IT WERE
damnable
if I should not have as much freedom to
do good as other poetic heads have to work evil.
do good as other poetic heads have to work evil.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v21 - Rab to Rus
The course of
the narration is constantly obstructed, diverted, and covered up by
the masses of miscellaneous matter which are dumped into it, and
borne along by the current until they take shape as a luxuriant and
labyrinthian delta of reflections on all sorts of topics, in which the
stream is at last wholly lost to view. If in its structure it is a chaos
"without form," it is in its substance by no means "void. " It is
also important as a turning-point in the career of the author, who
was not only warmly praised by the critics, but received a still more.
## p. 12250 (#296) ##########################################
12250
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
welcome recognition from the publisher in the form of a hundred
ducats.
It was doubtless due in a great measure to this encouragement,
that a more cheerful and less sardonic tone prevails in his next
novel, 'Hesperus' (1794), as well as in most of his subsequent writ-
ings: Leben des Quintus Fixlein' (Life of Quintus Fixlein: 1796);
Blumen-, Frucht-, und Dornenstücke; oder, Ehestand, Tod, und Hoch-
zeit des Armenadvocaten Siebenkäs' (Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces;
or, Wedded Life, Death, and Nuptials of the Poor Man's Advocate
Siebenkäs: 1796-7); 'Das Kampaner Thal; oder, Über die Unsterblich-
keit der Seele' (The Campan Valley; or, On the Immortality of the
Soul: 1797); Titan' (1800-3); 'Flegeljahre' (Wild Oats: 1804-5); 'Dr.
Katzenbergers Badereise' (Dr. Katzenberger's Journey to the Bath:
1809); 'Der Feldpredigers Schmelzles Reise nach Fläz' (Chaplain
Schmelzle's Journey to Fläz: 1809); Leben Fibels' (Life of Fibel:
1812); and 'Der Komet; oder, Nikolaus Marggraf' (The Comet; or,
Nicholas Marggraf: 1820-2). To these titles, which comprise his prin-
cipal works, may be added 'Die Vorschule der Aesthetik' (Introduc-
tion to Esthetics: 1804); Levana; oder, Erziehungslehre' (Levana;
or, Theory of Education: 1807); and 'Selina; oder, Über die Unster-
blichkeit (Selina; or, On the Immortality of the Soul). The last-
mentioned discourse on his favorite theme was left unfinished at the
time of his death on November 14th, 1825, and borne on his bier to
the grave, but was not published till two years later.
To complete the account of Richter's outer life, it may be added
that after the death in 1797 of his mother, whose last years were
cheered and made comfortable by his literary success, he lived for a
time in Leipsic and Weimar, and then went to Berlin, where in 1801
he found a highly cultivated and thoroughly congenial wife in Caro-
line Mayer, the daughter of a Prussian privy-councilor. In 1804 he
settled permanently in Bayreuth; and four years later the Archbishop
and Prince Primate von Dalberg granted him a pension of one thou-
sand florins, which after the dissolution of the Confederation of the
Rhine in 1813 continued to be paid by the King of Bavaria. Titu-
lar honors were also bestowed upon him: he was made Legations-
rath (Councilor of Legation) by the Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen;
in 1817 he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy
from the University of Heidelberg; and was chosen a member of the
Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1820.
Richter's best and most brilliant works of fiction are 'Hespe-
rus,' Titan,' 'Quintus Fixlein,' 'Flegeljahre,' and 'Siebenkäs. ' He
himself seems to have thought most highly of 'Flegeljahre'; but
the critical reader of to-day will probably give the preference to
'Fixlein' and 'Siebenkäs. ' The permanent value of these products
of the imagination, as well as of his so-called scientific writings,-
## p. 12251 (#297) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12251
'Introduction to Esthetics,' 'Levana,' and 'Selina,'-lies less in
their symmetry and unity as artistic creations (in which respects
they are woefully deficient) than in the wealth of isolated thoughts,
aphoristic utterances, and original conceits which they contain. Even
in Germany the dust on the sixty-five volumes of his Complete
Works,' issued shortly after his death, is nowadays seldom disturbed.
It is only in anthologies that he is read or can be really enjoyed.
by the present generation. Even his humor, which is his one precious.
quality, is apt to cloy through excess of sensibility running over into
sentimentality. It is also difficult to find a passage of considerable
length in which his metaphors do not halt, and to use his own com-
parison, go limping along like an actor with a buskin on one foot
and a sock on the other. The meaning, too, is apt to be obscured
by unintelligible allusions; a peculiarity due in part to his lifelong
habit of keeping a commonplace-book, which gradually grew into
numerous volumes, and was filled with notes and excerpts, curious
facts and fancies, serving as material for illustration, and suggesting
tropes overstrained and incomprehensible to the general reader without
a special commentary. Indeed, as early as 1808, the Hamburg pub-
licist Carl William Reinhold deemed it necessary to prepare a dic-
tionary explaining Richter's strange modes of speech, and rendering
the more difficult passages into plain German for the benefit of his
own countrymen and contemporaries. In this respect he is the very
antithesis of Lessing, whose thoughts are simply and strongly ex-
pressed, and need no exegetical apparatus to make them understood.
But with all these defects as an artist, Richter was an original
thinker, a keen but kind-hearted humorist, a genuine poet, and a
noble man. Of the German romanticists he was unquestionably the
healthiest; or rather the least "tainted in his wits. " However much
he may love to peer into graves and charnels, and to weep over the
wrongs and miseries of human life, his melancholy is "a most
humorous sadness"; the wormwood and the gall of cynicism are not
the ingredients of his satire, and in his bosom there beats a stout,
warm, cheerful heart, with no drop of misanthropic bitterness in it.
He studied men and nature through a microscopic lens, and thus
discovered a world of wonders where the common eye saw nothing.
Owing to the circumstances of his youth, the sphere of his observa-
tion of social phenomena was limited, but his vision exceedingly sharp
within this narrow range. His one point of firm footing on the
earth was his genuine sympathy with the joys and sorrows of the
common people, the sufferings and sacrifices of the poor; and here-
in lay his strength.
E. P. Evans
## p. 12252 (#298) ##########################################
12252
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
EXTRA LEAF ON CONSOLATION
From Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces'
A
TIME will come - that is, must come - when we shall be com-
manded by morality not only to cease tormenting others,
but also ourselves. A time must come when man, even on
earth, shall wipe away most of his tears, were it only from pride.
Nature indeed draws tears out of the eyes, and sighs out of
the breast, so quickly that the wise man can never wholly lay
aside the garb of mourning from his body; but let his soul wear
none. For as it is ever a merit to bear a small suffering
with cheerfulness, so must the calm and patient endurance of the
worst be a merit, and will only differ in being a greater one;
as the same reason which is valid for the forgiveness of small
injuries is equally valid for the forgiveness of the greatest.
The first thing that we have to contend against and despise,
in sorrow as in anger, is its poisonous, enervating sweetness,
which we are so loath to exchange for the labor of consoling
ourselves, and to drive away by the effort of reason.
We must not exact of philosophy, that with one stroke of the
pen it shall reverse the transformation of Rubens, who with one
stroke of his brush changed a laughing child into a weeping one.
It is enough if it change the full mourning of the soul into half-
mourning; it is enough if I can say to myself, I will be con-
tent to endure the sorrow that philosophy has left me: without
it, it would be greater, and the gnat's bite would be a wasp's
sting.
―
Even physical pain shoots its sparks upon us out of the elec-
trical condenser of the imagination. We could endure the most
acute pangs calmly, if they only lasted the sixtieth part of a
second; but in fact we never have to endure an hour of pain,
but only a succession of the sixtieth parts of a second, the sixty
beams of which are collected into the burning focus of a second,
and directed upon our nerves by the imagination alone. The
most painful part of our bodily pain is that which is bodiless or
immaterial, namely, our impatience, and the delusion that it will
last forever.
There is many a loss over which we all know for certain that
we shall no longer grieve in twenty-ten-two years. Why do
we not say to ourselves, I will at once then, to-day, throw
-
## p. 12253 (#299) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12253
away an opinion which I shall abandon in twenty years? Why
should I be able to abandon errors of twenty years' standing, and
not of twenty hours?
When I awake from a dream which has painted an Otaheite
for me on the dark ground of the night, and find the flowery
land melted away, I scarcely sigh, thinking to myself, "It was
only a dream. " Why is it that if I had really possessed this
island while awake, and it had been swallowed up by an earth-
quake, why is it that I do not then exclaim, "The island was
only a dream » ? Wherefore am I more inconsolable at the loss
of a longer dream than at the loss of a shorter,- for that is
the difference; and why does man find a great loss less prob-
able, and less a matter of necessity when it occurs, than a small
one?
The reason is, that every sentiment and every emotion is
mad, and exacts and builds its own world. A man can vex him-
self that it is already, or only, twelve o'clock. What folly! The
mood not only exacts its own world, its own individual conscious-
ness, but its own time. I beg every one to let his passions, for
once, speak out plainly within himself, and to probe and question
them to the bottom, as to what they really desire. He will be
terror-struck at the enormity of these hitherto only half-muttered
wishes. Anger wishes that all mankind had only one neck; love,
that it had only one heart; grief, two tear-glands; pride, two bent
knees.
Translation by Edward Henry Noel.
THE NEW-YEAR'S NIGHT OF A MISERABLE MAN
N THE lone stillness of the New-Year's night
IN
An old man at his window stood, and turned
His dim eyes to the firmament, where, bright
And pure, a million rolling planets burned,—
And then down on the earth all cold and white,
And felt that moment that of all who mourned
And groaned upon its bosom, none there were
With his deep wretchedness and great despair.
For near him lay his grave,-hidden from view
Not by the flowers of youth, but by the snows
Of age alone. In torturing thought he flew
Over the past, and on his memory rose
## p. 12254 (#300) ##########################################
12254
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
That picture of his life which conscience drew,
With all its fruits,- diseases, sins, and woes;
A ruined frame, a blighted soul, dark years
Of agony, remorse, and withering fears.
Like spectres now his bright youth-days came back,
And that cross-road of life where, when a boy,
His father placed him first: its right-hand track
Leads to a land of glory, peace, and joy,
Its left to wildernesses waste and black,
Where snakes and plagues and poison-winds destroy.
Which had he trod? Alas! the serpents hung
Coiled round his heart, their venom on his tongue.
Sunk in unutterable grief, he cried,
"Restore my youth to me! O God, restore
My morn of life! O father! be my guide,
And let me, let me choose my path once more! "
But on the wide waste air his ravings died
Away, and all was silent as before.
His youth had glided by, fleet as the wave;
His father came not,- he was in his grave.
