Ye ho— Miss-
Tickler — James, remember how exceedingly delicate a thing
is a young lady's reputation.
Tickler — James, remember how exceedingly delicate a thing
is a young lady's reputation.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v27 - Wat to Zor
]
sax
seven
-
a
Shepherd — Ane twa three four - five -
aught- But there's nae need o' coontin', for nae pearl diver
in the Straits o' Madagascar, or aff the coast o' Coromandel, can
haud in his breath like Tickler. Weel, that's surprisin'. Yon
chaise has gane about half a mile o' gate towards Portybelly sin'
he gaed fizzin' out ower the lugs like a verra rocket. Safe us!
what's this gruppin' me by the legs ? A sherk—a sherk
sherk!
Tickler (yellowing to the surface] - Blabla — blabla — bla —
Shepherd — He's keept soomin'aneath the water till he's sick;
but every man for himsel', and God for us a'— I'm aff.
[Shepherd stretches away to sea in the direction of Inchkeith, Tickler in
pursuit. ]
Tickler -- Every sinew, my dear James, like so much whip-
cord. I swim like a salmon.
Shepherd-O sir! that Lord Byron had but been alive the
noo, what a sweepstakes!
Tickler - A Liverpool gentleman has undertaken, James, to
swim four-and-twenty miles at a stretch. What are the odds ?
Shepherd — Three to one on Saturn and Neptune. He'll get
numm.
Tickler -- James, I had no idea you were so rough on the
back. You are a perfect otter.
Shepherd — Nae personality, Mr. Tickler, out at sea.
I'll com-
pare carcases wi' you ony day o' the year. Yet you're a gran'
soomer — out o' the water at every stroke, neck, breast, shou-
thers, and half-way doun the back — after the fashion o' the great
- o
## p. 16036 (#382) ##########################################
16036
JOHN WILSON
American serpent. As for me, my style o' soomin's less showy
— laigh and lown — less hurry, but mair speed.
—
Come sir, l'11
dive you for a jug o' toddy.
[Tickler and Shepherd melt away like foam-bells in the sunshine. ]
Shepherd — Mr. Tickler!
Tickler – James!
Shepherd - It's a drawn bate - sae we'll baith pay. O sir!
isna Embro' a glorious city ? Sae clear the air! Yonner you see
a man and a woman stannin' on the tap o' Arthur's Seat! I had
nae notion there were sae mony steeples, and spires, and col-
umns, and pillars, and obelisks, and domes in Embro'! And at
this distance the ee canna distinguish atween them that belangs
to kirks, and them that belangs to naval monuments, and them
that belangs to ile-gas companies, and them that's only chimney-
heids in the auld toun, and the taps o' groves, or single trees, sic
as poplars; and aboon a' and ahint a', craigs and saft-broo'd hills
sprinkled wi' sheep, lichts and shadows, and the blue vapory glim-
mer o' a mid-summer day — het, het, het, wi' the barometer at
ninety: but here, to us twa, bob-bobbin' amang the fresh, cool,
murmurin', and faemy wee waves, temperate as the air within
the mermaid's palace. Anither dive!
Tickler — James, here goes the Fly-Wheel.
Shepherd - That beats a'!
He gangs round in the water like
a jack roastin' beef. I'm thinkin' he canna stop himsel. Safe us!
he's fun' out the perpetual motion.
Tickler — What fish, James, would you incline to be, if put into
-
scales ?
Shepherd — A dolphin — for they hae the speed o' lichtnin'.
They'll dart past and roun' about a ship in full sail before the
wind, just as if she was at anchor. Then the dolphin is a fish o'
peace — he saved the life o' a poet of auld, Arion, wi' his harp -
and oh! they say the cretur's beautifu' in death: Byron, ye ken,
comparin' his hues to those o' the sun settin' ahint the Grecian
Isles. I sud like to be a dolphin.
Tickler — I should choose to sport shark for a season. In
speed he is a match for the dolphin; and then, James, think what
luxury to swallow a well-fed chaplain, or a delicate midshipman,
or a young negro girl, occasionally -
Shepherd -- And feenally to be grupped wi' a hyuck in a
cocked hat and feather,- at which the shark rises as a trout
## p. 16037 (#383) ##########################################
JOHN WILSON
16037
-
does at a flee, - hauled on board, and hacked to pieces wi' cut-
lasses and pikes by the jolly crew, or left alive on the deck, gut-
ted as clean as a dice-box, and without an inch o’ bowels.
Tickler - Men die at shore, James, of natural deaths as bad as
that —
Shepherd — Let me see — I sud hae nae great objections to be
a whale in the Polar Seas. Gran' fun to fling a boatfu' o' har-
pooners into the air; or wi' ae thud o' your tail, to drive in the
stern-posts o' a Greenlandman.
Tickler — Grander fun still, James, to feel the inextricable
harpoon in your blubber, and to go snoving away beneath an
ice-floe with four mile of line connecting you with your distant
enemies.
Shepherd — But then whales marry but ae wife, and are pas-
sionately attached to their offspring. There, they and I are con-
genial speerits. Nae fish that swims enjoys so large a share of
domestic happiness.
Tickler - A whale, James, is not a fish.
Shepherd — Isna he? Let him alane for that. He's ca'd a fish
in the Bible, and that's better authority than Buffon. Oh that I
were a whale!
Tickler — What think you of a summer of the American sea-
serpent ?
Shepherd - What! To be constantly cruised upon by the haill
American navy, military and mercantile ? No to be able to show
your back aboon water without being libeled by the Yankees in
a' the newspapers, and pursued even by pleasure parties, playin'
the hurdy-gurdy and smokin' cigars! Besides, although I hae
nae objection to a certain degree o' singularity, I sudna just like
to be so very singular as the American sea-serpent, who is the
only ane o' his specie noo extant; and whether he dees in his
bed, or is slain by Jonathan, must incur the pain and the oppro-
brium o' defunckin' an auld bachelor. What's the matter wi' you,
Mr. Tickler?
[Dives. ]
Tickler — The calf of my right leg is rather harder than is
altogether pleasant, - a pretty business if it prove the cramp; and
the cramp it is, sure enough. -Hallo - James - James - James-
hallo — I'm seized with the cramp! — James— the sinews of the
## p. 16038 (#384) ##########################################
16038
JOHN WILSON
calf of my right leg are gathered up into a knot about the bulk
and consistency of a sledge-hammer -
Shepherd — Nae tricks upon travelers. You've nae cramp.
Gin you hae, streek out your richt hind leg, like a horse geein a
funk,- and then ower on the back o'ye, and keep floatin' for a
space, and your calf'll be as saft's a cushion. Lord safe us!
what's this? Deevil tak me if he's no droonin'. Mr. Tickler, are
you droonin'? There he's doun ance, and up again — twice, and
up again; but it's time to tak haud o' him by the hair o' the
head, or he'll be doun amang the limpets!
[Shepherd seizes Tickler by the locks. ]
-
Tickler - Oho - oho- oho — ho-ho-ho- hra - hra - hrach
- hrach.
Shepherd — What language is that? Finnish ? Noo, sir, dinna
rug me doun to the bottom alang wi’ you in the dead-thraws.
Tickler — Heaven reward you, James : the pain is gone — but
keep near me.
Shepherd — Whammle yoursel ower on your back, sir. That
’ill do. Hoo are you now, sir ? Yonner's the James Watt steam-
boat, Captain Bain, within half a league. Lean on my airm,
sir, till he comes alangside, and it 'll be a real happiness to the
captain to save your life. But what 'ill a' the leddies do whan
they're hoistin' us aboard ? They maun just use their fans.
Tickler — My dear Shepherd, I am again floating like a turtle,
but keep within hail, James. Are you to windward or lee-
ward ?
Shepherd – Right astarn. Did you ever see, sir, in a' your
born days, sic a sky ? Ane can scarcely say he sees 't, for
it's maist invisible in its blue beautifu' tenuity, as the waters o'
a well! It's just like the ee o' a lassie I kent lang ago: the
langer you gazed intil 't, the deep, deep, deeper it grew — the
cawmer and the mair cawm composed o' a smile, as an ame-
thyst is composed o' licht - and seeming something impalpable to
the touch, till you ventured, wi' fear, joy, and tremmlin', to kiss
it — just ae hesitatin', pantin', reverential kiss — and then, to be
sure, your verra sowl kent it to be a bonny blue ee, covered wi'
a lid o' dark fringes, and drappin' aiblins a bit frichtened tear to
the lip o' love.
## p. 16039 (#385) ##########################################
JOHN WILSON
16039
Tickler – What is your specific gravity, James ? You float
like a sedge.
Shepherd - Say rather a nautilus, or a mew. I'm native to
the yelement.
Tickler — Where learned you the natatory art, my dear Shep-
herd ?
