Onto 'un iversity of nohth carolina BOOK CARD please Keep this card in book pocket cn r— a> S cn ^ C7J ^ cr» 12 cn ?E C 7 * CD r— crs - f. . <3 Cf> n~ cn Ss cn Zb c t> £ cn tS cn £ an S cr> id 0) io cn £ •1 -1 Vi . *“1 y. .“•n •V» •x'. •V. .-•i l n 3 X i r? i - an IP? art X cn IS j- r -i U*» GTS cn !n l EK cn j; CD wT» CTJ 5 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL ENDOWED BY THE DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC SOCIETIES PRU666 .A 1 18902b / This book is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the last date stamped under “Date Due.” If not on hold it may be renewed by bringing it to the library. DATE Drx DIE RET - DATE RFT DUE Ktl * D£C 2 ? 79 APR 8 '80 « \ l i ^' .jma N Fedalma Photogravure. — From Painting by George Fuller v Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill https://archive.org/details/completepoemssceOOelio I Cbttum be Utixe Complete Poems Scenes of Clerical Life iNflKen GHr )t £. W. pramarb $ublistfjtng Co. Boston &t to |9o EDITION BE LUXE This edition of the works of George Eliot, printed for SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, IS LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND NUMBERED SETS, OF WHICH THIS IS 2.V-2-y~*fV Co ©ear EVERY DAY DEARER*. HUSBAND. -2 CONTENTS - »o+ - Page George Eliot as a Poet., . . 7 The Spanish Gypsy. Book 1.21 The Spanish Gypsy. Book II. ..... * .... 139 The Spanish Gypsy. Book III.185 The Spanish Gypsy. Book IV.233 The Spanish Gypsy. Book V .269 The Legend of Jubal . 283 Agatha.307 Armgart.320 How Lisa loved the King.361 A Minor Prophet .381 Brother and Sister . 391 Stradivarius. .398 A College Breakfast-Party.403 Two Lovers.428 Self and Life .430 “ Sweet Evenings come and go, Love ”.433 The Death of Moses.‘434 Arion.438 “Oh, may I join the Choir invisible”.441 ' ✓ . LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. POEMS. Page I edalma. Frontispiece Portrait of George Eliot.12 “ A figure litlie, all white and saffron robed, Flashed right across the circle ”.65 “Fedalma entered, cast away the cloud Of serge and linen, and, outbeaming bright, Advanced a pace towards Silva ”.83 “ My father .... comes .... my father ”.118 “ His doublet loose, his right arm backward flung, His left caressing close the long-necked lute ” . . . . 181T “ Ay, ’t is a sword That parts the Spanish noble and the true Zincala ” . . 218 “ He sought the screen Of thornv thickets, and there fell unseen ” . . , . . 304 c< Armgart, dear Armgart, only speak to me” .... 342 Two lovers by a moss-grown spring ”.428 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. Shepperton Church . . . 52 Shepperton Village . 150 Janet at Mrs Pettifer’s Door. 220 GEORGE ELIOT AS A POET. (From the Contemporary Review , vol. viii. p. 397.) As if a strong, delightful water that we knew only as a riveT appeared in the character of a fountain; as if one whom we had wondered at as a good walker or inexhaustible pedes¬ trian, began to dance; as if Mr. Bright, in the middle of a public meeting, were to oblige the company with a song, — no, no, not like that exactly, but like something quite new, — is the appearance of George Eliot in the character of a poet. “ The Spanish Gypsy,” a poem in five books, originally writ¬ ten, as a prefatory note informs us, in the winter of 1864-65, and, after a visit to Spain in 1867, re-written and amplified, is before us. It is a great volume of three hundred and fifty octavo pages; and the first thing which strikes the reader is, that it is a good deal longer than he expected it would be. This is bad, to begin with. What right has anybody to make a poem longer than one expected ? The next thing that strikes one is, — at all events, the next thing that struck me was, as I very hastily turned over the book, — that the fine largo of the author’s manner, continued through so many pages, was a very little burdensome in its effect. That may come of the specific levity of my taste; but it is as well to be quite frank. Dr. Holmes, of Boston, says, — I fear I am repeating my¬ self, as he did with his illustration of the alighting huma,— 1 2 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. that a poem is like a violin in the respect that it needs to be kept and used a good deal before you know what music there is in it. If that is so, what may here be said of George Eliot’s poem will have but littlf value; for the book has only been in my hand a few days, at a time when my preoccupa¬ tion is great, and reading is painful to me. But, in the first place, I do really think my hasty impressions are correct in this case; and, in the second, I shall find some way of re¬ turning to the book, if after very often-repeated readings (according to my habit) I alter any of my opinions. In the Argosy I once gave reasons for looking forward with deep interest to anything George Eliot might do in the shape of poetry, and also hinted the direction in which her risk of greater or less failure appeared to me to lie. “You can never reckon up these high-strung natures, ever ready to be re-im¬ pregnated,” or tell what surprises they may have in store for you. It had often struck me that there was a vein of poetic expression in the writing of George Eliot, of which a hundred instances might have been given. But the question of ques¬ tions remained: Had she such a power, not to say necessity, of spontaneous expression in verse, that when we saw her poetry we should inevitably say, as Milton said of himself, that the expression in verse was the right-hand speech, that in prose the left-hand speech ? How fine are the shades or gradations of quality in this respect, can be little understood by those who have not, by instinct or otherwise, fed, so to speak, on verse. For example, we all know that Wordsworth often wrote, in the printed form of verse, the most utterly detestable prose. Yet he could and did produce most exqui¬ site verse. Again, a living poet of the school of Wordsworth, Mr. Henry Taylor, barely, or little better than barely, enables us to say of him that verse is his right-hand and prose his left. Still, after some little demur, we are able to say it; and we call him a poet. GEOKUE ELIOT AS A POET. & # It must not be supposed that this is by any means a matter of mere fluency, correctness, or ease of numbers. Macaulay wrote verses far superior in these particulars to many of Mr. Henry Taylor’s and many of Wordsworth’s. Yet verse was, unequivocally, Macaulay’s left-hand; and after adolescence, few people can read his verse for poetry. If I were not un¬ willing to rouse the prejudice of (I fear!) most of my read¬ ers, I should here add Edgar Poe; and, indeed, I really can¬ not spare him as an illustration. He must have some queer hybrid place, all to himself (which it would take an essay to define); but though he may be said to have felt verse his right-hand medium of expression, some few of us hesitate to call him a poet. Not to complicate this matter, let us come at once to the point. What is it that in excellent verse differen¬ tiates 1 that which is poetry and that which is not ? Not mere fluency, but unconscious fluency; in a word, simplicity. Whatever art may do for the poet, he must be a simple musi¬ cian to begin with. In looking rapidly over this poem of George Eliot’s I have — let me confess it — I have been inclined to fear that this “note” of simplicity is wanting. And, in spite of an abun¬ dance of fine passages, I fear, also, there is not the perfect fluency of use and wont. It has been maintained, under shel¬ ter of Elizabethan models, that you may do almost anything in dramatic blank verse, in the way of lengthening and short¬ ening the line. I object to the doctrine, and maintain that the Elizabethan examples cited are, in many instances, mere bits of negligence; and, in others, roughnesses of workmanship belonging to the lusty youth of a new art. Blank verse means ten-syllable iambic lines. If there are deviations from this form, as there often are, and should be, they must be regu¬ lated deviations, not accidental intrusions of other forms. . . . 1 I have seen this word objected to as a scientific foppery ; but in its form of to difference, the verb is a good old English verb. POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 4 The versification of “ The Spanish Gypsy ” often breaks out into the very highest excellence; but it too often wants spon¬ taneity and simplicity. As the same observation applies to the lyrics, one has little hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the primal pecu¬ liarity which distinguishes the singer from the sayer is either lacking in George Eliot or that its function has suffered from disuse. I still hesitate to say suffered irreparably, because I still think the orbit of a genius like George Eliot’s incal¬ culable. With such a noble ambition, and such immense resources, one may do almost anything. Thus, though I confess I now think it improbable that George Eliot will ever exhibit in a poem the true simplicity of the singer, and compel her readers to admit that her music is better than her speech, I hesitate, or well-nigh hesitate, in saying even so much as that. It is very pathetic that a noble ambition should come so near its mark and yet fail. Only what are we to do ? The truth must be spoken. Against the presumption raised by the bulk of the writing must, in fairness, be set the evidence of particular passages, in which the author attains such high excellence that if one had seen those passages alone, there would have been no hesitation or doubt on the score of melody. A few of these, in some of which the reader will catch fine touches of Eliza¬ bethan inspiration, I will pick out of the mass. Take, for an example, this description of Zarca: — “ He is of those Who steal the keys from snoring Destiny And make the prophets lie.” And this: — “ My vagabonds are a seed more generoiw, Quick as the serpent, loving as the hound, And beautiful as disinherited gods. They have a promised land beyond the sea.” GEORGE ELIOT AS A POET. 6 And this: — “ Spring afternoons, when delicate shadows fall Pencilled upon the grass; high summer morna When white light rains upon the quiet sea And corn-fields flush with ripeness.” And this: — “ Present and silent and unchangeable As a celestial portent.” Lastly, the best lyric in the poem: — “ The world is great: the birds all fly from me, The stars are golden fruit upon a tree All out of reach: my little sister went. And I am lonely. u The world is great: I tried to mount the hill Above the pines, where the light lies so still. But it rose higher: little Lisa went. And I am lonely. ** The world is great: the wind comes rushing by, I wonder where it comes from; sea-birds cry And hurt my heart; my little sister went, And I am lonely. " The world is great: the people laugh and talk. And make loud holiday: how fast they walk! I ’m lame, they push me : little Lisa went, And I am lonely.” Besides the want of spontaneity and simplicity in the verse, there are other points which make us feel, with what¬ ever reluctance to admit the thing we undoubtingly see, that in “ The Spanish Gypsy ” something is wanting, and in that something everything that endears a poem as a poem. The writing has the diffuseness of literature rather than the con¬ densation of poetry; and, admirable as some of it is, we wish it away : at the lowest, we say to ourselves, if a poet had had 6 POEMS OF GEORGE ‘ ELIOT. to utter this, our pleasure would have been perfect j but, as it is, what is before us is almost too good, and yet it is not good enough ; it does not compel us to think, le poete a le frisson, either while we read or afterwards. There is too much aggregation and accumulation about it; we are set thinking, and set feeling; we are agitated; but we are not thrilled by any single sudden notes. Lastly, or all but lastly, some of the frequent touches of humorous detail are fatal: — “ Enter the Duke, Pablo, and Annibal, Exit the cat, retreating towards the dark.” This, and all this kind of thing, is gravely wrong in a poem. In some cases the phraseology has this species of modern familiarity and curtness; in others, the equally distinguish¬ able largo of the modern philosophic manner, while what is supremely needed, namely, finish, is what we in vain go longing for. Finally, the intellectual groundwork, or outline, of the poem shows far too plainly under the coloring of passion and the movement of the story. Since “ Silas Marner” we have had no book from George Eliot to which this criticism would not, in some degree, be applicable. There is not room here for any exhibition of all the recurring ideas of George Eliot’s writings, but one in particular has been growing more and more prominent since “ Silas Marner,” and of which the first hint is in “ The Mill on the Floss.” “ If the past is not to bind us,” said Maggie Tulliver, in answer to the importu¬ nities of Stephen Guest, “what is?” In a noticeable and well-remembered review of Mr. Lecky’s “ History of Ration¬ alism,” George Eliot told us that the best part of our lives was made up of organized traditions (I quote from memory, but the meaning was plain). Putting these two things to¬ gether, we get the intellectual ground-plan of “The Spanish Gypsy.” Perhaps the illustrious author of the poem would resent the idea that any moral was intended to be conveyed GEORGE ELIOT AS A POET. ? by her recent writings; but, assuredly, this moral is thrust upon us everywhere, in a way which implies, if not intention, very eager belief. Leaving the workmanship and the intellectual conception, or interwoven moral criticism, of the poem, and coming to the story, I am sure of only echoing what all the world will say when I call this in the highest degree poetic; and poeti¬ cally dramatic, too. I must add, and with emphasis, that the story seems to me to gain, as a story, by this mode of • presentation, — as I firmly believe “Romola” would have gained, if the question of perfect poetic expression could have been got over. In other words, although the manner of the novelist too often obtrudes itself in “The Spanish Gypsy,” the author has told the story more affectingly, and with much more of truthfulness and local color and manner, than she would have done if she had been writing it as a novel. Compare, for example, what I think are among the very finest things George Eliot has ever done, — the scene between Juan the troubadour and the Gypsy girls, at the opening of Book III., and the scene in which Don Amador reads to the retainers of Don Silva from “Las Siete Par- tidas” the passage beginning, “Et esta gentileza aviene en tres maneras ” (the critical reader who stumbles at the “ et ” must be informed that this is thirteenth-century Spanish), — compare these two scenes, I say, with the first scene in the barber’s shop, and the scene of the Florentine joke, in “Ro¬ mola,” and note how very much the author gains by assuming the dramatic form. I have heard readers of much critical ability, and much poetic and dramatic instinct, too, complain that they did not see the force of those scenes in “ Romola; ” but it must be an incredibly dull person that misses the force of those scenes in “ The Spanish Gypsy.” The love-passages, also, are exquisitely beautiful; and in them again the author has gained by using the dramatic form. I dare to add that 8 POEMS OF GEORGE ELlOT. she has, however, lost by some of the (so to speak) u stage- directions.” We don’t want to be told how a man and woman of tme type of Don Silva and Fedalma 1 look when they are saying certain things. We can feel pretty sure when the mornant would be too sweet and solemn even for kissing. As Sam Slick said, “Natur’ teaches that air.” The story of “ The Spanish Gypsy ” is simply this: Fe¬ dalma, a Zincala, is lost in her early childhood, and brought up by a Spanish duchess, Don Silva’s mother. As she grows to womanhood Silva loves her, and she is on the point of marrying him when the narrative opens. But Fedalma’s father, Zarca, a Gypsy Moses, Hiawatha, or both, devoted to the regeneration of his tribe, suddenly appears upon the scene and claims his daughter. Will she marry Don Silva, or go with her father and be the priestess of a new faith to the Zincali ? She decides to accompany her father. Upon this Silva renounces his position as a Spanish noble and Christian knight and becomes a Zincalo. This implies the relinquish¬ ment of his post as commander of the town and fortress of Bedm&r, which it is his duty to guard against the Moors; but he is not aware, at the time he takes the Gypsy oath, that Zarca is already in league with the Moors to take the for¬ tress. Zarca and the Moors, however, succeed in investing the place, and some 'noble Spaniards, friends of Silva’s, in¬ cluding his uncle, Father Isidor, are slain. Mad with remorse and rage, Silva stabs Zarca, but is allowed to go free. The poem closes with the departure of Silva to obtain absolution from the Pope, in order that he may recommence the career of a Christian knight, and the departure of Fedalma to be¬ gin, as best she may, the work bequeathed to her by her father, namely, the regeneration of the Zincali. 1 I do not remember having ever seen this name before; it is an exqui sitely musical word, and, I suppose, is intended to mean Faith of the Soul, or, more intelligibly to svme people (not to be envied). Spiritual Fidelity. GEORGE ELIOT AS A POET. One thing is obvious on the face of this story,—that Silva was guilty, in so far as he was an apostate. But there will not be wanting readers who when asking the question who was the cause of all the misery with which the narrative overflows, will say, Fedalma. It was all very well to say that her past bound her. But which past ? When Zarca started up, she was pledged by her “ past ” to Silva, and she loved him. What Zarca imported into the situation was, as lawyers say, new matter. The morrow would have seen her married to Silva; and what then , if Zarca had appeared upon the stage with his Gypsy patriotism ? All the future was dark to her, there was no reason whatever to believe that either she or Zarca would be able to regenerate the Gypsies ; there was present actual proof that she was essential to Silva, life of his life, and the bond of his being. What right had she to forsake him ? It is idle to discuss this, but since, as far as I can make out, there is distinct teaching in the poem, and that teaching is of no force unless Fedalma was, beyond question , right, it is perfectly fair and appropriate to suggest that there is room for question. It seems to me a little curious that George Eliot does not see that the same reason which made Sephardo, the astrologer, a son first and a Jew afterwards, would make Fedalma a betrothed woman first and a Zincala next. But I do not dwell upon this point, because I look forward to another opportunity of dealing with what we are now entitled to assume is George Eliot’s evangel,— “. . . . that Supreme, the irreversible Past.” Irreversible, no doubt, but — “ Supreme ! ” The reader must not imagine that I am darting captiously at a word here. Not at all. George Eliot has a very distinct meaning, which is very distinctly affiliated to a certain mode of thought. To this mode of thought may be traced the astounding discords 10 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. of her late writings, or rather the one astounding discord which runs through them. In submitting to the world a poem, George Eliot is under one serious disadvantage. There are certain particulars in which she is not likely, in verse, to excel her own prose. Clear and profound conception, and emphatic, luminous, and affecting presentation of character, is one of them. The power of inventing dramatic situation is another. In these particulars “ The Spanish Gypsy ” falls behind nothing that this distinguished writer has done; though I do not myself feel that either Eedalma or Zarca is dramatically presented to us. Indeed, vivid as George Eliot’s painting of character always is, and profoundly intelligent, I never thought it lramatic. Nor is it. Here, as in the other books of George Eliot, character is always most vividly described and ana¬ lyzed ; and what the people do is, of course, in exact accord¬ ance with what is described; but none of them reveal them¬ selves without having had the advantage of some criticism. None of them, that is to say, reveal themselves by action only, or by action and speech only, unless the speech takes a critical form. Zarca is shadowy, and Eedalma shadowy. But Juan and Silva we understand well because they are criticised; and Isidor the prior, and Sephardo the Jew, we understand well, because their talk is criticism of a kind which only a certain order of mind could produce. Perhaps the finest portions of the poem lie in some of these critical or quasi-critical passages. Let us take “The Astrologer’s Study ”: — “A room high up in Abderahman’s tower, A window open to the still warm eve, And the bright disk of royal Jupiter. Lamps burning low make little atmospheres Of light amid the dimness; here and there Show books and phials, stones and instruments, in carved dark-oaken chair, unpillowed, sleeps GEORGE ELIOT AS A POET. 11 Right in the rays of Jupiter a small man, In skull-cap bordered close with crisp gray curls, And loose black gown showing a neck and breast Protected by a dim-green amulet; Pale-faced, with finest nostril wont to breathe Ethereal passion in a world of thought ; Eyebrows jet-black and firm, yet delicate; Beard scant and grizzled; mouth shut firm, with curves So subtly turned to meanings exquisite, You seem to read them as you read a word Full-vowelled, long-descended, pregnant, — rich With legacies from long, laborious lives.” Juan’s criticism of himself: — “ I can unleash my fancy if you wish And hunt for phantoms: shoot an airy guess And bring down airy likelihood, — some lie Masked cunningly to look like royal truth And cheat the shooter, while King Fact goes free, Or else some image of reality That doubt will handle and reject as false. Ask for conjecture, — I can thread the sky Like any swallow, but, if you insist On knowledge that would guide a pair of feet Right to Bedmar, across the Moorish bounds, A mule that dreams of stumbling over stones Is better stored.” And, assuredly, I must not omit the study of the character of Silva himself: — “ A man of high-wrought strain, fastidious In his acceptance, dreading all delight That speedy dies and turns to carrion: His senses much exacting, deep instilled With keen imagination's difficult needs; — Like strong-limbed monsters studded o’er with eye§, Their hunger checked by overwhelming vision, Or that fierce lion in symbolic dream Snatched from the ground by wings and new-endowed With ? man’s thought-propelled relenting heart. 12 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Silva was both the lion and the man; First hesitating shrank, then fiercely sprang, Or having sprung, turned pallid at his deed And loosed the prize, paying his blood for naught. A nature half-transformed, with qualities That oft bewrayed each other, elements Not blent but struggling, breeding strange effect*, Passing the reckoning of his friends or foes. Haughty and generous, grave and passionate; With tidal moments of devoutest awe. Sinking anon to farthest ebb of doubt; Deliberating ever, till the sting Of a recurrent ardor made him rush Right against reasons that himself had drilled And marshalled painfully. A spirit framed Too proudly special for obedience. Too subtly pondering for mastery: Born of a goddess with a mortal sire, Heir of flesh-fettered, weak divinity, Doom-gifted with long resonant consciousness And perilous heightening of the sentient soul. But look less curiously: life itself May not express us all, may leave the worst And the best too, like tunes in mechanism Never awaked. In various catalogues Objects stand variously.” There is only one living mind which could have given us poetico-psychological studies of human character like these. There is no comparison in range of faculty between such a mind and John Clare’s. Is it not strange, and almost pa¬ thetic, that an uncultivated peasant could sing, and touch us with music, as no speech could; and yet that a highly culti¬ vated mind like George Eliot’s should almost overwhelm our judgment by the richness and volume of what it pours forth in the name of song; and yet that we are compelled to say the bird-note is missing ? Matthew Browne. Portrait of George Eliot EXTRACTS FROM GEORGE ELIOT’S LIFE. Edited by J. W. CROSS. «•* Among my wife’s papers were four or five pages of manu¬ script headed “Notes on the Spanish Gypsy and Tragedy in General.” There is no evidence as to the date at which this fragment was written, and it seems to have been left unfin¬ ished. But there was evidently some care to preserve it; and as I think she would not have objected to its presentation, I give it here exactly as it stands. It completes the history of the poem. “The subject of ‘The Spanish Gypsy’ was originally sug¬ gested to me by a picture which hangs in the Scuola di’ San Rocco at Venice, over the door of the large Sala containing Tintoretto’s frescos. It is an Annunciation, said to be by Titian. Of course I had seen numerous pictures of this subject before; and the subject had always attracted me. But in this my second visit to the Scuola di’ San Rocco, this small picture of Titian’s, pointed out to me for the first time, brought a new train of thought. It occurred to me that here was a great dramatic motive of the same class as those used by the Greek dramatists, yet specifically differing from them. A young maiden, believing herself to be on the eve of the chief event of her life, — marriage, — about to share in the ordinary lot of womanhood, full of young hope, has suddenly announced to her that she is chosen to fulfil a great destiny, 14 EXTRACTS FRO 1.1 GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE. entailing a terribly different experience from that of ordinary womanhood. She is chosen, not by any momentary arbitrari¬ ness, but as a result of foregoing hereditary conditions: she obeys. ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord.’ Here, I thought, is a subject grander than that of Iphigenia, and it has never been used. I came home with this in my mind, meaning to give the motive a clothing in some suitable set of historical and local conditions. My reflections brought me nothing that would serve me, except that moment in Spanish history when the struggle with the Moors was attaining its climax, and when there was the gypsy race present under such conditions as would enable me to get my heroine and the hereditary claim on her among the gypsies. I required the opposition of race to give the need for renouncing the expectation or marriage. I could not use the Jews or the Moors, because the facts of their history were too conspicuously opposed to the working out of my catastrophe. Meanwhile the subject had become more and more pregnant to me. I saw it might be taken as a symbol of the part which is played in the general human lot by hereditary conditions in the largest sense, and of the fact that what we call duty is entirely made up of such conditions; for even in cases of just antagonism to the narrow view of hereditary claims, the whole back¬ ground of the particular struggle is made up of our inherited nature. Suppose for a moment that our conduct at great epochs was determined entirely by reflection, without the immediate intervention of feeling, which supersedes refac¬ tion, our determination as to the right would consist in an adjustment of our individual needs to the dire necessities of ^ur lot, partly as to our natural constitution, partly as sharers of life with our fellow-beings. Tragedy consists in the ten rible difficulty of this adjustment, — “ ‘The dire strife of poor Humanity’s afflicted will, Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny.’ EXTRACTS FROM GEORGE ELIOT’S LIFE. 15 Looking at individual lots, I seemed to see in each the same story, wrought out with more or less of tragedy, and I deter¬ mined the elements of my drama under the influence of these ideas. “ In order to judge properly of the dramatic structure it must not be considered first in the light of doctrinal symbol¬ ism, but in the light of a tragedy representing some grand col¬ lision in the human lot. And it must be judged accordingly. A good tragic subject must represent a possible, sufficiently probable, not a common, action ; and to be really tragic, it must represent irreparable collision between the individual and the general (in differing degrees of generality). It is the individual with whom we sympathize, and the general of which we recognize the irresistible power. The truth of this test will be seen by applying it to the greatest tragedies. The collision of Greek tragedy is often that between heredi¬ tary, entailed Nemesis and the peculiar individual lot, awak¬ ening our sympathy, of the particular man or woman whom the Nemesis is shown to grasp with terrific force. Sometimes, as in the Oresteia, there is the clashing of two irreconcilable requirements, — two duties, as we should say in these times. The murder of the father must be avenged by the murder of the mother, which must again be avenged. These two tragic relations of the individual and general, and of two irrecon¬ cilable ‘oughts,’ may be — will be — seen to be almost always combined. The Greeks were not taking an artificial, entirely erroneous standpoint in their art, — a standpoint which dis¬ appeared altogether with their religion and their art. They had the same essential elements of life presented to them as we have, and their art symbolized these in grand schematic forms. The Prometheus represents the ineffectual struggle to redeem the small and miserable race of man, against the stronger adverse ordinances that govern the frame of things with a triumphant power. Coming to modern tragedies what 16 EXTRACTS FROM GEORGE ELIOT’S LIFE. is it that makes Othello a great tragic subject ? A story simply of a jealous husband is elevated into a most pathetic tragedy by the hereditary conditions of Othello’s lot, which give him a subjective ground for distrust. Faust, Rigoletto (‘ Le Roi s’Amuse ’), Brutus. It might be a reasonable ground of objection against the whole structure of ‘The Spanish Gypsy,’ if it were shown that the action is outrageously improbable,—lying outside all that can be congruously con¬ ceived of human actions. It is not a reasonable ground of objection that they would have done better to act otherwise, any more than it is a reasonable objection against the Iphigenia that Agamemnon would have done better not to sacrifice his daughter. “ As renunciations coming under the same great class, take the renunciation of marriage where marriage cannot take place without entailing misery on the children. “ A tragedy has not to expound why the individual must give way to the general; it has to show that it is compelled to give way,—the tragedy consisting in the struggle involved, and often in the entirely calamitous issue in spite of a grand submission. Silva presents the tragedy of entire rebellion,* Fedalma, of a grand submission, which is rendered vain by the effects of Silva’s rebellion; Zarca, the struggle for a great end, rendered vain by the surrounding conditions of life. “ Now, what is the fact about our individual lots ? A woman, say, finds herself on the earth with an inherited organ¬ ization : she may be lame, she may inherit a disease, or what is tantamount to a disease; she may be a negress, or have other marks of race repulsive in the community where she is born, etc. One may go on for a long while without reaching the limits of the commonest inherited misfortunes. It is almost a mockery to say to such human beings, ‘ Seek your own happiness.’ The utmost approach to well-being that can be made in such a case is through large resignation and EXTRACTS FROM GEORGE ELIOT’S LIFE. IT acceptance of the inevitable, with as much effort to overcome any disadvantage as good sense will show to be attended with a likelihood of success. Any one may say, that is the dictate of mere rational reflection. But calm can in hardly any human organism be attained by rational reflection. Happily, we are not left to that. Love, pity, constituting sympathy, and generous joy with regard to the lot of our fellow-men conies in, — has been growing since the beginning, — enormously enhanced by wider vision of results, by an imagination ac¬ tively interested in the lot of mankind generally; and these feelings become piety, — that is, loving, willing submission and heroic Promethean effort towards high possibilities, which may result from our individual life. “There is really no moral 1 sanction’ but this inward im¬ pulse. The will of God is the same thing as the will of other Hen, compelling us to work and avoid what they have seen to be harmful to social existence. Disjoined from any perceived good, the divine will is simply so much as we have ascertained of the facts of existence which compel obedience at our peril. Any other notion comes from the supposition of arbitrary revelation. “ That favorite view, expressed so often in Clough’s poems, of doing duty in blindness as to the result, is likely to deepen the substitution of egoistic yearnings for really moral im¬ pulses. We cannot be utterly blind to the results of duty, since that cannot be duty which is not already judged to be for human good. To say the contrary is to say that mankind have reached no inductions as to what is for their good or evil. “ The art which leaves the soul in despair is laming to the soul, and is denounced by the healthy sentiment of an active community. The consolatory elements in 1 The Spanish Gypsy ’ are derived from two convictions or sentiments which so conspicuously pervade it that they may be said to be % 18 EXTRACTS FROM GEORGE ELIOT’S LIFE. its very warp, on which the whole action is woven. These are: (1) The importance of individual deeds ; (2) The all- sufficiency of the souPs passions in determining sympathetic action. “ In Silva is presented the claim of fidelity to social pledges ; in Fedalma, the claim constituted by an hereditary lot less consciously shared. “With regard to the supremacy of love: if it were a fact without exception that man or woman never did renounce the joys of love, there could never have sprung up a notion that such renunciation could present itself as a duty. If no parents nad ever cared for their children, how could parental affection have been reckoned among the elements of life ? But what are the facts in relation to this matter ? Will any one say that faithfulness to the marriage tie has never been regarded as a duty, in spite of the presence of the profoundest passion experienced after marriage ? Is Guinevere’s conduct the type of duty ? ” THE SPANISH GYPSY POEMS OF GEOROE ELIOT. - 404 — THE SPANISH GYPSY. BOOK I. 7 rp IS the warm South, where Europe spreads her lands X Like fretted leaflets, breathing on the deep: Broad-breasted Spain, leaning with equal love (A calm earth-goddess crowned with corn and vines) On the Mid Sea that moans with memories, And on the untravelled Ocean, whose vast tides Pant dumbly passionate with dreams of youth. This river, shadowed by the battlements And gleaming silvery towards the northern sky, Feeds the famed stream that waters Andalus And loiters, amorous of the fragrant air, By Cordova and Seville to the bay Fronting Algarva and the wandering flood Of Guadiana. This deep mountain gorge Slopes widening on the olive-plumed plains Of fair Granada: one far-stretching arm Points to Elvira, one to eastward heights Of Alpujarras where the new-bathed Day With oriflamme uplifted o’er the peaks 22 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Saddens the breasts of northward-looking snows That loved the night, and soared with soaring stars Flashing the signals of his nearing swiftness From Almeria’s purple-shadowed bay On to the far-off rocks that gaze and glow, — On to Alhambra, strong and ruddy heart Of glorious Morisma, gasping now, A maimed giant in his agony. This town that dips its feet within the stream, And seems to sit a tower-crowned Cybele, Spreading her ample robe adown the rocks, Is rich Bedmar: ’t was Moorish long ago, But now the Cross is sparkling on the Mosque, And bells make Catholic the trembling air. The fortress gleams in Spanish sunshine now ( T is south a mile before the rays are Moorish), —» Hereditary jewel, agraffe bright On all the many-titled privilege Of young Duke Silva. No Castilian knight That serves Queen Isabel has higher charge; For near this frontier sits the Moorish king, Not Boabdil the waverer, who usurps A throne he trembles in, and fawning licks The feet of conquerors, but that fierce lion Grisly El Zagal, who has made his lair In Guadix’ fort, and rushing thence with strength, Half his own fierceness, half the untainted heart Of mountain bands that fight for holiday, Wastes the fair lands that lie by Alcala, Wreathing his horse’s neck with Christian heads. To keep the Christian frontier, — such high trust Is young Duke Silva’s; and the time is great. (What times are little ? To the sentinel That hour is regal when he mounts on guard.) THE SPANISH GYPSY. 23 The fifteenth century since the Man Divine Taught and was hated in Capernaum Is near its end, — is falling as a husk Away from all the fruit its years have ripened. The Moslem faith, now flickering like a torch In a night struggle on this shore of Spain, Glares, a broad column of advancing flame, Along the Danube and the Illyrian shore Far into Italy, where eager monks, Who watch in dreams and dream the while they watcbj See Christ grow paler in the baleful light, Crying again the cry of the forsaken. But faith, the stronger for extremity, Becomes prophetic, hears the far-off tread Of western chivalry, sees downward sweep The archangel Michael with the gleaming sword, And listens for the shriek of hurrying fiends Chased from their revels in God’s sanctuary. So trusts the monk, and lifts appealing eyes To the high dome, the Church’s firmament, Where the blue light-pierced curtain, rolled away, Beveals the throne and Him who sits thereon. So trust the men whose best hope for the world Is ever that the world is near its end: Impatient of the stars that keep their course And make no pathway for the coming Judge. But other futures stir the world’s great heart. The West now enters on the heritage Won from the tombs of mighty ancestors, The seeds, the gold, the gems, the silent harp# That lay deep buried with the memories Of old renown. No more, as once in sunny Avignon, The poet-scliolar spreads the Homeric page, POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. And gazes sadly, like the deaf at song; For now the old epic voices ring again And vibrate with the beat and melody Stirred by the warmth of old Ionian days. The martyred sage, the Attic orator, Immortally incarnate, like the gods, In spiritual bodies, winged words Holding a universe impalpable, Find a new audience. Forevermore, With grander resurrection than was feigned Of Attila’s fierce Huns, the soul of Greece Conquers the bulk of Persia. The maimed form Of calmly joyous beauty, marble-limbed, Y et breathing with the thought that shaped its lips, Looks mild reproach from out its opened grave At creeds of terror; and the vine-wreathed god Rising, a stifled question from the silence, Fronts the pierced Image with the crown of thorns. The soul of man is widening towards the past: No longer hanging at the breast of life Feeding in blindness to his parentage,— Quenching all wonder with Omnipotence, Praising a name with indolent piety, — He spells the record of his long descent, More largely conscious of the life that was. And from the height that shows where morning shone On far-off summits pale and gloomy now, The horizon widens round him, and the west Looks vast with untracked waves whereon his gaze Follows the flight of the swift-vanished bird That like the sunken sun is mirrored still Upon the yearning soul within the eye. And so in Cordova through patient nights Columbus watches, or he sails in dreams Between the setting stars and finds new day; THE SPANISH GYPSY. 25 Then wakes again to the old weary days, Girds on the cord and frock of pale Saint Francis, And like him zealous pleads with foolish men. “ I ask but for a million maravedis : Give me three caravels to find a world, New shores, new realms, new soldiers for the Cross. Son cosas grandes ! ” Thus he pleads in vain; Yet faints not utterly, but pleads anew, Thinking, “ God means it, and has chosen me.” For this man is the pulse of all mankind Feeding an embryo future, offspring strange Of the fond Present, that with mother-prayers And mother-fancies looks for championship Of all her loved beliefs and old-world ways From that young Time she bears within her womb. The sacred places shall be purged again, The Turk converted and the Holy Church, Like the mild Virgin with the outspread robe, Shall fold all tongues and nations lovingly. But since God works by armies, who shall be The modern Cyrus? Is it France most Christian, Who with his lilies and brocaded knights, French oaths, French vices, and the newest style Of out-puffed sleeve, shall pass from west to east, A winnowing fan to purify the seed For fair millennial harvests soon to come ? Or is not Spain the land of chosen warriors ? — Crusaders consecrated from the womb, Carrying the sword-cross stamped upon their souls By the long yearnings of a nation’s life, Through all the seven patient centuries Since first Pelayo and his resolute band Trusted the God within their Gothic hearts At Covadunga, and defied Mahound: 26 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Beginning so the Holy War of Spain That now is panting with the eagerness Of labor near its end. The silver cross Glitters o’er Malaga and streams dread light On Moslem galleys, turning all their stores From threats to gifts. What Spanish knight is he Who, living now, holds it not shame to live Apart from that hereditary battle Which needs his sword ? Castilian gentlemen Choose not their task, — they choose to do it w T el] The time is great, and greater no man’s trust Than his who keeps the fortress for his king, Wearing great honors as some delicate robe Brocaded o’er with names’t were sin to tarnish. Born de la Cerda, Calatravan knight, Count of Segura, fourth Duke of Bedmar, Offshoot from that high stock of old Castile Whose topmost branch is proud Medina Celi, — Such titles with their blazonry are his Who keeps this fortress, sworn Alcayde, Lord of the valley, master of the town, Commaruding whom he will, himself commanded By Christ his Lord who sees him from the Cross And from bright heaven where the Mother pleads; By good Saint James upon the milk-white steed, Who leaves his bliss to fight for chosen Spain; — By t! 3 dead gaze of all his ancestors ; — And by the mystery of his Spanish blood Charged with the awe and glories of the past. See now with soldiers in his front and rear He winds at evening through the narrow streets That toward the Castle gate climb devious: Hi: charger, of fine Andalusian stock, An Indian beaut v. black but delicate, r I HE SPANISH GYPSY. Is conscious of the herald trumpet note, The gathering glances, and familiar ways That lead fast homeward : ‘ she forgets fatigue, And at the light touch of the master’s spur Thrills with the zeal to bear him royally, Arches her neck and clambers up the stones As if disdainful of the difficult steep. Night-black the charger, black the rider’s plume, But all between is bright with morning hues, — Seems ivory and gold and deep blue gems, And starry flashing steel and pale vermilion, All set in jasper: on his surcoat white Glitter the swordbelt and the jewelled hilt, Bed on the back and breast the holy cross, And ’twixt the helmet and the soft-spun white Thick tawny wavelets like the lion’s mane Turn backward from his brow, pale, wide, erect, Shadowing blue eyes, — blue as the rain-washed sky That braced the early stem of Gothic kings He claims for ancestry. A goodly knight, A noble caballero, broad of chest And long of limb. So much the August sun. Now in the west but shooting half its beams Past a dark rocky profile toward the plain, At winding opportunities across the slope Makes suddenly luminous for all who see: for women smiling from the terraced roofs; For boys that prone on trucks with head up-propped, Lazy and curious, stare irreverent; For men who make obeisance with degrees Of good-will shading towards servility, here good-will ends and secret fear begins, And curses, too, low-muttered through the teeth. Explanatory to the God of Shem, 28 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Five, grouped within a whitened tavern court Of Moorish fashion, where the trellised vines Purpling above their heads make odorous shade. Note through the open door the passers-by, Getting some rills of novelty to speed The lagging stream of talk and help the wine. ’T is Christian to drink wine: whoso denies His flesh at bidding save of Holy Church, Let him beware and take to Christian sins Lest he be taxed with Moslem sanctity. The souls are five, the talkers only three. (No time, most tainted by wrong faith and rule, But holds some listeners and dumb animals.) Mine Host is one: he with the well-arched nose, Soft-eyed, fat-handed, loving men for naught But his own humor, patting old and young Upon the back, and mentioning the cost With confidential blandness, as a tax That he collected much against his will From Spaniards who were all his bosom friends: Warranted Christian,-—else how keep an inn, Which calling asks true faith ? though like his wine Of cheaper sort, a trifle over-new. His father was a convert, chose the chrism A.s men choose physic, kept his chimney warm With smokiest wood upon a Saturday, Counted his gains and grudges on a chaplet, And crossed himself asleep for fear of spies •, Trusting the God of Israel would see *T was Christian tyranny that made him base. Our host his son was born ten years too soon. Had heard his mother call him Ephraim, Knew holy things from common, thought it sin To feast on days when Israel’s children mourned. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 29 So had to be converted with his sire, To doff the awe he learned as Eoliraim, x~ ' And suit his manners to a Christian name. But infant awe, that unborn breathing thing, Dies with what nourished it, can never rise From the dead womb and walk and seek new pastur* Baptism seemed to him a merry game Not tried before, all sacraments a mode Of doing homage for one’s property, And all religions a queer human whim Or else a vice, according to degrees : As, ’t is a whim to like your chestnuts hot, Burn your own mouth and draw your face awry, A vice to pelt frogs with them, — animals Content to take life coolly. And Lorenzo Would have all lives made easy, even lives Of spiders and inquisitors, yet still Wishing so well to flies and Moors and Jews, He rather wished the others easy death; For loving all men clearly was deferred Till all men loved each other. Such mine Host, With chiselled smile caressing Seneca, The solemn mastiff leaning on his knee. His right-hand guest is solemn as the dog, Square-faced and massive: Blasco is his name, A prosperous silversmith from Aragon; In speech not silvery, rather tuned as notes From a deep vessel made of plenteous iron, Or some great bell of slow but certain swing That, if you only wait, will tell the hour As well as flippant clocks that strike in haste And set off chiming a superfluous tune, — Like Juan there, the spare man with the lute, Who makes you dizzy with his rapid tongue, so POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Whirring athwart your mind with comment swift On speech you would have finished by and by, Shooting your bird for you while you are loading, Cheapening your wisdom as a pattern known, Woven by any shuttle on demand. Can never sit quite still, too : sees a wasp And kills it with a movement like a flash; Whistles low notes or seems to thrum his lute As a mere hyphen ’twixt two syllables Of any steadier man; walks up and down And snuffs the orange flowers and shoots a pea To hit a streak of light let through the awning. Has a queer face: eyes large as plums, a nose Small, round, uneven, like a bit of wax Melted and cooled by chance. Thin-fingered, lithe, And as a squirrel noiseless, startling men Only by quickness. In his speech and look A touch of graceful wildness, as of things Not trained or tamed for uses of the world; Most like the Fauns that roamed in days of old About the listening whispering woods, and shared The subtler sense of sylvan ears and eyes Undulled by scheming thought, yet joined the rout Of men and women on the festal days, And played the syrinx too, and knew love’s pains, Turning their anguish into melody. For Juan was a minstrel still, in times When minstrelsy was held a thing outworn. Spirits seem buried and their epitaph Is writ in Latin by severest pens, Yet still they flit above the trodden grave And find new bodies, animating them In quaint and ghostly way with antique souls. So Juan was a troubadour revived, Freshening life’s dusty road with babbling rills THE SPANISH GYPSY. 