so much attention. 
 There are two periods in the his- 
 tory of the world's state of mind 
 toward almost every clever and 
 successful man. One of these 
 is when he is recognized; the 
 other is when he is found out. 
 At the former period his distinc- 
 tions and pecuHar abilities are 
 perceived. The world sees what 
 he is. He may then be said 
 to have been recognized. But 
 along with this recognition the 
 world is apt to bestow a vague 
 and tacit credit for superiority in 
 those qualities in which he has 
 not been tried. There comes a 
 time, however, when his limita- 
 tions are understood. The world 
 
 112 
 
sees what he is not. He may 
 then be said to have been found 
 out. That man is fortunate who 
 is recognized early and found out 
 late. 
 
 The latter period was much 
 deferred in Carlyle's case, ow- 
 ing to the vigor of the impres- 
 sion which he made upon us. 
 But when the time came for the 
 public to be undeceived with 
 regard to the character of this 
 great and good man, it certainly 
 did not judge him fairly. The 
 ill nature of these writings of 
 Carlyle is not profound. Car- 
 lyle had the presumptuous dis- 
 content of a spoiled child. It 
 was his instinct and habit to 
 criticize right and left. And 
 the public itself was mainly to 
 blame for the spoiling. The fault 
 in such cases is mainly the pub- 
 lic's, on account of the queer 
 exemptions they accord people 
 who are able to " sling ink " 
 particularly well. Authors are 
 
 8 113 
 
spoiled because of the weak 
 supposition of the pubHc that 
 they are as good as they pro- 
 fess to be. The public will not 
 insist upon remembering that 
 great authors are like other peo- 
 ple. Has not an author hands, 
 organs, dimensions, senses, af- 
 fections, passions ? If you prick 
 them do they not bleed ? If you 
 tickle them do they not laugh ? 
 Of course the book reveals 
 Carlyle as an egotist. But are 
 not nearly all recent autobi- 
 ographers egotists ? A number 
 of such works have appeared 
 during the last ten years, and 
 the position of the autobiogra- 
 pher has been in nearly every 
 case the same, — namely, that 
 God did a good thing when he 
 made him ; but that he should 
 have made anybody else, and 
 should have taken an interest 
 in the other individual equal to 
 that which he manifested in 
 t]ie autobiographer, is a propo- 
 
 114 
 
sition which he cannot bring 
 himself for a moment to con- 
 sider. Two books in which this 
 view is conspicuous are the au- 
 tobiographies of John Quincy 
 Adams and Miss Harriet 
 Martineau. Carlyle is a mild 
 egotist beside these writers. 
 Adams does not speak of him- 
 self as an individual, but as a 
 cause which he has espoused. 
 Of the two, Miss Martineau is 
 the more naive. She is for ar- 
 ranging the world entirely from 
 her own point of view. For 
 instance, she attacked the late 
 Lord Lytton because he did 
 not carry an ear-trumpet. Lord 
 Lytton was deaf and preferred 
 not to carry an ear-trumpet. 
 Miss Martineau was deaf also, 
 and did carry one. She did 
 not believe in the immortality 
 of the soul, and was very hard 
 upon any one who was of a 
 contrary opinion. Her heaven, 
 had her belief permitted her to 
 
 115 
 
have one, would have been a 
 place where they all sat round 
 with ear- trumpets and derided 
 the doctrine of the immortality 
 of the soul. 
 
 The English here are talk- 
 ing a great deal of Glad- 
 stone's latest speech. I find I 
 miss very much, in reading or 
 trying to read his speeches, the 
 impressive presence and the rich 
 and searching voice of the ora- 
 tor. Mr. Gladstone, although 
 a great statesman and a man of 
 immense force, is unfortunately 
 without literary ability. I do 
 not mean that he is not a good 
 writer. What I mean by liter- 
 ary ability — and what I say he 
 has not — is a quality of the mind ; 
 this quality its possessor has 
 whether he writes or not, and 
 would have if there were no 
 such thing as alphabetical writ- 
 ing. It is difficult to say in what 
 this quality consists. It cannot 
 
be said to consist in great intel- 
 lectual power or in deep percep- 
 tions, for men have had it who 
 had not great intellects or deep 
 perceptions, and on the other 
 hand men of intellect have often 
 been without it. But this much 
 may be said, that when any man 
 has it we find that we are inter- 
 ested in what he says, and read- 
 ily remember it in association 
 with our sense of his character. 
 Now Mr. Gladstone has been 
 talking all his Hfe, but I can re- 
 member at this moment nothing 
 he has ever said. I can think of 
 plenty of things that Burke or 
 Webster or the late Lord Bea- 
 consfield has said, but nothing 
 of Gladstone's. Mr. Gladstone's 
 utterances have never the dis- 
 tinction of the true literary man, 
 show nowhere the glance of 
 genius, or, at any rate, of Hterary 
 genius. We were fortunate in 
 this respect in our great man 
 Lincoln. His case shows how 
 
independent the gift is of educa- 
 tion or preparation, and how en- 
 tirely it is an original property 
 of the mind of its possessor. 
 Throughout his public career, 
 from the first, his utterances had 
 the distinction and the perfec- 
 tion of literary genius. 
 
