KUN0IS HISTORICAL SI" 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/etceteracollectoOOstar 
 
ET CETERA 
 
Copyright 1924 
 
 PASCAL COVICI ■ Publisher 
 
 Chicago 
 
 This Edition is Limited to 
 Six Hundred and Twenty-five Copies 
 Of Which This is j£/C 
 
: 
 
 Edited by 
 VINCENT STARRETT 
 
Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 ALDINGTON, RICHARD— A Playntyve Ballade . . 213 
 
 ANONYMOUS— A Ballade of a Book of Hours . . 1 
 
 Aucassin and Nicolette 157 
 
 BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN— Stanzas 173 
 
 CRACKANTHORPE, HUBERT— A Fellside Tragedy 71 
 
 CRANE, STEPHEN— At The Pit Door 31 
 
 The Great Boer Trek .... 39 
 
 DELL, FLOYD— Joys 107 
 
 DOWSON, ERNEST— The Passing of Tennyson . . 27 
 
 DUNSANY, LORD— A Request 141 
 
 ELDRIDGE, PAUL— Emperor of Micamaca .... 177 
 
 HEARN, LAFCADIO— Chemise of Margarita Pareja . 115 
 
 HERGESHEIMER, JOSEPH— The Little Kanaka . . 135 
 
 HEWLETT, MAURICE— The London That Is Far Off 149 
 
 HOUSMAN, LAURENCE— Mr. Enoch Jones ... 83 
 
 Mrs. Enoch Jones ... 85 
 
 O'HARA, JOHN MYERS— New Songs of Sapho . . 65 
 
Page 
 
 IMAGE, SELWYN— To L 89 
 
 JOHNSON, LIONEL— To R. L. S 169 
 
 KIPLING, RUDYARD— A Ballade of Photographs . 243 
 
 LANG, ANDREW— A Chortle Ill 
 
 LONG, HANIEL— Antonia and Dionigi 217 
 
 LYONS, A. NEIL— The Drum 145 
 
 MACHEN, ARTHUR— English and Irish 93 
 
 My Murderer 97 
 
 MEYRINK, GUSTAV— The Devils' Grindstone ... 163 
 
 MIDDLETON, RICHARD— The District Visitor . . 5 
 
 The Madness of Spring . 19 
 
 MOORE, GEORGE— Reply to an Invitation .... 199 
 
 McCULLOUGH, HENRY— Precursors 205 
 
 RUSSELL, W. CLARK— Jack and Jill 103 
 
 SALTUS, EDGAR— The Feast 61 
 
 STREET, JULIAN— To An Autograph Collector . . 239 
 
 UNDERWOOD, WILBUR— Translations: 
 
 Pierrot 123 
 
 Woman and Cat 125 
 
 Shells 127 
 
 To Death 129 
 
 The Bow 131 
 
 VAN VECHTEN, CARL— Edgar Saltus— A Postscript 229 
 
 WHITMAN, WALT— Fragments 193 
 
 Broadway 1861 195 
 
Foreword 
 
 VER a great many years of en- 
 thusiastic "collecting," I have filled 
 many scrap books and not a few 
 closets with such excerpts from 
 books and journals, old and new, 
 as have pleased my catholic fancy. 
 The often permanent loss of much that is fine and 
 admirable in literature because its authors, through 
 death, or modesty, or lack of opportunity, have neg- 
 lected to collect it within covers, always has seemed 
 to me deplorable on a number of counts; and so, 
 entirely for my own pleasure and as a side issue in 
 the larger enterprise of book collecting, I have treas- 
 ured such lost or forgotten pieces as have come my 
 way until something like chaos in my library has 
 been the result. 
 
 For the most part, naturally, my salvaging has 
 concerned itself with the flotsam and jetsam of my 
 larger enthusiasms; but many pleasant tales and 
 
poems and sketches by less sonorous reputations 
 also have gone to the making of my literary museum 
 — bits that I have believed worthy of longer and 
 more frequent reading than ordinarily is the for- 
 tune of contributions to the periodical press. Hence, 
 in the present selection from my voluminous scrap 
 books, the reader will find strange bookfellows; 
 beside Kipling and Edgar Saltus, Paul Eldridge and 
 Haniel Long; between Hearn and Machen and Dun- 
 sany and Hergesheimer, Henry McCullough and 
 Julian Street; and, cheek by jowl, Stephen Crane 
 and Gustav Meyrink. 
 
 Of the first importance, I believe, are such 
 uncollected masterpieces as Middleton's "The Dis- 
 trict Visitor" and Hearn's "Margarita Pareja," 
 while the uncollected sketches of Stephen Crane and 
 the poems of Dowson, Wilbur Underwood, Lord 
 Dunsany, Saltus, Neil Lyons and Lionel Johnson 
 are items of great attractiveness to the collecting 
 fraternity. Indeed, among the esteemed writers of 
 our day there are few unrepresented by some brief, 
 forgotten bit of prose or verse. The volume is, I 
 believe, quite honestly, what I have endeavored to 
 make it — an authentic "first edition" of half the 
 "collected" men of contemporaneous letters; and in 
 addition it is a fascinating omnium-gatherum for 
 the mere reader who cares no more for a "first" than 
 for a twenty-first edition. Finally, in the words of 
 the jolly old preface- writer whose name in other 
 
generations was legion, if lovers of books shall find 
 in this book half the happiness this book-lover put 
 into the making of it — why, then, "I shall not have 
 labored in vain." 
 
 VINCENT STARRETT. 
 
ET CETERA 
 
oA Ballade of a Book 
 of Hours 
 
 AS it some sad-eyed Florentine 
 
 Within his cloistered cell of yore 
 Who lit this painted page of thine 
 
 With treasures from his ancient lore, 
 And kneeling in the twilight bore 
 The burden of his Saviour's pain, 
 And even with the sunrise saw 
 The coming of his Lord again? 
 
 And when he found the rest he sought, 
 
 The shadows that he hungered for, 
 Perchance a lady of the Court 
 
 Within her jeweled bosom wore 
 His books among her billets, or 
 
 Beneath her scented pillow lain, 
 
 Who daily in her life foreswore 
 The coming of his Lord again. 
 
 And now beneath another sky, 
 
 Amid the city's ceaseless roar 
 Unheeded but for such as I, 
 
 You wait upon a shelf before 
 
 A dark and dusty bookshop's door, 
 And long for loving hands in vain, 
 
 As he in that dim corridor, 
 The coming of his Lord again. 
 
 ENVOI 
 
 Book, as my lady's monitor, 
 
 You shall forget the world's disdain, 
 So had your master sighed no more 
 
 The coming of his Lord again. 
 
 — Anonymous. 
 
 ['] 
 
Richard Middleton 
 
 The District Visitor 
 The Madness of Spring 
 
The c Districl <: Visitor 
 
 IGHT. [Philip sits writing at a little 
 table facing the audience. As he 
 writes he talks aloud, because he is 
 tipsy with hunger.] 
 
 Philip: A new form of art, if 
 
 only I could remember the words of 
 
 the right color! Splendid and torch and power, all 
 
 good red words. Mystery is yellow, bitterness is 
 
 grey, eternity is dead black. I want some blue 
 
 words to mix with mystery for the grass. Blue 
 
 words, blue words, Heaven help the idiot who 
 
 compiled this dictionary! Dorothy! 
 
 [Dorothy is sitting in a deep armchair at the back of 
 
 the stage almost hidden from the audience. 
 
 When he calls she raises her head with an 
 
 effort.] 
 
 Dorothy: Yes, dear. 
 Philip: What are you thinking of? 
 Dorothy : The rent's not paid and the landlord — 
 Philip : Shylock, a Jew. 
 Dorothy: Will turn us into the street. 
 Philip [with a groan] : Only blue by associa- 
 
 t 5 i 
 
tion. Street and rent are both red, landlord seems 
 to me to be salmon-pink. Can't you remember any 
 blue words, darling? 
 
 Dorothy [pitifully] : Are you very hungry, 
 Philip? 
 
 Philip: So, so. I'm afraid it's hurting you. 
 
 Dorothy: Not much. Only the waiting for 
 something to happen 
 
 Philip : Rich or poor, we're all waiting for some- 
 thing to happen, and probably if we only knew it's 
 happening now. Now, if some moonstruck editor 
 would send me a cheque 
 
 Dorothy: I'm afraid editors have very thick 
 heads. 
 
 Philip : I have sometimes thought that myself. 
 
 Dorothy: And the moon can't get through to 
 their brains. 
 
 Philip: Moon is a blue word, so a mysterious 
 moon should be green. There's something in 
 that 
 
 Dorothy: If the landlord turns us out we 
 shan't be able to wait any longer. 
 
 Philip [writing] : Bearing splendid torches 
 through a mysterious moon till our bitterness 
 merged into eternity. A pillar-box near a green 
 field at nightfall. I should like to see the damned 
 
 critics appreciate the subtlety of that Two 
 
 definite and distinct interpretations to one sentence. 
 
 Dorothy : If the landlord turns us into the street. 
 
 t 6 ] 
 
Philip [musingly] : A peeled salmon in a sea 
 of blood. 
 
 Dorothy [revolted]: Philip: 
 
 Philip : Yes, dear. 
 
 Dorothy: You frighten me when you talk like 
 that. 
 
 Philip: I'm sorry. I only wanted to frighten 
 myself. I don't want to talk about beefsteaks. 
 
 Dorothy: Poor Philip! 
 
 Philip : Bloody ones with gristle. That's Kipling. 
 I can't forget these things. 
 
 Dorothy: I think that to-morrow if nothing 
 happens — 
 
 Philip: Well? 
 
 Dorothy: Something will happen. 
 
 Philip: No. To-morrow morning I'll sell some 
 of the furniture. 
 
 Dorothy : But it belongs to the landlord. 
 
 Philip: I think sometimes that we belong to the 
 landlord. We'll tell Shylock we've eaten his arm- 
 chairs. A sofa on toast with little mushrooms and 
 chopped parsley. 
 
 Dorothy : I think I heard a knock. 
 
 Philip: It's your fancy knocking against the 
 walls of your head because it cannot sleep. 
 
 Dorothy: No, I'm sure I heard a knock. 
 
 Philip [rising] : Perhaps it's the postman with 
 a cheque. 
 
Dorothy: It's much too late for the postman. 
 It must be the landlord come for the rent. 
 
 Philip [sitting down again:] Perhaps he will 
 break his neck on his damned stairs. Then we can 
 pick his pockets. 
 
 Dorothy: It will make him angry if we don't 
 go down. 
 
 Philip: He will forget that anger when he 
 finds that we can't pay him. 
 
 Dorothy : I can hear his feet on the stairs. 
 
 Philip: If I am strong enough I will throw 
 him out of the window. 
 [There is a knock at the door, and the District 
 
 Visitor enters without waiting for an answer. 
 
 He looks like a Nonconformist parson, carries 
 
 a black bag and wears button boots, black 
 
 suede gloves too long in the fingers. 
 
 D. V.: Mr. Philip Oldcastle? 
 
 Philip: That is my name. What do you want? 
 I suppose you have come from the landlord. 
 
 D. V.: No; at least, not exactly. It's rather an 
 unusual case. You see, Mr. Oldcastle, my name is 
 Death. 
 
 Philip: I do not think that very likely. 
 
 D. V. [affronted] : And why, sir? 
 
 Philip: Because you are reputed never to come 
 when you are wanted. 
 
 D. V. [resting his bag on a chair] : I am glad to 
 hear that for once I am welcome. My experience is 
 
 [»] 
 
that, though people often call for me, they are 
 always irritated when I arrive. 
 
 Dorothy [politely] : Your experience must be 
 a wide one, Mr. Death. 
 
 D. V. : I'm afraid I may have given you a wrong 
 impression. I should have made it clear that I am 
 merely Death's representative for the Parliamentary 
 Division of Battersea. 
 
 Dorothy [disappointed] : Oh ! I see. 
 
 Philip : But granting your bona fides, I still find 
 this personal visit a little extraordinary. You have 
 come for us? 
 
 D. V. : I have come for one of you. 
 
 Dorothy and Philip: We refuse to be sepa- 
 rated ! 
 
 D. V. : I'm very sorry ; these awkward situations 
 are only too common. But the notice is only made 
 out for one. 
 
 Philip: And for which of us, pray? 
 
 D. V. [fumbling in his black bag, and pulling 
 out a document] : That is just the difficulty under 
 which I am laboring. You see, the name is quite 
 clear: Philip Oldcastle. But an unfortunate blot 
 renders it impossible for me to say whether the 
 order is made out for Mr. or Mrs. Philip Oldcastle. 
 In my experience the accident is unique. 
 
 Philip: It seems to me to be a piece of abom- 
 inable carelessness. 
 
 D. V. : [nervously] : I had hoped that the con- 
 
dition of health of one of you would have enabled 
 me to venture — 
 
 Philip: In fact, you were going to chance your 
 arm. 
 
 D. V. : As far as I comprehend the significance 
 of that popular phrase, I was. 
 
 Philip: You seem to me to be a precious rascal. 
 
 Dorothy [interposing] : Philip, you have not 
 offered . . . Death a chair. 
 
 D. V. [waving the suggestion aside] : I should 
 be sorry to cause any unnecessary unpleasantness. 
 
 Philip: It will take all your time to do that. 
 
 D. V. : But I am prepared to meet you in a rea- 
 sonable spirit. 
 
 Philip: Our name is Reason. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Philip Reason. 
 
 D. V.: Ha! Ha! Very good, very good, indeed! 
 Now I thought perhaps an appeal to chance. . . . 
 
 Philip: You propose that we should toss for it? 
 
 D. V. : The — er — spin of a coin. . . . 
 
 Philip: We haven't got one. 
 
 D. V. [producing half-a-crown] : I had fore- 
 seen the possibility. 
 
 Philip : Very well, we'll toss you double or quits. 
 
 D. V. : I'm afraid I don't quite understand. 
 
 Philip: You can have both of us or none; it's 
 simple enough. 
 
 D. V. [angrily] : You must see that what you 
 suggest is quite impossible. 
 
 [10] 
 
Philip: Then you will have to lump it. 
 
 D. V. [pleadingly] : You are making it very 
 hard for me. 
 
 Philip : Your professional reputation is a matter 
 of complete indifference to me. Your personality I 
 find objectionable. 
 
 Dorothy : Philip ! 
 
 Philip [waxing eloquent] : I don't like your 
 seedy whiskers, or your button boots, or your beastly 
 gloves, or your nasty little black bag. 
 
 D. V.: You are grossly personal, sir. 
 
 Philip: You have the air of a fraudulent com- 
 mercial traveller! 
 
 D. V. : I warn you — 
 
 Philip: A hypocritical undertaker's man! 
 
 D. V. : I warn you — 
 
 Philip : An incompetent baby-stealer ! 
 
 D. V.: You will be sorry presently for this! 
 
 Philip: My dear idiot, it's clear to me that you 
 are helpless. If you make a mistake you will lose 
 your job. That order's not worth the paper it's 
 written on. 
 
 D. V. [pulling out a Swan fountain-pen] : But 
 it is within my power to alter it. 
 
 Dorothy [in alarm] : Oh, Philip, be careful what 
 you say! 
 
 Philip: My dear, he doesn't know which name 
 to put. In any case we can report the circumstances 
 to head office and get him the sack. 
 
D. V. [writing] : Very well, you will realize 
 the extent of my powers. You see, I have made it 
 Mister. 
 
 Dorothy: Oh, Philip, you mustn't go without 
 me. 
 
 Philip : If I do it won't be for long. Mr. Death 
 will be looking for a new berth presently. 
 
 D. V. [triumphantly] : That's where you're mis- 
 taken. Furthermore, I have endorsed it "Gone; left 
 no address." 
 
 Philip : Well, and what of it? 
 
 D. V. : I will return the order so marked to the 
 authorities, and your name will be crossed off the 
 register. You have found life pleasant, haven't you, 
 Mr. Oldcastle? Well, you'll have to make the best 
 of it, for now — 
 
 Philip: Goon. 
 
 D. V. : You're immortal ! 
 [To his astonishment both Philip and Dorothy burst 
 
 into extravagant laughter, rendered almost hys- 
 terical by starvation.] 
 
 Philip [rolling on his chair and dabbing his face 
 with his handkerchief] Good Lord, what a child the 
 man is. An innocent, sucking babe. And did I call 
 him nasty names, did I? Oh! 
 
 D. V. [sullenly] : I don't understand. 
 
 Philip: Of course you don't! Why should you? 
 The little child that lightly draws its breath . . . 
 
 D. V.: If this is a madhouse . . . 
 
 [12] 
 
Philip [pulling himself together] : No, infant. 
 But it is the one house in Battersea whose inmates 
 are absolutely convinced of their immortality. 
 
 D. V. [mystified] : And yet you welcomed me 
 just now. 
 
 Philip: Of course we did, because our environ- 
 ment is momentarily unpleasant. To our minds you 
 represent a shaking of the dice-box, a cutting of the 
 pack. But we know that you alone are mortal, evan- 
 escent — what shall I say? Why, man, you are as 
 transitory as the measles! 
 
 D. V.: But now you will have to endure your 
 environment. 
 
 Philip: I doubt it. I think it unlikely that the 
 laws that govern this suburb will be overthrown 
 to save your face. If I lie down in front of a 
 steamroller, gravity will change my environment. 
 Are you stronger than gravity? It has nailed your 
 feet to this floor! 
 
 D. V.: You would have me cut a sorry figure 
 in the world. 
 
 Philip: You must not make me alone re- 
 sponsible. Christianty grants you power over the 
 worthless sediment of our entities. The ignorant 
 savage, burying his parents with a box of sardines by 
 their side, denies you even that. It is possible to 
 doubt your existence; it is impossible to find you 
 important. And the more I consider the circum- 
 
 [13] 
 
stances the clearer it becomes to me that you are 
 here to do our bidding. 
 
 D. V. [evasively] : I hope I can see a joke even 
 when it is at my expense. 
 
 Philip: If you weren't so sordidly ugly. You 
 weren't always like that, you know. 
 
 D. V.: Really, Mr. Oldcastle. 
 
 Philip: You used to ride in armour on a fiery 
 horse and slay with a flaming sword. Now, didn't 
 you? 
 
 D. V.: Upon my word I never did. I have 
 always been just the same. 
 
 Philip: Ah, I thought as much. Death, you're 
 a fraud! 
 
 D. V. : I solemnly declare — 
 
 Philip: Shut up, and listen while I make my 
 phrases. You're a fraud because you are not beauti- 
 ful. You're a fraud because you are not logical. 
 How can you pretend to finish the life of a man like 
 me, with all my fine hopes and discovered dreams? 
 ^Esthetic considerations alone would convince me of 
 my immortality when confronted by such a death as 
 you. It is impossible that I have fared so far to be 
 strangled by a bandit with the manners of a jobbing 
 dentist? 
 
 D. V. : This regrettable violence of tone . . . 
 
 Philip: The jargon! The jargon! Oh, I be- 
 lieve you now when you say that your name is Death. 
 I have seen your sordid pageants in the street, your 
 
 [14] 
 
fat black horses, your bobbing feathers, your starved 
 and shivering footmen conducting a yellow box in a 
 showcase to a field covered with monstrous wedding- 
 cake ornaments, and I have asked myself who this 
 Death could be, that was satisfied with so poor a 
 ritual. 
 
 D. V. : My dear sir! 
 
 Philip: You make us ridiculous where, if you 
 had any real significance, you would make us noble. 
 You come slinking in behind the doctor and afflict a 
 man with an absurd disease like the mumps. We 
 cover his eyes with pennies and tie up his jaw, and 
 hide him away so that our children may retain a 
 decent pride in human nature. But we know that it 
 is not the end. The thing's incredible — a wood-louse 
 would command a braver destiny. As for a poet! 
 
 D. V.: A poet! 
 
 Philip : I tell you, man, it will take a god to de- 
 stroy me, and he will destroy me as he made me, with 
 sweat and tears and anguish of heart. Even then I 
 shall leave my inspiration, that part of me which lies 
 beyond his power of creation, like a stain of blood on 
 his murderous hands. 
 
 D. V.: I did not know that you were a poet. 
 I should have been more careful. 
 
 Philip : You are fit to rock tired babies to sleep, 
 and as far as I can see you are fit for nothing else. 
 For the rest, I know that you are less, and not more 
 than man. If I choose I can throw you out of the 
 
 t 15 ] 
 
window, and there will be no more deaths in Batter- 
 sea. But you may be useful to me. 
 
 D. V. [limply] : Anything I can do, I'm 
 sure . . . 
 
 Philip : My wife and I are not satisfied with our 
 apartments here in life. The skies are overcast, the 
 beds are hard, and the food is insufficient and badly 
 served. We want a change. We want a better place 
 to live in, a place with blue skies, where the neces- 
 saries of life are cheaper. I do not ask you whether 
 it lies within your power to give us this, because I 
 am certain that you do not know. All I require of 
 you is that you should come when we call you. 
 
 D. V. : I will come. 
 
 Philip : Very well, I don't think there's anything 
 more this evening to keep you from your business. 
 
 D. V.: One moment, Mr. Oldcastle. I'm sorry 
 our interview has been marred by a little unpleasant- 
 ness, but I should like to say that I shall not forget 
 your noble and inspiring remarks. Such as I am, 
 man has made me, but if there were more men like 
 you to cheer me on to the attainment of some ideal, I 
 am sure I should play my part with a better grace. 
 See now, I have torn up the order. I give you and 
 your good lady carte blanche to die when you 
 please. Good-night, sir; good-night, madam. 
 
 Philip : Good-night. 
 
 Dorothy: Do be careful; the stairs are so 
 dangerous. [Exit D. V.] 
 
 [16] 
 
Philip: There, he's gone. Poor, little, well- 
 meaning chap. It's a pathetic thing to be the only 
 mortal in a world of immortals. 
 
 Dorothy: I think you were rather hard on him, 
 Philip. After all, he has his qualities. 
 
 Philip: Qualities? 
 
 Dorothy: I don't know. It has always seemed 
 to me that he is kind to children. There are other 
 things, too; but I can't think of them now, I'm so 
 hungry. 
 
 Philip: I, too, darling. We come back to that, 
 don't we? 
 
 Dorothy : I'm tired of waiting for something to 
 happen. I want to sleep and forget all about it. 
 
 Philip: All right. Let's lie down side by side 
 on the sofa. I'll turn the gas on, and we'll have a 
 good night's rest. 
 
 Dorothy: The gas? 
 
 Philip: Yes. We'll have our friend back. It's 
 easy for us to die, because we know that we are im- 
 mortal. What do we risk? 
 [He turns the gas out and on again. . . . The 
 
 stage is quite dark.] 
 
 Philip: There. That ought to alter things a 
 bit. Where are you, old girl? 
 
 Dorothy: Here, Philip. 
 
 Philip: Ah, that's better, side by side, light 
 out of the darkness. 
 
 [ 17 ] 
 
Dorothy: When the landlord comes in the 
 morning — 
 
 Philip: He will turn us into the street. Yes. 
 But we shall not be here. 
 Dorothy : I wonder ! 
 Philip : So do I ; that has always been my pride. 
 
 [A pause.] 
 Philip: Let me move my arm, dear, it's getting 
 cramped. 
 
 Dorothy: Poor old Philip. Is it better now? 
 Philip: I can hear the beating of your heart. 
 Dorothy: And I the singing of yours. 
 Philip and Dorothy: Good-night love! 
 
