“Oh, the
cowardly
scoundrel!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v14 - Ibn to Juv
Indeed, the literature of South America has until recently been neg-
lected alınost as much in Spain as in England and in the United
States; and yet it is a fact that American literature was born at the
south, and spoke the Spanish tongue. The first book printed in the
New World was printed in Spanish, in the year 1537, antedating by
more than a century the Bay Psalm Book. More than one hundred
books had been printed in Spanish before 1600, and a long line of
poets extending down to the present day testifies to the vigor of the
literary traditions. Thomas A. Janvier quotes an American merchant
as saying that “At Bogotá the people think a great deal more of
literary pursuits than of manufacturing. ”
It was at Bogotá that Jorge Isaaks began his literary career. His
father was an English Jew who married a woman of Spanish blood,
and Isaaks was born in the town of Cali in the State of Cauca: but
he was taken to Bogotá when still a lad, and it became his home for
life; the Bogotanos claim him with justice as their own. There in
1864 he published his first literary venture, a volume of verses. His
second work appeared three years later; this was María,' and it
found its way at once into the hearts of all the Spanish-speaking
people.
(María' is a tale of domestic life in Colombia, told with the con-
vincing simplicity of a consummate artist. A vein of true and tender
sentiment runs through the story, which lends it an idyllic charm;
but it is free from the unreality and sentimentality of Châteaubriand's
(Atala' and St. Pierre's (Paul and Virginia,' with which it has been
compared. Those romances move in idealized realms both as to
scenery and character; this portrays with absolute faithfulness the
actual life of to-day in a well-to-do Colombian home. This convin-
cing fidelity of treatment gives the work a character that is almost
autobiographic. The plot is simple, and its pivot is love. The young
## p. 8047 (#243) ###########################################
JORGE ISAAKS
8047
hero loves his father's ward Maria; his studies necessitate long ab-
sences from home; during one of these María dies. This is all. The
story moves gently through emotional experiences, and the agony
of the final separation through death is portrayed with a touch at
once powerful and tender. It is in the episodes that the local color
of South-American life is to be found. Prieto has called María
"a reliquary of pure sentiment,” and through the translation of Mr.
Rollo Ogden it has become a part of our own literature.
THE JAGUAR HUNT
From María): Translation of Rollo Ogden. Copyright 1890, by Harper &
Brothers
T"
He following morning at daybreak I took the mountain road,
accompanied by Juan Ángel, who was loaded down with
presents sent by my mother to Luisa and the girls. Mayo
followed us: his faithfulness was too much for his prudence, for
he had received many injuries in expeditions of this sort, and was
far too old to go upon them.
Once across the bridge, we met José and his nephew Braulio,
who were coming to find me. The former at once broached to
me his plan for the hunt, which was to try for a shot at a famous
jaguar of the neighborhood that had killed some of his lambs.
He had followed the creature's trail, and had discovered one of
his lairs at the head-waters of the river, more than half a league
above his cabin.
Juan Ángel was in a cold sweat on hearing these details, and
putting down on the fallen leaves the hamper which he was car-
rying, looked at us with staring eyes as if he were hearing of a
plan to commit a murder.
José kept on talking of his scheme of attack:-
You may cut off my ears if he gets away. Now we'll see if
that boastful Lucas is only the braggart they say. Tiburcio l'11
answer for. Have you got large bullets ? »
“Yes," I replied, "and my long rifle. ”
« This will be a great day for Braulio. He wants very much
to see you shoot; for I have told him that you and I consider
shots very poor that do not hit a bear square between the eyes. ”
He laughed boisterously, clapping his nephew on the shoulder.
"Well, let's be off,” he continued; “but let the boy carry this
garden-stuff to the Señora, and I'll go back. ' He caught up Juan
(
(C
## p. 8048 (#244) ###########################################
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JORGE ISAAKS
((
« Mind you
Ángel's hamper, saying, «Are these sweetmeats that María is
sending for her cousin ? »
“That's something my mother is sending Luisa. ”
“But what can be the matter with the girl ? I saw her go by
yesterday looking out of sorts. She was as white as a Castile
rose-bud. ”
«She's well again. ”
"Here, you young nigger, what are you doing here? ” said
José to Juan Ángel. “Be off with that bag, and come back
quickly, for it won't be safe for you to pass by here alone after
a while.
Not a word of this down at the house. "
come back! ” I shouted to him after he had
crossed the bridge. He disappeared in the reeds like a frightened
partridge.
Braulio was of about my age. Two months before, he had
come from Antioquía to live with his uncle, and was already
madly in love with his cousin Tránsito. The nephew's face had
all of that nobility which made that of the older man so interest-
ing; but the most striking thing in it was a beautiful mouth, not
bearded as yet, whose feminine smile was in strong contrast with
the manly energy expressed in the other features.
Of a gentle
and yielding nature, he was an indefatigable worker, a real treas-
ure for José, and just the husband for Tránsito.
