No More Learning

The world of critics, ancient and modern, has often reproached
him with being the first poet (though not the last! ) to sell his verse
for pay. Exalted Pindar did the same. And the calling of the poet
was reduced to a purely business basis. He knew what his work
was worth in gold, and he obtained his price. Witness Anaxilas of
Rhegium, who offered our poet-for a song of victory in honor of
his mules victorious in the race-a recompense too modest by half.
Simonides declined, so the story runs, explaining that he could not
sing the praises of asses' progeny. Anaxilas doubled his offer, and
Simonides in response wrote a famous ode beginning —
"Hail, daughters of the storm-swift steeds! »
But his literary contracts, according to the following anecdote,
were not always financially so successful. His Thessalian patron,
Scopas, once engaged him for a certain specified sum to write an ode
in his honor: when the ode was finished and sung, Scopas would pay
only half the stipulated honorarium, bidding Simonides collect the
other half from the Dioscuri whose praises had filled as large a por-
tion of the ode as his own. The grateful return was paid in full by
the sons of Zeus: Scopas, his sons, and all his court were banquet-
ing; the palace roof fell with a crash upon them, and Simonides
alone was saved. The gods are "better pay" than "tyrants"!
Simonides was the most productive of the Greek lyrists, as his
Muse was the most versatile. In no less than fifty-six public con-
tests, so he tells us, at fifty-six public festivals, his lyrical composi-
tions gained the first prize; and there may have been more after
that was written,- phenomenal success, when we remember that


## p. 13464 (#278) ##########################################

13464
SIMONIDES OF CEOS
Euripides, the favorite of the Hellenic world, received first prize
but five times. His successes moreover were commensurate with
his years. We have another epigram in which he rejoices to have
won at Athens, in his eighty-first year (476), the first prize with a
composition of his own produced by a chorus of fifty voices, with
Aristides the Just as choragos. And his public victories must, in
comparison with his odes written for private individuals and his
spontaneous bursts of song, have been only the smallest part of his
life's work.
His productions cover almost every field of lyrical composition.
No sort of choral song seems to have been wanting from his reper-
toire. We have fragments of Pæans, Hymns, Dithyrambs, Hypor-
chemes, Epinicia, Elegies, Dirges, and more, besides the Epigrams.
It is upon the epigrams that his greatest fame must rest, as they
alone of the extant remains do not consist of mere fragments. The
epigram was originally what the name implies,— the inscription upon
a tomb or upon a votive offering to explain its significance. By a
natural transfer of meaning, an epigram easily came to be a couple
of verses containing in pointed, polished form, a thought which might
very well serve as an inscription to the object that suggested it.
The unexpected-the ingenious turning of the point at the end-
was no essential feature of the classical epigram; but within the
compass of the few verses allotted to it, the story it had to tell must
be complete. And no one possessed in like degree the gift Simoni-
des had, of crowding a bookful of meaning into two faultless lines.
Upon the tomb of the Three Hundred at Thermopyla he wrote:
Go thou, stranger, and bear to Lacedæmon this message: —
Tell them that here we lie, faithful to Sparta's commands.
How long a poem he might with such a theme have made! But in
two lines, without a trace of artificiality or forced rhetoric, he has
sketched the Spartan character, and told the whole story of that
loyal devotion to country that meant so much to every Greek. De-
scription there is none: that would have been superfluous. No word
of praise is there: the deeds were their own encomium.
Diophon, Philo's son, at the Isthmus and Pytho a victor;
Broad jump, foot-race, disk, spear-throw, and wrestle he won.
In one line he gives his hero's name, his lineage, and his victory at
two great festivals; into the five words of the pentameter line with
consummate skill he puts in the exact order of their succession in
the stadium the five events of the Greek pentathlon, in which Philo's
son was victor.


## p. 13465 (#279) ##########################################

SIMONIDES OF CEOS
13465
The finest and most famous of all his epigrams are those inspired
by the Persian wars. The glory of those days permeated his verse;
the life of the victorious living and the death of the noble slain are
both glorified. These verses may be wanting in splendor and mag-
nificence: the man who could have furnished those qualities had
"stood on the wrong side in his country's life struggle; and Greece
turned to Simonides, not to Pindar, to make the record of her heroic
dead. " (Murray. ) A few even of these are no more than plain, pro-
saic statements of fact. Compare —
When, as leader of Greece, he routed the Median army,
King Pausanias gave Phoebus this off'ring of thanks,-
with the simple lines on the men of Tegea who fell at Platææ:-
Thanks to the valor of these men! that smoke never blackened the
heavens,
Rising from Median flames blazing in Tegean homes.
Theirs was to leave to their children a city of glory and freedom,
Theirs to lay down their lives, slain in defense of their own,—
and the general epitaph of the heroes of Platææ:-
-
---
Glory immortal they left a bequest to the land of their fathers-
Fame for the land they loved; death's sable shroud for themselves.
Still, though dead, are they not dead; for here their virtue abiding
Brings them from Hades again, gives them a glorious life.
-
A difficulty which taxed the epigrammatist's utmost skill to sur-
mount was the graceful weaving in of unmetrical names, of dates,
and of other naturally prosaic necessities. How well Simonides could
handle even these is illustrated by the two following autobiographical
notices:-
The following is brevity "gone to seed » :-
"Tell me then who thou art.
"Casmyl. Euagoras's son.
CHIEF of the Archons in Athens that year they named Adimantus,
When the fair tripod of bronze fell to Antiochis's tribe.
That year Xenophilus's son, Aristides the Just, was choragos,
Leader of fifty men singing the praise of the god.
Glory was won for their trainer, Simonides,- poet victorious,-
Ceian Leoprepes's son, then in his eightieth year.
-
FIFTY-AND-SIX great bulls, Simonides, fell to thee, prizes,
Tripods fifty-and-six, won ere this tablet was set.
So many times having trained the gladsome chorus of singers,
Victory's splendid car glorious didst thou ascend.
Whose son? Of what country? What victory ? »
From Rhodes. Boxing at Pytho. "


