“How shall I find my
overcoat
and my wife's party cape ?
Warner - World's Best Literature - v03 - Bag to Ber
”
Jer, really afflicted at this scene, promised to work hard the
moment he got his dinner; and his spouse, first procuring a
pitchfork to beat the pig into her sty, prepared a fresh meal for
him, and retired to eat her own in the house, and then to con-
tinue her labor.
In about an hour she thought of paying him another visit of
inspection, when Jeremiah's voice reached her ear, calling out in
disturbed accents, Cauth! Cauth! a-vourneen! For the love o'
heaven, Cauth! where are you? ”
Running to him, she found her husband sitting upright,
though not upon his round stone, amongst the still untouched
heap of pots and pints, his pock-marked face very pale, his
## p. 1464 (#262) ###########################################
1464
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
single eye staring, his hands clasped and shaking, and moisture
on his forehead.
"What! ” she cried, “the pewther just as I left it, over
again ! »
«O Cauth! Cauth! don't mind that now— but spake to me
kind, Cauth, an' comfort me. ”
"Why, what ails you, Jer a-vourneon ? ” affectionately taking
his hand, when she saw how really agitated he was.
"O Cauth, oh, I had such a dhrame, now, in earnest, at any
rate! ”
A dhrame! ” she repeated, letting go his hand, "a dhrame,
Jer Mulcahy! so, afther your good dinner, you go for to fall
asleep, Jer Mulcahy, just to be ready wid a new dhrame for me,
instead of the work you came out here to do, five blessed hours
ago!
“Don't scould me, now, Cauth; don't, a-pet: only listen to me,
an' then say what you like. You know the lonesome little glen
between the hills, on the short cut for man or horse, to Kilbrog-
gan? Well, Cauth, there I found myself in the dhrame; and I
saw two sailors, tired afther a day's hard walking, sitting before
one of the big rocks that stand upright in the wild place; an'
they were ating or dhrinking, I couldn't make out which; and
one was a tall, sthrong, broad-shouldhered man, an' the other was
sthrong, too, but short an’ burly; an' while they were talking very
civilly to each other, lo an' behould you, Cauth, I seen the tall
man whip his knife into the little man; an' then they both
sthruggled, an' wrastled, an' schreeched together, till the rocks
rung again; but at last the little man was a corpse; an' may I
never see a sight o' glory, Cauth, but all this was afore me as
plain as you are, in this garden! an' since the hour I was born,
Cauth, I never got such a fright; an'-oh, Cauth! what's that
now ? »
“What is it, you poor fool, you, but a customer, come at last
into the kitchen—an' time for us to see the face o' one this
blessed day. Get up out o' that, wid your dhrames — don't you
hear 'em knocking? I'll stay here to put one vessel at laste to
rights— for I see I must. ”
Jeremiah arose, groaning, and entered the cabin through the
back door. In a few seconds he hastened to his wife, more ter-
ror-stricken than he had left her, and settling his loins against
the low garden wall, stared at her.
## p. 1465 (#263) ###########################################
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
1465
"Why, then, duoul's in you, Jer Mulcahy (saints forgive me
for cursing ! ) — and what's the matter wid you, at-all at-all ? »
« They're in the kitchen,” he whispered.
“Well, an' what will they take ? ”
“I spoke never a word to them, Cauth, nor they to me; - I
couldn't- an' I won't, for a duke's ransom: I only saw them
stannin' together, in the dark that's coming on, behind the dour,
an' I knew them at the first look — the tall one an' the little
>)
one. ”
With a flout at his dreams, and his cowardice, and his good-
for-nothingness, the dame hurried to serve her customers. Jere-
miah heard her loud voice addressing them, and their hoarse
tones answering She came out again for two pints to draw
some beer, and commanded him to follow her and “discoorse
the customers. ” He remained motionless. She returned in a
short time, and fairly drove him before her into the house.
He took a seat remote from his guests, with difficulty pro-
nouncing the ordinary words of "God save ye, genteels,” which
they bluffly and heartily answered. His glances towards them
were also few; yet enough to inform him that they conversed
together like friends, pledging healths and shaking hands. The
tall sailor abruptly asked him how far it was, by the short cut,
to a village where they proposed to pass the night- Kilbrog-
gan ? - Jeremiah started on his seat, and his wife, after a glance
and a grumble at him, was obliged to speak for her husband.
They finished their beer; paid for it; put up half a loaf and a
cut of bad watery cheese, saying that they might feel more
hungry a few miles on than they now did; and then they arose
to leave the cabin. Jeremiah glanced in great trouble around.
His wife had fortunately disappeared; he snatched up his old
hat, and with more energy than he could himself remember, ran
forward to be a short way on the road before them. They soon
approached him; and then, obeying a conscientious impulse, Jere-
miah saluted the smaller of the two, and requested to speak
with him apart. The sailor, in evident surprise, assented. Jer
vaguely cautioned him against going any farther that night, as
it would be quite dark by the time he should get to the mount-
ain pass, on the by-road to Kilbroggan. His warning was
made light of He grew more earnest, asserting, what was not
the fact, that it was "a bad road,” meaning one infested by
robbers. Still the bluff tar paid no attention, and was turning
## p. 1466 (#264) ###########################################
1466
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
away. "Oh, sir; oh, stop, sir,” resumed Jeremiah, taking great
courage, “I have a thing to tell you;” and he rehearsed his
dream, averring that in it he had distinctly seen the present
object of his solicitude set upon and slain by his colossal com-
panion. The listener paused a moment; first looking at Jer,
and then at the ground, very gravely: but the next moment
he burst into a loud, and Jeremiah thought, frightful laugh,
and walked rapidly to overtake his shipmate. Jeremiah, much
oppressed, returned home.
Towards dawn, next morning, the publican awoke in an
ominous panic, and aroused his wife to listen to a loud knock-
ing, and a clamor of voices at their door. She insisted that
there was no such thing, and scolded him for disturbing her
sleep. A renewal of the noise, however, convinced even her
incredulity, and showed that Jeremiah was right for the first
time in his life, at least. Both arose, and hastened to answer
the summons.
When they unbarred the front door, a gentleman, surrounded
by a crowd of people of the village, stood before it. He had
discovered on the by-road through the hills from Kilbroggan, a
dead body, weltering in its gore, and wearing sailor's clothes;
had ridden on in alarm; had raised the village; and some of
its population, recollecting to have seen Mrs. Mulcahy's visitors
of the previous evening, now brought him to her house to hear
what she could say on the subject.
Before she could say anything, her husband fell senseless at
her side, groaning dolefully. While the bystanders raised him,
she clapped her hands, and exalted her voice in ejaculations, as
Irish women, when grieved or astonished or vexed, usually do;
and now, as proud of Jeremiah's dreaming capabilities as she had
before been impatient of them, rehearsed his vision of the mur-
der, and authenticated the visit of the two sailors to her house,
almost while he was in the act of making her the confidant of
his prophetic ravings. The auditors stept back in consternation,
crossing themselves, smiting their breasts, and crying out, “The
Lord save us! The Lord have mercy upon us! "
Jeremiah slowly awoke from his swoon. The gentleman who
had discovered the body commanded his attendants back to the
lonesome glen, where it lay. Poor Jeremiah fell on his knees,
and with tears streaming down his cheeks, prayed to be saved
from such a trial. His neighbors almost forced him along.
## p. 1467 (#265) ###########################################
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
1467
All soon gained the spot, a narrow pass between slanting piles
of displaced rocks; the hills from which they had tumbled rising
brown and barren and to a great height above and beyond them.
And there, indeed, upon the strip of verdure which formed the
winding road through the defile, lay the corpse of one of the
sailors who had visited the publican's house the evening before.
Again Jeremiah dropt on his knees, at some distance from
the body, exclaiming, “Lord save us! — yes! oh, yes, neighbors,
this is the very place! - only - the saints be good to us again ! -
'twas the tall sailor I seen killing the little sailor, and here's the
tall sailor murthered by the little sailor. ”
Dhrames go by conthraries, some way or another,” observed
one of his neighbors; and Jeremiah's puzzle was resolved.
Two steps were now indispensable to be taken; the county
coroner should be summoned, and the murderer sought after.
The crowd parted to engage in both matters simultaneously.
Evening drew on when they again met in the pass: and the first,
who had gone for the coroner, returned with him, a distance of
near twenty miles; but the second party did not prove so success-
ful. In fact they had discovered no clue to the present retreat
of the supposed assassin.
The coroner impaneled his jury, and held his inquest under a
large upright rock, bedded in the middle of the pass, such as
Jeremiah said he had seen in his dream. A verdict of willful
murder against the absent sailor was quickly agreed upon; but
ere it could be recorded, all hesitated, not knowing how to indi-
vidualize a man of whose name they were ignorant.
The summer night had fallen upon their deliberations, and the
moon arose in splendor, shining over the top of one of the high
hills that inclosed the pass, so as fully to illumine the bosom of
the other. During their pause, a man appeared standing upon the
line of the hill thus favored by the moonlight, and every eye
turned in that direction. He ran down the abrupt declivity
beneath him; he gained the continued sweep of jumbled rocks
which immediately walled in the little valley, springing from one
to another of them with such agility and certainty that it seemed
almost magical; and a general whisper of fear now attested the
fact of his being dressed in a straw hat, a short jacket, and loose
white trousers. As he jumped from the last rock upon the sward
of the pass, the spectators drew back; but he, not seeming to
notice them, walked up to the corpse, which had not yet been
## p. 1468 (#266) ###########################################
1468
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
touched; took its hand; turned up its face into the moonlight,
and attentively regarded the features; let the hand go; pushed
his hat upon his forehead; glanced around him; recognized the
person in authority; approached, and stood still before him, and
said "Here I am, Tom Mills, that killed long Harry Holmes, and
there he lies. ”
The coroner cried out to secure him, now fearing that the
man's sturdiness meant farther harm. “No need, resumed the
self-accused; "here's my bread-and-cheese knife, the only weapon
about me;" he threw it on the ground: "I come back just to ax
you, commodore, to order me a cruise after poor Harry, bless his
precious eyes, wherever he is bound. ”
“You have been pursued hither ? ”
“No, bless your heart; but I wouldn't pass such another watch
as the last twenty-four hours for all the prize-money won at Tra-
falgar. 'Tisn't in regard of not tasting food or wetting my lips
ever since I fell foul of Harry, or of hiding my head like a
cursed animal o' the yearth, and starting if a bird only hopped
nigh me: but I cannot go on living on this tack no longer; that's
it; and the least I can say to you, Harry, my hearty. ”
“What caused your quarrel with your comrade ? ”
« There was no jar or jabber betwixt us, d'you see me. ”
«Not at the time, I understand you to mean; but surely you
must have long owed him a grudge ?
