No More Learning

His novels are his
best title to reputation, and show a vein of genuine creative power.
Cupples combined some of the sterling and attractive traits of the
cultured Scotchman of the period into a genuine, manly, and winning
personality. Though slightly whimsical, his peculiarities were of the
kind that endear a man to his friends; and Cupples numbered among
his, Dr. John Brown, Dr. Stirling, Blackwood, and many others of
the cultivated Scotchmen of the period.
'The Green Hand,' which came out in Blackwood from 1848 to
1851, is one of the best sea stories ever written. If we put Steven-
son's 'Treasure Island' first for balance of description and narration,
and sureness in the character touches, The Green Hand' and 'Tom
Cringle's Log' are close seconds. Cupples's book is perhaps slightly
overloaded with description, and deficient in technical construction as
a narrative; but it is nevertheless a story which we read without
skipping, for the descriptive pages are highly charged with the poetic
element, and bear the unmistakable marks of being based on actual
observation. Life in a sailing vessel has closer contact with the
elemental moods of nature than in a steamer, where the motive
power is a mechanical contrivance with the tiresome quality of regu-
larity. To be in alliance or warfare with the wind, and dependent
on its fitful moods, brought an element of variety and interest into
the seaman's life which steam navigation, with its steadily revolving
screw and patent valves, must always lack. Of this Cupples avails
himself to the fullest extent; and it would be difficult to find a better
presentation of the mysterious life and vastness of the ocean, and of
the subtle impression it makes on those brought in daily contact with
it, not excepting Victor Hugo's 'Toilers of the Sea. This is due to
VII-264


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GEORGE CUPPLES
4210
the fact that he spent two years before the mast when a young man.
Especially noticeable too is his admirable use of adjectives denoting
color, which are descriptive because they image truly the observations
of a
man of genius, and are not, as in so much modern writing,
purple patches sewed on without any real feeling for the rich and
subtle scheme of nature. In calling up to the imagination the sounds
of the sea, the creaking of the blocks, the wind in the rigging, the
wash of the water on the sides, the ripple on the bow, and the
infinite variety of the voice of the waves, Cupples shows true poetic
power. It is not too much to say that 'The Green Hand' does not
suffer from the fact that one of the parts stands in the magazine in
juxtaposition to De Quincey's Vision of Sudden Death. '
'Kyloe Jock and the Weird of Wanton-Walls' is a transcript from
the boy life of the author. It appeared in Macmillan's Magazine, in
the autumn numbers of 1860. It is but a short sketch of a group of
simple people in a secluded border parish, but the quality of the
writer is shown as well in small things as in great ones. In it the
wintry scenes especially are given with broad and sure touches, for
the author is a genuine lover of nature; but the characters of Kirstie
the nurse, and of Kyloe Jock, the half-savage herd-boy who knows
so well the wild creatures of the woods and fields that he has even
given names to the foxes, show the feeling for human nature and the
ability to embody it which marks the artist. Kyloe Jock's Scotch is
said to be an absolutely perfect reproduction of the vernacular; and
it might be said that this book, like some of our modern Scotch
stories, would be better if the dialect were not quite so good.
-
―
The peculiar qualities of the author are not seen to such good
advantage in another book of his, 'Scotch Deerhounds and Their
Masters. ' He was
a breeder and unquestioned authority on the
"Grand Dog," and accumulated a store of curious information on its
origin and history; but his enthusiasm for this noble breed, or
"race" as he loves to call it,—and it certainly is the finest and most
striking of all the varieties of the "friend of man,"-led him into
some strange vagaries. One would almost suspect him of holding
the theory that dogs domesticated man, so high does he rank them
as agents of early civilization. His etymology and his ethnology are
alike erratic. He holds that every ancient people in whose name can
be found the combinations "gal," "alb," or "iber," or any other
syllable of a Celtic word, was of the Celtic family, and that the
Scotch deerhound and the Irish greyhound are descendants of the
primeval Celtic dog. In this way he proves that the Carthaginians
and the shepherd kings of Egypt were undoubtedly Celts, for their
sculpture shows that they hunted with large swift dogs that sprang
at the throat of their prey. On the other hand, every tribe that


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GEORGE CUPPLES
4211
owned large clumsy dogs that barked is probably non-Celtic. Mr.
Cupples's contempt for such dogs is too intense for definite statement,
and he evidently thinks that the tribe that owns them cannot hope
to rise very high in the scale of civilization. This is certainly Philo-
Celticism run mad, and is the more remarkable because Mr. Cupples
could discover no Celtic strain in his own ancestry. He gave his
dogs, however, Celtic names, as Luath, Shulach, Maida, Morna, Mal-
vina, Oscar, etc. It would have been quite impossible for him to
disgrace one of his "tall, swift, venatic hounds" with so Saxon a
name as Rover or Barkis. But his enthusiasm is so genuine, and
there is such a wealth of curious information in his pages, that his
book has a charm and a substantial value of its own.
The other work of Mr. Cupples was, like that of most of the
journalistic men of letters of the period, largely anonymous. His
essay on Emerson, contributed to the Douglas Jerrold's Magazine, is
very highly spoken of. Personally, Mr. Cupples must have been a
man of great simplicity and charm, a happy combination of the
genuine and most agreeable traits of that hearty and outspoken
variety of man, the literary Scotchman.
IN THE TROPICS
From The Green Hand›
LOOKED up the after-hatchway.
I
It seemed still quite dark;
and a patch of the deep dark-blue sky showed high over the
square opening, with two or three keen sparks of stars, green
ones and blue ones-you'd have thought the ladder, short as it
was, went up to somewhere clean above the world. But the
moment I got on deck I saw it was really lighter-the heavy
fog creeping slowly astern off the ship on both hands; the white
mist rolling faster over it before the sea breeze against her bows,
which had swung seaward by this time from the tide, that
rushed like a mill-stream upon both her tight cables; while the
muddy river water, bubbling, eddying, and frothing away past,
spread far up in the middle, into the dusk astern. Such a
jabbering, croaking, hissing, shrieking, and yelling, too, as burst
into one's ears out of the dark, as if whole legions of monkeys,
bullfrogs, parrots, parrakeets, and what not, were coming
together full upon us from both sides, one band nearer than
the other; till the heavy boom of the surf round the point, and
the roar of the tide coming in over the shallows about the river-
mouth, pretty well drowned it. The sudden change was a good


