know
such thoughts are wicked ?
such thoughts are wicked ?
Warner - World's Best Literature - v09 - Dra to Eme
Of God the Koran is full of praise, setting forth, often
in not unworthy imagery, his majesty. Though it bitterly de-
nounces those who give him any equals, and assures them that
their sin will never be forgiven; that in the Judgment Day they
must answer the fearful question, «Where are my companions
about whom ye disputed ? ”— though it inculcates an absolute
dependence on the mercy of God, and denounces as criminals all
those who make a merchandise of religion, its ideas of the
Deity are altogether anthropomorphic. He is only a gigantic
man, living in a paradise. In this respect, though exceptional
passages might be cited, the reader rises from a perusal of the
one hundred and fourteen chapters of the Koran with a final im-
pression that they have given him low and unworthy thoughts;
nor is it surprising that one of the Mohammedan sects reads it
in such a way as to find no difficulty in asserting that from
## p. 4873 (#31) ############################################
JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
4873
the crown of the head to the breast God is hollow, and from the
breast downward he is solid;" that he has curled black hair,
and roars like a lion at every watch of the night. The unity as-
serted by Mohammed is a unity in special contradistinction to the
Trinity of the Christians, and the doctrine of a Divine genera-
tion. Our Savior is never called the Son of God, but always the
Son of Mary. Throughout there is a perpetual acceptance of the
delusion of the human destiny of the universe. As to man, Mo-
hammed is diffuse enough respecting a future state, speaking
with clearness of a resurrection, the Judgment Day, Paradise, the
torment of hell, the worm that never dies, the pains that never
end; but with all this precise description of the future, there are
many errors as to the past. If modesty did not render it unsuit-
able to speak of such topics here, it might be shown how feeble
is his physiology when he has occasion to allude to the origin or
generation of man. He is hardly advanced beyond the ideas of
Thales. One who is so untrustworthy a guide as to things that
are past cannot be very trustworthy as to events that are to come.
Of the literary execution of his work, it is perhaps scarcely
possible to judge fairly from a translation. It is said to be the
oldest prose composition among the Arabs, by whom Moham-
med's boast of the unapproachable excellence of his work is
almost universally sustained; but it must not be concealed that
there have been among them very learned men who have held it
in light esteem. Its most celebrated passages, as those on the
nature of God, in Chapters ii. , xxiv. , will bear no comparison
with parallel ones in the Psalms and Book of Job. In the narra-
tive style, the story of Joseph in Chapter xii. , compared with
the same incidents related in Genesis, shows a like inferiority.
Mohammed also adulterates his work with many Christian legends,
derived probably from the apocryphal gospel of St. Barnabas; he
mixes with many of his own inventions the Scripture account of
the temptation of Adam, the Deluge, Jonah and the whale, en-
riching the whole with stories like the later Night Entertain-
ments of his country, the seven sleepers, Gog and Magog, and
all the wonders of genii, sorcery, and charms.
An impartial reader of the Koran may doubtless be surprised
that so feeble a production should serve its purpose so well.
But the theory of religion is one thing, the practice another.
The Koran abounds in excellent moral suggestions and precepts;
its composition is so fragmentary that we cannot turn to a single
## p. 4874 (#32) ############################################
4874
JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
page without finding maxims of which all men must approve.
This fragmentary construction yields texts and mottoes and rules
complete in themselves, suitable for common men in any of the
incidents of life. There is a perpetual insisting on the necessity
of prayer, an inculcation of mercy, almsgiving, justice, fasting,
pilgrimage, and other good works; institutions respecting conduct,
both social and domestic, debts, witnesses, marriage, children,
wine, and the like; above all, a constant stimulation to do battle
with the infidel and blasphemer. For life as it passes in Asia,
there is hardly a condition in which passages from the Koran
cannot be recalled suitable for instruction, admonition, consolation,
encouragement. To the Asiatic and to the African, such devo-
tional fragments are of far more use than any sustained theologi-
cal doctrine. The mental constitution of Mohammed did not
enable him to handle important philosophical questions with the
well-balanced ability of the great Greek and Indian writers; but
he has never been surpassed in adaptation to the spiritual wants
of humble life, making even his fearful fatalism administer
thereto. A pitiless destiny is awaiting us; yet the prophet is
uncertain what it may be. "Unto every nation a fixed time is
decreed. Death will overtake us even in lofty towers, but God
only knoweth the place in which a man shall die. ” After many
an admonition of the resurrection and the Judgment Day, many
a promise of Paradise and threat of hell, he plaintively confesses,
"I do not know what will be done with you or me hereafter. "
The Koran thus betrays a human and not a very noble intel-
lectual origin. It does not however follow that its author was,
as is so often asserted, a mere impostor. He reiterates again and
again, I am nothing more than a public preacher. ” He defends,
not always without acerbity, his work from those who even in
his own life stigmatized it as a confused heap of dreams, or what
is worse, a forgery. He is not the only man who has supposed
himself to be the subject of supernatural and divine communica-
tions, for this is a condition of disease to which any one, by
fasting and mental anxiety, may be reduced.
In what I have thus said respecting a work held by so many
millions of men as a revelation from God, I have endeavored to
speak with respect and yet with freedom, constantly bearing in
mind how deeply to this book Asia and Africa are indebted for
daily guidance, how deeply Europe and America for the light of
science.
## p. 4875 (#33) ############################################
JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
4875
As might be expected, the doctrines of the Koran have re-
ceived many fictitious additions and sectarian interpretations in
the course of ages. In the popular superstition angels and genii
largely figure. The latter, being of a grosser fabric, eat, drink,
propagate their kind, are of two sorts, good and bad, and existed
long before men, having occupied the earth before Adam. Im-
mediately after death, two greenish livid angels, Monkir and
Nekkar, examine every corpse as to its faith in God and Moham-
med; but the soul, having been separated from the body by the
angel of death, enters upon an intermediate state, awaiting the
resurrection. There is however much diversity of opinion as to
its precise disposal before the Judgment Day: some think that it
hovers near the grave; some, that it sinks into the well Zemzem;
some, that it retires into the trumpet of the angel of the resur-
rection; the difficulty apparently being that any final disposal
before the Day of Judgment would be anticipatory of that great
event, if indeed it would not render it needless. As to the res-
urrection, some believe it to be merely spiritual, others corporeal;
the latter asserting that the os coccygis, or last bone of the spinal
column, will serve as it were as a germ; and that, vivified by a
rain of forty days, the body will sprout from it. Among the
signs of the approaching resurrection will be the rising of the
sun in the west. It will be ushered in by three blasts of a
trumpet: the first, known as the blast of consternation, will
shake the earth to its centre, and extinguish the sun and stars;
the second, the blast of extermination, will annihilate all material
things except Paradise, hell, and the throne of God. Forty years
subsequently, the angel Israfil will sound the blast of resurrec-
tion. From his trumpet there will be blown forth the countless
myriads of souls who have taken refuge therein, or lain concealed.
The Day of Judgment has now come. The Koran contradicts
itself as to the length of this day; in one place making it a
thousand, in another fifty thousand years. Most Mohammedans
incline to adopt the longer period, since angels, genii, men, and
animals have to be tried.
As to men, they will rise in their natural state, but naked;
white-winged camels, with saddles of gold, awaiting the saved.
When the partition is made, the wicked will be oppressed with
an intolerable heat, caused by the sun, which, having been called
into existence again, will approach within a mile, provoking a
sweat to issue from them; and this, according to their demer-
its, will immerse them from the ankles to the mouth; but the
## p. 4876 (#34) ############################################
4876
JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
righteous will be screened by the shadow of the throne of God.
The Judge will be seated in the clouds, the books open before
him, and everything in its turn called on to account for its deeds.
For greater dispatch, the angel Gabriel will hold forth his bal-
ance, one scale of which hangs over Paradise and one over hell.
In these all works are weighed. As soon as the sentence is deliv.
ered, the assembly, in a long file, will pass over the bridge
Al-Sirat. It is as sharp as the edge of a sword, and laid over
the mouth of hell. Mohammed and his followers will successfully
pass the perilous ordeal; but the sinners, giddy with terror, will
drop into the place of torment. The blessed will receive their
first taste of happiness at a pond which is supplied by silver
pipes from the river Al-Cawthor. The soil of Paradise is of
musk. Its rivers tranquilly flow over pebbles of rubies and
emeralds. From tents of hollow pearls the Houris, or girls of
Paradise, will come forth, attended by troops of beautiful boys.
Each saint will have eighty thousand servants and seventy-two
girls. To these, some of the more merciful Mussulmans add the
wives they have had upon earth; but the grimly orthodox assert
that hell is already nearly filled with women. How can it be
otherwise, since they are not permitted to pray in a mosque upon
earth?
I have not space to describe the silk brocades, the green
clothing, the soft carpets, the banquets, the perpetual music and
songs. From the glorified body all impurities will escape, not as
they did during life, but in a fragrant perspiration of camphor
and musk. No one will complain, “I am weary; no one will
say, "I am sick. "
From the contradictions, puerilities, and impossibilities indi-
cated in the preceding paragraphs, it may be anticipated that the
faith of Mohammed has been broken into many sects. Of such
it is said that not less than seventy-three may be numbered.
Some, as the Sonnites, are guided by traditions; some occupy
themselves with philosophical difficulties, – the existence of evil
in the world, the attributes of God, absolute predestination and
eternal damnation, the invisibility and non-corporeality of God,
his capability of local motion. . . But the great Mohamme-
dan philosophers, simply accepting the doctrine of the oneness
of God as the only thing of which man can be certain, look upon
all the rest as idle fables- having however this political use: that
they furnish contention and therefore occupation to disputatious
sectarians, and consolation to illiterate minds.