 [A long pause.] 
 Dorothy: Good gracious, Philip, what a strong 
 smell of gas. Oh ! I forgot — 
 
 [Philip chuckles aloud in the dark.] 
 CURTAIN. 
 
 [18] 
 
The ^Madness of 
 Spring 
 
 ^F WE ACCEPT Johnson's definition of mad- 
 ness as a perturbation of the faculties, we 
 must acknowledge that there is more than a 
 conventional association between madness 
 and the earlier months of the year. While 
 the buds are breaking, the faculties of all of 
 us are perturbed with a vengeance, and never 
 a green leaf unrolls beneath the sky but one 
 of us tramples under foot the laws he has 
 made for the guidance of his life. Some- 
 times our mania is clear to every one, some- 
 times we are the most cunning of madmen, 
 only wearing the straws in solitude, and duly imi- 
 tating the lives of our grandfathers before our sus- 
 picious neighbors. But, however this may be, we 
 are all mad in the spring and though their per- 
 turbations vary as widely as the new leaves, our 
 faculties sing drunken songs together along the 
 wind-swept streets of the world. 
 
 [19] 
 
This is a period when it is very good to be 
 young, and so I willingly sympathize with the mad- 
 ness of my friend Florizel, who drives about Lon- 
 don looking for his lost youth in a taximeter filled 
 with children and chocolates. There are moments, 
 he tells me when this annual search seems to be 
 crowned with success. Perhaps for an hour he re- 
 covers the forgotten ignorance of his early years; 
 the children treat him with the genial rudeness of 
 comradeship; he is patronised by ticket-collectors 
 and policemen. But he goes home an old man. No 
 less do I sympathise with the youthful and agree- 
 able Hamlet, who staggers along the Charing Cross 
 Road at this season with his arms and pockets filled 
 with books. These are not, alas! the spoils of a 
 conqueror, but the sacrifices of the vanquished, for 
 every spring Hamlet falls in love, and madly sells 
 his books for flowers and art jewelry. His dream- 
 girls are always of the practical kind, and their 
 affection for Hamlet appears to pass with his 
 library; but Hamlet loves the spring nevertheless. 
 So too, I suppose, does Pericles, whose madness, 
 however, fills me rather with envy than with sym- 
 pathy, for to him the spring brings a passion for 
 work that enables him to squander the summer 
 hours at Lord's or the Oval like a capitalist. There 
 is something immoral in being able to perform prod- 
 igies of work when all the world is stretching from 
 its winter sleep. But so it is with Pericles, and his 
 
 [20] 
 
friends will know him no more until these delicious 
 months are over. 
 
 In truth there is no harm in these vernal follies; 
 they are only the fuller expression of that self over 
 which our conventional cunnings have no control. 
 Perhaps if we were honest and not quite so civilised 
 we should dance blithely along Piccadilly every day 
 of our short lives. Perhaps if we understood our 
 neighbours better we should endure every night 
 with the dreamy colours of our desires. As it is, it 
 is only in the spring that we are willing to acknow- 
 ledge the charm — I might almost say virtue — of 
 wise excess. Over a certain section of one of the 
 London parks there used to rule a policeman so 
 dour that he never wearied of condemning himself 
 for the frivolous character of his dreams. He felt 
 that the midnight caperings of his spirit went far to 
 counteract the rectitude of his conscious life, and 
 over all his asceticism there hung a bitter conscious- 
 ness of its futility. At last, on a golden day of 
 spring, he proposed to and was accepted by a nurse- 
 maid of secure charms, and the kingdom of para- 
 dox knew him no more. He traced his fall to a bed 
 of tulips. 
 
 But most cruel of all are the dealings of this wan- 
 ton season with those of us who write about little 
 things with wide, splendid words. Never, it would 
 seem, are our emotions more trivial, never are the 
 words with which we hold them wider and more 
 
 [21] 
 
splendid. It is true that this verbal insanity affects 
 us in different ways. Me does the coming of the 
 almond blossom afflict with adjectives — great and 
 gorgeous adjectives in merry companies — fallen to- 
 gether by the chance of the road, but surely insep- 
 arable thereafter. There is nothing to be done with 
 these blithe comrades but to enshrine them in note- 
 books and sigh a requiem. For, fine as life is, there 
 is nowhere anything on the earth worthy of such 
 epithets — and I lack my note-book when I wander in 
 the city of dreams. Moreover, this futility extends to 
 the ideas themselves that are bred in our minds dur- 
 ing this happy, bitter season. On a fair morning of 
 spring I seemed to have discovered what really should 
 be done with H.M.S. Buzzard, that promising gun- 
 boat which lies off the Embankment for the encour- 
 agement of the naval volunteers. As in a vision, I 
 saw her captured at night by twelve decadent mil- 
 lionaires, hopeful of winning the ultimate sensation 
 by their piratical enterprise. Thereafter the tale pur- 
 sued a pleasant and profitable course. Their number 
 raised to thirteen by the volunteering of a romantic 
 small boy, my millionaires diverted themselves by 
 singing sentimental songs to the tall white masts and 
 by scattering explosive shells like roses all over Lon- 
 don. Beaten at last by the invincible force of the Brit- 
 ish Navy, they blow a magnificent hole in the bottom 
 of the ship, which sinks some three feet, it being low 
 tide, and there are god-like laughters upon the decks. 
 
 [22] 
 
Finally, I think the survivors, being three of the mil- 
 lionaires and the small boy, were to drift down the 
 river towards the sea in a leaky boat. 
 
 Here was a fine tale with never a woman in it, 
 yet, nevertheless, it was of the spring. For when, in 
 an autumnal mood I revisited the Buzzard, I saw that 
 even the most decadent of millionaires or the most 
 romantic of small boys could not hold that wretched 
 vessel for five minutes against a handful of marks- 
 men. So passed my screaming shells, my armoured 
 tramcars, my ploughed and reddened decks. Before 
 the first puff of saner weather my visionary galleon 
 sailed back to the harbour of dreams. 
 
 Yet withal, when the last joss-stick of winter dies 
 in the room and the scent of the violets in the flower- 
 girls' baskets comes singing through the open win- 
 dow, it is only the more cowardly of us who quaff the 
 cautious iron and quinine. Those of us who are lovers 
 know that there are troubling days before us in this 
 season of finite sorrows and infinite joys, and ama- 
 teurs of pain as we are, we would not have it other- 
 wise. It is enough for us, though our feet be lame 
 and bleeding, that, from the grey morning and 
 through the hot day and down to the cool time when 
 the stars light up the sky, our love fares on. We 
 may mock ourselves with speech of green-sickness 
 and of faculties devilishly perturbed; we may turn 
 a sorrowful eye on the morrow inevitably grey; but 
 our hearts are for the spring. 
 
 [23] 
 
Ernest Dowson 
 
 The Tassing of Tennyson 
 
The Massing of Tennyson 
 
 S HIS own Arthur fared across the 
 mere, 
 With the grave Queen, past 
 knowledge of the throng, 
 Serene and calm, rebuking grief 
 and tear, 
 Departs this prince of song. 
 
 Whom the gods love, Death does not cleave nor smite, 
 But like an angel, with soft trailing wing, 
 
 He gathers them upon the hush of night, 
 With voice and beckoning. 
 
 The moonlight falling on that august head, 
 Smoothed out the mark of time's defiling hand, 
 
 And hushed the voice of mourning round his bed — 
 "He goes to his own land." 
 
 Beyond the ramparts of the world, where stray 
 The laurelled few o'er fields Elysian, 
 
 He joins his elders of the lyre and bay, 
 Led by the Mantuan. 
 
 We mourn him not, but sigh with Bedivere, 
 Not perished be the sword he bore so long, 
 
 Excalibur, whom none is left to wear — 
 His magic brand of song. 
 
 [27] 
 
Stephen Crane 
 
 At the Pit Door 
 The Great Boer Trek 
 
oAt the Pit Door 
 
 HE long file of people, two abreast, 
 waiting resignedly for the hour of 
 7:30 p. m., look round sharply at the 
 open space beside them when the girl 
 with the guitar gives a preliminary 
 strum. They are prepared to welcome 
 anything calculated to chase monotony, 
 for even half-penny comic papers after a time cease 
 to amuse, and those reminiscent of past performances 
 develop, when they pass a certain class, into first-class 
 bores. This is why the guitar girl comes opportunely, 
 and when she lifts up her chin and sings in a raucous 
 voice to a tum-tum accompaniment, the two-abreast 
 crowd listens with all its ears. E 243, at the end of 
 the queue, looks on tolerantly, being a man with 
 musical tastes and consequently of a genial disposi- 
 tion. Here singeth one: 
 
 When you meet a nice young person and you feel 
 
 you've see a worse one, 
 And you seek a interduction, don't you know, 
 You are puzzled how to greet her, tho no lady could 
 be neater, 
 So very shy and strictly comilfo. 
 
 [31] 
 
You puzzle all your mind and brains, you take a 
 deuced lot of pains, 
 You ponder and consider, and you think 
 It's a foolish, silly waste of time, take this advice, 
 dear boys of mine, 
 For all you've got to do is — give a wink. 
 Give a wink, boys — 
 
 The long line that reaches to the pit doors finds 
 itself forced to hum the enticing chorus, either in 
 shrill soprano or growling bass, and one young lady 
 by herself, with a pince-nez and opera glasses, screws 
 up her lips to whistle it. 
 
 The guitar girl gives a second song — a senti- 
 mental one this time, with good-byes forever and 
 weeping sweethearts and departing emigrants, and 
 a waltz refrain, and nearly everybody dead and done 
 for in the last verse. Then the guitar girl brings a 
 scarlet plush bag that suggests the offertory, and 
 going down the line, gleans as much as eightpence- 
 halfpenny. 
 
 A stout man in a tweed cap and loose tweed suit, 
 that cries aloud at elbows and knees for the darning- 
 needle; he has a Windsor chair with him, and a slip 
 of carpet, and these he places on the ground with 
 much care and particularity. Throws then his tweed 
 cap on the ground, slips his jacket off, thumps him- 
 self on his broad chest, and bows to his audience. 
 
 "Lydies and Gentlemen: I perpose this evenin' 
 to clime your kind indulgence whilst I submit to your 
 
 [32] 
 
notice a few feats of strength. I don't perfess to do 
 anything that's not done perfectly striteforward, 
 and I invite your attention to watch whether I do 
 anything that can be called trickery. If any one can 
 bowl me out at pretendin' to do something I don't do, 
 why I'll forfeit" — here the stout man slaps an appar- 
 ently empty pocket — "I will forfeit five golding sover- 
 eigns." 
 
 The long line has been a little unconcerned at the 
 acrobat's lecture; but the mention of as much as five 
 pounds seems to quicken its interests. The heads turn 
 round and watch the stout man acutely. 
 
 "I first take up the chair between my teeth — 
 thus." The Windsor chair is swung to and fro in the 
 air. "I then place the foot of one of its legs on my 
 chin — thus." The Windsor chair turns lazily around 
 on its perilous axis. "I now place my head be- 
 tween my knees, and I 'old the chair in my mouth — 
 thus." 
 
 The stout man contorts himself into a prepos- 
 terous position and does a kind of flag-signaling with 
 the Windsor chair. "I now puts the chair on one 
 side, and I venture to trespass on your valuable time 
 for a few minutes whilst I show you some feats equal 
 to those" — (the stout man for the first time speaks 
 with acerbity) — "equal to those that so-called acri- 
 bats at the music 'alls are getting their thirty pun a 
 week for." 
 
 The stout man holds one foot high and dances 
 
 [33] 
 
round on the other foot in the manner of the ladies at 
 the Moulin Rouge; he performs the unattractive 
 "splits," he stands on his head for a few moments; 
 he walks about on his hands; he does nearly every- 
 thing that nobody else wants to do. After each 
 achievement he blows a quick kiss to the patient 
 crowd. "Thanking you one and all, lydies and gentle- 
 men for assisting me by your kind attention, I now 
 ast you to remember that a man's got his livin' to 
 make, altho p'raps we may 'ave different ways of 
 doing it. Can you oblige, miss, by starting the sub- 
 scription list with a copper? If I can only get a good- 
 looking — Thank you kindly, miss. And you, sir." 
 
 A melancholy staring boy on the pavement op- 
 posite. It is quite clear that he is about to do some- 
 thing ; it is by no means clear what that something is 
 to be. When the stout man has put on his coat and 
 shouldered his Windsor chair and lifted his tweed 
 cap to the crowd politely, the melancholy boy moist- 
 ens his lips and grasps the lamp-post with one hand. 
 Then he whistles. He whistles, truth to say, ex- 
 tremely well, and goes stolidly thru the overture to 
 "Zampa" and a frivolous polka, closing with "Rule 
 Britannia" in such a spirit as to make every youth 
 in the waiting line feel that unless he gives the 
 melancholy youth at least a penny he is nothing 
 better than a traitor to his country. 
 
 A rattling of bones ! A banging of tambourines ! 
 A ping-pong of banjos! Six men in straw hats and 
 
 [34] 
 
white canvas suits with scarlet stripes and perspiring 
 blackened faces are in a semi-circle exchanging noisy 
 repartee and — when they can think of no repartee — 
 shouting loudly "Ooray!" 
 
 "D' you 'member that lil song of yours, Bones, 
 that used to make people cry?" 
 
 "Do I 'member?" inquires Bones (in the Ollen- 
 dorfian manner) "that lil song of mine that used to 
 make people cry? Yes, sir; I do 'member that lil 
 song of mine that used to make people cry." 
 
 "Will you 'blige me by singing of it now?" 
 
 Bones is a short boy with a stubbled sandy mus- 
 tache showing thru the lamp-black face. He steps 
 out of the semi-circle, makes a bow that is almost 
 obsequious, whilst the others clatter and twang thru 
 the symphony. Then Bones looks up at the side of 
 the theatre, and with a sort of ferocious pathos 
 sings : — 
 
 Little Nellie's joined the angels, 
 She has flown to realms above: 
 
 Never more shall we 'ere see her; 
 Gorn's the little soul we love. 
 
 But the mem'ry of her features 
 
 Always wif us will remine, 
 And the sound of tiny voices, 
 
 Lingers in our ears agine. 
 
 The semi-circle joins in, taking its several parts 
 in a strenuous way. 
 
 Gorn, gorn is she, gorn from all earthly strife, 
 Free from all sorrer . . . 
 
 [35] 
 
The lugubrious purple song has three verses, 
 and the number is enough. The line of pit patrons 
 becomes quite depressed and sniffs a good deal, and 
 one lady, borrowing her husband's handkerchief, 
 weeps openly and without restraint. 
 
 "Song and dence!" shouts Tambourine, "en- 
 titled, 'Hev you seen a colored coon called Pete f " 
 
 Again a noisy prelude. It is Tambourine him- 
 self who steps out this time, and he dances a few 
 steps on the graveled space as earnest of what is to 
 come, and to a red-faced white-capped servant who is 
 gazing intently out of the side window of a neighbor- 
 ing hotel he waves affectionate greetings and hugs 
 his left side as tho the sight of the red-faced domestic 
 had affected his heart. 
 
 I'm a sassy nigger gal, and me front name it is Sal, 
 
 Soft chorus from the semi-circle : — 
 
 Hev ye seen a colored coon called Pete? 
 
 Tambourine continues: — 
 
 And the games we darkies play, in the night and in the 
 day, 
 
 Soft chorus as before : — 
 
 Hev ye seen a colored coon called Pete? 
 
 But I want to ask you suthin' and — 
 
 The long straight crowd is beginning to look at 
 its watches. The hour is 7 :30 precisely, and what the 
 crowd asks with much impatience is, that if they 
 don't mean to open the doors at 7 :30, what on earth 
 
 [36] 
 
makes them put 7:30 in the paper for? The worst of 
 theatres is that you can never — 
 
 A sound of moving bolts. A closing up in the 
 ranks of the long line. A warning word from E 243. 
 The song stops and the minstrels hurry forward to 
 the moving crowd with their straw hats outstretched. 
 It is too late. The crowd is so much engaged in feel- 
 ing for its half-crowns and in keeping a steady eye 
 on the gaping open doorway that it cannot trouble 
 about any more gifts to entertainers. 
 
 " 'Pon me bloomin' oath," says Tambourine with 
 much annoyance, "if this ain't jest like me nawsty 
 luck!" 
 
 [37] 
 
The Cjreat ^oer Trek 
 
 HEN, in 1806, Cape Colony finally 
 passed into the hands of the Brit- 
 ish government, it might well have 
 seemed possible for the white in- 
 habitants to dwell harmoniously together. The 
 Dutch burghers were in race much the same men who 
 had peopled England and Scotland. There was none 
 of that strong racial and religious antipathy which 
 seems to make forever impossible any lasting 
 understanding between Ireland and her dominat- 
 ing partner. 
 
 The Boers were more devoid of Celtic fervors 
 and fluctuations of temperament than the English 
 themselves; in religion Protestant, by nature hard- 
 working, thrifty, independent, they would naturally, 
 it seems, have called for the good will and respect of 
 their conquerors. But the two peoples seemed to have 
 been keenly aware of each other's failings from the 
 first. To the Boers, the English seemed prejudiced 
 and arrogant beyond mortal privilege; the English 
 told countless tales of the Boers' trickery, their dull- 
 
 [39] 
 
ness, their boasting, their indolence, their bigotry. 
 The burghers had transplanted the careful habits of 
 their homes in the Netherlands to a different climate 
 and new conditions. In South Africa they were still 
 industrious and thrifty, and their somewhat gloomy 
 religion was more strongly rooted than ever. Al- 
 though they lived nomadic lives on the frontier, yet 
 they had made themselves substantial dwellings 
 within the towns; the streets were blossoming bow- 
 ers of trees and shrubs; their flocks and herds 
 increased, their fields produced mightily. In the 
 courts of law they had shown conspicuous ability 
 whilst acting as heemraden; they had made good 
 elders and deacons in their churches, and good com- 
 mandants and field cornets in war — the ever-recur- 
 ring conflicts with the Kaffirs. 
 
 Many observers have noted the strong similarity 
 of thought and character between the Dutchmen and 
 the Scotchmen. There is the same thrift which is 
 often extreme parsimony, combined with great hos- 
 pitality, the same dogged obstinacy, and the same de- 
 light in overreaching in all matters of business and 
 bargain-driving. Moreover, their religious ideals 
 bear the strongest resemblance one to the other. In 
 his character as a colonist the Boer certainly showed 
 magnificent qualities; he could work and endure and 
 fight. But in spite of his dour sanctimoniousness, he 
 was not a perfect person, any more than his brother 
 Briton. The English missionaries objected to his 
 
 [40] 
 
treatment of the natives, but there was never any of 
 the terrible cruelty practised that the Spaniards used 
 toward the natives during their colonization of Mex- 
 ico — nor that of various French, English and Portu- 
 guese adventurers in Africa during the seventeenth 
 century. But the fact remains that the entire race of 
 Hottentots has been modified through the Dutch oc- 
 cupation; it is said that no pure-blooded Hottentot 
 remains. This amalgamation was treated by the 
 Boers as a commonplace thing. That habit of theirs 
 of producing scriptural authority for all their acts 
 must have begun with their settlement in Cape 
 Colony. 
 
 The "bastards," as they were openly called, were 
 well treated, brought up as Christians and to lead a 
 tolerably civilized life. The English missionaries were 
 filled with disgust at this state of things, and the 
 Boers were denounced from missionary platforms 
 throughout England. Undoubtedly the missionaries 
 were right, but the Boers, alas, are not the only 
 white race who have taken this patriarchal attitude 
 toward the natives of the country they were en- 
 gaged in colonizing. The missionaries in their other 
 charges were fanatical and ridiculous; they described 
 the Boers as cruel barbarians, because they would 
 not allow the vermin-haunted Hottentots to join 
 them at family prayers in their "best rooms." The 
 Colonial Office acted on these representations, and 
 refused to listen to any complaints of the Boers. 
 
 [41] 
 
As they numbered less than ten thousand, and 
 English emigrants were constantly pouring into the 
 colony, the Boers were considered of little impor- 
 tance to the Government; it was not imagined that 
 they could do anything effectual in the way of 
 resistance. In short, they, who had been the ruling 
 race in the colony for over a century, were now a 
 subject race; they were hampered and restricted on 
 every side. 
 
 The first grievance of the Boers was the atti- 
 tude of the English missionaries. Some of these 
 were men of high religious ideals, but most of them 
 were politicians. Mr. Vanderkemp and Mr. Read, 
 missionaries of the London society, who had taken 
 black wives, and announced themselves champions 
 of the black race against the white, had sent to 
 England reports of a number of murders and out- 
 rages said to have been committed upon Hottentots 
 by the Dutch colonists. By order of the British 
 government fifty-eight white men and women were 
 put to trial for these crimes in 1812, and over a 
 thousand witnesses, black and white, were called to 
 give evidence. Several cases of assault were proved, 
 and punished, but none of the serious charges were 
 substantiated. In 1814, a farmer, Frederick Bezui- 
 denhout, quarreled with his native servant, and 
 refused to appear at a court of justice to answer the 
 charges of ill treatment. A company of Hottentots 
 was sent to arrest him; he fired on them and they 
 
 [42] 
 
shot him dead. A company of about fifty men 
 joined an insurrection under the leadership of Ben- 
 zuidenhout's brother Jan, but a strong force of 
 Boers aided the government in putting down this 
 rebellion; all surrendered but Jan, who was shot and 
 killed. 
 
 Lord Charles Somerset, who drew a salary of ten 
 thousand pounds a year, with four residences, was 
 Governor at the time. He was arbitrary as a prince, 
 and afterward suppressed a liberal newspaper and 
 forbade public meetings. The prisoners were taken 
 and tried — they were thirty-nine in number — and six 
 were sentenced to death, while the others all received 
 some form of punishment. Somerset was entreated 
 to annul the death sentence, but would do so only in 
 one instance. The remaining five were executed in 
 the presence of their friends, and the scaffold broke 
 with their weight; they were all unconscious and 
 were resuscitated. When they had been brought to 
 consciousness their friends vehemently besought 
 Somerset to reprieve them, but he was firm in his 
 refusal and they were hanged again. 
 
 This event caused a lasting bitterness among the 
 Boers; the place of execution is known as Slachter's 
 Nek to this day. In 1823, the Dutch courts of justice 
 were abolished with their landrosts and heemraden, 
 and in the place of them English courts were estab- 
 lished, with magistrates, civil commissioners and 
 justices of the peace. The burgher senate was abol- 
 
 [43] 
 
ished, also, and notices were sent to the old colonists 
 that all documents addressed to the government must 
 be written in English. Soon after, a case was to be 
 tried at the circuit court at Worcester, and one of the 
 judges removed it to Cape Town because there was 
 not a sufficient number of English-speaking men to 
 form a jury, though the prisoner and the witnesses 
 could speak Dutch only, and whatever they said 
 had to be translated in court. The judges were 
 divided in their opinion as to whether it were neces- 
 sary for every juryman to speak English; in 1831 an 
 ordinance was issued defining the qualifications of 
 jurymen and a knowledge of English was not one 
 of them. But in the meantime the Boers had been 
 greatly embittered by their exclusion from the jury- 
 box. They would not write memorials about it to 
 the government, because they refused to write 
 English. 
 