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4212
GEORGE CUPPLES
relief,- Babel though it seemed after the closeness below,-
with what had been going on; and I looked ahead toward the
sea, which lay away out off our larboard bow, round the head-
land, and over the opposite point; a cold watery streak of light
showing it from where the breakers rose plunging and scattering
along the sandy bar, to the steady gray line of horizon, clipped
by one of the two brown chops we had got into. It looked
dreary enough as yet, the mouth of it being wider than I'd
fancied it from seaward at night: though even with full water
over the long spit of sand in the middle, there was no draught
at all for the Indiaman except by the channel betwixt it and the
bold point on our right; and pretty narrow it appeared from our
present berth, heaving as it did with the green swell that set in,
while meantime the mist scudding across the face of the head-
land let us see but the hard lump of bare black rock underneath.
In less time than I've taken to speak, however, the full space
of sky aloft was turning clear; the sea far away suddenly shone
out blue, with the surges tipped white; you saw a sparkling star
high over it sink slowly in, and the fog spread off the water
near us, till here and there you caught the muffled-up shape of
a big tree or two looming through, not half a mile off our star-
board quarter; the mist creeping over the headland till the sharp
peak of it stood out against its shadow on the shoulder of a hill
beyond, and old Bob Martin's single clump of cocoas on the rise,
waving in landward from the brisk sea breeze. One passenger
after another came peeping sleepily out of the companion-hatch,
at the men clearing away the wreck of the spars and swabbing
the quarter-deck down; but scarce had Smith, one of the young
writers, reached the poop, when he gave a shout that covered
both poop ladders in no time, with people scrambling over each
other to get up. Next minute you'd have fancied them a knot
of flamingoes with their wings out, as the bright red daybreak
brought out the edge of the woods far astern, through a hazy
lane in the purple mist, topped so with stray cocoanut-trees and
cabbage-palms, dabbled like brushes in the color, that they
scarce knew them to be woods at all, and not a whole lot of
wild savages fresh from other business of the kind, coming down
with all sorts of queer tools upon us; more especially when one
heard such a chorus of unaccountable cries, whistling, and
screaming, as seemed to struggle with the sound of the sea
ahead of us, and the splash alongside. The huge round sun


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GEORGE CUPPLES
4213
.
struck hot crimson along the far turn of the beach, with all
manner of twisted blots upon him, as it were, and the very
grass and long reeds seemingly rustling into his face, so one
didn't for the moment know him either; while the muddy, choco-
late-colored eddies, sweeping and closing beyond the ship's
rudder, glittered and frothed up like blood; and every here and
there, along the streak of light, the head of a log or a long
branch came dipping up terribly plain; no wonder the old Serin-
gapatam had apparently turned tail to it all, ready to bolt if she
could. Almost as soon as you took your hands off your eyes,
though, and could see without a red ball or two before them,
there was the nearest shore growing out toward our starboard
bulwark all along, crowded with wet green woods, up into steam-
ing high ground-all to eastward a dazzle of light, with two or
three faint mountain peaks shooting up far off in it, and a
woody blue hill or so between; while here and there a broad
bright hazy spoke off the sun came cutting down into the forest,
that brought a patch full of long big leaves, ten times greener
than the rest, and let look off the deck into the heart of it
among the stems over the bank. The jabber in the woods had
passed off all at once with the dusk, the water deepening over
the bar, and the tide running slower, so that every one's con-
fused face turned breathless with delight and it grew stiller and
stiller. The whole breadth of the river shone out by this time,
full and smooth, to the opposite shore three times as far away,
where the wood and bulrushes seemed to grow out of the water;
a long thick range of low muddy-looking mangroves, with a
cover of dark green, rounding from the farthest point one saw,
down to some sandy hummocks near the mouth, and a ridge of
the same drifted up by the wind off the beach. Beyond that side
there was nothing apparently but a rolling sweep of long
coarse grass, with a few straggling cocoanut-trees and baobabs
like big swollen logs on end, and taken to sprouting at top;
a dun-colored heave of land in the distance, too, that came out
as it got hotter, in a long, desert-like, red brick-dust sort of a
glare. The sole living things to be seen as yet were some small
birds rising up out of the long grass, and the turkey-buzzards
sailing high over all across, as if on the look-out.
The air was so cool and clear, however, from the tornado
over night,—not a cloud in the sky, and the strange scent of
the land reaching us as the dew rose off it, you could see far


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4214
GEORGE CUPPLES
and wide, with a delicious feeling of it all, that kept every one
standing there on the spot where he first gained the deck, even
the men looking over their shoulders with the ropes in their
fists, and the fresh morning breeze lifting one's hair.
NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA
From The Green Hand'
I
HAD to get fairly off the saddle,—rather sore, I must say,
with riding up St. Helena roads after so many weeks at sea,
and flung myself down on the grass, with little enough
fear of the hungry little beast getting far adrift. This said
crag, by the way, drew my eye to it by the queer colors it
showed-white, blue, gray, and bright red-in the hot sunlight;
and being too far off to make out clearly, I slung off the ship's
glass I had across my back, just to overhaul it better. The hue
of it was to be seen running all down the deep rift between, that
seemingly wound away into some glen toward the coast; while
the lot of plants and trailers half covering the steep front of it
would no doubt, I thought, have delighted my old friend the
Yankee, if he was the botanizing gentleman in question. By
this time it was a lovely afternoon far and wide to Diana's Peak,
the sky glowing clearer deep blue at that height than you'd have
thought sky could do, even in the tropics-the very peaks of
bare red rock being softened into a purple tint, far off around
you. One saw into the rough bottom of the huge Devil's Punch
Bowl, and far through without a shadow down the green patches
in the little valleys, and over Deadwood Camp,-there was noth-
ing, as it were, between the grass, the ground, the stones, and
leaves, and the empty hollow of the air; while the sea spread
far round underneath, of a softer blue than the sky over you.
You'd have thought all the world was shrunk into St. Helena,
with the Atlantic lying three-quarters round it in one's sight,
like the horns of the bright new moon round the dim old one;
which St. Helena pretty much resembled, if what the star-gazers
say of its surface be true, all peaks and dry hollows—if indeed
you weren't lifting up out of the world, so to speak, when one
looked through his fingers right into the keen blue overhead!
If I lived a thousand years I couldn't tell half what I felt
lying there; but as you may imagine, it had somewhat in it of


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GEORGE CUPPLES
4215
the late European war by land and sea. Not that I could have
said so at the time, but rather a sort of half-doze, such as I've
known one have when a schoolboy, lying on the green grass the
same way, with one's face turned up into the hot summer
heavens; half of it flying glimpses, as it were, of the French
Revolution, the battles we used to hear of when we were child-
ren- then the fears about the invasion, with the channel full
of British fleets, and Dover Cliffs-Trafalgar and Nelson's death,
and the battle of Waterloo, just after we heard he had got out of
Elba. In the terrible flash of the thing all together, one almost
fancied them all gone like smoke; and for a moment I thought
I was falling away off, down into the wide sky, so up I started to
sit. From that, suddenly I took to guessing and puzzling closely
again how I should go to work myself, if I were the strange
Frenchman I saw in the brig at sea, and wanted to manage
Napoleon's escape out of St. Helena. And first, there was how
to get into the island and put him up to the scheme. why, sure
enough, I couldn't have laid it down better than they seemed to
have done all along: what could one do but just dodge about
that latitude under all sorts of false rig, then catch hold of
somebody fit to cover one's landing. No Englishman would do
it, and no foreigner but would set Sir Hudson Lowe on his
guard in a moment. Next we should have to get put on the
island and really a neat enough plan it was, to dog one of the
very cruisers themselves, knock up a mess of planks and spars
in the night-time, set them all ablaze with tar, and pretend we
were fresh from a craft on fire; when even Captain Wallis of the
Podargus, as it happened, was too much of a British seaman not
to carry us straight to St. Helena! Again, I must say it was a
touch beyond me- but to hit the governor's notions of a hobby,
and go picking up plants around Longwood, was a likely enough
way to get speech of the prisoner, or at least let him see one
was there!
-
-
-
How should I set about carrying him off to the coast, though?
That was the prime matter. Seeing that even if the schooner-
which was no doubt hovering out of sight- were to make a
bold dash for the land with the trade-wind, in a night eleven
hours long, there were sentries close round Longwood from sun-
set, the starlight shining mostly always in the want of a moon;
and at any rate there was rock and gully enough betwixt here
and the coast to try the surest foot aboard the Hebe, let alone
――


