No More Learning

But instead he moped about, fretting
for his fair green fields, and few proudly cherished beasts, -
especially the little old Kerry cow. And at his funeral the
neighbors said, “Ah, bedad, poor man, God help him, he niver
held up his head agin from that good day to this. ”
When Mrs. Joyce felt that it behooved her to settle her
affairs, she found that the most important possession she had to
dispose of was her large cloak. She had acquired it at the pros-
perous time of her marriage, and it was a very superior specimen
of its kind, in dark-blue cloth being superfine, and its ample
capes and capacious hood being double-lined and quilted and
stitched in a way which I cannot pretend to describe, but which
made it a most substantial and handsome garment. If Mrs.
Joyce had been left entirely to her own choice in the matter, I
think she would have bequeathed it to her younger daughter
Theresa, notwithstanding that custom clearly designated Bessy
Kilfoyle, the eldest of the family, as the heiress. For she said
to herself that poor Bessy had her husband and childer to con-
sowl her, any way, but little Theresa, the crathur, had ne'er such
a thing at all, and wouldn't have, not she, God love her. “And
the back of me hand to some I could name. ” It seemed to her
that to leave the child the cloak would be almost like keeping a
warm wing spread over her in the cold wide world; and there
was no fear that Bessy would take it amiss.
But Theresa herself protested strongly against such a disposi-
tion, urging for one thing that sure she'd be lost in it entirely
if ever she put it on; a not unfounded objection, as Theresa was
several sizes smaller than Bessy, and even she fell far short of
her mother in stature and portliness. Theresa also said confi-
dently with a sinking heart, But sure, anyhow, mother jewel,
what matter about it? 'Twill be all gone to houles and flitters
and thraneens, and so it will, plase goodness, afore there's any
talk of anybody else wearin' it except your own ould self. ” And
she expressed much the same conviction one day to her next-
door neighbor, old Biddy Ryan, to whom she had run in for the
loan of a sup of sour milk, which Mrs. Joyce fancied. Το
Biddy's sincere regret she could offer Theresa barely a skimpy


## p. 1546 (#344) ###########################################

1546
JANE BARLOW
noggin of milk, and only a meagre shred of encouragement; and
by way of eking out the latter with its sorry substitute, consola-
tion, she said as she tilted the jug perpendicularly to extract its
last drop:-
“Well, sure, me dear, I do be sayin' me prayers for her
every sun goes over our heads that she might be left wid you
this great while yet; 'deed, I do so. But ah, acushla, if we could
be keepin' people that-a-way, would there be e'er a funeral iver
goin' black on the road at all at all ? I'm thinkin' there's scarce
a one livin', and he as ould and foolish and little-good-for as you
plase, but some crathur'ill be grudgin' him to his grave, that's
himself may be all the while wishin' he was in it. Or, morebe-
token, how can we tell what quare ugly misfortin' thim that's
took is took out of the road of, that we should be as good as
biddin' thim stay till it comes to ruinate them ? So it's prayin'
away I am, honey,” said old Biddy, whom Theresa could not
help hating heart-sickly. “But like enough the Lord might know
better than to be mindin' a word I say. ”,
And it seemed that He did; anyway, the day soon came when
the heavy blue cloak passed into Mrs. Kilfoyle's possession.
At that time it was clear, still autumn weather, with just a
sprinkle of frost white on the wayside grass, like the wraith of
belated moonlight, when the sun rose, and shimmering into rain-
bow stars by noon. But about a month later the winter swooped
suddenly on Lisconnel: with wild winds and cold rain that made
crystal-silver streaks down the purple of the great mountain-
heads peering in over our bogland.
So one perishing Saturday Mrs. Kilfoyle made up her mind
that she would wear her warm legacy on the bleak walk to Mass
next morning, and reaching it down from where it was stored
away among the rafters wrapped in an old sack, she shook it
respectfully out of its straight-creased folds. As she did so she
noticed that the binding of the hood had ripped in one place,
and that the lining was fraying out, a mishap which should be
promptly remedied before it spread any further. She was not
a very expert needlewoman, and she thought she had better run
over the way to consult Mrs. O'Driscoll, then a young matron,
esteemed the handiest and most helpful person in Lisconnel.
"It's the nathur of her to be settin' things straight wherever
she goes,” Mrs. Kilfoyle said to herself as she stood in her
doorway waiting for the rain to clear off, and looking across the


## p. 1547 (#345) ###########################################

JANE BARLOW
1547
road to the sodden roof which sheltered her neighbor's head.
It had long been lying low, vanquished by a trouble which even
she could not set to rights, and some of the older people say
that things have gone a little crookeder in Lisconnel ever since.
The shower was a vicious one, with the sting of sleet and
hail in its drops, pelted about by gusts that ruffled up the
puddles into ripples, all set on end, like the feathers of a fright-
ened hen. The hens themselves stood disconsolately sheltering
under the bank, mostly on one leg, as if they preferred to keep
up the slightest possible connection with such a very damp and
disagreeable earth. You could not see far in any direction for
the fluttering sheets of mist, and a stranger who had been com-
ing along the road from Duffclane stepped out of them abruptly
quite close to Mrs. Kilfoyle's door, before she knew that there
was anybody near.
He was
a tall, elderly man, gaunt and
grizzled, very ragged, and so miserable-looking that Mrs. Kil-
foyle could have felt nothing but compassion for him had he
not carried over his shoulder a bunch of shiny cans, which was
to her mind as satisfactory a passport as a ticket of leave. For
although these were yet rather early days at Lisconnel, the
Tinkers had already begun to establish their reputation. So
when he stopped in front of her and said, "Good-day, ma'am,”
she only replied distantly, “It's a hardy mornin',” and hoped
he would move on. But he said, "It's cruel could, ma'am," and
continued to stand looking at her with wide and woful eyes, in
which she conjectured -erroneously, as it happened — hunger
for warmth or food. Under these circumstances, what could be
done by a woman who was conscious of owning a redly glowing
hearth with a big black pot, fairly well filled, clucking and
bobbing upon it ? To possess such wealth as this, and think
seriously of withholding a share from anybody who urges the
incontestable claim of wanting it, is a mood altogether foreign
to Lisconnel, where the responsibilities of poverty are no doubt
very imperfectly understood. Accordingly Mrs. Kilfoyle said to
the tattered tramp, "Ah, thin, step inside and have a couple of
hot pitaties. ” And when he accepted the invitation without much
alacrity, as if he had something else on his mind, she picked for
him out of the steam two of the biggest potatoes, whose earth-
colored skins, cracking, showed a fair flouriness within; and she
shook a little heap of salt, the only relish she had, onto the


