In a moment he stood all alone, without
friend or supporter, a target upon which was concentrated a
bitter fire of scornful and angry looks.
friend or supporter, a target upon which was concentrated a
bitter fire of scornful and angry looks.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v07 - Cic to Cuv
We entered its deeper shadow, and so imminent seemed the
peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the strongest im-
pulse to do something, anything, to save the vessel. But still
## p. 3806 (#168) ###########################################
3806
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
Mr. Bixby stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the
pilots stood shoulder to shoulder at his back.
"She'll not make it! " somebody whispered.
The water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's cries,
till it was down to-
"Eight-and-a-half!
E-i-g-h-t feet!
E-i-g-h-t
feet!
Seven-and-»
Mr. Bixby said warningly through his speaking-tube to the
engineer: -
"Stand by, now! "
"Ay-ay, sir! "
"Seven-and-a-half!
Seven feet! Six-and- >>>
We touched bottom! Instantly Mr. Bixby set a lot of bells
ringing, shouted through the tube, "Now let her have it - every
ounce you've got! " then to his partner, "Put her hard down!
snatch her! snatch her! " The boat rasped and ground her way
through the sand, hung upon the apex of disaster a single tre-
mendous instant, and then over she went! And such a shout as
went up at Mr. Bixby's back never loosened the roof of a pilot-
house before!
There was no more trouble after that. Mr. Bixby was a hero
that night; and it was some little time, too, before his exploit
ceased to be talked about by river men.
AN EXPEDITION AGAINST OGRES
From A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: copyright 1889, by
Charles L. Webster and Company
Μ
Y EXPEDITION was all the talk that day and that night, and
the boys were very good to me, and made much of me,
and seemed to have forgotten, their vexation and disap-
pointment, and come to be as anxious for me to hive those
ogres and set those ripe old virgins loose as if it were them-
selves that had the contract. Well, they were good children-
but just children, that is all. And they gave me no end of
points about how to scout for giants, and how to scoop them in;
and they told me all sorts of charms against enchantments, and
gave me salves and other rubbish to put on my wounds. But it
never occurred to one of them to reflect that if I was such a
wonderful necromancer as I was pretending to be, I ought not to
## p. 3807 (#169) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3807
need salves, or instructions, or charms against enchantments, and
least of all arms and armor, on a foray of any kind-even
against fire-spouting dragons and devils hot from perdition, let
alone such poor adversaries as these I was after, these common-
place ogres of the back settlements.
I was to have an early breakfast, and start at dawn, for that
was the usual way; but I had the demon's own time with
my armor, and this delayed me a little. It is troublesome
to get into, and there is so much detail. First you wrap a layer
or two of blanket around your body for a sort of cushion, and
to keep off the cold iron; then you put on your sleeves and
shirt of chain-mail - these are made of small steel links woven
together, and they form a fabric so flexible that if you toss
your shirt on to the floor it slumps into a pile like a peck of wet
fish-net; it is very heavy and is nearly the uncomfortablest
material in the world for a night-shirt, yet plenty used it for
that tax collectors and reformers, and one-horse kings with a
defective title, and those sorts of people; then you put on your
shoes flatboats roofed over with interleaving bands of steel-
and screw your clumsy spurs into the heels. Next you buckle
your greaves on your legs and your cuisses on your thighs; then
come your backplate and your breastplate, and you begin to
feel crowded; then you hitch on to the breastplate the half-
petticoat of broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs down
in front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit down, and
isn't any real improvement on an inverted coal-scuttle, either for
looks, or for wear, or to wipe your hands on; next you belt on
your sword; then you put your stove-pipe joints on to your arms,
your iron gauntlets on to your hands, your iron rat-trap on to
your head, with a rag of steel web hitched on to it to hang over
the back of your neck—and there you are, snug as a candle in
a candle-mold. This is no time to dance. Well, a man that is
packed away like that is a nut that isn't worth the cracking,
there is so little of the meat, when you get down to it, by com-
parison with the shell.
-
―
The boys helped me, or I never could have got in. Just as
we finished, Sir Bedivere happened in, and I saw that as like as
not I hadn't chosen the most convenient outfit for a long trip.
How stately he looked; and tall and broad and grand. He had
on his head a conical steel casque that only came down to his
ears, and for visor had only a narrow steel bar that extended
## p. 3808 (#170) ###########################################
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SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
down to his upper lip and protected his nose; and all the rest of
him, from neck to heel, was flexible chain-mail, trousers and all.
But pretty much all of him was hidden under his outside gar-
ment, which of course was of chain-mail, as I said, and hung
straight from his shoulders to his ankles; and from his middle to
the bottom, both before and behind, was divided, so that he
could ride and let the skirts hang down on each side. He was
going grailing, and it was just the outfit for it, too. I would
have given a good deal for that ulster, but it was too late now
to be fooling around. The sun was just up; the king and the
court were all on hand to see me off and wish me luck; so it
wouldn't be etiquette for me to tarry. You don't get on your
horse yourself; no, if you tried it you would get disappointed.
They carry you out, just as they carry a sun-struck man to the
drug-store, and put you on, and help get you to rights, and fix
your feet in the stirrups; and all the while you do feel so
strange and stuffy and like somebody else-like somebody that
has been married on a sudden, or struck by lightning, or some-
thing like that, and hasn't quite fetched around yet, and is sort
of numb, and can't just get his bearings. Then they stood up
the mast they called a spear in its socket by my left foot, and I
gripped it with my hand; lastly they hung my shield around my
neck, and I was all complete and ready to up anchor and get to
sea. Everybody was as good to me as they could be, and a
maid of honor gave me the stirrup-cup her own self. There was
nothing more to do now but for that damsel to get up behind
me on a pillion, which she did, and put an arm or so around
me to hold on.
And so we started; and everybody gave us a good-by and
waved their handkerchiefs or helmets. And everybody we met,
going down the hill and through the village, was respectful to us
except some shabby little boys on the outskirts. They said:-
"Oh, what a guy! " and hove clods at us.
In my experience boys are the same in all ages. They
don't respect anything, they don't care for anything or anybody.
They say "Go up, bald-head! " to the prophet going his unoffend-
ing way in the gray of antiquity; they sass me in the holy
gloom of the Middle Ages; and I had seen them act the same
way in Buchanan's administration; I remember, because I was
there and helped. The prophet had his bears and settled with
his boys; and I wanted to get down and settle with mine, but it
## p. 3809 (#171) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3809
wouldn't answer, because I couldn't have got up again. I hate
a country without a derrick.
Straight off, we were in the country. It was most lovely
and pleasant in those sylvan solitudes in the early cool morning
in the first freshness of autumn. From hilltops we saw fair
green valleys lying spread out below, with streams winding
through them, and island groves of trees here and there, and
huge lonely oaks scattered about and casting black blots of
shade; and beyond the valleys we saw the ranges of hills, blue
with haze, stretching away in billowy perspective to the horizon,
with at wide intervals a dim fleck of white or gray on a wave-
summit, which we knew was a castle. We crossed broad natural
lawns sparkling with dew, and we moved like spirits, the cush-
ioned turf giving out no sound of footfall; we dreamed along
through glades in a mist of green light that got its tint from
the sun-drenched roof of leaves overhead, and by our feet the
clearest and coldest of runlets went frisking and gossiping over
its reefs and making a sort of whispering music comfortable to
hear; and at times we left the world behind and entered into
the solemn great deeps and rich gloom of the forest, where fur-
tive wild things whisked and scurried by and were gone before
you could even get your eye on the place where the noise was;
and where only the earliest birds were turning out and getting
to business, with a song here and a quarrel yonder and a mys-
terious far-off hammering and drumming for worms on a tree-
trunk away somewhere in the impenetrable remoteness of the
woods. And by-and-by out we would swing again into the
glare.
About the third or fourth or fifth time that we swung out
into the glare-it was along there somewhere, a couple of hours.
or so after sun-up-it wasn't as pleasant as it had been.
It was
beginning to get hot. This was quite noticeable. We had a
very long pull, after that, without any shade. Now it is curious
how progressively little frets grow and multiply after they once
get a start. Things which I didn't mind at all at first, I began
to mind now- and more and more, too, all the time. The first
ten or fifteen times I wanted my handkerchief I didn't seem to
care; I got along, and said never mind, it isn't any matter, and
dropped it out of my mind. But now it was different: I wanted
it all the time; it was nag, nag, nag, right along, and no rest;
I couldn't get it out of my mind; and so at last I lost my
VII-239
## p. 3810 (#172) ###########################################
3810
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
temper, and said hang a man that would make a suit of armor
without any pockets in it. You see I had my handkerchief in
my helmet, and some other things; but it was that kind of a
helmet that you can't take off by yourself. That hadn't occurred
to me when I put it there; and in fact I didn't know it. I
supposed it would be particularly convenient there.
And so
now the thought of its being there, so handy and close by, and
yet not get-at-able, made it all the worse and the harder to
bear. Yes, the thing that you can't get is the thing that you
want, mainly; every one has noticed that. Well, it took my mind
off from everything else; took it clear off and centred it in my
helmet; and mile after mile there it stayed, imagining the hand-
kerchief, picturing the handkerchief; and it was bitter and aggra-
vating to have the salt sweat keep trickling down into my eyes,
and I couldn't get at it. It seems like a little thing on paper,
but it was not a little thing at all; it was the most real kind of
misery. I would not say it if it was not so.
I made up my
mind that I would carry along a reticule next time, let it look
how it might and people say what they would. Of course these
iron dudes of the Round Table would think it was scandalous,
and maybe raise sheol about it, but as for me, give me comfort
first and style afterwards. So we jogged along, and now and
then we struck a stretch of dust, and it would tumble up in
clouds and get into my nose and make me sneeze and cry; and
of course I said things I oughtn't to have said,—I don't deny
that. I am not better than others. We couldn't seem to meet
anybody in this lonesome Britain, not even an ogre; and in the
mood I was in then, it was well for the ogre; that is, an ogre
with a handkerchief. Most knights would have thought of noth-
ing but getting his armor; but so I got his bandana, he could
keep his hardware for all me.
Meantime it was getting hotter and hotter in there. You
see the sun was beating down and warming up the iron more
and more all the time. Well, when you are hot, that way, every
little thing irritates you. When I trotted I rattled like a crate
of dishes, and that annoyed me; and moreover I couldn't seem
to stand that shield slatting and banging, now about my breast,
now around my back; and if I dropped into a walk my joints
creaked and screeched in that wearisome way that a wheelbar-
row does, and as we didn't create any breeze at that gait, I was
like to get fried in that stove; and besides, the quieter you went
## p. 3811 (#173) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3811
the heavier the iron settled down on you, and the more and more
tons you seemed to weigh every minute. And you had to be
always changing hands and passing your spear over to the
other foot, it got so irksome for one hand to hold it long at a
time.