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GEORGE CUPPLES
an emperor. With plenty of woods for a cover, one might steal
up close to Longwood, but the bare rocks showed you off to be
made a mark of. Whew! but why were those same blacks on
the island, I thought: just strip them stark naked, and let them
lie in the Devil's Punch Bowl, or somewhere beyond military
hours, when I warrant me they might slip up, gully by gully,
to the very sentries' backs! Their color wouldn't show them,
and savages as they seemed, couldn't they settle as many sen-
tries as they needed, creep into the very bedchamber where
Bonaparte slept, and manhandle him bodily away down through
some of the nearest hollows, before any one was the wiser? The
point that still bothered me was, why the fourth of the blacks
was wanting at present, unless he had his part to play elsewhere.
If it was chance, then the whole might be a notion of mine,
which I knew I was apt to have sometimes. If I could only
make out the fourth black, so as to tally with the scheme, on
the other hand, then I thought it was all sure; but of course
this quite pauled me, and I gave it up, to work out my fancy
case by providing signals betwixt us plotters inside and the
schooner, out of sight from the telegraphs. There was no use
for her to run in and take the risk, without good luck having
turned up on the island; yet any sign she could profit by must
be both sufficient to reach sixty miles or so, and hidden enough
not to alarm the telegraphs or the cruisers. Here was a worse
puzzle than all, and I only guessed at it for my own satisfac-
tion as a fellow can't help doing when he hears a question
he can't answer - till my eye
lighted on Diana's Peak, near
three thousand feet above the sea. There it was, by Jove!
'Twas quite clear at the time; but by nightfall there was always
more or less cloud near the top, and if you set a fire on the
very peak 'twould only be seen leagues off: a notion that
brought to mind a similar thing which I told you saved the
Indiaman from a lee-shore one night on the African coast-
and again, by George! I saw that must have been meant at first
by the negroes as a smoke to help the French brig easier in!
Putting that and that together, why it struck me at once what
the fourth black's errand might be-namely, to watch for the
schooner, and kindle his signal as soon as he couldn't see the
island for mist. I was sure of it; and as for a dark night com-
ing on at sea, the freshening of the breeze there promised noth-
ing more likely; a bright white haze was softening out the
-
-


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GEORGE CUPPLES
4217
horizon already, and here and there the egg of a cloud could be
seen to break off the sky to windward, all of which would be
better known afloat than here.
The truth was, I was on the point of tripping my anchor to
hurry down and get aboard again; but on standing up, the head
of a peak fell below the sail I had noticed in the distance, and
seeing she loomed large on the stretch of water, I pretty soon
found she must be a ship of the line. The telegraph over the
Alarm House was hard at work again, so I e'en took down my
glass and cleaned it to have a better sight, during which I
caught sight, for a minute, of some soldier officer or other on
horseback, with a mounted redcoat behind him, riding hastily up
the gully a good bit from my back, till they were round the red
piece of crag, turning at times as if to watch the vessel. Though
I couldn't have a better spy at him for want of my glass, I had
no doubt he was the governor himself, for the sentries in the
distance took no note of him. There was nobody else visible at
the time, and the said cliff stood fair up like a look-out place,
so as to shut them out as they went higher. Once or twice
after, I fancied I made out a man's head or two lower down
the gully than the cliff was; which, it occurred to me, might
possibly be the botanists, as they called themselves, busy finding
out how long St. Helena had been an island; however, I soon
turned the glass before me upon the ship, by this time right
opposite the ragged opening of Prosperous Bay, and heading
well up about fourteen miles or so off the coast, as I reckoned
to make James Town harbor. The moment I had the sight of
the glass right for her, though you'd have thought she stood
still on the smooth soft blue water,—I could see her whole
beam rise off the swells before me, from the dark side and
white band, checkered with a double row of ports, to the ham-
per of her lofty spars, and the sails braced slant to the breeze;
the foam gleaming under her high bows, and her wake running
aft in the heave of the sea. She was evidently a seventy-four;
I fancied I could make out her men's faces peering over the
yards toward the island, as they thought of "Boneypart"; a white
rear-admiral's flag was at the mizenroyal masthead, leaving no
doubt she was the Conqueror at last, with Admiral Plampin, and
in a day or two at farthest the Hebe would be bound for India.
I had just looked over my shoulder toward Longwood, letting
the Conqueror sink back again into a thing no bigger than
-


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4218
GEORGE CUPPLES
a model on a mantelpiece, when all at once I saw some one
standing near the brow of the cliff I mentioned, apparently
watching the vessel, with a long glass at his eye like myself.
'Twas farther than I could see to make out anything, save so
much; and ere I had screwed the glass for such a near sight,
there were seven or eight figures more appearing half over the
slope behind; while my hand shook so much with holding the
glass so long, that at first I brought it to bear full on the cracks
and blocks in the front of the crag, with the large green leaves
and trailers on it flickering idly with the sunlight against my
eyes, till I could have seen the spiders inside, I daresay. Next
I held it too high, where the admiral and Lord Frederick were
standing by their horses, a good way back; the governor, as I
supposed, sitting on his, and two or three others along the rise.
At length, what with kneeling down to rest it on one knee, I
had the glass steadily fixed on the brow of the rocks, where I
plainly saw a tall dark-whiskered man in a rich French uniform,
gazing to seaward. I knew him I sought too well by pictures,
however, not to be sadly galled. Suddenly a figure came slowly
down from before the rest, with his hands behind his back, and
his head a little drooped. The officer at once lowered the tele-
scope and held it to him, stepping upward as if to leave him.
alone - what dress he had on I scarce noticed; but there he was
standing, single in the round bright field of the glass I had hold
of like a vise- his head raised, his hands hiding his face, as I
kept the telescope fixed fair in front of me-only I saw the
smooth broad round of his chin. I knew, as if I'd seen him in
the Tuileries at Paris, or known him by sight since I was a boy,
-I knew it was Napoleon.
-
During that minute the rest of them were out of sight, so
far as the glass went-you'd have supposed there was no one
there but himself, as still as a figure in iron; watching the same
thing, no doubt, as I'd done myself five minutes before, where
the noble seventy-four was beating slowly to windward. When
I did glance to the knot of officers twenty yards back, 'twas as
if one saw a ring of his generals waiting respectfully while he
eyed some field of battle or other, with his army at the back of
the hill; but next moment the telescope fell in his hands, and
his face, as pale as death, with his lip firm under it, seemed
near enough for me to touch it - his eyes shot stern into me
from below his wide white forehead, and I started, dropping my