Luisa and the girls came out to welcome me at the door of
the cabin, smiling and affectionate as ever. Frequent sight of
me in the last few months had made the girls less timid with
me. José himself in our hunting expeditions - that is, upon the
field of battle - exercised a paternal authority over me; but this
disappeared when he entered his house, as if our true and simple
friendship were a secret.
"At last! at last! » said Luisa, taking me by the arm to
lead me into the humble parlor. “It's all of seven days! We
have counted them one by one. ”
The girls looked at me with mischievous smiles.
Dear me," exclaimed Luisa, observing me more closely, how
pale you are! That won't do. If you would only come oftener
it would fatten you up like anything. "
“And you, what do you think of me? " asked I of the girls.
“Why,” replied Tránsito, “what must we think of you if by
staying off there studying – ”
“We have had such lovely things for you,” interrupted Lucía.
« We let the first melon of the new crop spoil, waiting for you;
»
(
>
## p. 8049 (#245) ###########################################
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8049
« Don't you
and last Thursday, thinking you were coming, we had such de-
licious cream for you —
«What a cunning flatterer she is ! ” said José. "Ah, Luisa,"
he added, “there's good judgment for you! we don't understand
such things. But he had a good reason for not coming," he
went on in a serious tone, “a good reason; and as you are soon
going to invite him to spend a whole day with us — isn't it so,
Braulio ? ”
"Yes, yes; please let us talk about that. When will that
great day come, Señora Luisa ? when will it, Tránsito ? »
She turned scarlet, and would not have lifted her eyes to look
at her betrothed for all the gold in the world.
«It will be a good while yet,” answered Luisa.
see that we must first get your little house whitewashed, and the
doors hung? It will be the day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, for
she is Tránsito's patron saint. ”
"And when is that ? »
“Don't you know? Why, the twelfth of December. Haven't
these children told you that they want you to be their grooms-
man ? »
"No; and I shall not pardon Tránsito for her delay in giving
me such good news. ”
“Well, I told Braulio that he ought to tell you, for my father
used to say that was the way. ”
“I thank you for choosing me more than you can imagine;
and when the time comes I'll serve as godfather too. ”
Braulio cast a tender glance at his affianced, but she hastily
went out, in her embarrassment taking Lucía with her to pre-
pare the breakfast.
My meals in José's house were not like the one I described
before: I was now but as one of the family; and without any
table service excepting the one knife and fork which were al-
ways given to me, took my portion of beans, corn-meal mush,
milk, and goat's-flesh from Luisa's hands, seated just as José and
Braulio were, on a bench made of roots of the giant reed. Not
without difficulty could I make them treat me in this way.
Once at sunset, years afterwards, journeying through the
mountains of José's country, I saw happy laborers reach the
cabin where I used to enjoy hospitality. After grace was said
by the aged head of the family, they waited around the fireside
for the supper which the dear old mother passed to them; one
XIV—504
## p. 8050 (#246) ###########################################
8050
JORGE ISAAKS
plate sufficed for every married couple; the children frisked
about the room. And I could not bear to look upon the patri-
archal scene, which reminded me of the last happy days of my
youth.
The breakfast was hearty as usual, seasoned with a conversa-
tion which revealed the eagerness of José and Braulio to begin
the hunt. It must have been ten o'clock when all at last were
ready, Lucas carrying the hamper which Luisa had made ready
for us; and after José's repeated coming and going, to collect
and put in his great otter-skin pouch bunches of wadding and a
variety of other things which had been forgotten, we set out.
There were five hunters,—the mulatto Tiburcio, a peon from
the Chagra hacienda, Lucas, José, Braulio, and I. We all had
rifles; though those carried by Tiburcio and Lucas were flint-
locks-- most excellent, of course, according to their owners. José
and Braulio carried lances also, with the blades very carefully
set in the handles,
Not a single available dog stayed at home; leashed two and
two they swelled our expedition, whining with pleasure. Even
the pet of Marta the cook, Palomo, whom the very hares knew
to be stone-blind, offered his neck to be counted among the able.
bodied dogs; but José sent him away with a zumba! followed by
some mortifying reproaches.
Luisa and the girls stayed behind; rather anxious, especially
Tránsito, who well knew that her betrothed was going to run
the greatest risk, since his fitness for the most dangerous post
was indisputable.
Pursuing a narrow and difficult path, we began to go up the
north bank of the river. Its sloping channel - if such could be
—
called the wooded bottom of the gorge, spotted with rocks upon
whose summits, as upon the roof of a house, grew curled ferns
and reeds with flowering climbing plants twisted about them -
was obstructed at intervals with enormous bowlders, between
which the current rushed swiftly, whitened with whirlpools and
fantastic shapes of foam.
We had gone a little more than half a league when José,
pausing by the mouth of a broad chasm, dry and walled in by
high cliffs, scrutinized some badly gnawed bones scattered over
the sand; they were those of the lamb which had been thrown
out the day before as bait to the fierce animal. With Braulio in
advance, José and I went into the chasm up which the tracks
## p. 8051 (#247) ###########################################
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8051
were.
led. Braulio after going on about a hundred yards paused, and
without looking at us, motioned to us to stop. He listened to
the murmurs of the forest; filled his chest with all the air it
could possibly contain; looked up at the high arch formed above
us by the cedars, and then went on with slow and noiseless steps.
