How is it that an American can sell his wares at whatever price
he pleases, where a Bluenose would fail to make a sale at all?
he pleases, where a Bluenose would fail to make a sale at all?
Warner - World's Best Literature - v12 - Gre to Hen
"
As rather lively gestures had illustrated this little speech, the
white cashmere dressing-gown had slipped-slipped a good deal,
## p. 6841 (#221) ###########################################
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
6841
and had opened, very much opened; the criminal shoulders were
within reach of M. Derline's lips-he succumbed. Besides, he
too felt the abominable influence of the press. His wife had
never seemed so pretty to him; and brought back to subjection,
M. Derline returned to his study in order to make money for
the most beautiful woman in Paris.
A very wise and opportune occupation; for scarcely was Ma-
dame Derline left alone when an idea flashed through her head
which was to call forth a very pretty collection of bank-notes
from the cash-box of the lawyer of the Rue Dragon. Madame
Derline had intended wearing to the Palmers' ball a dress which
had already been much seen. Madame Derline had kept the
dressmaker of her wedding dress, her mother's dressmaker, a
dressmaker of the Left Bank. It seemed to her that her new
position imposed new duties on her. She could not appear at
the Palmers' without a dress which had not been seen, and one
stamped with a well-known name. She ordered the carriage in
the afternoon, and resolutely gave her coachman the address of
one of the most illustrious dressmakers in Paris. She arrived a
little agitated, and to reach the great artist was obliged to pass
through a veritable crowd of footmen, who were in the ante-
chamber chatting and laughing, used to meeting there and mak-
ing long stops. Nearly all the footmen were those of society,
the highest society; they had spent the previous evening together
at the English Embassy, and were to be that evening at the
Duchess of Grémoille's.
Madame Derline entered a sumptuous parlor; it was very
sumptuous, too sumptuous. Twenty great customers were there,
-society women and actresses, all agitated, anxious, feverish,-
looking at the beautiful tall saleswomen come and go before
them, wearing the last creations of the master of the house.
The great artist had a diplomatic bearing: buttoned-up black
frock-coat, long cravat with pin (a present from a Royal Highness
who paid her bills slowly), and a many-colored rosette in his
buttonhole (the gift of a small reigning prince who paid slower
yet the bills of an opera-dancer). He came and went-precise,
calm, and cool-in the midst of the solicitations and supplica-
tions of his customers. "M. Arthur! M. Arthur! " One heard
nothing but that phrase; he was M. Arthur. He went from
one to the other-respectful without too much humility to the
duchesses, and easy without too much familiarity to the actresses.
AND
A
## p. 6842 (#222) ###########################################
6842
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
There was an extraordinary liveliness, and a confusion of mar-
velous velvets, satins, and embroidered, brocaded, and gold- or
silver-threaded stuffs, all thrown here and there as though by
accident - but what science in that accident! -on arm-chairs,
tables, and divans.
In the first place Madame Derline ran against a shop-girl
who was bearing with outstretched arms a white dress, and was
almost hidden beneath a light mountain of muslins and laces.
The only thing visible was the shop-girl's mussed black hair and
sly suburban expression. Madame Derline backed away, wish-
ing to place herself against the wall; but a tryer-on was there,
a large energetic brunette, who spoke authoritatively in a high
staccato. "At once," she was saying, "bring me at once the
princess's dress! »
Frightened and dazed, Madame Derline stood in a corner and
watched an opportunity to seize a saleswoman on the fly. She
even thought of giving up the game. Never, certainly, should
she dare to address directly that terrible M. Arthur, who had
just given her a rapid glance in which she believed to have
read, "Who is she? She isn't properly dressed! She doesn't go
to a fashionable dressmaker! " At last Madame Derline suc-
ceeded in getting hold of a disengaged saleswoman, and there
was the same slightly disdainful glance-a glance which was
accompanied by the phrase-
"Madame is not a regular customer of the house? "
-
"No, I am not a customer—”
"And you wish? "
"A dress, a ball-dress, and I want the dress for next Thurs-
day evening-»
"Thursday next? "
"Yes, Thursday next. "
"O madame, it is not to be thought of! Even for a cus-
tomer of the house it would be impossible. "
"But I wished it so much—»
"Go and see M. Arthur.
"And where is M. Arthur? "
"In his office. He has just gone into his office.
madame, opposite. "
He alone can >>>>
Over there,
Madame Derline, through a half-open door, saw a sombre and
severe but luxurious room--an ambassador's office. On the walls
the great European powers were represented by photographs-
## p. 6843 (#223) ###########################################
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
6843
the Empress Eugénie, the Princess of Wales, a grand-duchess of
Russia, and an archduchess of Austria. M. Arthur was there
taking a few moments' rest, seated in a large arm-chair, with an
air of lassitude and exhaustion, and with a newspaper spread out
over his knees. He arose on seeing Madame Derline enter. In
a trembling voice she repeated her wish.
"O madame, a ball-dress- a beautiful ball-dress-for Thurs-
day! I couldn't make such a promise; I couldn't keep it.
There are responsibilities to which I never expose myself. "
He spoke slowly, gravely, as a man conscious of his high
position.
-
"Oh, I am so disappointed. It was a particular occasion, and
I was told that you alone could-"
Two tears, two little tears, glittered on her eyelashes. M.
Arthur was moved. A woman, a pretty woman, crying there
before him! Never had such homage been paid to his genius.
"Well, madame, I am willing to make an attempt. A very
simple dress->
"Oh no, not simple. Very brilliant, on the contrary-every-
thing that is most brilliant. Two of my friends are customers
of yours" (she named them), "and I am Madame Derline-»
"Madame Derline! you are Madame Derline ? »
The two Madame Derlines were followed by a glance and a
smile the glance was at the newspaper and the smile was at
Madame Derline; but it was a discreet, self-contained smile, the
smile of a perfectly gallant man. This is what the glance and
smile said with admirable clearness:
-
"Ah! you are Madame Derline, that already celebrated Ma-
dame Derline, who yesterday at the opera - I understand, I
understand - I was reading just now in this paper: words are
no longer necessary; you should have told your name at once.
Yes, you need me; yes, you shall have your dress; yes, I want to
divide your success with you. "
M. Arthur called:
"Mademoiselle Blanche, come here at once!
Mademoiselle
Blanche! "
And turning towards Madame Derline, he said:-
"She has great talent, but I shall myself superintend it; so be
easy-yes, I myself. "
Madame Derline was a little confused, a little embarrassed by
her glory, but happy nevertheless. Mademoiselle Blanche came
forward.
-
## p. 6844 (#224) ###########################################
6844
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
"Conduct madame," said M. Arthur, "and take the necessary
measures for a ball-dress, very low, and with absolutely bare
arms. During that time, madame, I am going to think seriously
of what I can do for you. It must be something entirely new-
ah! before going, permit me-"
He walked very slowly around Madame Derline, and exam-
ined her with profound attention; then he walked away, and
considered her from a little distance. His face was serious,
thoughtful, and anxious: a great thinker wrestling with a great
problem. He passed his hand over his forehead, raised his eyes
to the sky, getting inspiration by a painful delivery; but sud-
denly his face lit up-the spirit from above had answered.
"Go, madame," he said, "go. Your dress is thought out.
When you come back, mademoiselle, bring me that piece of pink
satin; you know, the one that I was keeping for some great
occasion. ”
Thus Madame Derline found herself with Mademoiselle
Blanche in a trying-on room, which was a sort of little cabin
lined with mirrors. A quarter of an hour later, when the meas-
ures had been taken, Madame Derline came back and discovered
M. Arthur in the midst of pieces of satin of all colors, of crêpes,
of tulles, of laces, and of brocaded stuffs.
"No, no, not the pink satin," he said to Mademoiselle Blanche,
who was bringing the asked-for piece; "no, I have found some-
thing better. Listen to me. This is what I wish; I have given
up the pink, and I have decided on this, this peach-colored satin:
a classic robe, outlining all the fine lines and showing the sup-
pleness of the body. This robe must be very clinging-hardly
any underskirts. It must be of surah. Madame must be melted
into it-do you thoroughly understand? -absolutely melted into
the robe. We will drop over the dress this crêpe - yes, that one,
but in small, light pleats. The crêpe will be as a cloud thrown
over the dress-a transparent, vapory, impalpable cloud. The
arms are to be absolutely bare, as I already told you. On each
shoulder there must be a simple knot, showing the upper part
of the arm. Of what is the knot to be? I'm still undecided;
I need to think it over-till to-morrow, madame, till to-morrow. "
Madame Derline came back the next day, and the next, and
every day till the day before the famous Thursday; and each
time that she came back, while awaiting her turn to try on, she
ordered dresses, very simple ones, but yet costing from seven to
eight hundred francs each.
## p. 6845 (#225) ###########################################
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
6845
And that was not all. On the day of her first visit to M.
Arthur, when Madame Derline came out of the great house she
was broken-hearted-positively broken-hearted-at the sight of
her brougham: it really did make a pitiful appearance among all
the stylish carriages which were waiting in three rows and taking
up half the street. It was the brougham of her late mother-
in-law, and it still rolled through the streets of Paris after fif-
teen years' service. Madame Derline got into the woe-begone
brougham to drive straight to a very well-known carriage-maker,
and that evening, cleverly seizing the psychological moment, she
explained to M. Derline that she had seen a certain little black
coupé lined with blue satin that would frame delightfully her new
dresses.
