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  • 06/1875
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calm, whereas all the calmness had been on his side, and she had been led into speaking in a manner which a discreet and well-bred young lady would have shrunk from in horror. Mabyn sat still and sobbed, partly in anger and partly in disappointment: she dared not even go to tell her sister.

But Mr. Roscorla, as he went over the bridge again and went up to Basset Cottage, had lost all his assumed coolness of judgment and demeanor. He felt he had been tricked by Wenna and insulted by Mabyn, while his rival had established a hold which it would be in vain for him to seek to remove. He was in a passion of rage. He would not go near Wenna again. He would at once set off for London, and enjoy himself there while his holiday lasted: he would not write a word to her; then, when the time arrived, he would set sail for Jamaica, leaving her to her own conscience. He was suffering a good deal from anger, envy and jealousy, but he was consoled by the thought that she was suffering more. And he reflected, with some comfort to himself, that she would scarcely so far demean herself as to marry Harry Trelyon so long as she knew in her heart what he, Roscorla, would think of her for so doing.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE OLD, HALF-FORGOTTEN JOKE.

“Has he gone?” Wenna asked of her sister the next day.

“Yes, he has,” Mabyn answered with a proud and revengeful face. “It was quite true what Mrs. Cornish told me: I’ve no doubt she had her instructions. He has just driven away to Launceston on his way to London.”

“Without a word?”

“Would you like to have had another string of arguments?” Mabyn said impatiently. “Oh, Wenna, you don’t know what mischief all this is doing. You are awake all night, you cry half the day: what is to be the end of it? You will work yourself into a fever.”

“Yes, there must be an end of it,” Wenna said with decision–“not for myself alone, but for others. That is all the reparation I can make now. No girl in all this country has ever acted so badly as I have done: just look at the misery I have caused; but now–”

“There is one who is miserable because he loves you,” Mabyn said.

“Do you think that Mr. Roscorla has no feelings? You are so unjust to him! Well, it does not matter now: all this must come to an end. Mabyn, I should like to see Mr. Trelyon, if just for one minute.”

“What will you say to him, Wenna?” her sister said with a sudden fear.

“Something that it is necessary to say to him, and the sooner it is over the better.”

Mabyn rather dreaded the result of this interview; and yet, she reflected to herself, here was an opportunity for Harry Trelyon to try to win some promise from her sister. Better, in any case, that they should meet than that Wenna should simply drive him away into banishment without a word of explanation.

The meeting was easily arranged. On the next morning, long before Wenna’s daily round of duties had commenced, the two sisters left the inn, and went over the bridge and out to the bold promontory of black rock at the mouth of the harbor. There was nobody about. This October morning was more like a summer day: the air was mild and still, the blue sky without a cloud; the shining sea plashed around the rocks with the soft murmuring noise of a July calm. It was on these rocks long ago that Wenna Rosewarne had pledged herself to become the wife of Mr. Roscorla; and at that time life had seemed to her, if not brilliant and beautiful, at least grateful and peaceful. Now all the peace had gone out of it.

“Oh, my darling!” Trelyon said when she advanced alone toward him–for Mabyn had withdrawn–“it is so good of you to come! Wenna, what has frightened you?”

He had seized both her hands in his, but she took them away again. For one brief second her eyes had met his, and there was a sort of wistful and despairing kindliness in them: then she stood before him, with her face turned away from him, and her voice low and tremulous. “I did wish to see you–for once, for the last time,” she said. “If you had gone away, you would have carried with you cruel thoughts of me. I wish to ask your forgiveness–”

“My forgiveness?”

“Yes, for all that you may have suffered, and for all that may trouble you in the future–not in the long future, but for the little time you will remember what has taken place here. Mr. Trelyon, I–I did not know. Indeed, it is all a mystery to me now, and a great misery.” Her lips began to quiver, but she controlled herself. “And surely it will only be for a short time, if you think of it at all. You are young–you have all the world before you. When you go away among other people, and see all the different things that interest a young man, you will soon forget whatever has happened here.”

“And you say that to me,” he said, “and you said the other night that you loved me! It is nothing, then, for people who love each other to go away and be consoled, and never see each other again?”

Again the lips quivered: he had no idea of the terrible effort that was needed to keep this girl calm. “I did say that,” she said.

“And it was true?” he broke in.

“It was true then–it is true now: that is all the misery of it,” she exclaimed, with tears starting to her eyes.

“And you talk of our being separated for ever!” he cried. “No, not if I can help it. Mabyn has told me of all your scruples: they are not worth looking at. I tell you you are no more bound to that man than Mabyn is, and that isn’t much. If he is such a mean hound as to insist on your marrying him, then I will appeal to your father and mother, and they must prevent him. Or I will go to him myself and settle the matter in a shorter way.”

“You cannot now,” she said: “he has gone away. And what good would that have done? I would never marry any man unless I could do so with a clear and happy conscience; and if you–if you and Mabyn–see nothing in my treatment of _him_ that is wrong, then that is very strange; but I cannot acquit myself. No: I hope no woman will ever treat you as I have treated him. Look at his position–an elderly man, with few friends–he has not all the best of his life before him as you have, or the good spirits of youth; and after he had gone away to Jamaica, taking my promise with him–Oh, I am ashamed of myself when I think on all that has happened!”

“Then you’ve no right to be,” said he hotly. “It was the most natural thing in the world–and he ought to have known it–that a young girl who has been argued into engaging herself to an old man should consider her being in love with another man as something of rather more importance–of a good deal more importance, I should say. And his suffering? He suffers no more than this lump of rock does. That is not his way of thinking–to be bothered about anything. He may be angry, yes–and vexed for the moment, as is natural–but if you think he is going about the world with a load of agony on him, then you’re quite mistaken. And if he were, what good could you do by making yourself miserable as well? Wenna, do be reasonable, now.”

Had not another, on this very spot, prayed her to be reasonable? She had yielded then. Mr. Roscorla’s arguments were incontrovertible, and she had shrinkingly accepted the inevitable conclusion. Now, young Trelyon’s representations and pleadings were far less cogent, but how strongly her heart went with him!

“No,” she said, as if she were shaking off the influence of the tempter, “I must not listen to you. Yet you don’t seem to think that it costs me anything to ask you to bid me good-bye once and for all. It should be less to you than to me. A girl thinks of these things more than a man–she has little else to think of; he goes out into the world and forgets. And you–you will go away, and you will become such a man as all who know you will love to speak of and be proud of; and some day you will come back; and if you like to come down to the inn, then there will be one or two there glad to see you. Mr. Trelyon, don’t ask me to tell you why this should be so. I know it to be right: my heart tells me. Now I will say good-bye to you.”

“And when I come back to the inn, will you be there?” said he, becoming rather pale. “No: you will be married to a man whom you will hate.”

“Indeed, no,” she said, with her face flushing and her eyes cast down. “How can that be after what has taken place? He could not ask me. All that I begged of him before he went away was this–that he would not ask me to marry him; and if only he would do that I promised never to see you again–after bidding you good-bye, as I do now.”

“And is that the arrangement?” said he rather roughly. “Are we to play at dog in the manger? He is not to marry you himself, but he will not let any other man marry you?”

“Surely he has some right to consideration,” she said.

“Well, Wenna,” said he, “if you’ve made up your mind, there’s no more to be said; but I think you are needlessly cruel.”

“You won’t say that, just as we are parting,” she said in a low voice. “Do you think it is nothing to me?”

He looked at her for a moment with a great sadness and compunction in his eyes; then, moved by an uncontrollable impulse, he caught her in his arms and kissed her on the lips. “Now,” said he, with his face white as death, “tell me that you will never marry any other man as long as you live.”

“Yes, I will say that,” she said to him in a low voice and with a face as white as his own.

“Swear it, then.”

“I have said that I will never marry any other man than you,” she said, “and that is enough–for me. But as for you, why must you go away thinking of such things? You will see some day what madness it would have been; you will come some day and thank me for having told you so; and then–and then–if anything should be mentioned about what I said just now, you will laugh at the old, half-forgotten joke.”

Well, there was no laughing at the joke just then, for the girl burst into tears, and in the midst of that she hastily pressed his hand and hurried away. He watched her go round the rocks, to the cleft leading down to the harbor. There she was rejoined by her sister, and the two of them went slowly along the path of broken slate, with the green hill above, the blue water below, and the fair sunshine all around them. Many a time he recalled afterward–and always with an increasing weight at his heart–how sombre seemed to him that bright October day and the picturesque opening of the coast leading in to Eglosilyan. For it was the last glimpse of Wenna Rosewarne that he was to have for many a day, and a sadder picture was never treasured up in a man’s memory.

“Oh, Wenna, what have you said to him that you tremble so?” Mabyn asked.

“I have bid him good-bye–that is all.”

“Not for always?”

“Yes, for always.”

“And he is going away again, then?”

“Yes, as a young man should. Why should he stop here to make himself wretched over impossible fancies? He will go out into the world, and he has splendid health and spirits, and he will forget all this.”

“And you–you are anxious to forget it all too?”

“Would it not be better? What good can come of dreaming? Well, I have plenty of work to do: that is well.”

Mabyn was very much inclined to cry: all her beautiful visions of the future happiness of her sister had been rudely dispelled–all her schemes and machinations had gone for nothing. There only remained to her, in the way of consolation, the fact that Wenna still wore the sapphire ring that Harry Trelyon had sent her.

“And what will his mother think of you?” said Mabyn as a last argument, “when she finds you have sent him away altogether–to go into the army and go abroad, and perhaps die of yellow fever, or be shot by the Sepoys or Caffres?”

“She would have hated me if I had married him,” said Wenna simply.

“Oh, Wenna, how dare you say such a thing?” Mabyn cried. “What do you mean by it?”

“Would a lady in her position like her only son to marry the daughter of an innkeeper?” Wenna asked rather indifferently: indeed, her thoughts were elsewhere.

“I tell you there’s no one in the world she loves like you–I can see it every time she comes down for you–and she believes, and I believe too, that you have changed Mr. Trelyon’s way of talking and his manner of treating people in such a fashion as no one would have considered possible. Do you think she hasn’t eyes? He is scarcely ever impertinent now: when he is it is always in good-nature and never in sulkiness. Look at his kindness to Mr. Trewhella’s granddaughter, and Mr. Trewhella a clergyman too! Did he ever use to take his mother out for a drive? No, never. And of course she knows whom it is all owing to; and if you would marry Mr. Trelyon, Wenna, I believe she would worship you and think nothing good enough for you.”

“Mabyn, I am going to ask something of you.”

“Oh yes, I know what it is,” her sister said. “I am not to speak any more about your marriage with Mr. Trelyon. But I won’t give you any such promise, Wenna. I don’t consider that that old man has any hold on you.”

Wenna said nothing, for at this moment they entered the house. Mabyn went up with her sister to her room: then she stood undecided for a moment; finally she said, “Wenna. if I’ve vexed you, I’m very sorry. I won’t speak of Mr. Trelyon if you don’t wish it. But indeed, indeed, you don’t know how many people are anxious that you should be happy; and you can’t expect your own sister not to be as anxious as any one else.”