 Gladstone looks the great 
 man he is. I saw him on one 
 occasion when it was his duty to 
 receive royalty. He wore the 
 dress proper for an EngHsh 
 minister at such times — an or- 
 dinary dress coat and waistcoat, 
 with black cloth knee-breeches 
 and black silk stockings. I was 
 impressed by the contrast be- 
 tween his fine visage, with its 
 expression of power and habit- 
 ual authority, and the black- 
 habited and rather slender legs. 
 He looked to me like an old 
 eagle that I once saw, which a 
 bad boy had taken from his 
 cage and left on the floor, hav- 
 ing first clipped his wings and 
 
cut off all his tail-feathers, but 
 which the urchin could not rob 
 of the majesty of his severe eye. 
 Might not one say that Mr. 
 Gladstone has the usual mind 
 raised to the 7i^'' power? And 
 what better mental constitution 
 could a man of affairs have 
 than that? To have the abil- 
 ity to get all the knowledge 
 that is necessary, and then the 
 mental power to judge and use 
 that knowledge, what more 
 is wanted? What necessity is 
 there for that pecuHarity of 
 mind which accompanies genius, 
 or, at any rate, literary genius? 
 It is, no doubt, true that, as a 
 rule, men of Mr. Gladstone's 
 great powers have this quality. 
 But I cannot see that Mr. Glad- 
 stone has it. 
 
 119 
 
I HAVE with me some Irish 
 books, or books relating to 
 Ireland. One of them is Carle- 
 ton's " Traits of the Irish Peas- 
 antry." The pathos of these 
 stories is of the profoundest 
 character. The humor is per- 
 haps not equal to the pathos, 
 but is still fine. The basis upon 
 which these powers are exerted 
 is a knowledge — varied and 
 singularly exact, so far as 
 I am able to judge — of the 
 details of Irish life. I have 
 never read a more tragic and 
 affecting story than " The Geog- 
 raphy of an Irish Oath." I know 
 nothing of the author, except 
 what one may fancy from a 
 rugged and friendly face which 
 appears in the frontispiece, 
 above one of those prodigious 
 
stocks which were worn fifty 
 years ago. 
 
 I am also reading Fronde's 
 " EngHsh in Ireland." This was 
 written some years ago, and is in 
 that tone universal in England 
 before the creation of the pres- 
 ent Irish parhamentary party — 
 that of the wolf up stream to the 
 lamb down stream. " The cock- 
 roach is always wrong when 
 it argues with a chicken," says 
 the Haytian proverb, and this 
 book is in the manner of the 
 chicken. Mr. Froude is a bril- 
 liant writer, and has literary 
 gifts much superior to those of 
 certain English historical writers 
 who are very hard upon him. 
 It is his misfortune, however, 
 that he unites with his power of 
 color and fine talents for descrip- 
 tion and narration an unsound 
 and flighty judgment. He is full 
 of attitudes, and is always mak- 
 ing faces at the reader. He in- 
 dulges himself in these with a 
 
 121 
 
simplicity which is almost infan- 
 tile; his expressions, not only in 
 this but in other works, being 
 mostly of a ferocious character. 
 He is such a Draco. He revels 
 to such a degree in accounts of 
 floggings, massacres, and execu- 
 tions ; one peculiarity of his be- 
 ing to mention a succession of 
 blood-curdling incidents with a 
 naked literalness which causes 
 the reader to infer that to a per- 
 son of his sanguinary disposition 
 these are trifles not worth a 
 second thought. I fancy that 
 these faults are less harmful 
 than they might otherwise be 
 because they are so very obvious. 
 The plainest reader can see that 
 the author has not a good judg- 
 ment, is not possessed of an ade- 
 quate steering apparatus. So he 
 decides that he will enjoy the 
 hmber and lucid style, and the 
 brilliant gifts of color and nar- 
 ration, and will some day look 
 up the facts and form bis own 
 
 122 
 
interpretation of them, which 
 very hkely he forgets to do. 
 Froude is one of the most emi- 
 nent of the fast narrowing circle 
 of true Hterary men, Mr. Bret 
 Harte is another. Is there, in- 
 deed, in the EngUsh-speaking 
 world a writer now left who has, 
 or has had, so distinct a literary 
 genius as Mr. Harte ? 
 
 The English have always be- 
 lieved and taught that the Irish 
 are a reckless and ne'er-do-well 
 race. But the facts of the ca- 
 reer of this people in the United 
 States have shown that their 
 failure to get on in Ireland was 
 due to their situation and not to 
 their inherent qualities. The 
 Irish have held their own in New 
 England, where the Jew has 
 never been able to get a foot- 
 hold. Their inherited land- 
 hunger has made them in the 
 American cities large holders of 
 real estate. They have taken 
 
 123 
 
a leading position in those em- 
 ployments which require the fine 
 perceptions of the Celtic races. 
 For instance, when I was last in 
 New York I noticed that the 
 leading dressmakers had Irish 
 names — Donovan, Donnelly, 
 Kate Reilly, etc. The best 
 American athletes have been of 
 Irish origin. This seems rather 
 singular when we consider the 
 food they have had, and that 
 their preeminence must rest, a 
 century or so back, on potatoes. 
 I am told by a friend who has 
 made a study of such matters 
 that Sullivan has probably never 
 had a superior in the prize ring; 
 that he has struck the heaviest 
 recorded blow, and that the nat- 
 ural growth of muscle upon his 
 upper arm, which makes it im- 
 possible for him to press his arms 
 close against his sides, is very 
 remarkable — that the like of it 
 has not been known before. It 
 was once my fortune to meet 
 