 During the years of English occupation the fron- 
 tier aggressions of the Kaffirs were of frequent occur- 
 rence. The document called, "An Earnest Represen- 
 tation and Historical Reminder to H. M. Queen Vic- 
 toria, in View of the Present Crisis, by P. J. Joubert," 
 published a few months ago, contains this reference 
 to the frontier wars: "Natives molested them (the 
 Boers) ; they were murdered, robbed of their cattle, 
 their homes were laid waste. Unspeakable horrors 
 were inflicted on their wives and daughters. The 
 Boer was called out for commando service at his own 
 
 [44] 
 
expense, under command and control of the British, 
 to fight the Kaffirs. While on commando his cattle 
 were stolen by Kaffirs. After, they were made to 
 wait until troops retook the cattle, which were after- 
 ward publicly sold as lost in the presence of their 
 owners, the Boers being informed that they should 
 receive compensation — not in money or goods, neither 
 in rest nor peace, but instead, indignities and abuse 
 were heaped on them. They were told that they 
 should be satisfied at not being punished as the insti- 
 gators of the disturbance." 
 
 As far back as 1809, Hottentots were prohibited 
 from wandering about the country without passes, 
 and from 1812, Hottentot children who had been 
 maintained for eight years by the employers of their 
 parents, were bound as apprenticed for ten years 
 longer. The missionaries were dissatisfied with 
 these restrictions; both of them were removed by an 
 ordinance passed July, 1828, when vagrant Hotten- 
 tots began to wander over the country at will. 
 Farming became almost impossible; the farm-labor- 
 ers became vagabonds and petty thefts took place 
 constantly. 
 
 Early in 1834, Sir Benjamin D'Urban, called 
 "the Good," was appointed Governor. A legislative 
 council was then granted the colony, but its powers 
 were not great. 
 
 The Boers had never been greatly in favor (many 
 opposed it strongly) of slavery, but they had yielded 
 
 [45] 
 
to the general custom and over three million pounds 
 was invested in slaves throughout the colony in 1834. 
 Sir Benjamin D'Urban proclaimed the emancipa- 
 tion of the slaves, who had been set free throughout 
 the British Empire, in August, 1833. This freeing 
 was to take effect in Cape Colony on the 1st of 
 December, 1834. 
 
 The news of the emancipation was felt to be a 
 relief, but the terms on which it was conducted were 
 productive of unending trouble. The slave-owners of 
 Cape Colony were awarded less than a million and a 
 quarter for their slaves — and the imperial govern- 
 ment refused to send the money to South Africa; 
 each claim was to be proved before commissioners 
 in London, when the amount would be paid in stock. 
 To make a journey of one hundred days to London 
 was, of course, impossible to the farmers; they were 
 at the mercy of agents who made their way down to 
 the colony and purchased the claims, so that the 
 colonist received sometimes a fifth, sometimes a 
 sixth, or less, of the value of his slaves. The colo- 
 nists had hoped that a vagrant act would have been 
 passed by the Council when the slaves were freed, 
 to keep them from being still further overrun by this 
 large released black population, but this was not 
 done. 
 
 In 1834, the first band of emigrants left the 
 colony — forty-five men under a leader named Louis 
 Triechard, from the division of Albany. He was a 
 
 [46] 
 
violent-tempered man, and so loudly opposed to the 
 government that Col. Harry Smith offered a reward 
 of five hundred cattle for his apprehension. He left 
 then at once, being of the class of Boers on the fron- 
 tier who lived in their wagons, as though they were 
 ships at sea, and had no settled habitation. His party 
 was joined, before it left the colonial border, by 
 Johannes Rensburg. Together they had thirty 
 wagons. They traveled northward. All but two of 
 Rensburg's party were killed, and those of Triech- 
 ard's party who escaped the savages reached Delagoa 
 Bay in 1838, after terrible hardships, where they 
 received great kindness from the Portuguese. But 
 their sufferings had been so great that only twenty- 
 six lived to be shipped to Natal. But before the emi- 
 gration reached its height another Kaffir war came 
 on. There was a tremendous invasion of savages, 
 between twelve and twenty thousand warriors, who 
 swept along the frontier, killing, plundering and 
 burning. December, 1834, under Col. Harry Smith 
 a large force was raised; they marched into Kaffir- 
 land, and defeated and dispersed the invaders, who 
 were compelled to sue for peace. As a security for 
 the future, Sir Benjamin D'Urban, who was also at 
 the front, issued a proclamation, declaring British 
 sovereignty to be extended over the territory of the 
 defeated tribes as far as the Kei River. But while 
 the people were still suffering from the effects of the 
 invasion, an order came from Lord Glenelg — who 
 
 [47] 
 
became Secretary of State for the Colonies in April, 
 1835 — peremptorily ordering that the new territory 
 must be immediately given up, on the ground that it 
 had been unjustly acquired. 
 
 The Boers now felt that no security existed for 
 life or property on the frontier; all the support of the 
 British government was given — with a philanthropy 
 stimulated by the missionaries — to the black races 
 as against the Boer farmer. The feeling had now 
 become general among them that they must escape 
 British rule at any cost. They left their homes and 
 cultivated fields and gardens — the homes of over a 
 century's growth — and started into the wilds. Pur- 
 chases of the vacated property were not frequent; a 
 house sometimes was sold for an ox; many of them 
 were simply left, with no sale having been made. 
 All over the frontier districts the great wagons set 
 out, loaded with household goods, provisions and 
 ammunition, to seek new homes farther north. 
 Each party had its commandant and was generally 
 made up of families related to each other. When 
 the pasturage was good, the caravans would some- 
 times rest for weeks together, while the cows and 
 oxen, horses and sheep and goats grazed. General 
 Joubert declares that they were followed as far as 
 the Orange River by British emissaries who wanted 
 to be sure that they took no arms nor ammunition 
 with them. However, he adds, the Boers were able 
 
 [48] 
 
to conceal their weapons — a fact that seems a very 
 modern instance, indeed. 
 
 North of the Orange River the colonists regarded 
 themselves as quite free, for Great Britain had de- 
 clared officially that she would not enlarge her South 
 African possessions. 
 
 The emigrants were ridiculed for leaving their 
 homes for the wilderness — "for freedom and grass," 
 and were called professional squatters. One English 
 writer said: "The frontier Boer looks with pity on 
 the busy hives of humanity in cities, or even in vil- 
 lages; and regarding with disdain the grand, but to 
 him unintelligible, results of combined industry, the 
 beauty and excellence of which he cannot know, be- 
 cause they are intellectually discerned, he tosses up 
 his head like a wild horse, utters a neigh of exultation, 
 and plunges into the wilderness." 
 
 The number of "trekkers" has been estimated at 
 from five thousand to ten thousand. The tide of emi- 
 gration (they went generally in small bands) flowed 
 across the Orange River and then followed a course 
 for some distance parallel with the Quathtamba 
 Mountains. By this route the warlike Kaffirs were 
 evaded, the only native tribes passed through being 
 small disorganized bodies. Near the Vaal River, how- 
 ever, resided the powerful Matabele nation, under the 
 famous Moselekatze, a warrior of Zulu birth, who had 
 established himself there and brought into complete 
 subjection all the neighboring tribes. 
 
 [49] 
 
One band of emigrants under Commandant 
 Henrik Potgieter, a man of considerable ability, ar- 
 rived at the banks of the Vet River, a tributary of the 
 Vaal. Here he found a native chief who lived in con- 
 stant dread of Moselekatze, who sold to Potgieter 
 the land between the Vet and the Vaal Rivers, for a 
 number of cattle, Potgieter guaranteeing him protec- 
 tion from Moselekatze. After a while, Commandant 
 Potgieter, with a party, went to explore the country, 
 and traveled north to the Zoutpansberg, where the 
 fertility of the soil seemed encouraging. They also 
 believed that communication with the outer world 
 could be opened through Delagoa Bay, so that the 
 country seemed to offer every advantage for settle- 
 ment. In high spirits they came back to rejoin their 
 families, but a hideous surprise awaited them; they 
 found only mutilated corpses. Expecting an imme- 
 diate return of the Matabele who had massacred his 
 people, Potgieter made a strong laager on a hill, by 
 lashing fifty wagons together in a circle, and filling 
 all the open spaces, except a narrow entrance, with 
 thorn-trees. Presently the Matabele returned, and 
 with great shouts and yells stormed the camp, rush- 
 ing up to the wagon-wheels and throwing assegais. 
 But the Boers, with their powerful "roers," or ele- 
 phant-guns, kept such a rapid and skillful fire, while 
 the women kept the spare guns reloaded, that the 
 Matabele were forced to retire, but they drove with 
 them all the cattle of the party. They left one hun- 
 
 [50] 
 
dred and fifty dead, and one thousand one hundred 
 of their spears were afterward picked up. 
 
 The emigrants in the laager were left without 
 the means of transportation, and very little food, 
 while they had lost forty-six of their people. But for- 
 tunately they were near the third band of emigrants 
 under Commandant Gerrit Maritz, who encamped 
 near the mission station at Thaba Ntshu, and now 
 sent oxen to carry away Potgieter and the others. 
 Also a native chief Marroco, brought them milk and 
 Kaffir corn, and pack-oxen to help them away. It was 
 resolved to revenge the massacre, to follow up 
 Moselekatze and punish him. One hundred and 
 seven Boers mustered for this service, besides forty 
 half-breeds, and a few blacks to take care of the 
 horses. A deserter from the Matabele army acted 
 as guide. The commando surprised Mosega, one of 
 the principal military towns, and killed four hun- 
 dred. Then setting fire to the kraal, they drove 
 seven thousand head of cattle back to Thaba Ntshu. 
 Potgieter's party then formed a camp on the Vet 
 (they called it Winburg), which was joined by 
 many families from the colony. Another band soon 
 reached Thaba Ntshu, under Pieter Retief, a man 
 of great intelligence. June 6th, 1837, a general 
 assembly of Boers was held at Winburg, when a 
 provisional constitution, consisting of nine articles, 
 was adopted. The supreme legislative power was 
 intrusted to a single elective chamber, termed the 
 
 [51] 
 
Volksraad, the fundamental law was declared to be 
 the Dutch, a court of landrost and heemraden was 
 created, and the chief executive authority was given 
 to Retief, with the title of Commandant-General 
 One article provided that all who joined the com- 
 munity must have no connection with the London 
 Missionary Society. 
 
 New bands of emigrants were constantly arriv- 
 ing, and some of them wished to go into Natal, 
 although the condition of the camp at Winburg was 
 very satisfactory. Pieter Uys, one of their leaders, 
 had visited Natal before, and had been impressed 
 with its beauty and fertility. Retief finally decided 
 to go and see for himself if Dingaan, the Zulu chief, 
 would dispose of some land below the mountain. 
 
 While he was gone, a second expedition against 
 the Matabele set out, consisting of one hundred and 
 thirty-five farmers, under Potgieter and Pieter Uys. 
 They found Mosega with twelve thousand warriors, 
 brave and finely trained, but at the end of nine days' 
 warfare, Moselekatze fled to the north, after a loss of 
 something like one thousand men. Command Pot- 
 gieter now issued a proclamation declaring that the 
 whole of the territory overrun by the Matabele, and 
 now abandoned by them, was forfeited to the Boers. 
 It included the greater part of the present South Afri- 
 can Republic, fully half of the present Orange Free 
 State, and the whole of Southern Bechuanaland to 
 the Kalahari Desert, except that part occupied by the 
 
 [52] 
 
Batlapin. This immense tract of land was then almost 
 uninhabited, and must have remained so if the Mata- 
 bele had not been driven out. 
 
 Much has been written of the beauties of Natal, 
 with its shores washed by the Indian Ocean, its rich 
 soil, luxuriant vegetation and noble forests. When 
 Pieter Retief first saw it from the Drakensburg Moun- 
 tains, it was under the despotic rule of the Zulu chief 
 Dingaan, who had succeeded Tshaka, the "Napoleon 
 of Africa," the slayer of a million human beings. A 
 few Englishmen, who were allowed to live at the port, 
 gladly welcomed the emigrants, and took them to 
 Dingaan's capital, called Umkunguhloon, acting as 
 guides and interpreters. There was an English mis- 
 sionary clergyman living there, called Owen. Din- 
 gaan received them graciously and supplied them 
 with chunks of beef from his own eating-mat, and 
 huge calabashes of millet beer. But when Retief 
 spoke about Natal, the despot set him a task, such as 
 one reads of in folk-lore legends. Retief might have 
 Natal for his countrymen to live in if he would 
 recover a herd of seven hundred cattle that had 
 been recently stolen from him by Sikouyela, a Man- 
 tater chief. Retief accepted the condition, and 
 actually made Sikouyela restore the cattle, which he 
 drove back to Dingaan. The Boers at Winburg 
 felt distrustful of Dingaan, and dreaded to have 
 Peter Retief trust himself again in the tyrant's 
 hands. But in February, 1838, Retief started with 
 
 [53] 
 
seventy persons, armed and mounted with thirty 
 attendants. Again Dingaan received them hospit- 
 ably, and empowered the missionary Owen to draw 
 up a document granting to Retief the country 
 between Tugela and the Umzimvooboo. But just 
 as the emigrants were ready to leave they were 
 invited into a cattle-kraal to see a war-dance, and 
 requested to leave their arms outside the door. 
 While sitting down they were overpowered and 
 massacred, the horror-stricken Owen being a wit- 
 ness of the sight. 
 
 Immediately after the massacre, Dingaan sent 
 out his forces against all the emigrants on the eastern 
 side of the Drakensberg. Before daylight they at- 
 tacked the encampments at Blaanwkrauz River and 
 the Bushman River — ten miles apart. It was a com- 
 plete surprise and a terrible slaughter of the Boers, 
 although a brave defense was made. The township 
 which has since arisen near the scene of the conflict 
 still bears the name of Weemen — the place of wailing. 
 
 As soon as the emigrants on the west of the 
 Drakensberg heard of the disasters, they formed a 
 band of about eight hundred men to punish Dingaan 
 for his treachery. But they were led into ambush, 
 and finally defeated by the Zulus, and forced to 
 retreat after a tremendous loss of life. The condi- 
 tion of the emigrants was now one of terrible dis- 
 tress and privation. They had many widows and 
 orphans to provide for. The Governor of Cape 
 
 [54] 
 
Colony sent word to them to return, and there were 
 many who felt willing to go, but it was the women 
 of the party who sternly refused to go back; they 
 preferred liberty, although that liberty had cost 
 them so dear. In November, 1838, Andries Preto- 
 rius arrived in Natal from Graaff Reinet and was at 
 once elected Commandant- General. He organized 
 a force of four hundred and sixty-four men and 
 marched toward Umkungunhloon. He took with 
 him a sufficient number of wagons to form a laager; 
 wherever the camp was pitched it was surrounded 
 by fifty-seven wagons; all the cattle were brought 
 within the inclosure, the whole force joining in 
 prayers and the singing of psalms. The army made 
 a vow that if victorious they would build a church, 
 and set apart a thanksgiving day each year to com- 
 memorate it. The church in Pietermaritzburg and 
 the annual celebration of Dingaan's defeat witness 
 that they kept their pledge. They were not fighting 
 for revenge. On three occasions the scouts brought 
 in some captured Zulus, and Pretorius sent them 
 back to Dingaan to say that if he would restore the 
 land he had granted Retief he would enter into 
 negotiations for peace. 
 
 Dingaan's reply came in the form of an army ten 
 thousand or twelve thousand strong, which attacked 
 the camp on December 16, 1838. For two hours the 
 Zulus tried to force their way into the laager, while 
 the Boer guns and the small artillery made dreadful 
 
 [55] 
 
havoc in their ranks. When at length they broke and 
 fled, over three thousand Zulu corpses lay on the 
 ground and a stream that flowed through the battle- 
 field was crimson. It has been known ever since as 
 the Blood River. 
 
 Pretorius marched on to Umkungunhloon as soon 
 as possible, but Dingaan had set the place on fire and 
 fled. 
 
 Dingaan, with the remainder of his forces, retired 
 farther into Zululand. There, soon after, his brother, 
 Pauda, revolted, and fled with a large following into 
 Natal, where he sought the protection of the Boers. 
 Another and final expedition was made against Din- 
 gaan in January, 1840, the farmers having Pauda with 
 four thousand of his best warriors as an ally. By 
 February 10th, Dingaan was a fugitive in the country 
 of a hostile tribe, who soon killed him, and the emi- 
 grant farmers were the conquerors of Zululand. On 
 that day Pauda was appointed and declared to be 
 "King of the Zulus" in the name and behalf of the 
 Volksraad at Pietermaritzburg, where the Boers 
 established their seat of government as "The South 
 African Society of Natal." 
 
 Four days afterward, a proclamation was issued 
 at the same camp, signed by Pretorius and four com- 
 mandants under him, declaring all the territory be- 
 tween the Black Imfolosi and the Umzimvooboo 
 Rivers to belong to the emigrant farmers. "The 
 national flag was hoisted," says a chronicler, "a salute 
 
 [56] 
 
of twenty-one guns fired, and a general hurrah given 
 throughout the whole army, while all the men as with 
 one voice called out: 'Thanks to the great God who 
 by His grace has given us the victory!" 
 
 Now that the "trekkers" had freed South Africa 
 from the destructive Zulu power, and had driven the 
 Matabele away, they wished to settle in Natal, and 
 rest from the nomadic existence that had so long 
 been theirs. But the British now came forward to 
 hunt them on again. The Governor of Cape Col- 
 ony, Sir George Napier, proclaimed that "the occu- 
 pation of Natal by the emigrants was unwarrant- 
 able," and directed that "all arms and ammunition 
 should be taken from them, and the port closed 
 against trade." 
 
 What followed — the British bombardment of the 
 port, the Dutch surrender, are well-known facts of 
 history. May 12, 1843, Natal was proclaimed a Brit- 
 ish colony, and the emigrants again took to their 
 wagons, crossing the Vaal. 
 
 [57] 
 
Edgar Saltus 
 
 The Feast 
 
The Feail 
 
 Ty^ELOW the glow of Guatemalan 
 skies, 
 In groves where undergrass grows 
 Jg>V overgreen, 
 
 )&c\ Where saffron quetzals from the 
 branches lean 
 And lilac lizards with basaltic eyes 
 Dart their vermilion tongues at fire-flies 
 That gleam in sudden loops of light between 
 The orchids and the fuchsias and their sheen — 
 Supremely there a spangled jaguar lies. 
 
 Curled in a velvet knot, the radiant beast 
 Sleeps on the vivid grass and sleeping dreams 
 That out beyond the brush and buds beneath, 
 Crouching he springs and knows again the feast; 
 The startled prey, the vain escape, the screams, 
 The flesh that parts and bleeds between his teeth. 
 
 [61] 
 
John Myers O'Hara 
 
 "^ew Songs of Sappho 
 
( ^ew Songs of Sappho 
 
 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 HEN the tempest lashes the waves 
 
 and mighty 
 Blasts of wind bring fear to the 
 heart of the sailor, 
 Swift he casts his goods in the sea and turning 
 Beaches his galley; 
 
 As for me, I pray I may never venture 
 Over waters tossed by the storm to any 
 Land and throw my precious bales in the ocean, 
 Rather than perish; 
 
 But if wrathful Nereids should rise around me, 
 In their flowing emerald robes receiving 
 Gifts from me, O grant they may guide me safely 
 Back to the harbor! 
 
 [65] 
 
THE RETURN. 
 
 Bring to me in dream, beneficent Hera, 
 Her entrancing form that the Grecian heroes 
 Saw appear, a boon of the Gods entreated, 
 After Troy's ruin; 
 
 When they first rowed out of the swift Scamander 
 Homeward bound, and baffled by storm, they offered 
 Prayer to thee, and mighty Zeus, and the lovely 
 Child of Dione; 
 
 So I pray thee, now, O Queen, as in olden 
 Days for grace in doing the things of beauty, 
 Pure and lovely things with the maids I cherish 
 In Mitylene; 
 
 Those I often taught, in the festal circle, 
 Songs of mine, and led through the choric dances, 
 And from lands afar to my own returning, 
 Goddess, befriend me; 
 
 As the weary Greeks in their galleys leaving 
 Ilium, their labor done, with thy favor, 
 So be kind to me as I cross the waters 
 Homeward to Lesbos. 
 
 [66] 
 
GORGO AND MNASIDICA 
 
 And thus I in answer; "O gentle maidens, 
 You will evermore remember in after 
 Years the time of youth and our life together, 
 Glowing and blissful; 
 
 "For the things we did were the pure and lovely, 
 Many things, and now that you leave the city, 
 Long my heart must throb with the pain of parting, 
 Keen with love's sorrow!" 
 
 SUPPLICATION 
 
 Swiftly come, O hasten back, I implore you, 
 Gongyla, more sweet to me than a rosebud, 
 Come to my embrace in your robe that shimmers 
 White to your ankle; 
 
 Ceaselessly my yearning flutters around you, 
 Flutters so, the very glimpse of your garment 
 Thrills my heart, and I rejoice that it yields me 
 Poignant emotion; 
 
 Once I murmured petulant words to Kypris, 
 Though, for this, her favor I pray to lose not, 
 But beseech her even now for the maiden 
 Loved as no other! 
 
 [67] 
 
THE WHISPER 
 
 It is no surprise that some may reproach you, 
 Envious that we are again together, 
 That you come as fond and dear as of old time, 
 Come when you should not; 
 
 For we two, in all the ways that we wander, 
 Ever whisper, each to the other, softly; 
 "Is there maid on earth that would fain be far from 
 One that she loved so?" 
 
 ANACTORIA 
 
 Pain of longing wrings the heart in my bosom, 
 Pain of loss, and grief for the days that blending 
 Kiss and song with dreams of an endless summer, 
 Came not to sever; 
 
 For I saw you then as I always see you, 
 Rather like a nymph than a mortal maiden, 
 Fair as Helen was in her golden beauty, 
 Leda's white daughter; 
 
 So you seemed, as fair as the fairest woman, 
 When I wove with yearning for you the garland, 
 Hyacinth and rose, that hung in the purple 
 Dusk at your doorway. 
 
 [68] 
 
Hubert 
 Crackanthorpe 
 
 A Fellside Tragedy 
 
A Fellside Tragedy 
 
 LOSE by the tiny church of Mardale, 
 at the head of Haweswater lake, stood 
 a house — not a grey Westmorland 
 farmhouse, flanked by long, low- 
 roofed, rough-walled buildings, but a 
 smart little villa, with a red-tiled 
 gabled roof, white stucco walls, a freshly- 
 painted green veranda, and a microscopic 
 lawn in front dotted with queer-shaped beds of 
 bright flowers. 
 
 Everything was so strikingly spruce that to the 
 stray tourist at the "Dun Bull" inn it seemed as if the 
 house had been bodily transported from the suburbs 
 of some city and set down in this lonely Westmor- 
 land valley. The walls were of such a dazzling 
 whiteness that in summer, when the sun shone 
 upon them, they could be seen by the people in the 
 trains over the side of Shap fells, as a glistening 
 white speck under the dark mountain side. 
 
 A little old widow lady lived there. Years ago 
 her father had rented the Scartop farm on the other 
 
 [71] 
 
side of the lake, but she had married a commercial 
 traveler and had gone away South. Thirty years 
 later she had come back to Mardale — to end her 
 days in the peaceful spot where she had spent her 
 childhood. 
 