31 Of wit and song, living 5 mid harnessed men With limbs ungalled by armor, ready so To soothe them weary, and to cheer them sad. Guest at the board, companion in the camp, A crystal mirror to the life around, Flashing the comment keen of simple fact Defined in words; lending brief lyric voice To grief and sadness; hardly taking note Of difference betwixt his own and others’; But rather singing as a listener To the deej3 moans, the cries, the wild strong joys Of universal Nature, old yet young. Such Juan, the third talker, shimmering bright As butterfly or bird with quickest life. The silent Boldax has his brightness too, But only in his spangles and rosettes. His party-colored vest and crimson hose Are dulled with old Yalencian dust, his eyes With straining fifty years at gilded balls To catch them dancing, or with brazen looks At men and women as he made his jests Some thousand times and watched to count the pence His wife was gathering. His olive face Has an old writing in it, characters Stamped deep by grins that had no merriment, The soul’s rude mark proclaiming all its blank; As on some faces that have long grown old In lifting tapers up to forms obscene On ancient walls and chuckling with false zest To please my lord, who gives the larger fee For that hard industry in apishness. Roldan would gladly never laugh again; Pensioned, he would be grave as any ox, And having beans and crumbs and oil secured *2 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Would borrow no man’s jokes forevermore. ’T is harder now because his wife is gone, Who had quick feet, and danced to ravishment Of every ring jewelled with Spanish eyes, But died and left this boy, lame from his birth, And sad and obstinate, though when he will He sings God-taught such marrow-thrilling strains As seem the very voice of dying Spring, A flute-like wail that mourns the blossoms gone, And sinks, and is not, like their fragrant breath With fine transition on the trembling air. He sits as if imprisoned by some fear, Motionless, with wide eyes that seem not made For hungry glancing of a twelve-yeared boy To mark the living thing that he could tease, But for the gaze of some primeval sadness Dark twin with light in the creative ray. This little Pablo has his spangles too, And large rosettes to hide his poor left foot Rounded like any hoof (his mother thought God willed it so to punish all her sins). I said the souls were five, — besides the dog. But there was still a sixth, with wrinkled face, Grave and disgusted with all merriment Not less than Roldan. It is Annibal, The experienced monkey who performs the tricks, Jumps through the hoops, and carries round the hat. Once full of sallies and impromptu feats, Now cautious not to light on aught that’s new, Lest he be whipped to do it o’er again From A to Z, and make the gentry laugh: A misanthropic monkey, gray and grim, Bearing a lot that has no remedy For want of concert in the monkey tribe. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 33 We see the company, above their heads The braided matting, golden as ripe corn, Stretched in a curving strip close by the grapes, Elsewhere rolled back to greet the cooler sky; A fountain near, vase-shapen and broad-lipped, Where timorous birds alight with tiny feet, And hesitate and bend wise listening ears, And fly away again with undipped beak. On the stone floor the juggler’s heaped-up goods, Carpet and hoops, viol and tambourine, Where Annibal sits perched with brows severe, A serious ape whom none take seriously, Obliged in this fool’s world to earn his nuts By hard buffoonery. We see them all, And hear their talk,—the talk of Spanish men. With Southern intonation, vowels turned Caressingly between the consonants, Persuasive, willing, with such intervals As music borrows from the wooing birds, That plead with subtly curving, sweet descent, — And yet can quarrel, as these Spaniards can. Juan - (near the doorway). You hear the trumpet ? There’s old Ramon’s blast No bray but his can shake the air so well. He takes his trumpeting as solemnly As angel charged to wake the dead; thinks war Was made for trumpeters, and their great art Made solely for themselves who understand it. His features all have shaped themselves to blowing, And when his trumpet’s bagged or left at home He seems a chattel in a broker’s booth, A spoutless watering-can, a promise to pay No sum particular. 0 fine old Ramon! The blasts get louder and the clattering hoofs; 36 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Then he will know the quality of mine. I ’ve ware for tables and for altars too, Our Lady in all sizes, crosses, bells: He ’ll need such weapons full as much as swords If he would capture any Moorish town. For, let me tell you, when a mosque is cleansed .. • „ Juan. The demons fly so thick from sound of bells And smell of incense, you may see the air Streaked with them as with smoke. Why, they are spirits: You may well think how crowded they must be To make a sort of haze. Blasco. I knew not that. Still, they ’re of smoky nature, demons are; And since you say so, — well, it proves the more The need of bells and censers. Ay, your Duke Sat well: a true hidalgo. I can judge, — Of harness specially. I saw the camp, The royal camp at Yelez Malaga. J T was like the court of heaven, — such liveries! And torches carried by the score at night Before the nobles. Sirs, I made a dish To set an emerald in would fit a crown, For Don Alonzo, lord of Aguilar. Your Duke ’s no whit behind him in his mien Or harness either. But you seem to say The people love him not. Host. They ’ve naught against him. But certain winds will make men’s temper bad. THE SPANISH GYPSY. S7 When the Solano blows hot venomed breath, It acts upon men’s knives : steel takes to stabbing Which else, with cooler winds, were honest steel. Cutting but garlick. There ’s a wind just now Blows right from Seville — Blasco. Ay, you mean the wind .. . , Yes, yes, a wind that’s rather hot.... Host. With fagots. Juan. A wind that suits not with our townsmen’s blood. Abram, ’t is said, objected to be scorched, And, as the learned Arabs vouch, he gave The antipathy in full to Ishmael. ’T is true, these patriarchs had their oddities. Blasco. Their oddities ? I’m of their mind, I know. Though, as to Abraham and Ishmael, I’m an old Christian, and owe naught to them Or any Jew among them. But I know We made a stir in Saragossa — we: The men of Aragon ring hard, — true metal. Sirs, I’m no friend to heresy, but then A Christian’s money is not safe. As how ? A lapsing Jew or any heretic May owe me twenty ounces : suddenly He’s prisoned, suffers penalties, — ’t is well: If men will not believe, ’t is good to make them, But let the penalties fall on them alone. The Jew is stripped, his goods are confiscate; Now, where, I pray you, go my twenty ounces ? 38 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. God knows, and perhaps the King may, but not I And more, my son may lose his young wife’s dowel Because’t was promised since her father’s soul Fell to wrong thinking. How was I to know ? I could but use my sense and cross myself. Christian is Christian, — I give in, — but still Taxing is taxing, though you call it holy. We Saragossans liked not this new tax They call the — nonsense, I’m from Aragon! I speak too bluntly. But, for Holy Church, No man believes more. Host. Nay, sir, never fear. Good Master Roldan here is no delator. Roldan (starting from a reverie). You speak to me, sirs ? I perform to-night — The Playa Santiago. Twenty tricks, All different. I dance, too. And the boy Sings like a bird. I crave your patronage. Blasco. Faith, you shall have it, sir. In travelling I take a little freedom, and am gay. You marked not what I said just now ? Roldan. I ? no. I pray your pardon. I’ve a twinging knee, That makes it hard to listen. You were saying? Blasco. Nay, it was naught. (Aside to Host.) Is it his deepness 1 Host. No. He's deep in nothing but his poverty THE SPANISH GYPSY. 39 Blasco. But’t was his poverty that made me think Host. His piety might wish to keep the feasts As well as fasts. No fear; he hears not. Blasco. Good. I speak my mind about the penalties, But, look you, I’m against assassination. You know my meaning — Master Arbues, The grand Inquisitor in Aragon. I knew naught, — paid no copper towards the deed. But I was there, at prayers, within the church. How could I help it ? Why, the saints were there, And looked straight on above the altars. I. . .. Juan. Looked carefully i lother way. Blasco. Why, at my beads. ? T was after midnight, and the canons all Were chanting matins. I was not in church To gape and stare. I saw the martyr kneel: I never liked the look of him alive, — He was no martyr then. I thought he made An ugly shadow as he crept athwart The bands of light, then passed within the gloom By the broad pillar. J T was in our great Seo, At Saragossa. The pillars tower so large You cross yourself to see them, lest white Deafcn Should hide behind their dark. And so it was. 40 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. I looked away again and told my beads Unthinkingly; but still a man has ears; And right across the chanting came a sound As if a tree had crashed above the roar Of some great torrent. So it seemed to me; For when you listen long and shut your eyes Small sounds get thunderous. And he’d a shell Like any lobster: a good iron suit From top to toe beneath the innocent serge. That made the telltale sound. But then came shrieka The chanting stopped and turned to rushing feet, And in the midst lay Master Arbues, Felled like an ox. ’T was wicked butchery. Some honest men had hoped it would have scared The Inquisition out of Aragon. J T was money thrown away, — I would say, crime,— Clean thrown away. Host. That was a pity now. Next to a missing thrust, what irks me most Is a neat well-aimed stroke that kills your man. Yet ends in mischief, — as in Aragon. It was a lesson to our people here. Else there ? s a monk within our city walls, A holy, high-born, stern Dominican, They might have made the great mistake to kil]. Blasco. What! is he ? . Host. Yes; a Master ArbuSs Of finer quality. The Prior here And uncle to our Duke THE SPANISH GYPSY. 41 Blasco. He will want plate : A holy pillar or a crucifix. But, did you say, he was like Arbues ? Juan. As a black eagle with gold beak and claws Is like a raven. Even in his cowl, Covered from head to foot, the Prior is known From all the black herd round. When he uncovers And stands white-frocked, with ivory face, his eyes Black-gleaming, black his coronet of hair Like shredded jasper, he seems less a man With struggling aims than pure incarnate Will, Fit to subdue rebellious nations, nay, That human flesh he breathes in, charged with passion Which quivers in his nostril and his lip, But disciplined by long-indwelling will To silent labor in the yoke of law. A truce to thy comparisons, Lorenzo! Thine is no subtle nose for difference; ’T is dulled by feigning and civility. Host. Pooh, thou ? rt a poet, crazed with finding words May stick to things and seem like qualities. No pebble is a pebble in thy hands: 5 T is a moon out of work, a barren egg, Or twenty things that no man sees but thee. Our father Isidor’s — a living saint, And that is heresy, some townsmen think: Saints should be dead, according to the Church. My mind is this: the Father is so holy ’T were sin to wish his soul detained from bliss. Easy translation to the realms above, 42 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The shortest journey to the seventh heaven, Is what I ’d never grudge him. Blasco. Piously said. Look you, I hn dutiful, obey the Church When there’s no help for it: I mean to say, When Pope and Bishop and all customers Order alike. But there be bishops now, And were aforetime, who have held it wrong, This hurry to convert the Jews. As, how ? Your Jew pays tribute to the bishop, say. That ’s good, and must please God, to see the Church Maintained in ways that ease the Christian’s purse. Convert the Jew, and where’s the tribute, pray ? He lapses, too: ’t is slippery work, conversion: And then the holy taxing carries off His money at one sweep. Ho tribute more! He’s penitent or burnt, and there’s an end. How guess which pleases God .... Juan. Whether he likes A well-burnt Jew or well-fed bishop best. [While Juan put this problem theologic Entered, with resonant step, another guest,— A soldier: all his keenness in his sword, His eloquence in scars upon his cheek, His virtue in much slaying of the Moor: With brow well-creased in horizontal folds To save the space, as having naught to do: Lips prone to whistle whisperingly, — no tune. But trotting rhythm : meditative eyes, Most often fixed upon his legs and spurs; THE SPANISH GYPSY. 43 Invited much, and held good company: Styled Captain Lopez.] Lopez. At your service, sirs. Juan. Ha, Lopez ? Why, thou hast a face full-charged As any herald’s. What news of the wars ? Lopez. Such news as is most bitter on my tongue. Juan. Then spit it forth. Host. Sit, Captain: here’s a cup, Fresh-filled. What news ? Lopez. ’T is bad. We make no sally We sit still here and wait whate’er the Moor Shall please to do. Host. Some townsmen will be glad. Lopez. Glad, will they be ? But I’m not glad, not I, Nor any Spanish soldier of clean blood. But the Duke’s wisdom is to wait a siege Instead of laying one. Therefore — meantime — He will be married straightway. 44 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Host. Ha, ha, ha! Thy speech is like an hourglass; turn it down The other way, ’t will stand as well, and say The Duke will wed, therefore he waits a siege. But what say Don Diego and the Prior ? The holy uncle and the fiery Don ? Lopez. Oh there be sayings running all abroad As thick as nuts o’erturned. No man need lack. Some say, ’t was letters changed the Duke’s intent: From Malaga, says Bias. From Borne, says Quintin. From spies at Guadix, says Sebastian. Some say, ’t is all a pretext, — say, the Duke Is but a lapdog hanging on a skirt, Turning his eyeballs upward like a monk: ’T was Don Diego said that, — so says Bias; Last week, he said .... Juan. Oh do without the “ said ” 1 Open thy mouth and pause in lieu of it. I had as lief be pelted with a pea Irregularly in the selfsame spot As hear such iteration without rule, Such torture of uncertain certainty. Lopez. Santiago ! Juan, thou art hard to please. I speak not for my own delighting, I. I can be silent, I. Blasco. Nay, sir, speak on! I like your matter well. I deal in plate. This wedding touches me. Who is the bride ? THE SPANISH GYPSY. 45 Lopez. One that some say the Duke does ill to wed. One that his mother reared — God rest her soul! — Duchess Diana, — she who died last year. A bird picked up away from any nest. Her name — the Duchess gave it — is Fedalma. No harm in that. But the Duke stoops, they say, In wedding her. And that’s the simple truth. Juan. Thy simple truth is but a false opinion: The simple truth of asses who believe Their thistle is the very best of food. Fie, Lopez, thou a Spaniard with a sword Dreamest a Spanish noble ever stoops By doing honor to the maid he loves ! He stoops alone when he dishonors her. Lopez. Nay, I said naught against her. Juan. Better not. Else I would challenge thee to fight with wits, And spear thee through and through ere thou couldst draw The bluntest word. Yes, yes, consult thy spurs: Spurs are a sign of knighthood, and should tell thee That knightly love is blent with reverence As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blua Don Silva’s heart beats to a chivalric tune: He wills no highest-born Castilian dame, Betrothed to highest noble, should be held More sacred than Fedalma. He enshrines 46 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Her virgin image for the general worship And for his own, — will guard her from the world } Kay, his profaner self, lest he should lose The place of his religion. He does well. Naught can come closer to the poets’ strain. Host. Or further from their practice, Juan, eh ? If thou ’rt a specimen ? Juan. Wrong, my Lorenzo! Touching Fedalma the poor poet plays A finer part even than the noble Duke. Lopez. By making ditties, singing with round mouth Likest a crowing cock ? Thou meanest that ? Juan. Lopez, take physic, thou art getting ill, Growing descriptive ; ’t is unnatural. I mean, Don Silva’s love expects reward, Kneels with a heaven to come ; but the poor poet Worships without reward, nor hopes to find A heaven save in his worship. He adores The sweetest woman for her sweetness’ sake, Joys in the love that was not born for him, Because’t is lovingness, as beggars joy, Warming their naked limbs on wayside walls, To hear a tale of princes and their glory. There’s a poor poet (poor, I mean, in coin) Worships Fedalma with so true a love That if her silken robe were changed for rags, THE SPANISH GYPSY. 47 And she were driven out to stony wilds Barefoot, a scorned wanderer, he would kiss Her ragged garment’s edge, and only ask For leave to be her slave. Digest that, friend, Or let it lie upon thee as a weight To check light thinking of Fedalma. Lopez. I? I think no harm of her ; I thank the saints I wear a sword and peddle not in thinking. ’T is Father Marcos says she ’ll not confess And loves not holy water ; says her blood Is infidel; says the Duke’s wedding her Is union of light with darkness. Juan. • N Tush! [Now Juan — who by snatches touched his lute With soft arpeggio, like a whispered dream Of sleeping music, while he spoke of love, — In jesting anger at the soldier’s talk Thrummed loud and fast, th4n faster and more loud Till, as he answered, “ Tush ! ” he struck a chord Sudden as whip-crack close by Lopez’ ear. Mine host and Blasco smiled, the mastiff barked, Roldan looked up and Annibal looked down, Cautiously neutral in so new a case; The boy raised longing, listening eyes that seemed An exiled spirit’s waiting in strained hope Of voices coming from the distant land. But Lopez bore the assault like any rock: That was not what he drew his sword at — he! He spoke with neck erect.] 48 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Lopez. If that ’s a hint The company should ask thee for a song, Sing, then! Host. Ay, Juan, sing, and jar no more. Something brand new. Thou ’rt wont to make my eai A test of novelties. Hast thou aught fresh ? Juan. As fresh as rain-drops. Here ’s a Cancion Springs like a tiny mushroom delicate Out of the priest’s foul scandal of Eedalma. [He preluded with questioning intervals, Rising, then falling just a semitone, In minor cadence, — sound with poised wing Hovering and quivering towards the needed fall. Then in a voice that shook the willing air With masculine vibration sang this song. Should I long that dark were fair ? Say , 0 song ! Lacks my love aught , that I should long ? Lark the night , with breath all fiow'rs, And tender broken voice that fills With ravishment the listening hours : Whisperings , wooings , Liquid ripples and soft ring-dove cooings In low-toned rhythm that love's aching stills . Lark the night , Yet is she bright , For in her dark she brings the mystic star , Trembling yet strong , as is the voice of love, F*ovi some unknown afar. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 49 0 radiant Dark ! 0 darkly fostered ray ! Thou hast a joy too deep for shallow Day. While Juan sang, all round the tavern court Gathered a constellation of black eyes. Fat Lola leaned upon the balcony With arms that might have pillowed Hercules (Who built, ’t is known, the mightiest Spanish towns): Thin Alda’s face, sad as a wasted passion, Leaned o’er the nodding baby’s; ’twixt the rails The little Pepe showed his two black beads, His flat-ringed hair and small Semitic nose Complete and tiny as a new-born minnow; Patting his head and holding in her arms The baby senior, stood Lorenzo’s wife kll negligent, her kerchief discomposed By little clutches, woman’s coquetry Quite turned to mother’s cares and sweet content. These on the balcony, while at the door Gazed the lank boys and lazy-shouldered men. *T is likely too the rats and insects peeped, Being southern Spanish ready for a lounge. The singer smiled, as doubtless Orpheus smiled, To see the animals both great and small, The mountainous elephant and scampering mouse, Held by the ears in decent audience; Then, when mine host desired the strain once more, He fell to preluding with rhythmic change Of notes recurrent, soft as pattering drops That fall from off the eaves in faery dance When clouds are breaking; till at measured pause He struck, in rare responsive chords, a refrain.] Host. Come, then, a gayer romaunt, if thou wilt: I quarrel not with change. What say you, Captain ? 4 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Lopez. All ’s one to me. I note no change of tune, Not I, save in the ring of horses’ hoofs, Or in the drums and trumpets when they call To action or retreat. I ne’er could see The good of singing. Blasco. Why, it passes time, — Saves you from getting over-wise: that’s good. For, look you, fools are merry here below, Yet they will go to heaven all the same, Having the sacraments; and, look you, heaven Is a long holiday, and solid men, Used to much business, might be ill at ease Not liking play. And so in travelling I shape myself betimes to idleness Amd take fools’ pleasures .... Host. Hark, the song begins 2 Juan (sings). Maiden , crowned with glossy blackness. Lithe as 'panther forest-roamin <7, Long-armed naiad , when she dances , On a stream of ether floating , — Bright , O bright Fedalma ! Form all curves like softness drifted , Wave-kissed marble roundly dimpling , Far-off music slowly winged , Gently rising , gently sinking , — Bright , 0 bright Fedalma l THE SPANISH GYPSY. 51 Pure as rain-tear on a rose-leaf. Cloud high-born in noonday spotless , Sudden perfect as the dew-bead, Gem of earth and sky begotten, — Bright, 0 bright Fedalma / Beauty has no mortal father, Holy light her form engendered Out of tremor, yearning , gladness, Presage sweet and joy remembered, — Child of Light, Fedalma ! Blasco. Faith, a good song, sung to a stirring time. I like the words returning in a round; It gives a sort of sense. Another such I Bold an (rising). Sirs, you will hear my boy. J T is very hard When gentles sing for naught to all the town. How can a poor man live ? And now’t is time I go to the Pla$a, — who will give me pence When he can hear hidalgos and give naught ? Juan. True, friend. Be pacified. I T1 sing no more. Go thou, and we will follow. Never fear. My voice is common as the ivy leaves, Plucked in all seasons, — bears no price; the boy ^ Is like the almond blossoms. Ah, he ? s lame ! Host. Load him not heavily. Here, Pedro ! help. Go with them to the PlaQa, take the hoops. The sights will pay thee. 62 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Blasco. I ’ll be there anon, And set the fashion with a good white coin. But let us see as well as hear. Host. Some tricks, a dance. Ay, prithee. Blasco. Yes, ’t is more rational. Roldan (turning round with the bundle and monkey on his shoulders). You shall see all, sirs. There’s no man in Spain Knows his art better. I ’ve a twinging knee Oft hinders dancing, and the boy is lame. But no man’s monkey has more tricks than mine. [At this high praise the gloomy Annibal, Mournful professor of high drollery, Seemed to look gloomier, and the little troop Went slowly out, escorted from the door By all the idlers. From the balcony Slowly subsided the black radiance Of agate eyes, and broke in chattering sounds, Coaxings and trampings, and the small hoarse squeak Of Pepe’s reed. And our group talked again.] Host. I ’ll get this juggler, if he quits him well, An audience here as choice as can be lured. For me, when a poor devil does his best, ’T is my delight to soothe his soul with praise. What though the best be bad ? remains the good Of throwing food to a lean hungry dog. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 53 I*d give up the best jugglery in life To see a miserable juggler pleased. But that’s my humor. Crowds are malcontent, And cruel as the Holy .... Shall we go ? All of us now together ? Lopez. Well, not I. I may be there anon, but first I go To the lower prison. There is strict command That all our Gypsy prisoners shall to-night Be lodged within the fort. They ’ve forged enough Of balls and bullets, — used up all the metal. At morn to-morrow they must carry stones Up the south tower. ’T is a fine stalwart band, Fit for the hardest tasks. Some say, the queen Would have the Gypsies banished with the Jews. Some say, ’t were better harness them for work. They’d feed on any filth and save the Spaniard. Some say — but I must go. ’T will soon be time To head the escort. We shall meet again. Blasco. Go, sir, with God (exit Lopez). A very proper man. And soldierly. But, for this banishment Some men are hot on, it ill pleases me. The Jews, now (sirs, if any Christian here Had Jews for ancestors, I blame him not; We cannot all be Goths of Aragon), — Jews are not fit for heaven, but on earth They are most useful. ’T is the same with mules, Horses, or oxen, or with any pig Except Saint Anthony’s. They are useful here (The Jews, I mean) though they may go to lielL And, look you, useful sins, — why Providence 54 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Sends Jews to do ’em, saving Christian souls. The very Gypsies, curbed and harnessed well, Would make draught cattle, feed on vermin too, Cost less than grazing brutes, and turn bad food To handsome carcasses; sweat at the forge For little wages, and well drilled and flogged Might work like slaves, some Spaniards looking on. I deal in plate, and am no priest to say What God may mean, save when he means plain sense \ But when he sent the Gypsies wandering In punishment because they sheltered not Our Lady and Saint Joseph (and no doubt Stole the small ass they fled with into Egypt), Why send them here ? ’T is plain he saw the use They ’d be to Spaniards. Shall we banish them. And tell God we know better ? ’T is a sin. They talk of vermin ; but, sirs, vermin large Were made to eat the small, or else to eat The noxious rubbish, and picked Gypsy men Might serve in war to climb, be killed, and fall, To make an easy ladder. Once I saw A Gypsy sorcerer, at a spring and grasp, Kill one who came to seize him: talk of strength! Nay, swiftness too, for while we crossed ourselves He vanished like, — say, like .... Juan. A swift black snake, Or like a living arrow fledged with will. Blasco. Why, did you see him, pray ? Juan. Not then, but now, As painters see the many in the one. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 55 We have a Gypsy in Bedmar whose frame Nature compacted with such fine selection, ’T would yield a dozen types : all Spanish knights, From him who slew Rolando at the pass Up to the mighty Cid; all deities, Thronging Olympus in fine attitudes; Or all hell’s heroes whom the poet saw Tremble like lions, writhe like demigods. Host. Pause not yet, Juan, — more hyperbole ! Shoot upward still and flare in meteors Before thou sink to earth in dull brown fack Blasco. Nay, give me fact, high shooting suits not me. I never stare to look for soaring larks. What is this Gypsy ? Host. Chieftain of a band, The Moor’s allies, whom full a month ago Our Duke surprised and brought as captives home. He needed smiths, and doubtless the brave Moor Has missed some useful scouts and archers too. Juan’s fantastic pleasure is to watch These Gypsies forging, and to hold discourse With this great chief, whom he transforms at will To sage or warrior, and like the sun Plays daily at fallacious alchemy, Turns sand to gold and dewy spider-webs To myriad rainbows. Still the sand is sand, And still in sober shade you see the web. 'T is so, I ’ll wager, with his Gypsy chief, — A piece of stalwart cunning, nothing more. 56 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Juan. No! My invention had been all too poor To frame this Zarca as I saw him first. ’T was when they stripped him. In his chieftain’s gear, Amidst his men he seemed a royal barb Followed by wild-maned Andalusian colts. He had a necklace of a strange device In finest gold of unknown workmanship, But delicate as Moorish, fit to kiss Fedalma’s neck, and play in shadows there. He wore fine mail, a rich-wrought sword and belt, And on his surcoat black a broidered torch, A pine-branch flaming, grasped by two dark hands. But when they stripped him of his ornaments It was the bawbles lost their grace, not he. His eyes, his mouth, his nostril, all inspired With scorn that mastered utterance of scorn, With power to check all rage until it turned To ordered force, unleashed on chosen prey, — It seemed the soul within him made his limbs And made them grand. The bawbles were well gone. He stood the more a king, when bared to man. Blasco. Maybe. But nakedness is bad for trade, And is not decent. Well-wrought metal, sir, Is not a bawble. Had you seen the camp, The royal camp at Velez Malaga, Ponce de Leon and the other dukes, The king himself and all his thousand knights For body-guard, ’t would not have left you breath To praise a Gypsy thus. A man’s a man; But when you see a king, you see the work Of many thousand men. King Ferdinand THE SPANISH GYPSY. 67 Bears a fine presence, and hath proper limbs; But what though he were shrunken as a relic ? You ’d see the gold and gems that cased him o’er, And all the pages round him in brocade, And all the lords, themselves a sort of kings, Doing him reverence. That strikes an awe Into a common man, -— especially A judge of plate. Host. Faith, very wisely said. Purge thy speech, Juan. It is over-full Of this same Gypsy. Praise the Catholic King. And come now, let us see the juggler’s skill. The Tla$a Santiago. , T is daylight still, but now the golden cross Uplifted by the angel on the dome Stands rayless in calm color clear-defined Against the northern blue ; from turrets high The flitting splendor sinks with folded wing Dark-hid till morning, and the battlements Wear soft relenting whiteness mellowed o’er By summers generous and winters bland. Now in the east the distance casts its veil, And gazes with a deepening earnestness. The old rain-fretted mountains in their robes Of shadow-broken gray; the rounded hills Eeddened with blood of Titans, whose huge limbs, Entombed within, feed full the hardy flesh Of cactus green and blue, broad-sworded aloes j The cypress soaring black above the lines Of white court-walls; the jointed sugar-canes I 68 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Pale-golden with their feathers motionless In the warm quiet; — all thought-teaching form Utters itself in firm unshimmering hues. For the great rock has screened the westering sun That still on plains beyond streams vaporous gold Among the branches ; and within Bedmar Has come the time of sweet serenity When color glows unglittering, and the soul Of visible things shows silent happiness, As that of lovers trusting though apart. The ripe-cheeked fruits, the crimson-petalled flowers The winged life that pausing seems a gem Cunningly carven on the dark green leaf; The face of man with hues supremely blent To difference fine as of a voice ’mid sounds: — Each lovely light-dipped thing seems to emerge Flushed gravely from baptismal sacrament. All beauteous existence rests, yet wakes, Lies still, yet conscious, with clear open eyes And gentle breath and mild suffused joy. ’Tis day, but day that falls like melody Bepeated on a string with graver tones, — Tones such as linger in a long farewell. The Pla$a widens in the passive air, — The PlaQa Santiago, where the church, A mosque converted, shows an eyeless face Bed-checkered, faded, doing penance still, — Bearing with Moorish arch the imaged saint, Apostle, baron, Spanish warrior, Whose charger’s hoofs trample the turbaned dead, Whose banner with the Cross, the bloody sword, Flashes athwart the Moslem’s glazing eye, And mocks his trust in Allah who forsakes. Up to the church the Placja gently slopes. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 59 In shape most like the pious palmer’s shell, Girdled with low white houses ; high above Tower the strong fortress and sharp-angled wall And well-flanked castle gate. From o’er the roofs. And from the shadowed patios cool, there spreads The breath of flowers and aromatic leaves Soothing the sense with bliss indefinite, — A baseless hope, a glad presentiment, That curves the lip more softly, fills the eye With more indulgent beam. And so it soothes, So gently sways the pulses of the crowd Who make a zone about the central spot Chosen by Eoldan for his theatre. Maids with arched eyebrows, delicate-pencilled, dark Fold their round arms below the kerchief full; Men shoulder little girls ; and grandames gray, But muscular still, hold babies on their arms ; While mothers keep the stout-legged boys in front Against their skirts, as old Greek pictures show The Glorious Mother with the Boy divine. Youths keep the places for themselves, and roll Large lazy eyes, and call recumbent dogs (For reasons deep below the reach of thought). The old men cough with purpose, wish to hint Wisdom within that cheapens jugglery, Maintain a neutral air, and knit their brows In observation. None are quarrelsome, Noisy, or very merry; for their blood Moves slowly into fervor,—they rejoice Like those dark birds that sweep with heavy wing* Cheering their mates with melancholy cries. But now the gilded balls begin to play In rhythmic numbers, ruled by practice fine Of eye and muscle: all the juggler’s form 60 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Consents harmonious in swift-gliding change, Easily forward stretched or backward bent With lightest step and movement circular Bound a fixed point: ’t is not the old Roldan now The dull, hard, weary, miserable man, The soul all parched to languid appetite And memory of desire: ’t is wondrous force That moves in combination multiform Towards conscious ends : ’t is Roldan glorious, Holding all eyes like any meteor, King of the moment save when Annibal Divides the scene and plays the comic part, Gazing with blinking glances up and down, Dancing and throwing naught and catching it. With mimicry as merry as the tasks Of penance-working shades in Tartarus. Pablo stands passive, and a space apart, Holding a viol, waiting for command. Music must not be wasted, but must rise As needed climax; and the audience Is growing with late comers. Juan now, And the familiar Host, with Blasco broad, Find way made gladly to the inmost round Studded with heads. Lorenzo knits the crowd Into one family by showing all Good-will and recognition. Juan casts His large and rapid-measuring glance around; But — with faint quivering, transient as a breath Shaking a flame-—his eyes make sudden pause Where by the jutting angle of a street Castle-ward leading, stands a female form, A kerchief pale square-drooping o’er the brow, About her shoulders dim brown serge, — in garb Most like a peasant-woman from the vale. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 61 Who might have lingered after marketing To see the show. What thrill mysterious, Ray-borne from orb to orb of conscious eyes, The swift observing sweep of Juan’s glance Arrests an instant, then with prompting fresh Diverts it lastingly ? He turns at once To watch the gilded balls, and nod and smile At little round Pepita, blondest maid In all Bedmar, — Pepita, lair yet flecked, Saucy of lip and nose, of hair as red As breasts of robins stepping on the snow, — Who stands in front with little tapping feet. And baby-dimpled hands that hide enclosed Those sleeping crickets, the dark castanets. But soon the gilded balls have ceased to play, And Annibal is leaping through the hoops That turn to twelve, meeting him as he flies In the swift circle. Shuddering he leaps, But with each spring flies swift and swifter still To loud and louder shouts, while the great hoops Are changed to smaller. Now the crowd is fired. The motion swift, the living victim urged, The imminent failure and repeated scape Hurry all pulses and intoxicate With subtle wine of passion many-mixt. ’T is all about a monkey leaping hard Till near to gasping; but it serves as well As the great circus or arena dire, Where these are lacking. Roldan cautiously Slackens the leaps and lays the hoops to rest, And Annibal retires with reeling brain And backward stagger, — pity, he could not smile! Now Roldan spreads his carpet, now he shows Strange metamorphoses: the pebble black 62 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Changes to whitest egg within his hand; A staring rabbit, with retreating ears, Is swallowed by the air and vanishes; He tells men’s thoughts about the shaken dice, Their secret choosings; makes the white beans pass With causeless act sublime from cup to cup Turned empty on the ground, — diablerie That pales the girls and puzzles all the boys: These tricks are samples, hinting to the town Roldan’s great mastery. He tumbles next, And Annibal is called to mock each feat With arduous comicality and save By rule romantic the great public mind (And Roldan’s body) from too serious strain. But with the tumbling, lest the feats should fail, And so need veiling in a haze of sound, Pablo awakes the viol and the bow, — The masculine bow that draws the woman’s heart From out the strings and makes them cry, yearn, plead. Tremble, exult, with mystic union Of joy acute and tender suffering. To play the viol and discreetly mix Alternate with the bow’s keen biting tones The throb responsive to the finger’s touch, Was rarest skill that Pablo half had caught From an old blind and wandering Catalan j The other half was rather heritage From treasure stored by generations past In winding chambers of receptive sense. The winged sounds exalt the thick-pressed crowd! With a new pulse in common, blending all The gazing life into one larger soul With dimly widened consciousness : as waves THE SPANISH GYPSY. 63 In heightened movement tell of waves far off. And the light changes ; westward stationed clouds, The sun’s ranged outposts, luminous message spread^ Rousing quiescent things to doff their shade And show themselves as added audience. Now Pablo, letting fall the eager bow, Solicits softer murmurs from the strings, And now above them pours a wondrous voice (Such as Greek reapers heard in Sicily) With wounding rapture in it, like love’s arrows; And clear upon clear air as colored gems Dropped in a crystal cup of water pure, Fall words of sadness, simple, lyrical : Spring comes hither , Buds the rose ; Boses wither, Sweet spring goes. Ojald, would she carry me! Summer soars, — Wide-winged day White light pours, Flies away. Ojald, would he carry me / Soft winds blow, Westward born, Onward go Toward the morn. Ojald, would they carry me! Sweet birds sing O’er the graves, Then take wing O’er the waves. Ojald, would they carry me/ 84 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. When the voice paused and left the viol’s note To plead forsaken, ’t was as when a cloud, Hiding the sun, makes all the leaves and flowers Shiver. But when with measured change the strings Had taught regret new longing, clear again, Welcome as hope recovered, flowed the voice. Warm whispering through the slender olive leaves Came to me a gentle sound, Whispering of a secret found In the clear sunshine ’mid the golden sheaves ; Said it was sleeping for me in the morn , Called it gladness, called it joy, Drew me on — “ Come hither, boy ” — To where the blue icings rested on the corn . I thought the gentle sound had ichispered true , —* Thought the little heaven mine, Leaned to clutch the thing divine, And saw the blue wings melt within the blue . The long notes linger on the trembling air, With subtle penetration enter all The myriad corridors of the passionate soul, Message-like spread, and answering action rouse. Hot angular jigs that warm the chilly limbs In hoary northern mists, but action curved To soft andante strains pitched plaintively. Vibrations sympathetic stir all limbs: Old men live backward in their dancing prime, And move in memory ; small legs and arms * With pleasant agitation purposeless Go up and down like pretty fruits in gales. All long in common for the expressive act Yet wait for it; as in the olden time Men waited for the bard to tell their thought. ** A figure lithe, all white and saffron robed. Flashed right across the circle.” THE SPANISH GYPSY. 65 w The dance ! the dance ! ” is shouted all around. Now Pablo lifts the bow, Pepita now, Ready as bird that sees the sprinkled corn, When Juan nods and smiles, puts forth her foot And lifts her arm to wake the castanets. Juan advances, too, from out the ring And bends to quit his lute; for now the scene Is empty; Roldan, weary, gathers pence, Followed by Annibal with purse and stick. The carpet lies a colored isle untrod, Inviting feet: “ The dance, the dance,” resounds, The bow entreats with slow melodic strain, And all the air with expectation yearns. Sudden, with gliding motion like a flame That through dim vapor makes a path of glory, A figure lithe, all white and saffron-robed, Flashed right across the circle, and now stood With ripened arms uplift and regal head, Like some tall flower whose dark and intense heart Lies half within a tulip-tinted cup. Juan stood fixed and pale; Pepita stepped Backward within the ring: the voices fell From shouts insistent to more passive tones Half meaning welcome, half astonishment. “ Lady Fedalma! — will she dance for us ? n But she, sole swayed by impulse passionate, Feeling all life was music and all eyes The warming, quickening light that music makes, Moved as, in dance religious, Miriam, When on the Red Sea shore she raised her voice, And led the chorus of her people’s joy; Or as the Trojan maids that reverent sang a 66 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Watching the sorrow-crowned Hecuba: Moved in slow curves voluminous, gradual. Feeling and action flowing into one, In Eden’s natural taintless marriage-bond; Ardently modest, sensuously pure, With young delight that wonders at itself And throbs as innocent as opening flowers, Knowing not comment, — soilless, beautiful. The spirit in her gravely glowing face With sweet community informs her limbs, Filling their fine gradation with the breath Of virgin majesty; as full vowelled words Are new impregnate with the master’s thought. Even the chance-strayed delicate tendrils black, That backward ’scape from out her wreathing hair, Even the pliant folds that cling transverse When with obliquely soaring bend altern She seems a goddess quitting earth again — (father expression — a soft undertone And resonance exquisite from the grand chord Of her harmoniously bodied soul. At first a reverential silence guards The eager senses of the gazing crowd: They hold their breath, and live by seeing her. But soon the admiring tension finds relief, — Sighs of delight, applausive murmurs low, And stirrings gentle as of eared corn Or seed-bent grasses, when the ocean’s breath Spreads landward. Even Juan is impelled By the swift-travelling movement: fear and doubt Give way before the hurrying energy; He takes his lute and strikes in fellowship, Filling more full the rill of melody Raised ever and anon to clearest flood THE SPANISH GYPSY. 67 by Pablo’s voice, tbat dies away too soon, Like the sweet blackbird’s fragmentary chant, Yet wakes again, with varying rise and fall, In songs that seem emergent memories Prompting brief utterance, — little cancions Ynd villancicos, Andalusia-born. Pablo (sings). It was in the prime Of the sweet Spring-time. In the linnet’s throat Trembled the love-note, And the love-stirred air Thrilled the blossoms there. Little shadows danced Each a tiny elf Happy in large light And the thinnest self. It was but a minute In a far-off Spring, But each gentle thing, Sweetly-wooing linnet, Soft-thrilled hawthorn-tree, Happy shadowy elf With the thinnest self Live still on in me. Oh, the sweet, sweet prime Of the past Spring-time ! And still the light is changing: high above Float soft pink clouds; others with deeper flush Stretch like flamingoes bending toward the south. Comes a more solemn brilliance o’er the sky, 4. meaning more intense upon the air, — 68 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The inspiration of the dying day. And Juan now, when Pablo’s notes subside, Soothes the regretful ear, and breaks the pause With masculine voice in deep antiphony. Juan (sings). Day is dying ! Float , O song, Down the westward river , Requiem chanting to the Day , — Day , the mighty Giver. Pierced by shafts of Time he bleeds Melted rubies sending Through the river and the sky, Earth and heaven blending • All the long-drawn earthy banks Up to cloud-land lifting: Slow between them drifts the swan, ’Twixt two heavens drifting. Wings half open, like a Jlow’r Inly deeper flushing, Neck and breast as virgin’s pure,— Virgin proudly blushing. Day is dying ! Float , O swan, Down the ruby river; Follow , song , in requiem To the mighty Giver. The exquisite hour, the ardor of the crowd, The strains more plenteous, and the gathering might Of action passionate where no effort is, THE SPANISH GYPSY. But self's poor gates open to rushing power That blends the inward ebb and outward vast, All gathering influences culminate And urge Fedalma. Earth and heaven seem one, Life a glad trembling on the outer edge Of unknown rapture. Swifter now she moves, Filling the measure with a double beat And widening circle; now she seems to glow With more declared presence, glorified. Circling, she lightly bends and lifts on high The multitudinous-sounding tambourine, And makes it ring and boom, then lifts it higher Stretching her left arm beauteous ; now the crowd Exultant shouts, forgetting poverty In the rich moment of possessing her. But sudden, at one point, the exultant throng Is pushed and hustled, and then thrust apart: Something approaches, — something cuts the ring Of jubilant idlers, — startling as a streak From alien wounds across the blooming flesh Of careless sporting childhood. ’T is the band Of Gfypsy prisoners. Soldiers lead the van And make sparse flanking guard, aloof surveyed By gallant Lopez, stringent in command. The Gypsies chained in couples, all save one, Walk in dark file with grand bare legs and arms And savage melancholy in their eyes That star-like gleam from out black clouds of hair Now they are full in sight, and now they stretch Bight to the centre of the open space. Fedalma now, with gentle wheeling sweep Beturning, like the loveliest of the Hours Strayed from her sisters, truant lingering, Faces again the centre, swings again TO POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The uplifted tambourine. When lo ! with sound Stupendous throbbing, solemn as a voice Sent by the invisible choir of all the dead, Tolls the great passing bell that calls to prayer For souls departed: at the mighty beat It seems the light sinks awe-struck, — ’t is the note Of the sun’s burial; speech and action pause; Religious silence and the holy sign Of everlasting memories (the sign Of death that turned to more diffusive life) Pass o’er the Pla§a. Little children gaze With lips apart, and feel the unknown god; And the most men and women pray. Not all. The soldiers pray; the Gypsies stand unmoved As pagan statues with proud level gaze. But he who wears a solitary chain Heading the file, has turned to face Fedalma. She motionless, with arm uplifted, guards The tambourine aloft (lest, sudden-lowered, Its trivial jingle mar the duteous pause), Reveres the general prayer, but prays not, stand? With level glance meeting that Gypsy’s eyes, That seem to her the sadness of the world Rebuking her, the great bell’s hidden thought Now first unveiled,—the sorrows unredeemed Of races outcast, scorned, and wandering. Why does he look at her ? why she at him ? As if the meeting light between their eyes Made permanent union ? His deep-knit brow, Inflated nostril, scornful lip compressed, Seem a dark hieroglyph of coming fate Written before her. Father Isidor Had terrible eyes, and was her enemy; She knew it and defied him; all her soul THE SPANISH GYPSY. V Rounded and hardened in its separateness When they encountered. But this prisoner, — This Gypsy, passing, gazing casually, — Was he her enemy too ? She stood all quelled, The impetuous joy that hurried in her veins Seemed backward rushing turned to chillest awe, Uneasy wonder, and a vague self-doubt. The minute brief stretched measureless, dream-filled By a dilated new-frauglit consciousness. Now it was gone; the pious murmur ceased, The Gypsies all moved onward at command And careless noises blent confusedly. But the ring closed again, and many ears Waited for Pablo’s music, many eyes Turned towards the carpet: it lay bare and dim, Twilight was there, — the bright Fedalma gone. A handsome room in the Castle. On a table a rich jewel-casket. Silva had dropped his mail and with it all The heavier harness of his warlike cares. He had not seen Fedalma; miser-like He hoarded through the hour a costlier joy By longing oft-repressed. Now it was earned; And with observance wonted he would send To ask admission. Spanish gentlemen Who wooed fair dames of noble ancestry Did homage with rich tunics and slashed sleeves And outward-surging linen’s costly snow; With broidered scarf transverse, and rosary Handsomely wrought to tit high-blooded prayer; So hinting in how deep respect they held 72 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. That self they threw before their lady’s feet. And Silva — that Fedalma’s rate should stand No jot below the highest, that her love Might seem to all the royal gift it was — Turned every trifle in his mien and garb To scrupulous language, uttering to the world That since she loved him he went carefully, Bearing a thing so precious in his hand. A man of high-wrought strain, fastidious In his acceptance, dreading all delight That speedy dies and turns to carrion: His senses much exacting, deep instilled With keen imagination’s difficult needs; — Like strong-limbed monsters studded o’er with eyes, Their hunger checked by overwhelming vision, Or that fierce lion in symbolic dream Snatched from the ground by wings and new-endowed With a man’s thought-propelled relenting heart. Silva was both the lion and the man ; First hesitating shrank, then fiercely sprang, Or having sprung, turned pallid at his deed And loosed the prize, paying his blood for naught. A nature half-transformed, with qualities That oft bewrayed each other, elements Not blent but struggling, breeding strange effects, Passing the reckoning of his friends or foes. Haughty and generous, grave and passionate; With tidal moments of devoutest awe, Sinking anon to furthest ebb of doubt; Deliberating ever, till the sting Of a recurrent ardor made him rush Bight against reasons that himself had drilled And marshalled painfully. A spirit framed Too proudly special for obedience, Too subtly pondering for mastery: THE SPANISH GYPSY. 