 124 
 
him. I had gone into the saloon 
 of a railway hotel in a suburb 
 of New York, and had been 
 standing there some minutes 
 when suddenly the room be- 
 came full of people. A tall man, 
 who had been drinking, ad- 
 vanced to the counter and struck 
 his hand upon it, and said to the 
 bartender : "I can whip any 
 man in the world " — this with 
 a string of expletives. The bar- 
 tender dodged backward and 
 said, " I know you can, sir." I 
 did not know who the man was, 
 and saw only his back. I could 
 see that he had light and nar- 
 row hips, and that his shoulders 
 were square and ran straight out 
 a great distance from his neck. 
 But I w^as at once aware that 
 a nimbus of distinction sur- 
 rounded the figure. A glory 
 had lit up the shabby little 
 place. This may have been a 
 reflection from the eyes of the 
 adoring tail of people who had 
 
 125 
 
followed him into the saloon. 
 " Who is that ? " I asked of a 
 man standing by. With a look 
 of astonishment at my ignorance 
 and profanity, he said : " That 's 
 John L." But before he had 
 answered I knew it was Sulli- 
 van. He called for some bot- 
 tles of champagne and asked the 
 people to drink. He was in a 
 very friendly mood and full of 
 jests, which the bystanders heard 
 with appreciation tempered by 
 fear. The joking was indeed 
 a little precarious, his familiari- 
 ties being a good deal like the 
 ruthless play of a tiger, and, 
 though evidently well meant, 
 rather terrifying. '^ My father," 
 he exclaimed, "is no bigger 
 than that little fellow there," 
 designating the person referred 
 to with a string of expressions 
 which were anything but pohte. 
 The little man, thus struck by 
 lightning, looked frightened by 
 the greatness suddenly thrust 
 
 126 
 
upon him, and gratefully re- 
 lapsed into the obscurity which 
 was his proper element, and from 
 which, I dare say, he has never 
 since emerged. When you got 
 a good view of Sullivan, you 
 perceived that his countenance 
 was not at all of the conven- 
 tional stupid type with which 
 the English prints of prize- 
 fighters have familiarized us. 
 The face showed the lighter 
 and brighter Irish characteris- 
 tics : it was not a pleasant face, 
 but it was clever and intelli- 
 gent. Indeed, I am told that 
 good and quick judgment has 
 been one of the causes of his 
 almost invariable success. In 
 one fight he had an arm broken ; 
 if his antagonist had known 
 this, he would have gone in and 
 finished him ; but Sullivan used 
 tactics which kept him in ig- 
 norance of the fact, with the 
 result that the man consented 
 that the fight should be a drawn 
 
 127 
 
one. As Sullivan faced you, the 
 expanse of his chest was de- 
 lightful to behold. He wore 
 a low-cut waistcoat, which 
 showed a great deal of shirt- 
 front — a style of dress in favor 
 with men of his profession, for 
 the reason, I suppose, that it in- 
 creases their apparent breadth ; 
 there was a large diamond pin 
 inthe middle of the bosom. But 
 it was not so much the strength 
 of the figure as its lightness and 
 elasticity which impressed you ; 
 the wide and powerful chest was 
 carried so lightly and balanced 
 with such easy force upon the 
 graceful and slender hips. Peo- 
 ple who saw him at the fight 
 he had in Mississippi said that 
 when he came into the ring at 
 sunrise he seemed to step on 
 air. What a source of joy such 
 a gift must be to one who should 
 have the sense and the self-con- 
 trol to take care of it and use it 
 rightly! The contrast between 
 
 128 
 
his performances and his char- 
 acter was striking; it was curi- 
 ous to see a drunken fellow 
 boasting about that he could 
 whip any man in the world, and 
 then have him go and do it. 
 
 129 
 
CELIA, who was here two 
 years ago, was a girl with 
 large dark eyes, which had a 
 kind of down upon them. I 
 might have hesitated about 
 speaking of an eye with down 
 upon it, but I remember the 
 poets have authorized this kind 
 of eye, and have classified it 
 as "velvet." She wore one 
 of those straw hats which the 
 young ladies here get at the 
 Hutfabrik. These hats are 
 trimmed with cherries ; the con- 
 trast between the bright cher- 
 ries and the velvet eyes pro- 
 duced a shock in the mind of 
 the looker-on. She was a singu- 
 lar girl. When you saw her and 
 heard her talk for the first time, 
 you might have had a question 
 about her, she was so free and 
 
 130 
 
bold. But you quickly un- 
 learned that impression. She 
 is of Irish blood, and she has 
 the fierce propriety of that race. 
 She has little education. But 
 she has great native force of 
 mind, and, without the least sus- 
 picion that she is clever, a wis- 
 dom and culture which are the 
 result of a passionate study of 
 Hfe. 
 
 Since then she has married. 
 Like many clever and- able wo- 
 men, she chose a nobody, but, I 
 believe, a very nice nobody, at 
 any rate a nobody that suited 
 her. This year she has returned 
 with her husband. I met her 
 this morning driving. She had 
 changed somewhat; but the 
 change was not greater than 
 might be produced by two years 
 — and years of such importance 
 in the kaleidoscopic progress of 
 the human countenance. The 
 cheek was somewhat paler, and 
 the vigorous and handsome fea- 
 
tures somewhat more projected 
 and separate. But the face and 
 figure had the same easy 
 strength; with this, however, 
 there was associated a tranquil 
 expression of having accom- 
 phshed something in the world. 
 Beside her was a nurse holding 
 in her arms a pompous mass of 
 lace and baby clothes, which in- 
 wrapped some highly important 
 piece of red humanity. 
 
