And even in
Koopstad
there are
nervous souls, though inartistic, in these days of ours when
Time travels only by rail.
nervous souls, though inartistic, in these days of ours when
Time travels only by rail.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v16 - Lev to Mai
Among the two or three names that were specified
in particular was that of Maarten Maartens; and this indeed is a
## p. 9360 (#380) ###########################################
9360
MAARTEN MAARTENS
verdict that can honestly be indorsed. His work is strong, virile,
reserved, dignified, and true to life; while at the same time it is
profoundly interesting, pictorial, dramatic, and with unmistakable qual-
ities of style and distinction. It is more than probable that his best
work will survive that of writers of much greater temporary vogue;
and if so, that happy result will be to the credit of the always sane,
and in the long run generally wise, judgment of the reading public
at large.
Of his first six books- 'The Sin of Joost Avelingh' (1890), ‘An
Old Maid's Love' (1891), 'A Question of Taste' (1891), God's Fool'
(1892), The Greater Glory' (1894), My Lady Nobody' (1895)- Mr.
Maarten Maartens considers the chef d'oeuvre to be God's Fool';
and "the fool of God," Elias Lossel, is his favorite character. Un-
doubtedly, however, his first book and 'The Greater Glory' are those
for which the public care most. There is one often quoted sentence
in the latter book which I may give here:-"This is a true story. It
is what they call a story of high life. It is also a story of the life
which is higher still. There be climbings which descend to depths.
of infamy; there be also-God is merciful—most infamous fallings
into heaven. "
The following extracts are as fairly representative as is possible,
both as to style and subject-matter. The reader must bear in mind
that they are excerpts, and allow for an apparent haziness in atmo-
sphere, of necessity an evasive quality when what should be given.
intact has to be presented fragmentarily. Perhaps however they may
send yet more readers to the always instructive, stimulating, and
deeply interesting romances of Maarten Maartens.
Wanane Sharpe
JOOST SURRENDERS
From The Sin of Joost Avelingh'
OOST AVELINGH went up to his wife's room.
J°
The doctor's last words had been spoken low; but Joost,
stopping for a moment in the hall to pass a hand over his
eyes and collect his bewildered thoughts, just caught them. He
stumbled up-stairs, opened the bedroom door, and walked in.
God had answered him. There lay his wife, white and mo-
tionless, with staring, meaningless eyes, under the white coverlet;
## p. 9361 (#381) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9361
unconscious, insensible.
A shaded lamp burned on a side table;
Dientje the maid rose softly from her chair near it, and came
forward. He motioned her away- towards the adjoining dressing-
room-and then sat down alone by the bed.
God had answered him. In the pride of his heart he had
sought himself an answer, and had triumphed at the thought that
it should be a pleasing one. But the very fact of his yearning
for a sign in the heavens was the surest proof that the oracle
in his own heart had spoken already. It had been speaking
through all these months, as each successive experience led him
nearer to the truth, all the shouting and din of the election had
not been able to silence its voice completely; and now, over the
tumult of this wild hour of false exultation, it shrieked aloud!
The intoxication of the moment died away from him, leaving
him the more dejected. And the hatred and contempt of him-
self which the last weeks had fostered, once more overflowed his
heart.
God had answered him. He sat staring at the senseless face
before him, and he read the answer there. He did not believe
in such connection as the doctor seemed to snatch at between
Agatha's illness and the trial. Living with her day by day, he
had seen her well and happy, triumphant even, in the recognition
of his innocence. The change had come suddenly; in the last
fortnight, perhaps. He had watched it; her mother had spoken.
of it; her brother—but he had watched it, and seen it for him-
self. It was God's reply to all his lying self-exculpation, to his
life of deceit. The curse of her race would fall surely and
swiftly upon this innocent wife of his; for so mysteriously, yet
wisely, doth God visit our sins upon our loved ones. Or, in his
mercy, he would take her to himself and leave her husband com-
fortless, him whom no comfort could advantage, and whom mis-
ery alone yet might save. But whatever the future might fashion,
it would bring them separation: Joost's heart cried out that it
must be so, and the last words the doctor had spoken were become
an irrevocable decree to him. He understood that it must be
thus. He was unworthy to live longer by the side of this woman.
whom he cheated; and whether by death to relieve her, or by
insanity to punish him, she would pass out of his existence.
She would never speak to him again. Never! In that thought
he first realized how unutterably he loved her, with a love which
had grown from a boy's rash fancy for a pretty face, through
XVI-586
―――
## p. 9362 (#382) ###########################################
9362
MAARTEN MAARTENS
trials and mutual enjoyments and deepening sympathies, into
the very essence and existence of the soul. And yet his first
yearning was not to retain her, if God bade her pass from him:
it was only that-oh, by all his unworthiness of her, by his guilt
and her gentle innocence, by his passionate love and her answer-
ing affection-by their oneness-of Thy giving, great Father-
he might obtain mercy to confess his iniquity in her sight. For
death was not death to him in that moment, nor detachment
separation. And ere she-his soul's diviner part-pass on to
fuller purity of knowledge, he would gather from her lips that
she had learned his secret on this earth, had understood it, and
forgiven him. Not, not to be left here standing with eyes
that cannot pierce the darkness, and yet with a hope that told
the loved one loved him still, and now read the soul he had so
shrewdly veiled before her, and now-mayhap—mourned for-
ever for a unity, high and holy, broken and trodden under foot.
O God, have mercy!
He sank down by the bed and buried his face in his hands.
And in the untroubled silence his heart cried aloud. It was of
God that he must obtain forgiveness in the first place, and he
knew it. But his prayers, in that turmoil of feeling, were of the
woman he loved.
-
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
From An Old Maid's Love'
IT
T WAS on a golden summer evening-a long June sunset, soft
and silent that Mephisto crept into the quiet old heart of
Suzanna Varelkamp.
She was sitting in the low veranda of her cottage on the
Wyker Road, with her gray knitting in her hands. She always
had that gray knitting in her hands. If it rested on her knees
for one brief moment, her friends could tell you that some singu-
larly difficult question-probably of abstruse theology, or else
about the linen-basket or the preserves—was troubling Suzanna's
mind. Suzanna was a woman of industrious repose. She loved
her God and her store cupboard. She did not, as a rule, love her
neighbor overmuch: little unpleasantnesses in connection with
the overhanging apples, or Suzanna's darling cat, were apt to
## p. 9363 (#383) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9363
intervene and stifle the seeds of dutifully nurtured benevolence.
Nor did she love herself to any excess of unrighteousness; know-
ing, with a perfervid knowledge, that she was altogether abomina-
ble and corrupt, and "even as a beast before Thee," from her
mother's womb upwards-a remote period.
The gentle laburnum at her side was slowly gilding over in
the sinking sunlight, fragile and drooping and a little lackadaisi-
cal, very unlike the natty old woman, bolt upright in her basket-
chair. Just across the road a knot of poplars quivered to the
still air; and in the pale, far heaven, companies of swallows cir-
cled with rapid, aimless swoops. Nature was slowly-very, very
slowly, tranquilly, dreamingly, deliciously settling itself to sleep;
silent already but for a blackbird shrilling excitedly through the
jasmine bushes by the porch.
-
-
Another bird woke up at that moment, and cried out from
Suzanna's bedroom — through all the quiet little house — that it
was half-past seven. Then he went to sleep again for exactly
half an hour; for, like all man's imitations of God's works, he is
too hideously logical to be artistic. And Mejuffrouw Varelkamp
began to wonder why Betje did not bring out the 'tea-water';
for every evening the sun went down at another moment. - Prov-
idence, being all-provident, was able to superintend such irregu-
larities, but every evening, at half-past seven to the minute,
Mejuffrouw Varelkamp must have her 'tea-water,' or the little
cosmos of her household arrangements could not survive the
shock. "It is difficult enough for one woman to superintend one
servant! " said Suzanna. "It is possible, but it is all-engrossing,
and requires concentration of power and of will. And not being
Providence, I cannot regulate disorder. " The regulation of "dis-
order," as she called it, the breaking away from straight lines
and simple addition,― was one of Suzanna's bugbears.
And so
Betje was efficiently superintended; none but she knew how
engrossingly. And evening after evening, the cuckoo stepped
over his threshold, and Betje out of her kitchen, so harmoni-
ously that you might almost have fancied they walked in step.