“Mabyn, you’re a good girl,” Wenna said, kissing her. “But I am rather tired to-day: I think I shall lie down for a little while.”

Mabyn uttered a sharp cry, for her sister had fallen back on a chair, white and insensible. She hastily bathed her forehead with cold water, she chafed her hands, she got hold of some smelling-salts. It was only a faint, after all, and Wenna, having come to, said she would lie down on the sofa for a few minutes. Mabyn said nothing to her mother about all this, for it would have driven Mrs. Rosewarne wild with anxiety, but she herself was rather disquieted with Wenna’s appearance, and she said to herself, with great bitterness of heart, “If my sister falls ill, I know who has done that.”

CHAPTER XXXIX.

NEW AMBITIONS.

Mr. Roscorla, having had few friends throughout his life, had developed a most methodical habit of communing with himself on all possible subjects, but more particularly, of course, upon his own affairs. He used up his idle hours in defining his position with regard to the people and things around him, and he was never afraid to convince himself of the exact truth. He never tried to cheat himself into the belief that he was more unselfish than might appear: if other people thought so, good and well. He, at least, was not a hypocrite to himself.

Now, he had not been gone above a couple of hours or so from Eglosilyan when he discovered that he was not weighted with terrible woes: on the contrary, he experienced a feeling of austere satisfaction that he was leaving a good deal of trouble behind him. He had been badly used, he had been righteously angry. It was right that they who had thus used him badly should be punished. As for him, if his grief did not trouble him much, that was a happy peculiarity of his temperament which did not lessen their offence against him.

Most certainly he was not weighted with woe. He had a pleasant drive in the morning over to Launceston; he smoked a cigarette or two in the train; when he arrived at Plymouth he ordered a very nice luncheon at the nearest hotel, and treated himself to a bottle of the best Burgundy the waiter could recommend him. After that he got into a smoking-carriage in the London express, he lit a large cigar, he wrapped a thick rug round his legs, and settled himself down in peace for the long journey. Now was an excellent time to find out exactly how his affairs stood.

He was indeed very comfortable. Leaving Eglosilyan had not troubled him. There was something in the knowledge that he was at last free from all those exciting scenes which a quiet, middle-aged man, not believing in romance, found trying to his nervous system. This brief holiday in Eglosilyan had been anything but a pleasant one: was he not, on the whole, glad to get away?

Then he recollected that the long-expected meeting with his betrothed had not been so full of delight as he had anticipated. Was there not just a trace of disappointment in the first shock of feeling at their meeting? She was certainly not a handsome woman–such a one as he might have preferred to introduce to his friends about Kensington in the event of his going back to live in London.

Then he thought of old General Weekes. He felt a little ashamed of himself for not having had the courage to tell the general and his wife that he meant to marry one of the young ladies who had interested them. Would it not be awkward, too, to have to introduce Wenna Rosewarne to them in her new capacity?

That speculation carried him on to the question of his marriage. There could be no doubt that his betrothed had become a little too fond of the handsomest young man in the neighborhood. Perhaps that was natural, but at all events she was now very much ashamed of what had happened, and he might trust her to avoid Harry Trelyon in the future. That having been secured, would not her thoughts naturally drift back to the man to whom she had plighted a troth which was still formally binding on her? Time was on his side. She would forget that young man: she would be anxious, as soon as these temporary disturbances of her affections were over, to atone for the past by her conduct in the future. Girls had very strong notions about duty.

Well, he drove to his club, and finding one of the bed-rooms free, he engaged it for a week, the longest time possible. He washed, dressed and went down to dinner. To his great delight, the first man he saw was old Sir Percy himself, who was writing out a very elaborate _menu_, considering that he was ordering dinner for himself only. He and Mr. Roscorla agreed to dine together.

Now, for some years back Mr. Roscorla in visiting his club had found himself in a very isolated and uncomfortable position. Long ago he had belonged to the younger set–to those reckless young fellows who were not afraid to eat a hasty dinner, and then rush off to take a mother and a couple of daughters to the theatre, returning at midnight to some anchovy toast and a glass of Burgundy, followed by a couple of hours of brandy-and-soda, cigars and billiards. But he had drifted away from that set; indeed, they had disappeared, and he knew none of their successors. On the other hand, he had never got into the ways of the old-fogy set. Those stout old gentlemen who carefully drank nothing but claret and seltzer, who took a quarter of an hour to write out their dinner-bill, who spent the evening in playing whist, kept very much to themselves. It was into this set that the old general now introduced him. Mr. Roscorla had quite the air of a bashful young man when he made one of a party of those ancients, who dined at the same table each evening. He was almost ashamed to order a pint of champagne for himself–it savored so much of youth. He was silent in the presence of his seniors, and indeed they were garrulous enough to cover his silence. Their talk was mostly of politics–not the politics of the country, but the politics of office–of undersecretaries and candidates for place. They seemed to look on the government of the country as a sort of mechanical clock, which from time to time sent out a few small figures, and from time to time took them in again; and they showed an astonishing acquaintance with the internal and intricate mechanism which produced these changes. Perhaps it was because they were so busy in watching for changes on the face of the clock that they seemed to forget the swinging onward of the great world outside and the solemn march of the stars.

Most of those old gentlemen had lived their life–had done their share of heavy dining and reckless drinking many years ago–and thus it was they had come to drink seltzer and claret. But it appeared that it was their custom after dinner to have the table-cover removed and some port wine placed on the mahogany. Mr. Roscorla, who had felt as yet no ugly sensations about his finger-joints, regarded this ceremony with equanimity, but it was made the subject of some ominous joking on the part of his companions. Then joking led to joking. There were no more politics. Some very funny stories were told. Occasionally one or two names were introduced, as of persons well known in London society, though not of it; and Mr. Roscorla was surprised that he had never heard these names before: you see how one becomes ignorant of the world if one buries one’s self down in Cornwall. Mr. Roscorla began to take quite an interest in these celebrated people, in the price of their ponies, and the diamonds they were understood to have worn at a certain very singular ball. He was pleased to hear, too, of the manner in which the aristocracy of England were resuming their ancient patronage of the arts, for he was given to understand that a young earl or baron could scarcely be considered a man of fashion unless he owned a theatre.

On their way up to the card-room Mr. Roscorla and one of his venerable companions went into the hall to get their cigar-cases from their top-coat pockets. This elderly gentleman had been the governor of an island in the Pacific: he had now been resident for many years in England. He was on the directorate of one or two well-known commercial companies; he had spoken at several meetings on the danger of dissociating religion from education in the training of the young; in short, he was a tower of respectability. On the present occasion he had to pull out a muffler to get at his cigar-case, and with the muffler came a small parcel tied up in tissue-paper.

“Neat, aren’t they?” said he with a senile grin, showing Mr. Roscorla the tips of a pair of pink satin slippers.

“Yes,” said Mr. Roscorla: “I suppose they’re for your daughter.”

They went up to the card-room.

“I expect you’ll teach us a lesson, Roscorla,” said the old general. “Gad! some of you West Indian fellows know the difference between a ten and an ace.”

“Last time I played cards,” Roscorla said modestly, “I was lucky enough to win forty-eight pounds,”

“Whew! We can’t afford that sort of thing on this side of the water–not if you happen to serve Her Majesty, any way. Come, let’s cut for partners.”

There was but little talking, of course, during the card-playing: at the end of it Mr. Roscorla found he had only lost half a sovereign. Then everybody adjourned to a snug little smoking-room, to which only members were admitted. This, to the neophyte, was the pleasantest part of the evening. He seemed to hear of everything that was going on in London, and a good deal more besides. He was behind the scenes of all the commercial, social and political performances which were causing the vulgar crowd to gape. He discovered the true history of the hostility shown by So-and-so to the premier; he was told the little scandal which caused Her Majesty to refuse to knight a certain gentleman who had claims on the government; he heard what the duke really did offer to the gamekeeper whose eye he had shot out, and the language used by the keeper on the occasion; and he received such information about the financial affairs of many a company as made him wonder whether the final collapse of the commercial world were at hand. He forgot that he had heard quite similar stories twenty years before. Then they had been told by ingenuous youths full of the importance of the information they had just acquired: now they were told by garrulous old gentlemen, with a cynical laugh which was more amusing than the hot-headed asseveration of the juniors. It was, on the whole, a delightful evening, this first evening of his return to club-life; and then it was so convenient to go up stairs to bed instead of having to walk from the inn of Eglosilyan to Basset Cottage.

Just before leaving, the old general took Roscorla aside, and said to him, “Monstrous amusing fellows, eh?”

“Very.”

“Just a word. Don’t you let old Lewis lug you into any of his companies: you understand?”

“There’s not much fear of that,” Mr. Roscorla said with a laugh. “I haven’t a brass farthing to invest.”

“All you West Indians say that: however, so much the better. And there’s old Stratford, too: he’s got some infernal India rubber patent. Gad, sir! he knows no more about those commercial fellows than the man in the moon; and they’ll ruin him–mark my words, they’ll ruin him.”

Roscorla was quite pleased to be advised. It made him feel young and ingenuous. After all, the disparity in years between him and his late companions was most obvious.

“And when are you coming to dine with us, eh?” the general said, lighting a last cigar and getting his hat. “To-morrow night?–quiet family party, you know: her ladyship’ll be awfully glad to see you. Is it a bargain? All right–seven: we’re early folks. I say, you needn’t mention I dined here to-night: to tell you the truth, I’m supposed to be looking after a company too, and precious busy about it. Mum’s the word, d’ye see?”

Really this plunge into a new sort of life was quite delightful. When he went down to breakfast next morning, he was charmed with the order and cleanliness of everything around him; the sunlight was shining in at the large windows; there was a bright fire, in front of which he stood and read the paper until his cutlets came. There was no croaking of an old Cornish housekeeper over her bills–no necessity for seeing if the grocer had been correct in his addition. Then there was a slight difference between the cooking here and that which prevailed in Basset Cottage.

In a comfortable frame of mind he leisurely walked down to Canon street and announced himself to his partners. He sat for an hour or so in a snug little parlor, talking over their joint venture and describing all that had been done. There was indeed every ground for hope, and he was pleased to hear them say that they were specially obliged to him for having gone out to verify the reports that had been sent home, and for his personal supervision while there. They hoped he would draw on the joint association for a certain sum which should represent the value of that supervision.

Now, if Mr. Roscorla had really been possessed at this moment of the wealth to which he looked forward, he would not have taken so much interest in it. He would have said to himself, “What is the life I am to lead, now that I have this money? Having luncheon at the club, walking in the Park in the afternoon, dining with a friend in the evening, and playing whist or billiards, with the comfortless return to my bachelor’s chambers at night? Is that all that my money can give me?”