“No, but long loved him; and he me. ”
“Then, in heaven's name, what put the dreadful thought in
your head ? »
“The devil, commodore, (the horned lubber! ) and another
lubber to help him ” — pointing at Jeremiah, who shrank to the
skirts of the crowd. "I'll tell you every word of it, commodore,
as true as a log-book. For twenty long and merry years, Harry
and I sailed together, and worked together, thro' a hard gale
sometimes, and thro' hot sun another time; and never a squally
word came between us till last night, and then it all came of
that lubberly swipes-seller, I say again. I thought as how it
was a real awful thing that a strange landsman, before ever he
laid eyes on either of us, should come to have this here dream
about us After falling in with Harry, when the lubber and I
parted company, my old mate saw I was cast down, and he told
me as much in his own gruff, well-meaning way; upon which I
gave him the story, laughing at it. He didn't laugh in return,
»
## p. 1469 (#267) ###########################################
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
1469
but grew glum-glummer than I ever seed him; and I wondered,
and fell to boxing about my thoughts, more and more (deep sea
sink that cursed thinking and thinking, say I! -it sends many
an honest fellow out of his course); and “It's hard to know the
best man's mind,' I thought to myself. Well, we came on the
tack into these rocky parts, and Harry says to me all on a sud-
den, «Tom, try the soundings here, ahead, by yourself —or let
me, by myself. I axed him why? No matter,' says Harry
again, but after what you chawed about, I don't like your com-
pany any farther, till we fall in again at the next village. '
What, Harry,' I cries, laughing heartier than ever, are you
afeard of your own mind with Tom Mills ? Pho,' he made
answer, walking on before me, and I followed him.
«(Yes, I kept saying to myself, he is afeard of his own
mind with his old shipmate. ' 'Twas a darker night than this,
and when I looked ahead, the devil (for I know 'twas he that
boarded me! ) made me take notice what a good spot it was for
Harry to fall foul of me. And then I watched him making way
before me, in the dark, and couldn't help thinking he was the
better man of the two -- a head and shoulders over me, and a
match for any two of my inches. And then again, I brought to
mind that Harry would be a heavy purse the better of sending
me to Davy's locker, seeing we had both been just paid off, and
got a lot of prize-money to boot; — and at last (the real red
devil having fairly got me helm a-larboard) I argufied with
myself that Tom Mills would be as well alive, with Harry
Holmes's luck in his pocket, as he could be dead, and his in
Harry Holmes's; not to say nothing of taking one's own part,
just to keep one's self afloat, if so be Harry let his mind run as
mine was running.
“All this time Harry never gave me no hail, but kept tack-
ing through these cursed rocks; and that, and his last words,
made me doubt him more and more. At last he stopped nigh
where he now lies, and sitting with his back to that high stone,
he calls for my blade to cut the bread and cheese he had got at
the village; and while he spoke I believed he looked glummer
and glummer, and that he wanted the blade, the only one
between us, for some'at else than to cut bread and cheese;
though now I don't believe no such thing howsumdever; but then
I did: and so, d’you see me, commodore, I lost ballast all of a
sudden, and when he stretched out his hand for the blade (hell's
## p. 1470 (#268) ###########################################
1470
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
fire blazing up in my lubberly heart! ) - Here it is, Harry,' says
I, and I gives it to him in the side! - once, twice, in the right
place! ” (the sailor's voice, hitherto calm, though broken and
rugged, now rose into a high, wild cadence) — «and then how
we did grapple! and sing out one to another! ahoy! yeho! aye;
till I thought the whole crew of devils answered our hail from
the hill-tops! — But I hit you again and again, Harry! before
you could master me,” continued the sailor, returning to the
corpse, and once more taking its hand — “until at last you
struck, — my old messmate! — And now nothing remains for
Tom Mills— but to man the yard-arm! ”
The narrator stood his trial at the ensuing assizes, and was
executed for this avowed murder of his shipmate; Jeremiah
appearing as a principal witness. Our story may seem drawn
either from imagination, or from mere village gossip: its chief
acts rest, however, upon the authority of members of the Irish
bar, since risen to high professional eminence; and they can
even vouch that at least Jeremiah asserted the truth of
Publican's Dream. ”
« The
AILLEEN
'T'S
is not for love of gold I go,
'Tis not for love of fame;
Tho' Fortune should her smile bestow,
And I may win a name,
Ailleen,
And I may win a name.
And yet it is for gold I go,
And yet it is for fame,
That they may deck another brow
And bless another name,
Ailleen,
And bless another name.
For this, but this, I go — for this
I lose thy love awhile;
And all the soft and quiet bliss
Of thy young, faithful smile,
Ailleen,
Of thy young, faithful smile.
## p. 1471 (#269) ###########################################
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
1471
And I go to brave a world I hate
And woo it o'er and o'er,
And tempt a wave and try a fate
l'pon a stranger shore,
Ailleen,
Upon a stranger shore.
Oh! when the gold is wooed and won,
I know a heart will care!
Oh! when the bays are all my own,
I know a brow shall wear,
Ailleen,
I know a brow shall wear.
And when, with both returned again,
My native land to see,
I know a smile will meet me there
And a hand will welcome me,
Ailleen,
And a hand will welcome me!
SOGGARTH AROON
(“O Priest, O Love ! ))
THE IRISH PEASANT'S ADDRESS TO HIS PRIEST
A"
m I the slave they say,
Soggarth Aroon ?
Since you did show the way,
Soggarth Aroon,
Their slave no more to be,
While they would work with me
Ould Ireland's slavery,
Soggarth Aroon ?
Why not her poorest man,
Soggarth Aroon,
Try and do all he can,
Soggarth Aroon,
Her commands to fulfill
Of his own heart and will,
Side by side with you still,
Soggarth Aroon ?
## p. 1472 (#270) ###########################################
1472
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
Loyal and brave to you,
Soggarth Aroon,
Yet be no slave to you,
Soggarth Aroon,
Nor out of fear to you
Stand up so near to you –
Och! out of fear to you!
Soggarth Aroon!
Who, in the winter's night,
Soggarth Aroon,
When the cowld blast did bite,
Soggarth Aroon,
Came to my cabin door,
And on my earthen floor
Knelt by me, sick and poor,
Soggarth Aroon ?
Who, on the marriage day,
Soggarth Aroon,
Made the poor cabin gay,
Soggarth Aroon;
And did both laugh and sing,
Making our hearts to ring,
At the poor christening,
Soggarth Aroon ?
Who, as friend only met,
Soggarth Aroon,
Never did flout me yet,
Soggarth Aroon ?
And when my hearth was dim
Gave, while his eye did brim,
What I should give to him,
Soggarth Aroon?
Och! you, and only you,
Soggarth Aroon!
And for this I was true to you,
Soggarth Aroon;
In love they'll never shake
When for ould Ireland's sake
We a true part did take,
Soggarth Aroon!
## p. 1473 (#271) ###########################################
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
1473
THE IRISH MAIDEN'S SONG
Yºu
ou know it now — it is betrayed
This moment in mine eye,
And in my young cheeks' crimson shade,
And in my whispered sigh.
You know it now — yet listen now —
Though ne'er was love more true,
My plight and troth and virgin vow
Still, still I keep from you,
Ever!
Ever, until a proof you give
How oft you've heard me say,
I would not even his empress live
Who idles life away,
Without one effort for the land
In which my fathers' graves
Were hollowed by a despot hand
To darkly close on slaves —
Never!
See! round yourself the shackles hang,
Yet come you to love's bowers,
That only he may soothe their pang
Or hide their links in flowers -
But try all things to snap thein first,
And should all fail when tried,
The fated chain you cannot burst
My twining arms shall hide-
Ever!
111-93
## p. 1474 (#272) ###########################################
1474
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
(1823-1891)
fire
HÉODORE FAULLAIN DE BANVILLE is best known as a very
skillful maker of polished artificial verse. His poetry stands
high; but it is the poetry not of nature, but of elegant
society. His muse, as Mr. Henley says, is always in evening dress.
References to the classic poets are woven into all of his descriptions
of nature. He is distinguished, scholarly, full of taste, and brilliant
in execution; never failing in propriety, and never reaching inspira-
tion. As an artist in words and cadences he has few superiors.
These qualities are partly acquired, and
partly the result of birth. Born in 1823,
the son of a naval officer, from his earliest
years he devoted himself to literature. His
birthplace, Moulins, an old provincial town
on the banks of the Allier, where he spent
a happy childhood, made little impression
on him. Still almost a child he went to
Paris, where he led a life without events, –
without even a marriage or an election to
the Academy; he died March 13th, 1891.
His place was among the society people
and the artists; the painter Courbet and
DE BANVILLE the writers Mürger, Baudelaire, and Gautier
were among his closest friends. He first
attracted attention in 1848 by the publication of a volume of verse,
(The Caryatids. In 1857 came another, Odes Funambulesque,'
and later another series under the same title, the two together con-
taining his best work in verse. Here he stands highest; though
he wrote also many plays, one of which, (Gringoire,' has been acted
in various translations. The Wife of Socrates) also holds the stage.
Like his other work, his drama is artificial, refined, and skillful. He
presents a marked instance of the artist working for art's sake.
During the latter years of his life he wrote mostly prose, and he has
left many well-drawn portraits of his contemporaries, in addition to
several books of criticism, with much color and charm, but little
definiteness. He was always vague, for facts did not interest him; but
he had the power of making his remote, unreal world attractive, and
among the writers of the school of Gautier he stands among the first.
## p. 1475 (#273) ###########################################
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
1475
LE CAFÉ
From The Soul of Paris)
warm
MAGINE a place where you do not endure the horror of being
alone, and yet have the freedom of solitude. There, free
from the dust, the boredom, the vulgarities of a household,
you reflect at ease, comfortably seated before a table, unincum-
bered by all the things that oppress you in houses; for if useless
objects and papers had accumulated here they would have been
promptly removed. You smoke slowly, quietly, like a Turk, fol-
lowing your thoughts among the blue curves.
If you have a voluptuous desire to taste some
or
refreshing beverage, well-trained waiters bring it to you immedi-
ately. If you feel like talking with clever men who will not
bully you, you have within reach light sheets on which are printed
wingèd thoughts, rapid, written for you, which you are not forced
to bind and preserve in a library when they have ceased to
please you. This place, the paradise of civilization, the last and
inviolable refuge of the free man, is the café.