Somebody was coming up the quiet road-a Dutch road,
straight and tidy, avenue-like, between its double border of
majestic beeches; somebody whose walk sounded unrhythmic
through the stillness;-two people, evidently, and not walking in
step, these two: one with a light, light-hearted swing; the other
with a melancholy thump, and a little skip to make it good
-
――
-
## p. 9364 (#384) ###########################################
9364
MAARTEN MAARTENS
again. But their whistling, the sweet low whistling of an old
Reformed psalm-tune, was in better unison than their walking;
though even here, perhaps, the softer voice seemed just a shade
too low. Had there been all the falseness of a German band in
that subdued music, Suzanna would not have detected it: her
heart and that far more than her ear-recognized with tran-
quil contentment the drawn-out melody, calm and plaintive; and
her bright eye brightened, for just one little unnoticeable mo-
ment, at the accents of the clearer voice. That sudden brighten-
ing would flash every now and then over a face hard and cold
enough by nature; nobody ever noticed it except Suzanna's
sister, the rich widow Barsselius,-not Suzanna herself, least of
all the young scapegrace who was its only cause.
Dutch psalm-singing leaves plenty of time for the singers to
go to sleep and wake up again between each two succeeding
notes. The whistlers came into sight before they had finished
many lines.
They stopped suddenly upon perceiving the old
lady under the veranda, and both took off their hats.
"Dominé," said Suzanna, "how can you countenance whistling
the Word of God? "
The young man thus addressed looked up with a quiet twin-
kle in his eye.
He had a pale face and a thoughtful smile; he
was slightly deformed, and it was he that walked lame.
"With pipe and with timbrel, Juffrouw," he answered gayly.
"Old Baas Vroom has just been telling me that he won't give
up smoking, in spite of the doctor, because he has read in his
Bible how the people praised the Lord with their pipes. "
Suzanna never smiled unless she approved of the joke. She
reverenced the minister, and she patronized the young believer;
it was difficult sometimes properly to blend the two feelings.
But at the bottom of her tough old heart she thoroughly liked
her nephew's friend. "He will make a capital pastor," she said
to herself unconsciously, "when he has unlearned a little of his
so-called morality and taken in good sound theology instead. Not
the milk of the Word with Professor Wyfel's unfiltered water,
but strong meat with plenty of Old-Testament sap. "
"Come in here," she said severely: "I want to talk to you
about that Vrouw Wede. I told her this morning that she could
not have any more needlework from the Society unless she sent
her son to the catechizing. She says the boy's father won't have
him go, because it tires his head. And I warned her I should
## p. 9365 (#385) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9365
report her to the Dominé. " Mejuffrouw Varelkamp's voice always
dropped into exactly the same tone of hereditary reverence over
that word. "Come in, Jakob, and you shall have a 'cat's tongue'
[a kind of biscuit], even though it isn't Sunday. ”
Betje had brought out the tea things meanwhile, triumphantly,
under cover of the minister's presence: the shining copper peat
stove, and the costly little Japanese teacups, not much larger
than a thimble, on their lacquered tray. "Take away the tea-
stove, Betje," said Suzanna: "the peat smells. " She said so
every now and then, once a week, perhaps,-being firmly con-
vinced of the truth of her assertion; and Betje, who never
believed her, and who never smelled anything under carbolic
acid, whisked away the bright pail and kettle from beside her
mistress's chair and brought them back again unaltered. "That
is right, Betje," said Mejuffrouw. "How often must I tell you
that a stove which smells of peat is full proof in itself of an
incompetent servant? "
"Humph! " said Betje. For even the very best of house-
keepers have their little failings and fancies and fads.
"Come in, Jakob," said Suzanna. "Not you, Arnout. You
can go down to the village and fetch me a skein of my dark
gray wool.
The dark gray, mind, at twelve stivers. You know
which. "
"You know which! " The young man had grown up with the
dark gray wool and the light gray wool and the blue wool for a
border. Ten stivers, twelve stivers, fourteen stivers. He knew
them better than his catechism, and he knew that very well too.
He touched his hat slightly, he was always courteous to his
aunt, as who would not have been? —and he strolled away down
the green highway into the shadows and the soft warm sunset,
taking up as he went the old psalm-tune that had been on his
lips before.
It was the melody of the Fifty-first Psalm. Suzanna had good
cause to remember it in after years.
And it was into this calm green paradise of an old maid's
heart-a paradise of straight gravel paths, and clipped box-trees,
and neat dahlia beds-that soft Mephisto crept.
―――→→→
## p. 9366 (#386) ###########################################
9366
MAARTEN MAARTENS
KNOWLEDGE
From God's Fool. Copyright 1892, by D. Appleton & Co.
THER
HERE was a man once-a satirist. In the natural course of
time his friends slew him, and he died. And the people
came and stood about his corpse. "He treated the whole
round world as his football," they said indignantly, "and he
kicked it. " The dead man opened one eye. "But always toward
the Goal," he said.
There was a man once- a naturalist. And one day he found
a lobster upon the sands of time. Society is a lobster: it crawls
backwards. "How black it is! " said the naturalist.
And he put
it in a little pan over the hot fire of his wit. "It will turn red,"
he said. But it didn't. That was its shamelessness.
((
-
There was a man once a logician. He picked up a little
clay ball upon the path of life. "It is a perfect little globe,"
said his companions. But the logician saw that it was not per-
fectly, mathematically round. And he took it in his hands and
rubbed it between them softly. "Don't rub so hard," said his
companions. And at last he desisted, and looked down upon it.
It was not a bit rounder, only pushed out of shape. And he
looked at his hands. They were very dirty.
There was a man once
—
a poet. He went wandering through
the streets of the city, and he met a disciple. "Come out with
me," said the poet, "for a walk in the sand-dunes. " And they
went. But ere they had progressed many stages, said the disci-
ple, There is nothing here but sand. "-"To what did I invite
you? " asked the poet. -"To a walk in the sand-dunes. "" Then
do not complain," said the poet. "Yet even so your words are
untrue. There is heaven above. Do you not see it? The fault
is not heaven's. Nor the sand's. "
MUSIC AND DISCORD
From God's Fool. Copyright 1892, by D. Appleton & Co.
"THE
HE principle remains the same," cried Lossell. "Keep out
of expenses while you can. "
"But don't if you can't," interrupted Cornelia tartly.
Till now her husband had resolutely fastened his eyes upon
the orchestra director's shining rotundity. He withdrew them for
## p. 9367 (#387) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9367
a moment-less than a moment- as Cornelia spoke; and their
glances met. In that tenth of a second a big battle was fought
and lost, far more decisive than the wordy dispute of the other
night. For Hendrik read defiance in Cornelia's look, and retreated
before it. In that flash of recognition he resolved to give up all
attempts to browbeat her. His must be a warfare not of the
broadsword, but of the stiletto. There lay discomfiture in the
swift admission; not defeat as yet, but repulse. Once more Cor-
nelia's eagle face had stood her in good stead. "After all, I can't
slap her," muttered Lossell, as he scowled back towards Herr
Pfuhl's bald head.
Indeed he could not.
"Can't' is an ugly word," he said to himself almost as much
as to her, and he walked away in the direction of the breakfast-
room. In the entry he turned round. "No concert this winter,
Herr Pfuhl! " he cried; and then he shut the door quickly behind
him.
He was still sufficiently master of his own house to say what
he chose in it. But he was not master enough to remain where
he chose after having said it.
He was far from sorry to think the door should be shut.
The repose of the Sabbath-that blessed resting on the oars
-had been broken by a sudden squall. He glowered discontent-
edly at the breakfast things; and as he lifted the teapot lid, he
sneered down upon the innocent brown liquid inside. Yet Cor-
nelia could make good tea. And he knew it. It is a beautiful
thing in a woman.
No man of nervous or artistic temperament should bind him-
self in wedlock before the partner of his choice has passed an
examination in tea-making.
And even in Koopstad there are
nervous souls, though inartistic, in these days of ours when
Time travels only by rail. Hendrik was of a highly nervous
nature, irritable, and fifty miles an hour. He sat down to break-
fast and drew the Sunday morning paper towards him. Cornelia
might as well stop away as not. How unreasonable she was, and
how inconsiderate! He would walk out presently and see Elias.
The walk would do him good and brace him up a bit. Elias
was his brother; a step-brother, but still a brother, a Lossell.
Blood is thicker than water, and every now and then the old
truth comes home to you. And Cornelia was fast deepening into
a nuisance.
## p. 9368 (#388) ###########################################
9368
MAARTEN MAARTENS
She came in serene, as if nothing had happened. Her victory
satisfied her for the moment, and she was too wise a woman not
to relax her hold of the rope the moment she had drawn the
boat into her current. She had shown Hendrik the limit of her
endurance, and instead of leaping over it, he had shivered back.
