These sketches served as his
apprenticeship
in
## p.
## p.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v13 - Her to Hux
"
"Basil! " said his wife. But in her heart she drew nearer to
him for the words she thought she ought to rebuke him for.
## p. 7685 (#499) ###########################################
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
7685
“Oh, I know,” he said, "we school ourselves to despise human
nature. But God did not make us despicable; and I say, what-
ever end he meant us for, he must have some such thrill of
joy in our adequacy to fate as a father feels when his son shows
himself a man. When I think what we can be if we must, I
can't believe the least of us shall finally perish. "
"Oh, I reckon the Almighty won't scoop any of us," said
Fulkerson, with a piety of his own.
"That poor boy's father! " sighed Mrs. March. "I can't get
his face out of my sight. He looked so much worse than death. "
"Oh, death doesn't look bad," said March. "It's life that
looks so in its presence. Death is peace and pardon. I only
wish poor, poor old Lindau was as well out of it as Conrad
there. "
"Ah, Lindau! He has done harm enough," said Mrs. March.
"I hope he will be careful after this. "
son.
March did not try to defend Lindau against her theory of the
case, which inexorably held him responsible for Conrad's death.
"Lindau's going to come out all right, I guess," said Fulker-
"He was first-rate when I saw him at the hospital to-night. "
He whispered in March's ear, at a chance he got in mounting the
station stairs: "I didn't like to tell you there at the house, but
I guess you'd better know: they had to take Lindau's arm off
near the shoulder. Smashed all to pieces by the clubbing. "
In the house, vainly rich and foolishly unfit for them, the be-
reaved family whom the Marches had just left lingered together,
and tried to get strength to part for the night. They were all
spent with the fatigue that comes from heaven to such misery
as theirs, and they sat in a torpor in which each waited for the
other to move, to speak.
Christine moved, and Mela spoke. Christine rose and went
out of the room without saying a word, and they heard her going
up-stairs. Then Mela said, "I reckon the rest of us better be
goun' too, father. Here, let's git mother started. "
She put her arm round her mother, to lift her from her chair;
but the old man did not stir, and Mela called Mrs. Mandel from
the next room. Between them they raised her to her feet.
"Ain't there anybody a-goin' to set up with it? " she asked, in
her hoarse pipe. "It appears like folks hain't got any feelin's in
New York. Woon't some o' the neighbors come and offer to set
up, without waitin' to be asked ? »
## p. 7686 (#500) ###########################################
7686
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
"Oh, that's all right, mother. The men'll attend to that.
Don't you bother any," Mela coaxed, and she kept her arm round
her mother with tender patience.
"Why, Mely, child! I can't feel right to have it left to hire-
lin's, so. But there ain't anybody any more to see things done
as they ought. If Coonrod was on'y here- »
"Well, mother, you are pretty mixed! " said Mela, with a
strong tendency to break into her large guffaw. But she checked
herself and said, "I know just how you feel, though. It keeps
a-comun' and a-goun'; and it's so and it ain't so, all at once;
that's the plague of it. Well, father! Ain't you goun' to come? "
"I'm goin' to stay, Mela," said the old man gently, without
moving. "Get your mother to bed, that's a good girl. "
"You goin' to set
set up with him, Jacob? " asked the old
woman.
"Yes, 'Liz'beth, I'll set up. You go to bed. "
"Well, I will, Jacob. And I believe it'll do you good to set
up. I wished I could set up with you; but I don't seem to have
the stren'th I did when the twins died. I must git my sleep,
I don't like very well to have you broke of your rest,
Jacob, but there don't appear to be anybody else. You wouldn't
have to do it if Coonrod was here. There I go ag'in! Mercy!
so's to-
-
mercy! "
"Well, do come along, then, mother," said Mela; and she got
her out of the room, with Mrs. Mandel's help, and up the stairs.
From the top the old woman called down: "You tell Coon-
rod - »
She stopped, and he heard her groan out, "My Lord!
my Lord! »
He sat, one silence, in the dining-room where they had all
lingered together; and in the library beyond the hireling watcher
sat, another silence. The time passed, but neither moved; and
the last noise in the house ceased, so that they heard each other
breathe, and the vague, remote rumor of the city invaded the
inner stillness. It grew louder toward morning, and then Dry-
foos knew from the watcher's deeper breathing that he had fallen
into a doze.
He crept by him to the drawing-room, where his son was;
the place was full of the awful sweetness of the flowers that
Fulkerson had brought, and that lay above the pulseless breast.
The old man turned up a burner in the chandelier, and stood
looking on the majestic serenity of the dead face.
## p. 7687 (#501) ###########################################
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
7687
He could not move when he saw his wife coming down the
stairway in the hall. She was in her long white flannel bed-
gown, and the candle she carried shook with her nervous tremor.
He thought she might be walking in her sleep; but she said
quite simply, "I woke up, and I couldn't git to sleep ag'in with-
out comin' to have a look. " She stood beside their dead son with
him. "Well, he's beautiful, Jacob. He was the prettiest baby!
And he was always good, Coonrod was; I'll say that for him. I
don't believe he ever give me a minute's care in his whole life.
I reckon I liked him about the best of all the children; but I
don't know as I ever done much to show it. But you was always
good to him, Jacob; you always done the best for him, ever
since he was a little feller. I used to be afraid you'd spoil him.
sometimes in them days; but I guess you're glad now for every
time you didn't cross him. I don't suppose since the twins died
you ever hit him a lick. ”
She stooped and peered closer at the
face. "Why, Jacob, what's that there by his pore eye? "
Dryfoos saw it too, the wound that he had feared to look
for, and that now seemed to redden on his sight. He broke
into a low wavering cry, like a child's in despair, like an ani-
mal's in terror, like a soul's in the anguish of remorse.
ARRIVAL AND FIRST DAYS IN VENICE
From Venetian Life. Copyright 1867 and 1872, by W. D. Howells. Reprinted
by permission of the author, and of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers
I
THINK it does not matter just when I first came to Venice.
Yesterday and to-day are the same here. I arrived one win-
ter morning about five o'clock, and was not so full of Soul as
I might have been in warmer weather. Yet I was resolved not
to go to my hotel in the omnibus (the large, many-seated boat so
called), but to have a gondola solely for myself and my luggage.
The porter who seized my valise in the station inferred from
some very polyglottic Italian of mine the nature of my wish, and
ran out and threw that slender piece of luggage into a gondola.
I followed, lighted to my seat by a beggar in picturesque and
desultory costume. He was one of a class of mendicants whom
I came, for my sins, to know better in Venice, and whom I dare-
say every traveler recollects,― the merciless tribe who hold your
## p. 7688 (#502) ###########################################
7688
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
gondola to shore, and affect to do you a service and not a dis-
pleasure, and pretend not to be abandoned swindlers. The Vene-
tians call them gransieri, or crab-catchers: but as yet I did not
know the name or the purpose of this poverino at the station, but
merely saw that he had the Venetian eye for color; in the distri-
bution and arrangement of his fragments of dress he had pro-
duced some miraculous effects of red, and he was altogether as
infamous a figure as any friend of brigands would like to meet
in a lonely place. He did not offer to stab me and sink my
body in the Grand Canal, as in all Venetian keeping I felt that
he ought to have done; but he implored an alms, and I hardly
know now whether to exult or regret that I did not understand
him, and left him empty-handed. I suppose that he withdrew
again the blessings which he had advanced me, as we pushed out
into the canal; but I heard nothing, for the wonder of the city
was already upon me. All my nether spirit, so to speak, was
dulled and jaded by the long, cold railway journey from Vienna,
while every surface sense was taken and tangled in the bewilder-
ing brilliancy and novelty of Venice. For I think there can be
nothing else in the world so full of glittering and exquisite sur-
prise as that first glimpse of Venice which the traveler catches
as he issues from the railway station by night, and looks upon
her peerless strangeness. There is something in the blessed
breath of Italy (how quickly, coming south, you know it, and how
bland it is after the harsh transalpine air! ) which prepares you
for your nocturnal advent into the place; and O you! whoever
you are, that journey toward this enchanted city for the first
time, let me tell you how happy I count you! There lies before
you for your pleasure the spectacle of such singular beauty as no
picture can ever show you nor book tell you,- beauty which you
shall feel perfectly but once, and regret forever.
For my own part, as the gondola slipped away from the blaze
and bustle of the station down the gloom and silence of the
broad canal, I forgot that I had been freezing two days and
nights; that I was at that moment very cold and a little home-
sick. I could at first feel nothing but that beautiful silence,
broken only by the star-silvered dip of the oars. Then on either
hand I saw stately palaces rise gray and lofty from the dark
waters, holding here and there a lamp against their faces, which
brought balconies and columns and carven arches into moment-
ary relief, and threw long streams of crimson into the canal.
I
## p. 7689 (#503) ###########################################
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
7689
could see by that uncertain glimmer how fair was all, but not
how sad and old; and so, unhaunted by any pang for the decay
that afterward saddened me amid the forlorn beauty of Venice,
I glided on. I have no doubt it was a proper time to think
all the fantastic things in the world, and I thought them; but
they passed vaguely through my mind, without at all interrupt-
ing the sensations of sight and sound. Indeed, the past and pres-
ent mixed there, and the moral and material were blent in the
sentiment of utter novelty and surprise. The quick boat slid
through old troubles of mine, and unlooked-for events gave it the
impulse that carried it beyond and safely around sharp corners
of life. And all the while I knew that this was a progress
through narrow and crooked canals, and past marble angles of
palaces. But I did not know then that this fine confusion of
sense and spirit was the first faint impression of the charm of life
in Venice.