It is the café; but in the ideal, as we dream it, as it ought to
be. The lack of room and the fabulous cost of land on the
boulevards of Paris make it hideous in actuality. In these little
boxes — of which the rent is that of a palace -- one would be
foolish to look for the space of a vestiary. Besides, the walls
are decorated with stovepipe hats and overcoats hung on clothes-
pegs — an abominable sight, for which atonement is offered by
multitudes of white panels and ignoble gilding, imitations made
by economical process.
And let us not deceive ourselves) the overcoat, with which
one never knows what to do, and which makes us worry every-
where,- in society, at the theatre, at balls, - is the great enemy
and the abominable enslavement of modern life. Happy the
gentlemen of the age of Louis XIV. , who in the morning dressed
themselves for all day, in satin and velvet, their brows protected
by wigs, and who remained superb even when beaten by the
storm, and who, moreover, brave as lions, ran the risk of pneu-
monia even if they had to put on, one outside the other, the
innumerable waistcoats of Jodelet in Les Précieuses Ridicules! !
“How shall I find my overcoat and my wife's party cape ? ” is
the great and only cry, the Hamlet-monologue of the modern
man, that poisons every minute of his life and makes him look
## p. 1476 (#274) ###########################################
1476
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
with resignation toward his dying hour. On the morning after
a ball given by Marshal MacMahon nothing is found: the over-
coats have disappeared; the satin cloaks, the boas, the lace scarfs
have gone up in smoke; and the women must rush in despair
through the driving snow while their husbands try to button
their evening coats, which will not button!
One evening, at a party given by the wife of the President
of the Chamber of Deputies, at which the gardens were lighted
by electricity, Gambetta suddenly wished to show some of his
guests a curiosity, and invited them to go down with him into
the bushes. A valet hastened to hand him his overcoat, but the
guests did not dare to ask for theirs, and followed Gambetta as
they were! However, I believe one or two of them survived.
At the café no one carries off your overcoat, no one hides it;
but they are all hung up, spread out on the wall like master-
pieces of art, treated as if they were portraits of Mona Lisa or
Violante, and you have them before your eyes, you see them con-
tinually. Is there not reason to curse the moment your eyes
first saw the light? One may, as I have said, read the papers;
or rather one might read them if they were not hung on those
abominable racks, which remove them a mile from you and force
you to see them on your horizon.
As to the drinks, give up all hope; for the owner of the café
has no proper place for their preparation, and his rent is so enor-
mous that he has to make the best even of the quality he sells.
But aside from this reason, the drinks could not be good, because
there are too many of them. The last thing one finds at these
coffee-houses is coffee. It is delicious, divine, in those little Ori-
ental shops where it is made to order for each drinker in a spe-
cial little pot. As to syrups, how many are there in Paris ? In
what inconceivable place can they keep the jars containing the
fruit juices needed to make them? A few real ladies, rich, well-
born, good housekeepers, not reduced to slavery by the great
shops, who do not rouge or paint their cheeks, still know how to
make in their own homes good syrups from the fruit of their
gardens and their vineyards. But they naturally do not give
them away or sell them to the keepers of cafés, but keep them
to gladden their flaxen-haired children.
Such as it is, — with its failings and its vices, even a full cen-
tury after the fame of Procope, — the café, which we cannot drive
out of our memories, has been the asylum and the refuge of
many charming spirits. The old Tabourey, who, after having
## p. 1477 (#275) ###########################################
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
1477
been illustrious, now has a sort of half popularity and a pewter
bar, formerly heard the captivating conversations of Barbey and
of Aurevilly, who were rivals in the noblest salons, and who
sometimes preferred to converse seated before a marble table in
a hall from which one could see the foliage and the flowers of
the Luxembourg, Baudelaire also talked there, with his clear
caressing voice dropping diamonds and precious stones, like the
princess of the fairy tale, from beautiful red, somewhat thick lips.
A problem with no possible solution holds in check the writers
and the artists of Paris. When one has worked hard all day it is
pleasant to take a seat, during the short stroll that precedes the
dinner, to meet one's comrades and talk with them of everything
but politics. The only favorable place for these necessary acci-
dental meetings is the café; but is the game worth the candle,
or, to speak more exactly, the blinding gas-jets? Is it worth
while, for the pleasure of exchanging words, to accept criminal
absinthe, unnatural bitters, tragic vermouth, concocted in the
sombre laboratories of the cafés by frightful parasites ?
Aurélien Scholl, who, being a fine poet and excellent writer,
is naturally a practical man, had a pleasing idea. He wished
that the reunions in the cafés might continue at the absinthe
hour, but without the absinthe! A very honest man, chosen for
that purpose, would pour out for the passers-by, in place of every-
thing else, excellent claret with quinquina, which would have the
double advantage of not poisoning them and of giving them
a wholesome and comforting drink. But this seductive dream
could never be realized. Of course, honest men exist in great
numbers, among keepers of cafés as well as in other walks of
life; but the individual honest man could not be found who
would be willing to pour out quinquina wine in which there was
both quinquina and wine.
In the Palais Royal there used to be a café which had
retained Empire fittings and oil lamps. One found there real
wine, real coffee, real milk, and good beefsteaks. Roqueplan,
Arsène Houssaye, Michel Lévy, and the handsome Fiorentino
used to breakfast there, and they knew how to get the best
mushrooms. The proprietor of the café had said that as soon
as he could no longer make a living by selling genuine articles,
he would not give up his stock in trade to another, but would
sell his furniture and shut up shop. He kept his word. He
was a hero.
## p. 1478 (#276) ###########################################
1478
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
BALLADE ON THE MYSTERIOUS HOSTS OF THE FOREST
From “The Caryatids)
S"
TILL sing the mocking fairies, as of old,
Beneath the shade of thorn and holly-tree;
The west wind breathes upon them pure and cold,
And still wolves dread Diana roving free,
In secret woodland with her company.
'Tis thought the peasants' hovels know her rite
When now the wolds are bathed in silver light,
And first the moonrise breaks the dusky gray;
Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright,
And through the dim wood, Dian thrids her way.
With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold
The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee;
Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold
Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be,
The wild red dwarf, the nixies' enemy:
Then, 'mid their mirth and laughter and affright,
The sudden goddess enters, tall and white,
With one long sigh for summers passed away;
The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright,
And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way.
She gleans her sylvan trophies; down the wold
She hears the sobbing of the stags that flee,
Mixed with the music of the hunting rolled,
But her delight is all in archery,
And naught of ruth and pity wotteth she
More than the hounds that follow on the flight;
The tall nymph draws a golden bow of might,
And thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay;
She tosses loose her locks upon the night,
And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way.
ENVOI
Prince, let us leave the din, the dust, the spite,
The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight;
Amid the forest leaves and fountain spray
There is the mystic home of our delight,
And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way.
Translation of Andrew Lang.
## p. 1479 (#277) ###########################################
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
1479
AUX ENFANTS PERDUS
I
KNOW Cythera long is desolate;
I know the winds have stripped the garden green.
Alas, my friends! beneath the fierce sun's weight
A barren reef lies where Love's flowers have been,
Nor ever lover on that coast is seen!
So be it, for we seek a fabled shore,
To lull our vague desires with mystic lore,
To wander where Love's labyrinths beguile;
There let us land, there dream for evermore,
“It may be we shall touch the happy isle. ”
The sea may be our sepulchre. If Fate,
If tempests wreak their wrath on us, serene
We watch the bolt of Heaven, and scorn the hate
Of angry gods that smite us in their spleen.
Perchance the jealous mists are but the screen
That veils the fairy coast we would explore.
Come, though the sea be vexed, and breakers roar,
Come, for the breath of this old world is vile,
Haste we, and toil, and faint not at the oar;
"It may be we shall touch the happy isle. ”
Gray serpents trail in temples desecrate
Where Cypris smiled, the golden maid, the queen,
And ruined is the palace of our state;
But happy loves flit round the mast, and keen
The shrill winds sings the silken cords between.
Heroes are we, with wearied hearts and sore,
Whose flower is faded and whose locks are hoar.
Haste, ye light skiffs, where myrtle thickets smile
Love's panthers sleep 'mid roses, as of yore:
“It may be we shall touch the happy isle. ”
ENVOI
Sad eyes! the blue sea laughs as heretofore.
Ah, singing birds, your happy music pour;
Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile;
Flit to these ancient gods we still adore:
“It may be we shall touch the happy isle. ”
Translation of Andrew Lang.
## p. 1480 (#278) ###########################################
1480
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
BALLADE DES PENDUS
W**
HERE wide the forest bows are spread,
Where Flora wakes with sylph and fay,
Are crowns and garlands of men dead,
All golden in the morning gay;
Within this ancient garden gray
Are clusters such as no man knows,
Where Moor and Soldan bear the sway:
This is King Louis's orchard close !
These wretched folk wave overhead,
With such strange thoughts as none may say;
A moment still, then sudden sped,
They swing in a ring and waste away.
The morning smites them with her ray;
They toss with every breeze that blows,
They dance where fires of dawning play:
This is King Louis's orchard close!
All hanged and dead, they've summoned
(With Hell to aid, that hears them pray)
New legions of an army dread.
Now down the blue sky flames the day;
The dew dies off; the foul array
Of obscene ravens gathers and goes,
With wings that flap and beaks that flay:
This is King Louis's or chard close !
ENVOI
Prince, where leaves murmur of the May,
A tree of bitter clusters grows;
The bodies of men dead are they!
This is King Louis's orchard close!
Translation of Andrew Lang.
## p. 1481 (#279) ###########################################
1481
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
(1743–1825)
W
PHEN Lætitia Aikin Barbauld was about thirty years old, her
friend, Mrs. Elizabeth Montague, wishing to establish a col-
lege for women, asked her to be its principal. In her letter
of refusal Mrs. Barbauld said :— “A kind of Academy for ladies, where
they are to be taught in a regular manner the various branches of
science, appears to me better calculated to form such characters as
the Précieuses or Femmes Savantes than good wives or agreeable com-
panions. The very best way for a woman to acquire knowledge is
from conversation with a fatlier or brother.
The thefts of knowledge in our sex
are only connived at while carefully con-
cealed, and if displayed are punished with
disgrace. ” It is odd to find Mrs. Barbauld
thus reflecting the old-fashioned view of
the capacity and requirements of her own
sex, for she herself belonged to that brill-
iant group — Hannah More, Fanny Burney,
Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, Joanna Bail-
lie, Mary Russell Mitford -- who were the
living refutation of her inherited theories.
Their influence shows a pedagogic impulse
to present morally helpful ideas to the pub ANNA L. BARBAULD
From preceding generations whose
lives had been concentrated upon household affairs, these women
pioneers had acquired the strictly practical bent of mind which
comes out in all their verse, as in all their prose.
The child born at Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, a century
and a half ago, became one of the first of these pleasant writers for
young and old.