That was enough for to-day. She did not really want the con-
cert very badly, especially not at that "scandalous" price.
"I quite agree with you, Henk," she said mildly, as she
busied herself with her tray; "and I have told Herr Pfuhl so,
and sent him away. It would be absurd to pay so much for his
band; and we can in any case very well wait till next year. "
Hendrik's whole being melted away into notes of interroga-
tion and admiration, as he stopped and stared at his wife,— the
open print in one hand, his half-lifted teacup in the other.
"We must give an extra dinner instead," continued Mevrouw.
"Why did you not wait for me to pour out your tea, Hendrik? "
"I am in a hurry," answered Lossell, still bewildered: "I
want to walk out to Elias's and see how the poor chap is get-
ting on. "
Mevrouw pulled a face. She did not like to think of the use-
less idiot who stood between her and the full glory of greatness.
Elias was her permanent eclipse. "Oh, depend upon it, he is
perfectly well and happy," she snapped. She avoided as much
as possible allowing her thoughts to dwell upon contingencies;
but she could not keep down an undercurrent of exasperation at
sight of the idiot's unbroken health. "It is only the people
whose existence has no raison d'être," she said, that go on liv-
ing for ever. ”
«<
<< So-o," muttered Herr Pfuhl to himself emphatically, in a
long-drawn reminiscence of his native land. He hurried down
the short avenue in fretful jumps, and as he went he struck his
greasy wide-awake down flat on his speckled cabinet-pudding of a
head. "So is it in the great houses. They have the butters and
the oils of life, and yet the wheels go creaking. The Mefrou,
ah, she will have her concert when she wants it. Not so was my
Lieschen. Never has she given me Blutwurst again, since I told
her it was Leberwurst I loved better. And yet Blutwurst was
her Leibgericht. "
Whenever he was strongly moved, his German seemed to break
forth again purer from some hidden spring of feeling, and to come
surging up across the muddy ditch of broken Dutch.
## p. 9369 (#389) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9369
A film spread over his eyes, for Lieschen would never eat
Blutwurst again. She had been dead for many years. She had
died in this strange, straight-lined country, of a chill at the heart.
Peace be to the old Director's ashes. He too is dead. But
his orchestra was heard in Mevrouw Lossell's rooms before he
laid down his baton. And on that memorable occasion Hendrik
Lossell went up to him, with nervous, puckered face, and compli-
mented him on the excellence of the performance; adding, with
a palpable sneer, that there were some things so valuable you
could never pay enough for them.
And the sneer was at himself.
GUILT
From God's Fool. Copyright 1892, by D. Appleton & Co.
IN
THE middle of the night Elias awoke. His brain was clear
again, as fools' brains go. He sat up in bed, and said,
"Murder. "
Murder. He did not know much about "death" and "kill-
ing," but he knew what "murder" was. Christ had been mur-
dered. Murder was hating a man so utterly that you wanted.
him to stop seeing, hearing, walking, speaking; that you wanted
him to stop being, in a word. And so you tried to prevent his
being. You struck him until he could no longer be. And he
who did this thing, who made another human being to lie silent
like a stick or stone, was a murderer. It was the very worst
thing a man could be. The wicked Jews had murdered Christ.
And Elias had murdered his brother.
Murder. The whole room was full of it. Room? What did
he know of rooms, of limits of space? He opened his horror-
struck eyes wide, and they saw as much, or as little, as before—
the immensity of darkness.
He put out his hand and felt that he was among unusual sur-
roundings. Where was he? In the place where God confines the
wicked? Prison, the grave, hell- the idea was all one to him.
He was in the darkness-the soul-darkness he had never known
thus till this hour.
Heaven and earth were aflame with the cry of murder. It
rose up in his heart and flooded his whole existence. It pressed
back upon him, and held him by the throat whenever he tried to
shake it off. But he barely tried. His was a mind of few ideas,
## p. 9370 (#390) ###########################################
9370
MAARTEN MAARTENS
at the mercy of so merciless a tyrant as this. The wish to do
away with, to silence, to annihilate. Elias had murdered his
brother, as the Jews had murdered Christ.
He dared not pray. He buried his face in the pillow and
longed to be truly blind, that he might not see "murder"; truly
deaf, that he might not hear "murder. " He dared not think of
forgiveness. There could be no forgiveness for such crime as
this. "Sins" to him had meant his childish petulances. He had
never heard of any one forgiving Christ's murderers. Everybody
was still very angry with them, and yet it was a long time ago
since Christ was killed. There could be no hope, no escape.
There was nothing but this agony, beyond tears, beyond pardon.
Nothing but the consciousness, which must remain forever, of
being one of the very few among the worst of men.
And he remembered that he had thought he was almost as
good as the Lord Christ.
THE DAWN OF THE HIGHER LIFE
From The Greater Glory. Copyright 1893, by D. Appleton & Co.
R
EINOUT, walking his horse in the blazing sunshine, peeped
curiously into the cheaply bound little volume which was
her "dearest thing on earth. "
"Verses! " he said with ready scorn. "All women are
alike. "
He knew enough about verses. Sometimes he read the books
his mother brought him, and sometimes he praised them unread.
"Always say 'Yes' to a woman," the Chevalier was wont to
remark, "if you feel it would hurt to hear you say 'No. '»
That is poetry.
"O mon âme.
O ma flamme.
O que je t'aime. »
"Toujours du même. "
"None of my talent has descended to my child," sighed Mar-
gherita. "And yet I feel sure he will be some sort of a genius
-
- perhaps a Prime Minister. " "A what? " asked the Count, and
walked away to dissemble his laughter. He rejoiced, however,
to think that his wife had come round to his view, whatever her
road.
## p. 9371 (#391) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9371
"Well, she begins young with her love ditties," thought Rein-
out; but, nevertheless, on his return, he settled himself in a
window-seat with the book. It was a Belgian edition of Victor
Hugo's "Les Voix Intérieures. "
He glanced at the first page. The opening words struck him.
"This Age is great and strong.
The quietly impressive words, so unlike much of Victor
Hugo's later redundancy, sank slowly into his soul. Here was a
gospel of the time, which met him half-way on his hap-hazard
path. "Are you looking for me? " it said. "I am here. "
When he had finished, he turned back and began again. He
had never read other poetry before than love songs and bouts-
rimés.
And then he plunged headlong into the piece which follows,
that magnificent poem on the death of the exiled Charles X.
Here the novice soon floundered out of his depth; but he still
held on, borne irresistibly forward by the rush of the rhythm, as
all must understand who appreciate the sublimest of spouters.
It is impossible to stop; the very bewilderment of the reader
twists him helplessly onwards amid those whirlpools of eloquence.
And in all the Titan's endless volumes, Reinout could not have
lighted on a poem more calculated to impress him than this one.
Aristocrat as he must ever remain in all the prejudices of his
bringing-up, lover as he had been destined to become from
childhood of that lowly human greatness which your mere aris-
tocrat ignores, this song of tenderest reconciliation struck chords.
within his being of whose existence his incompleteness had never
been aware. And when he reached, with palpitating heart and
eager breath, the great finale,-
"O Poesy, to heaven on frighted wing thou fliest! "
are
he started to his feet, and stood staring before him into a new
gulf yawning ahead-or was it a visionary ladder, whose top is
hid in heaven? A world of illusion, Idea, the soul-world of
beautiful hopes and fancies, the world in which all men
brothers, great and strong and greatly worthy, a world at which
the cynic laughs, with tears for laughter;-at last he beheld
it; uplifted on the pinions of his ignorance into cloudland, and
beyond that to the sun! He will never forget that moment,
-
___________
## p. 9372 (#392) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9372
although to this day he cannot tell you in intelligible prose what
took place in his soul. Oh, the sweetness of it! The sadness
of it! The beautiful, sorrowful hope! He did not know what
he was saying, as he stumbled on through a wilderness of mag-
nificent words. But gradually a single thought stood out clear
among all this confusion of greatnesses: the majesty - not of
your Highnesses and Excellencies and Eminences- but of the
naked soul of man. He had been yearning for it, searching for
it, unwittingly; at last he could grasp it, and read the riddle of
life.
All that afternoon he hurried upwards, a breathless explorer
on Alpine heights. Like an Indian prince from his father's pal-
ace, he had escaped out of the gilded cage where the neat cana-
ries warbled, away into the regions of the angels' song, "Peace
on earth, good-will among men. Hallelujah! " His soul was
drunken with poesy. He tore off the kid glove from his heart.