Dark funereal barges like my own had flitted by, and the
gondoliers had warned each other at every turning with hoarse,
lugubrious cries; the lines of balconied palaces had never ended;
here and there at their doors larger craft were moored, with dim
figures of men moving uncertainly about on them. At last we
had passed abruptly out of the Grand Canal into one of the
smaller channels, and from comparative light into a darkness
only remotely affected by some far-streaming corner lamp. But
always the pallid, stately palaces; always the dark heaven with
its trembling stars above, and the dark water with its trembling
stars below: but now innumerable bridges, and an utter lone-
someness, and ceaseless sudden turns and windings. One could
not resist a vague feeling of anxiety, in these strait and solitary
passages, which was part of the strange enjoyment of the time,
and which was referable to the novelty, the hush, the darkness,
and the piratical appearance and unaccountable pauses of the
gondoliers. Was not this Venice, and is not Venice forever asso-
ciated with bravoes and unexpected dagger-thrusts? That valise
of mine might represent fabulous wealth to the uncultivated im-
agination. Who, if I made an outcry, could understand the Facts
of the Situation (as we say in the journals)? To move on was
relief; to pause was regret for past transgressions mingled with
good resolutions for the future. But I felt the liveliest mixture
of all these emotions when, slipping from the cover of a bridge,
the gondola suddenly rested at the foot of a stairway before a
## p. 7690 (#504) ###########################################
7690
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
closely barred door. The gondoliers rang and rang again, while
their passenger
"Divided the swift mind,"
in the wonder whether a door so grimly bolted and austerely
barred could possibly open into a hotel, with cheerful overcharges
for candles and service. But as soon as the door opened, and
he beheld the honest swindling countenance of a hotel portier,
he felt secure against everything but imposture; and all wild ab-
surdities of doubt and conjecture at once faded from his thought
when the portier suffered the gondoliers to make him pay a florin
too much.
So I had arrived in Venice, and I had felt the influence of
that complex spell which she lays upon the stranger. I had
caught the most alluring glimpses of the beauty which cannot
wholly perish while any fragment of her sculptured walls nods to
its shadow in the canal; I had been penetrated by a deep sense
of the mystery of the place, and I had been touched already
by the anomaly of modern life amid scenes where its presence
offers, according to the humor in which it is studied, constant
occasion for annoyance or delight, enthusiasm or sadness.
I fancy that the ignorant impressions of the earlier days after
my arrival need scarcely be set down even in this perishable
record; but I would not wholly forget how, though isolated from
all acquaintance and alien to the place, I yet felt curiously at
home in Venice from the first. I believe it was because I had
after my own fashion loved the beautiful, that I here found the
beautiful, where it is supreme, full of society and friendship,
speaking a language which even in its unfamiliar forms I could.
partly understand, and at once making me citizen of that Venice
from which I shall never be exiled. It was not in the presence
of the great and famous monuments of art alone that I felt at
home: indeed, I could as yet understand their excellence and
grandeur only very imperfectly; but wherever I wandered through
the quaint and marvelous city I found the good company of
"The fair, the old;"
and to tell the truth, I think it is the best society in Venice,
and I learned to turn to it later from other companionship with
a kind of relief.
My first rambles, moreover, had a peculiar charm which knowl-
edge of locality has since taken away. They began commonly
## p. 7691 (#505) ###########################################
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
7691
with some purpose or destination, and ended by losing me in the
intricacies of the narrowest, crookedest, and most inconsequent
little streets in the world, or left me cast away upon the un-
familiar waters of some canal as far as possible from the point
aimed at. Dark and secret little courts lay in wait for my blun-
dering steps, and I was incessantly surprised and brought to sur-
render by paths that beguiled me up to dead walls or the sudden
brinks of canals. The wide and open squares before the innu-
merable churches of the city were equally victorious, and contin-
ually took me prisoner. But all places had something rare and
worthy to be seen: if not loveliness of sculpture or architecture,
at least interesting squalor and picturesque wretchedness; and I
believe I had less delight in proper Objects of Interest than in
the dirty neighborhoods that reeked with unwholesome winter
damps below, and peered curiously out with frowzy heads and
beautiful eyes from the high, heavy-shuttered casements above.
Every court had its carven well to show me, in the noisy keep-
ing of the water-carriers and the slatternly, statuesque gossips of
the place. The remote and noisome canals were pathetic with
empty old palaces peopled by herds of poor, that decorated the
sculptured balconies with the tatters of epicene linen, and patched
the lofty windows with obsolete hats.
I found the night as full of beauty as the day, when caprice
led me from the brilliancy of St. Mark's and the glittering streets
of shops that branch away from the Piazza, and lost me in the
quaint recesses of the courts, or the tangles of the distant alleys,
where the dull little oil lamps vied with the tapers burning before
the street-corner shrines of the Virgin in making the way ob-
scure, and deepening the shadows about the doorways and under
the frequent arches. I remember distinctly among the beautiful
nights of that time, the soft night of late winter which first
showed me the scene you may behold from the Public Gardens
at the end of the long concave line of the Riva degli Schiavoni.
Lounging there upon the southern parapet of the Gardens, I
turned from the dim bell-towers of the evanescent islands in
the east (a solitary gondola gliding across the calm of the water,
and striking its moonlight silver into multitudinous ripples), and
glanced athwart the vague shipping in the basin of St. Mark,
and saw all the lights from the Piazzetta to the Giudecca, mak-
ing a crescent of flame in the air, and casting deep into the
water under them a crimson glory that sank also down and down
## p. 7692 (#506) ###########################################
7692
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
in my own heart, and illumined all its memories of beauty and
delight. Behind these lamps rose the shadowy masses of church
and palace; the moon stood bright and full in the heavens; the
gondola drifted away to the northward; the islands of the lagoons
seemed to rise and sink with the light palpitations of the waves
like pictures on the undulating fields of banners; the stark rig-
ging of a ship showed black against the sky; the Lido sank from
sight upon the east, as if the shore had composed itself to sleep
by the side of its beloved sea to the music of the surge that
gently beat its sands; the yet leafless boughs of the trees above
me stirred themselves together, and out of one of those trem-
bling towers in the lagoons one rich full sob burst from the
heart of a bell, too deeply stricken with the glory of the scene,
and suffused the languid night with the murmur of luxurious,
ineffable sadness.
But there is a perfect democracy in the realm of the beautiful,
and whatsoever pleases is equal to any other thing there, no
matter how low its origin or humble its composition; and the
magnificence of that moonlight scene gave me no deeper joy than
I won from the fine spectacle of an old man whom I saw burn-
ing coffee one night in the little court behind my lodgings, and
whom I recollect now as one of the most interesting people I
saw in my first days at Venice. All day long the air of that
neighborhood had reeked with the odors of the fragrant berry,
and all day long this patient old man-sage, let me call him—
had turned the sheet-iron cylinder in which it was roasting over
an open fire, after the picturesque fashion of roasting coffee in
Venice. Now that the night had fallen, and the stars shone
down upon him, and the red of the flame luridly illumined him,
he showed more grand and venerable than ever. Simple, abstract
humanity has its own grandeur in Italy; and it is not hard here
for the artist to find the primitive types with which genius loves
best to deal. As for this old man, he had the beard of a saint
and the dignity of a senator, harmonized with the squalor of a
beggar, superior to which shone his abstract, unconscious grandeur
of humanity. A vast and calm melancholy, which had nothing to
do with burning coffee, dwelt in his aspect and attitude; and if
he had been some dread supernatural agency, turning the wheel
of fortune, and doing men instead of coffee brown, he could not
have looked more sadly and weirdly impressive. When presently
he rose from his seat and lifted the cylinder from its place, and
## p. 7693 (#507) ###########################################
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
7693
the clinging flames leaped after it, and he shook it, and a
volume of luminous smoke enveloped him and glorified him,—
then I felt with secret anguish that he was beyond art, and
turned sadly from the spectacle of that sublime and hopeless
magnificence.
At other times (but this was in broad daylight) I was troubled
by the æsthetic perfection of a certain ruffian boy, who sold cakes.
of baked Indian meal to the soldiers in the military station near
the Piazza, and whom I often noted from the windows of the
little caffè there, where you get an excellent caffè bianco (coffee
with milk) for ten soldi and one to the waiter. I have reason to
fear that this boy dealt over-shrewdly with the Austrians, for a
pitiless war raged between him and one of the sergeants.
His
hair was dark, his cheek was of a bronze better than olive; and
he wore a brave cap of red flannel, drawn down to eyes of lus-
trous black. For the rest, he gave unity and coherence to a
jacket and pantaloons of heterogeneous elements, and, such was
the elasticity of his spirit, a buoyant grace to feet incased in
wooden shoes. Habitually came a barrel-organist and ground
before the barracks, and
"Took the soul
Of that waste place with joy";
and ever, when this organist came to a certain lively waltz, and
threw his whole soul as it were into the crank of his instru-
ment, my beloved ragamuffin failed not to seize another cake-boy
in his arms, and thus embraced, to whirl through a wild inspira-
tion of figures, in which there was something grotesquely rhyth-
mic, something of indescribable barbaric magnificence, spiritualized
into a grace of movement superior to the energy of the North and
the extravagant fervor of the East. It was coffee and not wine
that I drank; but I fable all the same that I saw reflected in
this superb and artistic superation of the difficulties of dancing
in that unfriendly foot-gear, something of the same genius that
combated and vanquished the elements, to build its home upon
sea-washed sands in marble structures of airy and stately splen-
dor, and gave to architecture new glories full of eternal surprise.
So, I say, I grew early into sympathy and friendship with
Venice; and being newly from a land where everything, mor-
ally and materially, was in good repair, I rioted sentimentally on
the picturesque ruin, the pleasant discomfort and hopelessness of
## p. 7694 (#508) ###########################################
7694
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
everything about me here. It was not yet the season to behold
all the delight of the lazy outdoor life of the place; but never-
theless I could not help seeing that great part of the people,
both rich and poor, seemed to have nothing to do, and that
nobody seemed to be driven by any inward or outward impulse.
When however I ceased (as I must in time) to be merely a
spectator of this idleness, and learned that I too must assume my
share of the common indolence, I found it a grievous burden.
Old habits of work, old habits of hope, made my endless leisure
irksome to me, and almost intolerable when I ascertained, fairly
and finally, that in my desire to fulfill long-cherished but after
all merely general designs of literary study, I had forsaken
wholesome struggle in the currents where I felt the motion of
the age, only to drift into a lifeless eddy of the world, remote
from incentive and sensation.
For such is Venice; and the will must be strong and the faith
indomitable in him who can long retain, amid the influences of
her stagnant quiet, a practical belief in God's purpose of a great
moving, anxious, toiling, aspiring world outside. When you have
yielded, as after a while I yielded, to these influences, a gentle
incredulity possesses you; and if you consent that such a thing is
as earnest and useful life, you cannot help wondering why it
need be. The charm of the place sweetens your temper, but cor-
rupts you; and I found it a sad condition of my perception of the
beauty of Venice and friendship with it, that I came in some
unconscious way to regard her fate as my own; and when I
began to write the sketches which go to form this book, it was
as hard to speak of any ugliness in her, or of the doom written
against her in the hieroglyphic seams and fissures of her crum-
bling masonry, as if the fault and penalty were mine. I do not
so greatly blame, therefore, the writers who have committed so
many sins of omission concerning her, and made her all light,
color, canals, and palaces. One's conscience, more or less un-
comfortably vigilant elsewhere, drowses here, and it is difficult
to remember that fact is more virtuous than fiction. In other
years, when there was life in the city, and this sad ebb of
prosperity was full tide in her canals, there might have been
some incentive to keep one's thoughts and words from lapsing
into habits of luxurious dishonesty, some reason for telling the
whole hard truth of things, some policy to serve, some end to
gain. But now, what matter?