She was one of the thousand refutations of the
stupid popular idea that precocious children never amount to any.
thing When only two, she could read roundly without spelling,
and in half a year more could read as well as most women. Her
father was master of a boys' school, where her childhood was passed
under the rule of a loving but austere mother, who disliked all
intercourse with the pupils for her daughter. It was not the fash-
ion for women to be highly educated; but, stimulated perhaps by the
scholastic atmosphere, Lætitia implored her father for a classical
lic.
## p. 1482 (#280) ###########################################
1482
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
training, until, against his judgment, he allowed her to study Greek
and Latin as well as French and Italian. Though not fond of the
housewifely accomplishments insisted upon by Mrs. Aikin, the eager
student also cooked and sewed with due obedience.
Her dull childhood ended when she was fifteen, for then her
father accepted a position as classical tutor in a boys' school at
Warrington, Lancashire, to which place the family moved.
The new
home afforded greater freedom and an interesting circle of friends,
among them Currie, William Roscoe, John Taylor, and the famous
Dr. Priestley. A very pretty girl, with brilliant blonde coloring and
animated dark-blue eyes, she was witty and vivacious, too, under
the modest diffidence to which she had been trained. Naturally she
attracted much admiration from the schoolboys and even from their
elders, but on the whole she seems to have found study and writing
more interesting than love affairs. The first suitor, who presented
himself when she was about sixteen, was a farmer from her early
home at Kibworth. He stated his wishes to her father. “She is in
the garden,” said Mr. Aikin. “You may ask her yourself. ” Lætitia
was not propitious, but the young man was persistent, and the posi-
tion grew irksome. So the nimble girl scrambled into a convenient
tree, and escaped her rustic wooer by swinging herself down upon
the other side of the garden wall.
During these years at Warrington she wrote for her own pleas-
ure, and when her brother John returned home after several years'
absence, he helped her to arrange and publish a selection of her
The little book which appeared in 1773 was highly praised,
and ran through four editions within a year. In spite of grace and
fluency, most of these verses seem flat and antiquated to the modern
reader. Of the spirited first poem (Corsica,' Dr. Priestley wrote to
her:-"I consider that you are as much a general as Tyrtæus was,
and your poems (which I am confident are much better than his ever
were) may have as great effect as his. They may be the coup de grace
to the French troops in that island, and Paoli, who reads English,
will cause it to be printed in every history in that renowned island. ”
Miss Aikin's next venture was a small volume in collaboration
with her brother, Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose by J. and A. L.
Aikin. This too was widely read and admired. Samuel Rogers has
related an amusing conversation about the book in its first vogue:
«I am greatly pleased with your Miscellaneous Pieces,” said Charles
James Fox to Mrs. Barbauld's brother. Dr. Aikin bowed.
ticularly admire, continued Fox, your essay Against Inconsistency
in our Expectations. )” “That,” replied Aikin, “is my sister's. ” «
like much,” continued Fox, “your essay on Monastic Institutions. ) »
«That,” answered Aikin, is also my sister's. ” Fox thought it wise
poems.
I par-
## p. 1483 (#281) ###########################################
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
1483
to say no more about the book. The essay Against Inconsistency
in our Expectations) was most highly praised by the critics, and pro-
nounced by Mackintosh “the best short essay in the language. ”
When thirty years old, Lætitia Aikin married Rochemont Bar-
bauld, and went to live at Palgrave in Suffolk, where her husband
opened a boys' school, soon made popular by her personal charm and
influence. Sir William Gell, a classic topographer still remembered;
William Taylor, author of a Historic Survey of German Poetry);
and Lord Chief Justice Denman, were a few among the many who
looked back with gratitude to a childhood under her care.
Perhaps her best known work is the “Early Lessons for Children,
which was written during this period. Coming as it did when, as
Hannah More said, there was nothing for children to read between
(Cinderella and the Spectator, it was largely welcomed, and has
been used by generations of English children. The lessons were
written for a real little Charles, her adopted son, the child of her
brother, Dr. Aikin. For him, too, she wrote her Hymns in Prose
for Children,' a book equally successful, which has been translated
into French, German, Spanish, Italian, and even Latin.
After eleven busy years at Palgrave, during which, in spite of her
cheerful energy, Mrs. Barbauld had been much harassed by the nerv-
ous irritability of her invalid husband, the Barbaulds gave up their
school and treated themselves to a year of Continental travel. On
their return they settled at Hampstead, where Mr. Barbauld became
pastor of a small Unitarian congregation. The nearness to London
was a great advantage to Mrs. Barbauld's refreshed activity, and she
soon made the new home a pleasant rendezvous for literary men and
women. At one of her London dinner parties she met Sir Walter
Scott, who declared that her reading of Taylor's translation of Bür-
ger's Lenore) had inspired him to write poetry. She met Dr. John-
son too, who, though he railed at her after his fashion, calling her
Deborah and Virago Barbauld, did sometimes betray a sincere admi-
ration for her character and accomplishments. Miss Edgeworth and
Hannah More were dear friends and regular correspondents.
From time to time she published a poem or an essay; not many,
for in spite of her brother's continual admonition to write, hers was
a somewhat indolent talent. In 1790 she wrote a capable essay upon
the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts; a year later, a poetical
epistle to Mr. Wilberforce on the Slave Trade; in 1792, a defense of
Public Worship; and in 1793, a discourse as to a Fast Day upon the
Sins of Government.
In 1808 her husband's violent death, the result of a long insanity,
prostrated her for a time. Then as a diversion from morbid thought
she undertook an edition of the best English novels in fifty volumes,
## p. 1484 (#282) ###########################################
1484
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBACLD
for which she wrote an admirable introductory essay.
She also
made a compilation from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, and Free-
holder, with a preliminary discourse, which she published in 1811.
It was called “The Female Speaker,' and intended for young women.
The same year her (Eighteen Hundred and Eleven,' a patriotic di-
dactic poem, wounded national self-love and drew upon her much
unfriendly criticism, which so pained her that she would publish no
more. But the stirring lines were widely read, and in them Macaulay
found the original of his famous traveler from New Zealand, who
meditates on the ruined arches of London Bridge. Her prose style,
in its light philosophy, its humorously sympathetic dealing with
every-day affairs, has been often compared with Addison's.
Her old age was serene and happy, rich in intellectual companion-
ships and in the love and respect of many friends. Somewhere she
speaks of that state of middling life to which I have been accus-
tomed and which I love. " She disliked extremes, in emotion as in all
things, and took what came with cheerful courage. The poem Life,'
which the self-satisfied Wordsworth wished that he had written, ex-
presses her serene and philosophic spirit.
AGAINST INCONSISTENCY IN OUR EXPECTATIONS
A
S MOST of the unhappiness in the world arises rather from
disappointed desires than from positive evil, it is of the
utmost consequence to attain just notions of the laws and
order of the universe, that we may not vex ourselves with fruit-
less wishes, or give way to groundless and unreasonable discon-
tent.
The laws of natural philosophy, indeed, are tolerably
understood and attended to; and though we may suffer incon-
veniences, we are seldom disappointed in consequence of them.
No man expects to preserve orange-trees in the open air through
an English winter; or when he has planted an acorn, to see it
become a large oak in a few months. The mind of man naturally
yields to necessity; and our wishes soon subside when we see the
impossibility of their being gratified.
Now, upon an accurate inspection, we shall find in the moral
government of the world, and the order of the intellectual system,
laws as determinate, fixed, and invariable as any in Newton's
Principia. ' The progress of vegetation is not more certain than
the growth of habit; nor is the power of attraction more clearly
proved than the force of affection or the influence of example.
## p. 1485 (#283) ###########################################
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBALLD
1485
The man, therefore, who has well studied the operations of
nature in mind as well as matter, will acquire a certain modera-
tion and equity in his claims upon Providence. He never will
be disappointed either in himself or others. He will act with
precision; and expect that effect and that alone, from his efforts,
which they are naturally adapted to produce.
For want of this, men of merit and integrity often censure
the dispositions of Providence for suffering characters they despise
to run away with advantages which, they yet know, are pur-
chased by such means as a high and noble spirit could never
submit to. If you refuse to pay the price, why expect the pur-
chase ? We should consider this world as a great mart of com-
merce, where fortune exposes to our view various commodities, -
riches, ease, tranquillity, fame, integrity, knowledge. Everything
is marked at a settled price. Our time, our labor, our ingenuity,
is so much ready money which we are to lay out to the best
advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject; but stand to your
own judgment: and do not, like children, when you have pur-
chased one thing, repine that you do not possess another which
you did not purchase. Such is the force of well-regulated
industry, that a steady and vigorous exertion of our faculties,
directed to one end, will generally insure success.
Would you, for instance, be rich: Do you think that single
point worth the sacrificing everything else to? You may then
be rich. Thousands have become so from the lowest beginnings,
by toil, and patient diligence, and attention to the minutest
article of expense and profit. But you must give up the pleas-
ures of leisure, of a vacant mind, of a free, unsuspicious temper.
If you preserve your integrity, it must be a coarse-spun and
vulgar honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals which
you brought with you from the schools must be considerably
lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a jealous and
worldly-minded prudence. You must learn to do hard if not
unjust things; and for the nice embarrassments of a delicate and
ingenuous spirit, it is necessary for you to get rid of them as
fast as possible. You must shut your heart against the Muses,
and be content to feed your understanding with plain, household
truths. In short, you must not attempt to enlarge your ideas,
or polish your taste, or refine your sentiments; but must keep
on in one beaten track, without turning aside either to the right
hand or to the left. “But I cannot submit to drudgery like this:
## p. 1486 (#284) ###########################################
1486
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
man
I feel a spirit above it. ” 'Tis well: be above it then; only do
not repine that you are not rich.
Is knowledge the pearl of price? That too may be purchased
– by steady application, and long solitary hours of study and
reflection. Bestow these, and you shall be wise. “But” (says
the man of letters) "what a hardship is it that many an illiter-
ate fellow who cannot construe the motto of the arms on his
coach, shall raise a fortune and make a figure, while I have
little more than the common conveniences of life. ” Et tibi magui
satis ! — Was it in order to raise a fortune that you consumed
the sprightly hours of youth in study and retirement ? Was it
to be rich that you grew pale over the midnight lamp, and dis-
tilled the sweetness from the Greek and Roman spring? You
have then mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry.
“What reward have I then for all my labors ? What reward!
A large, comprehensive soul, well purged from vulgar fears and
perturbations and prejudices; able to comprehend and interpret
the works of
of God. A rich, flourishing, cultivated
mind, pregnant with inexhaustible stores of entertainment and
reflection. A perpetual spring of fresh ideas; and the conscious
dignity of superior intelligence. Good heaven! and what reward
can you ask besides?