## p. 4877 (#35) ############################################
4877
MICHAEL DRAYTON
(1563-1631)
HILE London still crowded to the new «Theatre » in Shore-
ditch, the first built in England; while Ben Jonson was
still soldiering in the Low Countries; while Marlowe was
working out the tragedy that was to revolutionize all stage traditions,
and Shakespeare was yet but a looker-on at greatness," — there
came up from Warwickshire a young man of good family who had
served as page in a noble house, who had studied possibly at Oxford,
and who in the first flush of manhood aspired to a place among
those prodigies who made the later Eliza-
bethan period immortal. This was Michael
Drayton, whose gentle birth and breeding,
education and talents, knowledge of the
world and of men, together with a most
sweet and lovable disposition, made him at
once welcome in the literary Bohemia of
the day. He became the “deare and bosom
friend” of Beaumont and Fletcher, and his
work received unquestioned honor from his
illustrious contemporaries.
As a child he had demanded of his
elders to know what kind of beings poets
were, had spent many hours in writing Michael DRAYTON
childishly fantastic verses, and had begged
of his tutor to make a poet of him. And although he seems to have
been poor and to have lived by the gifts of wealthy patrons, he
cast in his lot with literature, and cherished no other ambition than
that of writing well. His first book, a volume of spiritual poems, or
metrical renderings of the Bible, was published in 1590 under the
title “The Harmony of the Church. It is difficult to see why this
commonplace and orthodox performance should have given such
umbrage that the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned the entire
edition to destruction. Yet this was its fate, with the exception of
forty copies which Archbishop Whitgift ordered to be reserved for
the ecclesiastical library at Lambeth Palace. Undiscouraged, the
poet next produced a cycle of sixty-four sonnets and a collection of
pastorals entitled “Idea: the Shepherd's Garland,' in which under the
name “Rowland” he celebrated an early love. It is strange that
the intrinsic merit of these verses, and their undoubted popularity,
## p. 4878 (#36) ############################################
4878
MICHAEL DRAYTON
should not have urged Drayton to continue in the same vein. In-
stead, however, he set about the composition of a series of historical
poems which extended over the next twenty-four years, and to which
he gave the best energies of his life. Beginning with the epic
Matilda,' studied from English history, the series was continued by
a poem on the Wars of the Roses,' afterward enlarged into “The
Barons' Wars. ) This was followed by the epic (Robert, Duke of
Normandy. ' Destitute of imagination, prolix and tedious, these verses
were yet so popular in Drayton's day that in 1612 he began the
publication of a poem in thirty books, meant to include the entire
chronology and topography of Great Britain, from the earliest times.
This was the famous Poly-Olbion, in which, in spite of the inspiring
work of his contemporaries, Drayton harked back in spirit to the
dreary monotony of the Saxon Chronicle; the detail is so minute,
the matter so unimportant, and the absence of discrimination so ap-
parent, that notwithstanding many noticeable beauties of thought
and style, it is hard to realize that this poem was a favorite with
that brilliant group which had known Shakespeare, and still delighted
in Ben Jonson. After issuing eighteen books of Poly-Olbion,' his
publishers — with whom he was always quarreling, and whom he
declared that he “despised and kicked at ” — refused to undertake the
remaining twelve books of the second part. His friends, however,
loyal in their love and praise of him, secured a more complaisant
tradesman to bring out the rest of the already famous poem.
Fortunately for his fame, Drayton had in the mean time produced
two other volumes of verse, which displayed the real grace and fanci-
fulness of his charming muse. The first of these, Poems Lyrical
and Pastoral,' included the satire (The Man in the Moon”; while in
the second were printed the Ballad of Agincourt,' the most spirited
of English martial lyrics, and that delightful fantasy Nymphidia, or
the Court of Faery,' in which the touch is so light, the fancy so
dainty, and the conceit so delicate, that the poem remains immortally
fresh and young. Because everybody wrote plays, Drayton turned
playwright, and is said to have collaborated with Massinger and Ford.
Of his long works, the Heroicall Episodes) is perhaps the most read-
able. His last effort was “The Muses' Elizium, published in 1630. A
year later he died, and was buried in Westminster, where a monu-
ment was erected to him by the Countess of Dorset.
Drayton's place in English literature is with that considerable and
not unimportant band who have done somewhat, but whose repute
is much more for what they were in their friends' eyes than for
what they did. In an age of great intellectual achievement, he yet
managed, in spite of the stimulus of kindred minds and his own
undoubted gift, to produce little that has sustained the reputation
accorded him by his acquaintances. Most of his work lives chiefly
## p. 4879 (#37) ############################################
MICHAEL DRAYTON
4879
to afford pleasing studies for the literary antiquary, to whom the tide
of time brings nothing uninteresting. Yet in the art of living, in
the unselfish devotion of his powers to his chosen calling, in the
graces of affection and the offices of noble friendship, he was so
excellent and exemplary that he won and kept the undying regard
of the most able men of the most brilliant period of English litera-
ture - men who felt a personal and unrequitable loss when he passed
away, and who spoke of him always with admiring tenderness.
In person he seems to have been small and dark. He describes
himself as of “swart and melancholy face. ” Yet his talk was most
delightful, and a strong proof of his wide popularity appears in the
fact that he is quoted not less than one hundred and fifty times in
England's Parnassus, published as early as 1600. The tributes of
his friends are innumerable, from the "good Rowland” of Barnfield
to the golden-mouthed Drayton, musicall,” of Fitz-Geoffrey, the
“man of vertuous disposition, honest conversation, and well-preserved
carriage of Meres, or the tender lines of his friend Ben Jonson:
“Do, pious marble, let thy readers know
What they and what their children owe
To Drayton's name; whose sacred dust
We recommend unto thy trust.
Protect his memory, and preserve his story,
Remain a lasting monument of his glory.
And when thy ruins shall disclaim
To be the treasurer of his name,
His name, that cannot die, shall be
An everlasting monument to thee. ”
SONNET
SINCE
INCE there's no help, come, let us kiss and part, –
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so clearly I myself can free:
Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now, at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes, —
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou mightst him yet recover!
## p. 4880 (#38) ############################################
4880
MICHAEL DRAYTON
THE BALLAD OF AGINCOURT
F
AIR stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry:
But putting to the main,
At Kaux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry.
And taking many a fort,
Furnished in warlike sort,
Marched towards Agincourt
In happy hour -
Skirmishing day by day
With those that stopped his way,
Where the French gen'ral lay
With all his power,
Which in his height of pride,
King Henry to deride.
His ransom to provide
To the King sending:
Which he neglects the while,
As from a nation vile,
Yet, with an angry smile,
Their fall portending.
And turning to his men,
Quoth our brave Henry then:-
Though they to one be ten,
Be not amazed;
Yet have we well begun-
Battles so bravely won
Have ever to the sun
By fame been raised.
“And for myself, ” quoth he,
« This my full rest shall be;
England ne'er mourn for me,
Nor more esteem me;
Victor I will remain,
Or on this earth lie slain;
Never shall she sustain
Loss to redeem me.
## p. 4881 (#39) ############################################
MICHAEL DRAYTON
4881
« Poitiers and Cressy tell,
When most their pride did swell,
Under our swords they fell;
No less our skill is
Than when our grandsire great,
Claiming the regal seat,
By many a warlike feat
Lopped the French lilies. ”
The Duke of York so dread
The eager vaward led;
With the main Henry sped,
Amongst his henchmen.
Excester had the rear -
A braver man not there:
O Lord! how hot they were
On the false Frenchmen!
They now to fight are gone;
Armor on armor shone;
Drum now to drum did groan
To hear was wonder;
That with the cries they make
The very earth did shake;
Trumpet to trumpet spake,
Thunder to thunder.
Well it thine age became,
O noble Erpingham!
Which did the signal aim
To our hid forces;
When from a meadow by,
Like a storm suddenly,
The English archery
Struck the French horses,
With Spanish yew so strong,
Arrows a cloth-yard long,
That like to serpents stung,
Piercing the weather;
None from his fellow starts,
But playing manly parts,
And like true English hearts,
Stuck close together.
IX-306
## p. 4882 (#40) ############################################
4882
MICHAEL DRAYTON
When down their bows they threw,
And forth their bilbows drew,
And on the French they flew,
Not one was tardy;
Arms were from shoulders sent;
Scalps to the teeth were rent;
Down the French peasants went;-
Our men were hardy.
This while our noble king,
His broadsword brandishing,
Down the French host did ding,
As to o'erwhelm it;
And many a deep wound lent,
His arm with blood besprent,
And many a cruel dent
Bruised his helmet.
Glo'ster, that duke so good,
Next of the royal blood,
For famous England stood,
With his brave brother -
Clarence, in steel so bright,
Though but a maiden knight,
Yet in that furious fight
Scarce such another.
Warwick in blood did wade;
Oxford the foe invade,
And cruel slaughter made,
Still as they ran up.
Suffolk his axe did ply;
Beaumont and Willoughby
Bare them right doughtily,
Ferrers and Fanhope.
Upon Saint Crispin's day
Fought was this noble fray,
Which fame did not delay
To England to carry:
Oh, when shall Englishmen
With such acts fill a pen,
Or England breed again
Such a King Harry ?
## p. 4883 (#41) ############################################
MICHAEL DRAYTON
4883
QUEEN MAB'S EXCURSION
From Nymphidia, the Court of Faery)
H*
ER chariot ready straight is made;
Each thing therein is fitting laid,
That she by nothing might be stay'd,
For naught must her be letting :
Four nimble gnats the horses were,
The harnesses of gossamer,
Fly Cranion, her charioteer,
Upon the coach-box getting.
