Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 16

by Unknown

(1819-1887)

n the first line of his memoirs Goldschmidt states that he was of "the tribe of Levi," a fact of which he was never unconscious, and which has given him his peculiar position in modern Danish literature as the exponent of the family and social life of the orthodox Jew. Brandes writes of Goldschmidt that: "In spite of his cosmopolitan spirit, he has always loved two nationalities above all others and equally well,—the Jewish and the Danish. He has looked upon himself as a sort of noble-born bastard; and with the bat of the fable he has said alternately to the mice, 'I am a mouse' and to the birds, 'I have wings.' He has endeavored to give his answer to the questions of the Jew's place in modern culture."

Goldschmidt

Goldschmidt was born on the 26th of October, 1819. His early childhood was spent partly in the country, in the full freedom of country life, and partly in the city, where he was sent to school in preparation for the professional career his father had planned for him, in preference to a business life like his own. Goldschmidt took part in the religious instruction of the school, at the same time observing the customs of the Jewish ritual at home without a full understanding of its meaning,—somewhat as he was taught to read Hebrew without being able to translate a word of it into Danish. In the senior class his religious instructor let him join in the Bible reading, but refused to admit him to the catechism class; as a consequence he failed to answer a few questions on his examination papers, and fell just short of a maximum. This made him feel that he was ostracized by his Jewish birth, and put an end to his desire for further academic studies.

At the age of eighteen he began his journalistic career as editor of a provincial paper, the care of which cost him a lawsuit and subjected him to a year's censorship. Soon after, he sold the paper for two hundred dollars, and with this money he started the Copenhagen weekly The Corsair, which in no time gained a large reading public, and whose Friday appearance was awaited with weekly increasing interest. The editorials were given up to aesthetic and poetic discussions, and the small matter treated the questions of the day with a pointed wit that soon made The Corsair as widely feared as it was eagerly read. He had reached only the third number when it was put under censorship, and lawsuits followed in quick succession. Goldschmidt did not officially assume the responsibility of editor, although it was an open secret that he was author of most of the articles; publicly the blows were warded off by pretended owners whose names were often changed. One of the few men whom The Corsair left unattacked was Sören Kierkegaard, for whose literary and scholarly talents Goldschmidt had great respect. That The Corsair was under the ban of the law, so to speak, and had brought him even a four-days' imprisonment, was a small matter to Goldschmidt; but when Kierkegaard passed a scathing moral judgment on the paper, Goldschmidt sold out for four thousand dollars and started with this sum on his travels, "to get rid of wit and learn something better."

In 1847 he was again back in Copenhagen, and began life anew as editor of North and South, a weekly containing excellent aesthetic and critical studies, but mainly important on account of its social and political influence. Already, in the time of The Corsair, Goldschmidt had begun his work as novelist with 'A Jew,' written in 1843-45, and had taken possession of the field which became his own. It was a promising book, that met with immediate appreciation. Even Kierkegaard forgot for a moment the editor of The Corsair in his praise. The Jews, however, looked upon the descriptions of intimate Jewish family life somewhat as a desecration of the Holy of Holies; and if broad-minded enough to forgive this, thought it unwise to accentuate the Jew's position as an element apart in social life. It argues a certain narrowness in Goldschmidt that he has never been able to refrain from striking this note, and Brandes blames him for the bad taste of "continually serving his grandmother with sharp sauce."

Goldschmidt wrote another long novel, 'Homeless'; but it is principally in his shorter works, such as 'Love Stories from Many Countries' 'Maser,' and 'Avromche Nightingale,' that he has left a great and good gift to Danish literature. The shorter his composition, the more perfect was his treatment. He was above all a stylist.

He always had a tendency to mysticism, and in his last years he was greatly taken up with his theory of Nemesis, on which he wrote a book, containing much that is suggestive but also much that is obviously the result of the wish to make everything conform to a pet theory. His lasting importance will be as the first and foremost influence on modern Danish prose.

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ASSAR AND MIRJAM

From 'Love Stories from Many Countries'

Assar, son of Juda, a valiant and jealous youth, came walking toward Modin, when from one of the hills he saw a great sight on the plain. Here warriors rode a chariot race in a great circle; many people stood about, calling loudly to the drivers and the spirited horses. Yonder were horsemen in golden armor, trying to catch rings on their spears; and drums were beaten in honor of the winner. On the outskirts of the plain was a little grove of olive-trees; it was not dense. In the grove stood a nude woman hewn in marble; her hair was of gold and her eyes were black, and young girls danced around her with garlands of flowers.

Then Assar said:—"Woe unto us! These are Jewish maidens dancing around the idol, and these are Greek men carrying arms on our holy ground and playing at games as if they were in their home! and no Jewish man makes the game dangerous for them!"

He went down the hill and came to a thicket reaching down to a little brook. On the other side of the brook stood a Greek centurion, a young man, and he was talking to a girl, who stood on this side of the brook on the edge of the thicket.

The warrior said:—"Thou sayest that thy God forbids thee to go over into the grove. What a dark and unfriendly God they have given thee, beautiful child of Juda! He hates thy youth, and the joy of life, and the roses which ought to crown thy black hair. My gods are of a friendlier mind toward mortals. Every morning Apollo drives his glorious span over the arch of the heavens and lights warriors to their deeds; Selene's milder torch glows at night for lovers, and to those who have worshiped her in this life beautiful Aphrodite gives eternal life on her blessed isle. It is her statue standing in the grove. When thou givest thyself under her protection she gives thee in return a hero for thy faithful lover, and later on, graceful daughter of Juda, some god will set thee with thy radiant eyes among the stars, to be a light to mortals and a witness of the beauty of earthly love."

The young girl might have answered; but at this moment Assar was near her, and she knew him, and he saw that it was Mirjam, Rabbi Mattathew's daughter,—the woman he loved, and who was his promised bride. She turned and followed him; but the warrior on the other side of the brook called out, "What right hast thou to lead this maiden away?"

Assar replied, "I have no right."

"Then why dost thou go with him, sweet daughter of Juda?" cried the warrior.

Mirjam did not answer, but Assar said, "Because she has not yet given up serving her Master."

"Who is her master?" asked the warrior. "I can buy thee freedom, my beautiful child!"

Assar replied, "I wish thou may'st see him."[E]

The warrior, who could not cross the brook at this place, or anywhere near it, called as they went away, "Tell me thy master's name!"

Assar turned and answered, "I will beg him come to thee."

A hill hid them from the eyes of the warrior, and Mirjam said, "Assar!"

Assar replied, "Mirjam! I have never loved thee as dearly as I do to-day—I do not know if it is a curse or a blessing which is in my veins. Thou hast listened to the words of the heathen."

"I listened to them because he spoke kindly; but I have not betrayed the Lord nor thee."

"Thou hast permitted his words to reach thy ear and thy soul."

"What could I do, Assar? He spoke kindly."

Assar stood still, and said to himself, "Yes, he spoke kindly. They do speak kindly. And they spoke kind words to the poor girls who danced around the idol in the grove. Had they spoken harsh and threatening words, they would not have danced."

Again he stood still, and said to himself, "If they came using force, the rabbi would kill her and then himself, or she would throw herself from a rock of her own free will. But who can set a guard to watch over kind words?"

The third time he stood still, and said, "O Israel, thou canst not bear kind words!"

Mirjam thought that he suspected her; and she stood still and said, "I am a rabbi's daughter!"

Assar replied, "O Mirjam, I am Assar, and I will be the son of my own actions."

"For God's sake," exclaimed Mirjam, "do not seek that warrior, and do not enter into a quarrel with him! He will kill thee or have thee put into prison. There is misery enough in Israel! The strangers have entered our towns. Let us bend our heads and await the will of God, but not challenge! Assar, I should die if anything happened to thee!"

"And what would I do if anything happened to thee! My head swims! Whither should I flee? Would thy father and thy brothers flee to the wilds of the mountains?"

"They have spoken of that. But there is no place to flee to and not much to flee from; for although the heathen have taken gold and goods, yet they are kind this time."

Assar replied, "Oh yes, they are kind; I had almost forgotten it. Mirjam, if I go away wilt thou believe, and go on believing, that I go on God's errand?"

"Assar, a dark look from thee is dearer to me than the kindest from any heathen, and a word of thine is more to me than many witnesses. But do not leave me! Stay and protect me!"

"I go to protect thee! I go to the heights and to the depths to call forth the God of Israel. Await his coming!" ...

Assar went to the King, Antiochus Epiphanes, bent low before him, and said, "May the Master of the world guide thy steps!"

The King looked at him well pleased, and asked his name; whereupon Assar answered that he was a man of the tribe of Juda.

The King said, "Few of thy countrymen come to serve me!"

Assar replied, "If thou wilt permit thy servant a bold word, King, the fault is thine."

And when the King, astonished, asked how this might be, Assar answered, "Because thou art too kind, lord."

The King turned to his adviser, and said laughingly, "When we took the treasures of the temple in Jerusalem, they found it hard enough."

"O King," said Assar, "silver and gold and precious stones can be regained, and the Israelites know this; but thou lettest them keep that which cannot be regained when once it is lost."

The King answered quickly, "What is that?" and Assar replied:—"The Israelites have a God, who is very powerful but also very jealous. He has always helped them in the time of need if they held near to him and did not worship strange gods; for this his jealousy will not bear. When they do this he forsakes them. But thou, O King, hast taken their silver and gold and jewels, but hast let them keep the God who gives it all back to them. They know this; and so they smile at thee, and await that thou shalt be thrown into the dust by him, and they will arise his avengers, and persecute thy men."

The King paled; he remembered his loss in Egypt, and he feared that if the enemy pursued him he should find help in Israel; and he said, "What ought we to do?"

Assar replied: "If thou wilt permit thy servant to utter his humble advice, thou shouldst use severity and forbid their praying to the God they call Jehovah, and order them to pray to thy gods."

The King's adviser looked at Assar and asked, "Hast thou offered up sacrifice to our gods?"

Assar replied, "I am ready."

They led him to the altar, and on the way thither Assar said:—"Lord, all-powerful God! Thou who seest the heart and not alone the deeds of the hand, be my witness! It is written: 'And it shall happen in that same hour that I shall wipe out the name of idols out of the land, and they shall be remembered no more, and the unclean spirit shall I cause to depart from the country.' Do thou according to thy word, O Lord! Amen!"

When the sacrifice was brought, Assar was dressed in festive robes on the word of the King, and a place was given him among the King's friends, and orders were sent out throughout the country, according to what he had said.

And to Modin too came the King's messenger; and when the rabbi heard of it, he went with his five sons to the large prayer-house, and read maledictions over those who worshiped idols and blessings over those who were faithful to Jehovah. And those who were present noticed that the rabbi's eldest son, Judas Maccabæus, carried a sword under his mantle.

And when they came out of the prayer-house they saw that a heathen altar had been built, and there was a Jew making his sacrifice; and when Rabbi Mattathew saw this, he hastened to the spot and seized the knife of sacrifice and thrust it into the Jew's breast. The centurion who stood by, and who was the same that had previously talked to Mirjam the rabbi's daughter at the brook, would kill the rabbi; but Judas Maccabæus drew his sword quickly, and struck the centurion in the throat and killed him. Then the King's men gathered; but the street was narrow, and Judas Maccabæus went last and shielded all, until the night came and they had got their women together and could flee to the mountains. And then began the fight of the men of Juda against the Macedonians, the Greeks, and the Assyrians, and they killed those of the King's men who pursued them into the mountains.

Then King Antiochus the temple-robber said to Assar, "This is thy advice!" to which Assar replied: "No, King; this is the advice of thy warriors, since they allow the rebels to escape and do not treat them without mercy. For this know, O King, that so long as thou art merciful to this people there is no hope."

Then there were issued strict orders to torture and kill all who refused to obey the King's command; and all those in Israel in whom Jehovah was still living rose to fight with Mattathew and his sons, and men and women, yea, children even, were moved to suffer death for the Lord and his law.

But at this time it happened that King Antiochus the temple-destroyer was visited by his shameful disease, and he sent messengers with rich gifts to all oracles and temples to seek help; but they could find none.

Then he said to Assar, "Thou saidst once that the God of Israel was a mighty God; could not he cure me of my disease?"

Assar replied: "I have indeed heard from my childhood that the God of Israel is a mighty God; but O King, thou wilt not give in to that hard people and make peace with their God?"

The King answered, "I must live! How can he be pacified?"

Assar said, "It is too heavy a sacrifice for so great a king as thee. Their wise men assert that God has given them the country for a possession, and it would be necessary for thee not only to allow them to worship their God, but also to call back thy men and make a covenant with them so that they should merely pay a tribute to thee. But this is more than I can advise."

The King answered, "Much does a man give for his life. Dost thou believe that he is a great God?"

"I have seen a great proof of it, lord."

"What is that?"

"This: that even a greatness like thine was as nothing to his."

"It is not a dishonor to be smaller than the Immortals. Go and prepare all, according to what we have spoken."

Then Assar prepared all and had the King's men called back, and promised the inhabitants peace and led the King on his way to Jerusalem; and they passed by Modin.

And the King's sufferings being very great, he had himself carried into the house of prayers, before the holy, and he prayed to the God of Israel. And the men of Juda stood around him; they stood high and he lay low, and they had saved their souls.

But when the King was carried out, one of the Maccabæan warriors recognized Assar and cried out, "Thou hast offered up sacrifices to idols, and from thee have come the evil counsels which have cost precious blood! Thou shalt be wiped off the earth!"

He drew his sword and aimed at him, but Mirjam, who had come up, threw herself between them with the cry, "He called forth Israel's God!" And the steel which was meant for him pierced her.

Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Olga Flinch.

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O. GOLDSMITH.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

(1728-1774)

BY CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY

liver Goldsmith was born at Pallas, County Longford, Ireland, November 10th, 1728. That was the year in which Pope issued his 'Dunciad,' Gay his 'Beggar's Opera,' and Thomson his 'Spring.' Goldsmith's father was a clergyman of the Established Church. In 1730 the family removed to Lissoy, a better living than that of Pallas. Oliver's school days in and around Westmeath were unsatisfactory; so also his course at Trinity, 1744 to 1749. For the next two years he loafed at Ballymahon, living on his mother, then a widow, and making vain attempts to take orders, to teach, to enter a law course, to sail for America. He was a bad sixpence. Finally his uncle Contarine, who saw good stuff in the awkward, ugly, humorous, and reckless youth, got him off to Edinburgh, where he studied medicine till 1754.

In 1754 he is studying, or pretending to study, at Leyden. In 1755 and 1756 he is singing, fluting, and otherwise "beating" his way through Europe, whence he returns with a mythical M. B. degree. From 1756 to 1759 he is in London, teaching, serving an apothecary, practicing medicine, reading proof, writing as a hack, planning to practice surgery in Coromandel, failing to qualify as a hospital mate, and in general only not starving. In 1759 Dr. Percy finds him in Green Arbor Court amid a colony of washerwomen, writing an 'Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.' Next follows the appearance of that work, and his acquaintance with publishers and men of letters. In 1761, with Percy, comes Johnson to visit him. In 1764 Goldsmith is one of the members of the famous Literary Club, where he counts among his friends, besides Percy and Johnson, Reynolds, Boswell, Garrick, Burke, and others who shone with their own or reflected light. The rest of his life, spent principally in or near London, is associated with his literary career. He died April 4th, 1774, and was buried near the Temple Church.

