No More Learning

- Give it me:
Give me that steel.
Cly. - Ægisthus! . . . Stop! . . Wilt thou
Murder my son ? Thou first shalt murder me.
SCENE VII
ELECTRA
Elec. -0 night! . . O father! . . Ah, it was your deed,
Ye gods, this thought of mine to place Orestes
In safety first. — Thou wilt not find him, traitor. -
Ah live, Orestes, live: and I will keep
This impious steel for thy adult right hand.
The day, I hope, will come, when I in Argos
Shall see thee the avenger of thy father.
Translation of Edgar Alfred Bowring, Bohn's Library.
-


## p. 383 (#417) ############################################

383
ALFONSO THE WISE
(1221-1284)
(
was a
K
ING ALFONSO,” records the Jesuit historian, Mariana,
man of great sense, but more fit to be a scholar than a
king; for whilst he studied the heavens and the stars, he
lost the earth and his kingdom. Certainly it is for his services to
letters, and not for political or military successes, that the meditative
son of the valorous Ferdinand the Saint and the beautiful Beatrice
of Swabia will be remembered. The father conquered Seville, and
displaced the enterprising and infidel Moors with orthodox and indo-
lent Christians. The son could not keep what his sire had grasped.
Born in 1226, the fortunate young prince, at the age of twenty-five,
was proclaimed king of the newly conquered and united Castile and
Leon. He was very young: he was everywhere admired and honored
for skill in war, for learning, and for piety: he was everywhere loved
for his heritage of a great name and his kindly and gracious manners.
In the first year of his reign, however, he began debasing the
coinage,-a favorite device of needy monarchs in his day,-- and his
people never forgave the injury. He coveted, naturally enough, the
throne of the Empire, for which he was long a favorite candidate;
and for twenty years he wasted time, money, and purpose, heart and
hope, in pursuit of the vain bauble. His kingdom fell into confus-
ion, his eldest son died, his second son Sancho rebelled against him
and finally deposed him. Courageous and determined to the last,
defying the league of Church and State against him, he appealed to
the king of Morocco for men and money to reinstate his fortunes.
In Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature may be found his
touching letter to De Guzman at the Moorish court. He is, like
Lear, poor and discrowned, but not like him, weak. His prelates have
stirred up strife, his nobles have betrayed him. If Heaven wills, he
is ready to pay generously for help. If not, says the royal philoso-
pher, still, generosity and loyalty exalt the soul that cherishes them.
« Therefore, my cousin, Alonzo Perez de Guzman, so treat with your
master and my friend (the king of Morocco) that he may lend me, on my
richest crown and on the jewels in it, as much as shall seem good to him:
and if you should be able to obtain his help for me, do not deprive me of it,
which I think you will not do; rather I hold that all the good offices which
my master may do me, by your hand they will come, and may the hand of
God be with you.
«Given in my only loyal city of Seville, the thirtieth year of my reign
and the first of my misfortunes.
“The King. "


## p. 384 (#418) ############################################

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ALFONSO THE WISE
In his "only loyal city” the broken man remained, until the Pope
excommunicated Sancho, and till neighboring towns began to capit-
ulate. But he had been wounded past healing. There was no med-
icine for a mind diseased, no charm to raze out the written troubles
of the brain. He fell ill in Seville, so that he drew nigh unto
death.
And when the sickness had run its course, he said
before them all: that he pardoned the Infante Don Sancho, his heir,
all that out of malice he had done against him, and to his subjects
the wrong they had wrought towards him, ordering that letters con-
firming the same should be written — sealed with his golden seal, so
that all his subjects should be certain that he had put away his
quarrel with them, and desired that no blame whatever should rest
upon them.
And when he had said this, he received the body of
God with great devotion, and in a little while gave up his soul to
God. ”
This was in 1284, when he was fifty-eight years old.
At this age,
had a private lot been his, — that of a statesman, jurist, man of sci-
ence, annalist, philosopher, troubadour, mathematician, historian,
poet, — he would but have entered his golden prime, rich in promise,
fruitful in performance. Yet Alfonso, uniting in himself all these
vocations, seemed at his death to have left behind him a wide waste
of opportunities, a dreary dearth of accomplishment. Looking back,
however, it is seen that the balance swings even. While his kingdom
was slipping away, he was conquering a wider domain.
He was
creating Spanish Law, protecting the followers of learning, cherish-
ing the universities, restricting privilege, breaking up time-honored
abuses. He prohibited the use of Latin in public acts. He adopted
the native tongue in all his own works, and thus gave to Spanish an
honorable eminence, while French and German struggled long for a
learning from scholars, and English was to wait a hundred years for
the advent of Dan Chaucer.
Greatest achievement of all, he codified the common law of Spain
in 'Las Siete Partidas' (The Seven Parts). Still accepted as a legal
authority in the kingdom, the work is much more valuable as a com-
pendium of general knowledge than as an exposition of law. The
studious king with astonishing catholicity examined alike both Christ-
ian and Arabic traditions, customs, and codes, paying a scholarly
respect to the greatness of a hostile language and literature. This
meditative monarch recognized that public office is a public trust,
and wrote:
«Vicars of God are the kings, each one in his kingdom, placed over the
people to maintain them in justice and in truth. They have been called the
heart and soul of the people. For as the soul lies in the heart of men, and
by it the body lives and is maintained, so in the king lies justice, which is
the life and maintenance of the people of his lordship.


## p. 385 (#419) ############################################

ALFONSO THE WISE
385
«And let the king guard the thoughts of his heart in three manners:
firstly let him not desire nor greatly care to have superfluous and worthless
honors. Superfluous and worthless honors the king ought not to desire. For
that which is beyond necessity cannot last, and being lost. and come short
of, turns to dishonor. Moreover, the wise men have said that it is no less a
virtue for a man to keep that which he has than to gain that which he has
not; because keeping comes of judgment, but gain of good fortune. And the
king who keeps his honor in such a manner that every day and by all means
it is increased, lacking nothing, and does not lose that which he has for that
which he desires to have, – he is held for a man of right judgment, who
loves his own people, and desires to lead them to all good. And God will
keep him in this world from the dishonoring of men, and in the next from
the dishonor of the wicked in hell. ”
Besides the Siete Partidas,' the royal philosopher was the author,
or compiler, of a Book of Hunting'; a treatise on Chess; a sys-
tem of law, the Fuero Castellano' (Spanish Code), - an attempt to
check the monstrous irregularities of municipal privilege; 'La Gran
Conquista d'Ultramar (The Great Conquest Beyond the Sea), an
account of the wars of the Crusades, which is the earliest known
specimen of Castilian prose; and several smaller works, now col-
lected under the general title of Opuscules Legales(Minor Legal
Writings). It was long supposed that he wrote the "Tesoro (The-
saurus), a curious medley of ignorance and superstition, much of it
silly, and all of it curiously inconsistent with the acknowledged char-
acter of the enlightened King. Modern scholarship, however, dis-
cards this petty treatise from the list of his productions.
His "Tablas Alfonsinas) (Alfonsine Tables), to which Chaucer
refers in the Frankeleine's Tale, though curiously mystical, yet were
really scientific, and rank among the most famous of mediæval books.
Alfonso had the courage and the wisdom to recall to Toledo the
heirs and successors of the great Arabian philosophers and the
learned Rabbis, who had been banished by religious fanaticism, and
there to establish a permanent council --- a medieval Academy of
Sciences - which devoted itself to the study of the heavens and the
making of astronomical calculations. “This was the first time,” says
the Spanish historian, “that in barbarous times the Republic of
Letters was invited to contemplate a great school of learning, - men
occupied through many years in rectifying the old planetary observa-
tions, in disputing about the most abstruse details of this science, in
constructing new instruments, and observing, by means of them, the
courses of the stars, their declensions, their ascensions, eclipses, longi-
tudes, and latitudes. ” It was the vision of Roger Bacon fulfilled.
At his own expense, for years together, the King entertained in
his palace at Burgos, that their knowledge might enrich the nation,
not only certain free-thinking followers of Averroës and Avicebron,
1-25