7E Born of a goddess with a mortal sire, Heir of flesh-fettered, weak divinity, Doom-gifted with long resonant consciousness And perilous heightening of the sentient soul. But look less curiously : life itself May not express us all, may leave the worst And the best too, like tunes in mechanism Never awaked. In various catalogues Objects stand variously. Silva stands As a young Spaniard, handsome, noble, brave. With titles many, high in pedigree; Or, as a nature quiveringly poised In reach of storms, whose qualities may turn To murdered virtues that still walk as ghosts Within the shuddering soul and shriek remorse; Or, as a lover .... In the screening time Of purple blossoms, when the petals crowd And softly crush like cherub cheeks in heaven, Who thinks of greenly withered fruit and worms ? Oh the warm southern spring is beauteous! And in love’s spring all good seems possible: No threats, all promise, brooklets ripple full And bathe the rushes, vicious crawling things Are pretty eggs, the sun shines graciously And parches not, the silent rain beats warm As childhood’s kisses, days are young and grow, And earth seems in its sweet beginning time Fresh made for two who live in Paradise. Silva is in love’s spring, its freshness breathed Within his soul along the dusty ways While marching homeward; ’t is around him now As in a garden fenced in for delight, — And he may seek delight. Smiling he lifts A whistle from his belt, but lets it fall Ere it has reached his lips, jarred by the sound 74 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Of ushers’ knocking;, and a voice that craves Admission for the Prior of San Domingo. Prior ( entering ). You look perturbed, my son. I thrust myself Between you and some beckoning intent That wears a face more smiling than my own. Don Silva. Father, enough that you are here. I wait, As always, your commands, — nay, should have sought An early audience. Prior. To give, I trust, Good reasons for your change of policy ? Don Silva. Strong reasons, father. Prior. Ay, but are they good ? I have known reasons strong, but strongly evil. Don Silva. ’T is possible. I but deliver mine To your strict judgment. Late despatches sent With urgence by the Count of Bavien, No hint on my part prompting, with besides The testified concurrence of the king And our Grand Master, have made peremptory The course which else had been but rational. Without the forces furnished by allies The siege of Guadix would be madness. More, THE SPANISH GYPSY. 75 El Zagal has his eyes upon Bedm&r: Let him attempt it: in three weeks from hence The Master and the Lord of Aguilar Will bring their forces. We shall catch the Moors, The last gleaned clusters of their bravest men, As in a trap. You have my reasons, father. Prior. And they sound well. But free-tongued rumor adds A pregnant supplement, — in substance this: That inclination snatches arguments To make indulgence seem judicious choice; That you, commanding in God’s Holy War, Lift prayers to Satan to retard the fight And give you time for feasting, — wait a siege, Call daring enterprise impossible, Because you’d marry! You, a Spanish duke, Christ’s general, would marry like a clown, Who, selling fodder dearer for the war, Is all the merrier; nay, like the brutes, Who know no awe to check their appetite, Coupling ’mid heaps of slain, while still in front The battle rages. Don Silva. Bumor on your lips Is eloquent, father. Prior. Is she true ? . Don Silva. Perhaps. I seek to justify my public acts And not my private joy. Before the world Enough if I am faithful in command. 7 6 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Betray not by my deeds, swerve from no task My knightly vows constrain me to: herein I ask all men to test me. Prior. Knightly vows ? Is it by their constraint that you must marry ? Don Silva. Marriage is not a breach of them. I use A sanctioned liberty .... your pardon, father, I need not teach you what the Church decrees. But facts may weaken texts, and so dry up The fount of eloquence. The Church relaxed Our Order’s rule before I took the vows. Prior. Ignoble liberty! you snatch your rule Prom what God tolerates, not what he loves ? — Inquire what lowest offering may suffice, Cheapen it meanly to an obolus, Buy, and then count the coin left in your purse For your debauch ? — Measure obedience By scantest powers of feeble brethren Whom Holy Church indulges ? — Ask great Law, The rightful Sovereign of the human soul, For what it pardons, not what it commands? Oh fallen knighthood, penitent of high vows, Asking a charter to degrade itself! Such poor apology of rules relaxed Blunts not suspicion of that doubleness Your enemies tax you with. Don Silva. Oh, for the rest, Conscience is harder than our enemies, « THE SPANISH GYPSY. 77 Knows more, accuses with more nicety, Nor needs to question Humor if we fall Below the perfect model of our thought. I fear no outward arbiter. —You smile? Prior. Ay, at the contrast ’twixt your portraiture And the true image of your conscience, shown As now I see it in your acts. I see A drunken sentinel who gives alarm At his own shadow, but when scalers snatch His weapon from his hand smiles idiot-like At games he 7 s dreaming of. Don Silva. A parable! The husk is rough, — holds something bitter, doubtless. Prior. Oh, the husk gapes with meaning over-ripe. You boast a conscience that controls your deeds, Watches your knightly armor, guards your rank From stain of treachery, — you, helpless slave, Whose will lies nerveless in the clutch of lust, — Of blind mad passion, — passion itself most helpless, Storm-driven, like the monsters of the sea. O famous conscience! Don Silva. Pause there! Leave unsaid Aught that will match that text. More were too much; Even from holy lips. I own no love But such as guards my honor, since it guards Piers whom I love! I suffer no foul words To stain the gift I lay before her feet; And, being hers, my honor is more safe. 78 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Prior. Verse-makers’ talk! fit for a world of rhymes, Where facts are feigned to tickle idle ears, Where good and evil play at tournament And end in amity, — a world of lies, — A carnival of words where every year Stale falsehoods serve fresh men. Your honor safe ? What honor has a man with double bonds ? Honor is shifting as the shadows are To souls that turn their passions into laws. A Christian knight who weds an infidel.... Don Silva (fiercely). An infidel! Prior. May one day spurn the Cross, And call that honor! — one day find his sword Stained with his brother’s blood, and call that honor! Apostates’ honor ? — harlots’ chastity! Renegades’ faithfulness ? — Iscariot’s! Don Silva. Strong words and burning; but they scorch not me. Fedalma is a daughter of the Church, — Has been baptized and nurtured in the faith. Prior. Ay, as a thousand Jewesses, who yet Are brides of Satan in a robe of flames. Don Silva. Fedalma is no Jewess, bears no marks That tell of Hebrew blood. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 79 Prior. She bears the marks Of races unbaptized, that never bowed Before the holy signs, were never moved By stirrings of the sacramental gifts. Don Silva ( scornfully ). Holy accusers practise palmistry, And, other witness lacking, read the skin. Prior. I read a record deeper than the skin. What! Shall the trick of nostrils and of lips Descend through generations, and the soul That moves within our frame like God in worlds —« Convulsing, urging, melting, withering — Imprint no record, leave no documents, Of her great history ? Shall men bequeath The fancies of their palate to their sons, And shall the shudder of restraining awe, The slow-wept tears of contrite memory. Faith’s prayerful labor, and the food divine Of fasts ecstatic, — shall these pass away Like wind upon the waters, tracklessly ? Shall the mere curl of eyelashes remain And god-enshrining symbols leave no trace Of tremors reverent ? — That maiden’s blood Is as unchristian as the leopard’s. Don Sllva. Say, Unchristian as the Blessed Virgin’s blood Before the angel spoke the word, “ All hail! ” Prior (smiling bitterly ). Say I not truly ? See, your passion weaves Already blasphemies! POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Don Silva. J T is you provoke them. Prior. I strive, as still the Holy Spirit strives, To move the will perverse. But, failing this, God commands other means to save our blood, To save Castilian glory, — nay, to save The name of Christ from blot of traitorous deeds. Don Silva. Of traitorous deeds! Age, kindred, and your cowl, Give an ignoble license to your tongue. As for your threats, fulfil them at your peril. ’T is you, not I, will gibbet our great name To rot in infamy. If I am strong In patience now, trust me, I can be strong Then in defiance. Prior. Miserable man! Your strength will turn to anguish, like the strength Of fallen angels. Can you change your blood ? You are a Christian, with the Christian awe In every vein. A Spanish noble, born To serve your people and your people’s faith. Strong, are you ? Turn your back upon the Cross, — Its shadow is before you. Leave your place : Quit the great ranks of knighthood: you will walk Forever with a tortured double self, A self that will be hungry while you feast, Will blush with shame while you are glorified, Will feel the ache and chill of desolation, Even in the very bosom of your love. Mate yourself with this woman, fit for what ? THE SPANISH GYPSY. 81 To make the sport of Moorish palaces, A lewd Herodias .... Don Silya. Stop! no other man, Priest though he were, had had his throat left free For passage of those words. I would have clutched His serpent’s neck, and flung him out to hell! A monk must needs defile the name of love: He knows it but as tempting devils paint it. You think to scare my love from its resolve With arbitrary consequences, strained By rancorous effort from the thinnest motes Of possibility ? — cite hideous lists Of sins irrelevant, to frighten me With bugbears’ names, as women fright a child ? Poor pallid wisdom, taught by inference From blood-drained life, where phantom terrors rule, And all achievement is to leave undone! Paint the day dark, make sunshine cold to me, Abolish the earth’s fairness, prove it all A fiction of my eyes, — then, after that, Profane Fedalma. Prior. Oh, there is no need: She has profaned herself. Go, raving man, And see her dancing now. Go, see your bride Flaunting her beauties grossly in the gaze Of vulgar idlers, — eking out the show Made in the Plaga by a mountebank. 1 hinder you no further. Don Silva. It is false! % 82 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Prior. Go, prove it false, then. [Father Isidor Drew on his cowl and turned away. The face That flashed anathemas, in swift eclipse Seemed Silva’s vanished confidence. In haste He rushed unsignalled through the corridor To where the Duchess once, Fedalma now, Had residence retired from din of arms, — Knocked, opened, found all empty, — said With muffled voice, “ Fedalma ! ” — called more loud, More oft on Inez, the old trusted nurse, — Then searched the terrace-garden, calling still, But heard no answering sound, and saw no face Save painted faces staring all unmoved By agitated tones. He hurried back, Giving half-conscious orders as he went To page and usher, that they straight should seek Lady Fedalma; then with stinging shame Wished himself silent; reached again the room Where still the Father’s menace seemed to hang Thickening the air ; snatched cloak and plumed hat, And grasped, not knowing why, his poniard’s hilt; Then checked himself and said: — ] If he spoke truth! To know were wound enough, — to see the truth Were fire upon the wound. It must be false! His hatred saw amiss, or snatched mistake In other men’s report. I am a fool! But where can she be gone ? gone secretly ? And in my absence ? Oh, she meant no wrong! I am a fool! — But where can she be gone ? With only Inez ? Oh, she meant no wrong! “ Fedalma entered, cast away the cloud Of serge and linen, and, outbeaming bright, Advanced a pace towards Silva.” THE SPANISH GYPSY. S3 I swear she never meant it. There ? s no wrong But she would make it momentary right By innocence in doing it. And yet, What is our certainty ? Why, knowing all That is not secret. Mighty confidence ! One pulse of Time makes the base hollow, — sends The towering certainty we built so high Toppling in fragments meaningless. What is — What will be — must be — pooh ! they wait the key Of that which is not yet; all other keys Are made of our conjectures, take their sense From humors fooled by hope, or by despair. Know what is good ? Oh God, we know not yet If bliss itself is not young misery With fangs swift growing. But some outward harm May even now be hurting, grieving her. Oh, I must search, — face shame, — if shame be there. Here, Perez! hasten to Don Alvar, — tell him Lady Fedalma must be sought, — is lost, — Has met, I fear, some mischance. He must send Towards divers points. I go myself to seek First in the town. [As Perez oped the door, Then moved aside for passage of the Duke, Fedalma entered, cast away the cloud Of serge and linen, and, outbeaming bright, Advanced a pace towards Silva, — but then paused, For he had started and retreated; she, Quick and responsive as the subtle air To change in him, divined that she must wait Until they were alone : they stood and looked. Wit!fin the Duke was struggling confluence 84 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. «• Of feelings manifold, — pride, anger, dread, Meeting in stormy rush with sense secure That she was present, with the satisfied thirst Of gazing love, with trust inevitable As in beneficent virtues of the light And all earth’s sweetness, that Fedalma’s soul Was free from blemishing purpose. Yet proud wrath Leaped in dark flood above the purer stream That strove to drown it: Anger seeks its prey, — Something to tear with sharp-edged tooth and claw, Likes not to go off hungry, leaving Love To feast on milk and honeycomb at will. Silva’s heart said, he must be happy soon, She being there; but to be happy, — first He must be angry, having cause. Yet love Shot like a stifled cry of tenderness All through the harshness he would fain have given To the dear word,] Don Silva. Fedalma! Fedalma. O my Lord! You are come back, and I was wandering ! Don Silva ( coldly , but with suppressed agitation). You meant I should be ignorant. Fedalma. Oh no, I should have told you after, — not before, Lest you should hinder me. Don Silva. Then my known wish Can make no hindrance ? THE SPANISH GYPSY. 85 Fedalma {archly). That depends On what the wish may he. You wished me once Not to uncage the birds. I meant to obey: But in a moment something — something stronger, Forced me to let them out. It did no harm. They all came back again, — the silly birds ! I told you, after. Don Silya (with haughty coldness). Will you tell me now What was the prompting stronger than my wish That made you wander ? Fedalma (advancing a step towards him , with a sudden look of anxiety). Are you angry ? Don Silva (smiling bitterly). Angry ? A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain To feel much anger. Fedalma (still more anxiously). You — deep-wounded ? Don Silva. Yes! Have I not made your place and dignity The very heart of my ambition ? You, — No enemy could do it, —you alone Can strike it mortally. Fedalma. Nay, Silva, nay. Has some one told you false ? I only went To see the world with Inez, — see the town, 86 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The people, everything. It was no harm. I did not mean to dance *. it happened so At last .... Don Silva. O God, it’s true, then! — true that you, A maiden nurtured as rare flowers are, The very air of heaven sifted fine Lest any mote should mar your purity, Have flung yourself out on the dusty way For common eyes to see your beauty soiled! You own it true,—you danced upon the Plasa? Fedalma (proudly). Yes, it is true. I was not wrong to dance. The air was filled with music, with a song That seemed the voice of the sweet eventide, — The glowing light entering through eye and ear, — That seemed our love,—mine, yours,— they are but one,— Trembling through all my limbs, as fervent words Tremble within my soul and must be spoken. And all the people felt a common joy And shouted for the dance. A brightness soft As of the angels moving down to see Illumined the broad space. The joy, the life Around, within me, were one heaven: I longed To blend them visibly: I longed to dance Before the people, — be as mounting flame To all that burned within them ! Nay, I danced; There was no longing: I but did the deed Being moved to do it. (As Fedalma speaks , she and Don Silva are grad¬ ually drawn nearer to each other.) Oh, I seemed new-waked To life in unison with a multitude, ~ r THE SPANISH GYPSY. 87 Feeling my soul upborne by all their souls, Floating within their gladness ! Soon I lost All sense of separateness : Fedalma died As a star dies, and melts into the light. I was not, but joy was, and love and triumph. Nay, my dear lord, I never could do aught But I must feel you present. And once done, Why, you must love it better than your wish. I pray you, say so, — say, it was not wrong! (While Fedalma has been making this last appeal, they have gradually come close together , and at last embraced) Don Silva (holding her hands). Dangerous rebel! if the world without Were pure as that within .... but ’t is a book Wherein you only read the poesy And miss all wicked meanings. Hence the need For trust — obedience, — call it what you will, — Towards him whose life will be your guard, — towards me Who now am soon to be your husband. Fedalma. Yes! That very thing that when I am your wife I shall be something different, — shall be I know not what, a duchess with new thoughts, — For nobles never think like common men, Nor wives like maidens (oh, you wot not yet How much I note, with all my ignorance), — That very thing has made me mare resolve To have my will before I am your wife. How can the Duchess ever satisfy Fedalma’s unwed eyes ? and so to-day I scolded Inez till she cried and went. 88 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Don Silva. It was a guilty weakness : she knows well That since you pleaded to be left more free From tedious tendance and control of dames Whose rank matched better with your destiny, Her charge — my trust — was weightier. FEDALMAo Nay, my lor You must not blame her, dear old nurse. She cried. Why, you would have consented too, at last. I said such things ! I was resolved to go, And see the streets, the shops, the men at work, The women, little children, — everything, Just as it is when nobody looks on. And I have done it! We were out four hours. I feel so wise. Don Silva. Had you but seen the town, You innocent naughtiness, not shown yourself, - Shown yourself dancing, —you bewilder me ! — Frustrate my judgment with strange negatives That seem like poverty, and yet are wealth In precious womanliness, beyond the dower Of other women: wealth in virgin gold, Outweighing all their petty currency. You daring modesty ! You shrink no more From gazing men than from the gazing flowers That, dreaming sunshine, open as you pass. Fed alma. No, I should like the world to look at me With eyes of love that make a second day. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 89 £ tliink your eyes would keep the life in me Though I had naught to feed on else. Their blue Is better than the heavens’, — hold more love For me, Fedalma, — is a little heaven For this one little world that looks up now. Don Silva. O precious little world! you make the heaven As the earth makes the sky. But, dear, all eyes, Though looking even on you, have not a glance That cherishes .... Fedalma. Ah no, I meant to tell you, —» Tell how my dancing ended with a pang. There came a man, one among many more, But he came first, with iron on his limbs. And when the bell tolled, and the people prayed, And I stood pausing, — then he looked at me. 0 Silva, such a man! I thought he rose From the dark place of long-imprisoned souls, To say that Christ had never come to them. It was a look to shame a seraph’s joy And make him sad in heaven. It found me there, —« Seemed to have travelled far to find me there And grasp me, — claim this festal life of mine As heritage of sorrow, chill my blood With the cold iron of some unknown bonds. The gladness hurrying full within my veins Was sudden frozen, and I danced no more. But seeing you let loose the stream of joy, Mingling the present with the sweetest past. Yet, Silva, still I see him. Who is he ? Who are those prisoners with him ? Are they Moors ? 90 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Don Silva. No, they are Gypsies, strong and cunning knaves* A double gain to us by the Moors’ loss : The man you mean — their chief — is an ally The : -fidel will miss. His look might chase A hero, of monks, and make them fly more swift Than from St. Jerome’s lion. Such vague fear, Such bird-like tremors when that savage glance Turned full upon you in your height of joy Was natural, was not worth emphasis. Forget it, dear. This hour is worth whole days When we are sundered. Danger urges us To quick resolve. Fed alma. What danger ? What resolve V I never felt chill shadow in my heart Until this sunset. Don Silva. A dark enmity Plots how to sever us. And our defence Is speedy marriage, secretly achieved, Then publicly declared. Beseech you, dear, Grant me this confidence; do my will in this, T' usting the reasons why I overset All my own airy building raised so high U: p bridal honors, marking when you step Fr_.ni off your maiden throne to come to me And bear the yoke of love. There is great need. T hastened home, carrying this prayer to you y7ithin my heart. The bishop is my friend, Furthers our marriage, holds in enmity Some whom we love not and who love not us. By this night’s moon our priest will be despatched THE SPANISH GYPSY. 91 From Jaen. I shall march an. escort strong To meet him. Ere a second sun from this Has risen — you consenting — we may wed. Fed alma. None knowing that we wed ? Don Silva. Beforehand none Save Inez and Don Alvar. But the vows Once safely binding ,us, my household all Shall know you as their Duchess. No man then Can aim a blow at you but through my breast, And what stains you must stain our ancient name If any hate you I will take his hate And wear it as a glove upon my helm; Nay, God himself will never have the power To strike you solely and leave me unhurt, He having made us one. Now put the seal Of your dear lips on that. Fedalma. A solemn kiss ?— Such as I gave you when you came that day From Cdrdova, when first we said we loved ? When you had left the ladies of the court For thirst to see me ; and you told me so; And then I seemed to know why I had lived. I never knew before. A kiss like that ? Don Silva. Yes, yes, you face divine ! When was our kisf Like any other ? Fedalma. Nay, I cannot tell What other kisses are. But that one kiss 92 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Remains upon my lips. The angels, spirits, Creatures with finer sense, may see it there. And now another kiss that will not die, Saying, To-morrow I shall be your wife ! (They kiss, and pause a moment, looking ear¬ nestly in each other's eyes. Then Fedalma, breaking away from Don Silya, stands at a little distance from him with a look of roguish delight.) Now I am glad I saw the town to-day Before I am a Duchess, — glad I gave This poor Fedalma all her wish. For once, Long years ago, I cried when Inez said, “ You are no more a little girl; ” I grieved To part forever from that little girl And all her happy world so near the ground. It must be sad to outlive aught we love. So I shall grieve a little for these days Of poor unwed Fedalma. Oh, they are sweet, And none will come just like them. Perhaps the wind Wails so in winter for the summers dead, And all sad sounds are nature’s funeral cries For what has been and is not. Are they, Silva ? (She comes nearer to him again, and lays her hand on his arm, looking up at him with meh ancholy.) Don Silva. Why, dearest, you began in merriment, And end as sadly as a widowed bird. Some touch mysterious has new-tuned your soul To melancholy sequence. You soared high In that wild flight of rapture when you danced, And now you droop. ’T is arbitrary grief, THE SPANISH JYPSY. 93 Surfeit of happiness, that mourns for loss Of unwed love, which does but die like seed For fuller harvest of our tenderness. We in our wedded life shall know no loss. We shall new-date our years. What went before Will be the time of promise, shadows, dreams; But this, full revelation of great love. For rivers blent take in a broader heaven, And we shall blend our souls. Away with grief I When this dear head shall wear the double crown Of wife and Duchess, — spiritually crowned With sworn espousal before God and man, — Visibly crowned with jewels that bespeak The chosen sharer of my heritage, — My love will gather perfectness, as thoughts That nourish us to magnanimity Grow perfect with more perfect utterance, Gathering full-shapen strength. And then these gems, (Don Silva draws Fed alma towards the jewel casket on the table , and opens it.) Helping the utterance of my soul’s full choice, Will be the words made richer by just use, And have new meaning in their lustrousness. You know these jewels; they are precious signs Of long-transmitted honor, heightened still By worthy wearing ; and I give them you, — Ask you to take them, — place our house’s trust In her sure keeping whom my heart has found Worthiest, most beauteous. These rubies — see — Were falsely placed if not upon your brow. (Fedalma, while Don Silva holds open the cas• ket, bends over it, looking at the jewels with delight.) 94 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Fed alma. Ah, I remember them. In childish days I felt as if they were alive and breathed. I used to sit with awe and look at them. And now they will be mine ! I ’ll put them on. Help me, my lord, and you shall see me now Somewhat as I shall look at Court with you, That we may know if I shall bear them well. I have a fear sometimes : I think your love Has never paused within your eyes to look, And only passes through them into mine. But when the Court is looking, and the queen, Your eyes will follow theirs. Oh, if you saw That I was other than you wished, — ’twere death! Don Silva (taking up a jewel and placing it against her ear). Nay, let us try. Take out your ear-ring, sweet. This ruby glows with longing for your ear. Fedalma (taking out her ear-rings , and then lifting up the other jewels, one by one). Pray, fasten in the rubies. (Don Silva begins to put in the ear-ring .) I was right! These gems have life in them: their colors speak, Say what words fail of. So do many things, —- The scent of jasmine, and the fountain’s plash, The moving shadows on the far-off hills, The slanting moonlight and our clasping hands. O Silva, there’s an ocean round our words That overflows and drowns them. Do you know Sometimes when we sit silent, and the air Breathes gently on us from the orange-trees. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 95 It seems that with the whisper of a word Our souls must shrink, get poorer, more apart. Is it not true ? Don S*lva. Yes, dearest, it is true. Speech is but broken light upon the depth Of the unspoken : even your loved words Float in the larger meaning of your voice As something dimmer. (He is still trying in vain to fasten the second ear-ring , while she has stooped again over the casket.) Fed alma ( raising her head). Ah! your lordly hands Will never fix that jewel. Let me try. Women’s small finger-tips have eyes. Don Silva. No, no! I like the task, only you must be still. (She stands perfectly still , clasping her hands together while he fastens the second ear-ring. Suddenly a clanking noise is heard without.) Fedalma (starting with an expression of pain). What is that sound ? — that jarring cruel sound ? ’T is there, — outside. (She tries to start away towards the window^ but Don Silva detains her.) Don Silva. Oh heed it not, it comes From workmen in the outer gallery. POEMS W GEOKGE ELIOT. Fedalma. It is the sound of fetters : sound of work Is not so dismal. Hark, they pass along! I know it is those Gypsy prisoners. I saw them, heard their chains. Oh horrible, To be in chains ! Why, I with all my bliss Have longed sometimes to fly and be at large; Have felt imprisoned in my luxury With servants for my jailers. 0 my lord, Do you not wish the world were different ? Don Silva. It will be different when this war has ceased. You, wedding me, will make it different, Making one life more perfect. Fedalma. That is true! And I shall beg much kindness at your hands For those who are less happy than ourselves. — (Brightening .) Oh, I shall rule you! ask for many things Before the world, which you will not deny For very pride, lest men should say, “ The Duke Holds lightly by his Duchess; he repents His humble choice.” (She breaks away from him and returns to the jew* els , taking up a necklace , and clasping it on her neck , while he takes a circlet of diamonds and rubies and raises it towards her head as he speaks .) Don Silva. Doubtless, I shall persist tn loving you, to disappoint the world ; THE SPANISH GYPSY. 97 Out of pure obstinacy feel myself Happiest of men. Now, take the coronet. [He places the circlet on her head,') The diamonds want more light. See, from this lamp I can set tapers burning. Fedalma. Tell me, now, When all these cruel wars are at an end, And when we go to Court at Cdrdova, Or Seville, or Toledo, — wait awhile, I must be farther off for you to see, — (She retreats to a distance from him , and then advances slowly.) Now think (I would the tapers gave more light !) If when you show me at the tournaments Among the other ladies, they will say, “Duke Silva is well matched. His bride was naught, Was some poor foster-child, no man knows what, Yet is her carriage noble, all her robes Are worn with grace: she might have been well born.” Will they say so ? Think now we are at Court, And all eyes bent on me. Don Silva. Fear not, my Duchess! Some knight who loves may say his lady-love Is fairer, being fairest. None can say Don Silva’s bride might better fit her rank. You will make rank seem natural as kind, As eagle’s plumage or the lion’s might. A crown upon your brow would seem God-made. 98 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Fed alma. Then I am glad! I shall try on to-night The other jewels, — have the tapers lit, And see the diamonds sparkle. {She goes to the casket again.) Here is gold,— A necklace of pure gold, •— most finely wrought. {She takes out a large gold necklace and holds it up before her, then turns to Don Silva.) But this is one that you have worn, my lord ? Don Silva. No, love, I never wore it. Lay it down. {He puts the necklace gently out of her hand , then joins both her hands and holds them up between his own.) You must not look at jewels any more, But look at me. Fedalma {looking up at him), 0 you dear heaven! I should see naught if you were gone. ’T is true My mind is too much given to gauds, — to things That fetter thought within this narrow space. That comes of fear. Don Silva. What fear ? Fedalma. Fear of myself, For when I walk upon the battlements And see the river travelling toward the plain, The mountains screening all the world beyond, THE SPANISH GYPS*, 99 A longing comes that haunts me in my dreams, — Dreams where I seem to spring from off the walls, And fly far, far away, until at last I find myself alone among the rocks, Remember then that I have left you, — try To fly back to you, — and my wings are gone! Don Silya. A wicked dream! If ever I left you, Even in dreams, it was some demon dragged me, And with fierce struggles I awaked myself. Fed alma. It is a hateful dream, and when it comes, — I mean, when in my waking hours there comes That longing to be free, I am afraid : I run down to my chamber, plait my hair, Weave colors in it, lay out all my gauds, And in my mind make new ones prettier. You see I have two minds, and both are foolish- Sometimes a torrent rushing through my soul Escapes in wild strange wishes; presently, It dwindles to a little babbling rill And plays among the pebbles and the flowers. Ifiez will have it I lack broidery, Says naught else gives content to noble maids. But I have never broidered, — never will. No, when I am a Duchess and a wife I shall ride forth — may I not ? — by your side. Don Silva. Yes, you shall ride upon a palfrey, black To match Bavieca. Not Queen Isabel Will be a sight more gladdening to men’s eyes, Than my dark aueen Fedalma. iUU POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Fed alma. Ah, but you, You are my king, and I shall tremble still With some great fear that throbs within my lore. Does your love fear ? Don Silva. Ah, yes! all preciousness To mortal hearts is guarded by a fear. All love fears loss, and most that loss supreme, Its own perfection, — seeing, feeling change From high to lower, dearer to less dear. Can love be careless ? If we lost our love What should we find ? — with this sweet Past torn off^ Our lives deep scarred just where their beauty lay ? The best we found thenceforth were still a worse : The only better is a Past that lives On through an added Present, stretching still In hope unchecked by shaming memories To life’s last breath. And so I tremble too Before my queen Fedalma. Fed alma. That is just. ’T were hard of Love to make us women fear And leave you bold. Yet Love is not quite even. For feeble creatures, little birds and fawns, Are shaken more by fear, while large strong things Can bear it stoutly. So we women still Are not well dealt with. Yet would I choose to be Fedalma loving Silva. You, my lord, Hold the worse share, since you must love poor me. But is it what we love, or how we love, That makes true good ? THE SPANISH GYPSY. 101 Don Silva. O subtlety ! for me > T is what I love determines how I love. The goddess with pure rites reveals herself And makes pure worship. Fed alma. Do you worship me ? Don Silva. Ay, with that best of worship which adores Goodness adorable. Fed alma (archly). Goodness obedient, Doing your will, devoutest worshipper ? Don Silva. Yes, — listening to this prayer. This very night I shall go forth. And you will rise with day And wait for me ? Fed alma. Yes. Don Silva. I shall surely come. And then we shall be married. Now I go To audience fixed in Abderahman’s tower. Farewell, love ! (They embrace .) Fed alma. Some chill dread possesses me! Don Silva. Oh, confidence has oft been evil augury, So dread may hold a promise. Sweet, farewell! 102 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. I shall send tendance as I pass, to bear This casket to your chamber. — One more kiss. (Exit.) Fedalma (when Don Silya is gone, returning to the casket , and looking dreamily at the jewels). Yes, now that good seems less impossible! Now it seems true that I shall be his wife, Be ever by his side, and make a part In all his purposes. These rubies greet me Duchess. How they glow! Their prisoned souls are throbbing like my own. Perchance they loved once, were ambitious, proud; Or do they only dream of wider life, Ache from intenseness, yearn to burst the wall Compact of crystal splendor, and to flood Some wider space with glory ? Poor, poor gems 1 We must be patient in our prison-house, And find our space in loving. Pray you, love me. Let us be glad together. And you, gold, — (She takes up the gold necklace .) You wondrous necklace, — will you love me too, And be my amulet to keep me safe From eyes that hurt ? (She spreads out the necklace , meaning to clasp it on her neck. Then pauses , startled, hold» ing it before her,) Why, it is magical! He says he never wore it, — yet these lines, — Nay, if he had, I should remember well *T was he, no other. And these twisted lines, — They seem to speak to me as writing would, To bring a message from the dead, dead past. What is their secret ? Are they characters ? THE SPANISH GYPSY. 103 I never learned them ; yet they stir some sense That once I dreamed, — I have forgotten what. Or was it life ? Perhaps I lived before In some strange world where first my soul was shaped, And all this passionate love, and joy, and pain, That come, I know not whence, and sway my deeds, Are dim yet mastering memories, blind yet strong, That this world stirs within me; as this chain Stirs some strange certainty of visions gone, And all my mind is as an eye that stares Into the darkness painfully. ( While Fedalma has been looking at the necklace , Juan has entered , and finding himself unob¬ served by her , says at last,') Senora! Fedalma starts , and gathering the necklace together turns round — O Juan, it is you! Juan. I met the Duke, — Had waited long without, no matter why, — And when he ordered one to wait on you And carry forth a burden you would give, I prayed for leave to be the servitor. Don Silva owes me twenty granted wishes That I have never tendered, lacking aught That I could wish for and a Duke could grant; But this one wish to serve you, weighs as much As twenty other longings. 0 Fedvlma [smiling). That sounds well You turn your speeches prettily as songs 104 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. But I will not forget the many days You have neglected me. Your pupil learng But little from you now. Her studies flag. The Duke says, “ That is idle Juan’s way : Poets must rove, —are honey-sucking birds And know not constancy.” Said he quite true ? Juan. 0 lady, constancy has kind and rank. One man’s is lordly, plump, and bravely clad, Holds its head high, and tells the world its name Another man’s is beggared, must go bare, And shiver through the world, the jest of all, But that it puts the motley on, and plays Itself the jester. But I see you hold The Gypsy’s necklace: it is quaintly wrought. Fed alma. The Gypsy’s ? Do you know its history ? Juan. No further back than when I saw it taken From off its wearer’s neck, — the Gypsy chief’s. Fedalma {eagerly). What! he who paused, at tolling of the bell, Before me in the Pla$a ? Juan. Yes, I saw His look fixed on you. Fedalma. Know you aught of him 1 Juan. Something and nothing, — as I know the sky, Or some great story of the olden time THE SPANISH GYPSY. 105 That hides a secret. I have oft talked with him. He seems to say much, yet is but a wizard Who draws down rain by sprinkling; throws me out Some pregnant text that urges comment; casts A sharp hooked question, baited with such skill It needs must catch the answer. Fed alma. It is hard That such a man should be a prisoner, — Be chained to work. Juan. Oh, he is dangerous! Gran&da with this Zarca for a king Might still maim Christendom. He is of those Who steal the keys from snoring Destiny And make the prophets lie. A Gypsy, too, Suckled by hunted beasts, whose motlier-milk Has filled his veins with hate. Fkdalma. I thought his eyes Spoke not of hatred, — seemed to say he bore The pain of those who never could be saved. What if the Gypsies are but savage beasts And must be hunted ? — let them be set free, Have benefit of chase, or stand at bay And fight for life and offspring. Prisoners ! Oh, they have made their fires beside the streams, Their walls have been the rocks, the pillared pines, Their roof the living sky that breathes with light: They may well hate a cage, like strong-winged birds. Like me, who have no wings, but only wishes. I will beseech the Duke to set them free. 106 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Juan. Pardon me, lady, if I seem to warn, Or try to play the sage. What if the Duke Loved not to hear of Gypsies ? if their name Were poisoned for him once, being used amiss? I speak not as of fact. Our nimble souls Can spin an insubstantial universe Suiting our mood, and call it possible, Sooner than see one grain with eye exact And give strict record of it. Yet by chance Our fancies may be truth and make us seers. ? T is a rare teeming world, so harvest-full, Even guessing ignorance may pluck some fruit. Note what I say no further than will stead The siege you lay. I would not seem to tell Aught that the Duke may think and yet withhold: It were a trespass in me. Fed alma. Fear not, Juan. Your words bring daylight with them when you speak. I understand your care. But I am brave, — Oh, and so cunning ! — always I prevail. Now, honored Troubadour, if you will be Your pupil’s servant, bear this casket hence. Nay, not the necklace: it is hard to place. Pray go before me; Inez will be there. {Exit Juan with the casket ) Fedalma (looking again at the necklace ). It is his past clings to you, not my own. If we have each our angels, good and bad, Fates, separate from ourselves, who act for us When we are blind, or sleep, then this man’s fate, THE SPANISH GYPSY. 1 or Hovering about the thing he used to wear, Has laid its grasp on mine appealingly. Dangerous, is he ? — well, a Spanish knight Would have his enemy strong, —defy, not bind him. I can dare all things when my soul is moved By something hidden that possesses me. If Silva said this man must keep his chains I should find ways to free him, — disobey And free him as I did the birds. But no ! As soon as we are wed, I ’ll put my prayer, And he will not deny me: he is good. Oh, I shall have much power as well as joyI Duchess Fedalma may do what she will. A Street by the Castle. J uan leans against a parapet, in moonlight , and touches his lute half unconsciously . Pepita stands on tiptoe watching him , and them ad¬ vances till her shadow falls in front of him . We looks towards her. A piece of white drapery thrown over her head catches the moonlight. Juan. Ha! my Pepita! see how thin and long Your shadow is. ’T is so your ghost will be, When you are dead. Pepita (crossing herself). Dead !—- Oh the blessed saints ! You would be glad, then, if Pepita died ? Juan. Glad ! why ? Dead maidens are not merry. Ghosts Are doleful company. I like you living. 108 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Pepita. I think you like me not. I wish you did. Sometimes you sing to me and make me dance. Another time you take no heed of me, Not though I kiss my hand to you and smile. But Andres would be glad if I kissed him. Juan. My poor Pepita, I am old. Pepita. No, no. You have no wrinkles. Juan. Yes, I have — within; The wrinkles are within, my little bird. Why, I have lived through twice a thousand years, And kept the company of men whose bones Crumbled before the blessed Virgin lived. Pepita (crossing herself). Nay, God defend us, that is wicked talk! You say it but to scorn me. ( With a sob.) I will go. Juan. Stay, little pigeon. I am not unkind. Come, sit upon the wall. Nay, never cry. Give me your cheek to kiss. There, cry no more! (Pepita, sitting on the low parapet, puts up her cheek to Juan, who kisses it, putting his hand under her chin. She takes his hand and kisses it.) 3PHE SPANISH GYPSY. 10 & Pepita. I like to kiss your hand. It is so good, —■ So smooth and soft. Juan. Well, well, I ’ll sing to you, Pepita. A pretty song, loving and merry ? Juan. Yes. (Juan sings.) Memory , Tell to me What is fair , . Past compare, In the land of Tubal ? Is it Spring's Lovely things , Blossoms white , j Rosy dight ? Then it is Pepita. Summer's crest Bed-gold tressed , Corn-flowers peeping under? —* Idle noons , Lingering moons , Sudden cloud , Lightning's shroud , Sudden rain , Quick again Smiles inhere late was thunder?-- 110 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Are all these Made to please ? So too is Pepita. Autumn's prime. Apple-time , Smooth cheek round, Heart all sound ? — Is it this You would kiss ? Then it is Pepita. You can bring Ho sweet thing , Put my mind Still shall find It is my Pepita. Memory Says to me It is she, — She is fair Past compare In the land of Tubal . Pepita (seizing Juan’s hand again). Oh, then, yon do love me ? Juan. Yes, in the song. Pepita (sadly). Not out of it ? — not love me out of it ? Juan. Only a little out of it, my bird. When I was singing I was Andres, say, Or one who loves you better still than Andrds. THE SPANISH GYPSY. Ill Pepita. Not yourself ? Juan. No! Pepita (throwing his hand down pettishly ). Then take it back again l I will not have it! Juan. Listen, little one. Juan is not a living man all by himself: His life is breathed in him by other men, And they speak out of him. He is their voice. Juan’s own life he gave once quite away. It was Pepita’s lover singing then, — not Juan. We old, old poets, if we kept our hearts, Should hardly know them from another man’s. They shrink to make room for the many more We keep within us. There, now, — one more kiss, And then go home again. Pepita (a little frightened, after letting Juan kiss her) x You are not wicked ? J UAN. Ask your confessor, — tell him what I said, (Pepita goes, while Juan thrums his lute again s and sings.) Came a pretty maid By the moon's pure light , Loved me well , she said , Eyes with tears all bright , A pretty maid ! 112 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. But too late she strayed, Moonlight pure teas ther* ; She was naught but shade Hiding the more fair, The heavenly maid / A vaulted room all stone. The light shed from a high lamp. Wooden chairs, a desk, book-shelves. The Prior, in white frock, a black rosary with a cruci¬ fix of ebony and ivory at his side, is walking up and down, holding a written paper in his hands, which are clasped behind him. What if this witness lies ? he says he heard her Counting her blasphemies on a rosary, And in a bold discourse with Salomo, Say that the Host was naught but ill-mixed flour, That it was mean to pray, — she never prayed. I know the man who wrote this for a cur, Who follows Hon Diego, sees life’s good In scraps my nephew flings to him. What then ? Particular lies may speak a general truth. I guess him false, but know her heretic, — Know her for Satan’s instrument, bedecked With heathenish charms, luring the souls of men To damning trust in good unsanctified. Let her be prisoned, — questioned, — she will give Witness against herself, that were this false .... {He looks at the paper again and reads , then again thrusts it behind him.) The matter and the color are not false: The form concerns the witness, not the judge; For proof is gathered by the sifting mind, Not given in crude and formal circumstance. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 113 Suspicion is a heaven-sent lamp, and I, — I, watchman of the Holy Office, bear That lamp in trust. I will keep faithful watch. The Holy Inquisition’s discipline Is mercy, saving her, if penitent, — God grant it! — else, — root up the poison-plant, Though’t were a lily with a golden heart! This spotless maiden with her pagan soul Is the arch-enemy’s trap: he turns his back On all the prostitutes, and watches her To see her poison men with false belief In rebel virtues. She has poisoned Silva; His shifting mind, dangerous in fitfulness, Strong in the contradiction of itself, Carries his young ambitions wearily, As holy vows regretted. Once he seemed The fresh-oped flower of Christian knighthood, born For feats of holy daring ; and I said: “ That half of life which I, as monk, renounce Shall be fulfilled in him: Silva will be That saintly noble, that wise warrior, That blameless excellence in worldly gifts I would have been, had I not asked to live The higher life of man impersonal Who reigns o’er all things by refusing all. What is his promise now ? Apostasy From every high intent: — languid, nay, gone, The prompt devoutness of a generous heart, The strong obedience of a reverent will, That breathes the Church’s air and sees her lighv He peers and strains with feeble questioning. Or else he jests. He thinks I know it not, — I who have read the history of his lapse, As clear as it is writ in the angel’s book. He will defy me, — flings great words at me, — 8 114 POEMS OF GEORGF ELIOT. Me who have governed all oui' house’s acts, Since I, a stripling, ruled his stripling father. This maiden is the cause, and if they wed, The Holy War may count a captain lost. For better he were dead than keep his place, And fill it infamously: in God’s war Slackness is infamy. Shall I stand by And let the tempter win ? defraud Christ’s cause, And blot his banner ? — all for scruples weak Of pity towards their young and frolicsome blood Or nice discrimination of the tool By which my hand shall work a sacred rescue ? The fence of rules is for the purblind crowd; They walk by averaged precepts; sovereign men. Seeing by God’s light, see the general By seeing all the special, — own no rule But their full vision of the moment’s worth. ’T is so God governs, using wicked men, — Nay, scheming fiends, to work his purposes. Evil that good may come ? Measure the good Before you say what’s evil. Perjury ? I scorn the perjurer, but I will use him To serve the holy truth. There is no lie Save in his soul, and let his soul be judged. I know the truth, and act upon the truth. O God, thou knowest that my will is pure. Thy servant owns naught for himself, his wealth Is but obedience. And I have sinned In keeping small respects of human love, — Calling it mercy. Mercy ? Where evil is True mercy must be terrible. Mercy would sav®. Save whom ? Save serpents, locusts, wolves ? Or out of pity let the idiots gorge Within a famished town ? Or save the gains THE SPANISH GYPSY. in Of men who trade in poison lest they starve ? Save all things mean and foul that clog the earth. Stifling the better ? Save the fools who cling For refuge round their hideous idol’s limbs, So leave the idol grinning unconsumed, And save the fools to breed idolaters ? Oh mercy worthy of the licking hound That knows no future but its feeding time! Mercy has eyes that pierce the ages, — sees From heights divine of the eternal purpose Far-scattered consequence in its vast sum; Chooses to save, but with illumined vision Sees that to save is greatly to destroy. ’T is so the Holy Inquisition sees: its wrath Is fed from the strong heart of wisest love. For love must needs make hatred. He who loves God and his law must hate the foes of God. And I have sinned in being merciful: Being slack in hate, I have been slack in love. (.He takes the crucifix and holds it up before him.) Thou shuddering, bleeding, thirsting, dying God, Thou Man of Sorrows, scourged and bruised and torn, Suffering to save, — wilt thou not judge the world ? This arm which held the children, this pale hand That gently touched the eyelids of the blind, And opened passive to the cruel nail, Shall one day stretch to leftward of thy throne, Charged with the power that makes the lightning strong And hurl thy foes to everlasting hell. And thou, Immaculate Mother, Virgin mild, Thou sevenfold-pierced, thou pitying, pleading Queen, Shalt see and smile, while the black filthy souls Sink with foul weight to their eternal place, Purging the Holy Light. Yea, I have sinned And called it mercy. But I shrink no more. 116 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. To-morrow morn this temptress shall be safe Under the Holy Inquisition’s key. He thinks to wed her, and defy me then, She being shielded by our house’s name. But he shall never wed her. I have said. The time is come. Exurge, Domine, Judica causam tuam,. Let thy foes Be driven as the smoke before the wind, And melt like wax upon the furnace lip! 4 large chamber richly furnished opening on a terrace- garden , the trees visible through the window in faint moonlight. Flowers hanging about the window, lit up by the tapers. The casket of jewels open on a table. The gold necklace lying near. Fed alma, splendidly dressed and adorned with pearls and rubies, is walk¬ ing up and down. So soft a night was never made for sleep, But for the waking of the finer sense To every murmuring and gentle sound, To subtlest odors, pulses, visitings That touch our frames with wings too delicate To be discerned amid the blare of day. (She pauses near the window to gather some jas * mine: then walks again.) Surely these flowers keep happy watch, — their breath Is their fond memory of the loving light. I often rue the hours I lose in sleep: It is a bliss too brief, only to see This glorious world, to hear the voice of love, To feel the touch, the breath of tenderness, And then to rest as from a spectacle. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 117 A need the curtained stillness of the night To live through all my happy hours again With more selection,—cull them quite away Prom blemished moments. Then in loneliness The face that bent before me in the day Rises in its own light, more vivid seems Painted upon the dark, and ceaseless glows With sweet solemnity of gazing love, Till like the heavenly blue it seems to grow Nearer, more kindred, and more cherishing, Mingling with all my being. Then the words, The tender low-toned words come back again, With repetition welcome as the chime Of softly hurrying brooks, — “ My only love, — My love while life shall last, — my own redalma! ,> Oh, it is mine, — the joy that once has been! Poor eager hope is but a stammerer, Must listen dumbly to great memory, Who makes our bliss the sweeter by her telling. (She pauses a moment musingly .) But that dumb hope is still a sleeping guard Whose quiet rhythmic breath saves me from dread In this fair paradise. For if the earth Broke off with flower-fringed edge, visibly sheer, Leaving no footing for my forward step But empty blackness .... Nay, there is no fear, — They will renew themselves, day and my joy, And all that past which is securely mine, Will be the hidden root that nourishes Our still unfolding, ever-ripening love ! ( While she is littering the last words, a little bird falls softly on the floor behind her ; she hears the light sound of its fall and turns round ) 118 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Did something enter ? . ... Yes, this little bird .... (She lifts it.) Dead and yet warm: ? t was seeking sanctuary, And died, perhaps of fright, at the altar foot. Stay, there is something tied beneath the wing! A strip of linen, streaked with blood, — what blood ? The streaks are written words, — are sent to me, — 0 God, are sent to me ! Dear child, Fedalma, Be brave, give no alarm , — your Father comes ! (She lets the bird fall again.) My Father .... comes .... my Father. (She turns in quivering expectation toward the window. There is perfect stillness a few mo¬ ments until Zarca appears at the window. He enters quickly and noiselessly; then stands still at his full height, and at a distance from Fedalma.) Fedalma (in a low distinct tone of terror). It is he! I said his fate had laid its hold on mine. Zarca (advancing a step or two). You know, then, who I am ? Fedalma. The prisoner, — He whom I saw in fetters, — and this necklace — Zarca. Was played with by your fingers when it hung About my neck, full fifteen years ago ! Fedalma (starts, looks at the necklace and handles it, then speaks as if unconsciously ). Full fifteen years ago! “ My father . . . comes . . . my father.” THE SPANISH GYPSY. 119 Zarc a. The very day • I lost you, when you wore a tiny gown Of scarlet cloth with golden broidery: ’T was clasped in front by coins, — two golden coins. The one towards the left was split in two Across the King’s head, right from brow to nape, A dent i’ the middle nicking in the cheek. You see I know the little gown by heart. Fed alma (growing 'paler and more tremulous). Yes. It is true, — I have the gown, — the clasps, — The braid, — sore tarnished: — it is long ago ! Zarca. But yesterday to me ; for till to-day I saw you always as that little child. And when they took my necklace from me, still Your fingers played about it on my neck, And still those buds of fingers on your feet Caught in its meshes as you seemed to climb Up to my shoulder. You were not stolen ail. You had a double life fed from my heart. (Fedalma, letting fall the necklace , makes an impulsive movement towards him with out¬ stretched hands.) For the Zincalo loves his children well. Fedalma ( shrinking , trembling , and letting fall her hands). How came it that you sought me, — no, — I mean How came it that you knew me, — that you lost me ? Zarca (standing perfectly still). Poor child ! I see, I see, —your ragged father Is welcome as the piercing wintry wind 120 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Within this silken chamber. It is well. I would not have a child who stooped to feign. And aped a sudden love. True hate were better. • Fed alma ( raising her eyes towards him , with a flash of admiration, and looking at him fixedly). Father, how was it that we lost each other ? Zarca. I lost you as a man may lose a diamond Wherein he has compressed his total wealth, Or the right hand whose cunning makes him great: I lost you by a trivial accident. Marauding Spaniards, sweeping like a storm Over a spot within the Moorish bounds, Near where our camp lay, doubtless snatched you up, When Zind, your nurse, as she confessed, was urged By burning thirst to wander towards the stream, And leave you on the sand some paces off Playing with pebbles, while she dog-like lapped. ’T was so I lost you, — never saw you more Until to-day I saw you dancing ! Saw The child of the Zincalo making sport For those who spit upon her people’s name. Fedalma ( vehemently ). It was not sport. What if the world looked on ? 1 danced for joy, — for love of all the world. But when you looked at me my joy was stabbed, —- Stabbed with your pain. I wondered .... now I know .... It was my father’s pain. (She pauses a moment with eyes bent downward, during which Zarca examines her face. Them she says quickly ,) THE SPANISH GYPSY. 121 How were you sure At once I was your child ? Zarca. Oh, I had witness strong As any Cadi needs, before I saw you! I fitted all my memories with the chat Of one named Juan, — one whose rapid talk Showers like the blossoms from a light-twigged shrub, If you but coughed beside it. I learned all The story of your Spanish nurture, — all The promise of your fortune. When at last I fronted you, my little maid full-grown, Belief was turned to vision: then I saw That she whom Spaniards called the bright Fedalma, «- The little red-frocked foundling three years old, — Grown to such perfectness the Christian Duke Had wooed her for his Duchess, — was the child, Sole offspring of my flesh, that Lambra bore One hour before the Christian, hunting us, Hurried her on to death. Therefore I sought you, Therefore I come to claim you — claim my child, Not from the Spaniard, not from him who robbed, But from herself. (Fedalma has gradually approached close to Zarca, and with a low sob sinks on her knees before him. He stoops to kiss her broiv, and lays his hands on her head.) Zarca (with solemn tenderness). Then my child owns her father ? Fedalma. Father ! ye*. I will eat dust before I will deny The flesh I spring from. 122 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Zarca. There my daughter spoke Away then with these rubies ! (lie seizes the circlet of rubies and flings it on the ground. Fed alma, starting from the ground with strong emotion , shrinks backward .) Such a crown Is infamy on a Zincala’s brow. It is her people’s blood, decking her shame. Fedalma ( after a moment, slowly and distinctly , as ij accepting a doom). Then .... I am .... a Zincala ? Zarca. Of a blood Unmixed as virgin wine-juice. Fedalma. Of a race More outcast and despised than Moor or Jew ? Zarca. Yes : wanderers whom no god took knowledge of To give them laws, to fight for them, or blight Another race to make them ampler room; A people with no home even in memory, No dimmest lore of giant ancestors To make a common hearth, for piety. Fedalma. A race that lives on prey as foxes do With stealthy, petty rapine: so despised. It is not persecuted, only spurned, Crushed underfoot, warred on by chance like rats. Or swarming flies, or reptiles of the sea THE SPANISH GYPSY. 123 Dragged in the net unsought, and flung far off To perish as they may ? Zarca. You paint us well. So abject are the men whose blood we share; Untutored, unbefriended, unendowed ; No favorites of heaven or of men. Therefore I cling to them! Therefore no lure Shall draw me to disown them, or forsake The meagre wandering herd that lows for help And needs me for its guide, to seek my pasture Among the well-fed beeves that graze at will. Because our race have no great memories, I will so live they shall remember me For deeds of such divine beneficence As rivers have, that teach men what is good By blessing them. I have been schooled, — have caught Lore from the Hebrew, deftness from the Moor, — Know the rich heritage, the milder life, Of nations fathered by a mighty Past; But were our race accursed (as they who make Good luck a god count all unlucky men) I would espouse their curse sooner than take My gifts from brethren naked of all good, And lend them to the rich for usury. (Fedalma again advances , and 'putting forth her right hand grasps Zarca’s left. He places his other hand on her shoulder. They stand so looking at each other.') Zarca. And you, my child ? are you of other mind. Choosing forgetfulness, hating the truth That says you are akin to needy men ? — 124 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Wishing your father were some Christian Duke, Who could hang Gypsies when their task was done, While you, his daughter, were not bound to care ? Fed alma (in a troubled , eager voice). No, I should always care—-I cared for you — For all, before I dreamed .... Zarca. Before you dreamed You were a born Zincala, —in the bonds Of the Zincali’s faith. > Fed alma (bitterly). Zincali’s faith ? Men say they have none. Zarca. Oh, it is a faith Taught by no priest, but by their beating hearts. Faith to each other: the fidelity Of fellow-wanderers in a desert place Who share the same dire thirst, and therefore share The scanty water : the fidelity Of men whose pulses leap with kindred fire, Who in the flash of eyes, the clasp of hands, The speech that even in lying tells the truth Of heritage inevitable as past deeds, Nay, in the silent bodily presence feel The mystic stirring of a common life Which makes the many one : fidelity To that deep consecrating oath our sponsor Fate Made through our infant breath when we were born, The fellow-heirs of that small island, Life, Where we must dig and sow and reap with brothers. THE SPANISH GYPSY. Fear thou that oath, my daughter, — nay, not fear, But love it; for the sanctity of oaths Lies not in lightning that avenges them, But in the injury wrought by broken bonds And in the garnered good of human trust. And you have sworn, — even with your infant breath You too were pledged .... Fedalma (lets go Zarca’s hand and sinks backward on her knees , with bent head , as if before some im¬ pending crushing weight ). What have I sworn ? Zarca. To live the life of the Zincala’s child: The child of him who, being chief, will be The savior of his tribe, or if he fail Will choose to fail rather than basely win The prize of renegades. Nay — will not choose — Is there a choice for strong souls to be weak ? For men erect to crawl like hissing snakes ? I choose not, — I am Zarca. Let him choose Who halts and wavers, having appetite To feed on garbage. You, my child, — are you Halting and wavering ? Fedalma (raising her head). Say what is my task ? Zarca. To be the angel of a homeless tribe. To help me bless a race taught by no prophet, And make their name, now but a badge of scorn, A glorious banner floating in their midst, Stirring the air they breathe with impulses Of generous pride, exalting fellowship 126 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Until it soars to magnanimity. I ’ll guide my brethren forth to their new land, Where they shall plant and sow and reap their own, Serving each other’s needs, and so be spurred To skill in all the arts that succor life; Where we may kindle our first altar-fire From settled hearths, and call our Holy Place The hearth that binds us in one family. That land awaits them : they await their chief, — Me who am prisoned. All depends on you. Fed alma (rising to her full height , and looking sol emnly at Zakca). Father, your child is ready ! She will not Forsake her kindred: she will brave all scorn Sooner than scorn herself. Let Spaniards all, Christians, Jews, Moors, shoot out the lip and say, “ Lo, the first hero in a tribe of thieves.” Is it not written so of them ? They, too, Were slaves, lost, wandering, sunk beneath a curse Till Moses, Christ, and Mahomet were born, Till beings lonely in their greatness lived, And lived to save their people. Father, listen. To-morrow the Duke weds me secretly : But straight he will present me as his wife To all his household, cavaliers and dames And noble pages. Then I will declare Before them all: “ I am his daughter, his, The Gypsy’s, owner of this golden badge.” Then I shall win your freedom; then the Duke, — Why, he will be your son ! —will send you forth With aid and honors. Then, before all eyes I ’ll clasp this badge on you, and lift my brow For you to kiss it, saying by that sign, “ I glory in my father.” This, to-morrow. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 127 Zarca. A woman’s dream, — who thinks by smiling well To ripen figs in frost. What! marry first, And then proclaim your birth ? Enslave yourself To use your freedom ? Share another’s name, Then treat it as you will ? How will that tune Ring in your bridegroom’s ears, — that sudden song Of triumph in your Gypsy father ? Fedalma ( discouraged ). Nay, I meant not so. We marry hastily — Yet there is time —there will be : — in less space Than he can take to look at me, I ’ll speak And tell him all. Oh, I am not afraid! His love for me is stronger than all hate; Nay, stronger than my love, which cannot sway Demons that haunt me,—tempt me to rebel. Were he Fedalma and I Silva, he Could love oonfession, prayers, and tonsured monks If my soul craved them. He will never hate The race that bore him what he loves the most. I shall but do more strongly what I will, Having his will to help me. And to-morrow, Father, as surely as this heart shall beat, You, every chained Zincalo, shall be free. Zarca (coming nearer to her, and laying his hand on her shoulder). Too late, too poor a service that, my child ! Not so the woman who would save her tribe Must help its heroes, — not by w r ordy breath, By easy prayers strong in a lover’s ear, By showering wreaths and sweets and wafted kisses, And then, when all the smiling work is done, 128 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT Turning to rest upon her down again, And whisper languid pity for her race Upon the bosom of her alien spouse. Not to such petty mercies as can fall ’Twixt stitch and stitch of silken broidery work, Such miracles of mitred saints who pause Beneath their gilded canopy to heal A man sun-stricken : not to such trim merit As soils its dainty shoes for charity And simpers meekly at the pious stain, But never trod with naked bleeding feet Where no man praised it, and where no Church blessed Not to such almsdeeds fit for holidays Were you, my daughter, consecrated, — bound By laws that, breaking, you will dip your bread In murdered brother’s blood and call it sweet, — When you were born in the Zincalo’s tent, And lifted up in sight of all your tribe, Who greeted you with shouts of loyal joy, Sole offspring of the chief in whom they trust As in the oft-tried never-failing flint They strike their fire from. Other work is yours. Fed alma. What work ? — what is it that you ask of me ? Zarca. A work as pregnant as the act of men Who set their ships aflame and spring to land, A fatal deed .... Fed alma. Stay ! never utter it! If it can part my lot from his whose love Has chosen me. Talk not of oaths, of birth, Of men as numerous as the dim white stars, — As cold and distant, too, for my heart’s pulsa THE SPANISH GYPSY. 129 No ills on earth, though you should count them up With grains to make a mountain, can outweigh For me, his ill who is my supreme love. All sorrows else are but imagined flames, Making me shudder at an unfelt smart. But his imagined sorrow is a tire That scorches me. Zarca. I know, I know it well, — The first young passionate Avail of spirits called To some great destiny. In vain, my daughter! Lay the young eagle in what nest you will, The cry and swoop of eagles overhead Vibrate prophetic in its kindred frame, And make it spread its wings and poise itself For the eagle’s flight. Hear what you have to do. (Fed alma breaks from him and stands half averted^ as if she dreaded the effect of his looks and words f My comrades even now file off their chains In a low turret by the battlements, Where Ave Avere locked Avith slight" and sleepy guard, — We who had files hid in our shaggy hair, And possible ropes that waited but our will In half our garments. Oh, the Moorish blood Runs thick and Avarm to us, though thinned by chrism. I found a friend among our jailers, — one Who loves the Gypsy as the Moor’s ally. I know the secrets of this fortress. Listen. Hard by yon terrace is a narrow stair, Cut in the living rock, and at one point In its slow straggling course it branches off ToAvards a Ioav wooden door, that art has bossed To such unevenness, it seems one piece 130 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. With the rough-hewn rock. Opened, it. leads Through a broad passage burrowed underground A good half-mile out to the open plain; Made for escape, in dire extremity From siege or burning, of the house’s wealth In women or in gold. To find that door Needs one who knows the number of the steps Just to the turning-point; to open it, Needs one who knows the secret of the bolt. You have that secret: you will ope that door, And fly with us. Fedalma (receding a little , and gathering herself up in an attitude of resolve opposite to Zarcd). No, I will never fly ! Never forsake that chief half of my soul Where lies my love. I swear to set you free. Ask for no more ; it is not possible. Father, my soul is not too base to ring At touch of your great thoughts ; nay, in my blood There streams the sense unspeakable of kind, As leopard feels at ease with leopard. But, — Look at these hands ! You say when they were little They played about the gold upon your neck. I do believe it, for their tiny pulse Made record of it in the inmost coil Of growing memory. But see them now ! Oh they have made fresh record; twined themselves With other throbbing hands whose pulses feed Not memories only but a blended life,— Life that will bleed to death if it be severed. Have pity on me, father ! Wait the morning; Say you will wait the morning. I will win Your freedom openly: you shall go forth With aid and honors. Silva will deny Naught to my asking .... THE SPANISH GYPSY. 131 Zarca (with contemptuous decision). Till you ask him aught Wherein he is powerless. Soldiers even now Murmur against him that he risks the town, And forfeits all the prizes of a foray To get his bridal pleasure with a bride Too low for him. They ’ll murmur more and louder If captives of our pith and sinew, fit For all the work the Spaniard hates, are freed,— Now, too, when Spanish hands are scanty. What, Turn Gypsies loose instead of hanging them ! ’T is flat against the edict. Nay, perchance Murmurs aloud may turn to silent threats Of some well-sharpened dagger; for your Duke Has to his heir a pious cousin, who deems The Cross were better served if he were Duke. Such good you ’ll work your lover by your prayers. Fed alma. Then, I will free you now! You shall be safe, Nor he be blamed, save for his love to me. I will declare what I have done: the deed May put our marriage off. Zarca. Ay, till the time When you shall be a queen in Africa, And he be prince enough to sue for you. Y r ou cannot free ns and come back to him. And why ? Fed alma. Zarca. I would compel you to go forth. Fedalma. You tell me that ? 132 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Zarca. Yes, for I M have you choose*, Though, being of the blood you are, — my blood, —« You have no right to choose. Fed alma. I only owe A daughter’s debt ; I was not born a slave. Zarca. No, not a slave ; but you were born to reign. ’T is a compulsion of a higher sort, Whose fetters are the net invisible That holds all life together. Royal deeds May make long destinies for multitudes, And you are called to do them. You belong Not to the petty round of circumstance That makes a woman’s lot, but to your tribe, Who trust in me and in my blood with trust That men call blind; but it is only blind As nnyeaned reason is, that growing stirs Within the womb of superstition. Fed alma. No! I belong to him who loves me — whom I love — Who chose me—whom I chose — to whom I pledged A woman’s truth. And that is nature too, Issuing a fresher law than laws of birth. Zarca. Well, then, unmake yourself from a Zincala, — Unmake yourself from being child of mine ! Take holy water, cross your dark skin white ; Round your proud eyes to foolish kitten looks; Walk mincingly, and smirk, and Witch your robe: THE SPANISH GYPSY. 133 Unmake yourself, — doff all the eagle plumes And be a parrot, chained to a ring that slips Upon a Spaniard’s thumb, at will of his That you should prattle o’er his words again! Get a small heart that flutters at the smiles Of that plump penitent and greedy saint Who breaks all treaties in the name of God, Saves souls by confiscation, sends to heaven The altar-fumes of burning heretics, And chaffers with the Levite for the gold; Holds Gypsies beasts unfit for sacrifice, So sweeps them out like worms alive or dead. Go, trail your gold and velvet in her presence ! — Conscious Zincala, smile at your rare luck, While half your brethren .... Fed alma. I am not so vile ! It is not to such mockeries that I cling, Not to the flaring tow of gala-lights : It is to him — my love — the face of day. Zarca. What, will you part him from the air he breathes, Never inhale with him although you kiss him ? Will you adopt a soul without its thoughts, Or grasp a life apart from flesh and blood ? Till then you cannot wed a Spanish Duke And not wed shame at mention of your race, And not wed hardness to their miseries, — Nay, not wed murder. Would you save my life Yet stab my purpose ? maim my every limb, Put out my eyes, and turn me loose to feed ? Is that salvation ? rather drink my blood. That child of mine who weds my enemy, — Adores a God who took no heed of Gypsies, —» 134 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Forsakes lier people, leaves their poverty To join the luckier crowd, that mocks their woes, That child of mine is doubly murderess, Murdering liei father’s hope, her people’s trust. Such draughts are mingled in your cup of love. .A-iid when ^ou have become a thing so poor, Your life is all a fashion without law Save frail conjecture of a changing wish, Your worshipped sun, your smiling face of day, Will turn to cloudiness, and you will shiver In your thin finery of vain desire. Men call his passion madness; and he, too, May learn to think it madness: ’t is a thought Of ducal sanity. Fed alma. No, he is true ! And if I part from him I part from joy. Oh, it was morning with us, — I seemed young. But now I know I am an aged sorrow,_ My people’s sorrow. Father, since I am yours, — Since I must walk an unslain sacrifice, Carrying the knife within me, quivering,_ Put cords upon me, drag me to the doom My birth has laid upon me. See, I kneel: I cannot will to go. Zarca. Will then to stay! Say you will take your better, painted such By blind desire, and choose the hideous worse For thousands who were happier but for you. My thirty followers are assembled now Without this terrace: I your father wait That you may lead us forth to liberty, — Restore me to my tribe, — five hundred men THE SPANISH GYPSY. 18a Whom I alone can save, alone can rule, And plant them as a mighty nation’s seed. Why, vagabonds who clustered round one man, Their voice of God, their prophet, and tlieir king, Twice grew to empire on the teeming shores Of Africa, and sent new royalties To feed afresh the Arab sway in Spain. My vagabonds are a seed more generous, Quick as the serpent, loving as the hound, And beautiful as disinherited gods. They have a promised land beyond the sea: There I may lead them, raise my standard, call All wandering Zincali to that home, And make a nation, — bring light, order, law, Instead of chaos. You, my only heir, Are called to reign for me when I am gone. Now choose your deed: to save or to destroy. You, woman and Zincala, fortunate Above your fellows, — you who hold a curse Or blessing in the hollow of your hand, — Say you will loo^e that hand from fellowship, Let go the rescuing rope, hurl all the tribes, Children and countless beings yet to come, Down from the upward path of light and joy, Back to the dark and marshy wilderness Where life is naught but blind tenacity Of that which is. Say you will curse your race l Fed alma (rising and stretching out her arms in deprecation). No, no, — I will not say it, — I will go ! Father, I choose! I will not take a heaven Haunted by shrieks of far-off misery. This deed and I have ripened with the hours; It is a part of me, — a wakened thought 36 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. That, rising like a giant, masters me, And grows into a doom. 0 mother life, That seemed to nourish me so tenderly, Even in the womb you vowed me to the fire, Hung on my soul the burden of men’s hopes, And pledged me to redeem ! — I ’ll pay the debt. You gave me strength that I should pour it all Into this anguish. I can never shrink Back into bliss, — my heart has grown too big With things that might be. Bather, I will go. I will strip off these gems. Some happier bride Shall wear them, since Fedalma would be dowered With naught but curses, dowered with misery Of men, — of women, who have hearts to bleed As hers is bleeding. (She sinks on a seat , and begins to take off her jewels .) Now, good gems, we part. Speak of me always tenderly to Silva. (Shepauses, turning to Zarca.) O father, will the women of our tribe Suffer as I do, in the years to come When you have made them great in Africa ? Redeemed from ignorant ills only to feel A conscious woe ? Then, — is it worth the pains ? Were it not better when we reach that shore To raise a funeral-pile and perish all ? So closing up a myriad avenues To misery yet unwrought ? My soul is faint, — Will these sharp pangs buy any certain good ? Zarca. Nay, never falter: no great deed is done By falterers who ask for certainty. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 137 No good is certain, but the steadfast mind, The undivided will to seek the good : J T is that compels the elements, and wrings A human music from the indifferent air. The greatest gift the hero leaves his race Is to have been a hero. Say we fail! — We feed the high tradition of the world, And leave our spirit in Zincalo breasts. Fedalma (unclasping her jewelled belt , and throwing it down). Yes, say that we shall fail! I will not count On aught but being faithful. I will take This yearning self of mine and strangle it. I will not be half-hearted: never yet Fedalma did aught with a wavering souk Die, my young joy, — die, all my hungry hopes,— The milk you cry for from the breast of life Is thick with curses. Oh, all fatness here Snatches its meat from leanness, — feeds on graves. I will seek nothing but to shun what’s base. The saints were cowards who stood by to see Christ crucified: they should have flung themselves Upon the Roman spears, and died in vain, — The grandest death, to die in vain, — for love Greater than sways the forces of the world. That death shall be my bridegroom. I will wed The curse of the Zincali. Father, come! Zarca. No curse has fallen on us till we cease To help each other. You, if you are false To that first fellowship, lay on the curse. But write now to the Spaniard : briefly say That I, your father, came; that you obeyed 138 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The fate which made you a Zincala, as his fate Made him a Spanish duke and Christian knight. He must not think .... Fed alma. Yes, I will write, but he,— Oh, he would know it, — he would never think The chain that dragged me from him could be aught But scorching iron entering in my soul. (She writes.) Silva, sole love, — he came, — my father came. I am the daughter of the Gypsy chief Who means to he the Savior of our tribe. He calls on me to live for his great end. To live? nay, die for it. Fedalma dies In leaving Silva: all that lives henceforth Is the Zincala. (She rises) Father, now I go To wed my people’s lot. Zarca. « To wed a crown. We will make royal the Zincali’s lot,— Give it a country, homes, and monuments Held sacred through the lofty memories That we shall leave behind us. Come, my Queen J Fedalma. Stay, my betrothal ring! — one kiss,—farewell! 0 love, you were my crown. Ho other crown Is aught but thorns on my poor woman’s brow. (Exeunt.) BOOK II. S ILVA was marching homeward while the moon Still shed mild brightness like the far-off hope Of those pale virgin lives that wait and pray. The stars thin-scattered made the heavens large. Bending in slow procession; in the east Emergent from the dark waves of the hills, Seeming a little sister of the moon, Glowed Venus all unquenched. Silva, in haste, Exultant and yet anxious, urged his troop To quick and quicker march: he had delight In forward stretching shadows, in the gleams That travelled on the armor of the van, And in the many-hoofed sound : in all that told Of hurrying movement to overtake his thought Already in Bedmar, close to Fedalma, Leading her forth a wedded bride, fast vowed, Defying Father Isidor. His glance Took in with much content the priest who rode Firm in his saddle, stalwart and broad-backed, Crisp-curled, and comfortably secular, Bight in the front of him. But by degrees Stealthily faint, disturbing with slow loss That showed not yet full promise of a gain, The light was changing and the watch intense Of moon and stars seemed weary, shivering: The sharp white brightness passed from off the rock 3 Carrying the shadows : beauteous Night lay dead Under the pall of twilight, and the love-star Sickened and shrank. The troop was winding now Upward to where a pass between the peaks 140 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Seemed like an opened gate, — to Silva seemed An outer-gate of heaven, for through that pass They entered his own valley, near Bedmar. Sudden within the pass a horseman rose One instant dark upon the banner pale Of rock-cut sky, the next in motion swift With hat and plume high shaken, — ominous. Silva had dreamed his future, and the dream Held not this messenger. A minute more,— It was his friend Don Alvar whom he saw Reining his horse up, face to face with him, Sad as the twilight, all his clothes ill-girt, — As if he had been roused to see one die, And brought the news to him whom death had robbed. Silva believed he saw the worst, — the town Stormed by the infidel, — or, could it be Fedalma dragged ? — 1 no, there was not yet time. But with a marble face, he only said, “ What evil, Alvar ? ” “ What this paper speaks.” It was Fedalma’s letter folded close And mute as yet for Silva. But his friend Keeping it still sharp-pinched against his breast, “ It will smite hard, my lord : a private grief. I would not have you pause to read it here. Let us ride on, — we use the moments best, Reaching the town with speed. The smaller ill Is that our Gypsy prisoners have escaped.” “ No more. Give me the paper, — nay, I know, — J T will make no difference. Bid them march on faster. Silva pushed forward, — held the paper crushed Close in his right. “ They have imprisoned her,” He said to Alvar in low, hard-cut tones, Like a dream-speech of slumbering revenge. “No,—when they came to fetch her she was gone.” THE SPANISH GYPSY. 141 Swift as the right touch on a spring, that word Made Silva read the letter. She was gone ! But not into locked darkness, — only gone Into free air, — where he might find her yet. The bitter loss had triumph in it, — what! They would have seized her with their holy claws ? The Prior’s sweet morsel of despotic hate Was snatched from off his lips. This misery Had yet a taste of joy. But she was gone ! The sun had risen, and in the castle walls The light grew strong and stronger. Silva walked Through the long corridor where-dimness yet Cherished a lingering, flickering, dying hope : Fedalma still was there, — he could not see The vacant place that once her presence filled. Can we believe that the dear dead are gone ? Love in sad weeds forgets the funeral day, Opens the chamber door and almost smiles, — Then sees the sunbeams pierce athwart the bed Where the pale face is not. So Silva’s joy. Like the sweet habit of caressing hands That seek the memory of another hand, Still lived on fitfully in spite of words, And, numbing thought with vague illusion, dulled The slow and steadfast beat of certainty. But in the rooms inexorable light Streamed through the open window where she fled, Streamed on the belt and coronet thrown down, — Mute witnesses, — sought out the typic ring That sparkled on the crimson, solitary, Wounding him like a word. 0 hateful light! It filled the chambers with her absence, glared On all the motionless things her hand had touched, Motionless all, — save where old Inez lay 142 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT, Sunk on the floor holding her rosary, Making its shadow tremble with her fear. And Silva passed her by because she grieved: It was the lute, the gems, the pictured heads, He longed to crush, because they made no sign But of insistence that she was not there, She who had filled his sight and hidden them. He went forth on the terrace tow’rd the stairs, Saw the rained petals of the cistus flowers Crushed by large feet; but on one shady spot Far down the steps, where dampness made a home, He saw a footprint delicate-slippered, small, So dear to him, he searched for sister-prints, Searched in the rock-hewn passage with a lamp For other trace of her, and found a glove; put not Fedalma’s. It was Juan’s glove, Tasselled, perfumed, embroidered with his name, A gift of dames. Then Juan, too, was gone ? Full-mouthed conjecture, hurrying through the town, Had spread the tale already, — it was he That helped the Gypsies’ flight. He talked and sang Of nothing but the Gypsies and Fedalma. He drew the threads together, wove the plan. Had lingered out by moonlight and been seen Strolling, as was his wont, within the walls, Humming his ditties. So Don Alvar told, Conveying outside rumor. But the Duke Keeping his haughtiness as a visor closed Would show no agitated front in quest Of small disclosures. What her writing bore Had been enough. He knew that she was gone, Knew why. “ The Duke,” some said, “ will send a force, Retake the prisoners, and bring back his bride.” But others, winking, “ Nay, her wedding dress THE SPANISH GYPSY. 143 Would be the san-benito. ’T is a fight Between the Duke and Prior. Wise bets will choose The churchman: he’s the iron, and the Duke ”_ “ Is a fine piece of pottery/' said mine host, Softening the epigram with a bland regret. There was the thread that in the new-made knot Of obstinate circumstance seemed hardest drawn, Vexed most the sense of Silva, in these hours Of fresh and angry pain, — there, in that fight Against a foe whose sword was magical, His shield invisible terrors, — against a foe Who stood as if upon the smoking mount Ordaining plagues. All else, Fedalma’s flight, The father’s claim, her Gypsy birth disclosed, Were momentary crosses, hindrances A Spanish noble might despise. This Chief Might still be treated with, would not refuse A proffered ransom, which would better serve Gypsy prosperity, give him more power Over his tribe, than any fatherhood : Nay, all the father in him must plead loud For marriage of his daughter where she loved, — Her love being placed so high and lustrously. The keen Zincalo had foreseen a price That would be paid him for his daughter’s dower, — Might soon give signs. Oh, all his purpose lay Face upward. Silva here felt strong, and smiled. What could a Spanish noble not command ? He only helped the Queen, because he chose, — Could war on Spaniards, and could spare the Moor, — Buy justice, or defeat it, — if he would : Was loyal, not from weakness but from strength Of high resolve to use his birthright well. For nobles too are gods, like Emperors, 144 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Accept perforce their own divinity And wonder at the virtue of their touch. Till obstinate resistance shakes their creed, Shattering that self whose wholeness is not rounded Save in the plastic souls of other men. Don Silva had been suckled in that creed (A speculative noble else, knowing Italian), Held it absurd as foolish argument If any failed in deference, was too proud Hot to be courteous to so poor a knave As one who knew not necessary truths Of birth and precedence ; but cross his will, The miracle-working will, his rage leaped out As by a right divine to rage more fatal Than a mere mortal man’s. And now that will Had met a stronger adversary, — strong As awful ghosts are whom we cannot touch, While they grasp us, subtly as poisoned air, In deep-laid fibres of inherited fear That lie below all courage. Silva said, “ She is not lost to me, might still be mine But for the Inquisition, — the dire hand That waits to clutch her with a hideous grasp, Not passionate, human, living, but a grasp As in the death-throe when the human soul Departs and leaves force unrelenting, locked, Not to be loosened save by slow decay That frets the universe. Father Isidor Has willed it so : his phial dropped the oil To catch the air-borne motes of idle slander ; He fed the fascinated gaze that clung Round all her movements, frank as growths of spring, With the new hateful interest of suspicion. What barrier is this Gypsy ? a mere gate THE SPANISH GYPSY. 145 I ’ll find the key for. The one barrier, The tightening cord that winds about my limbs, Is this kind uncle, this imperious saint, He who will save me, guard me from myself. And he can work his will: I have no help Save reptile secrecy, and no revenge Save that I will do what he schemes to hinder. Ay, secrecy, and disobedience, — these No tyranny can master. Disobey ! You may divide the universe with God, Keeping your will unbent, and hold a world Where he is not supreme. The Prior shall know it! His will shall breed resistance : he shall do The thing he would not, further what he hates By hardening my resolve.” But ’neath this inward speech, — Predominant, hectoring, the more passionate voice Of many-blended consciousness, — there breathed Murmurs of doubt, the weakness of a self That is not one; denies and yet believes ; Protests with passion, “This is natural,” — Yet owns the other still were truer, better, Could nature follow it. A self disturbed By budding growths of reason premature That breed disease. Spite of defiant rage Silva half shrank before the steadfast man Whose life was one compacted whole, a state Where the rule changed not, and the law was strong. Then straightway he resented that forced tribute, Bousing rebellion with intenser will. But soon this inward strife the slow-paced hours Slackened ; and the soul sank with hunger-pangs, Hunger of love. Debate was swept right down By certainty of loss intolerable. 10 146 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. A little loss ! only a dark-tressed maid Who had no heritage save her beauteous being l But in the candor of her virgin eyes Saying, I love; and in the mystic charm Of her dear presence, Silva found a heaven Where faith and hope were drowned as stars in day. Fedalma there, each momentary Now Seemed a whole blest existence, a full cup That, flowing over, asked no pouring hand From past to future. All the world was hers. Splendor was but the herald trumpet note Of her imperial coming : penury Vanished before her as before a gem The pledge of treasuries. Fedalma there, He thought all loveliness was lovelier, She crowning it: all goodness credible, Because of the great trust her goodness bred. For the strong current of that passionate love Which urged his life towards hers, like urgent floods That hurry through the various-mingled earth, Carried within its stream all qualities Of what it penetrated, and made love Only another name, as Silva was, For the whole man that breathed within his frame. And she was gone. Well, goddesses will go; But for a noble there were mortals left Shaped just like goddesses, — 0 hateful sweet! O impudent pleasure that should dare to front With vulgar visage memories divine ! The noble’s birthright of miraculous will Turning I would to must be , spurning all Offered as substitute for what it chose, Tightened and fixed in strain irrevocable The passionate selection of that love Which came not first but as all-conquering last. Great Love has many attributes, and shrines THE SPANISH GYPSY. 147 For varied worshippers, but Ins force divine Shows most its many-named fulness in the man Whose nature multitudinously mixed, Each ardent impulse grappling with a thought Resists all easy gladness, all content Save mystic rapture, where the questioning soul Flooded with consciousness of good that is Finds life one bounteous answer. So it was In Silva's nature, Love had mastery there, Not as a holiday ruler, but as one Who quells a tumult in a day of dread, A welcomed despot. Oh, all comforters, All soothing things that bring mild ecstasy, Came with her coming, in her presence lived. Spring afternoons, when delicate shadows fall Pencilled upon the grass; high summer morns When white light rains upon the quiet sea And corn-fields flush with ripeness ; odors soft,_ Dumb vagrant bliss that seems to seek a home And find it deep within 'mid stirrings vague Of far-off moments when our life was fresh ; All sweetly-tempered music, gentle change Of sound, form, color, as on wide lagoons At sunset when from black far-floating prows Comes a clear wafted song; all exquisite joy Of a subdued desire, like some strong stream Made placid in the fulness of a lake, — All came with her sweet presence, for she brought The love supreme which gathers to its realm All powers of loving. Subtle nature’s hand Waked with a touch the intricate harmonies In her own manifold work. Fedalma there, Fastidiousness became the prelude fine For full contentment, and young melancholy, Lost for its origin, seemed but the pain 148 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Of waiting for that perfect happiness — The happiness was gone ! He sat alone, Hating companionship that was not hers; Felt bruised with hopeless longing; drank, as wine, Illusions of what had been, would have been; Weary with anger and a strained resolve, Sought passive happiness in a waking dream. It has been so with rulers, emperors, Nay, sages who held secrets of great Time, Sharing his hoary and beneficent life, — Men who sat throned among the multitudes, — They have sore sickened at the loss of one. Silva sat lonely in her chamber, leaned Where she had leaned, to feel the evening breath Shed from the orange-trees; when suddenly His grief was echoed in a sad young voice Far and yet near, brought by aerial wings. The world is great: the birds all fly from me, The stars are golden fruit upon a tree All out of reach: my little sister went , And I am lonely. The world is great: I tried to mount the hill Above the pines , where the light lies so still, But it rose higher: little Lisa went , And I am lonely. The world is great: the wind comes rushing by, I wonder where it comes from ; sea birds cry And hurt my heart: my little sister went , And I am lonely. The world is great: the people laugh and talk, And make loud holiday: how fast they walk ! Vm lame , they push me: little Lisa went, And I am lonely. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 149 T was Pablo, like the wounded spirit of song Pouring melodious pain to cheat the hour For idle soldiers in the castle court. Dreamily Silva heard and hardly felt The song was outward, rather felt it part Of his own aching, like the lingering day, Or slow and mournful cadence of the bell. P>ut when the voice had ceased, he longed for it, And fretted at the pause, as memory frets When words that made its body fall away And leave it yearning dumbly. Silva then Bethought him whence the voice came, framed perforce Some outward image of a life not his That made a sorrowful centre to the world, — A boy lame, melancholy-eyed, who bore A viol, — yes, that very child he saw This morning eating roots by the gateway, * saw As one fresh-ruined sees and spells a name And knows not what he does, yet finds it writ Full in the inner record. Plark, again ! The voice and viol. Silva called his thought To guide his ear and track the travelling sound. O bird that used to press Thy head against my cheek With touch that seemed to speak And ask a tender u yes” — Ay de mi, my bird / O tender downy breast And warmly beating heart, That beating seemed a part Of me who gave it rest, — Ay de mi, my bird! The western court! The singer might be seen From the upper gallery : quick the Duke was there 150 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Looking upon the court as on a stage. Men eased of armor, stretched upon the ground, Gambling by snatches ; shepherds from the hills Who brought their bleating friends for slaughter; grooms Shouldering loose harness; leather-aproned smiths, Traders with wares, green-suited serving-men, Made a round audience ; and in their midst Stood little Pablo, pouring forth his song, Just as the Duke had pictured. But the song Was strangely companied by Roldan’s play With the swift-gleaming balls, and now was crushed By peals of laughter at grave Annibal, Who carrying stick and purse overturned the pence, Making mistake by rule. Silva had thought To melt hard bitter grief by fellowship With the world-sorrow trembling in his ear In Pablo’s voice ; had meant to give command For the boy’s presence; but this company, This mountebank and monkey, must be — stay ! Not be excepted — must be ordered too Into his private presence ; they had brought Suggestion of a ready shapen tool To cut a path between his helpless wish And what it imaged. A ready shapen tool! A spy, an envoy whom he might despatch In unsuspected secrecy, to find The Gypsies’ refuge so that none beside Might learn it. And this juggler could be bribed, Would have no fear of Moors, — for who would kill Dancers and monkeys ? — could pretend a journey Back to his home, leaving his boy the while To please the Duke with song. Without such chance,— An envoy cheap and secret as a mole Who could go scathless, come back foi his pay And vanish straight, tied by no neighborhood, — THE SPANISH GYPSY. 151 Without such chance as this poor juggler brought, Finding Fedalma was betraying her. Short interval betwixt the thought and deed. Roldan was called to private audience With Annibal and Pablo. All the world (By which I mean the score or two who heard) Shrugged high their shoulders, and supposed the Duke Would fain beguile the evening and replace His lacking happiness, as was the right Of nobles, who could pay for any cure, And wore naught broken, save a broken limb. In truth, at first, the Duke bade Pablo sing, But, while he sang, called Roldan wide apart, And told him of a mission secret, brief, — A quest which well performed might earn much gold, But, if betrayed, another sort of wages. Roldan was ready; “ wished above all for gold And never wished to speak; had worked enough At wagging his old tongue and chiming jokes; Thought it was others’ turn to play the fool. Give him but pence enough, no rabbit, sirs, Would eat and stare and be more dumb than he. Give him his orders.” They were given straight j Gold for the journey, and to buy a mule Outside the gates through which he was to pass Afoot and carelessly. The boy would stay Within the castle, at the Duke’s command, And must have naught but ignorance to betray For threats or coaxing. Once the quest performed, The news delivered with some pledge of truth Safe to the Duke, the juggler should go forth, A fortune in his girdle, take his boy And settle firm as any planted tree 152 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. In fair Valencia, never more to roam. “ Good ! good ! most worthy of a great hidalgo i And Roldan was the man ! But Annibal, — A monkey like no other, though morose In private character, yet full of tricks, — ’T were hard to carry him, yet harder still To leave the boy and him in company And free to slip away. The boy was wild And shy as mountain kid; once hid himself And tried to run away; and Annibal, Who always took the lad’s side (he was small? And they were nearer of a size, and, sirs, Your monkey has a spite against us men For being bigger), — Annibal went too. Would hardly know himself, were he to lose Both boy and monkey, — and’t was property, The trouble he had put in Annibal. He didn’t choose another man should beat His boy and monkey. If they ran away Some man would snap them up, and square himself And say they were his goods, — he’d taught them. — no He Roldan had no mind another man Should fatten by his monkey, and the boy Should not be kicked by any pair of sticks Calling himself a juggler.” .... But the Duke, Tired of that hammering, signed that it should ceas^j Bade Roldan quit all fears, — the boy and ape Should be safe lodged in Abderahman’s tower, In keeping of the great physician there, The Duke’s most special confidant and friend, One skilled in taming brutes, and always kind. The Duke himself this eve would see them lodged. Roldan must go, — spend no more words, — but go. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 158 A room high up in Abderahman’s tower, A window open to the still warm eve, And the bright disk of royal Jupiter. Lamps burning low make little atmospheres Of light amid the dimness ; here and there Show books and phials, stones and instruments. In carved dark-oaken chair, unpillowed, sleeps Eight in the rays of Jupiter a small man, In skull-cap bordered close with crisp gray curls, And loose black gown showing a neck and breast Protected by a dim-green amulet; Pale faced, with finest nostril wont to breathe Ethereal passion in a world of thought; Eyebrows jet-black and firm, yet delicate ; Beard scant and grizzled; mouth shut firm, with curves So subtly turned to meanings exquisite, You seem to read them as you read a word Full-vowelled, long-descended, pregnant, — rich With legacies from long, laborious lives. Close by him, like a genius of sleep, Purrs the gray cat, bridling, with snowy breast. A loud knock. “ Forward! ” in clear vocal ring. Enter the Duke, Pablo, and Annibal. Exit the cat, retreating toward the dark. Don Silva. You slept, Sephardo. I am come too soon. Sephardo. Nay, my lord, it was I who slept too long. I go to court among the stars to-night, So bathed my soul beforehand in deep sleep. But who are these ? Don Silva. Small guests, for whom I ask Your hospitality. Their owner comes 154 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Some short time hence to claim them. I am pledged To keep them safely ; so I bring them you, Trusting your friendship for small animals. Sephardo. Yea, am not I too a small animal ? Don Silva. I shall be much beholden to your love If you will be their guardian. I can trust No other man so well as you. The boy Will please you with his singing, touches too The viol wondrously. Sephardo. They are welcome both. Their names are ? Don Silva. Pablo, this—this Annibal, And yet, I hope, lu, varrior. Sephardo. We ’ll make peace. Come, Pablo, let us loosen our friend’s chain. Deign you, my lord, to sit. Here, Pablo, thou —- Close to my chair. Now Annibal shall choose. [The cautious monkey, in a Moorish dress, A tunic white, turban and scymitar, Wears these stage garments, nay, his very flesh With silent protest; keeps a neutral air As aiming at a metaphysic state Twixt u is ” and “ is not ” ; lets his chain be loosed By sage Sephardo’s hands, sits still at first, Then trembles out of his neutrality. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 155 Looks up and leaps into Sephardo’s lap, And chatters forth his agitated soul, Turning to peep at Pablo on the floor.] Sephardo. See, he declares we are at amity! Don Silva. No brother sage had read your nature faster. Sephardo. Why, so he is a brother sage. Man thinks Brutes have no wisdom, since they know not his l Can we divine their world ? — the hidden life That mirrors us as hideous shapeless power, Cruel supremacy of sharp-edged death, Or fate that leaves a bleeding mother robbed ? Oh, they have long tradition and swift speech. Can tell with touches and sharp darting cries Whole histories of timid races taught To breathe in terror by red-handed man. Don Silva. Ah, you denounce my sport with hawk and hound I would not have the angel Gabriel As hard as you in noting down my sins. Sephardo. Nay, they are virtues for you warriors, — Hawking and hunting! You are merciful When you leave killing men to kill the brutes. But, for the point of wisdom, I would choose To know the mind that stirs between the wings Of bees and building wasps, or fills the woods With myriad murmurs of responsive sens© I5£ OEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. And true-aimed impulse, rather than to know The thoughts of warriors. Don Silva. Yet they are warriors too, — Your animals. Your judgment limps, Sephardo : Death is the king of this world; ’t is his park Where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain Are music for his banquet; and the masque, —■ The last grand masque for his diversion, is The Holy Inquisition. Sephardo. Ay, anon I may chime in with you. But not the less My judgment has firm feet. Though death were king, And cruelty his right-hand minister, Pity insurgent in some human breasts Makes spiritual empire, reigns supreme As persecuted faith in faithful hearts. Your small physician, weighing ninety pounds, A petty morsel for a healthy shark, Will worship mercy throned within his soul Though all the luminous angels of the stars Burst into cruel chorus on his ear, Singing, “ We know no mercy.” He would cry “ I know it ” still, and soothe the frightened bird And feed the child a-hungered, walk abreast Of persecuted men, and keep most hate For rational torturers. There I stand firm. But you are bitter, and my speech rolls on Out of your note. Don Silva. No, no, I follow you. I too have that within which I will worship THE SPANISH GYPSY. In spite of — yes, Sephardo, I am bitter. I need your counsel, foresight, all your aid. Lay these small guests to bed, then we will talk. Sephardo. See, they are sleeping now. The boy has made My leg his pillow. For my brother sage, He ’ll never heed us ; he knit long ago A sound ape-system, wherein men are brutes Emitting doubtful noises. Pray, my lord, Unlade what burdens you: my ear and hand Are servants of a heart much bound to you. Don Silva. Yes, yours is love that roots in gifts bestowed By you on others, and will thrive the more The more it gives. I have a double want: First a confessor, — not a Catholic ; A heart without a livery, — naked manhood. Sephardo. My lord, I will be frank, there ? s no such thing As naked manhood. If the stars look down On any mortal of our shape, whose strength Is to judge all things without preference, He is a monster, not a faithful man. While my heart beats, it shall wear livery, — My people’s livery, whose yellow badge Marks them for Christian scorn. I will not say Man is first man to me, then Jew or Gentile : That suits the rich marranos ; but to me My father is first father and then man. So much for frankness’ sake. But let that pass, ’T is true at least, I am no Catholic, But Salomo Sephardo, a born Jew, Willing to serve Don Silva. 158 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Don Silva. Oft you sing Another strain, and melt distinctions down As no more real than the wall of dark Seen by small fishes’ eyes, that pierce a span In the wide ocean. Now you league yourself To hem me, hold me prisoner in bonds Made, say you, — how ? — by God or Demiurge, By spirit or flesh, — I care not! Love was made Stronger than bonds, and where they press must break them. I came to you that I might breathe at large, And now you stifle me with talk of birth, Of race and livery. Yet you knew Fedalma. She was your friend, Sephardo. And you know She is gone from me, — know the hounds are loosed To dog me if I seek her. Sephardo. Yes, I know. Forgive me that I used untimely speech, Pressing a bruise. I loved her well, my lord: A woman mixed of such fine elements That were all virtue and religion dead She’d make them newly, being what she was. Don Silva. Was ? say not was , Sephardo ! She still lives, — Is, and is mine; and I will not renounce What heaven, nay, what she gave me. I will sin, If sin I must, to win my life again. The fault lie with those powers who have embroiled The world in hopeless conflict, where all truth Fights manacled with falsehood, and all good Makes but one palpitating life with evil. (Don Silva pauses . Sephardo is silent ) THE SPANISH GYPSY. 159 Sephardo, speak ! am I not justified ? You taught my mind to use the wing that soars Above the petty fences of the herd : Now, when I need your doctrine, you are dumb. Sephardo. Patience ! Hidalgos want interpreters Of untold dreams and riddles ; they insist On dateless horoscopes, on formulas To raise a possible spirit, nowhere named. Science must be their wishing cap; the stars Speak plainer for high largesse. No, my lord ! I cannot counsel you to unknown deeds. Thus much I can divine: you wish to find Her whom you love, — to make a secret search. Don Silva. That is begun already: a messenger Unknown to all has been despatched this night. But forecast must be used, a plan devised, Ready for service when my scout returns, Bringing the invisible thread to guide my steps Toward that lost self my life is aching with. Sephardo, I will go : and I must go Unseen by all save you ; though, at our need, We may trust Alvar. Sephardo. A grave task, my lord. Have you a shapen purpose, or mere will That sees the end alone and not the means ? Resolve will melt no rocks. Don Silva. But it can scale them. This fortress has two private issues: one, 160 JEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Which served the Gypsies’ flight, to me is closed: Our bands must watch the outlet, now betraved To cunning enemies. Remains one other, Known to no man save me: a secret left As heirloom in our house : a secret safe Even from him, —from Father Isidor. ’T is he who forces me to use it, — he : All’s virtue that cheats bloodhounds. Hear, Sephardo. Given, my scout returns and brings me news I can straight act on, I shall want your aid. The issue lies below this tower, your fastness, Where, by my charter, you rule absolute. I shall feign illness ; you with mystic air Must speak of treatment asking vigilance (Nay I am ill, — my life has half ebbed out). I shall be whimsical, devolve command On Don Diego, speak of poisoning, Insist on being lodged within this tower, And rid myself of tendance save from you And perhaps from Alvar. So I shall escape Unseen by spies, shall win the days I need To ransom her and have her safe enshrined. No matter, were my flight disclosed at last: I shall come back as from a duel fought Which no man can undo. Now you know all. Say, can I count on you ? Sephardo. For faithfulness In aught that I may promise — yes, my lord. But, — for a pledge of faithfulness, — this warning. I will betray naught for your personal harm: I love you. But note this, —I am a Jew; And while the Christian persecutes my race, I ’ll turn at need even the Christian’s trust THE SPANISH GYPSY. 161 Into a weapon and a shield for Jews. Shall Cruelty crowned — wielding the savage force Of multitudes, and calling savageness God Who gives it victory — upbraid deceit And ask for faithfulness ? I love you well. You are my friend. But yet you are a Christian, Whose birth has bound you to the Catholic kings. There may come moments when to share my joy Would make you traitor, when to share your grief Would make me other than a J 3W . . . . Don Silt a. What need To urge that now, Sephardo ? I am one Of many Spanish nobles who detest The roaring bigotry of the herd, would fain Dash from the lips of king and queen the cup Filled with besotting venom, half infused By avarice and half by priests. And now, — Now when the cruelty you flout me with Pierces me too in the apple of my eye, Now when my kinship scorches me like hate Flashed from a mother’s eye, you choose this time To talk of birth as of inherited rage Deep-down, volcanic, fatal, bursting forth From under hard-taught reason ? Wondrous friendship! My uncle Isidor’s echo, mocking me, From the opposing quarter of the heavens, With iteration of the thing I know, That I’m a Christian knight and Spanish noble 1 The consequence ? Why, that I know. It lies In my own hands and not on raven tongues. The knight and noble shall not wear the chain Of false-linked thoughts in brains of other men. What question was there ’twixt us two, of aught 11 162 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. That makes division ? When I come to you 1 come for other doctrine than the Prior’s. Sephardo. My lord, you are o’erwrought by pain. My words, That carried innocent meaning, do but float Like little emptied cups upon the flood Your mind brings with it. I but answered you With regular proviso, such as stands In testaments and charters, to forefend A possible case which none deem likelihood; Just turned my sleeve, and pointed to the brand Of brotherhood that limits every pledge. Superfluous nicety, — the student’s trick, Who will not drink until he can define What water is and is not. But enough. My will to serve you now knows no division Save the alternate beat of love and fear. There’s danger in this quest, — name, honor, life, —* My lord, the stake is great, and are you sure .... Don Silva. Ho, I am sure of naught but this, Sephardo, That I will go. Prudence is but conceit Hoodwinked by ignorance. There’s naught exists That is not dangerous and holds not death For souls or bodies. Prudence turns its helm To flee the storm and lands ’mid pestilence. Wisdom must end by throwing dice with folly But for dire passion which alone makes choice. And I have chosen as the lion robbed Chooses to turn upon the ravislier. If love were slack, the Prior’s imperious will Would move it to outmatch him. But, Sephardo, Were all else mute, all passive as sea-calms, THE SPANISH GYPSY. 163 My soul is one great hunger, — I must see her. Now you are smiling. Oh, you merciful men Pick up coarse griefs and fling them in the face Of us whom life with long descent has trained To subtler pains, mocking your ready balms. You smile at my soul’s hunger. Sephardo. Science smiles And sways our lips in spite of us, my lord, When thought weds fact, — when maiden prophecy Waiting, believing, sees the bridal torch. I use not vulgar measures for your grief, My pity keeps no cruel feasts; but thought Has joys apart, even in blackest woe, And seizing some fine thread of verity Knows momentary godhead. Don Silva. And your thought ? Sephardo. Seized on the close agreement of your words With what is written in your horoscope. ■V . Don Silva. Reach it me now. Sephardo. By your leave, Annibal. (He places Annibal on Pablo’s lap and rises. The boy moves without waking , and his head falls on the opposite side. Sephardo fetches a cushion and lays Pablo’s head gentlp down upon it, then goes to reach trie parenment front a cabinet. Annibal, having waked up in alarm, shuts his eyes quickly again and pr& tends to sleep.) 164 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Don Silva. I wish, by new appliance of your skill, Reading afresh the records of the sky, You could detect more special augury. Such chance oft happens, for all characters Must shrink or widen, as our wine-skins do, For more or less that we can pour in them; And added years give ever a new key To fixed prediction. Sephaudo {returning with the parchment and reseat ■ ing himself ). True 5 our growing thought Makes growing revelation. But demand not Specific augury, as of sure success In meditated projects, or of ends To be foreknown by peeping in God’s scroll. I S ay — nay, Ptolemy said it, but wise books For half the truths they hold are honored tombs — Prediction is contingent, of effects Where causes and concomitants are mixed To seeming wealth of possibilities Beyond our reckoning. Who will pretend To tell the adventures of each single fish Within the Syrian Sea ? Show me a fish, I ’ll weigh him, tell his kind, what he devoured, What would have devoured him , — but for one Bias Who netted him instead; nay, could I tell, That had Bias missed him, he would not have died Of poisonous mud, and so made carrion, Swept off at last by some sea-scavenger ? Don Silva. Ay, now you talk of fishes, you get hard. I note you merciful men : you can endure Torture of fishes and hidalgos. Follows t THE SPANISH GYPSY. 16b Sephardo. By how much, then, the fortunes of a man Are made of elements refined and mixed Beyond a tunny’s, what our science tells Of the stars’ influence hath contingency In special issues. Thus, the loadstone draws, Acts like a will to make the iron submiss ; But garlic rubbing it, that chief effect Lies in suspense ; the iron keeps at large, And garlic is controller of the stone. And so, my lord, your horoscope declares Naught absolutely of your sequent lot, But, by our lore’s authentic rules, sets forth What gifts, what dispositions, likelihoods, . The aspects of the heavens conspired to fuse With your incorporate soul. Aught more than this Is vulgar doctrine. For the ambient, Though a cause regnant, is not absolute, But suffers a determining restraint From action of the subject qualities In proximate motion. Don Silva. Yet you smiled just now At some close fitting of my horoscope With present fact, — with this resolve of mine To quit the fortress ? Sephardo. Nay, not so, I smiled, Observing how the temper of your soul Sealed long tradition of the influence shed By the heavenly spheres. Here is your horoscope The aspects of the moon with Mars conjunct, Of Venus and the Sun with Saturn, lord 166 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Of the ascendant, make symbolic speech Whereto your words gave running paraphrase. Don Silva ( impatiently ). What did I say ? Sephardo. You spoke as oft you did When I was schooling you at Cordova, And lessons on the noun and verb were drowned With sudden stream of general debate On things and actions. Always in that stream I saw the play of babbling currents, saw A nature o’er-endowed with opposites Making a self alternate, where each hour Was critic of the last, each mood too strong For tolerance of its fellow in close yoke. The ardent planets stationed as supreme, Potent in action, suffer light malign From luminaries large and coldly bright Inspiring meditative doubt, which straight Doubts of itself, by interposing act Of Jupiter in the fourth house fortified With power ancestral. So, my lord, I read The changeless in the changing; so I read The constant action of celestial powers Mixed into waywardness of mortal men, Whereof no sage’s eye can trace the course And see the close. Don Silva. Fruitful result, 0 sage ! Certain uncertainty. Sephardo. Yea, a result Fruitful as seeded earth, where certainty Would be as barren as a globe of gold. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 167 I love you, and would serve you well, my lord. Your rashness vindicates itself too much, Puts harness on of cobweb theory While rushing like a cataract. Be warned. Be solve with you is a fire-breathing steed, But it sees visions, and may feel the air Impassable with thoughts that come too late, Bising from out the grave of murdered honor. Look at your image in your horoscope: (Laying the horoscope before Silva.) You are so mixed, my lord, that each to-day May seem a maniac to its morrow. Don Silva (pushing away the horoscope , rising and turning to look out at the open window'). No! No morrow e’er will say that I am mad Not to renounce her. Bisks ! I know them all. I’ve dogged each lurking, ambushed consequence. I ’ve handled every chance to know its shape As blind men hrndle bolts. Oh, I ’m too sane ! I see the Prior’s nets. He does my deed; For he has narrowed all my life to this, — That I must find her by some hidden means. (lie turns and stands close in front of Sephardo.) One word, Sephardo, — leave that horoscope, Which is but iteration of myself, And give me promise. Shall I count on you To act upon my signal ? Kings of Spain Like me have found their refuge in a Jew, And trusted in his counsel. You will help me ? Sephardo. Yes, my lord, I will help you. Israel Is to the nations as the body’s heart: A68 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Thus saith the Book of Light: and I will act So that no man may ever say through me “ Your Israel is naught/’ and make my deeds The mud they fling upon my brethren. I will not fail you, save, — you know the terms: I am a Jew, and not that infamous life That takes on bastardy, will know no father, So shrouds itself in the pale abstract, Man. You should be sacrificed to Israel If Israel needed it. Don Silva. I fear not that. I am no friend of fines and banishment, Or flames that, fed on heretics, still gape, And must have heretics made to feed them still. I take your terms, and, for the rest, your love Will not forsake me. Sephardo. ’T is hard Roman love, That looks away and stretches forth the sword Bared for its master’s breast to run upon. But you will have it so. Love shall obey. (Silva turns to the window again , and is silent for a few moments , looking at the sky .) Don Silva. See now, Sephardo, you would keep no faith To smooth the path of cruelty. Confess, The deed I would not do, save for the strait Another brings me to (quit my command, Resign it for brief space, I mean no more),— Were that deed branded, then the brand should fix On him who urged me. I THE SPANISH GYPSY. 169 Sephardo. Will it, though, my lord ? Don Silya. I speak not of the fact, but of the right. Sephardo. My lord, you said but now you were resolved. Question not if the world will be unjust Branding your deed. If conscience has two courts With differing verdicts, where shall lie the appeal ? Our law must be without us or within. The Highest speaks through all our people’s voice. Custom, tradition, and old sanctities; Or he reveals himself by new decrees Of inward certitude. Don Silva. My love for her Makes highest law, must be the voice of God. Sephardo. I thought, but now, you seemed to make excuse, And plead as in some court where Spanish knights Are tried by other laws than those of love. Don Silva. ’T was momentary. I shall dare it all. How the great planet glows, and looks at me, And seems to pierce me with his effluence! Were he a living God, these rays that stir In me the pulse of wonder were in him Fulness of knowledge. Are you certified, Sephardo, that the astral science shrinks To such pale ashes, dead symbolic forms For that congenital mixture of effects Which life declares without the aid of lore ? « POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. If there are times propitious or malign To our first framing, then must all events Have favoring periods : you cull your plants By signal of the heavens, then why not trace As others would by astrologic rule Times of good augury for momentous acts, — As secret journeys ? Sephardo. O my lord, the stars Act not as witchcraft or as muttered spells. I said before they are not absolute, And tell no fortunes. I adhere alone To such tradition of their agencies As reason fortifies. Don Silva. A barren science! Some argue now’t is folly. ’T were as well Be of their mind. If those bright stars had will, — But they are fatal fires, and know no love. Of old, I think, the world was happier With many gods, who held a struggling life As mortals do, and helped men in the straits Of forced misdoing. I doubt that horoscope. (Don Silva turns from the windoio and re> seats himself opposite Sephardo.) I am most self-contained, and strong to bear. No man save you has seen my trembling lip Uttering her name, since she was lost to me. I ’ll face the progeny of all my deeds. Sephardo. May they be fair! No horoscope makes slaves. *T is but a mirror, shows one image forth, And leaves the future dark with endless “ ifs.’ ? THE SPANISH GYPSY. 171 Don Silva. I marvel, my Sephardo, you can pinch With confident selection these few grains, And call them verity, from out the dust Of crumbling error. Surely such thought creeps, With insect exploration of the world. Were I a Hebrew, now, I would be bold. Why should you fear, not being Catholic ? Sephardo. Lo ! you yourself, my lord, mix subtleties With gross belief; by momentary lapse Conceive, with all the vulgar, that we Jews Must hold ourselves God’s outlaws, and defy All good with blasphemy, because we hold Your good is evil; think we must turn pale To see our portraits painted in your hell, And sin the more for knowing we are lost. Don Silva. Read not my words with malice. I but meant, My temper hates an over-cautious march. Sephardo. The TJnnamable made not the search for truth To suit hidalgos’ temper. I abide By that wise spirit of listening reverence Which marks the boldest doctors of our race. For truth, to us, is like a living child Born of two parents : if the parents part And will divide the child, how shall it live ? Or, I will rather say: Two angels guide The path of man, both aged and yet young, As angels are, ripening through endless years. On one he leans: some call her Memory, And some, Tradition ; and her voice is sweet, \72 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. With deep mysterious accords : the other, Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams A light divine and searching on. the earth, Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields, Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked But for Tradition; we walk evermore To higher paths, by brightening Reason’s lamp. Still we are purblind, tottering. I hold less Than Aben-Ezra, of that aged lore Brought by long centuries from Chaldsean plains; The Jew-taught Florentine rejects it all. For still the light is measured by the eye, And the weak organ fails. I may see ill; But over all belief is faithfulness, Which fulfils vision with obedience. So, I must grasp my morsels : truth is oft Scattered in fragments round a stately pile Built half of error; and the eye’s defect May breed too much denial. But, my lord, I weary your sick soul. Go now with me Into the turret. We will watch the spheres, And see the constellations bend and plunge Into a depth of being where our eyes Hold them no more. We ’ll quit ourselves and be The red Aldebaran or bright Sirius, And sail as in a solemn voyage, bound On some great quest we know not. Don Silva. Let us go. She may be watching too, and thought of her Sways me, as if she knew, to every act Of pure allegiance. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 173 Sephardo. That is love’s perfection, —- Tuning the soul to all her harmonies So that no chord can jar. Now we will mount. (Exeunt.) A large hall in the Castle, of Moorish architecture. On the side where the windows are, an outer gallery. Pages and other young gentlemen attached to Don Silva’s household, gathered chiefly at one end of the hall. Some are moving about; others are lounging on the carved benches ; others, half stretched on pieces of matting and carpet, are gambling. Arias, a stripling of fifteen, sings by snatches in a boyish treble, as he walks up and down, and tosses back the nuts ivhich another youth flings towards him. In the middle Don Amador, a gaunt, gray-haired soldier, in a handsome uniform, sits in a marble red-cushioned chair, with a large book spread out on his knees, from ivhich he is reading aloud, while his voice is half drowned by the talk that is going on around him, first one voice and then another surging above the hum. Arias (singing). There ivas a holy hermit Who counted all things loss For Christ his Master’s glory : He made an ivory cross, And as he knelt before it And wept his murdered Lord t The ivory turned to iron, The cross became a sword. 174 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Jos£ {from the floor). I say, twenty cruzados ! tliy Galician wit Can never count. Hernando (also from the floor). And thy Sevillian wit always counts double. Arias (singing). The tears that fell upon it, They turned to red, red rust , The tears that fell from off it Made writing in the dust. The holy hermit, gazing, Saw words upon the ground: “ The sivord be red forever With the blood of false Mahound." Don Amador (looking up from his book, and raising his voice). What, gentlemen ! Our glorious Lady defend us ! Enriquez (from the benches). Serves the infidels right! They have sold Christians enough to people half the towns in Paradise. If the Queen, now, had divided the pretty damsels of Malaga among the Castilians who have been helping in the holy war, and not sent half of them to Naples .... Arias (singing again). At the battle of Clavijo In the days of King Ramiro, Help us, Allah ! cried the Moslem, Cried the Spaniard, Heaven’s chosen, God and Santiago ! THE SPANISH GYPSY. 175 Fabian. Oh, the very tail of our chance has vanished. The royal army is breaking up, — going home for the winter. The Grand Master sticks to his own border. Arias {singing). Straight out-flushing like the rainbow, See him come, celestial Baron, Mounted knight, ivith red-erossed banner, Blunging earthivard to the battle, Glorious Santiago ! Hurtado. Yes, yes, through the pass of By-and-by you go to the valley of Never. We might have done a great feat, it the Marquis of Cadiz .... Arias {sings). As the flame before the swift wind , See, he fires us, we burn with him ! Flash our swords, dash Fagans backward, — Victory he ! jpale fear is allah ! God with Santiago ! Don Amador {raising his voice to a cry). Sangre de Dios, gentlemen ! {He shuts the book, and lets it fall with a bang * on the floor. There is instant silence.) To what good end is it that I, who studied at Sala¬ manca, and can write verses agreeable to the glorious Lady with the point of a sword which hath done harder service, am reading aloud in a clerkly manner from a book which hath been culled from the flowers of all books, to instruct you in the knowledge befitting those 176 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. who would be knights and worthy hidalgos. I had as lief be reading in a belfry. And gambling too ! As if it were a time when we needed not the help of God and the saints ! Surely for the space of one hour ye might subdue your tongues to your ears that so your tongues might learn somewhat of civility and modesty. Where¬ fore am I master of the Duke’s retinue, if my voice is to run along like a gutter in a storm ? Hurtado (lifting up the book , and respectfully pre¬ senting it to Don Amador). Pardon, Don Amador ! The air is so com moved by your voice, that it stirs our tongues in spite of us. Don Amador (reopening the book). Confess, now, it is a goose-headed trick, that when rational sounds are made for your edification, you find naught in it but an occasion for purposeless gabble. I will report it to the Duke, and the reading-time shall be doubled, and my office of reader shall be handed over to Fray Domingo. (While Dox Amador has been speaking , Don Silva, with Don Alvar, has appeared walk¬ ing in the outer gallery on which the windoics are opened .) All (in concert ). No, no, no. Don Amador. Are ye ready, then, to listen, if I finish the wholesome extract from the Seven Parts, wherein the wise King Alfonso hath set down the reason why knights should be of gentle birth ? Will ye now be silent ? All. Yes, silent. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 177 Don Amador. Bui when I pause, and look up, I give any leave to speak, if he hath aught pertinent to say. (Reads.) “And this nobility cometh in three ways: first, by lineage; secondly , by science; and thirdly, by valor and worthy behavior. Now, although they who gain nobility through science or good deeds are rightfully called noble and gentle ; nevertheless, they are with the highest fit¬ ness so called who are noble by ancient lineage, and lead a worthy life as by inheritance from afar; and hence are more bound and constrained to act well, and guard them¬ selves from error and wrong-doing; for in their case it is more true that by evil-doing they bring injury and shame not only on themselves, but also on those from whom they are derived.” (Don Amador places his forefinger for a mark on the page, and looks up, while he keeps his voice raised, as wishing Don Silva to overhear him in the judicious discharge of his function.) Hear ye that, young gentlemen ? See ye not that if ye have but bad manners even, they disgrace you more than gross misdoings disgrace the low-born ? Think you, Arias, it becomes the son of your house irrever¬ ently to sing and fling nuts, to the interruption of your elders ? Arias (sitting on the floor and leaning backward on his elbows). Nay, Don Amador; King Alfonso, they say, was a heretic, and I think that is not true writing. For noble birth gives us more leave to do ill if we like. Don Amador (lifting his brows). What bold and blasphemous talk is this f 12 178 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Arias. Why, nobles are only punished now and then, in a grand way, and have their heads cut off, like the Grand Constable. I should n’t mind that. JosA Nonsense, Arias! nobles have their heads cut off be¬ cause their crimes are noble. If they did what was unknightly, they would come to shame.. Is n’t that true, Don Amador ? Don Amador. Arias is a contumacious puppy, who will bring dis¬ honor on his parentage. Pray, sirrah, whom did you ever hear speak as you have spoken ? Arias. Nay, I speak out of my own head. I shall go and ask the Duke. Hurtado. Now, now ! you are too bold, Arias. Arias. Oh, he is never angry with me ( dropping his voice), because the lady Fedalma liked me. She said I was a good boy, and pretty, and that is what you are not, Hurtado. Hurtado. Girl-face ! See, now, if you dare ask the Duke. (Don Silva is just entering the hall from the gallery , with Alvar behind him , intending to pass out at the other end. All rise with horn- age. Don Silva bows coldly and abstractedly. Arias advances from the group , and goes up to Don Silva.) THE SPANISH GYPSY. 17$ Arias. My lord, is it true that a noble is more dishonored than other men if he does aught dishonorable ? Don Silya {first blushing deeply, and grasping his sword, then raising his hand and giving Arias a blow on the ear). Yarlet! Arias. My lord, I am a gentleman. (Don Silva pushes him away , and passes on hur¬ riedly. ) Don Alvar (following and turning to speak). Go, go ! you should not speak to the Duke when you are not called upon. He is ill and much distempered. (Arias retires, flushed, with tears in his eyes. His companions look too much surprised to tri¬ umph. Don Amador remains silent and con¬ fused.) The Plaga Santiago during busy market time. Mules and asses laden with fruits and vegetables. Stalls and booths filled with wares of all sorts. A crowd of buyers and sellers. A stalwart icoman with keen eyes, leaning over the panniers of a mule laden with apples, watches Lorenzo, who is lounging through the mar¬ ket. As he approaches her, he is met by Blasco. Lorenzo. Well met, friend. Blasco. Ay, for we are soon to part, And I would see you at the hostelry, To take my reckoning. I go forth to-day. 180 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Lorenzo. *T is grievous parting with good company. I would I had the gold to pay such guests For all my pleasure in their talk. Blasco. Why, yes; A solid-headed man of Aragon Has matter in him that you Southerners lack. You like my company, — ? t is natural. But, look you, I have done my business well, Have sold and ta’en commissions. I come straight From — you know who — I like not naming him. I’m a thick man: you reach not my backbone With any toothpick. But I tell you this : He reached it with his eye, right to the marrow! It gave me heart that I had plate to sell, For, saint or no saint, a good silversmith Is wanted for God’s service ; and my plate — He judged it well — bought nobly. And holy! Lorenzo. A great man. Blasco. Yes, I ? m glad I leave to-day. For there are stories give a sort of smell, — One’s nose has fancies. A good trader, sir, Likes not this plague of lapsing in the air, Most ught by men with funds. And they do say There’s a great terror here in Moors and Jews, I would say, Christians of unhappy blood. ’T is monstrous, sure, that men of substance lapse, And risk their property. I know I’m sound. No heresy was ever bait to me. Whate’er Is the right faith, that I believe, — naught else. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 181 Lorenzo. Ay, truly, for the flavor of true faith Once known must sure be sweetest to the taste. But an uneasy mood is now abroad Within the town ; partly, for that the Duke Being sorely sick, has yielded the command To Don Diego, a most valiant man, More Catholic than the Holy Father’s self, Half chiding God that he will tolerate A Jew or Arab; though ’t is plain they ’re made For profit of good Christians. And weak heads — Panic will knit all disconnected facts — Draw hence belief in evil auguries, Bumors of accusation and arrest, All air-begotten. Sir, you need not go. But if it must be so, I ’ll follow you In fifteen minutes, — finish marketing, Then be at home to speed you on your way. Blasco. Do so. I ’ll back to Saragossa straight. The court and nobles are retiring now And wending northward. There ’ll be fresh demand For bells and images against the Spring, When doubtless our great Catholic sovereigns Will move to conquest of these eastern parts, And cleanse Granada from the infidel. Stay, sir, with God until we meet again! Lorenzo. Go, sir, with God, until I follow you! (Exit Blasco. Lorenzo passes on towards ite market-woman , who , as he approaches , raiser herself from her leaning attitude .) 182 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Lorenzo. Good day, my mistress. How’s your merchandise ? Fit for a host to buy ? Your apples now, They have fair cheeks ; how are they at the core ? M ARKET-W OMAN. Good, good, sir! Taste and try. See, here is one Weighs a man’s head. The best are bound with tow: They ’re worth the pains, to keep the peel from splits. (She takes out an apple hound with tow , and, as she puts it into Lorenzo’s hand , speaks in a lower tone.) *T is called the Miracle. You open it, And find it full of speech. Lorenzo. Ay, give it me, I ’ll take it to the Doctor in the tower. He feeds on fruit, and if he likes the sort I ’ll buy them for him. Meanwhile, drive your ass Round to my hostelry. I ’ll straight be there. You ’ll not refuse some barter ? Market-W om an. Feathers and skins. No, not I. Lorenzo. Good, till we meet again. (Lorenzo, after smelling at the apple , puts it into a pouch-like basket which hangs before him , and walks away. The woman drives off the mule.) A Letter. “ Zarca, the chief of the Zincali, greets The King El Zagal. Let ohe force be sent THE SPANISH GYPSY. 383 With utmost swiftness to the Pass of Luz. A good five hundred added to my bands Will master all the garrison : the town Is half with us, and will not lift an arm Save on our side. My scouts have found a way Where once we thought the fortress most secure: Spying a man upon the height, they traced, By keen conjecture piecing broken sight, His downward path, and found its issue. There A file of us can mount, surprise the fort And give the signal to our friends within To ope the gates for our confederate bands, Who will lie eastward ambushed by the rocks, Waiting the night. Enough ; give me command, Bedm£r is yours. Chief Zarca will redeem His pledge of highest service to the Moor: Let the Moor, too, be faithful and repay The Gypsy with the furtherance he needs To lead his people over Bahr el Scham And plant them on the shore of Africa. So may the King El Zagal live as one Who, trusting Allah will be true to him, Maketh himself as Allah true to friends.** . ' ■ . BOOK III. Q uit now the town, and with a journeying dream Swift as the wings of sound yet seeming slow Through multitudinous compression of stored sense And spiritual space, see walls and towers Lie in the silent whiteness of a trance, Giving no sign of that warm life within That moves and murmurs through their hidden heart. Pass o’er the mountain, wind in sombre shade, Then wind into the light and see the town Shrunk to white crust upon the darken rock. Turn east and south, descend, then rise anew ’Mid smaller mountains ebbing towards the plain: Scent the fresh breath of the height-loving herbs That, trodden by the pretty parted hoofs Of nimble goats, sigh at the innocent bruise, And with a mingled difference exquisite Pour a sweet burden on the buoyant air. Pause now and be all ear. Far from the south, Seeking the listening silence of the heights, Comes a slow-dying sound, — the Moslems’ call To prayer in afternoon. Bright in the sun Like tall white sails on a green shadowy sea Stand Moorish watch-towers : ’neatli that eastern sky Couches unseen the strength of Moorish Baza: Where the meridian bends lies Guadix, hold Of brave El Zagal. This is Moorish land, Where Allah lives unconquered in dark breasts And blesses still the many-nourishing earth With dark-armed industry. See from the steep The scattered olives hurry in gray throngs Oown towards the valley, where the little stream 186 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Parts a green hollow ’twixt the gentler slopes; And in that hollow, dwellings : not white homes Of building Moors, but little swarthy tents Such as of old perhaps on Asian plains, Or wending westward past the Caucasus, Our fathers raised to rest in. Close they swarm About two taller tents, and viewed afar Might seem a dark-robed crowd in penitence That silent kneel; but come now in their midst And watch a busy, bright-eyed, sportive life ! Tall maidens bend to feed the tethered goat. The ragged kirtle fringing at the knee Above the living curves, the shoulder’s smoothness Parting the torrent strong of ebon hair. Women with babes, the wild and neutral glance Swayed now to sweet desire of mothers’ eyes, Rock their strong cradling arms and chant low strains Taught by monotonous and soothing winds That fall at night-time on the dozing ear. The crones plait reeds, or shred the vivid herbs Into the caldron: tiny urchins crawl Or sit and gurgle forth their infant joy. Lads lying sphinx-like with uplifted breast Propped on their elbows, their black manes tossed back, Fling up the coin and watch its fatal fall, Dispute and scramble, run and wrestle fierce, Then fall to play and fellowship again; Or in a thieving swarm they run to plague The grandsires, who return with rabbits slung, And with the mules fruit-laden from the fields. Some striplings choose the smooth stones from the brook To serve the slingers, cut the twigs for snares, Or trim the hazel-wands, or at the bark Of some exploring dog they dart away With swift precision towards a moving speck. “His doublet loose, his right arm backward Hung. His left caressing close the long-necked lute.’ 1 - THE SPANISH GYPSY. 187 These are the brood of Zarca’s Gypsy tribe; Most like an earth-born race bred by the Sun On some rich tropic soil, the father’s light Flashing in coal black eyes, the mother’s blood With bounteous elements feeding their young limbs. The stalwart men and youths are at the wars Following their chief, all save a trusty band Who keep strict watch along the northern heights. But see, upon a pleasant spot removed From the camp’s hubbub, where the thicket strong Of huge-eared cactus makes a bordering curve And casts a shadow, lies a sleeping man With Spanish hat screening his upturned face, His doublet loose, his right arm backward flung, His left caressing close the long-necked lute That seems to sleep too, leaning tow’rds its lord. He draws deep breath secure but not unwatchedo Moving a-tiptoe, silent as the elves, As mischievous too, trip three barefooted girls Not opened yet to womanhood, — dark flowers In slim long buds : some paces farther off Gathers a little white-teethed shaggy group, A grinning chorus to the merry play. The tripping girls have robbed the sleeping man Of all his ornaments. Hita is decked With an embroidered scarf across her rags ; Tralla, with thorns for pins, sticks two rosettes Upon her threadbare woollen ; Hinda now, Prettiest and boldest, tucks her kirtle up As wallet for the stolen buttons, — then Bends with her knife to cut from off the hat The aigrette and the feather; deftly cuts, Yet wakes the sleeper, who with sudden start Shakes off the masking hat and shows the face # 188 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Of Juan : Hinda swift as thought leaps back. But carries off the feather and aigrette, And leads the chorus of a happy laugh, Running with all the naked-footed imps, Till with safe survey all can face about And watch for signs of stimulating chase, While Hinda ties long grass around her brow To stick the feather in with majesty. Juan still sits contemplative, with looks Alternate at the spoilers and their work. Juan. Ah, you marauding kite, — my feather gone! My belt, my scarf, my buttons and rosettes! This is to be a brother of Zincali! The fiery-blooded children of the Sun,— So says chief Zarca, — children of the Sun ! Ay, ay, the black and stinging flies he breeds To plague the decent body of mankind. Orpheus, professor of the gai saber , Made all the brutes polite, they say, by dint of song. Pregnant, — but as a guide in daily life Delusive. For if song and music cure The barbarous trick of thieving, J t is a cure That works as slowly as old Doctor Time In curing folly. Why, the minxes there Have rhythm in their toes, and music rings As readily from them as from little bells Swung by the breeze. Well, I will try the physic. (.He touches his lute.) Hem! taken rightly, any single thing The Rabbis say, implies all other things. A knotty task, though, the unravelling Meum and Tuum from a saraband: It needs a subtle logic, nay, perhaps THE SPANISH GYPSY. 189 A good large property, to see the thread. (He touches the lute again.') There ? s more of odd than even in this world, Else pretty sinners would not be let off Sooner than ugly ; for if honeycombs Are to be got by stealing, they should go Where life is bitterest on the tongue. And yet, — P>ecause this minx has pretty ways I wink At all her tricks, though if a flat-faced lass, With eyes askew, were half as bold as she, I should chastise her with a hazel switch. I hn a plucked peacock, — even my voice and wit Without a tail! — why, any fool detects The absence of your tail, but twenty fools May not detect the presence of your wit. {He touches his lute again.) Well, I must coax my tail back cunningly, For to run after these brown lizards, — ah ! I think the lizards lift their ears at this. (As he thrums his lute the lads and girls gradu¬ ally approach: he touches it more briskly, and Hinda, advancing , begins to move arms and legs ivith an initiatory dancing movement , smiling coaxingly at Juan. He suddenly stops, lays down his lute and folds his arms?) What, you expected a tune to dance to, eh ? Hinda, Hita, Tralla, and the rest (dapping their hands). Yes, yes, a tune, a tune ! Juan. But that is what you cannot have, my sweet brothers and sisters. The tunes are all dead, — dead as the tunes of the lark when you have plucked his wings off; dead 190 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. as tJie song of the grasshopper when the ass has swal¬ lowed him. I can play and sing no more. Hinda has killed my tunes. (All cry out in consternation. Hinda gives a wail and tries to examine the lute. Juan waves her off-) Understand, Senora Hinda, that the tunes are in me ; they are not in the lute till I put them there. And if you cross my humor, I shall be as tuneless as a bag of wool. If the tunes are to be brought to life again, I must have my feather back. (Hinda kisses his hands and feet coaxingly.) No, no! not a note will come for coaxing. The feather, I say, the feather! (Hinda sorrowfully takes off the feather, and gives it to Juan.) Ah, now let us see. Perhaps a tune will come. (He plays a measure , and the three girls begin to dance ; then he suddenly stops.) No, the tune will not come: it wants the aigrette (pointing to it ^n Hinda’s neck). (Hinda, with rather less hesitation , but again sor¬ rowfully , takes off the aigrette , and gives it to him.) Ha! (he plays again , but , after rather a longer time , again stops.) No, no; ’t is the buttons are wanting, Hinda, the buttons. This tune feeds chiefly on but¬ tons, — a hungry tune. It wants one, two, three, four, five, six. Good! (After Hinda has given up the buttons , and Juan has laid them down one by one , he begins to play again , going on longer than before , so thal the dancers become excited by the movement Then he stops.) THE SPANISH GYPSY. 191 Ah, Hita, it is the belt, and, Tralla, the rosettes,— both are wanting. I see the tune will not go on without them. (Hita and Tralla take ojf the belt and rosettes, and lay them down quickly , being fired by the dancing , and eager for the music. All the arti¬ cles lie by Juan’s side on the ground .) Good, good, my docile wild-cats! Now I think the tunes are all alive again. Now you may dance and sing too. Hinda, my little screamer, lead off with the song I taught you, and let us see if the tune will go right on from beginning to end. {lie plays. The dance begins again , Hinda singing. All the other boys and girls join in the chorus, and all at last dance wildly .) Song. All things journey: sun and moon, Morning , noon, and afternoon, Night and all her stars: i Twixt the east and western bars Hound they journey. Come and go ! We go with them ! For to roam and ever roam Is the wild ZincalVs home. Earth is good, the hillside breaks By the ashen roots and makes Hungry nostrils glad: Then we run till ice are mad , Like the horses, And we cry, None shall catch us/ Swift winds wing us, — we are free, — Drink the air, — Zincali we I 192 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Falls the snow : the pine-branch split, Call the fire out, see it flit, Through the dry leaves run, Spread and glow, and make a sun hi the dark tent: 0 warm dark ! Warm as conies ! Strong fire loves us, we are ivarm / Who shall work Zincali harm ? Onward journey: fires are spent; Sunward, sunward ! lift the tent, liun before the rain, Through the pass, along the plain. Hurry, hurry, Lift us, wind ! Like the horses. For to roam and ever roam Is the wild Zincali’s home. * {When the dance is at its height, Hinda breaks away from the rest, and dances round Juan, who is now standing. As he turns a little to watch her movement, some of the boys skip towards the feather, aigrette, &c., snatch them up, and run away, swiftly followed by Hita, Tralla, and the rest. Hinda, as she turns again, sees them, screams, and falls in her whirl¬ ing ; but immediately gets up, and rushes after them, still screaming with rage.) Juan. Santiago! these imps get bolder. Haha! Senora Hinda, mils finishes your lesson in ethics. You have seen the advantage of giving up stolen goods. Now you see the THE SPANISH GYPSY. 193 ugliness of thieving when practised by others. That fable of mine about the tunes was excellently devised. I feel like an ancient sage instructing our lisping ances¬ tors. My memory will descend as the Orpheus of Gyp¬ sies. But I must prepare a rod for those rascals. I ’ll bastinado them with prickly pears. It seems to me these needles will have ft sound moral teaching in them. (While Juan takes a knife from his belt, and sur ¬ veys the prickly pear, Hinda returns .) Juan. Pray, Senora, why do you fume ? Did you want to steal my ornaments again yourself ? Hinda (sobbing), No; I thought you would give them me back again. Juan. What, did you want the tunes to die again ? Do you like finery better than dancing ? Hinda. Oh, that was a tale; I shall tell tales too, when I want to get anything I can’t steal. And I know what I will do. I shall tell the boys I’ve found some little foxes, and I will never say where they are till they give me back the feather ! ( She runs off again.) Juan. Hem! the disciple seems to seize the mode sooner than the matter. Teaching virtue with this prickly pear may only teach the youngsters to use a new weapon; as your teaching orthodoxy with fagots may only bring up a fashion of roasting. Dios ! my remarks grow too pregnant, — my wits get a plethora by solitary feeding on the produce of my own wisdom. 