Shepherd — Do you mean soomin'? In St. Mary's Loch. For
a haill simmer I kept plouterin' alang the shore, and pittin' ae
fit to the grun', knockin' the skin aff my knees, and makin' nae
progress, till ae day, the gravel haein' been loosened by a flood,
I plowpt in ower head and ears, and in my confusion turnin' my
face to the wrang airt, I swom across the loch at the widest at
ae stretch; and ever after that could hae soomed ony man in the
forest for a wager, except Mr. David Ballantyne, that noo leeves
ower-by yonner, near the Hermitage Castle.
Tickler - Now, James, you are, to use the language of Spenser,
the Shepherd of the Sea.
Shepherd - Oh that I had been a sailor! To hae circumnavi-
gated the warld! To hae pitched our tents, or built our bowers,
on the shores o' bays sae glitterin' wi' league-lang wreaths o'
shells, that the billows blushed crimson as they murmured! Το
hae seen our flags burnin' meteor-like, high up amang the pri-
meval woods, while birds bright as ony buntin' sat trimmin'
their plummage amang the cordage, sae tame in that island, where
ship had haply never touched afore, nor ever might touch again,-
lying in a latitude by itsel', and far out o' the breath o' the
tredd-wunds! Or to hae landed wi' a' the crew, marines and a',
excep' a guard on shipboard to keep aff the crowd o' canoes, on
some warlike isle, tossin' wi’ the plumes on chieftains' heads, and
soun’-soun’-soundin' wi' gongs! What's a man-o'-war's barge, Mr.
Tickler, beautifu' sicht though it be, to the hundred-oared canoe
o some savage island-king! The king himsel lying in state –
no dead, but leevin', every inch o' him — on a platform, aboon a'
his warriors standin' wi' war-clubs, and stane hatchets, and fish-
bane spears, and twisted mats, and tattooed faces, and ornaments
in their noses, and painted een, and feathers on their heads a
yard heigh, a' silent, or burstin' out o' a sudden intil shootin' sangs
o'welcome or defiance, in a language made up o' a few lang
strang words — maistly gutturals — and gran' for the naked priests
—
to yell intil the ears o' their victims, when about to cut their
throats on the altar-stane that idolatry had incrusted with blood,
## p. 16040 (#386) ##########################################
16040
JOHN WILSON
shed by stormy moonlicht to glut the maw of their sanguinary
god. Or say rather — oh, rather say that the white-winged Won-
der that has brought the strangers frae afar, frae lands beyond
the setting sun, has been hailed with hymns and dances o' peace
- and that a' the daughters o' the isle, wi' the daughter o' the
king at their head, come a' gracefully windin' alang in a figure
that, wi' a thousan' changes, is aye but ae single dance, wi' un-
sandaled feet true to their ain wild singin', wi' wings fancifully
fastened to their shouthers, and, beautifu' creturs! a' naked to the
waist — But where the Deevil's Mr. Tickler ? Has he sunk dur-
in' my soliloquy? or swum to shore? Mr. Tickler — Mr. Tickler!
-- I wush I had a pistol to fire into the air, that he might be
brought to. - Yonner he is, playin' at porpuss. Let me try if I
can reach him in twenty strokes; it's no aboon hunder yards.
Five yards a stroke no bad soomin' in dead water. -— There,
I've done it in nineteen. Let me on my back for a rest.
Tickler I am not sure that this confounded cramp-
Shepherd— The cramp's just like the hiccup, sir — never think
o't, and it's gane.
I've seen a white lace veil, sic as Queen
Mary's drawn in, lyin' afloat, without stirrin' aboon her snawy
broo, saftenin' the ee-licht — and it's yon braided clouds that re-
mind me o't, motionless, as if they had lain ther a' their lives;
yet wae's me! perhaps in ae single hour to melt away for ever!
Tickler — James, were a mermaid to see and hear you moral-
izing so, afloat on your back, her heart were lost.
Shepherd — I'm nae favorite noo, I suspeck, amang the mer-
maids.
Tickler - Why not, James? You look more irresistible than
you imagine. Never saw I your face and figure to more advan-
tage when lying on the braes o'Yarrow, with your eyes closed
in the sunshine, and the shadows of poetical dreams chasing each
other along cheek and brow. You would make a beautiful corpse,
James.
Shepherd — Think shame o' yoursel, Mr. Tickler, for daurin' to
use that word, and the sinnies o’ the cauf o' your richt leg yet
knotted wi' the cramp. Think shame o' yoursel'! That word's
no canny.
Tickler -- But what ails the mermaids with the Shepherd ?
Shepherd — I was ance lyin' half asleep in a sea-shore cave o'
the Isle o' Skye, wearied out by the verra beauty o' the moon-
licht that had keepit lyin' for hours in ae lang line o' harmless
## p. 16041 (#387) ##########################################
JOHN WILSON
16041
fire, stretchin' leagues and leagues to the rim o' the ocean. Nae
sound, but a bit faint, dim plash — plash - plash o' the tide -
whether ebbin' or flawin' I ken not — no against, but upon the
weedy sides o' the cave-
Tickler -
“As when some shepherd of the Hebride Isles,
Placed far amid the melancholy main –»
Shepherd — That soun's like Thamson in his Castle o' Indo-
lence. ' A' the haill warld was forgotten – and my ain name
and what I was — and where I had come frae and why I was
lyin' there— nor was I onything but a Leevin' Dream.
Tickler - Are you to windward or leeward, James ?
-
Shepherd - Something like a caulder breath o' moonlicht-
fell on my face and breast, and seemed to touch all my body and
my limbs. But it canna be mere moonlicht, thocht I, for at the
time there was the whisperin'— or say rather the waverin'-o'
the voice, no alang the green cave wa's, but close intil my ear,
and then within my verra breast; sae, at first — for the soun'
was saft and sweet, and wi' a touch o'plaintive wildness in 't
no unlike the strain o' an Æolian harp— I was rather surprised
than feared, and maist thocht that it was but the wark o' my ain
fancy, afore she yielded to the dwawm o' that solitary sleep.
Tickler - James, I hear the steamer.
Shepherd— I opened my een, that had only been half steekit -
and may we never reach the shore again, if there was not I, sir,
in the embrace o' a mermaid !
Tickler — James— remember we are well out to Inchkeith. If
you please, no-
Shepherd — I would scorn to be drooned with a lee in my
mouth, sir. It is quite true that the hair o' the cretur is green
- and it's as slimy as it's green — slimy and sliddery as the sea-
weed that cheats your unsteady footing on the rocks. Then what
een! oh, what een! Like the boiled een o' a cod's head and
shouthers! And yet expression in them — an expression o' love
and fondness, that would hae garred an Eskimaw scunner.
Tickler — James, you are surely romancing.
Shepherd-0 dear, dear me! - hech, sirs! hech, sirs! - the
—
—
fishiness o' that kiss! I had hung up my claes to dry on a
peak o' the cliff — for it was ane o' thae lang midsummer nichts,
a
## p. 16042 (#388) ##########################################
16042
JOHN WILSON
when the sea-air itself fans ye wi' as warm a sugh as that
frae a leddy's fan when you're sittin' side by side wi' her in an
arbor -
Tickler — O James, you fox —
Shepherd — Sae that I was as naked as either you or me, Mr.
Tickler, at this blessed moment; and when I felt mysel' enveloped
in the hauns, paws, fins, scales, tail, and maw o' the mermaid o'
a monster, I grued till the verra roof o' the cave let doun drap,
drap, drap upon us - me and the mermaid -- and I gied mysel' up
—
for lost.
Tickler — Worse than Venus and Adonis, my dear Shepherd.
Shepherd — I began mutterin' the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed,
and the hundred and nineteenth Psalm — but a' wudna do. The
mermaid held the grup; and while I was splutterin' out her kisses,
and convulsed waur than I ever was under the warst nichtmare
that ever sat on my stamach, wi' ae desperate wallop we baith
gaed tapsalteerie - frae ae sliddery ledge to anither - till, wi'
accelerated velocity, like twa stanes, increasin' accordin' to the
squares o' the distances, we played plunge like porpusses into
the sea, a thousan' fadom deep- and hoo I gat rid o' the briny
Beastliness nae man kens till this day: for there was I sittin'
in the cave, chitterin' like a drookit cock, and nae mermaid to be
seen or heard; although, wad ye believe me, the cave had the
smell o' crabs, and labsters, and oysters, and skate, and fish in
general, aneuch to turn the stamach o' a whale or a sea-lion.
Tickler — Ship ahoy! Let us change our position, James.
Shall we board the steamer ?
Shepherd-Only look at the waves, --- hoo they gang welterin'
frae 'her prow and sides, and widen in her wake for miles aff!
Gin venture ony nearer, we'll
wear breeks mair.