The coupé was bought the next day by M. Derline, who also
was beginning fully to realize the extent of his new duties. But
the next day it was discovered that it was impossible to harness
to that jewel of a coupé the old horse who had pulled the old
carriage, and no less impossible to put on the box the old coach-
man who drove the old horse.
This is how on Thursday, April 25th, at half-past ten in the
evening, a very pretty chestnut mare, driven by a very correct
English coachman, took M. and Madame Derline to the Palmers'.
They still lacked something-a little groom to sit beside the
English coachman. But a certain amount of discretion had to be
employed. The most beautiful woman in Paris intended to wait
ten days before asking for the little groom.
While she was going up-stairs at the Palmers', she distinctly
felt her heart beat like the strokes of a hammer. She was going
to play a decisive game. She knew that the Palmers had been
going everywhere, saying, "Come on Thursday: we will show
you Madame Derline, the most beautiful woman in Paris. "
Curiosity as well as jealousy had been well awakened.
She entered, and from the first minute she had the delicious
sensation of her success. Throughout the long gallery of the
Palmers' house it was a true triumphal march. She advanced
with firm and precise step, erect, and head well held.
She ap-
peared to see nothing, to hear nothing, but how well she saw!
how well she felt the fire of all those eyes on her shoulders!
Around her arose a little murmur of admiration, and never had
music been sweeter to her.
Yes, decidedly, all went well. She was on a fair way to con-
quer Paris. And, sure of herself, at each step she became more
## p. 6846 (#226) ###########################################
6846
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
k
confident, lighter, and bolder, as she advanced on the arm of
Palmer, who in passing pointed out the counts, the marquises,
and the dukes. And then Palmer suddenly said to her:—
"I want to present to you one of your greatest admirers, who
the other night at the opera spoke of nothing but your beauty;
he is the Prince of Nérins. "
She became as red as a cherry. Palmer looked at her and
began to laugh.
"Ah, you read the other day in that paper-? "
"I read - yes, I read -»
"But where is the prince, where is he? I saw him during
the day, and he was to be here early. "
Madame Derline was not to see the Prince of Nérins that
evening. And yet he had intended to go to the Palmers' and
preside at the deification of his lawyeress. He had dined at the
club, and had allowed himself to be dragged off to a first per-
formance at a minor theatre. An operetta of the regulation type
was being played. The principal personage was a young queen,
who was always escorted by the customary four maids of honor.
Three of these young ladies were very well known to first-
nighters, as having already figured in the tableaux of operettas
and in groups of fairies, but the fourth-oh, the fourth! She
was a new one, a tall brunette of the most striking beauty. The
prince made himself remarked more than all others by his enthu-
siasm. He completely forgot that he was to leave after the first
act. The play was over very late, and the prince was still there,
having paid no attention to the piece or the music, having seen
nothing but the wonderful brunette, having heard nothing but
the stanza which she had unworthily massacred in the middle of
the second act. And while they were leaving the theatre, the
prince was saying to whoever would listen:-
"That brunette! oh, that brunette! She hasn't an equal in
any theatre! She is the most beautiful woman in Paris! the
most beautiful! "
—
It was one o'clock in the morning. The prince asked himself
if he should go to the Palmers'. Poor Madame Derline: she was
of very slight importance beside this new wonder! And then,
too, the prince was a methodical man. The hour for whist had
arrived; so he departed to play whist.
The following morning Madame Derline found ten lines on
the Palmers' ball in the "society column. " There was mention
of the marquises, the countesses, and the duchesses who were
## p. 6847 (#227) ###########################################
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
6847
there, but about Madame Derline there was not a word-not a
word.
On the other hand, the writer of theatrical gossip celebrated
in enthusiastic terms the beauty of that ideal maid of honor, and
said, "Besides, the Prince of Nérins declared that Mademoiselle
Miranda was indisputably the most beautiful woman in Paris! »
Madame Derline threw the paper into the fire. She did not
wish her husband to know that she was already not the most
beautiful woman in Paris.
She has however kept the great dressmaker and the English
coachman, but she has never dared to ask for the little groom.
## p. 6848 (#228) ###########################################
6848
THOMAS C. HALIBURTON
(1796-1865)
N 1835 there appeared in a Nova-Scotian journal a series of
articles satirizing the New England character, as expressed
in the person of Sam Slick, a Yankee clock-peddler. Within
a few weeks these had become so popular that they were republished
in book form, the little duodecimo volume called The Clockmaker,
or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville,' being read
by all classes of people. Indeed, the popularity of this skit wholly
obscured the importance of the author's more serious work as a histo-
rian and publicist. Thomas C. Haliburton,
the inventor of this famous Yankee char-
acter, was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia,
1796, educated in his native town, and called
to the bar there in 1820. Eight years later
he was appointed Chief Justice of Com-
mon Pleas, and presently transferred to the
Supreme Court, in which he sat until 1856,
when he removed to England, where he
died in 1865.
While his historical work is not import-
ant, his History of Nova Scotia' has done
more to make Acadia known to the out-
side world than any other work except
'Evangeline,' and Longfellow acknowledged
himself much indebted to Haliburton for material. His Bubbles of
Canada' and 'Rule and Misrule of the English in America,' dealing
with political situations of importance in his time, and his half-dozen
other books, are now forgotten. It is as a humorist only that he is
remembered.
T. C. HALIBURTON
Of his Sam Slick' Professor Felton of Harvard wrote: "We can
distinguish the real from the counterfeit Yankee at the first sound of
the voice, and by the turn of a single sentence: and we have no hesi-
tation in declaring that Sam Slick is not what he pretends to be;
that there is no organic life in him; that he is an impostor, an im-
possibility, a nonentity. " The London Athenæum, on the other hand,
pronounced that "he [the clockmaker] deserves to be entered on our
list of friends containing the names of Tristram Shandy, the shep-
herd of the 'Noctes Ambrosianæ,' and other rhapsodical discoursers on
## p. 6849 (#229) ###########################################
THOMAS C. HALIBURTON
6849
time and change, who besides the delight of their discourse possess
also the charm of individuality. "
Farcical as is his delineation of the shrewd, conceited, bragging,
cozening, hard-working, garrulous Yankee, little as he admires the
institutions that produced this type of citizen, it is plain that Judge
Haliburton uses the clockmaker and his kind to point the moral
against the dullness, lack of enterprise, laziness, and provincial shift-
lessness of the Nova-Scotians. He means to sting his fellow-country-
men into effort and action if he can. Whether the book really served
for admonition and correction, whether the Yankee clock really struck
the hour for the "Bluenose" awakening, as its author fondly believed,
at least he created the conventional Yankee of general acceptation,-
the lank, awkward figure, ill articulated and ill dressed, with trousers
and coat-sleeves too short, with hat too large, with hair too long, with
sharp nose, keen eyes, shrewd smile, with flattened vowels and nasal
tones, with queer vocabulary and queerer syntax-in short, the Yankee
of the stage, of caricature, of tradition, universally believed in
(at least across the seas) until Lowell's genius revealed the true New-
Englander in Hosea Biglow. Even as a Pretender, therefore, Sam
Slick has his important place in the Republic of Letters, -a place the
more important as interest in him becomes more and more merely
historic.
MR. SAMUEL SLICK
From The Clockmaker. Copyright 1871, by Hurd & Houghton. Reprinted
by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers, Boston
I
HAD heard of Yankee clock-peddlers, tin-peddlers, and Bible-
peddlers, especially of him who sold Polyglot Bibles (all in
English) to the amount of sixteen thousand pounds. The
house of every substantial farmer had three substantial orna-
ments: a wooden clock, a tin reflector, and a Polyglot Bible.
How is it that an American can sell his wares at whatever price
he pleases, where a Bluenose would fail to make a sale at all?
I will inquire of the Clockmaker the secret of his success.
"What a pity it is, Mr. Slick," for such was his name,-
"what a pity it is," said I, "that you, who are so successful in
teaching these people the value of clocks, could not also teach.
them the value of time. "
—
—
—
"I guess," said he, "they have got that ring to grow on their
horns yet, which every four-year-old has in our country. We
reckon hours and minutes to be dollars and cents. They do
XII-429
## p. 6850 (#230) ###########################################
6850
THOMAS C. HALIBURTON
nothing in these parts but eat, drink, smoke, sleep, ride about,
lounge at taverns, make speeches at temperance meetings, and
talk about 'House of Assembly. ' If a man don't hoe his corn,
and he don't get a crop, he says it is owing to the bank; and if
he runs into debt and is sued, why, he says the lawyers are a
curse to the country. They are a most idle set of folks, I tell
you. "
"But how is it," said I, "that you manage to sell such an
immense number of clocks, which certainly cannot be called
necessary articles, among a people with whom there seems to
be so great a scarcity of money? »
Mr. Slick paused, as if considering the propriety of answering
the question, and looking me in the face, said in a confidential
tone:
"Why, I don't care if I do tell you; for the market is glutted,
and I shall quit this circuit. It is done by a knowledge of soft
sawder and human natur'. But here is Deacon Flint's," said he;
"I have but one clock left, and I guess I will sell it to him. "
At the gate of a most comfortable-looking farm-house stood.