After a moment he paused again, went through a careful exam-
ination as before, and pointing out to us the scratches on the
trunk of a tree growing out of the bottom of the chasm, said to
us, after a fresh study of the tracks: “He went up here. It's
easy to see he's full of meat and drink. )
The chasm came to an end twenty yards farther on in a sharp
wall, over the shoulder of which, we inferred from the hollowed
place at its foot, the torrents poured in the rainy season. Against
my advice we went back again to the river, and kept on up its
course. In a little while Braulio found the tracks of the jaguar
on the shingle, this time going down to the edge of the water.
We must find out if the beast had gone across the river; or if
as was most probable, hindered by the current (here very heavy
and swift), he had kept on up the river along the bank where we
Braulio strapped his rifle to his back, and waded across
the stream; he had attached a rope to his belt, and José held
the end of it so as to prevent a false step from causing his
nephew to plunge over the cascade just at hand. We maintained
a profound silence, repressing the impatient whining of the
dogs.
“Not a track here,” said Braulio, after examining the sand
and the thicket. Just then he stood up, about to return to us,
and poising himself on the top of a rock, motioned us to be
quiet. He seized his rifle, threw it to his shoulder, aimed as if
to shoot at something among the rocks at our side, leaned lightly
forward, cool and quiet, and fired.
“There he is! ” he shouted, pointing to the bushes growing
among the rocks, into which we could not see; then he leaped
down to the water's edge and added:-
Keep the rope taut! Let the dogs go up there! ”
The dogs seemed to understand what had happened. Scarcely
had we loosed them when they disappeared in the gorges at our
right, while José was helping Braulio across the river.
“Keep quiet! ” said Braulio as soon as he gained the bank;
and while he was hurriedly loading his rifle he added, seeing me,
« You come with me, young master. ”
(C
»
## p. 8052 (#248) ###########################################
8052
JORGE ISAAKS
(
The dogs were already close on the prey, and it seemed as if
the brute was not finding it easy to get away, since the barking
all came from one point. Braulio took a lance from José's hand,
saying to us two: “You go above and below to guard this pass,
for the jaguar will double on his trail if he gets away from us
where he is. Tiburcio will stay with you. "
Then he said to Lucas, “We two will go round and come out
on top of the hill. ”
With his usual sweet smile and with the coolest manner he
finished loading his rifle.
"It's a dear little cat, and I hit him. ” As he said this we
separated. José, Tiburcio, and I climbed upon a convenient
rock. Tiburcio kept looking at the priming of his rifle. José
was all eyes. From where we were we could see all that was
happening on the hill, and could guard the pass as requested,
for there were but few trees intervening, though they were large
ones.
Of the six dogs, two were already hors de combat: one of
them lying mangled at the feet of the fierce animal; the other,
with entrails protruding between broken ribs, had come to find us,
and giving forth the most heart-rending cries, died at the foot of
the rock upon which we had climbed. With his side turned to
a clump of oaks, his tail playing about like a serpent, his back
erect, his eyes flaming, and his teeth bared, the jaguar was utter-
ing hoarse cries; and as he threw his enormous head about, his
ears made a noise something like castanets. As he turned about,
worried by the dogs, who were not much injured although not
wholly unharmed, we could see that his left flank was bleeding;
he tried to lick it from time to time, but this only gave the pack
an advantage in rushing at him.
Braulio and Lucas appeared, emerging from the gorge and
coming out upon the hill, though a little farther from the brute
than we were; Lucas was livid. There was thus a triangle formed
by the hunters and their game, so that both groups could fire at
the same time without danger of injuring each other.
“Let's all fire together! ” shouted José.
«No, no: we shall hit the dogs! » replied Braulio; then he left
his companion and was lost to our sight.
I thought that a general volley would end the matter; but it
was almost certain that some of the dogs would be killed, and if
by any chance the jaguar should not be finished, it would be easy
(
»
## p. 8053 (#249) ###########################################
JORGE ISAAKS
8053
for him to play the mischief with us if all our weapons were
discharged.
Suddenly Braulio's head appeared rising out of the gorge, a
little behind the trees which protected the jaguar in the rear; his
mouth was half opened with his panting, his eyes were dilated,
his hair was flying. In his right hand he carried the couched
lance, and with his left he was pushing away the twigs which
prevented him from seeing clearly.
We all stood silent; the very dogs appeared absorbed in the
end of the adventure.
At last José shouted, "At him! Kill-Lion, at him! Biter, Stran-
gler, at him! »
It would not do to give the jaguar a breathing-spell; and
setting on the dogs would make Braulio's risk smaller. The dogs
renewed their attack all together. One more of them fell dead
without a sound. The jaguar gave a horrible yell. Braulio was
seen behind a clump of oaks nearer to us grasping the handle of
the lance, from which the blade had been broken. The brute
swung around in search of him.