Strange lights flashed flickering by: a star was falling;
Down to the miry marsh he saw it rush
"Like me! " he thought, and oh! that thought was galling,
And hot and heart-wrung tears began to gush.
Sleep-walkers crossed his eyes in shapes appalling;
Gaunt windmills lifted up their arms to crush;
And skeleton monsters rose up from the dim
Pits of the charnel-house, and glared on him!
Amid these overboiling bursts of feeling,
Rich music, heralding the young year's birth,
Rolled from a distant steeple, like the pealing
Of some celestial organ o'er the earth:
Milder emotions over him came stealing;
He felt the soul's unpurchasable worth.
"Return! " again he cried, imploringly;
"O my lost youth! return, return to me! "
And youth returned, and age withdrew its terrors;
Still was he young, for he had dreamed the whole:
But faithful is the image conscience mirrors
When whirlwind passions darken not the soul.
## p. 12255 (#301) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12255
Alas! too real were his sins and errors;
Too truly had he made the earth his goal;
He wept, and thanked his God that with the will,
He had the power, to choose the right path still.
Here, youthful reader, ponder! and if thou,
Like him, art reeling over the abyss,
And shakest off sin's iron bondage now,
This ghastly dream may prove thy guide to bliss;
But should age once be written on thy brow,
Its wrinkles will not be a dream, like this.
Mayest vainly pour thy tears above the urn
Of thy departed youth,-it never will return!
Translation of James Clarence Mangan.
FROM FIRST FLOWER PIECE›
NCE on a summer evening I was lying in the sunshine on a
mountain, and fell asleep. Then I dreamed that I awoke
in a church-yard. The down-rolling wheels of the steeple-
clock, which was striking eleven, had awakened me. I looked for
the sun in the empty night-heaven, for I thought an eclipse was
veiling it with the moon. All the graves were open, and the
iron doors of the charnel-house were moved to and fro by invis-
ible hands. Shadows which no one cast, flitted on the walls;
and other shadows walked erect in the thin air.
In the open
coffins none were sleeping now but children. In the sky hung in
large folds merely a gray sultry mist, which a giant shadow like
a net was drawing down nearer, tighter, and hotter. Above me
I heard the distant fall of avalanches; under me the first step of
an illimitable earthquake. The church wavered up and down
with two unceasing discords, which contended with each other
and vainly endeavored to mingle in unison. At times a gray
gleam skipped up along its windows, and under the gleam the
lead and iron ran down molten. The net of the mist and the
reeling earth thrust me into that fearful temple, at the door of
which, in two poisonous thickets, two glittering basilisks were
brooding. I passed through unknown shadows, on whom ancient
centuries were impressed. All the shadows were standing round
the empty altar; and in all of them the breast, instead of the
heart, quivered and beat. One dead man only, who had just
been buried in the church, still lay on his pillow without a
## p. 12256 (#302) ##########################################
12256
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
quivering breast, and on his smiling countenance stood a happy
dream. But as a living one entered, he awoke, and smiled no
more; he lifted with difficulty his heavy eyelids, but within was
no eye, and in his beating breast there was, instead of a heart,
a wound. He lifted up his hands and folded them to pray;
but the arms lengthened out and dissolved, and the hands, still
folded, fell away. Above, on the vault of the church, stood the
dial-plate of eternity, on which no number appeared, and which
was its own index hand; but a black finger pointed thereon, and
the dead sought to see the time by it. .
An immense and immeasurably extended hammer was about
to strike the last hour of time and shatter the universe, when I
awoke.
My soul wept for joy that I could still pray to God; and the
joy, and the weeping, and the faith in him, were my prayer.
And as I arose, the sun was glowing deep behind the full pur-
pled ears of corn, and casting meekly the gleam of its twilight
red on the little moon, which was rising in the east without an
aurora; and between the sky and the earth, a gay transient air
people was stretching out its short wings, and living, as I did,
before the Infinite Father; and from all nature around me flowed
peaceful tones as from distant evening bells.
MAXIMS FROM RICHTER'S WORKS
HⓇ
E WHO remains modest, not when he is praised but when he
is blamed, is truly modest.
OF ALL human qualities, modesty is most easily stifled by
fumes of incense, or of sulphur; and praise is often more hurtful
than censure.
THE truest love is the most timid; the falsest is the boldest.
IF You wish to become acquainted with your betrothed, travel
with him for a few days,-especially if he is accompanied by
his own folks,-and take your mother along.
IT is the misfortune of the bachelor that he has no one to
tell him frankly his faults; but the husband has this happiness.
## p. 12257 (#303) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12257
A MAN ought never to be more delicately attentive to his wife
than after making her a present, in order to lighten the sense of
obligation.
MARRIAGES are so unhappy, because men cannot make up their
minds to substitute love for force and arguments, and because
they wish to attain their purpose by might and right.
LOVE increases in strength with years, and diminishes in its
outward manifestations.
THE wedlock is happiest when one discovers the greatest
advantages in it and not before it. It is therefore perilous to
marry a poet.
MEN of imagination more easily make up with a lady-love
when she is absent than when she is present.
"
JEALOUSY Constitutes the sole difference between love and
friendship. Friendship has therefore one pleasure, and love one
pain, the more.
PAINS of sympathy are the sign of love: but if genuine, they
are not imaginary, and cause more suffering than one's own
pains; for we have at least the right to conquer the latter.
ONE should never hope to be compatible with a wife with
whom one has quarreled as a bride.
IF YOU are unable to refute an argument, you find fault with
the way in which it is put.
No Two persons are ever more confidential and cordial than
when they are censuring a third.
INTERCOURSE with men of the world narrows the heart, com-
munion with nature expands it.
SATAN is a scarecrow set up by the clergy in the spiritual
vineyard.
SO EASILY are we impressed by numbers, that even a dozen
wheelbarrows in succession seem quite imposing.
XXI-767
## p. 12258 (#304) ##########################################
12258
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
REFORMERS are constantly forgetting that the hour-hand must
make progress if only the minute-hand keeps moving.
IT IS of little avail that fortune makes us rich, if our desires
make us poor again.
THE Indians mistook the clothes of the first European they
saw for the body; we mistake them for the soul.
IT is not always the best actor that plays the part of king,
either on the stage or in real life.
How quickly and quietly the eye opens and closes, revealing
and concealing a world!
DULL persons look upon the refined as false.
THE head, like the stomach, is most easily infected with poi-
son when it is empty.
THE whole constitution of the English is like their manufac
tured cloth, which may not have a fair gloss, but is capable of
standing bad weather.
THE timid fear before danger, the cowardly in the midst of it,
and the courageous after it is over.
BETWEEN no two things are the resemblance and the antipathy
stronger than between critic and author, unless it be between
wolf and dog.
THE public is so fond of reading reviews because it likes to
see authors, as the English used to like to see bears, not only
made to dance, but also goaded and baited.
MAN's moral, like his physical progress, is nothing but a con-
tinuous falling.
EVERY recovery from illness is a restoration and palingenesis
of our youth.
FEMALE virtue is the glowing iron, which, as formerly in or-
deals, women must bear from the font to the altar in order to
be innocent.
## p. 12259 (#305) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12259
GIRLS and gold are the softer the purer they are.
OUT of craftiness women often let the man rule; and then
they do as they please.
NO ONE believes so readily as a woman that she has under-
stood a very difficult point in philosophy.
FROM thinking to acting is a longer way with women than
with men.
THE vanity of women is hurt by disparaging, not their intelli
gence or their virtue, but their comeliness or taste.
A man may
safely say to his wife, "You are stupider than I. "
him say once, "You are homelier than I. ”
But just let
IMITATE the bee: take the honey, but leave to the rose its
fragrance.
Ir is as hard to prove anything to women as to lawyers.
SCARS grow with the body; so do stings of conscience.
CHILDREN, like wives, prefer that in every marriage there
should be but one child to love.
MUSIC is the Madonna among the arts: she can give birth and
being only to the holiest.
Music is too good for drinking-songs and merry-makings.
THE Courtesy with which I receive a stranger, and the civility
I show him, form the background on which he paints my por-
trait.
SULKINESS is a spiritual catalepsy, in which, as in the physi-
cal, every member grows stiff in the position in which it was
when the attack came on; spiritual catalepsy has also this in
common with physical, that it seizes women oftener than men.
WOMEN are not fallen, but falling angels.
YOUTH and Age. - The rising star looks larger, but the risen
one shines brighter.
## p. 12260 (#306) ##########################################
12260
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
OLD people are long shadows that are projected by the even.
ing sun, and lie cold upon the earth; but they all point to the
morning.
EVERY one utters the word "past" with more emotion than
"future. "
No MAIDEN should slander, scold, or hate,- at least so long
as she is in love, on account of the contrast: when she is a
housewife with children, cattle, and maid-servants, no just man
will object to moderate anger and modest chiding.
IN THE spirit world, autumn is the next neighbor to spring.
IF ANY departed souls long for earth, it must be those of
children.
IF A man should rise from the dead, we should adore him as
a saint, even if he should tell us that he had merely fallen into
a long and profound sleep. Is it not the same with the new-
born?
HE WHO sacrifices health to knowledge will find that he has
in most cases sacrificed knowledge too.
IN GOING over the bridge to the Castle of St. Angelo in
Rome, one is reminded of women: for there are ten angels
standing on it hewn in stone, each with a different instrument
of martyrdom; one with the nails, another with the reed, and a
third with the dice. Thus every woman has in her hand a dif-
ferent instrument of martyrdom for us, poor lambs of God.
IF A
man spends the day in reading and studying, what
worlds, what comprehensive ideas, dwarfing the present, pass
before him! How vast the universe seems, and how small the
earth!
THE greater the thing that comes to end, the more we think
of the end; like the end of a day, a year, or a century.
DARKNESS is pleasanter than a dim light.
THE past and the future are both veiled; but the former
wears the widow's and the latter the virgin's veil.
## p. 12261 (#307) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12261
DYING for the truth is death not merely for one's country,
but also for the world. Truth, like the Medicean Venus, may be
transmitted to posterity in thirty fragments, but posterity will
put them together into a goddess. Genius is the alarm-clock of
sleeping centuries.
THERE are truths of which we hope that great men will be
more firmly convinced than we can be, and that therefore our
conviction will be supplemented by theirs.
WE WISH for immortality not as the reward, but as the per-
petuity, of virtue.
VIRTUE can be no more rewarded than joy; its sole reward is
its continuance.
VICE wins the battle-field, but virtue the Elysian fields.
ART may not be the bread, but it is the wine, of life. To
disparage it on the plea of utility is to imitate Domitian, who
ordered the grape-vines to be rooted out in order to promote
agriculture.
A CONVERSATION about a work of art can embrace almost
everything.