 I have found at the Zwieback 
 library a copy of Sterne's Let- 
 ters, in which I have come across 
 the following sentence. He is 
 writing to "Eliza," the young 
 lady with whom he fell in love 
 in his old age, and he says : " Let 
 me give thee one straight rule 
 of conduct, that thou hast heard 
 from my lips in a thousand forms 
 — but I concentre it in one 
 word, ' Reverence thyself " 
 Readers of Sterne have a feeling 
 that he was wanting in this qual- 
 
ity. But I fancy he has not been 
 fairly treated. One should view 
 Thackeray's judgment upon this 
 writer with some allowance. 
 Thackeray, of all the English 
 writers of his age, had the 
 greatest power of drawing to 
 himself the sympathies of men. 
 His literary judgments have 
 therefore been influential. Yet, 
 richly gifted a man as he was, 
 he had scarcely more than a fair 
 critical judgment. In his critical 
 papers he appears at times to 
 have been more bent on produc- 
 ing an eloquent flourish or writ- 
 ing up to the expectations of his 
 admirers than upon really ap- 
 prehending the authors he criti- 
 cized. Such an eminent man 
 need not ponder and discrimi- 
 nate like an inferior person, but 
 might dash ofl" his opinions in 
 the course of the morning. 
 
 I have also been reading 
 Sterne's Sermons, being curious 
 to find how he had preached 
 
 133 
 
unto others whom many have 
 considered to have been himself 
 Httle better than a castaway. So 
 far as their relation to his own 
 character is concerned, I can 
 make nothing of them. They are 
 much like any other eighteenth- 
 century sermons. He says that 
 his sermons come from his heart 
 and his other works from his 
 head. Itis, at any rate, enjoyable 
 to sit near this fragrant and sunny 
 garden and to trace the charac- 
 teristics of a fellow-being who 
 wrote, loved, and suffered for 
 our amusement a hundred years 
 ago. I don't know whether the 
 reader's mind ever experiences 
 a kind of delight in thinking 
 upon the mixture of qualities in 
 men and the facts of human des- 
 tiny, or finds there are moments 
 when he rejoices in the variety 
 of things brought about by the 
 fall of Adam. Gray's unfinished 
 " Ode on the Pleasure arising 
 from Vicissitude" has, by the 
 
 134 
 
way, as a basis some such 
 thought as this. 
 
 I hear the band of the regi- 
 ment playing in the streets, and 
 the soldiers marching. With 
 what spirit they play and pound 
 the drums ! I wish I were out- 
 doors to see them. I am always 
 ready to run a square merely to 
 see the drum-major. He fixes 
 upon the crowd a look of unut- 
 terable significance, and moves 
 his baton before him from side 
 to side with admirable self-re- 
 straint. His look seems to beg 
 the public not to aggravate by 
 their enthusiasm the pent-up 
 madness with which his soul is 
 filled. Should he once give vent 
 to his feelings, he would swing 
 that silver ball aloft in corusca- 
 tions that would daze you. He 
 tries not to do this except on 
 great occasions, such, for in- 
 stance, as a visit of the Crown 
 Prince. I have never seen him 
 
 135 
 
at such a time, but I know those 
 who have, and they tell me that 
 only the eye of royalty can look 
 steadily upon the spectacle. 
 
 I believe he swings the baton, 
 also, when going to battle. On 
 the march and before the ranks 
 of humanity, is not the poet — 
 especially the poet of humor and 
 intellect — like this drum-major? 
 The sense of his own fate is 
 part of the fun. The evil and 
 the danger of the day awaken 
 his humor and gaiety. Age, dis- 
 ease, imperfections, the strange 
 medley of human passions and 
 fortune, these are the themes that 
 fill his ear. As he hears the vari- 
 ous and changing strains, does 
 he not move forward with boast- 
 ful step before his comrades to 
 the field of destiny, swinging his 
 baton in the sun, backward, for- 
 ward, above and to each side, 
 performing before the devoted 
 ranks his gay tricks and gam- 
 bols? 
 
 136 
 
Gibbon was short and very 
 fat, and some one said that when 
 he wanted exercise he took trois 
 fois le tour de Monsieur Gibbon. 
 Literary fame is very wonder- 
 ful. Is it not remarkable that 
 such a book as " The Decline 
 and Fall" should be the produc- 
 tion of anything so temporary 
 and ephemeral as a man ; that 
 there should arise from the little 
 heap of corruption and gray 
 hairs consigned to the tomb 
 such a monument ? 
 
 Every one must have noticed 
 how the parlor ornaments, the 
 vases and the candlesticks, re- 
 main after the departure of fa- 
 thers and brothers. A book has 
 the same indestructibility. It 
 cannot catch cold. This is true 
 not only of the works of a Gib- 
 bon, a Johnson, or a Sterne : 
 but you and I, who can write a 
 nice little book, are not to be 
 despised; we may perhaps be 
 nearly as immortal as an andiron. 
 
 137 
 
I AM apt to be much per- 
 plexed by the way in which, 
 here as elsewhere, good people 
 and the other kind consort to- 
 gether. They are such friends, 
 and are so glad to see one 
 another. A little while ago I 
 went to dine with Michael ; he 
 had a great mixture of people. 
 Satan came, and, being the 
 person of the highest rank, took 
 in the hostess. The party con- 
 sisted of Gabriel, Raphael, Mo- 
 loch, Beelzebub, and Mammon. 
 Among the ladies were Re- 
 becca, Mary and Martha, Sap- 
 pho and Aspasia. There were 
 other ladies and gentlemen less 
 known than these, but present- 
 ing quite as violent contrasts of 
 character. Satan excused him- 
 self and left early. 
 