He shouted, “Fire, fire! ” and
leaped back at a single bound to the place where he had lost his
lance-head. The jaguar followed him. Lucas had disappeared.
Tiburcio turned olive color: he leveled and pulled the trigger; his
gun flashed in the pan.
José fired. The jaguar roared and bit at his flank again, and
then sprang in pursuit of Braulio. The latter, turning his course
behind the oaks, Alung himself towards us to pick up the lance
thrown to him by José.
The beast was square in front of us. My rifle alone was
available. I fired The jaguar sank back, reeled, and fell.
Braulio looked back instinctively to learn the effect of the last
shot. José, Tiburcio, and I were all near him by that time, and
together we gave a shout of triumph.
The mouth of the brute was filled with bloody foam; his eyes
were heavy and motionless, and in the last agony of death he
convulsively stretched out his quivering legs, and whipped the
leaves with his beautiful tail.
“Good shot! — what a shot! ” exclaimed Braulio, as he put his
foot on the animal's neck. "Right through the forehead! There's
a steady hand for you! ”
José, with a rather unsteady voice (the poor fellow was think-
ing of his daughter), called out, wiping the sweat off his face
with the flap of his shirt:-
>>
## p. 8054 (#250) ###########################################
8054
JORGE ISAAKS
((
(
>
>>
"Well, well, what a fat one! Holy Moses, what an animal!
You son of a devil, I can kick you now and you never know it. ”
Then he looked sadly at the bodies of his three dogs, saying,
"Poor Campanilla, she's the one I'm most sorry for: what a
beauty she was !
Then he caressed the others, which were panting and gasping
with protruding tongues, as if they had only been running a
stubborn calf into the corral.
José held out to me his clean handkerchief, saying, “Sit down,
my boy. We must get that skin off carefully, for it's yours. ”
Then he called, "Lucas ! »
Braulio gave a great laugh, and finally said, “By this time
he's safe hidden in the hen-house down home. ”
"Lucas! ” again shouted José, paying no attention to what his
nephew was saying; but when he saw us both laughing he asked,
«What's the joke? ”
“Uncle, the boaster flew away as soon as I broke my lance. ”
José looked at us as if he could not possibly understand.
“Oh, the cowardly scoundrel! »
Then he went down by the river, and shouted till the mount-
ains echoed his voice, Lucas, you rogue ! »
"I've got a good knife here to skin him with," said Tibur-
cio.
“No, man, it isn't that, but that wretch was carrying the
hamper with our lunch, and this boy wants something to eat;
and so do I, but I don't see any prospect of much hereabouts. ”
But in fact the desired hamper was the very thing which
marked the spot whence the fellow had fled as he dropped it.
José brought it to us rejoicing, and proceeded to open it, mean-
while ordering Tiburcio to fill our cups with water from the
river. The food was white and violet green-corn, fresh cheese,
and nicely roasted meat; all this was wrapped up in banana
leaves. Then there appeared in addition a bottle of wine rolled
in a napkin, bread, cherries, and dried figs. These last articles
José put one side, saying, “That's a separate account. ”
The huge knives came out of their sheaths. José cut up the
meat for us, and this with the corn made a dish fit for a king.
We drank the wine, made havoc with the bread, and finished the
figs and cherries, which were more to the taste of my compan-
ions than to mine. Corn-cake was not lacking,- that pleasant
companion of the traveler, the hunter, and the poor man. The
water was ice-cold. My best cigars ended the rustic banquet.
## p. 8055 (#251) ###########################################
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8055
José was in fine spirits, and Braulio had ventured to call me
padrino. With wonderful dexterity Tiburcio flayed the jaguar,
carefully taking out all the fat, which they say is excellent for I
don't know what not.
After getting the jaguar's skin with his head and paws into
convenient bundles, we set out on our return to José's cabin; he
took my rifle on the same shoulder with his own, and went on
ahead calling the dogs. From time to time he would stop to go
over some feature of the chase, or to give vent to a new word
of contempt for Lucas.
Of course the women had been counting and recounting us
from the moment we came in sight; and when we drew near the
house they were still wavering between alarm and joy, since on
account of our delay and the shots they had heard they knew
we must have incurred some danger. It was Tránsito who came
forward to welcome us, and she was perceptibly pale.
“Did you kill him ? ” she called.
“Yes, my daughter,” replied her father.
They all surrounded us; even old Marta, who had in her hands
a half-plucked capon. Lucía came up to ask me about my rifle,
.
and as I was showing it to her she added in a low voice, « There
was no accident, was there ? »
«None whatever," I answered, affectionately tapping her lips
with a twig I had in my hand.
« Oh, I was thinking - »
“ Hasn't that ridiculous Lucas come down this way? ” asked
José.
“Not he,” replied Marta.
José muttered a curse.
“But where is what you killed ? ” finally asked Luisa, when
she could make herself heard.
“Here, aunt," answered Braulio; and with the aid of his
betrothed he began to undo the bundle, saying something to the
girl which I could not hear. She looked at me in a very strange
way, and brought out of the house a little bench for me, upon
which I sat and looked on. As soon as the large and velvety
skin had been spread out in the court-yard, the women gave a
cry; but when the head rolled upon the grass they were almost
beside themselves.