Goldsmith was an essayist and critic, a story-writer, a poet, a comic dramatist, and a literary drudge: the last all the time, the others "between whiles." His drudgery produced such works as the 'Memoirs of Voltaire,' the 'Life of Nash,' two Histories of England, Histories of Rome and Greece, Lives of Parnell and Bolingbroke. The 'History of Animated Nature' was undertaken as an industry, but it reads, as Johnson said, "like a Persian tale,"—and of course, the more Persian the less like nature. For the prose of Goldsmith writing for a suit of clothes or for immortality is all of a piece, inimitable. "Nothing," says he, in his 'Essay on Taste,' "has been so often explained, and yet so little understood, as simplicity in writing.... It is no other than beautiful nature, without affectation or extraneous ornament."

This ingenuous elegance is the accent of Goldsmith's work in verse and prose. It is nature improved, not from without but by exquisite and esoteric art, the better to prove its innate virtue and display its artless charm. Such a style is based upon a delicate "sensibility to the graces of natural and moral beauty and decorum." Hence the ideographic power, the directness, the sympathy, the lambent humor that characterize the 'Essays,' the 'Vicar,' the 'Deserted Village,' and 'She Stoops to Conquer.' This is the "plain language of ancient faith and sincerity" that, pretending to no novelty, renovated the prose of the eighteenth century, knocked the stilts from under Addison and Steele, tipped half the Latinity out of Johnson, and readjusted his ballast. Goldsmith goes without sprawling or tiptoeing; he sails without rolling. He borrows the carelessness but not the ostentation of the Spectator; the dignity but not the ponderosity of 'Rasselas'; and produces the prose of natural ease, the sweetest English of the century. It in turn prefaced the way for Charles Lamb, Hunt, and Sydney Smith. "It were to be wished that we no longer found pleasure with the inflated style," writes Goldsmith in his 'Polite Learning.' "We should dispense with loaded epithet and dressing up trifles with dignity.... Let us, instead of writing finely, try to write naturally; not hunt after lofty expressions to deliver mean ideas, nor be forever gaping when we only mean to deliver a whisper."

Just this naturalness constitutes the charm of the essay on 'The Bee' (1759), and of the essays collected in 1765. We do not read him for information: whether he knows more or less of his subject, whether he writes of Charles XII., or Dress, The Opera, Poetry, or Education, we read him for simplicity and humor. Still, his critical estimates, while they may not always square with ours, evince not only good sense and æsthetic principle, but a range of reading not at all ordinary. When he condemns Hamlet's great soliloquy we may smile, but in judicial respect for the father of our drama he yields to none of his contemporaries. The selections that he includes in his 'Beauties of English Poetry' would argue a conventional taste; but in his 'Essay on Poetry Distinguished from the Other Arts,' he not only defines poetry in terms that might content the Wordsworthians, he also to a certain extent anticipates Wordsworth's estimate of poetic figures.

While he makes no violent breach with the classical school, he prophesies the critical doctrine of the nineteenth century. He calls for the "energetic language of simple nature, which is now grown into disrepute." "If the production does not keep nature in view, it will be destitute of truth and probability, without which the beauties of imitation cannot subsist." Still he by no means falls into the quagmire of realism. For, continues he, "if on the other hand the imitation is so close as to be mistaken for nature, the pleasure will then cease, because the [Greek: mimêsis] or imitation, no longer appears."

Even when wrong, Goldsmith is generally half-way right; and this is especially true of the critical judgments contained in his first published book. The impudence of 'The Enquiry' (1759) is delicious. What this young Irishman, fluting it through Europe some five years before, had not learned about the 'Condition of Polite Learning' in its principal countries, might fill a ponderous folio. What he did learn, eked out with harmless misstatement, flashes of inspiration, and a clever argument to prove that criticism has always been the foe of letters, managed to fill a respectable duodecimo, and brought him to the notice of publishers and scholars.

The essay has catholicity, independence, and wit, and it carries itself with whimsical ease. Every sentence steps out sprightly. Of the French Encyclopédies: "Wits and dunces contribute their share, and Diderot as well as Desmaretz are candidates for oblivion. The genius of the first supplies the gale of favor, and the latter adds the useful ballast of stupidity." Of the Germans: "They write through volumes, while they do not think through a page.... Were angels to write books, they never would write folios." And again: "If criticism could have improved the taste of a people, the Germans would have been the most polite nation alive." That settles the Encyclopedias and the Germans. So each nationality is sententiously reviewed and dismissed with an epigram that even to-day sounds not altogether unjust, rather amusing and urbane than acrimonious.

But it was not until Goldsmith began the series of letters in the Public Ledger (1760), that was afterwards published as 'The Citizen of the World' that he took London. These letters purport to be from a philosophic Chinaman in Europe to his friends at home. Grave, gay, serene, ironical, they were at once an amusing image and a genial censor of current manners and morals. They are no less creative than critical; equally classic for the characters they contain: the Gentleman in Black, Beau Tibbs and his wife, the pawnbroker's widow, Tim Syllabub, and the procession of minor personages, romantic or ridiculous, but unique,—equally classic for these characters and for the satire of the conception. These are Goldsmith's best sketches. Though the prose is not always precise, it seems to be clear, and is simple. The writer cares more for the judicious than the sublime; for the quaint, the comic, and the agreeable than the pathetic. He chuckles with sly laughter—genial, sympathetic; he looses his arrow phosphorescent with wit, but not barbed, dipped in something subacid,—straight for the heart. Not Irving alone, but Thackeray, stands in line of descent from the Goldsmith of the 'Citizen.'

'The Traveller,' polished ad unguem, appeared in 1764, and placed Goldsmith in the first rank of poets then living; but of that later. There is good reason for believing that his masterpiece in prose, 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' had been written as early as 1762, although it was not published until 1766. It made Goldsmith's mark as a storyteller. One can readily imagine how, after the grim humor of Smollett, the broad and risqué realism of Fielding, the loitering of Sterne, and the moralizing of Richardson, the public would seize with a sense of relief upon this unpretentious chronicle of a country clergyman's life: his peaceful home, its ruin, its restoration. Not because the narrative was quieter and simpler, shorter and more direct than other narratives, but because to its humor, realism, grace, and depth it added the charity of First Corinthians Thirteenth. England soon discovered that the borders of the humanities had been extended; that the Vicar and his "durable" wife, Moses, Olivia with the prenatal tendency to romance, Sophia, the graceless Jenkinson,—the habit and temper of the whole,—were a new province. The prose idyl, with all its beauty and charity, does not entitle Goldsmith to rank with the great novelists; but of its kind, in spite of faults of inaccuracy, improbability, and impossibility, it is first and best. Goethe read and re-read it with moral and æsthetic benefit; and the spirit of Goldsmith is not far to seek in 'Hermann and Dorothea.' 'The Vicar' is perhaps the most popular of English classics in foreign lands.

In poetry, if Goldsmith did not write much, it was for lack of opportunity. What he did write is good, nearly all of it. The philosophy of 'The Traveller' (1764) and the political economy of 'The Deserted Village' (1770) may be dubious, but the poetry is true. There is in both a heartiness which discards the formalized emotion, prefers the touch of nature and the homely adjective. The characteristic is almost feminine in the description of Auburn: "Dear lovely bowers"; it is inevitable, artless, in 'The Traveller': "His first, best country ever is at home." But on the other hand, the curiosa felicitas marks every line, the nice selection of just the word or phrase richest in association, redolent of tradition, harmonious, classically proper, but still natural, true, and apt. "My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee"—not a word but is hearty; and for all that, the line is stamped with the academic authority of centuries: "Coelum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt." Both poems are characterized by the infrequency of epithet and figure,—the infrequency that marks sincerity and that heightens pleasure,—and by a cunning in the use of proper names, resonant, remote, suggestive: "On Idra's cliffs or Arno's shelvy side,"—the cunning of a musical poem. Both poems vibrate with personality, recall the experience of the writer. It would be hard to choose between them; but 'The Deserted Village' strikes the homelier chord, comes nearer, with its natural pathos, its sidelong smile, and its perennial novelty, to the heart of him who knows.

Goldsmith is less eloquent but more natural than Dryden, less precise but more simple than Pope. In poetic sensibility he has the advantage of both. Were the volume of his verse not so slight, were his conceptions more sublime, and their embodiment more epic or dramatic, he might rank with the greatest of his century. As it is, in imaginative insight he has no superior in the eighteenth century; in observation, pathos, representative power, no equal: Dryden, Pope, Gray, Thomson, Young,—none but Collins approaches him. The reflective or descriptive poem can of course not compete with the drama, epic, or even lyric of corresponding merit in its respective kind. But Goldsmith's poems are the best of their kind, better than all but the best in other kinds. His conception of life is more generous and direct, hence truer and gentler, than that of the Augustan age. Raising no revolt against classical principles, he rejects the artifices of decadent classicism, returns to nature, and expresses it simply. He is consequently in this respect the harbinger of Cowper, Crabbe, Bloomfield, Clare, Wordsworth, and Coleridge. In technique also he breaks away from Pope. His larger movement, his easier modulation, his richer tone, his rarer epithet and epigram, his metaphor "glowing from the heart," mark the defection from the poetry of cold conceit.

For lack of space we can only refer to the romantic quality of his ballad 'Edwin and Angelina' (1765), the spontaneous humor of 'The Haunch of Venison,' and the exquisite satire of 'Retaliation' (1774).

To appreciate the historical position of Goldsmith's comedies, one must regard them as a reaction against the school that had held the stage since the beginning of the century—a "genteel" and "sentimental" school, fearing to expose vice or ridicule absurdity. But Goldsmith felt that absurdity was the comic poet's game. Reverting therefore to Farquhar and the Comedy of Manners, he revived that species, at the same time infusing a strain of the "humors" of the tribe of Ben. Hence the approbation that welcomed his first comedy, and the applause that greeted the second. For 'The Good-natured Man' (1768) and 'She Stoops to Conquer' (1773) did by example what Hugh Kelly's 'Piety in Pattens' aimed to do by ridicule,—ousted the hybrid comedy (tradesman's tragedy, Voltaire called it) of which 'The Conscious Lovers' had been the most tolerable specimen, and 'The School for Lovers' the most decorous and dull.

But "Goldy" had not only the gift of weighing the times, he had the gift of the popular dramatist. His dramatis personæ are on the one hand nearly all legitimate descendants of the national comedy, though none is a copy from dramatic predecessors; on the other hand, they are in every instance "imitations" of real life, more than once of some aspect of his own life; but none is so close an imitation as to detract from the pleasure which fiction should afford. The former quality makes his characters look familiar; the latter, true. So he accomplishes the feat most difficult for the dramatist: while idealizing the individual in order to realize the type, he does not for a moment lose the sympathy of his audience.

Even in his earlier comedy these two characteristics are manifest. In the world of drama, young Honeywood is the legitimate descendant of Massinger's Wellborn on the one side, and of Congreve's Valentine Legend on the other, with a more distant collateral resemblance to Ben Jonson's Younger Knowell. But in the field of experience this "Good-natured Man" is that aspect of "Goldy" himself which, when he was poorest, made him not so poor but that Irishmen poorer still could live on him; that aspect of the glorious "idiot in affairs" which could make to the Earl of Northumberland, willing to be kind, no other suggestion of his wants than that he had a brother in Ireland, "poor, a clergyman, and much in need of help." Similarly might those rare creations Croaker and Jack Lofty be traced to their predecessors in the field of drama, even though remote. That they had their analogies in the life of Goldsmith, and have them in the lives of others, it is unnecessary to prove. But graphic as these characters are, they cannot make of 'The Good-natured Man' more than a passable second to 'She Stoops to Conquer.' For the premises of the plot are absurd, if not impossible; the complication is not much more natural than that of a Punch-and-Judy show, and the denouement but one shade less improbable than that of 'The Vicar of Wakefield.' The value of the play is principally historical, not æsthetic.

Congreve's 'Love for Love,' Vanbrugh's 'Relapse, Farquhar's 'Beaux' Stratagem,' Goldsmith's 'She Stoops to Conquer,' and Sheridan's 'School for Scandal,' are the best comedies written since Jonson, Fletcher, and Massinger held the stage. In plot and diction 'She Stoops to Conquer' is equaled by Congreve; in character-drawing by Vanbrugh; in dramatic ease by Farquhar, in observation and wit by Sheridan: but by none is it equaled in humor, and in naturalness of dialogue it is facile princeps. Here again the characterization presents the twofold charm of universality and reality. Young Marlow is the traditional lover of the type of Young Bellair, Mirabell, and Aimwell, suggesting each in turn but different from all; he is also, in his combination of embarrassment and impudence, not altogether unlike the lad Oliver who, years ago, on a journey back to school, had mistaken Squire Featherstone's house in Ardagh for an inn.

A similar adjustment of dramatic type and historic individual contributes to the durability of Tony Lumpkin. In his dramatis persona he is a practical joker of the family of Diccon and Truewit, and first cousin on the Blenkinsop side to that horse-flesh Sir Harry Beagle. But Anthony is more than the practical joker or the squire booby: he is a near relative of Captain O'Blunder and that whole countryside of generous, touch-and-go Irishmen; while in reality, in propria persona, he is that aspect of Noll Goldsmith that "lived the buckeen" in Ballymahon. Of the other characters of the play, Hardcastle, Mrs. Hardcastle, and Kate have a like prerogative of immortality. They are royally descended and personally unique.

The comedy has been absurdly called farcical. There is much less of the farcical than in many a so-called "legitimate" comedy. None of the circumstances are purely fortuitous; none unnecessary. Humor and caprice tend steadily to complicate the action, and by natural interaction prepare the way for the denouement. The misunderstandings are the more piquant because of their manifest irony and their ephemeral character. Indeed, if any fault is to be found with the play, it is that Goldsmith did not let it resolve itself without the assistance of Sir Charles Marlow.

One peculiarity not yet mentioned is illustrative of Goldsmith's method. A system of mutual borrowing characterizes his works. The same thought, in the same or nearly the same language, occurs in half a dozen. 'The Enquiry' lends a phrase to 'The Citizen,' who passes it on to the 'Vicar,' who, thinking it too good to keep, hands it over to the 'Good-natured Man,' whence it is borrowed by 'She Stoops to Conquer,' and turned to look like new,—like a large family of sisters with a small wardrobe in common. This habit does not indicate poverty of invention in Goldsmith, but associative imagination and artistic conservatism.

Goldsmith was the only Irish story-writer and poet of his century. Four Irishmen adorned the prose of the period: Goldsmith is as eminent in the natural style as Swift in the satiric, or Steele in the polished, or Burke in the grand. In comedy the Irish led; but Steele, Macklin, Murphy, Kelly, do not compare with Farquhar, Sheridan, and Goldsmith. The worst work of these is good, and their best is the best of the century.

