Bruff, you have
no more imagination than a cow!
no more imagination than a cow!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v07 - Cic to Cuv
But finding
it far more difficult to win fame than he
anticipated, he had not courage to per-
severe, and fell into dissipated, extrava-
gant ways which soon exhausted his small
means.
WILLIAM COLLINS
In 1746 he published the 'Odes, Descrip-
tive and Allegorical,' his most character-
istic work. They were never widely read,
and it took the public some time to appre-
ciate their lyric fervor, their exquisite imagery, and their musical
verse. In spite of occasional obscurities induced by careless treat-
ment, they are among the finest of English odes. His love for
nature and sympathy with its calmer aspects is very marked. Speak-
ing of the Ode to Evening,' Hazlitt says that "the sounds steal
slowly over the ear like the gradual coming on of evening itself. "
According to Swinburne, the 'Odes' do not contain "a single false
note. " "Its grace and vigor, its vivid and pliant dexterity of touch,"
he says of the 'Ode to the Passions,' « are worthy of their long
inheritance of praise. "
But the inheritance did not come at once, although Collins has
always received generous praise from fellow poets. His mortified
self-love resented lack of success. With a legacy bequeathed him by
an uncle he bought his book back from the publisher Millar, and the
unsold impressions he burned in "angry despair. "
## p. 3872 (#238) ###########################################
3872
WILLIAM COLLINS
Meantime he went on planning works quite beyond his power of
execution. He advertised 'Proposals for a History of the Revival of
Learning,' which he never wrote. He began several tragedies, but
his indolent genius would not advance beyond devising the plots. As
he was always wasteful and dissipated, he was continually in debt.
In spite of his unusual gifts, he had not the energy and self-control
necessary for adequate literary expression. Dr. Johnson, who ad-
mired and tried to befriend him, found a bailiff prowling around the
premises when he went to call. At his instigation a bookseller
advanced money to get Collins out of London, for which in return
he was to translate Aristotle's Poetics' and to write a commentary.
Probably he never fulfilled the agreement. Indeed, he had some
excuse. "A man doubtful of his dinners, or trembling at a creditor,
is not disposed to abstract meditation or remote inquiries," comments
Dr. Johnson.
Collins was always weak of body, and when still a young man
was seized by mental disease. Weary months of despondency were
succeeded by madness, until he was, as Dr. Wharton describes it,
with "every spark of imagination extinguished, and with only the
faint traces of memory and reason left. " Then the unhappy poet was
taken to Chichester and cared for by a sister. There he who had
loved music so passionately hated the cathedral organ in his mad-
ness, and when he heard it, howled in distress.
Among the best examples of his verse, besides the poems already
mentioned, are the 'Dirge to Cymbeline,' 'Ode to Fear,' and the
Ode on the Poetical Character,' which Hazlitt calls "the best of
all. "
HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE
HⓇ
ow sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall a while repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!
## p. 3873 (#239) ###########################################
WILLIAM COLLINS
3873
THE PASSIONS
HEN Music, heavenly maid! was young,
WH While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell.
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possest beyond the Muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined:
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound,
And as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each - for Madness ruled the hour-
Would prove his own expressive power.
-
―――――――
First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid;
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made.
Next Anger rushed; his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings:
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.
With woful measures wan Despair-
Low solemn sounds- his grief beguiled,
A sullen, strange, and mingled air;
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.
But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong,
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still through all the song;
And where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.
VI-243
## p. 3874 (#240) ###########################################
3874
WILLIAM COLLINS
And longer had she sung,- but with a frown,
Revenge impatient rose;
He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down,
And with a withering look
The war-denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!
And ever and anon he beat
The doubling drum with furious heat;
And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,
Dejected Pity, at his side,
Her soul-subduing voice applied,
Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien,
While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.
Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fixed,
Sad proof of thy distressful state!
Of differing themes the veering song was mixed,
And now it courted Love, now raving called on Hate.
With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sat retired;
And from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
And dashing soft from rocks around,
Bubbling runnels joined the sound.
Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,
Or o'er some haunted streams with fond delay,
Round an holy calm diffusing,
Love of peace and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away.
But oh, how altered was its sprightlier tone
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulders flung,
Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,
Blew an inspiring air that dale and thicket rung!
The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known.
The oak-crowned Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen,
Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen,
Peeping from forth their alleys green;
Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,
And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.
## p. 3875 (#241) ###########################################
WILLIAM COLLINS
3875
Last came Joy's ecstatic trial;
He with viny crown advancing,
First to the lively pipe his hand addrest;
But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.
They would have thought who heard the strain,
They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids,
Amidst the festal sounding shades,
To some unwearied minstrel dancing;
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round;
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
And he, amidst his frolic play,
As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.
O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, Wisdom's aid!
Why, goddess, why, to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
As in that loved Athenian bower,
You learned an all-commanding power,
Thy mimic soul, Ó nymph endeared!
Can well recall what then it heard.
Where is that native simple heart,
Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders, in that godlike age,
Fill thy recording Sister's page.
'Tis said- and I believe the tale.
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age;
E'en all at once together found
Cecilia's mingled world of sound.
Oh bid our vain endeavors cease,
Revive the just designs of Greece;
Return in all thy simple state!
Confirm the tales her sons relate!
## p. 3876 (#242) ###########################################
3876
WILLIAM COLLINS
TO EVENING
F AUGHT of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear
Like thy own solemn springs,
Thy springs and dying gales;
O nymph reserved! while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,
O'erhang his wavy bed:-
Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing;
Or where the beetle winds
His small but sullen horn,
As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid composed,
To breathe some softened strain,
Whose numbers, stealing through thy dark'ning vale,
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
As, musing slow, I hail
Thy genial loved return!
For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant hours, and elves
Who slept in buds the day,
And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still,
The pensive Pleasures sweet,
Prepare thy shadowy car,-
Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams.
Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
That from the mountain's side
Views wilds and swelling floods,
## p. 3877 (#243) ###########################################
WILLIAM COLLINS
3877
And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.
While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light:
While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,
And rudely rends thy robes:
So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentlest influence own,
And love thy favorite name!
ODE ON THE DEATH OF THOMSON
N YONDER grave a Druid lies,
IN
Where slowly winds the stealing wave!
The year's best sweets shall duteous rise,
To deck its poet's sylvan grave!
In yon deep bed of whisp'ring reeds
His airy harp shall now be laid;
That he whose heart in sorrow bleeds
May love through life the soothing shade.
Then maids and youths shall linger here,
And while its sounds at distance swell,
Shall sadly seem in Pity's ear
To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell.
Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore
When Thames in summer wreaths is drest;
And oft suspend the dashing oar
To bid his gentle spirit rest.
And oft as Ease and Health retire
To breezy lawn, or forest deep,
The friend shall view yon whitening spire,
And 'mid the varied landscape weep.
## p. 3878 (#244) ###########################################
3878
WILLIAM COLLINS
But thou, who own'st that earthly bed,
Ah! what will every dirge avail!