## p. 13466 (#280) ##########################################

13466
SIMONIDES OF CEOS
In the epigrams the dialect is Attic; in the choral odes the con-
ventional Doric has been retained.
The "epinician," the choral song in honor of a victor in the great
national games of Greece, may almost be called Simonides's own cre-
ation. Down to the times of Simonides a few verses had sufficed;
but with him came the full artistic structure of the magnificent
epinician ode as we find it perfected in Pindar. With the glorifica-
tion of the victor, the praises of a god or a mythical hero connected
with the victor-his fortunes, his family, or his country—are appro-
priately interwoven. Passing on by easy transitions from the human
to the divine, and from the divine again to the human, the poet dwells
upon the lessons of truth and wisdom suggested by his hero's life,
and the god whom he has glorified. "To be perfectly good is a hard
matter: only God may be perfect; and man is good only as God
dwells in him. "
In the epinicia, Simonides may fall short of the grandeur of
Pindar, and yield supremacy to him alone. But in the field of Elegy
and of the Dirge, as in the Epigram, he stands without a peer in the
world's literature. Pindar's pathos may be sublime, Eschylus's awful;
but Simonides knows how to touch the heart. Pindar philosophizes
on the glory awaiting the dead whose life has been well spent:
Simonides gives expression to the sorrow of the hearts that mourn,
and awakens our sympathies; he knows the healing power of tears,
and the power that the story of another's sorrow has to make them
flow, when one's own grief seems to have dried their fountain. He
dwells upon the frailty of human fortunes, the inevitability of fate,
and the goodness and justice of God, -the consolation of sympa-
thy, not of hope. What threnos could be more exquisitely delicate
and touching than Danaë's mother-heart yearning over her sleeping
babe,― unconscious of any danger, as together in the chest they
are helplessly tossed by the storm upon the waves; and the tearful
appeal at the end to Zeus, the father of her child! And as she
prays, the storm in her own bosom is stilled.
No less fine, in exquisite pathos and exalted patriotic sentiment,
are the few verses left to us of the elegy on the heroes of Ther-
mopylæ. It is quoted in full below.
Simonides's position among the melic poets may be suggested by
the influence he exercised on the development of lyric poetry, espe-
cially in choral song. (1) The dithyramb he removed from the narrow
sphere of Bacchus-worship and adapted it to the service of any god.
(2) With him the threnos was elevated from a simple monody to a
great choral.
(3) It was Simonides who introduced the myth into the
epinician and gave it the form which Pindar perfected. (4) And the
epigram as a recognized division of poetry is his own creation.


## p. 13467 (#281) ##########################################

SIMONIDES OF CEOS
13467
The best editions of the fragments are - Bergk, 'Poetæ Lyrici
Græci,' 4th ed. , Vol. iii. ; Schneidewin, Simonidis Cei Carminum Reli-
quiæ '; Hartung, 'Poetæ Lyrici Græci,' with a German translation, Vol.
vi. A few translations are given in Appleton, Greek Poetry in Eng-
lish Verse,' and Tomlinson, 'Selections from the Greek Anthology. '
(
Walter Miller
DANAE'S LAMENT
ND while she lay within the carven chest,
AND
Rocked by the soughing winds and troubled waves,
Fear crept into her not untearstained cheeks,
And clasping Perseus closelier round she spake :-
"O child, what woes are mine! Yet thou sleep'st sound.
In infant heedlessness thou slumberest
Within the bronze-nailed chest,
While lampless night and darkness swathe thee round.
Nor though the washing brine bedew thy hair,
Takest thou care,
Nor though the wind lift up its voice aloud,—
Face to my face, wrapped in thy purple shroud.
Not fearful unto thee the name of Fear!
Else wouldst thou to my words lend readier ear.
"Yet sleep, my babe, I bid thee sleep, my child,
And sleep, ye waters wild;
Sleep, mine insatiate woe!
And grant, O father Zeus, some respite come
Out of thy mercy. Nay, too bold I know
This boon I ask, past justice to bestow:
I pray thee, pardon me, my lips are dumb. "
Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature' by Alphonse
G. Newcomer


## p. 13468 (#282) ##########################################

13468
SIMONIDES OF CEOS
[The following versions are all taken from a careful study of Simonides by
John Sterling. The essay appeared in the Westminster Review for
1838. ]
FROM THE EPINICIAN ODE FOR SCOPAS'
MAN can hardly good in truth become,
Α
With hands, feet, mind, all square, without a flaw.
Nor suits my thought the word of Pittacus,
Though he was sage, that to be virtuous
Is hard. This fits a god alone.
A man must needs to evil fall,
When by hopeless chance o'erthrown.
Whoso does well, him good we call,
And bad if bad his lot be known;
Those by the gods beloved are best of all.
Enough for me in sooth
Is one not wholly wrong,
Nor all perverse, but skilled in useful truth,-
A healthy soul and strong:
He has no blame from me,
Who love not blame;
For countless those who foolish be,
And fair are all things free from shame.
That therefore which can ne'er be found
I seek not, nor desire with empty thought,—
A man all blameless, on this wide-spread ground,
'Mid all who cull its fruitage vainly sought.
If found, ye too this prize of mine
Shall know: meanwhile all those I love
And praise, who do no wrong by will malign;
For to necessity must yield the gods above.
INSCRIPTION FOR AN ALTAR DEDICATED TO ARTEMIS
HE Sons of Athens here at sea subdued
THE
In fight all Asia's many-voiced brood;
And when the Medes had fallen, they built up this-
Their trophy due to maiden Artemis.


## p. 13469 (#283) ##########################################

SIMONIDES OF CEOS
13469
EPITAPH FOR THOSE WHO FELL AT THERMOPYLÆ
OⓇ
F THOSE who at Thermopyla were slain,
Glorious the doom, and beautiful the lot:
Their tomb an altar; men from tears refrain
To honor them, and praise, but mourn them not.
Such sepulchre, nor drear decay
Nor all-destroying time shall waste; this right have they.
Within their grave the home-bred glory
Of Greece was laid; this witness gives
Leonidas the Spartan, in whose story
A wreath of famous virtue ever lives.
FRAGMENT OF A SCOLION
LIKE
IKE a reinless courser's bound
Or an Amyclean hound,
Chase thou with wheeling footstep
the song's meandering sound.
TIME IS FLEETING
NO ONE dread gulf all things in common tend:
T There loftiest virtues, amplest riches, end.
Long are we dying; reckoned up from birth,
Few years, and evil those, are ours on earth.
Of men the strength is small, the hopes are vain,
And pain in life's brief space is heaped on pain;
And death inevitable hangs in air,
Of which alike the good and evil share.
'Mid mortal beings naught for ever stays:
And thus with beauteous love the Chian says,
"The race of man departs like forest leaves; "
Though seldom he who hears the truth receives.
For hope, not far from each, in every heart-
Of men full-grown, or those unripe-will start:
And still while blooms the lovely flower of youth,
The empty mind delights to dream untruth;
Expects nor age nor death, and bold and strong
Thinks not that sickness e'er can work it wrong.