 The sun had just topped the hills and was be- 
 ginning to clear away the blue mists that hung round 
 the shores of the lake. It was early yet, and the vil- 
 lage still slept. Not a sound save the crowing of a 
 cock at intervals in a neighboring farmyard. . . . 
 
 Suddenly, from the little white house a girl 
 stepped into the road. At first glance there seemed 
 nothing remarkable about her — just a common farm- 
 girl, with a coarse, thick-set figure ; but as she moved 
 into the sunlight you might have seen that her face 
 showed traces of great mental suffering. Her eyes 
 were bloodshot, the lids red and swollen and there 
 was a hard, set look about the mouth. 
 
 She glanced up and down the road — not leisurely 
 as if on the lookout for a passer-by, with whom to 
 gossip, but rapidly, almost stealthily. Having made 
 sure that no one was in sight, she ran across the road 
 to the church opposite and tried the door. It was 
 locked. After a moment's irresolution she crossed 
 the churchyard and began to hurry up the mountain- 
 side. 
 
 Jenny King was a true Westmorland lass, born 
 and bred on the fellsides, who had never travelled 
 farther from her native village than to Penrith on 
 
 [72] 
 
market days. Except last Whit-Monday, when she 
 had gone on an excursion trip to Keswick with "Long 
 Joe." "Long Joe" was her lover, a fine strapping 
 young fellow who shepherded for the new tenant of 
 the Scartop farm. 
 
 After Michaelmas he was to have a rise; and 
 then they were to be married in the tiny church at 
 the head of the lake. But on Saturday a tragedy 
 had roused the sleepy little village to a state of in- 
 tense excitement — a tragedy which had wrecked all 
 Jenny's hopes. Joe had been helping the Scartop men 
 to load the hay and had words with one of them in 
 the big thirty-acre field. Joe's temper was a quick 
 one; words soon changed to blows, and at last in a 
 fit of fury he picked up a pitchfork and ran his com- 
 panion through the stomach. 
 
 A day and a half of hiding in the forest followed, 
 till he had got enough money to fly the country. It 
 was Jenny who had given him this money. She had 
 taken it from the well in her mistress' writing-table. 
 The theft had cost her no moral struggle for she had 
 done it almost mechanically, in blind, dog-like fidelity 
 to Joe, without once giving a thought to the conse- 
 quences, only filled with the idea that he wanted the 
 money and that she must get it for him. 
 
 But as soon as he was gone, hastening on his 
 way to Liverpool, a reaction came upon her. It 
 was terrible. First, the grief of her mistress at the 
 disappearance of her savings cut her to the heart, 
 
 [73] 
 
as recollections of the old lady's thousand and one 
 little acts of kindness crowded in upon her memory; 
 then terror — vague, sickening, physical terror of the 
 police, of the handcuffs, of the prison. 
 
 Towards evening mistrustful looks, whisperings, 
 and at last a general shunning of her presence told 
 her that she was suspected. Oh, the horror of the 
 night that followed! For hours she had lain awake, 
 motionless, staring fixedly at the wall by her bed- 
 side. 
 
 She had once seen in a shop window at Penrith 
 a colored picture of a female convict crouching in a 
 cell with her face buried in her hands. All through 
 the night that picture haunted her; its crude glaring 
 colors had appeared not once, but a hundred times, 
 till it covered the walls of her room. Wherever she 
 turned her eyes she was confronted with it; there 
 was no escape. And gradually as the night wore 1 
 on, the seated figure grew more and more like her- 
 self, till she could see on its forehead the bruise 
 which she had got when she fell down Farmer 
 Langley's dairy steps last week. 
 
 At last she fell asleep, but still the figure pur- 
 sued her. The nightmare came, and she was shiver- 
 ing, chained to the bare stone floor of the prison cell, 
 doomed forever and ever. . . . 
 
 The girl could bear it no longer. Tomorrow 
 they would come and take her, and she would become 
 like the figure in the picture. She must fly. Where? 
 
 [74] 
 
She never once gave a thought to that. Only to 
 escape to the fells away from the horrible convict- 
 woman! 
 
 . . . . On, on she climbed, now across 
 stretches of grey shingle, which she sent clattering 
 down the mountain side, now up to her knees in the 
 bracken, now picking her way over a crowd of boul- 
 ders huddled together in savage disorder. 
 
 . . . . On, on she climbed, while her heart 
 throbbed excitedly and great beads of sweat started 
 from her forehead. At last she reached the top and 
 threw herself gasping on the grass. There was a 
 buzzing in her ears and a heavy thud, thud, thud 
 against her temples. Yet this sense of physical ex- 
 haustion was a relief after the terrible mental strain 
 of the last three days. 
 
 Then by degrees it passed. From where she lay 
 she could just see the thatched roof of her father's 
 cottage. There was the road along which as a little 
 girl she had trudged to school, day after day, sum- 
 mer and winter; next her mind wandered to Joe — 
 to Joe before the murder — she thought of the first 
 time that he had kissed her, one blustering winter 
 afternoon when she had gone to fetch the milk from 
 the Scartop farm, of the trip to Keswick, and of the 
 silver brooch that he had bought her there. 
 
 These recollections were not painful to Jenny. 
 She was reviewing them calmly as if they were inci- 
 dents in another's life, when with a sharp spasm of 
 
 [75] 
 
pain came back the thought of her mistress' grief. 
 Oh! she was sorry, bitterly sorry for her — yet there 
 was no self-upbraiding. It was the inevitable. She 
 had done the only thing possible. Joe had to be 
 saved. 
 
 Was he already at Liverpool? she wondered. 
 How long would he be on the sea? Perhaps he would 
 go on a ship like the one in the picture hanging in 
 the waiting-room at Penrith Station. In the picture 
 the deck was black with passengers. Perhaps Joe 
 was one of them. Gradually her thoughts began to 
 wander, and then, and then she was asleep. . . . 
 
 When she woke the sun was high in the sky. It 
 was a minute or two before she realized how she 
 came to be lying there on the wet grass — she shivered. 
 
 Look! Some people were crossing the road and 
 coming toward the mountain. Perhaps it was a 
 search party. She must be gone — farther away, 
 where they could not find her. She dare not get up 
 lest her figure should be seen by those below stand- 
 ing out against the sky-line; so she crawled away 
 from the mountain edge; then got up and ran. 
 
 The range of mountains was so broad at this 
 point that the summit formed a sort of table-land 
 several miles in width. It was a barren expanse, not 
 a tree, nor a shrub, only bushy tufts of coarse grass 
 growing right down to the edges of the pools of 
 brackish water, and here and there like great flesh 
 wounds in the earth's surface, gaping peat hags, 
 
 [76] 
 
with black, shiny, dripping sides. It was a dreary 
 spot even on this gorgeous summer day. 
 
 Jenny hurried on, driving before her a little flock 
 of black-legged mountain sheep, till she had crossed 
 the range. The great lake of Ullswater lay at her 
 feet, glistening like a sheet of molten silver; beyond, 
 the bare, round backs of the lake district mountains 
 rose, one behind the other, till they melted away to a 
 purple haze on the horizon. She stood for a moment, 
 gazing stupidly at the glorious scene ; then she slipped 
 down into a peat hag. 
 
 When she came to herself the white, weird light 
 of the moon was shining and a few fleecy clouds were 
 chasing one another lazily across the sky. From far 
 away below came the bleating of sheep; then all was 
 still. . . . 
 
 Hark! What was that? A piercing whistle burst 
 through the silence of the night. Another, then 
 another, followed by a cry which made Jenny's blood 
 run cold. It was her own name ringing through the 
 night. 
 
 With the instinct of a hunted animal, she held 
 her breath, put her fingers between her teeth to keep 
 them from chattering, and flattened herself against 
 the soft, clammy peat. Nearer, nearer they came. 
 Jenny! Jenny! and the cry was re-echoed by the 
 mountains opposite till it seemed to her fevered imag- 
 ination as if the evil spirits of the mountains round 
 were tossing her name backwards and forwards to 
 
 [77] 
 
each other in diabolical mockery. The shouts grew 
 fainter and fainter; at length all was still again. 
 
 But now came strange, bitter regrets that they 
 had not found her. How horrible the stillness was! 
 She tried to call after them, but the sound of her own 
 voice terrified her so that she gave it up in despair. 
 The pains, too, which she had forgotten in the mo- 
 ment of mortal anxiety, came back. 
 
 What was that white thing gleaming on the 
 stones over there? Only the skeleton of a sheep, 
 probably starved to death in winter. Jenny shud- 
 dered and her teeth began to chatter again, furiously. 
 Oh, anything but that ! The life of a convict woman 
 rather than such a Death. She must go back and 
 give herself up. Surely someone would have pity 
 on her. She burst into a fit of hysterical crying. 
 Then she struggled forward. Her strength was 
 now almost spent. She was shivering all over, yet 
 her head seemed on fire, and hunger — a devouring, 
 overwhelming hunger began to gnaw her. 
 
 Still she crawled on desperately; now falling into 
 a peat hag, now stumbling over a heap of shingle. 
 Thus down the mountainside, while her knees 
 knocked together at every step. 
 
 When she reached Farmer Langley's stead she 
 had not the courage to knock for admittance; so she 
 threw herself on a half-finished hay-rick and, cover- 
 ing herself over with hay, slept. 
 
 [78] 
 
Two hours later, when the sun ushered in another 
 gorgeous June morning, Farmer Langley's men came 
 and finished the rick. . . . 
 
 As the days went by a strange, horrible odor 
 came from the rick-yard. They pulled down the rick 
 and found poor Jenny's body. The forks of the men 
 had pierced her through and through. Was it these 
 wounds that had killed her, or had she passed away 
 before the rising of the sun? 
 
 Who shall tell? 
 
 [79] 
 
Laurence Housman 
 
 cftfr. Enoch Jones 
 §Mrs. Enoch Jones 
 
Mr. Enoch Jones 
 
 HAT we were still lovers after 
 twenty years of married life 
 Is proved by this: 
 
 We always took our bath 
 
 Together. 
 
 It was very nice, 
 
 It was also economical, 
 
 And it saved time. 
 One day, in the nice hot water, she fell asleep, 
 While I went on soaping myself. 
 With the tap still running 
 I got out to answer the telephone. 
 My wife remained asleep, 
 The water got into her lungs 
 And drowned her. 
 It was very unfortunate 
 And unexpected. 
 
 And so by getting out of hot water I got into it 
 And was hanged for it. 
 It is strange how one takes trouble and tries to 
 
 be economical 
 And fails. 
 
 [83] 
 
Mrs, Enoch Jones 
 
 He was always wanting me to bathe him — 
 
 A perfect baby! 
 
 Luxuriously lazy, warm-water crazy 
 
 (That is a rhyme, but we will overlook it)- 
 
 No wonder I tired of him! 
 
 So one day in my bath — 
 
 Our bath—* 
 
 I pretended to go to sleep 
 
 And left him to wash himself 
 
 His own way. 
 
 He took a long time over it, till the 
 
 Telephone called him. 
 
 Then I made up my mind that 
 
 I had had enough of him — 
 
 Of sharing his bath water, and the soap, 
 
 And the washing flannel, 
 
 And all the rest of it 
 
 And the unrest of it. 
 
 So I drowned myself. 
 
 What else did he expect? 
 
 [85] 
 
Selwyn Image 
 
 ToL 
 
ToL 
 
 WO weeks — just — since first we met! 
 
 You'd toyed with countless other men; 
 But me you'd never seen till then, 
 Lynnette. 
 
 You bared your body warm and white, 
 Your soft breasts rose- tipped, supple thighs: 
 You held back nothing from my sighs 
 And sight. 
 
 You gave me all to sight and kiss : 
 
 Ah ! God, what dreams were true at last ! 
 Nay, what dreams equal in the past 
 To this! 
 
 Two weeks since — just ! You know me now, 
 And knowledge makes you shy: you hide, 
 Dear, dear Lynette, your body's pride, 
 And vow 
 
 You dare not. So Love tortures one : 
 Unveils a moment at the first, 
 Then hides and leaves you just athirst, 
 Undone. 
 
 [89] 
 
Arthur Machen 
 
 English and Irish 
 My Murderer 
 
English and Irish 
 
 OBODY needs to be reminded of the 
 serious side of the Sinn Fein move- 
 ment. Whether you are an elderly 
 major-general with a shepherd's 
 »plaid tie, tied by your own hands 
 into a neat bow, a white moustache, and 
 political convictions that would have made 
 Castlereagh seem a Radical; or whether you 
 wear long hair and a scarlet flopping tie and 
 think that Bolshevism is a weak compromise: in 
 either case you know that the Irish affair is a very 
 serious one. But it has its comic side. 
 
 Long years ago — I think it was before Sinn Fein 
 had come into formal existence — I read an article by 
 an eminent Irish man of letters. That article de- 
 nounced the English language. 
 
 The writer pointed out that English had become 
 quite hopeless as a medium of fine literature. It was 
 vulgarised in every way. Its fine edges had been 
 worn down and blunted. It abounded with every 
 kind of ungrammatical colloquialism. Wretches — 
 generally known as journalists — had been the worst 
 
 [93] 
 
of offenders, debasing a coinage that was once bright 
 and golden with all sorts of neologisms and unneces- 
 sary borrowings from other languages. English, in a 
 word, was out of the question for a man who wanted 
 to do serious literary work; and the distinguished 
 author expressed his intention of learning Irish, a 
 pure, poetic, uncommercialised, unvulgarised tongue. 
 Then, he said, he would write his future books in 
 Irish. 
 
 Years after that I met him face to face. I re- 
 minded him of the famous article and tried to urge a 
 word or two in defence of the language of Shakes- 
 peare — and the novelette. But he would not budge; 
 he said that he held to every word of that article of 
 his. But he is still writing his admirable books in 
 English. 
 
 Then — this was also in the long ago of the 'nine- 
 ties of last century — I met another and an equally 
 distinguished Irish author. He said nothing about 
 the vileness of the English tongue; and, indeed, if 
 he had argued against English I should have con- 
 futed him by quotations from his own poems. But 
 he confessed to me, frankly, that, though he at- 
 tended an Irish class once a week, he had made but 
 little progress. He is still writing in English. 
 
 And then, to quote a wholly undistinguished 
 instance, I myself took it into my head, when I was 
 about 50, that I ought to know the language of my 
 fathers, which happens to be Welsh. So I applied to 
 
 [94] 
 
a Welsh literary friend, and he supplied me with a 
 little pile of Welsh books : grammar, dictionary, exer- 
 cises, First Reader and such elementary stuff, with a 
 copy of the Mabinogion, the famous collection of 
 Welsh tales, that I might apply myself to it so soon 
 as I got a real grip of the language. 
 
 I looked into the Grammar. I mastered the fact 
 that the Welsh for "father" was "tad." That seemed 
 simple. But, going on, it appeared that under certain 
 circumstances the Welsh for father was "dad." Well, 
 there was reason in that, too. I seemed to have heard 
 the term on the lips of the "cythrawl Sais" — other- 
 wise, the unpleasant English. But as I progressed 
 further and found that father might also be "thad," 
 and occasionally "nhad," I perceived that I was too 
 old. And when it came to addressing the lady of my 
 choice as "nghariad" and pretending it meant "dar- 
 ling," I broke down. I am still writing in English; 
 or, at least, I hope so. 
 
 Still, they say in Ireland that the Irish tongue is 
 being successfully revived; that it will once more 
 become the language of the Irish people. It may be 
 so; but all I can say is that this is carrying not 
 merely self-determination, but determination, very 
 far indeed. That is, if it is proposed that middle- 
 aged men shall learn it. If the children are taught 
 Irish from their earliest years, the Sinn Fein dream 
 may be realised. But the elderly are past "nghariad," 
 past learning that "sidhe" in Irish spells "she." 
 
 [95] 
 
My Murderer 
 
 L A.NY, many years ago Oscar 
 Wilde wrote a brilliant essay on 
 "The Decay of Lying." It was, 
 really, on the decay of romance 
 writing. There were admirable things in it. For 
 instance, this on the late Henry James — I quote 
 from memory — "He writes novels as if novel writ- 
 ing were a painful duty." 
 
 There was a great deal of foundation for the 
 whimsicalities of the essay then; there is more now, 
 and if we had a De Quincy in these days there would 
 be an essay "On the Decay of Murder, Considered as 
 One of the Fine Arts." Really, this Landru person ! 
 Compared with the great murderers, the classic 
 artists, as it were, he is a Fergus Hume or Guy 
 Boothby. There is no subtlety about him; he loads 
 his double-tie brush with scarlet paint ; he is a scenic 
 artist rather than an artist. As Coleridge so justly 
 observes, the supreme artist obtains his terrific, soul- 
 shattering effects by means which seem in themselves 
 insignificant ; it is the bunglers who have to paint the 
 
 [97] 
 
villa red before they can win attention. I may be par- 
 tial, but I cannot help putting My Murderer — second 
 or third rate assassin as he was — before this ostenta- 
 tious Landru. We are much too ready in England 
 to neglect home talent for foreign; there is not a 
 single French detective story fit to compare with 
 Sherlock Holmes at his best. 
 
 But My Murderer? I call him so with pride that 
 is, I trust, pardonable, because he was the only mur- 
 derer, to the best of my belief, that I have ever met. 
 He is otherwise known as the Moat Farm murderer. 
 His name was Dougal. Oddly enough, a common 
 interest brought us together. 
 
 In those days I owned a cottage on the Chiltern 
 Hills, 200 yards and more from an ill-frequented road. 
 Behind it fields and a deep beechwood going down to 
 Wormesley. I believe it was this name that captured 
 Dougal. All true artists recognise the enormous 
 importance of place names, and Dougal could not fail 
 to perceive the exquisite fitness of this name, 
 Wormesley, for his purpose. 
 
 For, the matter was : I wanted to let the cottage 
 on Turville Common, and Mr. Dougal saw the adver- 
 tisement and called on me in my London chambers. 
 With him came the lady. I could write a volume 
 about her. I can only say here that she — she is a 
 type — is aged forty-five — fifty-five — is dressed in 
 black and carries a small black bag. If you like to 
 follow her into the obscurest bar of some obscure 
 
 [98] 
 
house of refreshment, you may note her sliding a 
 small bottle out of this bag over the counter, and 
 replacing it after the filling process. 
 
 Well, I must cut the story short. Mr. Dougal 
 took my cottage for himself and the lady, whom he 
 called falsely, but fondly, Mrs. Dougal. He had his 
 reserves. He did not mention the purpose for which 
 he required the little place — the murder of the lady — 
 or I could have told him that the next house was 
 much too near. Possibly, he thought I had sup- 
 pressed material facts, for he did me down over three 
 tons of hay, won a county-court action which I was 
 fool enough to bring against him, and, with a final 
 superb gesture, went away without paying any rent. 
 
 The lady — with the little property — had left 
 before. She saw, I think, that something was amiss. 
 It was some few years before Dougal found the more 
 suitable Moat Farm in Essex and a lady of a more 
 trusting disposition. 
 
 [99] 
 
W. Clark Russell 
 
 Jack and Jill 
 
Jack and Jill 
 
 HERE are you going to, my 
 
 pretty Jack?" 
 "Going to sea, and don't mean to 
 
 come back." 
 
 "Ha'n't you got nothing upon you that chinks?" 
 "How's a brass farden to stand you in drinks?" 
 "Pawn that new weskit — it's good of its kind." 
 "Take off my weskit and nothing's behind." 
 "What of that 'ankerchief tied round your neck?" 
 "What's left to wear when I'm called up on deck?" 
 "I counts in your boots twenty whiskies in pegs." 
 "That 'ud be right if I wore wooden legs." 
 "Say, pretty Jack, what's to do with my thirst?" 
 "Pop your false teeth, you might try that on first; 
 Next take your wig to old Levi the Jew, 
 He'll give you enough to stand glasses for two." 
 "Git on, you scowbanker ! You rogue to the ground ; 
 'Ow I hope in a few days to larn that yer drown'd !" 
 
 [103] 
 
(O 
 
 Floyd Dell 
 
 Joys 
 
Joys 
 
 'VE wooed a Matron, kissed a Maid, 
 I've plied the Loafer's easy trade, 
 I've won a Race, and licked a Man, 
 Like any since the World began, 
 My Name it has been printed down 
 In Black and White before the Town, 
 I've cooked my Dish, and caught my Fish, 
 And had come true my dearest Wish, 
 But there's no Joy in all of this, 
 In bruited Fame or covert Kiss, 
 Like that of reading, hot and cold, 
 A Poem not three Minutes old! 
 
 [107] 
 
Andrew Lang 
 
 A Chortle 
 
A Chortle 
 
 >WO novels of Boisgobey's 
 Are coming out next week! 
 
 A pleasant place the globe is, 
 Two novels of Boisgobey's! 
 Their cunning plot to probe is 
 The very thing I seek. 
 Two novels of Boisgobey's 
 Are coming out next week! 
 
 [in] 
 
Lafcadio Hearn 
 
 The Chemise of Margarita Pareja 
 
The Chemise 
 of ^Margarita Pareja 
 
 T IS NOT IMPROBABLE that some of my 
 readers may have often heard the old women 
 of Lima exclaim, when complaining of the 
 high price of an article: 
 
 "What? — why that is dearer than the 
 chemise of Margarita Pareja!" 
 
 I should have sought hard to find out who 
 this Margarita Pareja was, whose chemise is 
 so famous, had I not stumbled across an 
 article written by Don Ildefonso Antonio Ber- 
 mejo, author of a famous work on Paraguay, 
 who, although he touches but very lightly 
 upon the subject of the girl and her chemise, never- 
 theless has enabled me to solve the riddle, and to 
 bring to light the facts of the story you are going 
 to read. 
 
 I. 
 
 Margarita Pareja lived in 1776 or thereabouts; 
 and was the most beloved and petted daughter of 
 
 [115] 
 
Don Raimundo Pareja, gentleman of Santiago, and 
 collector-general of Callao. 
 
 The girl belonged to that class of Lima beau- 
 ties whose charms would captivate the very devil 
 himself, and make him cross himself and even drive 
 him to distraction. 
 
 About that time there arrived from Spain a gal- 
 lant youth named Don Luis de Alcazar. He had a 
 rich bachelor uncle in Lima, an old-fashioned Ara- 
 gonese, exceedingly haughty, and unspeakably 
 proud of his ancestry. 
 
 It is reasonable to suppose that while awaiting 
 the chance to inherit from his uncle, Luis lived as 
 poorly as a church mouse, and was continually 
 haunted by melancholy. When I say that his small- 
 est requirements were obtained upon credit, to be 
 paid for as soon as he could mend his fortune, I 
 believe that I state his condition with sufficient 
 truthfulness. 
 
 On the occasion of the procession of Santa Rosa, 
 Alcazar first saw the beautiful Margarita. The girl 
 caught his eye and ensnared his heart. He pre- 
 sented her with a bunch of flowers; and although 
 she responded neither by a direct yes or no, she 
 allowed it to be inferred by her smiles and other 
 artifices of the feminine arsenal that the lad was by 
 no means displeasing to her. The truth, as I should 
 confess it, is that they fell over head and ears in love 
 with each other. 
 
 [116] 
 
As the lovers forgot there was such a thing as 
 arithmetic, Don Luis never dreamed that his pres- 
 ent poverty could be any obstacle to the success of 
 his love affair. He called upon Margarita's father, 
 and without any preamble whatever boldly de- 
 manded the hand of his daughter. 
 