Turning to Goldsmith the man, what the "draggle-tail Muses" paid him we find him spending on dress and rooms and jovial magnificence, on relatives or countrymen or the unknown poor, with such freedom that he is never relieved of the necessity of drudgery. Still, sensitive, good-natured, improvident, Irish,—and a genius,—Goldsmith lived as happy a life as his disposition would allow. He had the companionship of congenial friends, the love of men like Johnson and Reynolds, the final assurance that his art was appreciated by the public. To be sure, he was never out of debt, but that was his own fault; he was never out of credit either. "Was there ever poet so trusted?" exclaimed Johnson, after this poet had got beyond reach of his creditors. His difficulties however affected him as they affect most Irishmen,—only by cataclysms. He was serene or wretched, but generally the former: he packed noctes cœnæque deûm by the dozen into his life. "There is no man," said Reynolds, "whose company is more liked." But maybe that was because his naïveté, his brogue, his absent-mindedness, and his blunders (real or apparent) made him a ready butt for ridicule, not at the hands of Reynolds or Johnson, but of Beauclerk and the rest. For though his humor was sly, and his wit inimitable, Goldsmith's conversation was queer. It seemed to go by contraries. If permitted, he would ramble along in his hesitating, inconsequential fashion, on any subject under heaven—"too eager," thought Johnson, "to get on without knowing how he should get off." But if ignored, he would sit silent and apart,—sulking, thought Boswell. In fact, both the Dictator and laird of Auchinleck were of a mind that he tried too much to shine in conversation, for which he had no temper. But "Goldy's" bons-mots—such as the "Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis" to Johnson, as they passed under the heads on Temple Bar,—make it evident that Garrick, with his

"Here lies Poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll,"

and most of the members of the Literary Club, did not understand their Irishman. A timidity born of rough experience may have occasionally oppressed, a sensitiveness to ridicule or indifference may have confused him, a desire for approbation may frequently have led him to speak when silence had been golden; but that his conversation was "foolish" is the judgment of Philistines who make conversation an industry, not an amusement or an art.

Boswell himself recounts more witty sayings than incomprehensible. And the "incomprehensible" are so only to Boswells and Hawkinses, who can hardly be expected to appreciate a humor, the vein of which is a mockery of their own solemn stupidity. Probably Goldsmith did say unconsidered things; he liked to think aloud in company, to "rattle on" for diversion. Keenly alive to the riches of language, he was the more likely to feel the embarrassment of impromptu selection; and while he was too much of a genius to keep count of every pearl, he was too considerate of his fellows to cast pearls only. But most of his fellows (Reynolds excepted) appreciated neither his drollery nor his unselfishness,—had not been educated up to the type of Irishman that with an artistic love of fun, is ever ready to promote the gayety of nations by sacrificing itself in the interest of laughter. For none but an artist can, without cracking a smile, offer up his wit on the altar of his humor.

Prior describes Goldsmith as something under the middle size, sturdy, active, apparently capable of endurance; pale, forehead and upper lip rather projecting, face round, pitted with small-pox, and marked with strong lines of thinking. But Reynolds's painting idealizes and therefore best expresses the man, his twofold nature: on the one hand, self-depreciatory, generous, and improvident; on the other, aspiring, hungry for approval, laborious. Just such a man as would gild poverty with a smile, decline patronage and force his last sixpence on a street-singer, pile Pelion on Ossa for his publishers and turn out cameos for art.

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THE VICAR'S FAMILY BECOME AMBITIOUS

From 'The Vicar of Wakefield'

I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely disregarded. The distinctions lately paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I had laid asleep, but not removed. Our windows again, as formerly, were filled with washes for the neck and face. The sun was dreaded as an enemy to the skin without doors, and the fire as a spoiler of the complexion within. My wife observed that rising too early would hurt her daughters' eyes, that working after dinner would redden their noses, and she convinced me that the hands never looked so white as when they did nothing. Instead therefore of finishing George's shirts, we now had them new-modeling their old gauzes, or flourishing upon catgut. The poor Miss Flamboroughs, their former gay companions, were cast off as mean acquaintance, and the whole conversation ran upon high life and high-lived company, with pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses.

But we could have borne all this, had not a fortune-telling gypsy come to raise us into perfect sublimity. The tawny sibyl no sooner appeared than my girls came running to me for a shilling apiece, to cross her hand with silver. To say the truth, I was tired of being always wise, and could not help gratifying their request, because I loved to see them happy. I gave each of them a shilling, though for the honor of the family it must be observed that they never went without money themselves, as my wife always generously let them have a guinea each to keep in their pockets, but with strict injunctions never to change it. After they had been closeted up with the fortune-teller for some time, I knew by their looks, upon their returning, that they had been promised something great. "Well, my girls, how have you sped? Tell me, Livy, has the fortune-teller given thee a penny-worth?" "I protest, papa," says the girl, "I believe she deals with somebody that is not right, for she positively declared that I am to be married to a squire in less than a twelvemonth!" "Well now, Sophy, my child," said I, "and what sort of a husband are you to have?" "Sir," replied she, "I am to have a lord soon after my sister has married the squire." "How," cried I, "is that all you are to have for your two shillings? Only a lord and a squire for two shillings! You fools, I could have promised you a prince and a nabob for half the money!"

This curiosity of theirs, however, was attended with very serious effects: we now began to think ourselves designed by the stars to something exalted, and already anticipated our future grandeur.

---

It has been a thousand times observed, and I must observe it once more, that the hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with fruition. In the first case we cook the dish to our own appetite; in the latter, nature cooks it for us. It is impossible to repeat the train of agreeable reveries we called up for our entertainment. We looked upon our fortunes as once more rising; and as the whole parish asserted that the Squire was in love with my daughter, she was actually so with him, for they persuaded her into the passion. In this agreeable interval my wife had the most lucky dreams in the world, which she took care to tell us every morning with great solemnity and exactness. It was one night a coffin and cross-bones, the sign of an approaching wedding; at another time she imagined her daughter's pockets filled with farthings, a certain sign of their being shortly stuffed with gold. The girls themselves had their omens. They felt strange kisses on their lips; they saw rings in the candle; purses bounced from the fire, and true-love knots lurked in the bottom of every teacup.

Towards the end of the week we received a card from the town ladies, in which, with their compliments, they hoped to see all our family at church the Sunday following. All Saturday morning I could perceive, in consequence of this, my wife and daughters in close conference together, and now and then glancing at me with looks that betrayed a latent plot. To be sincere, I had strong suspicions that some absurd proposal was preparing for appearing with splendor the next day. In the evening they began their operations in a very regular manner, and my wife undertook to conduct the siege. After tea, when I seemed in spirits, she began thus: "I fancy, Charles my dear, we shall have a great deal of good company at our church to-morrow." "Perhaps we may, my dear," returned I; "though you need be under no uneasiness about that; you shall have a sermon whether there be or not." "That is what I expect," returned she; "but I think, my dear, we ought to appear there as decently as possible, for who knows what may happen?" "Your precautions," replied I, "are highly commendable. A decent behavior and appearance in church is what charms me. We should be devout and humble, cheerful and serene." "Yes," cried she, "I know that; but I mean we should go there in as proper a manner as possible; not altogether like the scrubs about us." "You are quite right, my dear," returned I; "and I was going to make the very same proposal. The proper manner of going is to go there as early as possible, to have time for meditation before the service begins." "Phoo, Charles!" interrupted she; "all that is very true, but not what I would be at. I mean we should go there genteelly. You know the church is two miles off, and I protest I don't like to see my daughters trudging up to their pew all blowzed and red with walking, and looking for all the world as if they had been winners at a smock-race. Now, my dear, my proposal is this: there are our two plow-horses, the colt that has been in our family these nine years, and his companion Blackberry that has scarcely done an earthly thing this month past. They are both grown fat and lazy. Why should not they do something as well as we? And let me tell you, when Moses has trimmed them a little they will cut a very tolerable figure."

To this proposal I objected that walking would be twenty times more genteel than such a paltry conveyance, as Blackberry was wall-eyed and the colt wanted a tail; that they had never been broke to the rein, but had a hundred vicious tricks; and that we had but one saddle and pillion in the whole house. All these objections however were overruled; so that I was obliged to comply. The next morning I perceived them not a little busy in collecting such materials as might be necessary for the expedition, but as I found it would be a business of time, I walked on to the church before, and they promised speedily to follow. I waited near an hour in the reading-desk for their arrival, but not finding them come as I expected, I was obliged to begin, and went through the service, not without some uneasiness at finding them absent. This was increased when all was finished, and no appearance of the family. I therefore walked back by the horse-way, which was five miles round, though the foot-way was but two, and when I got about half-way home, perceived the procession marching slowly forward towards the church; my son, my wife, and the two little ones exalted upon one horse, and my two daughters upon the other. I demanded the cause of their delay; but I soon found by their looks they had met with a thousand misfortunes on the road. The horses had at first refused to move from the door, till Mr. Burchell was kind enough to beat them forward for about two hundred yards with his cudgel. Next, the straps of my wife's pillion broke down, and they were obliged to stop to repair them before they could proceed. After that, one of the horses took it into his head to stand still, and neither blows nor entreaties could prevail with him to proceed. They were just recovering from this dismal situation when I found them; but perceiving everything safe, I own their present mortification did not much displease me, as it would give me many opportunities of future triumph, and teach my daughters more humility.

Michaelmas Eve happening on the next day, we were invited to burn nuts and play tricks at neighbor Flamborough's. Our late mortifications had humbled us a little, or it is probable we might have rejected such an invitation with contempt; however, we suffered ourselves to be happy. Our honest neighbor's goose and dumplings were fine, and the lamb's wool, even in the opinion of my wife, who was a connoisseur, was excellent. It is true his manner of telling stories was not quite so well; they were very long and very dull, and all about himself, and we had laughed at them ten times before; however, we were kind enough to laugh at them once more.

Mr. Burchell, who was of the party, was always fond of seeing some innocent amusement going forward, and set the boys and girls to blindman's buff. My wife too was persuaded to join in the diversion, and it gave me pleasure to think she was not yet too old. In the mean time my neighbor and I looked on, laughed at every feat, and praised our own dexterity when we were young. Hot cockles succeeded next, questions and commands followed that, and last of all they sat down to hunt the slipper. As every person may not be acquainted with this primeval pastime, it may be necessary to observe that the company at this play planted themselves in a ring upon the ground, all except one, who stands in the middle, whose business it is to catch a shoe which the company shove about under their hams from one to another, something like a weaver's shuttle. As it is impossible in this case for the lady who is up to face all the company at once, the great beauty of the play lies in hitting her a thump with the heel of the shoe on that side least capable of making a defense. It was in this manner that my eldest daughter was hemmed in and thumped about, all blowzed in spirits, and bawling for fair play with a voice that might deafen a ballad-singer, when, confusion on confusion! who should enter the room but our two great acquaintances from town, Lady Blarney and Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs! Description would but beggar, therefore it is unnecessary to describe this new mortification. Death! To be seen by ladies of such high breeding in such vulgar attitudes! Nothing better could ensue from such a vulgar play of Mr. Flamborough's proposing. We seemed stuck to the ground for some time, as if actually petrified with amazement.

The two ladies had been at our house to see us, and finding us from home, came after us hither, as they were uneasy to know what accident could have kept us from church the day before. Olivia undertook to be our prolocutor, and delivered the whole in the summary way, only saying, "We were thrown from our horses." At which account the ladies were greatly concerned; but being told the family received no hurt, they were extremely glad; but being informed that we were almost killed by the fright, they were vastly sorry; but hearing that we had a very good night, they were extremely glad again. Nothing could exceed their complaisance to my daughters; their professions the last evening were warm, but now they were ardent. They protested a desire of having a more lasting acquaintance; Lady Blarney was particularly attached to Olivia; Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs (I love to give the whole name) took a greater fancy to her sister. They supported the conversation between themselves, while my daughters sat silent, admiring their exalted breeding. But as every reader, however beggarly himself, is fond of high-lived dialogues, with anecdotes of lords, ladies, and Knights of the Garter, I must beg leave to give him the concluding part of the present conversation.

"All that I know of the matter," cried Miss Skeggs, "is this: that it may be true, or it may not be true; but this I can assure your ladyship, that the whole route was in amaze; his lordship turned all manner of colors, my lady fell into a swoon, but Sir Tomkyn, drawing his sword, swore he was hers to the last drop of his blood."

"Well," replied our peeress, "this I can say: that the duchess never told me a syllable of the matter; and I believe her Grace would keep nothing a secret from me. This you may depend upon as fact: that the next morning my lord duke cried out three times to his valet-de-chambre, 'Jernigan, Jernigan, Jernigan, bring me my garters!'"

But previously I should have mentioned the very impolite behavior of Mr. Burchell, who during this discourse sat with his face turned to the fire, and at the conclusion of every sentence would cry out "Fudge!"—an expression which displeased us all, and in some measure damped the rising spirit of the conversation.

"Besides, my dear Skeggs," continued our peeress, "there is nothing of this in the copy of verses that Doctor Burdock made upon the occasion." Fudge!

"I am surprised at that," cried Miss Skeggs; "for he seldom leaves anything out, as he writes only for his own amusement. But can your Ladyship favor me with a sight of them?" Fudge!

"My dear creature," replied our peeress, "do you think I carry such things about me? Though they are very fine, to be sure, and I think myself something of a judge; at least I know what pleases myself. Indeed, I was ever an admirer of all Doctor Burdock's little pieces; for except what he does, and our dear countess at Hanover Square, there's nothing comes out but the most lowest stuff in nature; not a bit of high life among them." Fudge!

"Your Ladyship should except," says t'other, "your own things in the Lady's Magazine. I hope you'll say there's nothing low-lived there? But I suppose we are to have no more from that quarter?" Fudge!

"Why, my dear," says the lady, "you know my reader and companion has left me to be married to Captain Roach, and as my poor eyes won't suffer me to write myself, I have been for some time looking out for another. A proper person is no easy matter to find, and to be sure, thirty pounds a year is a small stipend for a well-bred girl of character, that can read, write, and behave in company; as for the chits about town, there is no bearing them about one." Fudge!

"That I know," cried Miss Skeggs, "by experience. For of the three companions I had this last half-year, one of them refused to do plain work an hour in the day, another thought twenty-five guineas a year too small a salary, and I was obliged to send away the third because I suspected an intrigue with the chaplain. Virtue, my dear Lady Blarney, virtue is worth any price; but where is that to be found?" Fudge!

My wife had been for a long time all attention to this discourse, but was particularly struck with the latter part of it. Thirty pounds and twenty-five guineas a year made fifty-six pounds five shillings, English money, all which was in a manner going a-begging, and might easily be secured in the family. She for a moment studied my looks for approbation; and to own a truth, I was of opinion that two such places would fit our two daughters exactly. Besides, if the Squire had any real affection for my eldest daughter, this would be the way to make her every way qualified for her fortune. My wife therefore was resolved that we should not be deprived of such advantages for want of assurance, and undertook to harangue for the family. "I hope," cried she, "your ladyships will pardon my present presumption. It is true, we have no right to pretend to such favors; but yet it is natural for me to wish putting my children forward in the world. And I will be bold to say my two girls have had a pretty good education and capacity; at least, the country can't show better. They can read, write, and cast accounts; they understand their needle, broad-stitch, cross-and-change, and all manner of plain work; they can pink, point, and frill, and know something of music; they can do up small-clothes, work upon catgut; my eldest can cut paper, and my youngest has a very pretty manner of telling fortunes upon the cards." Fudge!

When she had delivered this pretty piece of eloquence, the two ladies looked at each other a few moments in silence, with an air of doubt and importance. At last Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs condescended to observe that the young ladies, from the opinion she could form of them from so slight an acquaintance, seemed very fit for such employments. "But a thing of this kind, madam," cried she, addressing my spouse, "requires a thorough examination into characters, and a more perfect knowledge of each other. Not, madam," continued she, "that I in the least suspect the young ladies' virtue, prudence, and discretion; but there is a form in these things, madam, there is a form."

My wife approved her suspicions very much, observing that she was very apt to be suspicious herself; but referred her to all the neighbors for a character; but this our peeress declined as unnecessary, alleging that her cousin Thornhill's recommendation would be sufficient, and upon this we rested our petition.