Or tears which Love and Pity shed,
That mourn beneath the gliding sail!
Yet lives there one, whose heedless eye
Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimm'ring near
With him, sweet bard, may Fancy die,
And Joy desert the blooming year.
But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide
No sedge-crowned sisters now attend,
Now waft me from the green hill's side,
Whose cold turf hides the buried friend!
And see, the fairy valleys fade,
Dun Night has veiled the solemn view!
Yet once again, dear parted shade,
Meek Nature's child, again adieu!
The genial meads, assigned to bless
Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom!
There hinds and shepherd girls shall dress
With simple hands thy rural tomb.
Long, long, thy stone and pointed clay
Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes:
"O vales and wild woods! " shall he say,
"In yonder grave your Druid lies! "
## p. 3879 (#245) ###########################################
3879
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
(1824-1889)
ILKIE COLLINS has proved that the charm of a story does not
necessarily depend upon the depiction of character or an
appeal to the sympathies. As he said:-"I have always
held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of a work of
fiction should be to tell a story. " He also aspired to draw living
men and women, in which he was less successful. Count Fosco, Miss
Gwilt, Armadale, Laura Fairlie, and others, are indeed distinct;
but the interest centres not on them but on the circumstances in
which they are involved. This is the main
reason why the critics, even in admiring
his talent, speak of Collins with faint de-
preciation, as certainly not one of the
greatest novelists of the century, although
holding a place of his own which forces
recognition. For novel-readers have de-
lighted in his many volumes in spite of the
critics, and there is a steady demand for
the old favorites. Translated into French,
Italian, Danish, and Russian, many of them
continue to inspire the same interest in
foreign lands.
WILKIE COLLINS
Wilkie Collins, born January 8th, 1824,
did not show any special precocity in boy-
hood and youth. He probably learned much more from his self-
guided reading than from his schooling at Highbury, especially after
his acquisition of French and Italian during two years in Italy in his
early teens. The influences about him were strongly artistic. His
father, William Collins, was distinguished as a landscape painter.
The well-known portrait painter Mrs. Carpenter was his aunt, and
the distinguished Scotch artist David Wilkie his godfather. But
human action and emotion interested him more than art.
He was
very young when he expressed a desire to write, and perpetrated
blank verse which justified his father in vigorous opposition to his
adoption of authorship as a profession. So, his school days ended,
he presented the not unusual figure of a bright young Englishman
who must earn his bread, yet had no particular aptitude for doing it.
He tried business first, and became articled clerk with a City house
## p. 3880 (#246) ###########################################
3880
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
in the tea trade. But the work was uncongenial; and after a few
unsatisfactory years he fell in with his father's views, and was entered
at Lincoln's Inn and in due time admitted to the bar, although he
never practiced law.
He continued writing for amusement, however, producing sketches
and stories valuable as training. On his father's death he prepared
a biography of that artist in two volumes (1848), which was consid-
ered a just as well as a loving appreciation. His first novel, how-
ever, was rejected by every publisher to whom he submitted it. His
second, 'Antonina,' a story of the fall of Rome, was mediocre.
He was about twenty-six when he met Charles Dickens, then a
man of forty, at the height of his fame, and with the kindliest feel-
ing for younger writers still struggling for recognition. Dickens,
whose own work was always prompted by sympathetic intuition, and
to whom character development came more easily than ingenious
plots, cordially admired Collins's skill in devising and explaining the
latter. He invited the younger man to become collaborator upon
Household Words, and thus initiated a warm friendship which
lasted until his own death. Encouraged by him, Collins essayed
drama and wrote The Light-House,' played at Gadshill by dis-
tinguished amateurs, Dickens himself among them. At first thought,
his would seem an essentially dramatic talent, and several of his
novels have been successfully dramatized. But the very cleverness
and intricacy of his situations make them unsuited to the stage.
They are too difficult of comprehension to be taken in at a glance
by an average audience, in the swift passage of stage action.
It was also the influence of Dickens which inspired Collins to
attempt social reform. In Man and Wife' he tries to show the
injustice of Scotch marriage laws; in 'The New Magdalen,' the pos-
sible regeneration of fallen women; in 'Heart and Science,' the
abuses of vivisection; and other stories are incumbered with didactic
purpose. Mr. Swinburne comments upon this aspect of his career in
a jocular couplet -
"What brought good Wilkie's genius nigh perdition?
Some demon whispered, 'Wilkie! have a mission! › »
But in all "tendency" novels it is not the discussion of problems
that makes them live; and Wilkie Collins, like others, survives by
purely literary qualities. Soon after his death the critic of the Spec-
tator gave the following capable summary of his peculiar method:-
"He was a literary chess player of the first force, with power of carrying
his plan right through the game and making every move tell. His method
was to introduce a certain number of characters, set before them a well-
defined object, such as the discovery of a secret, the re-vindication of a
## p. 3881 (#247) ###########################################
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
3881
fortune, the tracking of a crime, or the establishment of a doubted mar-
riage, and then bring in other characters to resist or counterplot their
efforts. Each side makes moves, almost invariably well-considered and
promising moves; the counter-moves are equally good; the interest goes on
accumulating till the looker-on - the reader is always placed in that attitude
- is rapt out of himself by strained attention; and then there is a sudden
and totally unexpected mate. It is chess which is being played; and in the
best of all his stories, the one which will live for years,- The Moonstone,'
- the pretense that it is anything else is openly disregarded. »
―――――
This analysis however must not be too narrowly construed, as
petty critics often do, to mean that the only interest in Mr.
Collins's novels is that of disentangling the plot. If this were so, no
one would read them more than once; while in fact the best of them
are eminently readable again and again. This shallow judgment
evidently galled the novelist himself, and 'The New Magdalen' in
one aspect was a throwing-down of the gauntlet to the critics; for in
it he tells the plot page by page, almost paragraph by paragraph,
as he goes along, and even far in advance of the story, yet it is one
of the most fascinating of his novels. He proved that he could do
admirably what they said he could not do at all—make people read
his story with breathless absorption when they knew its end long
before they came to it; and it was as interesting backward as for-
ward. 'No Name' is in some sort a combination of the two methods,
— a revelation of the end, with perpetual interest in the discovery of
means.
'The Moonstone' and 'The Woman in White' are unquestionably
his masterpieces. In both he throws light upon a complex plot by
means of his favorite expedient of letters and diaries written by
different characters, who thus take the reader into their confidence
and bewilder him with conflicting considerations, until the author
comes forward with an ingenious and lucid solution. The Moon-
stone, however, is immensely superior in matter even to its fellow;
its plot is better (in one place The Woman in White' comes to a
dead wall which the author calmly ignores and goes on), and some
passages are worth reading over and over for pure pathos or descrip-
tion. Mr. Collins was in fact, aside from his special gift, a literary
artist of no mean power, even if not the highest: with an eye for
salient effects, a skill in touching the more obvious chords of
emotion, a knowledge of life and books, that enrich his stories with
enough extraneous wealth to prolong their life for many years, and
some of them perhaps for generations.