“But is it not some reproach upon the economy of Provi-
dence that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have
amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation ? Not in the least.
He made himself a mean, dirty fellow for that very end.
Jer, really afflicted at this scene, promised to work hard the
moment he got his dinner; and his spouse, first procuring a
pitchfork to beat the pig into her sty, prepared a fresh meal for
him, and retired to eat her own in the house, and then to con-
tinue her labor.
In about an hour she thought of paying him another visit of
inspection, when Jeremiah's voice reached her ear, calling out in
disturbed accents, Cauth! Cauth! a-vourneen! For the love o'
heaven, Cauth! where are you? ”
Running to him, she found her husband sitting upright,
though not upon his round stone, amongst the still untouched
heap of pots and pints, his pock-marked face very pale, his
## p. 1464 (#262) ###########################################
1464
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
single eye staring, his hands clasped and shaking, and moisture
on his forehead.
"What! ” she cried, “the pewther just as I left it, over
again ! »
«O Cauth! Cauth! don't mind that now— but spake to me
kind, Cauth, an' comfort me. ”
"Why, what ails you, Jer a-vourneon ? ” affectionately taking
his hand, when she saw how really agitated he was.
"O Cauth, oh, I had such a dhrame, now, in earnest, at any
rate! ”
A dhrame! ” she repeated, letting go his hand, "a dhrame,
Jer Mulcahy! so, afther your good dinner, you go for to fall
asleep, Jer Mulcahy, just to be ready wid a new dhrame for me,
instead of the work you came out here to do, five blessed hours
ago!
“Don't scould me, now, Cauth; don't, a-pet: only listen to me,
an' then say what you like. You know the lonesome little glen
between the hills, on the short cut for man or horse, to Kilbrog-
gan? Well, Cauth, there I found myself in the dhrame; and I
saw two sailors, tired afther a day's hard walking, sitting before
one of the big rocks that stand upright in the wild place; an'
they were ating or dhrinking, I couldn't make out which; and
one was a tall, sthrong, broad-shouldhered man, an' the other was
sthrong, too, but short an’ burly; an' while they were talking very
civilly to each other, lo an' behould you, Cauth, I seen the tall
man whip his knife into the little man; an' then they both
sthruggled, an' wrastled, an' schreeched together, till the rocks
rung again; but at last the little man was a corpse; an' may I
never see a sight o' glory, Cauth, but all this was afore me as
plain as you are, in this garden! an' since the hour I was born,
Cauth, I never got such a fright; an'-oh, Cauth! what's that
now ? »
“What is it, you poor fool, you, but a customer, come at last
into the kitchen—an' time for us to see the face o' one this
blessed day. Get up out o' that, wid your dhrames — don't you
hear 'em knocking? I'll stay here to put one vessel at laste to
rights— for I see I must. ”
Jeremiah arose, groaning, and entered the cabin through the
back door. In a few seconds he hastened to his wife, more ter-
ror-stricken than he had left her, and settling his loins against
the low garden wall, stared at her.
## p. 1465 (#263) ###########################################
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
1465
"Why, then, duoul's in you, Jer Mulcahy (saints forgive me
for cursing ! ) — and what's the matter wid you, at-all at-all ? »
« They're in the kitchen,” he whispered.
“Well, an' what will they take ? ”
“I spoke never a word to them, Cauth, nor they to me; - I
couldn't- an' I won't, for a duke's ransom: I only saw them
stannin' together, in the dark that's coming on, behind the dour,
an' I knew them at the first look — the tall one an' the little
>)
one. ”
With a flout at his dreams, and his cowardice, and his good-
for-nothingness, the dame hurried to serve her customers. Jere-
miah heard her loud voice addressing them, and their hoarse
tones answering She came out again for two pints to draw
some beer, and commanded him to follow her and “discoorse
the customers. ” He remained motionless. She returned in a
short time, and fairly drove him before her into the house.
He took a seat remote from his guests, with difficulty pro-
nouncing the ordinary words of "God save ye, genteels,” which
they bluffly and heartily answered. His glances towards them
were also few; yet enough to inform him that they conversed
together like friends, pledging healths and shaking hands. The
tall sailor abruptly asked him how far it was, by the short cut,
to a village where they proposed to pass the night- Kilbrog-
gan ? - Jeremiah started on his seat, and his wife, after a glance
and a grumble at him, was obliged to speak for her husband.
They finished their beer; paid for it; put up half a loaf and a
cut of bad watery cheese, saying that they might feel more
hungry a few miles on than they now did; and then they arose
to leave the cabin. Jeremiah glanced in great trouble around.
His wife had fortunately disappeared; he snatched up his old
hat, and with more energy than he could himself remember, ran
forward to be a short way on the road before them. They soon
approached him; and then, obeying a conscientious impulse, Jere-
miah saluted the smaller of the two, and requested to speak
with him apart. The sailor, in evident surprise, assented. Jer
vaguely cautioned him against going any farther that night, as
it would be quite dark by the time he should get to the mount-
ain pass, on the by-road to Kilbroggan. His warning was
made light of He grew more earnest, asserting, what was not
the fact, that it was "a bad road,” meaning one infested by
robbers. Still the bluff tar paid no attention, and was turning
## p. 1466 (#264) ###########################################
1466
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
away. "Oh, sir; oh, stop, sir,” resumed Jeremiah, taking great
courage, “I have a thing to tell you;” and he rehearsed his
dream, averring that in it he had distinctly seen the present
object of his solicitude set upon and slain by his colossal com-
panion. The listener paused a moment; first looking at Jer,
and then at the ground, very gravely: but the next moment
he burst into a loud, and Jeremiah thought, frightful laugh,
and walked rapidly to overtake his shipmate. Jeremiah, much
oppressed, returned home.
Towards dawn, next morning, the publican awoke in an
ominous panic, and aroused his wife to listen to a loud knock-
ing, and a clamor of voices at their door. She insisted that
there was no such thing, and scolded him for disturbing her
sleep. A renewal of the noise, however, convinced even her
incredulity, and showed that Jeremiah was right for the first
time in his life, at least. Both arose, and hastened to answer
the summons.
When they unbarred the front door, a gentleman, surrounded
by a crowd of people of the village, stood before it. He had
discovered on the by-road through the hills from Kilbroggan, a
dead body, weltering in its gore, and wearing sailor's clothes;
had ridden on in alarm; had raised the village; and some of
its population, recollecting to have seen Mrs. Mulcahy's visitors
of the previous evening, now brought him to her house to hear
what she could say on the subject.
Before she could say anything, her husband fell senseless at
her side, groaning dolefully. While the bystanders raised him,
she clapped her hands, and exalted her voice in ejaculations, as
Irish women, when grieved or astonished or vexed, usually do;
and now, as proud of Jeremiah's dreaming capabilities as she had
before been impatient of them, rehearsed his vision of the mur-
der, and authenticated the visit of the two sailors to her house,
almost while he was in the act of making her the confidant of
his prophetic ravings. The auditors stept back in consternation,
crossing themselves, smiting their breasts, and crying out, “The
Lord save us! The Lord have mercy upon us! "
Jeremiah slowly awoke from his swoon. The gentleman who
had discovered the body commanded his attendants back to the
lonesome glen, where it lay. Poor Jeremiah fell on his knees,
and with tears streaming down his cheeks, prayed to be saved
from such a trial. His neighbors almost forced him along.
## p. 1467 (#265) ###########################################
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
1467
All soon gained the spot, a narrow pass between slanting piles
of displaced rocks; the hills from which they had tumbled rising
brown and barren and to a great height above and beyond them.
And there, indeed, upon the strip of verdure which formed the
winding road through the defile, lay the corpse of one of the
sailors who had visited the publican's house the evening before.
Again Jeremiah dropt on his knees, at some distance from
the body, exclaiming, “Lord save us! — yes! oh, yes, neighbors,
this is the very place! - only - the saints be good to us again ! -
'twas the tall sailor I seen killing the little sailor, and here's the
tall sailor murthered by the little sailor. ”
Dhrames go by conthraries, some way or another,” observed
one of his neighbors; and Jeremiah's puzzle was resolved.
Two steps were now indispensable to be taken; the county
coroner should be summoned, and the murderer sought after.
The crowd parted to engage in both matters simultaneously.
Evening drew on when they again met in the pass: and the first,
who had gone for the coroner, returned with him, a distance of
near twenty miles; but the second party did not prove so success-
ful. In fact they had discovered no clue to the present retreat
of the supposed assassin.
The coroner impaneled his jury, and held his inquest under a
large upright rock, bedded in the middle of the pass, such as
Jeremiah said he had seen in his dream. A verdict of willful
murder against the absent sailor was quickly agreed upon; but
ere it could be recorded, all hesitated, not knowing how to indi-
vidualize a man of whose name they were ignorant.
The summer night had fallen upon their deliberations, and the
moon arose in splendor, shining over the top of one of the high
hills that inclosed the pass, so as fully to illumine the bosom of
the other. During their pause, a man appeared standing upon the
line of the hill thus favored by the moonlight, and every eye
turned in that direction. He ran down the abrupt declivity
beneath him; he gained the continued sweep of jumbled rocks
which immediately walled in the little valley, springing from one
to another of them with such agility and certainty that it seemed
almost magical; and a general whisper of fear now attested the
fact of his being dressed in a straw hat, a short jacket, and loose
white trousers. As he jumped from the last rock upon the sward
of the pass, the spectators drew back; but he, not seeming to
notice them, walked up to the corpse, which had not yet been
## p. 1468 (#266) ###########################################
1468
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
touched; took its hand; turned up its face into the moonlight,
and attentively regarded the features; let the hand go; pushed
his hat upon his forehead; glanced around him; recognized the
person in authority; approached, and stood still before him, and
said "Here I am, Tom Mills, that killed long Harry Holmes, and
there he lies. ”
The coroner cried out to secure him, now fearing that the
man's sturdiness meant farther harm. “No need, resumed the
self-accused; "here's my bread-and-cheese knife, the only weapon
about me;" he threw it on the ground: "I come back just to ax
you, commodore, to order me a cruise after poor Harry, bless his
precious eyes, wherever he is bound. ”
“You have been pursued hither ? ”
“No, bless your heart; but I wouldn't pass such another watch
as the last twenty-four hours for all the prize-money won at Tra-
falgar. 'Tisn't in regard of not tasting food or wetting my lips
ever since I fell foul of Harry, or of hiding my head like a
cursed animal o' the yearth, and starting if a bird only hopped
nigh me: but I cannot go on living on this tack no longer; that's
it; and the least I can say to you, Harry, my hearty. ”
“What caused your quarrel with your comrade ? ”
« There was no jar or jabber betwixt us, d'you see me. ”
«Not at the time, I understand you to mean; but surely you
must have long owed him a grudge ?