## p. 13470 (#284) ##########################################

SIMONIDES OF CEOS
13470
Ah fools! deluded thus, untaught to scan
How swiftly pass the life and youth of man:
This knowing, thou, while still thou hast the power
Indulge thy soul, and taste the blissful hour.
AN
VIRTUE COY AND HARD TO WIN
ND 'tis said
That Virtue, dwelling high on pathless rocks,
A holy goddess, loves the holy place;
And never there is seen by eyes of those
Whom painful labor has not tried within,
And borne them up to manhood's citadel.
EPITAPHS
A
POOR man, not a Croesus, here lies dead,
And small the sepulchre befitting me:
Gorgippus I, who knew no marriage-bed
Before I wedded pale Persephone.
THOU liest, O Clisthenes, in foreign earth,
Whom wandering o'er the Euxine destiny found:
Thou couldst not reach thy happy place of birth,
Nor seest the waves that gird thy Chios round.
YOUNG Gorgo dying to her mother said,
While clinging on her bosom wept the maid,
"Beside my father stay thou here, and bear
A happier daughter for thine age to care. ”
AH! SORE disease, to men why enviest thou
Their prime of years before they join the dead? —
His life from fair Timarchus snatching now,
Before the youth his maiden bride could wed.


## p. 13471 (#285) ##########################################

13471
JEAN CHARLES SIMONDE DE SISMONDI
(1773-1842)
BY HUMPHREY J. DESMOND
W
HEN the Edict of Nantes was revoked, the Simonde family,
who were of the Huguenot faith, migrated from Dauphiné
in France to Geneva, where they became citizens of the
higher class. Here Jean Charles Leonard Simonde was born, May
9th, 1773. Noticing at the beginning of his literary career the simi-
larity of his family arms with those of the noble Tuscan house of
Sismondi, he adopted the name of Sismondi,
- reverting, as he believed, to the original
family name. Sismondi's intellectual tastes
came from his mother, a woman of superior
mind and energy. Though the family were
in good circumstances, his father served
for a time as the village pastor of Bossex.
The family mansion was at Châtelaine near
Geneva; and here and in the schools of the
republican city the future historian received
his education.

The period of his young manhood fell
in troublous times. His father, trusting
in the financial skill of Necker, had lost all
his investments with the collapse of the
Swiss banker. Young Sismondi cheerfully accepted the irksome du-
ties of clerk in a Lyons counting-house. Then the French Revolution
drove him back to Geneva; and revolutionary ideas invading Switzer-
land, the family fled to England in 1793. But Sismondi's mother
pined for the home and the society of happier days; and in the face
of revolutionary dangers they returned to Geneva. Here a tragedy
at Châtelaine, the family mansion,- the killing by Jacobin soldiers of
a friend to whom they had given shelter,-led them to seek securer
refuge in Italy; and they sold Châtelaine and settled down on a
small estate at Pescia, near Lucca. For two years Sismondi lived,
labored, and studied on his pleasant Italian farm. Though a man of
moderate views and a lover of liberty, he could not escape the tur-
moil of the times. On four occasions he was imprisoned as a suspect:
SISMONDI


## p. 13472 (#286) ##########################################

13472
JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
now by the French, who thought him an aristocrat, and now by the Ital-
ians, who thought him a Frenchman. In 1800 he returned to Geneva,
which thereafter was his permanent home. Here he became the inti-
mate friend of Madame de Staël, by whom he was greatly influenced;
and he found himself at home in the circle of distinguished people
surrounding this brilliant woman. With her he visited Italy in 1805,
on the famous journey out of which she gave the world 'Corinne. '
At Geneva he became Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce for
the department of Leman; and always taking a keen interest in the
political affairs of his native city, he served for many years in its
Legislative Council. One of the episodes of his life was an interview
with Napoleon after the latter's return from Elba in 1815. Sismondi
espoused the cause of the Emperor, and published a series of arti-
cles in the Moniteur in support of the counter-revolution.
After Waterloo he visited his mother on the Tuscan farm which
she had continued to occupy. Here he met Miss Allen, an English
lady, sister-in-law of Sir James Mackintosh. Subsequently, in April
1819, he married her; and this union, though made late in life (he
was then forty-six), and not blessed with children, appears to have
been a happy one. He made his home at Chênes, a country-house
near Geneva. His mother, who had exercised a great influence over
him through all his manhood years, died in 1821. He found solace
now in the assiduous historical labors he had undertaken, and which
absorbed him almost up to the day of his death, June 25th, 1842.
The collected writings of Sismondi comprise sixty volumes, and
touch upon a wide variety of subjects. His earliest work, on the
'Agriculture of Tuscany (Geneva, 1801), was the result of his experi-
ences on his Pescia farm.
During his sojourn in England he acquired the English language;
and the influence of his acquaintance with the writings of Adam
Smith is apparent in a work on 'Commercial Wealth' which he pub-
lished at Geneva in 1803. Later on he completely changed his eco-
nomic opinions, as was evident in an article on 'Political Economy'
which he contributed in 1817 to the Edinburgh Encyclopædia. Subse-
quently, in 1819, his 'New Views of Political Economy' was published
in three volumes; and in 1836 he published his 'Studies in Social
Science,' two volumes of which are entirely devoted to political econ-
omy.
It is however as a historian that Sismondi made his first and last-
ing impression in literature. His History of the Italian Republics,'
in sixteen volumes, appeared between the years 1803 and 1819; and
that work being finished, he then turned to his still bulkier task, the
'History of the French,' which occupied his time from 1818 to the
year of his death in 1842, and of which twenty-nine volumes were