---

When we returned home, the night was dedicated to schemes of future conquest. Deborah exerted much sagacity in conjecturing which of the two girls was likely to have the best place, and most opportunities of seeing good company. The only obstacle to our preferment was in obtaining the Squire's recommendation; but he had already shown us too many instances of his friendship to doubt of it now. Even in bed my wife kept up the usual theme: "Well, faith, my dear Charles, between ourselves, I think we have made an excellent day's work of it." "Pretty well," cried I, not knowing what to say. "What, only pretty well!" returned she; "I think it is very well. Suppose the girls should come to make acquaintances of taste in town! This I am assured of, that London is the only place in the world for all manner of husbands. Besides, my dear, stranger things happen every day; and as ladies of quality are so taken with my daughters, what will not men of quality be! Entre nous, I protest I like my Lady Blarney vastly; so very obliging. However, Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs has my warm heart. But yet when they came to talk of places in town, you saw at once how I nailed them. Tell me, my dear, don't you think I did for my children there?" "Ay," returned I, not knowing well what to think of the matter; "Heaven grant that they may be both the better for it this day three months!" This was one of those observations I usually made to impress my wife with an opinion of my sagacity; for if the girls succeeded, then it was a pious wish fulfilled; but if anything unfortunate ensued, then it might be looked upon as a prophecy.

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NEW MISFORTUNES: BUT OFFENSES ARE EASILY PARDONED WHERE THERE IS LOVE AT BOTTOM

From 'The Vicar of Wakefield'

The next morning I took my daughter behind me, and set out on my return home. As we traveled along, I strove by every persuasion to calm her sorrows and fears, and to arm her with resolution to bear the presence of her offended mother. I took every opportunity, from the prospect of a fine country through which we passed, to observe how much kinder Heaven was to us than we were to each other, and that the misfortunes of nature's making were very few. I assured her that she should never perceive any change in my affections, and that during my life, which yet might be long, she might depend upon a guardian and an instructor. I armed her against the censures of the world; showed her that books were sweet, unreproaching companions to the miserable, and that if they could not bring us to enjoy life, they would at least teach us to endure it.

The hired horse that we rode was to be put up that night at an inn by the way, within about five miles from my house; and as I was willing to prepare my family for my daughter's reception, I determined to leave her that night at the inn, and to return for her accompanied by my daughter Sophia, early the next morning. It was night before we reached our appointed stage; however, after seeing her provided with a decent apartment, and having ordered the hostess to prepare proper refreshments, I kissed her, and proceeded towards home. And now my heart caught new sensations of pleasure, the nearer I approached that peaceful mansion. As a bird that had been frighted from its nest, my affections outwent my haste, and hovered round my little fireside with all the rapture of expectation. I called up the many fond things I had to say, and anticipated the welcome I was to receive. I already felt my wife's tender embrace, and smiled at the joy of my little ones. As I walked but slowly, the night waned apace. The laborers of the day were all retired to rest; the lights were out in every cottage; no sounds were heard but of the shrilling cock, and the deep-mouthed watch-dog at the hollow distance. I approached my little abode of pleasure, and before I was within a furlong of the place our honest mastiff came running to welcome me.

It was now near midnight that I came to knock at my door; all was still and silent; my heart dilated with unutterable happiness; when to my amazement I saw the house bursting out in a blaze of fire, and every aperture red with conflagration! I gave a loud convulsive outcry, and fell upon the pavement insensible. This alarmed my son, who had till this been asleep, and he perceiving the flames instantly waked my wife and daughter, and all running out naked and wild with apprehension, recalled me to life with their anguish. But it was only to objects of new terror; for the flames had by this time caught the roof of our dwelling, part after part continuing to fall in, while the family stood with silent agony looking on, as if they enjoyed the blaze. I gazed upon them and upon it by turns, and then looked round me for my two little ones: but they were not to be seen. Oh misery! "Where," cried I, "where are my little ones?" "They are burnt to death in the flames," said my wife calmly, "and I will die with them." That moment I heard the cry of the babes within, who were just awaked by the fire; and nothing could have stopped me. "Where, where are my children?" cried I, rushing through the flames, and bursting the door of the chamber in which they were confined; "where are my little ones?" "Here, dear papa, here we are," cried they together, while the flames were just catching the bed where they lay. I caught them both in my arms, and snatched them through the fire as fast as possible, while just as I was got out, the roof sunk in. "Now," cried I, holding up my children, "now let the flames burn on, and all my possessions perish. Here they are; I have saved my treasure. Here, my dearest, here are our treasures, and we shall yet be happy." We kissed our little darlings a thousand times, they clasped us round the neck and seemed to share our transports, while their mother laughed and wept by turns.

I now stood a calm spectator of the flames, and after some time began to perceive that my arm to the shoulder was scorched in a terrible manner. It was therefore out of my power to give my son any assistance, either in attempting to save our goods, or preventing the flames spreading to our corn. By this time the neighbors were alarmed, and came running to our assistance; but all they could do was to stand, like us, spectators of the calamity. My goods, among which were the notes I had reserved for my daughters' fortunes, were entirely consumed, except a box with some papers that stood in the kitchen, and two or three things more of little consequence which my son brought away in the beginning. The neighbors contributed, however, what they could to lighten our distress. They brought us clothes, and furnished one of our out-houses with kitchen utensils; so that by daylight we had another, though a wretched dwelling, to retire to. My honest next neighbor and his children were not the least assiduous in providing us with everything necessary, and offering whatever consolation untutored benevolence could suggest.

When the fears of my family had subsided, curiosity to know the cause of my long stay began to take place; having therefore informed them of every particular, I proceeded to prepare them for the reception of our lost one, and though we had nothing but wretchedness now to impart, I was willing to procure her a welcome to what we had. This task would have been more difficult but for our recent calamity, which had humbled my wife's pride and blunted it by more poignant afflictions. Being unable to go for my poor child myself, as my arm grew very painful, I sent my son and daughter, who soon returned, supporting the wretched delinquent, who had not the courage to look up at her mother, whom no instructions of mine could persuade to a perfect reconciliation; for women have a much stronger sense of female error than men. "Ah, madam," cried her mother, "this is but a poor place you have come to after so much finery. My daughter Sophy and I can afford but little entertainment to persons who have kept company only with people of distinction. Yes, Miss Livy, your poor father and I have suffered very much of late; but I hope Heaven will forgive you." During this reception the unhappy victim stood pale and trembling, unable to weep or to reply; but I could not continue a silent spectator of her distress; wherefore, assuming a degree of severity in my voice and manner which was ever followed with instant submission:—-"I entreat, woman, that my words may be now marked once for all: I have here brought you back a poor deluded wanderer; her return to duty demands the revival of our tenderness. The real hardships of life are now coming fast upon us; let us not therefore increase them by dissension among each other. If we live harmoniously together, we may yet be contented, as there are enough of us to shut out the censuring world and keep each other in countenance. The kindness of Heaven is promised to the penitent, and let ours be directed by the example. Heaven, we are assured, is much more pleased to view a repentant sinner than ninety-nine persons who have supported a course of undeviating rectitude. And this is right; for that single effort by which we stop short in the down-hill path to perdition, is itself a greater exertion of virtue than a hundred acts of justice."

---

Some assiduity was now required to make our present abode as convenient as possible, and we were soon again qualified to enjoy our former serenity. Being disabled myself from assisting my son in our usual occupations, I read to my family from the few books that were saved, and particularly from such as by amusing the imagination contributed to ease the heart. Our good neighbors, too, came every day with the kindest condolence, and fixed a time in which they were all to assist at repairing my former dwelling. Honest Farmer Williams was not last among these visitors, but heartily offered his friendship. He would even have renewed his addresses to my daughter; but she rejected them in such a manner as totally repressed his future solicitations. Her grief seemed formed for continuing, and she was the only person of our little society that a week did not restore to cheerfulness. She had now lost that unblushing innocence which once taught her to respect herself, and to seek pleasure by pleasing. Anxiety now had taken strong possession of her mind, her beauty began to be impaired with her constitution, and neglect still more contributed to diminish it. Every tender epithet bestowed on her sister brought a pang to her heart and a tear to her eye; and as one vice, though cured, ever plants others where it has been, so her former guilt, though driven out by repentance, left jealousy and envy behind. I strove in a thousand ways to lessen her care, and even forgot my own pain in a concern for hers, collecting such amusing passages of history as a strong memory and some reading could suggest. "Our happiness, my dear," I would say, "is in the power of One who can bring it about a thousand unforeseen ways that mock our foresight."

In this manner I would attempt to amuse my daughter; but she listened with divided attention, for her own misfortunes engrossed all the pity she once had for those of another, and nothing gave her ease. In company she dreaded contempt, and in solitude she only found anxiety. Such was the color of her wretchedness, when we received certain information that Mr. Thornhill was going to be married to Miss Wilmot, for whom I always suspected he had a real passion, though he took every opportunity before me to express his contempt both of her person and fortune. This news only served to increase poor Olivia's affliction; such a flagrant breach of fidelity was more than her courage could support. I was resolved however to get more certain information, and to defeat if possible the completion of his designs, by sending my son to old Mr. Wilmot's with instructions to know the truth of the report, and to deliver Miss Wilmot a letter intimating Mr. Thornhill's conduct in my family. My son went in pursuance of my directions, and in three days returned, assuring us of the truth of the account; but that he had found it impossible to deliver the letter, which he was therefore obliged to leave, as Mr. Thornhill and Miss Wilmot were visiting round the country. They were to be married, he said, in a few days, having appeared together at church the Sunday before he was there, in great splendor; the bride attended by six young ladies, and he by as many gentlemen. Their approaching nuptials filled the whole country with rejoicing, and they usually rode out together in the grandest equipage that had been seen in the country for years. All the friends of both families, he said, were there, particularly the Squire's uncle, Sir William Thornhill, who bore so good a character. He added that nothing but mirth and feasting were going forward; that all the country praised the young bride's beauty and the bridegroom's fine person, and that they were immensely fond of each other; concluding that he could not help thinking Mr. Thornhill one of the most happy men in the world.

"Why, let him if he can," returned I; "but my son, observe this bed of straw and unsheltering roof, those moldering walls and humid floor, my wretched body thus disabled by fire, and my children weeping round me for bread. You have come home, my child, to all this; yet here, even here, you see a man that would not for a thousand worlds exchange situations. O my children, if you could but learn to commune with your own hearts, and know what noble company you can make them, you would little regard the elegance and splendor of the worthless. Almost all men have been taught to call life a passage, and themselves the travelers. The similitude still may be improved, when we observe that the good are joyful and serene, like travelers that are going towards home; the wicked but by intervals happy, like travelers that are going into exile."

My compassion for my poor daughter, overpowered by this new disaster, interrupted what I had further to observe. I bade her mother support her, and after a short time she recovered. She appeared from that time more calm, and I imagined had gained a new degree of resolution; but appearances deceived me, for her tranquillity was the languor of overwrought resentment. A supply of provisions charitably sent us by my kind parishioners seemed to diffuse new cheerfulness among the rest of the family; nor was I displeased at seeing them once more sprightly and at ease. It would have been unjust to damp their satisfactions merely to condole with resolute melancholy, or to burden them with a sadness they did not feel. Thus once more the tale went round, and the song was demanded, and cheerfulness condescended to hover round our little habitation.

---

The next morning the sun arose with peculiar warmth for the season; so that we agreed to breakfast together on the honeysuckle bank; where, while we sat, my youngest daughter, at my request, joined her voice to the concert on the trees about us. It was in this place my poor Olivia first met her seducer, and every object served to recall her sadness. But that melancholy which is excited by objects of pleasure, or inspired by sounds of harmony, soothes the heart instead of corroding it. Her mother, too, upon this occasion felt a pleasing distress, and wept, and loved her daughter as before. "Do, my pretty Olivia," cried she, "let us have that little melancholy air your papa was so fond of; your sister Sophy has already obliged us. Do, child; it will please your old father." She complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me:

"When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?

"The only art her guilt to cover,
"To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is—to die."

As she was concluding the last stanza, to which an interruption in her voice from sorrow gave peculiar softness, the appearance of Mr. Thornhill's equipage at a distance alarmed us all, but particularly increased the uneasiness of my eldest daughter, who, desirous of shunning her betrayer, returned to the house with her sister. In a few minutes he was alighted from his chariot, and making up to the place where I was still sitting, inquired after my health with his usual air of familiarity. "Sir," replied I, "your present assurance only serves to aggravate the baseness of your character; and there was a time when I would have chastised your insolence for presuming thus to appear before me. But now you are safe; for age has cooled my passions, and my calling restrains me."

"I vow, my dear sir," returned he, "I am amazed at all this, nor can I understand what it means. I hope you don't think your daughter's late excursion with me had anything criminal in it."

"Go," cried I; "thou art a wretch, a poor pitiful wretch, and every way a liar; but your meanness secures you from my anger. Yet, sir, I am descended from a family that would not have borne this! And so, thou vile thing! to gratify a momentary passion, thou hast made one poor creature wretched for life, and polluted a family that had nothing but honor for their portion."

"If she or you," returned he, "are resolved to be miserable, I cannot help it. But you may still be happy; and whatever opinion you may have formed of me, you shall ever find me ready to contribute to it. We can marry her to another in a short time, and what is more, she may keep her lover beside; for I protest I shall ever continue to have a true regard for her."

I found all my passions alarmed at this new degrading proposal; for although the mind may often be calm under great injuries, little villainy can at any time get within the soul and sting it into rage. "Avoid my sight, thou reptile," cried I, "nor continue to insult me with thy presence. Were my brave son at home he would not suffer this; but I am old and disabled, and every way undone."

"I find," cried he, "you are bent upon obliging me to talk in a harsher manner than I intended. But as I have shown you what may be hoped from my friendship, it may not be improper to represent what may be the consequences of my resentment. My attorney, to whom your late bond has been transferred, threatens hard; nor do I know how to prevent the course of justice except by paying the money myself, which, as I have been at some expenses lately previous to my intended marriage, is not so easy to be done. And then my steward talks of driving for the rent: it is certain he knows his duty, for I never trouble myself with affairs of that nature. Yet still I could wish to serve you, and even to have you and your daughter present at my marriage, which is shortly to be solemnized with Miss Wilmot; it is even the request of my charming Arabella herself, whom I hope you will not refuse."

"Mr. Thornhill," replied I, "hear me once for all: as to your marriage with any but my daughter, that I never will consent to; and though your friendship could raise me to a throne, or your resentment sink me to the grave, yet would I despise both. Thou hast once woefully, irreparably deceived me. I reposed my heart upon thine honor, and have found its baseness. Never more, therefore, expect friendship from me. Go, and possess what fortune has given thee—beauty, riches, health, and pleasure. Go and leave me to want, infamy, disease, and sorrow. Yet humbled as I am, shall my heart still vindicate its dignity, and though thou hast my forgiveness, thou shalt ever have my contempt."

"If so," returned he, "depend upon it you shall feel the effects of this insolence; and we shall shortly see which is the fittest object of scorn, you or me." Upon which he departed abruptly.

---

PICTURES FROM 'THE DESERTED VILLAGE'

Sweet Auburn! parent of the blissful hour,
Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power.
Here, as I take my solitary rounds
Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds,
And, many a year elapsed, return to view
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew,
Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.
In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs,—and God has given my share,—
I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting by repose.
I still had hopes—for pride attends us still—
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill;
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
And as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return—and die at home at last.