Mercy on us! she's bearin' doun upon us. Let us soom fast, and
passing across her bows, we shall bear up to windward out o' a'
the commotion. — Captain Bain! Captain Bain! it's me and Mr.
Tickler, takin' a soom for an appeteet ! — stop the ingine till we
get past the bowsprit!
Tickler — Heavens, James, what a bevy of ladies on deck!
Let us dive.
Shepherd – You may dive — for you swim improperly high;
but as for me, I seem in the water to be a mere Head, like a
cherub on a church. A boat, captain - a boat!
we
never
## p. 16043 (#389) ##########################################
JOHN WILSON
16043
Tickler – James, you aren't mad, sure? Who ever boarded a
steamer in our plight? There will be fainting from stem to
stern, in cabin and steerage.
Shepherd - I ken that leddy in the straw-bannet and green
veil and ruby sarsnet, wi' the glass at her ee.
Ye ho— Miss-
Tickler — James, remember how exceedingly delicate a thing
is a young lady's reputation. See, she turns away in confus-
ion.
Shepherd — Captain, I say, what news frae London ?
Captain Bain [through a speaking-trumpet) - Lord Welling-
ton's amendment on the bonding clause in the Corn Bill again
carried against Ministers by 133 to 122. Sixty-six shillings!
Tickler — What says your friend M'Culloch to that, captain ?
Shepherd — Wha cares a bodle about corn bills in our situa-
tion ? What's the captain routin' about noo o' his speakin'-
trumpet ? But he may just as weel haud his tongue, for I never
understand ae word out o' the mouth o' a trumpet.
Tickler – He says the general opinion in London is that the
Administration will stand - that Canning and Brougham -
Shepherd— Canning and Brougham, indeed! Do you think,
sir, if Canning and Brougham had been soomin' in the sea, and
that Canning had ta’en the cramp in the cauf o' his richt leg,-
as you either did, or said you did, a short while sin' syne, -
that Brougham wad hae safed him as I safed you? Faith, no he
indeed! Hairy wad hae thocht naething o' watchin' till George
showed the croon o' his head aboon water, and then hittin' him
on the temples.
Tickler — No, no, James. They would mutually risk lives for
each other's sake. But no politics at present: we're getting into
the swell, and will have our work to do to beat back into smooth
water. James, that was a facer.
Shepherd — Dog on it, ane wad need to be a sea-maw, or kitty.
wake, or stormy petrel, or some ither ane o' Bewick's birds -
Tickler - Keep your mouth shut, James, till we're out of the
swell.
Sepherd-Em-hem-umph – humph-whoo-whoo-whurr-
whurr - herrachvacherach!
Tickler — Whsy – whsy – whsy — whugh — whugh — shugh -
-
–
shugh-prugh-ptsugh — prgugh!
Shepherd — It's lang sin' I've drank sae muckle saut water
at ae sittin'— at ae soomin', I mean as I hae dune, sir, sin'
## p. 16044 (#390) ##########################################
16044
JOHN WILSON
that steamboat gaed by. She does indeed kick up a deevil o' a
rumpus.
Tickler – Whoo - whoo — whoof -- whro0 — whroo — whroof —
proof — ptroof — sprtf!
Shepherd - Ae thing I maun tell you, sir, and that's, gin you
tak the cramp the noo, you maunna expeck ony assistance frae
me — no, gin you were my ain faither. This bates a' the swalls!
Confoun' the James Watt, quoth I.
Tickler-Nay, nay, James. She is worthy of her name
and a better seaman than Captain Bain never boxed the compass.
He never comes below except at meal-times, and a pleasanter
person cannot be at the foot of the table. All night long he is
on deck looking out for squalls.
Shepherd — I declare to you, sir, that just noo in the trough
o the sea, I didna see the top o' the steamer's chimley. See,
Mr. Tickler - see, Mr. Tickler - only look here - only look here -
HERE'S BRONTE! - Mr. North's GREAT NEWFUNLAN' BRONTE!
Tickler — Capital — capital. He has been paying his father a
visit at the gallant Admiral's, and come across our steps on the
sands.
Shepherd — Puir fallow - gran' fallow — did ye think we
droonin'?
Bronte Bow – bow — bow — bow, wow, wow – bow, wow,
WOW.
Tickler His oratory is like that of Bristol Hunt versus Sir
Thomas Lethbridge.
Shepherd — Sir, you're tired, sir. You had better tak haud o'
his tail.
Tickler - No bad idea, James. But let me just put one arm
round his neck. There we go. Bronte, my boy, you swim strong
as a rhinoceros!
Bronte Bow, wow, wow
bow, wow,
wow.
Tickler — Why, I think, James, he speaks uncommonly well.
Few of our Scotch members speak better. He might lead the
Opposition.
Shepherd — What for will ye aye be introducin' politics, sir ?
But really, I hae fund his tail very useful in that swall; and let's
leave him to himsel' noo, for twa men on ae dowg's a sair doun-
draucht.
Tickler — With what a bold, kind eye the noble animal keeps
swimming between us, like a Christian!
was
## p. 16045 (#391) ##########################################
JOHN WILSON
16045
.
Shepherd — I hae never been able to persuade my heart and
my understandin' that dowgs haena immortal sowls. See how he
steers himsel', — first a wee towarts me, and then a wee towarts
you, wi' his tail like a rudder. His sowl maun be immortal.
Tickler -- I am sure, James, that if it be, I shall be extremely
happy to meet Bronte in any future society.
Shepherd — The minister wad ca’ that no orthodox. But the
mystery o’life canna gang out like the pluff o' a cawnle. · Per-
haps the verra bit bonny glitterin' insecks that we ca' ephemeral,
because they dance out but ae single day, never dee, but keep for
ever and aye openin' and shuttin' their wings in mony million
atmospheres, and may do sae through a' eternity. The universe
is aiblins wide aneuch.
Tickler - Eyes right! James, a boatful of ladies — with um-
brellas and parasols extended to catch the breeze. Let us lie on
our oars, and they will never observe us.
Bronte — Bow, wow, wow — bow, wow, wow.
(Female alarms heard from the pleasure-boat. A gentleman in the stern
rises with an oar, and stands in a threatening attitude. ]
Tickler - Ease off to the east, James -- Bronte, hush!
Shepherd --I howp they've nae fooling-pieces, for they may
tak us for gulls, and pepper us wi' swan-shot or slugs. I'll dive
at the flash. Yon's no a gun that chiel has in his haun?
Tickler — He lets fall his oar into the water, and the “boatie
- the boatie rows. ” Hark, a song!
rows
(Song from the retiring boat. ]
Shepherd – A very gude sang, and very well sung — jolly com-
panions every one.
Tickler - The fair authors of the Odd Volume'!
Shepherd — What's their names ?
Tickler — They choose to be anonymous, James; and that be-
ing the case, no gentleman is entitled to withdraw the veil.
Shepherd — They're sweet singers, howsomever; and the words
o their sang are capital. Baith Odd Volumes are maist ingen-
ious, well written, and amusing.
Tickler — The public thinks so; and they sell like wildfire.
Shepherd - I'm beginning to get maist desparat thursty and
hungry baith. What a denner wull we make! How mony miles
do you think we hae swom ?
## p. 16046 (#392) ##########################################
16046
JOHN WILSON
((
Tickler — Three — in, or over. Let me sound. Why, James,
my toe scrapes the sand. By the nail, six ! »
. "
Shepherd — I'm glad o't. It 'ill be a bonny bizziness, gif ony
ne'er-do-weels hae ran aff wi' our claes out o' the machines. But
gif they hae, Bronte 'ill sune grup them wunna ye, Bronte ?
Bronte — Bow, wow, wow — bow, wow, wow.
Shepherd - Now, Tickler, that our feet touch the grun', I'll rin
you 'a race to the machines for anither jug.
Tickler - Done — but let us have a fair start. Once, twice,
thrice!
[ Tickler and the Shepherd start, with Bronte in the van, amid loud accla-
mations from the shore. -- Scene closes. ]
## p. 16047 (#393) ##########################################
16047
WOODROW WILSON
(1856–)
MONG the younger American writers on historical and politi-
cal subjects, Woodrow Wilson is conspicuous for his literary
touch, suggestive thought, and thorough knowledge. His
studies of contemporary politics and institutions have won wide atten-
tion for their thoughtful and searching analysis, presented in a style
of exceptional attraction, and inspired by a sincere desire to inter-
pret and promote the good in American methods. His more general
essays upon topics historical or literary
have, by their decided charm, made Pro-
fessor Wilson known to a far larger audi-
ence than a professional teacher or writer
upon such themes usually reaches.