KNOWLEDGE and Action. It is a fine thing in the springtide
of youth to poetize and theorize, and then in the years of man-
hood to rule from a higher throne and to crown thoughts with
deeds. It is like the sun, which in the morning merely paints
the clouds and lights up the earth, but at midday fructifies it
with heat, and yet continues to shine and to paint rainbows on
storm-clouds.
IT WERE damnable if I should not have as much freedom to
do good as other poetic heads have to work evil.
IF A ruler has received the two heavenly gifts of knowledge.
and purity of heart, the earthly gift of statecraft will come of
itself. Thus two celestial telescopes combine to form one terres-
trial telescope.
NECESSITY is the mother of the arts; but also the grand-
mother of vices.
## p. 12262 (#308) ##########################################
12262
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
WHAT bloomed in Rome on high elevations, grows in Ger-
many on lower levels; as in the far north, Alpine plants are
found at the foot of mountains. But it is gratifying to experi
ence the oldest in the newest, and to discover that the modern,
like the ancient classic, is born rich and grand, just as he
writes.
SATIRE invents ridiculous combinations of purely imaginary
follies, not in order that they may be laughed at and laid aside,
for they never existed, but in order to render the sense of the
ludicrous more acute, so that like combinations in real life may
be better observed.
A MAN may curse a misfortune, but never weep over it.
HE WHO no longer aspires to be more than a man will be
less than a man.
THE thought of immortality is a luminous sea, in which he
who bathes is all surrounded by stars.
WHERE man is, infinity begins.
A BEING in whom the thought of immortality can arise, can-
not be mortal.
O MUSIC! thou that bringest the past and the future with their
fluttering flames so near to our wounds, art thou the evening
zephyr of this life, or the morning breeze of the life to come?
Yes, thy notes are echoes which angels catch from the joyous
tones of another world, in order to drop into our mute heart and
our desolate night the exhaled vernal harmonies of the heavens
that fly far from us.
MAN, an Egyptian deity, a patchwork of beasts' heads and
human bodies, stretches out his hands in opposite directions to-
wards the present and the future life. He is moved by spiritual
and material forces, as the moon is attracted at once by the sun
and the earth; but the earth holds it fast in its fetters, while the
sun only produces slight deviations in its course.
THE progress of mankind towards the holy city of God is like
that of some penitents, who on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem
always take three steps forward and one backward.
## p. 12263 (#309) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12263
HE WHO differs from the world in important matters should
be the more careful to conform to it in insignificant ones.
PHILOSOPHY and the nymph Echo never let you have the last
word.
THE belief in immortality is by no means incompatible with
the belief in atheism: for the same Necessity which in this life
threw my shining dewdrop of Me into a flower-bell and under
a sun, can repeat the process in a second life; indeed, it can
embody me more easily the second time than the first.
MEN deny the existence of God with as little feeling as the
most affirm it. Even in our true systems we are constantly col-
lecting mere words, counters and medals, as misers do coins; and
not till late do we convert the words into feelings, the coins into
enjoyments. A man may believe in the immortality of the soul
for twenty years, and not till in the one-and-twentieth, in a great
moment, be amazed at the rich contents of this belief, the warmth
of this naphtha-well.
CHILDHOOD, and its terrors rather than its raptures, take wings
and radiance in dreams, and sport like fireflies in the little night
of the soul. Do not crush these flickering sparks!
IT is a fine thing that authors, even those who deny the im-
mortality of their souls, seldom dare to contest that of their
names; and as Cicero affirmed that he would believe in another
life even if there were none, so they wish to cling to the belief
in the future eternal life of their names, although the critics may
have furnished positive proofs to the contrary.
LET us not despise the slender thread upon which we and
our fortune may depend. If, like the spider, we have spun and
drawn it out of ourselves, it will hold us quite well; and we may
hang on it safely as the tempest tosses us and the web uninjured
to and fro.
POVERTY is the only burden which grows heavier when loved
ones help to bear it.
THE human body is a musical instrument, in which the Cre-
mona chords are twisted out of living intestines, and the breast
is the sounding-board and the head the damper.
## p. 12264 (#310) ##########################################
12264
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
SINCE there are in our world so many delicate and Divine
sentiments hovering about, so many rich blossoms unfolding and
bearing no seed, it is fortunate that poesy was invented to pre-
serve all these unborn spirits and the fragrance of flowers in its
halo.
IF YOU are an author, picture to yourself the best man, one
who cherishes in his heart all that is most holy and most beauti-
ful, and never suffers anything impure to enter there; then take
your pen and strive to enrapture this imaginary reader.
MAN is like horse-radish: the more it is grated the more it
bites. The satirist is sadder than the jester, for the same reason
that the orang-outang is more melancholy than the monkey,-
because he is nobler.
## p. 12265 (#311) ##########################################
12265
-
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
(1852-)
AMES WHITCOMB RILEY, the western-American dialect poet, is
one of the younger writers who have given to the newer
native literature a quality expressive of interesting and typ-
ical local conditions. A man of the people, he has in his homely
and heartfelt song uttered their joys and sorrows, - to be repaid by
the affectionate admiration of his Indiana Hoosier folk and by a wide
popularity throughout the United States. Riley's work is honestly a
product of the soil. It reflects the life of the Middle West, and at
its best calls for recognition as something
more than social documents; namely, as
lyric utterance vital with feeling and full of
a truly democratic sympathy for common
humanity.
JAMES W. RILEY
Riley was born in 1852 in Greenfield,
Indiana, a small town twenty miles from
Indianapolis. His father, a country lawyer,
wished his son to read for that profession:
but it took the latter, after a course at the
village school, but a short time to learn
that Blackstone was not for him, and he
ran away from home with a patent-medicine
and concert wagon, it being his function to
beat the bass-drum; then he worked at the
trade of sign-painting, coming back to Greenfield to do some experi-
mental journalism on a local paper, the failure of which sheet sent
him to Indianapolis, where his labors on the Journal of that city re-
sulted in a connection which introduced him as a writer and brought
him fame and fortune. Riley's boyhood in the little town, with its
simple honest ways, among his kin and comrades, is described in the
autobiographic book 'A Child World' (1897). His upbringing was
typical of the place and time, and richly has he made use in his
writings of these early experiences. For a while Riley used the pen-
name "B. F. Johnson of Boone" in signing his Journal contributions;
and a great deal of his verse and prose first appeared in the columns
of that paper, the rapidly thrown off "copy" of the practical news-
paper man. Yet this long apprenticeship helped Riley to acquire
the firm technique, the grasp on the art of verse-making, which he
now possesses.
## p. 12266 (#312) ##########################################
12266
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Since Riley has come into prosperity and fame he has returned to
Greenfield, and purchased and fitted up for his summer home the old
family residence, endeared to him by so many associations. He is
in demand all over the country as a reader, his gifts as a platform
speaker being remarkable. A tour made with the late humorist Bill
Nye was very successful. A friend thus describes his personal
appearance: "In physical stature he is below the average height.
His complexion is fair. His hair has never changed from the flaxen
whiteness of boyhood. His eyes are large, light-blue, wide open, and
marvelous in their expression. His face is smooth-shaven; his attire
neat and fashionable. To his friends, to all the associations, interests,
and memories of his life, he is profoundly, patriotically loyal. »
His literary bow as a maker of poems was made in 1883, when he
was turned thirty, with the volume entitled 'Old Swimmin' Hole. '
It was brought out by an Indianapolis firm, the Bowen-Merrill Com-
pany, which has continued to issue Riley's books; although the Cen-
tury Company of New York in 1893 published a handsome volume of
his representative lyrics, Poems Here at Home. ' That maiden vol-
ume, with its quaint verse depicting the rustic haunts and characters
he knew as a lad, pleased the public, and Riley's road was smooth
thereafter. Other collections of poems, typical of the man and his
quality, are 'Afterwhiles' (1887), 'Old-Fashioned Roses' (1888), 'Pipes
o' Pan' (1889), 'Green Fields and Running Brooks' (1893). Riley's
publications also include several volumes of humorous prose sketches;
but this side of his work, when compared with his poetry, is un-
important. His most winning verse is that which blends pathos and
humor. His dialect pieces have made him most broadly known, and
his choicest in this kind are admirable. He catches the idiom of the
middle-class home, and interprets the homely human heart with sure
divination. He chose this medium of expression because he wished to
speak for and of the plain people, and believed this the most direct
and honest way
As he says himself, "I went among the people:
I learned their wants, their sufferings, their joys; and I put them
into rhyme. " But it would be a mistake to regard Riley exclusively
as a dialect poet. The Poet of the Future,' for example, with its
healthy democratic teaching, its vigorous lilt, its unforced melody, is
one of numerous inspiring poems written in more conventional Eng-
lish. This is true too of the exquisite sonnet, 'When She Comes
Home,' showing what lovely work he can do in one of the most dif-
ficult of verse forms; while his 'Away' is another illustration of his
tender simplicity which makes magic effects. Riley believes that-
"The tanned face, garlanded with mirth,
It hath the kingliest smile on earth;
The swart brow, diamonded with sweat,
Hath never need of coronet. »
## p. 12267 (#313) ##########################################
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
12267
He is a genuine people's poet; and although his work suffers here
and there from prolixity and suggests the pressure of over-production,
he is, judged by his highest accomplishment (as every literary maker
should be), a true singer, who has contributed authentically to the
content of American letters.
[All the following poems are quoted from 'Afterwhiles,)-copyright 1887,
by James Whitcomb Riley,- and are reprinted by permission of The Bowen-
Merrill Co. , publishers. ]
AWAY
CANNOT say and I will not say
That he is dead. He is just away!
I
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand,
He has wandered into an unknown land,
――――――
And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there.
And you-O you, who the wildest yearn
For the old-time step and the glad return,-
Think of him faring on, as dear
In the love of There as the love of Here;
And loyal still as he gave the blows
Of his warrior strength to his country's foes.
Mild and gentle, as he was brave,
When the sweetest love of his life he gave
To simple things: where the violets grew
Pure as the eyes they were likened to,
The touches of his hands have strayed
As reverently as his lips have prayed;
When the little brown thrush that harshly chirred
Was dear to him as the mocking-bird;
And he pitied as much as a man in pain
A writhing honey-bee wet with rain. -
Think of him still as the same, I say:
He is not dead- he is just away!
## p. 12268 (#314) ##########################################
12268
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
WHEN SHE COMES HOME
HEN she comes home again! A thousand ways
I fashion, to myself, the tenderness
Of my glad welcome: I shall tremble — yes;
And touch her, as when first in the old days
I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise
Mine eyes, such was my faint heart's sweet distress.
Then silence; and the perfume of her dress.