## p. 3882 (#248) ###########################################
3882
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
THE SLEEP-WALKING
From The Moonstone>
[ This episode is related by the physician in charge of Mr. Franklin Blake,
whose good name he wishes to clear from a charge of fraud. ]
TWO
wo o'clock A. M. -The experiment has been tried. With what
result I am now to describe.
At eleven o'clock I rang the bell for Betteredge and
told Mr. Blake that he might at last prepare himself for bed.
. I followed Betteredge out of the room, and told him
to remove the medicine chest into Miss Verinder's sitting-room.
The order seemed to take him completely by surprise. He
looked as if he suspected me of some occult design on Miss
Verinder! "Might I presume to ask," he said,
what my
young lady and the medicine chest have got to do with each.
other? »
«< Stay in the sitting-room and you will see. ”
Betteredge appeared to doubt his own unaided capacity to
superintend me effectually, on an occasion when a medicine
chest was included in the proceedings.
"Is there any objection, sir," he asked, "to taking Mr.
Bruff into this part of the business? "
"Quite the contrary! I am now going to ask Mr. Bruff to
accompany me down-stairs. "
Betteredge withdrew to fetch the medicine chest without
another word. I went back into Mr. Blake's room, and knocked
at the door of communication. Mr. Bruff opened it, with his
papers in his hand-immersed in Law, impenetrable to Medi-
cine.
"I am sorry to disturb you,
» I said. "But I am going to
prepare the laudanum for Mr. Blake; and I must request you
to be present and to see what I do.
"Yes," said Mr. Bruff, with nine-tenths of his attention riv-
eted on his papers, and with one-tenth unwillingly accorded to
"Anything else? »
me.
"I must trouble you to return here with me, and to see me
administer the dose. "
"Anything else? »
"One thing more. I must put you to the inconvenience of
remaining in Mr. Blake's room to see what happens. "
## p. 3883 (#249) ###########################################
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
3883
"Oh, very good! " said Mr. Bruff. "My room or Mr. Blake's
room, it doesn't matter which; I can go on with my papers
Unless you object, Mr. Jennings, to my importing
that amount of common-sense into the proceedings?
anywhere.
>>>>
Before I could answer, Mr. Blake addressed himself to the
lawyer, speaking from his bed.
--
"Do you really mean to say that you don't feel any interest
in what you are going to do? " he asked. "Mr.
Bruff, you have
no more imagination than a cow! "
"A cow is a very useful animal, Mr. Blake," said the lawyer.
With that reply he followed me out of the room, still keeping
his papers in his hand.
We found Miss Verinder pale and agitated, restlessly pacing
her sitting-room from end to end. At a table in a corner stood
Betteredge, on guard over the medicine chest. Mr. Bruff sat
down on the first chair that he could find, and (emulating the
usefulness of the cow) plunged back again into his papers on
the spot.
Miss Verinder drew me aside, and reverted instantly to her
one all-absorbing interest- the interest in Mr. Blake.
"How is he now? " she asked. "Is he nervous? is he out of
temper? Do you think it will succeed? Are you sure it will do
no harm? »
"Quite sure. Come and see me measure it out. "
"One moment. It is past eleven now. How long will it be
before anything happens? "
"It is not easy to say. An hour, perhaps. "
"I suppose the room must be dark, as it was last year? »
"Certainly. "
"I shall wait in my bedroom-just as I did before. I shall
keep the door a little way open. It was a little way open last
year. I will watch the sitting-room door; and the moment it
moves I will blow out my light. It all happened in that way
on my birthday night. And it must all happen again in the
same way, mustn't it? "
"Are you sure you can control yourself, Miss Verinder?
"In his interests I can do anything! " she answered fer-
vently.
>>>
One look at her face told me I could trust her. I addressed
myself again to Mr. Bruff.
"I must trouble you to put your papers aside for a moment,”
I said.
## p. 3884 (#250) ###########################################
3884
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
"Oh, certainly! " He got up with a start-as if I had dis-
turbed him at a particularly interesting place—and followed me
to the medicine chest. There, deprived of the breathless excite-
ment incidental to the practice of his profession, he looked at
Betteredge and yawned wearily.
Miss Verinder joined me with a glass jug of cold water
which she had taken from a side table. "Let me pour out the
water," she whispered; "I must have a hand in it! "
I measured out the forty minims from the bottle, and poured
the laudanum into a glass. "Fill it till it is three parts full,"
I said, and handed the glass to Miss Verinder. I then directed
Betteredge to lock up the medicine chest, informing him that I
had done with it now. A look of unutterable relief overspread
the old servant's countenance. He had evidently suspected me
of a medical design on his young lady!
After adding the water as I had directed, Miss Verinder
seized a moment - while Betteredge was locking the chest and
while Mr. Bruff was looking back at his papers- and slyly
kissed the rim of the medicine glass. "When you give it to
him," whispered the charming girl, "give it to him on that
side. "
I took the piece of crystal which was to represent the Dia-
mond from my pocket and gave it to her.
"You must have a hand in this too,” I said. "You must
put it where you put the Moonstone last year. "
She led the way to the Indian cabinet, and put the mock
Diamond into the drawer which the real Diamond had occupied
on the birthday night. Mr. Bruff witnessed this proceeding,
under protest, as he had witnessed everything else. But the
strong dramatic interest which the experiment was now assum-
ing proved (to my great amusement) to be too much for Better-
edge's capacity of self-restraint. His hand trembled as he held
the candle, and he whispered anxiously, "Are you sure, miss,
it's the right drawer? "
I led the way out again, with the laudanum and water in
my hand.
At the door I stood to address a last word to Miss
Verinder.
"Don't be long in putting out the lights," I said.
"I will put them out at once," she answered.
wait in my bedroom with only one candle alight. "
She closed the sitting-room door behind us.
Bruff and Betteredge, I went back to Mr. Blake's
"And I will
Followed by
room.
## p. 3885 (#251) ###########################################
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
3885
We found him moving restlessly from side to side of the bed,
and wondering irritably whether he was to have the laudanum
that night. In the presence of the two witnesses I gave him
the dose, and shook up his pillows, and told him to lie down.
again quietly and wait.
His bed, provided with light chintz curtains, was placed
with the head against the wall of the room, so as to leave a
good open space on either side of it. On one side I drew the
curtains completely, and in the part of the room thus screened
from his view I placed Mr. Bruff and Betteredge to wait for
the result. At the bottom of the bed I half drew the curtains,
and placed my own chair at a little distance, so that I might
let him see me or not see me, just as the circumstances might
direct. Having already been informed that he always slept with
a light in the room, I placed one of the two lighted candles on
a little table at the head of the bed, where the glare of the light
would not strike on his eyes. The other candle I gave to Mr.