## p. 1548 (#346) ###########################################

1548
JANE BARLOW
chipped white plate as she handed it to him, saying, “Sit you
down be the fire, there, and git a taste of the heat. ”
Then she lifted her old shawl over her head, and ran out to
see where at all Brian and Thady were gettin' their deaths on
her under the pours of rain; and as she passed the Keoghs'
adjacent door - which was afterward the Sheridans', whence their
Larry departed so reluctantly — young Mrs. Keogh called her to
come in and look at "the child,” who, being a new and unique
possession, was liable to develop alarmingly strange symptoms,
and had now “woke up wid his head that hot, you might as
well put your hand on the hob of the grate. ” Mrs. Kilfoyle
stayed only long enough to suggest, as a possible remedy, a drop
of two-milk whey. “But ah, sure, woman dear, where at all 'ud
we come by that, wid the crathur of a goat scarce wettin' the
bottom of the pan? ” and to draw reassuring omens from the
avidity with which the invalid grabbed at a sugared crust. In
fact, she was less than five minutes out of her house; but when
she returned to it, she found it empty. First, she noted with a
moderate thrill of surprise that her visitor had gone away leav-
ing his potatoes untouched; and next, with a rough shock of
dismay, that her cloak no longer lay on the window seat where
she had left it. From that moment she never felt any real
doubts about what had befallen her, though for some time she
kept on trying to conjure them up, and searched wildly round
and round and round her little room, like a distracted bee
strayed into the hollow furze-bush, before she sped over to Mrs.
O’Driscoll with the news of her loss.
It spread rapidly through Lisconnel, and brought the neigh-
bors together exclaiming and condoling, though not in great
force, as there was a fair going on down beyant, which nearly
all the men and some of the women had attended.
This was
accounted cruel unlucky, as it left the place without any one
able-bodied and active enough to go in pursuit of the thief. A
prompt start might have overtaken him, especially as he was
said to be a thrifle lame-futted”; though Mrs. M'Gurk, who had
seen him come down the hill, opined that «'twasn't the sort of
lameness 'ud hinder the miscreant of steppin' out, on'y a quare
manner of flourish he had in a one of his knees, as if he was
gatherin' himself up to make an offer at a grasshopper's lep, and
then thinkin' better of it. ”


## p. 1549 (#347) ###########################################

JANE BARLOW
1549
Little Thady Kilfoyle reported that he had met the strange
man a bit down the road, “leggin' it along at a great rate, wid
a black rowl of somethin' under his arm that he looked to be
crumplin' up as small as he could,” — the word “crumpling ”
went acutely to Mrs. Kilfoyle's heart, - and some long-sighted
people declared that they could still catch glimpses of a receding
figure through the hovering fog on the way toward Sallinbeg.
"I'd think he'd be beyant seein' afore now,” said Mrs. Kil-
foyle, who stood in the rain, the disconsolate centre of the group
about her door; all women and children except old Johnny Keogh,
who was
so bothered and deaf that he grasped new situations
slowly and feebly, and had now an impression of somebody's
house being on fire. «He must ha' took off wid himself the
instiant me back was turned, for ne'er a crumb had he touched
of the pitaties. ”
"Maybe he'd that much shame in him," said Mrs. O'Driscoll.
« They'd a right to ha' choked him, troth and they had,” said
Ody Rafferty's aunt.
"Is it chokin'? ” said young Mrs. M'Gurk, bitterly. "Sure the
bigger thief a body is, the more he'll thrive on whatever he gits;
you might think villiny was as good as butter to people's pitaties,
you might so.
Shame how are you?
Liker he'd ate all he could
swally in the last place he got the chance of layin' his hands on
anythin'.
“Och, woman alive, but it's the fool you were to let him out
of your sight,” said Ody Rafferty's aunt. “If it had been me, I'd
niver ha' took me eyes off him, for the look of him on'y goin' by
made me flesh creep upon me bones. ”
« 'Deed was I,” said Mrs. Kilfoyle, sorrowfully, “a fine fool.
And vexed she'd be, rael vexed, if she guessed the way it was
gone on us, for the dear knows what dirty ould rapscallions 'ill
get the wearin' of it now. Rael vexed she'd be. ”
This speculation was more saddening than the actual loss of
the cloak, though that bereft her wardrobe of far and away its
most valuable property, which should have descended as an heir-
loom to her little Katty, who, however, being at present but
three months old, lay sleeping happily unaware of the cloud that
had come over her prospects.
"I wish to goodness a couple of the lads 'ud step home wid
themselves this minit of time,” said Mrs. M'Gurk. « They'd come
up wid him yet, and take it off of him ready enough. And


## p. 1550 (#348) ###########################################

1550
JANE BARLOW
smash his ugly head for him, if he would be givin' them any
impidence. ”
“Aye, and 'twould be a real charity — the mane baste; -or
sling him in one of the bog-houles,” said the elder Mrs. Keogh,
a mild-looking little old woman. “I'd liefer than nine nine-
pennies see thim comin' along. But I'm afeard it's early for
thim yet. ”
Everybody's eyes turned, as she spoke, toward the ridge of
the Knockawn, though with no particular expectation of seeing
what they wished upon it. But behold, just at that moment
three figures, blurred among the gray rain-mists, looming into
view.
“Be the powers,” said Mrs. M'Gurk, jubilantly, “it's Ody
Rafferty himself.
To your sowls! Now you've a great good
chance, ma'am, to be gettin' it back. He's the boy 'ill leg it over
all before him ” — for in those days Ody was lithe and limber-
“and it's hard-set the thievin' Turk 'ill be to get the better of
him at a racin' match - Hi — Och. ” She had begun to hail him
with a call eager and shrill, which broke off in a strangled croak,
like a young cock's unsuccessful effort. «Och, murdher, murdher,
murdher,” she said to the bystanders, in a disgusted undertone.
"I'll give you me misfort'nit word thim other two is the pólis. ”
Now it might seem on the face of things that the arrival of
those two active and stalwart civil servants would have been
welcomed as happening just in the nick of time; yet it argues an
alien ignorance to suppose such a view of the matter by any
means possible. The men in invisible green tunics belonged com-
pletely to the category of pitaty-blights, rint-warnin's, fevers, and
the like devastators of life, that dog a
or less all
through it, but close in on him, a pitiful quarry, when the bad
seasons come and the childer and the old crathurs are starvin'
wid the hunger, and his own heart is broke; therefore, to accept
assistance from them in their official capacity would have been a
proceeding most reprehensibly unnatural. To put a private quarrel
or injury into the hands of the peelers were a disloyal making of
terms with the public foe; a condoning of great permanent
wrongs for the sake of a trivial temporary convenience. Lisconnel
has never been skilled in the profitable and ignoble art of utiliz-
ing its enemies. Not that anybody was more than vaguely
conscious of these sentiments, much less attempted to express
them in set terms. When a policeman appeared there in an
man more