## p. 13473 (#287) ##########################################

JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
13473
published. The amount of labor which he gave to these works was
prodigious. Speaking of his 'History of the Italian Republics,' he
says: "It was a work which continued for at least eight hours a day
during twenty years. I was obliged constantly to read and converse
in Italian and Latin, and occasionally in French, German, Portuguese,
and Provençal. " It required untiring research. "I have nine times,"
he says,
" traversed Italy in different directions, and have visited
nearly all places which were the theatres of any great event. I have
labored in almost all the great libraries, I have searched the archives
in many cities and many monasteries. " Dealing as he did with an
infinity of details, it is not to be wondered at that as he went more
and more into the Middle Age chronicles of petty Italian wars and
conspiracies, his ardor cooled. The work was not, in its reception,
a flattering success. However, the author was encouraged to per-
severe. His 'History of the French' extends from the reign of Clovis
to the accession of Louis XVI. , covering a period of nearly thirteen
centuries.
As a historian, Sismondi, though laborious and painstaking, suf-
fers by comparison with the better work done by later writers, who
have covered the same ground with a better perspective and a truer
historical grasp, with more literary genius, and with the advantage
of access to archives and original documents denied the Genevan.
"More recent investigations," says President Adams in his 'Manual
of Historical Literature,' "have thrown new light on Italian affairs
of the Middle Ages, and consequently Sismondi's work cannot be
regarded as possessing all its former value. " His History of the
French was soon entirely superseded by the greater work of Henri
Martin. Sainte-Beuve, in one of his 'Lundis' devoted to Sismondi,
rather sarcastically refers to him as "the Rollin of French history. "
The general spirit of his historical writings is made apparent in
the following extract from the close of his 'History of the French':
"I am
a republican; but while preserving that ardent love of
liberty transmitted to me by my ancestors, whose fate was united
with that of two republics, and a hatred of every kind of tyranny, I
hope I have never shown a want of respect for those time-honored
and lofty recollections which tend to foster virtue in noble blood, or
for that sublime devotion in the chiefs of nations which has often
reflected lustre on the annals of a whole people. "
He seems, however, in later years, to have become somewhat re-
actionary in his views; and this brought him into unpleasant rela-
tions with his neighbors. When France demanded the expulsion from
Switzerland of Prince Louis Napoleon, the citizens of Geneva were
particularly opposed to so inhospitable a measure. Sismondi believed
the demand should be granted. Threats were made against his life,
and his native city became for him a dangerous place of residence.
XXIII-843


## p. 13474 (#288) ##########################################

13474
JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
Then, the overturning of the ancient constitution of Geneva by the
democratic revolution of November 1841, was a bitter grief to him.
Outside of his historical work, Sismondi was engaged in the year
1810 to furnish the publishers of the 'Biografia Universale' with the
lives of distinguished Italians; for which, we are informed, he was
paid six francs per article. At the conclusion of this task he pre-
pared a course of lectures on the 'Literature of the South of Europe,'
which he delivered at Geneva in 1811. This in the year 1814 was
the basis of a work in four volumes,-written, as Hallam tells us,
"in that flowing and graceful style which distinguishes the author,
and succeeding in all that it seeks to give,-a pleasing and popular,
yet not superficial or unsatisfactory, account of the best authors in
the Southern languages. " In 1822 he published a historical novel in
three volumes, called 'Julia Severa,' purporting to show the condi-
tion of France under Clovis; and in 1832 he condensed his 'History
of the Italian Republics' into one volume. M. Mignet, in his eulogy
read in 1845 before the Royal Academy of Sciences, says of Sismondi:
"For half a century he has thought nothing that is not honorable,
written nothing that is not moral, wished nothing that is not useful.
Thus has he left a glorious memory, which will be forever respected. "
1. 9. Me
休
​BOCCACCIO'S 'DECAMERON ›
From Literature of the South of Europe'
ج
Ο
NE cannot but pause in astonishment at the choice of so
gloomy an introduction to effusions of so gay a nature.
We are amazed at such an intoxicated enjoyment of life
under the threatened approach of death; at such irrepressible de-
sire in the bosom of man to divert the mind from sorrow; at
the torrent of mirth which inundates the heart, in the midst of
horrors which should seem to wither it up. As long as we feel
delight in nourishing feelings that are in unison with a melan-
choly temperament, we have not yet felt the overwhelming weight
of real sorrow. When experience has at length taught us the
substantial griefs of life, we then first learn the necessity of
resisting them; and calling the imagination to our aid to turn
aside the shafts of calamity, we struggle with our sorrow, and
treat it as an invalid from whom we withdraw every object which
may remind him of the cause of his malady.
With regard to the
stories themselves, it would be difficult to convey an idea of them


## p. 13475 (#289) ##########################################

JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
13475
by extracts, and impossible to preserve in a translation the mer-
its of their style. The praise of Boccaccio consists in the perfect.
purity of his language, in his eloquence, his grace, and above
all, in that naïveté which is the chief merit of narration, and the
peculiar charm of the Italian tongue. Unfortunately, Boccaccio
did not prescribe to himself the same purity in his images as in
his phraseology. The character of his work is light and sport-
ive. He has inserted in it a great number of tales of gallantry;
he has exhausted his powers of ridicule on the duped husband,
on the depraved and depraving monks, and on subjects in morals.
and religious worship which he himself regarded as sacred; and
his reputation is thus little in harmony with the real tenor of his
conduct.
THE TROUBADOUR
From Literature of the South of Europe'
ON
N THE most solemn occasions, in the disputes for glory, in
the games called Tensons, when the Troubadours combated
in verse before illustrious princes, or before the Courts of
Love, they were called upon to discuss questions of the most
scrupulous delicacy and the most disinterested gallantry. We
find them inquiring, successively, by what qualities a lover may
render himself most worthy of his mistress; how a knight may
excel all his rivals; and whether it be a greater grief to lose a
lover by death or by infidelity. It is in these Tensons that
bravery becomes disinterested, and that love is exhibited pure,
delicate, and tender; that homage to woman becomes a species
of worship, and that a respect for truth is an article in the creed
of honor. These elevated maxims and these delicate sentiments
were mingled, it is true, with a great spirit of refining.
If an
example was wanted, the most extravagant comparisons were
employed. Antitheses, and plays upon words, supplied the place
of proofs. Not unfrequently,—as must be the case with those
who aim at constructing a system of morals by the aid of talent.
alone, and who do not found it on experience, - the most perni-
cious sentiments, and principles entirely incompatible with the
good order of society and the observation of other duties, were
ranked amongst the laws of gallantry. It is, however, very credit-
able to the Provençal poetry, that it displays a veneration for the


## p. 13476 (#290) ##########################################

13476
JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
beauties of chivalry; and that it has preserved, amidst all the
vices of the age, a respect for honor and a love of high feeling.
This delicacy of sentiment among the Troubadours, and this
mysticism of love, have a more intimate connection with the
poetry of the Arabians and the manners of the East than we
should suspect when we remember the ferocious jealousy of
the Mussulmans, and the cruel consequences of their system of
polygamy. Amongst the Mussulmans, woman is a divinity as
well as a slave, and the seraglio is at the same time a temple
and a prison. The passion of love displays itself amongst the
people of the South with a more lively ardor and a greater im-
petuosity than in the nations of Europe. The Mussulman does
not suffer any of the cares or the pains or the sufferings of life
to approach his wife. He bears these alone His harem is con-
secrated to luxury, to art, and to pleasure. Flowers and incense,
music and dancing, perpetually surround his idol, who is debarred
from every laborious employment. The songs in which he cele-
brates his love breathe the same spirit of adoration and of wor-
ship which we find in the poets of chivalry; and the most beautiful
of the Persian ghazeles, and the Arabian cassides, seem to be
translations of the verses or songs of the Provençals.
We must not judge of the manners of the Mussulmans by
those of the Turks of our day. Of all the people who have fol-
lowed the law of the Koran, the latter are the most gloomy
and jealous. The Arabians, while they passionately loved their
mistresses, suffered them to enjoy more liberty; and of all the
countries under the Arabian yoke, Spain was that in which their
manners partook most largely of the gallantry and chivalry of the
Europeans. It was this country also which produced the most
powerful effects on the cultivation of the intellect, in the south
of Christian Europe.
ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
From A History of the Italian Republics'
WH
HILE the power of the kings of Naples, of the emperors, and
of the popes, was as it were suspended in Italy, innu-
merable small States, which had risen to almost absolute
independence, experienced frequent revolutions, for the most part


