While I
revolved
these ideas, new warmth flowed in upon
my heart.
my heart.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v04 - Bes to Bro
All passions are base, all joys feeble, all energies
malignant, which are not drawn from this source.
For a time my contemplations soared above earth and its in-
habitants. I stretched forth my hands; I lifted my eyes, and
exclaimed, "Oh, that I might be admitted to thy presence! that
mine were the supreme delight of knowing Thy will and of
performing it! -the blissful privilege of direct communication.
with Thee, and of listening to the audible enunciation of Thy
pleasure!
"What task would I not undertake, what privation would I
not cheerfully endure, to testify my love of Thee? Alas! Thou
hidest Thyself from my view; glimpses only of Thy excellence
and beauty are afforded me. Would that a momentary emanation
from Thy glory would visit me! that some unambiguous token of
Thy presence would salute my senses! "
In this mood I entered the house of my sister. It was vacant.
Scarcely had I regained recollection of the purpose that brought
me hither. Thoughts of a different tendency had such an abso-
lute possession of my mind, that the relations of time and space
were almost obliterated from my understanding. These wander-
ings, however, were restrained, and I ascended to her chamber.
I had no light, and might have known by external observation
that the house was without any inhabitant. With this, however,
I was not satisfied. I entered the room, and the object of my
search not appearing, I prepared to return. The darkness re-
quired some caution in descending the stair. I stretched out my
hand to seize the balustrade, by which I might regulate my steps.
How shall I describe the lustre which at that moment burst
upon my vision?
I was dazzled. My organs were bereaved of their activity.
My eyelids were half closed, and my hands withdrawn from the
balustrade. A nameless fear chilled my veins, and I stood
motionless. This irradiation did not retire or lessen. It seemed
as if some powerful effulgence covered me like a mantle.
opened my eyes and found all about me luminous and glowing.
It was the element of heaven that flowed around. Nothing but
a fiery stream was at first visible; but anon a shrill voice from
behind called upon me to attend.
I
I turned. It is forbidden to describe what I saw: words,
indeed, would be wanting to the task. The lineaments of that
## p. 2432 (#638) ###########################################
2432
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
Being whose veil was now lifted and whose visage beamed upon
my sight, no hues of pencil or of language can portray. As it
spoke, the accents thrilled to my heart:-"Thy prayers are
heard. In proof of thy faith, render me thy wife. This is the
victim I choose. Call her hither, and here let her fall. " The
sound and visage and light vanished at once.
What demand was this? The blood of Catharine was to be
shed! My wife was to perish by my hand! I sought oppor-
tunity to attest my virtue. Little did I expect that a proof like
this would have been demanded.
"My wife! " I exclaimed: "O God! substitute some other vic-
tim. Make me not the butcher of my wife. My own blood is
cheap. This will I pour out before Thee with a willing heart;
but spare, I beseech Thee, this precious life, or commission some
other than her husband to perform the bloody deed. "
In vain. The conditions were prescribed; the decree had gone
forth, and nothing remained but to execute it. I rushed out of
the house and across the intermediate fields, and stopped not till
I entered my own parlor. My wife had remained here during
my absence, in anxious expectation of my return with some tid-
ings of her sister. I had none to communicate. For a time I
was breathless with my speed. This, and the tremors that shook
my frame, and the wildness of my looks, alarmed her. She
immediately suspected some disaster to have happened to her
friend, and her own speech was as much overpowered by emotion
as mine. She was silent, but her looks manifested her impa-
tience to hear what I had to communicate. I spoke, but with so
much precipitation as scarcely to be understood; catching her at
the same time by the arm, and forcibly pulling her from her seat.
"Come along with me; fly; waste not a moment; time will
be lost, and the deed will be omitted. Tarry not, question not,
but fly with me. "
This deportment added afresh to her alarms.
Her eyes pur-
sued mine, and she said, "What is the matter? For God's
sake, what is the matter? Where would you have me go? "
My eyes were fixed upon her countenance while she spoke.
I thought upon her virtues; I viewed her as the mother of my
babes; as my wife. I recalled the purpose for which I thus
urged her attendance. My heart faltered, and I saw that I must
rouse to this work all my faculties. The danger of the least
delay was imminent.
## p. 2433 (#639) ###########################################
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
2433
I looked away from her, and, again exerting my force, drew
her toward the door. "You must go with me; indeed you
must. "
In her fright she half resisted my efforts, and again ex-
claimed, “Good heaven! what is it you mean? Where go? What
has happened? Have you found Clara ? "
"Follow me and you will see," I answered, still urging her
reluctant steps forward.
"What frenzy has seized you? Something must needs have
happened. Is she sick? Have you found her? "
"Come and see. Follow me and know for yourself. "
Still she expostulated and besought me to explain this mys-
terious behavior. I could not trust myself to answer her, to look
at her; but grasping her arm, I drew her after me. She hesi-
tated, rather through confusion of mind than from unwillingness
to accompany me. This confusion gradually abated, and she
moved forward, but with irresolute footsteps and continual excla-
mations of wonder and terror. Her interrogations of "What was
the matter? " and "Whither was I going? " were ceaseless and
vehement.
It was the scope of my efforts not to think; to keep up a
conflict and uproar in my mind in which all order and distinct-
ness should be lost; to escape from the sensations produced by
her voice. I was therefore silent. I strove to abridge this inter-
val by haste, and to waste all my attention in furious gesticu-
lations.
In this state of mind we reached my sister's door. She looked
at the windows and saw that all was desolate. "Why come we
here? There is nobody here. I will not go in. "
Still I was dumb; but, opening the door, I drew her into the
entry. This was the allotted scene; here she was to fall. I let
go her hand, and pressing my palms against my forehead, made
one mighty effort to work up my soul to the deed.
In vain; it would not be; my courage was appalled, my arms
nerveless. I muttered prayers that my strength might be aided
from above. They availed nothing.
Horror diffused itself over me. This conviction of my
cowardice, my rebellion, fastened upon me, and I stood rigid and
cold as marble. From this state I was somewhat relieved by my
wife's voice, who renewed her supplications to be told why we
come hither and what was the fate of my sister.
VI-153
## p. 2434 (#640) ###########################################
2434
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
The fellness of a gloomy hurricane but faintly resembled the
discord that reigned in my mind. To omit this sacrifice must not
be; yet my sinews had refused to perform it. No alternative
was offered. To rebel against the mandate was impossible; but
obedience would render me the executioner of my wife. My
will was strong, but my limbs refused their office.
That accents and looks so winning should disarm me of my
resolution was to be expected. My thoughts were thrown anew
into anarchy. I spread my hand before my eyes that I might
not see her, and answered only by groans. She took my other
hand between hers, and pressing it to her heart, spoke with that
voice which had ever swayed my will and wafted away sorrow:
"My friend! my soul's friend! tell me thy cause of grief. Do
I not merit to partake with thee in thy cares? Am I not thy
wife ? »
-
This was too much. I broke from her embrace and retired
to a corner of the room. In this pause, courage was once more
infused into me. I resolved to execute my duty. She followed
me, and renewed her passionate entreaties to know the cause of
my distress.
I raised my head and regarded her with steadfast
looks. I muttered something about death, and the injunctions of
my duty.
At these words she shrunk back, and looked at me
with a new expression of anguish. After a pause, she clasped
her hands, and exclaimed: -
:-
"O Wieland! Wieland! God grant that I am mistaken! but
something surely is wrong. I see it; it is too plain; thou art
undone lost to me and to thyself. " At the same time she
gazed on my features with intensest anxiety, in hope that differ-
ent symptoms would take place. I replied to her with vehe-
mence:
-
"Undone! No; my duty is known, and I thank my God that
my cowardice is now vanquished and I have power to fulfill it.
Catharine, I pity the weakness of thy nature; I pity thee, but
must not spare. Thy life is claimed from my hands; thou must
die! "
Fear was now added to her grief. "What mean you? Why
talk you of death? Bethink yourself, Wieland; bethink yourself,
and this fit will pass. Oh, why came I hither? Why did you
drag me hither? "
"I brought thee hither to fulfill a divine command.
appointed thy destroyer, and destroy thee I must. "
I am
Saying this,
## p. 2435 (#641) ###########################################
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
2435
She shrieked aloud, and endeavored to free
I seized her wrists.
herself from my grasp; but her efforts were vain.