The room will sway a little, and a haze
WH
Cloy eyesight-soul sight, even- for a space.
And tears - yes; and the ache here in the throat,
To know that I so ill deserve the place
Her arms make for me; and the sobbing note
I stay with kisses, ere the tearful face
Again is hidden in the old embrace.
TH
A LIFE LESSON
HERE, little girl-don't cry!
They have broken your doll, I know;
And your tea-set blue,
And your play-house, too,
Are things of the long ago:
But childish troubles will soon pass by; —
There, little girl-don't cry!
There, little girl-don't cry!
They have broken your slate, I know;
And the glad, wild ways
Of your schoolgirl days
Are things of the long ago:
But life and love will soon come by;—
There, little girl- don't cry!
There, little girl- don't cry!
They have broken your heart, I know;
And the rainbow gleams
Of your youthful dreams
Are things of the long ago:
But heaven holds all for which you sigh;
There, little girl-don't cry!
-
## p. 12269 (#315) ##########################################
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
12269
A SONG
TH
HERE is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
There is ever a something sings alway:
There's the song of the lark when the skies are clear,
And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray;
The sunshine showers across the grain,
And the bluebird trills in the orchard tree;
And in and out, when the eaves drip rain,
The swallows are twittering ceaselessly.
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
Be the skies above or dark or fair;
There is ever a song that our hearts may hear-
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear-
There is ever a song somewhere!
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
In the midnight black or the midday blue:
The robin pipes when the sun is here,
And the cricket chirrups the whole night through;
The buds may blow and the fruit may grow,
And the autumn leaves drop crisp and sere:
But whether the sun or the rain or the snow,
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear.
NOTHIN' TO SAY
to say, my daughter! nothin' at all to say! .
NG'yirls that's in love, I've noticed, ginerly has their way!
Yer mother did, afore you, when her folks objected to me-
Yit here I am, and here you air; and yer mother-where is she?
You look lots like yer mother: purty much same in size;
And about the same complected; and favor about the eyes;
Like her, too, about her livin' here,- because she couldn't stay:
It'll most seem like you was dead-like her! but I hain't got
nothin' to say!
She left you her little Bible writ yer name acrost the page;
And left her ear-bobs fer you, ef ever you come of age.
I've allus kep' 'em and g'yarded 'em, but ef yer goin' away-
Nothin' to say, my daughter! nothin' at all to say!
## p. 12270 (#316) ##########################################
12270
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
You don't rikollect her, I reckon? No: you wasn't a year old then!
And now yer-how old air you? W'y, child, not 'twenty'! When?
And yer nex' birthday's in April? and you want to get married that
day? —
I wisht yer mother was livin'! -but-I hain't got nothin' to say!
Twenty year! and as good a girl as parent ever found!
There's a straw ketched onto yer dress there - I'll bresh it off-
turn round.
(Her mother was jes' twenty when us two run away! )
Nothin' to say, my daughter! nothin' at all to say!
KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE
you what I like the best:
TELL Long about knee-deep in June,
'Bout the time the strawberries melts
On the vine,- some afternoon
Like to jes' git out and rest,
And not work at nothin' else!
Orchard 's where I'd ruther be—
Needn't fence it in for me! -
Jes' the whole sky overhead,
And the whole airth underneath -
Sorto' so's a man kin breathe
Like he ort, and kindo' has
Elbow-room to keerlessly
Sprawl out len'thways on the grass,
Where the shadder's thick and soft
As the kivvers on the bed
Mother fixes in the loft
Allus, when they's company!
Jes' a sorto' lazin' there-
S' lazy 'at you peek and peer
Through the wavin' leaves above,
Like a feller 'at's in love
And don't know it, ner don't keer!
Ever'thing you hear and see
Got some sort o' interest:
Maybe find a bluebird's nest
Tucked up there conveenently
For the boys 'at's apt to be
Up some other apple-tree!
--
## p. 12271 (#317) ##########################################
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
12271
Watch the swallers scootin' past
'Bout as peert as you could ast;
Er the bobwhite raise and whiz
Where some other's whistle is.
Ketch a shadder down below,
And look up to find the crow;
Er a hawk away up there,
'Pearantly froze in the air! —
Hear the old hen squawk, and squat
Over every chick she's got,
Suddent-like! And she knows where
That air hawk is, well as you!
You jes' bet your life she do! -
Eyes a-glitterin' like glass,
Waitin' till he makes a pass!
Pee-wee's singin', to express
My opinions second-class,
Yit you'll hear 'em more or less;
Sapsuck's gittin' down to biz,
Weedin' out the lonesomeness;
Mr. Bluejay, full o' sass,
In them base-ball clothes o' his,
Sportin' 'round the orchard jes'
Like he owned the premises!
Sun out in the fields kin sizz,
But flat on yer back, I guess,
In the shade's where glory is!
That's jes' what I'd like to do
Stiddy fer a year er two.
Plague! ef they ain't sompin' in
Work, 'at kind o' goes ag'in
My convictions! -'long about
Here in June especially!
Under some old apple-tree,
Jes' a-restin' through and through,
I could git along without
Nothin' else at all to do
Only jes' a-wishin' you
Was a-gittin' there like me,—
And June was eternity!
Lay out there and try to see
Jes' how lazy you kin be! —
## p. 12272 (#318) ##########################################
12272
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Tumble round and souse your head
In the clover-bloom, er pull
Yer straw hat acrost yer eyes,
And peek through it at the skies,
Thinkin' of old chums 'at's dead,
Maybe smilin' back at you
In betwixt the beautiful
Clouds o' gold and white and blue! -
Month a man kin railly love—
June, you know, I'm talkin' of!
March ain't never nothin' new! -
April's altogether too
Brash fer me! and May-I jes'
'Bominate its promises:
Little hints o' sunshine and
Green around the timber-land-
A few blossoms, and a few
Chip-birds, and a sprout er two-
Drap asleep, and it turns in
'Fore daylight and snows ag'in!
喜
-
clear my throat
Rench my hair
In the dew! and hold my coat!
But when June comes.
With wild honey!
Whoop out loud! and throw my hat!
June wants me, and I'm to spare!
Spread them shadders anywhere,
I'll git down and waller there,
And obleeged to you at that!
-
## p. 12273 (#319) ##########################################
12273
YOCK
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
(1838-)
HE feminine quality in Thackeray's genius, which saved his
unerring comprehension of human nature from harshness,
seems detached and given complete embodiment in the
writings of his daughter, Anne Thackeray Ritchie. Not that these
are lacking in strength, nor in evidences of keen perception; but they
are steeped in the mellow atmosphere of an exquisite womanliness.
They are feminine in the highest and completest sense of the word.
They contain moreover a quality lacking to the works of the younger
generation of writers,- that of nobility, of
high breeding; the spirit indeed of one
whose life from her childhood up has been
spent among the true aristocracy of mind
and of character, and whose sensitive soul
responded wholly to gracious influences.
Anne Isabella Thackeray (Ritchie), the
daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray,
was born in London in 1838. Her child-
hood was spent partly in Kensington,-
whose quaintness she has immortalized in
her most characteristic novel,- partly on
the continent with her grandparents. She
grew up in London as her own heroine
Dolly grew up, "like a little spring flower
among the silent old bricks. " Her girlhood was spent in association
with her father and his circle of friends; which included indeed the
cream of England's true gentry. Never did a little lady grow into
womanhood in a more harmonious environment.
ANNE T. RITCHIE
In 1877 Miss Thackeray married her cousin, Richmond Thack-
eray Ritchie. In 1860 her first story, 'Little Scholars in the London
Schools, had appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, of which her father
was editor. Unpretentious as it was, it revealed the author's domi-
nant qualities: her appreciation of the beautiful and dramatic elements
which may lie hidden in obscure lives, and in the experiences of
commonplace people; her genial sympathy, the rare charity and truth-
fulness of her spirit. It revealed, moreover, the genuineness of her
literary gift. Her simple and strong English belonged to no "school. "
It was that of one who had drunk deep at the undefiled wells of the
great Masters of the tongue.
XXI-768
## p. 12274 (#320) ##########################################
12274
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
In Old Kensington,' published in 1873, her gifts become fully
manifest. It would be difficult to overrate the charm of this novel
of gentlefolk, living out their simple lives in that quaint quarter of
London where the author's own girlhood was passed, and whose old-
fashioned beauties (many of them now vanished) she depicts with the
clear memory of love. The odor as of lavender haunts each chapter
of this book; whose fine, clean atmosphere removes it, as the East
from the West, from the neurotic vulgarities which in the present
day have debased the beautiful art of fiction. To read a novel like
'Old Kensington' is to come at once into good society. The book is
remarkable, moreover, for its depiction of human nature, and of child
nature; and for its exquisite bits of description, like some little warm
Dutch landscapes:-
"As days go by, Dolly's pictures warm and brighten from early spring into
summer-time. By degrees they reach above the table, and over and beyond
the garden roller. They are chiefly of the old garden, whose brick walls seem
to inclose sunshine and gaudy flowers all the summer through; of the great
Kensington parks, where in due season chestnuts are to be found shining
among the leaves and dry grasses; of the pond where the ducks are flapping
and diving; of the house which was little Rhoda's home. This was the great
bare house in Old Street, with plenty of noise, dried herbs, content, children
without end, and thick bread-and-butter. There was also cold stalled ox on
Sundays at one. »
Scattered through the book are wise comments on the mysteries
of life, worthy of Thackeray's daughter, who was too much of a
woman and of an artist ever to change her broad morality into the
moralizing spirit.
"To hate the Devil and all his works is one thing; but to-day, who is the
Devil and which are his works is another. "
"Dolly was true to herself; and in those days she used to think that all
her life she would be always true, and always say all she felt. As life grows
long, and people living on together through time and sorrow and experience
realize more and more the complexities of their own hearts, and sympathize
more and more with the failings and sorrows of others, they are apt to ask
themselves with dismay, if it is a reality of life to be less and less uncompro-
mising as complexities increase, less true to themselves as they are more true
to others. "
In 1873 and 1874 Miss Thackeray also published a number of short
stories and sketches: Toilers and Spinsters,' 'Bluebeard's Keys,'
etc. In 1875 appeared a novel, 'Miss Angel,' of which the heroine
is Angelica Kaufmann. In the same year she edited 'The Orphan
of Pimlico, and other Sketches, Fragments, and Drawings,' by her
father. Her life of Madame de Sévigné, in the 'Foreign Classics for
English Readers' series, appeared in 1881; and in the same year
she published another novel, 'Miss Williamson's Divagations. ' Later,
## p. 12275 (#321) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12275
'Chapters from Some Unwritten Memoirs' was published. This book
of personal reminiscences is delightful, for the glimpses it affords the
reader of the Thackeray household, and of the rare guests who gath-
ered there from time to time.
the narration is constantly obstructed, diverted, and covered up by
the masses of miscellaneous matter which are dumped into it, and
borne along by the current until they take shape as a luxuriant and
labyrinthian delta of reflections on all sorts of topics, in which the
stream is at last wholly lost to view. If in its structure it is a chaos
"without form," it is in its substance by no means "void. " It is
also important as a turning-point in the career of the author, who
was not only warmly praised by the critics, but received a still more.