Bruff; the light in this instance being subdued by the screen
of the chintz curtains. The window was open at the top so as
to ventilate the room. The rain fell softly; the house was quiet.
It was twenty minutes past eleven by my watch when the prepa-
rations were completed, and I took my place on the chair set
apart at the bottom of the bed.
Mr. Bruff resumed his papers, with every appearance of being
as deeply interested in them as ever. But looking toward him
now, I saw certain signs and tokens which told me that the Law
was beginning to lose its hold on him at last. The suspended
interest of the situation in which we were now placed was slowly
asserting its influence even on his unimaginative mind. As for
Betteredge, consistency of principle and dignity of conduct had
become in his case mere empty words. He forgot that I was
performing a conjuring trick on Mr. Franklin Blake; he forgot
that I had upset the house from top to bottom; he forgot that
I had not read Robinson Crusoe' since I was a child. "For the
Lord's sake, sir," he whispered to me, "tell us when it will
begin to work. "
"Not before midnight," I whispered back. "Say nothing
and sit still. "
Betteredge dropped to the lowest depth of familiarity with
me, without a struggle to save himself. He answered by a
wink!
## p. 3886 (#252) ###########################################
3886
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
Looking next toward Mr. Blake, I found him as restless as
ever in his bed; fretfully wondering why the influence of the
laudanum had not begun to assert itself yet. To tell him in
his present humor that the more he fidgeted and wondered the
longer he would delay the result for which we were now wait-
ing, would have been simply useless. The wiser course to take
was to dismiss the idea of the opium from his mind by leading
him insensibly to think of something else.
With this view I encouraged him to talk to me, contriving so
to direct the conversation, on my side, as to lead him back again
the subject which had engaged us earlier in the evening,—
the subject of the Diamond. I took care to revert to those por-
tions of the story of the Moonstone which related to the trans-
port of it from London to Yorkshire; to the risk which Mr.
Blake had run in removing it from the bank at Frizinghall; and
to the expected appearance of the Indians at the house on the
evening of the birthday. And I purposely assumed, in referring
to these events, to have misunderstood much of what Mr. Blake
himself had told me a few hours since. In this way I set him
talking on the subject with which it was now vitally important
to fill his mind-without allowing him to suspect that I was
making him talk for a purpose. Little by little he became so
interested in putting me right that he forgot to fidget in the
bed. His mind was far away from the question of the opium at
the all-important time when his eyes first told me that the
opium was beginning to lay its hold upon his brain.
I looked at my watch. It wanted five minutes to twelve
when the premonitory symptoms of the working of the lau-
danum first showed themselves to me.
At this time no unpracticed eye would have detected any
change in him. But as the minutes of the new morning wore
away, the swiftly subtle progress of the influence began to show
itself more plainly. The sublime intoxication of opium gleamed
in his eyes; the dew of a steady perspiration began to glisten on
his face. In five minutes more the talk which he still kept up
with me failed in coherence. He held steadily to the subject of
the Diamond; but he ceased to complete his sentences. A little
later the sentences dropped to single words. Then there was an
interval of silence. Then he sat up in bed. Then, still busy
with the subject of the Diamond, he began to talk again—not
to me but to himself. That change told me the first stage in
## p. 3887 (#253) ###########################################
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
3887
the experiment was reached. The stimulant influence of the
opium had got him.
The time now was twenty-three minutes past twelve. The
next half-hour, at most, would decide the question of whether he
would or would not get up from his bed and leave the room.
In the breathless interest of watching him-in the unutter-
able triumph of seeing the first result of the experiment declare
itself in the manner, and nearly at the time, which I had antici-
pated I had utterly forgotten the two companions of my night
vigil. Looking toward them now, I saw the Law (as represented
by Mr. Bruff's papers) lying unheeded on the floor. Mr. Bruff
himself was looking eagerly through a crevice left in the imper-
fectly drawn curtains of the bed. And Betteredge, oblivious of
all respect for social distinctions, was peeping over Mr. Bruff's
shoulder.
They both started back on finding that I was looking at
them, like two boys caught out by their schoolmaster in a fault.
I signed to them to take off their boots quietly, as I was taking
off mine. If Mr. Blake gave us the chance of following him, it
was vitally necessary to follow him without noise.
Ten minutes passed-and nothing happened.
He put
Then he suddenly threw the bedclothes off him.
one leg out of bed. He waited.
"I wish I had never taken it out of the bank," he said to
himself. "It was safe in the bank. "
My heart throbbed fast; the pulses at my temples beat furi-
ously. The doubt about the safety of the Diamond was once
more the dominant impression in his brain! On that one pivot
the whole success of the experiment turned. The prospect thus
suddenly opened before me was too much for my shattered
nerves. I was obliged to look away from him, or I should have
lost my self-control.
There was another interval of silence.
When I could trust myself to look back at him he was out
of his bed, standing erect at the side of it. The pupils of his
eyes were now contracted; his eyeballs gleamed in the light of
the candle as he moved his head slowly to and fro.
He was
thinking; he was doubting; he spoke again.
"How do I know? " he said. "The Indians may be hidden
in the house. "
He stopped, and walked slowly to the other end of the room.
He turned,-waited,—came back to the bed.
## p. 3888 (#254) ###########################################
3888
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
"It's not even locked up," he went on.
of her cabinet. And the drawer doesn't lock. "
"It's in the drawer
He sat down on the side of the bed. "Anybody might take
it," he said.
He rose again restlessly, and reiterated his first words. "How
do I know? The Indians may be hidden in the house. "
bed.
He waited again. I drew back behind the half-curtain of the
He looked about the room, with the vacant glitter in his
eyes. It was a breathless moment. There was a pause of some
A pause in the action of the opium? a pause in the action
of the brain? Who could tell? Everything depended now on
what he did next.
sort.
He laid himself down again on the bed!
A horrible doubt crossed my mind. Was it possible that the
sedative action of the opium was making itself felt already? It
was not in my experience that it should do this. But what is
experience where opium is concerned? There are probably no
two men in existence on whom the drug acts in exactly the
same manner. Was some constitutional peculiarity in him feel-
ing the influence in some new way? Were we to fail, on the
very brink of success?
No! He got up again very abruptly. "How the devil am I
to sleep," he said, "with this on my mind ? »
He looked at the light burning on the table at the head of
his bed. After a moment he took the candle in his hand.
I blew out the second candle burning behind the closed cur-
tains. I drew back, with Mr. Bruff and Betteredge, into the
farthest corner by the bed. I signed to them to be silent, as if
their lives depended on it.
We waited seeing and hearing nothing. We waited, hidden
from him by the curtains.
The light which he was holding on the other side of us moved
suddenly. The next moment he passed us, swift and noiseless,
with the candle in his hand.
He opened the bedroom door and went out.
We followed him along the corridor. We followed him down
the stairs. We followed him along the second corridor. He
never looked back; he never hesitated.
He opened the sitting-room door and went in, leaving it
open behind him.