Well, you know when you perspire that way, in rivers,
there comes a time when you-when you—well, when you itch.
You are inside, your hands are outside: so there you are; noth-
ing but iron between. It is not a light thing, let it sound as it
may. First it is one place; then another; then some more; and
it goes on spreading and spreading, and at last the territory is
all occupied, and nobody can imagine what you feel like, nor
how unpleasant it is. And when it had got to the worst, and it
seemed to me that I could not stand anything more, a fly got in
through the bars and settled on my nose, and the bars were
stuck and wouldn't work, and I couldn't get the visor up; and I
could only shake my head, which was baking hot by this time,
and the fly—well, you know how a fly acts when he has got a
certainty: he only minded the shaking enough to change from
nose to lip, and lip to ear, and buzz and buzz all around in
there, and keep on lighting and biting in a way that a person
already so distressed as I was simply could not stand. So I
gave in, and got Alisande to unship the helmet and relieve me
of it. Then she emptied the conveniences out of it and fetched
it full of water, and I drank and then stood up and she poured
the rest down inside the armor. One cannot think how refresh-
ing it was. She continued to fetch and pour until I was well
soaked and thoroughly comfortable.
It was good to have a rest-and peace. But nothing is
quite perfect in this life at any time. I had made a pipe a while
back, and also some pretty fair tobacco; not the real thing, but
what some of the Indians use: the inside bark of the willow,
dried. These comforts had been in the helmet, and now I had
them again, but no matches.
Gradually, as the time wore along, one annoying fact was
borne in upon my understanding- that we were weather-bound.
An armed novice cannot mount his horse without help and
plenty of it. Sandy was not enough; not enough for me, any-
way. We had to wait until somebody should come along.
Waiting in silence would have been agreeable enough, for I was
full of matter for reflection, and wanted to give it a chance to
## p. 3812 (#174) ###########################################
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SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
work. I wanted to try and think out how it was that rational or
even half-rational men could ever have learned to wear armor,
considering its inconveniences; and how they had managed to
keep up such a fashion for generations when it was plain that
what I had suffered to-day they had had to suffer all the days
of their lives. I wanted to think that out; and moreover I
wanted to think out some way to reform this evil and persuade
the people to let the foolish fashion die out: but thinking was
out of the question in the circumstances. You couldn't think
where Sandy was. She was a quite biddable creature and good-
hearted, but she had a flow of talk that was as steady as a
mill and made your head sore like the drays and wagons in a
city. If she had had a cork she would have been a comfort.
But you can't cork that kind; they would die. Her clack was
going all day, and you would think something would surely
happen to her works by-and-by; but no, they never got out of
order; and she never had to slack up for words. She could
grind and pump and churn and buzz by the week, and never
stop to oil up or blow out. And yet the result was just nothing
but wind. She never had any ideas, any more than a fog has.
She was a perfect blatherskite; I mean for jaw, jaw, jaw, talk,
talk, talk, jabber, jabber, jabber; - but just as good as she could
be. I hadn't minded her mill that morning, on account of hav-
ing that hornet's nest of other troubles; but more than once in
the afternoon I had to say:-
-
"Take a rest, child; the way you are using up all the
domestic air, the kingdom will have to go to importing it by
to-morrow, and it's a low enough treasury without that.
>>>
By permission of S. L. Clemens and his publishers.
## p. 3813 (#175) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3813
THE TRUE PRINCE AND THE FEIGNED ONE
From The Prince and the Pauper': copyright 1889, by Charles L. Webster
and Company
-
Α
T LAST the final act was at hand. The Archbishop of Canter-
bury lifted up the crown of England from its cushion and
held it out over the trembling mock king's head. In the
same instant a rainbow radiance flashed along the spacious tran-
sept; for with one impulse every individual in the great con-
course of nobles lifted a coronet and poised it over his or her
head and paused in that attitude.
A deep hush pervaded the Abbey. At this impressive
moment a startling apparition intruded upon the scene—an ap-
parition observed by none in the absorbed multitude, until it
suddenly appeared, moving up the great central isle. It was a
boy, bare-headed, ill shod, and clothed in coarse plebeian gar-
ments that were falling to rags. He raised his hand with a
solemnity which ill comported with his soiled and sorry aspect,
and delivered this note of warning:
"I forbid you to set the crown of England upon that for-
feited head. I am the king! "
In an instant several indignant hands were laid upon the boy,
but in the same instant Tom Canty, in his regal vestments, made
a swift step forward and cried out in a ringing voice:-
"Loose him and forbear! He is the king! "
A sort of panic of astonishment swept the assemblage, and
they partly rose in their places and stared in a bewildered way
at one another and at the chief figures in this scene, like persons
who wondered whether they were awake and in their senses or
asleep and dreaming. The Lord Protector was as amazed as the
rest, but quickly recovered himself and exclaimed in a voice of
authority: -
"Mind not his Majesty, his malady is upon him again-seize
the vagabond! "
He would have been obeyed, but the mock king stamped his
foot and cried out:-
"On your peril! Touch him not, he is the king! "
The hands were withheld; a paralysis fell upon the house; no
one moved, no one spoke; indeed no one knew how to act or
what to say, in so strange and surprising an emergency. While
all minds were struggling to right themselves, the boy still
―
## p. 3814 (#176) ###########################################
3814
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
moved steadily forward, with high port and confident mien; he
had never halted from the beginning; and while the tangled
minds still floundered helplessly, he stepped upon the platform,
and the mock king ran with a glad face to meet him, and fell on
his knees before him and said:
"O my lord the king, let poor Tom Canty be first to swear
fealty to thee, and say, 'Put on thy crown and enter into thine
own again! ''
The Lord Protector's eye fell sternly upon the new-comer's
face; but straightway the sternness vanished away, and gave
place to an expression of wondering surprise. This thing hap-
pened also to the other great officers. They glanced at each
other, and retreated a step by a common and unconscious im-
pulse. The thought in each mind was the same: "What a
strange resemblance! "
The Lord Protector reflected a moment or two in perplexity;
then he said, with grave respectfulness:-
"By your favor, sir, I desire to ask certain questions.
which
"I will answer them, my lord. "
The duke asked him many questions about the court, the late
king, the prince, the princesses, - the boy answered them cor-
rectly and without hesitating. He described the rooms of state
in the palace, the late king's apartments, and those of the
Prince of Wales.
>>
It was strange; it was wonderful; yes, it was unaccountable —
so all said that heard it. The tide was beginning to turn, and
Tom Canty's hopes to run high, when the Lord Protector shook
his head and said:
-
"It is true it is most wonderful-but it is no more than our
lord the king likewise can do. " This remark, and this reference
to himself as still the king, saddened Tom Canty, and he felt his
hopes crumbling under him.
“These are not proofs," added the
Protector.
The tide was turning very fast now, very fast indeed but
in the wrong direction; it was leaving poor Tom Canty stranded
on the throne, and sweeping the other out to sea. The Lord
Protector communed with himself - shook his head; the thought
forced itself upon him, "It is perilous to the State and to us all,
to entertain so fateful a riddle as this; it could divide the nation
and undermine the throne. " He turned and said:
-:
-
## p. 3815 (#177) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3815
"Sir Thomas, arrest this- No, hold! ” His face lighted,
and he confronted the ragged candidate with this question:—
"Where lieth the Great Seal? Answer me this truly, and
the riddle is unriddled; for only he that was Prince of Wales
can so answer! On so trivial a thing hang a throne and a
dynasty! "
It was a lucky thought, a happy thought. That it was so
considered by the great officials was manifested by the silent
applause that shot from eye to eye around their circle in the
form of bright approving glances. Yes, none but the true prince
could dissolve the stubborn mystery of the vanished Great Seal
- this forlorn little impostor had been taught his lesson well,
but here his teachings must fail, for his teacher himself could.
not answer that question-ah, very good, very good indeed;
now we shall be rid of this troublesome and perilous business in
short order! And so they nodded invisibly and smiled inwardly
with satisfaction, and looked to see this foolish lad stricken with.
a palsy of guilty confusion. How surprised they were, then, to
see nothing of the sort happen - how they marveled to hear
him answer up promptly in a confident and untroubled voice
and say:
"There is naught in this riddle that is difficult. " Then,
without so much as a by-your-leave to anybody, he turned and
gave this command with the easy manner of one accustomed to
doing such things: "My lord St. John, go you to my private
cabinet in the palace,- for none knoweth the place better than
you,- and close down to the floor, in the left corner, remotest
from the door that opens from the ante-chamber, you shall find
in the wall a brazen nail-head; press upon it and a little jewel-
closet will fly open, which not even you do know of- no, nor
any soul else in all the world but me and the trusty artisan
that did contrive it for me. The first thing that falleth under
your eye will be the Great Seal-fetch it hither. "
All the company wondered at this speech, and wondered still
more to see the little mendicant pick out this peer without hesi-
tancy or apparent fear of mistake, and call him by name with
such a placidly convincing air of having known him all his life.
The peer was almost surprised into obeying. He even made a
movement as if to go, but quickly recovered his tranquil attitude
and confessed his blunder with a blush. Tom Canty turned upon
him and said sharply:-
-
## p. 3816 (#178) ###########################################
3816
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
"Why dost thou hesitate? Hast not heard the king's com
mand? Go! "
The lord St. John made a deep obeisance- and it was ob-
served that it was a significantly cautious and non-committal one,
it not being delivered at either of the kings, but at the neutral
ground about half-way between the two- and took his leave.
Now began a movement of the gorgeous particles of that offi-
cial group which was slow, scarcely perceptible, and yet steady
and persistent,- a movement such as is observed in a kaleido-
scope that is turned slowly, whereby the components of one
splendid cluster fall away and join themselves to another-a
movement which little by little, in the present case, dissolved the
glittering crowd that stood about Tom Canty and clustered it to-
gether again in the neighborhood of the new-comer. Tom Canty
stood almost alone. Now ensued a brief season of deep suspense
and waiting-during which even the few faint-hearts still re-
maining near Tom Canty gradually scraped together courage
enough to glide, one by one, over to the majority. So at last
Tom Canty, in his royal robes and jewels, stood wholly alone
and isolated from the world, a conspicuous figure, occupying an
elegant vacancy.