I said, " I suppose your Ex- 
 cellency is off to H ? " 
 
 He replied, "That 's what 
 you foolish boys think. I 'm 
 going to bed." 
 
 After the ladies had left the 
 table, Michael called out, " Mo- 
 loch, help yourself, and send the 
 wine this way." 
 
 I wanted much to get some 
 talk with Gabriel, whose ad- 
 mirable writings and superior 
 character I had long been fa- 
 mihar with ; but he was so deep- 
 ly engaged in conversation with 
 Mammon about things in the 
 city that I could not get near 
 him. I could only speculate 
 what had been the behavior of 
 the ladies to one another after 
 they had withdrawn. Later I 
 saw Mary and Martha, good 
 souls with perceptions about 
 as, sharp as the big end of an 
 egg, and who on that account 
 look rather askance at me, in 
 the friendliest chat with a cer- 
 
tain black sheep, a man who 
 shall be nameless. On leaving 
 the house I fell in with Moloch 
 and walked a few steps with 
 him. We mentioned Raphael, 
 whom he praised warmly, say- 
 ing, "A charming man, Raphael 
 — charming man ! " 
 
 I found all this very confus- 
 ing, but did not think for a 
 moment the characters of these 
 people similar because the peo- 
 ple appeared so much alike. 
 On the contrary, I am sure they 
 were in reality just as far apart 
 as if they had brought their 
 wings, crowns, and harps, their 
 horns, hoofs, and tails, with 
 them. 
 
 I have been reading over 
 the books of "Paradise Lost" 
 which record the visit of 
 Raphael to Eden. That was 
 delightful conversation. There 
 was no shame or suspicion in 
 that society. Nothing could 
 
 140 
 
have been sweeter, fresher, or 
 bolder. The voices of the par- 
 ticipants rose in poetic speech 
 with the glad freedom of their 
 state of perfect innocence. How 
 that charming woman listened 
 with pleased and apprehen- 
 sive countenance to the finest 
 thoughts of the angelic guest, 
 her hands all the while busy 
 with those meaths and kernels 
 and dulcet creams! No man 
 could have done that. The 
 angel must often have recalled 
 the incidents of that visit. I 
 can fancy him standing on 
 some flowering declivity of the 
 everlasting fields, his mind oc- 
 cupied with the recollections of 
 his terrestrial friendship and the 
 melancholy vicissitudes of the 
 lives of our first parents, ex- 
 claiming, as he pored upon 
 an amaranth : " How dreadful 
 that people should meet with 
 such reverses!" — then, as a 
 look of gentlemanly shame and 
 
 141 
 
regret disturbed his features, 
 " But what could I do ? " 
 
 The characters of women 
 change much with years. Imag- 
 ination and feehng are so large 
 a part of them that they are 
 lial3le in age, through mental pe- 
 culiarities, to present a contrast 
 to their youth. Their characters, 
 when old, almost inevitably un- 
 dergo some ridiculous deter- 
 minations. It is the sweet Re- 
 becca at the well who, as an old 
 woman, deceives the husband of 
 her youth and robs her first-bom 
 of his birth-right. It might be 
 interesting to make guesses as to 
 the old age of certain heroines 
 of history and romance, of whose 
 later days we have insufficient 
 accounts. Heloise became the 
 mother superior of a convent, 
 noted for her sour temper and 
 hard rule. Laura turned out a 
 vegetarian and a practical dress- 
 reformer. 
 
The later career of Helen of 
 Troy affords a good subject 
 for speculation. One account 
 is as follows : On her return 
 to Sparta she was generally re- 
 ceived, her little adventure hav- 
 ing been overlooked. During 
 the remainder of her career, her 
 life was perfectly correct. But 
 shortly after her return she be- 
 came impoverished by the col- 
 lapse of certain properties, and 
 went to live in a neighboring 
 city. For some time she was 
 in great vogue there, but after 
 the first season or two began to 
 descend. Second-rate people 
 got hold of her for their after- 
 noon teas. In this world, of 
 course, she remained for some 
 time a considerable person. 
 Many parties were given "to 
 meet Helen of Troy." Men 
 who could not have got near 
 her in her greater days were 
 glad of the chance to give her 
 a cup of tea. They thought, as 
 
 143 
 
they looked at and talked with 
 her : Is this Helen of Troy ? 
 Is this indeed the very woman ? 
 
 Was this the face that launch'd 
 
 a thousand ships, 
 And burnt the topless towers of 
 
 Ilium ? 
 
 But even these men, when they 
 had once " done " her, ceased 
 to take any interest in her. It 
 was at this period of her career 
 that she made the acquaintance 
 of a certain Myrrhina, a woman 
 of somewhat dubious social po- 
 sition, with whom by degrees 
 she contracted a friendship 
 which was of lifelong duration. 
 This Myrrhina was at first great- 
 ly delighted with her extraor- 
 dinary good fortune in having 
 attracted the notice of so cele- 
 brated a person. The good- 
 natured Helen was on her part 
 pleased to condescend. This 
 state of feeling, however, soon 
 wore away, and before many 
 
months they were quarrehng 
 with a cozy equality which left 
 nothing to be desired. 
 