## p. 13477 (#291) ##########################################

JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
13477
proceeding from internal and independent causes. We can at
most only indicate shortly those of the republics which were the
most distinguished and the most influential in Italy; but before
thus entering within the walls of the principal cities, it is right
to give a sketch of the general aspect of the country,— particu-
larly as the violent commotions which it experienced might give a
false idea of its real state. This aspect was one of a prodigious
prosperity, which contrasted so much the more with the rest
of Europe, that nothing but poverty and barbarism were to be
found elsewhere. The open country (designated by the name of
contado) appertaining to each city was cultivated by an active
and industrious race of peasants, enriched by their labor, and not
fearing to display their wealth in their dress, their cattle, and
their instruments of husbandry. The proprietors, inhabitants
of towns, advanced them capital, shared the harvests, and alone
paid the land-tax; they undertook the immense labor which has
given so much fertility to the Italian soil,- that of making dikes
to preserve the plains from the inundation of the rivers, and of
deriving from those rivers innumerable canals of irrigation. The
naviglio grande of Milan, which spreads the clear waters of the
Ticino over the finest part of Lombardy, was begun in 1179,
resumed in 1257, and terminated a few years afterwards.
Men
who meditated, and who applied to the arts the fruits of their
study, practiced already that scientific agriculture of Lombardy
and Tuscany which became a model to other nations; and at this
day, after five centuries, the districts formerly free, and always
cultivated with intelligence, are easily distinguished from those
half-wild districts which had remained subject to the feudal
lords.
The cities, surrounded with thick walls, terraced, and guarded
by towers, were for the most part paved with broad flagstones;
while the inhabitants of Paris could not stir out of their houses
without plunging into the mud. Stone bridges of an elegant and
bold architecture were thrown over rivers; aqueducts carried pure
water to the fountains. The palace of the podestas and signorie
united strength with majesty. The most admirable of those of
Florence, the Palazzo-Vecchio, was built in 1298. The Loggia
in the same city, the church of Santa Croce, and that of Santa
Mariadel Fiore with its dome so admired by Michael Angelo,
were begun by the architect Arnolfo, scholar of Nicolas di Pisa,
between the years 1284 and 1300. The prodigies of this first-born


## p. 13478 (#292) ##########################################

13478
JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
of the fine arts multiplied in Italy: a pure taste, boldness, and
grandeur struck the eye in all the public monuments, and finally
reached even private dwellings; while the princes of France,
England, and Germany, in building their castles, seemed to think
only of shelter and defense. Sculpture in marble and bronze
soon followed the progress of architecture: in 1300, Andrea di
Pisa, son of the architect Nicolas, cast the admirable bronze gates
of the Baptistery at Florence; about the same time, Cimabue
and Giotto revived the art of painting, Casella that of music, and
Dante gave to Italy his divine poem unequaled in succeeding
generations. History was written honestly, with scrupulous re-
search and with a graceful simplicity, by Giovanni Villani and
his school; the study of morals and philosophy began; and Italy,
ennobled by freedom, enlightened nations till then sunk in dark-
ness.
The arts of necessity and of luxury had been cultivated with
not less success than the fine arts: in every street, warehouses
and shops displayed the wealth that Italy and Flanders only knew
how to produce. It excited the astonishment and cupidity of the
French or German adventurer who came to find employment in
Italy, and who had no other exchange to make than his blood
against the rich stuffs and brilliant arms which he coveted. The
Tuscan and Lombard merchants, however, trafficked in the bar-
barous regions of the west, to carry there the produce of their
industry. Attracted by the franchises of the fairs of Champagne
and of Lyons, they went thither as well to barter their goods
as to lend their capital at interest to the nobles, habitually loaded
with debt; though at the risk of finding themselves suddenly
arrested, their wealth confiscated by order of the King of France,
and their lives too sometimes endangered by sanctioned robbers,
under the pretext of repressing usury. Industry, the employment
of a superabundant capital, the application of mechanism and sci-
ence to the production of wealth, secured the Italians a sort of
monopoly through Europe; they alone offered for sale what all
the rich desired to buy: and notwithstanding the various oppres-
sions of the barbarian kings, notwithstanding the losses occasioned
by their own oft-repeated revolutions, their wealth was rapidly
renewed. The wages of workmen, the interest of capital, and the
profit of trade rose simultaneously, while every one gained much
and spent little; manners were still simple, luxury was unknown,
and the future was not forestalled by accumulated debt.


## p. 13479 (#293) ##########################################

JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
13479
A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY SOLDIER: FRANCESCO CARMAGNOLA
From A History of the Italian Republics'
Α
N ILLUSTRIOUS fugitive, Francesco Carmagnola, who arrived.
about this time [1425-26] at Venice, accomplished what
Florence had nearly failed in, by discovering to the Vene-
tians the project of the Duke of Milan to subjugate them. Fran-
cesco Carmagnola had, by the victories he had gained, the glory
he had acquired, and the influence he obtained over the soldiers,
excited the jealousy, instead of the gratitude, of Filippo Maria;
who disgraced him and deprived him of his employment, without
assigning any reason. Carmagnola returned to court, but could
not even obtain an interview with his master. He retired to his
native country, Piedmont; his wife and children were arrested,
and his goods confiscated. He arrived at last, by way of Ger-
many, at Venice; soon afterward some emissaries of the Duke
of Milan were arrested for an attempt to poison him. The doge,
Francesco Foscari, wishing to give lustre to his reign by con-
quest, persuaded the Senate of Venice to oppose the increasing
ambition of the Duke of Milan. A league formed between Flor-
ence and Venice was successively joined by the Marquis of Fer-
rara, the lord of Mantua, the Siennese, Duke Amadeus VIII. of
Savoy, and King Alphonso of Naples, who jointly declared
war against Filippo Maria Visconti on the 27th of January, 1426.
Carmagnola was charged to raise an army of 16,000 cuirassiers
and 8,000 infantry in the States of Mantua.
The good fortune of Carmagnola in war still attended him in
the campaign of 1426. He was as successful against the Duke of
Milan as he had been for him: he took from him the city and
the whole province of Brescia. The duke ceded this conquest to
the Venetians by treaty on the 30th of December; but he em-
ployed the winter in assembling his forces, and in the beginning
of spring renewed the war. He equipped a considerable fleet on
the Po, in order to take possession of the States of Mantua and
Ferrara, the allies of the two republics. This fleet was attacked
by the Venetians, and after an obstinate battle, burnt near Cre-
mona on the 21st of May, 1427. The Duke of Milan had given.
the command of his army to Nicolo Piccinino, the pupil of Brac-
cio, who had brought with him the flower of the Bracceschi
army. Nicolo attacked Carmagnola on the 12th of July, at Casal-
secco; but the heat was so intense, and the dust rose in such