Woodrow Wilson is one of the brilliant
scholars whose training has been broad and
sufficient. He is a Southerner; was born in
Staunton, Virginia, on October 28th, 1856,
and educated first at Davidson College,
North Carolina, and then at Princeton,
whence he was graduated in 1879. He
studied law at the University of Virginia;
practiced it in Atlanta, Georgia; then went WOODROW WILSON
to Johns Hopkins University to study his-
tory and political economy, holding a fellowship there. He has occu-
pied the chair of History at Bryn Mawr and Wesleyan University
successively, and since 1890 that of Jurisprudence at Princeton. He
received in 1887 the appointment of lecturer upon that subject at
Johns Hopkins University. His publications began in 1885 with
Congressional Government,' his doctor's thesis at Johns Hopkins; a
study in American politics, which, while criticized by some parlia-
mentarians, attracted attention at home and abroad for its brilliancy
of presentation and freshness and independence of view. In 1889
appeared 'The State, an able text-book on comparative institutional
history and administration. For the series called 'Epochs of Ameri-
can History, he wrote a book on Division and Reunion (1893), in
which the disintegrating influences of the Civil War and the subse-
quent process of recovery are traced. From 1893 also dates An Old
## p. 16048 (#394) ##########################################
16048
WOODROW WILSON
Master, and Other Political Essays, containing a delightful apprecia-
tion of Adam Smith, and further papers developing the author's views
upon political principles and forms. The volume Mere Literature )
(1896) displayed his ability as an essayist in the wider sense, upon
themes calling for a synthetic literary handling. An admirable sketch
of George Washington, clearly and sympathetically delineating his
characteristics on the social and domestic side, appeared in 1897.
In the present tendency to adopt the scientific method in writing
on politics and history, and to deify the accumulation and parade
of material, scholars of Professor Wilson's type are needed and wel.
He not only insists in his writings upon the necessity and
value of the literary method in such studies (see the excerpt below),
but in his own person illustrates his meaning. He is a student who
makes past and present vivid by his interpretation of the raw stuff
of facts and records.
come.
THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER
From Mere Literature, and Other Essays. Copyright 1896, by Woodrow Wil-
son. Reprinted by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers
(
"G
IVE us the facts, and nothing but the facts,” is the sharp
injunction of our age to its historians. Upon the face
of it, an eminently reasonable requirement. To tell the
truth simply, openly, without reservation, is the unimpeachable
first principle of all right dealing; and historians have no license
to be quit of it. Unquestionably they must tell us the truth,
or else get themselves enrolled among a very undesirable class
of persons, not often frankly named in polite society. But the
thing is by no means so easy as it looks. The truth of history
is a very complex and very occult matter. It consists of things
which are invisible as well as of things which are visible. It is
full of secret motives, and of a chance interplay of trivial and yet
determining circumstances; it is shot through with transient pas-
sions, and broken athwart here and there by what seem cruel
accidents; it cannot all be reduced to statistics or newspaper items
or official recorded statements. And so it turns out,
when the
actual test of experiment is made, that the historian must have
something more than a good conscience, must be something more
than a good man. He must have an eye to see the truth: and
nothing but a very catholic imagination will serve to illuminate
## p. 16049 (#395) ##########################################
WOODROW WILSON
16049
his matter for him; nothing less than keen and steady insight will
make even illumination yield him the truth of what he looks upon.
Even when he has seen the truth, only half his work is done,
and that not the more difficult half. He must then make others
see it just as he does: only when he has done that has he told
the truth. What an art of penetrative phrase and just selection
must he have to take others into the light in which he stands!
Their dullness, their ignorance, their prepossessions, are to be
overcome and driven in, like a routed troop, upon the truth.
The thing is infinitely difficult. The skill and strategy of it can-
not be taught. And so historians take another way, which is
easier: they tell part of the truth, — the part most to their taste,
or most suitable to their talents,- and obtain readers to their
liking among those of similar tastes and talents to their own.
We have our individual preferences in history, as in every
other sort of literature. And there are histories to every taste:
histories full of the piquant details of personal biography, his-
tories that blaze with the splendors of courts and resound with
drum and trumpet, and histories that run upon the humbler but
greater levels of the life of the people; colorless histories, so
passionless and so lacking in distinctive mark or motive that they
might have been set up out of a dictionary without the interven-
tion of an author, and partisan histories, so warped and violent
in every judgment that no reader not of the historian's own
party can stomach them; histories of economic development, and
histories that speak only of politics; those that tell nothing but
what it is pleasant and interesting to know, and those that tell
nothing at all that one cares to remember. One must be of a
new and unheard-of taste not to be suited among them all.
The trouble is, after all, that men do not invariably find the
truth to their taste, and will often deny it when they hear it;
and the historian has to do much more than keep his own eyes
clear,— he has also to catch and hold the eye of his reader. 'Tis
a nice art, as much intellectual as moral. How shall he take the
palate of his reader at unawares, and get the unpalatable facts
down his throat along with the palatable ? Is there no way in
which all the truth may be made to hold together in a narrative
so strongly knit and so harmoniously colored that no reader will
have either the wish or the skill to tear its patterns asunder,
and men will take it all, unmarred and as it stands, rather than
miss the zest of it ?
XXVII-1004
## p. 16050 (#396) ##########################################
16050
WOODROW WILSON
>>
It is evident the thing cannot be done by the “dispassionate
annalist. The old chroniclers, whom we relish, were not dispas-
sionate. We love some of them for their sweet quaintness, some
for their childlike credulity, some for their delicious inconse-
quentiality. But our modern chroniclers are not so. They are,
above all things else, knowing, thoroughly informed, subtly so-
phisticated. They would not for the world contribute any spice
of their own to the narrative; and they are much too watchful,
circumspect, and dutiful in their care to keep their method pure
and untouched by any thought of theirs, to let us catch so much
as a glimpse of the chronicler underneath the chronicle. Their
purpose is to give simply the facts, eschewing art, and substitut-
ing a sort of monumental index and table of the world's events.
The trouble is that men refuse to be made any wiser by such
means. Though they will readily enough let their eyes linger
upon a monument of art, they will heedlessly pass by a mere
monument of industry. It suggests nothing to them.
The ma-
terials may be suitable enough, but the handling of them leaves
them dead and commonplace. An interesting circumstance thus
comes to light. It is nothing less than this, — that the facts do
not of themselves constitute the truth. The truth is abstract,
not concrete. It is the just idea, the right revelation of what
things mean. It is evoked only by such arrangements and or-
derings of facts as suggest interpretations. The chronological
arrangement of events, for example, may or may not be the
arrangement which most surely brings the truth of the narrative
to light; and the best arrangement is always that which displays,
not the facts themselves, but the subtle and else invisible forces
that lurk in the events and in the minds of men,- forces for
which events serve only as lasting and dramatic words of utter-
ance. Take an instance. How are you to enable men to know
the truth with regard to a period of revolution ? Will you give
them simply a calm statement of recorded events, simply a quiet,
unaccentuated narrative of what actually happened, written in a
monotone, and verified by quotations from authentic documents
of the time ? You may save yourself the trouble. As well make
a pencil sketch in outline of a raging conflagration; write upon
one portion of it flame," upon another smoke”; here “town
hall, where the fire started,” and there "spot where fireman was
killed. ” It is a chart, not a picture. Even if you made a veri-
table picture of it, you could give only part of the truth so long
## p. 16051 (#397) ##########################################
WOODROW WILSON
16051
as you confined yourself to black and white. Where would be
all the wild and terrible colors of the scene: the red and tawny
flame; the masses of smoke, carrying the dull glare of the fire
to the very skies, like a great signal banner thrown to the
winds; the hot and frightened faces of the crowd; the crimsoned
gables down the street, with the faint light of a lamp here and
there gleaming white from some hastily opened casement ? With-
out the colors your picture is not true. No inventory of items
will ever represent the truth: the fuller and more minute you
make your inventory, the more will the truth be obscured. The
little details will take up as much space in the statement as the
great totals into which they are summed up; and the proportions
being false, the whole is false. Truth, fortunately, takes its own
revenge.
No one is deceived. The reader of the chronicle lays
it aside. It lacks verisimilitude. He cannot realize how any of
the things spoken of can have happened. He goes elsewhere to
find, if he may, a real picture of the time, and perhaps finds one
that is wholly fictitious. No wonder the grave and monk-like
chronicler sighs. He of course wrote to be read, and not merely
for the manual exercise of it; and when he sees readers turn
away, his heart misgives him for his fellow-men. Is it as it
always was, that they do not wish to know the truth? Alas!
good eremite, men do not seek the truth as they should; but do
you know what the truth is ? It is a thing ideal, displayed by
the just proportion of events, revealed in form and color, dumb
till facts be set in syllables, articulated into words, put together
into sentences, swung with proper tone and cadence. It is not
revolutions only that have color. Nothing in human life is with-
out it.
In a monochrome you can depict nothing but a single
incident; in a monotone you cannot often carry truth beyond a
single sentence. Only by art in all its variety can you depict as
it is the various face of life.