But he had not the money. He looked forward to it, and it seemed to him that it contained all the possibilities of happiness. Then he would be free. No more stationary dragging out of existence in that Cornish cottage. He would move about, he would enjoy life. He was still younger than those jovial old fellows, who seemed to be happy enough. When he thought of Wenna Rosewarne it was with the notion that marriage very considerably hampers a man’s freedom of action.

If a man were married, could he have a choice of thirty dishes for luncheon? Could he have the first edition of the evening papers brought him almost damp from the press? Then how pleasant it was to be able to smoke a cigar and to write one or two letters at the same time in a large and well-ventilated room! Mr. Roscorla did not fail to draw on his partners for the sum they had mentioned: he was not short of money, but he might as well gather the first few drops of the coming shower.

He did not go up to walk in the Park, for he knew there would be almost nobody there at that time of the year; but he walked up to Bond street and bought a pair of dress-boots, after which he returned to the club and played billiards with one of his companions of the previous evening until it was time to dress for dinner.

The party at the general’s was a sufficiently small one, for you cannot ask any one to dinner at a few hours’ notice, except it be a merry and marriageable widow who has been told that she will meet an elderly and marriageable bachelor. This complaisant lady was present; and Mr. Roscorla found himself on his entrance being introduced to a good-looking, buxom dame, who had a healthy, merry, roseate face, very black eyes and hair, and a somewhat gorgeous dress. She was a trifle demure at first, but her amiable shyness soon wore off, and she was most kind to Mr. Roscorla. He, of course, had to take in Lady Weekes; but Mrs. Seton-Willoughby sat opposite him, and, while keeping the whole table amused with an account of her adventures in Galway, appeared to address the narrative principally to the stranger.

“Oh, my dear Lady Weekes,” she said, “I was so glad to get back to Brighton! I thought I should have forgotten my own language, and taken to war-paint and feathers, if I had remained much longer. And Brighton is so delightful just now–just comfortably filled, without the November crush having set in. Now, couldn’t you persuade the general to take you down for a few days? I am going down on Friday, and you know how dreadful it is for a poor lone woman to be in a hotel, especially with a maid who spends all her time in flirting with the first-floor waiters. Now, won’t you, dear? I assure you the —- Hotel is most charming–such freedom, and the pleasant parties they make up in the drawing-room! I believe they have a ball two or three nights a week just now.”

“I should have thought you would have found the —- rather quieter,” said Mr. Roscorla, naming a good, old-fashioned house.

“Rather quieter?” said the widow, raising her eyebrows. “Yes, a good deal quieter? About as quiet as a dissenting chapel. No, no: if one means to have a little pleasure, why go to such a place as that? Now, will you come and prove the truth of what I have told you?”

Mr. Roscorla looked alarmed, and even the solemn Lady Weekes had to conceal a smile.

“Of course I mean you to persuade our friends here to come too,” the widow explained. “What a delightful frolic it would be–for a few days, you know–to break away from London! Now, my dear, what do you say?”

She turned to her hostess. That small and sombre person referred her to the general. The general, on being appealed to, said he thought it would be a capital joke; and would Mr. Roscorla go with them? Mr. Roscorla, not seeing why he should not have a little frolic of this sort, just like any one else, said he would. So they agreed to meet at Victoria Station on the following Friday.

“Struck, eh?” said the old general when the two gentlemen were alone after dinner. “Has she wounded you, eh? Gad, sir! that woman has eight thousand pounds a year in the India Four per Cents. Would you believe it? Would you believe that any man could have been such a fool as to put such a fortune into India Four per Cents.?–with mortgages going a-begging at six, and the marine insurance companies paying thirteen! Well, my boy, what do you think of her? She was most uncommonly attentive to you, that I’ll swear: don’t deny it–now, don’t deny it. Bless my soul! you marrying men are so sly there is no getting at you. Well, what was I saying? Yes, yes–will she do? Eight thousand a year, as I’m a living sinner!”

Mr. Roscorla was intensely flattered to have it even supposed that the refusal of such a fortune was within his power.

“Well,” said he, modestly and yet critically, “she’s not quite my style. I’m rather afraid of three-deckers. But she seems a very good-natured sort of woman.”

“Good-natured! Is that all you say? I can tell you, in my time men were nothing so particular when there were eight thousand a year going a-begging.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Roscorla with a smile, “it is a very good joke. When she marries, she’ll marry a younger man than I am.”

“Don’t you be mistaken–don’t you be mistaken!” the old general cried. “You’ve made an impression–I’ll swear you have; and I told her ladyship you would.”

“And what did Lady Weekes say?”

“Gad, sir! she said it would be a deuced good thing for both of you.”

“She is very kind,” said Mr. Roscorla, pleased at the notion of having such a prize within reach, and yet not pleased that Lady Weekes should have fancied this the sort of woman he would care to marry.

They went to Brighton, and a very pleasant time of it they had at the big noisy hotel. The weather was delightful. Mrs. Seton-Willoughby was excessively fond of riding: forenoon and afternoon they had their excursions, with the pleasant little dinner of the evening to follow. Was not this a charmed land into which the former hermit of Basset Cottage was straying? Of course, he never dreamed for a moment of marrying this widow: that was out of the question. She was just a little too demonstrative–very clever and amusing for half an hour or so, but too gigantic a blessing to be taken through life. It was the mere possibility of marrying her, however, which attracted Mr. Roscorla. He honestly believed, judging by her kindness to him, that if he seriously tried he could get her to marry him–in other words, that he might become possessed of eight thousand pounds a year. This money, so to speak, was within his reach; and it was only now that he was beginning to see that money could purchase many pleasures even for the middle-aged. He made a great mistake in imagining, down in Cornwall, that he had lived his life, and that he had but to look forward to mild enjoyments, a peaceful wandering onward to the grave, and the continual study of economy in domestic affairs. He was only now beginning to live.

“And when are you coming back?” said the widow to him one evening when they were all talking of his leaving England.

“That I don’t know,” he said.

“Of course,” she said, “you don’t mean to remain in the West Indies. I suppose lots of people have to go there for some object or other, but they always come back when it is attained.”

“They come back to attain some other object here,” said Mr. Roscorla.

“Then we’ll soon find you that,” the general burst in. “No man lives out of England who can help it. Don’t you find in this country enough to satisfy you?”

“Indeed I do,” Mr. Roscorla said, “especially within the last few days. I have enjoyed myself enormously. I shall always have a friendly recollection of Brighton.”

“Are you going down to Cornwall before you leave?” Sir Percy asked.

“No,” said he slowly.

“That isn’t quite so cheerful as Brighton, eh?”

“Not quite.”

He kept his word. He did not go back to Cornwall before leaving England, nor did he send a single line or message to any one there. It was with something of a proud indifference that he set sail, and also with some notion that he was being amply revenged. For the rest, he hated “scenes,” and he had encountered quite enough of these during his brief visit to Eglosilyan.

CHAPTER XL.

AN OLD LADY’S APOLOGY.

When Wenna heard that Mr. Roscorla had left England without even bidding her good-bye by letter, she accepted the rebuke with submission, and kept her own counsel. She went about her daily duties with an unceasing industry: Mrs. Trelyon was astonished to see how she seemed to find time for everything. The winter was coming on, and the sewing club was in full activity, but even apart from the affairs of that enterprise, Wenna Rosewarne seemed to be everywhere throughout the village, to know everything, to be doing everything that prudent help and friendly counsel could do. Mrs. Trelyon grew to love the girl in her vague, wondering, simple fashion.

So the days and the weeks and the months went by, and the course of life ran smoothly and quietly in the remote Cornish village. Apparently there was nothing to indicate the presence of bitter regrets, of crushed hopes, of patient despair; only Mabyn used to watch her sister at times, and she fancied that Wenna’s face was growing thinner.

The Christmas festivities came on, and Mrs. Trelyon was pleased to lend her protegee a helping hand in decorating the church. One evening she said, “My dear Miss Wenna, I am going to ask you an impertinent question. Could your family spare you on Christmas evening? Harry is coming down from London: I am sure he would be so pleased to see you.”

“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Trelyon,” Wenna said, with just a little nervousness. “You are very kind, but indeed I must be at home on Christmas evening.”

“Perhaps some other evening while he is here you will be able to come up,” said Mrs. Trelyon in her gentle way. “You know you ought to come and see how your pupil is getting on. He writes me such nice letters now; and I fancy he is working very hard at his studies, though he says nothing about it.”

“I am very glad to hear that,” Wenna said in a low voice.

Trelyon did come to the Hall for a few days, but he kept away from the village, and was seen by no one of the Rosewarnes. But on the Christmas morning, Mabyn Rosewarne, being early about, was told that Mrs. Trelyon’s groom wished to see her, and, going down, she found the man, with a basket before him.

“Please, miss, Mr. Trelyon’s compliments, and would you take the flowers out of the cotton-wool and give them to Miss Rosewarne?”

“Oh, won’t I?” said Mabyn, opening the basket at once, and carefully getting out a bouquet of camellias, snowdrops and sweet violets. “Just you wait a minute, Jakes, for I’ve got a Christmas-box for you.”

Mabyn went up stairs as rapidly as was consistent with the safety of the flowers, and burst into her sister’s room: “Oh, Wenna, look at this! Do you know who sent them? Did you ever see anything so lovely?”

For a second the girl seemed almost frightened; then her eyes grew troubled and moist, and she turned her head away. Mabyn put them gently down and left the room without a word.

The Christmas and the New Year passed without any message from Mr. Roscorla; and Mabyn, though she rebelled against the bondage in which her sister was placed, was glad that she was not disturbed by angry letters. About the middle of January, however, a brief note arrived from Jamaica.

“I cannot let such a time go by,” Mr. Roscorla wrote, “whatever may be our relations, without sending you a friendly word. I do hope the new year will bring you health and happiness, and that we shall in time forget the angry manner in which we parted and all the circumstances leading to it.”

She wrote as brief a note in reply, at the end of which she hoped he would forgive her for any pain he had suffered through her. Mabyn was rejoiced to find that the correspondence–whether it was or was not meant on his part to be an offer of reconciliation–stopped there.

And again the slow days went by until the world began to stir with the new spring-time–the saddest time of the year to those who live much in the past. Wenna was out and about a great deal, being continually busy, but she no longer took those long walks by herself in which she used to chat to the butterflies and the young lambs and the sea-gulls. The fresh western breezes no longer caused her spirits to flow over in careless gayety: she saw the new flowers springing out of the earth, but it was of another spring-time she was thinking.

One day, later on in the year, Mrs. Trelyon sent down the wagonette for her, with the request that she would come up to the Hall for a few minutes. Wenna obeyed the summons, imagining that some business connected with the sewing club claimed her attention. When she arrived she found Mrs. Trelyon unable to express the gladness and gratitude that filled her heart; for before her were certain London newspapers, and, behold! Harry Trelyon’s name was recorded there in certain lists as having scored a sufficient number of marks in the examination to entitle him to a first commission. It was no concern of hers that his name was pretty far down in the list–enough that he had succeeded somehow. And who was the worker of this miracle?–who but the shy, sad-eyed girl standing beside her, whose face wore now a happier expression than it had worn for many a day.