Now the lord St. John was seen returning.
seen returning. As he advanced
up the mid-aisle, the interest was so intense that the low murmur
of conversation in the great assemblage died out and was suc-
ceeded by a profound hush, a breathless stillness, through which
his footfalls pulsed with a dull and distant sound. Every eye
was fastened upon him as he moved along. He reached the
platform, paused a moment, then moved toward Tom Canty with
a deep obeisance, and said:-
"Sire, the Seal is not there! "
A mob does not melt away from the presence of a plague-
patient with more haste than the band of pallid and terrified
courtiers melted away from the presence of the shabby little
claimant of the crown.
In a moment he stood all alone, without
friend or supporter, a target upon which was concentrated a
bitter fire of scornful and angry looks. The Lord Protector
called out fiercely:-
"Cast the beggar into the street, and scourge him through
the town - the paltry knave is worth no more consideration! "
Officers of the guard sprang forward to obey, but Tom Canty
waved them off and said:
## p. 3817 (#179) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3817
"Back! Whoso touches him perils his life! "
The Lord Protector was perplexed in the last degree. He
said to the lord St. John:-
――――
-
«< Searched you well? - but it boots not to ask that. It doth
seem passing strange. Little things, trifles, slip out of one's
ken, and one does not think it matter for surprise; but how so
bulky a thing as the Seal of England can vanish away and no
man be able to get track of it again a massy golden disk — »
Tom Canty, with beaming eyes, sprang forward and shouted:
«< Hold, that is enough! Was it round? - and thick ? — and
had it letters and devices graved upon it? Yes? Oh, now I
know what this Great Seal is, that there's been such worry and
pother about! An ye had described it to me, ye could have had
it three weeks ago. Right well I know where it lies; but it was
not I that put it there- first. ”
"Who then, my liege? " asked the Lord Protector.
"He that stands there the rightful king of England. And
he shall tell you himself where it lies- then you will believe he
knew it of his own knowledge. Bethink thee, my king-spur
thy memory-it was the last, the very last thing thou didst that
day before thou didst rush forth from the palace, clothed in my
rags, to punish the soldier that insulted me. "
A silence ensued, undisturbed by a movement or a whisper,
and all eyes were fixed upon the new-comer, who stood with
bent head and corrugated brow, groping in his memory among a
thronging multitude of valueless recollections for one single little
elusive fact, which, found, would seat him upon a throne — un-
found, would leave him as he was for good and all-a pauper
and an outcast. Moment after moment passed-the moments
built themselves into minutes-still the boy struggled silently
on, and gave no sign. But at last he heaved a sigh, shook his
head slowly, and said, with a trembling lip and in a despondent
voice:
—
―――――
"I call the scene back-all of it- but the Seal hath no place
in it. He paused, then looked up, and said with gentle dig-
nity, "My lords and gentlemen, if ye will rob your rightful sov-
ereign of his own for lack of this evidence which he is not able
to furnish, I may not stay ye, being powerless. But-»
"Oh folly, oh madness, my king! ” cried Tom Canty in a
panic; "wait! - think! Do not give up! - the cause is not lost!
nor shall be, neither! List to what I say-follow every word
## p. 3818 (#180) ###########################################
3818
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
I am going to bring that morning back again, every hap just as
it happened. We talked-I told you of my sisters, Nan and
Bet - ah yes, you remember that; and about my old grandam
and the rough games of the lads of Offal Court - yes, you re-
member these things also; very well, follow me still, you shall
recall everything. You gave me food and drink, and did with
princely courtesy send away the servants, so that my low breed-
ing might not shame me before them-ah yes, this also you
remember. "
-
As Tom checked off his details, and the other boy nodded his
head in recognition of them, the great audience and the officials
stared in puzzled wonderment; the tale sounded like true history,
yet how could this impossible conjunction between a prince and
a beggar boy have come about? Never was a company of peo-
ple so perplexed, so interested, and so stupefied before.
"For a jest, my prince, we did exchange garments. Then
we stood before a mirror; and so alike were we that both said it
seemed as if there had been no change made - yes, you remem-
ber that. Then you noticed that the soldier had hurt my hand
look! here it is, I cannot yet even write with it, the fingers
are so stiff. At this your Highness sprang up, vowing ven-
geance upon that soldier, and ran toward the door-you passed
a table-
that thing you call the Seal lay on that table-you
snatched it up and looked eagerly about, as if for a place to
hide it—your eye caught sight of —”
"There, 'tis sufficient! — and the dear God be thanked! " ex-
claimed the ragged claimant, in a mighty excitement. "Go, my
good St. John, — in an arm-piece of the Milanese armor that
hangs on the wall, thou'lt find the Seal! "
-
"Right, my king! right! " cried Tom Canty; "now the sceptre
of England is thine own; and it were better for him that would
dispute it that he had been born dumb! Go, my lord St. John,
give thy feet wings! "
The whole assemblage was on its feet now, and well-nigh
out of its mind with uneasiness, apprehension, and consuming
excitement. On the floor and on the platform a deafening buzz
of frantic conversation burst forth, and for some time nobody
knew anything or heard anything or was interested in any-
thing but what his neighbor was shouting into his ear, or he was
shouting into his neighbor's ear. Time- nobody knew how
much of it swept by unheeded and unnoted. - At last a sudden
-
―――――
-
## p. 3819 (#181) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3819
hush fell upon the house, and in the same moment St. John ap-
peared upon the platform and held the Great Seal aloft in his
hand. Then such a shout went up!
"Long live the true king! "
For five minutes the air quaked with shouts and the crash of
musical instruments, and was white with a storm of waving
handkerchiefs; and through it all a ragged lad, the most con-
spicuous figure in England, stood, flushed and happy and proud,
in the centre of the spacious platform, with the great vassals of
the kingdom kneeling around him.
Then all rose, and Tom Canty cried out:-
"Now, O my king, take these regal garments back, and give
poor Tom thy servant his shreds and remnants again. ”
The Lord Protector spoke up:·
"Let the small varlet be stripped and flung into the Tower. "
But the new king, the true king, said:
"I will not have it so. But for him I had not got my crown
again-none shall lay a hand upon him to harm him. And as
for thee, my good uncle, my Lord Protector, this conduct of
thine is not grateful toward this poor lad, for I hear he hath
made thee a duke". - the Protector blushed- "yet he was not a
king; wherefore, what is thy fine title worth now? To-morrow
you shall sue to me, through him, for its confirmation, else no
duke, but a simple earl, shalt thou remain. ”
Under this rebuke his Grace the Duke of Somerset retired a
little from the front for the moment. The king turned to Tom,
and said kindly:-
"My poor boy, how was it that you could remember where I
hid the Seal, when I could not remember it myself? "
"Ah, my king, that was easy, since I used it divers days. "
“Used it,— yet could not explain where it was? "
-
c
-
―――
"I did not know it was that they wanted. They did not
describe it, your Majesty. "
"Then how used you it? "
The red blood began to steal up into Tom's cheeks, and he
dropped his eyes and was silent.
"Speak up, good lad, and fear nothing," said the king.
"How used you the Great Seal of England? "
Tom stammered a moment in a pathetic confusion, then got
it out:
«To crack nuts with! "
## p. 3820 (#182) ###########################################
3820
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
Poor child, the avalanche of laughter that greeted this nearly
swept him off his feet. But if a doubt remained in any mind
that Tom Canty was not the king of England and familiar with
the august appurtenances of royalty, this reply disposed of it
utterly.
Meantime the sumptuous robe of state had been removed
from Tom's shoulders to the king's, whose rags were effectually
hidden from sight under it. Then the coronation ceremonies
were resumed; the true king was anointed and the crown set
upon his head, whilst cannon thundered the news to the city,
and all London seemed to rock with applause.
By permission of S. L. Clemens and his publishers.
## p. 3821 (#183) ###########################################
3821
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
(1819-1861)
BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
HE intellectual mood of many of the finest spirits in England
and New England during the second quarter of the nine-
teenth century had something of the nature of a surprise to
themselves, no less than to those who came within their influence.
It was indeed a natural though unforeseen result of forces, various 'in
kind, that had long been silently at work. The conflicting currents
of thought and moral sentiment, which in all ages perplex and divide
the hearts of men, took a new direction and seemed to have gath-
ered volume and swiftness. Hardly since the Reformation had there
been so deep and general a stirring of the questions, the answers to
which, whether they be final or merely provisional, involve conclu-
sions relating to the deepest interests of men. Old convictions were
confronted by new doubts; ancient authority was met by a modern
spirit of independence. This new intellectual mood was perhaps first
distinctly manifest in England in Carlyle's essays, and correspond-
ingly in New England in the essays and poems of Emerson; it was
expressed in 'In Memoriam' and 'Maud'; it gave the undertone
of Arnold's most characteristic verse, and it found clear and strik-
ing utterance in the poems of Clough. Clough's nature was of rare
superiority alike of character and intellect. His moral integrity and
sincerity imparted clearness to his imagination and strength to his
intelligence, so that while the most marked distinction of his poems
is that which they possess as a mirror of spiritual conditions shared
by many of his contemporaries, they have hardly less interest as the
expression and image of his own individuality.
Arthur Hugh Clough was born at Liverpool on New Year's Day,
1819. * His father, who came of an old Welsh family (his mother,
Anne Perfect, was from Yorkshire), had established himself in Liver-
pool as a cotton merchant. Toward the end of 1822 he emigrated
with his wife and four children to Charleston, South Carolina, and
here for four years was their home. For Arthur they were important
years. He was a shy, sensitive boy, "already considered as the
genius of the family. " He was his mother's darling. She was a
woman "rigidly simple in her tastes and habits, of stern integrity";
of cultivated intelligence, fond of poetry, a lover of nature, and
*Ruskin and Lowell were his close contemporaries; they were born in
February of the same year.
## p. 3822 (#184) ###########################################
3822
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
quickly sympathetic with high character, whether in real life or in
the pages of romance. While his father taught him his Latin gram-
mar and his arithmetic, his mother read with him from Pope's Iliad
and Odyssey, from Scott's novels and other books fitted to quicken
the imagination. Her influence was strong in the shaping of 'his
taste and disposition.
He
In 1828 the family returned for a visit to England, and Arthur
was put to school at Chester, whence in the next year he was trans-
ferred to Rugby. Dr. Arnold had then very lately become the head-
master at Rugby, and was already giving to the school a tone and
quality unknown previously to the public schools of England.
strove to impress upon the boys the sense of personal responsibility.
and to rouse their conscience to the doing of duty, not so much as a
matter essential to the discipline of the school as to the formation of
manly and religious character. The influence of his high, vigorous, and
ardent nature was of immense force. But its virtue was impaired
by the artificiality of the ecclesiastical system of the Church of Eng-
land, and the irrationality of the dogmatic creed which, even to a
nature as liberal as Dr. Arnold's, seemed to contain the essentials of
religion, and to be indissoluble from the foundation of morality.