## p. 12250 (#296) ##########################################
12250
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
welcome recognition from the publisher in the form of a hundred
ducats.
It was doubtless due in a great measure to this encouragement,
that a more cheerful and less sardonic tone prevails in his next
novel, 'Hesperus' (1794), as well as in most of his subsequent writ-
ings: Leben des Quintus Fixlein' (Life of Quintus Fixlein: 1796);
Blumen-, Frucht-, und Dornenstücke; oder, Ehestand, Tod, und Hoch-
zeit des Armenadvocaten Siebenkäs' (Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces;
or, Wedded Life, Death, and Nuptials of the Poor Man's Advocate
Siebenkäs: 1796-7); 'Das Kampaner Thal; oder, Über die Unsterblich-
keit der Seele' (The Campan Valley; or, On the Immortality of the
Soul: 1797); Titan' (1800-3); 'Flegeljahre' (Wild Oats: 1804-5); 'Dr.
Katzenbergers Badereise' (Dr. Katzenberger's Journey to the Bath:
1809); 'Der Feldpredigers Schmelzles Reise nach Fläz' (Chaplain
Schmelzle's Journey to Fläz: 1809); Leben Fibels' (Life of Fibel:
1812); and 'Der Komet; oder, Nikolaus Marggraf' (The Comet; or,
Nicholas Marggraf: 1820-2). To these titles, which comprise his prin-
cipal works, may be added 'Die Vorschule der Aesthetik' (Introduc-
tion to Esthetics: 1804); Levana; oder, Erziehungslehre' (Levana;
or, Theory of Education: 1807); and 'Selina; oder, Über die Unster-
blichkeit (Selina; or, On the Immortality of the Soul). The last-
mentioned discourse on his favorite theme was left unfinished at the
time of his death on November 14th, 1825, and borne on his bier to
the grave, but was not published till two years later.
To complete the account of Richter's outer life, it may be added
that after the death in 1797 of his mother, whose last years were
cheered and made comfortable by his literary success, he lived for a
time in Leipsic and Weimar, and then went to Berlin, where in 1801
he found a highly cultivated and thoroughly congenial wife in Caro-
line Mayer, the daughter of a Prussian privy-councilor. In 1804 he
settled permanently in Bayreuth; and four years later the Archbishop
and Prince Primate von Dalberg granted him a pension of one thou-
sand florins, which after the dissolution of the Confederation of the
Rhine in 1813 continued to be paid by the King of Bavaria. Titu-
lar honors were also bestowed upon him: he was made Legations-
rath (Councilor of Legation) by the Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen;
in 1817 he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy
from the University of Heidelberg; and was chosen a member of the
Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1820.
Richter's best and most brilliant works of fiction are 'Hespe-
rus,' Titan,' 'Quintus Fixlein,' 'Flegeljahre,' and 'Siebenkäs. ' He
himself seems to have thought most highly of 'Flegeljahre'; but
the critical reader of to-day will probably give the preference to
'Fixlein' and 'Siebenkäs. ' The permanent value of these products
of the imagination, as well as of his so-called scientific writings,-
## p. 12251 (#297) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12251
'Introduction to Esthetics,' 'Levana,' and 'Selina,'-lies less in
their symmetry and unity as artistic creations (in which respects
they are woefully deficient) than in the wealth of isolated thoughts,
aphoristic utterances, and original conceits which they contain. Even
in Germany the dust on the sixty-five volumes of his Complete
Works,' issued shortly after his death, is nowadays seldom disturbed.
It is only in anthologies that he is read or can be really enjoyed.
by the present generation. Even his humor, which is his one precious.
quality, is apt to cloy through excess of sensibility running over into
sentimentality. It is also difficult to find a passage of considerable
length in which his metaphors do not halt, and to use his own com-
parison, go limping along like an actor with a buskin on one foot
and a sock on the other. The meaning, too, is apt to be obscured
by unintelligible allusions; a peculiarity due in part to his lifelong
habit of keeping a commonplace-book, which gradually grew into
numerous volumes, and was filled with notes and excerpts, curious
facts and fancies, serving as material for illustration, and suggesting
tropes overstrained and incomprehensible to the general reader without
a special commentary. Indeed, as early as 1808, the Hamburg pub-
licist Carl William Reinhold deemed it necessary to prepare a dic-
tionary explaining Richter's strange modes of speech, and rendering
the more difficult passages into plain German for the benefit of his
own countrymen and contemporaries. In this respect he is the very
antithesis of Lessing, whose thoughts are simply and strongly ex-
pressed, and need no exegetical apparatus to make them understood.
But with all these defects as an artist, Richter was an original
thinker, a keen but kind-hearted humorist, a genuine poet, and a
noble man. Of the German romanticists he was unquestionably the
healthiest; or rather the least "tainted in his wits. " However much
he may love to peer into graves and charnels, and to weep over the
wrongs and miseries of human life, his melancholy is "a most
humorous sadness"; the wormwood and the gall of cynicism are not
the ingredients of his satire, and in his bosom there beats a stout,
warm, cheerful heart, with no drop of misanthropic bitterness in it.
He studied men and nature through a microscopic lens, and thus
discovered a world of wonders where the common eye saw nothing.
Owing to the circumstances of his youth, the sphere of his observa-
tion of social phenomena was limited, but his vision exceedingly sharp
within this narrow range. His one point of firm footing on the
earth was his genuine sympathy with the joys and sorrows of the
common people, the sufferings and sacrifices of the poor; and here-
in lay his strength.
E. P. Evans
## p. 12252 (#298) ##########################################
12252
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
EXTRA LEAF ON CONSOLATION
From Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces'
A
TIME will come - that is, must come - when we shall be com-
manded by morality not only to cease tormenting others,
but also ourselves. A time must come when man, even on
earth, shall wipe away most of his tears, were it only from pride.
Nature indeed draws tears out of the eyes, and sighs out of
the breast, so quickly that the wise man can never wholly lay
aside the garb of mourning from his body; but let his soul wear
none. For as it is ever a merit to bear a small suffering
with cheerfulness, so must the calm and patient endurance of the
worst be a merit, and will only differ in being a greater one;
as the same reason which is valid for the forgiveness of small
injuries is equally valid for the forgiveness of the greatest.
The first thing that we have to contend against and despise,
in sorrow as in anger, is its poisonous, enervating sweetness,
which we are so loath to exchange for the labor of consoling
ourselves, and to drive away by the effort of reason.
We must not exact of philosophy, that with one stroke of the
pen it shall reverse the transformation of Rubens, who with one
stroke of his brush changed a laughing child into a weeping one.
It is enough if it change the full mourning of the soul into half-
mourning; it is enough if I can say to myself, I will be con-
tent to endure the sorrow that philosophy has left me: without
it, it would be greater, and the gnat's bite would be a wasp's
sting.
―
Even physical pain shoots its sparks upon us out of the elec-
trical condenser of the imagination. We could endure the most
acute pangs calmly, if they only lasted the sixtieth part of a
second; but in fact we never have to endure an hour of pain,
but only a succession of the sixtieth parts of a second, the sixty
beams of which are collected into the burning focus of a second,
and directed upon our nerves by the imagination alone. The
most painful part of our bodily pain is that which is bodiless or
immaterial, namely, our impatience, and the delusion that it will
last forever.
There is many a loss over which we all know for certain that
we shall no longer grieve in twenty-ten-two years. Why do
we not say to ourselves, I will at once then, to-day, throw
-
## p. 12253 (#299) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12253
away an opinion which I shall abandon in twenty years? Why
should I be able to abandon errors of twenty years' standing, and
not of twenty hours?
When I awake from a dream which has painted an Otaheite
for me on the dark ground of the night, and find the flowery
land melted away, I scarcely sigh, thinking to myself, "It was
only a dream. " Why is it that if I had really possessed this
island while awake, and it had been swallowed up by an earth-
quake, why is it that I do not then exclaim, "The island was
only a dream » ? Wherefore am I more inconsolable at the loss
of a longer dream than at the loss of a shorter,- for that is
the difference; and why does man find a great loss less prob-
able, and less a matter of necessity when it occurs, than a small
one?
The reason is, that every sentiment and every emotion is
mad, and exacts and builds its own world. A man can vex him-
self that it is already, or only, twelve o'clock. What folly! The
mood not only exacts its own world, its own individual conscious-
ness, but its own time. I beg every one to let his passions, for
once, speak out plainly within himself, and to probe and question
them to the bottom, as to what they really desire. He will be
terror-struck at the enormity of these hitherto only half-muttered
wishes. Anger wishes that all mankind had only one neck; love,
that it had only one heart; grief, two tear-glands; pride, two bent
knees.
Translation by Edward Henry Noel.
THE NEW-YEAR'S NIGHT OF A MISERABLE MAN
N THE lone stillness of the New-Year's night
IN
An old man at his window stood, and turned
His dim eyes to the firmament, where, bright
And pure, a million rolling planets burned,—
And then down on the earth all cold and white,
And felt that moment that of all who mourned
And groaned upon its bosom, none there were
With his deep wretchedness and great despair.
For near him lay his grave,-hidden from view
Not by the flowers of youth, but by the snows
Of age alone. In torturing thought he flew
Over the past, and on his memory rose
## p. 12254 (#300) ##########################################
12254
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
That picture of his life which conscience drew,
With all its fruits,- diseases, sins, and woes;
A ruined frame, a blighted soul, dark years
Of agony, remorse, and withering fears.
Like spectres now his bright youth-days came back,
And that cross-road of life where, when a boy,
His father placed him first: its right-hand track
Leads to a land of glory, peace, and joy,
Its left to wildernesses waste and black,
Where snakes and plagues and poison-winds destroy.
Which had he trod? Alas! the serpents hung
Coiled round his heart, their venom on his tongue.
Sunk in unutterable grief, he cried,
"Restore my youth to me! O God, restore
My morn of life! O father! be my guide,
And let me, let me choose my path once more! "
But on the wide waste air his ravings died
Away, and all was silent as before.
His youth had glided by, fleet as the wave;
His father came not,- he was in his grave.
Strange lights flashed flickering by: a star was falling;
Down to the miry marsh he saw it rush
"Like me! " he thought, and oh! that thought was galling,
And hot and heart-wrung tears began to gush.