“Why, how did you kill him? Tell us,” said Luisa. A11
looked a little frightened.
)
## p. 8056 (#252) ###########################################
8056
JORGE ISAAKS
“Do tell us,” added Lucía.
Then José, taking the head of the jaguar in his hands, said,
« The jaguar was just going to kill Braulio when the Señor gave
him this ball. ” He pointed to the hole in the forehead. All
looked at me, and in each one of those glances there was recom-
pense enough for an action which really deserved none. José
went on to give the details of the expedition, meanwhile attend-
ing to the wounds of the dogs, and bewailing the loss of the
three that had been killed. Braulio and Tiburcio wrapped up the
skin.
The women went back to their tasks, and I took a nap in the
little parlor on the bed which Tránsito and Lucía had improvised
for me upon one of the benches. My lullaby was the murmur of
the river, the cries of the geese, the lowing of the cattle pastured
on the hills near by, and the songs of the girls washing clothes
in the brook. Nature is the most loving of mothers when grief
has taken possession of our souls; and if happiness is our lot she
smiles upo
us.
## p. 8057 (#253) ###########################################
8057
HELEN FISKE JACKSON
«H. H.
(1831–1885)
HE brilliant woman who bore the pen-name of “H. H. ” was
endowed with a personality so impressive, a temperament
so rich, a mind so charming, that her admirers were ready
to prophesy for her as large a measure of immortality as falls to
the lot of any preoccupied modern singer who serves the Muse with
half-vows. It was only after her radiant presence was withdrawn
that they perceived her genius to have been greater than her talent,
and saw that, fine as was her ear and delicate as was her taste, her
craftsmanship sometimes failed her. More-
over, her strong ethical bias often turned
her genuine lyric impulse into forms of par-
able and allegory, to overtake the meaning
of which her panting reader toiled after
her in vain. This habit, with a remarkable
condensation of structure, occasionally put
upon a phrase a greater weight of mean-
ing than it could bear, and gave a look
of affectation to the utterance of the most
simple and natural of singers.
Yet when all fair abatement is made,
H. H. 's place in literature is won. Twenty
years ago, Emerson thought it the first HELEN JACKSON
place among American woman poets; and
he affirmed that no one had wrought to finer perfection that most
difficult verse form, the sonnet. Some of her sonnets, like Poppies
in the Wheat, October,' (Thought,' and (Burnt Ships,' show great
beauty of execution, a fertile fancy, and a touch of true imagination.
Other poems display rare felicity of cadence; like Coming Across,'
which holds the very roll and lift of the urging wave, and 'Gondo-
lieds, where a nice ear catches the rhythm of the rower's oar, whose
sound gives back to memory the melancholy beauty of a Venetian
night. In another group of verses appears the note of familiar
emotional experiences, as in The Mother's Farewell to a Voyager,'
Best,' and 'Spinning,'. a noble and tender lyric which deserves to
-
## p. 8058 (#254) ###########################################
8058
HELEN FISKE JACKSON
)
live. It is no doubt the sweetness and genuineness of these household
poems which have gained for H. H. her wide and affectionate recog-
nition. But her meditative, out-of-door verses are most truly char-
acteristic. My Legacy,' My Tenants,' My House not Made with
Hands, My Strawberry, Locusts and Wild Honey,' breathe that
love of nature which was with her a passion. In color and defi-
niteness of drawing they recall Emerson's Nut-hatch,' or Thoreau's
(Mist. But their note of comprehension of the visible natural world
and of oneness with it is her own. And where she is simply the
imaginative painter of beautiful scenes, as in Distance) and October,'
her touch is faultless. Her last poems were personal and introspect-
ive, and the touching Habeas Corpus' fell unfinished from her slight
hands not long before she died.
Helen Fiske was born in 1831, in the village of Amherst, Mas-
sachusetts, where her father held a professor's chair in the college.
Her education was the usual desultory and ineffectual course of
training prescribed for well-placed girls of her time. At twenty-one
she married Captain Edward Hunt of the United States army, and
began the irresponsible, wandering existence of an army officer's wife.
Travel and social experience ripened her mind, but it was only after
the death of her husband and her only child that she set herself to
write.
From 1867 to her death, eighteen years later, her pen hardly
rested. She wrote verses, sketches of travel, essays, children's stories,
novels, and tracts for the time. Her life in the West after her mar-
riage to Mr. William Jackson, a banker of Colorado Springs, revealed
to her the wrongs of the Indian, which with all the strength of her
ardent nature she set herself at once to redress. Newspaper letters,
appeals to government officialism, and finally her (Century of Dis-
honor,'- a sharp arraignment of the nation for perfidy and cruelty
towards its helpless wards, — were her service to this cause. Her
most popular story, Ramona,' a romance whose protagonists are of
Indian blood, was also an appeal for justice. This book, however,
rose far above its polemic intention; the beauty of its descriptions, its
dramatic movement, its admirable characterization, and its imaginat-
ive insight entitling it to rank among the half-dozen best distinctively
American stories. Two novels in the No Name Series) - Mercy
Philbrick's Choice and Hetty's Strange History' - show the quali-
ties that infuse her prose: color, brilliancy of touch, grace of form,
certainty of intuition, and occasional admirable humor. She had not
the gift of construction, and she lacked the power of self-criticism;
so that she is singularly uneven, and her fiction may not perhaps sur-
vive the generation whose conduct of life inspired it. But it is gen-
uine and full of character.