Her chariot of a snail's fine shell,
Which for the colors did excel,-
The fair Queen Mab becoming well,
So lively was the limning;
The seat the soft wool of the bee,
The cover (gallantly to see)
The wing of a py'd butterflee,-
I trow, 'twas simple trimming.
The wheels composed of crickets' bones,
And daintily made for the nonce;
For fear of rattling on the stones,
With thistle-down they shod it:
For all her maidens much did fear,
If Oberon had chanced to hear
That Mab his queen should have been there,
He would not have abode it.
She mounts her chariot with a trice,
Nor would she stay for no advice,
Until her maids, that were so nice,
To wait on her were fitted,
But ran away herself alone;
Which when they heard, there was not one
But hasted after to be gone,
As she had been diswitted.
Hop, and Mop, and Drap so clear,
Pip, and Trip, and Skip, that were
To Mab their sovereign dear,
Her special maids of honor;
## p. 4884 (#42) ############################################
4884
MICHAEL DRAYTON
Fib, and Tib, and Pinck, and Pin,
Tick, and Quick, and Jill, and Jin,
Tit, and Nit, and Wap, and Win,
The train that wait upon her.
Upon a grasshopper they got,
And what with amble and with trot,
For hedge nor ditch they sparèd not,
But after her they hie them.
A cobweb over them they throw,
To shield the wind if it should blow;
Themselves they wisely could bestow,
Lest any should espy them.
## p. 4885 (#43) ############################################
4885
GUSTAVE DROZ
(1832-1895)
USTAVE DROZ enjoyed for a time the distinction of being the
most popular writer of light literature in France, and his
fame extended throughout Europe and to America, several
of his books having been translated into English. Essentially a
Parisian of the day,- gay, droll, adroit,- he not only caught and
reflected the humor of his countrymen, but with a new, fresh touch,
reached below the surface of their volatile emotions. Occasionally
striking the note of deeper feeling, he avoided as a rule the more
serious sides of life, as well as the sensa-
tional tendencies of most of his contem-
poraries. His friends claimed for him a
distinctive genre, and on that account pre-
sented him as a candidate for the Academy;
but he failed of election.
The son of a well-known sculptor, he
was born in Paris, and followed the tradi-
tions of his family in entering the École
des Beaux-Arts, where he developed some
aptitude with his brush; but a preference
for writing beguiled him from the studio,
and an acquaintance with Marcellin the illus-
trator, founder of La Vie Parisienne, led him GUSTAVE Droz
to follow literature. At first he was timid,
dreading the test of publication, but presently he gave himself up
unreservedly to his pen. Within a year he was established as a
favorite of the people, and his friend's journal was on the highway
to success. For this he wrote a series of sketches of every-day life
that were subsequently collected and published in book form, under
the titles Monsieur, Madame, et Bébé, Entre Nous,' and La Cahier
Bleu de Mlle. Cibot. ' Within two years these books had reached their
twentieth edition, and of the first, nearly one hundred and fifty edi-
tions have been demanded since it was issued. He has written
several novels, the best known of which are “Babolein,' 'Les Étangs)
(The Ponds), and Autour d'une Source) (Around a Spring), but they
did not fully sustain the reputation gained by his short sketches;
a fact which induced him in 1884 to return to his earlier form
in Tristesses et Sourires) (Sorrows and Smiles), a volume of light
## p. 4886 (#44) ############################################
4886
GUSTAVE DROZ
dissertations on things grave and gay that at once revived his
popularity.
The peculiarity of the work of Gustave Droz is its delicacy both
in humor and pathos. He surprised the French by making them all
laugh without making any of them wince; the sharp wits of his day
were forgotten in the unalloyed enjoyment of his simple quaintness,
in which there was neither affectation nor sarcasm. Yet as has been
said, he was a Parisian of the Parisians, quick to perceive the ludi-
crous, ready to weep with the afflicted, and to laugh again with the
happy. His studies of children are among his best, on account
of their extreme naturalness, and are never uninteresting, despite
the simplicity of the incidents and observations on which they are
founded. In Le Cahier Bleu de Mlle. Cibot' he has used striking
colors to paint the petty afflictions that beset most lives; but lest
these pictures should leave an unpleasant impression, they are set off
by others of a happier sort, making a collection that constitutes a
most effective lesson in practical philosophy.
HOW THE BABY WAS SAVED
From "The Seamstress's Story)
“YES
Ma'm'selle Adèle,” said the seamstress, “the real happi-
ness of this world is not so unevenly distributed after all. ”
Louise, as she said this, took from the reserve in the
bosom of her dress a lot of pins, and applied them deftly to the
trimming of a skirt which I was holding for her.
"A sufficiently comfortable doctrine," I answered; “but it
does seem to me as if some people were born to live and to die
unhappy. ”
« It is only folks who never find anybody to love enough; and
I think it's nobody's fault but their own. ”
“But my good Louise, wouldn't you have suffered much less
last year, when you came so near losing your boy, if you hadn't
cared so much for him ? »
I was only drawing her on, you see; Louise's chat was the
greatest resource to me at that time.
«Why, Ma'm'selle Adèle, you are surely joking. You'd as
well tell me to cut off my feet to save my shoes. You'll know
one of these days — and not so far off neither, maybe — how
mighty easy and sensible it would be not to love your children.
They are a worry, too; but oh the delight of 'em! I'd like to
## p. 4887 (#45) ############################################
GUSTAVE DROZ
4887
have had anybody tell me not to love my darling because it
might grieve me, when he lay there in his mother's lap, with
blue lips, gasping for his breath, and well-nigh dead, his face
blackish, and his hands like this piece of wax. You could see
that everything was going against him; and with his great big
eyes he was staring in my face, until I felt as if the child was
tugging at my very heart-strings. I kept smiling at him, though,
through the tears that blinded me, hard as I tried to hide them.
Oh! such tears are bitter salt indeed, Ma'm'selle! And there
was my poor husband on his knees, making paper figures to
amuse him, and singing a funny song he used to laugh at. Now
and then the corners of his mouth would pucker, and his cheeks
would wrinkle a little bit under the eyes. You could tell he was
still amused, but in such a dreamy way. Oh! our child seemed
no longer with us, but behind a veil, like. Wait a minute.
You must excuse me, for I can't help crying when I think of it. ”
And the poor creature drew out her handkerchief and fairly
sobbed aloud. In the midst of it however she smiled and said:
“Well, that's over now; 'twas nothing, and I'm too silly. And
Ma'm'selle, here I've gone and cried upon your mother's dress,
and that's a pretty business. ”
I took her hand in mine and pressed it.
"Aren't you afraid you'll stick yourself, Ma'm'selle ? I've got
my needle in that hand,” she said playfully. “But you did not
mean what you said just now, did you ? ”
What did I say? ”
“That it would be better not to love your children with all
your heart, on account of the great anxiety.
know
such thoughts are wicked ? When they come into your head
your mind wants purifying. But I'm sure I beg your pardon
for saying so. ”
"You are entirely right, Louise,” I returned.
“Ah! so I thought. And now let me see. Let's fix this
ruche; pull it to the left a little, please. ”
But about the sick boy. Tell me about his recovery. ”
« That was a miracle -I ought to say two miracles.
a miracle that God restored him to us, and a miracle to find
anybody with so much knowledge and feeling, -such talent, such
a tender heart, and so much, so much --! I'm speaking of
the doctor. A famous one he was, too, you must know; for it
was no less than Doctor Faron. Heaven knows how he is run
((
Don't you
(
(
It was
## p. 4888 (#46) ############################################
4888
GUSTAVE DROZ
after, and how rich and celebrated he is! Aren't you surprised
to hear that it was he who attended our little boy? Indeed, the
wonders begin with that. You may imagine my husband was at
his wits' end when he saw how it was with the child; and all of
a sudden I saw him jump up, get out his best coat and hat, and
put them on.
“Where are you going? ' I asked.
«To bring Doctor Faron. '
«Why, if he had said, "To bring the Prime Minister,' it
would have seemed as likely.
«Don't you believe Doctor Faron is going to trouble himself
about such as we. They will turn you out of doors. '
“But 'twas no use talking, my dear. He was already on the
stairs, and I heard him running away as if the house was on fire.
Fire, indeed; worse, far worse than any fire!
“And there I was, left alone with the child upon my knees.
He wouldn't stay in bed, and was quieter so, wrapped up in his
little blanket. “Here will he die, I thought. Soon will his
eyes close, and then it will be all over;' and I held my own
breath to listen to his feeble and oppressed pantings.
“About an hour had passed, when I heard a rapid step upon
the stairs (we are poor, and live in attic rooms). The door
opened, and my husband came in, wet with perspiration and out
of breath. If I live a century, I'll not forget his look when he
said:-
(Well? )
"I answered, No worse. But the doctor? )
«He's coming
“Oh, those blessed words! It actually seemed as if my child
were saved already. If you but knew how folks love their little
ones! I kissed the darling, I kissed his father, I laughed, I
cried, and I no longer felt the faintest doubt. It is by God's
mercy that such gleams of hope are sent to strengthen us in our
trials. It was very foolish, too; for something might easily have
prevented the doctor's coming, after all.
«(You found him at home, then? I asked my husband.
« Then he told me in an undertone what he had done, stop-
ping every now and then to wipe his face and gather breath.
"My husband had scarcely uttered these words,” continued
Louise, when I heard a step on the stairs. It was he! it was
## p. 4889 (#47) ############################################
GUSTAVE DROZ
4889
that blessed angel of a doctor, come to help us in our sore dis-
tress.
“And what do you think he said in his deep voice when he
got into the room ?