“And this is what he says,” the proud mother continued, showing Wenna a letter: ‘”It isn’t much to boast of, for indeed you’ll see by the numbers that it was rather a narrow squeak: anyhow, I pulled through. My old tutor is rather a speculative fellow, and he offered to bet me fifty pounds his coaching would carry me through, which I took; so I shall have to pay him that besides his fees. I must say he has earned both: I don’t think a more ignorant person than myself ever went to a man to get crammed. I send you two newspapers: you might drop one at the inn for Miss Rosewarne any time you are passing, or if you could see her and tell her, perhaps that would be better.'”

Wenna was about as pleased and proud as Mrs. Trelyon was. “I knew he could do it if he tried,” she said quietly.

“And then,” the mother went on to say, “when he has once joined there will be no money wanting to help him to his promotion; and when he comes back to settle down here, he will have some recognized rank and profession, such as a man ought to have. Not that he will remain in the army, for of course I should not like to part with him, and he might be sent to Africa or Canada or the West Indies. _You_ know,” she added with a smile, “that it is not pleasant to have any one you care for in the West Indies.”

When Wenna got home again she told Mabyn. Strange to say, Mabyn did not clap her hands for joy, as might have been expected.

“Wenna,” said she, “what made him go into the army? Was it to show you that he could pass an examination? or was it because he means to leave England?”

“I do not know,” said Wenna, looking down. “I hope he does not mean to leave England.” That was all she said.

Harry Trelyon was, however, about to leave England, though not because he had been gazetted to a colonial regiment. He came down to inform his mother that on the fifteenth of the month he would sail for Jamaica; and then and there, for the first time, he told her the whole story of his love for Wenna Rosewarne, of his determination to free her somehow from the bonds that bound her, and, failing that, of the revenge he meant to take. Mrs. Trelyon was amazed, angry and beseeching in turns. At one moment she protested that it was madness of her son to think of marrying Wenna Rosewarne; at another, she would admit all that he said in praise of her, and would only implore him not to leave England; or again she would hint that she would almost herself go down to Wenna and beg her to marry him if only he gave up this wild intention of his. He had never seen his mother so agitated, but he reasoned gently with her, and remained firm to his purpose. Was there half as much danger in taking a fortnight’s trip in a mail-steamer as in going from Southampton to Malta in a yacht, which he had twice done with her consent?

“Why, if I had been ordered to join a regiment in China, you might have some reason to complain,” he said. “And I shall be as anxious as you, mother, to get back again, for I mean to get up my drill thoroughly as soon as I am attached. I have plenty of work before me.”

“You’re not looking well, Harry,” said the mother.

“Of course not,” said he cheerfully. “You don’t catch one of those geese at Strasburg looking specially lively when they tie it by the leg and cram it; and that’s what I’ve been going through of late. But what better cure can there be than a sea-voyage?”

And so it came about that on a pleasant evening in October Mr. Roscorla received a visit. He saw the young man come riding up the acacia path, and he instantaneously guessed his mission. His own resolve was taken as quickly.

“Bless my soul! is it you, Trelyon?” he cried with apparent delight. “You mayn’t believe it, but I am really glad to see you. I have been going to write to you for many a day back. I’ll send somebody for your horse: come into the house.”

The young man, having fastened up the bridle, followed his host. There was a calm and business-like rather than a holiday look on his face. “And what were you going to write to me about?” he asked.

“Oh, you know,” said Roscorla good-naturedly. “You see, a man takes very different views of life when he knocks about a bit. For my part, I am more interested in my business now than in anything else of a more tender character; and I may say that I hope to pay you back a part of the money you lent me as soon as our accounts for this year are made up. Well, about that other point: I don’t see how I could well return to England, to live permanently there, for a year or two at the soonest; and–and, in fact, I have often wondered, now, whether it wouldn’t be better if I asked Miss Rosewarne to consider herself finally free from that–from that engagement.”

“Yes, I think it would be a great deal better,” said Trelyon coldly. “And perhaps you would kindly put your resolve into writing. I shall take it back to Miss Rosewarne. Will you kindly do so now?”

“Why,” said Roscorla rather sharply, “you don’t take my proposal in a very friendly way. I imagine I am doing you a good turn too. It is not every man would do so in my position; for, after all, she treated me very badly. However, we needn’t go into that. I will write her a letter, if you like–now, indeed, if you like; and won’t you stop a day or two here before going back to Kingston?”

Mr. Trelyon intimated that he would like to have the letter at once, and that he would consider the invitation afterward. Roscorla, with a good-humored shrug, sat down and wrote it, and then handed it to Trelyon, open. As he did so he noticed that the young man was coolly abstracting the cartridge from a small breech-loading pistol he held in his hand. He put the cartridge in his waistcoat pocket and the pistol in his coat pocket.

“Did you think we were savages out here, that you came armed?” said Roscorla, rather pale, but smiling.

“I didn’t know,” said Trelyon.

* * * * *

One morning there was a marriage in Eglosilyan, up there at the small church on the bleak downs overlooking the wide sea. The spring-time had come round again; there was a May-like mildness in the air; the skies overhead were as blue as the great plain of the sea; and all the beautiful green world was throbbing with the upspringing life of the flowers. It was just like any other wedding, but for one little incident. When the bride came out into the bewildering glare of the sun, she vaguely knew that the path through the churchyard was lined on both sides with children. Now, she was rather well known to the children about, and they had come in a great number; and when she passed down between them it appeared that the little folks had brought vast heaps of primroses and violets in their aprons and in tiny baskets, and they strewed her path with these flowers of the new spring. Well, she burst into tears at this, and hastily leaving her husband’s arm for a moment, she caught up one of the least of the children–a small, golden-haired girl of four–and kissed her. Then she turned to her husband again, and was glad that he led her down to the gale, for her eyes were so blinded with tears that she could not see her way.

Nor did anything very remarkable occur at the wedding-breakfast. But there was a garrulous old lady there with bright pink cheeks and silvery hair; and she did not cease to prattle to the clergyman who had officiated in the church, and who was seated next her. “Indeed, Mr. Trewhella,” she said confidentially, “I always said this is what would come of it. Never any one of those Trelyons set his heart on a girl but he got her; and what was the use of friends or relatives fighting against it? Nay, I don’t think there’s any cause of complaint–not I! She’s a modest, nice, ladylike girl: she is indeed, although she isn’t so handsome as her sister. Dear, dear me! look at that girl now! Won’t she be a prize for some man? I declare I haven’t seen so handsome a girl for many a day. And, as I tell you, Mr. Trewhella, it’s no use trying to prevent it: if one of the Trelyons falls in love with a girl, the girl’s done for: she may as well give in.”

“If I may say so,” observed the old clergyman, with a sly gallantry, “you do not give the gentlemen of your family credit for the most remarkable feature of their marriage connections. They seem to have had always a very good idea of making an excellent choice.”

The old lady was vastly pleased. “Ah, well,” she said, with a shrewd smile, “there were two or three who thought George Trelyon–that was this young man’s grandfather, you know–lucky enough, if one might judge by the noise they made. Dear, dear! what a to-do there was when we ran away! Why, don’t you know, Mr. Trewhella, that I ran away from a ball with him, and drove to Gretna Green with my ball-dress on, as I’m a living woman? Such a ride it was!–why, when we got up to Carlisle–”

But that story has been told before.

CAMP-FIRE LYRICS.

II.–NIGHT–LAKE HELEN.

I lie in my red canoe
On the water still and deep,
And o’er me darkens the blue,
And beneath the billows sleep,

Till, between the stars o’erhead
And those in the lake’s embrace,
I seem to float like the dead
In the noiselessness of space.

Betwixt two worlds I drift,
A bodiless soul again–
Between the still thoughts of God
And those which belong to men;

And out of the height above,
And out of the deep below,
A thought that is like a ghost
Seems to gather and gain and grow,

That now and for evermore
This silence of death shall hold, While the nations fade and die
And the countless years are rolled.

But I turn the light canoe,
And, darting across the night,
Am glad of the paddles’ noise
And the camp-fire’s honest light.

EDWARD KEARSLEY.

* * * * *

MILL’S ESSAYS ON RELIGION.

An interest attaches to Mr. Mill’s posthumous _Essays on Religion_ which is quite independent of their intrinsic value or importance. The position of their author at the head of an active school of thinkers gives them to a certain extent a representative character, while, in connection with the curious account of his mental training presented in his autobiography, they merit perhaps still closer attention as a subject of psychological study. It is not, however, in this latter light that we can undertake to examine them here. Our object is merely to point out some of the fallacies and contradictions which might escape the notice of a cursory reader, and which show with how uncertain a step a philosopher who piqued himself on the clearness and severity of his logic moves on ground where a stronger light than that of reason was needed to irradiate his path.