The door was hung (like all the other doors in the house) on
large old-fashioned hinges. When it was opened, a crevice was
## p.
it far more difficult to win fame than he
anticipated, he had not courage to per-
severe, and fell into dissipated, extrava-
gant ways which soon exhausted his small
means.
WILLIAM COLLINS
In 1746 he published the 'Odes, Descrip-
tive and Allegorical,' his most character-
istic work. They were never widely read,
and it took the public some time to appre-
ciate their lyric fervor, their exquisite imagery, and their musical
verse. In spite of occasional obscurities induced by careless treat-
ment, they are among the finest of English odes. His love for
nature and sympathy with its calmer aspects is very marked. Speak-
ing of the Ode to Evening,' Hazlitt says that "the sounds steal
slowly over the ear like the gradual coming on of evening itself. "
According to Swinburne, the 'Odes' do not contain "a single false
note. " "Its grace and vigor, its vivid and pliant dexterity of touch,"
he says of the 'Ode to the Passions,' « are worthy of their long
inheritance of praise. "
But the inheritance did not come at once, although Collins has
always received generous praise from fellow poets. His mortified
self-love resented lack of success. With a legacy bequeathed him by
an uncle he bought his book back from the publisher Millar, and the
unsold impressions he burned in "angry despair. "
## p. 3872 (#238) ###########################################
3872
WILLIAM COLLINS
Meantime he went on planning works quite beyond his power of
execution. He advertised 'Proposals for a History of the Revival of
Learning,' which he never wrote. He began several tragedies, but
his indolent genius would not advance beyond devising the plots. As
he was always wasteful and dissipated, he was continually in debt.
In spite of his unusual gifts, he had not the energy and self-control
necessary for adequate literary expression. Dr. Johnson, who ad-
mired and tried to befriend him, found a bailiff prowling around the
premises when he went to call. At his instigation a bookseller
advanced money to get Collins out of London, for which in return
he was to translate Aristotle's Poetics' and to write a commentary.
Probably he never fulfilled the agreement. Indeed, he had some
excuse. "A man doubtful of his dinners, or trembling at a creditor,
is not disposed to abstract meditation or remote inquiries," comments
Dr. Johnson.
Collins was always weak of body, and when still a young man
was seized by mental disease. Weary months of despondency were
succeeded by madness, until he was, as Dr. Wharton describes it,
with "every spark of imagination extinguished, and with only the
faint traces of memory and reason left. " Then the unhappy poet was
taken to Chichester and cared for by a sister. There he who had
loved music so passionately hated the cathedral organ in his mad-
ness, and when he heard it, howled in distress.
Among the best examples of his verse, besides the poems already
mentioned, are the 'Dirge to Cymbeline,' 'Ode to Fear,' and the
Ode on the Poetical Character,' which Hazlitt calls "the best of
all. "
HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE
HⓇ
ow sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall a while repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!
## p. 3873 (#239) ###########################################
WILLIAM COLLINS
3873
THE PASSIONS
HEN Music, heavenly maid! was young,
WH While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell.
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possest beyond the Muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined:
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound,
And as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each - for Madness ruled the hour-
Would prove his own expressive power.
-
―――――――
First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid;
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made.
Next Anger rushed; his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings:
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.
With woful measures wan Despair-
Low solemn sounds- his grief beguiled,
A sullen, strange, and mingled air;
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.
But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong,
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still through all the song;
And where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.
VI-243
## p. 3874 (#240) ###########################################
3874
WILLIAM COLLINS
And longer had she sung,- but with a frown,
Revenge impatient rose;
He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down,
And with a withering look
The war-denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!
And ever and anon he beat
The doubling drum with furious heat;
And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,
Dejected Pity, at his side,
Her soul-subduing voice applied,
Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien,
While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.
Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fixed,
Sad proof of thy distressful state!
Of differing themes the veering song was mixed,
And now it courted Love, now raving called on Hate.
With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sat retired;
And from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
And dashing soft from rocks around,
Bubbling runnels joined the sound.
Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,
Or o'er some haunted streams with fond delay,
Round an holy calm diffusing,
Love of peace and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away.
But oh, how altered was its sprightlier tone
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulders flung,
Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,
Blew an inspiring air that dale and thicket rung!
The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known.
The oak-crowned Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen,
Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen,
Peeping from forth their alleys green;
Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,
And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.
## p. 3875 (#241) ###########################################
WILLIAM COLLINS
3875
Last came Joy's ecstatic trial;
He with viny crown advancing,
First to the lively pipe his hand addrest;
But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.
They would have thought who heard the strain,
They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids,
Amidst the festal sounding shades,
To some unwearied minstrel dancing;
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round;
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
And he, amidst his frolic play,
As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.
O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of pleasure, Wisdom's aid!
Why, goddess, why, to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
As in that loved Athenian bower,
You learned an all-commanding power,
Thy mimic soul, Ó nymph endeared!
Can well recall what then it heard.
Where is that native simple heart,
Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders, in that godlike age,
Fill thy recording Sister's page.
'Tis said- and I believe the tale.
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age;
E'en all at once together found
Cecilia's mingled world of sound.
Oh bid our vain endeavors cease,
Revive the just designs of Greece;
Return in all thy simple state!
Confirm the tales her sons relate!
## p. 3876 (#242) ###########################################
3876
WILLIAM COLLINS
TO EVENING
F AUGHT of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear
Like thy own solemn springs,
Thy springs and dying gales;
O nymph reserved! while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,
O'erhang his wavy bed:-
Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing;
Or where the beetle winds
His small but sullen horn,
As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid composed,
To breathe some softened strain,
Whose numbers, stealing through thy dark'ning vale,
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
As, musing slow, I hail
Thy genial loved return!
For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant hours, and elves
Who slept in buds the day,
And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still,
The pensive Pleasures sweet,
Prepare thy shadowy car,-
Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams.
Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
That from the mountain's side
Views wilds and swelling floods,
## p. 3877 (#243) ###########################################
WILLIAM COLLINS
3877
And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.
While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light:
While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,
And rudely rends thy robes:
So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentlest influence own,
And love thy favorite name!
ODE ON THE DEATH OF THOMSON
N YONDER grave a Druid lies,
IN
Where slowly winds the stealing wave!
The year's best sweets shall duteous rise,
To deck its poet's sylvan grave!
In yon deep bed of whisp'ring reeds
His airy harp shall now be laid;
That he whose heart in sorrow bleeds
May love through life the soothing shade.
Then maids and youths shall linger here,
And while its sounds at distance swell,
Shall sadly seem in Pity's ear
To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell.
Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore
When Thames in summer wreaths is drest;
And oft suspend the dashing oar
To bid his gentle spirit rest.
And oft as Ease and Health retire
To breezy lawn, or forest deep,
The friend shall view yon whitening spire,
And 'mid the varied landscape weep.
## p. 3878 (#244) ###########################################
3878
WILLIAM COLLINS
But thou, who own'st that earthly bed,
Ah! what will every dirge avail!