 Don Raimundo did not entertain the petition 
 favorably; and dismissed the postulant with many 
 elaborate courtesies, observing that Margarita was 
 still too much of a child to think of marriage, and 
 that in spite of her eighteen summers she was still 
 attached to her dolls. 
 
 But that was not the true cause of the refusal. 
 The fact was that Don Raimundo did not care to 
 become the father-in-law of a pobreton (poor devil) ; 
 and he said as much in confidence to one of his 
 friends, who went directly with the tale to Don 
 Honorato, as the proud Aragonese uncle was named. 
 The latter, who was haughtier that the Cid himself, 
 bounded with rage at the news, and cried: "What! 
 Insult my nephew! Many would be only too happy 
 to have a chance of an alliance with that boy ; — than 
 whom there is not a finer lad in all Lima. The inso- 
 lence of the low-born clown alone betrays itself in 
 such a fashion as this. But, after all, what has this 
 miserable, pitiful collectorcillo to do with me?" 
 
 Margarita, who was born a century before her 
 time, suddenly became as hysterical as a maiden of 
 our own era; she sobbed and pulled out her hair and 
 
 [117] 
 
fainted; and if she did not threaten to poison her- 
 self, it was because matches had not yet been 
 invented. 
 
 Margarita lost her rosiness, and grew visibly 
 thinner and weaker day by day; talked about becom- 
 ing a nun, and absolutely refused to listen to reason. 
 She would cry "O de Luis o de Dios!" (either Luis 
 or God) every time the hysterics came on, which 
 was very often. The Santiago caballero became 
 finally much alarmed, and called in doctors and 
 nurses — all of whom swore that the girl was going 
 into consumption, and that the only medicine which 
 could save her was not sold in apothecaries' shops. 
 
 "Either marry her to the lad she loves or make 
 her coffin ready!" Such was the doctor's ultimatum. 
 
 So Don Raimundo, remembering only that he 
 was a father, rushed without hat or cloak to the res- 
 idence of Don Honorato and said to him: 
 
 "I have come to beg your consent to the mar- 
 riage of your nephew with Margarita tomorrow 
 morning; for otherwise the girl will die." 
 
 "Oh, utterly impossible! utterly, utterly impos- 
 sible ! !" ironically responded the uncle. "My nephew 
 is only a poor devil, and the man you must seek for 
 your daughter's husband is a rich man, a man of 
 money, a man of large resources!" 
 
 The dialogue was a stormy one. The more Don 
 Raimundo supplicated, the more Don Honorato 
 seemed to harden his heart; and both were about to 
 
 [118] 
 
retire from the scene, when Don Luis ventured to 
 break in upon the discussion, saying: 
 
 "But, uncle, it is not Christianlike to kill those 
 who have done no wrong." 
 
 "Indeed! Am I to understand that you wish to 
 sacrifice yourself for that girl's sake?" 
 
 "With all my heart and soul, Uncle y Senor." 
 
 "Very well, boy; I consent, since it seems to 
 give you pleasure; but only upon one condition, and 
 that is this: Don Raimundo must swear to me upon 
 the Sacred Host that he will not present his 
 daughter with one single ochavo, nor bequeath her 
 in his will even so much as a real." 
 
 This renewed the quarrel in a new form. 
 
 "But, man," cried Don Raimundo, "my daughter 
 has a dowry of twenty thousand duros!" 
 
 "We renounce the dowry. The girl must come 
 to the house of her husband with nothing but her 
 shift on." 
 
 "At least permit me to marry her with some 
 little formality — her trousseau and furniture and — " 
 
 "No, sir — not so much as a pin. If you do not 
 like my terms, renounce them, and let the little one 
 die!" 
 
 "But, Don Honorato, try to be reasonable. My 
 daughter must at least have a chemise, in the way 
 of wedding apparel." 
 
 "Well, I will yield this point, lest you might 
 think me obstinate. I consent that you give her a 
 
 [119] 
 
bridal chemise; and now let us end the discussion." 
 Don Raimundo and Don Honorato rode to San 
 Francisco at daybreak next morning; and while 
 kneeling at mass during the elevation of the Host, 
 the former swore according to the compact: 
 
 "I swear not to give my daughter anything 
 except the bridal chemise. May God judge me if I 
 perjure myself." 
 
 II. 
 
 And Don Raimundo Pareja kept his oath to the 
 letter; for neither during his life nor at his death 
 did he ever afterward give his daughter anything 
 worth a maravedi. 
 
 The Flemish laces which adorned the bridal 
 chemise cost two thousand seven hundred duros, 
 according to Bermejo, who seems to have copied the 
 statement from the Relaciones Secretas of Ulloa and 
 Don Jorge Juan. 
 
 Item, the string which confined the chemise at 
 the neck was a chain of brilliants valued at thirty 
 thousand morlascoes. 
 
 Assuredly, Margarita Parejo's chemise deserved 
 its fame. 
 
 [120] 
 
Wilbur Underwood 
 
 Translations 
 
 Verlaine: Pierrot 
 
 Woman and Cat 
 Shells 
 
 Baudelaire: To Death 
 
Pierrot 
 
 (Verlaine) 
 
 O more the old tune's dreamer he, 
 
 moon-led, 
 Who from high panels laughing 
 
 used to peer; 
 His gaiety like his candle long is dead, 
 His ghost it is that haunts us, thin and clear ; 
 And mid the terror of the lightning's glare 
 Blown by cold winds his pale blouse seems a shroud, 
 His mouth wide-gaping with a frightful air 
 Under the bite of worms seems howling loud; 
 And with the sound of night-birds' flight through 
 
 space 
 His white sleeves on the bleak void vaguely trace 
 Meaningless signs to which none makes reply; 
 His eyes are great holes, phosphor-rimmed and jet, 
 And flour-white powder makes more dreadful yet 
 His face, sharp-nosed like one about to die. 
 
 [123] 
 
Woman and Qat 
 
 (Ferlaine) 
 
 HE frolicked with her cat 
 And it was a wonderful sight 
 To see the white hand and 
 the white paw 
 Sport in the dim twilight 
 
 Under her black-thread mitts, 
 The wretch, she hid unseen 
 Her murderous agate nails, 
 Sharp as a knife and keen. 
 
 The cat played primness too, 
 And her pointed claws withdrew, 
 But naught lost the Devil thereby. 
 
 And in the room where sonorous 
 Rang her airy laughter high 
 Shone four spots of phosphorus. 
 
 [125] 
 
Shells 
 
 (Verlaine) 
 
 ACH crusted shell that doth enhance 
 The grotto where our love-tide rolls 
 Hath its sweet significance. 
 
 One hath the purple of sour souls 
 Caught from our heart's blood in the 
 
 stress 
 When flaming love our sense controls. 
 
 This one affects thy languorousness 
 And pallor when with love remote 
 Thou lov'st my mocking eyes the less. 
 
 And this one counterfeits the note 
 Of thine ear and that one, see, 
 The rosy fullness of thy throat. 
 
 But one among them troubles me. 
 
 [127] 
 
To Death 
 
 (Baudelaire) 
 
 DEATH, thou captain old, time 
 strikes, thine anchor lift, 
 
 We weary of this land, O death 
 unfurl for flight; 
 
 Though black be all the skies and 
 seas wherethrough we drift 
 Our hearts thou knowest well are full of radiant light. 
 
 Pour us thy poison out and may it hearten well; 
 We long, so much this fire burns fierce our worn 
 
 brain through, 
 To plunge deep in the gulf, be heaven our port or hell, 
 Plunge deep down the unknown to find a world that's 
 
 new. 
 
 [129] 
 
The Bow 
 
 (Charles Cros) 
 
 F the lady's hair there was no dearth, 
 Gold as the grain in Autumn's girth 
 It rippled down unto the earth. 
 
 Her strange low voice you need 
 must mark, 
 It seemed the voice of a Serapharch; 
 Green eyes looked out from lashes dark. 
 
 He never feared a rival more 
 While he traversed vale and shore 
 Bearing her on his horse before. 
 
 For on all of that countree 
 She had looked full haughtily 
 Until him she came to see. 
 
 And love's strength smote her with such dole 
 That for smiles and mockings droll 
 A sickness crept upon her soul. 
 
 [131] 
 
And mid her last caresses there: 
 "Make a bowstring of my hair 
 To charm your other ladies fair." 
 
 Then with a long sweet kiss of woe 
 She died; and straight the knight did go 
 And of her hair he made a bow. 
 
 Like a blindman making groan, 
 
 On a viol of Cremone 
 
 Played he, begging alms with moan. 
 
 And all who heard those sobbing strings 
 Were drunk with joyous shudderings, 
 The dead lived in their quiverings. 
 
 The King was charmed and favoured him; 
 He chanced to please the dark Queen's whim 
 And fled with her in the moonlight dim. 
 
 But each time that he touched it, so 
 To play unto the Queen, the bow 
 Reproached him mournfully and low. 
 
 And at the sound of that deathstrain 
 They died halfway adown the plain; 
 The dead took back her pledge again. 
 
 Took back her hair that knew no dearth, 
 That, gold as the grain in Autumn's girth, 
 Rippled down unto the earth. 
 
 [132] 
 
Joseph 
 Hergesheimer 
 
 The Little Kanaka 
 
The Little Kanaka 
 
 HE was in a cellar, what, I believe, in 
 a connection now lost, was called a 
 Keller, at the Hotel Richmond. There 
 were seven of them on the platform, 
 six men and the girl, all from Hawaii. 
 And, while the men talked together, 
 or even smiled, she was silent and grave. The ceil- 
 ing was low, the floor was laid in cement, and 
 electric fans tore into impalpable streamers the 
 dead penned air. They, the Kanakas, were there to 
 play for the dancing, yet when they began the heavy 
 and stupid beat of a piano drowned, practically, 
 whatever delicacy the strings of their guitars might 
 otherwise have held. 
 
 The piano, however, was necessary to mark the 
 beat to which the shuffling couples danced; couples 
 at once young and without the gaiety and freedom 
 of youth, revolving, in hideous and constricting 
 clothes, with blanched and empty faces. The Kan- 
 aka girl's face was still, but its immobility was 
 stamped with an unfathomable brown primitive 
 
 [135] 
 
mystery. Yet it bore, as well, a perceptible degree 
 of memory, utterly self-contained; a wondering, too 
 deep even for thought, at the strangeness of fate. 
 And the quality of that memory, in a cellar, on a 
 narrow platform of boards, in the stirred exhausted 
 air, created suddenly an illusion of the dazzling 
 rush of water and sun over the South Seas. 
 
 I recalled how, in his memoir, Captain Whalley 
 spoke of making — after the frozen unendurable 
 waste of Cape Horn — the harbor of Papeete; where, 
 in a tropical and heavenly calm of indigo and silver 
 and green, the Kanaka girls swam out to the ship 
 with hybiscus flowers in their hair. How tragic- 
 ally lost that moment was, not only for the girl 
 isolated in the hard glare of an artificial incandes- 
 cence, but for me as well! That phase of romance, 
 of reward, was over; and the ruinous compromise 
 about us, emphasized by the piano, only remained. 
 
 Then, out of the incongruous and mingled 
 stridor, the men's voices carried the burden of a 
 song; and somehow, it evaded the restrictions of the 
 West, the measure necessary for the mechanical 
 couples — its sustained minor key, like the murmur 
 of a surf on the outer coral reef, was native and 
 harmonious and unregenerate. It escaped, returned 
 to the huts thatched with nipa palm, to the sim- 
 plicity of brief clearings between the high-lifted 
 fronds of the cocoanut palms and the sea. It went 
 back to an idyllic time before commercial Chris- 
 
 [136] 
 
tianity — or Christian commerce? — had extended its 
 lanes of trade and finally introduced, into far ver- 
 dant islands, the doubtful advantages of the mus- 
 kets, the diseases and distilled grains of civilization. 
 
 But of all this, certainly, the Kanaka girl was 
 ignorant, for her emotions would be formless, un- 
 reasoned. Perhaps she was already wholly de- 
 stroyed by the forces, the admirable progressive 
 forces, to which all primitive people were specially 
 susceptible. Yet against that possibility, against 
 any conceivable and debauched preferences, she was 
 invested with the charming melancholy of what had 
 been beautiful and had gone. Her intense black 
 hair, as solid as poured ink, swinging across her 
 high cheek bones, her dwelling eyes, a mouth wide 
 and vivid and innocently cruel, were immeasurably 
 richer than the so much later pallor of the meagre 
 faces — the dancing at a pause — gathered about the 
 tables. 
 
 But success, victory, belonged to the latter: 
 the figures on the platform, in white with soft red 
 sashes, were the servants of pleasure to the indus- 
 trious and the drained. The army of mediocrity, 
 sweeping from land to land, and crossing all the 
 seas, was overwhelming with its envious hypocrisy 
 whatever was natural and superior, happy and true. 
 The conversion of the heathen, begun in Cuba with 
 Spanish steel, through friendly islands in a barter- 
 
 [137] 
 
ing creed, was being bravely carried forward to its 
 irrevocable end. 
 
 A waiter, stopping beside me, informed me that 
 the girl — the little Kanaka — would dance at half 
 past ten and again at a quarter to twelve. And, 
 paying for my coffee as hastily as possible, I left; I 
 fled, really, from the accusing possibility of seeing 
 her — in wreaths of dusty paper flowers where there 
 had once been hybiscus — dance in a vulgar travesty 
 of the natural perfection she had once possessed. I 
 could not face her standing in alien and tinsel slip- 
 pers on the cold floor of a cellar; an object of no 
 more than indecent curiosity. For, unavoidably, I 
 too had fetched her away from the perpetual cool 
 harsh rustle of the palms, into a place, an existence, 
 an hour, without safety or any escape. 
 
 [138] 
 
Lord Dunsany 
 
 A Request 
 
A ^Request 
 
 HEN I am out of fashion 
 
 Like hats that once they wore, 
 Or some long-opened ration, 
 And no one reads me more, 
 Then give me some compassion 
 Who loved my books before. 
 
 When new young men write verses 
 
 That I don't understand, 
 And thick gray mist immerses 
 
 My mind-seen glittering land 
 And only weary hearses 
 
 Travel its golden sand, 
 
 Say to that jeunesse doree, 
 
 Though it be trite to say, 
 That I too found a glory 
 
 Far eastward of Cathay 
 And wrote a golden story 
 
 That's had its golden day. 
 
 [141] 
 
A. Neil Lyons 
 
 The Drum 
 
 I 
 
The Drum 
 
 Y NED has gone, he's gone away, 
 he's gone away for good; 
 He's called, he's killed. 
 Him and his drum lies in the rain, 
 lies in the rain where they was stood, 
 Where they was stilled. 
 He was my soldier boy, my Ned, 
 Between these breasts he'd lay his head. 
 
 But now he's killed. 
 My soldier's gone. His head lies now between two 
 naked stones, 
 
 His drum is broke. 
 There's none to mourn him in the rain, only the 
 rooks which watch his bones; 
 Which watch and croak. 
 His great red hand is wasted bare, 
 That tapped his drum, that touched my hair. 
 Hark! Not a stroke. 
 
 [145] 
 
But what is this beside my heart, beside my heart 
 that sounds? 
 
 Tap tap, tap tap! 
 Oh, what is this that beats within, like drummers 
 beating bounds 
 
 Rap upon rap? 
 What wonder have I felt and heard? 
 Is it the wing-beats of a bird? 
 
 Tap tap, tap tap! 
 My boy is gone, yet near my heart another boy lies 
 now. 
 
 Though he be dumb, 
 He thumps my heart like soldiers thump, he thumps 
 a tow-row-row, 
 
 To say he's come. 
 A drummer boy, all gaily dres't, 
 Will yet again be at my breast. 
 
 Hark! There's his drum! 
 
 [146] 
 
Maurice Hewlett 
 
 The London That Is Far Off 
 
The London That Is Far Off 
 
 IKE many another man of his age, Mr. Arthur 
 Machen* looks wistfully back along the ring- 
 ing grooves of change, and thinks that he is 
 worse off now than he used to be. The beer 
 tasted better, the eggs were fresher, the grass 
 greener, London was smaller, or he 
 felt himself bigger than to-day he 
 does. I am in sympathy with him, 
 though I do not feel like that about it myself, and 
 am not convinced that he really does either. 
 
 We must be near contemporaries, for I remem- 
 ber all the things that he remembers, and some 
 that he does not — which, if he did, he would surely 
 have recalled. He writes, for instance, of the 
 greater state kept by the grandees of 1870-80. I 
 remember hatchments on great Mayfair houses, and 
 the vision of a wonderful old lady in a coach and 
 four. Was she not the Duchess of Cleveland? She 
 had postilions in white beavers and satin jackets, 
 and two footmen dancing up and down behind her, 
 
 *A review of "Far Off Things," by Arthur Machen. 
 
 [149] 
 
perched on a narrow footboard and holding them- 
 selves on by straps. 
 
 My grandfather (one of them) had a family 
 coach with an outside back seat called a rum- 
 ble, in which my brother and I much preferred to 
 ride. It was as big as a ship's boat and lifted us high 
 above the traffic. Mr. Machen thinks all that was 
 splendid, and that the modern motorcar is not so 
 splendid. I agree. 
 
 Where I differ from him is in his regret for the 
 fading of the vision. I fear that I share what he calls 
 "that vile 'Liberal' objection to splendour as splen- 
 dour." The man, he says, "who found 'Blazes' ridic- 
 ulous would probably find the King in his coronation 
 robes equally ridiculous." Quite so. We are all so 
 ridiculous essentially that none of us can afford to 
 dress up. 
 
 Mr. Machen candidly says that he regrets the 
 loss of "smartness" in his betters. I think we are all 
 better without it. Then, as now, one kind of smart- 
 ness had often to be maintained by another. 
 Montagu Tigg, as he remembers, so maintained 
 Tigg Montagu. And were there not a Baron Grant 
 in our young days, and a very splendid Marquess of 
 Hastings? 
 
 No, no. Handsome always was, it is, and it will 
 forever be, as Handsome does, whatever the horse- 
 power by which we elect to be driven; and that is a 
 comfortable word for Mr. Machen — or it should be. 
 
 [150] 
 
I doubt whether human nature has changed in 
 anything essential since Mr. Machen and I were lads 
 in London. I doubt whether it has changed since 
 King Lud was a lad there. 
 
 What has happened is that there is much more 
 of it, and too much to be comfortable. You can't, so 
 to speak, see human nature for the human beings. 
 
 Why, I remember Piccadilly when it looked like 
 a street in Chichester on an off day. My grandfather 
 (the other one) used to ride up it every morning to 
 his office in Gray's Inn. He rode a white pony, and 
 used to look out for the Duke of Wellington, so that 
 he might touch his hat to him, and receive (as he 
 always did) a touch in return. That, to be sure, was 
 much before my time, but I remember him on his 
 pony quite well. 
 
 And I remember Piccadilly, too, when there were 
 market carts in it at noon, wagons with four horses, 
 and an occasional old fly-blown bus with a few hardy 
 climbers on its roof. A beau on horseback would be 
 drawn up to the kerb for a gossip with friends on foot. 
 Presently a basket carriage drawn by a pair of ponies 
 would come along, a shawled lady driving, a cockaded 
 urchin at the back, with his arms tied in a knot. 
 
 Leisurely, pleasant, sun-flecked life in that old 
 Piccadilly ! But human nature was just the same. 
 
 Another wail of Mr. Machen's is for Holywell 
 street, and its less than questionable, its unquestion- 
 able, connotations. Squalor may be picturesque in 
 
 [151] 
 
retrospect; "the old hugger-mugger of the London 
 back streets, dark taverns of the eighteenth century, 
 where men had lain hidden from the hangman" — yes, 
 I know. There were Elzevirs to be had in Booksell- 
 ers-row and Clare Market; and there were bugs, too, 
 and smells galore. Unsavoury works could be had 
 there — Mysteries of Paris, Mysteries of St. James's, 
 Fanny Hill, Mrs. Clark, Harriet Wilson, and their 
 likes. Does he regret them? I don't suppose he does. 
 
 "To be in the Strand," he says, sighing, "was like 
 drinking punch and reading Dickens." So it was — 
 but one can read Dickens the better without the 
 punch, either within or without the pages. It was 
 a strange chapter of literary history where human 
 happiness could not be imagined or pictured without 
 too much to eat and too much to drink. I will be 
 sentimental with almost anyone, for the mingling 
 of tears is as wholesome a vent as the chiming of 
 laughter — but I cannot cry over the bad smells of 
 yesteryear to save my life. When I remember Holy- 
 well street I turn with thanksgiving to Charing 
 Cross-road. It is nothing to write home about — 
 but you can feel the wind in it. So much for that. 
 
 When he regrets the passing of sound literature 
 I am much more of Mr. Machen's mind. He seems 
 to have found Sir Walter Scott in his father's book- 
 shelves at about the same time as I also found him, in 
 the same sort of place. But where will you find Sir 
 Walter Scott now, or who is there to look for him? 
 
 [152] 
 
He calls the Waverley Novels "vital literature." 
 "Vital literature," he goes on to say, "is something as 
 remote as you can possibly imagine from the short 
 stories of the late Guy de Maupassant" — or from the 
 long ones of the late Emile Zola, he might have 
 added. I am obliged to him for that stave of his 
 elegy. 
 
 I don't know, myself, how novels, which are 
 worth calling novels, are going to be produced in the 
 future of a race which has not been nourished on the 
 likes of Walter Scott. Nor do I think it a hopeful 
 outlook for English prose itself that the future ex- 
 ponents of it must be men who have never had read 
 to them, and do not themselves read, the Authorised 
 Version of the Bible. Ways and means may exist, 
 or may be found, but I don't know where. 
 
 The novel, as it has been so far understood, 
 demands body (solidity) and soul (universality); 
 good prose demands sonority, dignity, and above all 
 things simplicity. Where now are we going to find 
 such quality? None of us knows. 
 
 But we must have courage and keep good hearts. 
 After all, we forgot the Mass, took up with Luther, 
 and did not do so badly. If, now, Luther is to give 
 way to a new prophet, he has served his turn. Wir 
 heissen euch hoffen, let us say to Mr. Machen. His 
 Gwentland (and a noble country that is) remains, and 
 his Gwentlanders are the same people. So, if he could 
 but see it, are his Londoners, splendid or not. 
 
 [153] 
 
Anonymous 
 
 Aucassin and Nicolete 
 
Aucassin and Nicolete 
 
 F THE LOVE OF Aucassin 
 Sung by minstrel long ago, 
 It were well for all to know — 
 Ne'er would I the tale forget ! 
 Heaven were hell were she not 
 there, 
 
 Hell with her were passing fair; 
 Ah! such love beseemeth man — 
 Love like his for Nicolete! 
 
 She a tender, Paynim maid, 
 
 From the Saracens was bought, 
 
 By a knight to Provence brought, 
 Where in time her love she met; 
 
 He the son of Count Biaucaire, 
 
 To the seigneury was heir; 
 But alas! he disobeyed 
 When he looked on Nicolete. 
 
 How the haughty Seigneur swore 
 When he learned the fatal truth 
 Of the love of maid and youth — 
 
 [157] 
 
Better they had never met! 
 
 Divers threats he caused to spread, 
 Grievous tears the maiden shed, 
 
 She was stricken to the core — 
 
 Poor, heartbroken, Nicolete! 
 