The first essay is devoted to an examination of the ways of Nature as unmodified by the voluntary agency of man. These the author finds worthy of all abhorrence; and Nature in its purely physical aspect he considers to be full of blemishes, which are patent to the eye of modern science, and which “all but monkish quietists think it a religious duty to amend.” A competent master-workman with good materials would not have turned out a world so “bunglingly” made, with great patches of poisonous morass and arid desert unfit for human habitation, with coal and other requisites for man’s comfort stored away out of sight, with the rivers all unbridged, and mountains and other impediments thrown in the way of free locomotion. So far, then, from its being man’s duty to imitate Nature, as some have thought it was, it is incumbent upon him to oppose her with all his powers, because of her gross injustice in the realm of morals, and to remedy her physical defects as far as lies in his power. On this view of Nature our fathers were wiser in their generation than we when they trimmed their trees into grotesque shapes and laid out their landscapes in geometric lines; when in medicine they substituted the lancet and unlimited mercury for the _vis medicatrix naturae_; when in philosophy they dictated to Nature from their internal consciousness, before Bacon introduced the heresy of induction; when in politics they had a profound faith in statutes and none at all in statistics; when in education they conscientiously rammed down the ologies at the point of the ferule, in blissful ignorance of psychology. If Mr. Mill finds it necessary to rail at Nature because she did not put coal on the top of the ground and build bridges and dig wells for man’s convenience, why not call her a jade at once because she does not grow ready-made clothing of the latest mode in sizes to suit, because the trees do not bear hot rolls and coffee, and because Mr. Mill’s philosophy is not an intuition of the mind? He is less restrained in speaking of the moral enormities of Nature. Altogether the most striking passage in the book is his indictment of the Author of Nature, which is truly Satanic in its audacity and hardly to be paralleled in literature for its impiety; for it is impious even from Mr. Mill’s standpoint, since he admits that the weight of evidence tends to prove that Nature’s Author is both wise and good. We transcribe only some of his expressions: “Nearly all things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another are Nature’s _every-day performances_;” she “has a hundred hideous deaths” reserved for her victims, “such as the ingenious cruelty of a Nabis or a Domitian never surpassed,” which “she uses with _the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and justice_;” “she inflicts torture in _apparent wantonness_;” “everything which _the worst men_ commit against life and property is perpetrated on a larger scale by natural agents;” “Nature has noyades more fatal than those of Carrier: her plague and cholera far surpass the poison-cups of the Borgias.” Such are a few of the impassioned and presumptuous expressions which Mr. Mill allows himself to use in speaking of the great mystery of human suffering, which others touch with reverence, and do not dare to reprobate, since they cannot understand. His words are as false as they are bold. Fierce and terrible as Nature is in some of her aspects, it is not true that her _prevailing_ attitude is, as here indicated, one of bitter hostility to the race she nourishes on her bosom. If she were the monster here described, mankind would long ago have perished under her persistent cruelties, and Mr. Mill’s profane cry would never have gone up to Heaven. Men will always regard the world subjectively, and adjudge it happy or the reverse according to their temperament or passing humor; but, if it be conceded–as it is by Mr. Mill through his whole argument–that man is a moral creature, with a true power of self-determination within certain limits, and with sufficient intelligence to discern the laws of Nature, and that therefore all the pain that man brings upon himself by voluntary violation of discovered law is to be deducted from the sum-total of human suffering to arrive at the amount that is attributable to Nature, most men, if they are honest, will on reflection admit that Nature brings to the great body of the human family immeasurably more comfort, if not pleasure, than she does pain. Take the senses, which are the sources of physical pleasure. How seldom, comparatively, the eye is pained, while it rests with habitual gratification upon the sky and landscape, and on the human form divine when unmarred by vice! How rarely the taste is offended or the appetite starved, while every meal, be it ever so simple, yields enjoyment to the palate! The ear is regaled with the perpetual music of wind and ocean and feathered minstrelsy, of childhood’s voice and the sweet converse of friends. So, too, Nature is a great laboratory of delicate odors: the salt breath of the sea is like wine to the sense; the summer air is freighted with delights, and every tree and flower exhales fragrance: only where danger lurks does Nature assault the nostrils with kindly warning. If it be objected that vast numbers of the race live in cities where every sense is continually offended, it is to be remembered that “man made the town,” and is to be held responsible for the unhappiness there resulting from his violations of natural law. But even in cities Nature is more kind to man than he is to himself, and dulls his faculties against the deformities and discords of his own creating. From the sense of feeling it is probable we receive more pain than pleasure, but by no means so much more as to overbalance the great preponderance of delights coming through the other avenues: a great part of such pain is cautionary, and much can be avoided by voluntary action; and the stimulus thus given by the wise severity of Nature begets that activity of the moral life from which results the highest form of happiness. When we attempt to estimate our mental and moral sufferings, it is impossible even to approximate the proportion of them that are due to our voluntary infringement of law; but, adding together all that spring from natural sources and all that men bring upon themselves, the suffering is still outweighed by the pleasure among the great mass of men.

But, however unfavorable a view we take of the condition of humanity, it is gross exaggeration to say, “_There is no evidence whatever_ in Nature for Divine justice, whatever standard of justice our ethical opinions may lead us to recognize: … there is _no shadow of justice_ in the general arrangements of Nature.” Though many of Nature’s dealings with man appear to be unjust, by far the larger proportion of them are graduated according to what seems, even to us, a standard of strict equity. As Matthew Arnold puts it, there is a power in Nature “which makes for righteousness.” And every generation verifies the words of the Preacher: “The righteous shall be recompensed _in the earth_–much more the wicked and the sinner;” “as righteousness _tendeth to life_, so he that pursueth evil _pursueth it to his own death_.” It was the reverent saying of that noblest of pagans, Marcus Aurelius, that “if a man should have a feeling and a deeper insight with respect to the things which are produced in the universe, there is hardly anything that comes in the course of Nature which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed _so as to give pleasure_.” When that “deeper insight” comes, and the eyes of man’s spiritual understanding are opened, all appearance of injustice in Nature will probably vanish.

If men were indeed as wretched as Mr. Mill describes them to be, and had no fear of judgment and immortality–which Mr. Mill informs us are probably but figments of the brain–why should they continue to endure “the calamity of so long life”?

‘Twere best at once to sink to peace, Like birds the charming serpent draws– To drop head-foremost in the jaws
Of vacant darkness, and to cease.

So men would begin to reason if this dark gospel of despair were ever to gain currency; but, fortunately, it is only the morbid dream of a closet philosopher, who fancied the world was upside down because he could not unriddle it with his logical Rule of Three.

This representation of Nature is not only at variance with facts, but inconsistent with Mr. Mill’s own conclusions, as he reasons from natural phenomena that the Creator is both wise and beneficent, but that He is in some way hindered from fully accomplishing His kind purposes. But if “_there is no evidence whatever for Divine justice_, and _no shadow of justice_ in the general arrangements of Nature,” the reasonable inference is that its author is a being of infinite malignity who is in some mysterious manner, for the present, prevented from wreaking the full measure of his wrath upon mankind. From this horrible thought Mr. Mill recoils, and, giving logic to the winds, he trusts that

God is love indeed,
And love Creation’s final law,
Though Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravin, shrieks against his creed.

In the second essay Mr. Mill undertakes to prove the uselessness and harmfulness of supernatural religion both to society and individuals, and the sufficiency of human authority, of education and public opinion to accomplish all the beneficial results usually accredited to faith in a Divine Being. “Religion,” he says, “by its intrinsic force, … without the sanction superadded by public opinion, … has never, save in exceptional characters or in peculiar moods of mind, exercised a very potent influence after the time had gone by in which Divine agency was supposed habitually to employ temporal rewards and punishments.” Whatever application this statement may have to other religions claiming a divine origin, it is entirely false of Christianity. In its origin, _it_ certainly held out no temporal bribes of any character. Its Founder expressly said to His disciples, “In this world ye shall have tribulation.” “Behold,” He says, “I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves”; “ye shall be hated of all men for My sake”; “if any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” His own life was one of unparalleled contumely, and He told them they must not expect to fare better than their Master. Nor did they. The majority of the apostles met cruel deaths after lives of suffering. Paul, describing his experience, speaks of his beatings and his perils among his countrymen and the heathen, of his hunger and thirst and his cold and nakedness. And his was only an extreme example of the common lot of the early generations of Christians. Yet in the face of the hostility of the whole Roman and Jewish world, manifested in the most cruel persecutions, Christianity rapidly grew, gaining its most signal triumphs, laying hold of the consciences and transforming the lives of men. It was only when it came under the patronage of the civil government, and the public opinion of the world was thrown in its favor, and its peculiar doctrines became diluted with worldly policy, that it began to lose its reforming influence–a fact which Mr. Mill himself alludes to in his essay _On Liberty_. This experience has been frequently repeated since the days of Constantine; so that history fairly proves that Christianity does its peculiar work more effectually _when it is dissociated from all human sanctions_, and left to act solely by its intrinsic force. This is true not only of the Church at large, but of individuals. Paul, Luther, a Kempis drew their inspiration from the simple words of Christ, and owed next to nothing to the opinions of the world about them. It has always been direct contact with the life and precepts of the Founder of Christianity that has fired the hearts and braced the spiritual energies of the noblest Christians, who have been the reformers of their times, braving the enmity of the world to instill a purer and a loftier morality.

The illustrations, suggested first by Bentham, which Mr. Mill cites to prove the worthlessness of the religious sanction–viz., the almost universal breach of oaths where not enforced by law, and the prevalence of male unchastity and the practice of dueling among Christian communities–have no pertinency whatever to his argument, since they only prove the predominance of religious infidelity and indifference in countries nominally Christian, which no one denies; while the exceptions to this rule, which occur almost wholly among Christians, prove the very view he controverts. It is Christian opinion making itself felt through legislation that is gradually circumscribing the area of these vices.

Again, says Mr. Mill. “Because when men were still savage they would not have received either moral or scientific truths unless they had supposed them supernaturally imparted, does it follow they would now give up moral truths any more than scientific because they believed them to have no other origin than wise and noble human hearts?” Overlooking the adroit introduction here of scientific truths as having originally been on the same footing with moral truths–for which we do not think there is any sufficient historic evidence–it is competent to reply that the great mass of mankind are still in the earlier stages of intellectual and moral development, even in the most advanced countries; so that on grounds of utility it is important to prolong, if possible, the supernatural sanctions of religion. Although, as Mr. Mill believes, a moral truth once in the possession of humanity may never be lost, it may yet have its influence suspended through many generations, as in the Dark Ages, and thus the advance of civilization be indefinitely retarded; and therefore the office of religion in keeping morality operative among men is not to be discarded. It is doubtless impossible to estimate with entire correctness the relative value of the different forces that advance or retard civilization, but we believe the weight of historic evidence goes to prove that religious skepticism was the actual cause, as it has always been the inevitable precursor, of national decay. Coleridge in _The Friend_ quotes the historian Polybius as attributing the strength of the Roman republic to the general reverence of the invisible powers, _and the consequent horror in which the breaking of an oath was held._ This he thought the _causa causarum_ of Roman grandeur; and he attributed the ruin of the Greek states to the frequency of perjury resulting from the atheism taught by the Sophists. Goethe says somewhere that “all epochs in which faith has prevailed have been the most heart-stirring and fruitful both as regard contemporaries and posterity; whereas all epochs in which unbelief obtains its miserable triumphs, even when they boast of some apparent brilliancy, are not less surely doomed to speedy oblivion.” This assertion is notably true of the histories of Judea, Greece, Rome, and Spain. And, _a priori_, it might be argued that the only possible ground for that cordial unanimity of society upon fundamental questions which is essential to a stable and highly developed civilization is a common faith in some central rightful authority competent to demand and enforce equal obedience from all classes; in other words, faith in God. A band of savages might be held in a lax social union by the common fear of some brawny chief, but in civilized communities it is the real _divinity_ that doth hedge about the king or other civil head that gives cohesion to the social mass. As a political force, therefore, religion cannot be dispensed with.