Yes; but what sort of art ? There is here a wide field of
choice. Shall we go back to the art of which Macaulay was so
great a master ?
sax
seven
-
a
Shepherd — Ane twa three four - five -
aught- But there's nae need o' coontin', for nae pearl diver
in the Straits o' Madagascar, or aff the coast o' Coromandel, can
haud in his breath like Tickler. Weel, that's surprisin'. Yon
chaise has gane about half a mile o' gate towards Portybelly sin'
he gaed fizzin' out ower the lugs like a verra rocket. Safe us!
what's this gruppin' me by the legs ? A sherk—a sherk
sherk!
Tickler (yellowing to the surface] - Blabla — blabla — bla —
Shepherd — He's keept soomin'aneath the water till he's sick;
but every man for himsel', and God for us a'— I'm aff.
[Shepherd stretches away to sea in the direction of Inchkeith, Tickler in
pursuit. ]
Tickler -- Every sinew, my dear James, like so much whip-
cord. I swim like a salmon.
Shepherd-O sir! that Lord Byron had but been alive the
noo, what a sweepstakes!
Tickler - A Liverpool gentleman has undertaken, James, to
swim four-and-twenty miles at a stretch. What are the odds ?
Shepherd — Three to one on Saturn and Neptune. He'll get
numm.
Tickler -- James, I had no idea you were so rough on the
back. You are a perfect otter.
Shepherd — Nae personality, Mr. Tickler, out at sea.
I'll com-
pare carcases wi' you ony day o' the year. Yet you're a gran'
soomer — out o' the water at every stroke, neck, breast, shou-
thers, and half-way doun the back — after the fashion o' the great
- o
## p. 16036 (#382) ##########################################
16036
JOHN WILSON
American serpent. As for me, my style o' soomin's less showy
— laigh and lown — less hurry, but mair speed.
—
Come sir, l'11
dive you for a jug o' toddy.
[Tickler and Shepherd melt away like foam-bells in the sunshine. ]
Shepherd — Mr. Tickler!
Tickler – James!
Shepherd - It's a drawn bate - sae we'll baith pay. O sir!
isna Embro' a glorious city ? Sae clear the air! Yonner you see
a man and a woman stannin' on the tap o' Arthur's Seat! I had
nae notion there were sae mony steeples, and spires, and col-
umns, and pillars, and obelisks, and domes in Embro'! And at
this distance the ee canna distinguish atween them that belangs
to kirks, and them that belangs to naval monuments, and them
that belangs to ile-gas companies, and them that's only chimney-
heids in the auld toun, and the taps o' groves, or single trees, sic
as poplars; and aboon a' and ahint a', craigs and saft-broo'd hills
sprinkled wi' sheep, lichts and shadows, and the blue vapory glim-
mer o' a mid-summer day — het, het, het, wi' the barometer at
ninety: but here, to us twa, bob-bobbin' amang the fresh, cool,
murmurin', and faemy wee waves, temperate as the air within
the mermaid's palace. Anither dive!
Tickler — James, here goes the Fly-Wheel.
Shepherd - That beats a'!
He gangs round in the water like
a jack roastin' beef. I'm thinkin' he canna stop himsel. Safe us!
he's fun' out the perpetual motion.
Tickler — What fish, James, would you incline to be, if put into
-
scales ?
Shepherd — A dolphin — for they hae the speed o' lichtnin'.
They'll dart past and roun' about a ship in full sail before the
wind, just as if she was at anchor. Then the dolphin is a fish o'
peace — he saved the life o' a poet of auld, Arion, wi' his harp -
and oh! they say the cretur's beautifu' in death: Byron, ye ken,
comparin' his hues to those o' the sun settin' ahint the Grecian
Isles. I sud like to be a dolphin.
Tickler — I should choose to sport shark for a season. In
speed he is a match for the dolphin; and then, James, think what
luxury to swallow a well-fed chaplain, or a delicate midshipman,
or a young negro girl, occasionally -
Shepherd -- And feenally to be grupped wi' a hyuck in a
cocked hat and feather,- at which the shark rises as a trout
## p. 16037 (#383) ##########################################
JOHN WILSON
16037
-
does at a flee, - hauled on board, and hacked to pieces wi' cut-
lasses and pikes by the jolly crew, or left alive on the deck, gut-
ted as clean as a dice-box, and without an inch o’ bowels.
Tickler - Men die at shore, James, of natural deaths as bad as
that —
Shepherd — Let me see — I sud hae nae great objections to be
a whale in the Polar Seas. Gran' fun to fling a boatfu' o' har-
pooners into the air; or wi' ae thud o' your tail, to drive in the
stern-posts o' a Greenlandman.
Tickler — Grander fun still, James, to feel the inextricable
harpoon in your blubber, and to go snoving away beneath an
ice-floe with four mile of line connecting you with your distant
enemies.
Shepherd — But then whales marry but ae wife, and are pas-
sionately attached to their offspring. There, they and I are con-
genial speerits. Nae fish that swims enjoys so large a share of
domestic happiness.
Tickler - A whale, James, is not a fish.
Shepherd — Isna he? Let him alane for that. He's ca'd a fish
in the Bible, and that's better authority than Buffon. Oh that I
were a whale!
Tickler — What think you of a summer of the American sea-
serpent ?
Shepherd - What! To be constantly cruised upon by the haill
American navy, military and mercantile ? No to be able to show
your back aboon water without being libeled by the Yankees in
a' the newspapers, and pursued even by pleasure parties, playin'
the hurdy-gurdy and smokin' cigars! Besides, although I hae
nae objection to a certain degree o' singularity, I sudna just like
to be so very singular as the American sea-serpent, who is the
only ane o' his specie noo extant; and whether he dees in his
bed, or is slain by Jonathan, must incur the pain and the oppro-
brium o' defunckin' an auld bachelor. What's the matter wi' you,
Mr. Tickler?
[Dives. ]
Tickler — The calf of my right leg is rather harder than is
altogether pleasant, - a pretty business if it prove the cramp; and
the cramp it is, sure enough. -Hallo - James - James - James-
hallo — I'm seized with the cramp! — James— the sinews of the
## p. 16038 (#384) ##########################################
16038
JOHN WILSON
calf of my right leg are gathered up into a knot about the bulk
and consistency of a sledge-hammer -
Shepherd — Nae tricks upon travelers. You've nae cramp.
Gin you hae, streek out your richt hind leg, like a horse geein a
funk,- and then ower on the back o'ye, and keep floatin' for a
space, and your calf'll be as saft's a cushion. Lord safe us!
what's this? Deevil tak me if he's no droonin'. Mr. Tickler, are
you droonin'? There he's doun ance, and up again — twice, and
up again; but it's time to tak haud o' him by the hair o' the
head, or he'll be doun amang the limpets!
[Shepherd seizes Tickler by the locks. ]
-
Tickler - Oho - oho- oho — ho-ho-ho- hra - hra - hrach
- hrach.
Shepherd — What language is that? Finnish ? Noo, sir, dinna
rug me doun to the bottom alang wi’ you in the dead-thraws.
Tickler — Heaven reward you, James : the pain is gone — but
keep near me.
Shepherd — Whammle yoursel ower on your back, sir. That
’ill do. Hoo are you now, sir ? Yonner's the James Watt steam-
boat, Captain Bain, within half a league. Lean on my airm,
sir, till he comes alangside, and it 'll be a real happiness to the
captain to save your life. But what 'ill a' the leddies do whan
they're hoistin' us aboard ? They maun just use their fans.
Tickler — My dear Shepherd, I am again floating like a turtle,
but keep within hail, James. Are you to windward or lee-
ward ?
Shepherd – Right astarn. Did you ever see, sir, in a' your
born days, sic a sky ? Ane can scarcely say he sees 't, for
it's maist invisible in its blue beautifu' tenuity, as the waters o'
a well! It's just like the ee o' a lassie I kent lang ago: the
langer you gazed intil 't, the deep, deep, deeper it grew — the
cawmer and the mair cawm composed o' a smile, as an ame-
thyst is composed o' licht - and seeming something impalpable to
the touch, till you ventured, wi' fear, joy, and tremmlin', to kiss
it — just ae hesitatin', pantin', reverential kiss — and then, to be
sure, your verra sowl kent it to be a bonny blue ee, covered wi'
a lid o' dark fringes, and drappin' aiblins a bit frichtened tear to
the lip o' love.
## p. 16039 (#385) ##########################################
JOHN WILSON
16039
Tickler – What is your specific gravity, James ? You float
like a sedge.
Shepherd - Say rather a nautilus, or a mew. I'm native to
the yelement.
Tickler — Where learned you the natatory art, my dear Shep-
herd ?