Deacon Flint, a respectable old man who had understood the
value of time better than most of his neighbors, if one might
judge from the appearance of everything about him. After the
usual salutation, an invitation to "alight" was accepted by Mr.
Slick, who said he wished to take leave of Mrs. Flint before he
left Colchester.
We had hardly entered the house before the Clockmaker
pointed to the view from the window, and addressing himself to
me, said: "If I was to tell them in Connecticut there was such
a farm as this away down-east here in Nova Scotia, they wouldn't
believe me. Why, there ain't such a location in all New Eng-
land. The deacon has a hundred acres of dike-
>>
«< Seventy," said the deacon, "only seventy. "
"Well, seventy: but then there is your fine deep bottom; why,
I could run a ramrod into it-»
"Interval, we call it," said the deacon, who, though evidently
pleased at this eulogium, seemed to wish the experiment of the
ramrod to be tried in the right place.
"Well, interval, if you please though Professor Eleazer
Cumstick, in his work on Ohio, calls them bottoms-is just as
good as dike. Then there is that water privilege, worth three or
four thousand dollars, twice as good as what Governor Cass paid
-
## p. 6851 (#231) ###########################################
THOMAS C. HALIBURTON
6851
fifteen thousand dollars for. I wonder, deacon, you don't put up
a carding-mill on it; the same works would carry a turning-lathe,
a shingle machine, a circular saw, grind bark, and-"
"Too old," said the deacon; "too old for all those specula-
tions. "
"Old! " repeated the Clockmaker, "not you: why, you are
worth half a dozen of the young men we see nowadays; you are
young enough to have"-here he said something in a lower
tone of voice, which I did not distinctly hear: but whatever it
was, the deacon was pleased; he smiled, and said he did not
think of such things now.
"But your beasts-dear me, your beasts must be put in and
have a feed;" saying which, he went out to order them to be
taken to the stable.
As the old gentleman closed the door after him, Mr. Slick
drew near to me, and said in an undertone, "That is what I call
'soft sawder. ' An Englishman would pass that man as a sheep
passes a hog in a pasture, without looking at him; or," said he,
looking rather archly, "if he was mounted on a pretty smart
horse, I guess he'd trot away if he could. Now I find -> Here
his lecture on "soft sawder" was cut short by the entrance of
Mrs. Flint.
"Jist come to say good-by, Mrs. Flint. "
"What, have you sold all your clocks? "
"Yes, and very low too; for money is scarce, and I wish to
close the consarn -no, I am wrong in saying all, for I have
just one left. Neighbor Steel's wife asked to have the refusal
of it, but I guess I won't sell it; I had but two of them, this
one and the feller of it, that I sold Governor Lincoln. General
Green, the Secretary of State for Maine, said he'd give me fifty
dollars for this here one-it has composition wheels and patent
axles, is a beautiful article, a real first-chop, no mistake, genuine
superfine but I guess I'll take it back; and besides, Squire Hawk
might think kinder hard that I did not give him the offer. "
"Dear me! " said Mrs. Flint, "I should like to see it; where
is it ? "
-
"It is in a chest of mine over the way, at Tom Tape's store.
I guess he can ship it on to Eastport. "
"That's a good man," said Mrs. Flint, "jist let's look at it. "
Mr. Slick, willing to oblige, yielded to these entreaties and
soon produced the clock,-a gaudy, highly varnished, trumpery-
## p. 6852 (#232) ###########################################
6852
THOMAS C. HALIBURTON
looking affair. He placed it on the chimney-piece, where its
beauties were pointed out and duly appreciated by Mrs. Flint,
whose admiration was about ending in a proposal, when Mr.
Flint returned from giving his directions about the care of the
horses. The deacon praised the clock; he too thought it a hand-
some one: but the deacon was a prudent man; he had a watch;
he was sorry, but he had no occasion for a clock.
"I guess you're in the wrong furrow this time, deacon: it
ain't for sale," said Mr. Slick; "and if it was, I reckon neigh-
bor Steel's wife would have it, for she gave me no peace about
it. "
Mrs. Flint said that Mr. Steel had enough to do, poor man,
to pay his interest, without buying clocks for his wife.
"It is no consarn of mine," said Mr. Slick, "as long as he
pays me, what he has to do: but I guess I don't want to sell
it, and besides, it comes too high; that clock can't be made at
Rhode Island under forty dollars. —Why, it ain't possible! " said
the Clockmaker in apparent surprise, looking at his watch; "why,
as I'm alive, it is four o'clock, and if I haven't been two hours.
here! How on airth shall I reach River Philip to-night? I'll tell
you what, Mrs. Flint; I'll leave the clock in your care till I
return, on my way to the States. I'll set it a-going, and put it
to the right time. "
As soon as this operation was performed, he delivered the key
to the deacon with a sort of serio-comic injunction to wind up
the clock every Saturday night,-which Mrs. Flint said she would
take care should be done, and promised to remind her husband
of it, in case he should chance to forget it.
"That," said the Clockmaker, as soon as we were mounted,
"that I call 'human natur''! Now, that clock is sold for forty
dollars; it cost me just six dollars and fifty cents. Mrs. Flint
will never let Mrs. Steel have the refusal, nor will the deacon
learn, until I call for the clock, having once indulged in the use
of a superfluity, how difficult it is to give it up. We can do
without any article of luxury we have never had; but when once
obtained, it is not in human natur' to surrender it voluntarily.
Of fifteen thousand sold by myself and partners in this province,
twelve thousand were left in this manner, and only ten clocks
were ever returned; when we called for them they invariably
bought them. We trust to 'soft sawder' to get them into the
house, and to human natur' that they never come out of it. ”
## p. 6853 (#233) ###########################################
6853
HENRY HALLAM
(1777-1859)
HE work of Henry Hallam as a historian was timely. He
filled a distinct want, and he seems likely to hold his place
Se for decades to come. His security rests not upon his power
of philosophizing from the great events, crises, and epochs in human
affairs; not upon broad generalizations regarding the development
and trend of civilization: but rather upon his clear and comprehens-
ive vision of the all-important facts of history, upon his calm and
legal-like presentation of these facts. He walks forth in the vast
valley of crumbling bones and dust, the chaos of the ages, and with
painstaking care and unerring judgment takes up on this side and
on that, from the heap of rubbish, the few perfect parts that go to
make up a complete framework. He compels us to clothe the skele-
ton, and construct a body of our own fashioning; to form our own
theories, to deduce our own philosophy. That, then, is the reason that
Hallam will remain a source of profit and inspiration to his readers.
In his great work The Middle Ages,' as it is commonly known
(though its fuller title is 'View of the State of Europe during the
Middle Ages'), published in 1818, Hallam adopted a method to such
an end, that was peculiarly his own. At the risk of repetition and
retracing, he took up first one country after another and sketched
in outline its growth into a nation, devoting to each a chapter that
was a complete book in itself, and bringing in the doings of near-by
countries only so much as was absolutely necessary. In this way
Hallam traces, with admirable arrangement and sense of proportion,
the main lines in the history of France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and
of the Greeks and Saracens. To give a detailed narration is furthest
from his thought and furthest from his achievement. He deals pri-
marily with results; and with him, as he himself has said, "a single
sentence or paragraph is often sufficient to give the character of
entire generations. " He takes the continent in magnificent sweeps,
casting aside legend, tradition, intrigue, and disaster, and catching up
only those greater facts and results which he puts together dexter-
ously and accurately to form indeed the framework of the long story
of the Middle Ages.
This brief summary of Hallam's methods and system applies, it
should be said, more to his 'Middle Ages' than to any other work
## p. 6854 (#234) ###########################################
6854
HENRY HALLAM
.
of his. In fact, it would seem that his name for the future rests
upon this work almost wholly; for while his compendious and careful
'Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth,
and Seventeenth Centuries' (published in 1838-9), shows immense
erudition and amazingly wide reading, one cannot help getting the
impression of confusion and clumsiness in its construction. In it
Hallam's opinions are discriminating, as in everything he ever wrote,
but they are by no means profound, and to the average student his
'Literature' can hardly fail to be dispiriting and dull.
It is not surprising that a legal acumen and a logical arrangement
of his facts should characterize Hallam's historical writings. Born at
Windsor, July 9th, 1777, and a Christ Church College graduate in 1799,
he studied for the law at Christ College, Oxford, and practiced indus-
triously for some years on the Oxford Circuit. Of independent
means, he relinquished the law and devoted himself to his literary
life and to his important personal interests and his friends. Of the
latter he had many, and they were among the most distinguished
of his contemporaries. He was a member of the famous Holland
House circle and a guest at Bowood; and Sydney Smith, Macaulay.
and other social and literary lights esteemed his society. He passed
most of his time, season by season, in his London house in Wim-
pole Street, an uninteresting and retired neighborhood, as pictured
in a line of that 'In Memoriam' which Lord Tennyson wrote as
his tribute to a friendship with Hallam's beloved son Arthur. Vari-
ous societies, British and foreign, honored his works emphatically;
he was a member of the Institute of France, and it is interesting to
Americans to know that he and Washington Irving received in 1830
the medals offered by King George IV. for eminence in historical
writings.