Religion is not only useless, Mr. Mill proceeds, but “there is a very real evil consequent on ascribing a supernatural origin to the received maxims of morality. That origin consecrates the whole of them, and protects them from being discussed and criticised.” Such an objection hardly comes with good grace from Mr. Mill, who spends his strength to prove that a divine sanction has no efficacy when not backed by human authority. Nor has such an objection, if it were true, any application to the case till it is absolutely proved that _all_ religions are of human origin, or else that more harm results from believing human systems divine than from believing one divine system to be of human growth. Neither of these alternatives does he attempt to establish, and he explicitly admits it is impossible to prove the former. But the objection is not true. Human criticism has never been backward to attack all systems of morality, despite the popular faith in their divine origin. Christianity especially has had its historic and intellectual and moral foundations attacked by able critics in every century since its introduction on earth. But in the face of every form of opposition it has made a steady progress, and strengthened its hold upon the human heart and conscience as the world has advanced in culture. It is to-day professed by a larger number of disciples and with a more intelligent faith than at any other period of its history. It is the dominant religion in those countries which are in the van of human progress, whose political institutions are the freest in the world, and whose inhabitants are the happiest and most virtuous. And despite its insoluble mysteries it has always received the assent of the highest intelligence to its divine origin. “My faith,” said De Quincey, “is that though a great man may, by a rare possibility, be an infidel, an intellect of the highest order must build on Christianity.” And Bacon’s testimony is to the same effect. “It is only,” he says, “when superficially tested that philosophy leads away from God: deeper draughts of a thorough and real philosophy bring us back to Him.” And poor Tyndall, standing afar off in the outer regions of pure intellect, hard by the

ever-breaking shore
That tumbles in the godless deep,

has recently been heard to murmur that in his loftiest moments the promise and potency of matter give no response to the deepest cry of the soul. And along the centuries stand the princes of thought, Paul, Augustine, Bacon, Luther, Milton, Pascal, Kepler, Newton, Coleridge, Faraday, Herschel, testifying to the impregnability of the intellectual foundation of the Christian faith.

If Mr. Mill’s arguments to prove the worthlessness of Christianity are open to many objections, the reasons he offers for accepting his substitute, the Religion of Humanity, are utterly baseless and delusive. For faith in God he would have us adopt an ideal conception of what human life can be made in the future, and sacrifice all our present enjoyment to secure a realization of that conception ages hence. This, says he, is a better religion than any belief respecting the unseen powers. “If individual life is short, the life of the human species is not.” How does he know this? The dark demon of Nature he has so vividly described may sweep away the puny race to-morrow by some fell cataclysm; and it would be a blessing if she did in his view. “If such an object,” he continues, “appears small to a mind accustomed to dream of infinite and eternal beatitudes, it will expand into far other dimensions when these _baseless fancies_ shall have receded into the past.” But if we must feed our moral natures on “baseless fancies,” most men will prefer the Christian dogmas of immortality, the infinite capacity of development of the human soul, the brotherhood of the race and its vital union with its Creator, and its perfectibility of human institutions and social conditions in this life under the leavening influence of Christian principle, although Mr. Mill may stigmatize them as grandiose and enervating dreams, to his beggarly improved substitute, which appeals neither to our common sense nor to our moral intuitions. Taking his own criterion, utility, as the test of truth, his religion of humanity fails to establish itself, for it postpones the happiness of each existing generation to the fancied good of future generations which may never be born, and this _ad infinitum_. On this part of his subject Mr. Mill is simply fatuous, as when he speaks of our being sustained in this faith by the approbation of the dead whom we venerate. But if Socrates and Howard and Washington and Christ and Antoninus and Mrs. Mill are turned to clay, as he says they probably are, it is nonsense to assert that he is strengthened in the path of duty by a feeling that they would sympathize with him if alive. It is the unconfessed hope of their immortality that quickens him, if he is affected at all. Mr. Mill’s idolatry of his wife, like Buckle’s love for his mother, was an argument for the immortality of the soul which he does not seem to have been able entirely to reject.

Mr. Mill never tires of calling Christianity a selfish religion, and glorifies his substitute as free from this defect. But Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, in his work entitled _Liberty, Equality, Fraternity_, has clearly pointed out that Mr. Mill has only succeeded in duping himself on this point. A man _cannot_ free himself from self-consideration. Christianity indeed appeals to the innate desire of happiness, but condemns the overweening and blind self-regard which cannot see that the highest happiness of self flows from a just respect to the selfhood of others and from the cultivation of the spiritual nature. Love your neighbor _as_ yourself is the Christian precept; and it has the advantage of being practicable, which Mr. Mill’s has not.

Mr. Mill considerately says he will forbear to urge the moral difficulties and perversions of the Christian revelation, “the recognition, for example, of the object of highest worship in a being who could make a hell.” “Is it possible,” he asks, “to adore such a one without a frightful distortion of the standard of right and wrong?” “Any other of the outrages to the most ordinary justice and humanity involved in the common Christian conception of the moral character of God sinks into insignificance beside this dreadful idealization of wickedness. Most of them, too, are happily not so unequivocally deducible from the very words of Christ.” Yet this very Personage, who, Mr. Mill says, implicitly believed and taught this awful doctrine, presents, he confesses, the highest type of pure morality the world has ever seen. Arguing from this phenomenon, the more hideous the creed and the more torpid or sophisticated the intellect, the higher the morality is likely to be.

In the last essay, _On Theism_, Mr. Mill examines the evidences in Nature for the existence of God and for the immortality of the soul. The argument from design he thinks establishes the probability of the existence of an intelligent Creator of _limited power_; for “who,” he asks, “would have recourse to means if to attain his end his mere word were sufficient?” It may be replied to this that it is as open to an omnipotent being to accomplish his will through a long chain of causes as by a fiat acting immediately. The recourse to intermediate means does not of necessity prove a limitation of power. If the means actually chosen are defective or bad, it may imply limitation of wisdom or moral obliquity just as much as defect of power, and any choice between these alternatives is entirely arbitrary from a logical standpoint.

Monotheism, Mr. Mill asserts, is a natural product, requiring a considerable amount of intellectual culture, but always appearing at a certain stage of natural development. How, then, did it originate among the Hebrews before they had emerged from barbarism, and fail to appear among their highly civilized contemporaries, the Egyptians and Assyrians? Christlieb is more correct than Mr. Mill, we think, when he says that neither in ancient nor in modern times has it been possible to find a nation which by its own unaided powers of thought has arrived at a definite belief in one personal living God. And the latest researches of ethnologists, as they may be found admirably compiled by Mr. Tyler (himself an advocate of the development hypothesis) in his _Primitive Culture_, substantiate this assertion.

Mr. Mill, in dealing with Kant’s dictum, that the intuition of duty implies a God of necessity, is foolish enough to say “that this feeling of obligation rather _excludes_ than compels the belief in a divine legislator;” which is a very discreditable piece of sophistry.

In closing this short review of these interesting essays we may be permitted to quote a few of Mr. Mill’s admissions, which, taken together, almost amount to a confession of faith in the Christian system, and which leave upon the mind the impression that this painful groping of an earnest inquirer after the truth, and the closer approximation he continually made to Christian dogma, would have resulted, had he lived longer, in his adoption of that faith as offering the hypothesis that best explains the perplexing phenomena of the moral world.

“Experience,” he says, “has abated the ardent hopes once entertained of the regeneration of the human race by merely negative doctrine, by the destruction of superstition.” Here is a declaration of the need of a system of positive truth.

Again, of the Christian revelation he says: “The sender of the alleged message is not a sheer invention: there are grounds independent of the message itself for belief in His reality…. It is moreover much to the purpose to take notice that the very imperfection of the evidences which natural theology can produce of the divine attributes removes some of the chief stumbling-blocks to the belief of revelation.” Here is the _raison d’etre_ of revelation.

This revelation, it should be borne in mind, in its method and character bears a striking similarity to the natural world, from whose Author it professes to come, as was long ago pointed out by Bishop Butler, and recently with great cogency by Mr. Henry Rogers in his most forcible work on the _Superhuman Origin of the Bible_.

Again: “A revelation cannot be proved unless by external evidence–that is, by the evidence of supernatural facts.” Here is an assertion of the necessity of miracles.

Again: “Science contains nothing repugnant to the supposition that every event which takes place results from a specific volition of the presiding Power, provided this Power adheres in its particular volitions to general laws laid down by itself;” which is the biblical representation of the divine mode of action.

Again: “All the probabilities in case of a future life are that such as we have been made, or have made ourselves before the change, such we shall enter into the life hereafter;” which is the exact declaration of Scripture.

Mr. Mill further helps the Christian cause by pointing out two flaws in Hume’s argument against miracles–viz., that the evidence of experience to which its appeal is made is only negative evidence; which is not conclusive, since facts of which there had been no previous experience are often discovered and proved by positive experience to be true; and secondly, the argument assumes that the testimony of experience against miracles is undeviating and indubitable, whereas the very thing asserted on the other side is that there have been miracles, and that the testimony is not wholly on the negative side.

No Christian can read the following tribute to the character of Christ without sadness that the joy of a larger faith was rejected by its author: “Whatever else may be taken away from us by rational criticism, Christ is still left–a unique figure, not more unlike all his precursors than all his followers, even those who had the direct benefit of his teaching. About the life and sayings of Jesus there is a stamp of personal originality, combined with profundity of insight, … which must place the Prophet of Nazareth, even in the estimation of those who have no belief in his inspiration, in the very first rank of the men of sublime genius of whom our species can boast. When this pre-eminent genius is combined with the qualities of probably the greatest moral reformer and martyr to that mission who ever existed upon earth, religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice in pitching upon this man as the ideal representative and guide of humanity; nor even now would it be easy even for an unbeliever to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life…. When to this we add that to the conception of the rational critic it remains a possibility that Christ actually was what he supposed himself to be, … we may well conclude that the influences of religion on the character which will remain after rational criticism has done its utmost against the evidences of religion are well worth preserving, and what they lack in direct strength as compared with those of a firmer belief is more than compensated by the greater truth and rectitude of the morality they sanction.” The confession of these last few lines refutes the whole of Mr. Mill’s elaborate argument on the worthlessness and immorality of that religion which from his grave he lifts his sad and hollow voice to overthrow.

LAWRENCE TURNBULL.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

WOMAN’S RIGHTS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

Not only we, the latest seed of Time– … not only we that prate
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the _women_ well.

Nearly a century and a half ago an English lady, out of patience with the intolerable assumptions of the other sex, raised her voice in behalf of her own. In 1793 there was published in London a pamphlet entitled “_Woman not Inferior to Man, or a Short and Modest Vindication of the Natural Right of the Fair Sex to a Perfect Equality of Power, Dignity and Esteem with the Men_. By Sophia, a Person of Quality.” The title-page has a quotation from Rowe’s _Fair Penitent_:

How hard is the condition of our sex! –Through every state of life the slave of man!

* * * * *

Wherefore are we
Born with souls, but to assert ourselves, Shake off this wild obedience they exact, And claim an equal empire o’er the world?