Shepherd — Do you mean soomin'? In St. Mary's Loch. For
a haill simmer I kept plouterin' alang the shore, and pittin' ae
fit to the grun', knockin' the skin aff my knees, and makin' nae
progress, till ae day, the gravel haein' been loosened by a flood,
I plowpt in ower head and ears, and in my confusion turnin' my
face to the wrang airt, I swom across the loch at the widest at
ae stretch; and ever after that could hae soomed ony man in the
forest for a wager, except Mr. David Ballantyne, that noo leeves
ower-by yonner, near the Hermitage Castle.
Tickler - Now, James, you are, to use the language of Spenser,
the Shepherd of the Sea.
Shepherd - Oh that I had been a sailor! To hae circumnavi-
gated the warld! To hae pitched our tents, or built our bowers,
on the shores o' bays sae glitterin' wi' league-lang wreaths o'
shells, that the billows blushed crimson as they murmured! Το
hae seen our flags burnin' meteor-like, high up amang the pri-
meval woods, while birds bright as ony buntin' sat trimmin'
their plummage amang the cordage, sae tame in that island, where
ship had haply never touched afore, nor ever might touch again,-
lying in a latitude by itsel', and far out o' the breath o' the
tredd-wunds! Or to hae landed wi' a' the crew, marines and a',
excep' a guard on shipboard to keep aff the crowd o' canoes, on
some warlike isle, tossin' wi’ the plumes on chieftains' heads, and
soun’-soun’-soundin' wi' gongs! What's a man-o'-war's barge, Mr.
Tickler, beautifu' sicht though it be, to the hundred-oared canoe
o some savage island-king! The king himsel lying in state –
no dead, but leevin', every inch o' him — on a platform, aboon a'
his warriors standin' wi' war-clubs, and stane hatchets, and fish-
bane spears, and twisted mats, and tattooed faces, and ornaments
in their noses, and painted een, and feathers on their heads a
yard heigh, a' silent, or burstin' out o' a sudden intil shootin' sangs
o'welcome or defiance, in a language made up o' a few lang
strang words — maistly gutturals — and gran' for the naked priests
—
to yell intil the ears o' their victims, when about to cut their
throats on the altar-stane that idolatry had incrusted with blood,
## p. 16040 (#386) ##########################################
16040
JOHN WILSON
shed by stormy moonlicht to glut the maw of their sanguinary
god. Or say rather — oh, rather say that the white-winged Won-
der that has brought the strangers frae afar, frae lands beyond
the setting sun, has been hailed with hymns and dances o' peace
- and that a' the daughters o' the isle, wi' the daughter o' the
king at their head, come a' gracefully windin' alang in a figure
that, wi' a thousan' changes, is aye but ae single dance, wi' un-
sandaled feet true to their ain wild singin', wi' wings fancifully
fastened to their shouthers, and, beautifu' creturs! a' naked to the
waist — But where the Deevil's Mr. Tickler ? Has he sunk dur-
in' my soliloquy? or swum to shore? Mr. Tickler — Mr. Tickler!
-- I wush I had a pistol to fire into the air, that he might be
brought to. - Yonner he is, playin' at porpuss. Let me try if I
can reach him in twenty strokes; it's no aboon hunder yards.
Five yards a stroke no bad soomin' in dead water. -— There,
I've done it in nineteen. Let me on my back for a rest.
Tickler I am not sure that this confounded cramp-
Shepherd— The cramp's just like the hiccup, sir — never think
o't, and it's gane.
I've seen a white lace veil, sic as Queen
Mary's drawn in, lyin' afloat, without stirrin' aboon her snawy
broo, saftenin' the ee-licht — and it's yon braided clouds that re-
mind me o't, motionless, as if they had lain ther a' their lives;
yet wae's me! perhaps in ae single hour to melt away for ever!
Tickler — James, were a mermaid to see and hear you moral-
izing so, afloat on your back, her heart were lost.
Shepherd — I'm nae favorite noo, I suspeck, amang the mer-
maids.
Tickler - Why not, James? You look more irresistible than
you imagine. Never saw I your face and figure to more advan-
tage when lying on the braes o'Yarrow, with your eyes closed
in the sunshine, and the shadows of poetical dreams chasing each
other along cheek and brow. You would make a beautiful corpse,
James.
Shepherd — Think shame o' yoursel, Mr. Tickler, for daurin' to
use that word, and the sinnies o’ the cauf o' your richt leg yet
knotted wi' the cramp. Think shame o' yoursel'! That word's
no canny.
Tickler -- But what ails the mermaids with the Shepherd ?
Shepherd — I was ance lyin' half asleep in a sea-shore cave o'
the Isle o' Skye, wearied out by the verra beauty o' the moon-
licht that had keepit lyin' for hours in ae lang line o' harmless
## p. 16041 (#387) ##########################################
JOHN WILSON
16041
fire, stretchin' leagues and leagues to the rim o' the ocean. Nae
sound, but a bit faint, dim plash — plash - plash o' the tide -
whether ebbin' or flawin' I ken not — no against, but upon the
weedy sides o' the cave-
Tickler -
“As when some shepherd of the Hebride Isles,
Placed far amid the melancholy main –»
Shepherd — That soun's like Thamson in his Castle o' Indo-
lence. ' A' the haill warld was forgotten – and my ain name
and what I was — and where I had come frae and why I was
lyin' there— nor was I onything but a Leevin' Dream.
Tickler - Are you to windward or leeward, James ?
-
Shepherd - Something like a caulder breath o' moonlicht-
fell on my face and breast, and seemed to touch all my body and
my limbs. But it canna be mere moonlicht, thocht I, for at the
time there was the whisperin'— or say rather the waverin'-o'
the voice, no alang the green cave wa's, but close intil my ear,
and then within my verra breast; sae, at first — for the soun'
was saft and sweet, and wi' a touch o'plaintive wildness in 't
no unlike the strain o' an Æolian harp— I was rather surprised
than feared, and maist thocht that it was but the wark o' my ain
fancy, afore she yielded to the dwawm o' that solitary sleep.
Tickler - James, I hear the steamer.
Shepherd— I opened my een, that had only been half steekit -
and may we never reach the shore again, if there was not I, sir,
in the embrace o' a mermaid !
Tickler — James— remember we are well out to Inchkeith. If
you please, no-
Shepherd — I would scorn to be drooned with a lee in my
mouth, sir. It is quite true that the hair o' the cretur is green
- and it's as slimy as it's green — slimy and sliddery as the sea-
weed that cheats your unsteady footing on the rocks. Then what
een! oh, what een! Like the boiled een o' a cod's head and
shouthers! And yet expression in them — an expression o' love
and fondness, that would hae garred an Eskimaw scunner.
Tickler — James, you are surely romancing.
Shepherd-0 dear, dear me! - hech, sirs! hech, sirs! - the
—
—
fishiness o' that kiss! I had hung up my claes to dry on a
peak o' the cliff — for it was ane o' thae lang midsummer nichts,
a
## p. 16042 (#388) ##########################################
16042
JOHN WILSON
when the sea-air itself fans ye wi' as warm a sugh as that
frae a leddy's fan when you're sittin' side by side wi' her in an
arbor -
Tickler — O James, you fox —
Shepherd — Sae that I was as naked as either you or me, Mr.
Tickler, at this blessed moment; and when I felt mysel' enveloped
in the hauns, paws, fins, scales, tail, and maw o' the mermaid o'
a monster, I grued till the verra roof o' the cave let doun drap,
drap, drap upon us - me and the mermaid -- and I gied mysel' up
—
for lost.
Tickler — Worse than Venus and Adonis, my dear Shepherd.
Shepherd — I began mutterin' the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed,
and the hundred and nineteenth Psalm — but a' wudna do. The
mermaid held the grup; and while I was splutterin' out her kisses,
and convulsed waur than I ever was under the warst nichtmare
that ever sat on my stamach, wi' ae desperate wallop we baith
gaed tapsalteerie - frae ae sliddery ledge to anither - till, wi'
accelerated velocity, like twa stanes, increasin' accordin' to the
squares o' the distances, we played plunge like porpusses into
the sea, a thousan' fadom deep- and hoo I gat rid o' the briny
Beastliness nae man kens till this day: for there was I sittin'
in the cave, chitterin' like a drookit cock, and nae mermaid to be
seen or heard; although, wad ye believe me, the cave had the
smell o' crabs, and labsters, and oysters, and skate, and fish in
general, aneuch to turn the stamach o' a whale or a sea-lion.
Tickler — Ship ahoy! Let us change our position, James.
Shall we board the steamer ?
Shepherd-Only look at the waves, --- hoo they gang welterin'
frae 'her prow and sides, and widen in her wake for miles aff!
Gin venture ony nearer, we'll
wear breeks mair.
Mercy on us! she's bearin' doun upon us. Let us soom fast, and
passing across her bows, we shall bear up to windward out o' a'
the commotion. — Captain Bain! Captain Bain! it's me and Mr.