## p. 7695 (#509) ###########################################
7695
YOG
THOMAS HUGHES
(1823-1896)
HE early life of Thomas Hughes was that of the typical Eng-
lish school lad; and luckily he had the genius to express in
literature the daily incidents of that life, with a freshness of
sympathy, a vigorous manliness, and a moral insight that make his
stories a revelation of boy nature. He was the son of the vicar of
Uffington in Berkshire, where he was born in 1823; and in this first
home he learned to love the English country, and to understand vil-
lage and rustic nature. At seven he was sent away to school, and
was only ten when he went to Rugby. He
has disclaimed identity with his hero, but
Tom Brown' is certainly a product of his
personal impressions; and to his stay at
Rugby we owe the vivid presentation of Dr.
Arnold's noble figure, and the loving por-
trayal of his influence in the great public
school. From Rugby Thomas Hughes went
to Oxford, and later he studied law at Lin-
coln's Inn. He was called to the Bar of the
Inner Temple in 1848, and began practice
at once.
Throughout his long public career, as
advanced Liberal in Parliament, as founder
with Frederick Maurice of the Christian So-
cialists, as creator of Rugby, a socialistic community in the mountains
of Tennessee, he tried most earnestly to exercise a helpful influence
apon English working-people. To him right living, which he sought
to inculcate, was the object of life; and the stimulus most needed, an
appeal to moral courage.
He was a man of strong convictions on one side or the other of a
question. At the outbreak of our Civil War, his bold advocacy of the
abolition of slavery riveted a lasting friendship with James Russell
Lowell.
THOMAS HUGHES
In his early manhood Thomas Hughes essayed journalism. He
wrote many sketches for the London Spectator,-chiefly accounts of
traveling experiences, and he thus defrayed the cost of many little.
Continental jaunts.
These sketches served as his apprenticeship in
## p. 7696 (#510) ###########################################
7696
THOMAS HUGHES
writing, and long afterward they were collected in book form with
the title Vacation Rambles. ' But authorship was a secondary inter-
est until it occurred to him to write a story for his sons and nephews;
and Tom Brown's School Days,' first appearing in 1857, made him
famous.
Two years later The Scouring of the White Horse,' a
spirited account of a vacation trip, had a respectful although less cor-
dial reception. The great success of the first story led Mr. Hughes
to continue his hero's career with Tom Brown at Oxford,' which
was first published as a serial in Macmillan's Magazine. This second
volume, which is much the longer, although often fine and spirited
sometimes waxes prolix, and has never been so popular as the earlier
story.
Judge Hughes's other writings include several memoirs and bi-
ographies, notably the 'Memoir of a Brother,' and that of Kingsley;
books of religious import, like The Manliness of Christ'; a sketch of
'Rugby, Tennessee,' and various miscellanies. But the bulk of his
literary work sinks into insignificance when set beside the peerless
boy's-book which brought him fame.
"I hate the idea of being presented in any guise to any public,»
he once wrote. His best work was not written for fame, but in the
earnest desire to offer helpful advice as strongly and straightforwardly
as possible. That his purpose was avowedly didactic did not lessen
his popularity; for the preaching is so wise and kindly that, as he
himself desired, it seemed to come from a big boy's impulse to help
the less experienced.
THE BOAT RACE
From Tom Brown at Oxford'
ATURDAY night came, and brought with it a most useful though
unpalatable lesson to the St. - Ambrosians. The Oriel boat
was manned chiefly by old oars, seasoned in many a race,
and not liable to panic when hard pressed. They had a fair
though not a first-rate stroke, and a good coxswain: experts re-
marked that they were rather too heavy for their boat, and that
she dipped a little when they put on anything like a severe spurt;
but on the whole they were by no means the sort of crew you
could just run into hand over hand. So Miller and Diogenes
preached, and so the Ambrosians found out to their cost.
They had the pace of the other boat, and gained as usual a
boat's-length before the Gut: but first those two fatal corners
were passed, and then other well-remembered spots where former
## p. 7697 (#511) ###########################################
THOMAS HUGHES
7697
bumps had been made, and still Miller made no sign; on the
contrary, he looked gloomy and savage. The St. -Ambrosian shouts
from the shore, too, changed from the usual exultant peals into
something like a quiver of consternation, while the air was rent
with the name and laudations of "Little Oriel. "
Long before the Cherwell, Drysdale was completely baked (he
had played truant the day before and dined at the Weirs, where
he had imbibed much dubious hock), but he from old habit man-
aged to keep time. Tom and the other young oars got flurried,
and quickened; the boat dragged, there was no life left in her;
and though they managed just to hold their first advantage, could
not put her a foot nearer the stern of the Oriel boat, which
glided past the winning-post a clear boat's-length ahead of her
pursuers, and with a crew much less distressed.
Such races must tell on strokes; and even Jervis, who had
pulled magnificently throughout, was very much done at the close,
and leaned over his oar with a swimming in his head and an
approach to faintness, and was scarcely able to see for a minute
or so. Miller's indignation knew no bounds, but he bottled it up
till he had manoeuvred the crew into their dressing-room by
themselves, Jervis having stopped below. Then he let out, and
did not spare them. "They would kill their captain, whose little
finger was worth the whole of them; they were disgracing the
college; three or four of them had neither heart nor head nor
pluck. "
They all felt that this was unjust; for after all, had they
not brought the boat up to the second place? Poor Diogenes
sat in a corner and groaned; he forgot to prefix "old fellow"
to the few observations he made. Blake had great difficulty in
adjusting his necktie before the glass; he merely remarked in a
pause of the objurgation, "In faith, coxswain, these be very bitter
words. »
Tom and most of the others were too much out of heart to
resist; but at last Drysdale fired up: -
"You've no right to be so savage, that I can see," he said,
stopping the low whistle suddenly in which he was indulging, as
he sat on the corner of the table. "You seem to think No. 2 the
weakest out of several weak places in the boat. "
"Yes, I do," said Miller.
"Then this honorable member," said Drysdale, getting off the
table, "seeing that his humble efforts are unappreciated, thinks it
XIII-482
## p. 7698 (#512) ###########################################
7698
THOMAS HUGHES
best for the public service to place his resignation in the hands
of your Coxswainship. "
«< Which my Coxswainship is graciously pleased to accept,"
replied Miller.
"Hurrah for a roomy punt and a soft cushion next racing
night! It's almost worth while to have been rowing all this
time, to realize the sensations I shall feel when I see you fellows
passing the Cherwell on Tuesday. "
"Suave est, it's what I'm partial to, mari magno, in the last
reach, a terra, from the towing-path, alterius magnum spectare
laborem, to witness the tortures of you wretched beggars in the
boat. I'm obliged to translate for Drysdale, who never learned
Latin," said Blake, finishing his tie and turning to the company.
There was an awkward silence. Miller was chafing inwardly,
and running over in his mind what was to be done; and nobody
else seemed quite to know what ought to happen next, when the
door opened and Jervis came in.
"Congratulate me, my captain," said Drysdale: "I'm well out
of it at last. "
Jervis pished and pshawed a little at hearing what had hap-
pened, but his presence acted like oil on the waters. The moment
that the resignation was named, Tom's thoughts had turned to
Hardy. Now was the time: he had such confidence in the man,
that the idea of getting him in for the next race entirely changed
the aspect of affairs to him, and made him feel as "bumptious"
again as he had done in the morning. So with this idea in his
head, he hung about till the captain had made his toilet, and
joined himself to him and Miller as they walked up.
"Well, what are we to do now? " said the captain.
"That's just what you have to settle," said Miller: "you
have been up all the term, and know the men's pulling better
than I. "
"I suppose we must press somebody from the torpid. Let
me see, there's Burton. "
"He rolls like a porpoise," interrupted Miller positively:
"impossible. "
"Stewart might do, then. "
"Never kept time for three strokes in his life," said Miller.
"Well, there are no better men," said the captain.
<< Then we may lay our account to stopping where we are, if
we don't even lose a place," said Miller.
## p. 7699 (#513) ###########################################
THOMAS HUGHES
7699
"Dust unto dust; what must be, must;
If you can't get crumb, you'd best eat crust,"
-
said the captain.
"It's all very well talking coolly now," said Miller; "but you'll
kill yourself trying to bump, and there are three more nights. "
"Hardy would row if you asked him, I'm sure," said Tom.
The captain looked at Miller, who shook his head. "I don't
think it," he said: "I take him to be a shy bird that won't come
to everybody's whistle. We might have had him two years ago,
I believe I wish we had. "
"I always told you so," said Jervis; "at any rate, let's try
him. He can but say no, and I don't think he will; for you see
he has been at the starting-place every night, and as keen as a
freshman all the time. >>>
"I'm sure he won't," said Tom: "I know he would give any-
thing to pull. "
"You had better go to his rooms and sound him," said the
captain; "Miller and I will follow in half an hour. " We have
already heard how Tom's mission prospered.
The next day, at a few minutes before two o'clock, the St.
Ambrose crew, including Hardy, with Miller (who was a desperate
and indefatigable pedestrian) for leader, crossed Magdalen Bridge.
At five they returned to college, having done a little over fifteen
miles, fair heel-and-toe walking, in the interval. The afternoon
had been very hot, and Miller chuckled to the captain, "I don't
think there will be much trash left in any of them after that.
That fellow Hardy is as fine as a race-horse; and did you see, he
never turned a hair all the way. "
The crew dispersed to their rooms, delighted with the per-
formance now that it was over, and feeling that they were much
the better for it, though they all declared it had been harder
work than any race they had yet pulled. It would have done a
trainer's heart good to have seen them, some twenty minutes
afterward, dropping into hall (where they were allowed to dine.
on Sundays, on the joint), fresh from cold baths, and looking
ruddy and clear, and hard enough for anything.