"Surely, surely, Wieland, thou dost not mean it. Am I not
thy wife and wouldst thou kill me? Thou wilt not; and yet-I
see-thou art Wieland no longer! A fury resistless and horri
ble possesses thee. Spare me- spare-help-help-»
Till her breath was stopped she shrieked for help, for mercy.
When she could speak no longer, her gestures, her looks appealed
to my compassion. My accursed hand was irresolute and trem-
ulous. I meant thy death to be sudden, thy struggles to be
brief. Alas! my heart was infirm, my resolves mutable. Thrice
I slackened my grasp, and life kept its hold, though in the
midst of pangs.
Her eyeballs started from their sockets. Grim-
ness and distortion took the place of all that used to bewitch me
into transport and subdue me into reverence. I was commis-
sioned to kill thee, but not to torment thee with the foresight
of thy death; not to multiply thy fears and prolong thy agonies.
Haggard and pale and lifeless, at length thou ceasedst to contend.
with thy destiny.
This was the moment of triumph. Thus had I successfully
subdued the stubbornness of human passions: the victim which
had been demanded was given; the deed was done past recall.
I lifted the corpse in my arms and laid it on the bed. I
gazed upon it with delight. Such was the elation of my thoughts
that I even
even broke into laughter. I clapped my hands and
exclaimed, “It is done! My sacred duty is fulfilled! To that I
have sacrificed, O my God, Thy last and best gift, my wife! "
For a while I thus soared above frailty. I imagined I had
set myself forever beyond the reach of selfishness; but my im-
aginations were false. This rapture quickly subsided. I looked
again at my wife. My joyous ebullitions vanished, and I asked
myself who it was whom I saw. Methought it could not be
Catharine. It could not be the woman who had lodged for years in
my heart; who had slept nightly in my bosom; who had borne in
her womb, who had fostered at her breast, the beings who called
me father; whom I have watched with delight, and cherished
with a fondness ever new and perpetually growing; it could not
be the same. Where was her bloom? These deadly and blood-
suffused orbs but ill resemble the azure and ecstatic tenderness
of her eyes.
The lucid stream that meandered over that bosom,
the glow of love that was wont to sit upon that cheek, are
## p. 2436 (#642) ###########################################
2436
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
much unlike these livid stains and this hideous deformity. Alas!
these were the traces of agony; the gripe of the assassin had
been here!
I will not dwell upon my lapse into desperate and outrageous
sorrow. The breath of heaven that sustained me was withdrawn,
and I sunk into mere man. I leaped from the floor; I dashed
my head against the wall; I uttered screams of horror; I panted
after torment and pain. Eternal fire and the bickerings of hell,
compared with what I felt, were music and a bed of roses.
I thank my God that this degeneracy was transient-that He
deigned once more to raise me aloft. I thought upon what I
had done as a sacrifice to duty, and was calm. My wife was
dead; but I reflected that though this source of human consola-
tion was closed, yet others were still open. If the transports of
a husband were no more, the feelings of a father had still scope
for exercise. When remembrance of their mother should excite
too keen a pang, I would look upon them and be comforted.
While I revolved these ideas, new warmth flowed in upon
my heart. I was wrong. These feelings were the growth of self-
ishness. Of this I was not aware; and to dispel the mist that
obscured my perceptions, a new effulgence and a new mandate
were necessary. From these thoughts I was recalled by a ray
that was shot into the room. A voice spake like that which I
had before heard:- "Thou hast done well. But all is not done
-the sacrifice is incomplete-thy children must be offered-
they must perish with their mother! —»
Thou, Omnipotent and Holy! Thou knowest that my actions
were conformable to Thy will. I know not what is crime; what
actions are evil in their ultimate and comprehensive tendency, or
what are good. Thy knowledge, as Thy power, is unlimited. I
have taken Thee for my guide, and cannot err. To the arms of
Thy protection I intrust my safety. In the awards of Thy
justice I confide for my recompense.
Come death when it will, I am safe. Let calumny and abhor-
rence pursue me among men; I shall not be defrauded of my
dues. The peace of virtue and the glory of obedience will be
my portion hereafter.
## p. 2437 (#643) ###########################################
2437
JOHN BROWN
(1810-1882)
OHN BROWN, the son of a secession-church minister, was born
in Biggar, Lanarkshire, Scotland, September 22d, 1810, and
died in Edinburgh, May 11th, 1882. He was educated at
the Edinburgh High School and at the University, and graduated in
medicine in 1833. For a time he was a surgeon's assistant to the
great Dr. Syme, the man of whom he said "he never wasted a drop
of ink or blood," and whose character he has drawn in one of his
most charming biographies. When he began to practice for himself
he gradually "got into a good connection,"
and his patients made him their confidant
and adviser. He was considered a fine
doctor too, for he had remarkable common-
sense, and was said to be unerring in diag-
nosis.
JOHN BROWN
Dr. Brown did not, as is commonly be-
lieved, dislike his profession; but later on
he took a view of it which seemed non-
progressive, and his success as a writer no
doubt interfered with his practice. His
friend Professor Masson draws a pleasant
picture of him when he first settled in
practice, as a dark-haired man with soft,
fine eyes and a benignant manner, the hus-
band of a singularly beautiful woman, and much liked and sought
after in the social circles of Edinburgh. This was partly owing to
the charm of his conversation, and partly to the literary reputation
he had achieved through some articles on the Academy exhibition
and on local artists. Though he had little technical training, he had
an eye for color and form, an appreciation of the artist's meaning,
and an instinct for discovering genius, as in the case of Noel Paton
and David Scott. He soon became an authority among artists, and
he gave a new impulse to national art.
He contributed largely to the North British Review. In 1855 he
published 'Horæ Subsecivæ,' which contained, among medical biog-
raphy and medico-literary papers, the immortal Scotch idyl, 'Rab
and his Friends. Up to this time the unique personality of the
doctor, with its delightful mixture of humor and sympathy, was
## p. 2438 (#644) ###########################################
2438
JOHN BROWN
known only to his own circle. The appearance of 'Rab and his
Friends' revealed it to the world. Brief as it is in form, and simple
in outline, Scotland has produced nothing so full of pure, pathetic
genius since Scott.
Another volume of 'Horæ Subsecivæ appeared two years after,
and some selections from it, and others from unpublished manuscript,
were printed separately in the volume entitled 'Spare Hours. ' They
met with instant and unprecedented success. In a short time ten
thousand copies of 'Minchmoor' and 'James the Doorkeeper' were
sold, fifteen thousand copies of 'Pet Marjorie,' and 'Rab' had reached
its fiftieth thousand. With all this success and praise, and constantly
besought by publishers for his work, he could not be persuaded that
his writings were of any permanent value, and was reluctant to
publish. In 1882 appeared a third volume of the 'Hora Subsecivæ,'
which included all his writings. A few weeks after its publication
he died.
The Doctor's medical essays, which are replete with humor, are
written in defense of his special theory, the distinction between the
active and the speculative mind. He thought there was too much
science and too little intuitive sagacity in the world, and looked back
longingly to the old-time common-sense, which he believed mod-
ern science had driven away. His own mind was anti-speculative,
although he paid just tributes to philosophy and science and ad-
mired their achievements. He stigmatized the speculations of the
day as the "lust of innovation. " But the reader cares little for the
opinions of Dr. Brown as arguments: his subject is of little conse-
quence if he will but talk. By the charm of his story-telling these
dead Scotch doctors are made to live again. The death-bed of Syme,
for instance, is as pathetic as the wonderful paper on Thackeray's
death; and to-day many a heart is sore for 'Pet Marjorie,' the ten-
year-old child who died in Scotland almost a hundred years ago.