His life was relatively quiet and uneventful. It is somewhat curi-
ous that we have not more reminiscences and pen pictures of him,
especially as his contemporaries held him in such affection. He had
almost nothing to say to political life, though his prime came to
him during the Corn Law agitations. Indeed, he kept himself, dur-
ing all his busy years until his death in 1859, a student of the past
rather than a worker of his day. We owe much to his profound
studies of the centuries preceding his own; yet a real admirer of Hal-
lam could wish that he had been less concentrated on his analysis
of the past, and bolder to cope with questions of the present. As
he himself says, he ended his Constitutional History of England'
(published in 1827) at the accession of George III. , because he had
"been influenced by unwillingness to excite the prejudices of modern
politics. " It must be a matter of regret that Hallam should thus
stop (ingloriously, we might almost say! ) just at the threshold of
## p. 6855 (#235) ###########################################
HENRY HALLAM
6855
what was a most interesting part of England's modern Constitutional
history.
At this ending of a century, every student and historian specializes,
-takes up some one period and attempts to exhaust it. Those were
not the methods of Hallam's time. Some of the advantages of those
methods Hallam undoubtedly missed. This weakness shows occasion-
ally on points which seemed to be so obscure in Hallam's thought as
to render his expression blind and ambiguous. On the whole, how-
ever, such instances are infrequent. It is sufficient praise to say that
Hallam has done what he set out to do: to furnish for the intelligent
and seeking reader a just and accurate outline; to point out the land-
marks and beacons on the way that will guide him unfailingly in his
future search. In these respects Hallam's achievements are remark-
able and incomparable.
ENGLISH DOMESTIC COMFORT IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
From View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages'
I
T is an error to suppose that the English gentry were lodged in
stately or even in well-sized houses. Generally speaking, their
dwellings were almost as inferior to those of their descendants
in capacity as they were in convenience. The usual arrange-
ment consisted of an entrance passage running through the house,
with a hall on one side, a parlor beyond, and one or two cham-
bers above; and on the opposite side, a kitchen, pantry, and other
offices. Such was the ordinary manor-house of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Larger structures were erected by men of
great estates after the Wars of the Roses; but I should conceive
it difficult to name a house in England, still inhabited by a gen-
tleman and not belonging to the order of castles, the principal
apartments of which are older than the reign of Henry VII.
The instances at least must be extremely few.
France by no means appears to have made a greater progress
than our own country in domestic architecture. Except fortified
castles, I do not find any considerable dwellings mentioned before
the reign of Charles VII. , and very few of so early a date. Even
in Italy, where from the size of her cities and social refinements
of her inhabitants, greater elegance and splendor in building were
justly to be expected, the domestic architecture of the Middle
Ages did not attain any perfection. In several towns the houses
## p. 6856 (#236) ###########################################
6856
HENRY HALLAM
were covered with thatch, and suffered consequently from de-
structive fires.
The two most essential improvements in architecture during
this period, one of which had been missed by the sagacity of
Greece and Rome, were chimneys and glass windows. Nothing
apparently can be more simple than the former: yet the wisdom
of ancient times had been content to let the smoke escape by
an aperture in the centre of the roof; and a discovery of which
Vitruvius had not a glimpse was made, perhaps in this country,
by some forgotten semi-barbarian. About the middle of the four-
teenth century the use of chimneys is distinctly mentioned in
England and in Italy; but they are found in several of our cas-
tles which bear a much older date. This country seems to have
lost very early the art of making glass, which was preserved in
France, whence artificers were brought into England to furnish
the windows in some new churches in the seventh century. . .
But if the domestic buildings of the fifteenth century would
not seem very spacious or convenient at present, far less would
this luxurious generation be content with their internal accommo-
dations. A gentleman's house containing three or four beds was
extraordinarily well provided; few, probably, had more than two.
The walls were commonly bare, without wainscot or even plaster;
except that some great houses were furnished with hangings, and
that perhaps hardly so soon as the reign of Edward IV. It is
unnecessary to add that neither libraries of books nor pictures
could have found a place among furniture. Silver plate was very
rare, and hardly used for the table. A few inventories of furni-
ture that still remain exhibit a miserable deficiency.
was incomparably greater in private gentlemen's houses than
among citizens, and especially foreign merchants. We have an
inventory of the goods belonging to Contarini, a rich Venetian
trader, at his house in St. Botolph's Lane, A. D. 1481. There
appear to have been no less than ten beds, and glass windows
are especially noticed as movable furniture. No mention, how-
ever, is made of chairs or looking-glasses. If we compare this
account, however trifling in our estimation, with a similar inven-
tory of furniture in Skipton Castle, the great honor of the earls
of Cumberland, and among the most splendid mansions of the
North, not at the same period - for I have not found any inven-
tory of a nobleman's furniture so ancient - but in 1572, after
almost a century of continual improvement, we shall be astonished
――
## p. 6857 (#237) ###########################################
HENRY HALLAM
6857
at the inferior provision of the baronial residence. There were
not more than seven or eight beds in this great castle; nor had
any of the chambers either chairs, glasses, or carpets. It is in
this sense probably that we must understand Eneas Sylvius,-
if he meant anything more than to express a traveler's discon-
tent, when he declares that the kings of Scotland would rejoice
to be as well lodged as the second class of citizens at Nuremberg.
—
THE MIDDLE AGES AS A PERIOD OF INTELLECTUAL
DARKNESS
From View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages
I'
F WE would listen to some literary historians, we should believe
that the darkest ages contained many individuals not only
distinguished among their contemporaries, but positively emi-
nent for abilities and knowledge. A proneness to extol every
monk of whose production a few letters or a devotional treatise
survives, every bishop of whom it is related that he composed
homilies, runs through the laborious work of The Benedictines
of St. Maur,' 'The Literary History of France,' and in a less
degree is observable even in Tiraboschi and in most books of
this class. Bede, Alcuin, Hincmar, Raban, and a number of
inferior names, become real giants of learning in their uncritical
panegyrics. But one might justly say that ignorance is the
smallest def of the writers of these dark ages. Several of
them were tolerably acquainted with books; but that wherein they
are uniformly deficient is original argument or expression. Almost
every one is a compiler of scraps from the Fathers, or from such
semi-classical authors as Boëtius, Cassiodorus, or Martianus Capella.
Indeed, I am not aware that there appeared more than two
really considerable men in the republic of letters from the sixth.
to the middle of the eleventh century-John, surnamed Scotus
or Erigena, a native of Ireland; and Gerbert, who became pope
by the name of Sylvester II. : the first endowed with a bold and
acute metaphysical genius; the second excellent, for the time.
when he lived, in mathematical science and mechanical inventions.
If it be demanded by what cause it happened that a few
sparks of ancient learning survived throughout this long win-
ter, we can only ascribe their preservation to the establishment
of Christianity. Religion alone made a bridge, as it were, across
## p. 6858 (#238) ###########################################
6858
HENRY HALLAM
the chaos, and has linked the two periods of ancient and mod-
ern civilization. Without this connecting principle, Europe might
indeed have awakened to intellectual pursuits; and the genius of
recent times needed not to be invigorated by the imitation of
antiquity. But the memory of Greece and Rome would have
been feebly preserved by tradition, and the monuments of those
nations might have excited, on the return of civilization, that
vague sentiment of speculation and wonder with which men now
contemplate Persepolis or the Pyramids. It is not, however, from
religion simply that we have derived this advantage, but from
religion as it was modified in the Dark Ages. Such is the com-
plex reciprocation of good and evil in the dispensations of Provi-
dence that we may assert, with only an apparent paradox, that
had religion been more pure it would have been less permanent;
and that Christianity has been preserved by means of its cor-
ruptions. The sole hope for literature depended on the Latin
language; and I do not see why that should not have been lost,
if three circumstances in the prevailing religious system, all of
which we are justly accustomed to disapprove, had not conspired
to maintain it, the papal supremacy, the monastic institutions,
and the use of a Latin liturgy. 1. A continual intercourse was
kept up, in consequence of the first, between Rome and the
several nations of Europe; her laws were received by the bishops,
her legates presided in councils: so that a common language was
as necessary in the Church as it is at present in the diplomatic
relations of kingdoms. 2. Throughout the whole course of the
Middle Ages there was no learning, and very little regularity of
manners, among the parochial clergy. Almost every distinguished
man was either the member of a chapter or a convent. The
monasteries were subjected to strict rules of discipline, and held
out more opportunities for study than the secular clergy possessed,
and fewer for worldly dissipations. But their most important
service was as secure repositories for books. All our manu-
scripts have been preserved in this manner, and could hardly have
descended to us by any other channel; at least, there were inter-
vals when I do not conceive that any royal or private libraries
existed.
In the shadows of this universal ignorance a thousand super-
stitions, like foul animals of night, were propagated and nour-
ished. It would be very unsatisfactory to exhibit a few specimens
of this odious brood, when the real character of those times is
.
-
## p. 6859 (#239) ###########################################
HENRY HALLAM
6859
only to be judged by their accumulated multitude. There are
many books, from which a sufficient number of instances may
be collected to show the absurdity and ignorance of the Middle
Ages in this respect. I shall only mention two, as affording
more general evidence than any local or obscure superstition.
In the tenth century an opinion prevailed everywhere that the
end of the world was approaching. Many charters begin with
these words: "As the world is now drawing to its close. " An
army marching under the Emperor Otho I. was so terrified by
an eclipse of the sun, which it conceived to announce this con-
summation, as to disperse hastily on all sides. As this notion.