 Helen, however, soon began 
 to lose caste. People came to 
 think they were having too 
 much of her. The neglect from 
 which she now suffered had the 
 effect of making her self-asser- 
 tive. She began to divide the 
 world into those who did and 
 those who did not acknowledge 
 the claims of Helen of Troy, 
 and got to speaking of her- 
 self in the third person. Her 
 countenance in time acquired 
 an expression of settled discon- 
 tent. A really kind-hearted and 
 magnanimous creature, she had 
 taken on a warlike appearance 
 from her being ready at all times 
 to take arms in defense of her 
 cause. Ten years passed away. 
 A battered old wreck, she now 
 spent her time in traveling about 
 the country, living mostly in 
 hotels. By this time she had 
 
 10 145 
 
got so low that she would talk 
 with the reporters. 
 
 I am happy to record, how- 
 ever, that toward the close of 
 her career her days seemed to 
 brighten. The young people 
 of that time, whose grandfathers 
 had fought for possession of 
 her, whose fathers had flirted 
 with and neglected her, began 
 to think that, if they were to 
 know Helen of Troy, they must 
 make her acquaintance as soon 
 as possible. She was fond of 
 young people and took a lively 
 interest in their affairs, and 
 never tired of answering their 
 questions about the great events 
 and the great characters of her 
 youthful days. Indeed, she 
 was almost too obliging in this 
 respect. Her memory, if "mar- 
 velously retentive," became also 
 somewhat elastic. Not only 
 was she ready to tell you all 
 about the characters of the 
 period of the war, but would 
 
 146 
 
give you also her personal rec- 
 ollections of Minos, Neoptol- 
 emus, Theseus, and other in- 
 dividuals whom any school-boy 
 knew she could never possibly 
 have been acquainted with. 
 The last years of her life were 
 happy. 
 
 147 
 
I MET at the church door this 
 morning one of the hand- 
 somest and most conventional 
 of women, and went to her pew 
 with her. She is a spinster of a 
 certain age — what is called afine 
 woman, with perfect health, a 
 good color, an understanding as 
 strong as her body; and is, for 
 the rest, a bundle of conven- 
 tions. She seemed very much 
 occupied with the service, and 
 knelt devoutly. It was interest- 
 ing to watch those nigh twelve 
 stone of efflorescent blood and 
 tissue, of silk and black lace, of 
 conventionality and mundane 
 sense, adoring their Creator. 
 
 In church this morning, I 
 thought, as I often do, of a sub- 
 ject I should like to preach on. 
 
 148 
 
It has often seemed to me that 
 if I were a great man I should 
 endeavor to relieve any one who 
 sought a favor of me of the ne- 
 cessity of using tact in making 
 his application — tact being a 
 quality by the exercise of which 
 he deceives me to his advantage 
 and (presumably) to my disad- 
 vantage. I should try to look 
 behind the mistakes of a blun- 
 derer at the real individual and 
 business they concealed. As 
 a rule, however, tact is three 
 fourths of success in that matter. 
 I should set forth in my sermon 
 how greatly the Christian is to 
 be congratulated in not being 
 under the necessity to use tact 
 in approaching his Creator. 
 
 I rather like the young man 
 they have here; he is so com- 
 pletely and necessarily a clergy- 
 man. He is just as much a 
 parson on the street as in church 
 — in his face, I mean; his clothes 
 
have nothing to do with it. I 
 find it agreeable to meet with a 
 type so distinct, to see a fellow- i 
 creature in a place so evidently 
 meant for him. But one cannot 
 help wondering by what methods 
 of breeding and education such ! 
 results were produced. What \ 
 kind of a boy was he, and es- i 
 pecially what kind of a baby ? I ; 
 venture to say that he had not \ 
 been five minutes in existence I 
 before he began with: " Dearly ' 
 beloved brethren, the Scripture 
 moveth us," etc. i 
 
 I have said a good deal | 
 about a variety of women, and, 
 at the risk of being sentimental, j 
 I shall try to describe a very good I 
 one who by chance is passing ' 
 through here, and who was yes- j 
 terday at the music. I met her \ 
 first a summer ago by the shores 
 of Lake Geneva : a slender per- 
 son, with a gray dress and simple 
 girdle — a small, slight figure by | 
 
a big, blue lake. She was not 
 tall, the face and features being 
 rather large for the body. The 
 light and vigorous carriage de- 
 noted energy, and the coun- 
 tenance expressed duty, truth, 
 and decision of character. I was 
 told, and I could well beheve it, 
 that she was devoted to works 
 of charity, night-schools and the 
 like, and that she had done a 
 great deal of good, and was the 
 best creature in the world. I 
 saw her later, in the country in 
 England. One can get a pretty 
 good notion of people in a three 
 days' visit in an English coun- 
 try house. That goodness which 
 her friends attributed to her was 
 always evident. Her figure, car- 
 riage, and attitude expressed it. 
 Her voice, pitched in a high, 
 brave tone (her manner of speak- 
 ing, by the way, had a pleasant 
 conventionality such as I ima- 
 gine the saints themselves might 
 find it convenient to use), ex- 
 
 151 
 
pressed it. I happened while 
 at this house to stumble into a 
 meeting of some half-dozen 
 ladies who were of the neigh- 
 borhood, and who were the com- 
 mittee of a charitable society to 
 which she belonged. Being in- 
 terested in the proceedings, I re- 
 mained (which perhaps I should 
 not have done). The society 
 was the Y. F. G. S. (I don't know 
 what these initials meant) . There 
 were present Miss Anderson, 
 Mrs. Thomson, Lady Angela 
 White, Miss Longley, and two 
 or three others. Miss Longley 
 acted as honorary secretary /r*? 
 tern. The ladyl met on the shore 
 of the lake had prepared a re- 
 port which for precision of state- 
 ment would serve as a model to 
 certain wordy people of my ac- 
 quaintance. But could they emu- 
 late at the same time the writer's 
 tenderness embedded among the 
 figures, her winged benevolence 
 and vigor and beauty of soul ? 
 