## p. 386 (#420) ############################################

386
ALFONSO THE WISE
but infidel disciples of the Koran, and learned Rabbis who denied the
true faith. That creed must not interfere with deed, was an aston-
ishing mental attitude for the thirteenth century, and invited a gen-
eral suspicion of the King's orthodoxy. His religious sense was
really strong, however, and appears most impressively in the Can-
tigas à la Vergen Maria' (Songs to the Virgin), which were sung
over his grave by priests and acolytes for hundreds of years. They
are sometimes melancholy and sometimes joyous, always simple and
genuine, and, written in Galician, reflect the trustful piety and hap-
piness of his youth in remote hill provinces where the thought of
empire had not penetrated. It was his keen intelligence that ex-
pressed itself in the saying popularly attributed to him, “Had I been
present at the creation, I might have offered some useful sugges-
tions. It was his reverent spirit that made mention in his will of
the sacred songs as the testimony to his faith. So lived and died
Alfonso the Tenth, the father of Spanish literature, and the reviver
of Spanish learning.
«WHAT MEANETH A TYRANT, AND HOW HE USETH HIS POWER
IN A KINGDOM WHEN HE HATH OBTAINED IT »
"A
TYRANT,” says this law, doth signify a cruel lord, who,
by force or by craft, or by treachery, hath obtained
power over any realm or country; and such men be of
such nature, that when once they have grown strong in the
land, they love rather to work their own profit, though it be in
harm of the land, than the common profit of all, for they always
live in an ill fear of losing it. And that they may be able to
fulfill this their purpose unincumbered, the wise of old have said
that they use their power against the people in three manners.
The first is, that they strive that those under their mastery be
ever ignorant and timorous, because, when they be such, they
may not be bold to rise against them, nor to resist their wills;
and the second is, that they be not kindly and united among
themselves, in such wise that they trust not one another, for
while they live in disagreement, they shall not dare to make any
discourse against their lord, for fear faith and secrecy should not
be kept among themselves; and the third way is, that they strive
to make them poor, and to put them upon great undertakings,
which they never can finish, whereby they may have so much
harm that it may never come into their hearts to devise any-
thing against their ruler. And above all this, have tyrants ever


## p. 387 (#421) ############################################

ALFONSO THE WISE
387
striven to make spoil of the strong and to destroy the wise; and
have forbidden fellowship and assemblies of men in their land,
and striven always to know what men said or did; and do trust
their counsel and the guard of their person rather to foreigners,
who will serve at their will, than to them of the land, who
serve from oppression. And moreover, we say that though any
man may have gained mastery of a kingdom by any of the law-
ful means whereof we have spoken in the laws going before this,
yet, if he use his power ill, in the ways whereof we speak in
this law, him may the people still call tyrant; for he turneth his
mastery which was rightful into wrongful, as Aristotle hath said
in the book which treateth of the rule and government of king-
doms. »
From Las Siete Partidas, quoted in Ticknor's (Spanish Literature. )
ON THE TURKS, AND WHY THEY ARE SO CALLED
TH
HE ancient histories which describe the early inhabitants of
the East and their various languages show the origin of
each tribe or nation, or whence they came, and for what
reason they waged war, and how they were enabled to conquer
the former lords of the land. Now in these histories it is told
that the Turks, and also the allied race called Turcomans, were
all of one land originally, and that these names were taken from
two rivers which flow through the territory whence these people
came, which lies in the direction of the rising of the sun, a lit-
tle toward the north; and that one of these rivers bore the name
of Turco, and the other Mani: and finally that for this reason
the two tribes which dwelt on the banks of these two rivers came
to be commonly known as Turcomanos or Turcomans, On the
other hand, there are those who assert that because a portion of
the Turks lived among the Comanos (Comans) they accordingly,
in course of time, received the name of Turcomanos; but the
majority adhere to the reason already given. However this may
be, the Turks and the Turcomans belong both to the same fam-
ily, and follow no other life than that of wandering over the
country, driving their herds from one good pasture to another,
and taking with them their wives and their children and all
their property, including money as well as flocks.
The Turks did not dwell then in houses, but in tents made of
skins, as do in these days the Comanos and Tartars; and when


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388
ALFONSO THE WISE
they had to move from one place to another, they divided them.
selves into companies according to their different dialects, and
chose a cabdillo (judge), who settled their disputes, and rendered
justice to those who deserved it. And this nomadic race culti-
vated no fields, nor vineyards, nor orchards, nor arable lands of
any kind; neither did they buy or sell for money: but traded
their flocks among one another, and also their milk and cheese,
and pitched their tents in the places where they found the best
pasturage; and when the grass was exhausted, they sought fresh
herbage elsewhere. And whenever they reached the border of a
strange land, they sent before them special envoys, the most
worthy and honorable of their men, to the kings or lords of
such countries, to ask of them the privilege of pasturage on their
lands for a space; for which they were willing to pay such rent
or tax as might be agreed upon. After this manner they lived
among each nation in whose territory they happened to be.
From (La Gran Conquista de Ultramar, Chapter xiii.
TO THE MONTH OF MARY
From the "Cantigas)
W
ELCOME, O May, yet once again we greet thee!
So alway praise we her, the Holy Mother,
Who prays to God that he shall aid us ever
Against our foes, and to us ever listen.
Welcome, O May! loyally art thou welcome!
So alway praise we her, the Mother of kindness,
Mother who alway on us taketh pity,
Mother who guardeth us from woes unnumbered.
Welcome, O May! welcome, O month well favored!
So let us ever pray and offer praises
To her who ceases not for us, for sinners,
To pray to God that we from woes be guarded.
Welcome, O May! O joyous month and stainless!
So will we ever pray to her who gaineth
Grace from her Son for us, and gives each morning
Force that by us the Moors from Spain are driven.
Welcome, O May, of bread and wine the giver!
Pray then to her, for in her arms, an infant
She bore the Lord! she points us on our journey,
The journey that to her will bear us quickly!


