The tall young
minister, stepping aside and standing tiptoe, could see sloping
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Warner - World's Best Literature - v10 - Emp to Fro
As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong,
I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the
other.
I made a little book in which I allotted a page for each of
the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink so as to have seven
columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column
with a letter for the day. I crossed these columns with thirteen
red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter
## p. 5960 (#548) ###########################################
5960
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
of one of the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I
might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon ex-
amination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon
that day.
And conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought
it right and necessary to solicit his assistance for obtaining it;
to this end I formed the following little prayer, which was pre-
fixed to my tables of examination, for daily use:
―
"O powerful Goodness! bountiful Father! merciful Guide! Increase
in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen
my resolutions to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my
kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for
thy continual favors to me. "
I used also sometimes a little prayer which I took from Thom-
son's Poems, viz. :
―
"Father of light and life, thou Good supreme!
O teach me what is good; teach me thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit; and fill my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure;
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss! "
I entered upon the execution of this plan for self-examination,
and continued it with occasional intermissions for some time. I
was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had
imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish.
My scheme of Order gave me the most trouble; and I found
that though it might be practicable where a man's business was
such as to leave him the disposition of his time,- that of a jour-
neyman printer, for instance, it was not possible to be exactly
observed by a master, who must mix with the world, and often
receive people of business at their own hours. Order, too, with
regard to places for things, papers, etc. , I found extremely diffi-
cult to acquire. I had not been early accustomed to it; and hav-
ing an exceeding good memory, I was not so sensible of the
inconvenience attending want of method. This article, therefore,
cost me so much painful attention, and my faults in it vexed me
so much, and I made so little progress in amendment, and had
such frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the
attempt, and content myself with a faulty character in that
## p. 5961 (#549) ###########################################
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
5961
respect; like the man who in buying an axe of a smith, my
neighbor, desired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the
edge. The smith consented to grind it bright for him if he
would turn the wheel; he turned, while the smith pressed the
broad face of the axe hard and heavily on the stone, which made
the turning of it very fatiguing. The man came every now and
then from the wheel to see how the work went on, and at length
would take his axe as it was without farther grinding. "No,"
said the smith, "turn on, turn on; we shall have it bright by-
and-by; as yet, it is only speckled. " "Yes," says the man, "but
I think I like a speckled axe best. " And I believe this may have
been the case with many who, having for want of some such
means as I employed, found the difficulty of obtaining good and
breaking bad habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given
up the struggle and concluded that "a speckled axe was best":
for something that pretended to be reason was every now and
then suggesting to me that such extreme nicety as I exacted of
myself might be a kind of foppery in morals, which if it were
known would make me ridiculous; that a perfect character might
be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated;
and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself,
to keep his friends in countenance.
In truth, I found myself incorrigible with respect to order;
and now I am grown old, and my memory bad, I feel very
sensibly the want of it. But on the whole, though I never
arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining,
but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavor, a better and
a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not
attempted it; as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating
the engraved copies, though they never reach the wished-for
excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavor,
and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible.
It may be well my posterity should be informed that to this
little artifice, with the blessing of God, their ancestor owed the
constant felicity of his life down to his 79th year, in which this
is written. What reverses may attend the remainder is in the
hand of Providence; but if they arrive, the reflection on past
happiness enjoyed ought to help his bearing them with more
resignation. To Temperance he ascribes his long-continued
health, and what is still left to him of a good constitution; to
Industry and Frugality, the early easiness of his circumstances
## p. 5962 (#550) ###########################################
5962
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
and acquisition of his fortune, with all that knowledge that
enabled him to be a useful citizen, and obtained for him some
degree of reputation among the learned; to Sincerity and Justice,
the confidence of his country, and the honorable employs it con-
ferred upon him; and to the joint influence of the whole mass of
the virtues, even in the imperfect state he was able to acquire
them, all that evenness of temper, and that cheerfulness in con-
versation, which makes his company still sought for, and agree-
able even to his younger acquaintance. I hope therefore that
some of my descendants may follow the example and reap the
benefit.
It will be remarked that though my scheme was not wholly
without religion, there was in it no mark of any of the distin-
guishing tenets of any particular sect. I had purposely avoided
them; for being fully persuaded of the utility and excellency of
my method, and that it might be serviceable to people in all
religions, and intending some time or other to publish it, I
would not have anything in it that should prejudice any one of
any sect against it.
In this piece it was my design to explain and enforce this
doctrine: that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are
forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature of
man alone considered; that it was therefore every one's interest
to be virtuous, who wished to be happy even in this world; and
I should from this circumstance (there being always in the world
a number of rich merchants, nobility, States, and princes who
have need of honest instruments for the management of their
affairs, and such being so rare) have endeavored to convince
young persons that no qualities were so likely to make a poor
man's fortune as those of probity and integrity.
My list of virtues contained at first but twelve: but a Quaker
friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought
proud; that my pride showed itself frequently in conversation;
that I was not content with being in the right when discussing
any point, but was overbearing and rather insolent, of which he
convinced me by mentioning several instances; I determined
endeavoring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among
the rest, and I added Humility to my list, giving an extensive
meaning to the word.
I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this
virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of
## p. 5963 (#551) ###########################################
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
5963
it. I made it a rule. to forbear all direct contradiction to the
sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I
even forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the
use of every word or expression in the language that imported a
fixed opinion, such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc. , and I adopted,
instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to
be so or so; or it so appears to me at present. When another
asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the
pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immedi-
ately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began
by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion
would be right, but in the present case there appeared or seemed
to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this
change in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on
more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opin-
ions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction;
had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and
I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and
join with me when I happened to be in the right.
And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to
natural inclination, became at length so easy and so habitual to
me, that perhaps for these fifty years past no one has ever heard
a dogmatical expression escape me. And to this habit (after my
character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had
early so much weight with my fellow-citizens when I proposed
new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence
in public councils when I became a member; for I was but a
bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my
choice of words, hardly correct in language: and yet I generally
carried my points.
In reality, there is perhaps no one of our natural passions
so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it
down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive,
and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will
see it perhaps often in this history; for even if I could conceive
that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of
my humility.
## p. 5964 (#552) ###########################################
5964
LOUIS HONORÉ FRECHETTE
(1839-)
BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN
OUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE, the best known of the French-Cana-
dian poets, was born near the forties, at Lévis, a suburb of
Quebec. He is patriotic; his genius is plainly that of New
France, while the form of it is of that older France which produced
the too exquisite sonnets of Voiture; and what counts greatly with
the Canadians, he has received the approbation of the Academy; he
is a personage in Paris, where he spends a great deal of time. From
'Nos Gens de Lettres' (Our Literary Workers: Montreal, 1873), we
learn that the father of M. Fréchette was a man of business, and
that he did not encourage his son's poetic tendencies to the detri-
ment of the practical side of his character.
Lévis has traditions which are part of that stirring French-Cana-
dian history now being made known to us by Mrs. Catherwood and
Gilbert Parker. And the great St. Lawrence spoke to him in
"All those nameless voices, which are
Beating at the heart. "
At the age of eight he began to write verses. He was told by his
careful father that poets never become rich; but he still continued to
make verses. He grew to be a philosopher as well as a poet, and a
little later became firmly of Horace's opinion, that a poet to be
happy does not need riches gained by work. His father, who no
doubt felt that a philosopher of this cult was not fit for the world,
sent him to the Seminary at Quebec. At the Seminary he continued
to write verses. The teachers there found merit in the verses. The
"nameless voices" still beat at his heart, though the desks of the
preparatory college had replaced the elms of the St. Lawrence. But
poets are so rare that even when one is caught young, his captors
doubt his species. The captors in this case determined to see
whether Pegasus could trot as well as gallop. "Transport yourself,
little Fréchette," they said, "to the Council of Clermont and be a
troubadour. " What is time to the poet? He became a troubadour:
but this was not enough; his preceptors were still in doubt; they
locked him in a room and gave him as a subject the arrival of Mgr.
de Laval in Canada. An hour passed; the first sufferings of the
young poet having abated, he produced his verses. It was evident
I
## p. 5965 (#553) ###########################################
LOUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE
5965
that Pegasus could acquire any pace. His talent was questioned no
more.
As he became older, Fréchette had dreams of becoming a man of
action, and began to learn telegraphy at Ogdensburg; but he found
the art too long and life too brief. He went back to the seminary
and contributed 'Mes Loisirs' (My Spare Hours) to the college paper.
From the seminary-the Petit Seminaire, of course,- he went to the
College of Ste. Anne, to Nicolet, and finally to Laval University,
"singing, and picking up such crumbs of knowledge as suited his
taste. »
In 1864 M. Fréchette was admitted to practice at the bar of
Quebec. He was a poet first and always; but just at this time he
was second a journalist, third a politician, and perhaps fourth a bar-
rister. He began to publish a paper, Le Journal de Lévis. It failed:
disgusted, he bade farewell to Canada, and began in Chicago the
publication of L'Observateur: it died in a day. He poured forth his
complaints in 'Voix d'un Exilé' (The Voice of an Exile). "Never,"
cries M. Darveau in 'Nos Gens de Lettres' (Our Literary Workers),
"did Juvenal scar the faces of the corrupt Romans as did Fréchette
lash the shoulders of our wretched politicians. ” His L'Amérique, a
journal started in Chicago, had some success, but it temporarily
ruined Fréchette, as the Swiss whom he had placed in charge of it
suddenly changed its policy, and made it sympathize with Germany
in the Franco-Prussian war.
Fréchette's early prose is fiery and eloquent; his admirers com-
pared it to that of Louis Veuillot and Junius, for the reason, proba-
bly, that he used it to denounce those whom he hated politically.
Fréchette's verse has the lyrical ring. And although M. Camille
Doucet insisted that the French Academy in crowning his poems
honored a Frenchman, it must be remembered that Fréchette is both
an American and a British subject; and these things, not likely to
disarm Academical conservatism, made the action the more significant
of the poet's value.
There is strong and noble passion in 'La Voix d'un Exilé' and in
the Ode to the Mississippi. ' His arraignment of the Canadian poli-
ticians may be forgotten without loss,-no doubt he has by this time
forgiven them,- but the real feeling of the poet, who finds in the
Mississippi the brother of his beloved St. Lawrence, is permanent:-
«Adieu, vallons ombreux, mes campagnes fleuries,
Mes montagnes d'azur et mes blondes prairies,
Mon fleuve harmonieux, mon beau ciel embaumé —
Dans les grandes cités, dans les bois, sur les grêves,
Ton image flottera dans mes rêves,
O mon Canada, bien aimé.
## p. 5966 (#554) ###########################################
5966
LOUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE
Je n'écouterai plus, dans nos forêts profondes,
Dans nos près verdoyants, et sur nos grandes ondes,
Toutes ces voix sans nom qui font battre le cœur. "
[Farewell, shaded valleys, my flowery meadows, my azure mountains and
my pale prairies, my musical stream, my fair sky! In the great towns, in
the wood, along the water-sides, thy scenes will float on in my dreams, O
Canada, my beloved!
I shall hear no more, in our deep forests, in our verdant meads and upon
our broad waters, all those nameless voices which make one's heart throb. ]
In 1865 the first book of poems which appealed to the world from
French Canada appeared. It was Fréchette's 'Mes Loisirs' (My Spare
Hours). Later came Pêle-Mêle' (Pell-Mell), full of fine cameo-like
poems, but like cameos that are flushed by an inner and vital fire.