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GEORGE CUPPLES
4219
glass in turn. That instant the whole wild lump of St. Helena,
with its ragged brim, the clear blue sky and the sea, swung
round about the dwindled figures above the crag, till they were
nothing but so many people together against the slope beyond.
'Twas a strange scene to witness, let me tell you; never can
I forget the sightless, thinking sort of gaze from that head of
his, after the telescope sank from his eye, when the Conqueror
must have shot back with all her stately hamper into the floor
of the Atlantic again! Once more I brought my spy-glass to
bear on the place where he had been, and was almost on the
point of calling out to warn him off the edge of the cliff, for-
getting the distance I was away. Napoleon had stepped, with
one foot before him, on the very brink, his two hands hanging
loose by his side with the glass in one of them, till the shadow
of his small black cocked hat covered the hollows of his eyes,
and he stood as it were looking down past the face of the
precipice. What he thought of, no mortal tongue can say:
whether he was master at the time over a wilder battle than
any he'd ever fought; but just then, what was the surprise it
gave me to see the head of a man, with a red tasseled cap on
it, raised through among the ivy from below, while he seemed
to have his feet on the cracks and juts of the rock, hoisting
himself by one hand round the tangled roots till no doubt he
must have looked right aloft into the French Emperor's face;
and perhaps he whispered something-though for my part it
was all dumb show to me, where I knelt peering into the glass.
I saw even him start at the suddenness of the thing-he raised
his head upright, still glancing down over the front of the crag,
with the spread hand lifted, and the side of his face half
turned toward the party within earshot behind, where the gov-
ernor and the rest apparently kept together out of respect, no
doubt watching both Napoleon's back and the ship of war far
beyond. The keen sunlight on the spot brought out every motion
of the two in front-the one so full in my view, that I could
mark his look settle again on the other below, his firm lips part-
ing and his hand out before him like a man seeing a spirit he
knew; while a bunch of leaves on the end of a wand came steal-
ing up from the stranger's post to Napoleon's very fingers. The
head of the man on the cliff turned round seaward for one
moment, ticklish as his footing must have been; then he looked
back, pointing with his loose hand to the horizon,-there was


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4220
GEORGE CUPPLES
one minute between them without a motion, seemingly - the
captive Emperor's chin was sunk on his breast, though you'd
have said his eyes glanced up out of the shadow on his fore-
head; and the stranger's red cap hung like a bit of the bright
colored cliff, under his two hands holding among the leaves.
Then I saw Napoleon lift his hand calmly, he gave a sign with
it-it might have been refusing, it might have been agreeing,
or it might be farewell, I never expect to know; but he folded
his arms across his breast, with the bunch of leaves in his
fingers, and stepped slowly back from the brink toward the
officers. I was watching the stranger below it, as he swung
there for a second or two, in a way like to let him go dash to
the bottom; his face sluing wildly seaward again. Short though
the glance I had of him was,- his features set hard in some
bitter feeling or other, his dress different too, besides the mus-
tache being off, and his complexion no doubt purposely darkened,
- it served to prove what I'd suspected: he was no other than
the Frenchman I had seen in the brig; and mad or sensible, the
very look I caught was more like that he faced the thunder-
squall with, than aught beside. Directly after, he was letting
himself carefully down with his back to my glass; the party
above were moving off over the brow of the crags, and the
governor riding round, apparently to come once more down the
hollow between us. In fact, the seventy-four had stood by this.
time so far in that the peaks in the distance shut her out; but I
ran the glass carefully along the whole horizon in my view, for
signs of the schooner. The haze was too bright, however, to
make sure either way; though, dead to windward, there were
some streaks of cloud risen with the breeze, where I once or
twice fancied I could catch the gleam of a speck in it. The
Podargus was to be seen through a notch in the rocks, too,
beating out in a different direction, as if the telegraph had sig-
naled her elsewhere; after which you heard the dull rumble of
the forts saluting the Conqueror down at James Town as she
came in and being late in the afternoon, it was high time for
me to crowd sail downward, to fall in with my shipmates.


## p. 4221 (#599) ###########################################

4221
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
(1824-1892)
BY EDWARD CARY
In
EORGE WILLIAM CURTIS was born in Providence, R. I. , Febru-
ary 24th, 1824, of a New England family, his ancestry on
the father's side running back in unbroken line to the
Massachusetts settlers of the first half of the seventeenth century.
Though his home was in New York from early boyhood, he was
through life a type-one of the best-of New England manhood.
The firm, elastic, sometimes hard, fibre of a steadfast and intense
moral sense was always found, occasion requiring, beneath the social
grace and charm and the blithe and vivid
fancy of the author. His schooling was
brief- a few years only before the age of
eleven. The rest of his education, which
was varied and in some lines thorough,
was gained by reading, with private tutors,
with his accomplished and gifted step-
mother, and-richest of all-alone.
1842, while yet a lad of eighteen, he went
for a couple of years as a boarder to Brook
Farm. There, to quote his own words, «<
the ripest scholars, men and women of the
most æsthetic culture and accomplishment,
young farmers, seamstresses, mechanics,
preachers, the industrious, the lazy, the con-
ceited, the sentimental. But they associated in such a spirit and un-
der such conditions that, with some extravagance, the best of every-
body appeared. " "Compared with other efforts upon which time and
money and industry are lavished, measured by Colorado and Nevada
speculations, by California gold-washings, by oil-boring and the
Stock Exchange, Brook Farm was certainly a very reasonable and
practical enterprise, worthy of the hope and aid of generous men
and women. The friendships that were formed there were enduring.
The devotion to noble endeavor, the sympathy with what is most
useful to men, the kind patience and constant charity that were fos-
tered there, have been no more lost than the grain dropped upon
the field. "
were