“No, but long loved him; and he me. ”
“Then, in heaven's name, what put the dreadful thought in
your head ? »
“The devil, commodore, (the horned lubber! ) and another
lubber to help him ” — pointing at Jeremiah, who shrank to the
skirts of the crowd. "I'll tell you every word of it, commodore,
as true as a log-book. For twenty long and merry years, Harry
and I sailed together, and worked together, thro' a hard gale
sometimes, and thro' hot sun another time; and never a squally
word came between us till last night, and then it all came of
that lubberly swipes-seller, I say again. I thought as how it
was a real awful thing that a strange landsman, before ever he
laid eyes on either of us, should come to have this here dream
about us After falling in with Harry, when the lubber and I
parted company, my old mate saw I was cast down, and he told
me as much in his own gruff, well-meaning way; upon which I
gave him the story, laughing at it. He didn't laugh in return,
»
## p. 1469 (#267) ###########################################
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
1469
but grew glum-glummer than I ever seed him; and I wondered,
and fell to boxing about my thoughts, more and more (deep sea
sink that cursed thinking and thinking, say I! -it sends many
an honest fellow out of his course); and “It's hard to know the
best man's mind,' I thought to myself. Well, we came on the
tack into these rocky parts, and Harry says to me all on a sud-
den, «Tom, try the soundings here, ahead, by yourself —or let
me, by myself. I axed him why? No matter,' says Harry
again, but after what you chawed about, I don't like your com-
pany any farther, till we fall in again at the next village. '
What, Harry,' I cries, laughing heartier than ever, are you
afeard of your own mind with Tom Mills ? Pho,' he made
answer, walking on before me, and I followed him.
«(Yes, I kept saying to myself, he is afeard of his own
mind with his old shipmate. ' 'Twas a darker night than this,
and when I looked ahead, the devil (for I know 'twas he that
boarded me! ) made me take notice what a good spot it was for
Harry to fall foul of me. And then I watched him making way
before me, in the dark, and couldn't help thinking he was the
better man of the two -- a head and shoulders over me, and a
match for any two of my inches. And then again, I brought to
mind that Harry would be a heavy purse the better of sending
me to Davy's locker, seeing we had both been just paid off, and
got a lot of prize-money to boot; — and at last (the real red
devil having fairly got me helm a-larboard) I argufied with
myself that Tom Mills would be as well alive, with Harry
Holmes's luck in his pocket, as he could be dead, and his in
Harry Holmes's; not to say nothing of taking one's own part,
just to keep one's self afloat, if so be Harry let his mind run as
mine was running.
“All this time Harry never gave me no hail, but kept tack-
ing through these cursed rocks; and that, and his last words,
made me doubt him more and more. At last he stopped nigh
where he now lies, and sitting with his back to that high stone,
he calls for my blade to cut the bread and cheese he had got at
the village; and while he spoke I believed he looked glummer
and glummer, and that he wanted the blade, the only one
between us, for some'at else than to cut bread and cheese;
though now I don't believe no such thing howsumdever; but then
I did: and so, d’you see me, commodore, I lost ballast all of a
sudden, and when he stretched out his hand for the blade (hell's
## p. 1470 (#268) ###########################################
1470
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
fire blazing up in my lubberly heart! ) - Here it is, Harry,' says
I, and I gives it to him in the side! - once, twice, in the right
place! ” (the sailor's voice, hitherto calm, though broken and
rugged, now rose into a high, wild cadence) — «and then how
we did grapple! and sing out one to another! ahoy! yeho! aye;
till I thought the whole crew of devils answered our hail from
the hill-tops! — But I hit you again and again, Harry! before
you could master me,” continued the sailor, returning to the
corpse, and once more taking its hand — “until at last you
struck, — my old messmate! — And now nothing remains for
Tom Mills— but to man the yard-arm! ”
The narrator stood his trial at the ensuing assizes, and was
executed for this avowed murder of his shipmate; Jeremiah
appearing as a principal witness. Our story may seem drawn
either from imagination, or from mere village gossip: its chief
acts rest, however, upon the authority of members of the Irish
bar, since risen to high professional eminence; and they can
even vouch that at least Jeremiah asserted the truth of
Publican's Dream. ”
« The
AILLEEN
'T'S
is not for love of gold I go,
'Tis not for love of fame;
Tho' Fortune should her smile bestow,
And I may win a name,
Ailleen,
And I may win a name.
And yet it is for gold I go,
And yet it is for fame,
That they may deck another brow
And bless another name,
Ailleen,
And bless another name.
For this, but this, I go — for this
I lose thy love awhile;
And all the soft and quiet bliss
Of thy young, faithful smile,
Ailleen,
Of thy young, faithful smile.
## p. 1471 (#269) ###########################################
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
1471
And I go to brave a world I hate
And woo it o'er and o'er,
And tempt a wave and try a fate
l'pon a stranger shore,
Ailleen,
Upon a stranger shore.
Oh! when the gold is wooed and won,
I know a heart will care!
Oh! when the bays are all my own,
I know a brow shall wear,
Ailleen,
I know a brow shall wear.
And when, with both returned again,
My native land to see,
I know a smile will meet me there
And a hand will welcome me,
Ailleen,
And a hand will welcome me!
SOGGARTH AROON
(“O Priest, O Love ! ))
THE IRISH PEASANT'S ADDRESS TO HIS PRIEST
A"
m I the slave they say,
Soggarth Aroon ?
Since you did show the way,
Soggarth Aroon,
Their slave no more to be,
While they would work with me
Ould Ireland's slavery,
Soggarth Aroon ?
Why not her poorest man,
Soggarth Aroon,
Try and do all he can,
Soggarth Aroon,
Her commands to fulfill
Of his own heart and will,
Side by side with you still,
Soggarth Aroon ?
## p. 1472 (#270) ###########################################
1472
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
Loyal and brave to you,
Soggarth Aroon,
Yet be no slave to you,
Soggarth Aroon,
Nor out of fear to you
Stand up so near to you –
Och! out of fear to you!
Soggarth Aroon!
Who, in the winter's night,
Soggarth Aroon,
When the cowld blast did bite,
Soggarth Aroon,
Came to my cabin door,
And on my earthen floor
Knelt by me, sick and poor,
Soggarth Aroon ?
Who, on the marriage day,
Soggarth Aroon,
Made the poor cabin gay,
Soggarth Aroon;
And did both laugh and sing,
Making our hearts to ring,
At the poor christening,
Soggarth Aroon ?
Who, as friend only met,
Soggarth Aroon,
Never did flout me yet,
Soggarth Aroon ?
And when my hearth was dim
Gave, while his eye did brim,
What I should give to him,
Soggarth Aroon?
Och! you, and only you,
Soggarth Aroon!
And for this I was true to you,
Soggarth Aroon;
In love they'll never shake
When for ould Ireland's sake
We a true part did take,
Soggarth Aroon!
## p. 1473 (#271) ###########################################
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
1473
THE IRISH MAIDEN'S SONG
Yºu
ou know it now — it is betrayed
This moment in mine eye,
And in my young cheeks' crimson shade,
And in my whispered sigh.
You know it now — yet listen now —
Though ne'er was love more true,
My plight and troth and virgin vow
Still, still I keep from you,
Ever!
Ever, until a proof you give
How oft you've heard me say,
I would not even his empress live
Who idles life away,
Without one effort for the land
In which my fathers' graves
Were hollowed by a despot hand
To darkly close on slaves —
Never!
See! round yourself the shackles hang,
Yet come you to love's bowers,
That only he may soothe their pang
Or hide their links in flowers -
But try all things to snap thein first,
And should all fail when tried,
The fated chain you cannot burst
My twining arms shall hide-
Ever!
111-93
## p. 1474 (#272) ###########################################
1474
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
(1823-1891)
fire
HÉODORE FAULLAIN DE BANVILLE is best known as a very
skillful maker of polished artificial verse. His poetry stands
high; but it is the poetry not of nature, but of elegant
society. His muse, as Mr. Henley says, is always in evening dress.
References to the classic poets are woven into all of his descriptions
of nature. He is distinguished, scholarly, full of taste, and brilliant
in execution; never failing in propriety, and never reaching inspira-
tion. As an artist in words and cadences he has few superiors.
These qualities are partly acquired, and
partly the result of birth. Born in 1823,
the son of a naval officer, from his earliest
years he devoted himself to literature. His
birthplace, Moulins, an old provincial town
on the banks of the Allier, where he spent
a happy childhood, made little impression
on him. Still almost a child he went to
Paris, where he led a life without events, –
without even a marriage or an election to
the Academy; he died March 13th, 1891.
His place was among the society people
and the artists; the painter Courbet and
DE BANVILLE the writers Mürger, Baudelaire, and Gautier
were among his closest friends. He first
attracted attention in 1848 by the publication of a volume of verse,
(The Caryatids. In 1857 came another, Odes Funambulesque,'
and later another series under the same title, the two together con-
taining his best work in verse. Here he stands highest; though
he wrote also many plays, one of which, (Gringoire,' has been acted
in various translations. The Wife of Socrates) also holds the stage.
Like his other work, his drama is artificial, refined, and skillful. He
presents a marked instance of the artist working for art's sake.
During the latter years of his life he wrote mostly prose, and he has
left many well-drawn portraits of his contemporaries, in addition to
several books of criticism, with much color and charm, but little
definiteness. He was always vague, for facts did not interest him; but
he had the power of making his remote, unreal world attractive, and
among the writers of the school of Gautier he stands among the first.
## p. 1475 (#273) ###########################################
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
1475
LE CAFÉ
From The Soul of Paris)
warm
MAGINE a place where you do not endure the horror of being
alone, and yet have the freedom of solitude. There, free
from the dust, the boredom, the vulgarities of a household,
you reflect at ease, comfortably seated before a table, unincum-
bered by all the things that oppress you in houses; for if useless
objects and papers had accumulated here they would have been
promptly removed. You smoke slowly, quietly, like a Turk, fol-
lowing your thoughts among the blue curves.
If you have a voluptuous desire to taste some
or
refreshing beverage, well-trained waiters bring it to you immedi-
ately. If you feel like talking with clever men who will not
bully you, you have within reach light sheets on which are printed
wingèd thoughts, rapid, written for you, which you are not forced
to bind and preserve in a library when they have ceased to
please you. This place, the paradise of civilization, the last and
inviolable refuge of the free man, is the café.