 To the forest depths she stole; 
 Aucassin there followed fast, 
 At her feet his love he cast — 
 
 Vowed he'd nothing to regret. 
 Not for him the castles great, 
 Not for him the vast estate; 
 
 It was naught, upon his soul! 
 
 When compared with Nicolete. 
 
 Far away the lovers rode, 
 
 Slacked they not the bridle rein, 
 Till from Count Biaucaire's domain, 
 
 Many miles were in their debt; 
 They have crossed to other lands, 
 They have trod on foreign sands, 
 
 And in knightly halls abode — 
 
 Aucassin and Nicolete. 
 
 Came the Saracens by stealth, 
 Swept the castles of their stores, 
 Captives carried to the shores — 
 
 Ah, the ground with tears is wet! 
 To the West went Aucassin, 
 Prisoner of the Mussulman; 
 
 [158] 
 
To the East with all their wealth 
 Took they weeping Nicolete! 
 
 Back to Provence Aucassin 
 Turned to find his father dead; 
 He a Seigneur in his stead 
 
 Ruled the country well; and yet 
 For the absent one he sighed, 
 Love to other maids denied, 
 
 Placed his heart beneath a ban — 
 
 He was true to Nicolete! 
 
 Strolled a minstrel, brown and young, 
 Story sung of lovers true — 
 One that Aucassin well knew — 
 
 Ceased at once his heart to fret; 
 He that singer took aside 
 Plead for tidings of his bride — 
 
 She whose name lived on his tongue 
 
 Fair-browed, lady Nicolete! 
 
 Sped the troubadour away, 
 Came there presently instead 
 She whom he had mourned as dead- 
 She on whom his heart was set; 
 Never man so glad as he, 
 Never maid so joyed as she; 
 They were wedded ere the day — 
 Aucassin and Nicolete. 
 
 [159] 
 
Gustav Meyrink 
 
 The c DeviV$ grindstone 
 
TTie Devil's Grindstone 
 
 HERE is an ancient house in the old and 
 lonely part of town. From the first floor 
 to the attic it is inhabited by discontented and 
 unhappy people. Whosoever enters it is at 
 once seized by a feeling of disquietude, of dis- 
 may, and mental torment. It is a dark and 
 sinister structure, buried almost up to its 
 belly in the earth of the unpaved hill. 
 
 In the centre of the cellar there lies an iron 
 plate. Whosoever ventures to lift it may look into 
 a black and narrow shaft with slippery sides. Cold 
 and sheer it runs down into the heart of the earth. 
 Often had torches attached to ropes been let 
 down into this hole. They sank deeply into the 
 darkness and their light became ever weaker and 
 more smoldering. Then the torches would go out 
 and the people would say: "There ain't any 
 more air!" 
 
 And so nobody has ever found out whither this 
 shaft goes. 
 
 Should you, however, be possessed of clear eyes, 
 you will be able to see without light. You will be 
 
 [163] 
 
able to see even in the darkness, when everybody 
 else is sleeping. 
 
 When the people of this city succumb to the 
 night and consciousness vanishes, then the spectres 
 of Sin and Greed leave their perches upon the pen- 
 dulum of human hearts. These spectres are of a 
 shimmering green; their outlines are dim and uncer- 
 tain, and they are utterly hideous, for there is no 
 love in the hearts of these human beings. 
 
 The people of the town are weary from their 
 day's work, which they call duty, and so they seek 
 to replenish their forces through sleep, in order to 
 be able to destroy the happiness and prosperity of 
 their fellow brethren — in order to plan new murders 
 in the newest, freshest sunshine. 
 
 They sleep and they snore. 
 
 Then the shadows of the Sins and Lusts slip 
 through the cracks in the doors and the crevices in 
 the walls into the open air — slink into the vast and 
 hearkening night. The sleeping animals scent them 
 and start and whimper. 
 
 The shadows creep and dart into the old and 
 gloomy house, into the mouldy cellar where lies the 
 iron plate. And the iron is without weight when it 
 is touched by the hands of these spirits. In its deep- 
 est profundities the shaft broadens out — it is there 
 that the phantoms meet. They do not greet one 
 another and they ask no questions — there is nothing 
 which one would care to know about the other. 
 
 [164] 
 
In the middle of this chamber hums a grey stone 
 disk, revolving at an enormous speed. This stone, 
 harder than adamant or obsidian, was tempered by 
 the Evil One thousands of years ago, tempered and 
 annealed in the fires of hate — long before a single 
 stone of this city stood. 
 
 Upon its whirring and whizzing edges the 
 phantoms sharpen their prehensile claws, those 
 claws which their serfs, the day-labourers in the 
 Devil's Vineyard, had used and scratched blunt. 
 
 The sparks spurt from the onyx claws of Lust, 
 from the steel talons of Greed. 
 
 All, all of them are once more sharpened into 
 points like needles and to edges like razors, — for the 
 Evil One has need of ever-new wounds. 
 
 If the sleeping mortal stretches his fingers, then 
 this is a signal for the phantom to rush back into 
 the body. The claws must remain crooked so that 
 the hands cannot be joined in prayer. 
 
 Satan's grindstone continues to whirr — cease- 
 lessly — never diminishing its speed — 
 
 Day and night — 
 
 Until Time shall stand still and space be broken 
 up. 
 
 * * 
 
 If you will but hold your hands to your ears, 
 you will hear the whirring of the grindstone within 
 you. 
 
 [165] 
 
Lionel Johnson 
 
 To % L. S. 
 
 I 
 
To R. L. S. 
 
 [Requiescat in pace anima dilectissimi scriptoris] 
 
 ^p ECAUSE, with many a goodly word, 
 
 My flagging pulses you have stirred, 
 And, when to me high noon seemed 
 
 night, 
 Have flooded me with gallant light: 
 
 I, who, to this, your island home, 
 
 A stranger, yet a friend have come, 
 
 Give, for your memorable sake, 
 
 This poor, best wish, that I could make. 
 
 [169] 
 
Wm. Cullen Bryant 
 
 Stanzas 
 
Stanzas 
 
 OT that from life, and all its woes, 
 The hand of life shall set me free; 
 
 Not that this head shall then repose 
 In the low vale, most peacefully. 
 
 Ah! when I touch time's furthest brink, 
 
 A kinder solace must attend; 
 It chills my very soul to think 
 
 On that dread hour when life must end. 
 
 In vain the flattering verse may breathe 
 Of ease from pain, and rest from strife ; 
 
 There is a sacred dread of death 
 
 Inwoven with the strings of life. 
 
 This bitter cup at first was given 
 
 When angry Justice frowned severe ; 
 
 And 'tis the eternal doom of Heaven 
 
 That men must view the grave with fear. 
 
 [173] 
 
Paul Eldridge 
 
 Emperor of ZMicamaca 
 
Emperor of Micamaca 
 
 FOR SEVERAL months now Don Quijote had 
 been Emperor of Micamaca, and his faithful shield- 
 bearer, Sancho Panza, Governor-Generola. Greater 
 than all modern countries was Micamaca, and more 
 beautiful. An endless garden. A Paradise without 
 a "tree of knowledge," without a treacherous snake, 
 a silly woman, and an over-bearing lord. A travel- 
 ler could not tell what struck him most — the deep 
 scarlet of the roses, or the lily-whiteness of the 
 womens' faces, or the noble bearing of the men. An 
 eternal Summer was Micamaca, where the rain fell 
 only to deepen the lustre of things, and the wind 
 blew only to scatter perfumes of great delight. 
 
 Profound were the love and the admiration of 
 the people of Micamaca for their Emperor and their 
 Governor-General. The women like exquisite fruit 
 hanging ripe upon trees implored to be culled and 
 bitten into. The men begged to be dressed as 
 soldiers to wage war against any nation. 
 
 But Don Quijote, Emperor, looked in the great 
 silver-mirror, and though he saw himself dazzling 
 
 [177] 
 
with gold and precious stones, turned his face in a 
 vast despair. He uttered sighs, deep and rumbling 
 and circular like sorrowful winds. 
 
 "How long, my dear friends, shall we remain 
 chained to this evil dream, this monstrous incanta- 
 tion?" 
 
 Sancho Panza, Governor-General, unlocked his 
 arms from the waist of a beautiful Micamacienne, 
 and approached his master. His feet clanked with 
 the silver spurs, and his scimitar, studded with 
 jewels of all colors, beat lightly against his side, 
 while his body, protruding far beyond him, shone 
 with decorations and wide golden bands. 
 
 "What evil dreams, Your Majesty?" 
 
 "This enchanted hut; this pig-sty." 
 
 Sancho Panza screwed his small eyes, until they 
 vanished completely in their velvet bed of fat. 
 
 "This pig-sty?" he muttered at last, dazed. 
 
 "Look at yourself, Sancho. How they have 
 fattened you! You roll upon your short legs like a 
 heavy barrel." 
 
 Sancho Panza, Governor-General, was insulted. 
 
 "The beautiful women of Micamaca call my 
 bearing elegant, Your Majesty." 
 
 Don Quijote, Emperor, continued without hear- 
 ing the answer, — "And look at me. Where is the 
 long face of the 'Knight of the Sorrowful Visage?' 
 A moon — reddish and full — gazing dully." 
 
 [178] 
 
"The women of Micamaca call their Emperor 
 the handsomest of men." 
 
 "Remember this, my son, — to raisers of hogs, 
 there is nothing more beautiful than a fat, dull hog." 
 
 There are neither hogs nor raisers of hogs in 
 Micamaca, Your Majesty. The only animals these 
 people eat are lambs as white as snow, and pigeons 
 with feet of cardinals." 
 
 "This only proves that you have been more 
 profoundly enchanted and more successfully fat- 
 tened than myself. I am but half-dazed. I tell you, 
 my son, if we do not hurry out of this place, we shall 
 soon walk on all fours, and grunt and seek muddy 
 troughs, — like this woman approaching us now." 
 
 "This woman? Dulcinea — Your Majesty — Dul- 
 cinea, Empress of Micamaca, whose voice is more 
 beautiful than the song of nightingales, whose face 
 is more radiant than the stars." Saying this, the 
 Governor-General made many efforts at deep bow- 
 ing, which he could not accomplish on account of his 
 great body protruding far beyond him, shining with 
 decorations and wide golden bands. 
 
 "My Lord, your slave bids you good-day," 
 spoke or rather sang Dulcinea, Empress of Mica- 
 maca, to Don Quijote, Emperor of Micamaca. And 
 she knelt upon her dazzling knees, hidden beneath 
 gorgeous silk. "Take her away, Sancho, my son, — 
 beat her with a stick. Let her not grunt at my feet ! 
 
 [179] 
 
Drive the sow off! Her paws are muddy. She 
 smells like a litter of hogs." 
 
 The Empress stunned, remained kneeling. The 
 Governor-General opened and closed his mouth, — 
 the broken black teeth of the upper jaw seeking in 
 vain to touch the broken black teeth of the lower 
 jaw. The Emperor walked slowly to the window, 
 sighing deep, circular sighs like mournful winds. 
 
 "Arise, Your Majesty," at last the Governor- 
 General managed to say, trying in vain to bend to 
 lift her. 
 
 "It does not matter, dear friend," the Empress 
 answered, "if my Lord thinks me a sow. I shall be 
 his devoted, his faithful sow." She arose, and 
 walked off, two tears like two great pearls, like two 
 small stars, piercing her magnificent eyes. 
 
 Sancho-Panza, Governor-General of Micamaca, 
 watched the Emperor press his nose against the 
 window-pane. 
 
 "My master is mad!" he thought. "But that 
 should not hinder me from embracing the beautiful 
 Micamaciennes who give themselves up like de- 
 licious fruit, nor from eating the lambs as white as 
 milk, and the pigeons with feet of cardinals." 
 
 "Sancho, my friend, come here, and watch this 
 great ugly wind-mill turn." 
 
 The Governor-General walked slowly, heavily 
 to the window, his feet clanking with the silver 
 spurs, his studded scimitar beating lightly against 
 
 [180] 
 
his side. He presed his heavy nose against the 
 window-pane, and looked out. 
 
 "I see no wind-mill, Your Majesty." 
 
 "Yonder — there — beyond the trees." 
 
 "That is not a wind-mill, Your Majesty. It is 
 your body-guard, composed of the handsomest 
 officers, drilling." 
 
 "Sancho, my friend, you are lost. They have 
 enchanted you completely, alas!" 
 
 The Governor-General had the impulse to kneel 
 before His Majesty, and beg him to come to his 
 senses, but his body protruding far beyond him for- 
 bade him from doing it. Instead he took his 
 master's hand, and kissed it. 
 
 "Your Majesty, I beg of you, — be reasonable! 
 See things as they are. When we used to encounter 
 wind-mills in our humble days, you used to think 
 them great armies, and now the flower of the finest 
 army in the world, you consider a wind-mill!" 
 
 "O, Sancho, Sancho, faithful shield-bearer to 
 the once great Don Quijote, most valiant knight of 
 Spain — you shall soon walk on all fours and grunt." 
 
 "How should I walk on all fours, when I cannot 
 even bend? A moment ago, I wanted to kneel be- 
 fore you, but could not." 
 
 "Sancho, my friend, I am still enough of the 
 'Knight of the Sorrowful Visage' to speak figura- 
 tively. When I spoke of you as walking on all fours 
 and grunting, I meant spiritually. To all the 
 
 [181] 
 
knights of old, the spirit only counted. What is it 
 to me if they call me Emperor, if my spirit is turning 
 into a hog?" 
 
 "I cannot understand you, Your Majesty. You 
 are Emperor. Dulcinea is Empress. The most 
 beautiful women are your hand-maids. The greatest 
 army recognizes you as their supreme ruler. What 
 more can you desire?" 
 
 "It's true, Sancho, you never belonged to the 
 race of knights. Your nose always sought the mud, 
 like the snouts of pigs. Your belly was always more 
 important to you than your soul." 
 
 "If I never belonged to the race of Knights, — 
 I am now mightier than all of them. What were 
 they but half-naked wanderers, mocked at by 
 people? I am Governor-General of Micamaca, the 
 greatest country in the world. And my subjects love 
 me and respect me. I am dressed in gold and jewels, 
 and dwell in a palace." 
 
 The Emperor smiled sadly. 
 
 "How can you be satisfied with rags? I irk 
 underneath mine. They stifle me. Take this bar- 
 ber's basin off my head, and lather your beard in it." 
 
 The Emperor bent his head, until his chin 
 touched his chest. 
 
 "Never, Your Majesty! It's the greatest crown 
 in the world!" 
 
 The Emperor raised his head, and sighed deeply 
 like the breath of a bottomless well. 
 
 [182] 
 
"The greatest crown in the world is Imagina- 
 tion, Sancho. There is no imagination beneath this 
 heavy thing." 
 
 "I prefer Reality, Your Majesty." 
 
 "Alas! You have always preferred Reality. 
 But I do not blame you. The Age of Knighthood is 
 past, and even I, Don Quijote De La Mancha, the 
 greatest Knight of Spain and of Europe, am but the 
 slave of a suit trimmed with gold and studded with 
 jewels. O Dulcinea, Dulcinea Del Toboso, I have 
 been unfaithful to thy name! Despise me, disown 
 me!" 
 
 "Dulcinea loves you, dear Master. She awaits 
 your command to kneel at your feet." 
 
 "Dulcinea?" 
 
 "Dulcinea, Empress of Micamaca." 
 
 "I speak of Dulcinea Del Toboso." 
 
 "Dulcinea Del Toboso tends to pigs and sheep, 
 and smells like them." 
 
 The Emperor raised his arm. 
 
 "Beware, low-bred fool, or I'll strike you dead! 
 Never dare to speak to me in such terms of the most 
 beautiful of ladies, the purest, the wisest!" 
 
 The Governor-General retreated as quickly as 
 he could. He understood and appreciated Reality, 
 and the reality of a blow he knew to be painful. 
 
 "Some day, when I dare throw these rags off 
 me, and this barber's basin, I shall roam the world 
 once more in search of great adventures. O, Dul- 
 
 [183] 
 
cinea Del Toboso, most perfect of women, I shall 
 yet be worthy of thee again! I shall come to thee 
 and kneel in the dust before thy beautiful feet, and 
 thou wilt forgive me, for thou art as merciful as 
 thou art pure!" 
 
 "She will mock you as she did once before." 
 
 "I shall deserve it." 
 
 "As for your great adventures, Your Majesty, — 
 have you already forgotten the enchanted inn, 
 where you were beaten and trod upon; where your 
 arm was almost torn out of its socket; have you for- 
 gotten how you lost your teeth? Have you for- 
 gotten — " 
 
 "Enough fool! Everything was more beautiful 
 than this, — because I had vision and imagination 
 then." 
 
 "Imagination that leaves you without teeth and 
 with broken ribs is not to my liking. I still have a 
 part of me so scarred that I am ashamed to show it 
 to the beautiful Micamaciennes." 
 
 "I told you, Sancho, that I am not angry at you 
 for being part of the trough. Go embrace your 
 sows!" 
 
 Sancho Panza, Governor-General of Micamaca, 
 knew it was useless to continue arguing with his 
 master. He realized that the latter was falling back 
 into his strange delusion, — stranger this time than 
 before. Meanwhile, the Micamacienne, whom he 
 had left in the corner of the hall, was beckoning to 
 
 [184] 
 
him. He thought: "While Reality is pleasant, one 
 should not neglect to embrace it." And he walked 
 over, his feet clanking with the silver spurs; his 
 scimitar, studded with jewels of all colors, dangling 
 lightly against his side. 
 
 Don Quijote, Emperor of Micamaca, greatest 
 and most beautiful country in the world, seated him- 
 self deeply into his throne of pure gold, studded with 
 emeralds and sapphires, and thought — long sad 
 thoughts. He thought of chivalry and its death, 
 since he, Supreme Knight of the World, was really 
 dead. He thought of Dulcinea Del Toboso, rarest of 
 women; he thought of open fields where one sleeps 
 on the cold bare ground and feeds on water for days, 
 dreaming the while of great conquests . . . He 
 thought and thought — long, sad thoughts — until 
 his eyes closed, his lids pasted — and he snored . . . 
 
 When he awoke, the Moon, rounder in Mica- 
 maca than anywhere else in the world, looked gently, 
 reproachfully, at him through the open window. 
 About him stood the Empress, the Governor-Gen- 
 eral, the Prime-Minister, the Cardinal, the Supreme 
 Officers of the Guard, and several of the most beauti- 
 ful ladies of Micamaca. They waited respectfully 
 and in utmost silence for their Great Emperor to re- 
 turn from the land of dreams, and lead them to the 
 table where the choicest foods were scattering deli- 
 cate perfumes, and old wines sparkled like molten 
 jewels, in golden goblets . . . 
 
 [185] 
 
The Emperor rose, and looked about him. 
 
 "Sancho! Sancho! Give me my shield and my 
 spear, that I may defend myself against this vulgar 
 crowd !" 
 
 "Your Majesty, — this is not a vulgar crowd! 
 They are your Empress, your Officers, the most 
 beautiful ladies of Micamaca!" And turning to the 
 rest, he added, — "Do not take it amiss, my friends, 
 my Master is dreaming about one of the glorious 
 battles he fought when he was the incomparable 
 Knight Errant of Europe." 
 
 "Sancho, you have become a tender of hogs. 
 You are not my shield-bearer any longer ! You shall 
 never be governor of my province!" 
 
 "I am Governor-General of Micamaca, the 
 greatest country in the world!" 
 
 The Emperor did not hear him. 
 
 He raised his arms high, and shouted : "Avaunt ! 
 Avaunt! Hogs and hog-keepers! I do not need a 
 spear for you! You are low-bred! You need but 
 the club and the fist!" 
 
 The people receded, pressing against one an- 
 other. 
 
 "I shall unbind the spell about me ! I shall drive 
 off the devils that hold me locked in this pig-sty! I 
 shall become Don Quijote once more, greatest and 
 most valiant knight of Spain and of Europe, de- 
 fender of the weak and oppressed, champion of 
 woman!" And kneeling, he continued: "O, Dul- 
 
 [186] 
 
cinea, Dulcinea Del Toboso, purest and most beauti- 
 ful of women, help me ! Help me be worthy of thee ! 
 The world needs my strong arm and my undaunted 
 heart! All the great knights of old beckon to me, 
 and say: 'Don Quijote De La Mancha, sole knight 
 in a vulgar world, be true to yourself and to us!' O, 
 Dulcinea, assist me, rare lady!" 
 
 He rose, and for a long minute, he watched the 
 people, who, under the spell of his looks and words, 
 remained motionless and silent, except Sancho 
 Panza, Governor-General. He said: "Remember, 
 my Master, the blows you received. Remember the 
 teeth you lost. Remember the ribs broken. Re- 
 member the blows the people you tried to help re- 
 ceived." 
 
 The Emperor did not hear him. 
 
 He re-began: "You thought that by braiding 
 my coat with gold, and studding it with jewels, I 
 would not feel the burden of it. You thought that by 
 feeding me on the white lambs and red-footed 
 pigeons I would not feel the great hunger gnawing 
 within me! The time has come! I swear by the 
 great Moon, Knight-Errant of the Skies, Leader of 
 the Lost Companion of the Lonesome, that I, Don 
 Quijote, Knight of the Sorrowful Visage, shall 
 break the chains that bind me, and roam once more 
 the world, poor of purse, but rich in adventures and 
 visions !" 
 
 [187] 
 
Sancho Panza, Governor-General, interposed: 
 
 "The Moon never threw us a piece of bread, my 
 Master, nor showed us the way to a good inn, where 
 one gets lodging for nothing. You became the 
 Knight of the Sorrowful Visage because hunger 
 and blood-letting thinned you out so! Remember, 
 my Master!" 
 
 Don Quijote, Emperor never heard him. 
 
 "Here — take that barber's basin, and lather 
 your face in it! Take this jeweled coat, and warm 
 the feet of pigs with it! Take these — " 
 
 The ladies and gentlemen scared, and ashamed 
 of what might happen to their Emperor, turned their 
 faces, and left the hall. Sancho Panza, Governor- 
 General, insulted, stepping heavily, haughtily, his 
 silver spurs clinking, his scimitar striking his mighty 
 side. 
 
 Meanwhile, Don Quijote, Flower of Knight- 
 hood, undressed himself entirely. He remained as 
 naked as he had been long ago upon the mountain- 
 peaks awaiting the answer of Dulcinea Del Toboso. 
 Untrammelled, he stood watching the Moon for a 
 long time. Then slowly, determined, he left the 
 Palace of Micamaca. 
 
 Many people heard through the night, a deep, 
 heavy voice, calling out: "Free! Free! Free!" 
 
 For weeks, the court of Micamaca searched for 
 their Emperor. Then weary, and indignant, they 
 left him to his fate. . . . 
 
 [188] 
 
Sancho Panza, Governor-General, beloved of his 
 subjects, was proclaimed Emperor of Micamaca. A 
 heavier crown, studded with many more jewels was 
 placed upon his head; and a uniform, all gold and 
 diamonds covered his body, which protruded farther 
 and farther beyond him. Dulcinea, neglected and 
 abused wife of the former Emperor, accepted the 
 generous offer of becoming consort of the new 
 Emperor. 
 
 Many were the descendants of the good Em- 
 peror, and all resembled their ancestor. They ruled 
 Micamaca, whose frontiers in time extended to the 
 limits of the Earth, as gallantly as he . . . 
 