## p. 1551 (#349) ###########################################

JANE BARLOW
1551
inquiring mood, what people said among themselves was, Musha
cock him up.
I hope he'll get his health till I would be tellin'
him," or words to that effect; while in reply to his questions,
they made statements superficially so clear and simple, and essen-
tially so bewilderingly involved, that the longest experience could
do little more for a constable than teach him the futility of wast-
ing his time in attempts to disentangle them.
Thus it was that when Mrs. Kilfoyle saw who Ody's compan
ions were, she bade a regretful adieu to her hopes of recovering
her stolen property. For how could she set him on the Tinker's
felonious track without apprising them likewise ? You might as
well try to huroosh one chicken off a rafter and not scare the
couple that were huddled beside it. The impossibility became
more obvious presently as the constables, striding quickly down
to where the group of women stood in the rain and wind with
fluttering shawls and flapping cap-borders, said briskly, “Good-day
to you all. Did any of yous happen to see e'er a one of them
tinkerin' people goin' by here this mornin'? ”
It was a moment of strong temptation to everybody, but espe-
cially to Mrs. Kilfoyle, who had in her mind that vivid picture
of her precious cloak receding from her along the wet road,
recklessly wisped up in the grasp of as thankless a thievin' black-
hearted slieveen as ever stepped, and not yet, perhaps, utterly
out of reach, though every fleeting instant carried it nearer to
that hopeless point. However, she and her neighbors stood the
test unshaken. Mrs. Ryan rolled her eyes deliberatively, and
said to Mrs. M'Gurk, «The saints bless us, was it yisterday or
the day before, me dear, you said you seen a couple of them
below, near ould O'Beirne's ? »
And Mrs. M'Gurk replied, “Ah, sure, not at all, ma'am, glory
be to goodness. I couldn't ha' tould you such a thing, for I
wasn't next or nigh the place. Would it ha' been Ody Rafferty's
aunt ? She was below there fetchin' up a bag of male, and bedad
she came home that dhreeped, the crathur, you might ha' thought
she'd been after fishin' it up out of the botthom of one of thim
bog-houles. ”
And Mrs. Kilfoyle heroically hustled her Thady into the house,
as she saw him on the brink of beginning loudly to relate his
encounter with a strange man, and desired him to whisht and
stay where he was in a manner so sternly repressive that he
actually remained there as if he had been a pebble dropped into
a pool, and not, as usual, a cork to bob up again immediately.


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1552
JANE BARLOW
Then Mrs. M'Gurk made a bold stroke, designed to shake off
the hampering presence of the professionals, and enable Ody's
amateur services to be utilized while there was yet time.
"I declare,” she said, "now that I think of it, I seen a feller
crossin' the ridge along there a while ago, like as if he was
comin' from Sallinbeg ways; and according to the apparence of
him, I wouldn't won'er if he was a one of thim tinker crathures
carryin' a big clump of cans he was, at any rate — I noticed
the shine of thim. And he couldn't ha' got any great way yet
to spake of, supposin' there was anybody lookin' to folly after
him. ”
But Constable Black crushed her hopes as he replied, “Ah,
it's nobody comin' from Sallinbeg that we've anything to say to.
There's after bein' a robbery last night, down below at Jerry
Dunne's—a shawl as good as new took, that his wife's ragin' over
frantic, along wid a sight of fowl and other things. And the
Tinkers that was settled this long while in the boreen at the
back of his haggard is quit out of it afore daylight this mornin',
every rogue of them. So we'd have more than a notion where
the property's went to if we could tell the road they've took.
We thought like enough some of them might ha' come this way. ”
Now, Mr. Jerry Dunne was not a popular person in Lis-
connel, where he has even become, as we have seen, proverbial
for what we call “ould naygurliness. ” So there was a general
tendency to say, “The divil's cure to him," and listen compla-
cently to any details their visitors could impart. For in his
private capacity a policeman, provided that he be otherwise «a
dacint lad,” which to do him justice is commonly the case, may
join, with a few unobtrusive restrictions, in our neighborly gos-
sips; the rule in fact being — Free admission except on business.
Only Mrs. Kilfoyle was so much cast down by her misfortune
that she could not raise herself to the level of an interest in the
affairs of her thrifty suitor, and the babble of voices relating and
commenting sounded as meaningless as the patter of the drops
which jumped like little fishes in the large puddle at their feet.
It had spread considerably before Constable Black said to his
comrade: -
"Well, Daly, we'd better be steppin' home wid ourselves as
wise as we come, as the man said when he'd axed his road of
the ould black horse in the dark lane. There's no good goin'
further, for the whole gang of them's scattered over the counthry
agin now like a seedin' thistle in a high win'. ”


## p. 1553 (#351) ###########################################

JANE BARLOW
1553
"Aye, bedad,” said Constable Daly, "and be the same token,
this win' ud skin a tanned elephant. It's on'y bogged and
drenched we'd git. Look at what's comin' up over there. That
rain's snow on the hills, every could drop of it; I seen Ben
Bawn this mornin' as white as the top of a musharoon, and it's
thickenin' wid sleet here this minute, and so it is. ”
The landscape did, indeed, frown upon further explorations.
In quarters where the rain had abated it seemed as if the mists
had curdled on the breath of the bitter air, and they lay floating
in long white bars and reefs low on the track of their own
shadow, which threw down upon the sombre bogland deeper
stains of gloom. Here and there one caught on the crest of
some gray-bowldered knoll, and was teazed into fleecy threads
that trailed melting instead of tangling. But toward the north
the horizon was all blank, with one vast, smooth slant of slate-
color, like a pent-house roof, which had a sliding motion on-
wards.
Ody Rafferty pointed to it and said, "Troth, it's teemin' pow-
erful this instiant up there in the mountains. 'Twill be much if
you land home afore it's atop of you; for 'twould be the most I
could do myself. ”
And as the constables departed hastily, most people forgot the
stolen cloak for a while to wonder whether their friends would
escape being entirely drowned on the way back from the fair.
Mrs. Kilfoyle, however, still stood in deep dejection at her
door, and said, "Och, but she was the great fool to go let the
likes of him set fut widin' her house. "
To console her Mrs. O'Driscoll said, “Ah, sure, sorra a fool
were you, woman dear; how would you know the villiny of him ?
And if you'd turned the man away widout givin' him e'er a bit,
it's bad you'd be thinkin' of it all the day after. ”
And to improve the occasion for her juniors, old Mrs. Keogh
added, “Aye, and morebetoken you'd ha' been committin' a sin. ”
But Mrs. Kilfoyle replied with much candor, «'Deed, then,
I'd a dale liefer be after committin' a sin, or a dozen sins, than
to have me poor mother's good cloak thieved away on me, and
walkin' wild about the world. ”
As it happened, the fate of Mrs. Kilfoyle's cloak was very
different from her forecast. But I do not think that a knowledge
of it would have teen consolatory to her by any means. If she
had heard of it, she would probably have said, “The cross of
III-98