Again on Monday, not a chance was lost. The St. Ambrose
boat started soon after one o'clock for Abingdon. They swung
steadily down the whole way, and back again to Sandford without
a single spurt; Miller generally standing in the stern, and preach-
ing above all things steadiness and time. From Sandford up
## p. 7700 (#514) ###########################################
7700
THOMAS HUGHES
they were accompanied by half a dozen men or so, who ran up
the bank watching them. The struggle for the first place on the
river was creating great excitement in the rowing world; and
these were some of the most keen connoisseurs, who, having
heard that St. Ambrose had changed a man, were on the lookout
to satisfy themselves as to how it would work. The general
opinion was veering round in favor of Oriel: changes so late in
the races, and at such a critical moment, were looked upon as
very damaging.
Foremost among the runners on the bank was a wiry dark
man, with sanguine complexion, who went with a peculiar long
low stride, keeping his keen eye well on the boat. Just above
Kennington Island, Jervis, noticing this particular spectator for
the first time, called on the crew, and quickening his stroke, took
them up the reach at racing pace. As they lay in Iffley Lock
the dark man appeared above them, and exchanged a few words
and a good deal of dumb show with the captain and Miller, and
then disappeared.
From Iffley up they went steadily again. On the whole,
Miller seemed to be in very good spirits in the dressing-room:
he thought the boat trimmed better and went better than she
had ever done before, and complimented Blake particularly for
the ease with which he had changed sides. They all went up
in high spirits, calling on their way at "The Choughs" for one
glass of old ale round, which Miller was graciously pleased to
allow. Tom never remembered till after they were out again
that Hardy had never been there before, and felt embarrassed
for a moment; but it soon passed off. A moderate dinner and
early to bed finished the day; and Miller was justified in his
parting remark to the captain: "Well, if we don't win we can
comfort ourselves that we haven't dropped a stitch this last two
days, at any rate. "
Then the eventful day arose which Tom and many another
man felt was to make or mar St. Ambrose. It was a glorious
early summer day, without a cloud, scarcely a breath of air stir-
ring. "We shall have a fair start, at any rate," was the general
feeling. We have already seen what a throat-drying, nervous
business the morning and afternoon of a race day is, and must
not go over the same ground more than we can help; so we will
imagine the St. Ambrose boat down at the starting-place, lying
close to the towing-path, just before the first gun.
## p. 7701 (#515) ###########################################
THOMAS HUGHES
7701
There is a much greater crowd than usual opposite the two
first boats. By this time most of the other boats have found
their places, for there is not much chance of anything very excit
ing down below; so, besides the men of Oriel and St. Ambrose
(who muster to-night of all sorts, the fastest of the fast and
slowest of the slow having been by this time shamed into some-
thing like enthusiasm), many of other colleges, whose boats have
no chance of bumping or being bumped, flock to the point of
attraction.
"Do you make out what the change is? " says a backer of
Oriel to his friend in the like predicament.
"Yes: they've got a new No. 5, don't you see? and by
George, I don't like his looks," answered his friend: "awfully
long and strong in the arm, and well ribbed up. A devilish
awkward customer. I shall go and try to get a hedge. "
"Pooh! " says the other, "did you ever know one man win a
race ? »
"Ay, that I have," says his friend, and walks off toward the
Oriel crowd to take five to four on Oriel in half-sovereigns, if he
can get it.
Now their dark friend of yesterday comes up at a trot, and
pulls up close to the captain, with whom he is evidently dear
friends. He is worth looking at, being coxswain of the O. U. B. ;
the best steerer, runner, and swimmer in Oxford; amphibious
himself, and sprung from an amphibious race. His own boat
is in no danger, so he has left her to take care of herself. He
is on the lookout for recruits for the University crew, and no
recruiting sergeant has a sharper eye for the sort of stuff he
requires.
"What's his name? " he says in a low tone to Jervis, giv-
ing a jerk with his head toward Hardy.
"Where did you get
him? "
"Hardy," answers the captain in the same tone; "it's his first
night in the boat. "
"I know that," replies the coxswain: "I never saw him row
before yesterday. He's the fellow who sculls in that brown skiff,
isn't he? "
"Yes, and I think he'll do; keep your eye on him. "
The coxswain nods as if he were pretty much of the same
mind, and examines Hardy with the eye of a connoisseur, pretty
much as the judge at an agricultural show looks at the prize
## p. 7702 (#516) ###########################################
7702
THOMAS HUGHES
bull. Hardy is tightening the strap of his stretcher, and all
unconscious of the compliments which are being paid him. The
great authority seems satisfied with his inspection, grins, rubs his
hands, and trots off to the Oriel boat to make comparisons.
Just as the first gun is heard, Grey sidles nervously to the
front of the crowd as if he were doing something very audacious,
and draws Hardy's attention, exchanging sympathizing nods with
him, but saying nothing,- for he knows not what to say,- and
then disappearing again in the crowd.
"Hollo, Drysdale, is that you? " says Blake, as they push off
from the shore. "I thought you were going to take it easy in a
punt. '
>>
"So I thought," said Drysdale; "but I couldn't keep away,
and here I am. I shall run up; and mind, if I see you within
ten feet, and cocksure to win, I'll give a view halloo. I'll be
bound you shall hear it. "
"May it come speedily," said Blake, and then settled himself
in his seat.
"Eyes in the boat-mind now, steady all; watch the stroke
and don't quicken. "
These are Miller's last words; every faculty of himself and
the crew being now devoted to getting a good start. This is no
difficult matter, as the water is like glass, and the boat lies
lightly on it, obeying the slightest dip of the oars of bow and
two, who just feel the water twice or thrice in the last minute.
Then, after a few moments of breathless hush on the bank, the
last gun is fired and they are off.
The same scene of mad excitement ensues, only tenfold more
intense, as almost the whole interest of the races is to-night
concentrated on the two head boats and their fate.
At every
gate there is a jam, and the weaker vessels are shoved into the
ditches, upset, and left unnoticed. The most active men, includ-
ing the O. U. B. coxswain, shun the gates altogether and take
the big ditches in their stride, making for the long bridges, that
they may get quietly over these and be safe for the best part of
the race.
They know that the critical point of the struggle will
be near the finish.
Both boats make a beautiful start; and again, as before in
the first dash, the St. Ambrose pace tells, and they gain their
boat's-length before first winds fail: then they settle down for a
long, steady effort. Both crews are rowing comparatively steady,
## p. 7703 (#517) ###########################################
THOMAS HUGHES
7703
Thus they
reserving themselves for the tug of war up above.
pass the Gut, and so those two treacherous corners, the scene
⚫ of countless bumps, into the wider water beyond, up under the
willows.
•
Miller's face is decidedly hopeful; he shows no sign, indeed,
but you can see that he is not the same man as he was at this
place in the last race. He feels that to-day the boat is full of
life, and that he can call on his crew with hopes of an answer.
H well-trained eye also detects that while both crews are at
full stretch, his own, instead of losing as it did on the last
night, is now gaining inch by inch on Oriel. The gain is scarcely
perceptible to him even; from the bank it is quite imperceptible:
but there it is; he is surer and surer of it, as one after another
the willows are left behind.
he
And now comes the pinch. The Oriel captain is beginning to
be conscious of the fact which has been dawning on Miller, but
will not acknowledge it to himself; and as his coxswain turns
boat's head gently across the stream, and makes for the Berkshire
side and the goal, now full in view, he smiles grimly as he
quickens his stroke, he will shake off these light-heeled gentry
yet, as he did before.
Miller sees the move in a moment and signals his captain,
and the next stroke St. Ambrose has quickened also; and now
there is no mistake about it,-St. Ambrose is creeping up slowly
but surely. The boat's-length lessens to forty feet, thirty feet;
surely and steadily lessens. But the race is not lost yet; thirty
feet is a short space enough to look at on the water, but a good
bit to pick up foot by foot in the last two hundred yards of a
desperate struggle. They are over under the Berkshire side
now, and there stands up the winning-post, close ahead, all but
won. The distance lessens and lessens still, but the Oriel crew
stick steadily and gallantly to their work, and will fight every inch
of distance to the last. The Orielites on the bank, who are rush-
ing along, sometimes in the water, sometimes out, hoarse, furious,
madly alternating between hope and despair, have no reason to
be ashamed of a man in the crew. Off the mouth of the Cher-
well there is still twenty feet between them. Another minute,
and it will be over one way or another. Every man in both
crews is now doing his best, and no mistake: tell me which boat
holds the most men who can do better than their best at a
pinch, who will risk a broken blood-vessel, and I will tell you
## p. 7704 (#518) ###########################################
THOMAS HUGHES
7704
how it will end. "Hard pounding, gentlemen: let's see who will
pound longest," the Duke is reported to have said at Waterloo,
and won.
"Now, Tummy, lad, 'tis thou or I," Big Ben said as
he came up to the last round of his hardest fight, and won. Is
there a man of that temper in either crew to-night? If so, now's
his time. For both coxswains have called on their men for the
last effort; Miller is whirling the tassel of his right-hand tiller
rope round his head, like a wiry little lunatic; from the towing-
path, from Christ Church meadow, from the rows of punts, from
the clustered tops of the barges, comes a roar of encouragement
and applause, and the band, unable to resist the impulse, breaks
with a crash into the 'Jolly Young Waterman,' playing two bars
to the second. A bump in the Gut is nothing-a few partisans
on the towing-path to cheer you, already out of breath; but up
here at the very finish, with all Oxford looking on, when the
prize is the headship of the river-once in a generation only do
men get such a chance.
Who ever saw Jervis not up to his work? The St. Ambrose
stroke is glorious. Tom had an atom of go still left in the very
back of his head, and at this moment he heard Drysdale's view
halloo above all the din: it seemed to give him a lift, and other
men besides in the boat, for in another six strokes the gap is
lessened and St. Ambrose has crept up to ten feet, and now to
five, from the stern of Oriel. Weeks afterward Hardy confided
to Tom that when he heard that view halloo he seemed to feel
the muscles of his arms and legs turn into steel, and did more
work in the last twenty strokes than in any other forty in the
earlier part of the race.
Another fifty yards and Oriel is safe; but the look on the
captain's face is so ominous that their coxswain glances over his
shoulder. The bow of St. Ambrose is within two feet of their
rudder. It is a moment for desperate expedients. He pulls his
left tiller rope suddenly, thereby carrying the stern of his own
boat out of the line of the St. Ambrose, and calls on his crew
once more: they respond gallantly yet, but the rudder is against
them for a moment, and the boat drags. St. Ambrose overlaps.
"A bump, a bump! " shout the St. - Ambrosians or shore. "Row
on, row on! " screams Miller. He has not yet felt the electric
shock, and knows he will miss his bump if the young ones slacken
for a moment.