Longfellow praised 'Pêle-Mêle': it shows the influence of Hugo and
Lamartine; it has the beauty of De Musset, with more freshness and
"bloom" than that poet of a glorious past possessed; but there are
more traces of Lamartine in 'Pêle-Mêle' than of Hugo.
"Fréchette's imagination," says an admiring countryman of his,
"is a chisel that attacks the soulless block; and with it he easily
forms a column or a flower. " His poems have grown stronger as he
has become more mature. There is a great gain in dramatic force,
so that it has surprised none of his readers that he should have at-
tempted tragedy with success. He lost some of that quality of dain-
tiness which distinguished Le Matin' (Morning), 'La Nuit' (Night),
and Fleurs Fanées' (Faded Flowers). The 'Pensées d'Hiver' (Win-
ter Reflections) had this quality, but 'La Dernière Iroquoise (The
Last Iroquois) rose above it, and like much of 'Les Fleurs Boréales'
(Boreal Flowers) and his latest work, it is powerful in spirit. yet
retains the greatest chastity of form.
M. Fréchette translated several of Shakespeare's plays for the
Théâtre Français. After 'Les Fleurs Boréales' was crowned by the
Academy, there appeared 'Les Oiseaux de Neige' (The Snow-Birds),
'Feuilles Volantes' (Leaves in the Wind), and 'La Forêt Vierge' (The
Virgin Forest). The volume which shows the genius of Fréchette at
its highest is undoubtedly 'La Légende d'un Peuple' (The Legend
of a Race), which has an admirable preface by Jules Claretie.
manni Francis Egan
## p. 5967 (#555) ###########################################
LOUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE
5967
OUR HISTORY
Fragments from 'La Légende d'un Peuple': translated by Maurice Francis Egan
O
HISTORY of my country,-set with pearls unknown,-
With love I kiss thy pages venerated.
O register immortal, poem of dazzling light
Written by France in purest of her blood!
Drama ever acting, records full of pictures
Of high facts heroic, stories of romance,
Annals of the giants, archives where we follow,
As each leaf we turn, a life resplendent,
And find a name respected or a name beloved,
Of men and women of the antique time!
Where the hero of the past and the hero of the future
Give the hand of friendship and the kiss of love;
Where the crucifix and sword, the plowshare and the volume,—
Everything that builds and everything that saves,-
Shine, united, living glories of past time
And of time that is to be.
--
The glories of past time, serene and pure before you,
O virtues of our day!
Hail first to thee, O Cartier, brave and hardy sailor,
Whose footstep sounded on the unexplored shores
Of our immense St. Lawrence. Hail, Champlain,
Maisonneuve, illustrious founders of two cities,
Who show above our waves their rival beauties.
There was at first only a group of Bretons
Brandishing the sword-blade and the woodman's axe,
Sea-wolves bronzed by sea-winds at the port of St. Malo;
Cradled since their childhood beneath the sky and water,
Men of iron and high of heart and stature,
They, under eye of God, set sail for what might come.
Seeking, in the secrets of the foggy ocean,
Not the famous El Dorados, but a soil where they might plant,
As symbols of their saving, beside the cross of Christ,
The flag of France.
After them came blond-haired Normans
And black-eyed Pontevins, robust colonists,
To make the path a road, and for this holy work
To offer their strong arms: the motive was the same;
The dangers that they fronted brought out prodigies of
courage.
## p. 5968 (#556) ###########################################
5968
LOUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE
They seemed to know no dangers; or rather,
They seemed to seek the ruin that they did not meet.
Frightful perils vainly rose before them,
And each element against them vainly had conspired:
These children of the furrow founded an empire!
Then, conquering the waves of great and stormy lakes,
Crossing savannahs with marshes of mud,
Piercing the depths of the forests primeval,
Here see our founders and preachers of Faith!
Apostles of France, princes of our God,
Having said farewell to the noise of the world,
They came to the bounds of the New World immense
To sow the seed of the future,
And to bear, as the heralds of eternal law,
To the end of the world the torch of progress.
Leaning on his bow, ferociously calm,
The child of the forest, bitter at heart,
A hunted look mingling with his piercing glance,
Sees the strangers pass,— encamped on the plain or ambushed
in the woods,-
And thinks of the giant spirits he has seen in his dreams.
For the first time he trembles and fears-
Then casting off his deceitful calm,
He will rush forth, uttering his war-cry,
To defend, foot by foot, his soil so lately virgin,
And ferocious, tomahawk in hand, bar this road to civiliza-
tion!
A cowardly king, tool of a more cowardly court,
Satyr of the Parc aux cerfs, slave at the Trianon,
Plunged in the horrors of nameless debauches,
At the caprice of Pompadour dancing like an atom,—
The blood of his soldiers and the honor of his kingdom,
Of our dying heroes hearing he no voice.
Montcalm, alas! conquered for the first time,
Falling on the field of battle, wrapped in his banner.
Lévis, last fighter of the last fight,
Tears - avenging France and her pride! -
supreme triumph from fate.
That was all. In front of our tottering towers
The stranger planted his insolent colors,
And an old flag, wet with bitter tears,
Closed its white wings and went across the sea!
## p. 5969 (#557) ###########################################
LOUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE
5969
Paraphrased by Maurice Francis Egan
WORLD in agony breathes its last sigh!
A
Gaze on the remnants of an ancient race,-
Great kings of desert terrible to face,
Crushed by the new weights that upon them lie;
Stand near the Falls, and at this storied place
You see a humble hamlet;-by-and-by
You'll talk of ambuscades and treacherous chase.
CAUGHNAWAGA
L^
Can history or sight a traitor be?
Where are the red men of the rolling plains?
Ferocious Iroquois,-ah, where is he? -
Without concealment (this for all our pains! )
The Chief sells groceries for paltry gains,
With English tang in speech of Normandy!
LOUISIANA
Paraphrased from Les Feuilles Volantes,' by Maurice Francis Egan
AND of the Sun! where Fancy free
Weaveth her woof beneath a sky of gold,
Another Andalusia, thee I see;
-
Thy charming memories my heart-strings hold,
As if the song of birds had o'er them rolled.
In thy fresh groves, where scented orange glows,
Circle vague loves about my longing heart;
Thy dark banana-trees, when soft wind flows,
In concert weird take up their sombre part,
As evening shadows, listening, float and dart.
'Neath thy green domes, where the lianas cling,
Show tropic flowers with wide-opened eyes,
With arteries afire till morn-birds sing;
More than old Werthier, in new love's surprise,
Stand on the threshold of thy Paradise.
Son of the North, I, of the realm of snows,-
Vision afar, but always still a power,-
In these soft nights and in the days of rose,
Dreaming I feel, e'en in the saddest hour,
Within my heart unclose a golden flower.
-
X-374
## p. 5970 (#558) ###########################################
LOUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE
5970
THE DREAM OF LIFE
TO MY SON
Paraphrased from 'Les Feuilles Volantes,' by Maurice Francis Egan
T TWENTY years, a poet lone,
Α'
I, when the rosy season came,
Walked in the woodland, to make moan
For some fair dame;
And when the breezes brought to me
The lilac spent in fragrant stream,
I wove her infidelity
In love's young dream.
A lover of illusions, I!
Soon other dreams quite filled my heart,
And other loves as suddenly
Took old love's part.
One Glory, a deceitful fay,
Who flies before a man can stir,
Surprised my poor heart many a day,—
I dreamed of her!
But now that I have grown so old,
At lying things I grasp no more.
My poor deceived heart takes hold
Of other lore.
Another life before us glows,
Casts on all faithful souls its gleam:
Late, late, my heart its glory knows,—
Of it I dream!
## p. 5971 (#559) ###########################################
5971
HAROLD FREDERIC
(1856-)
M
R. FREDERIC was born in Utica, New York, August 19th, 1856.
He spent his boyhood in that neighborhood, and was edu-
cated in its schools. The rural Central New York of a half-
century ago was a region of rich farms, of conservative ideas, and of
strong indigenous types of character. These undoubtedly offered un-
conscious studies to the future novelist.
Like many of his guild he began writing on a newspaper, rising
by degrees from the position of reporter to that of editor. The drill
and discipline taught him to make the most
of time and opportunity, and he contrived
leisure enough to write two or three long
stories. Working at journalism in Utica,
Albany, and New York, in 1884 he became
chief foreign correspondent of the New
York Times, making his headquarters in
London, where he has since lived.
Mr. Frederic's reputation rests on journal-
istic correspondence of the higher class, and
on his novels, of which he has published six.
His stories are distinctively American. He
has caught up contrasting elements of lo-
cal life in the eastern part of the United
States, and grouped them with ingenuity
and power.
His first important story was 'Seth's Brother's Wife,'
originally appearing as a serial in Scribner's Magazine. Following
this came 'The Lawton Girl,' a study of rustic life; 'In the Valley,'
a semi-historical novel, turning on aspects of colonial times along the
Mohawk River; The Copperhead,' a tale of the Civil War; 'Mukena
and Other Stories,' graphic character sketches, displaying humor and
insight; The Damnation of Theron Ware,' the most serious and
carefully studied of his books; and March Hares,' a sketch of con-
temporary society.
HAROLD FREDERIC
A student of the life about him, possessing a dramatic sense and
a saving grace of humor, Mr. Frederic in his fiction is often photo-
graphic and minute in detail, while he does not forget the import-
ance of the mass which the detail is to explain or embellish. He
likes to deal with types of that mixed population peculiar to the
## p. 5972 (#560) ###########################################
HAROLD FREDERIC
5972
farming valleys of Central New York,-German, Irish, and American,
- bringing out by contrast their marked social and individual traits.
Not a disciple of realism, his books are emphatically "human docu-
ments. "
There is always moreover a definite plot, often a dramatic de-
velopment. But it is the attrition of character against character
that really interests him. 'Seth's Brother's Wife' and 'The Lawton
Girl' leave a definite ethical intention. In the 'Damnation of Theron
Ware' is depicted the tragedy of a weak and crude character sud-
denly put in touch with a higher intellectual and emotional life,
which it is too meagre and too untrained to adopt, and through
which it suffers shipwreck. In 'In the Valley' the gayety and seri-
ousness of homely life stand out against a savage and martial back-
ground.
Mr. Frederic profoundly respects his art, is never careless, and
never unconscientious. Of his constructive instinct a distinguished
English critic has said that it "ignores nothing that is significant;
makes use of nothing that is not significant; and binds every ele-
ment of character and every incident together in a consistent, co-
herent, dramatic whole. "
THE LAST RITE
From The Damnation of Theron Ware. ' Copyright 1896, by Stone &
Kimball
ALKING homeward briskly now, with his eyes on the side-
W walk, and his mind all aglow with crowding suggestions
for the new work and impatience to be at it, Theron
Ware came abruptly upon a group of men and boys who occu-
pied the whole path, and were moving forward so noiselessly that
he had not heard them coming. He almost ran into the leader
of this little procession, and began a stammering apology, the
final words of which were left unspoken, so solemnly heedless of
him and his talk were all the faces he saw.