## p. 1554 (#352) ###########################################

1554
JANE BARLOW
Christ upon us.
God be good to the misfort'nit crathur. ” For
she was not at all of an implacable temper, and would, under
the circumstances, have condoned even the injury that obliged
her to appear at Mass with a flannel petticoat over her head
until the end of her days. Yet she did hold the Tinkers in a
perhaps somewhat too unqualified reprobation. For there are
tinkers and tinkers. Some of them, indeed, are stout and sturdy
thieves,- veritable birds of prey, — whose rapacity is continually
questing for plunder. But some of them have merely the mag-
pies' and jackdaws' thievish propensity for picking up what lies
temptingly in their way. And some few are so honest that they
pass by as harmlessly as a wedge of high-flying wild duck. And
I have heard it said that to places like Lisconnel their pickings
and stealings have at worst never been so serious a matter as
those of another flock, finer of feather, but not less predacious
in their habits, who roosted, for the most part, a long way off,
and made their collections by deputy.
Copyrighted 1895, by Dodd, Mead and Company.
WALLED OUT
From Bogland Studies)
A
N' WANST we were restin' a bit in the sun on the smooth hillside,
Where the grass felt warm to your hand as the fleece of a
sheep, for wide,
As ye'd look overhead an' around, 'twas all a-blaze and a-glow,
An' the blue was blinkin' up from the blackest bog-holes below;
a
An' the scent o' the bogmint was sthrong on the air, an' never
sound
But the plover's pipe that ye'll seldom miss by a lone bit o' ground.
An' he laned – Misther Pierce - on his elbow, an' stared at the sky
as he smoked,
Till just in an idle way he sthretched out his hand an' sthroked
The feathers o'wan of the snipe that was kilt an' lay close by on
1
the grass;
An' there was the death in the crathur's eyes like a breath upon
glass.
An' sez he, “It's quare to think that a hole ye might bore wid a pin
’ill be wide enough to let such a power o' darkness in


## p. 1555 (#353) ###########################################

JANE BARLOW
1555
On such a power o'light; an' it's quarer to think,” sez he,
“That wan o' these days the like is bound to happen to you an'
me. ”
Thin Misther Barry, he sez: “Musha, how's wan to know but there's
light
On t'other side o' the dark, as the day comes afther the night ? ”
An’“Och,” says Misther Pierce, “what more's our knowin'- save the
mark
Than guessin' which way the chances run, an' thinks I they run to
the dark;
Or else agin now some glint of a bame'd ha' come slithered an' slid;
Sure light's not aisy to hide, an' what for should it be hid ? »
Up he stood with a sort o' laugh: “If on light,” sez he, “ye're set,
Let's make the most o' this same, as it's all that we're like to get. ”
Thim were his words, as I minded well, for often afore an' sin,
The 'dintical thought 'ud bother me head that seemed to bother him
thin;
An' many's the time I'd be wond'rin' whatever it all might mane,
The sky, an' the lan', an' the bastes, an' the rest o'thim plain as
plain,
And all behind an' beyant thim a big black shadow let fall;
Ye'll sthrain the sight out of your eyes, but there it stands like a
wall.
“An' there,” sez I to meself, we're goin' wherever we go,
But where we'll be whin we git there it's never a know I know. ”
Thin whiles I thought I was maybe a sthookawn to throuble me
mind
Wid sthrivin' to comprehind onnathural things o' the kind;
An' Quality, now, that have larnin', might know the rights o' the
case,
But ignorant wans like me had betther lave it in pace.
Priest, tubbe sure, an' Parson, accordin' to what they say,
The whole matther's plain as a pikestaff an' clear as the day,
An' to hear thim talk of a world beyant, ye'd think at the laste
They'd been dead an' buried half their lives, an' had thramped it
from west to aist;
An' who's for above an' who's for below they've as pat as if they
could tell
The name of every saint in heaven an' every divil in hell.
But cock up the lives of thimselves to be settlin' it all to their
taste
I sez, and the wife she sez I'm no more nor a haythin baste -


## p. 1556 (#354) ###########################################

1556
JANE BARLOW
For mighty few o' thim's rael Quality, musha, they're mostly a pack
O'playbians, each wid a tag to his name an' a long black coat to
his back;
An' it's on’y romancin' they are belike; a man must stick be his
trade,
An' they git their livin' by lettin' on they know how wan's sowl is
made.
And in chapel or church they're bound to know somethin' for sure,
good or bad,
Or where'd be the sinse o' their preachin' an' prayers an' hymns an'
howlin' like mad ?
So who'd go mindin' o' thim ?
barrin' women, in coorse, an’ wanes,
That believe 'most aught ye tell thim, if they don't understand what
it manes —
Bedad, if it worn't the nathur o' women to want the wit,
Parson and Priest I'm a-thinkin' might shut up their shop an' quit.
But, och, it's lost an' disthracted the crathurs 'ud be without
Their bit of divarsion on Sundays whin all o' thim gits about,
Cluth'rin' an' pluth'rin' together like hins, an' a-roostin' in rows,
An' meetin' their frins an' their neighbors, and wearin' their dacint
clothes.
An' sure it's quare that the clergy can't ever agree to keep
Be tellin' the same thrue story, sin' they know such a won'erful
heap :
For many a thing Priest tells ye that Parson sez is a lie,
An' which has a right to be wrong, the divil a much know I,
For all the differ I see 'twixt the pair o' thim 'd fit in a nut:
Wan for the Union, an’ wan for the League, an' both o' thim bitther
as sut.
But Misther Pierce, that's a gintleman born, an' has college larnin'
and all,
There he was starin' no wiser than me where the shadow stands like
a wall.
Authorized American Edition, Dodd, Mead and Company.


## p. 1557 (#355) ###########################################

1557
JOEL BARLOW
(1754-1812)
KNE morning late in the July of 1778, a select company gath-
ered in the little chapel of Yale College to listen to orations
and other exercises by a picked number of students of the
Senior class, one of whom, named Barlow, had been given the coveted
honor of delivering what was termed the Commencement Poem. '
Those of the audience who came from a distance carried back to
their homes in elm-shaded Norwich, or Stratford, or Litchfield, high
on its hills, lively recollections of a hand-
some young man and of his Prospect of
Peace,' whose cheerful prophecies in heroic
verse so greatly «improved the occasion. ”
They had heard that he was a farmer's son
from Redding, Connecticut, who had been
to school at Hanover, New Hampshire, and
had entered Dartmouth College, but soon
removed to Yale on account of its superior
advantages; that he had twice seen active
service in the Continental army, and that
he was engaged to marry a beautiful New
Haven girl.
The brilliant career predicted for Bar-
JOEL BARLOW
low did not begin immediately. Distaste for
war, hope of securing a tutorship in college, and - we may well
believe - Miss Ruth's entreaties, kept him in New Haven two years
longer, engaged in teaching and in various courses of study. (The
Prospect of Peace) had been issued in pamphlet form, and the com-
pliments paid the author incited him to plan a poem of a philosophic
character on the subject of America at large, bearing the title (The
Vision of Columbus. ' The appointment as tutor never came, and
instead of cultivating the Muse in peaceful New Haven, he was
forced to evoke her aid in a tent on the banks of the Hudson,
whither after a hurried course in theology, he proceeded as an army
chaplain in 1780. During his connection with the army, which
lasted until its disbandment in 1783, he won repute by lyrics written
to encourage the soldiers, and by “a flaming political sermon,” as he
termed it, on the treason of Arnold.
Army life ended, Barlow removed to Hartford, where he studied
law, edited the American Mercury,-a weekly paper he had helped