"Basil! " said his wife. But in her heart she drew nearer to
him for the words she thought she ought to rebuke him for.
## p. 7685 (#499) ###########################################
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
7685
“Oh, I know,” he said, "we school ourselves to despise human
nature. But God did not make us despicable; and I say, what-
ever end he meant us for, he must have some such thrill of
joy in our adequacy to fate as a father feels when his son shows
himself a man. When I think what we can be if we must, I
can't believe the least of us shall finally perish. "
"Oh, I reckon the Almighty won't scoop any of us," said
Fulkerson, with a piety of his own.
"That poor boy's father! " sighed Mrs. March. "I can't get
his face out of my sight. He looked so much worse than death. "
"Oh, death doesn't look bad," said March. "It's life that
looks so in its presence. Death is peace and pardon. I only
wish poor, poor old Lindau was as well out of it as Conrad
there. "
"Ah, Lindau! He has done harm enough," said Mrs. March.
"I hope he will be careful after this. "
son.
March did not try to defend Lindau against her theory of the
case, which inexorably held him responsible for Conrad's death.
"Lindau's going to come out all right, I guess," said Fulker-
"He was first-rate when I saw him at the hospital to-night. "
He whispered in March's ear, at a chance he got in mounting the
station stairs: "I didn't like to tell you there at the house, but
I guess you'd better know: they had to take Lindau's arm off
near the shoulder. Smashed all to pieces by the clubbing. "
In the house, vainly rich and foolishly unfit for them, the be-
reaved family whom the Marches had just left lingered together,
and tried to get strength to part for the night. They were all
spent with the fatigue that comes from heaven to such misery
as theirs, and they sat in a torpor in which each waited for the
other to move, to speak.
Christine moved, and Mela spoke. Christine rose and went
out of the room without saying a word, and they heard her going
up-stairs. Then Mela said, "I reckon the rest of us better be
goun' too, father. Here, let's git mother started. "
She put her arm round her mother, to lift her from her chair;
but the old man did not stir, and Mela called Mrs. Mandel from
the next room. Between them they raised her to her feet.
"Ain't there anybody a-goin' to set up with it? " she asked, in
her hoarse pipe. "It appears like folks hain't got any feelin's in
New York. Woon't some o' the neighbors come and offer to set
up, without waitin' to be asked ? »
## p. 7686 (#500) ###########################################
7686
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
"Oh, that's all right, mother. The men'll attend to that.
Don't you bother any," Mela coaxed, and she kept her arm round
her mother with tender patience.
"Why, Mely, child! I can't feel right to have it left to hire-
lin's, so. But there ain't anybody any more to see things done
as they ought. If Coonrod was on'y here- »
"Well, mother, you are pretty mixed! " said Mela, with a
strong tendency to break into her large guffaw. But she checked
herself and said, "I know just how you feel, though. It keeps
a-comun' and a-goun'; and it's so and it ain't so, all at once;
that's the plague of it. Well, father! Ain't you goun' to come? "
"I'm goin' to stay, Mela," said the old man gently, without
moving. "Get your mother to bed, that's a good girl. "
"You goin' to set
set up with him, Jacob? " asked the old
woman.
"Yes, 'Liz'beth, I'll set up. You go to bed. "
"Well, I will, Jacob. And I believe it'll do you good to set
up. I wished I could set up with you; but I don't seem to have
the stren'th I did when the twins died. I must git my sleep,
I don't like very well to have you broke of your rest,
Jacob, but there don't appear to be anybody else. You wouldn't
have to do it if Coonrod was here. There I go ag'in! Mercy!
so's to-
-
mercy! "
"Well, do come along, then, mother," said Mela; and she got
her out of the room, with Mrs. Mandel's help, and up the stairs.
From the top the old woman called down: "You tell Coon-
rod - »
She stopped, and he heard her groan out, "My Lord!
my Lord! »
He sat, one silence, in the dining-room where they had all
lingered together; and in the library beyond the hireling watcher
sat, another silence. The time passed, but neither moved; and
the last noise in the house ceased, so that they heard each other
breathe, and the vague, remote rumor of the city invaded the
inner stillness. It grew louder toward morning, and then Dry-
foos knew from the watcher's deeper breathing that he had fallen
into a doze.
He crept by him to the drawing-room, where his son was;
the place was full of the awful sweetness of the flowers that
Fulkerson had brought, and that lay above the pulseless breast.
The old man turned up a burner in the chandelier, and stood
looking on the majestic serenity of the dead face.
## p. 7687 (#501) ###########################################
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
7687
He could not move when he saw his wife coming down the
stairway in the hall. She was in her long white flannel bed-
gown, and the candle she carried shook with her nervous tremor.
He thought she might be walking in her sleep; but she said
quite simply, "I woke up, and I couldn't git to sleep ag'in with-
out comin' to have a look. " She stood beside their dead son with
him. "Well, he's beautiful, Jacob. He was the prettiest baby!
And he was always good, Coonrod was; I'll say that for him. I
don't believe he ever give me a minute's care in his whole life.
I reckon I liked him about the best of all the children; but I
don't know as I ever done much to show it. But you was always
good to him, Jacob; you always done the best for him, ever
since he was a little feller. I used to be afraid you'd spoil him.
sometimes in them days; but I guess you're glad now for every
time you didn't cross him. I don't suppose since the twins died
you ever hit him a lick. ”
She stooped and peered closer at the
face. "Why, Jacob, what's that there by his pore eye? "
Dryfoos saw it too, the wound that he had feared to look
for, and that now seemed to redden on his sight. He broke
into a low wavering cry, like a child's in despair, like an ani-
mal's in terror, like a soul's in the anguish of remorse.
ARRIVAL AND FIRST DAYS IN VENICE
From Venetian Life. Copyright 1867 and 1872, by W. D. Howells. Reprinted
by permission of the author, and of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers
I
THINK it does not matter just when I first came to Venice.
Yesterday and to-day are the same here. I arrived one win-
ter morning about five o'clock, and was not so full of Soul as
I might have been in warmer weather. Yet I was resolved not
to go to my hotel in the omnibus (the large, many-seated boat so
called), but to have a gondola solely for myself and my luggage.
The porter who seized my valise in the station inferred from
some very polyglottic Italian of mine the nature of my wish, and
ran out and threw that slender piece of luggage into a gondola.
I followed, lighted to my seat by a beggar in picturesque and
desultory costume. He was one of a class of mendicants whom
I came, for my sins, to know better in Venice, and whom I dare-
say every traveler recollects,― the merciless tribe who hold your
## p. 7688 (#502) ###########################################
7688
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
gondola to shore, and affect to do you a service and not a dis-
pleasure, and pretend not to be abandoned swindlers. The Vene-
tians call them gransieri, or crab-catchers: but as yet I did not
know the name or the purpose of this poverino at the station, but
merely saw that he had the Venetian eye for color; in the distri-
bution and arrangement of his fragments of dress he had pro-
duced some miraculous effects of red, and he was altogether as
infamous a figure as any friend of brigands would like to meet
in a lonely place. He did not offer to stab me and sink my
body in the Grand Canal, as in all Venetian keeping I felt that
he ought to have done; but he implored an alms, and I hardly
know now whether to exult or regret that I did not understand
him, and left him empty-handed. I suppose that he withdrew
again the blessings which he had advanced me, as we pushed out
into the canal; but I heard nothing, for the wonder of the city
was already upon me. All my nether spirit, so to speak, was
dulled and jaded by the long, cold railway journey from Vienna,
while every surface sense was taken and tangled in the bewilder-
ing brilliancy and novelty of Venice. For I think there can be
nothing else in the world so full of glittering and exquisite sur-
prise as that first glimpse of Venice which the traveler catches
as he issues from the railway station by night, and looks upon
her peerless strangeness. There is something in the blessed
breath of Italy (how quickly, coming south, you know it, and how
bland it is after the harsh transalpine air! ) which prepares you
for your nocturnal advent into the place; and O you! whoever
you are, that journey toward this enchanted city for the first
time, let me tell you how happy I count you! There lies before
you for your pleasure the spectacle of such singular beauty as no
picture can ever show you nor book tell you,- beauty which you
shall feel perfectly but once, and regret forever.
For my own part, as the gondola slipped away from the blaze
and bustle of the station down the gloom and silence of the
broad canal, I forgot that I had been freezing two days and
nights; that I was at that moment very cold and a little home-
sick. I could at first feel nothing but that beautiful silence,
broken only by the star-silvered dip of the oars. Then on either
hand I saw stately palaces rise gray and lofty from the dark
waters, holding here and there a lamp against their faces, which
brought balconies and columns and carven arches into moment-
ary relief, and threw long streams of crimson into the canal.
I
## p. 7689 (#503) ###########################################
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
7689
could see by that uncertain glimmer how fair was all, but not
how sad and old; and so, unhaunted by any pang for the decay
that afterward saddened me amid the forlorn beauty of Venice,
I glided on. I have no doubt it was a proper time to think
all the fantastic things in the world, and I thought them; but
they passed vaguely through my mind, without at all interrupt-
ing the sensations of sight and sound. Indeed, the past and pres-
ent mixed there, and the moral and material were blent in the
sentiment of utter novelty and surprise. The quick boat slid
through old troubles of mine, and unlooked-for events gave it the
impulse that carried it beyond and safely around sharp corners
of life. And all the while I knew that this was a progress
through narrow and crooked canals, and past marble angles of
palaces. But I did not know then that this fine confusion of
sense and spirit was the first faint impression of the charm of life
in Venice.
Dark funereal barges like my own had flitted by, and the
gondoliers had warned each other at every turning with hoarse,
lugubrious cries; the lines of balconied palaces had never ended;
here and there at their doors larger craft were moored, with dim
figures of men moving uncertainly about on them. At last we
had passed abruptly out of the Grand Canal into one of the
smaller channels, and from comparative light into a darkness
only remotely affected by some far-streaming corner lamp. But
always the pallid, stately palaces; always the dark heaven with
its trembling stars above, and the dark water with its trembling
stars below: but now innumerable bridges, and an utter lone-
someness, and ceaseless sudden turns and windings. One could
not resist a vague feeling of anxiety, in these strait and solitary
passages, which was part of the strange enjoyment of the time,
and which was referable to the novelty, the hush, the darkness,
and the piratical appearance and unaccountable pauses of the
gondoliers. Was not this Venice, and is not Venice forever asso-
ciated with bravoes and unexpected dagger-thrusts? That valise
of mine might represent fabulous wealth to the uncultivated im-
agination. Who, if I made an outcry, could understand the Facts
of the Situation (as we say in the journals)? To move on was
relief; to pause was regret for past transgressions mingled with
good resolutions for the future. But I felt the liveliest mixture
of all these emotions when, slipping from the cover of a bridge,
the gondola suddenly rested at the foot of a stairway before a
## p. 7690 (#504) ###########################################
7690
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
closely barred door. The gondoliers rang and rang again, while
their passenger
"Divided the swift mind,"
in the wonder whether a door so grimly bolted and austerely
barred could possibly open into a hotel, with cheerful overcharges
for candles and service. But as soon as the door opened, and
he beheld the honest swindling countenance of a hotel portier,
he felt secure against everything but imposture; and all wild ab-
surdities of doubt and conjecture at once faded from his thought
when the portier suffered the gondoliers to make him pay a florin
too much.