Sleep-walkers crossed his eyes in shapes appalling;
Gaunt windmills lifted up their arms to crush;
And skeleton monsters rose up from the dim
Pits of the charnel-house, and glared on him!
Amid these overboiling bursts of feeling,
Rich music, heralding the young year's birth,
Rolled from a distant steeple, like the pealing
Of some celestial organ o'er the earth:
Milder emotions over him came stealing;
He felt the soul's unpurchasable worth.
"Return! " again he cried, imploringly;
"O my lost youth! return, return to me! "
And youth returned, and age withdrew its terrors;
Still was he young, for he had dreamed the whole:
But faithful is the image conscience mirrors
When whirlwind passions darken not the soul.
## p. 12255 (#301) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12255
Alas! too real were his sins and errors;
Too truly had he made the earth his goal;
He wept, and thanked his God that with the will,
He had the power, to choose the right path still.
Here, youthful reader, ponder! and if thou,
Like him, art reeling over the abyss,
And shakest off sin's iron bondage now,
This ghastly dream may prove thy guide to bliss;
But should age once be written on thy brow,
Its wrinkles will not be a dream, like this.
Mayest vainly pour thy tears above the urn
Of thy departed youth,-it never will return!
Translation of James Clarence Mangan.
FROM FIRST FLOWER PIECE›
NCE on a summer evening I was lying in the sunshine on a
mountain, and fell asleep. Then I dreamed that I awoke
in a church-yard. The down-rolling wheels of the steeple-
clock, which was striking eleven, had awakened me. I looked for
the sun in the empty night-heaven, for I thought an eclipse was
veiling it with the moon. All the graves were open, and the
iron doors of the charnel-house were moved to and fro by invis-
ible hands. Shadows which no one cast, flitted on the walls;
and other shadows walked erect in the thin air.
In the open
coffins none were sleeping now but children. In the sky hung in
large folds merely a gray sultry mist, which a giant shadow like
a net was drawing down nearer, tighter, and hotter. Above me
I heard the distant fall of avalanches; under me the first step of
an illimitable earthquake. The church wavered up and down
with two unceasing discords, which contended with each other
and vainly endeavored to mingle in unison. At times a gray
gleam skipped up along its windows, and under the gleam the
lead and iron ran down molten. The net of the mist and the
reeling earth thrust me into that fearful temple, at the door of
which, in two poisonous thickets, two glittering basilisks were
brooding. I passed through unknown shadows, on whom ancient
centuries were impressed. All the shadows were standing round
the empty altar; and in all of them the breast, instead of the
heart, quivered and beat. One dead man only, who had just
been buried in the church, still lay on his pillow without a
## p. 12256 (#302) ##########################################
12256
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
quivering breast, and on his smiling countenance stood a happy
dream. But as a living one entered, he awoke, and smiled no
more; he lifted with difficulty his heavy eyelids, but within was
no eye, and in his beating breast there was, instead of a heart,
a wound. He lifted up his hands and folded them to pray;
but the arms lengthened out and dissolved, and the hands, still
folded, fell away. Above, on the vault of the church, stood the
dial-plate of eternity, on which no number appeared, and which
was its own index hand; but a black finger pointed thereon, and
the dead sought to see the time by it. .
An immense and immeasurably extended hammer was about
to strike the last hour of time and shatter the universe, when I
awoke.
My soul wept for joy that I could still pray to God; and the
joy, and the weeping, and the faith in him, were my prayer.
And as I arose, the sun was glowing deep behind the full pur-
pled ears of corn, and casting meekly the gleam of its twilight
red on the little moon, which was rising in the east without an
aurora; and between the sky and the earth, a gay transient air
people was stretching out its short wings, and living, as I did,
before the Infinite Father; and from all nature around me flowed
peaceful tones as from distant evening bells.
MAXIMS FROM RICHTER'S WORKS
HⓇ
E WHO remains modest, not when he is praised but when he
is blamed, is truly modest.
OF ALL human qualities, modesty is most easily stifled by
fumes of incense, or of sulphur; and praise is often more hurtful
than censure.
THE truest love is the most timid; the falsest is the boldest.
IF You wish to become acquainted with your betrothed, travel
with him for a few days,-especially if he is accompanied by
his own folks,-and take your mother along.
IT is the misfortune of the bachelor that he has no one to
tell him frankly his faults; but the husband has this happiness.
## p. 12257 (#303) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12257
A MAN ought never to be more delicately attentive to his wife
than after making her a present, in order to lighten the sense of
obligation.
MARRIAGES are so unhappy, because men cannot make up their
minds to substitute love for force and arguments, and because
they wish to attain their purpose by might and right.
LOVE increases in strength with years, and diminishes in its
outward manifestations.
THE wedlock is happiest when one discovers the greatest
advantages in it and not before it. It is therefore perilous to
marry a poet.
MEN of imagination more easily make up with a lady-love
when she is absent than when she is present.
"
JEALOUSY Constitutes the sole difference between love and
friendship. Friendship has therefore one pleasure, and love one
pain, the more.
PAINS of sympathy are the sign of love: but if genuine, they
are not imaginary, and cause more suffering than one's own
pains; for we have at least the right to conquer the latter.
ONE should never hope to be compatible with a wife with
whom one has quarreled as a bride.
IF YOU are unable to refute an argument, you find fault with
the way in which it is put.
No Two persons are ever more confidential and cordial than
when they are censuring a third.
INTERCOURSE with men of the world narrows the heart, com-
munion with nature expands it.
SATAN is a scarecrow set up by the clergy in the spiritual
vineyard.
SO EASILY are we impressed by numbers, that even a dozen
wheelbarrows in succession seem quite imposing.
XXI-767
## p. 12258 (#304) ##########################################
12258
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
REFORMERS are constantly forgetting that the hour-hand must
make progress if only the minute-hand keeps moving.
IT IS of little avail that fortune makes us rich, if our desires
make us poor again.
THE Indians mistook the clothes of the first European they
saw for the body; we mistake them for the soul.
IT is not always the best actor that plays the part of king,
either on the stage or in real life.
How quickly and quietly the eye opens and closes, revealing
and concealing a world!
DULL persons look upon the refined as false.
THE head, like the stomach, is most easily infected with poi-
son when it is empty.
THE whole constitution of the English is like their manufac
tured cloth, which may not have a fair gloss, but is capable of
standing bad weather.
THE timid fear before danger, the cowardly in the midst of it,
and the courageous after it is over.
BETWEEN no two things are the resemblance and the antipathy
stronger than between critic and author, unless it be between
wolf and dog.
THE public is so fond of reading reviews because it likes to
see authors, as the English used to like to see bears, not only
made to dance, but also goaded and baited.
MAN's moral, like his physical progress, is nothing but a con-
tinuous falling.
EVERY recovery from illness is a restoration and palingenesis
of our youth.
FEMALE virtue is the glowing iron, which, as formerly in or-
deals, women must bear from the font to the altar in order to
be innocent.
## p. 12259 (#305) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12259
GIRLS and gold are the softer the purer they are.
OUT of craftiness women often let the man rule; and then
they do as they please.
NO ONE believes so readily as a woman that she has under-
stood a very difficult point in philosophy.
FROM thinking to acting is a longer way with women than
with men.
THE vanity of women is hurt by disparaging, not their intelli
gence or their virtue, but their comeliness or taste.
A man may
safely say to his wife, "You are stupider than I. "
him say once, "You are homelier than I. ”
But just let
IMITATE the bee: take the honey, but leave to the rose its
fragrance.
Ir is as hard to prove anything to women as to lawyers.
SCARS grow with the body; so do stings of conscience.
CHILDREN, like wives, prefer that in every marriage there
should be but one child to love.
MUSIC is the Madonna among the arts: she can give birth and
being only to the holiest.
Music is too good for drinking-songs and merry-makings.
THE Courtesy with which I receive a stranger, and the civility
I show him, form the background on which he paints my por-
trait.
SULKINESS is a spiritual catalepsy, in which, as in the physi-
cal, every member grows stiff in the position in which it was
when the attack came on; spiritual catalepsy has also this in
common with physical, that it seizes women oftener than men.
WOMEN are not fallen, but falling angels.
YOUTH and Age. - The rising star looks larger, but the risen
one shines brighter.
## p. 12260 (#306) ##########################################
12260
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
OLD people are long shadows that are projected by the even.
ing sun, and lie cold upon the earth; but they all point to the
morning.
EVERY one utters the word "past" with more emotion than
"future. "
No MAIDEN should slander, scold, or hate,- at least so long
as she is in love, on account of the contrast: when she is a
housewife with children, cattle, and maid-servants, no just man
will object to moderate anger and modest chiding.
IN THE spirit world, autumn is the next neighbor to spring.
IF ANY departed souls long for earth, it must be those of
children.
IF A man should rise from the dead, we should adore him as
a saint, even if he should tell us that he had merely fallen into
a long and profound sleep. Is it not the same with the new-
born?
HE WHO sacrifices health to knowledge will find that he has
in most cases sacrificed knowledge too.
IN GOING over the bridge to the Castle of St. Angelo in
Rome, one is reminded of women: for there are ten angels
standing on it hewn in stone, each with a different instrument
of martyrdom; one with the nails, another with the reed, and a
third with the dice. Thus every woman has in her hand a dif-
ferent instrument of martyrdom for us, poor lambs of God.
IF A
man spends the day in reading and studying, what
worlds, what comprehensive ideas, dwarfing the present, pass
before him! How vast the universe seems, and how small the
earth!
THE greater the thing that comes to end, the more we think
of the end; like the end of a day, a year, or a century.
DARKNESS is pleasanter than a dim light.
THE past and the future are both veiled; but the former
wears the widow's and the latter the virgin's veil.
## p. 12261 (#307) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12261
DYING for the truth is death not merely for one's country,
but also for the world. Truth, like the Medicean Venus, may be
transmitted to posterity in thirty fragments, but posterity will
put them together into a goddess. Genius is the alarm-clock of
sleeping centuries.
THERE are truths of which we hope that great men will be
more firmly convinced than we can be, and that therefore our
conviction will be supplemented by theirs.
WE WISH for immortality not as the reward, but as the per-
petuity, of virtue.
VIRTUE can be no more rewarded than joy; its sole reward is
its continuance.
VICE wins the battle-field, but virtue the Elysian fields.
ART may not be the bread, but it is the wine, of life. To
disparage it on the plea of utility is to imitate Domitian, who
ordered the grape-vines to be rooted out in order to promote
agriculture.
A CONVERSATION about a work of art can embrace almost
everything.