 152 
 
The document was not less in- 
 teresting because its phraseol- 
 ogy seemed occasionally to the 
 uneducated ear to be of a some- 
 what special character. Thus, 
 of some recommended action, 
 which the writer thought should 
 be general rather than local, she 
 said^ " It must be diocesan " — 
 this with emphasis and a shake 
 of the head. 
 
 The person I have here de- 
 scribed was extremely attractive. 
 But I have seen some good wo- 
 men that were positively plain, 
 w^ho were pleasant to look at. 
 What a relief it is, after a surfeit 
 of a certain kind of frivolous so- 
 ciety, to come across some good 
 person who makes a business of 
 notbeingpretty! Yousometimes 
 meet with such a woman. She 
 is nearly always a lady, and she 
 makes you look upon want of 
 grace as almost necessary to a 
 ladylike character. Her clothes 
 hang about her like planks. Her 
 
appearance announces that she 
 is a spinster and that she accepts 
 the part; that love and lovers 
 are things which she has heard 
 of, it is true, but which do not 
 in the least pertain to her. Such 
 a woman is, at certain times, 
 really most acceptable to the 
 eyes. 
 
 Now I am on this subject, I 
 may as well mention a few good 
 men. There is R , a won- 
 derfully accomplished person, 
 widely and profoundly learned, 
 but not in the least a dryasdust. 
 He has imagination, and is 
 deeply penetrated with the feel- 
 ing of the romance of know- 
 ledge. Prigs call him a prig, 
 but they are mistaken; they 
 show how blind they are not to 
 see, under a somewhat precise 
 manner, his essential simplicity 
 and veracity. He has a fair, 
 white forehead and beautiful 
 eyes. I remember once, when 
 
staying at his house in the 
 country, that a parrot sat upon 
 his shoulder during breakfast 
 and nibbled at his ear. The 
 bird seemed to me to have a 
 nice taste in food. 
 
 A quality which some good 
 men have is that of perpetual 
 youth. There is W— — . He 
 has a rash head, and he is of 
 all the people I know the read- 
 iest to adopt the first or last 
 opinion he hears. Fortune has 
 compelled him to have to do 
 to some extent with affairs, for 
 which he has not much capa- 
 city. He has thus unwittingly 
 become a little of a humbug. 
 But for all this, he has a strength 
 of youth, a vivacity and elasti- 
 city, which spring mainly from 
 a sense of honor perfectly in- 
 tact. 
 
 In this connection let me men- 
 tion a young poet I knew many 
 years ago. He was an odd fish, 
 not very wise in some respects, 
 
 155 
 
but was withal a young Paladin 
 of virtue and poetry. Some 
 thin yellow fuzz, which he ought 
 to have cut away, surrounded a 
 callow cheek and chin; and 
 weak health was evident in the 
 pale brow and somewhat skimp 
 features. But it was his eye 
 that I particularly remember. It 
 was so clear and had such a 
 shining surface, as if it had 
 bathed in those vapors which 
 He at evening on the verge of 
 the landscape, and knew no 
 element less pure than the 
 springs of the rain-storm. 
 
 Matthew Arnold was a re- 
 markable combination of quali- 
 ties — a fine poet and writer, — 
 uniting with these gifts as an ar- 
 tist a perceiving eye in literary 
 matters, in which he had 
 scarcely an equal among his 
 contemporaries, and a very 
 keen eye, too, in matters of hu- 
 man nature. He wrote, as a 
 
 156 
 
young man, a number of beau- 
 tiful poems, which will probably 
 carry his name to distant 
 ages. And then he ceased 
 writing poetry, or very nearly 
 ceased. He had ready at hand 
 this fine instrument of expres- 
 sion, but seemed to see nothing 
 of the raw material of poetry. 
 He appeared to get no more 
 poetical impressions. I dare say 
 the writing of poetry does de- 
 pend upon the physical condi- 
 tion of the poet. It is a good 
 deal a matter of the circulation. 
 That, of course, becomes less 
 active when youth is past. Fur- 
 thermore, the labors of a pro- 
 fession such as Matthew Arnold 
 followed may, in his case, have 
 consumed that superfluity of vi- 
 tality which is a necessary cause 
 of poetry. It is also true that 
 his mental activities may have 
 found an outlet in the exercise 
 of his gifts as a critic. But it is 
 odd, nevertheless, that he should 
 