## p. 389 (#423) ############################################

389
ALFRED THE GREAT
(849-901)
N THE Ashmolean Museum at Oxford may be seen an antique
jewel, consisting of an enameled figure in red, blue, and
green, enshrined in a golden frame, and bearing the legend
"Ælfred mec heht gewyrcean” (Alfred ordered me made). This
was discovered in 1693 in Newton Park, near Athelney, and through
it one is enabled to touch the far-away life of a thousand years ago.
But greater and more imperishable than this archaic gem is the gift
that the noble King left to the English nation—a gift that affects
the entire race of English-speaking people. For it was Alfred who
laid the foundations for a national literature.
Alfred, the younger son of Ethelwulf, king of the West Saxons,
and Osberga, daughter of his cup-bearer, was born in the palace at
Wantage in the year 849. He grew up at his father's court, a migra-
tory one, that moved from Kent to Devonshire and from Wales to
the Isle of Wight whenever events, raids, or the Witan (Parliament)
demanded. At an early age Alfred was sent to pay homage to the
Pope in Rome, taking such gifts as rich vessels of gold and silver,
silks, and hangings, which show that Saxons lacked nothing in
treasure. In 855 Ethelwulf visited Rome with his young son, bearing
more costly presents, as well as munificent sums for the shrine of
St. Peter's; and returning by way of France, they stopped at the
court of Charles the Bold. Once again in his home, young Alfred
applied himself to his education. He became a marvel of courage at
the chase, proficient in the use of arms, excelled in athletic sports,
was zealous in his religious duties, and athirst for knowledge. His
accomplishments were many; and when the guests assembled in the
great hall to make the walls ring with their laughter over cups of
mead and ale, he could take his turn with the harpers and minstrels
to improvise one of those sturdy bold ballads that stir the blood
to-day with their stately rhythms and noble themes.
Ethelwulf died in 858, and eight years later only two sons, Ethel-
red and Alfred, were left to cope with the Danish invaders. They
won victory after victory, upon which the old chroniclers love to
dwell, pausing to describe wild frays among the chalk-hills and
dense forests, which afforded convenient places to hide men and to
bury spoils.
Ethelred died in 871, and the throne descended to Alfred. His
kingdom was in a terrible condition, for Wessex, Kent, Mercia, Sus-
sex, and Surrey lay at the mercy of the marauding enemy. «The


## p. 390 (#424) ############################################

390
ALFRED THE GREAT
land,” says an old writer, “was as the Garden of Eden before them,
and behind them a desolate wilderness. ” London was in ruins; the
Danish standard, with its black Raven, fluttered everywhere; and the
forests were filled with outposts and spies of the “pagan army. ”
There was nothing for the King to do but gather his men and dash
into the fray to “let the hard steel ring upon the high helmet. ”
Time after time the Danes are overthrown, but, like the heads of the
fabled Hydra, they grow and flourish after each attack. They have
one advantage: they know how to command the sea, and numerous
as the waves that their vessels ride so proudly and well, the invaders
arrive and quickly land to plunder and slay.
Alfred, although but twenty-five, sees the need for a navy, and in
875 gathers a small fleet to meet the ships of the enemy, wins one
prize, and puts the rest to flight. The chroniclers now relate that he
fell into disaster and became a fugitive in Selwood Forest, while
Guthrum and his host were left free to ravage. From this period
date the legends of the King's visit in disguise to the hut of the
neat-herd, and his burning the bread he was set to watch: his pene-
trating into the camp of the Danes and entertaining Guthrum by his
minstrelsy while discovering his plans and force; the vision of St.
Cuthbert; and the fable of his calling five hundred men by the
winding of his horn.
Not long after he was enabled to emerge from the trials of exile
in Athelney; and according to Asser, “In the seventh week after
Easter, he rode to Egbert's Stone in the eastern part of Selwood or
the Great Wood, called in the old British language Coit-mawr.
Here he was met by all the neighboring folk of Somersetshire, Wilt-
shire, and Hampshire, who had not for fear of the Pagans fed
beyond the sea; and when they saw the king alive after such great
tribulation, they received him, as he deserved, with joy and ac-
clamations and all encamped there for the night. ” Soon afterward
he made a treaty with the Danes, and became king of the whole of
England south of the Thames.
It was now Alfred's work to reorganize his kingdom, to strengthen
the coast defenses, to rebuild London, to arrange for a standing
army, and to make wise laws for the preservation of order and
peace; and when all this was accomplished, he turned his attention
to the establishment of monasteries and colleges. "In the mean-
time,” says old Asser, “the King, during the frequent wars and
other trammels of this present life, the invasions of the Pagans, and
his own daily infirmities of body, continued to carry on the govern-
ment, and to exercise hunting in all its branches; to teach his
workers in gold and artificers of all kinds, his falconers, hawkers,
and dog-keepers, to build houses majestic and good, beyond all the


## p. 391 (#425) ############################################

ALFRED THE GREAT
391
precedents of his ancestors, by his new mechanical inventions, to
recite the Saxon books, and more especially to learn by heart the
Saxon poems, and to make others learn them also; for he alone
never desisted from studying, most diligently, to the best of his
ability; he attended the mass and other daily services of religion :
he was frequent in psalm-singing and prayer, at the proper hours,
both of the night and of the day. He also went to the churches, as
we have already said, in the night-time, to pray, secretly and un-
known to his courtiers; he bestowed alms and largesses both on his
own people and on foreigners of all countries; he was affable and
pleasant to all, and curious to investigate things unknown. ”
As regards Alfred's personal contribution to literature, it may be
said that over and above all disputed matters and certain lost works,
they represent a most valuable and voluminous assortment due
directly to his own royal and scholarly pen. History, secular and
churchly, laws and didactic literature, were his field; and though it
would seem that his actual period of composition did not much exceed
ten years, yet he accomplished a vast deal for any man, especially any
busy sovereign and soldier.
An ancient writer, Ethelwerd, says that he translated many books
from Latin into Saxon, and William of Malmesbury goes so far as to
say that he translated into Anglo-Saxon almost all the literature of
Rome. Undoubtedly the general condition of education was deplor-
able, and Alfred felt this deeply. “Formerly,” he writes, «men
came hither from foreign lands to seek instruction, and now when
we desire it, we can only obtain it from abroad. ” Like Charlemagne
he drew to his court famous scholars, and set many of them to work
writing chronicles and translating important Latin books into Anglo-
Saxon. Among these was the Pastoral Care of Pope Gregory,' to
which he wrote the Preface; but with his own hand he translated
the Consolations of Philosophy,' by Boethius, two manuscripts of
which still exist. In this he frequently stops to introduce observations
and comments of his own. Of greater value was his translation of
the History of the World,' by Orosius, which he abridged, and to
which he added new chapters giving the record of coasting voyages
in the north of Europe. This is preserved in the Cotton MSS. in the
British Museum. His fourth translation was the 'Ecclesiastical His-
tory of the English Nation,' by Bede. To this last may be added
the Blossom Gatherings from St. Augustine,' and many minor com-
positions in prose and verse, translations from the Latin fables and
poems, and his own note-book, in which he jots, with what may be
termed a journalistic instinct, scenes that he had witnessed, such as
Aldhelm standing on the bridge instructing the people on Sunday
afternoons; bits of philosophy; and such reflections as the following,