«God bless you, my friends, but I nearly broke my neck on
those stairs. Where's that child ? '
« Here he is, my dear, darling doctor. ' I knew no better
way to speak to him, with his dress cravat showing over his
greatcoat, and his decorations dangling like a little bunch of keys
at his buttonhole.
“He took off his wrappings, stooped over the child, turned
him over, more gently even than his mother could have done,
and laid his own head first against his back, then against his
breast. How I tried to read his eyes! but they know how to
hide their thoughts.
« We must perform an operation here,' says he; and it is
high time.
“Just at this moment the hospital doctor came in, and whis-
pered to him, 'I'm afraid you didn't want to be disturbed, sir. '
«Oh, never mind. I am sorry it wasn't sooner, though. Get
everything ready now. '
"But Ma'm'selle Adèle, why should I tell you all this? I'd
better mind my work. ”
"Oh, go on, Louise, go on! ”
“Well then, Ma'm'selle, if you believe me, those two doctors
- neither of 'em kin, or even friends till then – went to work
and made all the preparations, while my husband went off to
borrow lights. The biggest one tied a mattress on the table,
and the assistant spread out the bright little knives.
“You who have not been through it all, Ma'm'selle, can't
know what it is to have your own little one in your lap, to
know that those things are to be used upon him to pierce his
tender flesh, and if the hand that guides them be not sure, that
they may kill him.
When all was ready, Doctor Faron took off his cravat, then
lifted my child from my arms and laid him on the mattress, in
the midst of the lamps, and said to my poor man:
« « You will hold his head, and your wife his feet. Joseph
will pass me the instruments. You've brought a breathing-tube
with you, my son ? '
« Yes, sir.
## p. 4890 (#48) ############################################
4890
GUSTAVE DROZ
"My husband was as white as a sheet by this; and when I
saw him about to take his place with his hands shaking so much,
it scared me, so I said:
« Doctor, please let me hold his head! !
« But my poor woman, if you should tremble ? '
« Please let me do it, doctor! !
« Be it so, then;' and then added with a bright look at me,
and a cheering smile, we shall save him for you, my dear; you
are a brave little woman and you deserve it. '
“Yes, and save him he did! God bless him! saved him as
truly as if he had snatched him from the depths of the river. ”
“And you didn't tremble, Louise ? »
«You may depend on that. If I had, it would have been the
last of my child. ”
«How in the world did you keep yourself steady ? ”
«The Lord knows; but I was like a rock. When you must,
you must, I suppose. ”
“And you had to behold every detail of that operation ? »
“Yes, indeed; and often have I dreamed it over since. His
poor little neck laid open, and the veins, which the doctor pushed
aside with his fingers, and the little silver tube which he in-
serted, and all that; and then the face of the child, changing as
the air passed into his lungs. You've seen a lamp almost out,
when you pour in oil ? It was like that. They had laid him
there but half alive, with his eyes all but set; and they gave
him back to me, pale and with bloodless lips, it is true, but with
life in his looks, and breathing — breathing the free, fresh air.
«Kiss him, mother,' says the doctor, and put him to bed.
Cover the place with some light thing or other, and Joseph must
stay with you to-night; won't you, Joseph ? Ah, well, that's all
arranged.
“He put on his things and wrapped himself up to go. He
was shaking hands with my husband, when I seized one hand,
and kissed it like a fool, as I was; but I didn't stop to think.
He laughed heartily, and said to my husband, Are you not
jealous, friend? Your wife is making great advances to me.
But I must be off now. Good night, good people. '
And from that night he always talks so friendly and famil-
iarly to us, not a bit contemptuously either, but as if he liked
us, and was glad to be of service to us. ”
## p. 4891 (#49) ############################################
GUSTAVE DROZ
4891
A FAMILY NEW-YEAR'S
From Monsieur, Madame, and Baby)
T is barely seven o'clock. A pale ray of wan light filters
through the double curtains, and some one is already at the
door. In the next room I hear the stified laughs and silvery
voice of my little child, who trembles with impatience and begs
to come.
“But father dear,” he cries, “it's Baby. It's your own little
boy - to wish you Happy New Year. »
"Come in, darling; come quick and give me a kiss, I cry.
The door opens, and my boy, with shining eyes and his arms
in the air, rushes toward the bed. Long curls, escaping from
the nightcap which imprisons his blond head, fall over his fore-
head. His loose night-shirt, embarrassing his little feet, adds to
his impatience and makes him trip at every step. He has
crossed the room at last, and stretching his hands toward mine,
« Baby wishes you a happy New Year,” he says earnestly.
« Poor darling, with his bare feet! Come, dear! Come and
get warm under the covers; come and hide in the quilt. ”
I draw him to me; but at this movement my wife wakes up
suddenly.
"How you frightened me! I was dreaming
that there was a fire, and these voices in the midst of it! You
are indiscreet with your cries! ”
“Our cries! So you forget, dear mamma, that this is New-
Year's day. Baby is waiting for you to wake up, and so am I. ”
I wrap up my little man in the soft quilt, I bury him in the
eiderdown, and warm his frozen feet with my hands.
Mother dear, this is New Year,” he cries. He draws our
two heads together with his arms, and kisses us anywhere at
random, with his fresh lips. I feel his dimpled hand wandering
about my neck; his little fingers are entangled in my beard. My
mustache pricks the end of his nose. He bursts out laughing,
and throws his head back.
His mother, who has recovered from her fright, draws him
into her arms. She pulls the bell.
« The year begins well, my dears,” she says, “but we need a
little light. ”
« Tell me, mamma, do naughty children have presents at New-
Year's ? ” says the young dissembler, with an eye on the mountain
of boxes and packages visible in the corner, in spite of the gloom.
.
## p. 4892 (#50) ############################################
4892
GUSTAVE DROZ
the paper.
»
The curtains are drawn apart, the blinds are opened, there is
a flood of daylight, the fire crackles gayly on the hearth, and two
large packages, carefully wrapped up, are placed on the bed. One
is for my wife; the other for the boy.
What is it? What will it be? I have heaped up knots, and
tripled the wrappings; and I watch with delight their nervous
fingers, lost in the strings.
My wife gets impatient, smiles, is vexed, kisses me, and asks
for scissors. Baby on his side bites his lips, pulls with all his
might, and at last asks me to help him. He longs to see through
Desire and expectation are painted on his face. The
convulsive movement of his hand in the folds of the quilt rustles
the silk, and he makes a sound with his lips as though a savory
fruit were approaching them.
The last paper is off, finally the cover is lifted, there is an
outcry of joy.
«My tippet! ”
“My menagerie ! »
"Like my muff,- my dear husband !
"With a real shepherd, on wheels, dear papa, how I love you! ”
They hug me, four arms at once wind round and press me
close. I am stirred - a tear comes to my eyes; two come to
those of my wife; and Baby, who loses his head, utters a sob as
he kisses my hand.
How absurd! you will say. I don't know whether it is absurd
or not, but it is charming, I promise you. After all, does not
sorrow wring tears enough from us to make up for the solitary
one which joy may call forth ? Life is less happy when one
chances it alone; and when the heart is empty, the way seems
long. It is so good to feel one's self loved; to hear the regular
steps of one's fellow travelers beside one; and to think, “They
are there, our three hearts beat together;” and once a year,
when the great clock strikes the first of January, to sit down be-
side the way with hands clasped together and eyes fixed upon
the dusty unknown road stretching on to the horizon, and to
embrace and say:-“We will always love each other, my dear
ones; you depend upon me and I on you. Let us trust and keep
straight on. ”
And that is how I explain that we weep a little in looking at
a tippet and opening a menagerie.
Translated by Jane G. Cooke, for (A Library of The World's Best Literature. )
## p. 4893 (#51) ############################################
GUSTAVE DROZ
4893
THEIR LAST EXCURSION
From Making an Omelette): from Lippincott's Magazine, 1871, copyrighted
I
N this strange, rude interior, how refined and delicate Louise
looked, with all her dainty appointments of long undressed
kid gloves, jaunty boots, and looped-up petticoat! While I
talked to the wood-cutters she shielded her face from the fire
with her hands, and kept her eye on the butter beginning to
sing in the pan.
Suddenly she rose, and taking the pan-handle from the old
woman, said, “Let me help you make the omelette, will you ?
? »
The good woman let go with a smile, and Louise found herself
alone, in the attitude of a fisherman who has just had a nibble.
She stood in the full light of the fire, her eyes fixed on the
melted butter, her arms tense with effort; she was biting her
lips, probably in order to increase her strength.
“It's rather hard on madame's little hands," said the old
man. “I bet it's the first time you ever made an omelette in a
wood-cutter's hut - isn't it, my young lady? ”
Louise nodded yes, without turning her eyes from the ome-
lette.
“The eggs! the eggs! ” she suddenly exclaimed, with such a
look of uneasiness that we all burst out laughing - "hurry with
the eggs! The butter is all puffing up! Be quick - or I can't
answer for the consequences. ”
The old woman beat the eggs energetically.
«The herbs! ” cried the old man. « The lard and salt! » cried
the young ones. And they all set to work chopping, cutting,
piling up, while Louise, stamping with excitement, called out,
“Make haste! make haste! » Then there was a tremendous
bubbling in the pan, and the great work began. We were all
round the fire, gazing with an anxious interest inspired by our
all having had a finger in the pie.
The old woman, on her knees beside a large dish, slipped a
knife under the edge of the omelette, which was turning a fine
brown. "Now, madame, you've only got to turn it over,” she
said.
"Just one little quick blow,” suggested the old man.
«Mustn't be violent,” counseled the young one.
## p. 4894 (#52) ############################################
4894
GUSTAVE DROZ
« I am
(C
“All at once; up with it, dear! ” I said.