It is the café; but in the ideal, as we dream it, as it ought to
be. The lack of room and the fabulous cost of land on the
boulevards of Paris make it hideous in actuality. In these little
boxes — of which the rent is that of a palace -- one would be
foolish to look for the space of a vestiary. Besides, the walls
are decorated with stovepipe hats and overcoats hung on clothes-
pegs — an abominable sight, for which atonement is offered by
multitudes of white panels and ignoble gilding, imitations made
by economical process.
And let us not deceive ourselves) the overcoat, with which
one never knows what to do, and which makes us worry every-
where,- in society, at the theatre, at balls, - is the great enemy
and the abominable enslavement of modern life. Happy the
gentlemen of the age of Louis XIV. , who in the morning dressed
themselves for all day, in satin and velvet, their brows protected
by wigs, and who remained superb even when beaten by the
storm, and who, moreover, brave as lions, ran the risk of pneu-
monia even if they had to put on, one outside the other, the
innumerable waistcoats of Jodelet in Les Précieuses Ridicules! !
“How shall I find my overcoat and my wife's party cape ? ” is
the great and only cry, the Hamlet-monologue of the modern
man, that poisons every minute of his life and makes him look
## p. 1476 (#274) ###########################################
1476
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
with resignation toward his dying hour. On the morning after
a ball given by Marshal MacMahon nothing is found: the over-
coats have disappeared; the satin cloaks, the boas, the lace scarfs
have gone up in smoke; and the women must rush in despair
through the driving snow while their husbands try to button
their evening coats, which will not button!
One evening, at a party given by the wife of the President
of the Chamber of Deputies, at which the gardens were lighted
by electricity, Gambetta suddenly wished to show some of his
guests a curiosity, and invited them to go down with him into
the bushes. A valet hastened to hand him his overcoat, but the
guests did not dare to ask for theirs, and followed Gambetta as
they were! However, I believe one or two of them survived.
At the café no one carries off your overcoat, no one hides it;
but they are all hung up, spread out on the wall like master-
pieces of art, treated as if they were portraits of Mona Lisa or
Violante, and you have them before your eyes, you see them con-
tinually. Is there not reason to curse the moment your eyes
first saw the light? One may, as I have said, read the papers;
or rather one might read them if they were not hung on those
abominable racks, which remove them a mile from you and force
you to see them on your horizon.
As to the drinks, give up all hope; for the owner of the café
has no proper place for their preparation, and his rent is so enor-
mous that he has to make the best even of the quality he sells.
But aside from this reason, the drinks could not be good, because
there are too many of them. The last thing one finds at these
coffee-houses is coffee. It is delicious, divine, in those little Ori-
ental shops where it is made to order for each drinker in a spe-
cial little pot. As to syrups, how many are there in Paris ? In
what inconceivable place can they keep the jars containing the
fruit juices needed to make them? A few real ladies, rich, well-
born, good housekeepers, not reduced to slavery by the great
shops, who do not rouge or paint their cheeks, still know how to
make in their own homes good syrups from the fruit of their
gardens and their vineyards. But they naturally do not give
them away or sell them to the keepers of cafés, but keep them
to gladden their flaxen-haired children.
Such as it is, — with its failings and its vices, even a full cen-
tury after the fame of Procope, — the café, which we cannot drive
out of our memories, has been the asylum and the refuge of
many charming spirits. The old Tabourey, who, after having
## p. 1477 (#275) ###########################################
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
1477
been illustrious, now has a sort of half popularity and a pewter
bar, formerly heard the captivating conversations of Barbey and
of Aurevilly, who were rivals in the noblest salons, and who
sometimes preferred to converse seated before a marble table in
a hall from which one could see the foliage and the flowers of
the Luxembourg, Baudelaire also talked there, with his clear
caressing voice dropping diamonds and precious stones, like the
princess of the fairy tale, from beautiful red, somewhat thick lips.
A problem with no possible solution holds in check the writers
and the artists of Paris. When one has worked hard all day it is
pleasant to take a seat, during the short stroll that precedes the
dinner, to meet one's comrades and talk with them of everything
but politics. The only favorable place for these necessary acci-
dental meetings is the café; but is the game worth the candle,
or, to speak more exactly, the blinding gas-jets? Is it worth
while, for the pleasure of exchanging words, to accept criminal
absinthe, unnatural bitters, tragic vermouth, concocted in the
sombre laboratories of the cafés by frightful parasites ?
Aurélien Scholl, who, being a fine poet and excellent writer,
is naturally a practical man, had a pleasing idea. He wished
that the reunions in the cafés might continue at the absinthe
hour, but without the absinthe! A very honest man, chosen for
that purpose, would pour out for the passers-by, in place of every-
thing else, excellent claret with quinquina, which would have the
double advantage of not poisoning them and of giving them
a wholesome and comforting drink. But this seductive dream
could never be realized. Of course, honest men exist in great
numbers, among keepers of cafés as well as in other walks of
life; but the individual honest man could not be found who
would be willing to pour out quinquina wine in which there was
both quinquina and wine.
In the Palais Royal there used to be a café which had
retained Empire fittings and oil lamps. One found there real
wine, real coffee, real milk, and good beefsteaks. Roqueplan,
Arsène Houssaye, Michel Lévy, and the handsome Fiorentino
used to breakfast there, and they knew how to get the best
mushrooms. The proprietor of the café had said that as soon
as he could no longer make a living by selling genuine articles,
he would not give up his stock in trade to another, but would
sell his furniture and shut up shop. He kept his word. He
was a hero.
## p. 1478 (#276) ###########################################
1478
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
BALLADE ON THE MYSTERIOUS HOSTS OF THE FOREST
From “The Caryatids)
S"
TILL sing the mocking fairies, as of old,
Beneath the shade of thorn and holly-tree;
The west wind breathes upon them pure and cold,
And still wolves dread Diana roving free,
In secret woodland with her company.
'Tis thought the peasants' hovels know her rite
When now the wolds are bathed in silver light,
And first the moonrise breaks the dusky gray;
Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright,
And through the dim wood, Dian thrids her way.
With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold
The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee;
Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold
Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be,
The wild red dwarf, the nixies' enemy:
Then, 'mid their mirth and laughter and affright,
The sudden goddess enters, tall and white,
With one long sigh for summers passed away;
The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright,
And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way.
She gleans her sylvan trophies; down the wold
She hears the sobbing of the stags that flee,
Mixed with the music of the hunting rolled,
But her delight is all in archery,
And naught of ruth and pity wotteth she
More than the hounds that follow on the flight;
The tall nymph draws a golden bow of might,
And thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay;
She tosses loose her locks upon the night,
And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way.
ENVOI
Prince, let us leave the din, the dust, the spite,
The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight;
Amid the forest leaves and fountain spray
There is the mystic home of our delight,
And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way.
Translation of Andrew Lang.
## p. 1479 (#277) ###########################################
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
1479
AUX ENFANTS PERDUS
I
KNOW Cythera long is desolate;
I know the winds have stripped the garden green.
Alas, my friends! beneath the fierce sun's weight
A barren reef lies where Love's flowers have been,
Nor ever lover on that coast is seen!
So be it, for we seek a fabled shore,
To lull our vague desires with mystic lore,
To wander where Love's labyrinths beguile;
There let us land, there dream for evermore,
“It may be we shall touch the happy isle. ”
The sea may be our sepulchre. If Fate,
If tempests wreak their wrath on us, serene
We watch the bolt of Heaven, and scorn the hate
Of angry gods that smite us in their spleen.
Perchance the jealous mists are but the screen
That veils the fairy coast we would explore.
Come, though the sea be vexed, and breakers roar,
Come, for the breath of this old world is vile,
Haste we, and toil, and faint not at the oar;
"It may be we shall touch the happy isle. ”
Gray serpents trail in temples desecrate
Where Cypris smiled, the golden maid, the queen,
And ruined is the palace of our state;
But happy loves flit round the mast, and keen
The shrill winds sings the silken cords between.
Heroes are we, with wearied hearts and sore,
Whose flower is faded and whose locks are hoar.
Haste, ye light skiffs, where myrtle thickets smile
Love's panthers sleep 'mid roses, as of yore:
“It may be we shall touch the happy isle. ”
ENVOI
Sad eyes! the blue sea laughs as heretofore.
Ah, singing birds, your happy music pour;
Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile;
Flit to these ancient gods we still adore:
“It may be we shall touch the happy isle. ”
Translation of Andrew Lang.
## p. 1480 (#278) ###########################################
1480
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
BALLADE DES PENDUS
W**
HERE wide the forest bows are spread,
Where Flora wakes with sylph and fay,
Are crowns and garlands of men dead,
All golden in the morning gay;
Within this ancient garden gray
Are clusters such as no man knows,
Where Moor and Soldan bear the sway:
This is King Louis's orchard close !
These wretched folk wave overhead,
With such strange thoughts as none may say;
A moment still, then sudden sped,
They swing in a ring and waste away.
The morning smites them with her ray;
They toss with every breeze that blows,
They dance where fires of dawning play:
This is King Louis's orchard close!
All hanged and dead, they've summoned
(With Hell to aid, that hears them pray)
New legions of an army dread.
Now down the blue sky flames the day;
The dew dies off; the foul array
Of obscene ravens gathers and goes,
With wings that flap and beaks that flay:
This is King Louis's or chard close !
ENVOI
Prince, where leaves murmur of the May,
A tree of bitter clusters grows;
The bodies of men dead are they!
This is King Louis's orchard close!
Translation of Andrew Lang.
## p. 1481 (#279) ###########################################
1481
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
(1743–1825)
W
PHEN Lætitia Aikin Barbauld was about thirty years old, her
friend, Mrs. Elizabeth Montague, wishing to establish a col-
lege for women, asked her to be its principal. In her letter
of refusal Mrs. Barbauld said :— “A kind of Academy for ladies, where
they are to be taught in a regular manner the various branches of
science, appears to me better calculated to form such characters as
the Précieuses or Femmes Savantes than good wives or agreeable com-
panions. The very best way for a woman to acquire knowledge is
from conversation with a fatlier or brother.
The thefts of knowledge in our sex
are only connived at while carefully con-
cealed, and if displayed are punished with
disgrace. ” It is odd to find Mrs. Barbauld
thus reflecting the old-fashioned view of
the capacity and requirements of her own
sex, for she herself belonged to that brill-
iant group — Hannah More, Fanny Burney,
Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, Joanna Bail-
lie, Mary Russell Mitford -- who were the
living refutation of her inherited theories.
Their influence shows a pedagogic impulse
to present morally helpful ideas to the pub ANNA L. BARBAULD
From preceding generations whose
lives had been concentrated upon household affairs, these women
pioneers had acquired the strictly practical bent of mind which
comes out in all their verse, as in all their prose.
The child born at Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, a century
and a half ago, became one of the first of these pleasant writers for
young and old.