## p. 392 (#426) ############################################

392
ALFRED THE GREAT
which remind one of Marcus Aurelius:—“Desirest thou' power ? But
thou shalt never obtain it without sorrows— sorrows from strange
folk, and yet keener sorrows from thine own kindred;” and “Hard-
ship and sorrow! Not a king but would wish to be without these if
he could. But I know that he cannot. ' Alfred's value to literature
is this: he placed by the side of Anglo-Saxon poetry, - consisting of
two great poems, Cædmon's great song of the Creation and Cyne-
wulf's Nativity and Life of Christ, and the unwritten ballads passed
from lip to lip, — four immense translations from Latin into Anglo-
Saxon prose, which raised English from a mere spoken dialect to a
true language. From his reign date also the famous Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle and the Anglo-Saxon Gospels; and a few scholars are
tempted to class the magnificent Beowulf' among the works of this
period. At any rate, the great literary movement that he inaugurated
lasted until the Norman Conquest.
In 893 the Danes once more disturbed King Alfred, but he foiled
them at all points, and they left in 897 to harry England no more
for several generations. In 901 he died, having reigned for thirty
years in the honor and affection of his subjects. Freeman in his
(Norman Conquest' says that “no other man on record has ever so
thoroughly united all the virtues both of the ruler and of the private
Bishop Asser, his contemporary, has left a half-mythical
eulogy, and William of Malmesbury, Roger of Wendover, Matthew
of Westminster, and John Brompton talk of him fully and freely.
Sir John Spellman published a quaint biography in Oxford in 1678,
followed by Powell's in 1634, and Bicknell's in 1777. The modern
lives are by Giles, Pauli, and Hughes.
man. ”
KING ALFRED ON KING-CRAFT
T"
Comment in his Translation of Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy)
HE Mind then answered and thus said: O Reason, indeed
thou knowest that covetousness and the greatness of this
earthly power never well pleased me, nor did I altogether
very much yearn after this earthly authority. But nevertheless I
was desirous of materials for the work which I was commanded
to perform; that was, that I might honorably and fitly guide and
exercise the power which was committed to me. Moreover, thou
knowest that no man can show any skill nor exercise or control
any power, without tools and materials.
There are of every
craft the materials without which man cannot exercise the craft.
These, then, are a king's materials and his tools to reign with:


## p. 393 (#427) ############################################

ALFRED THE GREAT
393
that he have his land well peopled; he must have prayer-men,
and soldiers, and workmen. Thou knowest that without these
tools no king can show his craft. This is also his materials
which he must have besides the tools: provisions for the three
classes. This is, then, their provision: land to inhabit, and gifts
and weapons, and meat, and ale, and clothes, and whatsoever is
necessary for the three classes. He cannot without these pre-
serve the tools, nor without the tools accomplish any of those
things which he is commanded to perform. Therefore, I was
desirous of materials wherewith to exercise the power, that my
talents and power should not be forgotten and concealed. For
every craft and every power soon becomes old, and is passed
over in silence, if it be without wisdom: for no man can accom-
plish any craft without wisdom. Because whatsoever is done
through folly, no one can ever reckon for craft. This is now
especially to be said: that I wished to live honorably whilst I
lived, and after my life, to leave to the men who were after me,
my memory in good works.
ALFRED'S PREFACE TO THE VERSION OF POPE GREGORY'S
(PASTORAL CARE)
K
ING ALFRED bids greet Bishop Wærferth with his words lov-
ingly and with friendship; and I let it be known to thee
that it has very often come into my mind, what wise men
there formerly were throughout England, both of sacred and sec-
ular orders; and what happy times there were then throughout
England; and how the kings who had power of the nation in
those days obeyed God and his ministers; and they preserved
peace, morality, and order at home, and at the same time en-
larged their territory abroad; and how they prospered both with
war and with wisdom; and also the sacred orders, how zealous
they were, both in teaching and learning, and in all the services
they owed to God; and how foreigners came to this land in
search of wisdom and instruction, and how we should now have
to get them from abroad if we would have them. So general
was its decay in England that there were very few on this side
of the Humber who could understand their rituals in English,
or translate a letter from Latin into English; and I believe
there were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few
that I cannot remember a single one south of the Thames when


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394
ALFRED THE GREAT
I came to the throne. Thanks be to God Almighty that we
have any teachers among us now.
And therefore I command
thee to do as I believe thou art willing, to disengage thyself
from worldly matters as often as thou canst, that thou mayst
apply the wisdom which God has given thee wherever thou
canst. Consider what punishments would come upon us on
account of this world if we neither loved it (wisdom) ourselves
nor suffered other men to obtain it: we should love the name
only of Christian, and very few of the virtues.
When I considered all this I remembered also how I saw,
before it had been all ravaged and burnt, how the churches
throughout the whole of England stood filled with treasures and
books, and there was also a great multitude of God's servants;
but they had very little knowledge of the books, for they could
not understand anything of them, because they were not written
in their own language.
As if they had said, “Our forefathers,
who formerly held these places, loved wisdom, and through it
they obtained wealth and bequeathed it to us.
In this we can
still see their tracks, but we cannot follow them, and therefore
we have lost both the wealth and the wisdom, because we would
not incline our hearts after their example. ”
When I remembered all this, I wondered extremely that the
good and wise men, who were formerly all over England, and
had perfectly learnt all the books, did not wish to translate
them into their own language. But again, I soon answered
myself and said, “They did not think that men would ever be
so careless, and that learning would so decay; therefore they
abstained from translating, and they trusted that the wisdom in
this land might increase with our knowledge of languages. ”
Then I remember how the law was first known in Hebrew,
and again, when the Greeks had learnt it, they translated the
whole of it into their own language, and all other books besides,
And again, the Romans, when they had learnt it, they translated
the whole of it through learned interpreters into their own
language. And also all other Christian nations translated a part
of them into their own language. Therefore it seems better to
me, if ye think so, for us also to translate some books which are
most needful for all men to know, into the language which we
can all understand, and for you to do as we very easily can if we
have tranquillity enough; that is, that all the youth now in
England of free men, who are rich enough to be able to devote