GEORGE W. CURTIS


## p. 4222 (#600) ###########################################

4222
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
These two years, and one spent on a farm at Concord, Massachu-
setts, near the homes of Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, were fol-
lowed by four years in Europe,-in Germany, Italy, France, Egypt;
and in 1851, at the age of twenty-seven, Curtis took up seriously the
work of a writer. Within a year he published two small volumes,
The Nile Notes of a Howadji,' and 'The Howadji in Syria. ' For a
couple of years he was a writer on the New York Tribune, where his
Brook Farm friends, Ripley and Dana, were engaged; and 'Lotus-
Eating' was made up of letters to that paper from the then famous
"watering-places. " He dropped newspaper work to become an editor
and writer with Putnam's Magazine, and the 'Potiphar Papers' and
'Prue and I were written for that periodical. For a time he formed
a connection with the printer of Putnam's in a publishing business;
in which, and through the fault of others, he failed; assuming, quite
beyond the requirements of the law, debts which it took a score of
years to discharge. Finally he found his publishing home with the
house of Harper and Brothers. At first a contributor to the Maga-
zine and the Weekly, he became the editor of the Weekly and the
writer of the "Easy Chair"; and from those two coignes of vantage,
until his death on August 31st, 1892, he did what, apart from his
lectures and addresses, was the work of his life. He made no more
books, save the one not successful novel of Trumps,' written as a
serial for the Weekly, and the volumes from the Addresses and the
"Easy Chair" published after his death; yet he fulfilled the prophecy
of Hawthorne on the appearance of the Nile Notes'—"I see that
you are forever an author. »
It would not be easy, were it worth while, exactly to classify
Curtis; and if in general phrase we say that he was an essayist, that
only betrays how comprehensive a label is needed to cover his work.
Essays, long or short, the greater number of his writings were; each
practically embraced a single subject, and of this presented one
phase, important perhaps and grave, or light, amusing, tender, and
sometimes satiric to the verge of bitterness—though never beyond it.
The Howadji books, which first gave him a name and fairly
launched him as a writer, were a singular and original product,
wholly different from what could have been expected of his training
and associations; a venture in a field which, curiously enough, since
the venture was in every sense more than ordinarily successful, he
promptly and forever abandoned. "I aimed," he says in one of his
private letters, "to represent the essentially sensuous, luxurious,
languid, and sense-satisfied spirit of Eastern life. " The style was
adapted with courage, not to say audacity, to the aim. No American
at that time had ever written English so riotously beyond the
accepted conventions, so frankly, almost saucily, limited only by what


## p. 4223 (#601) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
4223
the writer chose to say of what he felt or fancied under the inspira-
tion of the East. Leigh Hunt compared the 'Nile Notes' to 'Eothen'
and to 'Hyperion,' but the relation was extravagantly remote. The
Howadji books were as individual as the lavish and brilliant bloom
of a plant in the hot rays of the southern spring-and as passing.
Once the shining and slightly gaudy flowers were shed, the normal
growth proceeded to substantial fruitage.
The Potiphar Papers' were like the Eastern books in this, that
they were at the time a still more successful venture in a field
which, if not wholly abandoned by Curtis, was not continuously cul-
tivated, but was only entered occasionally and never quite in the
same spirit. They were a series of satires, fanciful enough in con-
ception, but serious and almost savage in spirit, on the most conspic-
uous society of the day: its vulgarity, vanity, shallowness, and
stupidity, the qualities inherent in the prevalent rivalry in money-
spending. They were of marked importance at the time, because
they were the brilliant and stinging comment of a gentleman and a
patriot on a portion of society whose wealth gave dangerous promi-
nence to the false standards set up and followed. Happily the vices
Curtis scourged were those of an over-vigorous and unchastened
youth of society, and the chief value of the satire now is as a picture
of the past.
'Prue and I was a series of papers written, as Curtis's letters
show, in odd moments and with great rapidity, to meet the exigencies
of the magazine. But the papers survive as an example of the pure
literary work of the author. The opulence and extravagance of the
'Howadji' books disappear; but the rich imagination, the sportive
fancy, the warm and life-giving sentiment, the broad philosophy, are
expressed in a style of singular beauty, flexibility, and strength.
And it was in this line that the "Easy Chair" essays were con-
tinued, forming one of the most remarkable bodies of literary product
of the time. They were written for Harper's Magazine, four or five
monthly, equivalent each year to an ordinary duodecimo volume, and
the series closed with the death of the writer some thirty-five years
from their beginning. Their variety was very great. Some of them
touched the events and questions of the time, and the time embraced
the political contest with slavery, the Civil War, and the marvelously
rapid and complex development of the nation after the war.
when the events or questions of the day were touched, it was at
at once lightly and broadly, to illuminate and fix some suggestion of
philosophy; through all ran the current of wise and gracious and
noble thought or sentiment. Many of the essays were woven of
reminiscence and comment on persons. In the little volume selected
by himself and published shortly before his death, a dozen of the


## p. 4224 (#602) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
4224
twenty-seven were of this nature, embracing such varying person-
alities as Edward Everett, Browning, Wendell Phillips, Dickens,
Thoreau, Jenny Lind, Emerson, Joseph Jefferson. Whoever was thus
brought under the clear, soft, penetrating light of Curtis's pen lived
thereafter in the mind of the reader with a character more real and
just. In many of the essays of the "Easy Chair" there was a tone of
gentle satire, but always hopeful and helpful, not bitter or discoura-
ging; as if in "Titbottom's Spectacles," that broke the heart of the
wearer with their revelation of the evil in those who passed before
them, new lenses had been set, revealing the everlasting beauty and
power of the ideal which evil violates, and to whose gracious and
blessing sway the writer, with a kindly smile at the incongruities of
the actual, invited his friend the reader. The very title had a gleam
of this subtle humor, it being well known to the profession, and
established by the experience of successive generations, that in
reality there is no such thing as an "editor's easy-chair. " Even if
we allow for the fact that Curtis's seat was in his tranquil library on
Staten Island, remote from the complications and vexations of the
magazine's office, we must still recognize that the ease was not in the
chair, but in that firm high poise of the writer's spirit which enabled
him, with wisdom as unfailing as his gracious cheer, "to Report and
Consider all Matters of What Kind Soever. "
Curtis was, perhaps, in his lifetime even more widely known as a
speaker than as a writer. At the very outset of his career he be-
came one of the half-dozen lecturers under the curious and potent
lyceum system, that in the third quarter of the century did so much
to arouse and satisfy a deep interest in things of the mind in the
widely scattered communities of the American republic. At the
very outset, too, he entered with all his soul into the political agita-
tion against slavery, and became one of the most stirring and most
highly regarded popular orators of the Republican party. Later he
was eagerly sought upon occasions of historical interest and for
memorial addresses. Still later he delivered the remarkable series of
addresses on the reform of the civil service, in what was in effect a
second struggle for political emancipation, waged with as broad a
human purpose, with as high courage, as was the struggle against
slavery, and with even a riper knowledge of the conditions of safety
for the republic. The great body of these addresses, many of the
slightest as well as the more elaborate, were essentially literary.
Most of them were written out and committed to memory, and many
were marked by more of the polish and completeness of the scholar's
conscientious and deliberate work than most of the writing intended
only for publication. But they were still the orator's work, addressed
to the ear, though fitted to bear the test of study, and intended