KNOWLEDGE and Action. It is a fine thing in the springtide
of youth to poetize and theorize, and then in the years of man-
hood to rule from a higher throne and to crown thoughts with
deeds. It is like the sun, which in the morning merely paints
the clouds and lights up the earth, but at midday fructifies it
with heat, and yet continues to shine and to paint rainbows on
storm-clouds.
IT WERE damnable if I should not have as much freedom to
do good as other poetic heads have to work evil.
IF A ruler has received the two heavenly gifts of knowledge.
and purity of heart, the earthly gift of statecraft will come of
itself. Thus two celestial telescopes combine to form one terres-
trial telescope.
NECESSITY is the mother of the arts; but also the grand-
mother of vices.
## p. 12262 (#308) ##########################################
12262
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
WHAT bloomed in Rome on high elevations, grows in Ger-
many on lower levels; as in the far north, Alpine plants are
found at the foot of mountains. But it is gratifying to experi
ence the oldest in the newest, and to discover that the modern,
like the ancient classic, is born rich and grand, just as he
writes.
SATIRE invents ridiculous combinations of purely imaginary
follies, not in order that they may be laughed at and laid aside,
for they never existed, but in order to render the sense of the
ludicrous more acute, so that like combinations in real life may
be better observed.
A MAN may curse a misfortune, but never weep over it.
HE WHO no longer aspires to be more than a man will be
less than a man.
THE thought of immortality is a luminous sea, in which he
who bathes is all surrounded by stars.
WHERE man is, infinity begins.
A BEING in whom the thought of immortality can arise, can-
not be mortal.
O MUSIC! thou that bringest the past and the future with their
fluttering flames so near to our wounds, art thou the evening
zephyr of this life, or the morning breeze of the life to come?
Yes, thy notes are echoes which angels catch from the joyous
tones of another world, in order to drop into our mute heart and
our desolate night the exhaled vernal harmonies of the heavens
that fly far from us.
MAN, an Egyptian deity, a patchwork of beasts' heads and
human bodies, stretches out his hands in opposite directions to-
wards the present and the future life. He is moved by spiritual
and material forces, as the moon is attracted at once by the sun
and the earth; but the earth holds it fast in its fetters, while the
sun only produces slight deviations in its course.
THE progress of mankind towards the holy city of God is like
that of some penitents, who on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem
always take three steps forward and one backward.
## p. 12263 (#309) ##########################################
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
12263
HE WHO differs from the world in important matters should
be the more careful to conform to it in insignificant ones.
PHILOSOPHY and the nymph Echo never let you have the last
word.
THE belief in immortality is by no means incompatible with
the belief in atheism: for the same Necessity which in this life
threw my shining dewdrop of Me into a flower-bell and under
a sun, can repeat the process in a second life; indeed, it can
embody me more easily the second time than the first.
MEN deny the existence of God with as little feeling as the
most affirm it. Even in our true systems we are constantly col-
lecting mere words, counters and medals, as misers do coins; and
not till late do we convert the words into feelings, the coins into
enjoyments. A man may believe in the immortality of the soul
for twenty years, and not till in the one-and-twentieth, in a great
moment, be amazed at the rich contents of this belief, the warmth
of this naphtha-well.
CHILDHOOD, and its terrors rather than its raptures, take wings
and radiance in dreams, and sport like fireflies in the little night
of the soul. Do not crush these flickering sparks!
IT is a fine thing that authors, even those who deny the im-
mortality of their souls, seldom dare to contest that of their
names; and as Cicero affirmed that he would believe in another
life even if there were none, so they wish to cling to the belief
in the future eternal life of their names, although the critics may
have furnished positive proofs to the contrary.
LET us not despise the slender thread upon which we and
our fortune may depend. If, like the spider, we have spun and
drawn it out of ourselves, it will hold us quite well; and we may
hang on it safely as the tempest tosses us and the web uninjured
to and fro.
POVERTY is the only burden which grows heavier when loved
ones help to bear it.
THE human body is a musical instrument, in which the Cre-
mona chords are twisted out of living intestines, and the breast
is the sounding-board and the head the damper.
## p. 12264 (#310) ##########################################
12264
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
SINCE there are in our world so many delicate and Divine
sentiments hovering about, so many rich blossoms unfolding and
bearing no seed, it is fortunate that poesy was invented to pre-
serve all these unborn spirits and the fragrance of flowers in its
halo.
IF YOU are an author, picture to yourself the best man, one
who cherishes in his heart all that is most holy and most beauti-
ful, and never suffers anything impure to enter there; then take
your pen and strive to enrapture this imaginary reader.
MAN is like horse-radish: the more it is grated the more it
bites. The satirist is sadder than the jester, for the same reason
that the orang-outang is more melancholy than the monkey,-
because he is nobler.
## p. 12265 (#311) ##########################################
12265
-
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
(1852-)
AMES WHITCOMB RILEY, the western-American dialect poet, is
one of the younger writers who have given to the newer
native literature a quality expressive of interesting and typ-
ical local conditions. A man of the people, he has in his homely
and heartfelt song uttered their joys and sorrows, - to be repaid by
the affectionate admiration of his Indiana Hoosier folk and by a wide
popularity throughout the United States. Riley's work is honestly a
product of the soil. It reflects the life of the Middle West, and at
its best calls for recognition as something
more than social documents; namely, as
lyric utterance vital with feeling and full of
a truly democratic sympathy for common
humanity.
JAMES W. RILEY
Riley was born in 1852 in Greenfield,
Indiana, a small town twenty miles from
Indianapolis. His father, a country lawyer,
wished his son to read for that profession:
but it took the latter, after a course at the
village school, but a short time to learn
that Blackstone was not for him, and he
ran away from home with a patent-medicine
and concert wagon, it being his function to
beat the bass-drum; then he worked at the
trade of sign-painting, coming back to Greenfield to do some experi-
mental journalism on a local paper, the failure of which sheet sent
him to Indianapolis, where his labors on the Journal of that city re-
sulted in a connection which introduced him as a writer and brought
him fame and fortune. Riley's boyhood in the little town, with its
simple honest ways, among his kin and comrades, is described in the
autobiographic book 'A Child World' (1897). His upbringing was
typical of the place and time, and richly has he made use in his
writings of these early experiences. For a while Riley used the pen-
name "B. F. Johnson of Boone" in signing his Journal contributions;
and a great deal of his verse and prose first appeared in the columns
of that paper, the rapidly thrown off "copy" of the practical news-
paper man. Yet this long apprenticeship helped Riley to acquire
the firm technique, the grasp on the art of verse-making, which he
now possesses.
## p. 12266 (#312) ##########################################
12266
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Since Riley has come into prosperity and fame he has returned to
Greenfield, and purchased and fitted up for his summer home the old
family residence, endeared to him by so many associations. He is
in demand all over the country as a reader, his gifts as a platform
speaker being remarkable. A tour made with the late humorist Bill
Nye was very successful. A friend thus describes his personal
appearance: "In physical stature he is below the average height.
His complexion is fair. His hair has never changed from the flaxen
whiteness of boyhood. His eyes are large, light-blue, wide open, and
marvelous in their expression. His face is smooth-shaven; his attire
neat and fashionable. To his friends, to all the associations, interests,
and memories of his life, he is profoundly, patriotically loyal. »
His literary bow as a maker of poems was made in 1883, when he
was turned thirty, with the volume entitled 'Old Swimmin' Hole. '
It was brought out by an Indianapolis firm, the Bowen-Merrill Com-
pany, which has continued to issue Riley's books; although the Cen-
tury Company of New York in 1893 published a handsome volume of
his representative lyrics, Poems Here at Home. ' That maiden vol-
ume, with its quaint verse depicting the rustic haunts and characters
he knew as a lad, pleased the public, and Riley's road was smooth
thereafter. Other collections of poems, typical of the man and his
quality, are 'Afterwhiles' (1887), 'Old-Fashioned Roses' (1888), 'Pipes
o' Pan' (1889), 'Green Fields and Running Brooks' (1893). Riley's
publications also include several volumes of humorous prose sketches;
but this side of his work, when compared with his poetry, is un-
important. His most winning verse is that which blends pathos and
humor. His dialect pieces have made him most broadly known, and
his choicest in this kind are admirable. He catches the idiom of the
middle-class home, and interprets the homely human heart with sure
divination. He chose this medium of expression because he wished to
speak for and of the plain people, and believed this the most direct
and honest way
As he says himself, "I went among the people:
I learned their wants, their sufferings, their joys; and I put them
into rhyme. " But it would be a mistake to regard Riley exclusively
as a dialect poet. The Poet of the Future,' for example, with its
healthy democratic teaching, its vigorous lilt, its unforced melody, is
one of numerous inspiring poems written in more conventional Eng-
lish. This is true too of the exquisite sonnet, 'When She Comes
Home,' showing what lovely work he can do in one of the most dif-
ficult of verse forms; while his 'Away' is another illustration of his
tender simplicity which makes magic effects. Riley believes that-
"The tanned face, garlanded with mirth,
It hath the kingliest smile on earth;
The swart brow, diamonded with sweat,
Hath never need of coronet. »
## p. 12267 (#313) ##########################################
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
12267
He is a genuine people's poet; and although his work suffers here
and there from prolixity and suggests the pressure of over-production,
he is, judged by his highest accomplishment (as every literary maker
should be), a true singer, who has contributed authentically to the
content of American letters.
[All the following poems are quoted from 'Afterwhiles,)-copyright 1887,
by James Whitcomb Riley,- and are reprinted by permission of The Bowen-
Merrill Co. , publishers. ]
AWAY
CANNOT say and I will not say
That he is dead. He is just away!
I
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand,
He has wandered into an unknown land,
――――――
And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there.
And you-O you, who the wildest yearn
For the old-time step and the glad return,-
Think of him faring on, as dear
In the love of There as the love of Here;
And loyal still as he gave the blows
Of his warrior strength to his country's foes.
Mild and gentle, as he was brave,
When the sweetest love of his life he gave
To simple things: where the violets grew
Pure as the eyes they were likened to,
The touches of his hands have strayed
As reverently as his lips have prayed;
When the little brown thrush that harshly chirred
Was dear to him as the mocking-bird;
And he pitied as much as a man in pain
A writhing honey-bee wet with rain. -
Think of him still as the same, I say:
He is not dead- he is just away!
## p. 12268 (#314) ##########################################
12268
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
WHEN SHE COMES HOME
HEN she comes home again! A thousand ways
I fashion, to myself, the tenderness
Of my glad welcome: I shall tremble — yes;
And touch her, as when first in the old days
I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise
Mine eyes, such was my faint heart's sweet distress.
Then silence; and the perfume of her dress.
The room will sway a little, and a haze
WH
Cloy eyesight-soul sight, even- for a space.