In the centre of the group were four workingmen, bearing be-
tween them an extemporized litter of two poles and a blanket
hastily secured across them with spikes. Most of what this litter
held was covered by another blanket, rounded in coarse folds
over a shapeless bulk. From beneath its farther end protruded
a big broom-like black beard, thrown upward at such an angle
as to hide everything beyond those in front.
The tall young
minister, stepping aside and standing tiptoe, could see sloping
## p. 5973 (#561) ###########################################
HAROLD FREDERIC
5973
downward, behind this hedge of beard, a pinched and chalk-like
face, with wide-open, staring eyes. Its lips, of a dull lilac hue,
were moving ceaselessly, and made a dry, clicking sound.
Theron instinctively joined himself to those who followed the
litter, a motley dozen of street idlers, chiefly boys. One of
these in whispers explained to him that the man was one of Jerry
Madden's workmen in the wagon-shops, who had been deployed
to trim an elm-tree in front of his employer's house, and being
unused to such work, had fallen from the top and broken all
his bones. They would have cared for him at Madden's house,
but he insisted upon being taken home. His name was Mac-
Evoy, and he was Joey MacEvoy's father, and likewise Jim's
and Hughey's and Martin's. After a pause, the lad, a bright-
eyed, freckled, barefooted wee Irishman, volunteered the further
information that his big brother had run to bring
to bring Father
Forbess," on the chance that he might be in time to administer
"extry munction. "
«<
―――――
The way of the silent little procession led through back streets,
- where women hanging up clothes in the yards hurried to the
gates, their aprons full of clothes-pins, to stare open-mouthed at
the passers-by,- and came to a halt at last in an irregular and
muddy lane, before one of a half-dozen shanties reared among
the ash-heaps and débris of the town's most bedraggled outskirts.
A stout, middle-aged, red-armed woman, already warned by
some messenger of calamity, stood waiting on the roadside bank.
There were whimpering children clinging to her skirts, and a
surrounding cluster of women of the neighborhood; some of
the more elderly of whom, shriveled little crones in tidy caps,
and with their aprons to their eyes, were beginning in a low-
murmured minor the wail which presently should rise into the
keen of death. Mrs. MacEvoy herself made no moan, and her
broad ruddy face was stern in expression rather than sorrowful.
When the litter stopped beside her, she laid a hand for an instant
on her husband's wet brow, and looked- one could have sworn
impassively into his staring eyes. Then, still without a word,
she waved the bearers toward the door, and led the way herself.
Theron, somewhat wonderingly, found himself a minute later
inside a dark and ill-smelling room, the air of which was humid
with the steam from a boiler of clothes on the stove, and not in
other ways improved by the presence of a jostling score of
women, all straining their gaze upon the open door of the only
—
O
## p. 5973 (#562) ###########################################
HAROLD FREDERIC
5972
farming valleys of Central New York,-C
- bringing out by contrast their mark
Not a disciple of realism, his boo¹-
ments. "
Mr. Fre
There is always moreover
velopment. But it is the
that really interests him.
Girl' leave a definite eth
Ware' is depicted the
denly put in touch
which it is too m
which it suffers
ousness of hom
ground.
never un
English
makes
men'
her
Lov
to
**C
this they could see
ed, and standing awk-
way of the wife and old
ove the garments from his
watched what could be seen of
d among themselves eulogies of
good temper, his habit of bring-
ife, and the way he kept his Father
ed to his religious duties. They ad-
light of his example, their own hus-
to be desired; and from this wandered
ic digressions of their own. But all the
bent upon the bedroom door; and Theron
had grown accustomed to the gloom and the
of them were telling their beads even while
muttered conversation alive. None of them paid
him, or seemed to regard his presence there as
Bibl
he saw enter through the sunlit street doorway a
different class. The bright light shone for a passing
you a fashionable, flowered hat, and upon some remark-
Presently
person of a
ably brilliant shade of red hair beneath it.
there had edged along through the throng, to almost within
touch of him,
a tall young woman, the owner of this hat and won-
In another moment
derful hair. She was clad in light and pleasing spring attire, and
carried a parasol with a long oxidized silver handle of a quaint
pattern.
She looked at him, and he saw that her face was of a
lengthened oval, with a luminous rose-tinted skin, full red lips,
and big brown, frank eyes with heavy auburn lashes. She made.
a grave little inclination of her head toward him, and he bowed
in response. Since her arrival, he noted, the chattering of the
others had entirely ceased.
"I followed the others in, in the hope that I might be of some
assistance," he ventured to explain to her in a low murmur, feel-
ing that at last here was some one to whom an explanation of
his presence in this Romish house was due. "I hope they won't
feel that I have intruded. "
She nodded her head as if she quite understood.
"They'll take the will for the deed," she whispered back.
"Father Forbes will be here in a minute. Do you know, is it
too late? »
## p. 5973 (#563) ###########################################
HAROLD FREDERIC
5975
as she spoke, the outer doorway was darkened by the
? bulk of a new-comer's figure. The flash of a silk
deferential way in which the assembled neighbors
ar a passage, made his identity clear. Theron
tingle in an unaccustomed way as this priest of a
urch advanced across the room,-a broad-shouldered,
an of more than middle height, with a shapely, strong-
ace of almost waxen pallor, and a firm, commanding tread.
carried in his hands, besides his hat, a small leather-bound
use. To this and to him the women curtsied and bowed their
heads as he passed.
Come with me," whispered the tall girl with the parasol, to
Theron; and he found himself pushing along in her wake until
they intercepted the priest just outside the bedroom door. She
touched Father Forbes on the arm.
"Just to tell you that I am here," she said. The priest nodded
with a grave face, and passed into the other room. In a minute
or two the workmen, Mrs. MacEvoy, and her helper came out,
and the door was shut behind them.
"He is making his confession," explained the young lady.
"Stay here for a minute. "
She moved over to where the woman of the house stood,
glum-faced and tearless, and whispered something to her. A
confused movement among the crowd followed, and out of it
presently resulted a small table, covered with a white cloth, and
bearing on it two unlighted candles, a basin of water, and a
spoon, which was brought forward and placed in readiness before
the closed door. Some of those nearest this cleared space were
kneeling now, and murmuring a low buzz of prayer to the click
of beads on their rosaries.
The door opened, and Theron saw the priest standing in the
doorway with an uplifted hand. He wore now a surplice, with a
purple band over his shoulders, and on his pale face there shone
a tranquil and tender light.
One of the workmen fetched from the stove a brand, lighted
the two candles, and bore the table with its contents into the
bedroom. The young woman plucked Theron's sleeve, and he
dumbly followed her into the chamber of death, making one of
the group of a dozen, headed by Mrs. MacEvoy and her children,
which filled the little room, and overflowed now outward to the
street door. He found himself bowing with the others to receive
## p. 5974 (#564) ###########################################
5974
HAROLD FREDERIC
other apartment, the bedchamber. Through this they could see
the workmen laying MacEvoy on the bed, and standing awk-
wardly about thereafter, getting in the way of the wife and old
Maggie Quirk as they strove to remove the garments from his
crushed limbs. As the neighbors watched what could be seen of
these proceedings, they whispered among themselves eulogies of
the injured man's industry and good temper, his habit of bring-
ing his money home to his wife, and the way he kept his Father
Mathew pledge and attended to his religious duties. They ad-
mitted freely that by the light of his example, their own hus-
bands and sons left much to be desired; and from this wandered
easily off into domestic digressions of their own. But all the
while their eyes were bent upon the bedroom door; and Theron
made out, after he had grown accustomed to the gloom and the
smell, that many of them were telling their beads even while
they kept the muttered conversation alive. None of them paid
any attention to him, or seemed to regard his presence there as
unusual.
Presently he saw enter through the sunlit street doorway a
person of a different class. The bright light shone for a passing
instant upon a fashionable, flowered hat, and upon some remark-
ably brilliant shade of red hair beneath it. In another moment
there had edged along through the throng, to almost within
touch of him, a tall young woman, the owner of this hat and won-
derful hair. She was clad in light and pleasing spring attire, and
carried a parasol with a long oxidized silver handle of a quaint
pattern.
She looked at him, and he saw that her face was of a
lengthened oval, with a luminous rose-tinted skin, full red lips,
and big brown, frank eyes with heavy auburn lashes. She made
a grave little inclination of her head toward him, and he bowed
in response. Since her arrival, he noted, the chattering of the
others had entirely ceased.
"I followed the others in, in the hope that I might be of some
assistance," he ventured to explain to her in a low murmur, feel-
ing that at last here was some one to whom an explanation of
his presence in this Romish house was due. "I hope they won't
feel that I have intruded. "
She nodded her head as if she quite understood.
"They'll take the will for the deed," she whispered back.
"Father Forbes will be here in a minute. Do you know, is it
too late? "
## p. 5975 (#565) ###########################################
HAROLD FREDERIC
5975
Even as she spoke, the outer doorway was darkened by the
commanding bulk of a new-comer's figure. The flash of a silk
hat, and the deferential way in which the assembled neighbors
fell back to clear a passage, made his identity clear. Theron
felt his blood tingle in an unaccustomed way as this priest of a
strange Church advanced across the room,-a broad-shouldered,
portly man of more than middle height, with a shapely, strong-
lined face of almost waxen pallor, and a firm, commanding tread.
He carried in his hands, besides his hat, a small leather-bound
case. To this and to him the women curtsied and bowed their
heads as he passed.
Come with me," whispered the tall girl with the parasol, to
Theron; and he found himself pushing along in her wake until
they intercepted the priest just outside the bedroom door. She
touched Father Forbes on the arm.
"Just to tell you that I am here," she said. The priest nodded
with a grave face, and passed into the other room. In a minute
or two the workmen, Mrs. MacEvoy, and her helper came out,
and the door was shut behind them.
"He is making his confession," explained the young lady.
"Stay here for a minute. "
She moved over to where the woman of the house stood,
glum-faced and tearless, and whispered something to her. A
confused movement among the crowd followed, and out of it
presently resulted a small table, covered with a white cloth, and
bearing on it two unlighted candles, a basin of water, and a
spoon, which was brought forward and placed in readiness before
the closed door. Some of those nearest this cleared space were
kneeling now, and murmuring a low buzz of prayer to the click
of beads on their rosaries.
The door opened, and Theron saw the priest standing in the
doorway with an uplifted hand. He wore now a surplice, with a
purple band over his shoulders, and on his pale face there shone
a tranquil and tender light.
One of the workmen fetched from the stove a brand, lighted
the two candles, and bore the table with its contents into the
bedroom. The young woman plucked Theron's sleeve, and he
dumbly followed her into the chamber of death, making one of
the group of a dozen, headed by Mrs. MacEvoy and her children,
which filled the little room, and overflowed now outward to the
street door. He found himself bowing with the others to receive
## p. 5976 (#566) ###########################################
5976
HAROLD FREDERIC
the sprinkled holy water from the priest's white fingers; kneeling
with the others for the prayers; following in impressed silence
with the others the strange ceremonial by which the priest traced
crosses of holy oil with his thumb upon the eyes, ears, nostrils,
lips, hands, and feet of the dying man, wiping off the oil with a
piece of cotton-batting each time after he had repeated the invo-
cation to forgiveness for that particular sense. But most of all
he was moved by the rich, novel sound of the Latin as the
priest rolled it forth in the 'Asperges me, Domine,' and 'Mis-
ereatur vestri omnipotens Deus,' with its soft Continental vowels
and liquid r's. It seemed to him that he had never really heard
Latin before. Then the astonishing young woman with the red
hair declaimed the 'Confiteor' vigorously and with a resonant
distinctness of enunciation. It was a different Latin, harsher
and more sonorous; and while it still dominated the murmured
undertone of the other's prayers the last moment came.