As an essayist, Dr. Brown belongs to the followers of Addison
and Charles Lamb, and he blends humor, pathos, and quiet hopeful-
ness with
a grave and earnest dignity. He delighted, not like
Lamb "in the habitable parts of the earth," but in the lonely moor-
lands and pastoral hills, over which his silent, stalwart shepherds
walked with swinging stride. He had a keen appreciation for
anything he felt to be excellent: his usual question concerning
a stranger, either in literature or life, was "Has he wecht, sir? ”—
quoting Dr. Chalmers; and when he wanted to give the highest
praise, he said certain writing was "strong meat. " He had a warm
enthusiasm for the work of other literary men: an artist himself, he
was quick to appreciate and seize upon the witty thing or the excel-
lent thing wherever he found it, and he was eager to share his
## p. 2439 (#645) ###########################################
JOHN BROWN
2439
pleasure with the whole world. He reintroduced to the public
Henry Vaughn, the quaint seventeenth-century poet; he wrote a
sympathetic memoir of Arthur Hallam; he imported 'Modern Paint-
ers, and enlightened Edinburgh as to its merits. His art papers.
were what Walter Pater would call "appreciations," that is to say,
he dwelt upon the beauties of what he described rather than upon
the defects. What he did not admire he left alone.
As the author of 'Rab' loved the lonely glens on Minchmoor and
in the Enterkin, or where Queen Mary's "baby garden" shows its
box-row border among the Spanish chestnuts of Lake Monteith, so
he loved the Scottish character, "bitter to the taste and sweet to the
diaphragm": "Jeemes" the beadle, with his family worship when he
himself was all the family; the old Aberdeen Jacobite people; Miss
Stirling Graham of Duntrune, who in her day bewitched Edinburgh;
Rab, Ailie, and Bob Ainslie. His characters are oddities, but are
drawn without a touch of cynicism. What an amount of playful,
wayward nonsense lies between these pages, and what depths of
melancholy under the fun! Like Sir Walter, he had a great love
for dogs, and never went out unaccompanied by one or two of them.
They are the heroes of several of his sketches.
Throughout the English-speaking world, he was affectionately
known as Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh. He stood aloof from polit-
ical and ecclesiastical controversies, and was fond of telling a story
to illustrate how little reasoning went to forming partisans. A min-
ister catechizing a raw plowboy, after asking the first question, "Who
made you? " and getting the answer "God," asked him, "How do
you know that God made you? " After some pause and head-scratch-
ing, the reply came, "Weel, sir, it's the clash [common talk] o' the
kintry. " "Ay," Brown added, "I'm afraid that a deal of our belief
is founded on just the clash o' the kintry. › »
MARJORIE FLEMING
From 'Spare Hours'
ON
NE November afternoon in 1810-the year in which 'Wa-
verley' was resumed and laid aside again, to be finished
off, its last two volumes in three weeks, and made immor-
tal in 1814; and when its author, by the death of Lord Melville,
narrowly escaped getting a civil appointment in India - three
men, evidently lawyers, might have been seen escaping like
schoolboys from the Parliament House, and speeding arm-in-arm
down Bank Street and the Mound in the teeth of a surly blast
of sleet.
## p. 2440 (#646) ###########################################
2440
JOHN BROWN
The three friends sought the bield of the low wall old Edin-
burgh boys remember well, and sometimes miss now, as they
struggle with the stout west wind.
The third we all know. What has he not done for every one
of us? Who else ever, except Shakespeare, so diverted man-
kind, entertained and entertains a world so liberally, so whole-
somely? We are fain to say not even Shakespeare, for his is
something deeper than diversion, something higher than pleasure;
and yet who would care to split this hair?
Had any one watched him closely before and after the part-
ing, what a change he would see! The bright, broad laugh, the
shrewd, jovial word, the man of the Parliament House and of
the world; and next step, moody, the light of his eye withdrawn,
as if seeing things that were invisible; his shut mouth like a
child's, so impressionable, so innocent, so sad; he was now all
within, as before he was all without; hence his brooding look.
As the snow blattered in his face, he muttered, "How it raves
and drifts! On-ding o' snaw,-ay, that's the word,-on-ding"
He was
now at his own door, "Castle Street, No. 39. " He
opened the door and went straight to his den; that wondrous
workshop, where in one year, 1823, when he was fifty-two, he
wrote 'Peveril of the Peak,' 'Quentin Durward,' and 'St.
Ronan's Well,' besides much else. We once took the foremost
of our novelists—the greatest, we would say, since Scott — into
this room, and could not but mark the solemnizing effect of
sitting where the great magician sat so often and so long, and
looking out upon that little shabby bit of sky, and that back
green where faithful dog Camp lies.
He sat down in his large green morocco elbow-chair, drew
himself close to his table, and glowered and gloomed at his writ-
ing apparatus, "a very handsome old box, richly carved, lined
with crimson velvet, and containing ink-bottles, taper-stand, etc. ,
in silver, the whole in such order that it might have come from
the silversmith's window half an hour before. " He took out his
paper, then starting up angrily, said, "Go spin, you jade, go
spin. ' No, d-- it, it won't do,-
"My spinnin' wheel is auld and stiff,
The rock o't wunna stand, sir;
To keep the temper-pin in tiff
Employs ower aft my hand, sir. '
## p. 2441 (#647) ###########################################
JOHN BROWN
2441
I am off the fang. I can make nothing of 'Waverley' to-day;
I'll awa' to Marjorie. Come wi' me, Maida, you thief. " The
great creature rose slowly, and the pair were off, Scott taking a
maud (a plaid) with him. "White as a frosted plum-cake, by
jingo! " said he, when he got to the street. Maida gamboled and
whisked among the snow, and his master strode across to Young
Street, and through it to I North Charlotte Street, to the house
of his dear friend, Mrs. William Keith, of Corstorphine
Hill;
niece of Mrs. Keith of Ravelston, of whom he said at her death,
eight years after, "Much tradition, and that of the best, has died
with this excellent old lady, one of the few persons whose spirits,
and cleanliness and freshness of mind and body, made old age
lovely and desirable. "
now.
Sir Walter was in that house almost every day, and had a key,
so in he and the hound went, shaking themselves in the lobby.
«< Marjorie! Marjorie! " shouted her friend, "where are ye, my
bonnie wee croodlin' doo? " In a moment a bright, eager child
of seven was in his arms, and he was kissing her all over. Out
came Mrs. Keith. "Come your ways in, Wattie. " "No, not
I am going to take Marjorie wi' me, and you may come to
your tea in Duncan Roy's sedan, and bring the bairn home in
your lap. " "Tak' Marjorie, and it on-ding o' snaw! " said Mrs.
Keith. He said to himself, "On-ding,'- that's odd,- that is the
very word. Hoot, awa'! look here," and he displayed the cor-
ner of his plaid, made to hold lambs (the true shepherd's plaid,
consisting of two breadths sewed together, and uncut at one end,
making a poke or cul-de-sac). "Tak' your lamb," said she, laugh-
ing at the contrivance, and so the Pet was first well happit up,
and then put, laughing silently, into the plaid neuk, and the
shepherd strode off with his lamb,- Maida gamboling through the
snow, and running races in her mirth.
Didn't he face "the angry airt," and make her bield his
bosom, and into his own room with her, and lock the door, and
out with the warm rosy little wifie, who took it all with great
composure! There the two remained for three or more hours,
making the house ring with their laughter; you can fancy the
big man's and Maidie's laugh. Having made the fire cheery, he
set her down in his ample chair, and standing sheepishly before
her, began to say his lesson, which happened to be,- "Ziccotty,
diccotty, dock, the mouse ran up the clock; the clock struck
one, down the mouse ran, ziccotty, diccotty, dock. " This done
## p. 2442 (#648) ###########################################
2442
JOHN BROWN
repeatedly till she was pleased, she gave him his new lesson,
gravely and slowly, timing it upon her small fingers,—he saying
it after her,-
"Wonery, twoery, tickery, seven;
Alibi, crackaby, ten and eleven;
Pin, pan, musky dan;
Tweedle-um, twoddle-um, twenty-wan;
Eerie, orie, ourie,
You, are, out. "
He pretended to great difficulty, and she rebuked him with
most comical gravity, treating him as a child.