Or tears which Love and Pity shed,
That mourn beneath the gliding sail!
Yet lives there one, whose heedless eye
Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimm'ring near
With him, sweet bard, may Fancy die,
And Joy desert the blooming year.
But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide
No sedge-crowned sisters now attend,
Now waft me from the green hill's side,
Whose cold turf hides the buried friend!
And see, the fairy valleys fade,
Dun Night has veiled the solemn view!
Yet once again, dear parted shade,
Meek Nature's child, again adieu!
The genial meads, assigned to bless
Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom!
There hinds and shepherd girls shall dress
With simple hands thy rural tomb.
Long, long, thy stone and pointed clay
Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes:
"O vales and wild woods! " shall he say,
"In yonder grave your Druid lies! "
## p. 3879 (#245) ###########################################
3879
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
(1824-1889)
ILKIE COLLINS has proved that the charm of a story does not
necessarily depend upon the depiction of character or an
appeal to the sympathies. As he said:-"I have always
held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of a work of
fiction should be to tell a story. " He also aspired to draw living
men and women, in which he was less successful. Count Fosco, Miss
Gwilt, Armadale, Laura Fairlie, and others, are indeed distinct;
but the interest centres not on them but on the circumstances in
which they are involved. This is the main
reason why the critics, even in admiring
his talent, speak of Collins with faint de-
preciation, as certainly not one of the
greatest novelists of the century, although
holding a place of his own which forces
recognition. For novel-readers have de-
lighted in his many volumes in spite of the
critics, and there is a steady demand for
the old favorites. Translated into French,
Italian, Danish, and Russian, many of them
continue to inspire the same interest in
foreign lands.
WILKIE COLLINS
Wilkie Collins, born January 8th, 1824,
did not show any special precocity in boy-
hood and youth. He probably learned much more from his self-
guided reading than from his schooling at Highbury, especially after
his acquisition of French and Italian during two years in Italy in his
early teens. The influences about him were strongly artistic. His
father, William Collins, was distinguished as a landscape painter.
The well-known portrait painter Mrs. Carpenter was his aunt, and
the distinguished Scotch artist David Wilkie his godfather. But
human action and emotion interested him more than art.
He was
very young when he expressed a desire to write, and perpetrated
blank verse which justified his father in vigorous opposition to his
adoption of authorship as a profession. So, his school days ended,
he presented the not unusual figure of a bright young Englishman
who must earn his bread, yet had no particular aptitude for doing it.
He tried business first, and became articled clerk with a City house
## p. 3880 (#246) ###########################################
3880
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
in the tea trade. But the work was uncongenial; and after a few
unsatisfactory years he fell in with his father's views, and was entered
at Lincoln's Inn and in due time admitted to the bar, although he
never practiced law.
He continued writing for amusement, however, producing sketches
and stories valuable as training. On his father's death he prepared
a biography of that artist in two volumes (1848), which was consid-
ered a just as well as a loving appreciation. His first novel, how-
ever, was rejected by every publisher to whom he submitted it. His
second, 'Antonina,' a story of the fall of Rome, was mediocre.
He was about twenty-six when he met Charles Dickens, then a
man of forty, at the height of his fame, and with the kindliest feel-
ing for younger writers still struggling for recognition. Dickens,
whose own work was always prompted by sympathetic intuition, and
to whom character development came more easily than ingenious
plots, cordially admired Collins's skill in devising and explaining the
latter. He invited the younger man to become collaborator upon
Household Words, and thus initiated a warm friendship which
lasted until his own death. Encouraged by him, Collins essayed
drama and wrote The Light-House,' played at Gadshill by dis-
tinguished amateurs, Dickens himself among them. At first thought,
his would seem an essentially dramatic talent, and several of his
novels have been successfully dramatized. But the very cleverness
and intricacy of his situations make them unsuited to the stage.
They are too difficult of comprehension to be taken in at a glance
by an average audience, in the swift passage of stage action.
It was also the influence of Dickens which inspired Collins to
attempt social reform. In Man and Wife' he tries to show the
injustice of Scotch marriage laws; in 'The New Magdalen,' the pos-
sible regeneration of fallen women; in 'Heart and Science,' the
abuses of vivisection; and other stories are incumbered with didactic
purpose. Mr. Swinburne comments upon this aspect of his career in
a jocular couplet -
"What brought good Wilkie's genius nigh perdition?
Some demon whispered, 'Wilkie! have a mission! › »
But in all "tendency" novels it is not the discussion of problems
that makes them live; and Wilkie Collins, like others, survives by
purely literary qualities. Soon after his death the critic of the Spec-
tator gave the following capable summary of his peculiar method:-
"He was a literary chess player of the first force, with power of carrying
his plan right through the game and making every move tell. His method
was to introduce a certain number of characters, set before them a well-
defined object, such as the discovery of a secret, the re-vindication of a
## p. 3881 (#247) ###########################################
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
3881
fortune, the tracking of a crime, or the establishment of a doubted mar-
riage, and then bring in other characters to resist or counterplot their
efforts. Each side makes moves, almost invariably well-considered and
promising moves; the counter-moves are equally good; the interest goes on
accumulating till the looker-on - the reader is always placed in that attitude
- is rapt out of himself by strained attention; and then there is a sudden
and totally unexpected mate. It is chess which is being played; and in the
best of all his stories, the one which will live for years,- The Moonstone,'
- the pretense that it is anything else is openly disregarded. »
―――――
This analysis however must not be too narrowly construed, as
petty critics often do, to mean that the only interest in Mr.
Collins's novels is that of disentangling the plot. If this were so, no
one would read them more than once; while in fact the best of them
are eminently readable again and again. This shallow judgment
evidently galled the novelist himself, and 'The New Magdalen' in
one aspect was a throwing-down of the gauntlet to the critics; for in
it he tells the plot page by page, almost paragraph by paragraph,
as he goes along, and even far in advance of the story, yet it is one
of the most fascinating of his novels. He proved that he could do
admirably what they said he could not do at all—make people read
his story with breathless absorption when they knew its end long
before they came to it; and it was as interesting backward as for-
ward. 'No Name' is in some sort a combination of the two methods,
— a revelation of the end, with perpetual interest in the discovery of
means.
'The Moonstone' and 'The Woman in White' are unquestionably
his masterpieces. In both he throws light upon a complex plot by
means of his favorite expedient of letters and diaries written by
different characters, who thus take the reader into their confidence
and bewilder him with conflicting considerations, until the author
comes forward with an ingenious and lucid solution. The Moon-
stone, however, is immensely superior in matter even to its fellow;
its plot is better (in one place The Woman in White' comes to a
dead wall which the author calmly ignores and goes on), and some
passages are worth reading over and over for pure pathos or descrip-
tion. Mr. Collins was in fact, aside from his special gift, a literary
artist of no mean power, even if not the highest: with an eye for
salient effects, a skill in touching the more obvious chords of
emotion, a knowledge of life and books, that enrich his stories with
enough extraneous wealth to prolong their life for many years, and
some of them perhaps for generations.