"If you all talk at once
“Make haste, madame! ”
“If
you
all talk at once I never shall manage it. It is too
awfully heavy. "
“One quick little blow.
in not unworthy imagery, his majesty. Though it bitterly de-
nounces those who give him any equals, and assures them that
their sin will never be forgiven; that in the Judgment Day they
must answer the fearful question, «Where are my companions
about whom ye disputed ? ”— though it inculcates an absolute
dependence on the mercy of God, and denounces as criminals all
those who make a merchandise of religion, its ideas of the
Deity are altogether anthropomorphic. He is only a gigantic
man, living in a paradise. In this respect, though exceptional
passages might be cited, the reader rises from a perusal of the
one hundred and fourteen chapters of the Koran with a final im-
pression that they have given him low and unworthy thoughts;
nor is it surprising that one of the Mohammedan sects reads it
in such a way as to find no difficulty in asserting that from
## p. 4873 (#31) ############################################
JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
4873
the crown of the head to the breast God is hollow, and from the
breast downward he is solid;" that he has curled black hair,
and roars like a lion at every watch of the night. The unity as-
serted by Mohammed is a unity in special contradistinction to the
Trinity of the Christians, and the doctrine of a Divine genera-
tion. Our Savior is never called the Son of God, but always the
Son of Mary. Throughout there is a perpetual acceptance of the
delusion of the human destiny of the universe. As to man, Mo-
hammed is diffuse enough respecting a future state, speaking
with clearness of a resurrection, the Judgment Day, Paradise, the
torment of hell, the worm that never dies, the pains that never
end; but with all this precise description of the future, there are
many errors as to the past. If modesty did not render it unsuit-
able to speak of such topics here, it might be shown how feeble
is his physiology when he has occasion to allude to the origin or
generation of man. He is hardly advanced beyond the ideas of
Thales. One who is so untrustworthy a guide as to things that
are past cannot be very trustworthy as to events that are to come.
Of the literary execution of his work, it is perhaps scarcely
possible to judge fairly from a translation. It is said to be the
oldest prose composition among the Arabs, by whom Moham-
med's boast of the unapproachable excellence of his work is
almost universally sustained; but it must not be concealed that
there have been among them very learned men who have held it
in light esteem. Its most celebrated passages, as those on the
nature of God, in Chapters ii. , xxiv. , will bear no comparison
with parallel ones in the Psalms and Book of Job. In the narra-
tive style, the story of Joseph in Chapter xii. , compared with
the same incidents related in Genesis, shows a like inferiority.
Mohammed also adulterates his work with many Christian legends,
derived probably from the apocryphal gospel of St. Barnabas; he
mixes with many of his own inventions the Scripture account of
the temptation of Adam, the Deluge, Jonah and the whale, en-
riching the whole with stories like the later Night Entertain-
ments of his country, the seven sleepers, Gog and Magog, and
all the wonders of genii, sorcery, and charms.
An impartial reader of the Koran may doubtless be surprised
that so feeble a production should serve its purpose so well.
But the theory of religion is one thing, the practice another.
The Koran abounds in excellent moral suggestions and precepts;
its composition is so fragmentary that we cannot turn to a single
## p. 4874 (#32) ############################################
4874
JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
page without finding maxims of which all men must approve.
This fragmentary construction yields texts and mottoes and rules
complete in themselves, suitable for common men in any of the
incidents of life. There is a perpetual insisting on the necessity
of prayer, an inculcation of mercy, almsgiving, justice, fasting,
pilgrimage, and other good works; institutions respecting conduct,
both social and domestic, debts, witnesses, marriage, children,
wine, and the like; above all, a constant stimulation to do battle
with the infidel and blasphemer. For life as it passes in Asia,
there is hardly a condition in which passages from the Koran
cannot be recalled suitable for instruction, admonition, consolation,
encouragement. To the Asiatic and to the African, such devo-
tional fragments are of far more use than any sustained theologi-
cal doctrine. The mental constitution of Mohammed did not
enable him to handle important philosophical questions with the
well-balanced ability of the great Greek and Indian writers; but
he has never been surpassed in adaptation to the spiritual wants
of humble life, making even his fearful fatalism administer
thereto. A pitiless destiny is awaiting us; yet the prophet is
uncertain what it may be. "Unto every nation a fixed time is
decreed. Death will overtake us even in lofty towers, but God
only knoweth the place in which a man shall die. ” After many
an admonition of the resurrection and the Judgment Day, many
a promise of Paradise and threat of hell, he plaintively confesses,
"I do not know what will be done with you or me hereafter. "
The Koran thus betrays a human and not a very noble intel-
lectual origin. It does not however follow that its author was,
as is so often asserted, a mere impostor. He reiterates again and
again, I am nothing more than a public preacher. ” He defends,
not always without acerbity, his work from those who even in
his own life stigmatized it as a confused heap of dreams, or what
is worse, a forgery. He is not the only man who has supposed
himself to be the subject of supernatural and divine communica-
tions, for this is a condition of disease to which any one, by
fasting and mental anxiety, may be reduced.
In what I have thus said respecting a work held by so many
millions of men as a revelation from God, I have endeavored to
speak with respect and yet with freedom, constantly bearing in
mind how deeply to this book Asia and Africa are indebted for
daily guidance, how deeply Europe and America for the light of
science.
## p. 4875 (#33) ############################################
JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
4875
As might be expected, the doctrines of the Koran have re-
ceived many fictitious additions and sectarian interpretations in
the course of ages. In the popular superstition angels and genii
largely figure. The latter, being of a grosser fabric, eat, drink,
propagate their kind, are of two sorts, good and bad, and existed
long before men, having occupied the earth before Adam. Im-
mediately after death, two greenish livid angels, Monkir and
Nekkar, examine every corpse as to its faith in God and Moham-
med; but the soul, having been separated from the body by the
angel of death, enters upon an intermediate state, awaiting the
resurrection. There is however much diversity of opinion as to
its precise disposal before the Judgment Day: some think that it
hovers near the grave; some, that it sinks into the well Zemzem;
some, that it retires into the trumpet of the angel of the resur-
rection; the difficulty apparently being that any final disposal
before the Day of Judgment would be anticipatory of that great
event, if indeed it would not render it needless. As to the res-
urrection, some believe it to be merely spiritual, others corporeal;
the latter asserting that the os coccygis, or last bone of the spinal
column, will serve as it were as a germ; and that, vivified by a
rain of forty days, the body will sprout from it. Among the
signs of the approaching resurrection will be the rising of the
sun in the west. It will be ushered in by three blasts of a
trumpet: the first, known as the blast of consternation, will
shake the earth to its centre, and extinguish the sun and stars;
the second, the blast of extermination, will annihilate all material
things except Paradise, hell, and the throne of God. Forty years
subsequently, the angel Israfil will sound the blast of resurrec-
tion. From his trumpet there will be blown forth the countless
myriads of souls who have taken refuge therein, or lain concealed.
The Day of Judgment has now come. The Koran contradicts
itself as to the length of this day; in one place making it a
thousand, in another fifty thousand years. Most Mohammedans
incline to adopt the longer period, since angels, genii, men, and
animals have to be tried.
As to men, they will rise in their natural state, but naked;
white-winged camels, with saddles of gold, awaiting the saved.
When the partition is made, the wicked will be oppressed with
an intolerable heat, caused by the sun, which, having been called
into existence again, will approach within a mile, provoking a
sweat to issue from them; and this, according to their demer-
its, will immerse them from the ankles to the mouth; but the
## p. 4876 (#34) ############################################
4876
JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER
righteous will be screened by the shadow of the throne of God.
The Judge will be seated in the clouds, the books open before
him, and everything in its turn called on to account for its deeds.
For greater dispatch, the angel Gabriel will hold forth his bal-
ance, one scale of which hangs over Paradise and one over hell.
In these all works are weighed. As soon as the sentence is deliv.
ered, the assembly, in a long file, will pass over the bridge
Al-Sirat. It is as sharp as the edge of a sword, and laid over
the mouth of hell. Mohammed and his followers will successfully
pass the perilous ordeal; but the sinners, giddy with terror, will
drop into the place of torment. The blessed will receive their
first taste of happiness at a pond which is supplied by silver
pipes from the river Al-Cawthor. The soil of Paradise is of
musk. Its rivers tranquilly flow over pebbles of rubies and
emeralds. From tents of hollow pearls the Houris, or girls of
Paradise, will come forth, attended by troops of beautiful boys.
Each saint will have eighty thousand servants and seventy-two
girls. To these, some of the more merciful Mussulmans add the
wives they have had upon earth; but the grimly orthodox assert
that hell is already nearly filled with women. How can it be
otherwise, since they are not permitted to pray in a mosque upon
earth?
I have not space to describe the silk brocades, the green
clothing, the soft carpets, the banquets, the perpetual music and
songs. From the glorified body all impurities will escape, not as
they did during life, but in a fragrant perspiration of camphor
and musk. No one will complain, “I am weary; no one will
say, "I am sick. "
From the contradictions, puerilities, and impossibilities indi-
cated in the preceding paragraphs, it may be anticipated that the
faith of Mohammed has been broken into many sects. Of such
it is said that not less than seventy-three may be numbered.
Some, as the Sonnites, are guided by traditions; some occupy
themselves with philosophical difficulties, – the existence of evil
in the world, the attributes of God, absolute predestination and
eternal damnation, the invisibility and non-corporeality of God,
his capability of local motion. . . But the great Mohamme-
dan philosophers, simply accepting the doctrine of the oneness
of God as the only thing of which man can be certain, look upon
all the rest as idle fables- having however this political use: that
they furnish contention and therefore occupation to disputatious
sectarians, and consolation to illiterate minds.