So I had arrived in Venice, and I had felt the influence of
that complex spell which she lays upon the stranger. I had
caught the most alluring glimpses of the beauty which cannot
wholly perish while any fragment of her sculptured walls nods to
its shadow in the canal; I had been penetrated by a deep sense
of the mystery of the place, and I had been touched already
by the anomaly of modern life amid scenes where its presence
offers, according to the humor in which it is studied, constant
occasion for annoyance or delight, enthusiasm or sadness.
I fancy that the ignorant impressions of the earlier days after
my arrival need scarcely be set down even in this perishable
record; but I would not wholly forget how, though isolated from
all acquaintance and alien to the place, I yet felt curiously at
home in Venice from the first. I believe it was because I had
after my own fashion loved the beautiful, that I here found the
beautiful, where it is supreme, full of society and friendship,
speaking a language which even in its unfamiliar forms I could.
partly understand, and at once making me citizen of that Venice
from which I shall never be exiled. It was not in the presence
of the great and famous monuments of art alone that I felt at
home: indeed, I could as yet understand their excellence and
grandeur only very imperfectly; but wherever I wandered through
the quaint and marvelous city I found the good company of
"The fair, the old;"
and to tell the truth, I think it is the best society in Venice,
and I learned to turn to it later from other companionship with
a kind of relief.
My first rambles, moreover, had a peculiar charm which knowl-
edge of locality has since taken away. They began commonly
## p. 7691 (#505) ###########################################
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
7691
with some purpose or destination, and ended by losing me in the
intricacies of the narrowest, crookedest, and most inconsequent
little streets in the world, or left me cast away upon the un-
familiar waters of some canal as far as possible from the point
aimed at. Dark and secret little courts lay in wait for my blun-
dering steps, and I was incessantly surprised and brought to sur-
render by paths that beguiled me up to dead walls or the sudden
brinks of canals. The wide and open squares before the innu-
merable churches of the city were equally victorious, and contin-
ually took me prisoner. But all places had something rare and
worthy to be seen: if not loveliness of sculpture or architecture,
at least interesting squalor and picturesque wretchedness; and I
believe I had less delight in proper Objects of Interest than in
the dirty neighborhoods that reeked with unwholesome winter
damps below, and peered curiously out with frowzy heads and
beautiful eyes from the high, heavy-shuttered casements above.
Every court had its carven well to show me, in the noisy keep-
ing of the water-carriers and the slatternly, statuesque gossips of
the place. The remote and noisome canals were pathetic with
empty old palaces peopled by herds of poor, that decorated the
sculptured balconies with the tatters of epicene linen, and patched
the lofty windows with obsolete hats.
I found the night as full of beauty as the day, when caprice
led me from the brilliancy of St. Mark's and the glittering streets
of shops that branch away from the Piazza, and lost me in the
quaint recesses of the courts, or the tangles of the distant alleys,
where the dull little oil lamps vied with the tapers burning before
the street-corner shrines of the Virgin in making the way ob-
scure, and deepening the shadows about the doorways and under
the frequent arches. I remember distinctly among the beautiful
nights of that time, the soft night of late winter which first
showed me the scene you may behold from the Public Gardens
at the end of the long concave line of the Riva degli Schiavoni.
Lounging there upon the southern parapet of the Gardens, I
turned from the dim bell-towers of the evanescent islands in
the east (a solitary gondola gliding across the calm of the water,
and striking its moonlight silver into multitudinous ripples), and
glanced athwart the vague shipping in the basin of St. Mark,
and saw all the lights from the Piazzetta to the Giudecca, mak-
ing a crescent of flame in the air, and casting deep into the
water under them a crimson glory that sank also down and down
## p. 7692 (#506) ###########################################
7692
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
in my own heart, and illumined all its memories of beauty and
delight. Behind these lamps rose the shadowy masses of church
and palace; the moon stood bright and full in the heavens; the
gondola drifted away to the northward; the islands of the lagoons
seemed to rise and sink with the light palpitations of the waves
like pictures on the undulating fields of banners; the stark rig-
ging of a ship showed black against the sky; the Lido sank from
sight upon the east, as if the shore had composed itself to sleep
by the side of its beloved sea to the music of the surge that
gently beat its sands; the yet leafless boughs of the trees above
me stirred themselves together, and out of one of those trem-
bling towers in the lagoons one rich full sob burst from the
heart of a bell, too deeply stricken with the glory of the scene,
and suffused the languid night with the murmur of luxurious,
ineffable sadness.
But there is a perfect democracy in the realm of the beautiful,
and whatsoever pleases is equal to any other thing there, no
matter how low its origin or humble its composition; and the
magnificence of that moonlight scene gave me no deeper joy than
I won from the fine spectacle of an old man whom I saw burn-
ing coffee one night in the little court behind my lodgings, and
whom I recollect now as one of the most interesting people I
saw in my first days at Venice. All day long the air of that
neighborhood had reeked with the odors of the fragrant berry,
and all day long this patient old man-sage, let me call him—
had turned the sheet-iron cylinder in which it was roasting over
an open fire, after the picturesque fashion of roasting coffee in
Venice. Now that the night had fallen, and the stars shone
down upon him, and the red of the flame luridly illumined him,
he showed more grand and venerable than ever. Simple, abstract
humanity has its own grandeur in Italy; and it is not hard here
for the artist to find the primitive types with which genius loves
best to deal. As for this old man, he had the beard of a saint
and the dignity of a senator, harmonized with the squalor of a
beggar, superior to which shone his abstract, unconscious grandeur
of humanity. A vast and calm melancholy, which had nothing to
do with burning coffee, dwelt in his aspect and attitude; and if
he had been some dread supernatural agency, turning the wheel
of fortune, and doing men instead of coffee brown, he could not
have looked more sadly and weirdly impressive. When presently
he rose from his seat and lifted the cylinder from its place, and
## p. 7693 (#507) ###########################################
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
7693
the clinging flames leaped after it, and he shook it, and a
volume of luminous smoke enveloped him and glorified him,—
then I felt with secret anguish that he was beyond art, and
turned sadly from the spectacle of that sublime and hopeless
magnificence.
At other times (but this was in broad daylight) I was troubled
by the æsthetic perfection of a certain ruffian boy, who sold cakes.
of baked Indian meal to the soldiers in the military station near
the Piazza, and whom I often noted from the windows of the
little caffè there, where you get an excellent caffè bianco (coffee
with milk) for ten soldi and one to the waiter. I have reason to
fear that this boy dealt over-shrewdly with the Austrians, for a
pitiless war raged between him and one of the sergeants.
His
hair was dark, his cheek was of a bronze better than olive; and
he wore a brave cap of red flannel, drawn down to eyes of lus-
trous black. For the rest, he gave unity and coherence to a
jacket and pantaloons of heterogeneous elements, and, such was
the elasticity of his spirit, a buoyant grace to feet incased in
wooden shoes. Habitually came a barrel-organist and ground
before the barracks, and
"Took the soul
Of that waste place with joy";
and ever, when this organist came to a certain lively waltz, and
threw his whole soul as it were into the crank of his instru-
ment, my beloved ragamuffin failed not to seize another cake-boy
in his arms, and thus embraced, to whirl through a wild inspira-
tion of figures, in which there was something grotesquely rhyth-
mic, something of indescribable barbaric magnificence, spiritualized
into a grace of movement superior to the energy of the North and
the extravagant fervor of the East. It was coffee and not wine
that I drank; but I fable all the same that I saw reflected in
this superb and artistic superation of the difficulties of dancing
in that unfriendly foot-gear, something of the same genius that
combated and vanquished the elements, to build its home upon
sea-washed sands in marble structures of airy and stately splen-
dor, and gave to architecture new glories full of eternal surprise.
So, I say, I grew early into sympathy and friendship with
Venice; and being newly from a land where everything, mor-
ally and materially, was in good repair, I rioted sentimentally on
the picturesque ruin, the pleasant discomfort and hopelessness of
## p. 7694 (#508) ###########################################
7694
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
everything about me here. It was not yet the season to behold
all the delight of the lazy outdoor life of the place; but never-
theless I could not help seeing that great part of the people,
both rich and poor, seemed to have nothing to do, and that
nobody seemed to be driven by any inward or outward impulse.
When however I ceased (as I must in time) to be merely a
spectator of this idleness, and learned that I too must assume my
share of the common indolence, I found it a grievous burden.
Old habits of work, old habits of hope, made my endless leisure
irksome to me, and almost intolerable when I ascertained, fairly
and finally, that in my desire to fulfill long-cherished but after
all merely general designs of literary study, I had forsaken
wholesome struggle in the currents where I felt the motion of
the age, only to drift into a lifeless eddy of the world, remote
from incentive and sensation.
For such is Venice; and the will must be strong and the faith
indomitable in him who can long retain, amid the influences of
her stagnant quiet, a practical belief in God's purpose of a great
moving, anxious, toiling, aspiring world outside. When you have
yielded, as after a while I yielded, to these influences, a gentle
incredulity possesses you; and if you consent that such a thing is
as earnest and useful life, you cannot help wondering why it
need be. The charm of the place sweetens your temper, but cor-
rupts you; and I found it a sad condition of my perception of the
beauty of Venice and friendship with it, that I came in some
unconscious way to regard her fate as my own; and when I
began to write the sketches which go to form this book, it was
as hard to speak of any ugliness in her, or of the doom written
against her in the hieroglyphic seams and fissures of her crum-
bling masonry, as if the fault and penalty were mine. I do not
so greatly blame, therefore, the writers who have committed so
many sins of omission concerning her, and made her all light,
color, canals, and palaces. One's conscience, more or less un-
comfortably vigilant elsewhere, drowses here, and it is difficult
to remember that fact is more virtuous than fiction. In other
years, when there was life in the city, and this sad ebb of
prosperity was full tide in her canals, there might have been
some incentive to keep one's thoughts and words from lapsing
into habits of luxurious dishonesty, some reason for telling the
whole hard truth of things, some policy to serve, some end to
gain. But now, what matter?