Oh, blest retirement! friend to life's decline,
Retreat from care, that never must be mine,
How blest is he who crowns in shades like these
A youth of labor with an age of ease;
Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
And since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly!
For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep;
No surly porter stands in guilty state,
To spurn imploring famine from the gate:
But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Bends to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past.

Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose.
There, as I passed with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below:
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool;
The playful children just let loose from school;
The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind:
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And filled each pause the nightingale had made.
But now the sounds of population fail;
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale;
No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread,
But all the bloomy flush of life is fled.
All but yon widowed, solitary thing
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron,—forced in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn,—
She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain.

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild,
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place:
Unpracticed he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,—
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sate by his fire, and talked the night away,
Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side:
But in his duty prompt at every call,
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all.
And as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion stood. At his control,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down, the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whispered praise.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
Even children followed, with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest;
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven:
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay,
There in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,
The village master taught his little school.
A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew:
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes,—for many a joke had he;
Full well, the busy whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.
Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault.
The village all declared how much he knew:
'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And even the story ran that he could gauge.
In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill,
For even though vanquished he could argue still;
While words of learnèd length and thundering sound,
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around,
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame. The very spot
Where many a time he triumphed is forgot.

Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high,
Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye,
Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired,
Where graybeard mirth and smiling toil retired,
Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round.
Imagination fondly stoops to trace
The parlor splendors of that festive place:
The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnished clock that clicked behind the door;
The chest contrived a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;
The pictures placed for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose;
The hearth, except when winter chilled the day,
With aspen boughs and flowers and fennel gay,
While broken teacups, wisely kept for show,
Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row.

Vain, transitory splendors! could not all
Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall?
Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart.
Thither no more the peasant shall repair
To sweet oblivion of his daily care;
No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail;
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,
Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear;
The host himself no longer shall be found
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain
These simple blessings of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art.
Spontaneous joys where nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway;
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed,—
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
And even while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy.

---

CONTRASTED NATIONAL TYPES

From 'The Traveller'

My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display;
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread.
No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword;
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm.
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.
Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small
He sees his little lot the lot of all;
Sees no contiguous palace rear its head
To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal
To make him loathe his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn he wakes from short repose,
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep,
Or drives his venturous plowshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage into day.
At night returning, every labor sped,
He sits him down, the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board;
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.

Thus every good his native wilds impart,
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
And even those ills that round his mansion rise,
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.

Such are the charms to barren states assigned;
Their wants but few, their wishes all confined.
Yet let them only share the praises due,—
If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;
For every want that stimulates the breast
Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest.
Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies
That first excites desire, and then supplies;
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;
Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame.
Their level life is but a smoldering fire,
Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong desire;
Unfit for raptures, or if raptures cheer
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow:
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low;
For as refinement stops, from sire to son
Unaltered, unimproved, the manners run;
And love's and friendship's finely pointed dart
Falls blunted from each indurated heart.
Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast
May sit, like falcons cowering on the nest;
But all the gentler morals, such as play
Through life's more cultured walks, and charm the way,
These, far dispersed, on timorous pinions fly,
To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
I turn; and France displays her bright domain.
Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir,
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire!
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew;
And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still,
But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer's skill,
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour.
Alike all ages: dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze;
And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,
Has frisked beneath the burthen of threescore.

So blest a life these thoughtless realms display,
Thus idly busy rolls their world away:
Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honor forms the social temper here.
Honor, that praise which real merit gains,
Or even imaginary worth obtains,
Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land;
From courts to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise:
They please, are pleased, they give to get esteem,
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.

But while this softer art their bliss supplies,
It gives their follies also room to rise:
For praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought;
And the weak soul, within itself unblest,
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.
Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here vanity assumes her pert grimace,
And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year:
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.

---

IVÁN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHARÓF

(1812-)

BY NATHAN HASKELL DOLE

mong the Russian novelists of the first rank stands Iván the son of Alexander Goncharóf. His life has been almost synchronous with the century. He was born in 1812 in the city of Simbirsk, on the Volga below Nizhni Nóvgorod. His father, a wealthy merchant of that flourishing town, died when the boy was only three years old, leaving him in the care of his mother, a conscientious and lovely woman, who, without a remarkable education, nevertheless determined that her son should have the best that could be provided. In this she was cordially assisted by Ivàn's godfather, a retired naval officer who lived in one of her houses and was a cultivated, lively, and lovable man, the centre of the best society of the provincial city. His tales of travel and adventure early implanted in the boy a great passion for reading and study about foreign lands, and the desire to see the world.

I.V. Goncharóf

He was at first taught at home; then he was sent to a private school which had been established by a local priest for the benefit of neighboring land-owners and gentry. This priest had been educated at the Theological School at Kazán, and was distinguished for his courtly manners and general cultivation. His wife—for it must be remembered that the Russian priesthood is not celibate—was a fascinating French woman, and she taught her native tongue in her husband's school. This remarkable little institution had a small but select library, and here young Goncharóf indulged his taste in reading by devouring the Voyages of Captain Cook, Mungo Park, and others, the histories of Karamzin and Rollin, the poetical works of Tasso and Fenelon, as well as the romantic fiction of that day; he was especially fascinated by 'The Heir of Redclyffe.' His reading, however, was ill regulated and not well adapted for his mental discipline. At twelve he was taken by his mother to Moscow, where he had the opportunity to study English and German as well as to continue his reading in French, in which he had already been well grounded.

In 1831 he entered Moscow University, electing the Philological Faculty. There were at that time in the University a coterie of young men who afterwards became famous as writers, and the lectures delivered by a number of enthusiastic young professors were admirably calculated to develop the best in those who heard them. He finished the complete course, and after a brief visit at his native place went to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Ministry of Finance. Gogol, and Goncharóf himself, have painted the depressing influence of the officialdom then existing. The chinóvnik as painted by those early realists was a distinct type. But on the other hand, there was a delightful society at St. Petersburg, and the literary impulses of talented young men were fostered by its leaders. Some of these men founded a new journal of which Salonitsuin was the leading spirit, and in this appeared Goncharóf's first articles. They were of a humoristic tendency. His first serious work was entitled 'Obuiknavénnaya Istóriya' (An Ordinary Story),—a rather melancholy tale, showing how youthful enthusiasm and the dreams of progress and perfection can be killed by formalism: Aleksandr Adúyef the romantic dreamer is contrasted with his practical uncle Peter Ivánovitch. The second part was not completed when the first part was placed in the hands of the critic Byelinsky, the sovereign arbiter on things literary. Byelinsky gave it his "imprimatur," and it was published in the Sovreménnik (Contemporary) in 1847. The conception of his second and by all odds his best romance, 'Oblómof,' was already in his mind; and the first draft was published in the Illustrated Album, under the title 'Son Oblómova' (Oblómof's Dream), the following year.

In 1852 Goncharóf received from the Marine Ministry a proposition to sail around the world as private secretary to Admiral Putyátin. On his return he contributed to various magazines sketches of his experiences, and finally published a handsome volume of his travels entitled 'Phregat Pállada' (The Frigate Pallas). In 1857 he went to Carlsbad and completed 'Oblómof' on which he had been working so many years. It appeared in Otetchestvenniya Zapíski (Annals of the Fatherland) in 1858 and 1859, and made a profound sensation. The hero was recognized as a perfectly elaborated portrait of a not uncommon type of Russian character: a good-natured, warm-hearted, healthy young man, so enervated by the atmosphere of indolence into which he has allowed himself to sink, that nothing serves to rouse him. Love is the only impulse which could galvanize him into life. Across his path comes the beautiful Olga, whom the Russians claim as a poetic and at the same time a genuine representative of the best Russian womanhood. Vigorous, alert, with mind and heart equally well developed, she stirs the latent manhood of Oblómof; but when he comes to face the responsibilities, the cares, and the duties of matrimony, he has not the courage to enter upon them. Olga marries Oblómof's friend Stoltz, whom Goncharóf intended to be a no less typical specimen of Russian manhood, and whom most critics consider overdrawn and not true to life. The novel is a series of wonderful genre pictures: his portraits are marvels of finish and delicacy; and there are a number of dramatic scenes, although the story as a whole lacks movement. The first chapter, which is here reproduced, is chosen not as perhaps the finest in the book, but as thoroughly characteristic. It is also a fine specimen of Russian humor.

Goncharóf finished in 1868 his third novel, entitled 'Abruíf' (The Precipice). It was published first in the Viéstnik Yevrópui (European Messenger), and in book form in 1870. In this he tries to portray the type of the Russian Nihilist; but Volokhóf is regarded rather as a caricature than as a faithful portrait. In contrast with him stands the beautiful Viera; but just as Volokhóf falls below Oblómof, so Viera yields to Olga in perfect realism. One of the best characters in the story is the dilettante Raísky, the type of the man who has an artistic nature but no energy. One of the most important characters of the book is Viera's grandmother: the German translation of 'The Precipice' is entitled 'The Grandmother's Fault.'

Goncharóf has written a few literary essays, and during the past few years has contributed to one of the Russian reviews a series of literary recollections. But his fame with posterity will depend principally on his 'Oblómof,' the name of which has given to the language a new word,—oblómovshchina[F] Oblómovism,—the typically Russian indolence which was induced by the peculiar social conditions existing in Russia before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861: indifference to all social questions; the expectation that others will do your work; or as expressed in the Russian proverb, "the trusting in others as in God, but in yourself as in the Devil."

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OBLÓMOF

In Garókhavaya Street, in one of those immense houses the population of which would suffice for a whole provincial city, there lay one morning in bed in his apartment Ílya Ílyitch Oblómof. He was a pleasant-appearing man of two or three and twenty, of medium stature, with dark gray eyes; but his face lacked any fixed idea or concentration of purpose. A thought would wander like a free bird over his features, flutter in his eyes, light on his parted lips, hide itself in the wrinkles of his brow, then entirely vanish away; and over his whole countenance would spread the shadeless light of unconcern.

From his face this indifference extended to the attitudes of his whole body, even to the folds of his dressing-gown. Occasionally his eyes were darkened by an expression of weariness or disgust, but neither weariness nor disgust could for an instant dispel from his face the indolence which was the dominant and habitual expression not only of his body, but also of his very soul. And his soul was frankly and clearly betrayed in his eyes, in his smile, in every movement of his head, of his hands.

A cool superficial observer, glancing at Oblómof as he passed him by, would have said, "He must be a good-natured, simple-hearted fellow." Any one looking deeper, more sympathetically, would after a few moments' scrutiny turn away with a smile, with a feeling of agreeable uncertainty.

Oblómof's complexion was not florid, not tawny, and not positively pallid, but was indeterminate,—or seemed to be so, perhaps because it was flabby; not by reason of age, but by lack of exercise or of fresh air or of both. His body, to judge by the dull, transparent color of his neck, by his little plump hands, his drooping shoulders, seemed too effeminate for a man. His movements, even if by chance he were aroused, were kept under restraint likewise by a languor and by a laziness that was not devoid of its own peculiar grace.

If a shadow of an anxious thought arose from his spirit and passed across his face, his eyes would grow troubled, the wrinkles in his brow would deepen, a struggle of doubt or pain would seem to begin: but rarely indeed would this troubled thought crystallize into the form of a definite idea; still more rarely would it be transformed into a project.

All anxiety would be dissipated in a sigh and settle down into apathy or languid dreaming.

How admirably Oblómof's house costume suited his unruffled features and his effeminate body! He wore a dressing-gown of Persian material—a regular Oriental khalát, without the slightest suggestion of anything European about it, having no tassels, no velvet, no special shape. It was ample in size, so that he might have wrapped it twice around him. The sleeves, in the invariable Asiatic style, grew wider and wider from the wrist to the shoulder. Although this garment had lost its first freshness, and in places had exchanged its former natural gloss for another that was acquired, it still preserved the brilliancy of its Oriental coloring and its firmness of texture.

The khalát had in Oblómof's eyes a multitude of precious properties: it was soft and supple; the body was not sensible of its weight; like an obedient slave, it accommodated itself to every slightest motion.

Oblómof while at home always went without cravat and without waistcoat, for the simple reason that he liked simplicity and comfort. The slippers which he wore were long, soft, and wide; when without looking he put down one foot from the bed to the floor it naturally fell into one of them.

Oblómof's remaining in bed was not obligatory upon him, as in the case of a sick man or of one who was anxious to sleep; nor was it accidental, as in the case of one who was weary; nor was it for mere pleasure, as a sluggard would have chosen: it was the normal condition of things with him. When he was at home—and he was almost always at home—he invariably lay in bed and invariably in the room where we have just found him: a room which served him for sleeping-room, library, and parlor. He had three other rooms, but he rarely glanced into them; in the morning, perhaps, but even then not every day, but only when his man came to sweep the rooms—and this, you may be sure, was not done every day. In these rooms the furniture was protected with covers; the curtains were always drawn.

The room in which Oblómof was lying appeared at first glance to be handsomely furnished, There were a mahogany bureau, two sofas upholstered in silk, handsome screens embroidered with birds and fruits belonging to an imaginary nature. There were damask curtains, rugs, a number of paintings, bronzes, porcelains, and a quantity of beautiful bric-a-brac. But the experienced eye of a man of pure taste would have discovered at a single hasty glance that everything there betrayed merely the desire to keep up appearances in unimportant details, while really avoiding the burden. That had indeed been Oblómof's object when he furnished his room. Refined taste would not have been satisfied with those heavy ungraceful mahogany chairs, with those conventional étagères. The back of one sofa was dislocated; the veneering was broken off in places. The same characteristics were discoverable in the pictures and the vases, and all the ornaments.

The proprietor himself, however, looked with such coolness and indifference on the decoration of his apartment that one might think he asked with his eyes, "Who brought you here and set you up?" As the result of such an indifferent manner of regarding his possessions, and perhaps of the still more indifferent attitude of Oblómof's servant Zakhár, the appearance of the room, if it were examined rather more critically, was amazing because of the neglect and carelessness which held sway there. On the walls, around the pictures, spiders' webs, loaded with dust, hung like festoons; the mirrors, instead of reflecting objects, would have served better as tablets for scribbling memoranda in the dust that covered them. The rugs were rags. On the sofa lay a forgotten towel; on the table you would generally find in the morning a plate or two with the remains of the evening meal, the salt-cellar, gnawed bones, and crusts of bread. Were it not for these plates, and the pipe half smoked out and flung down on the bed, or even the master himself stretched out on it, it might easily have been supposed that the room was uninhabited, it was so dusty, so lacking in all traces of human care. On the étagères, to be sure, lay two or three opened books or a crumpled newspaper; on the bureau stood an inkstand with pens; but the pages where the books were open were covered thick with dust and had turned yellow, evidently long ago thrown aside; the date of the newspaper was long past; and if any one had dipped a pen into the inkstand it would have started forth only a frightened, buzzing fly!

Ílya Ílyitch was awake, contrary to his ordinary custom, very early,—at eight o'clock. Some anxiety was preying on his mind. Over his face passed alternately now apprehension, now annoyance, now vexation. It was evident that an internal conflict had him in its throes, and his intellect had not as yet come to his aid.

The fact was that the evening before, Oblómof had received from the stárosta (steward) of his estate a letter filled with disagreeable tidings. It is not hard to guess what unpleasant details one's steward may write about: bad harvests, large arrearages, diminution in receipts, and the like. But although his stárosta had written his master almost precisely the same kind of letter the preceding year and the year before that, nevertheless this latest letter came upon him exactly the same, as a disagreeable surprise.

Was it not hard?—he was facing the necessity of considering the means of taking some measures!