## p. 8059 (#255) ###########################################
HELEN FISKE JACKSON
8059
(Bits of Travel,' Bits of Travel at Home,' and 'Glimpses of
Three Coasts) are vagabond sketches so brilliantly picturesque as to
seem overwrought, perhaps, to the reader who did not know the
intensity of her temperament and the vividness of her familiar
speech. Her Bits of Talk' is a collection of brief ethical essays on
the homely duties of household life,- essays inspired by a sensitive
conscience and written with delightful freshness and humor.
It is as a poet, however, that H. H. is most vividly remembered.
Hers was the vision and the faculty divine,” and it would seem
that she might have reached the upper heights had her fight been
steadied by a larger knowledge and a sterner self-discipline.
(C
REVENUES
I
SMILE to hear the little kings,
When they count up their precious things,
And send their vaunting lists abroad
Of what their kingdoms can afford.
One boasts his corn, and one his wine,
And one his gold and silver fine;
One by an army, one by a fleet,
Keeps neighbor kings beneath his feet;
One sets his claim to highest place
On looms of silk and looms of lace;
And one shows pictures of old saints
In lifelike tints of wondrous paints;
And one has quarries of white stone
From which rare statue-shapes have grown:
And so, by dint of wealth or grace,
Striving to keep the highest place,
They count and show their precious things,
The little race of little kings.
“O little kings! ” I long to say,
« Who counts God's revenues to-day?
Who knows, on all the hills and coasts,
Names of the captains of his hosts?
What eye has seen the half of gold
His smallest mine has in its hold ?
What figures tell one summer's cost
Of fabrics which are torn and tost
To clothe his myriads of trees?
Who reckons, in the sounding seas,
## p. 8060 (#256) ###########################################
8060
HELEN FISKE JACKSON
The shining corals, wrought and graved,
With which his ocean floors are paved ?
Who knows the numbers or the names
Of colors in his sunset flames ?
What table measures, marking weight,
What chemistries, can estimate
One single banquet for his birds ? »
Then, mocked by all which utmost words
And utmost thoughts can frame or reach,
My heart finds tears its only speech.
In ecstasy, part joy, part pain,
Where fear and wonder half restrain
Love's gratitude, I lay my ear
Close to the ground, and listening hear
This noiseless, ceaseless, boundless tide
Of earth's great wealth, on every side,
Rolling and pouring up to break
At feet of God, who will not take
Nor keep among his heavenly things
So much as tithe of all it brings;
But instant turns the costly wave,
Gives back to earth all that it gave,
Spends all his universe of power
And pomp to deck one single hour
Of time, and then in largess free,
Unasked, bestows the hour on me.
Copyright 1874, by Roberts Brothers.
HABEAS CORPUS
M
Y BODY, eh ? Friend Death, how now?
Why all this tedious pomp of writ?
Thou hast reclaimed it sure and slow
For half a century, bit by bit.
In faith thou knowest more to-day
Than I do, where it can be found!
This shriveled lump of suffering clay,
To which I now am chained and bound,
Has not of kith or kin a trace
To the good body once I bore:
Look at this shrunken, ghastly face,-
Didst ever see that face before ?
## p. 8061 (#257) ###########################################
HELEN FISKE JACKSON
8061
Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art;
Thy only fault thy lagging gait,
Mistaken pity in thy heart
For timorous ones that bid thee wait.
Do quickly all thou hast to do,
Nor I nor mine will hindrance make:
I shall be free when thou art through;
I grudge thee naught that thou must take!
Stay! I have lied: I grudge thee one,
Yes, two I grudge thee at this last, –
Two members which have faithful done
My will and bidding in the past.
I grudge thee this right hand of mine;
I grudge thee this quick-beating heart:
They never gave me coward sign,
Nor played me once a traitor's part.
I see now why in olden days
Men in barbaric love or hate
Nailed enemies' hands at wild crossways,
Shrined leaders' hearts in costly state:
The symbol, sign, and instrument
Of each soul's purpose, passion, strife,
Of fires in which are poured and spent
Their all of love, their all of life.
O feeble, mighty human hand!
O fragile, dauntless human heart!
The universe holds nothing planned
With such sublime, transcendent art!
Yes, Death, I own I grudge thee mine:
Poor little hand, so feeble now;
Its wrinkled palm, its altered line,
Its veins so pallid and so slow.
[A stanza here was left incomplete. ]
Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art:
I shall be free when thou art through.
Take all there is— take hand and heart:
There must be somewhere work to do.