Theron had stood face to face with death at many other bed-
sides; no other final scene had stirred him like this. It must
have been the girl's Latin chant, with its clanging reiteration of
the great names,-'beatum Michaelem Archangelum,' 'beatum
Joannem Baptistam,' 'sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum,'—
invoked with such proud confidence in this squalid little shanty,
which so strangely affected him.
He came out with the others at last,- the candles and the
folded hands over the crucifix left behind, and walked as one
in a dream. Even by the time that he had gained the outer
doorway, and stood blinking at the bright light and filling his
lungs with honest air once more, it had begun to seem incredi-
ble to him that he had seen and done all this.
――――――
## p. 5977 (#567) ###########################################
5977
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
(1823-1892)
BY JOHN BACH MCMASTER
DWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN, one of the most prolific of recent
English historians, was born at Harborne in Staffordshire,
England, on August 2d, 1823. His early education was re-
ceived at home and in private schools, from which at the age of
eighteen he went up to Oxford, where he was elected a scholar of
Trinity College. Four years later (1845) he took his degree and was
elected a Fellow of Trinity, an honor which he held till his marriage
in 1847 forced him to relinquish it.
Long before this event, Freeman was
deep in historical study. His fortune was
easy. The injunction that he should eat
bread in the sweat of his face had not
been laid on him. His time was his own,
and was devoted with characteristic zeal
and energy to labor in the field of history,
which in the course of fifty years was made
to yield him a goodly crop.
EDWARD A. FREEMAN
Year after year he poured forth a steady
stream of Essays, Thoughts, Remarks, Sug-
gestions, Lectures, Short Histories on mat-
ters of current interest, little monographs
on great events or great men,-all covering
a range of subjects which bear evidence to most astonishing ver-
satility and learning. Sometimes his topic was a cathedral church,
as that of Wells or Leominster Priory; or a cathedral city, as Ely or
Norwich. At others it was a grave historical theme, as the Unity
of History'; or 'Comparative Politics'; or the Growth of the English
Constitution from the Earliest Times'; or 'Old English History for
Children. ' His 'General Sketch of European History' is still a stand-
ard text book in our high schools and colleges. His 'William the
Conqueror in Macmillan's Twelve English Statesmen'; his 'Short
History of the Norman Conquest of England' in the Clarendon Press
Series; his studies of Godwin, Harold, and the Normans, in the 'En-
cyclopædia Britannica,' are the best of their kind.
## p. 5978 (#568) ###########################################
5978
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
His contributions to the reviews and magazines make a small
library, encyclopædic in character. Thirty-one essays were published
in the Fortnightly Review; thirty in the Contemporary Review;
twenty-seven in Macmillan's Magazine; twelve in the British Quar-
terly, and as many more in the National Review; while such as are
scattered through the other periodicals of Great Britain and the
United States swell the list to one hundred and fifty-seven titles.
Every conceivable subject is treated,-politics, government, history,
field sports, architecture, archæology, books, linguistics, finance, great
men living and dead, questions of the day. But even this list does
not comprise all of Freeman's writings, for regularly every week, for
more than twenty years, he contributed two long articles to the Sat-
urday Review.
Taken as a whole, this array of publications represents an indus-
try which was simply enormous, and a learning as varied as it was
immense. If classified according to their subjects, they fall naturally
into six groups.
The antiquarian and architectural sketches and ad-
dresses are the least valuable and instructive. They are of interest
because they exhibit a strong bent of mind which appears constantly
in Freeman's works, and because it was by the aid of such remains
that he studied the early history of nations. Then come the studies
in politics and government, such as the essays on presidential gov-
ernment; on American institutional history; on the House of Lords;
the growth of commonwealths, and such elaborate treatises as the six
lectures on Comparative Politics,' and the History of Federal Gov-
ernment,'—all notable because of the liberal spirit and breadth of
view that mark them, and because of a positiveness of statement
and confidence in the correctness of the author's judgments. Then
come the historical essays; then the lectures and addresses; then his
occasional pieces, written at the request of publishers or editors to
fill some long-felt want; and finally the series of histories on which,
in the long run, the reputation of Freeman must rest. These, in the
order of merit and value, are the 'Norman Conquest'; the 'Reign of
William Rufus,' which is really a supplement to the 'Conquest'; the
"History of Sicily,' which the author did not live to finish.
The roll of his works is enough to show that the kind of history
which appealed to Freeman was that of the distant past, and that
which dealt with politics rather than with social life. Of ancient his-
tory he had a good mastery; English history from its dawn to the
thirteenth century he knew minutely; European history of the same
period he knew profoundly. After the thirteenth century his interest
grew less and less as modern times were approached, and his knowl-
edge smaller and smaller till it became that of a man very well read
in history and no more.
## p. 5979 (#569) ###########################################
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5979
Freeman was therefore essentially a historian of the far past; and
as such had, it is safe to say, no living superior in England. But in
his treatment of the past he presents a small part of the picture.
He is concerned with great conquerors, with military leaders, with
battles and sieges and systems of government. The mass of the
people have no interest for him at all. His books abound in battle-
pieces of the age of the long-bow and the javelin, of the battle-axe,
the mace, and the spear; of the age when brain went for little and
when brawn counted for much; and when the fate of nations de-
pended less on the skill of individual commanders than on the per-
sonal prowess of those who met in hand-to-hand encounters. He
delights in descriptions of historic buildings; he is never weary of
drawing long analogies between one kind of government and another;
but for the customs, the manner, the usages, the daily life of the
people, he has never a word. "History," said he on one occasion,
"is past politics; politics is present history," and to this epigram he
is strictly faithful. The England of the serf and the villein, the cur-
few and the monastery, is brushed aside to leave room for the story
of the way in which William of Normandy conquered the Saxons,
and of the way in which William Rufus conducted his quarrels with
Bishop Anselm.
With all of this no fault is to be found. It was his cast of mind,
his point of view; and the questions which alone concern us in any
estimate of his work are: Did he do it well? What is its value?
Did he make a real contribution to historical knowledge? What are
its merits and defects? Judged by the standard he himself set up,
Freeman's chief merits, the qualities which mark him out as a great
historian, are an intense love of truth and a determination to dis
cover it at any cost; a sincere desire to mete out an even-handed
justice to each and every man; unflagging industry, common-sense,
broad views, and the power to reproduce the past most graphically.
From these merits comes Freeman's chief defect,-prolixity. His
earnest desire to be accurate made him not only say the same thing
over and over again, but say it with an unnecessary and useless full-
ness of detail, and back up his statement with a profusion of notes,
which in many cases amount to more than half the text. Indeed,
were they printed in the same type as the text, the space they
occupy would often exceed it. Thus in the first volume of the
'Norman Conquest' there are 528 pages of text, with foot-notes occu-
pying from a third to a half of almost every page, and an appendix
of notes of 244 pages; in the second volume, the text and foot-notes
amount to 512, and the appendix 179; in the third, the text covers
562 and the appendix 206 pages. These notes are always interesting
and always instructive. But the end of a volume is not the place for
## p. 5980 (#570) ###########################################
5980
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
an exhibition of the doubts and fears that have tormented the his-
torian, for a statement of the reasons which have led him to one
conclusion rather than another, nor for the denunciation or reputa-
tion of the opinions of his predecessors. When the building is fin-
ished, we do not want to see the lumber used as the scaffolding piled
in the back yard. Mr. Freeman's histories would be all the better
for a condensation of the text and an elimination of the long appen-
dices.
With these exceptions, the workmanship is excellent. He entered
so thoroughly into the past that it became to him more real and
understandable than the present. He was not merely the contem-
porary but the companion of the men he had to deal with. He
knew every spot of ground, every Roman ruin, every mediæval
castle, that came in any way to be connected with his story, as well
as he knew the topography of the country that stretched beneath his
study window, or the arrangement of the house in which he lived.
In his histories, therefore, we are presented at every turn with
life-like portraits of the illustrious dead, bearing all the marks of
having been taken from life; with descriptions of castles and towers,
minsters and abbeys, and of the scenes that have made them memo-
rable; with comparisons of one ruler with another, always sane and
just; and with graphic pictures of coronations, of battles, sieges,
burnings, and all the havoc and pomp of war.
The essays and studies in politics show Mr. Freeman in a yet
more interesting light; many are elaborate reviews of historical
works, and therefore cover a wide range of topics, both ancient and
of the present time. Now his subject is Mr. Bryce's 'Holy Roman
Empire'; now the Flavian Cæsars; now Mr. Gladstone's 'Homer and
the Homeric Age'; now Kirk's 'Charles the Bold'; now presidential
government; now Athenian democracy; now the Byzantine Empire;
now the Eastern Church; now the growth of commonwealths; now
the geographical aspects of the Eastern Question.
By so wide a range of topics, an opportunity is afforded for a
variety of remarks, analogies, judgments of men and times, far greater
than the histories could give. In the main, these judgments may be
accepted; but so thoroughly was Freeman a historian of the past, that
some of his estimates of contemporary men and things were singu-
larly erroneous. While our Civil War was still raging he began a
'History of Federal Government,' which was to extend from the
Achæan League "to the disruption of the United States. " A prudent
historian would not have taken up the rôle of prophet. He would
have waited for the end of the struggle. But absolute self-confidence
in his own good judgment was one of Freeman's most conspicuous
traits. His estimate of Lincoln is another instance of inability to
## p. 5981 (#571) ###########################################
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5981
understand the times in which he lived. In the Essay on Presiden-
tial Government,' published in the National Review in 1864 and re-
published in the first series of 'Historical Essays' in 1871, the greatest
President and the grandest public character the United States has
yet produced is declared inferior to each and all the Presidents from
Washington to John Quincy Adams. A comparison of Lincoln with
Monroe or Madison or Jefferson by Freeman would have been enter-
taining.
Two views of history as set forth in the essays are especially de-
serving of notice. He is never weary of insisting on the unity and
the continuity of history in general and that of England in particular,
and he attaches unreasonable importance to the influence of the Teu-
tonic element in English history. This latter was the inevitable re-
sult of his method of studying the past along the lines of philology
and ethnology, and has carried him to extremes which taken by any-
body else he would have been quick to see.
An examination of Freeman's minor contributions to the reviews
- such essays, sketches, and discussions as he did not think important
enough to republish in book form - is indicative of his interest in
current affairs. They made little draft on his learning, yet the point
of view is generally the result of his learning. He believed, for in-
stance, that a sound judgment on the Franco-Prussian War could not
be found save in the light of history. "The present war," he wrote
to the Pall Mall Gazette, "has largely risen out of a misconception
of history, out of the dream of a frontier of the Rhine which never
existed. The war on the part of Germany is in truth a vigorous set-
ting forth of the historical truth that the Rhine is, and always has
been, a German river. "
Freeman was still busy with his History of Sicily' from the ear-
liest times, and had just finished the preface to the third volume,
when he died at Alicante in Spain, March 16th, 1892. Since his death
a fourth volume, prepared from his notes, has been published.
But one biography of Freeman has yet appeared, 'The Life and
Letters of Edward A. Freeman,' by W. R. W.