He was utterly unreasonable and nonsensical, full of clap-trap
and tall-talk and foolishness. Yes, thank God: he was all that
at last.
## p. 9373 (#393) ###########################################
9373
THE MABINOGION
BY ERNEST RHYS
HE old delightful collection of Welsh romances,-
"open-air
tales," the late Sidney Lanier happily termed them,-known
all the world over as the 'Mabinogion,' is the work of
various mediæval poets and romancers whose very names, like those
of the border balladists, are lost to us. It is easy to speculate, as
Stephens and other critics have done, about the authorship of one or
two of the 'Mabinogion,' in scanning the list of poets in Wales during
the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries; but the quest leads to
nothing certain, and save to Welsh students is uninteresting. We
may say, as the poet Shirley wrote in speaking of Beaumont and
Fletcher, the one important thing about these authors is that
have their precious remains. "
་
we
As for the general title 'Mabinogion,' which Lady Charlotte
Guest's English version has made familiar, it is well perhaps at the
outset to listen to the explanation given by the greatest Celtic scholar
of our time, the present principal of Jesus College, Oxford. From
this it may be seen that these tales, too, are but another outgrowth
of that wonderful bardic cult to which some reference is made in a
previous volume. * "An idea prevails," says Principal John Rhys,
"that any Welsh tale of respectable antiquity may be called a
mabinogi; but there is no warrant for extending the use of the term
to any but the four branches of the Mabinogi,' such as Pwyll,
Branwen, Manawydthau, and Math. For, strictly speaking, the word
mabinog is a technical term belonging to the bardic system, and it
means a literary apprentice. In other words, a mabinog was a young
man who had not yet acquired the art of making verse, but who
received instruction from a qualified bard. The inference is that the
'Mabinogion' meant the collection of things which formed the mabi-
nog's literary training-his stock in trade, so to speak; for he was
probably allowed to relate the tales forming the four branches of
the Mabinogion' at a fixed price established by law or custom. If
he aspired to a place in the hierarchy of letters, he must acquire
the poetic art. The supposition that a mabinog was a child on his
nurse's lap would be as erroneous as the idea that the 'Mabinogion'
*Vide article Celtic Literature,' Vol. vi. , page 3403.
―――――
## p. 9374 (#394) ###########################################
THE MABINOGION
9374
are nursery tales,-a view which no one who has read them can rea-
sonably take. »
In Lady Charlotte Guest's later edition in one volume (London,
1877), the most convenient edition for reference,- twelve tales in
all will be found. Of these, the most natively and characteristically
Welsh in character are such tales as the vivid, thrice romantic
'Dream of Rhonabwy,' which owes little to outside sources. The
Lady of the Fountain,' on the other hand, shows in a very striking
way the influence of the French chivalric romances that Sir Thomas
Malory drew upon so freely in his 'Morte d'Arthur. ' In the admi-
rably edited Oxford text of the Welsh originals, The Lady of the
Fountain appears under the title of Owain and Lunet'; and Lunet's
name at once recalls Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Indeed, the
king, King Arthur himself, is not long in making his entry upon the
scene.
We find him in this first romance, set forth with all that
fondness for fine color which marks all Celtic romance:-
"In the centre of the chamber King Arthur sat upon a seat of
green rushes, over which was spread a covering of flame-colored satin,
and a cushion of red satin was under his elbow. "
It is perhaps to be regretted that King Arthur should appear so
indifferent to the delights of fiction as he does in the sequel; for in
the interval before dinner he calmly proposes to go to sleep while
they tell tales. He also suggests that they should get a flagon of
mead and some meat, by way of encouragement to the comfortable
exercise of romance. "So Kai went to the kitchen and to the mead
cellar, and returned bearing a flagon of mead and a golden goblet,
and a handful of skewers upon which were broiled collops of meat.
Then they ate the collops, and began to drink the mead. "
In the way of sheer romance, nothing could be better than the
tale of his adventures that Kynon then recites: how, after journeying
through deserts and distant regions, he came to the fairest valley
in the world, and to a great castle with a torrent below it; how, being
conducted into the castle, he found there four-and-twenty damsels of
surpassing beauty, embroidering satin at a window, who rose at his
coming, and divested him of his armor and attired him in fine linen,
with mantle and surcoat of yellow satin; and how then they spread
a feast before him, with tempting array of gold and silver; and how,
when next day he sets forth refreshed in quest of further adventures,
he is overthrown by the sable Knight of the Fountain. Owain, in
his turn, essays to fight with this Knight of Darkness:- but here let
me pause, in the remote hope of sending new readers to the tale
itself. For those who think mere romance in itself to be wanting in
philosophical interest, let it be added that Principal Rhys has in his
Hibbert Lectures discovered all manner of mythological meaning in
## p. 9375 (#395) ###########################################
THE MABINOGION
9375
the tale. Thus Owain becomes the symbol of the Day, with its
twelve hours of light, while the dark Knight of the Fountain represents
Darkness and Destruction, and corresponds to our old enemy Arawn,
the prince of Night and Hades.
In quite another vein from The Lady of the Fountain' is the
curious story of Lludd and Llevelys,' which begins in the Welsh
original, "Yr beli mawr vab manogair y bu tri meib,”—that is,
"Beli the Great, son of Manogar, had three sons. " These three were
Lludd, Caswallawn, and Nynyaw. But there was also a fourth, called
Llevelys. After the death of Beli, Lludd became King; and we add
a passage to our selections that follow, describing the legendary ori-
gin of London, as founded by King Lludd, after whom Ludgate Hill
is called. What could be more entertaining, as one contemplates
the ramifications of that congeries of cities forming modern London,
than to remember this old Welsh fable of its first beginnings? One
need not trouble to distinguish how far King Lludd and his capital,
Caer Lludd (the old Cymraec name for London), are historical or not.
Here they concern us only as romance, as do the Three Great Plagues
of the Isle of Britain, which King Lludd has to drive away. But
romance or history, let us not forget that these Three Plagues lead,
in the course of the Mabinogi, to the discovery that Oxford is the
very centre of the mystic Isle of Britain; which may very well
account, in turn, for the modern taste of Oxford for Welsh texts!
The tale that follows 'Lludd and Llevelys' in the English edition
of the 'Mabinogion,''Taliesin,' to wit,-is the only item in the list.
which is rather suspicious in its origin. In fact the tale as it stands
is neither primitive nor mediæval, but is a fairly ingenious concoc-
tion of primitive and mediæval ingredients, probably made in the
seventeenth or eighteenth century. It contains, inter alia, some strik-
ing versions of the old mystic poems attributed to Taliesin; for a
further account of which we must refer the reader to the article
in a later volume upon that remarkable and thrice puzzling Cymraec
poet. In the opening of the story of Taliesin,' as it stands, will be
found the mention of a certain Tegid Voel; and this serves to remind
us that it was a Welsh scholar, best known by his bardic use of the
same name, "Tegid," who was Lady Guest's collaborator in trans-
lating the 'Mabinogion. '
It may be said in appraising the value of the contribution thus
made to the open literature of the world, that if, necessarily, some-
thing is lost in the transference from an old to a newer tongue, yet
the version we have is a really surprisingly good English equiva-
lent, written with a great charm of style and a pervading sense of
the spirit of all romance literature. Let us not forget, either, to note
the services rendered to the book, by one so remarkable among the
## p. 9376 (#396) ###########################################
9376
THE MABINOGION
American poets as the late Sidney Lanier, from whom we quoted a
phrase in our opening sentence. In his pleasant preamble to The
Boys' Mabinogion,' the account he gives of his subject forms so con-
vincing a tribute to its delights that one is tempted to steal a sen-
tence or two. After referring to the 'Arabian Nights,' Sidney Lanier
goes on to say that the 'Mabinogion' fortunately "do not move in
that close temperature which often renders the atmosphere of the
Eastern tales so unwholesome. " Again he says (and how well the
sentence touches on the imaginative spell that one finds in the more
primitive, more peculiarly Celtic of those tales, such as the thrice
wonderful 'Dream of Rhonabwy! '): "There is a glamour and sleep-
walking mystery which often incline a man to rub his eyes in the
midst of a Mabinogi, and to think of previous states of existence. "
It remains to be said, finally, that the old manuscript volume of
the 'Mabinogion,' known as the 'Llyfr Coch o Hergest,' the 'Red
Book of Hergest,' lies enshrined in the famous library of Jesus Col-
lege, Oxford: the one college in the older English universities which
has a time-honored connection with Welsh scholarship and Welsh lit-
erature.
in particular was that of Maarten Maartens; and this indeed is a
## p. 9360 (#380) ###########################################
9360
MAARTEN MAARTENS
verdict that can honestly be indorsed. His work is strong, virile,
reserved, dignified, and true to life; while at the same time it is
profoundly interesting, pictorial, dramatic, and with unmistakable qual-
ities of style and distinction. It is more than probable that his best
work will survive that of writers of much greater temporary vogue;
and if so, that happy result will be to the credit of the always sane,
and in the long run generally wise, judgment of the reading public
at large.