Copyright 1886, by Roberts Brothers.
## p. 8062 (#258) ###########################################
8062
HELEN FISKE JACKSON
MY HICKORY FIRE
O
HELPLESS body of hickory-tree,
What do I burn in burning thee?
Summers of sun, winters of snow,
Springs full of sap's resistless flow;
All past year's joys of garnered fruits;
All this year's purposed buds and shoots;
Secrets of fields of upper air,
Secrets which stars and planets share;
Light of such smiles as broad skies fling;
Sound of such tunes as wild winds sing;
Voices which told where gay birds dwelt,
Voices which told where lovers knelt;-
O strong white body of hickory-tree,
How dare I burn all these in thee?
But I too bring, as to a pyre,
Sweet things to feed thy funeral fire:
Memories waked by thy deep spell;
Faces of fears and hopes which fell;
Faces of darlings long since dead, -
Smiles that they smiled, and words they said;
Like living shapes they come and go,
Lit by the mounting flame's red glow.
But sacredest of all, O tree,
Thou hast the hour my love gave me.
Only thy rhythmic silence stirred
While his low-whispered tones I heard;
By thy last gleam of flickering light
I saw his cheek turn red from white;
O cold gray ashes, side by side
With yours, that hour's sweet pulses died !
But thou, brave tree, how do I know
That through these fires thou dost not go
As in old days the martyrs went
Through fire which was a sacrament?
How do I know thou dost not wait
In longing for thy next estate ? --
Estate of higher, nobler place,
Whose shapes no man can use or trace.
How do I know, if I could reach
The secret meaning of thy speech,
But I thy song of praise should hear,
Ringing triumphant, loud, and clear,-
## p. 8063 (#259) ###########################################
HELEN FISKE JACKSON
8063
The waiting angels could discern,
And token of thy heaven learn ?
O glad, freed soul of hickory-tree,
Wherever thine eternity,
Bear thou with thee that hour's dear name,
Made pure, like thee, by rites of flame!
Copyright 1874, by Roberts Brothers.
POPPIES IN THE WHEAT
A
LONG Ancona's hills the shimmering heat,
A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow,
Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow
Like Aashing seas of green, which toss and beat
Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet
Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro
To mark the shore.
The farmer does not know
That they are there. He walks with heavy feet,
Counting the bread and wine by autumn's gain;
But I-I smile to think that days remain
Perhaps to me in which, though bread be sweet
No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain,
I shall be glad, remembering how the fleet
Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat.
Copyright 1874, by Roberts Brothers.
BURNT SHIPS
O
LOVE, sweet Love, who came with rosy sail
And foaming prow across the misty sea!
O Love, brave Love, whose faith was full and free
That lands of sun and gold, which could not fail,
Lay in the west; that bloom no wintry gale
Could blight, and eyes whose love thine own should be,
Called thee, with steadfast voice of prophecy
To shores unknown!
O Love, poor Love, avail
Thee nothing now thy faiths, thy braveries;
There is no sun, no bloom; a cold wind strips
The bitter foam from off the wave where dips
No more thy prow; the eyes are hostile eyes;
The gold is hidden; vain thy tears and cries:
O Love, poor Love, why didst thou burn thy ships?
Copyright 1874, by Roberts Brothers.
## p. 8064 (#260) ###########################################
3064
HELEN FISKE JACKSON
SPINNING
L'
IKE a blind spinner in the sun,
I tread my days;
I know that all the threads will run
Appointed ways;
I know each day will bring its task,
And being blind, no more I ask.
I do not know the use or name
Of that I spin;
I only know that some one came,
And laid within
My hand the thread, and said, “Since you
Are blind, but one thing you can do. ”
Sometimes the threads so rough and fast
And tangled fly,
I know wild storms are sweeping past,
And fear that I
Shall fall; but dare not try to find
A safer place, since I am blind.
I know not why, but I am sure
That tint and place,
In some great fabric to endure
Past time and race,
My threads will have; so from the first,
Though blind, I never felt accurst.
I think perhaps this trust has sprung
From one short word
Said over me when I was young, -
So young, I heard
It, knowing not that God's name signed
My brow, and sealed me his, though blind.
But whether this be seal or sign
Within, without,
It matters not. The bond Divine
I never doubt.
I know he set me here, and still
And glad and blind, I wait his will;
But listen, listen, day by day,
To hear their tread
## p. 8065 (#261) ###########################################
HELEN FISKE JACKSON
8065
Who bear the finished web away,
And cut the thread,
And bring God's message in the sun,
“Thou poor blind spinner, work is done. ”
Copyright 1874, by Roberts Brothers.
A MAY-DAY IN ALBANO
From Bits of Travel
W"
E WENT Maying on donkeys, and we found more flowers than
could have been picked in a month. What a May-day for
people who had all their lives before gone Maying in
india-rubbers and an east wind, on the Atlantic coast of Amer-
ica; had been glad and grateful over a few saxifrages and hous-
tonias, and knelt in ecstasy if they found a shivering clump of
dog-tooth violets!