## p. 1558 (#356) ###########################################

1558
JOEL BARLOW
as
to found, — and with John Trumbull, Lemuel Hopkins, and David
Humphreys formed a literary club which became widely known as
the “Hartford Wits. ” Its chief publication, a series of political lam-
poons styled The Anarchiad,' satirized those factions whose disputes
imperiled the young republic, and did much to influence public opin-
ion in Connecticut and elsewhere in favor of the Federal Constitution.
A revision and enlargement of Dr. Watts's 'Book of Psalmody,' and
the publication (1787) of his own Vision of Columbus,' occupied
part of Barlow's time while in Hartford. The latter poem was
extravagantly praised, ran through several editions, and was repub-
lished in London and Paris; but the poet, who now had a wife to
support, could not live by his pen nor by the law, and when in 1788
he was urged by the Scioto Land Company to become its agent in
Paris, he gladly accepted. The company was a private association,
formed to buy large tracts of government land situated in Ohio and
sell them in Europe to capitalists or actual settlers. This failed dis-
astrously, and Barlow was left stranded in Paris, where he remained,
supporting himself partly by writing, partly by business ventures.
Becoming intimate with the leaders of the Girondist party, the man
who had dedicated his Vision of Columbus, to Louis XVI. , and
had also dined with the nobility, now began to figure as a zealous
Republican and a Liberal in religion. From 1790 to 1793 he
passed most of his time in London, where he wrote a number of
political pamphlets for the Society for Constitutional Information, an
organization openly favoring French Republicanism and a revision of
the British Constitution. Here also, in 1791, he finished a work
entitled Advice to the Privileged Orders, which probably would
have run through many editions had it not been suppressed by the
British government. The book was an arraignment of tyranny in
church and state, and was quickly followed by The Conspiracy of
Kings,' an attack in verse on those European countries which had
combined to kill Republicanism in France. In 1792 Barlow was
made a citizen of France as a mark of appreciation of a "Letter)
addressed to the National Convention, giving that body advice, and
when the convention sent commissioners to organize the province of
Savoy into a department, Barlow was one of the number. As a
candidate for deputy from Savoy, he was defeated; but his visit was
not fruitless, for at Chambéry the sight of a dish of maize-meal por-
ridge reminded him of his early home in Connecticut, and inspired
him to write in that ancient French town a typical Yankee poem,
(Hasty Pudding. Its preface, in prose, addressed to Mrs. Washing-
ton, assured her that simplicity of diet was one of the virtues; and
if cherished by her, as it doubtless was, it would be more highly
regarded by her countrywomen.


## p. 1559 (#357) ###########################################

JOEL BARLOW
1559
a
Between the years of 1795-97, Barlow held the important but
unenviable position of United States Consul at Algiers, and succeeded
both in liberating many of his countrymen who were held as prison-
ers, and in perfecting treaties with the rulers of the Barbary States,
which gave United States vessels entrance to their ports and secured
them from piratical attacks. On his return to Paris he translated
Volney's Ruins) into English, made preparations for writing his-
tories of the American and French revolutions, and expanded his
(Vision of Columbus) into a volume which as The Columbiad”.
beautiful specimen of typography – was published in Philadelphia in
1807 and republished in London. The poem was held to have in-
creased Barlow's fame; but it is stilted and monotonous, and Hasty
Pudding' has done more to perpetuate his name.
In 1805 Barlow returned to the United States and bought an
estate near Washington, D. C. , where he entertained distinguished
visitors. In 1811 he returned to France authorized to negotiate a
treaty of commerce. After waiting nine months, he was invited by
Napoleon, who was then in Poland, to a conference at Wilna. On
his arrival Barlow found the French army on the retreat from Mos-
cow, and endured such privations on the march that on December
24th he died of exhaustion at the village of Zarnowiec, near Cracow,
and there was buried.
Barlow's part in developing American literature was important,
and therefore he has a rightful place in a work which traces that
development. He certainly was a man of varied ability and power,
who advanced more than one good cause and stimulated the move-
ment toward higher thought. The only complete Life and Letters
of Joel Barlow,' by Charles Burr Todd, published in 1888, gives him
unstinted praise as excelling in statesmanship, letters, and philosophy.
With more assured justice, which all can echo, it praises his nobility
of spirit as a man. No one can read the letter to his wife, written
from Algiers when he thought himself in danger of death, without a
warm feeling for so unselfish and affectionate a nature.
A FEAST
From Hasty Pudding
There are various ways of preparing and eating Hasty Pudding,
with molasses, butter, sugar, cream, and fried. Why so excellent a
thing cannot be eaten alone ? Nothing is perfect alone; even man,
who boasts of so much perfection, is nothing without his fellow-sub-
stance. In eating, beware of the lurking heat that lies deep in the
mass; dip your spoon gently, take shallow dips and cool it by


## p. 1560 (#358) ###########################################

1560
JOEL BARLOW
degrees. It is sometimes necessary to blow. This is indicated by
certain signs which every experienced feeder knows. They should
be taught to young beginners. I have known a child's tongue blis-
tered for want of this attention, and then the school-dame would
insist that the poor thing had told a lie. A mistake: the falsehood
was in the faithless pudding. A prudent mother will cool it for her
child with her own sweet breath. The husband, seeing this, pre-
tends his own wants blowing, too, from the same lips. A sly deceit
of love. She knows the cheat, but, feigning ignorance, lends her
pouting lips and gives a gentle blast, which warms the husband's
heart more than it cools his pudding.
T"
HE days grow short; but though the falling sun
To the glad swain proclaims his day's work done,
Night's pleasing shades his various tasks prolong,
And yield new subjects to my various song.
For now, the corn-house filled, the harvest home,
The invited neighbors to the husking come;
A frolic scene, where work and mirth and play
Unite their charms to chase the hours away.
Where the huge heap lies centred in the hall,
The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall,
Brown corn-fed nymphs, and strong hard-handed beaux,
Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows,
Assume their seats, the solid mass attack;
The dry husks rustle, and the corn-cobs crack;
The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound,
And the sweet cider trips in silence round.
The laws of husking every wight can tell;
And sure, no laws he ever keeps so well:
For each red ear a general kiss he gains,
With each smut ear he smuts the luckless swains;
But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast,
Red as her lips, and taper as her waist,
She walks the round, and culls one favored beau,
Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow.
Various the sport, as are the wits and brains
Of well-pleased lasses and contending swains;
Till the vast mound of corn is swept away,
And he that gets the last ear wins the day.
Meanwhile the housewife urges all her care,
The well-earned feast to hasten and prepare.
The sifted meal already waits her hand,
The milk is strained, the bowls in order stand,