I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the
other.
I made a little book in which I allotted a page for each of
the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink so as to have seven
columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column
with a letter for the day. I crossed these columns with thirteen
red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter
## p. 5960 (#548) ###########################################
5960
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
of one of the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I
might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon ex-
amination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon
that day.
And conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought
it right and necessary to solicit his assistance for obtaining it;
to this end I formed the following little prayer, which was pre-
fixed to my tables of examination, for daily use:
―
"O powerful Goodness! bountiful Father! merciful Guide! Increase
in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen
my resolutions to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my
kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for
thy continual favors to me. "
I used also sometimes a little prayer which I took from Thom-
son's Poems, viz. :
―
"Father of light and life, thou Good supreme!
O teach me what is good; teach me thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit; and fill my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure;
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss! "
I entered upon the execution of this plan for self-examination,
and continued it with occasional intermissions for some time. I
was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had
imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish.
My scheme of Order gave me the most trouble; and I found
that though it might be practicable where a man's business was
such as to leave him the disposition of his time,- that of a jour-
neyman printer, for instance, it was not possible to be exactly
observed by a master, who must mix with the world, and often
receive people of business at their own hours. Order, too, with
regard to places for things, papers, etc. , I found extremely diffi-
cult to acquire. I had not been early accustomed to it; and hav-
ing an exceeding good memory, I was not so sensible of the
inconvenience attending want of method. This article, therefore,
cost me so much painful attention, and my faults in it vexed me
so much, and I made so little progress in amendment, and had
such frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the
attempt, and content myself with a faulty character in that
## p. 5961 (#549) ###########################################
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
5961
respect; like the man who in buying an axe of a smith, my
neighbor, desired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the
edge. The smith consented to grind it bright for him if he
would turn the wheel; he turned, while the smith pressed the
broad face of the axe hard and heavily on the stone, which made
the turning of it very fatiguing. The man came every now and
then from the wheel to see how the work went on, and at length
would take his axe as it was without farther grinding. "No,"
said the smith, "turn on, turn on; we shall have it bright by-
and-by; as yet, it is only speckled. " "Yes," says the man, "but
I think I like a speckled axe best. " And I believe this may have
been the case with many who, having for want of some such
means as I employed, found the difficulty of obtaining good and
breaking bad habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given
up the struggle and concluded that "a speckled axe was best":
for something that pretended to be reason was every now and
then suggesting to me that such extreme nicety as I exacted of
myself might be a kind of foppery in morals, which if it were
known would make me ridiculous; that a perfect character might
be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated;
and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself,
to keep his friends in countenance.
In truth, I found myself incorrigible with respect to order;
and now I am grown old, and my memory bad, I feel very
sensibly the want of it. But on the whole, though I never
arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining,
but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavor, a better and
a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not
attempted it; as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating
the engraved copies, though they never reach the wished-for
excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavor,
and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible.
It may be well my posterity should be informed that to this
little artifice, with the blessing of God, their ancestor owed the
constant felicity of his life down to his 79th year, in which this
is written. What reverses may attend the remainder is in the
hand of Providence; but if they arrive, the reflection on past
happiness enjoyed ought to help his bearing them with more
resignation. To Temperance he ascribes his long-continued
health, and what is still left to him of a good constitution; to
Industry and Frugality, the early easiness of his circumstances
## p. 5962 (#550) ###########################################
5962
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
and acquisition of his fortune, with all that knowledge that
enabled him to be a useful citizen, and obtained for him some
degree of reputation among the learned; to Sincerity and Justice,
the confidence of his country, and the honorable employs it con-
ferred upon him; and to the joint influence of the whole mass of
the virtues, even in the imperfect state he was able to acquire
them, all that evenness of temper, and that cheerfulness in con-
versation, which makes his company still sought for, and agree-
able even to his younger acquaintance. I hope therefore that
some of my descendants may follow the example and reap the
benefit.
It will be remarked that though my scheme was not wholly
without religion, there was in it no mark of any of the distin-
guishing tenets of any particular sect. I had purposely avoided
them; for being fully persuaded of the utility and excellency of
my method, and that it might be serviceable to people in all
religions, and intending some time or other to publish it, I
would not have anything in it that should prejudice any one of
any sect against it.
In this piece it was my design to explain and enforce this
doctrine: that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are
forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature of
man alone considered; that it was therefore every one's interest
to be virtuous, who wished to be happy even in this world; and
I should from this circumstance (there being always in the world
a number of rich merchants, nobility, States, and princes who
have need of honest instruments for the management of their
affairs, and such being so rare) have endeavored to convince
young persons that no qualities were so likely to make a poor
man's fortune as those of probity and integrity.
My list of virtues contained at first but twelve: but a Quaker
friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought
proud; that my pride showed itself frequently in conversation;
that I was not content with being in the right when discussing
any point, but was overbearing and rather insolent, of which he
convinced me by mentioning several instances; I determined
endeavoring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among
the rest, and I added Humility to my list, giving an extensive
meaning to the word.
I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this
virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of
## p. 5963 (#551) ###########################################
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
5963
it. I made it a rule. to forbear all direct contradiction to the
sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I
even forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the
use of every word or expression in the language that imported a
fixed opinion, such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc. , and I adopted,
instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to
be so or so; or it so appears to me at present. When another
asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the
pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immedi-
ately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began
by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion
would be right, but in the present case there appeared or seemed
to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this
change in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on
more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opin-
ions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction;
had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and
I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and
join with me when I happened to be in the right.
And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to
natural inclination, became at length so easy and so habitual to
me, that perhaps for these fifty years past no one has ever heard
a dogmatical expression escape me. And to this habit (after my
character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had
early so much weight with my fellow-citizens when I proposed
new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence
in public councils when I became a member; for I was but a
bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my
choice of words, hardly correct in language: and yet I generally
carried my points.
In reality, there is perhaps no one of our natural passions
so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it
down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive,
and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will
see it perhaps often in this history; for even if I could conceive
that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of
my humility.
## p. 5964 (#552) ###########################################
5964
LOUIS HONORÉ FRECHETTE
(1839-)
BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN
OUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE, the best known of the French-Cana-
dian poets, was born near the forties, at Lévis, a suburb of
Quebec. He is patriotic; his genius is plainly that of New
France, while the form of it is of that older France which produced
the too exquisite sonnets of Voiture; and what counts greatly with
the Canadians, he has received the approbation of the Academy; he
is a personage in Paris, where he spends a great deal of time. From
'Nos Gens de Lettres' (Our Literary Workers: Montreal, 1873), we
learn that the father of M. Fréchette was a man of business, and
that he did not encourage his son's poetic tendencies to the detri-
ment of the practical side of his character.
Lévis has traditions which are part of that stirring French-Cana-
dian history now being made known to us by Mrs. Catherwood and
Gilbert Parker. And the great St. Lawrence spoke to him in
"All those nameless voices, which are
Beating at the heart. "
At the age of eight he began to write verses. He was told by his
careful father that poets never become rich; but he still continued to
make verses. He grew to be a philosopher as well as a poet, and a
little later became firmly of Horace's opinion, that a poet to be
happy does not need riches gained by work. His father, who no
doubt felt that a philosopher of this cult was not fit for the world,
sent him to the Seminary at Quebec. At the Seminary he continued
to write verses. The teachers there found merit in the verses. The
"nameless voices" still beat at his heart, though the desks of the
preparatory college had replaced the elms of the St. Lawrence. But
poets are so rare that even when one is caught young, his captors
doubt his species. The captors in this case determined to see
whether Pegasus could trot as well as gallop. "Transport yourself,
little Fréchette," they said, "to the Council of Clermont and be a
troubadour. " What is time to the poet? He became a troubadour:
but this was not enough; his preceptors were still in doubt; they
locked him in a room and gave him as a subject the arrival of Mgr.
de Laval in Canada. An hour passed; the first sufferings of the
young poet having abated, he produced his verses. It was evident
I
## p. 5965 (#553) ###########################################
LOUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE
5965
that Pegasus could acquire any pace. His talent was questioned no
more.
As he became older, Fréchette had dreams of becoming a man of
action, and began to learn telegraphy at Ogdensburg; but he found
the art too long and life too brief. He went back to the seminary
and contributed 'Mes Loisirs' (My Spare Hours) to the college paper.
From the seminary-the Petit Seminaire, of course,- he went to the
College of Ste. Anne, to Nicolet, and finally to Laval University,
"singing, and picking up such crumbs of knowledge as suited his
taste. »
In 1864 M. Fréchette was admitted to practice at the bar of
Quebec. He was a poet first and always; but just at this time he
was second a journalist, third a politician, and perhaps fourth a bar-
rister. He began to publish a paper, Le Journal de Lévis. It failed:
disgusted, he bade farewell to Canada, and began in Chicago the
publication of L'Observateur: it died in a day. He poured forth his
complaints in 'Voix d'un Exilé' (The Voice of an Exile). "Never,"
cries M. Darveau in 'Nos Gens de Lettres' (Our Literary Workers),
"did Juvenal scar the faces of the corrupt Romans as did Fréchette
lash the shoulders of our wretched politicians. ” His L'Amérique, a
journal started in Chicago, had some success, but it temporarily
ruined Fréchette, as the Swiss whom he had placed in charge of it
suddenly changed its policy, and made it sympathize with Germany
in the Franco-Prussian war.
Fréchette's early prose is fiery and eloquent; his admirers com-
pared it to that of Louis Veuillot and Junius, for the reason, proba-
bly, that he used it to denounce those whom he hated politically.
Fréchette's verse has the lyrical ring. And although M. Camille
Doucet insisted that the French Academy in crowning his poems
honored a Frenchman, it must be remembered that Fréchette is both
an American and a British subject; and these things, not likely to
disarm Academical conservatism, made the action the more significant
of the poet's value.
There is strong and noble passion in 'La Voix d'un Exilé' and in
the Ode to the Mississippi. ' His arraignment of the Canadian poli-
ticians may be forgotten without loss,-no doubt he has by this time
forgiven them,- but the real feeling of the poet, who finds in the
Mississippi the brother of his beloved St. Lawrence, is permanent:-
«Adieu, vallons ombreux, mes campagnes fleuries,
Mes montagnes d'azur et mes blondes prairies,
Mon fleuve harmonieux, mon beau ciel embaumé —
Dans les grandes cités, dans les bois, sur les grêves,
Ton image flottera dans mes rêves,
O mon Canada, bien aimé.
## p. 5966 (#554) ###########################################
5966
LOUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE
Je n'écouterai plus, dans nos forêts profondes,
Dans nos près verdoyants, et sur nos grandes ondes,
Toutes ces voix sans nom qui font battre le cœur. "
[Farewell, shaded valleys, my flowery meadows, my azure mountains and
my pale prairies, my musical stream, my fair sky! In the great towns, in
the wood, along the water-sides, thy scenes will float on in my dreams, O
Canada, my beloved!
I shall hear no more, in our deep forests, in our verdant meads and upon
our broad waters, all those nameless voices which make one's heart throb. ]
In 1865 the first book of poems which appealed to the world from
French Canada appeared. It was Fréchette's 'Mes Loisirs' (My Spare
Hours). Later came Pêle-Mêle' (Pell-Mell), full of fine cameo-like
poems, but like cameos that are flushed by an inner and vital fire.