## p. 395 (#429) ############################################

ALFRED THE GREAT
395
>
(
themselves to it, be set to learn as long as they are not fit for
any other occupation, until that they are well able to read English
writing: and let those be afterward taught more in the Latin
language who are to continue learning and be promoted to a
higher rank. When I remember how the knowledge of Latin had
formerly decayed throughout England, and yet many could read
English writing, I began among other various and manifold
troubles of this kingdom, to translate into English the book which
is called in Latin Pastoralis, and in English Shepherd's Book,
sometimes word by word and sometimes according to the sense,
as I had learnt it from Plegmund, my archbishop, and Asser, my
bishop, and Grimbold, my mass-priest, and John, my mass-priest.
And when I had learnt as I could best understand it, and as I
could most clearly interpret it, I translated it into English; and
I will send a copy to every bishopric in my kingdom; and on
each there is a clasp worth fifty mancus. And I command, in
God's name, that no man take the clasp from the book or the
book from the minister: it is uncertain how long there may be
such learned bishops as now, thanks be to God, there are nearly
everywhere; therefore, I wish them always to remain in their
place, unless the bishop wish to take them with him, or they be
lent out anywhere, or any one make a copy from them.
BLOSSOM GATHERINGS FROM ST. AUGUSTINE
IN
N every tree I saw something there which I needed at home,
therefore I advise every one
who is able and has many
wains, that he trade to the same wood where I cut the stud
shafts, and there fetch more for himself and load his wain with
fair rods, that he may wind many a neat wall and set many a
comely house and build many a fair town of them; and thereby
may dwell merrily and softly, so as I now yet have not done.
But He who taught me, to whom the wood was agreeable, He may
make me to dwell more softly in this temporary cottage, the while
that I am in this world, and also in the everlasting home which
He has promised us through St. Augustine, and St. Gregory, and
St. Jerome, and through other holy fathers; as I believe also
that for the merits of all these He will make the way more con-
venient than it was before, and especially the carrying and the
building: but every man wishes after he has built a cottage on
his lord's lease by his help, that he may sometimes rest him


## p. 396 (#430) ############################################

396
ALFRED THE GREAT
therein and hunt, and fowl, and fish, and use it every way under
the lease both on water and on land, until the time that he earn
book-land and everlasting heritage through his lord's mercy. So
do enlighten the eyes of my mind so that I may search out the
right way to the everlasting home and the everlasting glory, and
the everlasting rest which is promised us through those holy
fathers. May it be so!
It is no wonder though men swink in timber working, and in
the wealthy Giver who wields both these temporary cottages and
eternal homes. May He who shaped both and wields both, grant
me that I may be meet for each, both here to be profitable and
thither to come.
WHERE TO FIND TRUE JOY
From Boethius)
O"
h! it is a fault of weight,
Let him think it out who will,
And a danger passing great
Which can thus allure to ill
Careworn men from the rightway,
Swiftly ever led astray.
Will ye seek within the wood
Red gold on the green trees tall ?
None, I wot, is wise that could,
For it grows not there at all:
Neither in wine-gardens green
Seek they gems of glittering sheen.
Would ye on some hill-top set,
When ye list to catch a trout,
Or a carp, your fishing-net ?
Men, methinks, have long found out
That it would be foolish fare,
For they know they are not there. .
In the salt sea can ye find,
When ye list to start an hunt,
With your hounds, the hart or hind ?
It will sooner be your wont
In the woods to look, I wot,
Than in seas where they are not.


## p. 397 (#431) ############################################

ALFRED THE GREAT
397
Is it wonderful to know
That for crystals red or white
One must to the sea-beach go,
Or for other colors bright,
Seeking by the river's side
Or the shore at ebb of tide ?
Likewise, men are well aware
Where to look for river-fish;
And all other worldly ware
Where to seek them when they wish;
Wisely careful men will know
Year by year to find them so.
But of all things 'tis most sad
That they foolish are so blind,
So besotted and so mad,
That they cannot surely find
Where the ever-good is nigh
And true pleasures hidden lie.
Therefore, never is their strife
After those true joys to spur;
In this lean and little life
They, half-witted, deeply err
Seeking here their bliss to gain,
That is God Himself in vain.
Ah! I know not in my thought
How enough to blame their sin,
None so clearly as I ought
Can I show their fault within ;
For, more bad and vain are they
And more sad than I can say.
All their hope is to acquire
Worship goods and worldly weal;
When they have their mind's desire,
Then such witless Joy they feel,
That in folly they believe
Those True Joys they then receive.
Works of Alfred the Great, Jubilee Edition (Oxford and Cambridge, 1852).


## p. 398 (#432) ############################################

398
ALFRED THE GREAT
A SORROWFUL FYTTE
From Boethius )
L
o! I sung cheerily
In my bright days,
But now all wearily
Chaunt I my lays;
Sorrowing tearfully,
Saddest of men,
Can I sing cheerfully,
As I could then ?
Many a verity
In those glad times
Of my prosperity
Taught I in rhymes;
Now from forgetfulness
Wanders my tongue,
Wasting in fretfulness,
Metres unsung:
Worldliness brought me here
Foolishly blind,
Riches have wrought me here
Sadness of mind;
When I rely on them,
Lo! they depart, -
Bitterly, fie on them!
Rend they my heart.
Why did your songs to me,
World-loving men,
Say joy belongs to me
Ever as then ?
Why did ye lyingly
Think such a thing,
Seeing how flyingly
Wealth may take wing ?
Works of Alfred the Great, Jubilee Edition (Oxford and Cambridge, 1852).


## p. 399 (#433) ############################################

399
CHARLES GRANT ALLEN
(1848-)
HE Irish-Canadian naturalist, Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen,
who turns his industrious hand with equal facility to scien-
tific writing, to essays, short stories, botanical treatises,
biography, and novels, is known to literature as Grant Allen, as
"Arbuthnot Wilson, and as “Cecil Power. ”
His work may be divided into two classes: fiction and popular
essays. The first shows the author to be familiar with varied scenes
and types, and exhibits much feeling for dramatic situations. His
list of novels is long, and includes among others, 'Strange Stories,'
Babylon,' 'This Mortal Coil, (The Tents of Shem,' (The Great
Taboo,'' (Recalled to Life,' (The Woman Who Did,' and 'The British
Barbarians. ' In many of these books he has woven his plots around
a psychological theme; a proof that science interests him more than
invention. His essays are written for unscientific readers, and care-
fully avoid all technicalities and tedious discussions. Most persons,
he says, “would much rather learn why birds have feathers than
why they have a keeled sternum, and they think the origin of bright
flowers far more attractive than the origin of monocotyledonous
seeds or esogenous stems. ”
Grant Allen was born in Kingston, Canada, February 24th, 1848.
After graduation at Merton College, Oxford, he occupied for four
years the chair of logic and philosophy at Queen's College, Spanish
Town, Jamaica, which he resigned to settle in England, where he
now resides. Early in his career he became an enthusiastic follower
of Darwin and Herbert Spencer, and published the attractive books
entitled “Science in Arcady,' Vignettes from Nature,' «The Evolu-
tionist at Large,' and (Colin Clout's Calendar. ' In his preface to
Vignettes from Nature,' he says that the essays are written from
an easy-going, half-scientific half-æsthetic standpoint. ” In this spirit
he rambles in the woods, in the meadows, at the seaside, or upon
the heather-carpeted moor, finding in such expeditions material and
suggestions for his lightly moving essays, which expound the prob-
lems of Nature according to the theories of his acknowledged mas-
ters. A fallow deer grazing in a forest, a wayside berry, a guelder
rose, a sportive butterfly, a bed of nettles, a falling leaf, a mountain
tarn, the hole of a hedgehog, a darting humming-bird, a ripening
plum, a clover-blossom, a spray of sweet-briar, a handful of wild
thyme, or a blaze of scarlet geranium before a cottage door, furnish
him with a text for the discussion of those biological and cosmical