Clough became Arnold's devoted disciple, but he had intellectual
independence and sincerity enough to save him from yielding his
own individuality to any stream of external influence, however pow-
erful. What he called "the busy argufying spirit of the prize school-
boy" stood him in good stead. But the moral stress was great, and
it left him early with a sense of strain and of perplexity, as his mind
opened to the wider and deeper problems of life, for the solution of
which the traditional creed seemed insufficient. His career at school
was of the highest distinction; and when he was leaving Rugby for
Oxford in 1836, Dr. Arnold broke the rule of silence to which he
almost invariably adhered in the delivery of prizes, and congratulated
Clough on having gained every honor which Rugby could bestow,
and on having done the highest credit to the school at the Univer-
sity, for he had won the Balliol Scholarship, "then and now the
highest honor which a schoolboy could obtain. "
Clough went into residence at Oxford in October, 1837. It was a
time of stirring of heart and trouble of mind at the University. The
great theological controversy which was to produce such far-reaching
effects upon the lives of individuals, and upon the Church of Eng-
land as a whole, was then rising to its height. Newman was at the
acme of his popularity and influence. His followers were zealous and
active. Ward, his most earnest disciple, was one of Clough's nearest
friends. Clough, not yet nineteen years old, but morally and intel-
lectually developed beyond his years and accustomed already to inde-
pendent speculation in regard to creed and conduct, was inevitably
## p. 3823 (#185) ###########################################
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
3823
drawn into the deep waters of theological discussion. He heard,
too, those other voices which Matthew Arnold, in his admirable lecture
on Emerson, has spoken of as deeply affecting the more sensitive
youthful spirits of the Oxford of this time,- the voices of Goethe, of
Carlyle, and of Emerson. He studied hard, but his studies seemed,
for the moment at least, to be of secondary importance. Although
unusually reserved in demeanor and silent in general company, his
reputation grew, not merely as a scholar, but as a man distinguished
above his fellows for loftiness of spirit, for sweetness of disposition,
and for superiority of moral no less than of intellectual qualities.
With much interior storm and stress, his convictions were gradually
maturing. He resisted the prevailing tendencies of Oxford thought,
but did not easily find a secure basis for his own beliefs. In 1841 he
tried for and missed his first class in the examinations. It was more
a surprise and disappointment to others than to himself. He knew
that he had not shown himself in the examinations for what he
really was, and his failure did not affect his confidence in his own
powers, nor did others lose faith in him, as was shown by his elec-
tion in the next year to a fellowship at Oriel, and the year later to
his appointment as tutor.
His livelihood being thus assured, he led from 1843 to 1848 a
"quiet, hard-working, uneventful tutor's life, diversified with reading
parties" in the vacations. He was writing poems from time to time,
but his vocation as poet was not fully recognized by himself or by
those who knew him. He had been obliged, in assuming the duties
of tutor, to sign the Thirty-nine Articles, though, as he wrote to a
friend, reluctantly enough, and I am not quite sure whether or not
in a justifiable sense. However, I have for the present laid by that
perplexity, though it may perhaps recur at some time or other; and
in general, I do not feel perfectly satisfied about staying in my tutor
capacity at Oxford. "
The perplexity would not down, but as the years went on, the
troubled waters of his soul gradually cleared themselves. He suc-
ceeded in attaining independence of mind such as few men attain,
and in finding, if not a solution of the moral perplexities of life, at
least a position from which they might be frankly confronted with-
out blinking and without self-deception. It became impossible for
him to accept, however they might be interpreted, the doctrines of
any church. He would not play tricks with words nor palter with
the integrity of his soul. This perfect mental honesty of Clough, and
his entire sincerity of expression, were a stumbling-block to many
of his more conventional contemporaries, and have remained as a
rock of offense to many of the readers of his poetry, who find it dis-
turbing to be obliged to recognize in his work a test of their own
## p. 3824 (#186) ###########################################
3824
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
sincerity in dealing with themselves. With how few are conviction
and profession perfectly at one! The difficulty of the struggle in
Clough's case, the difficulty of freeing himself from the chains of
association, of tradition, of affection, of interest, which bound him to
conformity with and acceptance of the popular creed in one or the
other of its forms, has led superficial critics of his life and poetry to
find in them evidence that the struggle was too hard for him and
the result unsatisfactory. There could not be a greater error.
Clough's honest acceptance of the insolubility of the vain questions
which men are perpetually asking, and his recognition of the insuffi-
ciency of the answers which they are ready to accept or to pretend
to accept, left him as regards his most inward soul one of the seren-
est of men. The questions of practical life, of action, of duty,
indeed presented themselves to his sensitive and contemplative
nature with their full perplexity; but his spiritual life was based on
a foundation that could not be shaken. He had learned the lesson of
skepticism, and accepted without trouble the fact of the limitation
of human faculties and the insolubility of the mystery of life. He
was indeed tired with the hard work of years, and worried by the
uncertainty of his future; when at length, in order to deliver him-
self from a constrained if not a false position, and to obtain perfect
freedom of expression as well as of thought, he resigned in 1848 both
his fellowship and tutorship.
It was a momentous decision, for it left him without any definite
means of support, it alienated the authorities of the University, it
isolated him from many old friends. Immediately after resigning his
tutorship Clough went to Paris with Emerson, then on a visit to
Europe, as his companion. They were drawn thither by interest in
the strange Revolution which was then in progress, and by desire to
watch its aspects. The social conditions of England had long been
matter of concern to Clough. He had been deeply touched by the
misery of the Irish famine in 1847, and had printed a very striking
pamphlet in the autumn of that year, urging upon the students at
Oxford retrenchment of needless expenditure and restrictions of
waste and luxury. His sympathies were with the poor, and he was
convinced of the need of radical social reform. He therefore
observed the course of revolution on the Continent not merely with
curiosity, but with sympathetic hope.
In the autumn of this year, after his return home, and while at
Liverpool with his mother and sister, he wrote his first long poem,
'The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich; a Long-Vacation Pastoral. ' It had
no great immediate success, but it made him known to a somewhat
wider public than that of Oxford. It was in its form the fruit of the
reading parties in the Highlands in previous summers. It was in
## p. 3825 (#187) ###########################################
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
3825
hexameters, and he asked Emerson to "convey to Mr. Longfellow
the fact that it was a reading of his 'Evangeline' aloud to my
mother
and sister, which, coming after a re-perusal of the Iliad,
occasioned this outbreak of hexameters. " It is a delightful poem,
full of vitality and variety, original in design, simple in incident. It
has the freshness and wholesomeness of the open air, the charm of
nature
and of life, with constant interplay of serious thought and
light humor, of gravity and gayety of sentiment.
Its publication was followed speedily by a little volume entitled
'Ambarvalia,' made up of two parts; one, of poems by Clough, and
of those by an old chool and college riend, Mr. Burbidge.
Clough's part consisted, as he wrote to Emerson, of "old things, the
casualties of at least ten years. " But many of these "casualties » are
characteristic expressions of personal experience, to which Clough's
absolute sincerity gives deep human interest. They are the records
of "his search amid the maze of life for a clue whereby to move. "
They deal with the problems of his own life, and these problems
perplex other men as well. "I have seen higher, holier things than
these, he writes in 1841:-
»
one,
"I have seen higher, holier things than these,
And therefore must to these refuse my heart,
Yet I am panting for a little ease;
I'll take, and so depart. "
But he checks himself:-
«Ah, hold! the heart is prone to fall away,
Her high and cherished visions to forget;
And if thou takest, how wilt thou repay
So vast, so dread a debt ? »
The little volume appealed to but a small band of readers. The
poems it contained did not allure by fluency of fancy or richness of
diction; they were not of a kind to win sudden popularity: but they
gave evidence of a poet who, though not complete master of his art,
arrived at a complete understanding of himself, had yet a
rare power of reflection and expression and a still rarer sincerity of
imaginative vision. They were poems that gave large promise, and
that promise was already in part fulfilled by the 'Bothie. '
and not
Early
in 1849 the headship of University Hall in London was
offered to Clough and accepted by him. This was an institution pro-
fessedly
non-sectarian, established for the purpose of receiving
students in attendance upon the lectures at University College. He
was not to enter upon the duties of the place until October, and he
spent the greater part of the intervening period in a fruitful visit to
VII-240
## p. 3826 (#188) ###########################################
3826
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
Italy. He reached Rome in April. All Italy was in revolution. The
Pope had fled from Rome. The Republic had been declared, and
Mazzini was in control of the government. The French army was
approaching to besiege the city, and Clough resolved to await the
event. No more vivid and picturesque account of aspects of the
siege exists than is to be found in his poem of 'Amours de Voyage,'
written in great part at Rome, under the pressure and excitement of
the moment; then laid aside in the poet's desk, and not published
till long afterward. It consists of a series of letters supposed to be
written by various persons, in which a narrative of passing events is
interwoven with a love story. The hero of the story is a creation
of extraordinary subtlety and interest. He has much of the tempera-
ment of Hamlet: not wanting in personal courage, nor in resolution
when forced to action, but hesitating through sensitiveness of con-
science, through dread of mistaking momentary impulse for fixed con-
viction, through the clearness with which diverging paths of conduct
present themselves to his imagination, with the inevitable doubt as
to which be the right one to follow. The character, though by no
means an exact or complete image of the poet's own, is yet drawn in
part from himself, and affords glimpses of his inner nature, of the
delicacy of his sensitive poetic spirit, of his tendency to discriminat-
ing introspective reflection, of his honesty in dealing with facts and
with himself. To see things as they are, to keep his eyes clear, to
be true to
"The living central inmost I
Within the scales of mere exterior me»
was the principle of his life. The charm of 'Amours de Voyage,'
however, consists not merely in animated description, in delicate
sentiment, and in the poetic representation of sensitive, impression-
able, and high-minded youth, but in its delicate humor in the delin-
eation of character, and in its powerful, imaginative, picturesque
reproduction of the atmosphere and influence of Rome, and of the
spirit of the moment to which the poem relates. It is as unique and
as original in its kind as the 'Bothie. ' It is a poem that appeals
strongly to the lovers of the poetry of high culture, and is not likely
to lack such readers in future generations.