However, it is proper to show how far Ílya Ílyitch was justified in feeling anxiety about his affairs.

When he received the first letter of disagreeable tenor from his stárosta some years before, he was already contemplating a plan for a number of changes and improvements in the management of his property. This plan presupposed the introduction of various new economical and protectional measures; but the details of the scheme were still in embryo, and the stárosta's disagreeable letters were annually forthcoming, urging him to activity and really disturbing his peace of mind. Oblómof recognized the necessity of coming to some decision if he were to carry out his plan.

As soon as he woke he decided to get up, bathe, and after drinking his tea, to think the matter over carefully, then to write his letters; and in short, to act in this matter as was fitting. But for half an hour he had been still in bed tormenting himself with this proposition; but finally he came to the conclusion that he would still have time to do it after tea, and that he might drink his tea as usual in bed with all the more reason, because one can think even if one is lying down!

And so he did. After his tea he half sat up in bed, but did not entirely rise; glancing down at his slippers, he started to put his foot into one of them, but immediately drew it back into bed again.

As the clock struck half-past nine, Ílya Ílyitch started up.

"What kind of a man am I?" he said aloud in a tone of vexation. "Conscience only knows. It is time to do something: where there's a will—Zakhár!" he cried.

In a room which was separated merely by a narrow corridor from Ílya Ílyitch's library, nothing was heard at first except the growling of the watch-dog; then the thump of feet springing down from somewhere. It was Zakhár leaping down from his couch on the stove, where he generally spent his time immersed in drowsiness.

An elderly man appeared in the room: he was dressed in a gray coat, through a hole under the armpit of which emerged a part of his shirt; he also wore a gray waistcoat with brass buttons. His head was as bald as his knee, and he had enormous reddish side-whiskers already turning gray—so thick and bushy that they would have sufficed for three ordinary individuals.

Zakhár would never have taken pains to change in any respect either the form which God had bestowed on him, or the costume which he wore in the country. His raiment was made for him in the style which he had brought with him from his village. His gray coat and waistcoat pleased him, for the very reason that in his semi-fashionable attire he perceived a feeble approach to the livery which he had worn in former times when waiting on his former masters (now at rest), either to church or to parties; but liveries in his recollections were merely representative of the dignity of the Oblómof family. There was nothing else to recall to the old man the comfortable and liberal style of life on the estate in the depths of the country. The older generation of masters had died, the family portraits were at home, and in all probability were going to rack and ruin in the garret; the traditions of the former life and importance of the house of Oblómof were all extinct, or lived only in the memories of a few old people still lingering in the country.

Consequently, precious in the eyes of Zakhár was the gray coat: in this he saw a faint emblem of vanished greatness, and he found similar indications in some of the characteristics of his master's features and notions, reminding of his parentage, and in his caprices, which although he grumbled at them under his breath and aloud, yet he prized secretly as manifestations of the truly imperious will and autocratic spirit of a born noble. Had it not been for these whims, he would not have felt that his master was in any sense above him; had it not been for them, there would have been nothing to bring back to his mind his younger days, the village which they had abandoned so long ago, and the traditions about that ancient home,—the sole chronicles preserved by aged servants, nurses, and nursemaids, and handed down from mouth to mouth.

The house of the Oblómofs was rich in those days, and had great influence in that region; but afterwards somehow or other everything had gone to destruction, and at last by degrees had sunk out of sight, overshadowed by parvenus of aristocratic pretensions. Only the few gray-haired retainers of the house preserved and interchanged their reminiscences of the past, treasuring them like holy relics.

This was the reason why Zakhár so loved his gray coat. Possibly he valued his side-whiskers because of the fact that he saw in his childhood many of the older servants with this ancient and aristocratic adornment.

Ílya Ílyitch, immersed in contemplation, took no notice of Zakhár, though the servant had been silently waiting for some time. At last he coughed.

"What is it you want?" asked Ílya Ílyitch.

"You called me, didn't you?"

"Called you? I don't remember what I called you for," he replied, stretching and yawning. "Go back to your room; I will try to think what I wanted."

Zakhár went out, and Ílya Ílyitch lay down on the bed again and began to cogitate upon that cursed letter.

A quarter of an hour elapsed.

"There now," he exclaimed, "I have dallied long enough; I must get up. However, I must read the stárosta's letter over again more attentively, and then I will get up—Zakhár!" The same noise of leaping down from the stove, and the same growling of the dog, only more emphatic.

Zakhár made his appearance, but again Oblómof was sunk deep in contemplation. Zakhár stood a few moments, looking sulkily and askance at his master, and finally he turned to go.

"Where are you going?" suddenly demanded Oblómof.

"You have nothing to say to me, and why should I waste my time standing here?" explained Zakhár, in a hoarse gasp which served him in lieu of a voice, he having lost his voice, according to his own account, while out hunting with the dogs when he had to accompany his former master, and when a powerful wind seemed to blow in his throat. He half turned round, and stood in the middle of the room and glared at his master.

"Have your legs quite given out, that you can't stand a minute? Don't you see I am worried? Now, please wait a moment! wasn't it lying there just now? Get me that letter which I received last evening from the stárosta. What did you do with it?"

"What letter? I haven't seen any letter," replied Zakhár.

"Why, you yourself took it from the postman, you scoundrel!"

"It is where you put it; how should I know anything about it?" said Zakhár, beginning to rummage about among the papers and various things that littered the table.

"You never know anything at all. There, look on the basket. No, see if it hasn't been thrown on the sofa.—There, the back of that sofa hasn't been mended yet. Why have you not got the carpenter to mend it? 'Twas you who broke it. You never think of anything!"

"I didn't break it," retorted Zakhár; "it broke itself; it was not meant to last forever; it had to break some time."

Ílya Ílyitch did not consider it necessary to refute this argument. He contented himself with asking:—

"Have you found it yet?"

"Here are some letters."

"But they are not the right ones."

"Well, there's nothing else," said Zakhár.

"Very good, be gone," said Ílya Ílyitch impatiently. "I am going to get up. I will find it."

Zakhár went to his room, but he had hardly laid his hand on his couch to climb up to it before the imperative cry was heard again:—

"Zakhár! Zakhár!"

"Oh, good Lord!" grumbled he, as he started to go for the third time to Oblómof's library. "What a torment all this is! Oh that death would come and take me from it!"

"What do you want?" he asked, as he stood with one hand on the door, and glaring at Oblómof as a sign of his surliness, at such an angle that he had to look at his master out of the corner of his eyes; while his master could see only one of his enormous side-whiskers, so bushy that you might have expected to have two or three birds come flying out from them.

"My handkerchief, quick! You might have known what I wanted. Don't you see?" remarked Ílya Ílyitch sternly.

Zakhár displayed no special dissatisfaction or surprise at such an order or such a reproach on his master's part, regarding both, so far as he was concerned, as perfectly natural.

"But who knows where your handkerchief is?" he grumbled, circling about the room and making a careful examination of every chair, although it could be plainly seen that there was nothing whatever on them.

"It is a perfect waste of time," he remarked, opening the door into the drawing-room in order to see if there was any sign of it there.

"Where are you going? Look for it here; I have not been in that room since day before yesterday. And make haste," urged Ílya Ílyitch.

"Where is the handkerchief? There isn't any handkerchief," exclaimed Zakhár rummaging and searching in every corner.

"Oh, there it is," he suddenly cried angrily, "under you. There is the end of it sticking out. You were lying on it, and yet you ask me to find your handkerchief for you!"

And Zakhár, without awaiting any reply, turned and started to go out. Oblómof was somewhat ashamed of his own blunder. But he quickly discovered another pretext for putting Zakhár in the wrong.

"What kind of neatness do you call this everywhere here! Look at the dust and dirt! Good heavens! look here, look here! See these corners! You don't do anything at all."

"And so I don't do anything," repeated Zakhár in a tone betokening deep resentment. "I am growing old, I shan't live much longer! But God knows I use the duster for the dust, and I sweep almost every day."

He pointed to the middle of the floor, and at the table where Oblómof had dined. "Here, look here," he went on: "it has all been swept and all put in order, fit for a wedding. What more is needed?"

"Well then, what is this?" cried Ílya Ílyitch, interrupting him and calling his attention to the walls and the ceiling. "And that? and that?"

He pointed to a yesterday's napkin which had been flung down, and to a plate which had been left lying on the table with a dry crust of bread on it.

"Well, as for that," said Zakhár as he picked up the plate, "I will take care of it."

"You will take care of it, will you? But how about the dust and the cobwebs on the walls?" said Oblómof, making ocular demonstration.

"I put that off till Holy Week; then I clean the sacred images and sweep down the cobwebs."

"But how about dusting the books and pictures?"

"The books and pictures? Before Christmas; then Anísiya and I look over all the closets. But now when should we be able to do it? You are always at home."

"I sometimes go to the theatre or go out to dine: you might—"

"Do house-cleaning at night?"

Oblómof looked at him reproachfully, shook his head, and uttered a sigh; but Zakhár gazed indifferently out of the window and also sighed deeply. The master seemed to be thinking, "Well, brother, you are even more of an Oblómof than I am myself;" while Zakhár probably said to himself, "Rubbish! You as my master talk strange and melancholy words, but how do dust and cobwebs concern you?"

"Don't you know that moths breed in dust?" asked Ílya Ílyitch. "I have even seen bugs on the wall!"

"Well, I have fleas on me sometimes," replied Zakhár in a tone of indifference.

"Well, is that anything to boast about? That is shameful," exclaimed Oblómof.

Zakhár's face was distorted by a smirking smile, which seemed to embrace even his eyebrows and his side-whiskers, which for this reason spread apart; and over his whole face up to his very forehead extended a ruddy spot.

"Why, am I to blame that there are bugs on the wall?" he asked in innocent surprise: "was it I who invented them?"

"They come from lack of cleanliness," insisted Oblómof. "What are you talking about?"

"I am not the cause of the uncleanliness."

"But you have mice in your room there running about at night—I hear them."

"I did not invent the mice. There are all kinds of living creatures—mice and cats and fleas—lots of them everywhere."

"How is it that other people don't have moths and bugs?"

Zakhár's face expressed incredulity, or rather a calm conviction that this was not so.

"I have plenty of them," he said without hesitation. "One can't look after every bug and crawl into the cracks after them."

It seemed to be his thought, "What kind of a sleeping-room would that be that had no bugs in it?"

"Now do you see to it that you sweep and brush them out of the corners; don't let there be one left," admonished Oblómof.

"If you get it all cleaned up it will be just as bad again to-morrow," remonstrated Zakhár.

"It ought not to be as bad," interrupted the master.

"But it is," insisted the servant; "I know all about it."

"Well then, if the dust collects again, brush it out again."

"What is that you say? Brush out all the corners every day?" exclaimed Zakhár. "What a life that would be! Better were it that God should take my soul!"

"Why are other people's houses clean?" urged Oblómof. "Just look at the piano-tuner's rooms: see how neat they look, and only one maid—"

"Oh, these Germans!" exclaimed Zakhár suddenly interrupting. "Where do they make any litter? Look at the way they live! Every family gnaws a whole week on a single bone. The coat goes from the father's back to the son's, and back from the son's to the father's. The wives and daughters wear little short skirts, and when they walk they all lift up their legs like ducks—where do they get any dirt? They don't do as we do—leave a whole heap of soiled clothes in the closet for a year at a time, or fill up the corners with bread crusts for the winter. Their crusts are never flung down at random: they make zweiback out of them, and eat them when they drink their beer!"

Zakhár expressed his disgust at such a penurious way of living by spitting through his teeth.

"Say nothing more," expostulated Ílya Ílyitch. "Do better work with your house-cleaning."

"One time I would have cleaned up, but you yourself would not allow it," said Zakhár.

"That is all done with! Don't you see I have entirely changed?"

"Of course you have; but still you stay at home all the time: how can one begin to clean up when you are right here? If you will stay out of the house for a whole day, then I will have a general clearing-up."

"What an idea! Get out of here. You had better go to your own room."

"All right!" persisted Zakhár; "but I tell you, the moment you go out, Anísiya and I will clear the whole place up. And we two would finish with it in short metre; then you will want some women to wash everything."

"Oh, what schemes you invent! Women! away with you!" cried Ílya Ílyitch.

He was by this time disgusted with himself for having led Zakhár into this conversation. He had quite forgotten that the attainment of this delicate object was at the expense of considerable confusion. Oblómof would have liked a state of perfect cleanliness, but he would require that it should be brought about in some imperceptible manner, as it were of itself; but Zakhár always induced a discussion as soon as he was asked to have any sweeping done, or the floors washed, and the like. In such a contingency he was sure to point out the necessity of a terrible disturbance in the house, knowing very well that the mere suggestion of such a thing would fill his master with horror.

Zakhár went away, and Oblómof relapsed into cogitation. After some minutes the half-hour struck again.

"What time is it?" exclaimed Ílya Ílyitch with a dull sense of alarm. "Almost eleven o'clock! Can it be that I am not up yet nor had my bath? Zakhár! Zakhár!"

"Oh, good God! what is it now?" was heard from the ante-room, and then the well-known thump of feet.

"Is my bath ready?" asked Oblómof.

"Ready? yes, long ago," replied Zakhár. "Why did you not get up?"

"Why didn't you tell me it was ready? I should have got up long ago if you had. Go on; I will follow you immediately. I have some business to do; I want to write."

Zakhár went out, but in the course of a few minutes he returned with a greasy copy-book all scribbled over, and some scraps of paper.

"Here, if you want to write—and by the way, be kind enough to verify these accounts: we need the money to pay them."

"What accounts? what money?" demanded Ílya Ílyitch with a show of temper.

"From the butcher, from the grocer, from the laundress, from the baker; they all are clamoring for money."

"Nothing but bother about money," growled Ílya Ílyitch. "But why didn't you give them to me one at a time instead of all at once?"

"You see you always kept putting me off: 'To-morrow,' always 'To-morrow.'"

"Well, why shouldn't we put them off till to-morrow now?"

"No! they are dunning you; they won't give any longer credit. To-morrow's the first of the month."

"Akh!" cried Oblómof in vexation, "new bother! Well, why are you standing there? Put them on the table. I will get up immediately, take my bath, and look them over," said Ílya Ílyitch. "Is it all ready for my bath?"

"What do you mean—'ready'?" said Zakhár.

"Well, now—"

With a groan he started to make the preliminary movement of getting up.

"I forgot to tell you," began Zakhár, "while you were still asleep the manager sent word by the dvórnik that it was imperatively necessary that you vacate the apartment: it is wanted."

"Well, what of that? If the apartment is wanted of course we will move out. Why do you bother me with it? This is the third time you have spoken to me about it."

"They bother me about it also."

"Tell them that we will move out."

"He says, 'For a month you have been promising,' says he, 'and still you don't move out,' says he: 'we'll report the matter to the police.'"

"Let him report," cried Oblómof resolutely: "we will move out as soon as it is a little warmer, in the course of three weeks."

"Three weeks, indeed! The manager says that the workmen are coming in a fortnight: everything is to be torn out. 'Move,' says he, 'either to-morrow or day after to-morrow.'"

"Eh—eh—eh—that's too short notice: to-morrow? See here, what next? How would this minute suit? But don't you dare speak a word to me about apartments. I have already told you that once, and here you are again. Do you hear?"

"But what shall I do?" demanded Zakhár.

"What shall you do? Now how is he going to get rid of me?" replied Ílya Ílyitch. "He makes me responsible! How does it concern me? Don't you trouble me any further, but make any arrangements you please, only so that we don't have to move yet. Can't you do your best for your master?"

"But Ílya Ílyitch, little father [bátiushka], what arrangements shall I make?" began Zakhár in a hoarse whisper. "The house is not mine; how can we help being driven out of the place if they resort to force? If only the house were mine, then I would with the greatest pleasure—"

"There must be some way of bringing him around: tell him we have lived here so long; tell him we'll surely pay him."

"I have," said Zakhár.

"Well, what did he say?"

"What did he say? He repeated his everlasting 'Move out,' says he; 'we want to make repairs on the apartment.' He wants to do over this large apartment and the doctor's for the wedding of the owner's son."

"Oh, my good Lord!" exclaimed Oblómof in despair; "what asses they are to get married!"

He turned over on his back.

"You had better write to the owner, sir," said Zakhár. "Then perhaps he would not drive us out, but would give us a renewal of the lease."

Zakhár as he said this made a gesture with his right hand.

"Very well, then; as soon as I get up I will write him. You go to your room and I will think it over. You need not do anything about this," he added; "I myself shall have to work at all this miserable business myself."

Zakhár left the room, and Oblómof began to ponder.

But he was in a quandary which to think about,—his stárosta's letter, or the removal to new lodgings, or should he undertake to make out his accounts? He was soon swallowed up in the flood of material cares and troubles, and there he still lay turning from side to side. Every once in a while would be heard his broken exclamation, "Akh, my God! life touches everything, reaches everywhere!"

No one knows how long he would have lain there a prey to this uncertainty, had not the bell rung in the ante-room.

"There is some one come already!" exclaimed Oblómof, wrapping himself up in his khalát, "and here I am not up yet; what a shame! Who can it be so early?"

And still lying on his bed, he gazed curiously at the door.

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THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT

Edmond (1822-1896)
Jules (1830-1870)

dmond and Jules Huot De Goncourt, French writers who became famous alike for the perfectness of their collaboration, the originality of their methods, and the finish of their style, were born, the first in Nancy in 1822, the other in Paris in 1830. Until the death of Jules in 1870 they wrote nothing for the public that did not bear both their names; and so entirely identical were their tastes and judgment that it is impossible to say of a single sentence they composed that it was the sole product of one or the other. "Charming writers," Victor Hugo called them; "in unison a powerful writer, two minds from which springs a single jet of talent." Born of a noble family of moderate wealth, they were educated as became their station in life. Both had an early leaning toward the arts; but Edmond, in deference to the wishes of his family, took a government appointment and held the office till the death of his mother, when he was twenty-six years of age. Their father had died while they were boys.

Edmond De Goncourt

Drawn together by their common bereavement and the death-bed injunction of their parent that Edmond should be the careful guardian of his younger brother, whose health had always been delicate, the young men then began a companionship which was broken only by death. They set out to make themselves acquainted with southern Europe, and at the same time to escape the political turmoils of Paris; and extended their travels into Africa, which country they found so congenial that in the first ardor of their enthusiasm they determined to settle there. Business arrangements, however, soon recalled them to Paris, where ties of friendship and other agreeable associations bound them fast to their native soil. They took up their residence in the metropolis, where they lived until a short time before the death of Jules, when, to be free from the roar of the city, they purchased a house in one of the suburbs. Their intellectual development may be traced through their Journal and letters to intimate friends, published by the surviving brother. From these it appears that most of their leisure hours during their travels were taken up with painting and drawing. Jules had attempted some dramatic compositions while at college, and Edmond had been strongly drawn to literature by the conversation of an aunt, of whom he saw much before his mother's death. It was while engaged with their brushes in 1850 that it occurred to the brothers to take up writing as a regular vocation; and thus was begun their remarkable literary partnership.

Their first essay was a drama. It was rejected; whereupon, nothing daunted, they wrote a novel. It was entitled '18—,' and it is interesting to observe that here, at the very outset of their career, they seem to have had in mind the keynote of the chord on which they ever afterwards played: the eighteenth century was the chief source of their inspiration, and it was their life's endeavor to explore it and reproduce it for their contemporaries with painstaking fidelity. The novel engaged their serious and earnest attention, and when it was given to the publisher they watched for its appearance with painful anxiety. Unfortunately it was announced for the very day on which occurred the Coup d'État. The book came out when Paris was in an uproar; and though Jules Janin, one of the most influential critics of the day, unexpectedly exploited it at great length in the Journal des Débats, its circulation in that first edition was not more than sixty copies, most of which were distributed gratuitously.

The blow was a hard one, but the brothers were not thus to be silenced, nor by the subsequent failure of other dramatic ventures and an effort to found a newspaper. They had been little more than imitators. They now entered the field they soon made their own. The writers of their day were for the most part classicists; a few before Victor Hugo were romanticists. The De Goncourts stood for the modern, what they could see and touch. In this way they became realists. What their own senses could not apprehend they at once rejected; all they saw they deemed worthy to be reproduced. They lived in a period of reconstruction after the devastation of the revolution. The refinement and elegance of the society of the later Bourbon monarchy, still within view, they yearned for and sought to restore. A series of monographs dealing with the art and the stage of these days, which appeared in 1851-2, won for them the first real recognition they enjoyed. These were followed by various critical essays on the same subjects, contributed to newspapers and periodicals, and a novel, 'La Lorette,' which had a large sale and marked the beginning of their success from a financial point of view. "This makes us realize," they wrote in their Journal, "that one can actually sell a book."

Their reputation as men of letters was established by the publication in 1854-5 of 'Histoire de la Société Pendant la Revolution' and the same 'Pendant le Directoire' the aim of which, they said, was "to paint in vivid, simple colors the France of 1789 to 1800." This object they accomplished, so far as it concerned the society of which they themselves were descendants; but the reactionary spirit in them was too strong for an impartial view of the struggle, and their lack of true philosophic spirit and broad human sympathy led them to make a picture that, interesting as it is, is sadly distorted. Their vivid colors are lavished mainly on the outrages of the rioters and the sufferings of the aristocrats. But for wealth of detail, the result of tireless research, the history is of value as a record of the manners and customs of the fashionable set of the period. Of the same sort were their other semi-historical works: 'Portraits Intimes du XVIIIième Siècle,' separate sketches of about a hundred more or less well-known figures of the age; 'L'Histoire de Marie Antoinette,' and 'La Femme au XVIIIième Siècle,' in which the gossip and anecdote of former generations are told again almost as graphically as are those which the authors relate of their own circle in their memoirs. Their most important contribution to literature was their 'L'Art au XVIIIième Siècle,' monographs gathered and published in seventeen volumes, and representing a dozen years' labor. This was indeed a labor of love, and it was not in vain; for it was these appreciative studies more than anything else that turned public attention to the almost forgotten delicacy of the school of painters headed by Watteau, Fragonard, Latour, Boucher, Debricourt, and Greuze, whose influence has ever since been manifested on the side of sound taste and sanity in French art.

A volume entitled 'Idées et Sensations,' and their Journal and letters, complete the list of the more important of their works outside the field of fiction. The Journal will always be valuable as an almost complete document of the literary history of France in their time, made up as it is of impressions of and from the most important writers of the day, with whom they were on terms of intimate friendship, including Flaubert, Gautier, Renan, Sainte-Beuve, Hugo, Saint-Victor, Michelet, Zola, and George Sand. In fiction the De Goncourts were less prolific, but it is to their novels mainly that they owe their reputation for individuality, and as true "path-breakers" in literature. They have been called the initiators of modern French realism. Their friend Flaubert perhaps better deserves the title. Their determination to see for themselves all that could be seen, the result of which gave real worth to their historical work, even where their prejudice robbed it of weight, was what put the stamp of character upon their novels. How much importance they attached to correct and comprehensive observation may be gathered from their remark, "The art of learning how to see demands the longest apprenticeship of all the arts." They took life as they found it, examined it on every side,—rarely going far under the surface,—and then sought to reproduce it on their pages as the artist would put it on canvas. Capable of terseness, of suggestiveness, quick to note and communicate the vital spark, they were yet rarely content with it alone. Every minute particle of the body it vivified, they insisted on adding to their picture. Nothing was to be taken for granted; as nothing was accepted by them at second hand, so nothing was left to the imagination of the reader until their comprehensive view was his. It was in this way that they were realists. They did not seek out and expose to public view the grossness and unpleasantness of life. Their own preference was for the beautiful, and in their own lives they indulged their refined tastes. But they looked squarely at the world about them, the ugly with the beautiful, the impure with the pure, and they did not hesitate to describe one almost as faithfully as the other.

Curiously, the discrimination against the masses and the bias that mar their history do not appear in their fiction. "They began writing history which was nothing but romance," says one of their critics, "and later wrote romance which in reality is history." Indeed, their novels are little more than sketches of what occurred around them. 'Madame Gervaisais' is a character study of the aunt of strong literary predilections who influenced Edmond; 'Germinie Lacerteux' is the biography of their servant, at whose death, after long and faithful service, they discovered that she had led a life of singular duplicity; 'Sœur Philomène' is a terribly true glimpse of hospital life, and 'Manette Salomon,' with its half-human monkey drawn from the life, is transferred without change from the Parisian studios under the Empire. 'Renee Mauperin' comes nearest to the model of an ordinary novel; but no one can read of the innocent tomboy girl struck down with fatal remorse at the consequences of her own natural action, on learning of her brother's dishonor, without feeling that this picture too was drawn from the life. Several of their stories were dramatized, but with scant success; and a play which they wrote, 'Henriette Maréchal' and had produced at the Comédie Française through the influence of Princess Mathilde, their constant friend and patroness, was almost howled down,—chiefly however for political reasons.

After the death of Jules de Goncourt, his brother wrote several books of the same character as those which they produced in union, the best known of which are 'La Fille Élisa,' and 'Chérie,' a study of a girl, said to have been inspired by the Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff. The best critics in France, notably Saïnte-Beuve, have given the brothers Goncourt a very high place in literature and conceded their originality. English reviewers have been less ready to exalt them, mainly on account of the offensive part of their realism. They have objected also to their superficiality as historians, and to their sympathy with the sentimental admirers of such types as Marie Antoinette; but they too have been ready to praise the brothers as leaders of a new fashion, and especially for their devotion to style. In this respect the Goncourts have few rivals in French literature. Balzac himself was not more finical in the choice of words, or more unsparing of his time and energy in writing and re-writing until his exact meaning, no more or less, had been expressed; and they covered up the marks of their toil better than he. In a letter to Zola, Edmond de Goncourt said:—"My own idea is that my brother died of work, and above all from the desire to elaborate the artistic form, the chiseled phrase, the workmanship of style." He himself spent a long life at this fine artistry, and died in Paris in July, 1896.

---

TWO FAMOUS MEN

From the Journal of the De Goncourts

March 3D [1862].—We took a walk and went off to find Théophile Gautier.... The street in which he lives is composed of the most squalid countrified buildings, of court-yards swarming with poultry, fruit shops whose doors are ornamented with little brooms of black feathers: just such a suburban street as Hervier might have painted.... We pushed open the door of a house, and found ourselves in the presence of the lord of epithet. The furniture was of gilded wood, covered with red damask, after the heavy Venetian style; there were fine old pictures of the Italian school; above the chimney a mirror innocent of quicksilver, on which were scraped colored arabesques and various Persian characters,—such a picture of meagre sumptuousness and faded splendor as one would find in the rooms of a retired actress, who had come in for some pictures through the bankruptcy of an Italian manager.

When we asked him if we were disturbing him, he answered: "Not at all. I never work at home. I get through my 'copy' at the printing-office. They set up the type as I write. The smell of the printers' ink is a sure stimulant to work, for one feels the 'copy' must be handed in. I could write only a novel in this way now; unless I saw ten lines printed I could not get on to the next ten. The proof-sheet serves as a test to one's work. That which is already done becomes impersonal, but the actual 'copy' is part of yourself; it hangs like filaments from the root of your literary life, and has not yet been torn away. I have always been preparing corners where I should do my work, but when installed there I found I could do nothing. I must be in the midst of things, and can work only when a racket is going on about me; whereas, when I shut myself up for work the solitude tells upon me and makes me sad."

From there Gautier got on the subject of the 'Queen of Sheba.' We admitted our infirmity, our physical incapacity of taking in musical sound; and indeed, a military band is the highest musical enjoyment of which we are capable. Whereupon Gautier said, "Well, I'm delighted to hear that: I am just like you; I prefer silence to music. I do know bad music from good, because part of my life was spent with a singer, but both are quite indifferent to me. Still it is curious that all the literary men of our day feel the same about music. Balzac abhorred it, Hugo cannot endure it, Lamartine has a horror of it. There are only a few painters who have a taste for it."

Then Gautier fell to complaining of the times. "Perhaps I am getting an old man, but I begin to feel as if there were no more air to breathe. What is the use of wings if there is no air in which one can soar? I no longer feel as if I belonged to the present generation. Yes, 1830 was a glorious epoch, but I was too young by two or three years; I was not carried away by the current; I was not ready for it. I ought to have produced a very different sort of work."

There was then some talk of Flaubert, of his literary methods, of his indefatigable patience, and of the seven years he devoted to a work of four hundred pages. "Just listen," observed Gautier, "to what Flaubert said to me the other day: 'It is finished. I have only ten more pages to write; but the ends of my sentences are all in my head.' So that he already hears in anticipation the music of the last words of his sentences before the sentences themselves have been written. Was it not a quaint expression to use? I believe he has devised a sort of literary rhythm. For instance, a phrase which begins in slow measure must not finish with a quick pace, unless some special effect is to be produced. Sometimes the rhythm is only apparent to himself, and escapes our notice. A story is not written for the purpose of being read aloud: yet he shouts his to himself as he writes them. These shouts present to his own ears harmonies, but his readers seem unaware of them."

Gautier's daughters have a charm of their own, a species of Oriental languor, deep dreamy eyes, veiled by heavy eyelids, and a regularity in their gestures and movements which they inherit from their father; but this regularity is tempered in them by womanly grace. There is a charm about them which is not all French; nevertheless there is a French element about it, their little tomboyish tricks and expressions, their habit of pouting, the shrugging of their shoulders, the irony which escapes through the thin veil of childishness intended to conceal it. All these points distinguish them from ordinary society girls, and make clear a strong individuality of character which renders them fearless in expressing their likings and antipathies. They display liberty of speech, and have often the manner of a woman whose face is hidden by a mask; and yet one finds here simplicity, candor, and a charming absence of reserve, utterly unknown to the ordinary young girl.

---

November 23D [1863].—We have been to thank Michelet for the flattering lines he wrote about us.

He lives in the Rue de l'Ouest, at the end of the Jardin du Luxembourg, in a large house which might almost be workmen's dwellings. His flat is on the third floor. A maid opened the door and announced us. We penetrated into a small study.

The wife of the historian has a young, serious face; she was seated on a chair beside the desk on which the lamp was placed, with her back to the window. Michelet sat on a couch of green velvet, and was banked up by cushions.

His attitude reminded us of his historical work: the lower portions of his body were in full sight, whilst the upper were half concealed; the face was a mere shadow surrounded with snowy white locks; from this shadowy mass emerged a professorial, sonorous, singsong voice, consciously important, and in which the ascending and descending scale produced a continuous cooing sound.

He spoke to us in a most appreciative manner of our study of Watteau, and then passed on to the interesting study which might be written on French furniture.

"You gentlemen, who are observers of human nature," he cried suddenly, "there is a history you should write,—the history of the lady's-maid. I do not speak of Madame de Maintenon; but you have Mademoiselle de Launai, the Duchesse de Grammont's Julie, who exercised on her mistress so great an influence, especially in the Corsican affair. Madame Du Deffand said sometimes that there were only two people sincerely attached to her, D'Alembert and her maid. Oh! domesticity has played a great part in history, though men-servants have been of comparative unimportance....

"I was once going through England, traveling from York to Halifax. There were pavements in the country lanes, with the grass growing on each side as carefully kept as the pavements themselves; close by, sheep were grazing, and the whole scene was lit up by gas. A singular sight!"

Then after a short pause:—"Have you noticed that the physiognomy of the great men of to-day is so rarely in keeping with their intellect? Look at their portraits, their photographs: there are no longer any good portraits. Remarkable people no longer possess in their faces anything which distinguishes them from ordinary folk. Balzac had nothing characteristic. Would you recognize Lamartine if you saw him? There is nothing in the shape of his head, or in his lustreless eyes, nothing but a certain elegance which age has not affected. The fact is that in these days there is too great an accumulation of people and things, much more so than in former times. We assimilate too much from other people, and this being the case, we lose even the individuality of our features; we present the portrait of a collective set of people rather than of ourselves."

We rose to take our leave; he accompanied us to the door; then by the light of the lamp he carried in his hand we saw, for a second at least, this marvelous historian of dreams, the great somnambulist of the past and brilliant talker of the present.

---

THE SUICIDE

From 'Sister Philomène'

The next morning the whole hospital knew that Barnier, having scratched his hand on the previous day while dissecting a body in a state of purulent infection, was dying in terrible agonies.

When at four o'clock Malivoire, quitting for a few moments the bedside of his friend, came to replace him in the service, the Sister went up to him. She followed from bed to bed, dogging his steps, without however accosting him, without speaking, watching him intently with her eyes fixed on his. As he was leaving the ward:—

"Well?" she asked, in the brief tone with which women stop the doctor on his last visit at the threshold of the room.

"No hope," said Malivoire, with a gesture of despair; "there is nothing to be done. It began at his right ankle, went up the leg and thigh, and has attacked all the articulations. Such agonies, poor fellow! It will be a mercy when it's over."

"Will he be dead before night?" asked the Sister calmly.

"Oh no! He will live through the night. It is the same case as that of Raguideau three years ago; and Raguideau lasted forty-eight hours."

That evening, at ten o'clock, Sister Philomène might be seen entering the church of Notre Dame des Victoires.

The lamps were being lowered, the lighted tapers were being put out one by one with a long-handled extinguisher. The priest had just left the vestry.

The Sister inquired where he lived, and was told that his house was a couple of steps from the church, in the Rue de la Banque.

The priest was just going into the house when she entered behind, pushing open the door he was closing.

"Come in, Sister," he said, unfurling his wet umbrella and placing it on the tiled floor in the ante-room. And he turned toward her. She was on her knees. "What are you doing, Sister?" he said, astonished at her attitude. "Get up, my child. This is not a fit place. Come, get up!"

"You will save him, will you not?" and Philomène caught hold of the priest's hands as he stretched them out to help her to rise. "Why do you object to my remaining on my knees?"

"Come, come, my child, do not be so excited. It is God alone, remember, who can save. I can but pray."

"Ah! you can only pray," she said in a disappointed tone. "Yes, that is true."

And her eyes sank to the ground. After a moment's pause the priest went on:—

"Come, Sister, sit down there. You are calmer now, are you not? Tell me, what is it you want?"

"He is dying," said Philomène, rising as she spoke. "He will probably not live through the night;" and she began to cry. "It is for a young man of twenty-seven years of age; he has never performed any of his religious duties, never been near a church, never prayed to God since his first communion. He will refuse to listen to anything. He no longer knows a prayer even. He will listen neither to priest nor any one. And I tell you it is all over with him,—he is dying. Then I remembered your Confraternity of Notre Dame des Victoires, since it is devoted to those who do not believe. Come, you must save him!"

"My daughter—"

"And perhaps he is dying at this very moment. Oh! promise me you will do all at once, all that is in the Confraternity book; the prayers,—everything, in short. You will have him prayed for at once, won't you?"

"But, my poor child, it is Friday to-day, and the Confraternity only meets on Thursday."

"Thursday only—why? It will be too late Thursday. He will never live till Thursday. Come, you must save him; you have saved many another."

Sister Philomène looked at the priest with wide-opened eyes, in which through her tears rose a glance of revolt, impatience, and command. For one instant in that room there was no longer a Sister standing before a priest, but a woman face to face with an old man.

The priest resumed:—

"All I can do at present for that young man, my dear daughter, is to apply to his benefit all the prayers and good works that are being carried on by the Confraternity, and I will offer them up to the Blessed and Immaculate Heart of Mary to obtain his conversion. I will pray for him to-morrow at mass, and again on Saturday and Sunday."

"Oh, I am so thankful," said Philomène, who felt tears rise gently to her eyes as the priest spoke to her. "Now I am full of hope; he will be converted, he will have pity on himself. Give me your blessing for him."

"But Sister, I only bless from the altar, in the pulpit, or in the confessional. There only am I the minister of God. Here, my Sister, here I am but a weak man, a miserable sinner."

"That does not signify; you are always God's minister, and you cannot, you would not, refuse me; he is at the point of death."

She fell on her knees as she spoke. The priest blessed her, and added:—

"It is nearly eleven o'clock, Sister; you have nearly three miles to get home, all Paris to cross at this late hour."

"Oh, I am not afraid," replied Philomène with a smile; "God knows why I am in the street. Moreover, I will tell my beads on the way. The Blessed Virgin will be with me."...

The same evening, Barnier, rousing himself from a silence that had lasted the whole day, said to Malivoire, "You will write to my mother. You will tell her that this often happens in our profession."

"But you are not yet as bad as all that, my dear fellow," replied Malivoire, bending over the bed. "I am sure I shall save you."

"No, I chose my man too well for that. How well I took you in, my poor Malivoire!" and he smiled almost. "You understand, I could not kill myself. I did not wish to be the death of my old mother. But an accident—that settles everything. You will take all my books, do you hear? and my case of instruments also. I wish you to have all. You wonder why I have killed myself, don't you? Come nearer. It is on account of that woman. I never loved but her in all my life. They did not give her enough chloroform; I told them so. Ah! if you had heard her scream when she awoke—before it was over! That scream still re-echoes in my ears! However," he continued, after a nervous spasm, "if I had to begin again, I would choose some other way of dying, some way in which I should not suffer so much. Then, you know, she died, and I fancied I had killed her. She is ever before me,... covered with blood.... And then I took to drinking. I drank because I love her still.... That's all!"

Barnier relapsed into silence. After a long pause, he again spoke, and said to Malivoire:—

"You will tell my mother to take care of the little lad."

After another pause, the following words escaped him:—

"The Sister would have said a prayer."

Shortly after, he asked:—

"What o'clock is it?"

"Eleven."

"Time is not up yet;... I have still some hours to live.... I shall last till to-morrow."

A little later he again inquired the time, and crossing his hands on his breast, in a faint voice he called Malivoire and tried to speak to him. But Malivoire could not catch the words he muttered.

Then the death-rattle began, and lasted till morn....

A candle lighted up the room.

It burnt slowly, it lighted up the four white walls on which the coarse ochre paint of the door and of the two cupboards cut a sharp contrast....

On the iron bedstead with its dimity curtains, a sheet lay thrown over a motionless body, molding the form as wet linen might do, indicating with the inflexibility of an immutable line the rigidity, from the tip of the toes to the sharp outline of the face, of what it covered.

Near a white wooden table Malivoire, seated in a large wicker arm-chair, watched and dozed, half slumbering and yet not quite asleep.

In the silence of the room nothing could be heard but the ticking of the dead man's watch.

From behind the door something seemed gently to move and advance, the key turned in the lock, and Sister Philomène stood beside the bed. Without looking at Malivoire, without seeing him, she knelt down and prayed in the attitude of a kneeling marble statue; and the folds of her gown were as motionless as the sheet that covered the dead man.

At the end of a quarter of an hour she rose, walked away without once looking round, and disappeared.

The next day, awaking at the hollow sound of the coffin knocking against the narrow stairs, Malivoire vaguely recalled the night's apparition, and wondered if he had dreamed it; and going mechanically up to the table by the bedside, he sought for the lock of hair he had cut off for Barnier's mother: the lock of hair had vanished.

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THE AWAKENING

From 'Renée Mauperin'

A little stage had been erected at the end of the Mauperins' drawing-room. The footlights were hidden behind a screen of foliage and flowering shrubs. Renée, with the help of her drawing-master, had painted the curtain, which represented a view on the banks of the Seine. On either side of the stage hung a bill, on which were these words, written by hand:—

LA BRICHE THEATRE
THIS EVENING,
'The Caprice,'
To conclude with
'Harlequin, A Bigamist.'

And then followed the names of the actors.

On all the chairs in the house, which had been seized and arranged in rows before the stage, women in low gowns were squeezed together, mixing their skirts, their lace, the sparkle of their diamonds, and the whiteness of their shoulders. The folding doors of the drawing-room had been taken down, and showed, in the little drawing-room which led to the dining-room, a crowd of men in white neckties, standing on tiptoe.

The curtain rose upon 'The Caprice.' Renée played with much spirit the part of Madame de Léry. Henry, as the husband, revealed one of those real theatrical talents which are often found in cold young men and in grave men of the world. Naomi herself—carried away by Henry's acting, carefully prompted by Denoisel from behind the scenes, a little intoxicated by her audience—played her little part of a neglected wife very tolerably. This was a great relief to Madame Bourjot. Seated in the front row, she had followed her daughter with anxiety. Her pride dreaded a failure. The curtain fell, the applause burst out, and all the company were called for. Her daughter had not been ridiculous; she was happy in this great success, and she composedly gave herself up to the speeches, opinions, congratulations, which, as in all representations of private theatricals, followed the applause and continued in murmurs. Amidst all that she thus vaguely heard, one sentence, pronounced close by her, reached her ears clear and distinct above the buzz of general conversation:—"Yes, it is his sister, I know; but I think that for the part he is not sufficiently in love with her, and really too much in love with his wife: did you notice it?" And the speaker, feeling that she was being overheard by Madame Bourjot, leaned over and whispered in her neighbor's ear. Madame Bourjot became serious.

After a pause the curtain went up again, and Henry Mauperin appeared as Pierrot or Harlequin, not in the traditional sack of white calico and black cap, but as an Italian harlequin, with a white three-cornered hat, and dressed entirely in white satin from head to foot. A shiver of interest ran through the women, proving that the costume and the man were both charming; and the folly began.

It was the mad story of Pierrot, married to one woman and wishing to marry another; a farce intermingled with passion, which had been unearthed by a playwright, with the help of a poet, from a collection of old comic plays. Renée this time acted the part of the neglected woman, who in various disguises interfered between her husband and his gallant adventures, and Naomi that of the woman he loved. Henry, in his scenes of love with the latter, carried all before him. He played with youth, with brilliancy, with excitement. In the scene in which he avows his love, his voice was full of the passionate cry of a declaration which overflows and swamps everything. True, he had to act with the prettiest Columbine in the world: Naomi looked delicious that evening in her bridal costume of Louis XVI., copied exactly from the 'Bride's Minuet,' a print by Debucourt, which Barousse had lent for the purpose.

A sort of enchantment filled the whole room, and reached Madame Bourjot; a sort of sympathetic complicity with the actors seemed to encourage the pretty couple to love one another. The piece went on. Now and again Henry's eyes seemed to look for those of Madame Bourjot, over the footlights. Meanwhile, Renée appeared disguised as the village bailiff; it only remained to sign the contract; Pierrot, taking the hand of the woman he loved, began to tell her of all the happiness he was going to have with her.

The woman who sat next to Madame Bourjot felt her lean somewhat on her shoulder. Henry finished his speech, the piece disentangled itself and came to an end. All at once Madame Bourjot's neighbor saw something glide down her arm; it was Madame Bourjot, who had just fainted.

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"Oh, do pray go indoors," said Madame Bourjot to the people who were standing around her. She had been carried into the garden. "It is past now; it is really nothing; it was only the heat." She was quite pale, but she smiled. "I only want a little air. Let M. Henry only stay with me."

The audience retired. Scarcely had the sound of feet died away, when—"You love her!" said Madame Bourjot, seizing Henry's arm as though she were taking him prisoner with her feverish hands; "you love her!"

"Madame—" said Henry.

"Hold your tongue! you lie!" And she threw his arm from her. Henry bowed.—"I know all. I have seen all. But look at me!" and with her eyes she closely scanned his face. Henry stood before her, his head bent.—"At least speak to me! You can speak, at any rate! Ah, I see it,—you can only act in her company!"

"I have nothing to say to you, Laura," said Henry in his softest and clearest voice. Madame Bourjot started at this name of Laura as though he had touched her. "I have struggled for a year, madame," began Henry; "I have no excuse to make. But my heart is fast. We knew each other as children. The charm has grown day by day. I am very unhappy, madame, at having to acknowledge the truth to you. I love your daughter, that is true."

"But have you ever spoken to her? I blush for her when there are people there! Have you ever looked at her? Do you think her pretty? What possesses you men? Come! I am better-looking than she is! You men are fools. And besides, my friend, I have spoiled you. Go to her and ask her to caress your pride, to tickle your vanity, to flatter and to serve your ambitions,—for you are ambitious: I know you! Ah, M. Mauperin, one can only find that once in a lifetime! And it is only women of my age, old women like me,—do you hear me?—who love the future of the people whom they love! You were not my lover, you were my grandchild!" And at this word, her voice sounded as though it came from the bottom of her heart. Then immediately changing her tone—"But don't be foolish! I tell you you don't really love my daughter; it is not true: she is rich!"

"O madame!"

"Good gracious! there are lots of people. They have been pointed out to me. It pays sometimes to begin with the mother and finish with the dower. And a million, you know, will gild a good many pills."

"Speak lower, I implore—for your own sake: some one has just opened a window."

"Calmness is very fine, M. Mauperin, very fine, very fine," repeated Madame Bourjot. And her low, hissing voice seemed to stifle her.

Clouds were scudding across the sky, and passed over the moon looking like huge bats' wings. Madame Bourjot gazed fixedly into the darkness, straight in front of her. Her elbows resting on her knees, her weight thrown on to her heels, she was beating with the points of her satin shoes the gravel of the path. After a few minutes she sat upright, stretched out her arms two or three times wildly and as though but half awake; then, hastily and with jerks, she pushed her hand down between her gown and her waistband, pressing her hand against the ribbon as though she would break it. Then she rose and began to walk. Henry followed her.

"I intend, sir, that we shall never see each other again," she said to him, without turning round.

As they passed near the basin, she handed him her handkerchief:—

"Wet that for me."

Henry put one knee on the margin and gave her back the lace, which he had moistened. She laid it on her forehead and on her eyes. "Now let us go in," she said; "give me your arm."

"Oh, dear madame, what courage!" said Madame Mauperin, going to meet Madame Bourjot as she entered; "but it is unwise of you. Let me order your carriage."

"On no account," answered Madame Bourjot hastily: "I thank you. I promised that I would sing for you, I think. I am going to sing."

And Madame Bourjot advanced to the piano, graceful and valiant, with the heroic smile on her face wherewith the actors of society hide from the public the tears that they shed within themselves, and the wounds which are only known to their own hearts.

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EDMUND GOSSE