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400
CHARLES GRANT ALLEN
C
doctrines which have revolutionized the thought of the nineteenth
century,” as he says in substance.
Somewhat more scientificare Psychological Asthetics,' 'The
Color Sense,' 'The Color of Flowers,' and Flowers and their Pedi-
grees); and still deeper is ‘Force and Energy' (1888), a theory of
dynamics in which he expresses original views. In Psychological
Æsthetics (1877), he first seeks to explain such simple pleasures in
bright color, sweet sound, or rude pictorial imitation as delight the
child and the savage, proceeding from these elementary principles
to the more and more complex gratifications of natural scenery,
painting, and poetry. ” In The Color Sense he defines all that we
do not owe to the color sense, for example the rainbow, the sunset,
the sky, the green or purple sea, the rocks, the foliage of trees and
shrubs, hues of autumn, effects of iridescent light, or tints of min-
erals and precious stones; and all that we do owe, namely, “the
beautiful flowers of the meadow and the garden-roses, lilies, cow-
slips, and daisies; the exquisite pink of the apple, the peach, the
mango, and the cherrywith all the diverse artistic wealth of
oranges, strawberries, plums, melons, brambleberries, and pomegran-
ates; the yellow, blue, and melting green of tropical butterflies; the
magnificent plumage of the toucan, the macaw, the cardinal-bird,
the lory, and the honey-sucker; the red breast of our homely robin;
the silver or ruddy fur of the ermine, the wolverene, the fox, the
squirrel, and the chinchilla; the rosy cheeks and pink lips of the
English maiden; the whole catalogue of dyes, paints, and pigments;
and last of all, the colors of art in every age and nation, from the
red cloth of the South Seas, the lively frescoes of the Egyptian and
the subdued tones of Hellenic painters, to the stained windows of
Poictiers and the Madonna of the Sistine Chapel. ” Besides these
books, Mr. Allen has written for the series called English Worthies’
a sympathetic Life of Charles Darwin (1885).
THE COLORATION OF FLOWERS
From "The Colors of Flowers)
T"
He different hues assumed by petals are all thus, as it were,
laid up beforehand in the tissues of the plant, ready to be
brought out at a moment's notice. And all flowers, as we
know, easily sport a little in color. But the question is, Do their
changes tend to follow any regular and definite order? Is there
any reason to believe that the modification runs from any one
color toward any other? Apparently there is. The general con-
clusion to be set forth in this work is the statement of such a


## p. 401 (#435) ############################################

CHARLES GRANT ALLEN
401
race.
tendency. All flowers, it would seem, were in their earliest form
yellow; then some of them became white; after that, a few of
them grew to be red or purple; and finally, a comparatively
small number acquired various shades of lilac, mauve, violet, or
blue. So that if this principle be true, such a flower as the hare-
bell will represent one of the most highly developed lines of
descent; and its ancestors will have passed successively through
all the intermediate stages. Let us see what grounds can be
given for such a belief.
Some hints of a progressive law in the direction of a color-
change from yellow to blue are sometimes afforded to us even by
the successive stages of a single flower. For example, one of our
common little English forget-me-nots, Myosotis versicolor, is pale
yellow when it first opens; but as it grows older, it becomes
faintly pinkish, and ends by being blue, like the others of its
Now, this sort of color-change is by no means uncommon;
and in almost all knowrr cases it is always in the same direction,
from yellow or white, through pink, orange, or red, to purple or
blue. For example, one of the wall-flowers, Cheiranthus chama-
leo, has at first a whitish flower, then a citron-yellow, and finally
emerges into red or violet. The petals of Stytidium fructicosum
are pale yellow to begin with, and afterward become light rose-
colored. An evening primrose, Enothera tetraptera, has white
flowers in its first stage, and red ones at a later period of devel-
opment. Cobea scandens goes from white to violet; Hibiscus
mutabilis from white through flesh-colored to red. The common
Virginia stock of our gardens (Malcolmia) often opens of a pale
yellowish green, then becomes faintly pink; afterward deepens
into bright red; and fades away at the last into mauve or blue.
Fritz Müller's Lantana is yellow on its first day, orange on its
second, and purple on the third. The whole family of Boraginacea
begin by being pink and end with being blue. The garden con-
volvulus opens a blushing white and passes into full purple. In
all these and many other cases the general direction of the
changes is the same. They are usually set down as due to vary-
ing degrees of oxidation in the pigmentary matter.
If this be so,
there is a good reason why bees should be specially fond of blue,
and why blue flowers should be specially adapted for fertilization
by their aid. For Mr. A. R. Wallace has shown that color is
most apt to appear or to vary in those parts of plants or animals
which have undergone the highest amount of modification. The
1-26


## p. 402 (#436) ############################################

402
CHARLES GRANT ALLEN
markings of the peacock and the argus pheasant come out upon
their immensely developed secondary tail-feathers or wing-plumes;
the metallic hues of sun-birds, or humming-birds, show them-
selves upon their highly specialized crests, gorgets, or lappets. It
is the same with the hackles of fowls, the head ornaments of
fruit-pigeons, and the bills of toucans. The most exquisite colors
in the insect world are those which are developed on the greatly
expanded and delicately feathered wings of butterflies; and the
eye-spots which adorn a few species are usually found on their
very highly modified swallow-tail appendages. So too with flow-
ers: those which have undergone most modification have their
colors most profoundly altered. In this way, we may put it down
as a general rule (to be tested hereafter) that the least developed
flowers are usually yellow or white; those which have undergone
a little more modification are usually pink or red; and those which
have been most highly specialized of any are usually purple, lilac,
or blue. Absolute deep ultramarine probably marks the highest
level of all.
On the other hand, Mr. Wallace's principle also explains why
the bees and butterflies should prefer these specialized colors to
all others, and should therefore select those flowers which display
them by preference over any less developed types; for bees and
butterflies are the most highly adapted of all insects to honey-
seeking and flower-feeding. They have themselves on their side
undergone the largest amount of specialization for that particular
function. And if the more specialized and modified flowers,
which gradually fitted their forms and the position of their honey.
glands to the forms of the bees or butterflies, showed a natural
tendency to pass from yellow through pink and red to purple
and blue, it would follow that the insects which were being
evolved side by side with them, and which were aiding at the
same time in their evolution, would grow to recognize these
developed colors as the visible symbols of those flowers from
which they could obtain the largest amount of honey with the
least possible trouble. Thus it would finally result that the
ordinary unspecialized flowers, which depended upon small insect
riff-raff, would be mostly left yellow or white; those which
appealed to rather higher insects would become pink or red; and
those which laid themselves out for bees or butterflies, the aristo-
crats of the arthropodous world, would grow for the most part
to be purple or blue.