From Rome in July Clough went to Naples, and there wrote
another of his most striking poems, 'Easter Day. ' In the autumn
of 1850 he again went, during a short vacation, to Italy, but now
to Venice; and while there began his third long poem, 'Dipsychus,'
of which the scene is in that city.
peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the strongest im-
pulse to do something, anything, to save the vessel. But still
## p. 3806 (#168) ###########################################
3806
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
Mr. Bixby stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the
pilots stood shoulder to shoulder at his back.
"She'll not make it! " somebody whispered.
The water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's cries,
till it was down to-
"Eight-and-a-half!
E-i-g-h-t feet!
E-i-g-h-t
feet!
Seven-and-»
Mr. Bixby said warningly through his speaking-tube to the
engineer: -
"Stand by, now! "
"Ay-ay, sir! "
"Seven-and-a-half!
Seven feet! Six-and- >>>
We touched bottom! Instantly Mr. Bixby set a lot of bells
ringing, shouted through the tube, "Now let her have it - every
ounce you've got! " then to his partner, "Put her hard down!
snatch her! snatch her! " The boat rasped and ground her way
through the sand, hung upon the apex of disaster a single tre-
mendous instant, and then over she went! And such a shout as
went up at Mr. Bixby's back never loosened the roof of a pilot-
house before!
There was no more trouble after that. Mr. Bixby was a hero
that night; and it was some little time, too, before his exploit
ceased to be talked about by river men.
AN EXPEDITION AGAINST OGRES
From A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: copyright 1889, by
Charles L. Webster and Company
Μ
Y EXPEDITION was all the talk that day and that night, and
the boys were very good to me, and made much of me,
and seemed to have forgotten, their vexation and disap-
pointment, and come to be as anxious for me to hive those
ogres and set those ripe old virgins loose as if it were them-
selves that had the contract. Well, they were good children-
but just children, that is all. And they gave me no end of
points about how to scout for giants, and how to scoop them in;
and they told me all sorts of charms against enchantments, and
gave me salves and other rubbish to put on my wounds. But it
never occurred to one of them to reflect that if I was such a
wonderful necromancer as I was pretending to be, I ought not to
## p. 3807 (#169) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3807
need salves, or instructions, or charms against enchantments, and
least of all arms and armor, on a foray of any kind-even
against fire-spouting dragons and devils hot from perdition, let
alone such poor adversaries as these I was after, these common-
place ogres of the back settlements.
I was to have an early breakfast, and start at dawn, for that
was the usual way; but I had the demon's own time with
my armor, and this delayed me a little. It is troublesome
to get into, and there is so much detail. First you wrap a layer
or two of blanket around your body for a sort of cushion, and
to keep off the cold iron; then you put on your sleeves and
shirt of chain-mail - these are made of small steel links woven
together, and they form a fabric so flexible that if you toss
your shirt on to the floor it slumps into a pile like a peck of wet
fish-net; it is very heavy and is nearly the uncomfortablest
material in the world for a night-shirt, yet plenty used it for
that tax collectors and reformers, and one-horse kings with a
defective title, and those sorts of people; then you put on your
shoes flatboats roofed over with interleaving bands of steel-
and screw your clumsy spurs into the heels. Next you buckle
your greaves on your legs and your cuisses on your thighs; then
come your backplate and your breastplate, and you begin to
feel crowded; then you hitch on to the breastplate the half-
petticoat of broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs down
in front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit down, and
isn't any real improvement on an inverted coal-scuttle, either for
looks, or for wear, or to wipe your hands on; next you belt on
your sword; then you put your stove-pipe joints on to your arms,
your iron gauntlets on to your hands, your iron rat-trap on to
your head, with a rag of steel web hitched on to it to hang over
the back of your neck—and there you are, snug as a candle in
a candle-mold. This is no time to dance. Well, a man that is
packed away like that is a nut that isn't worth the cracking,
there is so little of the meat, when you get down to it, by com-
parison with the shell.
-
―
The boys helped me, or I never could have got in. Just as
we finished, Sir Bedivere happened in, and I saw that as like as
not I hadn't chosen the most convenient outfit for a long trip.
How stately he looked; and tall and broad and grand. He had
on his head a conical steel casque that only came down to his
ears, and for visor had only a narrow steel bar that extended
## p. 3808 (#170) ###########################################
3808
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
down to his upper lip and protected his nose; and all the rest of
him, from neck to heel, was flexible chain-mail, trousers and all.
But pretty much all of him was hidden under his outside gar-
ment, which of course was of chain-mail, as I said, and hung
straight from his shoulders to his ankles; and from his middle to
the bottom, both before and behind, was divided, so that he
could ride and let the skirts hang down on each side. He was
going grailing, and it was just the outfit for it, too. I would
have given a good deal for that ulster, but it was too late now
to be fooling around. The sun was just up; the king and the
court were all on hand to see me off and wish me luck; so it
wouldn't be etiquette for me to tarry. You don't get on your
horse yourself; no, if you tried it you would get disappointed.
They carry you out, just as they carry a sun-struck man to the
drug-store, and put you on, and help get you to rights, and fix
your feet in the stirrups; and all the while you do feel so
strange and stuffy and like somebody else-like somebody that
has been married on a sudden, or struck by lightning, or some-
thing like that, and hasn't quite fetched around yet, and is sort
of numb, and can't just get his bearings. Then they stood up
the mast they called a spear in its socket by my left foot, and I
gripped it with my hand; lastly they hung my shield around my
neck, and I was all complete and ready to up anchor and get to
sea. Everybody was as good to me as they could be, and a
maid of honor gave me the stirrup-cup her own self. There was
nothing more to do now but for that damsel to get up behind
me on a pillion, which she did, and put an arm or so around
me to hold on.
And so we started; and everybody gave us a good-by and
waved their handkerchiefs or helmets. And everybody we met,
going down the hill and through the village, was respectful to us
except some shabby little boys on the outskirts. They said:-
"Oh, what a guy! " and hove clods at us.
In my experience boys are the same in all ages. They
don't respect anything, they don't care for anything or anybody.
They say "Go up, bald-head! " to the prophet going his unoffend-
ing way in the gray of antiquity; they sass me in the holy
gloom of the Middle Ages; and I had seen them act the same
way in Buchanan's administration; I remember, because I was
there and helped. The prophet had his bears and settled with
his boys; and I wanted to get down and settle with mine, but it
## p. 3809 (#171) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3809
wouldn't answer, because I couldn't have got up again. I hate
a country without a derrick.
Straight off, we were in the country. It was most lovely
and pleasant in those sylvan solitudes in the early cool morning
in the first freshness of autumn. From hilltops we saw fair
green valleys lying spread out below, with streams winding
through them, and island groves of trees here and there, and
huge lonely oaks scattered about and casting black blots of
shade; and beyond the valleys we saw the ranges of hills, blue
with haze, stretching away in billowy perspective to the horizon,
with at wide intervals a dim fleck of white or gray on a wave-
summit, which we knew was a castle. We crossed broad natural
lawns sparkling with dew, and we moved like spirits, the cush-
ioned turf giving out no sound of footfall; we dreamed along
through glades in a mist of green light that got its tint from
the sun-drenched roof of leaves overhead, and by our feet the
clearest and coldest of runlets went frisking and gossiping over
its reefs and making a sort of whispering music comfortable to
hear; and at times we left the world behind and entered into
the solemn great deeps and rich gloom of the forest, where fur-
tive wild things whisked and scurried by and were gone before
you could even get your eye on the place where the noise was;
and where only the earliest birds were turning out and getting
to business, with a song here and a quarrel yonder and a mys-
terious far-off hammering and drumming for worms on a tree-
trunk away somewhere in the impenetrable remoteness of the
woods. And by-and-by out we would swing again into the
glare.
About the third or fourth or fifth time that we swung out
into the glare-it was along there somewhere, a couple of hours.
or so after sun-up-it wasn't as pleasant as it had been.
It was
beginning to get hot. This was quite noticeable. We had a
very long pull, after that, without any shade. Now it is curious
how progressively little frets grow and multiply after they once
get a start. Things which I didn't mind at all at first, I began
to mind now- and more and more, too, all the time. The first
ten or fifteen times I wanted my handkerchief I didn't seem to
care; I got along, and said never mind, it isn't any matter, and
dropped it out of my mind. But now it was different: I wanted
it all the time; it was nag, nag, nag, right along, and no rest;
I couldn't get it out of my mind; and so at last I lost my
VII-239
## p. 3810 (#172) ###########################################
3810
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
temper, and said hang a man that would make a suit of armor
without any pockets in it. You see I had my handkerchief in
my helmet, and some other things; but it was that kind of a
helmet that you can't take off by yourself. That hadn't occurred
to me when I put it there; and in fact I didn't know it. I
supposed it would be particularly convenient there.
And so
now the thought of its being there, so handy and close by, and
yet not get-at-able, made it all the worse and the harder to
bear. Yes, the thing that you can't get is the thing that you
want, mainly; every one has noticed that. Well, it took my mind
off from everything else; took it clear off and centred it in my
helmet; and mile after mile there it stayed, imagining the hand-
kerchief, picturing the handkerchief; and it was bitter and aggra-
vating to have the salt sweat keep trickling down into my eyes,
and I couldn't get at it. It seems like a little thing on paper,
but it was not a little thing at all; it was the most real kind of
misery. I would not say it if it was not so.
I made up my
mind that I would carry along a reticule next time, let it look
how it might and people say what they would. Of course these
iron dudes of the Round Table would think it was scandalous,
and maybe raise sheol about it, but as for me, give me comfort
first and style afterwards. So we jogged along, and now and
then we struck a stretch of dust, and it would tumble up in
clouds and get into my nose and make me sneeze and cry; and
of course I said things I oughtn't to have said,—I don't deny
that. I am not better than others. We couldn't seem to meet
anybody in this lonesome Britain, not even an ogre; and in the
mood I was in then, it was well for the ogre; that is, an ogre
with a handkerchief. Most knights would have thought of noth-
ing but getting his armor; but so I got his bandana, he could
keep his hardware for all me.
Meantime it was getting hotter and hotter in there. You
see the sun was beating down and warming up the iron more
and more all the time. Well, when you are hot, that way, every
little thing irritates you. When I trotted I rattled like a crate
of dishes, and that annoyed me; and moreover I couldn't seem
to stand that shield slatting and banging, now about my breast,
now around my back; and if I dropped into a walk my joints
creaked and screeched in that wearisome way that a wheelbar-
row does, and as we didn't create any breeze at that gait, I was
like to get fried in that stove; and besides, the quieter you went
## p. 3811 (#173) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3811
the heavier the iron settled down on you, and the more and more
tons you seemed to weigh every minute. And you had to be
always changing hands and passing your spear over to the
other foot, it got so irksome for one hand to hold it long at a
time.