## p. 1561 (#359) ###########################################

· JOEL BARLOW
1561
The fire flames high; and as a pool (that takes
The headlong stream that o'er the mill-dam breaks)
Foams, roars, and rages with incessant toils,
So the vexed caldron rages, roars and boils.
First with clean salt she seasons well the food,
Then strews the flour, and thickens well the flood.
Long o'er the simmering fire she lets it stand;
To stir it well demands a stronger hand :
The husband takes his turn, and round and round
The ladle flies; at last the toil is crowned;
When to the board the thronging huskers pour,
And take their seats as at the corn before.
I leave them to their feast. There still belong
More useful matters to my faithful song.
For rules there are, though ne'er unfolded yet,
Nice rules and wise, how pudding should be ate.
Some with molasses grace the luscious treat,
And mix, like bards, the useful and the sweet;
A wholesome dish, and well deserving praise,
A great resource in those bleak wintry days,
When the chilled earth lies buried deep in snow,
And raging Boreas dries the shivering cow.
Blest cow! thy praise shall still my notes employ,
Great source of health, the only source of joy;
Mother of Egypt's god, but sure, for me,
Were I to leave my God, I'd worship thee.
How oft thy teats these pious hands have pressed !
How oft thy bounties prove my only feast !
How oft I've fed thee with my favorite grain !
And roared, like thee, to see thy children slain.
Ye swains who know her various worth to prize,
Ah! house her well from winter's angry skies.
Potatoes, pumpkins, should her sadness cheer,
Corn from your crib, and mashes from your beer;
When spring returns, she'll well acquit the loan,
And nurse at once your infants and her own.
Milk, then, with pudding I should always choose;
To this in future I confine my muse,
Till she in haste some further hints unfold,
Good for the young, nor useless to the old.
First in your bowl the milk abundant take,
Then drop with care along the silver lake
Your flakes of pudding: these at first will hide
Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide;


## p. 1562 (#360) ###########################################

1562
JOEL BARLOW
But when their growing mass no more can sink,
When the soft island looms above the brink,
Then check your hand; you've got the portion due,
So taught my sire, and what he taught is true.
There is a choice in spoons. Though small appear
The nice distinction, yet to me 'tis clear.
The deep-bowled Gallic spoon, contrived to scoop
In ample draughts the thin diluted soup,
Performs not well in those substantial things,
Whose mass adhesive to the metal clings;
Where the strong labial muscles must embrace
The gentle curve, and sweep the hollow space.
With ease to enter and discharge the freight,
A bowl less concave, but still more dilate,
Becomes the pudding best. The shape, the size,
A secret rests, unknown to vulgar eyes.
Experienced feeders can alone impart
A rule so much above the lore of art.
These tuneful lips that thousand spoons have tried,
With just precision could the point decide,
Though not in song — the muse but poorly shines
In cones, and cubes, and geometric lines;
Yet the true form, as near as she can tell,
Is that small section of a goose-egg shell,
Which in two equal portions shall divide
The distance from the centre to the side.
Fear not to slaver; 'tis no deadly sin ;-
Like the free Frenchman, from your joyous chin
Suspend the ready napkin; or like me,
Poise with one hand your bowl upon your knee;
Just in the zenith your wise head project,
Your full spoon rising in a line direct,
Bold as a bucket, heed no drops that fall.
The wide-mouthed bowl will surely catch them all!


## p. 1563 (#361) ###########################################

1563
WILLIAM BARNES
(1800-1886)
AD he chosen to write solely in familiar English, rather than
in the dialect of his native Dorsetshire, every modern an-
thology would be graced by the verses of William Barnes,
and to multitudes who now know him not, his name would have
become associated with many a country sight and sound. Other
poets have taken homely subjects for their themes,—the hayfield,
the chimney-nook, milking-time, the blossoming of high-boughed
hedges”; but it is not every one who has sung out of the fullness of
his heart and with a naïve delight in that of which he sung: and so
by reason of their faithfulness to every-day life and to nature, and
by their spontaneity and tenderness, his lyrics, fables, and eclogues
appeal to cultivated readers as well as to the rustics whose quaint
speech he made his own.
Short and simple are the annals of his life; for, a brief period
excepted, it was passed in his native county — though Dorset, for
all his purposes, was as wide as the world itself. His birthplace was
Bagbere in the vale of Blackmore, far up the valley of the Stour,
where his ancestors had been freeholders. The death of his parents
while he was a boy threw him on his own resources; and while he
was at school at Sturminster and Dorchester he supported himself by
clerical work in attorneys' offices. After he left school his education
was mainly self-gained; but it was so thorough that in 1827 he
became master of a school at Mere, Wilts, and in 1835 opened a
boarding-school in Dorchester, which he conducted for a number of
years.
A little later he spent a few terms at Cambridge, and in
1847 received ordination. From that time until his death in 1886,
most of his days were spent in the little parishes of Whitcombe and
Winterbourne Came, near Dorchester, where his duties as rector left
him plenty of time to spend on his favorite studies. To the last,
Barnes wore the picturesque dress of the eighteenth century, and to
the tourist he became almost as much a curiosity as the relics of
Roman occupation described in a guide-book he compiled.
When one is at the same time a linguist, a musician, an antiquary,
a profound student of philology, and skilled withal in the graphic
arts, it would seem inevitable that he should have more than a local
reputation; but when, in 1844, a thin volume entitled Poems of
Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect' appeared in London, few bookshop


## p. 1564 (#362) ###########################################

1564
WILLIAM BARNES
frequenters had ever heard of the author. But he was already
well known throughout Dorset, and there he was content to be
known; a welcome guest in castle and hall, but never happier
than when, gathering about him the Jobs and Lettys with whom
Thomas Hardy has made us familiar, he delighted their ears by recit-
ing his verses. The dialect of Dorset, he boasted, was the least
corrupted form of English; therefore to commend it as a vehicle of
expression and to help preserve his mother tongue from corruption,
and to purge it of words not of Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic origin,
this was one of the dreams of his life, — he put his impressions of
rural scenery and his knowledge of human character into metrical
form. He is remembered by scholars here and there for a number
of works on philology, and one (“Outline of English Speech-Craft')
in which, with zeal, but with the battle against him, he aimed to
teach the English language by using words of Teutonic derivation
only; but it is through his four volumes of poems that he is better
remembered. These include 'Hwomely Rhymes? (1859), Poems of
Rural Life' (1862), and Poems of Rural Life in Common English
(1863). The three collections of dialect poems were brought out in
one volume, with a glossary, in 1879.
“A poet fresh as the dew,” « The first of English purely pastoral
poets,” “The best writer of eclogues since Theocritus,” — these are
some of the tardy tributes paid him. With a sympathy for his fel-
low-man and a humor akin to that of Burns, with a feeling for nature
as keen as Wordsworth's, though less subjective, and with a power
of depicting a scene with a few well-chosen epithets which recalls
Tennyson, Barnes has fairly earned his title to remembrance.
(The Life of William Barnes, Poet and Philologist,' written by
his daughter, Mrs. Baxter, was published in 1887. There are numer-
ous articles relating to him in periodical literature, one of which, a
sketch by Thomas Hardy, in Vol. 86 of the 'Athenæum,' is of peculiar
interest.