## p. 4877 (#35) ############################################
4877
MICHAEL DRAYTON
(1563-1631)
HILE London still crowded to the new «Theatre » in Shore-
ditch, the first built in England; while Ben Jonson was
still soldiering in the Low Countries; while Marlowe was
working out the tragedy that was to revolutionize all stage traditions,
and Shakespeare was yet but a looker-on at greatness," — there
came up from Warwickshire a young man of good family who had
served as page in a noble house, who had studied possibly at Oxford,
and who in the first flush of manhood aspired to a place among
those prodigies who made the later Eliza-
bethan period immortal. This was Michael
Drayton, whose gentle birth and breeding,
education and talents, knowledge of the
world and of men, together with a most
sweet and lovable disposition, made him at
once welcome in the literary Bohemia of
the day. He became the “deare and bosom
friend” of Beaumont and Fletcher, and his
work received unquestioned honor from his
illustrious contemporaries.
As a child he had demanded of his
elders to know what kind of beings poets
were, had spent many hours in writing Michael DRAYTON
childishly fantastic verses, and had begged
of his tutor to make a poet of him. And although he seems to have
been poor and to have lived by the gifts of wealthy patrons, he
cast in his lot with literature, and cherished no other ambition than
that of writing well. His first book, a volume of spiritual poems, or
metrical renderings of the Bible, was published in 1590 under the
title “The Harmony of the Church. It is difficult to see why this
commonplace and orthodox performance should have given such
umbrage that the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned the entire
edition to destruction. Yet this was its fate, with the exception of
forty copies which Archbishop Whitgift ordered to be reserved for
the ecclesiastical library at Lambeth Palace. Undiscouraged, the
poet next produced a cycle of sixty-four sonnets and a collection of
pastorals entitled “Idea: the Shepherd's Garland,' in which under the
name “Rowland” he celebrated an early love. It is strange that
the intrinsic merit of these verses, and their undoubted popularity,
## p. 4878 (#36) ############################################
4878
MICHAEL DRAYTON
should not have urged Drayton to continue in the same vein. In-
stead, however, he set about the composition of a series of historical
poems which extended over the next twenty-four years, and to which
he gave the best energies of his life. Beginning with the epic
Matilda,' studied from English history, the series was continued by
a poem on the Wars of the Roses,' afterward enlarged into “The
Barons' Wars. ) This was followed by the epic (Robert, Duke of
Normandy. ' Destitute of imagination, prolix and tedious, these verses
were yet so popular in Drayton's day that in 1612 he began the
publication of a poem in thirty books, meant to include the entire
chronology and topography of Great Britain, from the earliest times.
This was the famous Poly-Olbion, in which, in spite of the inspiring
work of his contemporaries, Drayton harked back in spirit to the
dreary monotony of the Saxon Chronicle; the detail is so minute,
the matter so unimportant, and the absence of discrimination so ap-
parent, that notwithstanding many noticeable beauties of thought
and style, it is hard to realize that this poem was a favorite with
that brilliant group which had known Shakespeare, and still delighted
in Ben Jonson. After issuing eighteen books of Poly-Olbion,' his
publishers — with whom he was always quarreling, and whom he
declared that he “despised and kicked at ” — refused to undertake the
remaining twelve books of the second part. His friends, however,
loyal in their love and praise of him, secured a more complaisant
tradesman to bring out the rest of the already famous poem.
Fortunately for his fame, Drayton had in the mean time produced
two other volumes of verse, which displayed the real grace and fanci-
fulness of his charming muse. The first of these, Poems Lyrical
and Pastoral,' included the satire (The Man in the Moon”; while in
the second were printed the Ballad of Agincourt,' the most spirited
of English martial lyrics, and that delightful fantasy Nymphidia, or
the Court of Faery,' in which the touch is so light, the fancy so
dainty, and the conceit so delicate, that the poem remains immortally
fresh and young. Because everybody wrote plays, Drayton turned
playwright, and is said to have collaborated with Massinger and Ford.
Of his long works, the Heroicall Episodes) is perhaps the most read-
able. His last effort was “The Muses' Elizium, published in 1630. A
year later he died, and was buried in Westminster, where a monu-
ment was erected to him by the Countess of Dorset.
Drayton's place in English literature is with that considerable and
not unimportant band who have done somewhat, but whose repute
is much more for what they were in their friends' eyes than for
what they did. In an age of great intellectual achievement, he yet
managed, in spite of the stimulus of kindred minds and his own
undoubted gift, to produce little that has sustained the reputation
accorded him by his acquaintances. Most of his work lives chiefly
## p. 4879 (#37) ############################################
MICHAEL DRAYTON
4879
to afford pleasing studies for the literary antiquary, to whom the tide
of time brings nothing uninteresting. Yet in the art of living, in
the unselfish devotion of his powers to his chosen calling, in the
graces of affection and the offices of noble friendship, he was so
excellent and exemplary that he won and kept the undying regard
of the most able men of the most brilliant period of English litera-
ture - men who felt a personal and unrequitable loss when he passed
away, and who spoke of him always with admiring tenderness.
In person he seems to have been small and dark. He describes
himself as of “swart and melancholy face. ” Yet his talk was most
delightful, and a strong proof of his wide popularity appears in the
fact that he is quoted not less than one hundred and fifty times in
England's Parnassus, published as early as 1600. The tributes of
his friends are innumerable, from the "good Rowland” of Barnfield
to the golden-mouthed Drayton, musicall,” of Fitz-Geoffrey, the
“man of vertuous disposition, honest conversation, and well-preserved
carriage of Meres, or the tender lines of his friend Ben Jonson:
“Do, pious marble, let thy readers know
What they and what their children owe
To Drayton's name; whose sacred dust
We recommend unto thy trust.
Protect his memory, and preserve his story,
Remain a lasting monument of his glory.
And when thy ruins shall disclaim
To be the treasurer of his name,
His name, that cannot die, shall be
An everlasting monument to thee. ”
SONNET
SINCE
INCE there's no help, come, let us kiss and part, –
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so clearly I myself can free:
Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now, at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes, —
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou mightst him yet recover!
## p. 4880 (#38) ############################################
4880
MICHAEL DRAYTON
THE BALLAD OF AGINCOURT
F
AIR stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry:
But putting to the main,
At Kaux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry.
And taking many a fort,
Furnished in warlike sort,
Marched towards Agincourt
In happy hour -
Skirmishing day by day
With those that stopped his way,
Where the French gen'ral lay
With all his power,
Which in his height of pride,
King Henry to deride.
His ransom to provide
To the King sending:
Which he neglects the while,
As from a nation vile,
Yet, with an angry smile,
Their fall portending.
And turning to his men,
Quoth our brave Henry then:-
Though they to one be ten,
Be not amazed;
Yet have we well begun-
Battles so bravely won
Have ever to the sun
By fame been raised.
“And for myself, ” quoth he,
« This my full rest shall be;
England ne'er mourn for me,
Nor more esteem me;
Victor I will remain,
Or on this earth lie slain;
Never shall she sustain
Loss to redeem me.
## p. 4881 (#39) ############################################
MICHAEL DRAYTON
4881
« Poitiers and Cressy tell,
When most their pride did swell,
Under our swords they fell;
No less our skill is
Than when our grandsire great,
Claiming the regal seat,
By many a warlike feat
Lopped the French lilies. ”
The Duke of York so dread
The eager vaward led;
With the main Henry sped,
Amongst his henchmen.
Excester had the rear -
A braver man not there:
O Lord! how hot they were
On the false Frenchmen!
They now to fight are gone;
Armor on armor shone;
Drum now to drum did groan
To hear was wonder;
That with the cries they make
The very earth did shake;
Trumpet to trumpet spake,
Thunder to thunder.
Well it thine age became,
O noble Erpingham!
Which did the signal aim
To our hid forces;
When from a meadow by,
Like a storm suddenly,
The English archery
Struck the French horses,
With Spanish yew so strong,
Arrows a cloth-yard long,
That like to serpents stung,
Piercing the weather;
None from his fellow starts,
But playing manly parts,
And like true English hearts,
Stuck close together.
IX-306
## p. 4882 (#40) ############################################
4882
MICHAEL DRAYTON
When down their bows they threw,
And forth their bilbows drew,
And on the French they flew,
Not one was tardy;
Arms were from shoulders sent;
Scalps to the teeth were rent;
Down the French peasants went;-
Our men were hardy.
This while our noble king,
His broadsword brandishing,
Down the French host did ding,
As to o'erwhelm it;
And many a deep wound lent,
His arm with blood besprent,
And many a cruel dent
Bruised his helmet.
Glo'ster, that duke so good,
Next of the royal blood,
For famous England stood,
With his brave brother -
Clarence, in steel so bright,
Though but a maiden knight,
Yet in that furious fight
Scarce such another.
Warwick in blood did wade;
Oxford the foe invade,
And cruel slaughter made,
Still as they ran up.
Suffolk his axe did ply;
Beaumont and Willoughby
Bare them right doughtily,
Ferrers and Fanhope.
Upon Saint Crispin's day
Fought was this noble fray,
Which fame did not delay
To England to carry:
Oh, when shall Englishmen
With such acts fill a pen,
Or England breed again
Such a King Harry ?
## p. 4883 (#41) ############################################
MICHAEL DRAYTON
4883
QUEEN MAB'S EXCURSION
From Nymphidia, the Court of Faery)
H*
ER chariot ready straight is made;
Each thing therein is fitting laid,
That she by nothing might be stay'd,
For naught must her be letting :
Four nimble gnats the horses were,
The harnesses of gossamer,
Fly Cranion, her charioteer,
Upon the coach-box getting.