## p. 13480 (#294) ##########################################

13480
JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
clouds from under the horses' feet, that the two armies, envel-
oped in nearly the darkness of night, could no longer distinguish
each other, or discern the signals: they separated without claim-
ing advantage on either side. A third battle took place on the
11th of October, 1427, in a marsh near Macalo; Carmagnola here
completely defeated the Milanese army, commanded by Carlo
Malatesta, and comprising Francesco Sforza, Nicolo Piccinino, and
all the most illustrious captains of Italy. By an imprudent gen-
erosity, Carmagnola released these important prisoners; and thus
provoked the resentment of the procurators of St. Mark, who
accompanied him. A new peace, signed on the 18th of April,
1428, again suspended hostilities without reconciling the parties,
or inspiring the belligerents with any mutual confidence. The
Florentines took advantage of this interval of repose to attack
Paulo Guinigi, lord of Lucca, whose alliance with the Duke of
Milan had irritated them, although he had afterwards been aban-
doned by Filippo Maria. The Lucchese, profiting by this last
circumstance, revolted against their lord in September, deposed
him, and sent him prisoner to Milan. The Florentines were
afterwards driven out of the States of Lucca by Nicolo Piccinino,
who defeated them on the borders of the Serchio on the 2d of
December, 1430; and the general war recommenced.
In this last campaign, fortune abandoned Carmagnola. On the
17th of May, 1431, he suffered himself to be surprised at Soncino,
which he had reached with his advanced guard, by Francesco
Sforza, who took prisoners 1600 of his cavalry; he, however,
escaped and rejoined his still brilliant army. On the 23d of May
he approached the Po, to second the Venetian fleet in an attack.
on Cremona; but the fleet, pushed by that of the Milanese on
the opposite shore, was destroyed in his presence, without the
possibility of his rendering it any aid. However great his desire
to repair these checks, he could not meet the enemy again dur-
ing the remainder of the summer. A deadly distemper broke out
among the horses throughout Italy; his troops were dismounted:
and as the fate of battle depended almost entirely on the cavalry,
this calamity reduced him to complete inaction.
The Senate of Venice, which made it a rule never to defend
the republic but by foreign arms, never to enlist its citizens
under its banners either as generals or soldiers,- further observed
that of governing with extreme rigor those foreign adventurers
of whom its armies were composed, and of never believing in the


## p. 13481 (#295) ##########################################

JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
13481
The Venetians-
virtue of men who trafficked in their own blood.
distrusted them; they supposed them ever disposed to treachery:
and if they were unfortunate, though only from imprudence, they
rendered them responsible. The condottieri were made fully
to understand that they were not to lose the armies of the repub-
lic without answering for the event with their lives. The Senate-
joined to this rigor the perfidy and mystery which characterize
an aristocracy. Having decided on punishing Carmagnola for the
late disasters, it began by deceiving him. He was loaded with
marks of deference and confidence; he was invited to come to
Venice in the month of April, 1432, to fix with the signoria the
plan of the ensuing campaign. The most distinguished senators.
went to meet him, and conduct him in pomp to the palace of
the doge. Carmagnola, introduced into the Senate, was placed in
the chair of honor; he was pressed to speak; his discourse was
applauded. The day began to close; lights were not yet called
for, but the general could no longer distinguish the faces of
those who surrounded him: when suddenly the sbirri, or soldiers.
of police, threw themselves on him, loaded him with chains, and
dragged him to the prison of the palace. He was next day
put to the torture,― rendered still more painful by the wounds.
which he had received in the service of this ungrateful repub-
lic. Both the accusations made against him, and his answers to
the questions, are buried in the profound secrecy with which the
Venetian Senate covered all its acts. On the 5th of May, 1432,
Francesco Carmagnola, twenty days after his arrest, was led out,
-his mouth gagged to prevent any protestation of innocence,—
and placed between the two columns on the square of St. Mark:
he was there beheaded, amidst a trembling people, whom the
Senate of Venice was resolved to govern only by terror.
THE RUIN OF FLORENCE AND ITS REPUBLIC: 1530
From 'A History of the Italian Republics'
PERIOD of three centuries of weakness, humiliation, and suf-
in Italy began in the year 1530: from that time she
was always oppressed by foreigners, and enervated and
corrupted by her masters. These last reproached her with the
vices of which they were themselves the authors. After having


## p. 13482 (#296) ##########################################

13482
JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
reduced her to the impossibility of resisting, they accused her of
cowardice when she submitted, and of rebellion when she made
efforts to vindicate herself. The Italians, during this long period
of slavery, were agitated with the desire of becoming once more
a nation: as, however, they had lost the direction of their own
affairs, they ceased to have any history which could be called
theirs; their misfortunes have become but episodes in the histories.
of other nations. We should not, however, look upon the task
we have imposed on ourselves as concluded, if we did not dis-
tinguish amidst this general subjugation, the particular calamities
which closed the existence of the republics which still remained
independent after the coronation of Charles V.
The Florentines, who from 1512 had been victims of all the
faults of Leo X. and Clement VII. ,- who had been drawn into
all the oscillations of their policy, and called upon to make pro-
digious sacrifices of money for projects with which they had not
even been made acquainted,-were taught under these popes to
detest the yoke of the Medici. When the Constable of Bour-
bon approached their walls in his march to Rome, on the 26th
of April, 1527, they were on the point of recovering their lib-
erty: the Cardinal de Cortona, who commanded for the Pope at
Florence, had distributed arms among the citizens for their
defense, and they determined to employ them for their libera-
tion; but the terror which this army of brigands inspired did the
cardinal the service of repressing insurrection. When, however,
they heard soon after of the taking of Rome, and of the cap-
tivity of the Pope, all the most notable citizens presented them-
selves in their civic dress to the Cardinal de Cortona; declared
firmly, but with calmness, that they were henceforth free; and
compelled him, with the two bastard Medici whom he brought
up, to quit the city. It was on the 17th of May, 1527, that
the lieutenant of Clement obeyed; and the constitution, such as
it existed in 1512, with its grand council, was restored without
change, except that the office of gonfalonier was declared annual.
The first person invested with this charge was Nicolo Capponi, a
man enthusiastic in religion and moderate in politics: he was the
son of Pietro Capponi, who had braved Charles VIII. In 1529
he was succeeded by Baldassare Carducci, whose character was
more energetic and opinions more democratic. Carducci was suc-
ceeded in 1530 by Raffaele Girolami, who witnessed the end of the
republic.