## p. 1565 (#363) ###########################################

WILLIAM BARNES
1565
BLACKMWORE MAIDENS
The primhevose sinthe sheäden do blow,
He primrwose in the sheäde do blow,
The cowslip in the zun,
The thyme upon the down do grow,
The clote where streams do run;
An' where do pretty maïdens grow
An' blow, but where the tow'r
Do rise among the bricken tuns,
In Blackmwore by the Stour?
If you could zee their comely gaït,
An' pretty feäces' smiles,
A-trippen on so light o' waight,
An' steppen off the stiles;
A-gwaïn to church, as bells do swing
An’ ring 'ithin the tow'r,
You'd own the pretty maidens' pleäce
Is Blackmwore by the Stour?
If you vrom Wimborne took your road,
To Stower or Paladore,
An' all the farmers' housen show'd
Their daughters at the door;
You'd cry to bachelors at hwome —
“Here, come: 'ithin an hour
You'll vind ten maïdens to your mind,
In Blackmwore by the Stour. ”
An' if you look'd 'ithin their door,
To zee em in their pleäce,
A-doèn housework up avore
Their smilèn mother's feäce;
You'd cry,—“Why, if a man would wive
An' thrive, 'ithout a dow'r,
Then let en look en out a wife
In Blackmwore by the Stour. ”
As I upon my road did pass
A school-house back in May,
There out upon the beäten grass
Wer maïdens at their play;
An' as the pretty souls did tweil
An' smile, I cried, “The flow'r
O' beauty, then, is still in bud
In Blackmwore by the Stour. ”


## p. 1566 (#364) ###########################################

1566
WILLIAM BARNES
MAY
CO
nome out o' door, 'tis Spring! 'tis May!
The trees be green, the vields be gay;
The weather's warm, the winter blast,
Wi' all his traïn o'clouds, is past;
The zun do rise while vo’k do sleep,
To teäke a higher daily zweep,
Wi’ cloudless feäce a-flingen down
His sparklèn light upon the groun'.
The aïr's a-streamèn soft, come drow
The windor open; let it blow
In drough the house, where vire, an' door
A-shut, kept out the cwold avore.
Come, let the vew dull embers die,
An' come below the open sky;
An' wear your best, vor fear the groun'
In colors gäy mid sheäme your gown:
An' goo an' rig wi' me a mile
Or two up over geäte an' stile,
Drough zunny parrocks that do lead,
Wi' crooked hedges, to the mead,
Where elems high, in steätely ranks,
Do rise vrom yollow cowslip-banks,
An' birds do twitter vrom the spray
O' bushes deck'd wi' snow-white mäy;
An' gil' cups, wi' the deäisy bed,
Be under ev'ry step you tread.
We'll wind up roun' the hill, an' look
All down the thickly timber'd nook,
Out where the squier's house do show
His gray-walled peaks up drough the row
O'sheädy elems, where the rock
Do build her nest; an' where the brook
Do creep along the meads, an’ lie
To catch the brightness o' the sky;
An' cows, in water to their knees,
Do stan' a-whisken off the vlees.
Mother o' blossoms, and ov all
That's feäir a-vield vrom Spring till Fall,
The gookoo over white-weäv'd seas
Do come to zing in thy green trees,
An' buttervlees, in giddy flight,
Do gleäm the mwost by thy gäy light.


## p. 1567 (#365) ###########################################

WILLIAM BARNES
1567
Oh! when, at last, my fleshly eyes
Shall shut upon the vields an' skies,
Mid zummer's zunny days be gone,
An' winter's clouds be comèn on:
Nor mid I draw upon the e'th,
O'thy sweet air my leätest breath;
Alassen I mid want to stay
Behine' for thee, O flow'ry May!
MILKEN TIME
Poems of Rural Life)
T"
WER when the busy birds did vlee,
Wi’ sheenen wings, vrom tree to tree,
To build upon the mossy lim'
Their hollow nestes' rounded rim;
The while the zun, a-zinkèn low,
Did roll along his evenèn bow,
I come along where wide-horn'd cows,
'Ithin a nook, a-screen'd by boughs,
Did stan' an' flip the white-hooped pails
Wi' heäiry tufts o' swingen tails;
An' there were Jenny Coom a-gone
Along the path a vew steps on,
A-beären on her head, upstraïght,
Her pail, wi' slowly-riden waight,
An hoops a-sheenèn, lily-white,
Ageän the evenèn's slantén light;
An' zo I took her païl, an' left
Her neck a-freed vrom all his heft;
An' she a-lookèn up an' down,
Wi’ sheäply head an' glossy crown,
Then took my zide, an' kept my peace,
A-talkèn on wi' smilèn feäce,
An' zetten things in sich a light,
I'd faïn ha' heär'd her talk all night;
An' when I brought her milk avore
The geäte, she took it in to door,
An' if her pail had but allow'd
Her head to vall, she would ha' bow'd;
An' still, as 'twer, I had the zight
Ov' her sweet smile, droughout the night.


## p. 1568 (#366) ###########################################

1568
WILLIAM BARNES
JESSIE LEE
A
BOVE the timber's bendèn sh'ouds,
The western wind did softly blow;
An' up avore the knap, the clouds
Did ride as white as driven snow.
Vrom west to east the clouds did zwim
Wi' wind that plied the elem's lim';
Vrom west to east the stream did glide,
A sheenen wide, wi' windèn brim.
How feäir, I thought, avore the sky
The slowly-zwimmèn clouds do look;
How soft the win's a-streamèn by;
How bright do roll the weavy brook:
When there, a-passèn on my right,
A-walkèn slow, an' treadèn light,
Young Jessie Lee come by, an' there
Took all my ceäre, an' all my right.
Vor lovely wer the looks her feäce
Held up avore the western sky:
An' comely wer the steps her peace
Did meäke a-walkèn slowly by :
But I went east, wi' beaten breast,
Wi' wind, an' cloud, an' brook, vor rest,
Wi' rest a-lost, vor Jessie gone
So lovely on, toward the west.
Blow on, O winds, athirt the hill;
Zwim on, clouds; O waters vall,
Down maeshy rocks, vrom mill to mill:
I now can overlook ye all.
But roll, O zun, an' bring to me
My day, if such a day there be,
When zome dear path to my abode
Shall be the road o' Jessie Lee.