And tears - yes; and the ache here in the throat,
To know that I so ill deserve the place
Her arms make for me; and the sobbing note
I stay with kisses, ere the tearful face
Again is hidden in the old embrace.
TH
A LIFE LESSON
HERE, little girl-don't cry!
They have broken your doll, I know;
And your tea-set blue,
And your play-house, too,
Are things of the long ago:
But childish troubles will soon pass by; —
There, little girl-don't cry!
There, little girl-don't cry!
They have broken your slate, I know;
And the glad, wild ways
Of your schoolgirl days
Are things of the long ago:
But life and love will soon come by;—
There, little girl- don't cry!
There, little girl- don't cry!
They have broken your heart, I know;
And the rainbow gleams
Of your youthful dreams
Are things of the long ago:
But heaven holds all for which you sigh;
There, little girl-don't cry!
-
## p. 12269 (#315) ##########################################
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
12269
A SONG
TH
HERE is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
There is ever a something sings alway:
There's the song of the lark when the skies are clear,
And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray;
The sunshine showers across the grain,
And the bluebird trills in the orchard tree;
And in and out, when the eaves drip rain,
The swallows are twittering ceaselessly.
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
Be the skies above or dark or fair;
There is ever a song that our hearts may hear-
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear-
There is ever a song somewhere!
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
In the midnight black or the midday blue:
The robin pipes when the sun is here,
And the cricket chirrups the whole night through;
The buds may blow and the fruit may grow,
And the autumn leaves drop crisp and sere:
But whether the sun or the rain or the snow,
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear.
NOTHIN' TO SAY
to say, my daughter! nothin' at all to say! .
NG'yirls that's in love, I've noticed, ginerly has their way!
Yer mother did, afore you, when her folks objected to me-
Yit here I am, and here you air; and yer mother-where is she?
You look lots like yer mother: purty much same in size;
And about the same complected; and favor about the eyes;
Like her, too, about her livin' here,- because she couldn't stay:
It'll most seem like you was dead-like her! but I hain't got
nothin' to say!
She left you her little Bible writ yer name acrost the page;
And left her ear-bobs fer you, ef ever you come of age.
I've allus kep' 'em and g'yarded 'em, but ef yer goin' away-
Nothin' to say, my daughter! nothin' at all to say!
## p. 12270 (#316) ##########################################
12270
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
You don't rikollect her, I reckon? No: you wasn't a year old then!
And now yer-how old air you? W'y, child, not 'twenty'! When?
And yer nex' birthday's in April? and you want to get married that
day? —
I wisht yer mother was livin'! -but-I hain't got nothin' to say!
Twenty year! and as good a girl as parent ever found!
There's a straw ketched onto yer dress there - I'll bresh it off-
turn round.
(Her mother was jes' twenty when us two run away! )
Nothin' to say, my daughter! nothin' at all to say!
KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE
you what I like the best:
TELL Long about knee-deep in June,
'Bout the time the strawberries melts
On the vine,- some afternoon
Like to jes' git out and rest,
And not work at nothin' else!
Orchard 's where I'd ruther be—
Needn't fence it in for me! -
Jes' the whole sky overhead,
And the whole airth underneath -
Sorto' so's a man kin breathe
Like he ort, and kindo' has
Elbow-room to keerlessly
Sprawl out len'thways on the grass,
Where the shadder's thick and soft
As the kivvers on the bed
Mother fixes in the loft
Allus, when they's company!
Jes' a sorto' lazin' there-
S' lazy 'at you peek and peer
Through the wavin' leaves above,
Like a feller 'at's in love
And don't know it, ner don't keer!
Ever'thing you hear and see
Got some sort o' interest:
Maybe find a bluebird's nest
Tucked up there conveenently
For the boys 'at's apt to be
Up some other apple-tree!
--
## p. 12271 (#317) ##########################################
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
12271
Watch the swallers scootin' past
'Bout as peert as you could ast;
Er the bobwhite raise and whiz
Where some other's whistle is.
Ketch a shadder down below,
And look up to find the crow;
Er a hawk away up there,
'Pearantly froze in the air! —
Hear the old hen squawk, and squat
Over every chick she's got,
Suddent-like! And she knows where
That air hawk is, well as you!
You jes' bet your life she do! -
Eyes a-glitterin' like glass,
Waitin' till he makes a pass!
Pee-wee's singin', to express
My opinions second-class,
Yit you'll hear 'em more or less;
Sapsuck's gittin' down to biz,
Weedin' out the lonesomeness;
Mr. Bluejay, full o' sass,
In them base-ball clothes o' his,
Sportin' 'round the orchard jes'
Like he owned the premises!
Sun out in the fields kin sizz,
But flat on yer back, I guess,
In the shade's where glory is!
That's jes' what I'd like to do
Stiddy fer a year er two.
Plague! ef they ain't sompin' in
Work, 'at kind o' goes ag'in
My convictions! -'long about
Here in June especially!
Under some old apple-tree,
Jes' a-restin' through and through,
I could git along without
Nothin' else at all to do
Only jes' a-wishin' you
Was a-gittin' there like me,—
And June was eternity!
Lay out there and try to see
Jes' how lazy you kin be! —
## p. 12272 (#318) ##########################################
12272
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Tumble round and souse your head
In the clover-bloom, er pull
Yer straw hat acrost yer eyes,
And peek through it at the skies,
Thinkin' of old chums 'at's dead,
Maybe smilin' back at you
In betwixt the beautiful
Clouds o' gold and white and blue! -
Month a man kin railly love—
June, you know, I'm talkin' of!
March ain't never nothin' new! -
April's altogether too
Brash fer me! and May-I jes'
'Bominate its promises:
Little hints o' sunshine and
Green around the timber-land-
A few blossoms, and a few
Chip-birds, and a sprout er two-
Drap asleep, and it turns in
'Fore daylight and snows ag'in!
喜
-
clear my throat
Rench my hair
In the dew! and hold my coat!
But when June comes.
With wild honey!
Whoop out loud! and throw my hat!
June wants me, and I'm to spare!
Spread them shadders anywhere,
I'll git down and waller there,
And obleeged to you at that!
-
## p. 12273 (#319) ##########################################
12273
YOCK
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
(1838-)
HE feminine quality in Thackeray's genius, which saved his
unerring comprehension of human nature from harshness,
seems detached and given complete embodiment in the
writings of his daughter, Anne Thackeray Ritchie. Not that these
are lacking in strength, nor in evidences of keen perception; but they
are steeped in the mellow atmosphere of an exquisite womanliness.
They are feminine in the highest and completest sense of the word.
They contain moreover a quality lacking to the works of the younger
generation of writers,- that of nobility, of
high breeding; the spirit indeed of one
whose life from her childhood up has been
spent among the true aristocracy of mind
and of character, and whose sensitive soul
responded wholly to gracious influences.
Anne Isabella Thackeray (Ritchie), the
daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray,
was born in London in 1838. Her child-
hood was spent partly in Kensington,-
whose quaintness she has immortalized in
her most characteristic novel,- partly on
the continent with her grandparents. She
grew up in London as her own heroine
Dolly grew up, "like a little spring flower
among the silent old bricks. " Her girlhood was spent in association
with her father and his circle of friends; which included indeed the
cream of England's true gentry. Never did a little lady grow into
womanhood in a more harmonious environment.
ANNE T. RITCHIE
In 1877 Miss Thackeray married her cousin, Richmond Thack-
eray Ritchie. In 1860 her first story, 'Little Scholars in the London
Schools, had appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, of which her father
was editor. Unpretentious as it was, it revealed the author's domi-
nant qualities: her appreciation of the beautiful and dramatic elements
which may lie hidden in obscure lives, and in the experiences of
commonplace people; her genial sympathy, the rare charity and truth-
fulness of her spirit. It revealed, moreover, the genuineness of her
literary gift. Her simple and strong English belonged to no "school. "
It was that of one who had drunk deep at the undefiled wells of the
great Masters of the tongue.
XXI-768
## p. 12274 (#320) ##########################################
12274
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
In Old Kensington,' published in 1873, her gifts become fully
manifest. It would be difficult to overrate the charm of this novel
of gentlefolk, living out their simple lives in that quaint quarter of
London where the author's own girlhood was passed, and whose old-
fashioned beauties (many of them now vanished) she depicts with the
clear memory of love. The odor as of lavender haunts each chapter
of this book; whose fine, clean atmosphere removes it, as the East
from the West, from the neurotic vulgarities which in the present
day have debased the beautiful art of fiction. To read a novel like
'Old Kensington' is to come at once into good society. The book is
remarkable, moreover, for its depiction of human nature, and of child
nature; and for its exquisite bits of description, like some little warm
Dutch landscapes:-
"As days go by, Dolly's pictures warm and brighten from early spring into
summer-time. By degrees they reach above the table, and over and beyond
the garden roller. They are chiefly of the old garden, whose brick walls seem
to inclose sunshine and gaudy flowers all the summer through; of the great
Kensington parks, where in due season chestnuts are to be found shining
among the leaves and dry grasses; of the pond where the ducks are flapping
and diving; of the house which was little Rhoda's home. This was the great
bare house in Old Street, with plenty of noise, dried herbs, content, children
without end, and thick bread-and-butter. There was also cold stalled ox on
Sundays at one. »
Scattered through the book are wise comments on the mysteries
of life, worthy of Thackeray's daughter, who was too much of a
woman and of an artist ever to change her broad morality into the
moralizing spirit.
"To hate the Devil and all his works is one thing; but to-day, who is the
Devil and which are his works is another. "
"Dolly was true to herself; and in those days she used to think that all
her life she would be always true, and always say all she felt. As life grows
long, and people living on together through time and sorrow and experience
realize more and more the complexities of their own hearts, and sympathize
more and more with the failings and sorrows of others, they are apt to ask
themselves with dismay, if it is a reality of life to be less and less uncompro-
mising as complexities increase, less true to themselves as they are more true
to others. "
In 1873 and 1874 Miss Thackeray also published a number of short
stories and sketches: Toilers and Spinsters,' 'Bluebeard's Keys,'
etc. In 1875 appeared a novel, 'Miss Angel,' of which the heroine
is Angelica Kaufmann. In the same year she edited 'The Orphan
of Pimlico, and other Sketches, Fragments, and Drawings,' by her
father. Her life of Madame de Sévigné, in the 'Foreign Classics for
English Readers' series, appeared in 1881; and in the same year
she published another novel, 'Miss Williamson's Divagations. ' Later,
## p. 12275 (#321) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12275
'Chapters from Some Unwritten Memoirs' was published. This book
of personal reminiscences is delightful, for the glimpses it affords the
reader of the Thackeray household, and of the rare guests who gath-
ered there from time to time.