## p. 3882 (#248) ###########################################
3882
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
THE SLEEP-WALKING
From The Moonstone>
[ This episode is related by the physician in charge of Mr. Franklin Blake,
whose good name he wishes to clear from a charge of fraud. ]
TWO
wo o'clock A. M. -The experiment has been tried. With what
result I am now to describe.
At eleven o'clock I rang the bell for Betteredge and
told Mr. Blake that he might at last prepare himself for bed.
. I followed Betteredge out of the room, and told him
to remove the medicine chest into Miss Verinder's sitting-room.
The order seemed to take him completely by surprise. He
looked as if he suspected me of some occult design on Miss
Verinder! "Might I presume to ask," he said,
what my
young lady and the medicine chest have got to do with each.
other? »
«< Stay in the sitting-room and you will see. ”
Betteredge appeared to doubt his own unaided capacity to
superintend me effectually, on an occasion when a medicine
chest was included in the proceedings.
"Is there any objection, sir," he asked, "to taking Mr.
Bruff into this part of the business? "
"Quite the contrary! I am now going to ask Mr. Bruff to
accompany me down-stairs. "
Betteredge withdrew to fetch the medicine chest without
another word. I went back into Mr. Blake's room, and knocked
at the door of communication. Mr. Bruff opened it, with his
papers in his hand-immersed in Law, impenetrable to Medi-
cine.
"I am sorry to disturb you,
» I said. "But I am going to
prepare the laudanum for Mr. Blake; and I must request you
to be present and to see what I do.
"Yes," said Mr. Bruff, with nine-tenths of his attention riv-
eted on his papers, and with one-tenth unwillingly accorded to
"Anything else? »
me.
"I must trouble you to return here with me, and to see me
administer the dose. "
"Anything else? »
"One thing more. I must put you to the inconvenience of
remaining in Mr. Blake's room to see what happens. "
## p. 3883 (#249) ###########################################
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
3883
"Oh, very good! " said Mr. Bruff. "My room or Mr. Blake's
room, it doesn't matter which; I can go on with my papers
Unless you object, Mr. Jennings, to my importing
that amount of common-sense into the proceedings?
anywhere.
>>>>
Before I could answer, Mr. Blake addressed himself to the
lawyer, speaking from his bed.
--
"Do you really mean to say that you don't feel any interest
in what you are going to do? " he asked. "Mr.
Bruff, you have
no more imagination than a cow! "
"A cow is a very useful animal, Mr. Blake," said the lawyer.
With that reply he followed me out of the room, still keeping
his papers in his hand.
We found Miss Verinder pale and agitated, restlessly pacing
her sitting-room from end to end. At a table in a corner stood
Betteredge, on guard over the medicine chest. Mr. Bruff sat
down on the first chair that he could find, and (emulating the
usefulness of the cow) plunged back again into his papers on
the spot.
Miss Verinder drew me aside, and reverted instantly to her
one all-absorbing interest- the interest in Mr. Blake.
"How is he now? " she asked. "Is he nervous? is he out of
temper? Do you think it will succeed? Are you sure it will do
no harm? »
"Quite sure. Come and see me measure it out. "
"One moment. It is past eleven now. How long will it be
before anything happens? "
"It is not easy to say. An hour, perhaps. "
"I suppose the room must be dark, as it was last year? »
"Certainly. "
"I shall wait in my bedroom-just as I did before. I shall
keep the door a little way open. It was a little way open last
year. I will watch the sitting-room door; and the moment it
moves I will blow out my light. It all happened in that way
on my birthday night. And it must all happen again in the
same way, mustn't it? "
"Are you sure you can control yourself, Miss Verinder?
"In his interests I can do anything! " she answered fer-
vently.
>>>
One look at her face told me I could trust her. I addressed
myself again to Mr. Bruff.
"I must trouble you to put your papers aside for a moment,”
I said.
## p. 3884 (#250) ###########################################
3884
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
"Oh, certainly! " He got up with a start-as if I had dis-
turbed him at a particularly interesting place—and followed me
to the medicine chest. There, deprived of the breathless excite-
ment incidental to the practice of his profession, he looked at
Betteredge and yawned wearily.
Miss Verinder joined me with a glass jug of cold water
which she had taken from a side table. "Let me pour out the
water," she whispered; "I must have a hand in it! "
I measured out the forty minims from the bottle, and poured
the laudanum into a glass. "Fill it till it is three parts full,"
I said, and handed the glass to Miss Verinder. I then directed
Betteredge to lock up the medicine chest, informing him that I
had done with it now. A look of unutterable relief overspread
the old servant's countenance. He had evidently suspected me
of a medical design on his young lady!
After adding the water as I had directed, Miss Verinder
seized a moment - while Betteredge was locking the chest and
while Mr. Bruff was looking back at his papers- and slyly
kissed the rim of the medicine glass. "When you give it to
him," whispered the charming girl, "give it to him on that
side. "
I took the piece of crystal which was to represent the Dia-
mond from my pocket and gave it to her.
"You must have a hand in this too,” I said. "You must
put it where you put the Moonstone last year. "
She led the way to the Indian cabinet, and put the mock
Diamond into the drawer which the real Diamond had occupied
on the birthday night. Mr. Bruff witnessed this proceeding,
under protest, as he had witnessed everything else. But the
strong dramatic interest which the experiment was now assum-
ing proved (to my great amusement) to be too much for Better-
edge's capacity of self-restraint. His hand trembled as he held
the candle, and he whispered anxiously, "Are you sure, miss,
it's the right drawer? "
I led the way out again, with the laudanum and water in
my hand.
At the door I stood to address a last word to Miss
Verinder.
"Don't be long in putting out the lights," I said.
"I will put them out at once," she answered.
wait in my bedroom with only one candle alight. "
She closed the sitting-room door behind us.
Bruff and Betteredge, I went back to Mr. Blake's
"And I will
Followed by
room.
## p. 3885 (#251) ###########################################
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
3885
We found him moving restlessly from side to side of the bed,
and wondering irritably whether he was to have the laudanum
that night. In the presence of the two witnesses I gave him
the dose, and shook up his pillows, and told him to lie down.
again quietly and wait.
His bed, provided with light chintz curtains, was placed
with the head against the wall of the room, so as to leave a
good open space on either side of it. On one side I drew the
curtains completely, and in the part of the room thus screened
from his view I placed Mr. Bruff and Betteredge to wait for
the result. At the bottom of the bed I half drew the curtains,
and placed my own chair at a little distance, so that I might
let him see me or not see me, just as the circumstances might
direct. Having already been informed that he always slept with
a light in the room, I placed one of the two lighted candles on
a little table at the head of the bed, where the glare of the light
would not strike on his eyes. The other candle I gave to Mr.
Bruff; the light in this instance being subdued by the screen
of the chintz curtains. The window was open at the top so as
to ventilate the room. The rain fell softly; the house was quiet.