## p. 1569 (#367) ###########################################

WILLIAM BARNES
1569
THE TURNSTILE
A.
H! SAD wer we as we did peace
The wold church road, wi' downcast feäce,
The while the bells, that mwoan'd so deep
Above our child a-left asleep,
Wer now a-zingen all alive
Wi' tother bells to meäke the vive.
But up at woone pleäce we come by,
'Twere hard to keep woone's two eyes dry;
On Steän-cliff road, 'ithin the drong,
Up where, as vo'k do pass along,
The turnén stile, a-painted white,
Do sheen by day an' show by night.
Vor always there, as we did goo
To church, thik stile did let us drough,
Wi' spreaden eärms that wheeld to guide
Us each in turn to tother zide.
An' vu'st ov all the train he took
My wife, wi' winsome gait an' look ;
An' then zent on my little maid,
A-skippen onward, overjäy'd
To reach ageän the pleäce o' pride,
Her comely inother's left han' zide.
An' then, a-wheelèn roun' he took
On me, 'ithin his third white nook.
An' in the fourth, a-sheäken wild,
He zent us on our giddy child.
But eesterday he guided slow
My downcast Jenny, vull o' woe,
An' then my little maid in black,
A-walken softly on her track;
An' after he'd a-turn'd ageän,
To let me goo along the leäne,
He had noo little bwoy to vill
His last white eärms, an' they stood still.
III-99


## p. 1570 (#368) ###########################################

1570
WILLIAM BARNES
TO THE WATER-CROWFOOT
O
SMALL-FEÄC'D flow'r that now dost bloom,
To stud wi' white the shallow Frome,
An' leäve the *clote to spread his flow'r
On darksome pools o' stwoneless Stour,
When sof'ly-rizèn airs do cool
The water in the sheenèn pool,
Thy beds o' snow white buds do gleam
So feäir upon the sky-blue stream,
As whitest clouds, a-hangèn high
Avore the blueness of the sky.
* The yellow water-lily.
ZUMMER AN' WINTER
Whethe pride Lea, as naighbours thought her,
HEN I led by zummer streams
The pride o' Lea, as naïghbours thought her,
While the zun, wi' evenèn beams,
Did cast our sheädes athirt the water:
Winds a-blowen,
Streams a-flowèn,
Skies a-glowèn,
Tokens ov my jay zoo feetèn,
Heightened it, that happy meetèn.
Then, when maid and man took pleäces,
Gay in winter's Chris’mas dances,
Showèn in their merry feäces
Kindly smiles an' glisnèn glances:
Stars a-winkèn,
Days a-shrinken.
Sheädes a-zinken,
Brought anew the happy me
That did meäke the night too fleetèn.


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1571
JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE
(1860-)
AMES MATTHEW BARRIE was born May 9th, 1860, at Kirriemuir,
Scotland (“Thrums'); son of a physician whom he has lov-
ingly embodied as Dr. McQueen, and with a mother and
sister who will live as Jess) and Leeby. After an academy course
at Dumfries he entered the University of Edinburgh at eighteen,
where he graduated M. A. , and took honors in the English Literature
class. A few months later he took a place on a newspaper in Not-
tingham, England, and in the spring of 1885 went to London, where
the papers had begun to accept his work.
Above all, the St. James's Gazette had pub-
lished the first of the "Auld Licht Idylls)
November 17th, 1884; and the editor, Fred-
erick Greenwood, instantly perceiving a new
and rich genius, advised him to work the
vein further, enforcing the advice by refus-
ing to accept his contributions on other
subjects.
He had the usual painful struggle to
become a successful journalist, detailed in
(When a Man's Single'; but his real work
was other and greater. In 1887 When a
JAMES M. BARRIE
Man's Single' came out serially in the
British Weekly; it has little merit except in the Scottish prelude,
which is of high quality in style and pathos. It is curious how
utterly his powers desert him the moment he leaves his native
heath: like Antæus, he is a giant on his mother earth and a pigmy
off it. His first published book was Better Dead (1887); it works
out a cynical idea which would be amusing in five pages, but is
diluted into tediousness by being spread over fifty. But in 1889 came
a second masterpiece, A Window in Thrums,' a continuation of the
Auld Licht series from an inside instead of an outside standpoint, —
not superior to the first, but their full equals in a deliciousness of
which one cannot say how much is matter and how much style. My
Lady Nicotine appeared in 1890;- it was very popular, and has some
amusing sketches, but no enduring quality. An Edinburgh Eleven'
(1890) is a set of sketches of his classmates and professors.
In 1891 the third of his Scotch works appeared, -- "The Little Min-
ister,' — which raised him from the rank of an admirable sketch
writer to that of an admirable novelist, despite its fantastic plot and



## p. 1572 (#370) ###########################################

1572
JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE
detail. Since then he has written three plays,—'Walker, London,'
Jane Annie,' and 'The Professor's Love Story,' the latter very suc-
cessful and adding to his reputation; but no literature except his
novel Sentimental Tommy, just closed in Scribner's Magazine.
This novel is not only a great advance on (The Little Minister in
symmetry of construction, reality of matter, tragic power, and in-
sight, but its tone is very different. Though as rich in humor, the
humor is largely of a grim, bitter, and sardonic sort. The light,
gay, buoyant fun of The Little Minister,' which makes it a per-
petual enjoyment, has mostly vanished; in its stead we feel that the
writer's sensitive nature is wrung by the swarming catastrophes he
cannot avert, the endless wrecks on the ocean of life he cannot suc-
cor, and hardly less by those spiritual tragedies and ironies so much
worse, on a true scale of valuation, than any material misfortune.
The full secret of Mr. Barrie's genius, as of all genius, eludes
analysis; but some of its characteristics are not hard to define. His
wonderful keenness of observation and tenacity of remembrance of
the pettinesses of daily existence, which in its amazing minuteness
reminds us of Dickens and Mark Twain, and his sensitiveness to the
humorous aspects of their little misfits and hypocrisies and lack of
proportion, might if untempered have made him a literary cynic like
some others, remembered chiefly for the salience he gave to the
ugly meannesses of life and the ironies of fate. But his good angel
added to these a gift of quick, sure, and spontaneous sympathy and
wide spiritual understanding. This fills all his higher work with a
generous appreciativeness, a justness of judgment, a tenderness of
feeling, which elevate as well as charm the reader. He makes us
love the most grotesque characters, whom in life we should dislike
and avoid, by the sympathetic fineness of his interpretation of their
springs of life and their warping by circumstance. The impression
left on one by the studies of the Thrums community is not primarily
of intellectual and spiritual narrowness, or niggardly thrift, or dour
natures: all are there, but with them are souls reaching after God
and often flowering into beauty, and we reverence the quenchless
aspiration of maligned human nature for an ideal far above its reach.
He achieves the rare feat of portraying every pettiness and preju-
dice, even the meannesses and dishonors of a poor and hidebound
country village, yet leaving us with both sincere respect and warm
liking for it; a thing possible only to one himself of a fine nature as
well as of a large mind. Nor is there any mawkishness or cheap
surface sentimentality in it all. His pathos never makes you wince:
you can always read his works aloud, the deadly and unfailing test
of anything flat or pinchbeck in literature. His gift of humor saves
him from this: true humor and true pathos are always found together


## p. 1573 (#371) ###########################################

JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE
1573
a
because they are not two but one, twin aspects of the very same
events.
He who sees the ludicrous in misfits must see their sadness
too; he who can laugh at a tumble must grieve over it: both are
inevitable and both are coincident.
As a literary artist, he belongs in the foremost rank. He has that
sense of the typical in incident, of the universal in feeling, and of
the suggestive in language, which mark the chiefs of letters. No one
can express an idea with fewer strokes; he never expands a sufficient
hint into an essay. His management of the Scotch dialect is mas-
terly: he uses it sparingly, in the nearest form to English compatible
with retaining the flavor; he never makes it so hard as to interfere
with enjoyment; in few dialect writers do we feel so little alienness.