Tickler, takin' a soom for an appeteet ! — stop the ingine till we
get past the bowsprit!
Tickler — Heavens, James, what a bevy of ladies on deck!
Let us dive.
Shepherd – You may dive — for you swim improperly high;
but as for me, I seem in the water to be a mere Head, like a
cherub on a church. A boat, captain - a boat!
we
never
## p. 16043 (#389) ##########################################
JOHN WILSON
16043
Tickler – James, you aren't mad, sure? Who ever boarded a
steamer in our plight? There will be fainting from stem to
stern, in cabin and steerage.
Shepherd - I ken that leddy in the straw-bannet and green
veil and ruby sarsnet, wi' the glass at her ee.
Ye ho— Miss-
Tickler — James, remember how exceedingly delicate a thing
is a young lady's reputation. See, she turns away in confus-
ion.
Shepherd — Captain, I say, what news frae London ?
Captain Bain [through a speaking-trumpet) - Lord Welling-
ton's amendment on the bonding clause in the Corn Bill again
carried against Ministers by 133 to 122. Sixty-six shillings!
Tickler — What says your friend M'Culloch to that, captain ?
Shepherd — Wha cares a bodle about corn bills in our situa-
tion ? What's the captain routin' about noo o' his speakin'-
trumpet ? But he may just as weel haud his tongue, for I never
understand ae word out o' the mouth o' a trumpet.
Tickler – He says the general opinion in London is that the
Administration will stand - that Canning and Brougham -
Shepherd— Canning and Brougham, indeed! Do you think,
sir, if Canning and Brougham had been soomin' in the sea, and
that Canning had ta’en the cramp in the cauf o' his richt leg,-
as you either did, or said you did, a short while sin' syne, -
that Brougham wad hae safed him as I safed you? Faith, no he
indeed! Hairy wad hae thocht naething o' watchin' till George
showed the croon o' his head aboon water, and then hittin' him
on the temples.
Tickler — No, no, James. They would mutually risk lives for
each other's sake. But no politics at present: we're getting into
the swell, and will have our work to do to beat back into smooth
water. James, that was a facer.
Shepherd — Dog on it, ane wad need to be a sea-maw, or kitty.
wake, or stormy petrel, or some ither ane o' Bewick's birds -
Tickler - Keep your mouth shut, James, till we're out of the
swell.
Sepherd-Em-hem-umph – humph-whoo-whoo-whurr-
whurr - herrachvacherach!
Tickler — Whsy – whsy – whsy — whugh — whugh — shugh -
-
–
shugh-prugh-ptsugh — prgugh!
Shepherd — It's lang sin' I've drank sae muckle saut water
at ae sittin'— at ae soomin', I mean as I hae dune, sir, sin'
## p. 16044 (#390) ##########################################
16044
JOHN WILSON
that steamboat gaed by. She does indeed kick up a deevil o' a
rumpus.
Tickler – Whoo - whoo — whoof -- whro0 — whroo — whroof —
proof — ptroof — sprtf!
Shepherd - Ae thing I maun tell you, sir, and that's, gin you
tak the cramp the noo, you maunna expeck ony assistance frae
me — no, gin you were my ain faither. This bates a' the swalls!
Confoun' the James Watt, quoth I.
Tickler-Nay, nay, James. She is worthy of her name
and a better seaman than Captain Bain never boxed the compass.
He never comes below except at meal-times, and a pleasanter
person cannot be at the foot of the table. All night long he is
on deck looking out for squalls.
Shepherd — I declare to you, sir, that just noo in the trough
o the sea, I didna see the top o' the steamer's chimley. See,
Mr. Tickler - see, Mr. Tickler - only look here - only look here -
HERE'S BRONTE! - Mr. North's GREAT NEWFUNLAN' BRONTE!
Tickler — Capital — capital. He has been paying his father a
visit at the gallant Admiral's, and come across our steps on the
sands.
Shepherd — Puir fallow - gran' fallow — did ye think we
droonin'?
Bronte Bow – bow — bow — bow, wow, wow – bow, wow,
WOW.
Tickler His oratory is like that of Bristol Hunt versus Sir
Thomas Lethbridge.
Shepherd — Sir, you're tired, sir. You had better tak haud o'
his tail.
Tickler - No bad idea, James. But let me just put one arm
round his neck. There we go. Bronte, my boy, you swim strong
as a rhinoceros!
Bronte Bow, wow, wow
bow, wow,
wow.
Tickler — Why, I think, James, he speaks uncommonly well.
Few of our Scotch members speak better. He might lead the
Opposition.
Shepherd — What for will ye aye be introducin' politics, sir ?
But really, I hae fund his tail very useful in that swall; and let's
leave him to himsel' noo, for twa men on ae dowg's a sair doun-
draucht.
Tickler — With what a bold, kind eye the noble animal keeps
swimming between us, like a Christian!
was
## p. 16045 (#391) ##########################################
JOHN WILSON
16045
.
Shepherd — I hae never been able to persuade my heart and
my understandin' that dowgs haena immortal sowls. See how he
steers himsel', — first a wee towarts me, and then a wee towarts
you, wi' his tail like a rudder. His sowl maun be immortal.
Tickler -- I am sure, James, that if it be, I shall be extremely
happy to meet Bronte in any future society.
Shepherd — The minister wad ca’ that no orthodox. But the
mystery o’life canna gang out like the pluff o' a cawnle. · Per-
haps the verra bit bonny glitterin' insecks that we ca' ephemeral,
because they dance out but ae single day, never dee, but keep for
ever and aye openin' and shuttin' their wings in mony million
atmospheres, and may do sae through a' eternity. The universe
is aiblins wide aneuch.
Tickler - Eyes right! James, a boatful of ladies — with um-
brellas and parasols extended to catch the breeze. Let us lie on
our oars, and they will never observe us.
Bronte — Bow, wow, wow — bow, wow, wow.
(Female alarms heard from the pleasure-boat. A gentleman in the stern
rises with an oar, and stands in a threatening attitude. ]
Tickler - Ease off to the east, James -- Bronte, hush!
Shepherd --I howp they've nae fooling-pieces, for they may
tak us for gulls, and pepper us wi' swan-shot or slugs. I'll dive
at the flash. Yon's no a gun that chiel has in his haun?
Tickler — He lets fall his oar into the water, and the “boatie
- the boatie rows. ” Hark, a song!
rows
(Song from the retiring boat. ]
Shepherd – A very gude sang, and very well sung — jolly com-
panions every one.
Tickler - The fair authors of the Odd Volume'!
Shepherd — What's their names ?
Tickler — They choose to be anonymous, James; and that be-
ing the case, no gentleman is entitled to withdraw the veil.
Shepherd — They're sweet singers, howsomever; and the words
o their sang are capital. Baith Odd Volumes are maist ingen-
ious, well written, and amusing.
Tickler — The public thinks so; and they sell like wildfire.
Shepherd - I'm beginning to get maist desparat thursty and
hungry baith. What a denner wull we make! How mony miles
do you think we hae swom ?
## p. 16046 (#392) ##########################################
16046
JOHN WILSON
((
Tickler — Three — in, or over. Let me sound. Why, James,
my toe scrapes the sand. By the nail, six ! »
. "
Shepherd — I'm glad o't. It 'ill be a bonny bizziness, gif ony
ne'er-do-weels hae ran aff wi' our claes out o' the machines. But
gif they hae, Bronte 'ill sune grup them wunna ye, Bronte ?
Bronte — Bow, wow, wow — bow, wow, wow.
Shepherd - Now, Tickler, that our feet touch the grun', I'll rin
you 'a race to the machines for anither jug.
Tickler - Done — but let us have a fair start. Once, twice,
thrice!
[ Tickler and the Shepherd start, with Bronte in the van, amid loud accla-
mations from the shore. -- Scene closes. ]
## p. 16047 (#393) ##########################################
16047
WOODROW WILSON
(1856–)
MONG the younger American writers on historical and politi-
cal subjects, Woodrow Wilson is conspicuous for his literary
touch, suggestive thought, and thorough knowledge. His
studies of contemporary politics and institutions have won wide atten-
tion for their thoughtful and searching analysis, presented in a style
of exceptional attraction, and inspired by a sincere desire to inter-
pret and promote the good in American methods. His more general
essays upon topics historical or literary
have, by their decided charm, made Pro-
fessor Wilson known to a far larger audi-
ence than a professional teacher or writer
upon such themes usually reaches.