From such a title and such an epigraph one might expect the most incendiary sentiments in the pages which follow, and that Sophia had nothing less in view than to overthrow the usurper; but this she disclaims: she has no intention, she avers, “to stir up any of my own sex to revolt against the _men_, or to invert the present order of things with regard to _government_ and _authority_” Her sole object appears to be to bring men to a proper sense of their deficiencies and the emptiness of their pretensions. But she is a person of admirable dignity and discretion: it is not until the conclusion, when she has not left them a leg to stand upon, that she magnanimously waives all the advantages to accrue from their humiliation, and merely bids them in future to know their true place. The composition is in every way worthy of these elevated sentiments. Sophia need not have announced herself a person of quality: there is evidence of it on every leaf of her book. One recognizes the accomplished gentlewoman of a hundred years ago, with her solid reading, her strong common sense, her sober religious convictions, her household science. No doubt she loved fine lace and old china; there are recondite internal proofs that she was pretty; and on closing the book a far-off rustle of her brocade reaches us as she makes her spreading curtsey. But we will let her speak for herself a little. Her first position is certainly a strong one: “If this haughty sex would have us believe they have a natural right of superiority over us, why don’t they prove their charter from Nature by making use of reason to subdue themselves?… Were we to see _men_ everywhere and at all times masters of themselves, and their animal appetites in perfect subordination to their rational faculties, we should have some color to think that Nature designed them as masters to us.” The doctrine of female inferiority she considers “a vulgar though ancient error,” observing that until very recent ages the sun was believed to revolve round the earth, and the notion of the antipodes was “a heresy in philosophy”–that to assert the equality of the sexes now was no greater paradox than to advocate either of those theories but a short time ago. “But,” she continues, “who shall the matter be tried by?” and here we suspect she has reached the root of the difficulty. Both men and women, she admits, are too much interested to be impartial judges; therefore she appeals to “rectified reason” as umpire. She considers in order the various claims to predominance which men have put forward, and confutes them one by one. “Man concludes that all other creatures were made for him because he was not created until all were in readiness for him:” even granting that to be unanswerable, she says it only proves that men were made for women, and not _vice versa_: “they are our natural drudges…. Men are magnified because they succeed in taming a tiger, an elephant or such like animals;” therefore what rank must belong to woman, “who spends years in training that _fiercer animal_, MAN?” She instances a journeyman tailor she once saw belabor his wife with a neck of mutton, “to make her know, as he said, her _sovereign lord and master_. And this is perhaps as strong an argument as their sex is able to produce, though conveyed, in a greasy light…. To stoop to regard for the strutting things is not enough; to humor them more than we could children with any tolerable decency is too little; they must be served, forsooth!” It is grievous injustice to Sophia, but one almost fancies one hears Madame George Sand. She allows that to please man ought to be part of the sex’s business if it were likely to succeed; “but such is the fanatical composition of their natures that the more pains is taken in endeavoring to please them, the less generally is the labor successful; … and surely _women_ were created by Heaven for some better end than to labor in vain their whole life long.” The supercilious commendations of men are gall and wormwood to her: “Some, more condescending, are gracious enough to confess that many _women_ have wit and conduct; but yet they are of opinion that even such of us as are the most remarkable for either or both still betray something which speaks the imbecility of our sex.” She makes an excellent plea forgiving women a thorough education, complaining that it is denied them, and then they are charged with being superficial: “True knowledge and solid learning cannot but make woman as well as man more humble; … and it must be owned that if a little superficial knowledge has rendered some of our sex vain, it equally renders some of theirs insupportable.” With all the sex’s frivolity, she adds, women have not been found to spend their lives on mere _entia rationis_ splitting hairs and weighing motes like the Schoolmen. She concludes that men deprive women of education lest they should oust them “from those public offices which they fill so miserably.” She handles her logic admirably, and exposes her adversaries for begging the question and reasoning in a circle. Of course she enforces her assertions by citing the women who have distinguished themselves in every position of responsibility, military, political and intellectual, and only refrains from multiplying instances because of their number. Not to quote those alone who have filled chairs of medicine with honor, she ingeniously remarks that the remedies classed as “an old woman’s recipe” are those oftenest prescribed, to the glory of her sex, who by patience, humanity and observation have invented without the help of Galen and Hippocrates an infinity of reliefs for the sick which their adherents can neither improve nor disapprove. She makes her final point on the question of moral superiority. It is sometimes stated “that some _women_ have been more flagitious than any _men_, but that in nowise redounds to the dishonor of our sex in general. _The corruption of the best is ever the worst_: should we grant this, … it must be owned their number would at least balance the account. I believe no one will deny but that at least upon the most moderate computation there are a thousand _bad men_ to one _bad woman_.” She winds up by an appeal to her own sex in the very spirit of Miss F.P. Cobbe, the sum of which is to adjure women, for their own sakes, not to be silly.

How many contemporaries of George Selwyn had their eyes opened by this clear statement of their demerits there are no means of ascertaining. But Sophia raised up at least one furious antagonist, who replied by a pamphlet called “MAN _Superior to_ WOMAN, _or a Vindication of Man’s Natural Right of Sovereign Authority over the Woman, containing a Plain Confutation of the Fallacious Arguments of_ SOPHIA. By a GENTLEMAN.” The first thing to be noted is, that whereas Sophia said her say in about fifty pages, the masculine reply covers seventy-eight in smaller print. He opens by a “Dedication to the Ladies,” beginning, “Lovely creatures”–an exordium which any woman of spirit would resent, the perfidy and disrepect of his intentions being obvious in those words alone; and he continues in the tone of flippancy which was to be expected. His arguments are weak in the extreme, and his satire is pointless. The only hit is his scheme for a female university, with Mrs. Manly and Mrs. Afra Behn in the chair of literature. His summary of woman’s character and occupations was given earlier, with more brevity and wit, and no less truth, by Pope. To Sophia’s historical illustrations he opposes female types named Tremula, Bellnina, Novilia, etc. But in truth the production is so excessively scurrilous that one needs to remember that those were the times of Congreve and Fielding to believe that the author could have the right to style himself “A GENTLEMAN.” We shudder with pity for poor Sophia, who had such a mass of filth flung at her. But that decorous personage is not disconcerted: she does not lose her head or her temper, but opens her mouth with a freedom of speech which was the prerogative of an honest woman in those days, and rejoins with a second pamphlet: “_Woman’s Superior Excellence over Man_” Her first thrust is to regret, in behalf of the other sex, that neither Achilles nor Hector appears as their champion, but Thersites. Either her adversary was silenced, or the publishers considered that what he said was not worthy of preservation, for no further words of his appear, so that in any case she had the best of it. Her first pamphlet had a second edition in the following year. Its memory was still alive in this century, for it was quoted with respect by the _Retrospective Review_ for 1824 in a learned article on the “Privileges of Woman,” which deserves the attention of those interested in the subject.

S.B.W.

THE TOMB OF LORENZO DE’ MEDICI.

I wish to chronicle in the pages of _Lippincott’s Magazine_ the record of a scene that took place this spring in the Medicean chapel attached to the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. It was in itself a remarkable and memorable scene enough, but it was yet more important as regards certain interesting points of history on which it throws a very curious light, if it does not, as many persons will be inclined to think, settle them definitively.

The little square marble chapel itself, which no visitor to Florence will have forgotten, is admired as an architectural gem of Michael Angelo, and is yet more celebrated as the shrine of some of his finest works, especially the sitting statue of Lorenzo and the recumbent statues of _Twilight_ and _Dawn_ on the tomb of Lorenzo. These two grand figures, it will be remembered, repose on the arched canopy over the tomb in such a position that, if not retained in their places by some means adapted for that purpose, they would slide off the rounded arch by their own weight. Now, it had been lately observed that the statue of _Twilight_ was moving, and it was very reasonably judged to be necessary that this should be looked to. The statue was therefore carefully raised, and it was discovered that when the tomb of Lorenzo had been opened to place in it the body of the murdered Alexander, his (putative) son, the metal stanchion or peg by means of which Michael Angelo had secured his statue in its place had been replaced by a wooden one. This, in the course of the centuries which have since elapsed had become decayed, and the statue might have fallen any day. This being the case, it was thought well to raise the other statue, that of the _Dawn_ also. But that was found to be as secure in its place as the great artist had left it. But these superincumbent statues having been thus lifted from off the sepulchre, it was suggested that the opportunity should be taken to examine the contents of the tomb.

There were several reasons which rendered such an examination historically interesting and curious. A certain degree of doubt has been cast–mainly by Grimm–on the question whether the tomb be in fact that of Lorenzo, the father of Catherine de’ Medici, the celebrated queen of France–whether it be not rather that of Giuliano, his uncle. For my part, I had always thought that there was little or no foundation for the doubt. The main features of the story of Alexander will probably be in the memory of the reader. The Florentine republic and liberty were destroyed in 1527 by the united forces of the traitor pope, the Medicean Clement VII., and Charles V., with the understanding that this Alexander should marry Margaret, the emperor’s illegitimate daughter, and that Florence should become a dukedom to dower the young couple withal. Who and what this Alexander was has always been one of the puzzles of history. He was, tradition says, very swarthy, and was generally believed to be the son of a Moorish slave-mother. He was certainly illegitimate; and the question, Who was his father? was always a doubtful one, though he has generally been called the son of Lorenzo. I have elsewhere given at length reasons for believing rather that whispered bit of scandal of the time which declared the pope, Clement VII., to be his father. When Florence fell he became duke, and reigned over the unhappy city for seven years, in such sort that the murder of him in 1537 by his kinsman Lorenzino, traitorously and cowardly done as the deed was, was deemed the act of a patriot. The story of such a deed, done at midnight in a private chamber, and never made the subject of legal investigation, of course reaches subsequent generations enveloped in more or less of uncertainty. Now, it was likely enough that the careful examination of the remains in the tomb in question might throw light on sundry points of Alexander’s story.

In the first place, the identity of the tomb is now fixed beyond the possibility of a doubt. It was known that the body of the murdered Alexander was placed in the tomb of his putative father, Lorenzo. If, therefore, the body of Alexander should be found in this sepulchre, the tomb is proved to have been that of Lorenzo. When the lid of the sarcophagus was raised, there accordingly were the two bodies visible–one dressed in white, the other in black. It has been assumed–and I think the assumption is abundantly justified, as will presently be seen–that the skeleton in black is that of Lorenzo, and the skeleton in white that of Alexander. The relative position of the bodies was very singular. The heads were at opposite ends of the sarcophagus, and the bodies were placed, not side by side, but each between the legs of the other. One of the bodies, that of Lorenzo, seemed when the lid of the sarcophagus was raised to be headless, but on examination the skull was found under the breast of the black tunic that covered the body. There can be little doubt that it became detached when the body was moved for the purpose of placing that of Alexander in the tomb. The white garment that clad the skeleton of Alexander was an embroidered shirt ornamented with lace: the legs were covered with white leggings. The skull of this skeleton had all the teeth perfect when the sarcophagus was opened; but should the curiosity of any future generation tempt the men of that day to peer into this receptacle of the dust of tyrants, the skull of the murdered Alexander will be found to be toothless. And all sorts of suppositions and theories may be based on this singular fact, and credited, until some antiquary of the period discovers in an ancient magazine published at the period of a former examination of the sepulchre this record, in which I am obliged to declare–with a blush for the decency of the Florentines–that the teeth were all stolen by persons who were permitted to be present at the opening of the tomb. A certain special historical interest is attached to those teeth of the murdered man. The story goes that when Lorenzino stabbed him as he slept on a bed in Lorenzino’s own house, to which he had been inveigled in the hope of meeting there a certain lady, the wife of a Ginori of the time, Alexander started up, and, seizing the thumb of the murderer between his teeth, held him so firmly that he could not have escaped had not a bravo whom he had hired to aid him come to his assistance. These, then, were the teeth that held so well in the death-grip of their owner! Some Florentine historically-minded virtuoso (!) appreciated the significance of the fact, and stole them from the head some three centuries and a half after that last bite of theirs. There were several gaps in the range of teeth still remaining in the skull of Alexander, which has appeared strange to some who remember that he was only twenty-seven when he died. But I think that any medical man, taking into consideration; the manner of his death, would find nothing strange in the circumstance, but on the contrary a confirmation of the truth of the facts which the chroniclers of the time have preserved for us.