## p. 403 (#437) ############################################

1
403
CHARLES GRANT ALLEN
Now, this is very much what we actually find to be the
case in nature. The simplest and earliest flowers are those with
regular, symmetrical open cups, like the Ranunculus genus, the
Potentillas, and the Alsine or chickweeds, which can be visited
by any insects whatsoever; and these are in large part yellow or
white. A little higher are flowers like the Campions or Silenea,
and the stocks (Matthiola), with more or less closed cups, whose
honey can only be reached by more specialized insects; and these
are oftener pink or reddish. More profoundly modified are those
irregular one-sided flowers, like the violets, peas, and orchids,
which have assumed special shapes to accommodate bees and
other specific honey-seekers; and these are often purple and not
unfrequently blue. Highly specialized in another way are the
flowers like harebells (Campanulacea), scabious (Dipsacea), and
heaths (Ericacee), whose petals have all coalesced into a tubular
corolla; and these might almost be said to be usually purple or
blue. And finally, highest of all are the flowers like labiates
(rosemary, Salvia, etc. ) and speedwells (Veronica), whose tubular
corolla has been turned to one side, thus combining the united
petals with the irregular shape; and these are almost invariably
purple or blue.
AMONG THE HEATHER
From "The Evolutionist at Large)
I
SUPPOSE even that apocryphal person, the general reader, would
be insulted at being told at this hour of the day that all
bright-colored flowers are fertilized by the visits of insects,
whose attentions they are specially designed to solicit. Every.
body has heard over and over again that roses, orchids, and
columbines have acquired their honey to allure the friendly bee,
their gaudy petals to advertise the honey, and their divers shapes
to insure the proper fertilization by the correct type of insect.
But everybody does not know how specifically certain blossoms
have laid themselves out for a particular species of fly, beetle,
or tiny moth.
Here on the higher downs, for instance, most flow-
ers are exceptionally large and brilliant; while all Alpine climb-
ers must have noticed that the most gorgeous masses of bloom
in Switzerland occur just below the snow-line. The reason is,
that such blossoms must be fertilized by butterflies alone. Bees,


## p. 404 (#438) ############################################

404
CHARLES GRANT ALLEN
their great rivals in honey-sucking, frequent only the lower mead.
ows and slopes, where flowers are many and small: they seldom
venture far from the hive or the nest among the high peaks and
chilly nooks where we find those great patches of blue gentian
or purple anemone, which hang like monstrous breadths of tapes-
try upon the mountain sides. This heather here, now fully open-
ing in the warmer sun of the southern counties— it is still but
in the bud among the Scotch hills, I doubt not — specially lays
itself out for the humble-bee, and its masses form almost his
highest pasture-grounds; but the butterflies - insect vagrants that
they are — have no fixed home, and they therefore stray far
above the level at which bee-blossoms altogether cease to grow.
Now, the butterfly differs greatly from the bee in his mode of
honey-hunting: he does not bustle about in a business-like man-
ner from one buttercup or dead-nettle to its nearest fellow; but
he flits joyously, like a sauntering straggler that he is, from a
great patch of color here to another great patch at a distance,
whose gleam happens to strike his roving eye by its size and
brilliancy. Hence, as that indefatigable observer, Dr. Hermann
Müller, has noticed, all Alpine or hill-top flowers have very large
and conspicuous blossoms, generally grouped together in big
clusters so as to catch a passing glance of the butterfly's eye.
As soon as the insect spies such a cluster, the color seems to act
as a stimulant to his broad wings, just as the candle-light does to
those of his cousin the moth. Off he sails at once, as if by auto-
matic action, towards the distant patch, and there both robs the
plant of its honey, and at the same time carries to it on his legs
and head fertilizing pollen from the last of its congeners which
he favored with a call. For of course both bees and butterflies
stick on the whole to a single species at a time; or else the
flowers would only get uselessly hybridized, instead of being
impregnated with pollen from other plants of their own kind.
For this purpose it is that most plants lay themselves out to
secure the attention of only two or three varieties among their
insect allies, while they make their nectaries either too deep or
too shallow for the convenience of all other kinds.
Insects, however, differ much from one another in their æs-
thetic tastes, and flowers are adapted accordingly to the varying
fancies of the different kinds. Here, for example, is a spray of
common white galium, which attracts and is fertilized by small
flies, who generally frequent white blossoms. But here again,


## p. 405 (#439) ############################################

CHARLES GRANT ALLEN
405
not far off, I find a luxuriant mass of the yellow species, known
by the quaint name of lady's-bedstraw," a legacy from the old
legend which represents it as having formed Our Lady's bed in
the manger at Bethlehem. Now why has this kind of galium
yellow flowers, while its near kinsman yonder has them snowy
white ? The reason is that lady's-bedstraw is fertilized by small
beetles; and beetles are known to be one among the most color-
loving races of insects. You may often find one of their number,
the lovely bronze and golden-mailed rose-chafer, buried deeply in
the very centre of a red garden rose, and reeling about when
touched as if drunk with pollen and honey. Almost all the
flowers which beetles frequent are consequently brightly decked
in scarlet or yellow. On the other hand, the whole family of the
umbellates, those tall plants with level bunches of tiny blossoms,
like the fool's-parsley, have all but universally white petals; and
Müller, the most statistical of naturalists, took the trouble to
count the number of insects which paid them a visit. He found
that only fourteen per cent. were bees, while the remainder con-
sisted mainly of miscellaneous small flies and other arthropodous
riff-raff, whereas, in the brilliant class of composites, including
the asters, sunflowers, daisies, dandelions, and thistles, nearly sev-
enty-five per cent. of the visitors were steady, industrious bees.
Certain dingy blossoms which lay themselves out to attract wasps
are obviously adapted, as Müller quaintly remarks, “to a less æs-
thetically cultivated circle of visitors. ” But the most brilliant
among all insect-fertilized flowers are those which specially affect
the society of butterflies; and they are only surpassed in this
respect throughout all nature by the still larger and more mag-
nificent tropical species which owe their fertilization to humming-
birds and brush-tongued lories.
Is it not a curious, yet a comprehensible circumstance, that
the tastes which thus show themselves in the development, by
natural selection, of lovely flowers, should also show themselves
in the marked preference for beautiful mates? Poised on yonder
sprig of harebell stands a little purple-winged butterfly, one of
the most exquisite among our British kinds. That little butterfly
owes its own rich and delicately shaded tints to the long selective
action of a million generations among its ancestors. So we find
throughout that the most beautifully colored birds and insects are
always those which have had most to do with the production of
bright-colored fruits and flowers. The butterflies and rose-beetles