Our donkey-man looked so like a New-Englander that I have
an uncomfortable curiosity about him: slim, thin, red-haired,
freckled, blue-eyed, hollow-chested, I believe he had run away in
his youth from Barnstable, and drifted to the shores of the Alban
Lake. I watched him in vain to discover any signs of his under-
standing our conversation, but I am sure I heard him say «Gee »
to the donkeys.
The donkey-boy too had New England eyes,- honest, dark
blue-gray, with perpetual laugh in them. It was for his eyes I
him along, he being as superfluous as a fifth leg to the
donkey. But when he danced up and down with bare feet on the
stones in front of the hotel door, and twisted and untwisted his
dirty little fingers in agony of fear lest I should say no, all the
while looking up into my face with a hopeful imploring smile, so
like one I shall never see again,- I loved him, and engaged him
then and there always to walk by my donkey's nose so long as I
rode donkeys in Albano. I had no sooner done this than, presto!
my boy disappeared; and all I could see in his stead was a sort
of human pin-wheel, with ten dangerous toes for spokes, flying
round and round by my side. What a pleased Italian boy, aged
eleven, can do in the way of revolving somersets passes belief,
even while you are looking at it. But in a moment he came
down right end up, and with the air of a mature protector, took
my donkey by the rope, and off we went.
XIV-505
## p. 8066 (#262) ###########################################
8066
HELEN FISKE JACKSON
I never find myself forming part of a donkey, with a donkey-
man in rear, without being reminded of all the pictures I have
seen of the Flight into Egypt, and being impressed anew with
a sense of the terrible time that Holy Family must have had
trying to make haste on such a kind of animal: of all beasts, to
escape from a hostile monarch on! And one never pities Joseph
any more for having to go on foot: except for the name of the
thing, walking must always be easier.
If I say that we climbed up a steep hill to the Capuchin
church and convent, and then bore off to the right along the
shores of the Alban lake, and resolved to climb on till we
reached the Convent of Palazzuola, which is half-way up the side
of Monte Cavo, it does not mean anything to people who do not
know the Alban Lake and Monte Cavo. Yet how else can I tell
where we had our Maying? The donkey path from Albano up
to Palazzuola — and there is no other way of going up- zigzags
along the side of the hill, which is the south shore of the Alban
Lake. Almost to the last it is thickly wooded: looking at this
south shore from a distance, those who have been through the
path can trace its line faintly marked among the tree-tops, like
a fine thread indenting them; but strangers to it would never
dream that it was there. The path is narrow; only wide enough
for two donkeys to pass, if both behave well.
On the left hand you look down into the mystic lake, which
is always dark and troubled, no matter how blue the sky: never
did I see a smile or a placid look of rest on the Alban Lake.
Doubtless it is still linked with fates and oracles we do not
know. . On the right hand the hill stretches up, sometimes sharply
in cliffs, sometimes in gentle slopes with moist hollows full of
ivies and ferns; everywhere are flowers in clusters, beds, thickets.
It seemed paltry to think of putting a few into a basket, hope-
less to try to call the roll of their names. First come the vetches
scrambling in and out, hooking on to everything without dis-
crimination; surely a vetch is the most easily contented of plants:
it will hold by a grass stalk or an ilex trunk, or lie flat on the
roadside, and blossom away as fast as it can in each place. Yel-
low, and white, and crimson, and scarlet, and purple, and pink,
and pale green;-seven different vetches we brought home. Peri- .
winkle, matted and tangled, with flowers one inch and a half
in diameter (by measurement); violets in territories, and of all
shades of blue; Solomon's-seals of three different kinds; dark
## p. 8067 (#263) ###########################################
HELEN FISKE JACKSON
8067
blue bee-larkspur whose stems were two feet high; white honey-
suckle wreathing down from tall trees; feathery eupatoriums;
great arums, not growing like ours, on a slender stalk, but look-
ing like a huge cornucopia made out of yellow corn-husks, with
one end set in the ground; red catchfly and white; tiny pinks
not bigger than heads of pins; clovers of new sorts and sizes,-
one of a delicate yellow, a pink one in small flat heads, and an-
other growing in plumes or tassels two inches long, crimson at
base and shading up to white at top. One could not fancy this
munched in mouthfuls even by sacred cattle: it should be eaten
head by head like asparagus, nibbled slowly down to the luscious
color at the stem.
The holly was in blossom and the white thorn, and huge
bushes of yellow broom swung out across our path at every turn;
we thought they must light it up at night. Here and there were
communities of crimson cyclamens, that most bewildering of all
Italy's flowers. “Mad violets” the Italians call them, and there
is a pertinence in the name: they hang their heads and look
down as if no violet could be more shy, but all the while their
petals turn back like the ears of a vicious horse, and their whole
expression is of the most fascinating mixture of modesty and
mischief. Always with the cyclamens we found the forget-me-
nots, nodding above them in fringing canopies of blue; also the
little flower that the Italians call forget-me-not, which is the
tiniest of things, shaped like our forget-me-not, but of a pale
purple color.