## p. 7695 (#509) ###########################################
7695
YOG
THOMAS HUGHES
(1823-1896)
HE early life of Thomas Hughes was that of the typical Eng-
lish school lad; and luckily he had the genius to express in
literature the daily incidents of that life, with a freshness of
sympathy, a vigorous manliness, and a moral insight that make his
stories a revelation of boy nature. He was the son of the vicar of
Uffington in Berkshire, where he was born in 1823; and in this first
home he learned to love the English country, and to understand vil-
lage and rustic nature. At seven he was sent away to school, and
was only ten when he went to Rugby. He
has disclaimed identity with his hero, but
Tom Brown' is certainly a product of his
personal impressions; and to his stay at
Rugby we owe the vivid presentation of Dr.
Arnold's noble figure, and the loving por-
trayal of his influence in the great public
school. From Rugby Thomas Hughes went
to Oxford, and later he studied law at Lin-
coln's Inn. He was called to the Bar of the
Inner Temple in 1848, and began practice
at once.
Throughout his long public career, as
advanced Liberal in Parliament, as founder
with Frederick Maurice of the Christian So-
cialists, as creator of Rugby, a socialistic community in the mountains
of Tennessee, he tried most earnestly to exercise a helpful influence
apon English working-people. To him right living, which he sought
to inculcate, was the object of life; and the stimulus most needed, an
appeal to moral courage.
He was a man of strong convictions on one side or the other of a
question. At the outbreak of our Civil War, his bold advocacy of the
abolition of slavery riveted a lasting friendship with James Russell
Lowell.
THOMAS HUGHES
In his early manhood Thomas Hughes essayed journalism. He
wrote many sketches for the London Spectator,-chiefly accounts of
traveling experiences, and he thus defrayed the cost of many little.
Continental jaunts.
These sketches served as his apprenticeship in
## p. 7696 (#510) ###########################################
7696
THOMAS HUGHES
writing, and long afterward they were collected in book form with
the title Vacation Rambles. ' But authorship was a secondary inter-
est until it occurred to him to write a story for his sons and nephews;
and Tom Brown's School Days,' first appearing in 1857, made him
famous.
Two years later The Scouring of the White Horse,' a
spirited account of a vacation trip, had a respectful although less cor-
dial reception. The great success of the first story led Mr. Hughes
to continue his hero's career with Tom Brown at Oxford,' which
was first published as a serial in Macmillan's Magazine. This second
volume, which is much the longer, although often fine and spirited
sometimes waxes prolix, and has never been so popular as the earlier
story.
Judge Hughes's other writings include several memoirs and bi-
ographies, notably the 'Memoir of a Brother,' and that of Kingsley;
books of religious import, like The Manliness of Christ'; a sketch of
'Rugby, Tennessee,' and various miscellanies. But the bulk of his
literary work sinks into insignificance when set beside the peerless
boy's-book which brought him fame.
"I hate the idea of being presented in any guise to any public,»
he once wrote. His best work was not written for fame, but in the
earnest desire to offer helpful advice as strongly and straightforwardly
as possible. That his purpose was avowedly didactic did not lessen
his popularity; for the preaching is so wise and kindly that, as he
himself desired, it seemed to come from a big boy's impulse to help
the less experienced.
THE BOAT RACE
From Tom Brown at Oxford'
ATURDAY night came, and brought with it a most useful though
unpalatable lesson to the St. - Ambrosians. The Oriel boat
was manned chiefly by old oars, seasoned in many a race,
and not liable to panic when hard pressed. They had a fair
though not a first-rate stroke, and a good coxswain: experts re-
marked that they were rather too heavy for their boat, and that
she dipped a little when they put on anything like a severe spurt;
but on the whole they were by no means the sort of crew you
could just run into hand over hand. So Miller and Diogenes
preached, and so the Ambrosians found out to their cost.
They had the pace of the other boat, and gained as usual a
boat's-length before the Gut: but first those two fatal corners
were passed, and then other well-remembered spots where former
## p. 7697 (#511) ###########################################
THOMAS HUGHES
7697
bumps had been made, and still Miller made no sign; on the
contrary, he looked gloomy and savage. The St. -Ambrosian shouts
from the shore, too, changed from the usual exultant peals into
something like a quiver of consternation, while the air was rent
with the name and laudations of "Little Oriel. "
Long before the Cherwell, Drysdale was completely baked (he
had played truant the day before and dined at the Weirs, where
he had imbibed much dubious hock), but he from old habit man-
aged to keep time. Tom and the other young oars got flurried,
and quickened; the boat dragged, there was no life left in her;
and though they managed just to hold their first advantage, could
not put her a foot nearer the stern of the Oriel boat, which
glided past the winning-post a clear boat's-length ahead of her
pursuers, and with a crew much less distressed.
Such races must tell on strokes; and even Jervis, who had
pulled magnificently throughout, was very much done at the close,
and leaned over his oar with a swimming in his head and an
approach to faintness, and was scarcely able to see for a minute
or so. Miller's indignation knew no bounds, but he bottled it up
till he had manoeuvred the crew into their dressing-room by
themselves, Jervis having stopped below. Then he let out, and
did not spare them. "They would kill their captain, whose little
finger was worth the whole of them; they were disgracing the
college; three or four of them had neither heart nor head nor
pluck. "
They all felt that this was unjust; for after all, had they
not brought the boat up to the second place? Poor Diogenes
sat in a corner and groaned; he forgot to prefix "old fellow"
to the few observations he made. Blake had great difficulty in
adjusting his necktie before the glass; he merely remarked in a
pause of the objurgation, "In faith, coxswain, these be very bitter
words. »
Tom and most of the others were too much out of heart to
resist; but at last Drysdale fired up: -
"You've no right to be so savage, that I can see," he said,
stopping the low whistle suddenly in which he was indulging, as
he sat on the corner of the table. "You seem to think No. 2 the
weakest out of several weak places in the boat. "
"Yes, I do," said Miller.
"Then this honorable member," said Drysdale, getting off the
table, "seeing that his humble efforts are unappreciated, thinks it
XIII-482
## p. 7698 (#512) ###########################################
7698
THOMAS HUGHES
best for the public service to place his resignation in the hands
of your Coxswainship. "
«< Which my Coxswainship is graciously pleased to accept,"
replied Miller.
"Hurrah for a roomy punt and a soft cushion next racing
night! It's almost worth while to have been rowing all this
time, to realize the sensations I shall feel when I see you fellows
passing the Cherwell on Tuesday. "
"Suave est, it's what I'm partial to, mari magno, in the last
reach, a terra, from the towing-path, alterius magnum spectare
laborem, to witness the tortures of you wretched beggars in the
boat. I'm obliged to translate for Drysdale, who never learned
Latin," said Blake, finishing his tie and turning to the company.
There was an awkward silence. Miller was chafing inwardly,
and running over in his mind what was to be done; and nobody
else seemed quite to know what ought to happen next, when the
door opened and Jervis came in.
"Congratulate me, my captain," said Drysdale: "I'm well out
of it at last. "
Jervis pished and pshawed a little at hearing what had hap-
pened, but his presence acted like oil on the waters. The moment
that the resignation was named, Tom's thoughts had turned to
Hardy. Now was the time: he had such confidence in the man,
that the idea of getting him in for the next race entirely changed
the aspect of affairs to him, and made him feel as "bumptious"
again as he had done in the morning. So with this idea in his
head, he hung about till the captain had made his toilet, and
joined himself to him and Miller as they walked up.
"Well, what are we to do now? " said the captain.
"That's just what you have to settle," said Miller: "you
have been up all the term, and know the men's pulling better
than I. "
"I suppose we must press somebody from the torpid. Let
me see, there's Burton. "
"He rolls like a porpoise," interrupted Miller positively:
"impossible. "
"Stewart might do, then. "
"Never kept time for three strokes in his life," said Miller.
"Well, there are no better men," said the captain.
<< Then we may lay our account to stopping where we are, if
we don't even lose a place," said Miller.
## p. 7699 (#513) ###########################################
THOMAS HUGHES
7699
"Dust unto dust; what must be, must;
If you can't get crumb, you'd best eat crust,"
-
said the captain.
"It's all very well talking coolly now," said Miller; "but you'll
kill yourself trying to bump, and there are three more nights. "
"Hardy would row if you asked him, I'm sure," said Tom.
The captain looked at Miller, who shook his head. "I don't
think it," he said: "I take him to be a shy bird that won't come
to everybody's whistle. We might have had him two years ago,
I believe I wish we had. "
"I always told you so," said Jervis; "at any rate, let's try
him. He can but say no, and I don't think he will; for you see
he has been at the starting-place every night, and as keen as a
freshman all the time. >>>
"I'm sure he won't," said Tom: "I know he would give any-
thing to pull. "
"You had better go to his rooms and sound him," said the
captain; "Miller and I will follow in half an hour. " We have
already heard how Tom's mission prospered.
The next day, at a few minutes before two o'clock, the St.
Ambrose crew, including Hardy, with Miller (who was a desperate
and indefatigable pedestrian) for leader, crossed Magdalen Bridge.
At five they returned to college, having done a little over fifteen
miles, fair heel-and-toe walking, in the interval. The afternoon
had been very hot, and Miller chuckled to the captain, "I don't
think there will be much trash left in any of them after that.
That fellow Hardy is as fine as a race-horse; and did you see, he
never turned a hair all the way. "
The crew dispersed to their rooms, delighted with the per-
formance now that it was over, and feeling that they were much
the better for it, though they all declared it had been harder
work than any race they had yet pulled. It would have done a
trainer's heart good to have seen them, some twenty minutes
afterward, dropping into hall (where they were allowed to dine.
on Sundays, on the joint), fresh from cold baths, and looking
ruddy and clear, and hard enough for anything.