It was twenty minutes past eleven by my watch when the prepa-
rations were completed, and I took my place on the chair set
apart at the bottom of the bed.
Mr. Bruff resumed his papers, with every appearance of being
as deeply interested in them as ever. But looking toward him
now, I saw certain signs and tokens which told me that the Law
was beginning to lose its hold on him at last. The suspended
interest of the situation in which we were now placed was slowly
asserting its influence even on his unimaginative mind. As for
Betteredge, consistency of principle and dignity of conduct had
become in his case mere empty words. He forgot that I was
performing a conjuring trick on Mr. Franklin Blake; he forgot
that I had upset the house from top to bottom; he forgot that
I had not read Robinson Crusoe' since I was a child. "For the
Lord's sake, sir," he whispered to me, "tell us when it will
begin to work. "
"Not before midnight," I whispered back. "Say nothing
and sit still. "
Betteredge dropped to the lowest depth of familiarity with
me, without a struggle to save himself. He answered by a
wink!
## p. 3886 (#252) ###########################################
3886
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
Looking next toward Mr. Blake, I found him as restless as
ever in his bed; fretfully wondering why the influence of the
laudanum had not begun to assert itself yet. To tell him in
his present humor that the more he fidgeted and wondered the
longer he would delay the result for which we were now wait-
ing, would have been simply useless. The wiser course to take
was to dismiss the idea of the opium from his mind by leading
him insensibly to think of something else.
With this view I encouraged him to talk to me, contriving so
to direct the conversation, on my side, as to lead him back again
the subject which had engaged us earlier in the evening,—
the subject of the Diamond. I took care to revert to those por-
tions of the story of the Moonstone which related to the trans-
port of it from London to Yorkshire; to the risk which Mr.
Blake had run in removing it from the bank at Frizinghall; and
to the expected appearance of the Indians at the house on the
evening of the birthday. And I purposely assumed, in referring
to these events, to have misunderstood much of what Mr. Blake
himself had told me a few hours since. In this way I set him
talking on the subject with which it was now vitally important
to fill his mind-without allowing him to suspect that I was
making him talk for a purpose. Little by little he became so
interested in putting me right that he forgot to fidget in the
bed. His mind was far away from the question of the opium at
the all-important time when his eyes first told me that the
opium was beginning to lay its hold upon his brain.
I looked at my watch. It wanted five minutes to twelve
when the premonitory symptoms of the working of the lau-
danum first showed themselves to me.
At this time no unpracticed eye would have detected any
change in him. But as the minutes of the new morning wore
away, the swiftly subtle progress of the influence began to show
itself more plainly. The sublime intoxication of opium gleamed
in his eyes; the dew of a steady perspiration began to glisten on
his face. In five minutes more the talk which he still kept up
with me failed in coherence. He held steadily to the subject of
the Diamond; but he ceased to complete his sentences. A little
later the sentences dropped to single words. Then there was an
interval of silence. Then he sat up in bed. Then, still busy
with the subject of the Diamond, he began to talk again—not
to me but to himself. That change told me the first stage in
## p. 3887 (#253) ###########################################
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
3887
the experiment was reached. The stimulant influence of the
opium had got him.
The time now was twenty-three minutes past twelve. The
next half-hour, at most, would decide the question of whether he
would or would not get up from his bed and leave the room.
In the breathless interest of watching him-in the unutter-
able triumph of seeing the first result of the experiment declare
itself in the manner, and nearly at the time, which I had antici-
pated I had utterly forgotten the two companions of my night
vigil. Looking toward them now, I saw the Law (as represented
by Mr. Bruff's papers) lying unheeded on the floor. Mr. Bruff
himself was looking eagerly through a crevice left in the imper-
fectly drawn curtains of the bed. And Betteredge, oblivious of
all respect for social distinctions, was peeping over Mr. Bruff's
shoulder.
They both started back on finding that I was looking at
them, like two boys caught out by their schoolmaster in a fault.
I signed to them to take off their boots quietly, as I was taking
off mine. If Mr. Blake gave us the chance of following him, it
was vitally necessary to follow him without noise.
Ten minutes passed-and nothing happened.
He put
Then he suddenly threw the bedclothes off him.
one leg out of bed. He waited.
"I wish I had never taken it out of the bank," he said to
himself. "It was safe in the bank. "
My heart throbbed fast; the pulses at my temples beat furi-
ously. The doubt about the safety of the Diamond was once
more the dominant impression in his brain! On that one pivot
the whole success of the experiment turned. The prospect thus
suddenly opened before me was too much for my shattered
nerves. I was obliged to look away from him, or I should have
lost my self-control.
There was another interval of silence.
When I could trust myself to look back at him he was out
of his bed, standing erect at the side of it. The pupils of his
eyes were now contracted; his eyeballs gleamed in the light of
the candle as he moved his head slowly to and fro.
He was
thinking; he was doubting; he spoke again.
"How do I know? " he said. "The Indians may be hidden
in the house. "
He stopped, and walked slowly to the other end of the room.
He turned,-waited,—came back to the bed.
## p. 3888 (#254) ###########################################
3888
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
"It's not even locked up," he went on.
of her cabinet. And the drawer doesn't lock. "
"It's in the drawer
He sat down on the side of the bed. "Anybody might take
it," he said.
He rose again restlessly, and reiterated his first words. "How
do I know? The Indians may be hidden in the house. "
bed.
He waited again. I drew back behind the half-curtain of the
He looked about the room, with the vacant glitter in his
eyes. It was a breathless moment. There was a pause of some
A pause in the action of the opium? a pause in the action
of the brain? Who could tell? Everything depended now on
what he did next.
sort.
He laid himself down again on the bed!
A horrible doubt crossed my mind. Was it possible that the
sedative action of the opium was making itself felt already? It
was not in my experience that it should do this. But what is
experience where opium is concerned? There are probably no
two men in existence on whom the drug acts in exactly the
same manner. Was some constitutional peculiarity in him feel-
ing the influence in some new way? Were we to fail, on the
very brink of success?
No! He got up again very abruptly. "How the devil am I
to sleep," he said, "with this on my mind ? »
He looked at the light burning on the table at the head of
his bed. After a moment he took the candle in his hand.
I blew out the second candle burning behind the closed cur-
tains. I drew back, with Mr. Bruff and Betteredge, into the
farthest corner by the bed. I signed to them to be silent, as if
their lives depended on it.
We waited seeing and hearing nothing. We waited, hidden
from him by the curtains.
The light which he was holding on the other side of us moved
suddenly. The next moment he passed us, swift and noiseless,
with the candle in his hand.
He opened the bedroom door and went out.
We followed him along the corridor. We followed him down
the stairs. We followed him along the second corridor. He
never looked back; he never hesitated.
He opened the sitting-room door and went in, leaving it
open behind him.
The door was hung (like all the other doors in the house) on
large old-fashioned hinges. When it was opened, a crevice was
## p.