## p. 4225 (#603) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
4225
through the ear to touch the conscience and the heart and sway the
will. Apart from the unfailing and lofty moral purpose that per-
vades them, their lasting charm lies in their music. They were the
emmelia, the "well-tuned speech," of the Greeks. But the hidden
monitor who kept the orator true to the carefully chosen "pitch"
was not the freedman of Gracchus, it was the sensitive and faithful
artistic sense of the speaker. A writer lives in the world's literature,
necessarily, by those of his writings that find a permanent form in
books. Of these Curtis left few. But fairly to judge of his influence
on the thought, and so on the life as well as the literature, of his
country, we must remember that the unusual gifts and the rare
spirit revealed in these few books pervaded also his work in the
magazine and the journal; that the fruit of his work would fill a
hundred volumes, and that it reached readers by the hundred thou-
sand. Had Curtis sought only the fame of the writer, he could
hardly have failed to gain it, and in notable measure. In pursuing
the object he did, he might rightly believe at the close of his career
-it is doubtful if he ever gave it a thought-that he had rendered
to American literature a service unrecognized and untraceable, but
singularly, perhaps uniquely, great.
Edward Cary.
THE MIST AT NEWPORT
From Lotus Eating. Copyright, 1852, by Harper & Brothers
I
RODE one afternoon with Undine along the southern shore of
the Island, by the lonely graves of which I have spoken.
could see only a few feet over the water, but the ocean con-
stantly plunged sullenly out of the heavy fog, which was full of
hoarse roars and wailings, - the chaotic sound of the sea. We
took the homeward path through the solitary fields, just unfa-
miliar enough to excite us with a vague sense of going astray.
At times, gleams of sunlight, bewildered like ourselves, strug-
gled, surprised, through the mist and disappeared. But strange.
and beautiful were those estrays; and I well understand why
Turner studied vapors so long and carefully.
Two grander figures are not in contemporary biography than
that of Coleridge, in Carlyle's 'Sterling,' looking out from High-
gate over the mingled smoke and vapor which buries London, as
VII-265


## p. 4226 (#604) ###########################################

4226
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
in lava Pompeii is buried; and that of Turner, in some anony-
mous but accurate sketches of his latter days, at his cottage on
the edge of London, where, apart from his fame and under a
feigned name, he sat by day and night upon the housetop, watch-
ing the sun glorify the vapors and the smoke with the same
splendor that he lavishes upon the evening west, and which we
deemed the special privilege of the sky. Those two men, great-
est in their kind among their companions, illustrate with happy
force what Wordsworth sang:
"In common things that round us lie,
Some random truths he can impart,-
The harvest of a quiet eye
That broods and sleeps on his own heart. "
Gazing from his Highgate window with "large gray eye," did
Coleridge see more than the image of his own mind and his own
career, in that limitless city, wide-sparkling, many-turreted, fad-
ing and mingling in shining mist,- with strange voices calling
from its clouds,- the solemn peal of cathedral chimes and the
low voice of the vesper bell; and out of that London fog with
its irresistible splendors, and out of the holy vapors which float
serene amid the Alps, has Turner quarried his colossal fame.
There is no grander lesson in any history of any art than the
spectacle of the greatest painter of our time, sitting upon his
house-top, and from the mist which to others was but a clog and
inconvenience, and associated in all men's minds only with link-
boys and lanterns, plucking the heart of its mystery and making
it worshiped and remembered.
NAZARETH
From 'Howadji in Syria. Copyright, 1856, by Harper & Brothers
THE
HE traditions which cluster around Nazareth are so tender and
domestic that you will willingly believe, or at least you will
listen to, the improbable stories of the friars as a father
to the enthusiastic exaggerations of his child. With Jerusalem
and its vicinity the gravity of the doctrine is too intimately
associated to allow the mind to heed the quarrels and theories
about the localities. It is the grandeur of the thought which
commands you. But in Nazareth it is the personality of the
Teacher which interests you. All the tenderness of the story


## p. 4227 (#605) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
4227
centers here. The youth of the Madonna and the unrecorded
years of the Child belong to Nazareth. Therefore imagination
unbends to the sweet associations of domestic life. The little
picture in the Uffizi recurs again, and the delicate sketches of
Overbeck, illustrating the life of Christ, in which as a blooming
boy in his father's shop he saws a bit of wood into the form of
a cross, looking up smilingly to the thoughtful Joseph and the
yearning Mary, as when he brings her the passion-flower in the
pleasant room.
The tranquil afternoon streams up the valley, and your heart
is softened as if by that tender smile of Mary; and yielding to
soliciting friars, you go quietly and see where Joseph's house.
stood, and where the Angel Gabriel saluted Mary, and the chim-
ney of the hearth upon which she warmed food for her young
child, and baked cakes for Joseph when he came home from
work, and the rock whence the Jews wished to cast Jesus, and
another rock upon which he ate with his disciples.
You listen quietly to these stories, and look at the sights.
The childish effort to give plausible form to the necessary facts.
of the history of the place is too natural to offend. When the
pretense is too transparent you smile, but do not scold. For
whether he lived upon this side of the way or upon that, this is
the landscape he saw for thirty years. A quiet workman, doubt-
less, with his father, strolling among the melancholy hills of
Galilee, looking down into the lake-like vastness of Esdraëlon,
where the great captains of his nation had fought, hearing the
wild winds blow from the sea, watching the stars, and remem-
bering the three days of his childhood when he sat in the temple
at Jerusalem.
Walking in the dying day over the same solitary hills, you
will see in the sunset but one figure moving along the horizon,-
a grave manly form, outlined upon the west.
Here was the true struggle of his life-the resolve to devote
himself to the work. These are the exceeding high mountains
upon which he was lifted in temptation; here in the fullness of
his youth and hope Satan walked with him, seductive. For
every sin smiles in the first address, says Jeremy Taylor, and
carries light in the face and honey in the lip. Green and
flowery as Esdraëlon lay the valleys of ease and reputation at his
feet; but sternly precipitous as the heights of Galilee, the cliffs
of duty above him buried their heads in heaven.
-――


## p. 4228 (#606) ###########################################

4228
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
Here too was he transfigured; and in the light of thought he
floats between Moses and Elias, between faith and duty, and the
splendor of his devotion so overflows history with glory that
men call him God.
AURELIA AS A GRANDMOTHER
From Prue and I. '
Copyright, 1856, by Harper & Brothers
TH
HERE will be a time when you will no longer go out to
dinner; or only very quietly, in the family. I shall be
gone then; but other old bookkeepers in white cravats will
inherit my tastes, and saunter on summer afternoons to see what
I loved to see.
They will not pause, I fear, in buying apples, to look at the
old lady in venerable cap who is rolling by in the carriage.
They will worship another Aurelia. You will not wear dia-
monds or opals any more, only one pearl upon your blue-veined
finger,- your engagement ring. Grave clergymen and antiquated
beaux will hand you down to dinner, and the group of polished
youth who gather around the yet unborn Aurelia of that day
will look at you, sitting quietly upon the sofa, and say softly,
"She must have been very handsome in her time. "
All this must be; for consider how few years since it was
your grandmother who was the belle, by whose side the hand-
some young men longed to sit and pass expressive mottoes.
Your grandmother was the Aurelia of a half-century ago,
although you cannot fancy her young. She is indissolubly asso-
ciated in your mind with caps and dark dresses. You can be-
lieve Mary Queen of Scots, or Nell Gwyn, or Cleopatra, to have
been young and blooming, although they belonged to old and
dead centuries; but not your grandmother. Think of those who
shall believe the same of you-you, who to-day are the very
flower of youth.
Might I plead with you, Aurelia, I, who would be too
happy to receive one of those graciously beaming bows that I
see you bestow upon young men, in passing,—I would ask you
to bear that thought with you always, not to sadden your sunny
smile, but to give it a more subtle grace. Wear in your sum-
mer garland this little leaf of rue. It will not be the skull at