As rather lively gestures had illustrated this little speech, the
white cashmere dressing-gown had slipped-slipped a good deal,
## p. 6841 (#221) ###########################################
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
6841
and had opened, very much opened; the criminal shoulders were
within reach of M. Derline's lips-he succumbed. Besides, he
too felt the abominable influence of the press. His wife had
never seemed so pretty to him; and brought back to subjection,
M. Derline returned to his study in order to make money for
the most beautiful woman in Paris.
A very wise and opportune occupation; for scarcely was Ma-
dame Derline left alone when an idea flashed through her head
which was to call forth a very pretty collection of bank-notes
from the cash-box of the lawyer of the Rue Dragon. Madame
Derline had intended wearing to the Palmers' ball a dress which
had already been much seen. Madame Derline had kept the
dressmaker of her wedding dress, her mother's dressmaker, a
dressmaker of the Left Bank. It seemed to her that her new
position imposed new duties on her. She could not appear at
the Palmers' without a dress which had not been seen, and one
stamped with a well-known name. She ordered the carriage in
the afternoon, and resolutely gave her coachman the address of
one of the most illustrious dressmakers in Paris. She arrived a
little agitated, and to reach the great artist was obliged to pass
through a veritable crowd of footmen, who were in the ante-
chamber chatting and laughing, used to meeting there and mak-
ing long stops. Nearly all the footmen were those of society,
the highest society; they had spent the previous evening together
at the English Embassy, and were to be that evening at the
Duchess of Grémoille's.
Madame Derline entered a sumptuous parlor; it was very
sumptuous, too sumptuous. Twenty great customers were there,
-society women and actresses, all agitated, anxious, feverish,-
looking at the beautiful tall saleswomen come and go before
them, wearing the last creations of the master of the house.
The great artist had a diplomatic bearing: buttoned-up black
frock-coat, long cravat with pin (a present from a Royal Highness
who paid her bills slowly), and a many-colored rosette in his
buttonhole (the gift of a small reigning prince who paid slower
yet the bills of an opera-dancer). He came and went-precise,
calm, and cool-in the midst of the solicitations and supplica-
tions of his customers. "M. Arthur! M. Arthur! " One heard
nothing but that phrase; he was M. Arthur. He went from
one to the other-respectful without too much humility to the
duchesses, and easy without too much familiarity to the actresses.
AND
A
## p. 6842 (#222) ###########################################
6842
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
There was an extraordinary liveliness, and a confusion of mar-
velous velvets, satins, and embroidered, brocaded, and gold- or
silver-threaded stuffs, all thrown here and there as though by
accident - but what science in that accident! -on arm-chairs,
tables, and divans.
In the first place Madame Derline ran against a shop-girl
who was bearing with outstretched arms a white dress, and was
almost hidden beneath a light mountain of muslins and laces.
The only thing visible was the shop-girl's mussed black hair and
sly suburban expression. Madame Derline backed away, wish-
ing to place herself against the wall; but a tryer-on was there,
a large energetic brunette, who spoke authoritatively in a high
staccato. "At once," she was saying, "bring me at once the
princess's dress! »
Frightened and dazed, Madame Derline stood in a corner and
watched an opportunity to seize a saleswoman on the fly. She
even thought of giving up the game. Never, certainly, should
she dare to address directly that terrible M. Arthur, who had
just given her a rapid glance in which she believed to have
read, "Who is she? She isn't properly dressed! She doesn't go
to a fashionable dressmaker! " At last Madame Derline suc-
ceeded in getting hold of a disengaged saleswoman, and there
was the same slightly disdainful glance-a glance which was
accompanied by the phrase-
"Madame is not a regular customer of the house? "
-
"No, I am not a customer—”
"And you wish? "
"A dress, a ball-dress, and I want the dress for next Thurs-
day evening-»
"Thursday next? "
"Yes, Thursday next. "
"O madame, it is not to be thought of! Even for a cus-
tomer of the house it would be impossible. "
"But I wished it so much—»
"Go and see M. Arthur.
"And where is M. Arthur? "
"In his office. He has just gone into his office.
madame, opposite. "
He alone can >>>>
Over there,
Madame Derline, through a half-open door, saw a sombre and
severe but luxurious room--an ambassador's office. On the walls
the great European powers were represented by photographs-
## p. 6843 (#223) ###########################################
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
6843
the Empress Eugénie, the Princess of Wales, a grand-duchess of
Russia, and an archduchess of Austria. M. Arthur was there
taking a few moments' rest, seated in a large arm-chair, with an
air of lassitude and exhaustion, and with a newspaper spread out
over his knees. He arose on seeing Madame Derline enter. In
a trembling voice she repeated her wish.
"O madame, a ball-dress- a beautiful ball-dress-for Thurs-
day! I couldn't make such a promise; I couldn't keep it.
There are responsibilities to which I never expose myself. "
He spoke slowly, gravely, as a man conscious of his high
position.
-
"Oh, I am so disappointed. It was a particular occasion, and
I was told that you alone could-"
Two tears, two little tears, glittered on her eyelashes. M.
Arthur was moved. A woman, a pretty woman, crying there
before him! Never had such homage been paid to his genius.
"Well, madame, I am willing to make an attempt. A very
simple dress->
"Oh no, not simple. Very brilliant, on the contrary-every-
thing that is most brilliant. Two of my friends are customers
of yours" (she named them), "and I am Madame Derline-»
"Madame Derline! you are Madame Derline ? »
The two Madame Derlines were followed by a glance and a
smile the glance was at the newspaper and the smile was at
Madame Derline; but it was a discreet, self-contained smile, the
smile of a perfectly gallant man. This is what the glance and
smile said with admirable clearness:
-
"Ah! you are Madame Derline, that already celebrated Ma-
dame Derline, who yesterday at the opera - I understand, I
understand - I was reading just now in this paper: words are
no longer necessary; you should have told your name at once.
Yes, you need me; yes, you shall have your dress; yes, I want to
divide your success with you. "
M. Arthur called:
"Mademoiselle Blanche, come here at once!
Mademoiselle
Blanche! "
And turning towards Madame Derline, he said:-
"She has great talent, but I shall myself superintend it; so be
easy-yes, I myself. "
Madame Derline was a little confused, a little embarrassed by
her glory, but happy nevertheless. Mademoiselle Blanche came
forward.
-
## p. 6844 (#224) ###########################################
6844
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
"Conduct madame," said M. Arthur, "and take the necessary
measures for a ball-dress, very low, and with absolutely bare
arms. During that time, madame, I am going to think seriously
of what I can do for you. It must be something entirely new-
ah! before going, permit me-"
He walked very slowly around Madame Derline, and exam-
ined her with profound attention; then he walked away, and
considered her from a little distance. His face was serious,
thoughtful, and anxious: a great thinker wrestling with a great
problem. He passed his hand over his forehead, raised his eyes
to the sky, getting inspiration by a painful delivery; but sud-
denly his face lit up-the spirit from above had answered.
"Go, madame," he said, "go. Your dress is thought out.
When you come back, mademoiselle, bring me that piece of pink
satin; you know, the one that I was keeping for some great
occasion. ”
Thus Madame Derline found herself with Mademoiselle
Blanche in a trying-on room, which was a sort of little cabin
lined with mirrors. A quarter of an hour later, when the meas-
ures had been taken, Madame Derline came back and discovered
M. Arthur in the midst of pieces of satin of all colors, of crêpes,
of tulles, of laces, and of brocaded stuffs.
"No, no, not the pink satin," he said to Mademoiselle Blanche,
who was bringing the asked-for piece; "no, I have found some-
thing better. Listen to me. This is what I wish; I have given
up the pink, and I have decided on this, this peach-colored satin:
a classic robe, outlining all the fine lines and showing the sup-
pleness of the body. This robe must be very clinging-hardly
any underskirts. It must be of surah. Madame must be melted
into it-do you thoroughly understand? -absolutely melted into
the robe. We will drop over the dress this crêpe - yes, that one,
but in small, light pleats. The crêpe will be as a cloud thrown
over the dress-a transparent, vapory, impalpable cloud. The
arms are to be absolutely bare, as I already told you. On each
shoulder there must be a simple knot, showing the upper part
of the arm. Of what is the knot to be? I'm still undecided;
I need to think it over-till to-morrow, madame, till to-morrow. "
Madame Derline came back the next day, and the next, and
every day till the day before the famous Thursday; and each
time that she came back, while awaiting her turn to try on, she
ordered dresses, very simple ones, but yet costing from seven to
eight hundred francs each.
## p. 6845 (#225) ###########################################
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
6845
And that was not all. On the day of her first visit to M.
Arthur, when Madame Derline came out of the great house she
was broken-hearted-positively broken-hearted-at the sight of
her brougham: it really did make a pitiful appearance among all
the stylish carriages which were waiting in three rows and taking
up half the street. It was the brougham of her late mother-
in-law, and it still rolled through the streets of Paris after fif-
teen years' service. Madame Derline got into the woe-begone
brougham to drive straight to a very well-known carriage-maker,
and that evening, cleverly seizing the psychological moment, she
explained to M. Derline that she had seen a certain little black
coupé lined with blue satin that would frame delightfully her new
dresses.