 [189] 
 
Walt Whitman 
 
 Fragment 
 Broadway of 61 
 
Fragments 
 
 TOO am drawn 
 
 Come, since it must be so — away from all 
 
 parlors and offices! 
 Form the camp, plant the flagstaff in the 
 
 middle, run up the flag on the halyards ! 
 Uulimber the cannon but not for mere salutes, 
 
 for courtesy 
 We will want something, henceforth, besides 
 
 powder and wadding. 
 
 [193] 
 
Broadway 1861 
 
 The flags now there, 
 
 The splendid flags flying over all the stores 
 (The wind sets from the west, the flags are out stiff 
 
 and broad. You can count every star of the 
 
 thirty-four, you can count the thirteen stripes.) 
 The Regiments arriving and departing 
 The Barracks, the soldiers lounging around 
 The recruiting band, preceded by the fifer, 
 The ceaseless din. 
 
 [195] 
 
George Moore 
 
 1{gply to an Invitation 
 
Reply to an Invitation 
 
 (A letter to the Lord Chancellor of England in reply to 
 an invitation to attend the dinner given to Sir Leslie Ward — 
 "Spy"— at the Savoy Hotel, November 21, 1921.) 
 
 EAR SIR: I am much obliged to 
 you for your letter pressing me to 
 attend the dinner which is to be 
 given to Sir Leslie Ward at the 
 Savoy Hotel on Monday next, No- 
 vember 21, at 7:45 p. m., and regret 
 that I am unable to attend or to encourage my 
 friends to take tickets. 
 
 Yet I cannot let the occasion pass without con- 
 gratulating you on what you have done for the Arts, 
 for you have gathered such a magnificent aristocratic 
 host — two Dukes, many Marquises, innumerable 
 Earls, Viscounts, Barons, and a Multitude of 
 Knights and Baronets — that it is probable that 
 many besides myself will begin to see that the din- 
 ners given to artists would gain very much in in- 
 
 [199] 
 
terest if they were free from those whose occupa- 
 tions and ambitions have drawn their talents into 
 other directions than Art. 
 
 We do not intrude our opinions of politics upon 
 politicians, nor our views regarding the interpreta- 
 tion of Acts of Parliament upon lawyers, and have 
 always been at a loss to understand why the Arts 
 that we practise should be expounded to us by aliens. 
 Indeed, the heartfelt appreciation of the Arts that 
 we have listened to on occasions when it seemed to 
 us churlish to refuse to come in have left us a little 
 resentful. The wounds we received are not yet 
 quite healed, and we doubt (I am speaking now not 
 only in my name, but in the names of the friends 
 whom you have asked me to bring) if the speeches 
 that will be delivered on November 21 at the Savoy 
 Hotel will differ very much from the speeches 
 which we still bear in mind. 
 
 We dare to predict that the painters and poets 
 who assemble there will hear, as we have heard in 
 past times, that Art is not a mere adornment, as they 
 imagined, a gratification of the senses, but a wonder- 
 ful means of communication between nations, more 
 far-reaching even than wireless telegraphy, for it 
 touches the heart. Those of our company who as- 
 semble at the table of the Philistine will hear, of a 
 certainty, that nations are at variance and at war for 
 lack of knowledge of each other, and they will be told 
 
 [200] 
 
that the drawings of Sir Leslie Ward have helped, 
 and will continue to help Frenchmen to understand 
 England, and that the drawings of any one of the 
 great Frenchmen, no matter which, will enable 
 Englishman to understand France. 
 
 On November 21 at the Savoy Hotel, soon after 
 nine o'clock, the words will ring out: Art holds the 
 keys of Peace, and the hours will go by, each speaker 
 differentiating between the Arts, one contending that 
 whereas the Arts of Painting and Music can be 
 understood by all men, the Art of Literature is limited 
 by a knowledge of language. The next speaker 
 will not, however, fail to remark that language has 
 ceased to be a barrier, averring that by means of 
 translation Literature has been placed on the same 
 universal level as Music and Painting. 
 
 Eleven o'clock will mark the introduction of 
 another theme, and one that will bring down the 
 curtain fitly on an historic occasion. About that 
 time a speaker will arise who will point out that 
 Art is part of the great primal substance known as 
 Nature, and he will be followed by another who will 
 declare that Nature is something more and some- 
 thing less than Art; that Art is not Nature because 
 it is Art, that Nature is not Art because it is 
 Nature; and that the stupendous creations of the 
 artist are no less mysterious than those of God 
 himself. 
 
 [201] 
 
I have heard all this kind of aristocratic patter 
 before, and really cannot bring myself to listen to it 
 again. 
 
 Thanking you very much for your letter, — I 
 remain, truly yours, 
 
 GEORGE MOORE. 
 
 121 Ebury Street, London, S. W. I. 
 November 15, 1921. 
 
 [202] 
 
(O 
 
 Henry McCullough 
 
 "Precursors 
 
Precursors 
 
 ILL THE FULL MOON we plowed the whale's 
 path; 
 
 sang Skald the Singer. 
 
 Till the full moon the sea-swans breasted the wave-lash. 
 Then came we to a broad river; 
 Our oars bent like bow-shafts. 
 
 "Oh aye, t'was back-breaking work. The 
 
 current was hard," grumbled Othlin the 
 
 Weasel-eyed. 
 
 Then came we to the grey-walled town; 
 There was much blood running. 
 
 "There I broke my strong ax," bellowed Sigurth 
 the Braggart, "against their spiked gates, while they 
 poured boiling oil upon us from the turrets. Those 
 Frenchmen who will not come out and fight like 
 men !" He tipped back his head and drank long from 
 his ox-horn and red wine; an ox-horn polished and 
 gold trimmed and supported by two golden frogs. 
 From the head of the table Erdswulf the Raven 
 watched him with black eyes. 
 
 Round the table walked Clotilde, the daughter of 
 Erdswulf, for whom the Braggart had gone on the 
 
 [205] 
 
sea-faring. She filled the wine horns of the war- 
 riors. As she poured the wine she laughed at the 
 jests of the home-comers and tossed back her long 
 braids. She filled her father's cup — that was the 
 skull of his enemy Hackmer. She brought wine to 
 Othlin the Weasel-eyed and to Burgard the Thief, 
 and to the others until she came to the foot of the 
 great table where the prisoner sat — the Frenchman, 
 whom they had placed there as a jest. He was as 
 tall as any of them and dressed in black garments. 
 She stared at him curiously. He looked at her and 
 smiled a little; there was no fear in his eyes. His 
 wine-cup was full. 
 
 In the open space we fought merrily. 
 There we heaped the dead men. 
 Our swords flashed like sunbeams. 
 
 "The braggart fought well there," said Burgard 
 the Thief, who wore his hair loose because his ears 
 had been cut off, "until we others came at them from 
 the side, slyly, and many of them died." 
 
 "Aye, I fought well," cried the Braggart, and 
 scratched among the hairs on his great chest. "I 
 killed ten men. My sword went through their 
 armor as through a full wine-skin. I chopped them 
 down." 
 
 There was much booty of gold and silver; 
 Fine clothes we heaped in the market-place; 
 White cloths were stained with the wine that we drank. 
 There was fire and smoke and the screams of women. 
 
 [206] 
 
Their shouts made the great hall quiver. The 
 Braggart tore great handsful of meat from the roast 
 and crammed them into his mouth. Erdswulf, the 
 Raven, cracked the bones with his teeth to suck the 
 marrow. At the foot of the table the Frenchman 
 ate quietly and smiled at the Norsemen. He poured 
 water in his wine. Clotilde stood by the Braggart's 
 chair and listened to his talk. Under the table the 
 dogs quarreled among the rushes. 
 
 "When there was none to stop us, we plundered 
 the town. Those Frenchmen had riches, gold and 
 silver and in their churches were glorious flagons 
 and strange cross things with pretty stones in them. 
 We took what we wanted and the rest we left out of 
 charity — our galleys were small." Clotilde laughed 
 merrily and clapped her hands. 
 
 "And what of him?" she cried, pointing to the 
 prisoner. "Did he fight well?" 
 
 "Fight? He did not fight at all—" 
 
 "And you say he is a great man in his land?" 
 
 "Aye. He is the leader of them all, a Baron. 
 They ought to pay well to get him back. And I 
 could break their Baron with my two hands." 
 
 The wine was affecting the Braggart. He 
 stretched out his great, hairy arms and flexed the 
 muscles of them. Clotilde stroked them admiringly. 
 The Braggart was a monstrous man, second only in 
 
 [207] 
 
size to Erdswulf the Raven, who glowered from his 
 high place at the head of the table. 
 
 "We took him without a blow. They told us 
 that their leader was in the castle and we went there. 
 There was none to admit us so we went in. We 
 went up a long staircase in a turret with our swords 
 in our hands, for we expected every minute to find 
 him on those curved stairs. It would have been an 
 awkward place to fight. Up and around we went 
 till we come to the round room where he sat — read- 
 ing in a book. Him the Baron of them! Dressed in 
 black! He was surprised at our coming." 
 
 "He is a woman," said the Raven as he drank 
 from the skull of his enemy Hackmer. 
 
 "They told us that he had been a great fighter." 
 
 "And he is young yet — " said Clotilde. 
 
 "Aye, but now he does not fight ; he reads books. 
 So I broke his head." Clotilde looked at the French- 
 man and for the first time noticed that he wore 
 around his neck a string of black beads and from the 
 end of it hung a black cross. From time to time the 
 stranger's long fingers crept to this rosary. His 
 hands were very white. 
 
 Let the wine flow as flowed the blood of our enemies. 
 Free is the life of the sea-rover; 
 Riches he brings to the king's-hall. 
 
 The harp sang with a mighty discord. The 
 table shook from the blows of heavy fists. Upon it 
 
 [208] 
 
were broken pieces of bread and torn meat; wine 
 dripped upon the rushes. Othlin the Weasel-eyed 
 slipped from his bench and fell among the dogs. 
 The Braggart rose to his feet: he staggered in his 
 walk. 
 
 "Aye, thou'rt a woman," he cried and jerked 
 the Frenchman to his feet. The prisoner smiled. 
 
 "Thy blood is like water — bilge- water. We 
 took thy strong town while thou wast reading a 
 book." He spat in the lean man's face. The French- 
 man went very white; his eyes flamed with anger. 
 His hands crept to the black beads upon his breast; 
 his lips moved. He stood quite straight without 
 flinching. 
 
 Clotilde stared at the two and marveled. The 
 Frenchman stood with spit upon his face — and yet 
 he was not afraid. Erdswulf the Raven sat at the 
 head of the table with his chin in his hands. 
 
 "Thou goest too far, Sigurth. He has eaten 
 our meat." 
 
 "It is not seemly for women to eat with the war- 
 riors," snarled the Braggart. "Go to thy place, 
 woman." He struck the prisoner with his open 
 palm, a mighty blow. The lean man fell among the 
 wargear along the wall. Clotilde watched him as 
 he drew himself up to his knees, his hand upon the 
 rosary. Slowly she stole to his side till she saw his 
 eyes; they were shining with happiness. She bent 
 
 [209] 
 
over to look into his face. He smiled to her; his 
 fingers slipped along the beads, his lips moved. 
 Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis. 
 
 Clotilde walked to the side of her father's chair, 
 her head bowed, thinking. 
 
 "Father, I would make the next sea-faring to 
 the land of the French." 
 
 Erdswulf sat with his chin on his clenched 
 hands. After a time he bowed his head. 
 
 [210] 
 
Richard Aldington 
 
 A Playntyve Ballade 
 
A Playntyve Ballade 
 
 HEN Sappho sang in "the Isles of 
 Greece," 
 When Ibycus founded a new free 
 verse, 
 And Pindaros spun his golden 
 Fleece 
 Of words that were golden and keen and terse; 
 What said the critics — race perverse? 
 "The fellows have no more bones than a squid, 
 
 The race of poets grows worse and worse : 
 Why don't they write as Homer did?" 
 
 Virgil snivelled of "delicate bees" — 
 
 That was great, for it filled his purse — 
 But the world grew sick with a strange disease 
 * Which the Christians claimed they were sent to 
 disperse. 
 They invented rhymes and rhythms diverse, 
 In queer acrostics their God they hid : 
 
 Quoth the critics: "Poetry's on its hearse, — 
 Why in hell don't they write as Virgil did?" 
 
 [213] 
 
The devil take 'em all, gabbling geese, 
 
 May he take 'em cunningly in reverse, 
 Plague 'em with boils and bees and fleas, 
 
 In seething cauldron their heads immerse! 
 
 Pot-bellied pedlars, hear them rehearse 
 The old gibes, false as a Brummagem quid: 
 
 "The imagists' faults are like thorns on furze, — 
 "Why, WHY don't they write as Tennyson did?' 
 
 ENVOY 
 
 Prince, in the nineteen ninety threes 
 
 When the young men pen a rebellious screed, 
 
 Their critics will boom like the booming seas: 
 "Now, why don't they write as the Imagists did?' 
 
 [214] 
 
Haniel Long 
 
 Antonia and Dionigi 
 
Antonia andDionigi 
 
 HE beautiful Antonia sat in her arbor, 
 gazing down a valley of summer twi- 
 light. In the lap of her golden gown lay a 
 novel with a blue cover; yet it was not of the 
 novel she discoursed to Dionigi, who occupied 
 a seat near by. She had returned the day be- 
 fore from a harrowing visit with his kins- 
 woman Violante, and she was full of the tragic 
 termination of the lady's affairs with Sixtus. The 
 tale had been an excellent pretext for summoning 
 the young abbe to her side. And of course, as the 
 first to be at the scene of the conflagration, and in- 
 deed to be there picnicing in the ruins while the 
 ashes were as yet unraked, Antonia truly had need 
 of a confidant, for her soul was seething. The abbe, 
 for his part, was not afraid to speak of passion. 
 Safe so far from its devastation, he found an un- 
 selfish pleasure in marking the vicissitudes of others. 
 The lady continued to illuminate the high spots 
 of the melancholy adventure. "Sixtus and Don 
 Diego, then, were on the battlefield at the same 
 
 [217 "J 
 
time for a day or so. As a result a sirocco brewed 
 from the two irreconcilable elements coming to- 
 gether under the same roof. The storm was so vio- 
 lent that it blew the top off the palazzo of the Con- 
 tessa, cracked the windows, and darkened the lights 
 for some time to come. In the course of the cy- 
 clone's progress Sixtus broke for cover, as you 
 know; the Spaniard likewise mounted his charger, 
 and left for good, fire and smoke coming forth from 
 his nostrils, the conflagration mounting to the 
 troubled heavens, and ashes covering a once charm- 
 ing landscape! Words are horribly feeble for so 
 sublime a subject. 
 
 "Violante has great charm and sweetness, and 
 creates unknowingly, I suppose, these ghastly sit- 
 
 uations." 
 
 Dionigi shuddered. Truly, these were lurid de- 
 tails; and something warned him that the music of 
 Antonia's speech was to disclose another and more 
 agitating motif. He prepared himself for delicious 
 danger. 
 
 "Yet all this is incredible," he said reflectively. 
 
 "Whether you believe it or not," whispered An- 
 tonia, "Don Diego went so far as to refer in horri- 
 fied tones to the immoral conduct of the Contessa 
 in greedily eating two desserts at the same time. 
 Violante, maddened at the injustice of the observa- 
 tion, called on the gods of her ancestors to come to 
 her rescue, and prove her innocence. But the deities 
 
 [218] 
 
preserved a sullen silence; and Diego, with a last 
 crow of derision, hurled his effects into a basket and 
 sprang into the darkness as the clock struck 
 twelve!" 
 
 "So the tree is now birdless. And how does all 
 this make you feel, Antonia?" 
 
 "It lights bonfires inside me," answered the 
 lady, plunging into a sea of laughter. The abbe 
 joined her in the plunge, though he wondered at the 
 episode's not seeming to her more instructive. 
 
 Dionigi had entered the church merely at the 
 suggestion of Violante; yet he was happy as a 
 priest. The delicate landscape in which he dwelt, 
 and the opinion, generally held, that he was destined 
 to unusual honors, relieved him of the necessity of 
 leading a life of vigil and prayer. But there was a 
 goodness in him, and an indifference to ambition 
 and the world, which allowed him to be generally 
 tolerated. He had a romantic feeling about his 
 chastity; he enjoyed it greatly, especially when he 
 was conscious of being tempted. So calm was his 
 blood and so resilient his physical strength, that 
 bodily existence was to him a continual spring of 
 the year, and the life of the soul a continual Easter- 
 tide. He liked to live, to a surprising extent; he 
 liked the house of the body, and it seemed to him 
 appropriate that the sould should have its dwelling 
 there. Walking at night beneath the stars, or down 
 the streets of day-time among children and flowers, 
 
 [219] 
 
he liked also the house of the world; and he saw 
 nothing incongruous in the belief that the drama 
 of eternity began in this visible pavilion. He often 
 laughed aloud, for no particular reason; if he was 
 a holy young man, he was likewise a mirthful. 
 
 Nevertheless, Antonia felt sometimes that the 
 moment the abbe formulated his notorious doctrine, 
 namely, that while friendship may have room for 
 passion, passion never has room for friendship, was 
 not a moment of unmixed good fortune for her. 
 Antonia, deep in her soul, held a conviction that 
 passion rather than friendship is the banner under 
 which to set out for the golden fleece. 
 
 The immature abbe, his thoughts full of Vio- 
 lante, said to her, "Ah, Antonia, you and I, having 
 occupied seats at a drama, which bared the best and 
 the worst of human nature, and being subtly bound 
 by the minute examination of those so paraded 
 virtues and defects, to the additional possession of 
 which we ourselves are far too wise to make dis- 
 claimer — what was I about to say? Ah yes, that we 
 know too much, you and I; and so I have come to 
 your pleasant garden this afternoon only to greet 
 you, with no wish to discuss with you the import 
 of the lower mysteries. Specifically, Antonia, I but 
 say Hello; or, if it be more than that, I but wink, 
 with such a quiver of the eyelid as augurs cast upon 
 each other in the streets of Caesar." 
 
 [220] 
 
Yet so charming a youth, and one leading so 
 holy a life, could not always pass by the import of 
 the lower mysteries, especially in the presence of 
 the impassioned Antonia. From cool angles he 
 had at times in the past ventured to approach the 
 subject. 
 
 Once he had remarked, "Is it not better to be- 
 lieve that men are brothers because they have a 
 sense of humor, than because of the primordial?" 
 
 Another time, when they had discussed certain 
 lively anecdotes current in their group, in that pleas- 
 ing society which then frequented the villas and 
 castellos along the hills above the river, he said, 
 "We do not tell these tales to keep our attention 
 upon droll subjects. Ah no, rather that our atten- 
 tion, already too assiduous, may be controlled by 
 the fear of ridicule." 
 
 To-day, glancing at the blue novel in Antonia's 
 lap, he inquired as to the book's merit. 
 
 "It contains unusual phrases," she answered, 
 "con amore, for instance; and here is an amusing 
 sentence, 'I had a delightful experience with an 
 elderly apple tree.' But the writer has not compre- 
 hended what so astute an observer as your cherubic 
 self could hardly miss, that in this life passion is the 
 main interest.' His book is like dining on cold 
 boiled potatoes. For a moment the characters are 
 incredible phantoms in the mind's eye; and then 
 they disappear, forever." 
 
 [221] 
 
She closed the book without regret, but went 
 on abruptly, "What is sin?" 
 
 The abbe looked about him nervously, as one 
 who exhibits a priceless jewel. "To sin," he pro- 
 nounced with an angelic smile, "is to take seriously 
 the lower mysteries." 
 
 Antonia was thoughtful. "This is a season 
 marked by violent passions," she said. "Yet I have 
 escaped all but the merest nibble at the tropical 
 product." She sighed. 
 
 "Our thoughts must not stray toward the 
 jungle," said the young abbe, crossing himself. 
 "One never glances that way without seeing the sun 
 on the flank of a centaur. We must be peaceful." 
 
 Antonia smiled. "Peace never pauses long in 
 my agitated dwelling. The atmosphere is too 
 highly charged. But I shall try to be peaceful, come 
 what may, if you assist me." The lady added, "Yet 
 if ever a human being lived intensely and felt vol- 
 canically the whole emotional range, 'tis I." 
 
 The abbe looked as though his conscience 
 pricked him for being unable to make a similar con- 
 fession; but Antonio continued, "Yet it is wonder- 
 ful to be with you, with whom I can planer so se- 
 renely over the heavy artillery of the more explosive 
 emotions. Which is not to say that you would not 
 tempt the madonna in person, dear boy." 
 
 Rising from his seat with a resolute look in his 
 eye, as though he had at last made up his mind that 
 
 [222] 
 
he must act, and act decisively, Dionigi said, "May 
 I retire to your library for a few moments?" 
 
 Somewhat astonished, Antonia acceded to the 
 request. Five minutes later, the abbe reappeared on 
 the lawn, carrying a number of large and well-worn 
 volumes. Antonia recognized them as a series of 
 monograms on the activities of Aphrodite, with 
 her favorite copy of The Memoirs of Cleopatra ly- 
 ing on top. Dionigi moved solemnly, and her clair- 
 voyant soul told her that the abbe was about to deal 
 the philosophy of passion a monstrous blow. 
 
 It was at least a half hour later that the abbe 
 reverently deposited at his feet the texts he had 
 been elucidating, and, gazing at Antonia with the 
 smile of a seraph, summed up his position. 
 
 "These facts, dear lady, permit but one infer- 
 ence. How could Semiramis tear herself from the 
 arms of one lover only to hurl herself bodily into the 
 arms of the next? How could Dido weep so long 
 for iEneas, and then burn herself on a funeral pyre? 
 How could Paolos and Francesca pursue their in- 
 terests in the very household of the nervous Mala- 
 testa? There is only one explanation; they lacked 
 a sense of humor — are you shocked, or do I weary 
 you?" 
 
 "I am in no degree shocked (a word totally un- 
 known to me" ), said Antonia. "If for the moment 
 I appear to lack my customary verve, it is that I 
 begin to suspect, after going through these volumes, 
 
 [2231 
 
that the grand passions are not my genre; I shall 
 have to cling to the ribald. Have you observed how 
 the merry long to be tragic?" 
 
 "I really ought not to discourage you," mur- 
 mured the abbe. 
 
 "My dear lad," returned Antonia, "it has been 
 most profitable and diverting. You give me the 
 classic cup of water in the desert. And you might 
 have been sure when you brought these quaint 
 chronicles that lines celebrating walking, talking 
 and sleeping, all hand in hand, and in the setting of 
 so many vanished Springs, would go to my heart. 
 These talks with you are the most delightful of my 
 checkered life. I am enormously fond of you! And 
 I was never one given to crowds, but always to 
 corners. Ah, these tales fascinate my ever gypsy- 
 like imagination! 
 
 "But, Dionigi, the types one meets in this land 
 of passion: these gorgeous harlot-queens, these 
 ravishers from the wars, and the pathetic young 
 fledglings, fresh from the nest and taking to kisses 
 as ducks to water, they affect me strangely. The 
 very atmosphere forbids the reckless speech so na- 
 tive to my naked tongue. It is all so serious. . . ." 
 