## p. 4229 (#607) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
4229
the feast, it will rather be the tender thoughtfulness in the face.
of the young Madonna.
For the years pass like summer clouds, Aurelia, and the
children of yesterday are the wives and mothers of to-day.
Even I do sometimes discover the mild eyes of my Prue fixed
pensively upon my face, as if searching for the bloom which she
remembers there in the days, long ago, when we were young.
She will never see it there again, any more than the flowers
she held in her hand, in our old spring rambles. Yet the tear
that slowly gathers as she gazes is not grief that the bloom has
faded from my cheek, but the sweet consciousness that it can
never fade from my heart; and as her eyes fall upon her work
again, or the children climb her lap to hear the old fairy-tales
they already know by heart, my wife Prue is dearer to me than
the sweetheart of those days long ago.
PRUE'S MAGNOLIA
From Prue and I. Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers
IF
F I meet Charles, who is bound for Alabama, or John, who
sails for Savannah, with a trunk full of white jackets, I do
not say to them, as their other friends say:-
"Happy travelers, who cut March and April out of the dismal
year! "
I do not envy them. They will be seasick on the way. The
Southern winds will blow all the water out of the rivers; and,
desolately stranded upon mud, they will relieve the tedium
of the interval by tying with large ropes a young gentleman
raving with delirium tremens. They will hurry along, appalled
by forests blazing in the windy night; and housed in a bad inn,
they will find themselves anxiously asking, "Are the cars punc-
tual in leaving? "-grimly sure that impatient travelers find all
conveyances too slow. The travelers are very warm indeed, even
in March and April,-but Prue doubts if it is altogether the
effect of the Southern climate.
—
Why should they go to the South? If they only wait a little,
the South will come to them. Savannah arrives in April;
Florida in May; Cuba and the Gulf come in with June; and the
full splendor of the Tropics burns through July and August.


## p. 4230 (#608) ###########################################

4230
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
Sitting upon the earth, do we not glide by all the constellations,
all the awful stars? Does not the flash of Orion's scimitar
dazzle as we pass? Do we not hear, as we gaze in hushed
midnights, the music of the Lyre; are we not throned with
Cassiopeia; do we not play with the tangles of Berenice's hair, as
we sail, as we sail?
When Christopher told me that he was going to Italy, I went
into Bourne's conservatory, saw a magnolia, and so reached Italy
before him. Can Christopher bring Italy home? But I brought
to Prue a branch of magnolia blossoms, with Mr. Bourne's kind-
est regards, and she put them upon her table, and our little
house smelled of Italy for a week afterward. The incident
developed Prue's Italian tastes, which I had not suspected to be
so strong. I found her looking very often at the magnolias;
even holding them in her hand, and standing before the table
with a pensive air. I suppose she was thinking of Beatrice.
Cenci, or of Tasso and Leonora, or of the wife of Marino Fali-
ero, or of some other of those sad old Italian tales of love and
woe. So easily Prue went to Italy.
Thus the spring comes in my heart as well as in the air, and
leaps along my veins as well as through the trees. I immedi-
ately travel. An orange takes me to Sorrento, and roses, when
they blow, to Pæstum. The camellias in Aurelia's hair bring
Brazil into the happy rooms she treads, and she takes me to
South America as she goes to dinner. The pearls upon her
neck make me free of the Persian Gulf. Upon her shawl, like
the Arabian prince upon his carpet, I am transported to the
vales of Cashmere; and thus, as I daily walk in the bright
spring days, I go around the world.
But the season wakes a finer longing, a desire that could only
be satisfied if the pavilions of the clouds were real, and I could
stroll among the towering splendors of a sultry spring evening.
Ah! if I could leap those flaming battlements that glow along
the west-if I could tread those cool, dewy, serene isles of
sunset, and sink with them in the sea of stars.
I say so to Prue, and my wife smiles.


## p. 4231 (#609) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
4231
-
OUR COUSIN THE CURATE
From 'Prue and I.
Copyright, 1856, by Harper & Brothers
WHE
HEN Prue and I are most cheerful, and the world looks fair
-we talk of our cousin the curate. When the world
seems a little cloudy, and we remember that though we
have lived and loved together we may not die together-we talk
of our cousin the curate. When we plan little plans for the boys
and dream dreams for the girls-we talk of our cousin the
curate. When I tell Prue of Aurelia, whose character is every
day lovelier- we talk of our cousin the curate. There is no
subject which does not seem to lead naturally to our cousin the
curate. As the soft air steals in and envelops everything in the
world, so that the trees, and the hills, and the rivers, the cities,
the crops, and the sea, are made remote and delicate and beauti-
ful by its pure baptism, so over all the events of our little lives
-comforting, refining, and elevating-falls like a benediction the
remembrance of our cousin the curate.
He was my only early companion.
He had no brother, I
had none; and we became brothers to each other.
He was
always beautiful.
His face was symmetrical and delicate; his
figure was slight and graceful. He looked as the sons of kings.
ought to look; as I am sure Philip Sidney looked when he was
a boy. His eyes were blue, and as you looked at them they
seemed to let your gaze out into a June heaven. The blood ran
close to the skin, and his complexion had the rich transparency
of light. There was nothing gross or heavy in his expression or
texture; his soul seemed to have mastered his body. But he
had strong passions, for his delicacy was positive, not negative;
it was not weakness, but intensity.
There was a patch of ground about the house which we tilled
as a garden. I was proud of my morning-glories and sweet-
peas; my cousin cultivated roses. One day and we could.
scarcely have been more than six years old - we were digging
merrily and talking. Suddenly there was some kind of differ-
ence; I taunted him, and raising his spade he struck me upon
the leg. The blow was heavy for a boy, and the blood trickled
from the wound. I burst into indignant tears, and limped
toward the house. My cousin turned pale and said nothing; but
just as I opened the door he darted by me, and before I could


## p. 4232 (#610) ###########################################

4232
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
interrupt him he had confessed his crime and asked for punish-
ment.
From that day he conquered himself. He devoted a kind of
ascetic energy to subduing his own will, and I remember no
other outbreak. But the penalty he paid for conquering his will
was a loss of the gushing expression of feeling. My cousin
became perfectly gentle in his manner; but there was a want of
that pungent excess which is the finest flavor of character. His
views were moderate and calm. He was swept away by no boy-
ish extravagance; and even while I wished he would sin only a
very little, I still adored him as a saint. The truth is, as I tell
Prue, I am so very bad because I have to sin for two- for
myself and our cousin the curate. Often, when I returned pant-
ing and restless from some frolic which had wasted almost all
the night, I was rebuked as I entered the room in which he lay
peacefully sleeping. There was something holy in the profound
repose of his beauty; and as I stood looking at him, how many
a time the tears have dropped from my hot eyes upon his face
while I vowed to make myself worthy of such a companion,- for
I felt my heart owning its allegiance to that strong and imperial
nature.
-―――――――
My cousin was loved by the boys, but the girls worshiped
him. His mind, large in grasp and subtle in perception, natu-
rally commanded his companions, while the lustre of his character
allured those who could not understand him. The asceticism
occasionally showed itself in a vein of hardness, or rather of
severity, in his treatment of others. He did what he thought it
his duty to do; but he forgot that few could see the right so
clearly as he, and very few of those few could so calmly obey
the least command of conscience. I confess I was a little afraid
of him, for I think I never could be severe.
In the long winter evenings I often read to Prue the story of
some old father of the church, or some quaint poem of George
Herbert's; and every Christmas Eve I read to her Milton's
'Hymn of the Nativity. ' Yet when the saint seems to us most
saintly, or the poem most pathetic or sublime, we find ourselves.
talking of our cousin the curate. I have not seen him for many
years; but when we parted, his head had the intellectual symme-
try of Milton's, without the Puritanic stoop, and with the stately
grace of a Cavalier