13 194 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. (As he puts up his knife again, Hinda comes rum ning back , and crying, “ Our Queen ! our Queen !” Juan adjusts his garments and his lute, while Hinda turns to meet Fedalma, who wears a Moorish dress, with gold ornaments, her black hair hanging round her in plaits, a white turban on her head, a dagger by her side. She carries a scarf on her left arm, which she holds up as a shade.) Fed alma (patting Hinda’s head). How now, wild one ? You are hot and panting. Go to my tent, and help Nouna to plait reeds. (Hinda kisses Fedalma’s hand, and runs off. Fed alma advances towards Juan, who kneels to take up the edge of her cymar, and kisses it.) Juan. How is it with you, lady ? You look sad. Fed alma. Oh, I am sick at heart. The eye of day, The insistent summer sun, seems pitiless, Shining in all the barren crevices Of weary life, leaving no shade, no dark, Where I may dream that hidden waters lie; As pitiless as to some shipwrecked man, Who, gazing from his narrow shoal of sand On the wide unspecked round of blue and blue, Sees that full light is errorless despair. The insects’ hum that slurs the silent dark Startles, and seems to cheat me, as the tread Of coming footsteps cheats the midnight watcher Who holds her heart and waits to hear them pause, And hears them never pause, but pass and die. Music sweeps by me as a messenger THE SPANISH GYPSY. Carrying a message that is not for me. The very sameness of the hills and sky Is obduracy, and the lingering hours Wait round me dumbly, like superfluous slaves, Of whom I want naught but the secret news They are forbid to tell. And, Juan, you — You, too, are cruel — would be over-wise In judging your friend’s needs, and choose to hide Something I crave to know. Juan. I, lady ? Fed alma. You. Juan. I never had the virtue to hide aught, Save what a man is whipped for publishing. I’m no more reticent than the voluble air, — Dote on disclosure,—never could contain The latter half of all my sentences, But for the need to utter the beginning. My lust to tell is so importunate That it abridges every other vice, And makes me temperate for wailt of time. I dull sensation in the haste to say ’T is this or that, and choke report with surmise. Judge, then, dear lady, if I could be mute When but a glance of yours had bid me speak. Fed alma. Nay, sing such falsities ! —you mock me worse By speech that gravely seems to ask belief. You are but babbling in a part you play To please my father. Oh, ’t is well meant, say you Pity for woman’s weakness. Take my thanks. 196 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Juan. Thanks angrily bestowed are red-hot coin Burning your servant’s palm. Fed alma. Deny it not, You know how many leagues this camp of ours Lies from Bedmar, — what mountains lie between, Could tell me if you would about the Duke, — That he is comforted, sees how he gains By losing the Zincala, finds how slight The thread Fedalma made in that rich web, A Spanish noble’s life. No, that is false! He never would think lightly of our love. Some evil has befallen him, — he’s slain, — Has sought for danger and has beckoned death Because I made all life seem treachery. Tell me the worst, — be merciful, — no worst, Against the hideous painting of my fear, Would not show like a better. Juan. If I speak, Will you believe your slave ? For truth is scant; And where the appetite is still to hear And not believe, falsehood would stint it less. How say you ? Does your hunger’s fancy choose The meagre fact ? Fedalma (seating herself on the ground ). Yes, yes, the truth, dear Juan. Sit now, and tell me all. Juan. That all is naught. I can unleash my fancy if you wish And hunt for phantoms: shoot an airy guess THE SPANISH GYPSA. 19 4 And bring down airy likelihood, — some lie Masked cunningly to look like royal truth And cheat the shooter, while King Fact goes free, Or else some image of reality That doubt will handle and reject as false. Ask for conjecture, — I can thread the sky Like any swallow, but, if you insist, On knowledge that would guide a pair of feet Eight to Bedmar, across the Moorish bounds, A mule that dreams of stumbling over stones Is better stored. Fed alma. And you have gathered naught About the border wars ? No news, no hint Of any rumors that concern the Duke, — Humors kept from me by my father ? Juan. None. Your father trusts no secrets to the echoes. Of late his movements have been hid from all Save those few hundred picked Zincali breasts He carries with him. Think you he ? s a man To let his projects slip from out his belt, Then whisper him who haps to find them strayed To be so kind as keep his counsel well ? Why, if he found me knowing aught too much, He would straight gag or strangle me, and say, “ Poor hound ! it was a pity that his bark Could chance to mar my plans : he loved my daughter, — The idle hound had naught to do but love, So followed to the battle and got crushed.” • Fed alma (holding out her hand, which J uan kisses). Good Juan, I could have no nobler friend. You J d ope your veins and let your life-blood out POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. To save another’s pain, yet hide the deed With jesting, —say, ’t was merest accident, A sportive scratch that went by chance too deep, - And die content with men’s slight thought of you, Finding your glory in another’s joy. Juan. Dub not my likings virtues, lest they get A drug-like taste, and breed a nausea. Honey’s not sweet, commended as cathartic. Such names are parchment labels upon gems Hiding their color. What is lovely seen Priced in a tariff ? — lapis lazuli, Such bulk, so many drachmas : amethysts Quoted at so much; sapphires higher still. The stone like solid heaven in its blueness Is what I care for, not its name or price. So, if I live or die to serve my friend, ’T is for my love, — ’t is for my friend alone, And not for any rate that friendship bears In heaven or on earth. Nay, I romance, — I talk of Roland and the ancient peers. In me’t is hardly friendship, only lack Of a substantial self that holds a weight; So I kiss larger things and roll with them. Fedalma. Nay, you will never hide your soul from me; I’ve seen the jewel’s flash, and know ’tis there, Muffle it as you will. That foam-like talk Will not wash out a fear which blots the good Your presence brings me. Oft I’m pierced afresh Through all the pressure of my selfish griefs By thought of you. It was a rash resolve Made you disclose yourself when you kept watch THE SPANISH GYPSY. 199 About the terrace wall: — your pity leaped Seeing my ills alone and not your loss, Self-doomed to exile. Juan, you must repent. ’T is not in nature that resolve, which feeds On strenuous actions, should not pine and die In these long days of empty listlessness. Juan. Repent ? Not I. Repentance is the weight Of indigested meals eat yesterday. ’T is for large animals that gorge on prey, Not for a honey-sipping butterfly. I am a thing of rhythm and redondillas, — The momentary rainbow on the spray Made by the thundering torrent of men’s lives: No matter whether I am here or there ; I still catch sunbeams. And in Africa, Where melons and all fruits, they say, grow large. Fables are real, and the apes polite, A poet, too, may prosper past belief: I shall grow epic, lit e the Florentine, And sing the founding of our infant state, Sing the Zincalo’s Carthage. Fed alma. Africa! Would we were there ! Under another heaven, In lands where neither love nor memory Can plant a selfish hope, — in lands so far I should not seem to see the outstretched arms That seek me, or to hear the voice that calls. I should feel distance only and despair; So rest forever from the thought of bliss, And wear my weight of life’s great chain unstruggliug Juan, if I could know he would forget,— 200 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Nay, not forget, forgive me, — be content That I forsook him for no joy, but sorrow; For sorrow chosen rather than a joy That destiny made base ! Then he would taste No bitterness in sweet, sad memory, And I should live unblemished in his thought, Hallowed like her who dies an unwed bride. Our words have wings, but fly not where we would. Gould mine but reach him, Juan! Juan. Speak but the wish, My feet have wings, — I ’ll be your Mercury. I fear no shadowed perils by the way. No man will wear the sharpness of his sword On me. Nay, I’m a herald of the Muse, Sacred for Moors and Spaniards. I will go, — Will fetch you tidings for an amulet. But stretch not hope too strongly towards that mark As issue of my wandering. Given, I cross Safely the Moorish border, reach Bedmar : Fresh counsels may prevail there, and the Duke Being absent in the field, I may be trapped. Men who are sour at missing larger game May wing a chattering sparrow for revenge. It is a chance no further worth the note Than as a warning, lest you feared worse ill If my return were stayed. I might be caged; They would not harm me else. Untimely death, The red auxiliary of the skeleton, Has too much work on hand to think of me ; Or, if he cares to slay me, I shall fall Choked with a grape-stone for economy. The likelier chance is that I go and come, Bringing you comfort back. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 201 Fed alma (starts from her seat and walks to a little distance, standing a few moments with her loach to¬ wards J u an, then she turns round quickly, and goes towards him). No, Juan, no! Those yearning words come from a soul infirm, Crying and struggling at the pain of bonds Which yet it would not loosen. He knows all, -— All that he needs to know: I said farewell: I stepped across the cracking earth and knew ’T would yawn behind me. I must walk right on. No, Juan, I will win naught by risking you : The possible loss would poison hope. Besides, ? T were treachery in me : my father wills That we — all here — should rest within this camp. If I can never live, like him, on faith In glorious morrows, I am resolute. While he treads painfully with stillest step And beady brow, pressed hieath the weight of arms, Shall I, to ease my fevered restlessness, Raise peevish moans, shattering that fragile silence ? No! On the close-thronged spaces of the earth A battle rages : Fate has carried me J Mid the thick arrows : I will keep my stand, — Not shrink and let the shaft pass by my breast To pierce another. Oh, ’t is written large The thing I have to do. But you, dear Juan, Renounce, endure, are brave, unurged by aught Save the sweet overflow of your good will. (She seats herself again.') Juan. Nay, I endure naught worse than napping sheep, When nimble birds uproot a fleecy lock To line their nest with. See ! your bondsman, Queen, 202 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The minstrel of your court, is featherless ; Deforms your presence by a moulting garb; Shows like a roadside bush culled of its buds. Yet, if your graciousness will not disdain A poor plucked songster, — shall he sing to you ? Some lay of afternoons, — some ballad strain Of those who ached once but are sleeping now Under the sun-warmed flowers ? ’T will cheat the time. Fed alma. Thanks, Juan, later, when this hour is passed. My soul is clogged with self; it could not float On with the pleasing sadness of your song. Leave me in this green spot, but come again, — Come with the lengthening shadows. Juan. Then your slave Will go to chase the robbers. Queen, farewell! Fedalma. Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness i [While Juan sped along the stream, there came From the dark tents a ringing joyous shout That thrilled Fedalma with a summons grave Yet welcome too. Straightway she rose and stood, All languor banished, with a soul suspense, Like one who waits high presence, listening. Was it a message, or her father’s self That made the camp so glad ? It was himself! She saw him now advancing, girt with arms That seemed like idle trophies hung for show Beside the weight and fire of living strength That made his frame. He glanced with absent triumph. As one who conquers in some field afar THE SPANISH GYPSY. 203 And bears off unseen spoil. But nearing her, His terrible eyes intense sent forth, new rays,— A sudden sunshine where the lightning was ’Twixt meeting dark. All tenderly he laid His hand upon her shoulder; tenderly, His kiss upon her brow.] Zarca. My royal daughter! Fed alma. Father, I joy to see your safe return. Zarca. Nay, I but stole the time, as hungry men Steal from the morrow’s meal, made a forced march, Left Hassan as my watch-dog, all to see My daughter, and to feed her famished hope With news of promise. Fedalma. Is the task achieved That was to be the herald of our flight ? Zarca. Not outwardly, but to my inward vision Things are achieved when they are well begun. The perfect archer calls the deer his own While yet the shaft is whistling. His keen eye Never sees failure, sees the mark alone. You have heard naught, then, — had no messenger ? Fedalma. I, father ? no : each quiet day has fled Like the same moth, returning with slow wing, And pausing in the sunshine. Zarca. It is well. You shall not long count days in weariness. 204 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. iCre the full moon has waned again to new, We shall reach Almerla : Berber ships Will take us for their freight, and we shall go With plenteous spoil, not stolen, bravely won By service done on Spaniards. Bo you shrink ? Are you aught less than a Zincala ? Fed alma. No; But I am more. The Spaniards fostered me. Zarca. They stole you first, and reared you for the flames. I found you, rescued you, that you might live A true Zincala’s life; else you were doomed. Your bridal bed had been the rack. Fed alma (in a low tone). They meant —* To seize me ? — ere he came ? Zarca. Yes, I know all. They found your chamber empty. Fedalma (eagerly). Then you know, — ( Checking herself .) Father, my soul would be less laggard, fed With fuller trust. Zarca. My daughter, I must keep The Arab’s secret. Arabs are our friends, Grappling for life with Christians who lay waste Granada’s valleys, and with devilish hoofs Trample the young green corn, with devilish play Fell blossomed trees, and tear up well-pruned vines: Cruel as tigers to the vanquished brave, THE SPANISH GYPSY. 205 They wring out gold by oaths they mean to break; Take pay for pity and are pitiless; Then tinkle bells above the desolate earth, And praise their monstrous gods, supposed to love The flattery of liars. I will strike The full-gorged dragon. You, my child, must watch The battle with a heart, not fluttering Hut duteous, firm-weighted by resolve, Choosing between two lives, like her who holds A dagger which must pierce one of two breasts, And one of them her father’s. Nay, you divine, - I speak not closely, but in parables; Put one for many. Fedalma (collecting herself J and looking firmly at Zarca). Then it is your will That I ask nothing ? Zarca. You shall know enough To trace the sequence of the seed and flower. El Zagal trusts me, rates my counsel high: He, knowing I have won a grant of lands Within the Berber’s realm, wills me to be The tongue of his good cause in Africa, So gives us furtherance in our pilgrimage For service hoped, as well as service done In that great feat of which I am the eye, And my three hundred Gypsies the best arm. More, I am charged by other noble Moors With messages of weight to Telemsan. Ha, your eye flashes. Are you glad ? Fedalma. Yes, glad That men are forced to honor a Zincalo. 206 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Zarca. Oh fighting for dear life men choose their swords For cutting only, not for ornament. What naught but Nature gives, man takes perforce Where she bestows it, though in vilest place. Can he compress invention out of pride, Make heirship do the work of muscle, sail Towards great discoveries with a pedigree ? Sick men ask cures, and Nature serves not hers Daintily as a feast. A blacksmith once Founded a dynasty and raised on high The leathern apron over armies spread Between the mountains like a lake of steel. Fed alma ( bitterly ). To be contemned, then, is fair augury. That pledge of future good at least is ours. Zarca. Let men contemn us : ’t is such blind contempt That leaves the winged broods to thrive in warmth Unheeded, till they fill the air like storms. So we shall thrive, — still darkly shall draw force Into a new and multitudinous life That likeness fashions to community, Mother divine of customs, faith, and laws. ’T is ripeness, ’t is fame’s zenith that kills hope. Huge oaks are dying, forests yet to come Lie in the twigs and rotten-seeming seeds. Fedalma. And our Zincali ? Under their poor husk Do you discern such seed ? You said our band Was the best arm of some hard enterprise; They give out sparks of virtue, then, and show There’s metal in their earth ? THE SPANISH GYPSY. 207 Zarca. Ay, metal fine In my brave Gypsies. Not the lithest Moor Has lither limbs for scaling, keener eye To mark the meaning of the farthest speck That tells of change ; and they are disciplined By faith in me, to such obedience As needs no spy. My scalers and my scouts Are to the Moorish force they ’re leagued withal As bow-string to the bow ; while I their chief Command the enterprise and guide the will Of Moorish captains, as the pilot guides With eye-instructed hand the passive helm. For high device is still the highest force, And he who holds the secret of the wheel May make the rivers do what work he would. With thoughts impalpable we clutch men’s souls, Weaken the joints of armies, make them fly Like dust and leaves before the viewless wind. Tell me what’s mirrored in the tiger’s heart, I ’ll rule that too. Fed alma (wrought to a glow of admiration ). 0 my imperial father ! ’T is where there breathes a mighty soul like yours That men’s contempt is of good augury. Zarca (seizing both Fedalma’s hands , and looking at her searchingly ). And you, my daughter, are you not the child Of the Zincalo ? Does not his great hope Thrill in your veins like shouts of victory ? ’T is a vile life that like a garden pool Lies stagnant in the round of personal lores; That has no ear save for the tickling lute 208 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Set to small measures, — deaf to all the beats Of that large music rolling o’er the world: A miserable, petty, low-roofed life, That knows the mighty orbits of the skies Through naught save light or dark in its own cabin. The very brutes will feel the force of kind And move together, gathering a new soul, — The soul of multitudes. Say now, my child, You will not falter, not look back and long For unfledged ease in some soft alien nest. The crane with outspread wing that heads the file Pauses not, feels no backward impulses: Behind it summer was, and is no more ; Before it lies the summer it will reach Or fall in the mid-ocean. And you no less Must feel the force sublime of growing life. New thoughts are urgent as the growth of wings ; The widening vision is imperious As higher members bursting the worm’s sheath. You cannot grovel in the worm’s delights: You must take winged pleasures, winged pains. Are you not steadfast ? Will you live or die For aught below your royal heritage ? To him who holds the flickering brief torch That lights a beacon for the perishing, Aught else is crime. Are you a false Zincala? Fed alma. Father, my soul is weak, the mist of tears Still rises to my eyes, and hides the goal Which to your undimmed sight is clear and changeless* But if I cannot plant resolve on hope It will stand firm on certainty of woe. I choose the ill that is most like to end With my poor being Hopes have precarious life. THE SPANISH GYPSA. 209 They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off In vigorous growth and turned to rottenness. But faithfulness can feed on suffering, And knows no disappointment. Trust in me! If it were needed, this poor trembling hand Should grasp the torch, — strive not to let it fall Though it were burning down close to my flesh, No beacon lighted yet: through the damp dark I should still hear the cry of gasping swimmers. Father, I will be true ! Zarca. I trust that word. And, for your sadness, —you are young, — the bruiso Will leave no mark. The worst of misery Is when a nature framed for noblest things Condemns itself in youth to petty joys, And, sore athirst for air, breathes scanty life Gasping from out the shallows. You are saved From such poor doubleness. The life we choose Breathes high, and sees a full-arched firmament. Our deeds shall speak like rock-hewn messages, Teaching great purpose to the distant time. Now I must hasten back. I shall but speak To Nadar of the order he must keep In setting watch and victualling. The stars And the young moon must see me at my post. Nay, rest you here. Farewell, my younger self,— Strong-hearted daughter ! Shall I live in you When the earth covers me ? Fed alma. My father, death Should give your will divineness, make it strong W ith the beseechings of a mighty soul 14 210 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. That left its work unfinished. Kiss me now: ( They embrace, and she adds tremulously as they part,) And when you see fair hair be pitiful. ( Exit Zarca.) (Fedalma seats herself on the bank, leans her head forward, and covers her face with her drapery. While she is seated thus, Hinda comes from the bank, with a branch of musk roses in her hand. Seeing Fedalma with head bent and covered, she pauses, and begins to move on tiptoe.) Hinda. Our Queen ! Can she be crying ? There she sits As I did every day when my dog Saad Sickened and yelled, and seemed to yell so loud After we ’d buried him, I oped his grave. (She comes forward on tiptoe, kneels at Fed alma’s feet, and embraces them. Fedalma uncovers her head.) Fedalma. Hinda! what is it ? Hinda. Queen, a branch of roses, — So sweet, you ’ll love to smell them. ’T was the last. I climbed the bank to get it before Tralla, And slipped and scratched my arm. But I don’t mind. You love the roses, — so do I. I wish The sky would rain down roses, as they rain From off the shaken bush. Why will it not ? Then all the valley would be pink and white And soft to tread on. They would fall as light As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be Like sleeping and yet waking, all at once! Over the sea, Queen, where we soon shall go. Will it rain roses ? THE SPANISH GYPSY. 211 Fedalma. No, my prattler, no! It never will rain roses : when we want To have more roses we must plant more trees. But you want nothing, little one, — the world Just suits you as it suits the tawny squirrels. Come, you want nothing. Hinda. Yes, I want more berries,— Bed ones, — to wind about my neck and arms When I am married, — on my ankles too I want to wind red berries, and on my head. Fedalma. Who is it you are fond of ? Tell me, now. Hinda. 0 Queen, you know! It could be no one else But Ismael. He catches birds, — no end ! Knows where the speckled fish are, scales the rocks, And sings and dances with me when I like. How should I marry and not marry him ? Fedalma. Should you have loved him, had he been a Moor, Or white Castilian ? Hinda ( starting to her feet , then kneeling again). Are you angry, Queen ? Say why you will think shame of your poor Hinda ? She’d sooner be a rat and hang on thorns To parch until the wind had scattered her, Than be an outcast, spit at by her tribe. Fedalma. Hinda, I know you are a good Zincala. But would you part from Ismael ? leave him now 212 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. If your chief bade you, — said it was for good To all your tribe that you must part from him ? Hinda ( giving a sharp cry). Ah, will he say so ? Fed alma (almost fierce in her earnestness). Nay, child, answer me. Could you leave Ismael ? get into a boat And see the waters widen ’twixt you two Till all was water and you saw him not, And knew that you would never see him more ? If’t was your chief’s command, and if he said Your tribe would all be slaughtered, die of plague, Of famine, — madly drink each other’s blood .... Hinda (trembling). 0 Queen, if it is so, tell Ismael. Fedalma. You would obey, then ? part from him forever ? Hinda. How could we live else ? vfith our brethren lost ? No marriage feast ? The day would turn to dark. Zincali cannot live without their tribe. I must obey ! Poor Ismael — poor Hinda! But will it ever be so cold and dark ? Oh, I would sit upon the rocks and cry, And cry so long that I could cry no more : Then I should go to sleep. Fedalma. No, Hinda, no! Thou never shalt be called to part from him- I will have berries for thee, red and black, THE SPANISH GYPSY. 213 And I will be so glad to see thee glad, That earth will seem to hold enough of joy To outweigh all the pangs of those who part. Be comforted, bright eyes. See, I will tie These roses in a crown, for thee to wear. Hind A (clapping her hands , while Fed alma puts the roses on her head). Oh, I ? m as glad as many little foxes, — I will find Ismael, and tell him all. (She inins off.) Fedalma (alone). She has the strength I lack. Within her world The dial has not stirred since first she woke: No changing light has made the shadows die, And taught her trusting soul sad difference. For her, good, right, and law are all summed up In what is possible ; life is one web Where love, joy, kindred, and obedience Lie fast and even, in one warp and woof With thirst and drinking, hunger, food, and sleep, She knows no struggles, sees no double path: Her fate is freedom, for her will is one With the Zincalo’s law, the only law She ever knew. For me — oh, I have fire within, But on my will there falls the chilling snow Of thoughts that come as subtly as soft flakes, Yet press at last with hard and icy weight. I could be firm, could give myself the wrench And walk erect, hiding my life-long wound, If I but saw the fruit of all my pain With that strong vision which commands the soul, And makes great awe the monarch of desire. But now I totter, seeing no far goal: I tread the rocky pass, and pause and grasp, 214 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Guided by flashes. When my father comes, And breathes into my soul his generous hope, — P>y his own greatness making life seem great, As the clear heavens bring sublimity, And show earth larger, spanned by that blue vast, — Resolve is strong : I can embrace my sorrow, Nor nicely weigh the fruit; possessed with need Solely to do the noblest, though it failed, — Though lava streamed upon my breathing deed And buried it in night and barrenness. But soon the glow dies out, the warrior’s music That vibrated as strength through all my limbs Is heard no longer; over the wide scene There’s naught but chill gray silence, or the hum And fitful discord of a vulgar world. Then I sink helpless, — sink into the arms Of all sweet memories, and dream of bliss : See looks that penetrate like tones ; hear tones That flash looks with them. Even now I feel Soft airs enwrap me, as if yearning rays Of some far presence touched me with their warmth And brought a tender murmuring. [While she muse A figure came from out the olive-trees That bent close-whispering ’twixt the parted hills Beyond the crescent of thick cactus : paused At sight of her; then slowly forward moved With careful step, and gently said, “ Fed alma \” Fearing lest fancy had enslaved her sense, She quivered, rose, but turned not. Soon again: “ Fedalma, it is Silva ! ” Then she turned. He, with bared head and arms entreating, beamed Like morning on her. Vision held her still One moment, then with gliding motion swift. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 215 Inevitable as the melting stream’s, She found her rest within his circling arms.] Fed alma. O love, you are living, and believe in me I Don Silva. Once more we are together. Wishing dies, — Stifled with bliss. Fedalma. You did not hate me, then, — Think me an ingrate, — think my love was small That I forsook you ? Don Silva. Dear, I trusted you As holy men trust God. You could do naught That was not pure and loving, — though the deed Might pierce me unto death. You had less trust, Since you suspected mine. ’T was wicked doubt. Fedalma. Nay, when I saw you hating me the fault Seemed in my lot, — the poor Zincala’s, — her On whom you lavished all your wealth of love As price of naught but sorrow. Then I said, u ’T is better so. He will be happier ! ” But soon that thought, struggling to be a hope^ Would end in tears. Don Silva. It was a cruel thought. Happier! True misery is not begun Until I cease to love thee. Fedalma. Silva I 216 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Don Silya. Mine ! (They stand a moment or two in silence .) Fed alma. I thought I had so much to tell you, love, — Long eloquent stories, — how it all befell, — The solemn message, calling me away To awful spousals, where my own dead joy, A conscious ghost, looked on and saw me wed. Don Silya. Oh that grave speech would cumber our quick souls Like bells that waste the moments with their loudness. Fed alma. And if it all were said, ’t would end in this, That I still loved you w T hen I fled away. ’T is no more wisdom than the little birds Make known by their soft twitter when they feel Each other’s heart beat. Don Silva. All the deepest things We now say with our eyes and meeting pulse: Our voices need but prattle. Fed alma. I forget All the drear days of thirst in this one draught. (Again they are silent for a few moments .) But tell me how you came ? Where are your guards ? Is there no risk ? And now I look at you, This garb is strange .... Don Silva. i came alone. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 217 Fed alma. Alone ? Don Silya. Yes, — fled in secret. There was no way else To find you safely. Fed alma (letting one hand fall and moving a little from him with a look of sudden terror , while he clasps her more firmly by the other arm ). Silva! Don Silva. It is naught. Enough that I am here. Now we will cling. What power shall hinder us ? You left me once To set your father free. That task is done, And you are mine again. I have braved all That I might find you, see your father, win His furtherance in bearing you away To some safe refuge. Are we not betrothed ? Fedalma. Oh I am trembling ’neath the rush of thoughts That come like griefs at morning, — look at me With awful faces, from the vanishing haze That momently had hidden them. Don Silva. Fedalma. What thoughts ? Forgotten burials. There lies a grave Between this visionary present and the past. Our joy is dead, and only smiles on us A loving shade from out the place of tombs. 218 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Don Silva. Fe^alma, your love faints, else aught that parts ua Would seem but superstition. Love supreme Defies all sophistry, — risks avenging fires. 7 V ave risked all things. But your love is faint. >'edalma ( retreating a little , but keeping his hand)* Silva, if now between us came a sword, Severed my arm, and left our two hands clasped, This poor maimed arm would feel the clasp till death. What parts us is a sword .... (Zarca has been advancing in the background . He has drawn his sword , and now thrusts the naked blade between them. Silva lets go Fedalma’s hand , and grasps his sword. Fe- dalma, startled at first, stands firmly , as if prepared to interpose between her father and the Duke) Zarca. Ay, ? t is a sword That parts the Spanish noble and the true Zincala: A sword that was baptized in Christian blood, When once a band, cloaking with Spanish law Their brutal rapine, would have butchered us. And then outraged our women. (Resting the point of his sword on the ground.) My lord Duke, I was a guest within your fortress once Against my will; had entertainment too, — Much like a galley slave’s. Pray, have you sought The poor Zincalo’s camp, to find return For that Castilian courtesy ? or rather To make amends for all our prisoned toil By this great honor of your unasked presence? “ Ay, ’t is a sword That parts the Spanish noble and the true Zincala.” THE SPANISH GYPSY. 219 I Don Silya. Chief, I have brought no scorn to meet your scorn. I came because love urged me, — that deep love I bear to her whom you call daughter, — her Whom I reclaim as my betrothed bride. Zarca. Doubtless you bring for final argument Your men-at-arms who will escort your bride Y Don Silva. I came alone. The only force I bring Is tenderness. Nay, I will trust besides In all the pleadings of a father’s care To wed his daughter as her nurture bids. And for your tribe, — whatever purposed good Your thoughts may cherish, I will make secure With the strong surety of a noble’s power : My wealth shall be your treasury. Zarca (with irony ). My thanks! To me you offer liberal price ; for her Your love’s beseeching will be force supreme. She will go with you as a willing slave, Will give a word of parting to her father, Wave farewells to her tribe, then turn and say: “Now, my lord, I am nothing but your bride; I am quite culled, >ave neither root nor trunk, Now wear me with your plume ! ” Don Silva. Yours is the wrong Feigning in me one thought of her below The highest homage. I would make my rank POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The pedestal of her worth ; a noble’s sword, A noble’s honor, her defence; his love The life-long sanctuary of her womanhood. Zarca. I tell you, were you King of Aragon, And won my daughter’s hand, your higher rank Would blacken her dishonor. ’T were excuse If you were beggared, homeless, spit upon, And so made even with her people’s lot; For then she would be lured by want, not wealth, To be a wife amongst an alien race To whom her tribe owes curses. Don Silva. Such blind hate Is fit for beasts of prey, but not for men. My hostile acts against you should but count As ignorant strokes against a friend unknown; And for the wrongs inflicted on your tribe By Spanish edicts or the cruelty Of Spanish vassals, am I criminal ? Love comes to cancel all ancestral hate, Subdues all heritage, proves that in mankind Union is deeper than division. Zarca. A y» Such love is common: I have seen it oft, — Seen many women rend the sacred ties That bind them in high fellowship with men, Making them mothers of a people’s virtue; Seen them so levelled to a handsome steed That yesterday was Moorish property, To-day is Christian, — wears new-fashioned gear, THE SPANISH GYPSY. 221 Neighs to new feeders, and will prance alike Under all banners, so the banner be A master’s who caresses. Such light change You call conversion; we Zincali call Conversion infamy. Our people’s faith Is faithfulness ; not the rote-learned belief That we are heaven’s highest favorites, But the resolve that, being most forsaken Among the sons of men, we will be true Each to the other, and our common lot. You Christians burn men for their heresy : Our vilest heretic is that Zincala Who, choosing ease, forsakes her people’s woes. The dowry of my daughter is to be Chief woman of her tribe, and rescue it. A bride with such a dowry has no match Among the subjects of that Catholic Queen Who would have Gypsies swept into the sea Or else would have them gibbeted. Don Silva. And you, Fedalma’s father,—you who claim the dues Of fatherhood, — will offer up her youth To mere grim idols of your fantasy ! Worse than all Pagans, with no oracle To bid you murder, no sure good to win, Will sacrifice your daughter, —to no god, But to a hungry fire within your soul, Mad hopes, blind hate, that like possessing fiends Shriek at a name! This sweetest virgin, reared As garden flowers, to give the sordid world Glimpses of perfectness, you snatch and thrust On dreary wilds; in visions mad, proclaim Semiramis of Gypsy wanderers ; 222 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Doom, with a broken arrow in her heart, To wait for death ’mid squalid savages : For what ? You would be savior of your tribe? So said Fedalma’s letter ; rather say, You have the will to save by ruling men, But first to rule; and with that flinty will You cut your way, though the first cut you give Gash your child’s bosom. (While Silva has been speaking, with growing passion, Fed alma has placed herself between him and her father.) Zarca (with calm irony). You are loud, my lord 1 You only are the reasonable man; You have a heart, I none. Fedalma’s good Is what you see, you care for; while I seek No good, not even my own, urged on by naught But hellish hunger, which must still be fed Though in the feeding it I suffer throes. Fume at your own opinion as you will: I speak not now to you, but to my daughter. If she still calls it good to mate with you, To be a Spanish duchess, kneel at court, And hope her beauty is excuse to men When women whisper, “ She was a Zincala ; 99 If she still calls it good to take a lot That measures joy for her as she forgets Her kindred and her kindred’s misery, Nor feels the softness of her downy couch Marred by remembrance that she once forsook The place that she was born to, — let her go ! If life for her still lies in alien love, That forces her to shut her soul from truth As men in shameful pleasures shut out day j THE SPANISH GYPSY. 228 And death, for her, is to do rarest deeds, Which, even failing, leave new faith to men, The faith in human hearts, — then, let her go ! She is my only offspring; in her veins She bears the blood her tribe has trusted in; Her heritage is their obedience, And if I died, she might still lead them forth To plant the race her lover now reviles Where they may make a nation, and may rise To grander manhood than his race can show j Then live a goddess, sanctifying oaths, Enforcing right, and ruling consciences, By law deep-graven in exalting deeds, Through the long ages of her people’s life. If she can leave that lot for silken shame, For kisses honeyed by oblivion, — The bliss of drunkards or the blank of fools, — Then let her go ! You Spanish Catholics, When you are cruel, base, and treacherous, For ends not pious, tender gifts to God, And for men’s wounds offer much oil to churches: We have no altars for such healing gifts As soothe the heavens for outrage done on earth. We have no priesthood and no creed to teach That the Zincala who might save her race And yet abandons it, may cleanse that blot, And mend the curse her life has been to men, By saving her own soul. Her one base choice Is wrong unchangeable, is poison shed Where men must drink, shed by her poisoning will. Now choose, Fedalma! [But her choice was made. Slowly, while yet her father spoke, she moved From where oblique with deprecating arms 224 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. She stood between the two who swayed her heart: Slowly she moved to choose sublimer pain; Yearning, yet shrinking ; wrought upon by awe, Her own brief life seeming a little isle Remote through visions of a wider world With fates close-crowded; firm to slay her joy That cut her heart with smiles beneath the knife, Like a sweet babe foredoomed by prophecy. She stood apart, yet near her father : stood Hand clutching hand, her limbs all tense with will That strove against her anguish, eyes that seemed a soul Yearning in death towards him she loved and left. He faced her, pale with passion and a will Fierce to resist whatever might seem strong And ask him to submit: he saw one end, — He must be conqueror ; monarch of his lot And not its tributary. But she spoke Tenderly, pleadingly.] Fed alma. My lord, farewell! ’T was well we met once more; now we must part. I think we had the chief of all love’s joys Only in knowing that we loved each other. Don Silva. I thought we loved with love that clings till death, Clings as brute mothers bleeding to their young, Still sheltering, clutching it, though it were dead; Taking the death-wound sooner than divide. i thought we loved so. Fed alma. Silva, it is fate. Great Fate has made me heiress of this woe. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 225 You must forgive Fedalma all her debt: She is quite beggared: if she gave herself, ’T would be a self corrupt with stifled thoughts Of a forsaken better. It is truth My father speaks : the Spanish noble’s wife Would be a false Zincala. I will bear The heavy trust of my inheritance. See, ’t was my people’s life that throbbed in me > An unknown need stirred darkly in my soul, And made me restless even in my bliss. Oh, all my bliss was in our love ; but now I may not taste it: some deep energy Compels me to choose hunger. Dear, farewell I I must go with my people. [She stretched forth Her tender hands, that oft had lain in his, The hands he knew so well, that sight of them Seemed like their touch. But he stood still as death,’ Locked motionless by forces opposite : llis frustrate hopes still battled with despair; His will was prisoner to the double grasp Of rage and hesitancy. All the travelled way Behind him, he had trodden confident, Ruling munificently in his thought This Gypsy father. Now the father stood Present and silent and unchangeable As a celestial portent. Backward lay The traversed road, the town’s forsaken wall, The risk, the daring; all around him now Was obstacle, save where the rising flood Of love close pressed by anguish of denial Was sweeping him resistless; save where she Gazing stretched forth her tender hands, that hurt Like parting kisses. Then at last he spoke.] 15 226 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Don Silva. No, I can never take those hands in mine, Then let them go forever ! Fed alma. It must be. We may not make this world a paradise By walking it together hand in hand, With eyes that meeting feed a double strength. We must be only joined by pains divine Of spirits blent in mutual memories. Silva, our joy is dead. Don Silva. But love still lives, And has a safer guard in wretchedness. Fedalma, women know no perfect love : Loving the strong, they can forsake the strong; Man clings because the being whom he loves Is weak and needs him. I can never turn And leave you to your difficult wandering; Know that you tread the desert, bear the storm Shed tears, see terrors, faint with weariness, Yet live away from you. I should feel naught But your imagined pains: in my own steps See your feet bleeding, taste your silent tears, And feel no presence but your loneliness. No, I will never leave you! Zarca. My lord Duke, I have been patient, given room for speech, Bent not to move my daughter by command, Save that of her own faithfulness. But now, All further words are idle elegies THE SPANISH GYPSY. 227 Unfitting times of action. You are here With the safe conduct of that trust you showed Coming alone to the Zincalo’s camp. I would fain meet all trust with courtesy As well as honor; but my utmost power Is to afford you Gypsy guard to-night Within the tents that keep the northward lines, And for the morrow, escort on your way Back to the Moorish bounds. Don Silva. What if my words Were meant for deeds, decisive as a leap Into the current ? It is not my wont To utter hollow words, and speak resolves Like verses banded in a madrigal. I spoke in action first: I faced all risks To find Fedalma. Action speaks again When I, a Spanish noble, here declare That I abide with her, adopt her lot, Claiming alone fulfilment of her vows As my betrothed wife. Fedalma (wresting herself from him , and standing opposite with a look of terror ). Nay, Silva, nay! You could not live so; spring from your high place . . .. Don Silva. Yes, I have said it. And you, chief, are bound By her strict vows, no stronger fealty Being left to cancel them. Zarca. Strong words, my lord! Sounds fatal as the hammer-strokes that shape 228 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The glowing metal: they must shape your life. That you will claim my daughter is to say That you will leave your Spanish dignities, Your home, your wealth, your people, to become A true Zincalo; share your wanderings, And be a match meet for my daughter’s dower By living for her tribe; take the deep oath That binds you to us ; rest within our camp, Nevermore hold command of Spanish men, And keep my orders. See, my lord, you lock A many-winding chain, — a heavy chain. Don Silva. I have but one resolve : let the rest follow. What is my rank ? To-morrow it will be filled By one who eyes it like a carrion bird, Waiting for death. I shall be no more missed Than waves are missed that leaping on the rock Find there a bed and rest. Life’s a vast sea That does its mighty errand without fail, Panting in unchanged strength though waves are chang¬ ing. And I have said it. She shall be my people, And where she gives her life I will give mine. She shall not live alone, nor die alone. I will elect my deeds, and be the liege, Not of my birth, but of that good alone I have discerned and chosen. * Zarca. Our poor faith Allows not rightful choice, save of the right Our birth has made for us. And you, my lord, Can still defer your choice, for some days’ space. I march perforce to-night; you, if you will, THE SPANISH GYPSY. 229 Under Zincalo guard, can keep the heights With silent Time that slowly opes the scroll Of change inevitable ; taking no oath Till my accomplished task leaves- me at large To see you keep your purpose or renounce it. Don Silva. Chief, do I hear amiss, or does your speech King with a doubleness which I had held Most alien to you ? You would put me off, And cloak evasion with allowance ? No ! We will complete our pledges. I will take That oath which binds not me alone, but you, To join my life forever with Fedalma’s. Zarca. I wrangle not, — time presses. But the oath Will leave you that same post upon the heights; Pledged to remain there while my absence lasts. You are agreed, my lord ? Don Silva. Agreed to all. Zarca. Then I will give tlie summons to our camp. We will adopt you as a brother now, In the Zincalo’s fashion. [Exit Zaro^, (Silva takes Fedalma’s hands.) Fed alma. 0 my lord! I think the earth is trembling: naught is firm. Some terror chills me with a shadowy grasp. Am I about to wake, or do you breathe Hero in this valley ? Did the outer air 230 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Vibrate to fatal words, or did they shake Only my dreaming soul ? Yon a Zincalo? Don Silva. Is then your love too faint to raise belief Up to that height ? Fed alma. Silva, had you but said That you would die, — that were an easy task For you who oft have fronted death in war. But so to live for me, —you, used to rule, — You could not breathe the air my father breathes His presence is subjection. Go, my lord! Fly, while there yet is time. Wait not to speak. I will declare that I refused your love, — Would keep no vows to you .... Don Silva. It is too late. You shall not thrust me back to seek a good Apart from you. And what good ? Why, to face Your absence, — all the want that drove me forth To work the will of a more tyrannous friend Than any uncowled father. Life at least Gives choice of ills ; forces me to defy, But shall not force me to a weak defiance. The power that threatened you, to master me, That scorches like a cave-liid dragon’s breath, Sure of its victory in spite of hate, Is what I last will bend to, — most defy. Your father has a chieftain’s ends, befitting A soldier’s eye and arm: were he as strong As the Moors’ prophet, yet the prophet too Had younger captains of illustrious ume Among the infidels. Let him command, THE SPANISH GYPSY. 231 For when your father speaks, I shall hear you. Life were no gain if you were lost to me : I would straight go and seek the Moorish walls, Challenge their bravest, and embrace swift death. The Glorious Mother and her pitying Son Are not Inquisitors, else their heaven were hell. Perhaps they hate their cruel worshippers, And let them feed on lies. I T1 rather trust They love you and have sent me to defend you. Fed alma. I made my creed so, just to suit my mood And smooth all hardship, till my father came And taught my soul by ruling it. Since then I cannot weave a dreaming happy creed Where our love’s happiness is not accursed. My father shook my soul awake. And you, — W'hat the Zincala may not quit for you, I cannot joy that you should quit for her. Don Silva. Oh, Spanish men are not a petty band Where one deserter makes a fatal breach. Men, even nobles, are more plenteous Than steeds and armor; and my weapons left Will find new hands to wield them. Arrogance Makes itself champion of mankind, and holds God’s purpose maimed for one hidalgo lost. See where your father comes and brings a crowd Of witnesses to hear my oath of love ; The low red sun glows on them like a fire; This seems a valley in some strange new world, Where we have found each other, my Fedalma. • . BOOK IV. AJTOW twice the day had sunk from off the hills A-M While Silva kept his watch there, with the band Of strong Zincali. When the sun was high He slept, then, waking, strained impatient eyes To catch the promise of some moving form That might be Juan, —Juan who went and came To soothe two hearts, and claimed naught for his own ? Friend more divine than all divinities, Quenching his human thirst in others’ joy. All through the lingering nights and pale chill dawns Juan had hovered near; with delicate sense, As of some breath from every changing mood, Had spoken or kept silence ; touched his lute To hint of melody, or poured brief strains That seemed to make all sorrows natural, Hardly worth weeping for, since life was short, And shared by loving souls. Such pity welled Within the minstrel’s heart of light-tongued Juan For this doomed man, who with dream-shrouded eyes Had stepped into a torrent as a brook, Thinking to ford it and return at will, And now waked helpless in the eddying flood, Hemmed by its raging hurry. Once that thought, How easy wandering is, how hard and strict The homeward way, had slipped from reverie Into low-murmured song; — (brief Spanish song ’Scaped him as sighs escape from other men.) 234 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Push off the boat, Quit, quit the shore, The stars will guide us back: — 0 gathering cloud, 0 wide, wide sea, O waves that keep no track ! On through the pines ! The pillared woods, Where silence breathes sweet breath: — O labyrinth, O sunless gloom, The other side of death / Such plaintive song had seemed to please the Duke, — Had seemed to melt all voices of reproach To sympathetic sadness ; but his moods Had grown more fitful with the growing hours, And this soft murmur had the iterant voice Of heartless Echo, whom no pain can move To say aught else than we have said to her. He spoke, impatient: “ Juan, cease thy song. Our whimpering poesy and small-paced tunes Have no more utterance than the cricket’s chirp For souls that carry heaven and hell within.” Then Juan, lightly : “ True, my lord, I chirp For lack of soul; some hungry poets chirp For lack of bread. ’T were wiser to sit down And count the star-seed, till I fell asleep With the cheap wine of pure stupidity.” And Silva, checked by courtesy: “Nay, Juan, Were speech once good, thy song were best of speech. I meant, all life is but poor mockery : Action, place, power, the visible wide world Are tattered masquerading of this self. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 235 This pulse of conscious mystery: all change, Whether to high or low, is change of rags. But for her love, I would not take a good Save to burn out in battle, in a flame Of madness that would feel no mangled limbs, And die not knowing death, but passing straight — Well, well, to other flames — in purgatory.’’ Keen Juan’s ear caught the self-discontent That vibrated beneath the changing tones Of life-contemning scorn. Gently he said: “But with her love, my lord, the world deserves A higher rate ; were it but masquerade, The rags were surely worth the wearing ?” “ Yes. No misery shall force me to repent That I have loved her.” So with wilful talk, Fencing the wounded soul from beating winds Of truth that came unasked, companionship Made the hours lighter. And the Gypsy guard, Trusting familiar Juan, were content, At friendly hint from him, to still their songs And busy jargon round the nightly fires. Such sounds the quick-conceiving poet knew Would strike on Silva’s agitated soul Like mocking repetition of the oath That bound him in strange clanship with the tribe Of human panthers, flame-eyed, lithe-limbed, fierce ; Unrecking of time-woven subtleties And high tribunals of a phantom-world. But the third day, though Silva southward gazed Till all the shadows slanted towards him, gazed Till all the shadows died, no Juan came. Now in his stead came loneliness, and thought Inexorable, fastening with firm chain 236 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. What is to what hath been. Now awful Night, Ancestral mystery of mysteries, came down Past all the generations of the stars, And visited his soul with touch more close Than when he kept that younger, briefer watch Under the church’s roof beside his arms, And won his knighthood. Well, this solitude, This company with the enduring universe, Whose mighty silence carrying all the past Absorbs our history as with a breath, Should give him more assurance, make him strong In all contempt of that poor circumstance Called human life, — customs and bonds and laws Wherewith men make a better or a worse, Like children playing on a barren mound Feigning a thing to strive for or avoid. Thus Silva urged, answering his many-voiced self, Whose hungry needs, like petulant multitudes, Lured from the home that nurtured them to strength, Made loud insurgence. Thus he called on Thought, On dexterous Thought, with its swift alchemy To change all forms, dissolve all prejudice Of man’s long heritage, and yield him up A crude fused world to fashion as he would. Thought played him double; seemed to wear the yoke Of sovereign passion in the noonday height Of passion’s prevalence ; but served anon As tribune to the larger soul which brought Loud-mingled cries from every human need That ages had instructed into life. He could not grasp Night’s black blank mystery And wear it for a spiritual garb Creed-proof: he shuddered at its passionless touch. On solitary souls, the universe THE SPANISH GYPSY. 287 Looks down inhospitable ; the human heart Finds nowhere shelter but in human kind. He yearned towards images that had breath in them, That sprang warm palpitant with memories From streets and altars, from ancestral homes, Banners and trophies and the cherishing rays Of shame and honor in the eyes of man. These made the speech articulate of his soul, That could not move to utterance of scorn Save in words bred by fellowship; could not feel Resolve of hardest constancy to love, The firmer for the sorrows of the loved, Save by concurrent energies high-wrought To sensibilities transcending sense Through closest citizenship, and long-shared pains Of far-off laboring ancestors. In vain He sought the outlaw’s strength, and made a right Contemning that hereditary right Which held dim habitations in his frame, Mysterious haunts of echoes old and far, The voice divine of human loyalty. At home, among his people, he had played In sceptic ease with saints and images And thunders of the Church that deadened fell Through screens of priests plethoric. Awe, unscathed By deeper trespass, slept without a dream. But for such trespass as made outcasts, still The ancient Furies lived with faces new And lurked with lighter slumber than of old O’er Catholic Spain, the land of sacred oaths That might be broken. Now the former life Of close-linked fellowship, the life that made His full-formed self, as the impregnant sap Of vears successive frames the full-branched tree, — 1/ 7 238 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Was present in one whole; and that great trust His deed had broken turned reproach on him From faces of all witnesses who heard His uttered pledges; saw him hold high place Centring reliance ; use rich privilege That bound him like a victim-nourished god By tacit covenant to shield and bless; Assume the Cross and take his knightly oath Mature, deliberate : faces human all, And some divine as well as human: His Who hung supreme, the suffering Man divine Above the altar ; Hers, the Mother pure Whose glance informed his masculine tenderness With deepest reverence ; the Archangel armed, Trampling man’s enemy : all heroic forms That fill the world of faith with voices, hearts, And high companionship, to Silva now Made but one inward and insistent world With faces of his peers, with court and hall And deference, and reverent vassalage And filial pieties, — one current strong, The warmly mingled life-blood of his mind, Sustaining him even when he idly played With rules, beliefs, charges, and ceremonies As arbitrary fooling. Such revenge Is wrought by the long travail of mankind On him who scorns it, and would shape his life Without obedience. But his warrior’s pride Would take no wounds save on the breast. He faced The fatal crowd : “ I never shall repent! If I have sinned my sin was made for me By men’s perverseness. There’s no blameless life Save for the passionless, no sanctities But have the selfsame roof and props with crime. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 239 Or have their roots close interlaced with vileness. If I had loved her less, been more a craven, I had kept my place and won the easy praise Of a true Spanish noble. But I loved, And, loving, dared, — not Death the warrior But Infamy that binds and strips and holds The brand and lash. I have dared all for her. She was my good, — what other men call heaven And for the sake of it bear penances; Nay, some of old were baited, tortured, flayed To win their heaven. Heaven was their good, She, mine. And I have braved for her all fires Certain or threatened ; for I go away Beyond the reach of expiation, — far away From sacramental blessing. Does God bless No outlaw ? Shut his absolution fast In human breath ? Is there no God for me Save Him whose cross I have forsaken ? — Well, I am forever exiled, — but with her. She is dragged out into the wilderness; I, with my love, will be her providence. I have a right to choose my good or ill, A right to damn myself! The ill is mine. I never will repent! ” . . . . Thus Silva, inwardly debating, all his ear Turned into audience of a twofold mind; For even in tumult full-fraught consciousness Had plenteous being for a Self aloof That gazed and listened, like a soul in dreams Weaving the wondrous tale it marvels at. But oft the conflict slackened, oft strong Love With tidal energy returning laid All other restlessness : Fedalma came And with her visionary presence brought What seemed a waking in the warm spring morn. 240 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. He still was pacing on the stony earth Under the deepening night; the fresh-lit fires Were flickering on dark forms and eyes that met His forward and his backward tread; but she, She was within him, making his whole self Mere correspondence with her image : sense, In all its deep recesses where it keeps The mystic stores of ecstasy, was transformed To memory that killed the hour, like wine. Then Silva said: u She, by herself, is life. What was my joy before I loved her, — what Shall Heaven lure us with, love being lost ? ” — For he was young. But now around the fires The Gypsy band felt freer; Juan’s song Was no more there, nor Juan’s friendly ways For links of amity ’twixt their wild mood And this strange brother, this pale Spanish duke, Who with their Gypsy badge upon his breast Took readier place within their alien hearts As a marked captive, who would fain escape. And Nadar, who commanded them, had known The prison in Bedmar. So now, in talk Foreign to Spanish ears, they said their minds, Discussed their chief’s intent, the lot marked out For this new brother. Would he wed their queen ? And some denied, saying their queen would wed A true Zincalo duke, —one who would join Their bands in Telemsdn. But others thought Young Hassan was to wed her; said their chief Would never trust this noble of Castile, Who in his very swearing was forsworn. And then one fell to chanting, in wild notes Recurrent like the moan of outshut winds. The adjuration they were wont to use THE SPANISH GYPSY. 241 To any Spaniard who would join their tribe: Words of plain Spanish, lately stirred anew And ready at new impulse. Soon the rest, Drawn to the stream of sound, made unison Higher and lower, till the tidal sweep Seemed to assail the Duke and close him round With force demonic. All debate till now Had wrestled with the urgence of that oath Already broken; now the newer oath Thrust its loud presence on him. He stood still, Close baited by loud-barking thoughts, — heree hounds Of that Supreme, the irreversible Past. The Zincali sing. Brother , hear and take the curse , Curse of soul’s and body’s throes , If you hate not all our foes , Cling not fast to all our woes , Turn a false Zincalo ! May you be accurst By hunger and by thirst , • By spiked pangs , Starvation’s fangs Clutching you alone When none but peering vultures hear your moan. Curst by burning hands, Curst by aching brow , When on sea-wide sands Fever lays you low ; By the maddened brain When the running water glistens, And the deaf ear listens , listens, Prisoned fire within the vein, On the tongue and on the lip 16 242 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Not a sip From the earth or skies ; Hot the desert lies Pressed into your anguish, Narrowing earth and narrowing sky Into lonely misery. Lonely may you languish Through the day and through the night, Hate the darkness, hate the light, Pray and find no ear, Feel no brother near, Till on death you cry, Death who passes by, And anew you groan, Scaring the vultures all to leave you living lone Curst by soul’s and body’s throes If you love the dark men’s foes, Cling not fast to all the dark men’s woes, Turn a false Zincalo ! Swear to hate the cruel cross, The silver cross ! Glittering, laughing at the blood Shed below it in a flood When it glitters over Moorish porches ; Laughing at the scent of flesh When it glitters where the fagot scorches, Burning life’s mysterious mesh : Blood of wandering Israel, Blood of wandering Ismael, Blood, the drink of Christian scorn, Blood of wanderers, sons of morn Where the life of men began : Swear to hate the cross ! — Sign of all the wanderers’ foes, Sign of all the wanderers’ woes, — THE SPANISH GYPSY. 24 a Else its curse light on you / Else the curse upon you light Of its sharp red-sworded might . May it lie a blood-red blight On all things within your sight: On the white haze of the morn, On the meadows and the corn, On the sun and on the moon, On the clearness of the noon, On the darkness of the night. May it fill your aching sight, — Ped-cross sword and sivord blood-red, —* Till it press upon your head, Till it lie ivithin your brain, Piercing sharp, a cross of pain, Till it lie upon your heart, Turning hot, a cross of fire, Till from sense in every part Pains have clustered like a stinging swarm In the cross’s form, And you see naught but the cross of blood, And you feel naught but the cross of fire : Curst by all the cross’s throes If you hate not all our foes, Cling not fast to all our woes, Turn a false Zincalo ! A fierce delight was in the Gypsies’ chant: They thought no more of Silva, only felt Like those broad-chested rovers of the night Who pour exuberant strength upon the air. To him it seemed as if the hellish rhythm, Revolving in long curves that slackened now, Now hurried, sweeping round again to slackness, Would cease no more. What use to raise his voice, 244 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Or grasp his weapon ? He was powerless now, With these new comrades of his future, — he Who had been wont to have his wishes feared And guessed at as a hidden law for men. Even the passive silence of the night That left these howlers mastery, even the moon, Rising and staring with a helpless face, Angered him. He was ready now to fly At some loud throat, and give the signal so For butchery of himself. But suddenly The sounds that travelled towards no foreseen close Were torn right off and fringed into the night; Sharp Gypsy ears had caught the onward strain Of kindred voices joining in the chant. All started to their feet and mustered close, Auguring long-waited summons. It was come: The summons to set forth and join their chief. Eedalma had been called, and she was gone Under safe escort, Juan following her: The camp — the women, children, and old men — Were moving slowly southward on the way To Almeria. Silva learned no more. He marched perforce ; what other goal was his Than where Eedalma was ? And so he marched Through the dim passes and o’er rising hills, Not knowing whither, till the morning came. The Moorish hall in the castle at Bedmdr. The morning twilight dimly shows stains of blood on the white mar¬ ble floor ; yet there has been a careful restoration of order among the sparse objects of furniture. Stretched on mats lie three corpses , the faces bare , the bodies THE SPANISH GYPSY. 245 covered with mantles. A little way off, with rolled matting for a pillow, lies Zarca, sleeping. His chest and arms are bare ; his weapons, turban, mail-sliirt, and other upper garments lie on the floor beside him. In the outer gallery Zincali are pacing, at intervals, past the arched openings. Zarca (half rising and resting his elbow on the pillow while he looks round). The morning! I have slept for full three hours ; Slept without dreams, save of my daughter’s face. Its sadness waked me. Soon she will be here, Soon must outlive the worst of all the pains Bred by false nurture in an alien home, — As if a lion in fangless infancy Learned love of creatures that with fatal growth It scents as natural prey, and grasps and tears, Yet with heart-hunger yearns for, missing them. She is a lioness. And they — the race That robbed me of her — reared her to this pain. He will be crushed and torn. There was no help. But she, my child, will bear it. For strong souls Live like fire-hearted suns to spend their strength In furthest striving action ; breathe more free In mighty anguish than in trivial ease. Her sad face waked me. I shall meet it soon Waking .... {He rises and stands looking at the corpses . { As now I look on these pale dead, These blossoming branches crushed beneath the fall Of that broad trunk to which I laid my axe With fullest foresight. So will I ever face In thought beforehand to its utmost reach The consequences of my conscious deeds; So face them after, bring them to my bed, 246 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. And never drug my soul to sleep with lies. If they are cruel, they shall be arraigned By that true name; they shall be justified By my high purpose, by the clear-seen good That grew into my vision as I grew, And makes my nature’s function, the full pulse Of my Zincalo soul. The Catholics, Arabs, and Hebrews have their god apiece To fight and conquer for them, or be bruised Like Allah, and yet keep avenging stores Of patient wrath. Zincali have no god Who speaks to them and calls them his, unless I Zarca carry living in my frame The power divine that chooses them and saves. Life and more life unto the chosen, death To all things living that would stifle them ! So speaks each god that makes a nation strong; Burns trees and brutes and slays all hindering men. The Spaniards boast their god the strongest now; They win most towns by treachery, make most slaves. Burn the most vines and men, and rob the most. I fight against that strength, and in my turn Slay these brave young who duteously strove. Cruel ? ay, it is cruel. But, how else ? To save, we kill; each blow we strike at guilt Hurts innocence with its shock. Men might well seek For purifying rites ; even pious deeds Need washing. But my cleansing waters flow Solely from my intent. (He turns away from the bodies to where his gar¬ ments lie , but does not lift them.) And she must suffer! But she has looked on the unchangeable and bowed Her head beneath the yoke. And she will walk No more in chilling twilight, for to-day THE SPANISH GYPSY. 247 Rises our sun. The difficult night is past; We keep the bridge no more, but cross it; march Forth to a land where all our wars shall be With greedy obstinate plants that will not yield Fruit for their nurture. All our race shall come From north, west, east, a kindred multitude, And make large fellowship, and raise inspired The shout divine, the unison of resolve. So I, so she, will see our race redeemed. And their keen love of family and tribe Shall no more thrive on cunning, hide and lurk In petty arts of abject hunted life, But grow heroic in the sanctioning light, And feed with ardent blood a nation’s heart. That is my work : and it is well begun. On to achievement! (He takes up the mail-shirt , and looks at it , then throws it doivn again?) No, I ’ll none of you! To-day there ’ll be no fighting. A few hours, And I shall doff these garments of the Moor: Till then I will walk lightly and breathe high. Sephardo (appearing at the archway leading into the outer gallery). You bade me wake you .... Zarca. Welcome, Doctor; see, With that small task I did but beckon you To graver work. You know these corpses ? Sephardo. Yes, I would they were not corpses. Storms will lay The fairest trees and leave the withered stumps 248 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT, Phis Alvar and the Duke were of one age. And very loving friends. I minded not The sight of Don Diego’s corpse, for death Gave him some gentleness, and had he lived I had still hated him. But this young Alvar Was doubly noble, as a gem that holds Rare virtues in its lustre, and his death Will pierce Don Silva with a poisoned dart. This fair and curly youth was Arias, A son of the Pachecos ; this dark face — Zarca. Enough! you know their names. I had divined That they were near the Duke, most like had served My daughter, were her friends. So rescued them From being flung upon the heap of slain. Beseech you, Doctor, if you owe me aught As having served your people, take the pains To see these bodies buried decently. And let their names be writ above their graves, As those of brave young Spaniards who died well. I needs must bear this womanhood in my heart, — Bearing my daughter there. For once she prayed,— ? T was at our parting, — u When you see fair hair Be pitiful.” And I am forced to look On fair heads living and be pitiless. Your service, Doctor, will be done to her. Sephardo. A service doubly dear. For these young dead, And one less happy Spaniard who still lives, Are offerings which I wrenched from out my heart, Constrained by cries of Israel: while my hands Rendered the victims at command, my eyes Closed themselves vainly, as if vision lay THE SPANISH GYPSY. 249 Through those poor loopholes only. I will go And see the graves dug by some cypresses. Zarca. Meanwhile the bodies shall rest here. Farewell. (Exit Sephardo.) Nay, ’t is no mockery. She keeps me so From hardening with the hardness of my acts. This Spaniard shrouded in her love, — I would He lay here too that I might pity him. Morning. — The Plaga Santiago in Bedmdr. A crowd of townsmen forming an outer circle: within , Zincali and Moorish soldiers drawn up round the central space. On the higher ground in front of the church a stake with fagots heaped , and at a little distance a gibbet. Moorish music. Zarca enters , wearing his gold neck¬ lace with the Gypsy badge of the flaming torch over the dress of a Moorish captain , accompanied by a small band of armed Zincali , who fall aside and range themselves with the other soldiers while he takes his stand in front of the stake and gibbet. The music ceases , and there is expectant silence. Zarca. Men of Bedmar, well-wishers, and allies, Whether of Moorish or of Hebrew blood, Who, being galled by the hard Spaniard’s yoke, Have welcomed our quick conquest as release, T, Zarca, the Zincalo chieftain, hold By delegation of the Moorish King Supreme command within this town and fort. Nor will I, with false show of modesty, 250 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Profess myself unworthy of this post, For so I should but tax the giver’s choice. And, as ye know, while I was prisoner here, Forging the bullets meant for Moorish hearts, But likely now to reach another mark, I learned the secrets of the town’s defence, Caught the loud whispers of your discontent, And so could serve the purpose of the Moor As the edge’s keenness serves the weapon’s weight. And my Zincali, lynx-eyed, lithe of limb, Tracked out the high Sierra’s hidden path, Guided the hard ascent, and were the first To scale the walls and brave the showering stones. In brief, I reached this rank through service done By thought of mine and valor of my tribe, Yet hold it but in trust, with readiness To lay it down; for I and my Zincali Will never pitch our tents again on land The Spaniard grudges us : we seek a home Where we may spread and ripen like the corn By blessing of the sun and spacious earth. Ye wish us well, I think, and are our friends ? Crowd. Long life to Zarca and his strong Zincali! Zarca. Now, for the cause of our assembling here. ’T was my command that rescued from your hands That Spanish Prior and Inquisitor Whom in fierce retribution you had bound And meant to burn, tied to a planted cross. I rescued him with promise that his death Should be more signal in its justice, — mads Public in fullest sense, and orderly. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 251 Here, then, you see the stake, — slow death by fire; And there a gibbet, — swift death by the cord. Now hear me, Moors and Hebrews of Bedmar, Our kindred by the warmth of Eastern blood! Punishing cruel wrong by cruelty We copy Christian crime. Vengeance is justs Justly we rid the earth of human fiends Who carry hell for pattern in their souls. But in high vengeance there is noble scorn: It tortures not the torturer, nor gives Iniquitous payment for iniquity. The great avenging angel does not crawl To kill the serpent with a mimic fang; He stands erect, with sword of keenest edge That slays like lightning. So too we will slay The e-uel man; slay him because he works W oe to mankind. And I have given command To pile these fagots, not to burn quick flesh, But for a sign of that dire wrong to men Which arms our wrath with justice. While, to show This Christian worshipper that we obey A better law than his, he shall be led Straight to the gibbet and to swiftest death. For I, the chief of the Zincali, will, My people shed no blood but what is shed In heat of battle or in judgment strict With calm deliberation on the right. Such is my will, and if it please you, — welL Crowd. Tt pleases us. Long life to Zarca! Zarca. Hark! The bell is striking, and they bring even now The prisoner irom the fort. What, Nadar ? 252 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Nadar (has appeared, cutting the crowd, and advance ing toward Zarca till he is near enough to speak in an undertone ). Chief, I have obeyed your word, have followed it As water does the furrow in the rock. Zarca. Your band is here ? Nadar. Yes, and the Spaniard too. Zarca. *T was so I ordered. Nadar. Ay, but this sleek hound, Who slipped his collar off to join the wolves, Has still a heart for none but kennelled brutes. He rages at the taking of the town, Says all his friends are butchered-, and one corpse He stumbled on, — well, I would sooner be A dead Zincalo’s dog, and howl for him, Than be this Spaniard. Rage has made him whiter. One townsman taunted him with his escape, And thanked him for so favoring us. Zarca. Enough 1 You gave him my command that he should wait Within the castle, till I saw him ? Nadar. Yes. But he defied me, broke away, ran loose I know not whither; he may soon be here. I came to warn you, lest he work us harm. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 2oo Zarca. Fear not, I know the road I travel by : Tts turns are no surprises. He who rules Must humor full as much as he commands; Must let men vow impossibilities ; Grant folly’s prayers that hinder folly’s wish And serve the ends of wisdom. Ah, he comes! [Sweeping like some pale herald from the dead, Whose shadow-nurtured eyes, dazed by full light. See naught without, but give reverted sense To the soul’s imagery, Silva came, The wondering people parting wide to get Continuous sight of him as he passed en, — This high hidalgo, who through blooming years Had shone on men with planetary calm, Believed in with all sacred images And saints that must be taken as they were, Though rendering meagre service for men’s praise, Bareheaded now, carrying an unsheathed sword. And on his breast, where late he bore the cross, Wearing the Gypsy badge, his form aslant, Driven, it seemed, by some invisible chase, Right to the front of Zarca. There he paused.] Don Silva. Chief, you are treacherous, cruel, devilish, — Relentless as a curse that once let loose From lips of wrath, lives bodiless to destroy, And darkly traps a man in nets of guilt Which could not weave themselves in open day Before his eyes. Oh, it was bitter wrong To hold this knowledge locked within your mind, To stand with waking eyes in broadest light, And see me, dreaming, shed my kindred’s blood. 254 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. T is horrible that men with hearts and hands Should smile in silence like the firmament And see a fellow-mortal draw a lot On which themselves have written agony! Such injury has no redress, no healing Save what may lie in stemming further ill. Poor balm for maiming! Yet I come to claim it. Zarca. First prove your wrongs, and I will hear your claim. Mind, you are not commander of Bedmar, Nor duke, nor knight, nor anything for me, Save one Zincalo, one of my subject tribe, Over whose deeds my will is absolute. You chose that lot, and would have railed at me Had I refused it you: I warned you first What oaths you had to take .... Don Silva. You never warned me That you had linked yourself with Moorish men To take this town and fortress of Bedmar, — Slay my near kinsmen, him who held my place, Our house’s heir and guardian, — slay my friend, My chosen brother, — desecrate the church Where once my mother held me in her arms, Making the holy chrism holier With tears of joy that fell upon my brow! You never warned .... Zarca. I warned you of your oath. You shrank not, were resolved, were sure your place Would never miss you, and you had your will. I am no priest, and keep no consciences: I keep my own place and my own command. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 255 Don Silva. 1 said my place would never miss me — yes! A thousand Spaniards died on that same day And were not missed; their garments clothed the backs That else were bare .... Zarca. But you were just the one Above the thousand, had you known the die That fate was throwing then. Don Silva. You knew it, — you! With fiendish knowledge, smiling at the end. You knew what snares had made my flying steps Murderous; you let me lock my soul with oaths Which your acts made a hellish sacrament. I say, you knew this as a fiend would know it, And let me damn myself. Zarca. The deed was done Before you took your oath, or reached our camp, — Done when you slipped in secret from the post ’T was yours to keep, and not to meditate If others might not fill it. For your oath, What man is he who brandishes a sword In darkness, kills his friends, and rages then Against the night that kept him ignorant ? Should I, for one unstable Spaniard, quir My steadfast ends as father and as chief; Renounce my daughter and my people’s hope, Lest a deserter should be made ashamed ? Don Silva. Your daughter, — O great God ! I vent but madness* The past will never change. I come to stem 256 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Harm that may yet be hindered. Chief — this stake — Tell me who is to die! Are you not bound Yourself to him you took in fellowship ? The town is yours; let me but save the blood That still is warm in men who were my .... Zarca. They bring the prisoner. Peace! [Zarca waved his arm With head averse, in peremptory sign That ’twixt them now there should be space and silence. Most eyes had turned to where the prisoner Advanced among his guards; and Silva too Turned eagerly, all other striving quelled By striving with the dread lest he should see His thought outside him. And he saw it there. The prisoner was Father Isidor: The man whom once he fiercely had accused As author of his misdeeds, — whose designs Had forced him into fatal secrecy. The imperious and inexorable Will Was yoked, and he who had been pitiless To Silva’s love, was led to pitiless death. 0 hateful victory of blind wishes, — prayers Which hell had overheard and swift fulfilled ! The triumph was a torture, turning all The strength of passion into strength of pain. Remorse was born within him, that dire birth Which robs all else of nurture, — cancerous, Forcing each pulse to feed its anguish, changing All sweetest residues of a healthy life To fibrous clutches of slow misery. Silva had but rebelled, — he was not free; A.nd all the subtle cords that bound his soul THE SPANISH GYPSY. 257 Were tightened by the strain of one rash leap Made in defiance. He accused no more, But dumbly shrank before accusing throngs Of thoughts, the impetuous recurrent rush Of all his past-created, unchanged self. The Father came bareheaded, frocked, a rope Around his neck, — but clad with majesty, The strength of resolute undivided souls Who, owning law, obey it. In his band He bore a crucifix, and praying, gazed Solely on that white image. But his guards Parted in front, and paused as they approached The centre, where the stake was. Isidor Lifted his eyes to look around him, — calm, Prepared to speak last words of willingness To meet his death,—last words of faith unchanged, That, working for Christ’s kingdom, he had wrought Righteously. But his glance met Silva’s eyes And drew him. Even images of stone Look living with reproach on him who maims, Profanes, defiles them, Silva penitent Moved forward, would have knelt before the man Who still was one with all the sacred things That came back on him in their sacredness, Kindred, and oaths, and awe, and mystery. But, at the sight, the Father thrust the cross With deprecating act before him, and his face Pale-quivering, flashed out horror like white light Flashed from the angel’s sword that dooming drave The sinner to the wilderness. He spoke.] Father Isidor. Bach from me, traitorous and accursed man! Defile not me, who grasp the holiest, 17 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. With touch or breath ! Thou foulest murderer J Fouler than Cain who struck liis brother down In jealous rage, thou for thy base delight Hast oped the gate for wolves to come and tear Uncounted brethren, weak and strong alike, The helpless priest, the warrior all unarmed Against a faithless leader: on thy head Will rest the sacrilege, on thy soul the blood. These blind Zincali, misbelievers, Moors, Are but as Pilate and his soldiery; Thou, Judas, weighted with that heaviest crime Which deepens hell! I warned you of this end. A traitorous leader, false to God and man, A knight apostate, you shall soon behold Above your people’s blood the light of flames Kindled by you to burn me, — burn the flesh Twin with your father’s. 0 most wretched man! Whose memory shall be of broken oaths, — Broken for lust, — I turn away mine eyes Forever from you. See, the stake is ready: And I am ready too. Don Silva. It shall not be ! (liaising his sword he rushes in front of the guards who are advancing , and impedes them.) If you are human, Chief, hear my demand! Stretch not my soul upon the endless rack Of this man’s torture! Zarca. Stand aside, my lord! Put up your sword. You vowed obedience To me, your chief. It was your latest vow. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 259 Don Silva. No! hew me from the spot, or fasten me Amid the fagots too, if he must burn. Zarca. What should befall that persecuting monk Was fixed before you came : no cruelty, No nicely measured torture, weight for weight Of injury, no luscious-toothed revenge That justifies the injurer by its joy: I seek but rescue and security For harmless men, and such security Means death to vipers and inquisitors. These fagots shall but innocently blaze In sign of gladness, when this man is dead, That one more torturer has left the earth. ’T is not for infidels to burn live men And ape the rules of Christian piety. This hard oppressor shall not die by fire: He mounts the gibbet, dies a speedy death, That, like a transfixed dragon, he may cease To vex mankind. Quick, guards, and clear the path l [As well-trained hounds that hold their fleetness tense In watchful, loving fixity of dark eyes, And move with movement of their master’s will, The Gypsies with a wavelike swiftness met Around the Father, and in wheeling course Passed beyond Silva to the gibbet’s foot, Behind their chieftain. Sudden left alone With weapon bare, the multitude aloof, Silva was mazed in doubtful consciousness, As one who slumbering in the day awakes From striving into freedom, and yet feels His sense half captive to intangible things; Then with a flush of new decision sheathed 260 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. His futile naked weapon, and strode quick To Zarca, speaking witli a voice new-toned, The struggling soul’s hoarse, suffocated cry Beneath the grappling anguish of despair.] Don Silva. Zincalo, devil, blackest infidel! You cannot hate that man as you hate me! Finish your torture,—take me, — lift me up And let the crowd spit at me, — every Moor Shoot reeds at me, and kill me with slow death Beneath the midday fervor of the sun, — Or crucify me with a thieving hound, — Slake your hate so, and I will thank it: spare me Only this man! Zarca. Madman, I hate you not. But if I did, my hate were poorly served By my device, if I should strive to mix A bitterer misery for you than to taste With leisure of a soul in unharmed limbs The flavor of your folly. For my course, It has a goal, and takes no truant path Because of you. I am your Chief : to me You are but a Zincalo in revolt. Don Silva. FTo, I am no Zincalo ! I disown The name I took in madness. Here I tear This badge away. I am a Catholic knight, A Spaniard who will die a Spaniard’s death! [Hark! while he casts the badge upon the ground And tramples on it, Silva hears a shout : Was it a shout that threatened him ? He looked From out the dizzying flames of his own rage THE SPANISH GYPSY. 261 In hope of adversaries, — and he saw above The form of Father Isidor upswung Convulsed with martyr throes ; and knew the shout For wonted exultation of the crowd When malefactors die, — or saints, or heroes. And now to him that white-frocked murdered form Which hanging judged him as its murderer, Turned to a symbol of his guilt, and stirred Tremors till then unwaked. With sudden snatch At something hidden in his breast, he strode Right upon Zarca: at the instant, down Fell the great Chief, and Silva, staggering back, Heard not the shriek of the Zincali, felt Not their fierce grasp, — heard, felt but Zarca* s words Which seemed his soul outleaping in a cry And urging men to run like rival waves Whose rivalry is but obedience. Zarca (as he falls). My daughter ! call her ! Call my daughter! Nadar (supporting Za*rca and crying to the Gypsies who have clutched Silva). Stay l Tear not the Spaniard, tie him to the stake: Hear what the Chief shall bid us,—there is time ! [Swiftly they tied him, pleasing vengeance so With promise that would leave them free to watch Their stricken good, their Chief stretched helplessly Pillowed upon the strength of loving limbs. He heaved low groans, but would not spend his breatL In useless words : he waited till she came, Keeping his life within the citadel Of one great hope. And now around him closed 262 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. (But in wide circle, checked by loving fear) His people all, holding their wails suppressed Lest death believed-in should be over-bold: All life hung on their Chief, — he would not die; His image gene, there were no wholeness left To make a world of for Zincali’s thought. Eager they stood, but hushed; the outer crowd Spoke only in low murmurs, and some climbed And clung with legs and arms on perilous coigns, Striving to see where that colossal life Lay panting, — lay a Titan struggling still To hold and give the precious hidden fire Before the stronger grappled him. Above The young bright morning cast athwart white walls Her shadows blue, and with their clear-cut line, Mildly inexorable as the dial-hand’s Measured the shrinking future of an hour Which held a shrinking hope. And all the while The silent beat of time in each man’s soul Made aching pulses. But the cry, “ She comes ! ” Parted the crowd like waters : and she came. Swiftly as once before, inspired with joy, She flashed across the space and made new light, Glowing upon the glow of evening, So swiftly now she came, inspired with woe, Strong with the strength of all her father’s pain, Thrilling her as with fire of rage divine And battling energy. She knew, — saw all: The stake with Silva bound, — her father pierced,-—* To this she had been born: the second time Her father called her to the task of life. She knelt beside him. Then he raised himself, And on her face there flashed from his the light THE SPANISH GYPSY. 263 As of a star that waned and flames anew In mighty dissolution: ’t was the flame Of a surviving trust, in agony. He spoke the parting prayer that was command, Must sway her will, and reign invisibly.] Zarca. My daughter, you have promised, — you vflll live To save our people. In my garments here I carry written pledges from the Moor : He will keep faith in Spain and Africa. Your weakness may be stronger than my strength, Winning more love. I cannot tell the end. I held my people’s good within my breast. Behold, now I deliver it to you. See, it still breathes unstrangled, — if it dies, Let not your failing will be murderer. Bise, And tell our people now I wait in pain, — I cannot die until I hear them say They will obey you. [Meek, she pressed her lips With slow solemnity upon his brow. Sealing her pledges. Firmly then she rose, And met her people’s eyes with kindred gaze, Dark-flashing, fired by effort strenuous Trampling on pain.] Fed alma. Zincali all, who hear ! Your Chief is dying: I his daughter live To do his dying will. He asks you now To promise me obedience as your Queen, That we may seek the land he won for us, And live the better life for which he toiled. Speak now, and All my father’s dying ear m POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. With promise that you will obey him dead, Obeying me his child. [Straightway arose A shout of promise, sharpening into cries That seemed to plead despairingly with death.] The Zincali. We will obey ! Our Chief shall never die ! We will obey him, —will obey our Queen! [The shout unanimous, the concurrent rush Of many voices, quiring shook the air With multitudinous wave : now rose, now fell, Then rose again, the echoes following slow, As if the scattered brethren of the tribe Had caught afar and joined the ready vow. Then some could hold no longer, but must rush To kiss his dying feet, and some to kiss The hem of their Queen’s garment. But she raised Her hand to hush them. “ Hark ! your Chief may speak Another wish.” Quickly she kneeled again, While they upon the ground kept motionless, With head outstretched. They heard his words ; for now. Grasping at Nadar’s arm, he spoke more loud, As one who, having fought and conquered, hurls His strength away with hurling off his shield.] Zarca. Let loose the Spaniard ! give him back his sword ^ He cannot move to any vengeance more, — His soul is locked ’twixt two opposing crimes. I charge you let him go unharmed and free Now through your midst. [With that he sank again,— His breast heaved strongly tow’rd sharp sudden falls, THE SPANISH GYPSY. 265 And all his life seemed needed for each breath: Yet once he spoke.] My daughter, lay your arm Beneath my head, — so, — bend and breathe on me. I cannot see you more, —the Night is come. Be strong, — remember, — I can only — die. [His voice went into silence, but his breast Heaved long and moaned: its broad strength kept a life That heard naught, saw naught, save what once had been, And what might be in days and realms afar, — Which now in pale procession faded on Toward the thick darkness. And she bent above In sacramental watch to see great Death, Companion of her future, who would wear Forever in her eyes her father’s form. And yet she knew that hurrying feet had gone To do the Chief’s behest, and in her soul He who was once its lord was being jarred With loosening of cords, that would not loose The tightening torture of his anguish. This, — Oh she knew it! — knew it as martyrs knew The prongs that tore their flesh, while yet their tongues Refused the ease of lies. In moments high Space widens in the soul. And so she knelt, Clinging with piety and awed resolve Beside this altar of her father’s life, Seeing long travel under solemn suns Stretching beyond it; never turned her eyes, Y r et felt that Silva passed; beheld his face Pale, vivid, all alone, imploring her Across black waters fathomless. 266 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. And he passed. The Gypsies made wide pathway, shrank aloof As those who fear to touch the thing they hate, Lest hate triumphant, mastering all the limbs, Should tear, bite, crush, in spite of hindering wilL Slowly he walked, reluctant to be safe And bear dishonored life which none assailed; Walked hesitatingly, all his frame instinct With high-born spirit, never used to dread Or crouch for smiles, yet stung, yet quivering With helpless strength, and in his soul convulsed By visions where pale horror held a lamp Over wide-reaching crime. Silence hung round : It seemed the Plaga hushed itself to hear His footsteps and the Chiefs deep dying breath. Eyes quickened in the stillness, and the light Seemed one clear gaze upon his misery. And yet he could not pass her without pause: One instant he must pause and look at her; But with that glance at her averted head, New-urged by pain he turned away and went, Carrying forever with him what he fled, — Her murdered love, —her love, a dear wronged ghost, Facing him, beauteous, ’mid the throngs of hell. O fallen and forsaken ! were no hearts Amid that crowd, mindful of what had been ? — Hearts such as wait on beggared royalty, Or silent watch by sinners who despair ? Silva had vanished. That dismissed revenge Made larger room for sorrow in fierce hearts; And sorrow filled them. For the Chief was dead. The mighty breast subsided slow to calm, Slow from the face the ethereal spirit waned, THE SPANISH GYPSY. 267 As wanes the parting glory from the heights, And leaves them in their pallid majesty. Eedalma kissed the marble lips, and said, “ He breathes no more.” And then a long loud wail Poured out upon the morning, made her light Ghastly as smiles on some fair maniac’s face Smiling unconscious o’er her bridegroom’s corse. The wailing men in eager press closed round, And made a shadowing pall beneath the sun. They lifted reverent the prostrate strength, Sceptred anew by death. Fedalma walked Tearless, erect, following the dead, — her cries Deep smothering in her breast, as one who guides Her children through the wilds, and sees and knows Of danger more than they, and feels more pangs, Yet shrinks not, groans not, bearing in her heart Their ignorant misery and their trust in her. BOOK V. T HE eastward rocks of Almerfa’s bay Answer long farewells of the travelling sun With softest glow as from an inward pulse Changing and flushing: all the Moorish ships Seem conscious too, and shoot out sudden shadows; Their black hulls snatch a glory, and their sails Show variegated radiance, gently stirred Like broad wings poised. Two galleys moored apart Show decks as busy as a home of ants Storing new forage; from their sides the boats Slowly pushed off, anon with flashing oar Make transit to the quay’s smooth-quarried edge, Where thronging Gypsies are in haste to lade Each as it comes with grandames, babes, and wives, Or with dust-tinted goods, the company Of wandering years. Naught seems to lie unmoved, For ’mid the throng the lights and shadows play, And make all surface eager, while the boats Sway restless as a horse that heard the shouts And surging hum incessant. Naked limbs With beauteous ease bend, lift, and throw, or raise High signalling hands. The black-haired mother steps Athwart the boat’s edge, and with opened arms, A wandering Isis outcast from the gods, Leans towards her lifted little one. The boat Full-laden cuts the waves, and dirge-like cries Rise and then fall within it as it moves From high to lower and from bright to dark. Hither and thither, grave white-turbaned Moors Move helpfully, and some bring welcome gifts. 270 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Bright stuffs and cutlery, and bags of seed To make new waving crops in Africa. Others aloof with folded arms slow-eyed Survey man’s labor, saying, “ God is great; ” Or seek with question deep the Gypsies’ root, And whether their false faith, being small, will prove Less damning than the copious false creeds Of Jews and Christians: Moslem subtlety Found balanced reasons, warranting suspense As to whose hell was deepest, — ’t was enough That there was room for all. Thus the sedate. The younger heads were busy with the tale Of that great Chief whose exploits helped the Moor. And, talking still, they shouldered past their friends, Following some lure which held their distant gaze To eastward of the quay, where yet remained A low black tent close guarded all around By armed Zincali. Fronting it above, Raised by stone steps that sought a jutting strand, Fedalma stood and marked with anxious watch Each laden boat the remnant lessening Of cargo on the shore, or traced the course Of Nadar to and fro in hard command Of noisy tumult; imaging oft anew How much of labor still deferred the hour When they must lift the boat and bear away Her father’s coffin, and her feet must quit This shore forever. Motionless she stood, Black-crowned with wreaths of many-shadowed hair; Black-robed, but wearing wide upon her breast Her father’s golden necklace and his badge. Her limbs were motionless, but in her eyes And in her breathing lip’s soft tremulous curve Was intense motion as of prisoned fire Escaping subtly in outleaping thought. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 271 She watches anxiously, and yet she dreams: The busy moments now expand, now shrink To narrowing swarms within the refluent space Of changeful consciousness. For in her thought Already she has left the fading shore, Sails with her people, seeks an unknown land, And bears the burning length of weary days That parching fall upon her father’s hope, Which she must plant and see it wither only,— Wither and die. She saw the end begun. Zincali hearts were not unfaithful: she Was centre to the savage loyalty Which vowed obedience to Zarca dead. But soon their natures missed the constant stress Of his command, that, while it fired, restrained By urgency supreme, and left no play To fickle impulse scattering desire. They loved their Queen, trusted in Zarca’s child, Would bear her o’er the desert on their arms And think the weight a gladsome victory; But that great force which knit them into one, The invisible passion of her father’s soul, That wrought them visibly into its will, And would have bound their lives with permanence, Was gone. Already Hassan and two bands, Drawn by fresh baits of gain, had newly sold Their service to the Moors, despite her call. Known as the echo of her father’s will, To all the tribe, that they should pass with her Straightway to Telemsan. They were not moved By worse rebellion than the wilful wish To fashion their own service ; they still meant To come when it should suit them. But she said. This is the cloud no bigger than a hand, Sure-threatening. In a little while, the tribe 272 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. That was to be the ensign of the race, And draw it into conscious union, Itself would break in small and scattered bands That, living on scant prey, would still disperse And propagate forgetfulness. Brief years, And that great purpose fed with vital fire That might have glowed for half a century, Subduing, quickening, shaping, like a sun, — Would be a faint tradition, flickering low In dying memories, fringing with dim light The nearer dark. Far, far the future stretched Beyond that busy present on the quay, Far her straight path beyond it. Yet she watched To mark the growing hour, and yet in dream Alternate she beheld another track, And felt herself unseen pursuing it Close to a wanderer, who with haggard gaze Looked out on loneliness. The backward years — Oh she would not forget them — would not drink Of waters that brought rest, while he far off Remembered. “ Father, I renounced the joy, — You must forgive the sorrow. 7 ’ So she stood, Her struggling life compressed into that hour, Yearning, resolving, conquering; though she seemed Still as a tutelary image sent To guard her people and to be the strength Of some rock-citadel. Below her sat Slim mischievous Hinda, happy, red-bedecked With row of berries, grinning, nodding oft, And shaking high her small dark arm and hand Responsive to the black-maned Ismael, Who held aloft his spoil, and clad in skin? THE SPANISH GYPSY. 