Of his first six books- 'The Sin of Joost Avelingh' (1890), ‘An
Old Maid's Love' (1891), 'A Question of Taste' (1891), God's Fool'
(1892), The Greater Glory' (1894), My Lady Nobody' (1895)- Mr.
Maarten Maartens considers the chef d'oeuvre to be God's Fool';
and "the fool of God," Elias Lossel, is his favorite character. Un-
doubtedly, however, his first book and 'The Greater Glory' are those
for which the public care most. There is one often quoted sentence
in the latter book which I may give here:-"This is a true story. It
is what they call a story of high life. It is also a story of the life
which is higher still. There be climbings which descend to depths.
of infamy; there be also-God is merciful—most infamous fallings
into heaven. "
The following extracts are as fairly representative as is possible,
both as to style and subject-matter. The reader must bear in mind
that they are excerpts, and allow for an apparent haziness in atmo-
sphere, of necessity an evasive quality when what should be given.
intact has to be presented fragmentarily. Perhaps however they may
send yet more readers to the always instructive, stimulating, and
deeply interesting romances of Maarten Maartens.
Wanane Sharpe
JOOST SURRENDERS
From The Sin of Joost Avelingh'
OOST AVELINGH went up to his wife's room.
J°
The doctor's last words had been spoken low; but Joost,
stopping for a moment in the hall to pass a hand over his
eyes and collect his bewildered thoughts, just caught them. He
stumbled up-stairs, opened the bedroom door, and walked in.
God had answered him. There lay his wife, white and mo-
tionless, with staring, meaningless eyes, under the white coverlet;
## p. 9361 (#381) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9361
unconscious, insensible.
A shaded lamp burned on a side table;
Dientje the maid rose softly from her chair near it, and came
forward. He motioned her away- towards the adjoining dressing-
room-and then sat down alone by the bed.
God had answered him. In the pride of his heart he had
sought himself an answer, and had triumphed at the thought that
it should be a pleasing one. But the very fact of his yearning
for a sign in the heavens was the surest proof that the oracle
in his own heart had spoken already. It had been speaking
through all these months, as each successive experience led him
nearer to the truth, all the shouting and din of the election had
not been able to silence its voice completely; and now, over the
tumult of this wild hour of false exultation, it shrieked aloud!
The intoxication of the moment died away from him, leaving
him the more dejected. And the hatred and contempt of him-
self which the last weeks had fostered, once more overflowed his
heart.
God had answered him. He sat staring at the senseless face
before him, and he read the answer there. He did not believe
in such connection as the doctor seemed to snatch at between
Agatha's illness and the trial. Living with her day by day, he
had seen her well and happy, triumphant even, in the recognition
of his innocence. The change had come suddenly; in the last
fortnight, perhaps. He had watched it; her mother had spoken.
of it; her brother—but he had watched it, and seen it for him-
self. It was God's reply to all his lying self-exculpation, to his
life of deceit. The curse of her race would fall surely and
swiftly upon this innocent wife of his; for so mysteriously, yet
wisely, doth God visit our sins upon our loved ones. Or, in his
mercy, he would take her to himself and leave her husband com-
fortless, him whom no comfort could advantage, and whom mis-
ery alone yet might save. But whatever the future might fashion,
it would bring them separation: Joost's heart cried out that it
must be so, and the last words the doctor had spoken were become
an irrevocable decree to him. He understood that it must be
thus. He was unworthy to live longer by the side of this woman.
whom he cheated; and whether by death to relieve her, or by
insanity to punish him, she would pass out of his existence.
She would never speak to him again. Never! In that thought
he first realized how unutterably he loved her, with a love which
had grown from a boy's rash fancy for a pretty face, through
XVI-586
―――
## p. 9362 (#382) ###########################################
9362
MAARTEN MAARTENS
trials and mutual enjoyments and deepening sympathies, into
the very essence and existence of the soul. And yet his first
yearning was not to retain her, if God bade her pass from him:
it was only that-oh, by all his unworthiness of her, by his guilt
and her gentle innocence, by his passionate love and her answer-
ing affection-by their oneness-of Thy giving, great Father-
he might obtain mercy to confess his iniquity in her sight. For
death was not death to him in that moment, nor detachment
separation. And ere she-his soul's diviner part-pass on to
fuller purity of knowledge, he would gather from her lips that
she had learned his secret on this earth, had understood it, and
forgiven him. Not, not to be left here standing with eyes
that cannot pierce the darkness, and yet with a hope that told
the loved one loved him still, and now read the soul he had so
shrewdly veiled before her, and now-mayhap—mourned for-
ever for a unity, high and holy, broken and trodden under foot.
O God, have mercy!
He sank down by the bed and buried his face in his hands.
And in the untroubled silence his heart cried aloud. It was of
God that he must obtain forgiveness in the first place, and he
knew it. But his prayers, in that turmoil of feeling, were of the
woman he loved.
-
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
From An Old Maid's Love'
IT
T WAS on a golden summer evening-a long June sunset, soft
and silent that Mephisto crept into the quiet old heart of
Suzanna Varelkamp.
She was sitting in the low veranda of her cottage on the
Wyker Road, with her gray knitting in her hands. She always
had that gray knitting in her hands. If it rested on her knees
for one brief moment, her friends could tell you that some singu-
larly difficult question-probably of abstruse theology, or else
about the linen-basket or the preserves—was troubling Suzanna's
mind. Suzanna was a woman of industrious repose. She loved
her God and her store cupboard. She did not, as a rule, love her
neighbor overmuch: little unpleasantnesses in connection with
the overhanging apples, or Suzanna's darling cat, were apt to
## p. 9363 (#383) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9363
intervene and stifle the seeds of dutifully nurtured benevolence.
Nor did she love herself to any excess of unrighteousness; know-
ing, with a perfervid knowledge, that she was altogether abomina-
ble and corrupt, and "even as a beast before Thee," from her
mother's womb upwards-a remote period.
The gentle laburnum at her side was slowly gilding over in
the sinking sunlight, fragile and drooping and a little lackadaisi-
cal, very unlike the natty old woman, bolt upright in her basket-
chair. Just across the road a knot of poplars quivered to the
still air; and in the pale, far heaven, companies of swallows cir-
cled with rapid, aimless swoops. Nature was slowly-very, very
slowly, tranquilly, dreamingly, deliciously settling itself to sleep;
silent already but for a blackbird shrilling excitedly through the
jasmine bushes by the porch.
-
-
Another bird woke up at that moment, and cried out from
Suzanna's bedroom — through all the quiet little house — that it
was half-past seven. Then he went to sleep again for exactly
half an hour; for, like all man's imitations of God's works, he is
too hideously logical to be artistic. And Mejuffrouw Varelkamp
began to wonder why Betje did not bring out the 'tea-water';
for every evening the sun went down at another moment. - Prov-
idence, being all-provident, was able to superintend such irregu-
larities, but every evening, at half-past seven to the minute,
Mejuffrouw Varelkamp must have her 'tea-water,' or the little
cosmos of her household arrangements could not survive the
shock. "It is difficult enough for one woman to superintend one
servant! " said Suzanna. "It is possible, but it is all-engrossing,
and requires concentration of power and of will. And not being
Providence, I cannot regulate disorder. " The regulation of "dis-
order," as she called it, the breaking away from straight lines
and simple addition,― was one of Suzanna's bugbears.
And so
Betje was efficiently superintended; none but she knew how
engrossingly. And evening after evening, the cuckoo stepped
over his threshold, and Betje out of her kitchen, so harmoni-
ously that you might almost have fancied they walked in step.