## p. 4233 (#611) ###########################################

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
4233
THE CHARM OF PARIS
From The Potiphar Papers. Copyright, 1858, by Harper & Brothers
YES, my dear Madame," answered the Pacha, "this is indeed
"YES making the best of one's opportunities. This is well
worth coming to Europe for. It is in fact for this that
Europe is chiefly valuable to an American, as the experience of
an observer shows. Paris is notoriously the great centre of
historical and romantic interest. To be sure, Italy, Rome,
Switzerland, and Germany-yes, and even England-have some
few objects of interest and attention; but the really great things
of Europe, the superior interests, are all in Paris. Why, just
reflect. Here is the Café de Paris, the Trois Frères, and the
Maison Dorée. I don't think you can get such dinners elsewhere.
Then there is the Grand Opera, the Comic Opera, and now and
then the Italian-I rather think that is good music. Are there
any such theatres as the Vaudeville, the Variétés, and the
Montansier, where there is the most dexterous balancing on the
edge of decency that ever you saw? and when the balance is
lost, as it always is at least a dozen times every evening, the
applause is tremendous, showing that the audience have such a
subtle sense of propriety that they can detect the slightest devia-
tion from the right line. Is there not the Louvre, where, if
there is not the best picture of a single great artist, there are
good specimens of all? Will you please to show me such a
promenade as the Boulevards, such fêtes as those of the Champs.
Elysées, such shops as those of the Passages and the Palais
Royal? Above all, will you indicate to such students of mankind
as Mr. Boosey, Mr. Firkin, and I, a city more abounding in
piquant little women, with eyes, and coiffures and toilettes, and
je ne sais quoi, enough to make Diogenes a dandy, to obtain
their favor? I think, dear madame, you would be troubled to
do it. And while these things are Paris, while we are sure of
an illimitable allowance of all this in the gay capital, we do
right to remain here. Let who will, sadden in moldy old Rome,
or luxuriate in the orange groves of Sorrento and the South, or
wander among the ruins of the most marvelous of empires, and
the monuments of art of the highest human genius, or float about
the canals of Venice, or woo the Venus and the Apollo, and
learn from the silent lips of those teachers a lore sweeter than


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GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
4234
the French novelists impart; let who will, climb the tremendous
Alps, and feel the sublimity of Switzerland as he rises from the
summer of Italian lakes and vineyards into the winter of the
glaciers, or makes the tour of all climates in a day by descending
those mountains towards the south; let those who care for it,
explore in Germany the sources of modern history, and the remote
beginnings of the American spirit;-ours be the boulevards, the
demoiselles, the operas, and the unequaled dinners. Decency
requires that we should see Rome, and climb an Alp. We will
devote a summer week to the one, and a winter month to the
other. They will restore us, renewed and refreshed, for the
manly, generous, noble, and useful life we lead in Paris. »
"PHARISAISM OF REFORM»
From Orations and Addresses. ' Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Brothers
N°
O AMERICAN, it seems to me, is so unworthy the name as he
who attempts to extenuate or defend any national abuse,
who denies or tries to hide it, or who derides as pessimists
and Pharisees those who indignantly disown it and raise the cry
of reform. If a man proposes the redress of any public wrong,
he is asked severely whether he considers himself so much wiser
and better than other men, that he must disturb the existing
order and pose as a saint. If he denounces an evil, he is
exhorted to beware of spiritual pride. If he points out a dan-
gerous public tendency or censures the action of a party, he is
advised to cultivate good-humor, to look on the bright side, to
remember that the world is a very good world, at least the best
going, and very much better than it was a hundred years ago.
Undoubtedly it is; but would it have been better if every-
body had then insisted that it was the best of all possible
worlds, and that we must not despond if sometimes a cloud
gathered in the sky, or a Benedict Arnold appeared in the
patriot army, or even a Judas Iscariot among the chosen twelve?
Christ, I think, did not doubt the beloved disciple nor the
coming of his kingdom, although he knew and said that the be-
trayer sat with him at the table. I believe we do not read that
Washington either thought it wiser that Arnold's treachery should
be denied or belittled, or that he or any other patriot despaired
although the treason was so grave. Julius Cæsar or Marlborough


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GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
4235
or Frederick would hardly be called a great general if he had
rebuked the soldier who reported that the lines were beginning
to break. When the sea is pouring into the ship through an
open seam, everybody is aware of it. But then it is too late.
It is the watch who reports the first starting of the seam who
saves the ship.
It is an ill sign when public men find in exposure and
denunciation of public abuses evidence of the pharisaic disposi-
tion and a tendency in the critic to think himself holier than
other men. Was Martin Luther, cheerfully defending his faith
against the princes of Christendom, a Pharisee? Were the Eng-
lish Puritans, iconoclasts in Church and State but saviors of
liberty, pessimists? Were Patrick Henry demanding liberty or
death, and Wendell Phillips in the night of slavery murmuring
the music of the morning, birds of ill omen? Was Abraham
Lincoln saying of the American Union, "A house divided with
itself cannot stand," assuming to be holier than other Amer-
To win a cheap cheer, I have known even intelligent
men to sneer at the scholar in politics. But in a republic
founded upon the common school, such a sneer seems to me to
show a momentary loss of common-sense. It implies that the
political opinions of educated men are unimportant and that
ignorance is a safer counselor of the republic. If the gentleman
who in this very hall last stooped to that sneer, had asked him-
self what would have been the fortune of this State and this
country without its educated leadership, from Samuel Adams to
Charles Sumner,- both sons of Massachusetts, both scholars in
politics from Harvard College,- he might have spared his coun-
try, his party, and himself, the essential recreancy to America
and to manhood which lies in a sneer at education. To the cant
about the pharisaism of reform there is one short and final
answer. The man who tells the truth is a holier man than the
liar. The man who does not steal is a better man than the
thief.


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4236
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
THE CALL OF FREEDOM
From Orations and Addresses.
Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Brothers
IN
NTO how many homes along this lovely valley came the news
of Lexington and Bunker Hill eighty years ago; and young
men like us, studious, fond of leisure, young lovers, young
husbands, young brothers, and sons, knew that they must forsake
the wooded hillside, the river meadows golden with harvest, the
twilight walk along the river, the summer Sunday in the old
church, parents, wife, child, mistress, and go away to uncertain
Putnam heard the call at his plow, and turned to go
without waiting.