Longfellow praised 'Pêle-Mêle': it shows the influence of Hugo and
Lamartine; it has the beauty of De Musset, with more freshness and
"bloom" than that poet of a glorious past possessed; but there are
more traces of Lamartine in 'Pêle-Mêle' than of Hugo.
"Fréchette's imagination," says an admiring countryman of his,
"is a chisel that attacks the soulless block; and with it he easily
forms a column or a flower. " His poems have grown stronger as he
has become more mature. There is a great gain in dramatic force,
so that it has surprised none of his readers that he should have at-
tempted tragedy with success. He lost some of that quality of dain-
tiness which distinguished Le Matin' (Morning), 'La Nuit' (Night),
and Fleurs Fanées' (Faded Flowers). The 'Pensées d'Hiver' (Win-
ter Reflections) had this quality, but 'La Dernière Iroquoise (The
Last Iroquois) rose above it, and like much of 'Les Fleurs Boréales'
(Boreal Flowers) and his latest work, it is powerful in spirit. yet
retains the greatest chastity of form.
M. Fréchette translated several of Shakespeare's plays for the
Théâtre Français. After 'Les Fleurs Boréales' was crowned by the
Academy, there appeared 'Les Oiseaux de Neige' (The Snow-Birds),
'Feuilles Volantes' (Leaves in the Wind), and 'La Forêt Vierge' (The
Virgin Forest). The volume which shows the genius of Fréchette at
its highest is undoubtedly 'La Légende d'un Peuple' (The Legend
of a Race), which has an admirable preface by Jules Claretie.
manni Francis Egan
## p. 5967 (#555) ###########################################
LOUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE
5967
OUR HISTORY
Fragments from 'La Légende d'un Peuple': translated by Maurice Francis Egan
O
HISTORY of my country,-set with pearls unknown,-
With love I kiss thy pages venerated.
O register immortal, poem of dazzling light
Written by France in purest of her blood!
Drama ever acting, records full of pictures
Of high facts heroic, stories of romance,
Annals of the giants, archives where we follow,
As each leaf we turn, a life resplendent,
And find a name respected or a name beloved,
Of men and women of the antique time!
Where the hero of the past and the hero of the future
Give the hand of friendship and the kiss of love;
Where the crucifix and sword, the plowshare and the volume,—
Everything that builds and everything that saves,-
Shine, united, living glories of past time
And of time that is to be.
--
The glories of past time, serene and pure before you,
O virtues of our day!
Hail first to thee, O Cartier, brave and hardy sailor,
Whose footstep sounded on the unexplored shores
Of our immense St. Lawrence. Hail, Champlain,
Maisonneuve, illustrious founders of two cities,
Who show above our waves their rival beauties.
There was at first only a group of Bretons
Brandishing the sword-blade and the woodman's axe,
Sea-wolves bronzed by sea-winds at the port of St. Malo;
Cradled since their childhood beneath the sky and water,
Men of iron and high of heart and stature,
They, under eye of God, set sail for what might come.
Seeking, in the secrets of the foggy ocean,
Not the famous El Dorados, but a soil where they might plant,
As symbols of their saving, beside the cross of Christ,
The flag of France.
After them came blond-haired Normans
And black-eyed Pontevins, robust colonists,
To make the path a road, and for this holy work
To offer their strong arms: the motive was the same;
The dangers that they fronted brought out prodigies of
courage.
## p. 5968 (#556) ###########################################
5968
LOUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE
They seemed to know no dangers; or rather,
They seemed to seek the ruin that they did not meet.
Frightful perils vainly rose before them,
And each element against them vainly had conspired:
These children of the furrow founded an empire!
Then, conquering the waves of great and stormy lakes,
Crossing savannahs with marshes of mud,
Piercing the depths of the forests primeval,
Here see our founders and preachers of Faith!
Apostles of France, princes of our God,
Having said farewell to the noise of the world,
They came to the bounds of the New World immense
To sow the seed of the future,
And to bear, as the heralds of eternal law,
To the end of the world the torch of progress.
Leaning on his bow, ferociously calm,
The child of the forest, bitter at heart,
A hunted look mingling with his piercing glance,
Sees the strangers pass,— encamped on the plain or ambushed
in the woods,-
And thinks of the giant spirits he has seen in his dreams.
For the first time he trembles and fears-
Then casting off his deceitful calm,
He will rush forth, uttering his war-cry,
To defend, foot by foot, his soil so lately virgin,
And ferocious, tomahawk in hand, bar this road to civiliza-
tion!
A cowardly king, tool of a more cowardly court,
Satyr of the Parc aux cerfs, slave at the Trianon,
Plunged in the horrors of nameless debauches,
At the caprice of Pompadour dancing like an atom,—
The blood of his soldiers and the honor of his kingdom,
Of our dying heroes hearing he no voice.
Montcalm, alas! conquered for the first time,
Falling on the field of battle, wrapped in his banner.
Lévis, last fighter of the last fight,
Tears - avenging France and her pride! -
supreme triumph from fate.
That was all. In front of our tottering towers
The stranger planted his insolent colors,
And an old flag, wet with bitter tears,
Closed its white wings and went across the sea!
## p. 5969 (#557) ###########################################
LOUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE
5969
Paraphrased by Maurice Francis Egan
WORLD in agony breathes its last sigh!
A
Gaze on the remnants of an ancient race,-
Great kings of desert terrible to face,
Crushed by the new weights that upon them lie;
Stand near the Falls, and at this storied place
You see a humble hamlet;-by-and-by
You'll talk of ambuscades and treacherous chase.
CAUGHNAWAGA
L^
Can history or sight a traitor be?
Where are the red men of the rolling plains?
Ferocious Iroquois,-ah, where is he? -
Without concealment (this for all our pains! )
The Chief sells groceries for paltry gains,
With English tang in speech of Normandy!
LOUISIANA
Paraphrased from Les Feuilles Volantes,' by Maurice Francis Egan
AND of the Sun! where Fancy free
Weaveth her woof beneath a sky of gold,
Another Andalusia, thee I see;
-
Thy charming memories my heart-strings hold,
As if the song of birds had o'er them rolled.
In thy fresh groves, where scented orange glows,
Circle vague loves about my longing heart;
Thy dark banana-trees, when soft wind flows,
In concert weird take up their sombre part,
As evening shadows, listening, float and dart.
'Neath thy green domes, where the lianas cling,
Show tropic flowers with wide-opened eyes,
With arteries afire till morn-birds sing;
More than old Werthier, in new love's surprise,
Stand on the threshold of thy Paradise.
Son of the North, I, of the realm of snows,-
Vision afar, but always still a power,-
In these soft nights and in the days of rose,
Dreaming I feel, e'en in the saddest hour,
Within my heart unclose a golden flower.
-
X-374
## p. 5970 (#558) ###########################################
LOUIS HONORÉ FRÉCHETTE
5970
THE DREAM OF LIFE
TO MY SON
Paraphrased from 'Les Feuilles Volantes,' by Maurice Francis Egan
T TWENTY years, a poet lone,
Α'
I, when the rosy season came,
Walked in the woodland, to make moan
For some fair dame;
And when the breezes brought to me
The lilac spent in fragrant stream,
I wove her infidelity
In love's young dream.
A lover of illusions, I!
Soon other dreams quite filled my heart,
And other loves as suddenly
Took old love's part.
One Glory, a deceitful fay,
Who flies before a man can stir,
Surprised my poor heart many a day,—
I dreamed of her!
But now that I have grown so old,
At lying things I grasp no more.
My poor deceived heart takes hold
Of other lore.
Another life before us glows,
Casts on all faithful souls its gleam:
Late, late, my heart its glory knows,—
Of it I dream!
## p. 5971 (#559) ###########################################
5971
HAROLD FREDERIC
(1856-)
M
R. FREDERIC was born in Utica, New York, August 19th, 1856.
He spent his boyhood in that neighborhood, and was edu-
cated in its schools. The rural Central New York of a half-
century ago was a region of rich farms, of conservative ideas, and of
strong indigenous types of character. These undoubtedly offered un-
conscious studies to the future novelist.
Like many of his guild he began writing on a newspaper, rising
by degrees from the position of reporter to that of editor. The drill
and discipline taught him to make the most
of time and opportunity, and he contrived
leisure enough to write two or three long
stories. Working at journalism in Utica,
Albany, and New York, in 1884 he became
chief foreign correspondent of the New
York Times, making his headquarters in
London, where he has since lived.
Mr. Frederic's reputation rests on journal-
istic correspondence of the higher class, and
on his novels, of which he has published six.
His stories are distinctively American. He
has caught up contrasting elements of lo-
cal life in the eastern part of the United
States, and grouped them with ingenuity
and power.
His first important story was 'Seth's Brother's Wife,'
originally appearing as a serial in Scribner's Magazine. Following
this came 'The Lawton Girl,' a study of rustic life; 'In the Valley,'
a semi-historical novel, turning on aspects of colonial times along the
Mohawk River; The Copperhead,' a tale of the Civil War; 'Mukena
and Other Stories,' graphic character sketches, displaying humor and
insight; The Damnation of Theron Ware,' the most serious and
carefully studied of his books; and March Hares,' a sketch of con-
temporary society.
HAROLD FREDERIC
A student of the life about him, possessing a dramatic sense and
a saving grace of humor, Mr. Frederic in his fiction is often photo-
graphic and minute in detail, while he does not forget the import-
ance of the mass which the detail is to explain or embellish. He
likes to deal with types of that mixed population peculiar to the
## p. 5972 (#560) ###########################################
HAROLD FREDERIC
5972
farming valleys of Central New York,-German, Irish, and American,
- bringing out by contrast their marked social and individual traits.
Not a disciple of realism, his books are emphatically "human docu-
ments. "
There is always moreover a definite plot, often a dramatic de-
velopment. But it is the attrition of character against character
that really interests him. 'Seth's Brother's Wife' and 'The Lawton
Girl' leave a definite ethical intention. In the 'Damnation of Theron
Ware' is depicted the tragedy of a weak and crude character sud-
denly put in touch with a higher intellectual and emotional life,
which it is too meagre and too untrained to adopt, and through
which it suffers shipwreck. In 'In the Valley' the gayety and seri-
ousness of homely life stand out against a savage and martial back-
ground.
Mr. Frederic profoundly respects his art, is never careless, and
never unconscientious. Of his constructive instinct a distinguished
English critic has said that it "ignores nothing that is significant;
makes use of nothing that is not significant; and binds every ele-
ment of character and every incident together in a consistent, co-
herent, dramatic whole. "
THE LAST RITE
From The Damnation of Theron Ware. ' Copyright 1896, by Stone &
Kimball
ALKING homeward briskly now, with his eyes on the side-
W walk, and his mind all aglow with crowding suggestions
for the new work and impatience to be at it, Theron
Ware came abruptly upon a group of men and boys who occu-
pied the whole path, and were moving forward so noiselessly that
he had not heard them coming. He almost ran into the leader
of this little procession, and began a stammering apology, the
final words of which were left unspoken, so solemnly heedless of
him and his talk were all the faces he saw.
In the centre of the group were four workingmen, bearing be-
tween them an extemporized litter of two poles and a blanket
hastily secured across them with spikes. Most of what this litter
held was covered by another blanket, rounded in coarse folds
over a shapeless bulk. From beneath its farther end protruded
a big broom-like black beard, thrown upward at such an angle
as to hide everything beyond those in front.