The coupé was bought the next day by M. Derline, who also
was beginning fully to realize the extent of his new duties. But
the next day it was discovered that it was impossible to harness
to that jewel of a coupé the old horse who had pulled the old
carriage, and no less impossible to put on the box the old coach-
man who drove the old horse.
This is how on Thursday, April 25th, at half-past ten in the
evening, a very pretty chestnut mare, driven by a very correct
English coachman, took M. and Madame Derline to the Palmers'.
They still lacked something-a little groom to sit beside the
English coachman. But a certain amount of discretion had to be
employed. The most beautiful woman in Paris intended to wait
ten days before asking for the little groom.
While she was going up-stairs at the Palmers', she distinctly
felt her heart beat like the strokes of a hammer. She was going
to play a decisive game. She knew that the Palmers had been
going everywhere, saying, "Come on Thursday: we will show
you Madame Derline, the most beautiful woman in Paris. "
Curiosity as well as jealousy had been well awakened.
She entered, and from the first minute she had the delicious
sensation of her success. Throughout the long gallery of the
Palmers' house it was a true triumphal march. She advanced
with firm and precise step, erect, and head well held.
She ap-
peared to see nothing, to hear nothing, but how well she saw!
how well she felt the fire of all those eyes on her shoulders!
Around her arose a little murmur of admiration, and never had
music been sweeter to her.
Yes, decidedly, all went well. She was on a fair way to con-
quer Paris. And, sure of herself, at each step she became more
## p. 6846 (#226) ###########################################
6846
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
k
confident, lighter, and bolder, as she advanced on the arm of
Palmer, who in passing pointed out the counts, the marquises,
and the dukes. And then Palmer suddenly said to her:—
"I want to present to you one of your greatest admirers, who
the other night at the opera spoke of nothing but your beauty;
he is the Prince of Nérins. "
She became as red as a cherry. Palmer looked at her and
began to laugh.
"Ah, you read the other day in that paper-? "
"I read - yes, I read -»
"But where is the prince, where is he? I saw him during
the day, and he was to be here early. "
Madame Derline was not to see the Prince of Nérins that
evening. And yet he had intended to go to the Palmers' and
preside at the deification of his lawyeress. He had dined at the
club, and had allowed himself to be dragged off to a first per-
formance at a minor theatre. An operetta of the regulation type
was being played. The principal personage was a young queen,
who was always escorted by the customary four maids of honor.
Three of these young ladies were very well known to first-
nighters, as having already figured in the tableaux of operettas
and in groups of fairies, but the fourth-oh, the fourth! She
was a new one, a tall brunette of the most striking beauty. The
prince made himself remarked more than all others by his enthu-
siasm. He completely forgot that he was to leave after the first
act. The play was over very late, and the prince was still there,
having paid no attention to the piece or the music, having seen
nothing but the wonderful brunette, having heard nothing but
the stanza which she had unworthily massacred in the middle of
the second act. And while they were leaving the theatre, the
prince was saying to whoever would listen:-
"That brunette! oh, that brunette! She hasn't an equal in
any theatre! She is the most beautiful woman in Paris! the
most beautiful! "
—
It was one o'clock in the morning. The prince asked himself
if he should go to the Palmers'. Poor Madame Derline: she was
of very slight importance beside this new wonder! And then,
too, the prince was a methodical man. The hour for whist had
arrived; so he departed to play whist.
The following morning Madame Derline found ten lines on
the Palmers' ball in the "society column. " There was mention
of the marquises, the countesses, and the duchesses who were
## p. 6847 (#227) ###########################################
LUDOVIC HALÉVY
6847
there, but about Madame Derline there was not a word-not a
word.
On the other hand, the writer of theatrical gossip celebrated
in enthusiastic terms the beauty of that ideal maid of honor, and
said, "Besides, the Prince of Nérins declared that Mademoiselle
Miranda was indisputably the most beautiful woman in Paris! »
Madame Derline threw the paper into the fire. She did not
wish her husband to know that she was already not the most
beautiful woman in Paris.
She has however kept the great dressmaker and the English
coachman, but she has never dared to ask for the little groom.
## p. 6848 (#228) ###########################################
6848
THOMAS C. HALIBURTON
(1796-1865)
N 1835 there appeared in a Nova-Scotian journal a series of
articles satirizing the New England character, as expressed
in the person of Sam Slick, a Yankee clock-peddler. Within
a few weeks these had become so popular that they were republished
in book form, the little duodecimo volume called The Clockmaker,
or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville,' being read
by all classes of people. Indeed, the popularity of this skit wholly
obscured the importance of the author's more serious work as a histo-
rian and publicist. Thomas C. Haliburton,
the inventor of this famous Yankee char-
acter, was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia,
1796, educated in his native town, and called
to the bar there in 1820. Eight years later
he was appointed Chief Justice of Com-
mon Pleas, and presently transferred to the
Supreme Court, in which he sat until 1856,
when he removed to England, where he
died in 1865.
While his historical work is not import-
ant, his History of Nova Scotia' has done
more to make Acadia known to the out-
side world than any other work except
'Evangeline,' and Longfellow acknowledged
himself much indebted to Haliburton for material. His Bubbles of
Canada' and 'Rule and Misrule of the English in America,' dealing
with political situations of importance in his time, and his half-dozen
other books, are now forgotten. It is as a humorist only that he is
remembered.
T. C. HALIBURTON
Of his Sam Slick' Professor Felton of Harvard wrote: "We can
distinguish the real from the counterfeit Yankee at the first sound of
the voice, and by the turn of a single sentence: and we have no hesi-
tation in declaring that Sam Slick is not what he pretends to be;
that there is no organic life in him; that he is an impostor, an im-
possibility, a nonentity. " The London Athenæum, on the other hand,
pronounced that "he [the clockmaker] deserves to be entered on our
list of friends containing the names of Tristram Shandy, the shep-
herd of the 'Noctes Ambrosianæ,' and other rhapsodical discoursers on
## p. 6849 (#229) ###########################################
THOMAS C. HALIBURTON
6849
time and change, who besides the delight of their discourse possess
also the charm of individuality. "
Farcical as is his delineation of the shrewd, conceited, bragging,
cozening, hard-working, garrulous Yankee, little as he admires the
institutions that produced this type of citizen, it is plain that Judge
Haliburton uses the clockmaker and his kind to point the moral
against the dullness, lack of enterprise, laziness, and provincial shift-
lessness of the Nova-Scotians. He means to sting his fellow-country-
men into effort and action if he can. Whether the book really served
for admonition and correction, whether the Yankee clock really struck
the hour for the "Bluenose" awakening, as its author fondly believed,
at least he created the conventional Yankee of general acceptation,-
the lank, awkward figure, ill articulated and ill dressed, with trousers
and coat-sleeves too short, with hat too large, with hair too long, with
sharp nose, keen eyes, shrewd smile, with flattened vowels and nasal
tones, with queer vocabulary and queerer syntax-in short, the Yankee
of the stage, of caricature, of tradition, universally believed in
(at least across the seas) until Lowell's genius revealed the true New-
Englander in Hosea Biglow. Even as a Pretender, therefore, Sam
Slick has his important place in the Republic of Letters, -a place the
more important as interest in him becomes more and more merely
historic.
MR. SAMUEL SLICK
From The Clockmaker. Copyright 1871, by Hurd & Houghton. Reprinted
by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers, Boston
I
HAD heard of Yankee clock-peddlers, tin-peddlers, and Bible-
peddlers, especially of him who sold Polyglot Bibles (all in
English) to the amount of sixteen thousand pounds. The
house of every substantial farmer had three substantial orna-
ments: a wooden clock, a tin reflector, and a Polyglot Bible.
How is it that an American can sell his wares at whatever price
he pleases, where a Bluenose would fail to make a sale at all?
I will inquire of the Clockmaker the secret of his success.
"What a pity it is, Mr. Slick," for such was his name,-
"what a pity it is," said I, "that you, who are so successful in
teaching these people the value of clocks, could not also teach.
them the value of time. "
—
—
—
"I guess," said he, "they have got that ring to grow on their
horns yet, which every four-year-old has in our country. We
reckon hours and minutes to be dollars and cents. They do
XII-429
## p. 6850 (#230) ###########################################
6850
THOMAS C. HALIBURTON
nothing in these parts but eat, drink, smoke, sleep, ride about,
lounge at taverns, make speeches at temperance meetings, and
talk about 'House of Assembly. ' If a man don't hoe his corn,
and he don't get a crop, he says it is owing to the bank; and if
he runs into debt and is sued, why, he says the lawyers are a
curse to the country. They are a most idle set of folks, I tell
you. "
"But how is it," said I, "that you manage to sell such an
immense number of clocks, which certainly cannot be called
necessary articles, among a people with whom there seems to
be so great a scarcity of money? »
Mr. Slick paused, as if considering the propriety of answering
the question, and looking me in the face, said in a confidential
tone:
"Why, I don't care if I do tell you; for the market is glutted,
and I shall quit this circuit. It is done by a knowledge of soft
sawder and human natur'. But here is Deacon Flint's," said he;
"I have but one clock left, and I guess I will sell it to him. "
At the gate of a most comfortable-looking farm-house stood.