 157 
 
not have continued to have 
 poetical thoughts and to express 
 them. He had some curious no- 
 tions. He implies^ for instance, 
 that poetical ideas should be ex- 
 pressed only in verse. Of course 
 that is true, if you can write 
 verse; but what are you to do 
 if you can't ? He also strongly 
 advised young writers to write 
 criticism and not their own po- 
 etical thoughts, in this respect re- 
 minding one of the fox that had 
 lost his own tail and tried to per- 
 suade the other foxes to cut off 
 theirs. There was a youthful, 
 comic charm about Mr. Arnold 
 that all his life made him the sub- 
 ject of the chaffing pens of his 
 admirers. Almost every one who 
 knew him thought him the most 
 attractive of men. He was im- 
 mensely popular in the Surrey 
 neighborhood in which he lived. 
 This may have been because he 
 himself possessed a good share 
 of that sweetness which he in- 
 
 158 
 
culcated. But no, he was at- j 
 
 tractive because he had the gift '< 
 
 of attractiveness ! ; 
 
 There is in the barber shop 
 next the post-office a good in- 
 stance of German thoroughness 
 and devotion to duty. One of 
 the men employed in the shop 
 is a particularly good hair- 
 dresser. The proprietor tells me 
 that he believes there is none 
 better to be found anywhere. 
 He is evidently one of those 
 people who in youth have intel- 
 ligently laid out their career and 
 have afterward faithfully ad- 
 hered to their wise intentions. 
 He enjoys, as an old man, the 
 fruit of his honest habits. The 
 principle of his philosophy or 
 religion is — if such fine things 
 are for barbers — in each case 
 to give his best service to the 
 occupant of the chair. You 
 enter in a hurry and find him 
 at work. Presently you begin 
 
 159 
 
to take out your watch, or to 
 move uneasily in your place, or 
 by one pantomime or another to 
 endeavor to induce him to go 
 faster. But he does not quicken 
 for one instant the leisurely pace 
 with which he moves about the 
 head of the patient, or fail to do 
 full justice to his little joke, — the 
 same you always have, — or re- 
 mit a single item of his enlight- 
 ened discussion of public affairs. 
 He does not look at you. It is 
 as difficult to attract his atten- 
 tion as it is for an importunate 
 and objectionable member to get 
 the eye of the Speaker. If he 
 does look, it is with a blank stare. 
 When, however, he has per- 
 formed to the uttermost the last 
 rites due the incumbent, and 
 has released him, and you ap- 
 proach the vacated chair, he 
 turns upon you with a surprised 
 and hearty " Soh ? " and an ex- 
 pression of recognition and wel- 
 come. You are friends at once, 
 
 160 
 
and he proceeds to devote to 
 you the same conscientious and 
 intelligent attention which he 
 has given your predecessor. 
 
 Yesterday morning I took 
 with me a translation of Dante's 
 " Purgatory " to read in the 
 prettily wooded gardens back 
 of the Kurhaus. I came upon 
 the two young daughters of a 
 French family staying here. 
 This family, I am told, is very 
 ancient; their name is that of 
 one of the most interesting char- 
 acters in the " Purgatory." I 
 asked the girls whether they 
 supposed they were related to 
 this personage. They said they 
 did not know. The indiffer- 
 ence which people in Europe 
 often show in these matters 
 is surprising to Americans, but 
 is natural. I should think it 
 likely it is the same family; the 
 people are from the part of 
 France to which the man men- 
 
 161 
 
tioned by Dante belonged. 
 The young ladies were inter- 
 ested enough, however, when 
 the conversation turned upon 
 the gossip of the place, engage- 
 ments and the like. It was a 
 striking association, that of "the 
 mount that rises highest o'er 
 the wave," and of the five hun- 
 dred years which have elapsed 
 since the poet went thither with 
 Virgil, with these misses in 
 bright print gowns among the 
 shades of the Zwieback gardens. 
 
 The town is fast emptying. 
 Every day dozens of one's 
 friends leave. Going to the 
 station to see people off is now 
 a part of one's daily occupation. 
 The widow left yesterday, and 
 
 by a singular coincidence C 
 
 and R have also disap- 
 peared. It is remarkable how 
 quickly the place has taken on 
 a dull look. And yet I am 
 rather loath to go. Last year, 
 
I remember, I left by the ear- 
 ly (seven o'clock) train, and I 
 thought the place never looked 
 more charming than with the 
 fresh light and fragrant air of 
 the early morning. I sighed 
 as the train moved out of the 
 station and I saw receding the 
 little clusters of towers and 
 houses. Zwieback has always 
 treated me well. This year I 
 have been particularly happy, 
 and yet I doubt if I shall come 
 again. My American friends 
 nearly all go to Paris, where 
 they will spend the next month 
 in the shops, the theaters, and 
 the cafes. 
 
 I have said that I come to 
 Zwieback to see my compa- 
 triots. How fortunate I should 
 be if I could live in the United 
 States, which is a country full 
 of Americans ! 
 
 I have been too long away 
 from that country. I am de- 
 
 103 
 
voted to it. Indeed, I may say 
 that I care for little else. I am 
 fond of its people, I am proud 
 of its history, its humor, its 
 size, and its climates. Thy dras- 
 tic sun, thy silent wildernesses 
 whose briers wound my fancy 
 as I remember them, thy rail- 
 road depots in the lonely clear- 
 ings on the edge of the forest, 
 where the shunted cars bake 
 in the sunlight, are always 
 present with me. I am always 
 thinking of these things. Would 
 it not be well to return and give 
 one's self to some such practical 
 work as mind and body crave, 
 and to spend one's hours of re- 
 laxation in friendly society with 
 that pure and savage spirit 
 which pervades our scenery ? 
 
 164 ^^ 
 

 
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 BINDERY INC. |§ 
 
 .^ DEC 88 
 
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 INDIANA 46962