## p. 13483 (#297) ##########################################

JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
13483
Florence, during the whole period of its glory and power,
had neglected the arts of war: it reckoned for its defense on
the adventurers whom its wealth could summon from all parts
to its service; and set but little value on a courage which men
without any other virtue were so eager to sell to the highest
bidder. Since the transalpine nations had begun to subdue Italy
to their tyranny, these hireling arms sufficed no longer for the
public safety. Statesmen began to see the necessity of giving
the republic a protection within itself. Machiavelli, who died
on the 22d of June, 1527, six weeks after the restoration of the
popular government, had been long engaged in persuadir his
fellow-citizens of the necessity of awakening a military spirit in
the people: it was he who caused the country militia, named
l'ordinanza, to be formed into regiments. A body of mercena-
ries, organized by Giovanni de' Medici, a distant kinsman of the
Pope's, served at the time as a military school for the Tuscans,
among whom alone the corps had been raised: it acquired a
high reputation under the name of bande nere. No infantry
equaled it in courage and intelligence. Five thousand of these
warriors served under Lautrec in the kingdom of Naples, where
they almost all perished. When, towards the end of the year
1528, the Florentines perceived that their situation became more
and more critical, they formed among those who enjoyed the
greatest privileges in their country two bodies of militia, which
displayed the utmost valor for its defense. The first, consisting
of three hundred young men of noble families, undertook the
guard of the palace, and the support of the constitution; the
ond, of four thousand soldiers drawn only from among families
having a right to sit in the council-general, were called the civic
militia: both soon found opportunities of proving that generosity
and patriotism suffice to create, in a very short period, the best
soldiers. The illustrious Michael Angelo was charged to super-
intend the fortifications of Florence: they were completed in the
month of April 1529. Lastly, the ten commissioners of war
chose for the command of the city Malatesta Baglioni of Perugia,
who was recommended to them as much for his hatred of the
Medici, who had unjustly put his father to death, as for his repu-
tation for valor and military talent.
Clement VII. sent against Forence, his native country, that
very Prince of Orange, the successor of Bourbon, who had made
him prisoner at Rome; and with him that very army of robbers


## p. 13484 (#298) ##########################################

13484
JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
which had overwhelmed the Holy See and its subjects with mis-
ery and every outrage. This army entered Tuscany in the month
of September 1529, and took possession of Cortona, Arezzo, and
all the upper Val d'Arno. On the 14th of October the Prince
of Orange encamped in the plain of Ripoli, at the foot of the
walls of Florence; and towards the end of December, Ferdinand
de Gonzaga led on the right bank of the Arno another imperial
army, composed of 20,000 Spaniards and Germans, which occu-
pied without resistance Pistoia and Prato. Notwithstanding the
immense superiority of their forces, the imperialists did not at-
tempt to make a breach in the walls of Florence: they resolved
to make themselves masters of the city by blockade. The Flor-
entines, on the contrary, animated by preachers who inherited
the zeal of Savonarola, and who united liberty with religion as
an object of their worship, were eager for battle: they made fre-
quent attacks on the whole line of their enemies, led in turns
by Malatesta Baglioni and Stefano Colonna. They made nightly
sallies, covered with white shirts to distinguish each other in the
dark, and successively surprised the posts of the imperialists; but
the slight advantages thus obtained could not disguise the grow-
ing danger of the republic. France had abandoned them to their
enemies; there remained not one ally either in Italy or the rest
of Europe; while the army of the Pope and Emperor compre-
hended all the survivors of those soldiers who had so long been
the terror of Italy by their courage and ferocity, and whose war-
like ardor was now redoubled by the hope of the approaching
pillage of the richest city in the West.
The Florentines had one solitary chance of deliverance. Fran-
cesco Ferrucci, one of their citizens, who had learned the art of
war in the bande nere, and joined to a mind full of resources an
unconquerable intrepidity and an ardent patriotism, was not shut
up within the walls of Florence: he had been named commissary
general, with unlimited power over all that remained without the
capital. Ferrucci was at first engaged in conveying provisions
from Empoli to Florence; he afterwards took Volterra from the
imperialists: and having formed a small army, proposed to the
signoria to seduce all the adventurers and brigands from the im-
perial army, by promising them another pillage of the pontifical
court; and succeeding in that, to march at their head on Rome,
frighten Clement, and force him to grant peace to their country.
The signoria rejected this. plan as too daring. Ferrucci then


## p. 13485 (#299) ##########################################

JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
13485
formed a second, which was little less bold. He departed from
Volterra; made the tour of Tuscany, which the imperial troops
traversed in every direction; collected at Leghorn, Pisa, the Val
di Nievole, and in the mountains of Pistoia, every soldier, every
man of courage, still devoted to the republic; and after hav-
ing thus increased his army, he intended to fall on the imperial
camp before Florence, and force the Prince of Orange, who began
to feel the want of money, to raise the siege. Ferrucci, with an
intrepidity equal to his skill, led his little troop from the 14th
of July to the 2d of August, 1530, through numerous bodies of
imperialists, who preceded, followed, and surrounded him on all
sides, as far as Gavinana, four miles from San Marcello, in the
mountains of Pistoia. He entered that village about midday
on the 2d of August, with 3,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. The
Prince of Orange at the same time entered by another gate, with
a part of the army which besieged Florence. The different corps
which had on every side harassed Ferrucci in his march poured
in upon him from all quarters: the battle instantly began, and
was fought with relentless fury within the walls of Gavinana.
Philibert de Challon, Prince of Orange, in whom that house
became extinct, was killed by a double shot, and his corps put
to flight; but other bands of imperialists successively arrived, and
continually renewed the attack on a small force exhausted with
fatigue: 2,000 Florentines were already stretched on the field of
battle, when Ferrucci, pierced with several mortal wounds, was
borne bleeding to the presence of his personal enemy, Fabrizio
Maramaldi, a Calabrese, who commanded the light cavalry of the
Emperor. The Calabrese stabbed him several times in his rage,
while Ferrucci calmly said, "Thou wouldst kill a dead man! "
The republic perished with him.
When news of the disaster at Gavinana reached Florence, the
consternation was extreme. Baglioni, who for some days had
been in treaty with the Prince of Orange, and who was accused
of having given him notice of the project of Ferrucci, declared
that a longer resistance was impossible; and that he was deter-
mined to save an imprudent city, which seemed bent upon its
own ruin. On the 8th of August he opened the bastion, in
which he was stationed, to an imperial captain, and planted his.
artillery so as to command the town. The citizens, in consterna-
tion, abandoned the defense of the walls, to employ themselves
in concealing their valuable effects in the churches; and the