He used to say
that when he came to Alibi Crackaby he broke down, and Pin-
Pan, Musky-Dan, Tweedle-um Twoddle-um made him roar with
laughter. He said Musky-Dan especially was beyond endurance,
bringing up an Irishman and his hat fresh from the Spice
Islands and odoriferous Ind; she getting quite bitter in her dis-
pleasure at his ill behavior and stupidness.
Then he would read ballads to her in his own glorious way,
the two getting wild with excitement over 'Gil Morrice' or the
'Baron of Smailholm'; and he would take her on his knee, and
make her repeat Constance's speech in 'King John,' till he
swayed to and fro, sobbing his fill.
Scott used to say that he was amazed at her power over him,
saying to Mrs. Keith, "She's the most extraordinary creature I
ever met with, and her repeating of Shakespeare overpowers me
as nothing else does. "
Thanks to the unforgetting sister of this dear child, who has
much of the sensibility and fun of her who has been in her
small grave these fifty and more years, we have now before us
the letters and journals of Pet Marjorie,- before us lies and
gleams her rich brown hair, bright and sunny as if yesterday's,
with the words on the paper, "Cut out in her last illness," and
two pictures of her by her beloved Isabella, whom she wor-
shiped; there are the faded old scraps of paper, hoarded still,
over which her warm breath and her warm little heart had
poured themselves; there is the old water-mark, "Lingard, 1808. "
The two portraits are very like each other, but plainly done at
different times; it is a chubby, healthy face, deep-set, brooding
eyes, as eager to tell what is going on within as to gather in all
the glories from without; quick with the wonder and the pride
of life; they are eyes that would not be soon satisfied with
## p. 2443 (#649) ###########################################
JOHN BROWN
2443
seeing; eyes that would devour their object, and yet childlike
and fearless. And that is a mouth that will not be soon satisfied
with love; it has a curious likeness to Scott's own, which has
always appeared to us his sweetest, most mobile and speaking
feature.
There she is, looking straight at us as she did at him,-fear-
less and full of love, passionate, wild, willful, fancy's child.
There was an old servant, Jeanie Robertson, who was forty
years in her grandfather's family. Marjorie Fleming-or as
she is called in the letters and by Sir Walter, Maidie was the
last child she kept. Jeanie's wages never exceeded £3 a year,
and when she left service she had saved £40. She was devot-
edly attached to Maidie, rather despising and ill-using her sister
Isabella, a beautiful and gentle child. This partiality made
Maidie apt at times to domineer over Isabella. "I mention
this," writes her surviving sister, "for the purpose of telling you
an instance of Maidie's generous justice. When only five years
old, when walking in Raith grounds, the two children had run
on before, and old Jeanie remembered they might come too near
a dangerous mill-lade. She called to them to turn back. Maidie
heeded her not, rushed all the faster on, and fell, and would
have been lost, had her sister not pulled her back, saving her
life, but tearing her clothes. Jeanie flew on Isabella to 'give it
her' for spoiling her favorite's dress; Maidie rushed in between,
crying out, 'Pay (whip) Maidjie as much as you like, and I'll
not say one word; but touch Isy, and I'll roar like a bull! '
Years after Maidie was resting in her grave, my mother used to
take me to the place, and told the story always in the exact
same words. This Jeanie must have been a character. She
took great pride in exhibiting Maidie's brother William's Calvin-
istic acquirements when nineteen months old, to the officers of a
militia regiment then quartered in Kirkcaldy. This performance
was so amusing that it was often repeated, and the little theo-
logian was presented by them with a cap and feathers. Jeanie's
glory was "putting him through the carritch" (catechism) in
broad Scotch, beginning at the beginning with "Wha made ye,
ma bonnie man? " For the correctness of this and the three
next replies, Jeanie had no anxiety; but the tone changed to
menace, and the closed nieve (fist) was shaken in the child's face
as she demanded, "Of what are you made? " "DIRT," was the
>>
-
## p. 2444 (#650) ###########################################
2444
JOHN BROWN
answer uniformly given. "Wull ye never learn to say dust, ye
thrawn deevil? " with a cuff from the opened hand, was the as
inevitable rejoinder.
Here is Maidie's first letter, before she was six, the spelling
unaltered, and there are no "commoes. "
-
"MY DEAR ISA I now sit down to answer all your kind and
beloved letters which you was so good as to write to me. This
is the first time I ever wrote a letter in my Life. There are a
great many Girls in the Square and they cry just like a pig
when we are under the painfull necessity of putting it to Death.
Miss Potune a Lady of my acquaintance praises me dreadfully. I
repeated something out of Dean Swift and she said I was fit for
the stage and you may think I was primmed up with majestick
Pride but upon my word I felt myselfe turn a little birsay-
birsay is a word which is a word that William composed which
is as you may suppose a little enraged. This horrid fat simpli-
ton says that my Aunt is beautifull which is intirely impossible.
for that is not her nature. "
What a peppery little pen we wield! What could that have
been out of the sardonic Dean? what other child of that age
would have used "beloved" as she does? This power of affec-
tion, this faculty of beloving, and wild hunger to be beloved,
comes out more and more. She periled her all upon it, and
it may have been as well-we know, indeed, that it was far
better for her that this wealth of love was so soon withdrawn
to its one only infinite Giver and Receiver. This must have
been the law of her earthly life. Love was indeed "her Lord
and King"; and it was perhaps well for her that she found so
soon that her and our only Lord and King Himself is Love.
Here are bits from her Diary at Brachead: -
"The day of my existence here has been delightful and en-
chanting. On Saturday I expected no less than three well-made.
Bucks the names of whom is here advertised. Mr. Geo. Crakey
[Craigie], and Wm. Keith and Jn. Keith-the first is the funniest
of every one of them. Mr. Crakey and I walked to Crakyhall
[Craigiehall] hand in hand in Innocence and matitation [medita-
tion] sweet thinking on the kind love which flows in our tender
hearted mind which is overflowing with majestic pleasure no one
was ever so polite to me in the hole state of my existence. Mr.
Craky you must know is a great Buck and pretty good-looking. "
## p. 2445 (#651) ###########################################
JOHN BROWN
2445
"I am at Ravelston enjoying nature's fresh air. The birds
are singing sweetly- the calf doth frisk and nature shows her
glorious face. »
Here is a confession:
"I confess I have been very more like a little young divil
than creature for when Isabella went up stairs to teach me
religion and my multiplication and to be good and all my other
lessons I stamped with my foot and threw my new hat which
she had made on the ground and was sulky and was dreadfully
passionate, but she never whiped me but said Marjory go into
another room and think what a great crime you are commit-
ting letting your temper git the better of you. But I went so
sulkily that the Devil got the better of me but she never never
never whips me so that I think I would be the better of it and
the next time that I behave ill I think she should do it for she
never does it.
. Isabella has given me praise for checking
my temper for I was sulky even when she was kneeling an hole
hour teaching me to write. "
Our poor little wifie, she has no doubts of the personality of
the Devil! "Yesterday I behave extremely ill in God's most
holy church for I would never attend myself nor let Isabella
attend which was a great crime for she often, often tells me that
when to or three are geathered together God is in the midst of
them, and it was the very same Divil that tempted Job that
tempted me I am sure; but he resisted Satan though he had
boils and many many other misfortunes which I have escaped.
I am now going to tell you the horible and wretched
plaege that my multiplication gives me you can't conceive it the
most Devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7 it is what nature
itself cant endure. "
·
« I
This is delicious; and what harm is there in her "Devilish"?
it is strong language merely; even old Rowland Hill used to say
"he grudged the Devil those rough and ready words. "
walked to that delightful place Crakyhall with a delightful young
man beloved by all his friends especially by me his loveress, but
I must not talk any more about him for Isa said it is not proper
for to speak of gentalmen but I will never forget him!
I am very very glad that satan has not given me boils and
many other misfortunes-In the holy bible these words are
written that the Devil goes like a roaring lyon in search of his
pray but the lord lets us escape from him but we" (pauvre
## p. 2446 (#652) ###########################################
2446
JOHN BROWN
petite! ) "do not strive with this awful Spirit.
To-day
I pronounced a word which should never come out of a lady's
lips it was that I called John a Impudent Bitch.