Somebody was coming up the quiet road-a Dutch road,
straight and tidy, avenue-like, between its double border of
majestic beeches; somebody whose walk sounded unrhythmic
through the stillness;-two people, evidently, and not walking in
step, these two: one with a light, light-hearted swing; the other
with a melancholy thump, and a little skip to make it good
-
――
-
## p. 9364 (#384) ###########################################
9364
MAARTEN MAARTENS
again. But their whistling, the sweet low whistling of an old
Reformed psalm-tune, was in better unison than their walking;
though even here, perhaps, the softer voice seemed just a shade
too low. Had there been all the falseness of a German band in
that subdued music, Suzanna would not have detected it: her
heart and that far more than her ear-recognized with tran-
quil contentment the drawn-out melody, calm and plaintive; and
her bright eye brightened, for just one little unnoticeable mo-
ment, at the accents of the clearer voice. That sudden brighten-
ing would flash every now and then over a face hard and cold
enough by nature; nobody ever noticed it except Suzanna's
sister, the rich widow Barsselius,-not Suzanna herself, least of
all the young scapegrace who was its only cause.
Dutch psalm-singing leaves plenty of time for the singers to
go to sleep and wake up again between each two succeeding
notes. The whistlers came into sight before they had finished
many lines.
They stopped suddenly upon perceiving the old
lady under the veranda, and both took off their hats.
"Dominé," said Suzanna, "how can you countenance whistling
the Word of God? "
The young man thus addressed looked up with a quiet twin-
kle in his eye.
He had a pale face and a thoughtful smile; he
was slightly deformed, and it was he that walked lame.
"With pipe and with timbrel, Juffrouw," he answered gayly.
"Old Baas Vroom has just been telling me that he won't give
up smoking, in spite of the doctor, because he has read in his
Bible how the people praised the Lord with their pipes. "
Suzanna never smiled unless she approved of the joke. She
reverenced the minister, and she patronized the young believer;
it was difficult sometimes properly to blend the two feelings.
But at the bottom of her tough old heart she thoroughly liked
her nephew's friend. "He will make a capital pastor," she said
to herself unconsciously, "when he has unlearned a little of his
so-called morality and taken in good sound theology instead. Not
the milk of the Word with Professor Wyfel's unfiltered water,
but strong meat with plenty of Old-Testament sap. "
"Come in here," she said severely: "I want to talk to you
about that Vrouw Wede. I told her this morning that she could
not have any more needlework from the Society unless she sent
her son to the catechizing. She says the boy's father won't have
him go, because it tires his head. And I warned her I should
## p. 9365 (#385) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9365
report her to the Dominé. " Mejuffrouw Varelkamp's voice always
dropped into exactly the same tone of hereditary reverence over
that word. "Come in, Jakob, and you shall have a 'cat's tongue'
[a kind of biscuit], even though it isn't Sunday. ”
Betje had brought out the tea things meanwhile, triumphantly,
under cover of the minister's presence: the shining copper peat
stove, and the costly little Japanese teacups, not much larger
than a thimble, on their lacquered tray. "Take away the tea-
stove, Betje," said Suzanna: "the peat smells. " She said so
every now and then, once a week, perhaps,-being firmly con-
vinced of the truth of her assertion; and Betje, who never
believed her, and who never smelled anything under carbolic
acid, whisked away the bright pail and kettle from beside her
mistress's chair and brought them back again unaltered. "That
is right, Betje," said Mejuffrouw. "How often must I tell you
that a stove which smells of peat is full proof in itself of an
incompetent servant? "
"Humph! " said Betje. For even the very best of house-
keepers have their little failings and fancies and fads.
"Come in, Jakob," said Suzanna. "Not you, Arnout. You
can go down to the village and fetch me a skein of my dark
gray wool.
The dark gray, mind, at twelve stivers. You know
which. "
"You know which! " The young man had grown up with the
dark gray wool and the light gray wool and the blue wool for a
border. Ten stivers, twelve stivers, fourteen stivers. He knew
them better than his catechism, and he knew that very well too.
He touched his hat slightly, he was always courteous to his
aunt, as who would not have been? —and he strolled away down
the green highway into the shadows and the soft warm sunset,
taking up as he went the old psalm-tune that had been on his
lips before.
It was the melody of the Fifty-first Psalm. Suzanna had good
cause to remember it in after years.
And it was into this calm green paradise of an old maid's
heart-a paradise of straight gravel paths, and clipped box-trees,
and neat dahlia beds-that soft Mephisto crept.
―――→→→
## p. 9366 (#386) ###########################################
9366
MAARTEN MAARTENS
KNOWLEDGE
From God's Fool. Copyright 1892, by D. Appleton & Co.
THER
HERE was a man once-a satirist. In the natural course of
time his friends slew him, and he died. And the people
came and stood about his corpse. "He treated the whole
round world as his football," they said indignantly, "and he
kicked it. " The dead man opened one eye. "But always toward
the Goal," he said.
There was a man once- a naturalist. And one day he found
a lobster upon the sands of time. Society is a lobster: it crawls
backwards. "How black it is! " said the naturalist.
And he put
it in a little pan over the hot fire of his wit. "It will turn red,"
he said. But it didn't. That was its shamelessness.
((
-
There was a man once a logician. He picked up a little
clay ball upon the path of life. "It is a perfect little globe,"
said his companions. But the logician saw that it was not per-
fectly, mathematically round. And he took it in his hands and
rubbed it between them softly. "Don't rub so hard," said his
companions. And at last he desisted, and looked down upon it.
It was not a bit rounder, only pushed out of shape. And he
looked at his hands. They were very dirty.
There was a man once
—
a poet. He went wandering through
the streets of the city, and he met a disciple. "Come out with
me," said the poet, "for a walk in the sand-dunes. " And they
went. But ere they had progressed many stages, said the disci-
ple, There is nothing here but sand. "-"To what did I invite
you? " asked the poet. -"To a walk in the sand-dunes. "" Then
do not complain," said the poet. "Yet even so your words are
untrue. There is heaven above. Do you not see it? The fault
is not heaven's. Nor the sand's. "
MUSIC AND DISCORD
From God's Fool. Copyright 1892, by D. Appleton & Co.
"THE
HE principle remains the same," cried Lossell. "Keep out
of expenses while you can. "
"But don't if you can't," interrupted Cornelia tartly.
Till now her husband had resolutely fastened his eyes upon
the orchestra director's shining rotundity. He withdrew them for
## p. 9367 (#387) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9367
a moment-less than a moment- as Cornelia spoke; and their
glances met. In that tenth of a second a big battle was fought
and lost, far more decisive than the wordy dispute of the other
night. For Hendrik read defiance in Cornelia's look, and retreated
before it. In that flash of recognition he resolved to give up all
attempts to browbeat her. His must be a warfare not of the
broadsword, but of the stiletto. There lay discomfiture in the
swift admission; not defeat as yet, but repulse. Once more Cor-
nelia's eagle face had stood her in good stead. "After all, I can't
slap her," muttered Lossell, as he scowled back towards Herr
Pfuhl's bald head.
Indeed he could not.
"Can't' is an ugly word," he said to himself almost as much
as to her, and he walked away in the direction of the breakfast-
room. In the entry he turned round. "No concert this winter,
Herr Pfuhl! " he cried; and then he shut the door quickly behind
him.
He was still sufficiently master of his own house to say what
he chose in it. But he was not master enough to remain where
he chose after having said it.
He was far from sorry to think the door should be shut.
The repose of the Sabbath-that blessed resting on the oars
-had been broken by a sudden squall. He glowered discontent-
edly at the breakfast things; and as he lifted the teapot lid, he
sneered down upon the innocent brown liquid inside. Yet Cor-
nelia could make good tea. And he knew it. It is a beautiful
thing in a woman.
No man of nervous or artistic temperament should bind him-
self in wedlock before the partner of his choice has passed an
examination in tea-making.
And even in Koopstad there are
nervous souls, though inartistic, in these days of ours when
Time travels only by rail. Hendrik was of a highly nervous
nature, irritable, and fifty miles an hour. He sat down to break-
fast and drew the Sunday morning paper towards him. Cornelia
might as well stop away as not. How unreasonable she was, and
how inconsiderate! He would walk out presently and see Elias.
The walk would do him good and brace him up a bit. Elias
was his brother; a step-brother, but still a brother, a Lossell.
Blood is thicker than water, and every now and then the old
truth comes home to you. And Cornelia was fast deepening into
a nuisance.
## p. 9368 (#388) ###########################################
9368
MAARTEN MAARTENS
She came in serene, as if nothing had happened. Her victory
satisfied her for the moment, and she was too wise a woman not
to relax her hold of the rope the moment she had drawn the
boat into her current. She had shown Hendrik the limit of her
endurance, and instead of leaping over it, he had shivered back.