Well, you know when you perspire that way, in rivers,
there comes a time when you-when you—well, when you itch.
You are inside, your hands are outside: so there you are; noth-
ing but iron between. It is not a light thing, let it sound as it
may. First it is one place; then another; then some more; and
it goes on spreading and spreading, and at last the territory is
all occupied, and nobody can imagine what you feel like, nor
how unpleasant it is. And when it had got to the worst, and it
seemed to me that I could not stand anything more, a fly got in
through the bars and settled on my nose, and the bars were
stuck and wouldn't work, and I couldn't get the visor up; and I
could only shake my head, which was baking hot by this time,
and the fly—well, you know how a fly acts when he has got a
certainty: he only minded the shaking enough to change from
nose to lip, and lip to ear, and buzz and buzz all around in
there, and keep on lighting and biting in a way that a person
already so distressed as I was simply could not stand. So I
gave in, and got Alisande to unship the helmet and relieve me
of it. Then she emptied the conveniences out of it and fetched
it full of water, and I drank and then stood up and she poured
the rest down inside the armor. One cannot think how refresh-
ing it was. She continued to fetch and pour until I was well
soaked and thoroughly comfortable.
It was good to have a rest-and peace. But nothing is
quite perfect in this life at any time. I had made a pipe a while
back, and also some pretty fair tobacco; not the real thing, but
what some of the Indians use: the inside bark of the willow,
dried. These comforts had been in the helmet, and now I had
them again, but no matches.
Gradually, as the time wore along, one annoying fact was
borne in upon my understanding- that we were weather-bound.
An armed novice cannot mount his horse without help and
plenty of it. Sandy was not enough; not enough for me, any-
way. We had to wait until somebody should come along.
Waiting in silence would have been agreeable enough, for I was
full of matter for reflection, and wanted to give it a chance to
## p. 3812 (#174) ###########################################
3812
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
work. I wanted to try and think out how it was that rational or
even half-rational men could ever have learned to wear armor,
considering its inconveniences; and how they had managed to
keep up such a fashion for generations when it was plain that
what I had suffered to-day they had had to suffer all the days
of their lives. I wanted to think that out; and moreover I
wanted to think out some way to reform this evil and persuade
the people to let the foolish fashion die out: but thinking was
out of the question in the circumstances. You couldn't think
where Sandy was. She was a quite biddable creature and good-
hearted, but she had a flow of talk that was as steady as a
mill and made your head sore like the drays and wagons in a
city. If she had had a cork she would have been a comfort.
But you can't cork that kind; they would die. Her clack was
going all day, and you would think something would surely
happen to her works by-and-by; but no, they never got out of
order; and she never had to slack up for words. She could
grind and pump and churn and buzz by the week, and never
stop to oil up or blow out. And yet the result was just nothing
but wind. She never had any ideas, any more than a fog has.
She was a perfect blatherskite; I mean for jaw, jaw, jaw, talk,
talk, talk, jabber, jabber, jabber; - but just as good as she could
be. I hadn't minded her mill that morning, on account of hav-
ing that hornet's nest of other troubles; but more than once in
the afternoon I had to say:-
-
"Take a rest, child; the way you are using up all the
domestic air, the kingdom will have to go to importing it by
to-morrow, and it's a low enough treasury without that.
>>>
By permission of S. L. Clemens and his publishers.
## p. 3813 (#175) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3813
THE TRUE PRINCE AND THE FEIGNED ONE
From The Prince and the Pauper': copyright 1889, by Charles L. Webster
and Company
-
Α
T LAST the final act was at hand. The Archbishop of Canter-
bury lifted up the crown of England from its cushion and
held it out over the trembling mock king's head. In the
same instant a rainbow radiance flashed along the spacious tran-
sept; for with one impulse every individual in the great con-
course of nobles lifted a coronet and poised it over his or her
head and paused in that attitude.
A deep hush pervaded the Abbey. At this impressive
moment a startling apparition intruded upon the scene—an ap-
parition observed by none in the absorbed multitude, until it
suddenly appeared, moving up the great central isle. It was a
boy, bare-headed, ill shod, and clothed in coarse plebeian gar-
ments that were falling to rags. He raised his hand with a
solemnity which ill comported with his soiled and sorry aspect,
and delivered this note of warning:
"I forbid you to set the crown of England upon that for-
feited head. I am the king! "
In an instant several indignant hands were laid upon the boy,
but in the same instant Tom Canty, in his regal vestments, made
a swift step forward and cried out in a ringing voice:-
"Loose him and forbear! He is the king! "
A sort of panic of astonishment swept the assemblage, and
they partly rose in their places and stared in a bewildered way
at one another and at the chief figures in this scene, like persons
who wondered whether they were awake and in their senses or
asleep and dreaming. The Lord Protector was as amazed as the
rest, but quickly recovered himself and exclaimed in a voice of
authority: -
"Mind not his Majesty, his malady is upon him again-seize
the vagabond! "
He would have been obeyed, but the mock king stamped his
foot and cried out:-
"On your peril! Touch him not, he is the king! "
The hands were withheld; a paralysis fell upon the house; no
one moved, no one spoke; indeed no one knew how to act or
what to say, in so strange and surprising an emergency. While
all minds were struggling to right themselves, the boy still
―
## p. 3814 (#176) ###########################################
3814
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
moved steadily forward, with high port and confident mien; he
had never halted from the beginning; and while the tangled
minds still floundered helplessly, he stepped upon the platform,
and the mock king ran with a glad face to meet him, and fell on
his knees before him and said:
"O my lord the king, let poor Tom Canty be first to swear
fealty to thee, and say, 'Put on thy crown and enter into thine
own again! ''
The Lord Protector's eye fell sternly upon the new-comer's
face; but straightway the sternness vanished away, and gave
place to an expression of wondering surprise. This thing hap-
pened also to the other great officers. They glanced at each
other, and retreated a step by a common and unconscious im-
pulse. The thought in each mind was the same: "What a
strange resemblance! "
The Lord Protector reflected a moment or two in perplexity;
then he said, with grave respectfulness:-
"By your favor, sir, I desire to ask certain questions.
which
"I will answer them, my lord. "
The duke asked him many questions about the court, the late
king, the prince, the princesses, - the boy answered them cor-
rectly and without hesitating. He described the rooms of state
in the palace, the late king's apartments, and those of the
Prince of Wales.
>>
It was strange; it was wonderful; yes, it was unaccountable —
so all said that heard it. The tide was beginning to turn, and
Tom Canty's hopes to run high, when the Lord Protector shook
his head and said:
-
"It is true it is most wonderful-but it is no more than our
lord the king likewise can do. " This remark, and this reference
to himself as still the king, saddened Tom Canty, and he felt his
hopes crumbling under him.
“These are not proofs," added the
Protector.
The tide was turning very fast now, very fast indeed but
in the wrong direction; it was leaving poor Tom Canty stranded
on the throne, and sweeping the other out to sea. The Lord
Protector communed with himself - shook his head; the thought
forced itself upon him, "It is perilous to the State and to us all,
to entertain so fateful a riddle as this; it could divide the nation
and undermine the throne. " He turned and said:
-:
-
## p. 3815 (#177) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3815
"Sir Thomas, arrest this- No, hold! ” His face lighted,
and he confronted the ragged candidate with this question:—
"Where lieth the Great Seal? Answer me this truly, and
the riddle is unriddled; for only he that was Prince of Wales
can so answer! On so trivial a thing hang a throne and a
dynasty! "
It was a lucky thought, a happy thought. That it was so
considered by the great officials was manifested by the silent
applause that shot from eye to eye around their circle in the
form of bright approving glances. Yes, none but the true prince
could dissolve the stubborn mystery of the vanished Great Seal
- this forlorn little impostor had been taught his lesson well,
but here his teachings must fail, for his teacher himself could.
not answer that question-ah, very good, very good indeed;
now we shall be rid of this troublesome and perilous business in
short order! And so they nodded invisibly and smiled inwardly
with satisfaction, and looked to see this foolish lad stricken with.
a palsy of guilty confusion. How surprised they were, then, to
see nothing of the sort happen - how they marveled to hear
him answer up promptly in a confident and untroubled voice
and say:
"There is naught in this riddle that is difficult. " Then,
without so much as a by-your-leave to anybody, he turned and
gave this command with the easy manner of one accustomed to
doing such things: "My lord St. John, go you to my private
cabinet in the palace,- for none knoweth the place better than
you,- and close down to the floor, in the left corner, remotest
from the door that opens from the ante-chamber, you shall find
in the wall a brazen nail-head; press upon it and a little jewel-
closet will fly open, which not even you do know of- no, nor
any soul else in all the world but me and the trusty artisan
that did contrive it for me. The first thing that falleth under
your eye will be the Great Seal-fetch it hither. "
All the company wondered at this speech, and wondered still
more to see the little mendicant pick out this peer without hesi-
tancy or apparent fear of mistake, and call him by name with
such a placidly convincing air of having known him all his life.
The peer was almost surprised into obeying. He even made a
movement as if to go, but quickly recovered his tranquil attitude
and confessed his blunder with a blush. Tom Canty turned upon
him and said sharply:-
-
## p. 3816 (#178) ###########################################
3816
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
"Why dost thou hesitate? Hast not heard the king's com
mand? Go! "
The lord St. John made a deep obeisance- and it was ob-
served that it was a significantly cautious and non-committal one,
it not being delivered at either of the kings, but at the neutral
ground about half-way between the two- and took his leave.
Now began a movement of the gorgeous particles of that offi-
cial group which was slow, scarcely perceptible, and yet steady
and persistent,- a movement such as is observed in a kaleido-
scope that is turned slowly, whereby the components of one
splendid cluster fall away and join themselves to another-a
movement which little by little, in the present case, dissolved the
glittering crowd that stood about Tom Canty and clustered it to-
gether again in the neighborhood of the new-comer. Tom Canty
stood almost alone. Now ensued a brief season of deep suspense
and waiting-during which even the few faint-hearts still re-
maining near Tom Canty gradually scraped together courage
enough to glide, one by one, over to the majority. So at last
Tom Canty, in his royal robes and jewels, stood wholly alone
and isolated from the world, a conspicuous figure, occupying an
elegant vacancy.