## p. 406 (#440) ############################################

406
CHARLES GRANT ALLEN
are the most gorgeous among insects; the humming-birds and par-
rots are the most gorgeous among birds. Nay, more, exactly like
effects have been produced in two hemispheres on different tribes
by the same causes. The plain brown swifts of the North have
developed among tropical West Indian and South American
orchids the metallic gorgets and crimson crests of the humming-
bird; while a totally unlike group of Asiatic birds have developed
among the rich flora of India and the Malay Archipelago the
exactly similar plumage of the exquisite sun-birds. Just as bees
depend upon flowers, and flowers upon bees, so the color-sense of
animals has created the bright petals of blossoms; and the bright
petals have reacted upon the tastes of the animals themselves,
and through their tastes upon their own appearance.
THE HERON'S HAUNT
From Vignettes from Nature)
M
ost of the fields on the country-side are now laid up for
hay, or down in the tall haulming corn; and so I am
driven from my accustomed botanizing grounds on the
open, and compelled to take refuge in the wild bosky moor-
land back of Hole Common. Here, on the edge of the copse,
the river widens to a considerable pool, and coming upon it
softly through the wood from behind—the boggy, moss-covered
ground masking and muffling my foot-fall-I have surprised a
great, graceful ash-and-white heron, standing all unconscious on
the shallow bottom, in the very act of angling for minnows.
The heron is a somewhat rare bird among the more cultivated
parts of England; but just hereabouts we get a sight of one
not infrequently, for they still breed in a few tall ash-trees at
Chilcombe Park, where the lords of the manor in mediæval
times long preserved a regular heronry to provide sport for
their hawking. There is no English bird, not even the swan,
so perfectly and absolutely graceful as the heron. I am leaning
now breathless and noiseless against the gate, taking a good
look at him, as he stands half-knee deep on the oozy bottom,
with his long neck arched over the water, and his keen purple
eye fixed eagerly upon the fish below. Though I am still
twenty yards from where he poises lightly on his stilted legs, I
can see distinctly his long pendent snow-white breast-feathers,


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CHARLES GRANT ALLEN
407
his crest of waving black plumes, falling loosely backward over
the ash-gray neck, and even the bright red skin of his bare
legs just below the feathered thighs. I dare hardly move
to get a closer view of his beautiful plumage; and
still I will try. I push very quietly through the gate, but not
quite quietly enough for the heron. One moment he raises his
curved neck and poises his head a little on one side to listen
for the direction of the rustling; then he catches a glimpse of
me as I try to draw back silently behind a clump of flags and
nettles; and in a moment his long legs give him a good spring
from the bottom, his big wings spread with a sudden flap sky.
wards, and almost before I can note what is happening he is
off and away to leeward, making a bee-line for the high trees
that fringe the artificial water in Chilcombe Hollow.
All these wading birds - the herons, the cranes, the bitterns,
the snipes, and the plovers-are almost necessarily, by the very
nature of their typical conformation, beautiful and graceful in
form. Their tall, slender legs, which they require for wading,
their comparatively light and well-poised bodies, their long,
curved, quickly-darting necks and sharp beaks, which they need
in order to secure their rapid-swimming prey,- all these things
make the waders, almost in spite of themselves, handsome and
shapely birds. Their feet, it is true, are generally rather large
and sprawling, with long, wide-spread toes, so as to distribute
their weight on the snow-shoe principle, and prevent them from
sinking in the deep soft mud on which they tread; but then we
seldom see the feet, because the birds, when we catch a close
view of them at all, are almost always either on stilts in the
water, or flying with their legs tucked behind them, after their
pretty rudder-like fashion. I have often wondered whether it
is this general beauty of form in the waders which has turned
their æsthetic tastes, apparently, into such a sculpturesque line.
Certainly, it is very noteworthy that whenever among this
particular order of birds we get clear evidence of ornamental
devices, such as Mr. Darwin sets down to long-exerted selective
preferences in the choice of mates, the ornaments are almost
always those of form rather than those of color.
The waders, I sometimes fancy, only care for beauty of
shape, not for beauty of tint. As I stood looking at the heron
here just now, the same old idea seemed to force itself more
clearly than ever upon my mind. The decorative adjuncts - the


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408
CHARLES GRANT ALLEN
curving tufted crest on the head, the pendent silvery gorget on
the neck, the long ornamental quills of the pinions - all look
exactly as if they were deliberately intended to emphasize and
heighten the natural gracefulness of the heron's form. May it
not be, I ask myself, that these birds, seeing one another's
statuesque shape from generation to generation, have that shape
hereditarily implanted upon the nervous system of the species,
in connection with all their ideas of mating and of love, just
as the human form is hereditarily associated with all our deep-
est emotions, so that Miranda falling in love at first sight with
Ferdinand is not a mere poetical fiction, but the true illustra-
tion of a psychological fact? And as on each of our minds and
brains the picture of the beautiful human figure is, as it were,
antecedently engraved, may not the ancestral type be similarly
engraved on the minds and brains of the wading birds ? If so,
would it not be natural to conclude that these birds, having thus
a very graceful form as their generic standard of taste, a grace-
ful form with little richness of coloring, would naturally choose
as the loveliest among their mates, not those which showed any
tendency to more bright-hued plumage (which indeed might be
fatal to their safety, by betraying them to their enemies, the fal-
cons and eagles), but those which most fully embodied and carried
furthest the ideal specific gracefulness of the wading type ? . . .
Forestine flower-feeders and fruit-eaters, especially in the
tropics, are almost always brightly colored. Their chromatic
taste seems to get quickened in their daily search for food
among the beautiful blossoms and brilliant fruits of southern
woodlands.
Thus the humming-birds, the sun-birds, and the
brush-tongued lories, three very dissimilar groups of birds as
far as descent is concerned, all alike feed upon the honey and
the insects which they extract from the large tubular bells of
tropical flowers; and all alike are noticeable for their intense
metallic lustre or pure tones of color. Again, the parrots, the
toucans, the birds of paradise, and many other of the more beau-
tiful exotic species, are fruit-eaters, and reflect their inherited
taste in their own gaudy plumage. But the waders have no such
special reasons for acquiring a love for bright hues. Hence
their æsthetic feeling seems rather to have taken a turn toward
the further development of their own graceful forms. Even the
plainest wading birds have a certain natural elegance of shape
which supplies a primitive basis for æsthetic selection to work on.


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409
JAMES LANE ALLEN
(1850-)
He literary work of James Lane Allen was begun with maturer
powers and wider culture than most writers exhibit in their
first publications. His mastery of English was acquired with
difficulty, and his knowledge of Latin he obtained through years of
instruction as well as of study. The wholesome open-air atmosphere
which pervades his stories, their pastoral character and love of nat-
ure, come from the tastes bequeathed to him by three generations of
paternal ancestors, easy-going gentlemen farmers of the blue-grass
region of Kentucky. On a farm near Lexington, in this beautiful
country of stately homes, fine herds, and great flocks, the author was
born, and there he spent his childhood and youth.
About 1885 he came to New York to devote himself to literature;
for though he had contributed poems, essays, and criticisms to lead-
ing periodicals, his first important work was a series of articles
descriptive of the Blue-Grass Region,” published in Harper's Maga-
zine. The field was new, the work was fresh, and the author's ability
was at once recognized. Inevitably he chose Kentucky for the scene
of his stories, knowing and loving, as he did, her characteristics and
her history. While preparing his articles on 'The Blue-Grass Region,'
he had studied the Trappist Monastery and the Convent of Loretto,
as well as the records of the Catholic Church in Kentucky; and his
first stories, “The White Cowl' and 'Sister Dolorosa,' which appeared
in the Century Magazine, were the first fruits of this labor.