That was enough for to-day. She did not really want the con-
cert very badly, especially not at that "scandalous" price.
"I quite agree with you, Henk," she said mildly, as she
busied herself with her tray; "and I have told Herr Pfuhl so,
and sent him away. It would be absurd to pay so much for his
band; and we can in any case very well wait till next year. "
Hendrik's whole being melted away into notes of interroga-
tion and admiration, as he stopped and stared at his wife,— the
open print in one hand, his half-lifted teacup in the other.
"We must give an extra dinner instead," continued Mevrouw.
"Why did you not wait for me to pour out your tea, Hendrik? "
"I am in a hurry," answered Lossell, still bewildered: "I
want to walk out to Elias's and see how the poor chap is get-
ting on. "
Mevrouw pulled a face. She did not like to think of the use-
less idiot who stood between her and the full glory of greatness.
Elias was her permanent eclipse. "Oh, depend upon it, he is
perfectly well and happy," she snapped. She avoided as much
as possible allowing her thoughts to dwell upon contingencies;
but she could not keep down an undercurrent of exasperation at
sight of the idiot's unbroken health. "It is only the people
whose existence has no raison d'être," she said, that go on liv-
ing for ever. ”
«<
<< So-o," muttered Herr Pfuhl to himself emphatically, in a
long-drawn reminiscence of his native land. He hurried down
the short avenue in fretful jumps, and as he went he struck his
greasy wide-awake down flat on his speckled cabinet-pudding of a
head. "So is it in the great houses. They have the butters and
the oils of life, and yet the wheels go creaking. The Mefrou,
ah, she will have her concert when she wants it. Not so was my
Lieschen. Never has she given me Blutwurst again, since I told
her it was Leberwurst I loved better. And yet Blutwurst was
her Leibgericht. "
Whenever he was strongly moved, his German seemed to break
forth again purer from some hidden spring of feeling, and to come
surging up across the muddy ditch of broken Dutch.
## p. 9369 (#389) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9369
A film spread over his eyes, for Lieschen would never eat
Blutwurst again. She had been dead for many years. She had
died in this strange, straight-lined country, of a chill at the heart.
Peace be to the old Director's ashes. He too is dead. But
his orchestra was heard in Mevrouw Lossell's rooms before he
laid down his baton. And on that memorable occasion Hendrik
Lossell went up to him, with nervous, puckered face, and compli-
mented him on the excellence of the performance; adding, with
a palpable sneer, that there were some things so valuable you
could never pay enough for them.
And the sneer was at himself.
GUILT
From God's Fool. Copyright 1892, by D. Appleton & Co.
IN
THE middle of the night Elias awoke. His brain was clear
again, as fools' brains go. He sat up in bed, and said,
"Murder. "
Murder. He did not know much about "death" and "kill-
ing," but he knew what "murder" was. Christ had been mur-
dered. Murder was hating a man so utterly that you wanted.
him to stop seeing, hearing, walking, speaking; that you wanted
him to stop being, in a word. And so you tried to prevent his
being. You struck him until he could no longer be. And he
who did this thing, who made another human being to lie silent
like a stick or stone, was a murderer. It was the very worst
thing a man could be. The wicked Jews had murdered Christ.
And Elias had murdered his brother.
Murder. The whole room was full of it. Room? What did
he know of rooms, of limits of space? He opened his horror-
struck eyes wide, and they saw as much, or as little, as before—
the immensity of darkness.
He put out his hand and felt that he was among unusual sur-
roundings. Where was he? In the place where God confines the
wicked? Prison, the grave, hell- the idea was all one to him.
He was in the darkness-the soul-darkness he had never known
thus till this hour.
Heaven and earth were aflame with the cry of murder. It
rose up in his heart and flooded his whole existence. It pressed
back upon him, and held him by the throat whenever he tried to
shake it off. But he barely tried. His was a mind of few ideas,
## p. 9370 (#390) ###########################################
9370
MAARTEN MAARTENS
at the mercy of so merciless a tyrant as this. The wish to do
away with, to silence, to annihilate. Elias had murdered his
brother, as the Jews had murdered Christ.
He dared not pray. He buried his face in the pillow and
longed to be truly blind, that he might not see "murder"; truly
deaf, that he might not hear "murder. " He dared not think of
forgiveness. There could be no forgiveness for such crime as
this. "Sins" to him had meant his childish petulances. He had
never heard of any one forgiving Christ's murderers. Everybody
was still very angry with them, and yet it was a long time ago
since Christ was killed. There could be no hope, no escape.
There was nothing but this agony, beyond tears, beyond pardon.
Nothing but the consciousness, which must remain forever, of
being one of the very few among the worst of men.
And he remembered that he had thought he was almost as
good as the Lord Christ.
THE DAWN OF THE HIGHER LIFE
From The Greater Glory. Copyright 1893, by D. Appleton & Co.
R
EINOUT, walking his horse in the blazing sunshine, peeped
curiously into the cheaply bound little volume which was
her "dearest thing on earth. "
"Verses! " he said with ready scorn. "All women are
alike. "
He knew enough about verses. Sometimes he read the books
his mother brought him, and sometimes he praised them unread.
"Always say 'Yes' to a woman," the Chevalier was wont to
remark, "if you feel it would hurt to hear you say 'No. '»
That is poetry.
"O mon âme.
O ma flamme.
O que je t'aime. »
"Toujours du même. "
"None of my talent has descended to my child," sighed Mar-
gherita. "And yet I feel sure he will be some sort of a genius
-
- perhaps a Prime Minister. " "A what? " asked the Count, and
walked away to dissemble his laughter. He rejoiced, however,
to think that his wife had come round to his view, whatever her
road.
## p. 9371 (#391) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9371
"Well, she begins young with her love ditties," thought Rein-
out; but, nevertheless, on his return, he settled himself in a
window-seat with the book. It was a Belgian edition of Victor
Hugo's "Les Voix Intérieures. "
He glanced at the first page. The opening words struck him.
"This Age is great and strong.
The quietly impressive words, so unlike much of Victor
Hugo's later redundancy, sank slowly into his soul. Here was a
gospel of the time, which met him half-way on his hap-hazard
path. "Are you looking for me? " it said. "I am here. "
When he had finished, he turned back and began again. He
had never read other poetry before than love songs and bouts-
rimés.
And then he plunged headlong into the piece which follows,
that magnificent poem on the death of the exiled Charles X.
Here the novice soon floundered out of his depth; but he still
held on, borne irresistibly forward by the rush of the rhythm, as
all must understand who appreciate the sublimest of spouters.
It is impossible to stop; the very bewilderment of the reader
twists him helplessly onwards amid those whirlpools of eloquence.
And in all the Titan's endless volumes, Reinout could not have
lighted on a poem more calculated to impress him than this one.
Aristocrat as he must ever remain in all the prejudices of his
bringing-up, lover as he had been destined to become from
childhood of that lowly human greatness which your mere aris-
tocrat ignores, this song of tenderest reconciliation struck chords.
within his being of whose existence his incompleteness had never
been aware. And when he reached, with palpitating heart and
eager breath, the great finale,-
"O Poesy, to heaven on frighted wing thou fliest! "
are
he started to his feet, and stood staring before him into a new
gulf yawning ahead-or was it a visionary ladder, whose top is
hid in heaven? A world of illusion, Idea, the soul-world of
beautiful hopes and fancies, the world in which all men
brothers, great and strong and greatly worthy, a world at which
the cynic laughs, with tears for laughter;-at last he beheld
it; uplifted on the pinions of his ignorance into cloudland, and
beyond that to the sun! He will never forget that moment,
-
___________
## p. 9372 (#392) ###########################################
MAARTEN MAARTENS
9372
although to this day he cannot tell you in intelligible prose what
took place in his soul. Oh, the sweetness of it! The sadness
of it! The beautiful, sorrowful hope! He did not know what
he was saying, as he stumbled on through a wilderness of mag-
nificent words. But gradually a single thought stood out clear
among all this confusion of greatnesses: the majesty - not of
your Highnesses and Excellencies and Eminences- but of the
naked soul of man. He had been yearning for it, searching for
it, unwittingly; at last he could grasp it, and read the riddle of
life.
All that afternoon he hurried upwards, a breathless explorer
on Alpine heights. Like an Indian prince from his father's pal-
ace, he had escaped out of the gilded cage where the neat cana-
ries warbled, away into the regions of the angels' song, "Peace
on earth, good-will among men. Hallelujah! " His soul was
drunken with poesy. He tore off the kid glove from his heart.