Perhaps, however, the most curious and interesting fact which the opening of this tomb has ascertained is that testified to by the hair still remaining on the skull which was that of Alexander. It is a black curly hair of a coarse quality, such as a man of mixed black blood may be supposed to have had. It is recorded that one of the wounds given by the bravo Scoronconcolo, whom Lorenzino had hired to assist him in the murder, and who ran up to complete the job when his master was disabled by being fast held by the teeth of Alexander, was a stab in the face. And of the truth of this tradition also the skull of the murdered man still affords evidence; for on the left-hand side of the face, a little below the socket of the eye, there is a mark in the bone beneath the cheek which must have been made by the point of the sword or dagger that inflicted the wound, and which shows that the bravo Scoronconcolo’s thrust must have been a shrewd one.

It will readily be supposed that the scene at the opening of the sepulchre must have been a very impressive one. There, in that solemn chapel of white and black marble which the genius of Michael Angelo prepared for the repose of his sovereigns and patrons, with his lifelike and immortal presentations of the forms of the dead who have filled all story with their names, looking down on the deed with sad and solemn faces, who would not, while thus forcing the prison-house of the tomb to render up its terrible and long-concealed secrets, have been deeply sensible of a feeling of awe and reverence? Even putting aside all such sentiments as the contemplation of such a _memento mori_ is usually found to inspire in most men, the purely scientific historical inquirer must have felt the importance of the occasion, and the great desirability of making the most in an historical point of view of so rare an opportunity. I am sorry to be obliged to record that the Florentines, so far as could be judged from their conduct and bearing, felt nothing of all this. No one who knows them as well as I do would have expected reverence from them under any possible or imaginable circumstances; but one might have expected such due care and decency of proceeding as would have sufficed to render the examination of the remains as historically instructive as possible, and to preserve the record for a future generation. But this was very far from being the case. A learned professor of anatomy indeed attended at the opening of the tomb, but instead of touching the remains himself, or utilizing his science by handling them as they ought to have been handled, he called a workman, and by him the bodies were torn out from their resting-place in fragments. The clothes were of course torn to pieces in the operation; the lace from the shirt of Alexander was permitted to be stolen; and the same fate, as has been stated, overtook his teeth. No sort of preparation had been made for any possible examination of the remains to any good purpose. They were laid out anyhow, as the phrase is, on a little marble bench in the chapel. Those who remember the place will not need to be told how perfect a sham any pretence of examination must have been under such circumstances. When this pretence had been gone through, the bones were cast back again into the marble sarcophagus by the workman, “like”–as one eye-witness of the scene describes it–“the bones of dogs.” And when the same person looked into the sarcophagus after this tossing back had been effected, he saw a mere confused heap of the scattered bones of two skeletons undistinguishably mixed together. “I cannot help,” writes the same eye-witness, “expressing my sense of the barbaric acts which I witnessed. Historic skeletons–the father of Catherine de’ Medici, the son-in-law of Charles V.; Florentine nobles–one a duke of Florence, the other of Urbino–both bad enough fellows, no doubt, but could any Communists have acted worse? Besides, Communist mobs assert principles, and do these things in hot blood. But this most monstrous outrage was committed coolly by pure stupidity and the carelessness which cannot be moved by any consideration to take any trouble that can by any possibility be avoided. Had they turned up a quantity of the bones of animals to examine them, they could not have done worse.” It is fair to add that _some_ of the organs of the Florentine press stigmatized the proceedings upon this occasion as they deserved to be stigmatized.

T.A.T.

T.W. ROBERTSON.

The qualifications needed by the novelist and by the dramatist are at once alike and unlike. Differing in manner rather than in matter, they are rarely found united in one man. Scott, from whose novels many stirring plays have been taken, was incapable of writing one himself; Thackeray, even after he was the well-known author of _Vanity Fair_, could not find a manager willing to produce his comedy; and Thackeray’s great master, Fielding, comparatively failed as a dramatist, though Joseph Surface is Blifil and Charles Surface is Tom Jones, and from the same work Colman derived his comedy of the _Jealous Wife_, which holds the stage to this day. By dint of hard work a man might make himself a novelist, but the dramatist, like the poet, must be born. He who possesses the power of writing successfully for the stage will surely show it in his first work. This theory accounts for the signal success of the _Cantab_, a slight farce played in 1861 at the London Strand Theatre. The material was weak and worn-out, but the fun was not forced: it flowed naturally from the situations. There was a freshness and a firmness about the little piece which showed the hand of a young author capable of better things. Three years later, Mr. Sothern, desiring a part diametrically the opposite of Lord Dundreary, produced _David Garrick_, and in 1865 _Society_ made its first appearance on the stage of the Prince of Wales’s Theatre. Then T. W. Robertson stepped to the front rank of living English dramatists.

The author had found his audience and his actors. The Prince of Wales’s Theatre was directed by a burlesque actress, and devoted to light comedy and extravaganza: after that it gave up burlesque, merely heightening the effect of the comedy and prolonging the programme by a quiet farce. The company was small and strong, the theatre was well managed, and plays were handsomely mounted. After the success of _Society_ until Robertson’s death its main reliance was upon his pen. In 1866 _Ours_ was first produced, followed in 1867 by _Caste_. The pieces of other authors, although carefully played and well mounted, were uniform failures. Mr. Edmund Yates’s _Tame Cats_, and Mr. Dion Boucicault’s _How She Loves Him!_ were each withdrawn after a run of a very few nights, whereas _School Play_, an _M.P._ succeeded each other with undisputed success. At the Haymarket Theatre _David Garrick_ was followed by _Home_ and _Birth_.

The day was won, and the successful author could afford to rest on his laurels. But he was ambitious and a hard worker; so he continued to write and adapt. To counterbalance the good-fortune of _David Garrick_ and _Home_ at the Haymarket, and the series of six at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, there was a list of failures–_Birth, Progress, Dreams_ and _War_. But his comedies were far more successful than his heavier plays: his belief in his power to construct good acting dramas must have been sadly shaken by the total failure of _For Love_, the _Shadow-Tree Shaft_ and the _Nightingale_. There can be no better proof of their want of success than the fact that at a time when American managers were eager for his comedies, not one of his dramas was ever produced in the United States. But in spite of the comparative failure of his later works, his death was felt to be the loss of a dramatic author of some performance and of greater promise,

We have a way of nicknaming a new writer after one of his most celebrated predecessors whom we imagine him to resemble, and then we find fault with him for not having all the qualities of an author whom he probably has no desire to imitate. False friends of T.W. Robertson called him the “modern Sheridan.” Few writers are more dissimilar. Robertson in his dialogue and construction imitated the modern French dramatists; Sheridan, the old English, Congreve, Farquhar and Wycherley. Robertson especially delighted in love-scenes–there are generally two at least in each of his comedies: I cannot remember one in any of Sheridan’s. The dialogue of the author of the _School for Scandal_ is artificial and glittering–that of the author of _School_ is generally more natural, and always less brilliant. They have, however, one point in common: they both practiced Moliere’s maxim, _Je prends mon bien ou je le trouve_. They both unhesitatingly plagiarized. Robertson in particular easily assimilated foreign matter. He turned _Le Degel_ and _Les Ganaches_ of M. Sardou into _A Rapid Thaw_ and _Progress_. _David Garrick_ was taken from _Dr. Robin_, a French play, itself imitated from the German. _Home_ closely follows _L’Aventuriere_ of M. Emile Augier. Madame de Girardin’s _La Joie fait peur_, previously translated by Mr. G.H. Lewes as _Sunshine through the Clouds_, gave Robertson the situation of the last act of _War_: Mr. Dion Boucicault has since deftly adapted the same delightful little piece under the name of _Kerry, or Night and Morning_. The Cinderella-like plot of _School_ is taken from the _Aschenbroedel_ of Roderick Benedix: the school examination was suggested by a French vaudeville, _En classe, mesdemoiselles!_ The part of Beau Farintosh is a weak revival of Garrick’s Lord Chalkstone and Colman and Garrick’s Lord Ogleby; and the strong situation in the fourth act is imitated from _Les Beaux Messieurs de Bois-Dore_ of George Sand.

But Robertson is decidedly strongest when he walks without crutches. His own original plays, _Society, Caste, Ours_, are by far his best. A foreign support made him limp. Of all his adaptations, _home_ alone is really good: most of the others failed. Although that cosmopolitan mosaic _School_ has been the most successful of his pieces in London–it has passed its five hundredth night–it is by no means the best. Success is not necessarily a test of real merit. Evidently, _School_ has the elements of popularity, although it is a very weak piece, although it is full of foreign matter, and although it violates that most necessary rule of dramatic art, declaring no play should contain an effect, a line, a scene or an act which does not bear on the end in view by developing either the characters or the action. The entire second act, containing the farcical examination-scene, is useless. Robertson again sinned in this way in the _Nightingale_: although it had no effect on the plot, although it was entirely unnecessary, he introduced a pretty tableau representing the heroine, a lovely prima-donna, singing under the silver moonbeams in a boat rocked to and fro by the waves.

I have before spoken of Robertson’s fondness for love-scenes. There are almost as many of them in one of his comedies as in one of Mr. Anthony Trollope’s novels. And they are generally very good. What can be more delicious than the “spooning” in _Home_, if it is not the billing and cooing in _Ours_? But what can be more commonplace or more objectionable than the frequent remarks about love and Cupid scattered through his plays? Tom Stylus says in _Society_, “Love is an awful swindler–always drawing upon Hope, who never honors his drafts–a sort of whining beggar, continually moved on by the maternal police. But ’tis a weakness to which the wisest of us are subject–a kind of manly measles which this flesh is heir to, particularly when the flesh is heir to nothing else. Even I have felt the divine damnation–I mean emanation. But the lady united herself to another, which was a very good thing for me, and anything but a misfortune for her.” This is altogether false: no man could ever say such things seriously–at least no man of sense would, and Tom Stylus is a man of sense. See, too, this bit of dialogue in _Play_:

“AMANDA. You are a good girl, and will be rewarded some day with a good man’s love for this.

“ROSIE. I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with love. Love’s a nasty, naughty, wicked boy, and the sooner he’s put in convict-clothes and refused a ticket-of-leave, the better.”

That is false too: the affected smartness of the wit does not suit the situation; or, rather, as a writer in the _Athenaeum_ has said of a similar speech, “it suits any occasion.”