I will tell you
what I think made me in so bad a humor is I got one or two
of that bad sina [senna] tea to-day,".
malignant, which are not drawn from this source.
For a time my contemplations soared above earth and its in-
habitants. I stretched forth my hands; I lifted my eyes, and
exclaimed, "Oh, that I might be admitted to thy presence! that
mine were the supreme delight of knowing Thy will and of
performing it! -the blissful privilege of direct communication.
with Thee, and of listening to the audible enunciation of Thy
pleasure!
"What task would I not undertake, what privation would I
not cheerfully endure, to testify my love of Thee? Alas! Thou
hidest Thyself from my view; glimpses only of Thy excellence
and beauty are afforded me. Would that a momentary emanation
from Thy glory would visit me! that some unambiguous token of
Thy presence would salute my senses! "
In this mood I entered the house of my sister. It was vacant.
Scarcely had I regained recollection of the purpose that brought
me hither. Thoughts of a different tendency had such an abso-
lute possession of my mind, that the relations of time and space
were almost obliterated from my understanding. These wander-
ings, however, were restrained, and I ascended to her chamber.
I had no light, and might have known by external observation
that the house was without any inhabitant. With this, however,
I was not satisfied. I entered the room, and the object of my
search not appearing, I prepared to return. The darkness re-
quired some caution in descending the stair. I stretched out my
hand to seize the balustrade, by which I might regulate my steps.
How shall I describe the lustre which at that moment burst
upon my vision?
I was dazzled. My organs were bereaved of their activity.
My eyelids were half closed, and my hands withdrawn from the
balustrade. A nameless fear chilled my veins, and I stood
motionless. This irradiation did not retire or lessen. It seemed
as if some powerful effulgence covered me like a mantle.
opened my eyes and found all about me luminous and glowing.
It was the element of heaven that flowed around. Nothing but
a fiery stream was at first visible; but anon a shrill voice from
behind called upon me to attend.
I
I turned. It is forbidden to describe what I saw: words,
indeed, would be wanting to the task. The lineaments of that
## p. 2432 (#638) ###########################################
2432
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
Being whose veil was now lifted and whose visage beamed upon
my sight, no hues of pencil or of language can portray. As it
spoke, the accents thrilled to my heart:-"Thy prayers are
heard. In proof of thy faith, render me thy wife. This is the
victim I choose. Call her hither, and here let her fall. " The
sound and visage and light vanished at once.
What demand was this? The blood of Catharine was to be
shed! My wife was to perish by my hand! I sought oppor-
tunity to attest my virtue. Little did I expect that a proof like
this would have been demanded.
"My wife! " I exclaimed: "O God! substitute some other vic-
tim. Make me not the butcher of my wife. My own blood is
cheap. This will I pour out before Thee with a willing heart;
but spare, I beseech Thee, this precious life, or commission some
other than her husband to perform the bloody deed. "
In vain. The conditions were prescribed; the decree had gone
forth, and nothing remained but to execute it. I rushed out of
the house and across the intermediate fields, and stopped not till
I entered my own parlor. My wife had remained here during
my absence, in anxious expectation of my return with some tid-
ings of her sister. I had none to communicate. For a time I
was breathless with my speed. This, and the tremors that shook
my frame, and the wildness of my looks, alarmed her. She
immediately suspected some disaster to have happened to her
friend, and her own speech was as much overpowered by emotion
as mine. She was silent, but her looks manifested her impa-
tience to hear what I had to communicate. I spoke, but with so
much precipitation as scarcely to be understood; catching her at
the same time by the arm, and forcibly pulling her from her seat.
"Come along with me; fly; waste not a moment; time will
be lost, and the deed will be omitted. Tarry not, question not,
but fly with me. "
This deportment added afresh to her alarms.
Her eyes pur-
sued mine, and she said, "What is the matter? For God's
sake, what is the matter? Where would you have me go? "
My eyes were fixed upon her countenance while she spoke.
I thought upon her virtues; I viewed her as the mother of my
babes; as my wife. I recalled the purpose for which I thus
urged her attendance. My heart faltered, and I saw that I must
rouse to this work all my faculties. The danger of the least
delay was imminent.
## p. 2433 (#639) ###########################################
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
2433
I looked away from her, and, again exerting my force, drew
her toward the door. "You must go with me; indeed you
must. "
In her fright she half resisted my efforts, and again ex-
claimed, “Good heaven! what is it you mean? Where go? What
has happened? Have you found Clara ? "
"Follow me and you will see," I answered, still urging her
reluctant steps forward.
"What frenzy has seized you? Something must needs have
happened. Is she sick? Have you found her? "
"Come and see. Follow me and know for yourself. "
Still she expostulated and besought me to explain this mys-
terious behavior. I could not trust myself to answer her, to look
at her; but grasping her arm, I drew her after me. She hesi-
tated, rather through confusion of mind than from unwillingness
to accompany me. This confusion gradually abated, and she
moved forward, but with irresolute footsteps and continual excla-
mations of wonder and terror. Her interrogations of "What was
the matter? " and "Whither was I going? " were ceaseless and
vehement.
It was the scope of my efforts not to think; to keep up a
conflict and uproar in my mind in which all order and distinct-
ness should be lost; to escape from the sensations produced by
her voice. I was therefore silent. I strove to abridge this inter-
val by haste, and to waste all my attention in furious gesticu-
lations.
In this state of mind we reached my sister's door. She looked
at the windows and saw that all was desolate. "Why come we
here? There is nobody here. I will not go in. "
Still I was dumb; but, opening the door, I drew her into the
entry. This was the allotted scene; here she was to fall. I let
go her hand, and pressing my palms against my forehead, made
one mighty effort to work up my soul to the deed.
In vain; it would not be; my courage was appalled, my arms
nerveless. I muttered prayers that my strength might be aided
from above. They availed nothing.
Horror diffused itself over me. This conviction of my
cowardice, my rebellion, fastened upon me, and I stood rigid and
cold as marble. From this state I was somewhat relieved by my
wife's voice, who renewed her supplications to be told why we
come hither and what was the fate of my sister.
VI-153
## p. 2434 (#640) ###########################################
2434
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
The fellness of a gloomy hurricane but faintly resembled the
discord that reigned in my mind. To omit this sacrifice must not
be; yet my sinews had refused to perform it. No alternative
was offered. To rebel against the mandate was impossible; but
obedience would render me the executioner of my wife. My
will was strong, but my limbs refused their office.
That accents and looks so winning should disarm me of my
resolution was to be expected. My thoughts were thrown anew
into anarchy. I spread my hand before my eyes that I might
not see her, and answered only by groans. She took my other
hand between hers, and pressing it to her heart, spoke with that
voice which had ever swayed my will and wafted away sorrow:
"My friend! my soul's friend! tell me thy cause of grief. Do
I not merit to partake with thee in thy cares? Am I not thy
wife ? »
-
This was too much. I broke from her embrace and retired
to a corner of the room. In this pause, courage was once more
infused into me. I resolved to execute my duty. She followed
me, and renewed her passionate entreaties to know the cause of
my distress.
I raised my head and regarded her with steadfast
looks. I muttered something about death, and the injunctions of
my duty.
At these words she shrunk back, and looked at me
with a new expression of anguish. After a pause, she clasped
her hands, and exclaimed: -
:-
"O Wieland! Wieland! God grant that I am mistaken! but
something surely is wrong. I see it; it is too plain; thou art
undone lost to me and to thyself. " At the same time she
gazed on my features with intensest anxiety, in hope that differ-
ent symptoms would take place. I replied to her with vehe-
mence:
-
"Undone! No; my duty is known, and I thank my God that
my cowardice is now vanquished and I have power to fulfill it.
Catharine, I pity the weakness of thy nature; I pity thee, but
must not spare. Thy life is claimed from my hands; thou must
die! "
Fear was now added to her grief. "What mean you? Why
talk you of death? Bethink yourself, Wieland; bethink yourself,
and this fit will pass. Oh, why came I hither? Why did you
drag me hither? "
"I brought thee hither to fulfill a divine command.
appointed thy destroyer, and destroy thee I must. "
I am
Saying this,
## p. 2435 (#641) ###########################################
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
2435
She shrieked aloud, and endeavored to free
I seized her wrists.
herself from my grasp; but her efforts were vain.