Woodrow Wilson is one of the brilliant
scholars whose training has been broad and
sufficient. He is a Southerner; was born in
Staunton, Virginia, on October 28th, 1856,
and educated first at Davidson College,
North Carolina, and then at Princeton,
whence he was graduated in 1879. He
studied law at the University of Virginia;
practiced it in Atlanta, Georgia; then went WOODROW WILSON
to Johns Hopkins University to study his-
tory and political economy, holding a fellowship there. He has occu-
pied the chair of History at Bryn Mawr and Wesleyan University
successively, and since 1890 that of Jurisprudence at Princeton. He
received in 1887 the appointment of lecturer upon that subject at
Johns Hopkins University. His publications began in 1885 with
Congressional Government,' his doctor's thesis at Johns Hopkins; a
study in American politics, which, while criticized by some parlia-
mentarians, attracted attention at home and abroad for its brilliancy
of presentation and freshness and independence of view. In 1889
appeared 'The State, an able text-book on comparative institutional
history and administration. For the series called 'Epochs of Ameri-
can History, he wrote a book on Division and Reunion (1893), in
which the disintegrating influences of the Civil War and the subse-
quent process of recovery are traced. From 1893 also dates An Old
## p. 16048 (#394) ##########################################
16048
WOODROW WILSON
Master, and Other Political Essays, containing a delightful apprecia-
tion of Adam Smith, and further papers developing the author's views
upon political principles and forms. The volume Mere Literature )
(1896) displayed his ability as an essayist in the wider sense, upon
themes calling for a synthetic literary handling. An admirable sketch
of George Washington, clearly and sympathetically delineating his
characteristics on the social and domestic side, appeared in 1897.
In the present tendency to adopt the scientific method in writing
on politics and history, and to deify the accumulation and parade
of material, scholars of Professor Wilson's type are needed and wel.
He not only insists in his writings upon the necessity and
value of the literary method in such studies (see the excerpt below),
but in his own person illustrates his meaning. He is a student who
makes past and present vivid by his interpretation of the raw stuff
of facts and records.
come.
THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER
From Mere Literature, and Other Essays. Copyright 1896, by Woodrow Wil-
son. Reprinted by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers
(
"G
IVE us the facts, and nothing but the facts,” is the sharp
injunction of our age to its historians. Upon the face
of it, an eminently reasonable requirement. To tell the
truth simply, openly, without reservation, is the unimpeachable
first principle of all right dealing; and historians have no license
to be quit of it. Unquestionably they must tell us the truth,
or else get themselves enrolled among a very undesirable class
of persons, not often frankly named in polite society. But the
thing is by no means so easy as it looks. The truth of history
is a very complex and very occult matter. It consists of things
which are invisible as well as of things which are visible. It is
full of secret motives, and of a chance interplay of trivial and yet
determining circumstances; it is shot through with transient pas-
sions, and broken athwart here and there by what seem cruel
accidents; it cannot all be reduced to statistics or newspaper items
or official recorded statements. And so it turns out,
when the
actual test of experiment is made, that the historian must have
something more than a good conscience, must be something more
than a good man. He must have an eye to see the truth: and
nothing but a very catholic imagination will serve to illuminate
## p. 16049 (#395) ##########################################
WOODROW WILSON
16049
his matter for him; nothing less than keen and steady insight will
make even illumination yield him the truth of what he looks upon.
Even when he has seen the truth, only half his work is done,
and that not the more difficult half. He must then make others
see it just as he does: only when he has done that has he told
the truth. What an art of penetrative phrase and just selection
must he have to take others into the light in which he stands!
Their dullness, their ignorance, their prepossessions, are to be
overcome and driven in, like a routed troop, upon the truth.
The thing is infinitely difficult. The skill and strategy of it can-
not be taught. And so historians take another way, which is
easier: they tell part of the truth, — the part most to their taste,
or most suitable to their talents,- and obtain readers to their
liking among those of similar tastes and talents to their own.
We have our individual preferences in history, as in every
other sort of literature. And there are histories to every taste:
histories full of the piquant details of personal biography, his-
tories that blaze with the splendors of courts and resound with
drum and trumpet, and histories that run upon the humbler but
greater levels of the life of the people; colorless histories, so
passionless and so lacking in distinctive mark or motive that they
might have been set up out of a dictionary without the interven-
tion of an author, and partisan histories, so warped and violent
in every judgment that no reader not of the historian's own
party can stomach them; histories of economic development, and
histories that speak only of politics; those that tell nothing but
what it is pleasant and interesting to know, and those that tell
nothing at all that one cares to remember. One must be of a
new and unheard-of taste not to be suited among them all.
The trouble is, after all, that men do not invariably find the
truth to their taste, and will often deny it when they hear it;
and the historian has to do much more than keep his own eyes
clear,— he has also to catch and hold the eye of his reader. 'Tis
a nice art, as much intellectual as moral. How shall he take the
palate of his reader at unawares, and get the unpalatable facts
down his throat along with the palatable ? Is there no way in
which all the truth may be made to hold together in a narrative
so strongly knit and so harmoniously colored that no reader will
have either the wish or the skill to tear its patterns asunder,
and men will take it all, unmarred and as it stands, rather than
miss the zest of it ?
XXVII-1004
## p. 16050 (#396) ##########################################
16050
WOODROW WILSON
>>
It is evident the thing cannot be done by the “dispassionate
annalist. The old chroniclers, whom we relish, were not dispas-
sionate. We love some of them for their sweet quaintness, some
for their childlike credulity, some for their delicious inconse-
quentiality. But our modern chroniclers are not so. They are,
above all things else, knowing, thoroughly informed, subtly so-
phisticated. They would not for the world contribute any spice
of their own to the narrative; and they are much too watchful,
circumspect, and dutiful in their care to keep their method pure
and untouched by any thought of theirs, to let us catch so much
as a glimpse of the chronicler underneath the chronicle. Their
purpose is to give simply the facts, eschewing art, and substitut-
ing a sort of monumental index and table of the world's events.
The trouble is that men refuse to be made any wiser by such
means. Though they will readily enough let their eyes linger
upon a monument of art, they will heedlessly pass by a mere
monument of industry. It suggests nothing to them.
The ma-
terials may be suitable enough, but the handling of them leaves
them dead and commonplace. An interesting circumstance thus
comes to light. It is nothing less than this, — that the facts do
not of themselves constitute the truth. The truth is abstract,
not concrete. It is the just idea, the right revelation of what
things mean. It is evoked only by such arrangements and or-
derings of facts as suggest interpretations. The chronological
arrangement of events, for example, may or may not be the
arrangement which most surely brings the truth of the narrative
to light; and the best arrangement is always that which displays,
not the facts themselves, but the subtle and else invisible forces
that lurk in the events and in the minds of men,- forces for
which events serve only as lasting and dramatic words of utter-
ance. Take an instance. How are you to enable men to know
the truth with regard to a period of revolution ? Will you give
them simply a calm statement of recorded events, simply a quiet,
unaccentuated narrative of what actually happened, written in a
monotone, and verified by quotations from authentic documents
of the time ? You may save yourself the trouble. As well make
a pencil sketch in outline of a raging conflagration; write upon
one portion of it flame," upon another smoke”; here “town
hall, where the fire started,” and there "spot where fireman was
killed. ” It is a chart, not a picture. Even if you made a veri-
table picture of it, you could give only part of the truth so long
## p. 16051 (#397) ##########################################
WOODROW WILSON
16051
as you confined yourself to black and white. Where would be
all the wild and terrible colors of the scene: the red and tawny
flame; the masses of smoke, carrying the dull glare of the fire
to the very skies, like a great signal banner thrown to the
winds; the hot and frightened faces of the crowd; the crimsoned
gables down the street, with the faint light of a lamp here and
there gleaming white from some hastily opened casement ? With-
out the colors your picture is not true. No inventory of items
will ever represent the truth: the fuller and more minute you
make your inventory, the more will the truth be obscured. The
little details will take up as much space in the statement as the
great totals into which they are summed up; and the proportions
being false, the whole is false. Truth, fortunately, takes its own
revenge.
No one is deceived. The reader of the chronicle lays
it aside. It lacks verisimilitude. He cannot realize how any of
the things spoken of can have happened. He goes elsewhere to
find, if he may, a real picture of the time, and perhaps finds one
that is wholly fictitious. No wonder the grave and monk-like
chronicler sighs. He of course wrote to be read, and not merely
for the manual exercise of it; and when he sees readers turn
away, his heart misgives him for his fellow-men. Is it as it
always was, that they do not wish to know the truth? Alas!
good eremite, men do not seek the truth as they should; but do
you know what the truth is ? It is a thing ideal, displayed by
the just proportion of events, revealed in form and color, dumb
till facts be set in syllables, articulated into words, put together
into sentences, swung with proper tone and cadence. It is not
revolutions only that have color. Nothing in human life is with-
out it.
In a monochrome you can depict nothing but a single
incident; in a monotone you cannot often carry truth beyond a
single sentence. Only by art in all its variety can you depict as
it is the various face of life.
Yes; but what sort of art ? There is here a wide field of
choice. Shall we go back to the art of which Macaulay was so
great a master ?