Again on Monday, not a chance was lost. The St. Ambrose
boat started soon after one o'clock for Abingdon. They swung
steadily down the whole way, and back again to Sandford without
a single spurt; Miller generally standing in the stern, and preach-
ing above all things steadiness and time. From Sandford up
## p. 7700 (#514) ###########################################
7700
THOMAS HUGHES
they were accompanied by half a dozen men or so, who ran up
the bank watching them. The struggle for the first place on the
river was creating great excitement in the rowing world; and
these were some of the most keen connoisseurs, who, having
heard that St. Ambrose had changed a man, were on the lookout
to satisfy themselves as to how it would work. The general
opinion was veering round in favor of Oriel: changes so late in
the races, and at such a critical moment, were looked upon as
very damaging.
Foremost among the runners on the bank was a wiry dark
man, with sanguine complexion, who went with a peculiar long
low stride, keeping his keen eye well on the boat. Just above
Kennington Island, Jervis, noticing this particular spectator for
the first time, called on the crew, and quickening his stroke, took
them up the reach at racing pace. As they lay in Iffley Lock
the dark man appeared above them, and exchanged a few words
and a good deal of dumb show with the captain and Miller, and
then disappeared.
From Iffley up they went steadily again. On the whole,
Miller seemed to be in very good spirits in the dressing-room:
he thought the boat trimmed better and went better than she
had ever done before, and complimented Blake particularly for
the ease with which he had changed sides. They all went up
in high spirits, calling on their way at "The Choughs" for one
glass of old ale round, which Miller was graciously pleased to
allow. Tom never remembered till after they were out again
that Hardy had never been there before, and felt embarrassed
for a moment; but it soon passed off. A moderate dinner and
early to bed finished the day; and Miller was justified in his
parting remark to the captain: "Well, if we don't win we can
comfort ourselves that we haven't dropped a stitch this last two
days, at any rate. "
Then the eventful day arose which Tom and many another
man felt was to make or mar St. Ambrose. It was a glorious
early summer day, without a cloud, scarcely a breath of air stir-
ring. "We shall have a fair start, at any rate," was the general
feeling. We have already seen what a throat-drying, nervous
business the morning and afternoon of a race day is, and must
not go over the same ground more than we can help; so we will
imagine the St. Ambrose boat down at the starting-place, lying
close to the towing-path, just before the first gun.
## p. 7701 (#515) ###########################################
THOMAS HUGHES
7701
There is a much greater crowd than usual opposite the two
first boats. By this time most of the other boats have found
their places, for there is not much chance of anything very excit
ing down below; so, besides the men of Oriel and St. Ambrose
(who muster to-night of all sorts, the fastest of the fast and
slowest of the slow having been by this time shamed into some-
thing like enthusiasm), many of other colleges, whose boats have
no chance of bumping or being bumped, flock to the point of
attraction.
"Do you make out what the change is? " says a backer of
Oriel to his friend in the like predicament.
"Yes: they've got a new No. 5, don't you see? and by
George, I don't like his looks," answered his friend: "awfully
long and strong in the arm, and well ribbed up. A devilish
awkward customer. I shall go and try to get a hedge. "
"Pooh! " says the other, "did you ever know one man win a
race ? »
"Ay, that I have," says his friend, and walks off toward the
Oriel crowd to take five to four on Oriel in half-sovereigns, if he
can get it.
Now their dark friend of yesterday comes up at a trot, and
pulls up close to the captain, with whom he is evidently dear
friends. He is worth looking at, being coxswain of the O. U. B. ;
the best steerer, runner, and swimmer in Oxford; amphibious
himself, and sprung from an amphibious race. His own boat
is in no danger, so he has left her to take care of herself. He
is on the lookout for recruits for the University crew, and no
recruiting sergeant has a sharper eye for the sort of stuff he
requires.
"What's his name? " he says in a low tone to Jervis, giv-
ing a jerk with his head toward Hardy.
"Where did you get
him? "
"Hardy," answers the captain in the same tone; "it's his first
night in the boat. "
"I know that," replies the coxswain: "I never saw him row
before yesterday. He's the fellow who sculls in that brown skiff,
isn't he? "
"Yes, and I think he'll do; keep your eye on him. "
The coxswain nods as if he were pretty much of the same
mind, and examines Hardy with the eye of a connoisseur, pretty
much as the judge at an agricultural show looks at the prize
## p. 7702 (#516) ###########################################
7702
THOMAS HUGHES
bull. Hardy is tightening the strap of his stretcher, and all
unconscious of the compliments which are being paid him. The
great authority seems satisfied with his inspection, grins, rubs his
hands, and trots off to the Oriel boat to make comparisons.
Just as the first gun is heard, Grey sidles nervously to the
front of the crowd as if he were doing something very audacious,
and draws Hardy's attention, exchanging sympathizing nods with
him, but saying nothing,- for he knows not what to say,- and
then disappearing again in the crowd.
"Hollo, Drysdale, is that you? " says Blake, as they push off
from the shore. "I thought you were going to take it easy in a
punt. '
>>
"So I thought," said Drysdale; "but I couldn't keep away,
and here I am. I shall run up; and mind, if I see you within
ten feet, and cocksure to win, I'll give a view halloo. I'll be
bound you shall hear it. "
"May it come speedily," said Blake, and then settled himself
in his seat.
"Eyes in the boat-mind now, steady all; watch the stroke
and don't quicken. "
These are Miller's last words; every faculty of himself and
the crew being now devoted to getting a good start. This is no
difficult matter, as the water is like glass, and the boat lies
lightly on it, obeying the slightest dip of the oars of bow and
two, who just feel the water twice or thrice in the last minute.
Then, after a few moments of breathless hush on the bank, the
last gun is fired and they are off.
The same scene of mad excitement ensues, only tenfold more
intense, as almost the whole interest of the races is to-night
concentrated on the two head boats and their fate.
At every
gate there is a jam, and the weaker vessels are shoved into the
ditches, upset, and left unnoticed. The most active men, includ-
ing the O. U. B. coxswain, shun the gates altogether and take
the big ditches in their stride, making for the long bridges, that
they may get quietly over these and be safe for the best part of
the race.
They know that the critical point of the struggle will
be near the finish.
Both boats make a beautiful start; and again, as before in
the first dash, the St. Ambrose pace tells, and they gain their
boat's-length before first winds fail: then they settle down for a
long, steady effort. Both crews are rowing comparatively steady,
## p. 7703 (#517) ###########################################
THOMAS HUGHES
7703
Thus they
reserving themselves for the tug of war up above.
pass the Gut, and so those two treacherous corners, the scene
⚫ of countless bumps, into the wider water beyond, up under the
willows.
•
Miller's face is decidedly hopeful; he shows no sign, indeed,
but you can see that he is not the same man as he was at this
place in the last race. He feels that to-day the boat is full of
life, and that he can call on his crew with hopes of an answer.
H well-trained eye also detects that while both crews are at
full stretch, his own, instead of losing as it did on the last
night, is now gaining inch by inch on Oriel. The gain is scarcely
perceptible to him even; from the bank it is quite imperceptible:
but there it is; he is surer and surer of it, as one after another
the willows are left behind.
he
And now comes the pinch. The Oriel captain is beginning to
be conscious of the fact which has been dawning on Miller, but
will not acknowledge it to himself; and as his coxswain turns
boat's head gently across the stream, and makes for the Berkshire
side and the goal, now full in view, he smiles grimly as he
quickens his stroke, he will shake off these light-heeled gentry
yet, as he did before.
Miller sees the move in a moment and signals his captain,
and the next stroke St. Ambrose has quickened also; and now
there is no mistake about it,-St. Ambrose is creeping up slowly
but surely. The boat's-length lessens to forty feet, thirty feet;
surely and steadily lessens. But the race is not lost yet; thirty
feet is a short space enough to look at on the water, but a good
bit to pick up foot by foot in the last two hundred yards of a
desperate struggle. They are over under the Berkshire side
now, and there stands up the winning-post, close ahead, all but
won. The distance lessens and lessens still, but the Oriel crew
stick steadily and gallantly to their work, and will fight every inch
of distance to the last. The Orielites on the bank, who are rush-
ing along, sometimes in the water, sometimes out, hoarse, furious,
madly alternating between hope and despair, have no reason to
be ashamed of a man in the crew. Off the mouth of the Cher-
well there is still twenty feet between them. Another minute,
and it will be over one way or another. Every man in both
crews is now doing his best, and no mistake: tell me which boat
holds the most men who can do better than their best at a
pinch, who will risk a broken blood-vessel, and I will tell you
## p. 7704 (#518) ###########################################
THOMAS HUGHES
7704
how it will end. "Hard pounding, gentlemen: let's see who will
pound longest," the Duke is reported to have said at Waterloo,
and won.
"Now, Tummy, lad, 'tis thou or I," Big Ben said as
he came up to the last round of his hardest fight, and won. Is
there a man of that temper in either crew to-night? If so, now's
his time. For both coxswains have called on their men for the
last effort; Miller is whirling the tassel of his right-hand tiller
rope round his head, like a wiry little lunatic; from the towing-
path, from Christ Church meadow, from the rows of punts, from
the clustered tops of the barges, comes a roar of encouragement
and applause, and the band, unable to resist the impulse, breaks
with a crash into the 'Jolly Young Waterman,' playing two bars
to the second. A bump in the Gut is nothing-a few partisans
on the towing-path to cheer you, already out of breath; but up
here at the very finish, with all Oxford looking on, when the
prize is the headship of the river-once in a generation only do
men get such a chance.
Who ever saw Jervis not up to his work? The St. Ambrose
stroke is glorious. Tom had an atom of go still left in the very
back of his head, and at this moment he heard Drysdale's view
halloo above all the din: it seemed to give him a lift, and other
men besides in the boat, for in another six strokes the gap is
lessened and St. Ambrose has crept up to ten feet, and now to
five, from the stern of Oriel. Weeks afterward Hardy confided
to Tom that when he heard that view halloo he seemed to feel
the muscles of his arms and legs turn into steel, and did more
work in the last twenty strokes than in any other forty in the
earlier part of the race.
Another fifty yards and Oriel is safe; but the look on the
captain's face is so ominous that their coxswain glances over his
shoulder. The bow of St. Ambrose is within two feet of their
rudder. It is a moment for desperate expedients. He pulls his
left tiller rope suddenly, thereby carrying the stern of his own
boat out of the line of the St. Ambrose, and calls on his crew
once more: they respond gallantly yet, but the rudder is against
them for a moment, and the boat drags. St. Ambrose overlaps.
"A bump, a bump! " shout the St. - Ambrosians or shore. "Row
on, row on! " screams Miller. He has not yet felt the electric
shock, and knows he will miss his bump if the young ones slacken
for a moment.