The tall young
minister, stepping aside and standing tiptoe, could see sloping
## p. 5973 (#561) ###########################################
HAROLD FREDERIC
5973
downward, behind this hedge of beard, a pinched and chalk-like
face, with wide-open, staring eyes. Its lips, of a dull lilac hue,
were moving ceaselessly, and made a dry, clicking sound.
Theron instinctively joined himself to those who followed the
litter, a motley dozen of street idlers, chiefly boys. One of
these in whispers explained to him that the man was one of Jerry
Madden's workmen in the wagon-shops, who had been deployed
to trim an elm-tree in front of his employer's house, and being
unused to such work, had fallen from the top and broken all
his bones. They would have cared for him at Madden's house,
but he insisted upon being taken home. His name was Mac-
Evoy, and he was Joey MacEvoy's father, and likewise Jim's
and Hughey's and Martin's. After a pause, the lad, a bright-
eyed, freckled, barefooted wee Irishman, volunteered the further
information that his big brother had run to bring
to bring Father
Forbess," on the chance that he might be in time to administer
"extry munction. "
«<
―――――
The way of the silent little procession led through back streets,
- where women hanging up clothes in the yards hurried to the
gates, their aprons full of clothes-pins, to stare open-mouthed at
the passers-by,- and came to a halt at last in an irregular and
muddy lane, before one of a half-dozen shanties reared among
the ash-heaps and débris of the town's most bedraggled outskirts.
A stout, middle-aged, red-armed woman, already warned by
some messenger of calamity, stood waiting on the roadside bank.
There were whimpering children clinging to her skirts, and a
surrounding cluster of women of the neighborhood; some of
the more elderly of whom, shriveled little crones in tidy caps,
and with their aprons to their eyes, were beginning in a low-
murmured minor the wail which presently should rise into the
keen of death. Mrs. MacEvoy herself made no moan, and her
broad ruddy face was stern in expression rather than sorrowful.
When the litter stopped beside her, she laid a hand for an instant
on her husband's wet brow, and looked- one could have sworn
impassively into his staring eyes. Then, still without a word,
she waved the bearers toward the door, and led the way herself.
Theron, somewhat wonderingly, found himself a minute later
inside a dark and ill-smelling room, the air of which was humid
with the steam from a boiler of clothes on the stove, and not in
other ways improved by the presence of a jostling score of
women, all straining their gaze upon the open door of the only
—
O
## p. 5973 (#562) ###########################################
HAROLD FREDERIC
5972
farming valleys of Central New York,-C
- bringing out by contrast their mark
Not a disciple of realism, his boo¹-
ments. "
Mr. Fre
There is always moreover
velopment. But it is the
that really interests him.
Girl' leave a definite eth
Ware' is depicted the
denly put in touch
which it is too m
which it suffers
ousness of hom
ground.
never un
English
makes
men'
her
Lov
to
**C
this they could see
ed, and standing awk-
way of the wife and old
ove the garments from his
watched what could be seen of
d among themselves eulogies of
good temper, his habit of bring-
ife, and the way he kept his Father
ed to his religious duties. They ad-
light of his example, their own hus-
to be desired; and from this wandered
ic digressions of their own. But all the
bent upon the bedroom door; and Theron
had grown accustomed to the gloom and the
of them were telling their beads even while
muttered conversation alive. None of them paid
him, or seemed to regard his presence there as
Bibl
he saw enter through the sunlit street doorway a
different class. The bright light shone for a passing
you a fashionable, flowered hat, and upon some remark-
Presently
person of a
ably brilliant shade of red hair beneath it.
there had edged along through the throng, to almost within
touch of him,
a tall young woman, the owner of this hat and won-
In another moment
derful hair. She was clad in light and pleasing spring attire, and
carried a parasol with a long oxidized silver handle of a quaint
pattern.
She looked at him, and he saw that her face was of a
lengthened oval, with a luminous rose-tinted skin, full red lips,
and big brown, frank eyes with heavy auburn lashes. She made.
a grave little inclination of her head toward him, and he bowed
in response. Since her arrival, he noted, the chattering of the
others had entirely ceased.
"I followed the others in, in the hope that I might be of some
assistance," he ventured to explain to her in a low murmur, feel-
ing that at last here was some one to whom an explanation of
his presence in this Romish house was due. "I hope they won't
feel that I have intruded. "
She nodded her head as if she quite understood.
"They'll take the will for the deed," she whispered back.
"Father Forbes will be here in a minute. Do you know, is it
too late? »
## p. 5973 (#563) ###########################################
HAROLD FREDERIC
5975
as she spoke, the outer doorway was darkened by the
? bulk of a new-comer's figure. The flash of a silk
deferential way in which the assembled neighbors
ar a passage, made his identity clear. Theron
tingle in an unaccustomed way as this priest of a
urch advanced across the room,-a broad-shouldered,
an of more than middle height, with a shapely, strong-
ace of almost waxen pallor, and a firm, commanding tread.
carried in his hands, besides his hat, a small leather-bound
use. To this and to him the women curtsied and bowed their
heads as he passed.
Come with me," whispered the tall girl with the parasol, to
Theron; and he found himself pushing along in her wake until
they intercepted the priest just outside the bedroom door. She
touched Father Forbes on the arm.
"Just to tell you that I am here," she said. The priest nodded
with a grave face, and passed into the other room. In a minute
or two the workmen, Mrs. MacEvoy, and her helper came out,
and the door was shut behind them.
"He is making his confession," explained the young lady.
"Stay here for a minute. "
She moved over to where the woman of the house stood,
glum-faced and tearless, and whispered something to her. A
confused movement among the crowd followed, and out of it
presently resulted a small table, covered with a white cloth, and
bearing on it two unlighted candles, a basin of water, and a
spoon, which was brought forward and placed in readiness before
the closed door. Some of those nearest this cleared space were
kneeling now, and murmuring a low buzz of prayer to the click
of beads on their rosaries.
The door opened, and Theron saw the priest standing in the
doorway with an uplifted hand. He wore now a surplice, with a
purple band over his shoulders, and on his pale face there shone
a tranquil and tender light.
One of the workmen fetched from the stove a brand, lighted
the two candles, and bore the table with its contents into the
bedroom. The young woman plucked Theron's sleeve, and he
dumbly followed her into the chamber of death, making one of
the group of a dozen, headed by Mrs. MacEvoy and her children,
which filled the little room, and overflowed now outward to the
street door. He found himself bowing with the others to receive
## p. 5974 (#564) ###########################################
5974
HAROLD FREDERIC
other apartment, the bedchamber. Through this they could see
the workmen laying MacEvoy on the bed, and standing awk-
wardly about thereafter, getting in the way of the wife and old
Maggie Quirk as they strove to remove the garments from his
crushed limbs. As the neighbors watched what could be seen of
these proceedings, they whispered among themselves eulogies of
the injured man's industry and good temper, his habit of bring-
ing his money home to his wife, and the way he kept his Father
Mathew pledge and attended to his religious duties. They ad-
mitted freely that by the light of his example, their own hus-
bands and sons left much to be desired; and from this wandered
easily off into domestic digressions of their own. But all the
while their eyes were bent upon the bedroom door; and Theron
made out, after he had grown accustomed to the gloom and the
smell, that many of them were telling their beads even while
they kept the muttered conversation alive. None of them paid
any attention to him, or seemed to regard his presence there as
unusual.
Presently he saw enter through the sunlit street doorway a
person of a different class. The bright light shone for a passing
instant upon a fashionable, flowered hat, and upon some remark-
ably brilliant shade of red hair beneath it. In another moment
there had edged along through the throng, to almost within
touch of him, a tall young woman, the owner of this hat and won-
derful hair. She was clad in light and pleasing spring attire, and
carried a parasol with a long oxidized silver handle of a quaint
pattern.
She looked at him, and he saw that her face was of a
lengthened oval, with a luminous rose-tinted skin, full red lips,
and big brown, frank eyes with heavy auburn lashes. She made
a grave little inclination of her head toward him, and he bowed
in response. Since her arrival, he noted, the chattering of the
others had entirely ceased.
"I followed the others in, in the hope that I might be of some
assistance," he ventured to explain to her in a low murmur, feel-
ing that at last here was some one to whom an explanation of
his presence in this Romish house was due. "I hope they won't
feel that I have intruded. "
She nodded her head as if she quite understood.
"They'll take the will for the deed," she whispered back.
"Father Forbes will be here in a minute. Do you know, is it
too late? "
## p. 5975 (#565) ###########################################
HAROLD FREDERIC
5975
Even as she spoke, the outer doorway was darkened by the
commanding bulk of a new-comer's figure. The flash of a silk
hat, and the deferential way in which the assembled neighbors
fell back to clear a passage, made his identity clear. Theron
felt his blood tingle in an unaccustomed way as this priest of a
strange Church advanced across the room,-a broad-shouldered,
portly man of more than middle height, with a shapely, strong-
lined face of almost waxen pallor, and a firm, commanding tread.
He carried in his hands, besides his hat, a small leather-bound
case. To this and to him the women curtsied and bowed their
heads as he passed.
Come with me," whispered the tall girl with the parasol, to
Theron; and he found himself pushing along in her wake until
they intercepted the priest just outside the bedroom door. She
touched Father Forbes on the arm.
"Just to tell you that I am here," she said. The priest nodded
with a grave face, and passed into the other room. In a minute
or two the workmen, Mrs. MacEvoy, and her helper came out,
and the door was shut behind them.
"He is making his confession," explained the young lady.
"Stay here for a minute. "
She moved over to where the woman of the house stood,
glum-faced and tearless, and whispered something to her. A
confused movement among the crowd followed, and out of it
presently resulted a small table, covered with a white cloth, and
bearing on it two unlighted candles, a basin of water, and a
spoon, which was brought forward and placed in readiness before
the closed door. Some of those nearest this cleared space were
kneeling now, and murmuring a low buzz of prayer to the click
of beads on their rosaries.
The door opened, and Theron saw the priest standing in the
doorway with an uplifted hand. He wore now a surplice, with a
purple band over his shoulders, and on his pale face there shone
a tranquil and tender light.
One of the workmen fetched from the stove a brand, lighted
the two candles, and bore the table with its contents into the
bedroom. The young woman plucked Theron's sleeve, and he
dumbly followed her into the chamber of death, making one of
the group of a dozen, headed by Mrs. MacEvoy and her children,
which filled the little room, and overflowed now outward to the
street door. He found himself bowing with the others to receive
## p. 5976 (#566) ###########################################
5976
HAROLD FREDERIC
the sprinkled holy water from the priest's white fingers; kneeling
with the others for the prayers; following in impressed silence
with the others the strange ceremonial by which the priest traced
crosses of holy oil with his thumb upon the eyes, ears, nostrils,
lips, hands, and feet of the dying man, wiping off the oil with a
piece of cotton-batting each time after he had repeated the invo-
cation to forgiveness for that particular sense. But most of all
he was moved by the rich, novel sound of the Latin as the
priest rolled it forth in the 'Asperges me, Domine,' and 'Mis-
ereatur vestri omnipotens Deus,' with its soft Continental vowels
and liquid r's. It seemed to him that he had never really heard
Latin before. Then the astonishing young woman with the red
hair declaimed the 'Confiteor' vigorously and with a resonant
distinctness of enunciation. It was a different Latin, harsher
and more sonorous; and while it still dominated the murmured
undertone of the other's prayers the last moment came.