Her chariot of a snail's fine shell,
Which for the colors did excel,-
The fair Queen Mab becoming well,
So lively was the limning;
The seat the soft wool of the bee,
The cover (gallantly to see)
The wing of a py'd butterflee,-
I trow, 'twas simple trimming.
The wheels composed of crickets' bones,
And daintily made for the nonce;
For fear of rattling on the stones,
With thistle-down they shod it:
For all her maidens much did fear,
If Oberon had chanced to hear
That Mab his queen should have been there,
He would not have abode it.
She mounts her chariot with a trice,
Nor would she stay for no advice,
Until her maids, that were so nice,
To wait on her were fitted,
But ran away herself alone;
Which when they heard, there was not one
But hasted after to be gone,
As she had been diswitted.
Hop, and Mop, and Drap so clear,
Pip, and Trip, and Skip, that were
To Mab their sovereign dear,
Her special maids of honor;
## p. 4884 (#42) ############################################
4884
MICHAEL DRAYTON
Fib, and Tib, and Pinck, and Pin,
Tick, and Quick, and Jill, and Jin,
Tit, and Nit, and Wap, and Win,
The train that wait upon her.
Upon a grasshopper they got,
And what with amble and with trot,
For hedge nor ditch they sparèd not,
But after her they hie them.
A cobweb over them they throw,
To shield the wind if it should blow;
Themselves they wisely could bestow,
Lest any should espy them.
## p. 4885 (#43) ############################################
4885
GUSTAVE DROZ
(1832-1895)
USTAVE DROZ enjoyed for a time the distinction of being the
most popular writer of light literature in France, and his
fame extended throughout Europe and to America, several
of his books having been translated into English. Essentially a
Parisian of the day,- gay, droll, adroit,- he not only caught and
reflected the humor of his countrymen, but with a new, fresh touch,
reached below the surface of their volatile emotions. Occasionally
striking the note of deeper feeling, he avoided as a rule the more
serious sides of life, as well as the sensa-
tional tendencies of most of his contem-
poraries. His friends claimed for him a
distinctive genre, and on that account pre-
sented him as a candidate for the Academy;
but he failed of election.
The son of a well-known sculptor, he
was born in Paris, and followed the tradi-
tions of his family in entering the École
des Beaux-Arts, where he developed some
aptitude with his brush; but a preference
for writing beguiled him from the studio,
and an acquaintance with Marcellin the illus-
trator, founder of La Vie Parisienne, led him GUSTAVE Droz
to follow literature. At first he was timid,
dreading the test of publication, but presently he gave himself up
unreservedly to his pen. Within a year he was established as a
favorite of the people, and his friend's journal was on the highway
to success. For this he wrote a series of sketches of every-day life
that were subsequently collected and published in book form, under
the titles Monsieur, Madame, et Bébé, Entre Nous,' and La Cahier
Bleu de Mlle. Cibot. ' Within two years these books had reached their
twentieth edition, and of the first, nearly one hundred and fifty edi-
tions have been demanded since it was issued. He has written
several novels, the best known of which are “Babolein,' 'Les Étangs)
(The Ponds), and Autour d'une Source) (Around a Spring), but they
did not fully sustain the reputation gained by his short sketches;
a fact which induced him in 1884 to return to his earlier form
in Tristesses et Sourires) (Sorrows and Smiles), a volume of light
## p. 4886 (#44) ############################################
4886
GUSTAVE DROZ
dissertations on things grave and gay that at once revived his
popularity.
The peculiarity of the work of Gustave Droz is its delicacy both
in humor and pathos. He surprised the French by making them all
laugh without making any of them wince; the sharp wits of his day
were forgotten in the unalloyed enjoyment of his simple quaintness,
in which there was neither affectation nor sarcasm. Yet as has been
said, he was a Parisian of the Parisians, quick to perceive the ludi-
crous, ready to weep with the afflicted, and to laugh again with the
happy. His studies of children are among his best, on account
of their extreme naturalness, and are never uninteresting, despite
the simplicity of the incidents and observations on which they are
founded. In Le Cahier Bleu de Mlle. Cibot' he has used striking
colors to paint the petty afflictions that beset most lives; but lest
these pictures should leave an unpleasant impression, they are set off
by others of a happier sort, making a collection that constitutes a
most effective lesson in practical philosophy.
HOW THE BABY WAS SAVED
From "The Seamstress's Story)
“YES
Ma'm'selle Adèle,” said the seamstress, “the real happi-
ness of this world is not so unevenly distributed after all. ”
Louise, as she said this, took from the reserve in the
bosom of her dress a lot of pins, and applied them deftly to the
trimming of a skirt which I was holding for her.
"A sufficiently comfortable doctrine," I answered; “but it
does seem to me as if some people were born to live and to die
unhappy. ”
« It is only folks who never find anybody to love enough; and
I think it's nobody's fault but their own. ”
“But my good Louise, wouldn't you have suffered much less
last year, when you came so near losing your boy, if you hadn't
cared so much for him ? »
I was only drawing her on, you see; Louise's chat was the
greatest resource to me at that time.
«Why, Ma'm'selle Adèle, you are surely joking. You'd as
well tell me to cut off my feet to save my shoes. You'll know
one of these days — and not so far off neither, maybe — how
mighty easy and sensible it would be not to love your children.
They are a worry, too; but oh the delight of 'em! I'd like to
## p. 4887 (#45) ############################################
GUSTAVE DROZ
4887
have had anybody tell me not to love my darling because it
might grieve me, when he lay there in his mother's lap, with
blue lips, gasping for his breath, and well-nigh dead, his face
blackish, and his hands like this piece of wax. You could see
that everything was going against him; and with his great big
eyes he was staring in my face, until I felt as if the child was
tugging at my very heart-strings. I kept smiling at him, though,
through the tears that blinded me, hard as I tried to hide them.
Oh! such tears are bitter salt indeed, Ma'm'selle! And there
was my poor husband on his knees, making paper figures to
amuse him, and singing a funny song he used to laugh at. Now
and then the corners of his mouth would pucker, and his cheeks
would wrinkle a little bit under the eyes. You could tell he was
still amused, but in such a dreamy way. Oh! our child seemed
no longer with us, but behind a veil, like. Wait a minute.
You must excuse me, for I can't help crying when I think of it. ”
And the poor creature drew out her handkerchief and fairly
sobbed aloud. In the midst of it however she smiled and said:
“Well, that's over now; 'twas nothing, and I'm too silly. And
Ma'm'selle, here I've gone and cried upon your mother's dress,
and that's a pretty business. ”
I took her hand in mine and pressed it.
"Aren't you afraid you'll stick yourself, Ma'm'selle ? I've got
my needle in that hand,” she said playfully. “But you did not
mean what you said just now, did you ? ”
What did I say? ”
“That it would be better not to love your children with all
your heart, on account of the great anxiety.
know
such thoughts are wicked ? When they come into your head
your mind wants purifying. But I'm sure I beg your pardon
for saying so. ”
"You are entirely right, Louise,” I returned.
“Ah! so I thought. And now let me see. Let's fix this
ruche; pull it to the left a little, please. ”
But about the sick boy. Tell me about his recovery. ”
« That was a miracle -I ought to say two miracles.
a miracle that God restored him to us, and a miracle to find
anybody with so much knowledge and feeling, -such talent, such
a tender heart, and so much, so much --! I'm speaking of
the doctor. A famous one he was, too, you must know; for it
was no less than Doctor Faron. Heaven knows how he is run
((
Don't you
(
(
It was
## p. 4888 (#46) ############################################
4888
GUSTAVE DROZ
after, and how rich and celebrated he is! Aren't you surprised
to hear that it was he who attended our little boy? Indeed, the
wonders begin with that. You may imagine my husband was at
his wits' end when he saw how it was with the child; and all of
a sudden I saw him jump up, get out his best coat and hat, and
put them on.
“Where are you going? ' I asked.
«To bring Doctor Faron. '
«Why, if he had said, "To bring the Prime Minister,' it
would have seemed as likely.
«Don't you believe Doctor Faron is going to trouble himself
about such as we. They will turn you out of doors. '
“But 'twas no use talking, my dear. He was already on the
stairs, and I heard him running away as if the house was on fire.
Fire, indeed; worse, far worse than any fire!
“And there I was, left alone with the child upon my knees.
He wouldn't stay in bed, and was quieter so, wrapped up in his
little blanket. “Here will he die, I thought. Soon will his
eyes close, and then it will be all over;' and I held my own
breath to listen to his feeble and oppressed pantings.
“About an hour had passed, when I heard a rapid step upon
the stairs (we are poor, and live in attic rooms). The door
opened, and my husband came in, wet with perspiration and out
of breath. If I live a century, I'll not forget his look when he
said:-
(Well? )
"I answered, No worse. But the doctor? )
«He's coming
“Oh, those blessed words! It actually seemed as if my child
were saved already. If you but knew how folks love their little
ones! I kissed the darling, I kissed his father, I laughed, I
cried, and I no longer felt the faintest doubt. It is by God's
mercy that such gleams of hope are sent to strengthen us in our
trials. It was very foolish, too; for something might easily have
prevented the doctor's coming, after all.
«(You found him at home, then? I asked my husband.
« Then he told me in an undertone what he had done, stop-
ping every now and then to wipe his face and gather breath.
"My husband had scarcely uttered these words,” continued
Louise, when I heard a step on the stairs. It was he! it was
## p. 4889 (#47) ############################################
GUSTAVE DROZ
4889
that blessed angel of a doctor, come to help us in our sore dis-
tress.
“And what do you think he said in his deep voice when he
got into the room ?
«God bless you, my friends, but I nearly broke my neck on
those stairs. Where's that child ? '
« Here he is, my dear, darling doctor. ' I knew no better
way to speak to him, with his dress cravat showing over his
greatcoat, and his decorations dangling like a little bunch of keys
at his buttonhole.