Deacon Flint, a respectable old man who had understood the
value of time better than most of his neighbors, if one might
judge from the appearance of everything about him. After the
usual salutation, an invitation to "alight" was accepted by Mr.
Slick, who said he wished to take leave of Mrs. Flint before he
left Colchester.
We had hardly entered the house before the Clockmaker
pointed to the view from the window, and addressing himself to
me, said: "If I was to tell them in Connecticut there was such
a farm as this away down-east here in Nova Scotia, they wouldn't
believe me. Why, there ain't such a location in all New Eng-
land. The deacon has a hundred acres of dike-
>>
«< Seventy," said the deacon, "only seventy. "
"Well, seventy: but then there is your fine deep bottom; why,
I could run a ramrod into it-»
"Interval, we call it," said the deacon, who, though evidently
pleased at this eulogium, seemed to wish the experiment of the
ramrod to be tried in the right place.
"Well, interval, if you please though Professor Eleazer
Cumstick, in his work on Ohio, calls them bottoms-is just as
good as dike. Then there is that water privilege, worth three or
four thousand dollars, twice as good as what Governor Cass paid
-
## p. 6851 (#231) ###########################################
THOMAS C. HALIBURTON
6851
fifteen thousand dollars for. I wonder, deacon, you don't put up
a carding-mill on it; the same works would carry a turning-lathe,
a shingle machine, a circular saw, grind bark, and-"
"Too old," said the deacon; "too old for all those specula-
tions. "
"Old! " repeated the Clockmaker, "not you: why, you are
worth half a dozen of the young men we see nowadays; you are
young enough to have"-here he said something in a lower
tone of voice, which I did not distinctly hear: but whatever it
was, the deacon was pleased; he smiled, and said he did not
think of such things now.
"But your beasts-dear me, your beasts must be put in and
have a feed;" saying which, he went out to order them to be
taken to the stable.
As the old gentleman closed the door after him, Mr. Slick
drew near to me, and said in an undertone, "That is what I call
'soft sawder. ' An Englishman would pass that man as a sheep
passes a hog in a pasture, without looking at him; or," said he,
looking rather archly, "if he was mounted on a pretty smart
horse, I guess he'd trot away if he could. Now I find -> Here
his lecture on "soft sawder" was cut short by the entrance of
Mrs. Flint.
"Jist come to say good-by, Mrs. Flint. "
"What, have you sold all your clocks? "
"Yes, and very low too; for money is scarce, and I wish to
close the consarn -no, I am wrong in saying all, for I have
just one left. Neighbor Steel's wife asked to have the refusal
of it, but I guess I won't sell it; I had but two of them, this
one and the feller of it, that I sold Governor Lincoln. General
Green, the Secretary of State for Maine, said he'd give me fifty
dollars for this here one-it has composition wheels and patent
axles, is a beautiful article, a real first-chop, no mistake, genuine
superfine but I guess I'll take it back; and besides, Squire Hawk
might think kinder hard that I did not give him the offer. "
"Dear me! " said Mrs. Flint, "I should like to see it; where
is it ? "
-
"It is in a chest of mine over the way, at Tom Tape's store.
I guess he can ship it on to Eastport. "
"That's a good man," said Mrs. Flint, "jist let's look at it. "
Mr. Slick, willing to oblige, yielded to these entreaties and
soon produced the clock,-a gaudy, highly varnished, trumpery-
## p. 6852 (#232) ###########################################
6852
THOMAS C. HALIBURTON
looking affair. He placed it on the chimney-piece, where its
beauties were pointed out and duly appreciated by Mrs. Flint,
whose admiration was about ending in a proposal, when Mr.
Flint returned from giving his directions about the care of the
horses. The deacon praised the clock; he too thought it a hand-
some one: but the deacon was a prudent man; he had a watch;
he was sorry, but he had no occasion for a clock.
"I guess you're in the wrong furrow this time, deacon: it
ain't for sale," said Mr. Slick; "and if it was, I reckon neigh-
bor Steel's wife would have it, for she gave me no peace about
it. "
Mrs. Flint said that Mr. Steel had enough to do, poor man,
to pay his interest, without buying clocks for his wife.
"It is no consarn of mine," said Mr. Slick, "as long as he
pays me, what he has to do: but I guess I don't want to sell
it, and besides, it comes too high; that clock can't be made at
Rhode Island under forty dollars. —Why, it ain't possible! " said
the Clockmaker in apparent surprise, looking at his watch; "why,
as I'm alive, it is four o'clock, and if I haven't been two hours.
here! How on airth shall I reach River Philip to-night? I'll tell
you what, Mrs. Flint; I'll leave the clock in your care till I
return, on my way to the States. I'll set it a-going, and put it
to the right time. "
As soon as this operation was performed, he delivered the key
to the deacon with a sort of serio-comic injunction to wind up
the clock every Saturday night,-which Mrs. Flint said she would
take care should be done, and promised to remind her husband
of it, in case he should chance to forget it.
"That," said the Clockmaker, as soon as we were mounted,
"that I call 'human natur''! Now, that clock is sold for forty
dollars; it cost me just six dollars and fifty cents. Mrs. Flint
will never let Mrs. Steel have the refusal, nor will the deacon
learn, until I call for the clock, having once indulged in the use
of a superfluity, how difficult it is to give it up. We can do
without any article of luxury we have never had; but when once
obtained, it is not in human natur' to surrender it voluntarily.
Of fifteen thousand sold by myself and partners in this province,
twelve thousand were left in this manner, and only ten clocks
were ever returned; when we called for them they invariably
bought them. We trust to 'soft sawder' to get them into the
house, and to human natur' that they never come out of it. ”
## p. 6853 (#233) ###########################################
6853
HENRY HALLAM
(1777-1859)
HE work of Henry Hallam as a historian was timely. He
filled a distinct want, and he seems likely to hold his place
Se for decades to come. His security rests not upon his power
of philosophizing from the great events, crises, and epochs in human
affairs; not upon broad generalizations regarding the development
and trend of civilization: but rather upon his clear and comprehens-
ive vision of the all-important facts of history, upon his calm and
legal-like presentation of these facts. He walks forth in the vast
valley of crumbling bones and dust, the chaos of the ages, and with
painstaking care and unerring judgment takes up on this side and
on that, from the heap of rubbish, the few perfect parts that go to
make up a complete framework. He compels us to clothe the skele-
ton, and construct a body of our own fashioning; to form our own
theories, to deduce our own philosophy. That, then, is the reason that
Hallam will remain a source of profit and inspiration to his readers.
In his great work The Middle Ages,' as it is commonly known
(though its fuller title is 'View of the State of Europe during the
Middle Ages'), published in 1818, Hallam adopted a method to such
an end, that was peculiarly his own. At the risk of repetition and
retracing, he took up first one country after another and sketched
in outline its growth into a nation, devoting to each a chapter that
was a complete book in itself, and bringing in the doings of near-by
countries only so much as was absolutely necessary. In this way
Hallam traces, with admirable arrangement and sense of proportion,
the main lines in the history of France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and
of the Greeks and Saracens. To give a detailed narration is furthest
from his thought and furthest from his achievement. He deals pri-
marily with results; and with him, as he himself has said, "a single
sentence or paragraph is often sufficient to give the character of
entire generations. " He takes the continent in magnificent sweeps,
casting aside legend, tradition, intrigue, and disaster, and catching up
only those greater facts and results which he puts together dexter-
ously and accurately to form indeed the framework of the long story
of the Middle Ages.
This brief summary of Hallam's methods and system applies, it
should be said, more to his 'Middle Ages' than to any other work
## p. 6854 (#234) ###########################################
6854
HENRY HALLAM
.
of his. In fact, it would seem that his name for the future rests
upon this work almost wholly; for while his compendious and careful
'Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth,
and Seventeenth Centuries' (published in 1838-9), shows immense
erudition and amazingly wide reading, one cannot help getting the
impression of confusion and clumsiness in its construction. In it
Hallam's opinions are discriminating, as in everything he ever wrote,
but they are by no means profound, and to the average student his
'Literature' can hardly fail to be dispiriting and dull.
It is not surprising that a legal acumen and a logical arrangement
of his facts should characterize Hallam's historical writings. Born at
Windsor, July 9th, 1777, and a Christ Church College graduate in 1799,
he studied for the law at Christ College, Oxford, and practiced indus-
triously for some years on the Oxford Circuit. Of independent
means, he relinquished the law and devoted himself to his literary
life and to his important personal interests and his friends. Of the
latter he had many, and they were among the most distinguished
of his contemporaries. He was a member of the famous Holland
House circle and a guest at Bowood; and Sydney Smith, Macaulay.
and other social and literary lights esteemed his society. He passed
most of his time, season by season, in his London house in Wim-
pole Street, an uninteresting and retired neighborhood, as pictured
in a line of that 'In Memoriam' which Lord Tennyson wrote as
his tribute to a friendship with Hallam's beloved son Arthur. Vari-
ous societies, British and foreign, honored his works emphatically;
he was a member of the Institute of France, and it is interesting to
Americans to know that he and Washington Irving received in 1830
the medals offered by King George IV. for eminence in historical
writings.