Theron had stood face to face with death at many other bed-
sides; no other final scene had stirred him like this. It must
have been the girl's Latin chant, with its clanging reiteration of
the great names,-'beatum Michaelem Archangelum,' 'beatum
Joannem Baptistam,' 'sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum,'—
invoked with such proud confidence in this squalid little shanty,
which so strangely affected him.
He came out with the others at last,- the candles and the
folded hands over the crucifix left behind, and walked as one
in a dream. Even by the time that he had gained the outer
doorway, and stood blinking at the bright light and filling his
lungs with honest air once more, it had begun to seem incredi-
ble to him that he had seen and done all this.
――――――
## p. 5977 (#567) ###########################################
5977
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
(1823-1892)
BY JOHN BACH MCMASTER
DWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN, one of the most prolific of recent
English historians, was born at Harborne in Staffordshire,
England, on August 2d, 1823. His early education was re-
ceived at home and in private schools, from which at the age of
eighteen he went up to Oxford, where he was elected a scholar of
Trinity College. Four years later (1845) he took his degree and was
elected a Fellow of Trinity, an honor which he held till his marriage
in 1847 forced him to relinquish it.
Long before this event, Freeman was
deep in historical study. His fortune was
easy. The injunction that he should eat
bread in the sweat of his face had not
been laid on him. His time was his own,
and was devoted with characteristic zeal
and energy to labor in the field of history,
which in the course of fifty years was made
to yield him a goodly crop.
EDWARD A. FREEMAN
Year after year he poured forth a steady
stream of Essays, Thoughts, Remarks, Sug-
gestions, Lectures, Short Histories on mat-
ters of current interest, little monographs
on great events or great men,-all covering
a range of subjects which bear evidence to most astonishing ver-
satility and learning. Sometimes his topic was a cathedral church,
as that of Wells or Leominster Priory; or a cathedral city, as Ely or
Norwich. At others it was a grave historical theme, as the Unity
of History'; or 'Comparative Politics'; or the Growth of the English
Constitution from the Earliest Times'; or 'Old English History for
Children. ' His 'General Sketch of European History' is still a stand-
ard text book in our high schools and colleges. His 'William the
Conqueror in Macmillan's Twelve English Statesmen'; his 'Short
History of the Norman Conquest of England' in the Clarendon Press
Series; his studies of Godwin, Harold, and the Normans, in the 'En-
cyclopædia Britannica,' are the best of their kind.
## p. 5978 (#568) ###########################################
5978
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
His contributions to the reviews and magazines make a small
library, encyclopædic in character. Thirty-one essays were published
in the Fortnightly Review; thirty in the Contemporary Review;
twenty-seven in Macmillan's Magazine; twelve in the British Quar-
terly, and as many more in the National Review; while such as are
scattered through the other periodicals of Great Britain and the
United States swell the list to one hundred and fifty-seven titles.
Every conceivable subject is treated,-politics, government, history,
field sports, architecture, archæology, books, linguistics, finance, great
men living and dead, questions of the day. But even this list does
not comprise all of Freeman's writings, for regularly every week, for
more than twenty years, he contributed two long articles to the Sat-
urday Review.
Taken as a whole, this array of publications represents an indus-
try which was simply enormous, and a learning as varied as it was
immense. If classified according to their subjects, they fall naturally
into six groups.
The antiquarian and architectural sketches and ad-
dresses are the least valuable and instructive. They are of interest
because they exhibit a strong bent of mind which appears constantly
in Freeman's works, and because it was by the aid of such remains
that he studied the early history of nations. Then come the studies
in politics and government, such as the essays on presidential gov-
ernment; on American institutional history; on the House of Lords;
the growth of commonwealths, and such elaborate treatises as the six
lectures on Comparative Politics,' and the History of Federal Gov-
ernment,'—all notable because of the liberal spirit and breadth of
view that mark them, and because of a positiveness of statement
and confidence in the correctness of the author's judgments. Then
come the historical essays; then the lectures and addresses; then his
occasional pieces, written at the request of publishers or editors to
fill some long-felt want; and finally the series of histories on which,
in the long run, the reputation of Freeman must rest. These, in the
order of merit and value, are the 'Norman Conquest'; the 'Reign of
William Rufus,' which is really a supplement to the 'Conquest'; the
"History of Sicily,' which the author did not live to finish.
The roll of his works is enough to show that the kind of history
which appealed to Freeman was that of the distant past, and that
which dealt with politics rather than with social life. Of ancient his-
tory he had a good mastery; English history from its dawn to the
thirteenth century he knew minutely; European history of the same
period he knew profoundly. After the thirteenth century his interest
grew less and less as modern times were approached, and his knowl-
edge smaller and smaller till it became that of a man very well read
in history and no more.
## p. 5979 (#569) ###########################################
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5979
Freeman was therefore essentially a historian of the far past; and
as such had, it is safe to say, no living superior in England. But in
his treatment of the past he presents a small part of the picture.
He is concerned with great conquerors, with military leaders, with
battles and sieges and systems of government. The mass of the
people have no interest for him at all. His books abound in battle-
pieces of the age of the long-bow and the javelin, of the battle-axe,
the mace, and the spear; of the age when brain went for little and
when brawn counted for much; and when the fate of nations de-
pended less on the skill of individual commanders than on the per-
sonal prowess of those who met in hand-to-hand encounters. He
delights in descriptions of historic buildings; he is never weary of
drawing long analogies between one kind of government and another;
but for the customs, the manner, the usages, the daily life of the
people, he has never a word. "History," said he on one occasion,
"is past politics; politics is present history," and to this epigram he
is strictly faithful. The England of the serf and the villein, the cur-
few and the monastery, is brushed aside to leave room for the story
of the way in which William of Normandy conquered the Saxons,
and of the way in which William Rufus conducted his quarrels with
Bishop Anselm.
With all of this no fault is to be found. It was his cast of mind,
his point of view; and the questions which alone concern us in any
estimate of his work are: Did he do it well? What is its value?
Did he make a real contribution to historical knowledge? What are
its merits and defects? Judged by the standard he himself set up,
Freeman's chief merits, the qualities which mark him out as a great
historian, are an intense love of truth and a determination to dis
cover it at any cost; a sincere desire to mete out an even-handed
justice to each and every man; unflagging industry, common-sense,
broad views, and the power to reproduce the past most graphically.
From these merits comes Freeman's chief defect,-prolixity. His
earnest desire to be accurate made him not only say the same thing
over and over again, but say it with an unnecessary and useless full-
ness of detail, and back up his statement with a profusion of notes,
which in many cases amount to more than half the text. Indeed,
were they printed in the same type as the text, the space they
occupy would often exceed it. Thus in the first volume of the
'Norman Conquest' there are 528 pages of text, with foot-notes occu-
pying from a third to a half of almost every page, and an appendix
of notes of 244 pages; in the second volume, the text and foot-notes
amount to 512, and the appendix 179; in the third, the text covers
562 and the appendix 206 pages. These notes are always interesting
and always instructive. But the end of a volume is not the place for
## p. 5980 (#570) ###########################################
5980
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
an exhibition of the doubts and fears that have tormented the his-
torian, for a statement of the reasons which have led him to one
conclusion rather than another, nor for the denunciation or reputa-
tion of the opinions of his predecessors. When the building is fin-
ished, we do not want to see the lumber used as the scaffolding piled
in the back yard. Mr. Freeman's histories would be all the better
for a condensation of the text and an elimination of the long appen-
dices.
With these exceptions, the workmanship is excellent. He entered
so thoroughly into the past that it became to him more real and
understandable than the present. He was not merely the contem-
porary but the companion of the men he had to deal with. He
knew every spot of ground, every Roman ruin, every mediæval
castle, that came in any way to be connected with his story, as well
as he knew the topography of the country that stretched beneath his
study window, or the arrangement of the house in which he lived.
In his histories, therefore, we are presented at every turn with
life-like portraits of the illustrious dead, bearing all the marks of
having been taken from life; with descriptions of castles and towers,
minsters and abbeys, and of the scenes that have made them memo-
rable; with comparisons of one ruler with another, always sane and
just; and with graphic pictures of coronations, of battles, sieges,
burnings, and all the havoc and pomp of war.
The essays and studies in politics show Mr. Freeman in a yet
more interesting light; many are elaborate reviews of historical
works, and therefore cover a wide range of topics, both ancient and
of the present time. Now his subject is Mr. Bryce's 'Holy Roman
Empire'; now the Flavian Cæsars; now Mr. Gladstone's 'Homer and
the Homeric Age'; now Kirk's 'Charles the Bold'; now presidential
government; now Athenian democracy; now the Byzantine Empire;
now the Eastern Church; now the growth of commonwealths; now
the geographical aspects of the Eastern Question.
By so wide a range of topics, an opportunity is afforded for a
variety of remarks, analogies, judgments of men and times, far greater
than the histories could give. In the main, these judgments may be
accepted; but so thoroughly was Freeman a historian of the past, that
some of his estimates of contemporary men and things were singu-
larly erroneous. While our Civil War was still raging he began a
'History of Federal Government,' which was to extend from the
Achæan League "to the disruption of the United States. " A prudent
historian would not have taken up the rôle of prophet. He would
have waited for the end of the struggle. But absolute self-confidence
in his own good judgment was one of Freeman's most conspicuous
traits. His estimate of Lincoln is another instance of inability to
## p. 5981 (#571) ###########################################
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5981
understand the times in which he lived. In the Essay on Presiden-
tial Government,' published in the National Review in 1864 and re-
published in the first series of 'Historical Essays' in 1871, the greatest
President and the grandest public character the United States has
yet produced is declared inferior to each and all the Presidents from
Washington to John Quincy Adams. A comparison of Lincoln with
Monroe or Madison or Jefferson by Freeman would have been enter-
taining.
Two views of history as set forth in the essays are especially de-
serving of notice. He is never weary of insisting on the unity and
the continuity of history in general and that of England in particular,
and he attaches unreasonable importance to the influence of the Teu-
tonic element in English history. This latter was the inevitable re-
sult of his method of studying the past along the lines of philology
and ethnology, and has carried him to extremes which taken by any-
body else he would have been quick to see.
An examination of Freeman's minor contributions to the reviews
- such essays, sketches, and discussions as he did not think important
enough to republish in book form - is indicative of his interest in
current affairs. They made little draft on his learning, yet the point
of view is generally the result of his learning. He believed, for in-
stance, that a sound judgment on the Franco-Prussian War could not
be found save in the light of history. "The present war," he wrote
to the Pall Mall Gazette, "has largely risen out of a misconception
of history, out of the dream of a frontier of the Rhine which never
existed. The war on the part of Germany is in truth a vigorous set-
ting forth of the historical truth that the Rhine is, and always has
been, a German river. "
Freeman was still busy with his History of Sicily' from the ear-
liest times, and had just finished the preface to the third volume,
when he died at Alicante in Spain, March 16th, 1892. Since his death
a fourth volume, prepared from his notes, has been published.
But one biography of Freeman has yet appeared, 'The Life and
Letters of Edward A. Freeman,' by W. R. W.