"Surely, surely, Wieland, thou dost not mean it. Am I not
thy wife and wouldst thou kill me? Thou wilt not; and yet-I
see-thou art Wieland no longer! A fury resistless and horri
ble possesses thee. Spare me- spare-help-help-»
Till her breath was stopped she shrieked for help, for mercy.
When she could speak no longer, her gestures, her looks appealed
to my compassion. My accursed hand was irresolute and trem-
ulous. I meant thy death to be sudden, thy struggles to be
brief. Alas! my heart was infirm, my resolves mutable. Thrice
I slackened my grasp, and life kept its hold, though in the
midst of pangs.
Her eyeballs started from their sockets. Grim-
ness and distortion took the place of all that used to bewitch me
into transport and subdue me into reverence. I was commis-
sioned to kill thee, but not to torment thee with the foresight
of thy death; not to multiply thy fears and prolong thy agonies.
Haggard and pale and lifeless, at length thou ceasedst to contend.
with thy destiny.
This was the moment of triumph. Thus had I successfully
subdued the stubbornness of human passions: the victim which
had been demanded was given; the deed was done past recall.
I lifted the corpse in my arms and laid it on the bed. I
gazed upon it with delight. Such was the elation of my thoughts
that I even
even broke into laughter. I clapped my hands and
exclaimed, “It is done! My sacred duty is fulfilled! To that I
have sacrificed, O my God, Thy last and best gift, my wife! "
For a while I thus soared above frailty. I imagined I had
set myself forever beyond the reach of selfishness; but my im-
aginations were false. This rapture quickly subsided. I looked
again at my wife. My joyous ebullitions vanished, and I asked
myself who it was whom I saw. Methought it could not be
Catharine. It could not be the woman who had lodged for years in
my heart; who had slept nightly in my bosom; who had borne in
her womb, who had fostered at her breast, the beings who called
me father; whom I have watched with delight, and cherished
with a fondness ever new and perpetually growing; it could not
be the same. Where was her bloom? These deadly and blood-
suffused orbs but ill resemble the azure and ecstatic tenderness
of her eyes.
The lucid stream that meandered over that bosom,
the glow of love that was wont to sit upon that cheek, are
## p. 2436 (#642) ###########################################
2436
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
much unlike these livid stains and this hideous deformity. Alas!
these were the traces of agony; the gripe of the assassin had
been here!
I will not dwell upon my lapse into desperate and outrageous
sorrow. The breath of heaven that sustained me was withdrawn,
and I sunk into mere man. I leaped from the floor; I dashed
my head against the wall; I uttered screams of horror; I panted
after torment and pain. Eternal fire and the bickerings of hell,
compared with what I felt, were music and a bed of roses.
I thank my God that this degeneracy was transient-that He
deigned once more to raise me aloft. I thought upon what I
had done as a sacrifice to duty, and was calm. My wife was
dead; but I reflected that though this source of human consola-
tion was closed, yet others were still open. If the transports of
a husband were no more, the feelings of a father had still scope
for exercise. When remembrance of their mother should excite
too keen a pang, I would look upon them and be comforted.
While I revolved these ideas, new warmth flowed in upon
my heart. I was wrong. These feelings were the growth of self-
ishness. Of this I was not aware; and to dispel the mist that
obscured my perceptions, a new effulgence and a new mandate
were necessary. From these thoughts I was recalled by a ray
that was shot into the room. A voice spake like that which I
had before heard:- "Thou hast done well. But all is not done
-the sacrifice is incomplete-thy children must be offered-
they must perish with their mother! —»
Thou, Omnipotent and Holy! Thou knowest that my actions
were conformable to Thy will. I know not what is crime; what
actions are evil in their ultimate and comprehensive tendency, or
what are good. Thy knowledge, as Thy power, is unlimited. I
have taken Thee for my guide, and cannot err. To the arms of
Thy protection I intrust my safety. In the awards of Thy
justice I confide for my recompense.
Come death when it will, I am safe. Let calumny and abhor-
rence pursue me among men; I shall not be defrauded of my
dues. The peace of virtue and the glory of obedience will be
my portion hereafter.
## p. 2437 (#643) ###########################################
2437
JOHN BROWN
(1810-1882)
OHN BROWN, the son of a secession-church minister, was born
in Biggar, Lanarkshire, Scotland, September 22d, 1810, and
died in Edinburgh, May 11th, 1882. He was educated at
the Edinburgh High School and at the University, and graduated in
medicine in 1833. For a time he was a surgeon's assistant to the
great Dr. Syme, the man of whom he said "he never wasted a drop
of ink or blood," and whose character he has drawn in one of his
most charming biographies. When he began to practice for himself
he gradually "got into a good connection,"
and his patients made him their confidant
and adviser. He was considered a fine
doctor too, for he had remarkable common-
sense, and was said to be unerring in diag-
nosis.
JOHN BROWN
Dr. Brown did not, as is commonly be-
lieved, dislike his profession; but later on
he took a view of it which seemed non-
progressive, and his success as a writer no
doubt interfered with his practice. His
friend Professor Masson draws a pleasant
picture of him when he first settled in
practice, as a dark-haired man with soft,
fine eyes and a benignant manner, the hus-
band of a singularly beautiful woman, and much liked and sought
after in the social circles of Edinburgh. This was partly owing to
the charm of his conversation, and partly to the literary reputation
he had achieved through some articles on the Academy exhibition
and on local artists. Though he had little technical training, he had
an eye for color and form, an appreciation of the artist's meaning,
and an instinct for discovering genius, as in the case of Noel Paton
and David Scott. He soon became an authority among artists, and
he gave a new impulse to national art.
He contributed largely to the North British Review. In 1855 he
published 'Horæ Subsecivæ,' which contained, among medical biog-
raphy and medico-literary papers, the immortal Scotch idyl, 'Rab
and his Friends. Up to this time the unique personality of the
doctor, with its delightful mixture of humor and sympathy, was
## p. 2438 (#644) ###########################################
2438
JOHN BROWN
known only to his own circle. The appearance of 'Rab and his
Friends' revealed it to the world. Brief as it is in form, and simple
in outline, Scotland has produced nothing so full of pure, pathetic
genius since Scott.
Another volume of 'Horæ Subsecivæ appeared two years after,
and some selections from it, and others from unpublished manuscript,
were printed separately in the volume entitled 'Spare Hours. ' They
met with instant and unprecedented success. In a short time ten
thousand copies of 'Minchmoor' and 'James the Doorkeeper' were
sold, fifteen thousand copies of 'Pet Marjorie,' and 'Rab' had reached
its fiftieth thousand. With all this success and praise, and constantly
besought by publishers for his work, he could not be persuaded that
his writings were of any permanent value, and was reluctant to
publish. In 1882 appeared a third volume of the 'Hora Subsecivæ,'
which included all his writings. A few weeks after its publication
he died.
The Doctor's medical essays, which are replete with humor, are
written in defense of his special theory, the distinction between the
active and the speculative mind. He thought there was too much
science and too little intuitive sagacity in the world, and looked back
longingly to the old-time common-sense, which he believed mod-
ern science had driven away. His own mind was anti-speculative,
although he paid just tributes to philosophy and science and ad-
mired their achievements. He stigmatized the speculations of the
day as the "lust of innovation. " But the reader cares little for the
opinions of Dr. Brown as arguments: his subject is of little conse-
quence if he will but talk. By the charm of his story-telling these
dead Scotch doctors are made to live again. The death-bed of Syme,
for instance, is as pathetic as the wonderful paper on Thackeray's
death; and to-day many a heart is sore for 'Pet Marjorie,' the ten-
year-old child who died in Scotland almost a hundred years ago.