He was utterly unreasonable and nonsensical, full of clap-trap
and tall-talk and foolishness. Yes, thank God: he was all that
at last.
## p. 9373 (#393) ###########################################
9373
THE MABINOGION
BY ERNEST RHYS
HE old delightful collection of Welsh romances,-
"open-air
tales," the late Sidney Lanier happily termed them,-known
all the world over as the 'Mabinogion,' is the work of
various mediæval poets and romancers whose very names, like those
of the border balladists, are lost to us. It is easy to speculate, as
Stephens and other critics have done, about the authorship of one or
two of the 'Mabinogion,' in scanning the list of poets in Wales during
the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries; but the quest leads to
nothing certain, and save to Welsh students is uninteresting. We
may say, as the poet Shirley wrote in speaking of Beaumont and
Fletcher, the one important thing about these authors is that
have their precious remains. "
་
we
As for the general title 'Mabinogion,' which Lady Charlotte
Guest's English version has made familiar, it is well perhaps at the
outset to listen to the explanation given by the greatest Celtic scholar
of our time, the present principal of Jesus College, Oxford. From
this it may be seen that these tales, too, are but another outgrowth
of that wonderful bardic cult to which some reference is made in a
previous volume. * "An idea prevails," says Principal John Rhys,
"that any Welsh tale of respectable antiquity may be called a
mabinogi; but there is no warrant for extending the use of the term
to any but the four branches of the Mabinogi,' such as Pwyll,
Branwen, Manawydthau, and Math. For, strictly speaking, the word
mabinog is a technical term belonging to the bardic system, and it
means a literary apprentice. In other words, a mabinog was a young
man who had not yet acquired the art of making verse, but who
received instruction from a qualified bard. The inference is that the
'Mabinogion' meant the collection of things which formed the mabi-
nog's literary training-his stock in trade, so to speak; for he was
probably allowed to relate the tales forming the four branches of
the Mabinogion' at a fixed price established by law or custom. If
he aspired to a place in the hierarchy of letters, he must acquire
the poetic art. The supposition that a mabinog was a child on his
nurse's lap would be as erroneous as the idea that the 'Mabinogion'
*Vide article Celtic Literature,' Vol. vi. , page 3403.
―――――
## p. 9374 (#394) ###########################################
THE MABINOGION
9374
are nursery tales,-a view which no one who has read them can rea-
sonably take. »
In Lady Charlotte Guest's later edition in one volume (London,
1877), the most convenient edition for reference,- twelve tales in
all will be found. Of these, the most natively and characteristically
Welsh in character are such tales as the vivid, thrice romantic
'Dream of Rhonabwy,' which owes little to outside sources. The
Lady of the Fountain,' on the other hand, shows in a very striking
way the influence of the French chivalric romances that Sir Thomas
Malory drew upon so freely in his 'Morte d'Arthur. ' In the admi-
rably edited Oxford text of the Welsh originals, The Lady of the
Fountain appears under the title of Owain and Lunet'; and Lunet's
name at once recalls Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Indeed, the
king, King Arthur himself, is not long in making his entry upon the
scene.
We find him in this first romance, set forth with all that
fondness for fine color which marks all Celtic romance:-
"In the centre of the chamber King Arthur sat upon a seat of
green rushes, over which was spread a covering of flame-colored satin,
and a cushion of red satin was under his elbow. "
It is perhaps to be regretted that King Arthur should appear so
indifferent to the delights of fiction as he does in the sequel; for in
the interval before dinner he calmly proposes to go to sleep while
they tell tales. He also suggests that they should get a flagon of
mead and some meat, by way of encouragement to the comfortable
exercise of romance. "So Kai went to the kitchen and to the mead
cellar, and returned bearing a flagon of mead and a golden goblet,
and a handful of skewers upon which were broiled collops of meat.
Then they ate the collops, and began to drink the mead. "
In the way of sheer romance, nothing could be better than the
tale of his adventures that Kynon then recites: how, after journeying
through deserts and distant regions, he came to the fairest valley
in the world, and to a great castle with a torrent below it; how, being
conducted into the castle, he found there four-and-twenty damsels of
surpassing beauty, embroidering satin at a window, who rose at his
coming, and divested him of his armor and attired him in fine linen,
with mantle and surcoat of yellow satin; and how then they spread
a feast before him, with tempting array of gold and silver; and how,
when next day he sets forth refreshed in quest of further adventures,
he is overthrown by the sable Knight of the Fountain. Owain, in
his turn, essays to fight with this Knight of Darkness:- but here let
me pause, in the remote hope of sending new readers to the tale
itself. For those who think mere romance in itself to be wanting in
philosophical interest, let it be added that Principal Rhys has in his
Hibbert Lectures discovered all manner of mythological meaning in
## p. 9375 (#395) ###########################################
THE MABINOGION
9375
the tale. Thus Owain becomes the symbol of the Day, with its
twelve hours of light, while the dark Knight of the Fountain represents
Darkness and Destruction, and corresponds to our old enemy Arawn,
the prince of Night and Hades.
In quite another vein from The Lady of the Fountain' is the
curious story of Lludd and Llevelys,' which begins in the Welsh
original, "Yr beli mawr vab manogair y bu tri meib,”—that is,
"Beli the Great, son of Manogar, had three sons. " These three were
Lludd, Caswallawn, and Nynyaw. But there was also a fourth, called
Llevelys. After the death of Beli, Lludd became King; and we add
a passage to our selections that follow, describing the legendary ori-
gin of London, as founded by King Lludd, after whom Ludgate Hill
is called. What could be more entertaining, as one contemplates
the ramifications of that congeries of cities forming modern London,
than to remember this old Welsh fable of its first beginnings? One
need not trouble to distinguish how far King Lludd and his capital,
Caer Lludd (the old Cymraec name for London), are historical or not.
Here they concern us only as romance, as do the Three Great Plagues
of the Isle of Britain, which King Lludd has to drive away. But
romance or history, let us not forget that these Three Plagues lead,
in the course of the Mabinogi, to the discovery that Oxford is the
very centre of the mystic Isle of Britain; which may very well
account, in turn, for the modern taste of Oxford for Welsh texts!
The tale that follows 'Lludd and Llevelys' in the English edition
of the 'Mabinogion,''Taliesin,' to wit,-is the only item in the list.
which is rather suspicious in its origin. In fact the tale as it stands
is neither primitive nor mediæval, but is a fairly ingenious concoc-
tion of primitive and mediæval ingredients, probably made in the
seventeenth or eighteenth century. It contains, inter alia, some strik-
ing versions of the old mystic poems attributed to Taliesin; for a
further account of which we must refer the reader to the article
in a later volume upon that remarkable and thrice puzzling Cymraec
poet. In the opening of the story of Taliesin,' as it stands, will be
found the mention of a certain Tegid Voel; and this serves to remind
us that it was a Welsh scholar, best known by his bardic use of the
same name, "Tegid," who was Lady Guest's collaborator in trans-
lating the 'Mabinogion. '
It may be said in appraising the value of the contribution thus
made to the open literature of the world, that if, necessarily, some-
thing is lost in the transference from an old to a newer tongue, yet
the version we have is a really surprisingly good English equiva-
lent, written with a great charm of style and a pervading sense of
the spirit of all romance literature. Let us not forget, either, to note
the services rendered to the book, by one so remarkable among the
## p. 9376 (#396) ###########################################
9376
THE MABINOGION
American poets as the late Sidney Lanier, from whom we quoted a
phrase in our opening sentence. In his pleasant preamble to The
Boys' Mabinogion,' the account he gives of his subject forms so con-
vincing a tribute to its delights that one is tempted to steal a sen-
tence or two. After referring to the 'Arabian Nights,' Sidney Lanier
goes on to say that the 'Mabinogion' fortunately "do not move in
that close temperature which often renders the atmosphere of the
Eastern tales so unwholesome. " Again he says (and how well the
sentence touches on the imaginative spell that one finds in the more
primitive, more peculiarly Celtic of those tales, such as the thrice
wonderful 'Dream of Rhonabwy! '): "There is a glamour and sleep-
walking mystery which often incline a man to rub his eyes in the
midst of a Mabinogi, and to think of previous states of existence. "
It remains to be said, finally, that the old manuscript volume of
the 'Mabinogion,' known as the 'Llyfr Coch o Hergest,' the 'Red
Book of Hergest,' lies enshrined in the famous library of Jesus Col-
lege, Oxford: the one college in the older English universities which
has a time-honored connection with Welsh scholarship and Welsh lit-
erature.