His life was relatively quiet and uneventful. It is somewhat curi-
ous that we have not more reminiscences and pen pictures of him,
especially as his contemporaries held him in such affection. He had
almost nothing to say to political life, though his prime came to
him during the Corn Law agitations. Indeed, he kept himself, dur-
ing all his busy years until his death in 1859, a student of the past
rather than a worker of his day. We owe much to his profound
studies of the centuries preceding his own; yet a real admirer of Hal-
lam could wish that he had been less concentrated on his analysis
of the past, and bolder to cope with questions of the present. As
he himself says, he ended his Constitutional History of England'
(published in 1827) at the accession of George III. , because he had
"been influenced by unwillingness to excite the prejudices of modern
politics. " It must be a matter of regret that Hallam should thus
stop (ingloriously, we might almost say! ) just at the threshold of
## p. 6855 (#235) ###########################################
HENRY HALLAM
6855
what was a most interesting part of England's modern Constitutional
history.
At this ending of a century, every student and historian specializes,
-takes up some one period and attempts to exhaust it. Those were
not the methods of Hallam's time. Some of the advantages of those
methods Hallam undoubtedly missed. This weakness shows occasion-
ally on points which seemed to be so obscure in Hallam's thought as
to render his expression blind and ambiguous. On the whole, how-
ever, such instances are infrequent. It is sufficient praise to say that
Hallam has done what he set out to do: to furnish for the intelligent
and seeking reader a just and accurate outline; to point out the land-
marks and beacons on the way that will guide him unfailingly in his
future search. In these respects Hallam's achievements are remark-
able and incomparable.
ENGLISH DOMESTIC COMFORT IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
From View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages'
I
T is an error to suppose that the English gentry were lodged in
stately or even in well-sized houses. Generally speaking, their
dwellings were almost as inferior to those of their descendants
in capacity as they were in convenience. The usual arrange-
ment consisted of an entrance passage running through the house,
with a hall on one side, a parlor beyond, and one or two cham-
bers above; and on the opposite side, a kitchen, pantry, and other
offices. Such was the ordinary manor-house of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Larger structures were erected by men of
great estates after the Wars of the Roses; but I should conceive
it difficult to name a house in England, still inhabited by a gen-
tleman and not belonging to the order of castles, the principal
apartments of which are older than the reign of Henry VII.
The instances at least must be extremely few.
France by no means appears to have made a greater progress
than our own country in domestic architecture. Except fortified
castles, I do not find any considerable dwellings mentioned before
the reign of Charles VII. , and very few of so early a date. Even
in Italy, where from the size of her cities and social refinements
of her inhabitants, greater elegance and splendor in building were
justly to be expected, the domestic architecture of the Middle
Ages did not attain any perfection. In several towns the houses
## p. 6856 (#236) ###########################################
6856
HENRY HALLAM
were covered with thatch, and suffered consequently from de-
structive fires.
The two most essential improvements in architecture during
this period, one of which had been missed by the sagacity of
Greece and Rome, were chimneys and glass windows. Nothing
apparently can be more simple than the former: yet the wisdom
of ancient times had been content to let the smoke escape by
an aperture in the centre of the roof; and a discovery of which
Vitruvius had not a glimpse was made, perhaps in this country,
by some forgotten semi-barbarian. About the middle of the four-
teenth century the use of chimneys is distinctly mentioned in
England and in Italy; but they are found in several of our cas-
tles which bear a much older date. This country seems to have
lost very early the art of making glass, which was preserved in
France, whence artificers were brought into England to furnish
the windows in some new churches in the seventh century. . .
But if the domestic buildings of the fifteenth century would
not seem very spacious or convenient at present, far less would
this luxurious generation be content with their internal accommo-
dations. A gentleman's house containing three or four beds was
extraordinarily well provided; few, probably, had more than two.
The walls were commonly bare, without wainscot or even plaster;
except that some great houses were furnished with hangings, and
that perhaps hardly so soon as the reign of Edward IV. It is
unnecessary to add that neither libraries of books nor pictures
could have found a place among furniture. Silver plate was very
rare, and hardly used for the table. A few inventories of furni-
ture that still remain exhibit a miserable deficiency.
was incomparably greater in private gentlemen's houses than
among citizens, and especially foreign merchants. We have an
inventory of the goods belonging to Contarini, a rich Venetian
trader, at his house in St. Botolph's Lane, A. D. 1481. There
appear to have been no less than ten beds, and glass windows
are especially noticed as movable furniture. No mention, how-
ever, is made of chairs or looking-glasses. If we compare this
account, however trifling in our estimation, with a similar inven-
tory of furniture in Skipton Castle, the great honor of the earls
of Cumberland, and among the most splendid mansions of the
North, not at the same period - for I have not found any inven-
tory of a nobleman's furniture so ancient - but in 1572, after
almost a century of continual improvement, we shall be astonished
――
## p. 6857 (#237) ###########################################
HENRY HALLAM
6857
at the inferior provision of the baronial residence. There were
not more than seven or eight beds in this great castle; nor had
any of the chambers either chairs, glasses, or carpets. It is in
this sense probably that we must understand Eneas Sylvius,-
if he meant anything more than to express a traveler's discon-
tent, when he declares that the kings of Scotland would rejoice
to be as well lodged as the second class of citizens at Nuremberg.
—
THE MIDDLE AGES AS A PERIOD OF INTELLECTUAL
DARKNESS
From View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages
I'
F WE would listen to some literary historians, we should believe
that the darkest ages contained many individuals not only
distinguished among their contemporaries, but positively emi-
nent for abilities and knowledge. A proneness to extol every
monk of whose production a few letters or a devotional treatise
survives, every bishop of whom it is related that he composed
homilies, runs through the laborious work of The Benedictines
of St. Maur,' 'The Literary History of France,' and in a less
degree is observable even in Tiraboschi and in most books of
this class. Bede, Alcuin, Hincmar, Raban, and a number of
inferior names, become real giants of learning in their uncritical
panegyrics. But one might justly say that ignorance is the
smallest def of the writers of these dark ages. Several of
them were tolerably acquainted with books; but that wherein they
are uniformly deficient is original argument or expression. Almost
every one is a compiler of scraps from the Fathers, or from such
semi-classical authors as Boëtius, Cassiodorus, or Martianus Capella.
Indeed, I am not aware that there appeared more than two
really considerable men in the republic of letters from the sixth.
to the middle of the eleventh century-John, surnamed Scotus
or Erigena, a native of Ireland; and Gerbert, who became pope
by the name of Sylvester II. : the first endowed with a bold and
acute metaphysical genius; the second excellent, for the time.
when he lived, in mathematical science and mechanical inventions.
If it be demanded by what cause it happened that a few
sparks of ancient learning survived throughout this long win-
ter, we can only ascribe their preservation to the establishment
of Christianity. Religion alone made a bridge, as it were, across
## p. 6858 (#238) ###########################################
6858
HENRY HALLAM
the chaos, and has linked the two periods of ancient and mod-
ern civilization. Without this connecting principle, Europe might
indeed have awakened to intellectual pursuits; and the genius of
recent times needed not to be invigorated by the imitation of
antiquity. But the memory of Greece and Rome would have
been feebly preserved by tradition, and the monuments of those
nations might have excited, on the return of civilization, that
vague sentiment of speculation and wonder with which men now
contemplate Persepolis or the Pyramids. It is not, however, from
religion simply that we have derived this advantage, but from
religion as it was modified in the Dark Ages. Such is the com-
plex reciprocation of good and evil in the dispensations of Provi-
dence that we may assert, with only an apparent paradox, that
had religion been more pure it would have been less permanent;
and that Christianity has been preserved by means of its cor-
ruptions. The sole hope for literature depended on the Latin
language; and I do not see why that should not have been lost,
if three circumstances in the prevailing religious system, all of
which we are justly accustomed to disapprove, had not conspired
to maintain it, the papal supremacy, the monastic institutions,
and the use of a Latin liturgy. 1. A continual intercourse was
kept up, in consequence of the first, between Rome and the
several nations of Europe; her laws were received by the bishops,
her legates presided in councils: so that a common language was
as necessary in the Church as it is at present in the diplomatic
relations of kingdoms. 2. Throughout the whole course of the
Middle Ages there was no learning, and very little regularity of
manners, among the parochial clergy. Almost every distinguished
man was either the member of a chapter or a convent. The
monasteries were subjected to strict rules of discipline, and held
out more opportunities for study than the secular clergy possessed,
and fewer for worldly dissipations. But their most important
service was as secure repositories for books. All our manu-
scripts have been preserved in this manner, and could hardly have
descended to us by any other channel; at least, there were inter-
vals when I do not conceive that any royal or private libraries
existed.
In the shadows of this universal ignorance a thousand super-
stitions, like foul animals of night, were propagated and nour-
ished. It would be very unsatisfactory to exhibit a few specimens
of this odious brood, when the real character of those times is
.
-
## p. 6859 (#239) ###########################################
HENRY HALLAM
6859
only to be judged by their accumulated multitude. There are
many books, from which a sufficient number of instances may
be collected to show the absurdity and ignorance of the Middle
Ages in this respect. I shall only mention two, as affording
more general evidence than any local or obscure superstition.
In the tenth century an opinion prevailed everywhere that the
end of the world was approaching. Many charters begin with
these words: "As the world is now drawing to its close. " An
army marching under the Emperor Otho I. was so terrified by
an eclipse of the sun, which it conceived to announce this con-
summation, as to disperse hastily on all sides. As this notion.