Now the lord St. John was seen returning.
seen returning. As he advanced
up the mid-aisle, the interest was so intense that the low murmur
of conversation in the great assemblage died out and was suc-
ceeded by a profound hush, a breathless stillness, through which
his footfalls pulsed with a dull and distant sound. Every eye
was fastened upon him as he moved along. He reached the
platform, paused a moment, then moved toward Tom Canty with
a deep obeisance, and said:-
"Sire, the Seal is not there! "
A mob does not melt away from the presence of a plague-
patient with more haste than the band of pallid and terrified
courtiers melted away from the presence of the shabby little
claimant of the crown.
In a moment he stood all alone, without
friend or supporter, a target upon which was concentrated a
bitter fire of scornful and angry looks. The Lord Protector
called out fiercely:-
"Cast the beggar into the street, and scourge him through
the town - the paltry knave is worth no more consideration! "
Officers of the guard sprang forward to obey, but Tom Canty
waved them off and said:
## p. 3817 (#179) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3817
"Back! Whoso touches him perils his life! "
The Lord Protector was perplexed in the last degree. He
said to the lord St. John:-
――――
-
«< Searched you well? - but it boots not to ask that. It doth
seem passing strange. Little things, trifles, slip out of one's
ken, and one does not think it matter for surprise; but how so
bulky a thing as the Seal of England can vanish away and no
man be able to get track of it again a massy golden disk — »
Tom Canty, with beaming eyes, sprang forward and shouted:
«< Hold, that is enough! Was it round? - and thick ? — and
had it letters and devices graved upon it? Yes? Oh, now I
know what this Great Seal is, that there's been such worry and
pother about! An ye had described it to me, ye could have had
it three weeks ago. Right well I know where it lies; but it was
not I that put it there- first. ”
"Who then, my liege? " asked the Lord Protector.
"He that stands there the rightful king of England. And
he shall tell you himself where it lies- then you will believe he
knew it of his own knowledge. Bethink thee, my king-spur
thy memory-it was the last, the very last thing thou didst that
day before thou didst rush forth from the palace, clothed in my
rags, to punish the soldier that insulted me. "
A silence ensued, undisturbed by a movement or a whisper,
and all eyes were fixed upon the new-comer, who stood with
bent head and corrugated brow, groping in his memory among a
thronging multitude of valueless recollections for one single little
elusive fact, which, found, would seat him upon a throne — un-
found, would leave him as he was for good and all-a pauper
and an outcast. Moment after moment passed-the moments
built themselves into minutes-still the boy struggled silently
on, and gave no sign. But at last he heaved a sigh, shook his
head slowly, and said, with a trembling lip and in a despondent
voice:
—
―――――
"I call the scene back-all of it- but the Seal hath no place
in it. He paused, then looked up, and said with gentle dig-
nity, "My lords and gentlemen, if ye will rob your rightful sov-
ereign of his own for lack of this evidence which he is not able
to furnish, I may not stay ye, being powerless. But-»
"Oh folly, oh madness, my king! ” cried Tom Canty in a
panic; "wait! - think! Do not give up! - the cause is not lost!
nor shall be, neither! List to what I say-follow every word
## p. 3818 (#180) ###########################################
3818
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
I am going to bring that morning back again, every hap just as
it happened. We talked-I told you of my sisters, Nan and
Bet - ah yes, you remember that; and about my old grandam
and the rough games of the lads of Offal Court - yes, you re-
member these things also; very well, follow me still, you shall
recall everything. You gave me food and drink, and did with
princely courtesy send away the servants, so that my low breed-
ing might not shame me before them-ah yes, this also you
remember. "
-
As Tom checked off his details, and the other boy nodded his
head in recognition of them, the great audience and the officials
stared in puzzled wonderment; the tale sounded like true history,
yet how could this impossible conjunction between a prince and
a beggar boy have come about? Never was a company of peo-
ple so perplexed, so interested, and so stupefied before.
"For a jest, my prince, we did exchange garments. Then
we stood before a mirror; and so alike were we that both said it
seemed as if there had been no change made - yes, you remem-
ber that. Then you noticed that the soldier had hurt my hand
look! here it is, I cannot yet even write with it, the fingers
are so stiff. At this your Highness sprang up, vowing ven-
geance upon that soldier, and ran toward the door-you passed
a table-
that thing you call the Seal lay on that table-you
snatched it up and looked eagerly about, as if for a place to
hide it—your eye caught sight of —”
"There, 'tis sufficient! — and the dear God be thanked! " ex-
claimed the ragged claimant, in a mighty excitement. "Go, my
good St. John, — in an arm-piece of the Milanese armor that
hangs on the wall, thou'lt find the Seal! "
-
"Right, my king! right! " cried Tom Canty; "now the sceptre
of England is thine own; and it were better for him that would
dispute it that he had been born dumb! Go, my lord St. John,
give thy feet wings! "
The whole assemblage was on its feet now, and well-nigh
out of its mind with uneasiness, apprehension, and consuming
excitement. On the floor and on the platform a deafening buzz
of frantic conversation burst forth, and for some time nobody
knew anything or heard anything or was interested in any-
thing but what his neighbor was shouting into his ear, or he was
shouting into his neighbor's ear. Time- nobody knew how
much of it swept by unheeded and unnoted. - At last a sudden
-
―――――
-
## p. 3819 (#181) ###########################################
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
3819
hush fell upon the house, and in the same moment St. John ap-
peared upon the platform and held the Great Seal aloft in his
hand. Then such a shout went up!
"Long live the true king! "
For five minutes the air quaked with shouts and the crash of
musical instruments, and was white with a storm of waving
handkerchiefs; and through it all a ragged lad, the most con-
spicuous figure in England, stood, flushed and happy and proud,
in the centre of the spacious platform, with the great vassals of
the kingdom kneeling around him.
Then all rose, and Tom Canty cried out:-
"Now, O my king, take these regal garments back, and give
poor Tom thy servant his shreds and remnants again. ”
The Lord Protector spoke up:·
"Let the small varlet be stripped and flung into the Tower. "
But the new king, the true king, said:
"I will not have it so. But for him I had not got my crown
again-none shall lay a hand upon him to harm him. And as
for thee, my good uncle, my Lord Protector, this conduct of
thine is not grateful toward this poor lad, for I hear he hath
made thee a duke". - the Protector blushed- "yet he was not a
king; wherefore, what is thy fine title worth now? To-morrow
you shall sue to me, through him, for its confirmation, else no
duke, but a simple earl, shalt thou remain. ”
Under this rebuke his Grace the Duke of Somerset retired a
little from the front for the moment. The king turned to Tom,
and said kindly:-
"My poor boy, how was it that you could remember where I
hid the Seal, when I could not remember it myself? "
"Ah, my king, that was easy, since I used it divers days. "
“Used it,— yet could not explain where it was? "
-
c
-
―――
"I did not know it was that they wanted. They did not
describe it, your Majesty. "
"Then how used you it? "
The red blood began to steal up into Tom's cheeks, and he
dropped his eyes and was silent.
"Speak up, good lad, and fear nothing," said the king.
"How used you the Great Seal of England? "
Tom stammered a moment in a pathetic confusion, then got
it out:
«To crack nuts with! "
## p. 3820 (#182) ###########################################
3820
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS
Poor child, the avalanche of laughter that greeted this nearly
swept him off his feet. But if a doubt remained in any mind
that Tom Canty was not the king of England and familiar with
the august appurtenances of royalty, this reply disposed of it
utterly.
Meantime the sumptuous robe of state had been removed
from Tom's shoulders to the king's, whose rags were effectually
hidden from sight under it. Then the coronation ceremonies
were resumed; the true king was anointed and the crown set
upon his head, whilst cannon thundered the news to the city,
and all London seemed to rock with applause.
By permission of S. L. Clemens and his publishers.
## p. 3821 (#183) ###########################################
3821
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
(1819-1861)
BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
HE intellectual mood of many of the finest spirits in England
and New England during the second quarter of the nine-
teenth century had something of the nature of a surprise to
themselves, no less than to those who came within their influence.
It was indeed a natural though unforeseen result of forces, various 'in
kind, that had long been silently at work. The conflicting currents
of thought and moral sentiment, which in all ages perplex and divide
the hearts of men, took a new direction and seemed to have gath-
ered volume and swiftness. Hardly since the Reformation had there
been so deep and general a stirring of the questions, the answers to
which, whether they be final or merely provisional, involve conclu-
sions relating to the deepest interests of men. Old convictions were
confronted by new doubts; ancient authority was met by a modern
spirit of independence. This new intellectual mood was perhaps first
distinctly manifest in England in Carlyle's essays, and correspond-
ingly in New England in the essays and poems of Emerson; it was
expressed in 'In Memoriam' and 'Maud'; it gave the undertone
of Arnold's most characteristic verse, and it found clear and strik-
ing utterance in the poems of Clough. Clough's nature was of rare
superiority alike of character and intellect. His moral integrity and
sincerity imparted clearness to his imagination and strength to his
intelligence, so that while the most marked distinction of his poems
is that which they possess as a mirror of spiritual conditions shared
by many of his contemporaries, they have hardly less interest as the
expression and image of his own individuality.
Arthur Hugh Clough was born at Liverpool on New Year's Day,
1819. * His father, who came of an old Welsh family (his mother,
Anne Perfect, was from Yorkshire), had established himself in Liver-
pool as a cotton merchant. Toward the end of 1822 he emigrated
with his wife and four children to Charleston, South Carolina, and
here for four years was their home. For Arthur they were important
years. He was a shy, sensitive boy, "already considered as the
genius of the family. " He was his mother's darling. She was a
woman "rigidly simple in her tastes and habits, of stern integrity";
of cultivated intelligence, fond of poetry, a lover of nature, and
*Ruskin and Lowell were his close contemporaries; they were born in
February of the same year.
## p. 3822 (#184) ###########################################
3822
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
quickly sympathetic with high character, whether in real life or in
the pages of romance. While his father taught him his Latin gram-
mar and his arithmetic, his mother read with him from Pope's Iliad
and Odyssey, from Scott's novels and other books fitted to quicken
the imagination. Her influence was strong in the shaping of 'his
taste and disposition.
He
In 1828 the family returned for a visit to England, and Arthur
was put to school at Chester, whence in the next year he was trans-
ferred to Rugby. Dr. Arnold had then very lately become the head-
master at Rugby, and was already giving to the school a tone and
quality unknown previously to the public schools of England.
strove to impress upon the boys the sense of personal responsibility.
and to rouse their conscience to the doing of duty, not so much as a
matter essential to the discipline of the school as to the formation of
manly and religious character. The influence of his high, vigorous, and
ardent nature was of immense force. But its virtue was impaired
by the artificiality of the ecclesiastical system of the Church of Eng-
land, and the irrationality of the dogmatic creed which, even to a
nature as liberal as Dr. Arnold's, seemed to contain the essentials of
religion, and to be indissoluble from the foundation of morality.