As an essayist, Dr. Brown belongs to the followers of Addison
and Charles Lamb, and he blends humor, pathos, and quiet hopeful-
ness with
a grave and earnest dignity. He delighted, not like
Lamb "in the habitable parts of the earth," but in the lonely moor-
lands and pastoral hills, over which his silent, stalwart shepherds
walked with swinging stride. He had a keen appreciation for
anything he felt to be excellent: his usual question concerning
a stranger, either in literature or life, was "Has he wecht, sir? ”—
quoting Dr. Chalmers; and when he wanted to give the highest
praise, he said certain writing was "strong meat. " He had a warm
enthusiasm for the work of other literary men: an artist himself, he
was quick to appreciate and seize upon the witty thing or the excel-
lent thing wherever he found it, and he was eager to share his
## p. 2439 (#645) ###########################################
JOHN BROWN
2439
pleasure with the whole world. He reintroduced to the public
Henry Vaughn, the quaint seventeenth-century poet; he wrote a
sympathetic memoir of Arthur Hallam; he imported 'Modern Paint-
ers, and enlightened Edinburgh as to its merits. His art papers.
were what Walter Pater would call "appreciations," that is to say,
he dwelt upon the beauties of what he described rather than upon
the defects. What he did not admire he left alone.
As the author of 'Rab' loved the lonely glens on Minchmoor and
in the Enterkin, or where Queen Mary's "baby garden" shows its
box-row border among the Spanish chestnuts of Lake Monteith, so
he loved the Scottish character, "bitter to the taste and sweet to the
diaphragm": "Jeemes" the beadle, with his family worship when he
himself was all the family; the old Aberdeen Jacobite people; Miss
Stirling Graham of Duntrune, who in her day bewitched Edinburgh;
Rab, Ailie, and Bob Ainslie. His characters are oddities, but are
drawn without a touch of cynicism. What an amount of playful,
wayward nonsense lies between these pages, and what depths of
melancholy under the fun! Like Sir Walter, he had a great love
for dogs, and never went out unaccompanied by one or two of them.
They are the heroes of several of his sketches.
Throughout the English-speaking world, he was affectionately
known as Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh. He stood aloof from polit-
ical and ecclesiastical controversies, and was fond of telling a story
to illustrate how little reasoning went to forming partisans. A min-
ister catechizing a raw plowboy, after asking the first question, "Who
made you? " and getting the answer "God," asked him, "How do
you know that God made you? " After some pause and head-scratch-
ing, the reply came, "Weel, sir, it's the clash [common talk] o' the
kintry. " "Ay," Brown added, "I'm afraid that a deal of our belief
is founded on just the clash o' the kintry. › »
MARJORIE FLEMING
From 'Spare Hours'
ON
NE November afternoon in 1810-the year in which 'Wa-
verley' was resumed and laid aside again, to be finished
off, its last two volumes in three weeks, and made immor-
tal in 1814; and when its author, by the death of Lord Melville,
narrowly escaped getting a civil appointment in India - three
men, evidently lawyers, might have been seen escaping like
schoolboys from the Parliament House, and speeding arm-in-arm
down Bank Street and the Mound in the teeth of a surly blast
of sleet.
## p. 2440 (#646) ###########################################
2440
JOHN BROWN
The three friends sought the bield of the low wall old Edin-
burgh boys remember well, and sometimes miss now, as they
struggle with the stout west wind.
The third we all know. What has he not done for every one
of us? Who else ever, except Shakespeare, so diverted man-
kind, entertained and entertains a world so liberally, so whole-
somely? We are fain to say not even Shakespeare, for his is
something deeper than diversion, something higher than pleasure;
and yet who would care to split this hair?
Had any one watched him closely before and after the part-
ing, what a change he would see! The bright, broad laugh, the
shrewd, jovial word, the man of the Parliament House and of
the world; and next step, moody, the light of his eye withdrawn,
as if seeing things that were invisible; his shut mouth like a
child's, so impressionable, so innocent, so sad; he was now all
within, as before he was all without; hence his brooding look.
As the snow blattered in his face, he muttered, "How it raves
and drifts! On-ding o' snaw,-ay, that's the word,-on-ding"
He was
now at his own door, "Castle Street, No. 39. " He
opened the door and went straight to his den; that wondrous
workshop, where in one year, 1823, when he was fifty-two, he
wrote 'Peveril of the Peak,' 'Quentin Durward,' and 'St.
Ronan's Well,' besides much else. We once took the foremost
of our novelists—the greatest, we would say, since Scott — into
this room, and could not but mark the solemnizing effect of
sitting where the great magician sat so often and so long, and
looking out upon that little shabby bit of sky, and that back
green where faithful dog Camp lies.
He sat down in his large green morocco elbow-chair, drew
himself close to his table, and glowered and gloomed at his writ-
ing apparatus, "a very handsome old box, richly carved, lined
with crimson velvet, and containing ink-bottles, taper-stand, etc. ,
in silver, the whole in such order that it might have come from
the silversmith's window half an hour before. " He took out his
paper, then starting up angrily, said, "Go spin, you jade, go
spin. ' No, d-- it, it won't do,-
"My spinnin' wheel is auld and stiff,
The rock o't wunna stand, sir;
To keep the temper-pin in tiff
Employs ower aft my hand, sir. '
## p. 2441 (#647) ###########################################
JOHN BROWN
2441
I am off the fang. I can make nothing of 'Waverley' to-day;
I'll awa' to Marjorie. Come wi' me, Maida, you thief. " The
great creature rose slowly, and the pair were off, Scott taking a
maud (a plaid) with him. "White as a frosted plum-cake, by
jingo! " said he, when he got to the street. Maida gamboled and
whisked among the snow, and his master strode across to Young
Street, and through it to I North Charlotte Street, to the house
of his dear friend, Mrs. William Keith, of Corstorphine
Hill;
niece of Mrs. Keith of Ravelston, of whom he said at her death,
eight years after, "Much tradition, and that of the best, has died
with this excellent old lady, one of the few persons whose spirits,
and cleanliness and freshness of mind and body, made old age
lovely and desirable. "
now.
Sir Walter was in that house almost every day, and had a key,
so in he and the hound went, shaking themselves in the lobby.
«< Marjorie! Marjorie! " shouted her friend, "where are ye, my
bonnie wee croodlin' doo? " In a moment a bright, eager child
of seven was in his arms, and he was kissing her all over. Out
came Mrs. Keith. "Come your ways in, Wattie. " "No, not
I am going to take Marjorie wi' me, and you may come to
your tea in Duncan Roy's sedan, and bring the bairn home in
your lap. " "Tak' Marjorie, and it on-ding o' snaw! " said Mrs.
Keith. He said to himself, "On-ding,'- that's odd,- that is the
very word. Hoot, awa'! look here," and he displayed the cor-
ner of his plaid, made to hold lambs (the true shepherd's plaid,
consisting of two breadths sewed together, and uncut at one end,
making a poke or cul-de-sac). "Tak' your lamb," said she, laugh-
ing at the contrivance, and so the Pet was first well happit up,
and then put, laughing silently, into the plaid neuk, and the
shepherd strode off with his lamb,- Maida gamboling through the
snow, and running races in her mirth.
Didn't he face "the angry airt," and make her bield his
bosom, and into his own room with her, and lock the door, and
out with the warm rosy little wifie, who took it all with great
composure! There the two remained for three or more hours,
making the house ring with their laughter; you can fancy the
big man's and Maidie's laugh. Having made the fire cheery, he
set her down in his ample chair, and standing sheepishly before
her, began to say his lesson, which happened to be,- "Ziccotty,
diccotty, dock, the mouse ran up the clock; the clock struck
one, down the mouse ran, ziccotty, diccotty, dock. " This done
## p. 2442 (#648) ###########################################
2442
JOHN BROWN
repeatedly till she was pleased, she gave him his new lesson,
gravely and slowly, timing it upon her small fingers,—he saying
it after her,-
"Wonery, twoery, tickery, seven;
Alibi, crackaby, ten and eleven;
Pin, pan, musky dan;
Tweedle-um, twoddle-um, twenty-wan;
Eerie, orie, ourie,
You, are, out. "
He pretended to great difficulty, and she rebuked him with
most comical gravity, treating him as a child.
He used to say
that when he came to Alibi Crackaby he broke down, and Pin-
Pan, Musky-Dan, Tweedle-um Twoddle-um made him roar with
laughter. He said Musky-Dan especially was beyond endurance,
bringing up an Irishman and his hat fresh from the Spice
Islands and odoriferous Ind; she getting quite bitter in her dis-
pleasure at his ill behavior and stupidness.