She was one of the thousand refutations of the
stupid popular idea that precocious children never amount to any.
thing When only two, she could read roundly without spelling,
and in half a year more could read as well as most women. Her
father was master of a boys' school, where her childhood was passed
under the rule of a loving but austere mother, who disliked all
intercourse with the pupils for her daughter. It was not the fash-
ion for women to be highly educated; but, stimulated perhaps by the
scholastic atmosphere, Lætitia implored her father for a classical
lic.
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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
training, until, against his judgment, he allowed her to study Greek
and Latin as well as French and Italian. Though not fond of the
housewifely accomplishments insisted upon by Mrs. Aikin, the eager
student also cooked and sewed with due obedience.
Her dull childhood ended when she was fifteen, for then her
father accepted a position as classical tutor in a boys' school at
Warrington, Lancashire, to which place the family moved.
The new
home afforded greater freedom and an interesting circle of friends,
among them Currie, William Roscoe, John Taylor, and the famous
Dr. Priestley. A very pretty girl, with brilliant blonde coloring and
animated dark-blue eyes, she was witty and vivacious, too, under
the modest diffidence to which she had been trained. Naturally she
attracted much admiration from the schoolboys and even from their
elders, but on the whole she seems to have found study and writing
more interesting than love affairs. The first suitor, who presented
himself when she was about sixteen, was a farmer from her early
home at Kibworth. He stated his wishes to her father. “She is in
the garden,” said Mr. Aikin. “You may ask her yourself. ” Lætitia
was not propitious, but the young man was persistent, and the posi-
tion grew irksome. So the nimble girl scrambled into a convenient
tree, and escaped her rustic wooer by swinging herself down upon
the other side of the garden wall.
During these years at Warrington she wrote for her own pleas-
ure, and when her brother John returned home after several years'
absence, he helped her to arrange and publish a selection of her
The little book which appeared in 1773 was highly praised,
and ran through four editions within a year. In spite of grace and
fluency, most of these verses seem flat and antiquated to the modern
reader. Of the spirited first poem (Corsica,' Dr. Priestley wrote to
her:-"I consider that you are as much a general as Tyrtæus was,
and your poems (which I am confident are much better than his ever
were) may have as great effect as his. They may be the coup de grace
to the French troops in that island, and Paoli, who reads English,
will cause it to be printed in every history in that renowned island. ”
Miss Aikin's next venture was a small volume in collaboration
with her brother, Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose by J. and A. L.
Aikin. This too was widely read and admired. Samuel Rogers has
related an amusing conversation about the book in its first vogue:
«I am greatly pleased with your Miscellaneous Pieces,” said Charles
James Fox to Mrs. Barbauld's brother. Dr. Aikin bowed.
ticularly admire, continued Fox, your essay Against Inconsistency
in our Expectations. )” “That,” replied Aikin, “is my sister's. ” «
like much,” continued Fox, “your essay on Monastic Institutions. ) »
«That,” answered Aikin, is also my sister's. ” Fox thought it wise
poems.
I par-
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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
1483
to say no more about the book. The essay Against Inconsistency
in our Expectations) was most highly praised by the critics, and pro-
nounced by Mackintosh “the best short essay in the language. ”
When thirty years old, Lætitia Aikin married Rochemont Bar-
bauld, and went to live at Palgrave in Suffolk, where her husband
opened a boys' school, soon made popular by her personal charm and
influence. Sir William Gell, a classic topographer still remembered;
William Taylor, author of a Historic Survey of German Poetry);
and Lord Chief Justice Denman, were a few among the many who
looked back with gratitude to a childhood under her care.
Perhaps her best known work is the “Early Lessons for Children,
which was written during this period. Coming as it did when, as
Hannah More said, there was nothing for children to read between
(Cinderella and the Spectator, it was largely welcomed, and has
been used by generations of English children. The lessons were
written for a real little Charles, her adopted son, the child of her
brother, Dr. Aikin. For him, too, she wrote her Hymns in Prose
for Children,' a book equally successful, which has been translated
into French, German, Spanish, Italian, and even Latin.
After eleven busy years at Palgrave, during which, in spite of her
cheerful energy, Mrs. Barbauld had been much harassed by the nerv-
ous irritability of her invalid husband, the Barbaulds gave up their
school and treated themselves to a year of Continental travel. On
their return they settled at Hampstead, where Mr. Barbauld became
pastor of a small Unitarian congregation. The nearness to London
was a great advantage to Mrs. Barbauld's refreshed activity, and she
soon made the new home a pleasant rendezvous for literary men and
women. At one of her London dinner parties she met Sir Walter
Scott, who declared that her reading of Taylor's translation of Bür-
ger's Lenore) had inspired him to write poetry. She met Dr. John-
son too, who, though he railed at her after his fashion, calling her
Deborah and Virago Barbauld, did sometimes betray a sincere admi-
ration for her character and accomplishments. Miss Edgeworth and
Hannah More were dear friends and regular correspondents.
From time to time she published a poem or an essay; not many,
for in spite of her brother's continual admonition to write, hers was
a somewhat indolent talent. In 1790 she wrote a capable essay upon
the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts; a year later, a poetical
epistle to Mr. Wilberforce on the Slave Trade; in 1792, a defense of
Public Worship; and in 1793, a discourse as to a Fast Day upon the
Sins of Government.
In 1808 her husband's violent death, the result of a long insanity,
prostrated her for a time. Then as a diversion from morbid thought
she undertook an edition of the best English novels in fifty volumes,
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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBACLD
for which she wrote an admirable introductory essay.
She also
made a compilation from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, and Free-
holder, with a preliminary discourse, which she published in 1811.
It was called “The Female Speaker,' and intended for young women.
The same year her (Eighteen Hundred and Eleven,' a patriotic di-
dactic poem, wounded national self-love and drew upon her much
unfriendly criticism, which so pained her that she would publish no
more. But the stirring lines were widely read, and in them Macaulay
found the original of his famous traveler from New Zealand, who
meditates on the ruined arches of London Bridge. Her prose style,
in its light philosophy, its humorously sympathetic dealing with
every-day affairs, has been often compared with Addison's.
Her old age was serene and happy, rich in intellectual companion-
ships and in the love and respect of many friends. Somewhere she
speaks of that state of middling life to which I have been accus-
tomed and which I love. " She disliked extremes, in emotion as in all
things, and took what came with cheerful courage. The poem Life,'
which the self-satisfied Wordsworth wished that he had written, ex-
presses her serene and philosophic spirit.
AGAINST INCONSISTENCY IN OUR EXPECTATIONS
A
S MOST of the unhappiness in the world arises rather from
disappointed desires than from positive evil, it is of the
utmost consequence to attain just notions of the laws and
order of the universe, that we may not vex ourselves with fruit-
less wishes, or give way to groundless and unreasonable discon-
tent.
The laws of natural philosophy, indeed, are tolerably
understood and attended to; and though we may suffer incon-
veniences, we are seldom disappointed in consequence of them.
No man expects to preserve orange-trees in the open air through
an English winter; or when he has planted an acorn, to see it
become a large oak in a few months. The mind of man naturally
yields to necessity; and our wishes soon subside when we see the
impossibility of their being gratified.
Now, upon an accurate inspection, we shall find in the moral
government of the world, and the order of the intellectual system,
laws as determinate, fixed, and invariable as any in Newton's
Principia. ' The progress of vegetation is not more certain than
the growth of habit; nor is the power of attraction more clearly
proved than the force of affection or the influence of example.
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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBALLD
1485
The man, therefore, who has well studied the operations of
nature in mind as well as matter, will acquire a certain modera-
tion and equity in his claims upon Providence. He never will
be disappointed either in himself or others. He will act with
precision; and expect that effect and that alone, from his efforts,
which they are naturally adapted to produce.
For want of this, men of merit and integrity often censure
the dispositions of Providence for suffering characters they despise
to run away with advantages which, they yet know, are pur-
chased by such means as a high and noble spirit could never
submit to. If you refuse to pay the price, why expect the pur-
chase ? We should consider this world as a great mart of com-
merce, where fortune exposes to our view various commodities, -
riches, ease, tranquillity, fame, integrity, knowledge. Everything
is marked at a settled price. Our time, our labor, our ingenuity,
is so much ready money which we are to lay out to the best
advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject; but stand to your
own judgment: and do not, like children, when you have pur-
chased one thing, repine that you do not possess another which
you did not purchase. Such is the force of well-regulated
industry, that a steady and vigorous exertion of our faculties,
directed to one end, will generally insure success.
Would you, for instance, be rich: Do you think that single
point worth the sacrificing everything else to? You may then
be rich. Thousands have become so from the lowest beginnings,
by toil, and patient diligence, and attention to the minutest
article of expense and profit. But you must give up the pleas-
ures of leisure, of a vacant mind, of a free, unsuspicious temper.
If you preserve your integrity, it must be a coarse-spun and
vulgar honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals which
you brought with you from the schools must be considerably
lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a jealous and
worldly-minded prudence. You must learn to do hard if not
unjust things; and for the nice embarrassments of a delicate and
ingenuous spirit, it is necessary for you to get rid of them as
fast as possible. You must shut your heart against the Muses,
and be content to feed your understanding with plain, household
truths. In short, you must not attempt to enlarge your ideas,
or polish your taste, or refine your sentiments; but must keep
on in one beaten track, without turning aside either to the right
hand or to the left. “But I cannot submit to drudgery like this:
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ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
man
I feel a spirit above it. ” 'Tis well: be above it then; only do
not repine that you are not rich.
Is knowledge the pearl of price? That too may be purchased
– by steady application, and long solitary hours of study and
reflection. Bestow these, and you shall be wise. “But” (says
the man of letters) "what a hardship is it that many an illiter-
ate fellow who cannot construe the motto of the arms on his
coach, shall raise a fortune and make a figure, while I have
little more than the common conveniences of life. ” Et tibi magui
satis ! — Was it in order to raise a fortune that you consumed
the sprightly hours of youth in study and retirement ? Was it
to be rich that you grew pale over the midnight lamp, and dis-
tilled the sweetness from the Greek and Roman spring? You
have then mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry.
“What reward have I then for all my labors ? What reward!
A large, comprehensive soul, well purged from vulgar fears and
perturbations and prejudices; able to comprehend and interpret
the works of
of God. A rich, flourishing, cultivated
mind, pregnant with inexhaustible stores of entertainment and
reflection. A perpetual spring of fresh ideas; and the conscious
dignity of superior intelligence. Good heaven! and what reward
can you ask besides?
“But is it not some reproach upon the economy of Provi-
dence that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have
amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation ? Not in the least.
He made himself a mean, dirty fellow for that very end.