273 Seemed the Boy-prophet of the wilderness Escaped from tasks prophetic. But anon Hinda would backward turn upon her knees, And like a pretty loving hound would bend To fondle her Queen’s feet, then lift her head Hoping to feel the gently pressing palm Which touched the deeper sense. Fedalma knew, — From out the black robe stretched her speaking hand And shared the girl’s content. So the dire hours Burdened with destiny, — the death of hopes Darkening long generations, or the birth Of thoughts undying, — such hours sweep along In their aerial ocean measureless Myriads of little joys, that ripen sweet And soothe the sorrowful spirit of the world, Groaning and travailing with the painful birth Of slow redemption. But emerging now From eastward fringing lines of idling men Quick Juan lightly sought the upward steps Behind Fedalma, and two paces off, With head uncovered, said in gentle tones, Lady Fedalma ! ” — (Juan’s password now Used by no other,) and Fedalma turned, Knowing who sought her. He advanced a step, And meeting straight her large calm questioning gaze, Warned her of some grave purport by a face That told of trouble. Lower still he spoke. Juan. Look from me, lady, towards a moving form That quits the crowd and seeks the lonelier strand, —* A tall and gray-clad pilgrim .... 18 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 274 [Solemnly His low tones fell on her, as if she passed Into religious dimness among tombs, And trod on names in everlasting rest. Lingeringly she looked, and then with voice Deep and yet soft, like notes from some long chord Responsive to thrilled air, said: ] Fed alma It is he! [Juan kept silence for a little space, With reverent caution, lest his lighter grief Might seem a wanton touch upon her pain. But time was urging him with visible flight, Changing the shadows: he must utter all.] Juan. That man was young when last I pressed his hand,— In that dread moment when he left Bedm&r. He has aged since die week has made him gray. And yet 1 knew him —knew the white-streaked hair Before I saw his face, as I should know The tear-dimmed writing of a friend. See now, — Does he not linger, — pause ? — perhaps expect .... [Juan plead timidly : Fedalma’s eyes Flashed; and through all her frame there ran the shod Of some sharp-wounding joy, like his who hastes And dreads to come too late, and comes in time To press a loved hand dying. She was mute And made no gesture : all her being paused In resolution, as some leonine wave That makes a moment's silence ere it leaps.] Juan. He came from Cartliagena, in a boat Too slight tor safety; yon small two-oared boat THE SPANISH GYPSY. 275 Below the rock ; the fisher-boy within Awaits his signal. But the pilgrim waits .... Fed alma. Yes, I will go ! — Father, I owe him this, For loving me made all his misery. And we will look once more, — will say farewell As in a solemn rite to strengthen us For our eternal parting. Juan, stay Here in my place, to warn me were there need. And, Hinda, follow me ! [All men who watched Lost her regretfully, then drew content From thought that she must quickly come again, And filled the time with striving to be near. She, down the steps, along the sandy brink To where he stood, walked firm; with quickened step The moment when each felt the other saw. He moved at sight of her : their glances met; It seemed they could no more remain aloof Than nearing waters hurrying into one. Yet their steps slackened and they paused apart, Pressed backward by the force of memories Which reigned supreme as death above desire. Two paces off they stood and silently Looked at each other. Was it well to speak ? Could speech be clearer, stronger, tell them more Than that long gaze of their renouncing love ? They passed from silence hardly knowing how; It seemed they heard each other’s thought before, j Don Silva. I go to be absolved, to have my life Washed into fitness for an offering To injured Spain. But I have naught to give 276 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. For that last injury to her I loved Better than I loved Spain. I am accurst Above all sinners, being made the curse Of her I sinned for. Pardon! Penitence ! When they have done their utmost, still beyond Out of their reach stands Injury unchanged And changeless. I should see it still in heaven, — Out of my reach, forever in my sight: Wearing your grief, ’t would hide the smiling seraphs I bring no puling prayer, Fedalma, — ask No balm of pardon that may soothe my soul For others’ bleeding wounds: I am not come To say, “ Forgive me : ” you must not forgive, For you must see me ever as I am, — Your father’s .... Fedalma. Speak it not! Calamity Comes like a deluge and o’erfloods our crimes, Till sin is hidden in woe. You — I — we two, Grasping we knew not what, that seemed delight, Opened the sluices of that deep. Don Silva. We two A— Fedalma, you were blameless, helpless. Fedalma. No* It shall not be that you did aught alone. For when we loved I willed to reign in you, And I was jealous even of the day If it could gladden you apart from me. And so, it must be that I shared each deed Our love was root of. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 277 Don Silva. Dear! you share the woe, Nay, the worst dart of vengeance fell on you. Fed alma. Vengeance ! She does but sweep us with her skirts,— She takes large space, and lies a baleful light Devolving with long years, — sees children’s children, Blights them in their prime. Oh, if two lovers leaned To breathe one air and spread a pestilence, They would but lie two livid victims dead Amid the city of the dying. We With our poor petty lives have strangled one That ages watch for vainly. Don Silva. Deep despair Fills all your tcnes as with slow agony. Speak words that narrow anguish to some shape: Tell me what dread is close before you ? Fed alma. None. No dread, but clear assurance of the end. My father held within his mighty frame A people’s life: great futures died with him Never to rise, until the time shall ripe Some other hero with the will to save The lost Zincali. Don Silva. Yet your people’s shout- I heard it — sounded as the plenteous rush Of full fed sources, shaking their wild souls With power that promised sway. 278 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Fed alma. Ah yes, that shout Came from full hearts : they meant obedience. But they are orphaned: their poor childish feet Are vagabond in spite of love, and stray Forgetful after little lures. For me, — I am but as the funeral urn that bears The ashes of a leader. Don Silva. 0 great God! What am I but a miserable brand Lit by mysterious wrath ? I lie cast down A blackened branch upon the desolate ground Where once I kindled ruin. I shall drink No cup of purest water but will taste Bitter with thy lone hopelessness, Fedalma. Fed alma. Nay, Silva, think of me as one who sees A light serene and strong on one sole path Which she will tread till death. He trusted me, and I will keep his trust: My life shall be its temple. I will plant His sacred hope within the sanctuary And die its priestess, — though I die alone, A hoary woman on the altar step, Cold ’mid cold ashes. That is my chief good. The deepest hunger of a faithful heart Is faithfulness. Wish me naught else. And you, You too will live. Don Silva. I go to Rome, to seek The right to use my knightly sword again; THE SPANISH GYPSY. 279 The right to fill my place and live or die So that all Spaniards shall not curse my name. I sat one hour upon the barren rock And longed to kill myself; but then I said, I will not leave my name in infamy, I will not be perpetual rottenness Upon the Spaniard’s air. If I must sink At last to hell, I will not take my stand Among the coward crew who could not bear The harm themselves had done, which others bore. My young life yet may fill some bloody breach, And I will take no pardon, not my own, Not God’s, — no pardon idly on my knees; But it shall come to me upon my feet And in the thick of action, and each deed That carried shame and wrong shall be the sting That drives me higher up the steep of honor In deeds of duteous service to that Spain Who nourished me on her expectant breast, The heir of highest gifts. I will not fling My earthly being down for carrion To fill the air with loathing : I will be The living prey of some fierce noble death That leaps upon me while I move. Aloud I said, “ I will redeem my name,” and then, — I know not if aloud: I felt the words Drinking up all my senses, — “ She still lives. I would not quit the dear familiar earth Where both of us behold the selfsame sun, Where there can be no strangeness ’twixt our thoughts So deep as their communion.” Resolute I rose and walked. — Fedalma, think of me As one who will regain the only life Where he is other than apostate, — one Who seeks but to renew and keep the vows 280 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Of Spanish, knight and noble. But the breach Outside those vows —- the fatal second breach — Lies a dark gulf where I have naught to cast, Not even expiation, — poor pretence, Which changes naught but what survives the past, And raises not the dead. That deep dark gulf Divides us. Fed alma. Yes, forever. We must walk Apart unto the end. Our marriage rite Is our resolve that we will each be true To high allegiance, higher than our love, —■ Our dear young love, — its breath was happiness! But it had grown upon a larger life Which tore its roots asunder. We rebelled,— The larger life subdued us. Yet we are wed; For we shall carry each the pressure deep Of the other’s soul. I soon shall leave the shore The winds to-night will bear me far away. My lord, farewell! [He did not say “ Farewell.” But neither knew that he was silent. She, For one long moment, moved not. They knew naught Save that they parted; for their mutual gaze As with their soul’s full speech forbade their hands To seek each other, — those oft-clasping hands Which had a memory of their own, and went Widowed of one dear touch forevermore. At last she turned and with swift movement passed, Beckoning to Hinda, who was bending low And lingered still to wash her shells, but soon Leaping and scampering followed, while her Queen Mounted the steps again and took her place. Which Juan rendered silently. THE SPANISH GYPSY. 281 And now The press upon the quay was thinned; the ground Was cleared of cumbering heaps, the eager shouts Had sunk, and left a murmur more restrained By common purpose. All the men ashore Were gathering into ordered companies, And with less clamor filled the waiting boats, As if the speaking light commanded them To quiet speed: for now the farewell glow Was on the topmost heights, and where far ships Were southward tending, tranquil, slow, and whit! Upon the luminous meadow toward the verge. The quay was in still shadow, and the boats Went sombrely upon the sombre waves. Fedalma watched again; but now her gaze Takes in the eastward bay, where that small bark Which held the fisher boy floats weightier With one more life, that rests upon the oar Watching with her. He would not go away Till she was gone; he would not turn his face Away from her at parting: Dat the sea Should widen slowly ’twixt their seeking eyes. The time was coming. Nadar had approached. Was the Queen ready ? Would she follow now Her father’s body? For the largest boat Was waiting at the quay, the last strong band Of armed Zincali ranged themselves in lines To guard her passage and to follow her. “ Yes, I am ready j ” and with action prompt They cast aside the Gypsy’s wandering tomb, And fenced the space from curious Moors who presses To see Chief Zarca’s coffin as it lay. They raised it slowly, holding it aloft On shoulders proud to bear the heavy load. 282 i'OEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Bound on the coffin lay the chieftain’s arms, His Gypsy garments and his coat of mail. Fedalma saw the burden lifted high, And then descending followed. All was still. The Moors aloof could hear the struggling steps Beneath the lowered burden at the boat, — The struggling calls subdued, till safe released It lay within, the space around it filled By black-haired Gypsies. Then Fedalma stepped From off the shore and saw it flee away, — The land that bred her helping the resolve Which exiled her forever. It was night Before the ships weighed anchor and gave sail: Fresh Night emergent in her clearness, lit By the large crescent moon, with Hesperus And those great stars that lead the eager host. Fedalma stood and watched the little bark Lying jet-black upon moon-whitened waves. Silva was standing too. He too divined A steadfast form that held him with its thought; And eyes that sought him vanishing: he saw The waters widen slowly, till at last Straining he gazed and knew not if he gazed On aught but blackness overhung by stars.] THE LEGEND OF JUBAL. TTTHEN Cain was driven from Jehovah’s land V V He wandered eastward, seeking some far strand .Ruled by kind gods who asked no offerings Save pure field-fruits, as aromatic things, To feed the subtler sense of frames divine That lived on fragrance for their food and wine: Wild joyous gods, who winked at faults and folly, And could be pitiful and melancholy. He never had a doubt that such gods were; He looked within, and saw them mirrored there- Some think he came at last to Tartary, And some to Ind; but, howsoe’er it be, His staff he planted where sweet waters ran, And in that home of Cain the Arts began. Man’s life was spacious in the early world: It paused, like some slow ship with sail unfurled Waiting in seas by scarce a wavelet curled; Beheld the slow star-paces of the skies, And grew from strength to strength through centuries; Saw infant trees fill out their giant limbs, And heard a thousand times the sweet bird’s marriage hymns. In Cain’s young city none had heard of Death Save him, the founder ; and it was his faith That here, away from harsh Jehovah’s law, Man was immortal, since no halt or flaw In Cain’s own frame betrayed six hundred yeara, 284 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. But dark as pines that autumn never sears His locks thronged backward as he ran, his framfc Rose like the orb^d sun each morn the same, Lake-mirrored to his gaze; and that red brand, The scorching impress of Jehovah’s hand, Was still clear-edged to his unwearied eye, Its secret firm in time-fraught memory. He said, “ My happy offspring shall not know That the red life from out a man may flow When smitten by his brother.” True, his race Bore each one stamped upon his new-born face A. copy of the brand no whit less clear ; But every mother held that little copy dear. Thus generations in glad idlesse throve, Nor hunted prey, nor with each other strove ; For clearest springs were plenteous in the land, And gourds for cups; the ripe fruits sought the hand. Bending the laden boughs with fragrant gold 5 And for their roofs and garments wealth untold Lay everywhere in grasses and broad leaves: They labored gently, as a maid who weaves Her hair in mimic mats, and pauses oft An d strokes across her palm the tresses soft, Then peeps to watch the poised butterfly, Or little burdened ants that homeward hie. Time was but leisure to their lingering thought, There was no need for haste to finish aught; But sweet beginnings were repeated still Like infant babblings that no task fulfil; For love, that loved not change, constrained the simple will. Till, hurling stones in mere athletic joy, Strong Lamecli struck and killed his fairest boy, And tried to wake him with the tenderest cries, THE LEGEND GE JUBAL. 28 t i And fetched and held before the glazed eyes The things they best had loved to look upon j But never glance or smile or sigh he won. The generations stood around those twain Helplessly gazing, till their father Cain Parted the press, and said, “ He will not wake \ This is the endless sleep, and we must make A bed deep down for him beneath the sod ; For know, my sons, there is a mighty God Angry with all man’s race, but most with me. I fled from out His land in vain ! — ’t is He Who came and slew the lad, for He has found This home of ours, and we shall all be bound By the harsh bands of His most cruel will, Which any moment may some dear one kill. Nay, though we live for countless moons, at last We and all ours shall dm like summers past. This is Jehovah’s will, and He is strong; I thought the way I travelled was too long For Him to follow me : my thought was vain ! He walks unseen, but leaves a track of pain, Pale Death His footprint is, and He will come again! And a new spirit from that hour came o’er The race of Cain: soft idlesse was no more, But even the sunshine had a heart of care, Smiling with hidden dread — a mother fair Who folding to her breast a dying child Beams with feigned joy that but makes sadness mild. Death was now lord of Life, and at his word Time, vague as air before, new terrors stirred. With measured wing now audibly arose Throbbing through all things to some unknown close. Now glad Content by clutching Haste was torn, And Woi-k grew eager, and Device was born. 286 POEMS OF GEOKGE ELIOT. It seemed the light was never loved before, Now each man said, “ T will go and come no more.” No budding branch, no pebble from the brook, No form, no shadow, but new dearness took From the one thought that life must have an end; And the last parting now began to send Diffusive dread through love and wedded bliss. Thrilling them into finer tenderness. Then Memory disclosed her face divine, That like the calm nocturnal lights doth shine Within the soul, and shows the sacred graves, And shows the presence that no sunlight craves, No space, no warmth, but moves among them all; Gone and yet here, and coming at each call, With ready voice and eyes that understand, And lips that ask a kiss, and dear responsive hand. Thus to Cain’s race death was tear-watered seed Of various life and action-shaping need. But chief the sons of Lamech felt the stings Of new ambition, and the force that springs In passion beating on the shores of fate. They said, “ There comes a night when all too late The mind shall long to prompt the achieving hand, The eager thought behind closed portals stand, And the last wishes to the mute lips press Buried ere death in silent helplessness. Then while the soul its way with sound can cleave, And while the arm is strong to strike and heave, Let soul and arm give shape that will abide And rule above our graves, and power divide With that great god of day, whose rays must bend As we shall make the moving shadows tend. Come, let us fashion acts that are to be, When we shall lie in darkness silently, THE LEGEND OF JUBAL. 287 As our young brother doth, whom yet we see Fallen and slain, but reigning in our will By that one image of him pale and still.” For Lameclds sons were heroes of their race: •Xabal, the eldest, bore upon his face The look of that calm river-god, the Nile, Mildly secure in power that needs not guile. But Tubal-Cain was restless as the fire That glows and spreads and leaps from high to highei Where’er is aught to seize or to subdue; Strong as a storm he lifted or overthrew, His urgent limbs like rounded granite grew, Such granite as the plunging torrent wears And roaring rolls around through countless years. But strength that still on movement must be fed, Inspiring thought of change, devices bred, And urged his mind through earth and air to rove For force that he could conquer if he strove, For lurking forms that might new tasks fulfil And yield unwilling to his stronger will. Such Tubal-Cain. But Jubal had a frame Fashioned to finer senses, which became A yearning for some hidden soul of things, Some outward touch complete on inner springs That vaguely moving bred a lonely pain, A want that did but stronger grow with ga v Of aL good else, as spirits might be sad For lack of speech to tell us they are glad. Now Jabal learned to tame the lowing kine, And from their udders drew the snow-white wine That stirs the innocent joy, and makes the stream Of elemental life with fulness teem; The star-browed calves he nursed with feeding hand, 288 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. And sheltered them, till all the little band Stood mustered gazing at the sunset way Whence he would come with store at close of day. He soothed the silly sheep with friendly tone And reared their staggering lambs that, older grown, Followed his steps with sense-taught memory; Till he, their shepherd, could their leader be And guide them through the pastures as he would, With sway that grew from ministry of good. He spread his tents upon the grassy plain Which, eastward widening like the open main, Showed the first whiteness ’neath the morning star; Near him his sister, deft, as women are, Plied her quick skill in sequence to his thought Till the hid treasures of the milk she caught Revealed like pollen ’mid the petals white, The golden pollen, virgin to the light. Even the she-wolf with young, on rapine bent, He caught and tethered in his mat-walled tent, And cherished all her little sharp-nosed young Till the small race with hope and terror clung About his footsteps, till each new-reared brood, Remoter from the memories of the wood, More glad discerned their common home with man. This was the work of Jabal: he began The pastoral life, and, sire of joys to be, Spread the sweet ties that bind the family O’er dear dumb souls that thrilled at man’s caress. And shared his pains with patient helpfulness. But Tubal-Cain had caught and yoked the lire, Yoked it with stones that bent the flaming spire And made it roar in prisoned servitude Within the furnace, till with force subdued It changed all forms lie willed to work upon, THE LEGEND OF JXJBAL. 289 Till hard from soft, and soft from hard, he won. The pliant clay he moulded as he would, And laughed with joy when ’mid the heat it stood Shaped as his hand had chosen, while the mass That from his hold, dark, obstinate, would pass, He drew all glowing from the busy heat, All breathing as with life that he could beat With thundering hammer, making it obey His will creative, like the pale soft clay. Each day he wrought and better than he planned, Shape breeding shape beneath his restless hand. (The soul without still helps the soul within, And its deft magic ends what we begin.) Nay, in his dreams his hammer he would wield And seem to see a myriad types revealed, Then spring with wondering triumphant cry, And, lest the inspiring vision should go by, Would rush to labor with that plastic zeal Which all the passion of our life can steal For force to work with. Each day saw the birth Of various forms which, flung upon the earth, Seemed harmless toys to cheat the exacting hour, But were as seeds instinct with hidden power. The axe, the club, the spiked wheel, the chain, Held silently the shrieks and moans of pain ; And near them latent lay in share and spade, In the strong bar, the saw, and deep-curved blade, Glad voices of the hearth and harvest-home, The social good, and all earth’s joy to come. Thus to mixed ends wrought Tubal; and they say. Some things he made have lasted to this day; As, thirty silver pieces that were found By Noah’s children buried in the ground. He made them from mere hunger of device, Those small white disks; but they became the price 19 290 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The traitor Judas sold his Master for 5 And men still handling them in peace and war Catch foul disease, that comes as appetite, And lurks and clings as withering, damning blight. But Tubal-Cain wot not of treachery, Nor greedy lust, nor any ill to be, Save the one ill of sinking into naught, Banished from action and act-shaping thought. He was the sire of swift-transforming skill, Which arms for conquest man’s ambitious will; And round him gladly, as his hammer rung, Gathered the elders and the growing young: These handled vaguely and those plied the tools, Till, happy chance begetting conscious rules, The home of Cain with industry was rife, And glimpses of a strong persistent life, Panting through generations as one breath, And filling with its soul the blank of death. Jubal, too, watched the hammer, till his eyes, No longer following its fall or rise, Seemed glad with something that they could not see. But only listened to — some melody. Wherein dumb longings inward speech had found, Won from the common store of struggling sound. Then, as the metal shapes more various grew, And, hurled upon each other, resonance drew, Each gave new tones, the revelations dim Of some external soul that spoke for him: The hollow vessel’s clang, the clash, the boom, Like light that makes wide spiritual room And skyey spaces in the spaceless thought, To Jubal such enlarged passion brought That love, hope, rage, and all experience, Were fused in vaster being, fetching thence THE LEGEND OF JUBAL 291 Concords and discords, cadences and cries That seemed from some world-shrouded soul to rise, Some rapture more intense, some mightier rage, Some living sea that burst the bounds of man’s brief age. Then with such blissful trouble and glad care For growth within unborn as mothers bear, To the far woods he wandered, listening, And heard the birds their little stories sing In notes whose rise and fall seemed melted speech — Melted with tears, smiles, glances — that can reach More quickly through our frame’s deep-winding night, And without thought raise thought’s best fruit, delight Pondering, he sought his home again and heard The fluctuant changes of the spoken word: The deep remonstrance and the argued want, Insistent first in close monotonous chant, Next leaping upward to defiant stand Or downward beating like the resolute hand; The mother’s call, the children’s answering cry, The laugh’s light cataract tumbling from on high; The suasive repetitions Jabal taught, That timid browsing cattle homeward brought; The clear-winged fugue of echoes vanishing; And through them all the hammer’s rhythmic ring. Jubal sat lonely, all around was dim, Yet his face glowed with light revealed to him: For as the delicate stream of odor wakes The thought-wed sentience and some image makes From out the mingled fragments of the past, Finely compact in wholeness that will last, So streamed as from the body of each sound Subtler pulsations, swift as warmth, which found All prisoned germs and all their powers unbound, Till thought self-luminous flamed from memory. 292 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. And in creative vision wandered free. Then Jubal, standing, rapturous arms upraised, And on the dark with eager eyes he gazed, As had some manifested god been there. It was his thought he saw: the presence fair Of unachieved achievement, the high task, The struggling unborn spirit that doth ask With irresistible cry for blood and breath, Till feeding its great life we sink in death. He said, “ Were now those mighty tones and cries That from the giant soul of earth arise, Those groans of some great travail heard from far, Some power at wrestle with the things that are, Those sounds which vary with the varying form Of clay and metal, and in sightless swarm Fill the wide space with tremors: were these wed To human voices with such passion fed As does put glimmer in our common speech, But might flame out in tones whose changing reach, Surpassing meagre need, informs the sense With fuller union, finer difference — Were this great vision, now obscurely bright As morning hiiis that melt in new-poured light, Wrought into solid form and living sound, Moving with ordered throb and sure rebound, Then — Nay, I Jubal will that work begin! The generations of our race shall win New life, that grows from out the heart of this, As spring from winter, or as lovers’ bliss From out the dull unknown of unwaked energies.” Thus he resolved, and in the soul-fed light Of coming ages waited through the night, Watching for that near dawn whose chilier ray TTIE LEGEND OF JUBAL. 29 Showed but the unchanged world of yesterday; Where all the order of his dream divine Lay like Olympian forms within the mine; Where fervor that could fill the earthly round With thronged joys of form-begotten sound Must shrink intense within the patient power That lonely labors through the niggard hour. Such patience have the heroes who begin, Sailing the first to lands which others win. Jubal must dare as great beginners dare, Strike form’s first way in matter rude and bare, And, yearning vaguely toward the plenteous quire Of the world’s harvest, make one poor small lyre. He made it, and from out its measured frame Drew the harmonic soul, whose answers came With guidance sweet and lessons of delight Teaching to ear and hand the blissful Eight, Where strictest law is gladness to the sense And all desire bends toward obedience. Then Jubal poured his triumph in a song — The rapturous word that rapturous notes prolong As radiance streams from smallest things that burn Or thought of loving into love doth turn. And still his lyre gave companionship In sense-taught concert as of lip with lip. Alone amid the hills at first he tried His winged song ; then with adoring pride And bridegroom’s joy at leading forth his bride, He said, “ This wonder which my soul hath found, This heart of music in the might of sound, Shall forthwith be the share of all our race And like the morning gladden common space : The song shall spread and swell as rivers do, And I will teach our youth with skill to woo 294 POEMS OF GEOPtGE ELIOT. This living lyre, to know its secret will, Its fine division of the good and ill. So shall men call me sire of harmony, And where great Song is, there my life shall be.” Thus glorying as a god beneficent, Forth from his solitary joy he went To bless mankind. It was at evening, When shadows lengthen from each westward thing, When imminence of change makes sense more fine And light seems holier in its grand decline. The fruit-trees wore their studded coronal, Earth and her children were at festival, Glowing as with one heart and one consent — Thought, love, trees, rocks, in sweet warm radiance blent The tribe of Cain was resting on the ground, The various ages wreathed in one broad round. Here lay, while children peeped o’er his huge thighs, The sinewy man embrowned by centuries; Here the broad-bosomed mother of the strong Looked, like Demeter, placid o’er the throng Of young lithe forms whose rest was movement too — Tricks, prattle, nods, and laughs that lightly flew, And swayings as of flower-beds where Love blew. For all had feasted well upon the flesh Of juicy fruits, on nuts, and honey fresh, A.nd now their wine was health-bred merriment, Which through the generations circling went, Leaving none sad, for even father Cain Smiled as a Titan might, despising pain. Jabal sat climbed on by a playful ring Of children, lambs, and whelps, whose gambolling, With tiny hoofs, paws, hands, and dimpled feet, Made barks, bleats, laughs, in pretty hubbub meet. THE LEGEND OF JUBAL. 295 But Tubal’s hammer rang from far away, Tubal alone would keep no holiday, His furnace must not slack for any feast, For of all hardship work he counted least; He scorned all rest but sleep, where every dream Made his repose more potent action seem. Yet with health’s nectar some strange thirst was blent. The fateful growth, the unnamed discontent, The inward shaping toward some unborn power, Some deeper-breathing act, the being’s flower. After all gestures, words, and speech of eyes, The soul had more to tell, and broke in sighs. Then from the east, with glory on his head Such as low-slanting beams on corn-waves spread, Came Jubal with his lyre: there ’mid the throng, Where the blank space was, poured a solemn song, Touching his lyre to full harmonic throb And measured pulse, with cadences that sob,, Exult and cry, and search the inmost deep Where the dark sources of new passion sleep. Joy took the air, and took each breathing soul, Embracing them in one entranced whole, Yet thrilled each varying frame to various ends, As Spring new-waking through the creature sends Or rage or tenderness ; more plenteous life Here breeding dread, and there a fiercer strife. He who had lived through twice three centuries, Whose months monotonous, like trees on trees, In hoary forests, stretched a backward maze, Dreamed himself dimly through the travelled days Till in clear light he paused, and felt the sun That warmed him when he was a little one; Felt that true heaven, the recovered past, The dear small Known amid the Unknown vast, 296 l j OEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. And in that heaven wept. But younger limbs Thrilled toward the future, that bright land which swims In western glory, isles and streams and bays, Where hidden pleasures float in golden haze. And in all these the rhythmic influence, Sweetly o’ercharging the delighted sense, Flowed out in movements, little waves that spread Enlarging, till in tidal union led The youths and maidens both alike long-tressed. By grace-inspiring melody possessed,- Rose in slow dance, with beauteous floating swerve Of limbs and hair, and many a melting curve Of ringed feet swayed by each close-linked palm: Then Jubal poured more rapture in his psalm, The dance fired music, music fired the dance, The glow diffusive lit each countenance, Till all the gazing elders rose and stood With glad yet awful shock of that mysterious good. Even Tubal caught the sound, and wondering came, Urging his sooty bulk like smoke-wrapt flame Till he could see his brother with the lyre, The work for which he lent his furnace-fire And diligent hammer, witting naught of this — This power in metal shape which made strange bliss, Entering within him like a dream full-fraught With new creations finished in a thought. The sun had sunk, but music still was there, And when this ceased, still triumph filled the air: It seemed the stars were shining with delight And that no night was ever like this night. All clung with praise to Jubal: some besought That he would teach them his new skill; some caught. Swiftly as smiles are caught in looks that meet, The tone’s melodic change and rhythmic beat: THE LEGEND OF JUBAL. 29? *T was easy following where invention trod — All eyes can see when light flows out from God. And thus did Jubal to his race reveal Music their larger soul, where woe and weal Filling the resonant chords, the song, the dance, Moved with a wider-winged utterance. Now many a lyre was fashioned, many a song Raised echoes new, old echoes to prolong, Till things of Jubal 5 s making were so rife, “ Hearing myself, 5 ’ he said, “ hems in my life, And I will get me to some far-off land, Where higher mountains under heaven stand And touch the blue at rising of the stars, Whose song they hear where no rough mingling mars The great clear voices. Such lands there must be, Where varying forms make varying symphony — Where other thunders roll amid the hills, Some mightier wind a mightier forest fills With other strains through other-shapen boughs ; Where bees and birds and beasts that hunt or browse Will teach me songs I know not. Listening there, My life shall grow like trees both tall and fair That rise and spread and bloom toward fuller fruit each year. 55 He took a raft, and travelled with the stream Southward for many a league, till he might deem He saw at last the pillars of the sky, Beholding mountains whose white majesty Rushed through him as new awe, and made new song That swept with fuller wave the chords along, Weighting his voice with deep religious chime, The iteration of slow chant sublime. It was the region lor ? inhabited 298 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. By all the race of Seth ; and Jubal said: “ Here have I found my thirsty soul’s desire, Eastward the hills touch heaven, and evening’s fire Flames through deep waters; I will take my rest, And feed anew from my great mother’s breast, The sky-clasped Earth, whose voices nurture me As the flowers’ sweetness doth the honey-bee.” He lingered wandering for many an age, And, sowing music, made high heritage For generations far beyond the Flood — For the poor late-begotten human brood Born to life’s weary brevity and perilous good. And ever as he travelled he would climb The farthest mountain, yet the heavenly chime, The mighty tolling of the far-off spheres Beating their pathway, never touched his ears. But wheresoe’er he rose the heavens rose, And the far-gazing mountain could disclose Naught but a wider earth; until one height Showed him the ocean stretched in liquid light, And he could hear its multitudinous roar, Its plunge and hiss upon the pebbled shore : Then Jubal silent sat, and touched his lyre no more. He thought, “ The world is great, but I am weak, And where the sky bends is no solid peak To give me footing, but instead, this main—■ Myriads of maddened horses thundering o’er the plain, “ New voices come to me where’er I roam, My heart too widens with its widening home: But song grows weaker, and the heart must break For lack of voice, or fingers that can wake The lyre’s full answer ; nay, its chords were all Too few to meet the growing spirit’s call. THE LEGEND OF JUBAL. 299 The former songs seem little, yet no more Can soul, hand, voice, with interchanging lore Tell what the earth is saying unto me: The secret is too great, I hear confusedly. u No farther will I travel: once again My brethren I will see, and that fair plain Where I and Song were born. There fresh-voiced youth Will pour my strains with all the early truth Which now abides not in my voice and hands, But only in the soul, the will that stands Helpless to move. My tril ' remembering Will cry f, Tis he !’ and run to greet me, welcoming.” The way was weary. Many a date-palm grew, And shook out clustered gold against the blue, While Jubal, guided by the steadfast spheres, Sought the dear home of those first eager years, When, with fresh vision fed, the fuller will Took living outward shape in pliant skill; For still he hoped to find the former things, And the warm gladness recognition brings. His footsteps erred among the mazy woods And long illusive sameness of the floods, Winding and wandering. Through far regions, strange With Gentile homes and faces, did he range, And left his music in their memory, And left at last, when naught besides would free His homeward steps from clinging hands and cries, The ancient lyre. And now in ignorant eyes No sign remained of Jubal, Lamech’s son, That mortal frame wherein was first begun The immortal life of song. His withered brow Pressed over eyes that held no lightning now, His locks streamed whiteness on the hurrying air, $00 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The unresting soul had worn itself quite hare Of beauteous token, as the outworn might Of oaks slow dying, gaunt in summer’s light. His full deep voice toward thinnest treble ran: He was the rune-writ story of a man. And so at last he neared the well-known land, Could see the hills in ancient order stand With friendly faces whose familiar gaze Looked through the sunshine of his childish days; Knew the deep-shadowed folds of hanging woods, And seemed to see the selfsame insect broods Whirling and quivering o’er the flowers — to hear The selfsame cuckoo making distance near. Yea, the dear Earth, with mother’s constancy, Met and embraced him, and said, “Thou art he! This was thy cradle, here my breast was thine, Where feeding, thou didst all thy life entwine With my sky-wedded life in heritage divine.” But wending ever through the watered plain, Firm not to rest save in the home of Cain, He saw dread Change, with dubious face and cold That never kept a welcome for the old, Like some strange heir upon the hearth, arise Saying, “ This home is mine.” He thought his eyes Mocked all deep memories, as things new made, Usurping sense, make old things shrink and fade And seem ashamed to meet the staring day. His memory saw a small foot-trodden way, His eyes a broad far-stretching paven road Bordered with many a tomb and fair abode; The little city that once nestled low As buzzing groups about some central glow, Spread like a murmuring crowd o’er plain and steep, Or monster huge in heavy-breathing sleep. THE LEGEND OF JUBAL. 301 His heart grew faint, and tremblingly he sank Close by the wayside on a weed-grown bank, Not far from where a new-raised temple stood, Sky-roofed, and fragrant with wrought cedar wood. The morning sun was high; his rays fell hot On this hap-chosen, dusty, common spot, On the dry-withered grass and withered man: That wondrous frame where melody began Lay as a tomb defaced that no eye cared to scan. But while he sank far music reached his ear. He listened until wonder silenced fear And gladness wonder; for the broadening stream Of sound advancing was his early dream, Brought like fulfilment of forgotten prayer *, As if his soul, breathed out upon the air, Had held the invisible seeds of harmony Quick with the various strains of life to be. He listened: the sweet mingled difference With charm alternate took the meeting sense; Then bursting like some shield-broad lily red, Sudden and near the trumpet’s notes outspread, And soon his eyes could see the metal flower, Shining upturned, out on the morning pour Its incense audible; could see a train From out the street slow-winding on the plain With lyres and cymbals, flutes and psalteries, While men, youths, maids, in concert sang to these With various throat, or in succession poured, Or in full volume mingled. But one word Ruled each recurrent rise and answering fall, As when the multitudes adoring call On some great name divine, their common soul, The common need, love, joy, that knits them in one whole. 302 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The word was “ Jubal! ” . . . “ Jubal ” filled the air And seemed to ride aloft, a spirit there, Creator of the quire, the full-fraught strain That grateful rolled itself to him again. The aged man adust upon the bank — Whom no eye saw — at first with rapture drank The bliss of music, then, with swelling heart, Felt, this was his own being’s greater part, The universal joy once born in him. But when the train, with living face and limb And vocal breath, came nearer and more near, The longing grew that they should hold him dear; Him, Lamech’s son, whom all their fathers knew, The breathing Jubal — him, to whom their love was due All was forgotten but the burning need To claim his fuller self, to claim the deed That lived away from him, and grew apart, While he as from a tomb, with lonely heart, Warmed by no meeting glance, no hand that pressed, Lay chill amid the life his life had blessed. What though his song should spread from man’s smali race Out through the myriad worlds that people space, And make the heavens one joy-diffusing quire ? —— Still ’mid that vast would throb the keen desire Of this poor aged flesh, this eventide, This twilight soon in darkness to subside, This little pulse of self that, having glowed Through thrice three centuries, and divinely strowed The light of music through the vague of sound, Ached with its smallness still in good that had no bound. For no eye saw him, while with loving pride Each voic^ with each in praise of Jubal vied. THE LEGEND OF JUBALo 303 Must he in conscious trance, dumb, helpless lie W hile all that ardent kindred passed him by ? His flesh cried out to live with living men And join that soul which to the inward ken Of all the hymning train was present there. Strong passion’s daring sees not aught to dare: The frost-locked starkness of his frame low-bent, His voice’s penury of tones long spent, He felt not; all his being leaped in flame To meet his kindred as they onward came Slackening and wheeling toward the temple’s face ? He rushed before them to the glittering space, . And, with a strength that was but strong desire, Cried, “ I am Jubal, I! ... I made the lyre! ” The tones amid a lake of silence fell Broken and strained, as if a feeble bell Had tuneless pealed the triumph of a land To listening crowds in expectation spanned. Sudden came showers of laughter on that lake; They spread along the train from front to wake In one great storm of merriment, while he Shrank doubting whether he could Jubal be, And not a dream of Jubal, whose rich vein Of passionate music came with that dream-pain Wherein the sense slips off from each loved thing And all appearance is mere vanishing. But ere the laughter died from out the rear, Anger in front saw profanation near; Jubal was but a name in each man’s faith For glorious power untouched by that slow death Which creeps with creeping time; this too, the spot* And this the day, it must be crime to blot, Even with scoffing at a madman’s lie : Jubal was not a name to wed with mockery. 304 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Two rushed upon him: two, the most devout In honor of great Jubal, thrust him out, And beat him with their flutes. ’T was little need ; He strove not, cried not, but with tottering speed, As if the scorn and howls were driving wind That urged his body, serving so the mind Which could but shrink and yearn, he sought the Of thorny thickets, and there fell unseen. The immortal name of Jubal filled the sky, While Jubal lonely laid him down to die. He said within his soul, “ This is the end : O’er all the earth to where the heavens bend And hem men’s travel, I have breathed my soul: I lie here now the remnant of that whole, The embers of a life, a lonely pain; As far-off rivers to my thirst were vain, So of my mighty years naught comes to me again. “ Is the day sinking ? Softest coolness springs From something round me : dewy shadowy wings Enclose me all aronnd — no, not above — Is moonlight there ? I see a face of love, Fair as sweet music when my heart was strong: Yea—art thou come again to me, great Song ?” The face bent over him like silver night In long-remembered summers ; that calm light Of days which shine in firmaments of thought, That past unchangeable, from change still wrought. And gentlest tones were with the vision blent: He knew not if that gaze the music sent, Or music that calm gaze : to hear, to see, Was but one undivided ecstasy: The raptured senses melted into one, And parting life a moment’s freedom won “ He sought the screen Of thorny thickets, and there fell unseen.” THE LEGEND OF JUBAL. m From in and outer, as a little child Sits on a bank and sees blue heavens mild Down in the water, and forgets its limbs, And knoweth naught save the blue heaven that swims, “Jubal,” the face said, "I am thy loved Past, The soul that makes thee one from first to last. I am the angel of thy life and death, Thy outbreathed being drawing it§ last breath. Am I not thine alone, a dear dead bride Who blest thy lot above all men’s beside ? Thy bride whom thou wouldst never change, nor take Any bride living, for that dead one’s sake ? Was I not all thy yearning and delight, Thy chosen search, thy senses’ beauteous Eight, Which still had been the hunger of thy frame In central heaven, hadst thou been still the same ? Wouldst thou have asked aught else from any god — Whether with gleaming feet on earth he trod Or thundered through the skies — aught else for share Of mortal good, than in thy soul to bear The growth of song, and feel the sweet unrest Of the world’s spring-tide in thy conscious breast ? No, thou hadst grasped thy lot with all »ts pain, Nor loosed it any painless lot to gain Where music’s voice was silent; for thy fate Was human music’s self incorporate : Thy senses’ keenness and thy passionate strife Were flesh of her flesh and her womb of life. And greatly hast thou lived, for not alone With hidden raptures were her secrets shown. Buried within thee, as the purple light Of gems may sleep in solitary night; But thy expanding joy was still tc give, And with the generous air in song to live, 20 306 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Feeding the wave of ever-widening bliss Where fellowship means equal perfectness. And on the mountains in thy wandering Thy feet were beautiful as blossomed spring, That turns the leafless wood to love’s glad home, For with thy coming Melody was come. This was thy lot, to feel, create, bestow, And that immeasurable life to know From which the' fleshly self falls shrivelled, dead, A seed primeval that has forests bred. It is the glory of the heritage Thy life has left, that makes thy outcast age: Thy limbs shall lie dark, tombless on this sod, Because thou shinest in man’s soul, a god, Who found and gave new passion and new joy That naught but Earth’s destruction can destroy. Thy gifts to give was thine of men alone: ’T was but in giving that thou couldst atone For too much wealth amid their poverty.” The words seemed melting into symphony, The wings upbore him, and the gazing song Was floating him the heavenly space along, Where mighty harmonies all gently fell Through veiling vastness, like the far-off bell, Till, ever onward through the choral blue, He heard more faintly and more faintly knew, Quitting mortality, a quenched sun-wave, The All-creating Presence for his grave. 1969. AGATHA. C OME with me to the mountain, not where rocks Soar harsh above the troops of hurrying pines, But where the earth spreads soft and rounded breasts To feed her children ; where the generous hills Lift a green isle betwixt the sky and plain To keep some Old World things aloof from change. Here too ’t is hill and hollow: new-born streams With sweet enforcement, joyously compelled Like laughing children, hurry down the steeps, And make a dimpled chase athwart the stones; Pine woods are black upon the heights, the slopes Are green with pasture, and the bearded corn Fringes the blue above the sudden ridge: A little world whose round horizon cuts This isle of hills with heaven for a sea, Save in clear moments when southwestward gleams France by the Rhine, melting anon to haze. The monks of old chose here their still retreat, And called it by the Blessed Virgin’s name, Sancta Maria, which the peasant’s tongue, Speaking from out the parent’s heart that turns All loved things into little things, has made Sanct Margen — Holy little Mary, dear As all the sweet home things she smiles upon, The children and the cows, the apple-trees, The cart, the plough, all named with that caress Which feigns them little, easy to be held, Familiar to the eyes and hand and heart. What though a Queen ? She puts her crown awa^ 308 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. And with her little Boy wears common clothes, Caring for common wants, remembering That day when good Saint Joseph left his work To marry her with humble trust sublime. The monks are gone, their shadows fall no more Tall-frocked and cowled athwart the evening fields At milking-time ; their silent corridors Are turned to homes of bare-armed, aproned men, Who toil for wife and children. But the bells, Pealing on high from two quaint convent towers, