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Graah, a Danish navigator who came in search of them in 1828, believes that they were carried off bodily by the English after the ravages of the "black death" in England, to repair the waste of human life, citing a treaty of 1433 in which England was charged with abducting Danish subjects for that end. Another theory is that the Frisian king Zichmni carried them off captive. Pope Nicholas asserts this outrage as a fact in a bull in 1448. But Zichmni is as uncertain a personage in history as Demigorgon; and the good popes were not so infallible as to matters of general news before the establishment of telegraph and postal service as they are now.
Mr. Dalton Dorr, who accompanied Hayes, tells me that among the Esquimaux there is a tradition that a colony of foreigners once owned the land, and about five centuries ago emigrated in a body northward, crossing the Mer de Glace—that they found an open sea, and somewhere within the eternal rampart of snow and ice now dwell securely by its shores. As early as 1500 the migratory Skröellings told of this colony far to the north-east. These rumors possessed substance enough to warrant the expeditions from Denmark, which have all been directed to the eastern coast. Graah heard from his guides of a strange people with high features, hoarse voices and large stature living beyond the limits passed by Europeans.
Here is a mystery surely worth finding out—a people exiled from their kind for centuries living at the Pole—something better worth search than even Franklin's bones. To give it reality, too, we must remember how many Arctic explorers have caught sight, as they thought, of an open sea near the Pole—a sea with strong, iceless swells, and on whose shores warm rains fell. Nobody need suggest that these people would probably, after our search, not be worth looking for. What shall we do with the North-west Passage when we have found it?
R. H. D.
THE DIFFICULTIES OF BEING AGREEABLE.
"A man will please more by never offending than by giving a great deal of delight." In this remark of Doctor Johnson's lies the art of being agreeable. But nothing is more difficult than to avoid offending. Most people are offended by trifles. For instance, persons generally take umbrage at superior brilliance of conversation. "The man who talks for fame will never please." Even he who talks to unburden his mind will please only some old and solitary friend. Large experience and great learning, however quietly carried, are very offensive to those who have them not. Clever things cannot be said unobtrusively enough. A person so brilliant as to make others feel that his efforts are above theirs will be detested. Moreover, one of the difficulties of being agreeable is that the apprehension of offending and the small hope of pleasing destroy all captivation of manner. The confident expectation of pleasing is an infallible means of pleasing. Characters pleased with themselves please others, for they are joyous and natural in mien, and are at liberty from thinking of themselves to pay successful attention to others. Still, the self-conceited and the bragging are never attractive, self being the topic on which all are fluent and none interesting. They who dwell on self in any way—the self-deniers, the self-improvers—are hateful to the heart of civilized man. The Chinese, who knew everything beforehand, are perfect in self-abnegation of manner. "How are your noble and princely son and your beautiful and angelic daughter?" says Mandarin Number One.—"Dog of a son have I none, but my cat of a daughter is well," says Mandarin Number Two.
To set up for an invariably agreeable person you must adjust yourself to the peculiarities of others. You must talk of books to bookworms: you must be musical with musicians, scientific with savants. Furthermore, you have to make believe all the time that you are enjoying yourself. The belle is a lady who has an air of enjoying herself with whomsoever she talks. We like those who seem to delight in our company. You must not overdo it, and thus make yourself suspected of acting; but do not[page 255] imagine that you will please without trying. Those who are careless of pleasing are never popular. Those who do not care how they look invariably look ugly. You will never please without doing all these things and more.
What a Pecksniffian business it is to go into! Who wants to refrain from smart, spiteful sayings when he happens to think of them, to abjure laughing at friends and ridiculing enemies, to renounce the tart rebuff, the keen riposte? Amazing that any succeed! and many do. There are some gentlemen who are entirely agreeable—"gentlemen all through," like Robert Moore in Shirley. They have order, neatness, delicacy of movement, reticence, incuriosity: their unaffected English has almost the charm of a musical composition. They are generally men whose mothers well nagged them when they were small with perpetual adjurations: "Do not bang the door," "Stop kicking your feet," "Stop clinking your plate with your fork," and so on.