Then he would read ballads to her in his own glorious way,
the two getting wild with excitement over 'Gil Morrice' or the
'Baron of Smailholm'; and he would take her on his knee, and
make her repeat Constance's speech in 'King John,' till he
swayed to and fro, sobbing his fill.
Scott used to say that he was amazed at her power over him,
saying to Mrs. Keith, "She's the most extraordinary creature I
ever met with, and her repeating of Shakespeare overpowers me
as nothing else does. "
Thanks to the unforgetting sister of this dear child, who has
much of the sensibility and fun of her who has been in her
small grave these fifty and more years, we have now before us
the letters and journals of Pet Marjorie,- before us lies and
gleams her rich brown hair, bright and sunny as if yesterday's,
with the words on the paper, "Cut out in her last illness," and
two pictures of her by her beloved Isabella, whom she wor-
shiped; there are the faded old scraps of paper, hoarded still,
over which her warm breath and her warm little heart had
poured themselves; there is the old water-mark, "Lingard, 1808. "
The two portraits are very like each other, but plainly done at
different times; it is a chubby, healthy face, deep-set, brooding
eyes, as eager to tell what is going on within as to gather in all
the glories from without; quick with the wonder and the pride
of life; they are eyes that would not be soon satisfied with
## p. 2443 (#649) ###########################################
JOHN BROWN
2443
seeing; eyes that would devour their object, and yet childlike
and fearless. And that is a mouth that will not be soon satisfied
with love; it has a curious likeness to Scott's own, which has
always appeared to us his sweetest, most mobile and speaking
feature.
There she is, looking straight at us as she did at him,-fear-
less and full of love, passionate, wild, willful, fancy's child.
There was an old servant, Jeanie Robertson, who was forty
years in her grandfather's family. Marjorie Fleming-or as
she is called in the letters and by Sir Walter, Maidie was the
last child she kept. Jeanie's wages never exceeded £3 a year,
and when she left service she had saved £40. She was devot-
edly attached to Maidie, rather despising and ill-using her sister
Isabella, a beautiful and gentle child. This partiality made
Maidie apt at times to domineer over Isabella. "I mention
this," writes her surviving sister, "for the purpose of telling you
an instance of Maidie's generous justice. When only five years
old, when walking in Raith grounds, the two children had run
on before, and old Jeanie remembered they might come too near
a dangerous mill-lade. She called to them to turn back. Maidie
heeded her not, rushed all the faster on, and fell, and would
have been lost, had her sister not pulled her back, saving her
life, but tearing her clothes. Jeanie flew on Isabella to 'give it
her' for spoiling her favorite's dress; Maidie rushed in between,
crying out, 'Pay (whip) Maidjie as much as you like, and I'll
not say one word; but touch Isy, and I'll roar like a bull! '
Years after Maidie was resting in her grave, my mother used to
take me to the place, and told the story always in the exact
same words. This Jeanie must have been a character. She
took great pride in exhibiting Maidie's brother William's Calvin-
istic acquirements when nineteen months old, to the officers of a
militia regiment then quartered in Kirkcaldy. This performance
was so amusing that it was often repeated, and the little theo-
logian was presented by them with a cap and feathers. Jeanie's
glory was "putting him through the carritch" (catechism) in
broad Scotch, beginning at the beginning with "Wha made ye,
ma bonnie man? " For the correctness of this and the three
next replies, Jeanie had no anxiety; but the tone changed to
menace, and the closed nieve (fist) was shaken in the child's face
as she demanded, "Of what are you made? " "DIRT," was the
>>
-
## p. 2444 (#650) ###########################################
2444
JOHN BROWN
answer uniformly given. "Wull ye never learn to say dust, ye
thrawn deevil? " with a cuff from the opened hand, was the as
inevitable rejoinder.
Here is Maidie's first letter, before she was six, the spelling
unaltered, and there are no "commoes. "
-
"MY DEAR ISA I now sit down to answer all your kind and
beloved letters which you was so good as to write to me. This
is the first time I ever wrote a letter in my Life. There are a
great many Girls in the Square and they cry just like a pig
when we are under the painfull necessity of putting it to Death.
Miss Potune a Lady of my acquaintance praises me dreadfully. I
repeated something out of Dean Swift and she said I was fit for
the stage and you may think I was primmed up with majestick
Pride but upon my word I felt myselfe turn a little birsay-
birsay is a word which is a word that William composed which
is as you may suppose a little enraged. This horrid fat simpli-
ton says that my Aunt is beautifull which is intirely impossible.
for that is not her nature. "
What a peppery little pen we wield! What could that have
been out of the sardonic Dean? what other child of that age
would have used "beloved" as she does? This power of affec-
tion, this faculty of beloving, and wild hunger to be beloved,
comes out more and more. She periled her all upon it, and
it may have been as well-we know, indeed, that it was far
better for her that this wealth of love was so soon withdrawn
to its one only infinite Giver and Receiver. This must have
been the law of her earthly life. Love was indeed "her Lord
and King"; and it was perhaps well for her that she found so
soon that her and our only Lord and King Himself is Love.
Here are bits from her Diary at Brachead: -
"The day of my existence here has been delightful and en-
chanting. On Saturday I expected no less than three well-made.
Bucks the names of whom is here advertised. Mr. Geo. Crakey
[Craigie], and Wm. Keith and Jn. Keith-the first is the funniest
of every one of them. Mr. Crakey and I walked to Crakyhall
[Craigiehall] hand in hand in Innocence and matitation [medita-
tion] sweet thinking on the kind love which flows in our tender
hearted mind which is overflowing with majestic pleasure no one
was ever so polite to me in the hole state of my existence. Mr.
Craky you must know is a great Buck and pretty good-looking. "
## p. 2445 (#651) ###########################################
JOHN BROWN
2445
"I am at Ravelston enjoying nature's fresh air. The birds
are singing sweetly- the calf doth frisk and nature shows her
glorious face. »
Here is a confession:
"I confess I have been very more like a little young divil
than creature for when Isabella went up stairs to teach me
religion and my multiplication and to be good and all my other
lessons I stamped with my foot and threw my new hat which
she had made on the ground and was sulky and was dreadfully
passionate, but she never whiped me but said Marjory go into
another room and think what a great crime you are commit-
ting letting your temper git the better of you. But I went so
sulkily that the Devil got the better of me but she never never
never whips me so that I think I would be the better of it and
the next time that I behave ill I think she should do it for she
never does it.
. Isabella has given me praise for checking
my temper for I was sulky even when she was kneeling an hole
hour teaching me to write. "
Our poor little wifie, she has no doubts of the personality of
the Devil! "Yesterday I behave extremely ill in God's most
holy church for I would never attend myself nor let Isabella
attend which was a great crime for she often, often tells me that
when to or three are geathered together God is in the midst of
them, and it was the very same Divil that tempted Job that
tempted me I am sure; but he resisted Satan though he had
boils and many many other misfortunes which I have escaped.
I am now going to tell you the horible and wretched
plaege that my multiplication gives me you can't conceive it the
most Devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7 it is what nature
itself cant endure. "
·
« I
This is delicious; and what harm is there in her "Devilish"?
it is strong language merely; even old Rowland Hill used to say
"he grudged the Devil those rough and ready words. "
walked to that delightful place Crakyhall with a delightful young
man beloved by all his friends especially by me his loveress, but
I must not talk any more about him for Isa said it is not proper
for to speak of gentalmen but I will never forget him!
I am very very glad that satan has not given me boils and
many other misfortunes-In the holy bible these words are
written that the Devil goes like a roaring lyon in search of his
pray but the lord lets us escape from him but we" (pauvre
## p. 2446 (#652) ###########################################
2446
JOHN BROWN
petite! ) "do not strive with this awful Spirit.
To-day
I pronounced a word which should never come out of a lady's
lips it was that I called John a Impudent Bitch.
I will tell you
what I think made me in so bad a humor is I got one or two
of that bad sina [senna] tea to-day,".