## p. 13486 (#300) ##########################################

13486
JEAN CHARLES DE SISMONDI
signoria acquainted Ferdinand de Gonzaga, who had succeeded
the Prince of Orange in the command of the army, that they were
ready to capitulate. The terms granted (on the 12th of August,
1530) were less rigorous than the Florentines might have appre-
hended. They were to pay a gratuity of 80,000 florins to the
army which besieged them, and to recall the Medici. In return,
a complete amnesty was to be granted to all who had acted
against that family, the Pope, or the Emperor. But Clement
had no intention of observing any of the engagements contracted
in his name. On the 20th of August he caused the parliament,
in the name of the sovereign people, to create a balia, which
was to execute the vengeance of which he would not himself
take the responsibility: he subjected to the torture, and after-
wards punished with exile or death, by means of this balia, all
the patriots who had signalized themselves by their zeal for lib-
erty. In the first month one hundred and fifty illustrious citizens
were banished; before the end of the year there were more
than one thousand sufferers: every Florentine family, even among
those most devoted to the Medici, had some one member among
the proscribed.


## p. 13487 (#301) ##########################################

13487
ANNIE TRUMBULL SLOSSON
(18-)
NNIE TRUMBULL SLOSSON - who was born in Stonington, Con-
necticut, of the Trumbull family learned in politics, war,
science, and bibliography, and who married in 1867 Edward
Slosson of New York-made friends with the public in a charming
little book entitled 'The China-Hunter's Club,' published in New
York in 1878, and still dear to the pottery-loving heart.
In 1888 Fishin' Jimmy' appeared in the New Princeton Review.
He was at once recognized in this country, preached about, quoted,
and "conveyed" to transatlantic admirers, who held him up as a
model, perfect in his way, as he is. Other of her stories, written on
the same lines, have been published in that and other magazines
since, not very numerously; and in 1891 seven of them were gathered
into a volume called 'The Seven Dreamers. ' A longer one, 'Aunt
Liefy,' was published in book form.
Mrs. Slosson was fortunate in selecting the short story as her
mode of expression, and in her choice of subjects and place; for
she is the apostle - the defender, rather- of the eccentric mystic;
and were her characters and her scenes placed in any other part
of the white world than New England, it is doubtful whether, even
with her skill in creating illusion, she would be able to convince the
readers that these strange dreams are true.
But he who has solved the mystery of its stern ice-bound win-
ters, its sweet chill springs, its prodigal summers: and has learned to
know its rural people, whose daily food is work, to whom responsi-
bility comes early and stays late; whose manners are as country
manners must be, and whose speech is plain; whose conscience is a
scourge; whose hearts are often as tender and as pure as their own
arbutus blooming under snow,—to such a reader, nothing she has to
say of this strange, bitter-sweet country is impossible.
He who has gotten at the secret of New England can believe that
Mrs. Slosson has seized upon a perfectly recognizable element of its
life when she draws its men and women as shrewd, witty, wise, and
"off" on some point. Her characters for the most part tell their
own story: or they tell them to the writer, who instinctively shows
herself to be of a different mold, perhaps a different creed, but whose
intercourse with her homely friends has no superciliousness in it, or
the hardness of the mere exploiter of literary "copy"; she treats
them rather with a fine reverence and tender charity, which at the


## p. 13488 (#302) ##########################################

13488
ANNIE TRUMBULL SLOSSON
-same time recognizes the sharp passages in the drama of life. This
dramatic power is perhaps a hint that she would be a weaver of pure
romance; but the subtle instinct of the artist tells her that to make
such characters as hers other than they are, she must throw them
upon a perfectly naturalistic background.
Therefore she paints a scene, minute in detail, recognizable by
every visitor to the chosen regions where her story is laid.
It may
be the old "Indian burying-ground," so called, in the pine forest along
the banks of Gale River; or the margin of Pond Brook in Franconia,
the peaceful little village among the northern hills; or in a street
in quiet Sudbury. Or Hartford is the chosen spot; and Hartford
names, and faces as stable as New England principles, are introduced
to give an air of reality to such a whimsical conception as Butter-
neggs. '
Mrs. Slosson is a trained botanist and entomologist, and to the
skill of the literary artist is added a store of experience gleaned from
the meadows and the woods. All the lovely wild flowers of the
northern spring and summer are gathered in heaps of soft greenness
and bits of bright color in her backgrounds; and all the songs of
the thicket, the swamp, and the wood, make music there. But there
are lonely farm-houses, where solitary souls have thought and pon-
dered in the long winter nights, till they have mused too long; and
to recompense them for the companionship, the beauty, the poetry,
which they have missed, like Peter Ibbetson in Du Maurier's lovely
story they have "learned how to dream. " Cap'n Burdick's dream
is of the millennium. Uncle Enoch Stark's is of his sister Lucilla,
who died before he was born, but to him lives vaguely somewhere in
the dim West. Aunt Randy dreams that Jacob, a worm, "favors »
her dead boy; and when he becomes a butterfly, she is convinced of
the resurrection. Wrestlin' Billy earned his name because he shared
with the patriarch the honor of a struggle with an angel. "Faith
Came and Went" in the vision of a plain, shy Sudbury woman.
Speakin' Ghost comforted and illumined a Kittery exile imprisoned
as caretaker in a New York city house.
A
"They have different names for sech folks," continues Aunt
Charry. "They say they're 'cracked,' they've got a screw loose,'
they're 'a little off,' they ain't all there,' and so on. But nothin'
accounts for their notions so well to my mind as to say they're all
jest dreamin'. .
And what's more, I believe when they look
back on those soothin', sleepy, comfortin' idees o' theirn, that some-
how helped 'em along through all the pesterin' worry and frettin'
trouble o' this world,-I believe, I say, that they're glad too. "
All this is impossible? Who shall say that these dreams are but
the expansion of idiosyncrasies? For, science to the contrary, they
are chapters in the history of the soul.