“He took off his wrappings, stooped over the child, turned
him over, more gently even than his mother could have done,
and laid his own head first against his back, then against his
breast. How I tried to read his eyes! but they know how to
hide their thoughts.
« We must perform an operation here,' says he; and it is
high time.
“Just at this moment the hospital doctor came in, and whis-
pered to him, 'I'm afraid you didn't want to be disturbed, sir. '
«Oh, never mind. I am sorry it wasn't sooner, though. Get
everything ready now. '
"But Ma'm'selle Adèle, why should I tell you all this? I'd
better mind my work. ”
"Oh, go on, Louise, go on! ”
“Well then, Ma'm'selle, if you believe me, those two doctors
- neither of 'em kin, or even friends till then – went to work
and made all the preparations, while my husband went off to
borrow lights. The biggest one tied a mattress on the table,
and the assistant spread out the bright little knives.
“You who have not been through it all, Ma'm'selle, can't
know what it is to have your own little one in your lap, to
know that those things are to be used upon him to pierce his
tender flesh, and if the hand that guides them be not sure, that
they may kill him.
When all was ready, Doctor Faron took off his cravat, then
lifted my child from my arms and laid him on the mattress, in
the midst of the lamps, and said to my poor man:
« « You will hold his head, and your wife his feet. Joseph
will pass me the instruments. You've brought a breathing-tube
with you, my son ? '
« Yes, sir.
## p. 4890 (#48) ############################################
4890
GUSTAVE DROZ
"My husband was as white as a sheet by this; and when I
saw him about to take his place with his hands shaking so much,
it scared me, so I said:
« Doctor, please let me hold his head! !
« But my poor woman, if you should tremble ? '
« Please let me do it, doctor! !
« Be it so, then;' and then added with a bright look at me,
and a cheering smile, we shall save him for you, my dear; you
are a brave little woman and you deserve it. '
“Yes, and save him he did! God bless him! saved him as
truly as if he had snatched him from the depths of the river. ”
“And you didn't tremble, Louise ? »
«You may depend on that. If I had, it would have been the
last of my child. ”
«How in the world did you keep yourself steady ? ”
«The Lord knows; but I was like a rock. When you must,
you must, I suppose. ”
“And you had to behold every detail of that operation ? »
“Yes, indeed; and often have I dreamed it over since. His
poor little neck laid open, and the veins, which the doctor pushed
aside with his fingers, and the little silver tube which he in-
serted, and all that; and then the face of the child, changing as
the air passed into his lungs. You've seen a lamp almost out,
when you pour in oil ? It was like that. They had laid him
there but half alive, with his eyes all but set; and they gave
him back to me, pale and with bloodless lips, it is true, but with
life in his looks, and breathing — breathing the free, fresh air.
«Kiss him, mother,' says the doctor, and put him to bed.
Cover the place with some light thing or other, and Joseph must
stay with you to-night; won't you, Joseph ? Ah, well, that's all
arranged.
“He put on his things and wrapped himself up to go. He
was shaking hands with my husband, when I seized one hand,
and kissed it like a fool, as I was; but I didn't stop to think.
He laughed heartily, and said to my husband, Are you not
jealous, friend? Your wife is making great advances to me.
But I must be off now. Good night, good people. '
And from that night he always talks so friendly and famil-
iarly to us, not a bit contemptuously either, but as if he liked
us, and was glad to be of service to us. ”
## p. 4891 (#49) ############################################
GUSTAVE DROZ
4891
A FAMILY NEW-YEAR'S
From Monsieur, Madame, and Baby)
T is barely seven o'clock. A pale ray of wan light filters
through the double curtains, and some one is already at the
door. In the next room I hear the stified laughs and silvery
voice of my little child, who trembles with impatience and begs
to come.
“But father dear,” he cries, “it's Baby. It's your own little
boy - to wish you Happy New Year. »
"Come in, darling; come quick and give me a kiss, I cry.
The door opens, and my boy, with shining eyes and his arms
in the air, rushes toward the bed. Long curls, escaping from
the nightcap which imprisons his blond head, fall over his fore-
head. His loose night-shirt, embarrassing his little feet, adds to
his impatience and makes him trip at every step. He has
crossed the room at last, and stretching his hands toward mine,
« Baby wishes you a happy New Year,” he says earnestly.
« Poor darling, with his bare feet! Come, dear! Come and
get warm under the covers; come and hide in the quilt. ”
I draw him to me; but at this movement my wife wakes up
suddenly.
"How you frightened me! I was dreaming
that there was a fire, and these voices in the midst of it! You
are indiscreet with your cries! ”
“Our cries! So you forget, dear mamma, that this is New-
Year's day. Baby is waiting for you to wake up, and so am I. ”
I wrap up my little man in the soft quilt, I bury him in the
eiderdown, and warm his frozen feet with my hands.
Mother dear, this is New Year,” he cries. He draws our
two heads together with his arms, and kisses us anywhere at
random, with his fresh lips. I feel his dimpled hand wandering
about my neck; his little fingers are entangled in my beard. My
mustache pricks the end of his nose. He bursts out laughing,
and throws his head back.
His mother, who has recovered from her fright, draws him
into her arms. She pulls the bell.
« The year begins well, my dears,” she says, “but we need a
little light. ”
« Tell me, mamma, do naughty children have presents at New-
Year's ? ” says the young dissembler, with an eye on the mountain
of boxes and packages visible in the corner, in spite of the gloom.
.
## p. 4892 (#50) ############################################
4892
GUSTAVE DROZ
the paper.
»
The curtains are drawn apart, the blinds are opened, there is
a flood of daylight, the fire crackles gayly on the hearth, and two
large packages, carefully wrapped up, are placed on the bed. One
is for my wife; the other for the boy.
What is it? What will it be? I have heaped up knots, and
tripled the wrappings; and I watch with delight their nervous
fingers, lost in the strings.
My wife gets impatient, smiles, is vexed, kisses me, and asks
for scissors. Baby on his side bites his lips, pulls with all his
might, and at last asks me to help him. He longs to see through
Desire and expectation are painted on his face. The
convulsive movement of his hand in the folds of the quilt rustles
the silk, and he makes a sound with his lips as though a savory
fruit were approaching them.
The last paper is off, finally the cover is lifted, there is an
outcry of joy.
«My tippet! ”
“My menagerie ! »
"Like my muff,- my dear husband !
"With a real shepherd, on wheels, dear papa, how I love you! ”
They hug me, four arms at once wind round and press me
close. I am stirred - a tear comes to my eyes; two come to
those of my wife; and Baby, who loses his head, utters a sob as
he kisses my hand.
How absurd! you will say. I don't know whether it is absurd
or not, but it is charming, I promise you. After all, does not
sorrow wring tears enough from us to make up for the solitary
one which joy may call forth ? Life is less happy when one
chances it alone; and when the heart is empty, the way seems
long. It is so good to feel one's self loved; to hear the regular
steps of one's fellow travelers beside one; and to think, “They
are there, our three hearts beat together;” and once a year,
when the great clock strikes the first of January, to sit down be-
side the way with hands clasped together and eyes fixed upon
the dusty unknown road stretching on to the horizon, and to
embrace and say:-“We will always love each other, my dear
ones; you depend upon me and I on you. Let us trust and keep
straight on. ”
And that is how I explain that we weep a little in looking at
a tippet and opening a menagerie.
Translated by Jane G. Cooke, for (A Library of The World's Best Literature. )
## p. 4893 (#51) ############################################
GUSTAVE DROZ
4893
THEIR LAST EXCURSION
From Making an Omelette): from Lippincott's Magazine, 1871, copyrighted
I
N this strange, rude interior, how refined and delicate Louise
looked, with all her dainty appointments of long undressed
kid gloves, jaunty boots, and looped-up petticoat! While I
talked to the wood-cutters she shielded her face from the fire
with her hands, and kept her eye on the butter beginning to
sing in the pan.
Suddenly she rose, and taking the pan-handle from the old
woman, said, “Let me help you make the omelette, will you ?
? »
The good woman let go with a smile, and Louise found herself
alone, in the attitude of a fisherman who has just had a nibble.
She stood in the full light of the fire, her eyes fixed on the
melted butter, her arms tense with effort; she was biting her
lips, probably in order to increase her strength.
“It's rather hard on madame's little hands," said the old
man. “I bet it's the first time you ever made an omelette in a
wood-cutter's hut - isn't it, my young lady? ”
Louise nodded yes, without turning her eyes from the ome-
lette.
“The eggs! the eggs! ” she suddenly exclaimed, with such a
look of uneasiness that we all burst out laughing - "hurry with
the eggs! The butter is all puffing up! Be quick - or I can't
answer for the consequences. ”
The old woman beat the eggs energetically.
«The herbs! ” cried the old man. « The lard and salt! » cried
the young ones. And they all set to work chopping, cutting,
piling up, while Louise, stamping with excitement, called out,
“Make haste! make haste! » Then there was a tremendous
bubbling in the pan, and the great work began. We were all
round the fire, gazing with an anxious interest inspired by our
all having had a finger in the pie.
The old woman, on her knees beside a large dish, slipped a
knife under the edge of the omelette, which was turning a fine
brown. "Now, madame, you've only got to turn it over,” she
said.
"Just one little quick blow,” suggested the old man.
«Mustn't be violent,” counseled the young one.
## p. 4894 (#52) ############################################
4894
GUSTAVE DROZ
« I am
(C
“All at once; up with it, dear! ” I said.
"If you all talk at once
“Make haste, madame! ”
“If
you
all talk at once I never shall manage it. It is too
awfully heavy. "
“One quick little blow.