Clough became Arnold's devoted disciple, but he had intellectual
independence and sincerity enough to save him from yielding his
own individuality to any stream of external influence, however pow-
erful. What he called "the busy argufying spirit of the prize school-
boy" stood him in good stead. But the moral stress was great, and
it left him early with a sense of strain and of perplexity, as his mind
opened to the wider and deeper problems of life, for the solution of
which the traditional creed seemed insufficient. His career at school
was of the highest distinction; and when he was leaving Rugby for
Oxford in 1836, Dr. Arnold broke the rule of silence to which he
almost invariably adhered in the delivery of prizes, and congratulated
Clough on having gained every honor which Rugby could bestow,
and on having done the highest credit to the school at the Univer-
sity, for he had won the Balliol Scholarship, "then and now the
highest honor which a schoolboy could obtain. "
Clough went into residence at Oxford in October, 1837. It was a
time of stirring of heart and trouble of mind at the University. The
great theological controversy which was to produce such far-reaching
effects upon the lives of individuals, and upon the Church of Eng-
land as a whole, was then rising to its height. Newman was at the
acme of his popularity and influence. His followers were zealous and
active. Ward, his most earnest disciple, was one of Clough's nearest
friends. Clough, not yet nineteen years old, but morally and intel-
lectually developed beyond his years and accustomed already to inde-
pendent speculation in regard to creed and conduct, was inevitably
## p. 3823 (#185) ###########################################
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
3823
drawn into the deep waters of theological discussion. He heard,
too, those other voices which Matthew Arnold, in his admirable lecture
on Emerson, has spoken of as deeply affecting the more sensitive
youthful spirits of the Oxford of this time,- the voices of Goethe, of
Carlyle, and of Emerson. He studied hard, but his studies seemed,
for the moment at least, to be of secondary importance. Although
unusually reserved in demeanor and silent in general company, his
reputation grew, not merely as a scholar, but as a man distinguished
above his fellows for loftiness of spirit, for sweetness of disposition,
and for superiority of moral no less than of intellectual qualities.
With much interior storm and stress, his convictions were gradually
maturing. He resisted the prevailing tendencies of Oxford thought,
but did not easily find a secure basis for his own beliefs. In 1841 he
tried for and missed his first class in the examinations. It was more
a surprise and disappointment to others than to himself. He knew
that he had not shown himself in the examinations for what he
really was, and his failure did not affect his confidence in his own
powers, nor did others lose faith in him, as was shown by his elec-
tion in the next year to a fellowship at Oriel, and the year later to
his appointment as tutor.
His livelihood being thus assured, he led from 1843 to 1848 a
"quiet, hard-working, uneventful tutor's life, diversified with reading
parties" in the vacations. He was writing poems from time to time,
but his vocation as poet was not fully recognized by himself or by
those who knew him. He had been obliged, in assuming the duties
of tutor, to sign the Thirty-nine Articles, though, as he wrote to a
friend, reluctantly enough, and I am not quite sure whether or not
in a justifiable sense. However, I have for the present laid by that
perplexity, though it may perhaps recur at some time or other; and
in general, I do not feel perfectly satisfied about staying in my tutor
capacity at Oxford. "
The perplexity would not down, but as the years went on, the
troubled waters of his soul gradually cleared themselves. He suc-
ceeded in attaining independence of mind such as few men attain,
and in finding, if not a solution of the moral perplexities of life, at
least a position from which they might be frankly confronted with-
out blinking and without self-deception. It became impossible for
him to accept, however they might be interpreted, the doctrines of
any church. He would not play tricks with words nor palter with
the integrity of his soul. This perfect mental honesty of Clough, and
his entire sincerity of expression, were a stumbling-block to many
of his more conventional contemporaries, and have remained as a
rock of offense to many of the readers of his poetry, who find it dis-
turbing to be obliged to recognize in his work a test of their own
## p. 3824 (#186) ###########################################
3824
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
sincerity in dealing with themselves. With how few are conviction
and profession perfectly at one! The difficulty of the struggle in
Clough's case, the difficulty of freeing himself from the chains of
association, of tradition, of affection, of interest, which bound him to
conformity with and acceptance of the popular creed in one or the
other of its forms, has led superficial critics of his life and poetry to
find in them evidence that the struggle was too hard for him and
the result unsatisfactory. There could not be a greater error.
Clough's honest acceptance of the insolubility of the vain questions
which men are perpetually asking, and his recognition of the insuffi-
ciency of the answers which they are ready to accept or to pretend
to accept, left him as regards his most inward soul one of the seren-
est of men. The questions of practical life, of action, of duty,
indeed presented themselves to his sensitive and contemplative
nature with their full perplexity; but his spiritual life was based on
a foundation that could not be shaken. He had learned the lesson of
skepticism, and accepted without trouble the fact of the limitation
of human faculties and the insolubility of the mystery of life. He
was indeed tired with the hard work of years, and worried by the
uncertainty of his future; when at length, in order to deliver him-
self from a constrained if not a false position, and to obtain perfect
freedom of expression as well as of thought, he resigned in 1848 both
his fellowship and tutorship.
It was a momentous decision, for it left him without any definite
means of support, it alienated the authorities of the University, it
isolated him from many old friends. Immediately after resigning his
tutorship Clough went to Paris with Emerson, then on a visit to
Europe, as his companion. They were drawn thither by interest in
the strange Revolution which was then in progress, and by desire to
watch its aspects. The social conditions of England had long been
matter of concern to Clough. He had been deeply touched by the
misery of the Irish famine in 1847, and had printed a very striking
pamphlet in the autumn of that year, urging upon the students at
Oxford retrenchment of needless expenditure and restrictions of
waste and luxury. His sympathies were with the poor, and he was
convinced of the need of radical social reform. He therefore
observed the course of revolution on the Continent not merely with
curiosity, but with sympathetic hope.
In the autumn of this year, after his return home, and while at
Liverpool with his mother and sister, he wrote his first long poem,
'The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich; a Long-Vacation Pastoral. ' It had
no great immediate success, but it made him known to a somewhat
wider public than that of Oxford. It was in its form the fruit of the
reading parties in the Highlands in previous summers. It was in
## p. 3825 (#187) ###########################################
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
3825
hexameters, and he asked Emerson to "convey to Mr. Longfellow
the fact that it was a reading of his 'Evangeline' aloud to my
mother
and sister, which, coming after a re-perusal of the Iliad,
occasioned this outbreak of hexameters. " It is a delightful poem,
full of vitality and variety, original in design, simple in incident. It
has the freshness and wholesomeness of the open air, the charm of
nature
and of life, with constant interplay of serious thought and
light humor, of gravity and gayety of sentiment.
Its publication was followed speedily by a little volume entitled
'Ambarvalia,' made up of two parts; one, of poems by Clough, and
of those by an old chool and college riend, Mr. Burbidge.
Clough's part consisted, as he wrote to Emerson, of "old things, the
casualties of at least ten years. " But many of these "casualties » are
characteristic expressions of personal experience, to which Clough's
absolute sincerity gives deep human interest. They are the records
of "his search amid the maze of life for a clue whereby to move. "
They deal with the problems of his own life, and these problems
perplex other men as well. "I have seen higher, holier things than
these, he writes in 1841:-
»
one,
"I have seen higher, holier things than these,
And therefore must to these refuse my heart,
Yet I am panting for a little ease;
I'll take, and so depart. "
But he checks himself:-
«Ah, hold! the heart is prone to fall away,
Her high and cherished visions to forget;
And if thou takest, how wilt thou repay
So vast, so dread a debt ? »
The little volume appealed to but a small band of readers. The
poems it contained did not allure by fluency of fancy or richness of
diction; they were not of a kind to win sudden popularity: but they
gave evidence of a poet who, though not complete master of his art,
arrived at a complete understanding of himself, had yet a
rare power of reflection and expression and a still rarer sincerity of
imaginative vision. They were poems that gave large promise, and
that promise was already in part fulfilled by the 'Bothie. '
and not
Early
in 1849 the headship of University Hall in London was
offered to Clough and accepted by him. This was an institution pro-
fessedly
non-sectarian, established for the purpose of receiving
students in attendance upon the lectures at University College. He
was not to enter upon the duties of the place until October, and he
spent the greater part of the intervening period in a fruitful visit to
VII-240
## p. 3826 (#188) ###########################################
3826
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
Italy. He reached Rome in April. All Italy was in revolution. The
Pope had fled from Rome. The Republic had been declared, and
Mazzini was in control of the government. The French army was
approaching to besiege the city, and Clough resolved to await the
event. No more vivid and picturesque account of aspects of the
siege exists than is to be found in his poem of 'Amours de Voyage,'
written in great part at Rome, under the pressure and excitement of
the moment; then laid aside in the poet's desk, and not published
till long afterward. It consists of a series of letters supposed to be
written by various persons, in which a narrative of passing events is
interwoven with a love story. The hero of the story is a creation
of extraordinary subtlety and interest. He has much of the tempera-
ment of Hamlet: not wanting in personal courage, nor in resolution
when forced to action, but hesitating through sensitiveness of con-
science, through dread of mistaking momentary impulse for fixed con-
viction, through the clearness with which diverging paths of conduct
present themselves to his imagination, with the inevitable doubt as
to which be the right one to follow. The character, though by no
means an exact or complete image of the poet's own, is yet drawn in
part from himself, and affords glimpses of his inner nature, of the
delicacy of his sensitive poetic spirit, of his tendency to discriminat-
ing introspective reflection, of his honesty in dealing with facts and
with himself. To see things as they are, to keep his eyes clear, to
be true to
"The living central inmost I
Within the scales of mere exterior me»
was the principle of his life. The charm of 'Amours de Voyage,'
however, consists not merely in animated description, in delicate
sentiment, and in the poetic representation of sensitive, impression-
able, and high-minded youth, but in its delicate humor in the delin-
eation of character, and in its powerful, imaginative, picturesque
reproduction of the atmosphere and influence of Rome, and of the
spirit of the moment to which the poem relates. It is as unique and
as original in its kind as the 'Bothie. ' It is a poem that appeals
strongly to the lovers of the poetry of high culture, and is not likely
to lack such readers in future generations.
From Rome in July Clough went to Naples, and there wrote
another of his most striking poems, 'Easter Day. ' In the autumn
of 1850 he again went, during a short vacation, to Italy, but now
to Venice; and while there began his third long poem, 'Dipsychus,'
of which the scene is in that city.