 The abbe interrupted her. "You have said it; 
 it is all so serious. The air is sultry in these old 
 tales; the talk is dull. I thought you would notice 
 it. Take the notorious infatuation of Helen. There 
 are no epigrams, no witticisms; we find no keen re- 
 
 [224] 
 
joiners from Paris, no consummate ironies from 
 Menelaus. And was there ever such opportunity? 
 But nobody grins; nobody laughs! One hearty 
 burst of laughter would tear this world of passion 
 from one end to the other. Tristram and Iseult ap- 
 proach each other pontifically; they kiss without 
 esprit; they leave no jest behind them." 
 
 "Priceless; priceless!" rippled Antonia. "Dio- 
 nigi, I love you hotly. An atmosphere such as you 
 create makes a conservatory but a cold thing. It 
 is true, you are too good to savourer alone. Why 
 should I not see you more often? I am filled with 
 sulphurous thoughts." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said the abbe, "but what is the ex- 
 planation of these phenomena? It is important to 
 remember. Let us look about us; everybody is 
 happy enough until — well, there is something about 
 passion that is distinctively not funny, at least to the 
 victims." 
 
 Dionigi rose to go. 
 
 "And you think a good way to stave off the 
 malady is to be funny," commented Antonia, look- 
 ing up at the stars of evening. "But must everything 
 be funny?" 
 
 They strolled side by side to the far end of the 
 lawn, to the wicket gate. The abbe considered the 
 question. He took the lady in his arms by way of 
 answer, and kissed her, rather fervently. Antonia 
 was petrified. 
 
 [225] 
 
"My dear," said the youth, with the look of one 
 acquainted with the higher mysteries, "everything 
 must be funny; but surely, to friendship nothing is 
 forbidden, so long as it be funny." 
 
 "Dionigi," said Antonia, recovering her speech, 
 and with a new note in her voice, a note that seemed 
 almost hard, "Dionigi, I hate to say it; but you are 
 an idiot." 
 
 She turned abruptly, and trailed her beautiful 
 yellow gown off into the darkness. 
 
 [226] 
 
Carl Van Vechten 
 
 Edgar Saltus—A Postscript 
 
Sdgar Saltus: A Postscript 
 
 WO phenomena, frequently recurring, are 
 to be noted in the unfathomable history 
 of American letters: one, the tremendous effect 
 produced by comets whose effulgence for the 
 time being completely eclipses the remainder 
 of the literary milky way in the eyes of the 
 public and the critics; and the other, the care- 
 less attitude assumed by these gentry towards the 
 fixed stars. As a general rule, these true constella- 
 tions are not observed at all until they have been 
 shining for two or three decades, sometimes longer. 
 When they are observed by their contemporaries, it 
 is for the purpose of excoriating them for having the 
 impertinence to pretend to shine. 
 
 Babbalanja, the mystical philosopher in Her- 
 man Melville's greatly underrated romance, "Mardi," 
 has this to say of fame: "Not seldom to be famous, 
 is to be widely known for what you are not, says 
 Alla-Malolla. Whence it comes, as old Bardianna 
 has it, that for years a man may move unnoticed 
 among his fellows; but all at once, by some chance 
 
 [229] 
 
attitude, foreign to his habit, become a trumpet-full 
 for fools; though, in himself, the same as ever." 
 
 Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville himself, and 
 Ambrose Bierce, seemingly never struck this atti- 
 tude and, as a consequence, they had to wait for 
 fame until they could be admired for what they 
 really were all the time. 
 
 I, too, have waxed epigrammatic on this theme: 
 "Fame," I once wrote, "is a quaint, old-fashioned 
 body, who loves to be pursued. She seldom, if ever, 
 runs after anybody except in her well-known role of 
 necrophile." 
 
 On July 31, 1921, another illustrious obscurity 
 in American letters, Edgar Saltus, died at the age 
 of sixty-three. A few book-collectors had found him 
 out, but to the general public, although he had been 
 writing since 1884 and had published over thirty 
 books, his name is probably even less familiar than 
 that of such a special figure as Ezra Pound or Paul 
 Claudel. Will death bear him a belated laurel 
 wreath? 
 
 II. 
 
 In my paper in "The Merry-Go-Round," I do 
 not think I understated or over-emphasized the case 
 of Edgar Saltus. The neglect of this man is one of 
 the most astounding phenomena in the scoriae his- 
 tory of our national literature. Benjamin de Cas- 
 seres put it thus: "There are three mysteries in 
 
 [230] 
 
American literature — the appearance of Edgar Allan 
 Poe, the disappearance of Ambrose Bierce, and the 
 burial alive of Edgar Saltus." A few months before 
 he died, James Huneker wrote me: "Twenty years 
 ago, Vance Thompson and I promised ourselves the 
 pleasure of writing a definitive article on Edgar — 
 and we didn't. Now you have done it, and beauti- 
 fully. . . . Edgar is a genius. George Moore 
 once told me that Walt Whitman and Saltus were 
 the only two Americans he read." But let Mr. 
 Moore, in a letter to me, speak for himself: "I was 
 especially interested in your review of Edgar Saltus, 
 for it has always been a puzzle to me why he did not 
 achieve a really memorable piece of work. I attach 
 much importance to the writer's name; some people 
 think undue importance. However that may be 
 Edgar Saltus seems at first sight an inspiring name, 
 yet it did not inspire the owner. Edgar Saltus is 
 cultivated and possessed by a brain and style — the 
 equipment is perfect and we sit agape when we think 
 of him." 
 
 Saltus was the son of Victor Hugo by Schopen- 
 hauer. Strange bedfellows these! Their marital 
 antics have resulted in strange children. His fictions 
 are experiments in decorative irony; they are pessi- 
 mistic allegories. His best works in this form, "Mr. 
 Incoul's Misadventure" and "The Truth About Tris- 
 trem Varick," both date from the eighties. The first 
 shows how cruel a thing is abstract justice; the sec- 
 
 [231] 
 
ond exhibits a pursuit of the ideal, which lands the 
 idealist in the electric chair. While these books are 
 superior, even such flamboyant romances as "The 
 Pace That Kills," Madam Sapphira," and "A Trans- 
 action in Hearts" are lyric melodramas, written with 
 ecstacy. There is about them something of the hard 
 brilliant glitter of Webster and Tourneur. 
 
 Saltus experimented in history, fiction, poetry, 
 literary criticism, and philosophy, but his master- 
 piece, of course, is "Imperial Purple." The soaring 
 splendor of this book remained unsurpassed by its 
 author. Indeed, it is rare in all literature. Page 
 after page that Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde or J. K. 
 Huysmans would have proudly signed, might be set 
 before you. The man writes with invention, with 
 sap, with urge. The historical form has at last 
 found a poet to render it supportable. Blood flows 
 across the pages; slaughter and booty are the prin- 
 cipal themes; and yet Beauty struts triumphant 
 through the horror. 
 
 Late in life he tried to repeat this performance 
 in his history of the Romanoffs, published as "The 
 Imperial Orgy." I prefer Saltus' original title, 
 "Imperial Sables." In this book, he deliberately 
 shut his eyes to all extenuating circumstances. It 
 reeks of gore. It is a lithograph printed in blood. 
 
 Of his style Oscar Wilde once remarked: "In 
 Edgar Saltus' work, passion struggles with gram- 
 mar on every page." It might, indeed, be said of 
 
 [232] 
 
him, as Leon Bloy wrote of Huysmans, that he 
 dragged "his images by the heels or the hair up and 
 down the worm-eaten staircase of terrified syntax." 
 But, repeating this phrase, we should be wise to 
 remember that "grammar" and "glamour" stem 
 from the same root. Percival Pollard pictured Sal- 
 tus as "an author drunken with his own phrases," 
 "a dervish dancing in his prose." He never wrote 
 from his heart; he seldom, indeed, wrote from his 
 brain; he wrote with his nerves. 
 
 III. 
 
 Of the man himself little is known. That much 
 is not pleasant. He was an egoist, seldom with a 
 good word for another author, sensitive, bitter, cyn- 
 ical, and at times, perhaps, even malicious. In the 
 nineties he had known such men as Oscar Wilde, 
 Edgar Fawcett and J. K. Huysmans. He knew then, 
 too, Vance Thompson and James Huneker. For the 
 past twenty years, however, he had withdrawn from 
 the world. He had few, if any, friends. Huneker in 
 1920 told me that he had not seen him for ten years. 
 He appeared pretty regularly at the Manhattan Club 
 in Madison Square for his mail and for a whisky and 
 soda, until prohibition cut even this from him. 
 
 He was a strangely dstinguished figure, some- 
 thing of a dandy, handsome in his youth, if one can 
 judge from his pictures, and later, while more mas- 
 
 [233] 
 
sive, still inspiring, short, but with the head of a 
 personage. Curiously enough, he really looked like 
 a man of letters. He is the only author I have ever 
 seen who did. 
 
 There may have been reasons for his bitterness. 
 I have heard that he suffered reverses of fortune in 
 Wall Street, which necessitated alterations in his 
 mode of living. Then, while he carefully and ten- 
 derly worked at his miniature jewelled masterpieces, 
 he watched the glory go to his inferiors. Galling 
 enough, no doubt. More than all, he stuttered, a 
 physical affliction which cuts many softer personal- 
 ities away from social intercourse. 
 
 I have set down a few plausible excuses for the 
 unpleasant impression his manner and his conversa- 
 tion created when finally I met him. But, all the 
 same, I do not think he had changed. In the early 
 nineties, he was the same acidulous cynic, the same 
 caustic wit. In 1891, his first wife divorced him. In 
 an interview, published in a newspaper of the period, 
 Saltus is quoted as saying of his father-in-law, whom 
 he blamed for the action, "I shall not forget Mr. 
 Read. He shall have a divorce from my bed and 
 board, the alimony for which he has asked as well. 
 Now that the charges he made are withdrawn I can 
 refuse him nothing. I have put him down in my 
 will. He is a member of the Society for the Protec- 
 tion of Animals, and in recognition of his affection 
 for beasts, I have left him a mirror — with reversion 
 
 [234] 
 
to his charming representatives at the bar." It also 
 must be remembered, in any consideration of his 
 philosophy, that "The Philosophy of Disenchant- 
 ment," "The Anatomy of Negation," "Mr. Incoul's 
 Misadventure," and "The Truth About Tristrem 
 Varick," even the titles of which are revealing, were 
 all published in the eighties. He was born doubting 
 the world and its women. Nevertheless, it seems 
 that he was married three times! 
 
 Thus we must accept him in his own trenchant 
 humor. He was sufficiently inhuman so that he 
 could not create a human character. But this is not 
 dispraise. It is exact description of his morbid, 
 erotic art, often inspiring dread and amazement, but 
 never pity. His extraordinary style, of which he was 
 master from his first book (a study of Balzac) in- 
 sures him readers, who will now doubtless flock to 
 him in greater numbers. And it will be no surprise 
 to his admirers to find him finally allotted a definite 
 niche in American literature, somewhere between 
 those occupied by Edgar Allan Poe and William 
 Dean Howells. 
 
 [235] 
 
Julian Street 
 
 To an Autograph Collector 
 
To An Autograph Collector 
 
 Y DEAR YOUNG ADMIRER: 
 No; I would not advise you to 
 become an author. It is better, 
 always, for a young man to try to 
 earn his living in some honest way, before finally 
 abandoning himself to literature. 
 
 As to my autograph, which you request, I en- 
 close you herewith my regular rates, and will be 
 glad to furnish you with autographs, as specified, on 
 receipt of certified check or postal order for the 
 proper amount. 
 
 RATES 
 One autograph, name only, on small, cheap card, 
 50 cents. 
 
 One autograph, name only, on fine gilt edge 
 card, 75 cents. 
 
 One autograph, with words "Yours truly," $1.00. 
 One autograph inscribed to you, personally, 
 $1.50. 
 
 One autograph letter, one page long (rather 
 formal), $2.00. 
 
 [239] 
 
One autograph letter, two pages (informal), 
 $5.00. 
 
 Extra pages added to letters, each, $2.50. 
 
 A $1.00 book, with twenty word inscription and 
 autograph, $10.00. 
 
 A $1.00 book, with long familiar inscription, 
 enabling purchaser to claim to know me intimately, 
 $20.00. 
 
 Love letters, $50.00. 
 
 Week end visits, Saturday to Monday morning, 
 $100 (and exp.). 
 
 The last named rate does not include readings, 
 which will be charged for at the rate of $25 for the 
 first half hour, and $12.50 for each additional quarter 
 hour thereafter. The rate, however, includes meet- 
 ing five of your friends. Additional friends will be 
 met at the rate of $5 each for men, and $7.50 each 
 for women under thirty years of age. Women over 
 thirty will be met at the rate of $2.50 additional for 
 each five years of age. 
 
 For calling me by first name before five people, 
 $12.50. 
 
 For calling me by first name before unlimited 
 number, $20. 
 
 These rates are subject to change without 
 notice. Satisfaction guaranteed. 
 
 Trusting that this letter will supply you with 
 the desired information and thanking you for your 
 interest, believe me. 
 
 [240] 
 
Rudyard Kipling 
 
 A Ballade of Photographs 
 
A Ballade of Photograph 
 
 EHOLD, O Fortune's favored one 
 
 To whom this dainty Book may fall, 
 Pachmarri, Muttra, Brindabun, 
 
 Shall rise before you at your call — 
 Benares' ghat, the Agra Hall, 
 And verdant slopes of Ranikhet, 
 Are yours to gaze upon in all 
 The pomp of full-plate cabinet, 
 
 Mussoorie woods and boulders dun, 
 
 Dead homes of kings, and streams that crawl 
 Leagues broad beneath a burning sun, 
 
 A green bamboo embattled wall — 
 
 A silver tarn, a floating yawl, 
 Squat shrine and Muslim minaret, 
 
 Are yours, at price exceeding small 
 In pomp of full-plate cabinet. 
 
 And have you ne'er let fancy run 
 
 Athwart the East we hold in thrall; 
 
 And have you ne'er with rod and gun 
 Left dusty lines or dreary Mall? 
 
 [243] 
 
Then turn the page where torrents brawl 
 And Nature's sumptuous throne is set 
 
 'Twixt giant rock and leafage tall 
 In pomp of full-plate cabinet. 
 
 Prince or Princess, now you have won, 
 This Book with gorgeous views beset, 
 
 Procure a camera and run 
 
 Yourself to full-plate cabinet. 
 
 [244] 
 
Gossip 
 
Gossip About the Foregoing 
 
 BALLADE of a Book of Hours, by that 
 prolific author, Anonymous, is an engag- 
 ing bit that I found in a Mosher cata- 
 logue. 
 
 The District Visitor, by Richard 
 Middleton, first appeared in the English 
 Review. It is, I think, a masterpiece of 
 sardonic humor. I reprint it by the per- 
 mission of Henry Savage, Mr. Middle- 
 ton's executor, who for some reason failed to include it in any 
 of the posthumous books of that notable writer. 
 
 The Madness of Spring by the same author, appeared in 
 the Academy (London), and has not been collected until now 
 in book covers. At the end of that paragraph late in the 
 essay, in which the millionaires and the small boy put out to 
 sea in a leaky boat, readers will please add this phrase : "talk- 
 ing pleasant philosophies as they went." The printer dropped 
 it in setting the copy, and it was impracticable later to insert 
 it. Apologies ! 
 
 Dowson's fine poem, The Passing of Tennyson, has been 
 a derelict for some years; it does not appear in his collected 
 works. Some years ago, Mr. Edwin B. Hill of Ysleta, Texas, 
 privately printed it as a single leaflet, since which time a 
 number of magazines have appropriated it. 
 
 Discovery of anything by Stephen Crane, at this time of 
 day, is noteworthy. At the Pit Door appears to me to be an 
 amusing and worth-while bit of salvage; while The Great 
 Boer Trek is an important and careful bit of historical writing. 
 
 [247] 
 
These items appeared originally in the Philistine and the Cos- 
 mopolitan, respectively. 
 
 The Feast, that vivid sonnet by Edgar Saltus, is one of a 
 number of uncollected poems by a man whose genius is uni- 
 versally recognized. Mr. William Griffith accepted it, some 
 years ago, for a Sunday newspaper magazine that he was 
 editing. The author received the magazine's regular poetry 
 rate, which was not high. A well-known artist, who illus- 
 trated it, however, received the greater sum of $25 for his 
 drawing, which, coming to the ears of Saltus, made the poet 
 indignant. He shrieked to Griffith, over the dinner table, one 
 day, and after a torrent of outraged temperament was him- 
 self paid the difference between what he had received and the 
 sum received by the artist. There is a moral to this note. 
 
 Hubert Crackanthorpe's A Fellside Tragedy was given 
 me in manuscript by his mother, Mrs. Blanche Crackanthorpe ; 
 and later I published it in the Double Dealer. It is not pleas- 
 ant, and not highly important, but it is a bit of uncollected 
 Crackanthorpe. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Enoch Jones, by Laurence Housman, are 
 obviously parodies of the Spoon River Anthology. They 
 were done while Mr. Housman was in Chicago some years 
 ago and appeared in the Chicago Tribune. 
 
 Selwyn Image's somewhat erotic stanzas, To L, never 
 have appeared before in print, I believe. The manuscript is 
 in my possession. Mr. Image was a lesser light of the 
 "eighteen-nineties." 
 
 So much of Mr. Machen's uncollected work has been pub- 
 lished recently that little of importance remains. The two 
 items in the present volume are engaging bits, however, one 
 from the Evening Standard (London), the other from the 
 London Evening News. 
 
 Jack and Jill, the late Clark Russell's amusing "Dock 
 Gate Eclogue," was contributed to a British annual called The 
 Flag, and has not since been reprinted save in my own maga- 
 ine, The Wave. 
 
 I found Mr. Dell's joyous bit of Juvenilia in an early 
 number of the Chicago Evening Post's Literary Review, of 
 which at the time Mr. Dell was editor. 
 
 [248] 
 
Mr. Lang's "Chortle" appeared in some English maga- 
 zine or other at a time when, as the poem indicates, two of 
 du Boisgobey's detective novels had appeared, at the same 
 time, to delight his detective-story-loving soul. 
 
 Lafcadio Hearn's colorful tale is, I think, a translation 
 from the Spanish of some South American writer. It is none 
 the less good Hearn. I am indebted to the Double Dealer for 
 permission to reprint it. The title is seductive — nace-paw? 
 
 In Wilbur Underwood, America has a poet of fine dis- 
 tinction, as profoundly obscure as are many poets of fine dis- 
 tinction. He has published two volumes through an English 
 publisher, Elkin Mathews, which will some day be diligently 
 sought for by American collectors. As a translator, I believe 
 him to be the equal of Arthur Symons. 
 
 The little Kanaka, by Joseph Hergesheimer, was con- 
 tributed to the Reviewer, and is here reproduced by the per- 
 mission of the author and the editor. 
 
 Lord Dunsany's poem, A Request, seems charming to 
 me. I scrap-booked it quickly after its appearance in the 
 Double Dealer, and I am now permitted to reprint it by the 
 courtesy of the editors of that journal. 
 
 Neil Lyons' great poem, The Drum, is believed by many 
 to be the finest piece of poetry inspired by the great war. It 
 is an undoubted masterpiece. It appeared in an English 
 journal over the pseudonym of "Edwin Smallweed." 
 
 The London That Is Far Off, by Maurice Hewlett, is, as 
 noted, a review of a volume by Arthur Machen ; but it seemed 
 to me to be also a fine supplement to the Machen work, and 
 so I preserved it. 
 
 Another of the pleasant works of "Anonymous" is Aucas- 
 sin and Nicolette, a happy verse rendering of the old song- 
 story. It has been a newspaper derelict for some years ; I have 
 been unable to trace its authorship. 
 
 Gustav Meyrink is a German disciple of Poe, still living. 
 His mad little fantasy was sent me by Herman George 
 Scheffauer, who, perhaps, translated it. Anyway, it is good. 
 
 The fine tribute to Stevenson by Lionel Johnson was 
 found written on the flyleaves of a volume formerly in the 
 
 [249] 
 
possession of Johnson. Investigation fails to locate it in any 
 of the poet's published works. 
 
 The not-so-very important stanzas of William Cullen 
 Bryant are included as a curiosity. They preceded the poet's 
 great poem, Thanatopsis, when it was first published many 
 years ago. Whether Bryant or another wrote them, no one 
 seems to know. It is perhaps obvious why they were with- 
 drawn. Anyway, here they are. 
 
 In Emperor of Micamaca, it seems to me that Paul 
 Eldridge, who will some day be collected, has done a very 
 fine thing. He sent it to me for publication in The Wave, 
 and that remarkable journal exploded before I could use it. 
 I am glad to give it this chance at permanence. 
 
 Walt Whitman's fragments were discovered by Walter 
 R. Benjamin, the autograph collector, who published them 
 in his little magazine, The Collector. 
 
 George Moore's amusing letter explains itself. It was 
 sent to a London newspaper. I have used it in The Wave. 
 
 Another fine tale, I believe, is Mr. McCullough's Pre- 
 cursors, originally given me for The Wave, and later given 
 by me to the Double Dealer. I think it well worthy of pres- 
 ervation. 
 
 Mr. Aldington contributed his amusing Ballade to Michael 
 Monahan's Phoenix, from which I take it. 
 
 I published Mr. Long's distinguished little tale, Antonia 
 and Dionigi, in The Wave. I hope some day a publisher will 
 gather all of Mr. Long's tales into a handsome volume. They 
 are delightful and have the flavor of permanence. 
 
 Mr. Van Vechten's sketch of Edgar Saltus is a postscript 
 to his long essay, now in one of the popular Van Vechten 
 volumes. It is from the Double Dealer. 
 
 I found Julian Street's very funny letter in an old number 
 of the Bookman, and am sure collectors will delight in it. 
 
 The Kipling ballade was originally written on a flyleaf, 
 perhaps on several flyleaves, of a large album of Indian views, 
 sold for some charity or other in India. It was written years 
 ago, and it does not appear in any of the Kipling volumes. 
 The album figured in a recent sale of biblio-plunder, and the 
 
 [250] 
 
poem was at that time discovered. I have used it in The 
 Wave. 
 
 The new Sappho songs were done by John Myers O'Hara, 
 another distinguished and too obscure American poet. They 
 were contributed to the old International. 
 
 Explicit. 
 
 V. S. 
 
 [251] 
 
(^Acknowledgement 
 
 Copyright of most of the contributions to this volume is 
 held by the authors of the contributions or their agents. Fur- 
 ther reproduction without special permission is forbidden. 
 
 Grateful acknowledgement is made to all whose courteous 
 permission made this volume possible. Special acknowledge- 
 ment is made to the editors of the following publications: 
 The Double-Dealer, The Reviewer, the London Weekly Dis- 
 patch, The Philistine, The English Review, The Phoenix, the 
 Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Evening Post, the Evening 
 Standard (London), The Collector, the London Evening 
 News, the Pall Mall Gazette, The Wave; also to the follow- 
 ing individuals: Joseph Hergesheimer, Carl Van Vechten, 
 Paul Eldridge, Wilbur Underwood, William Griffith, Henry 
 Savage, Edith F. Crane, Blanche A. Crackanthorpe, Arthur 
 Machen, Haniel Long, John Myers O'Hara, Henry Mc- 
 Cullough. 
 
 [253 1 
 
MCK'S BOOK STORE I 
 So. Michlaan Ave. 
 
I 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 820 8ST45E C001 
 
 ETCETERA CHICAGO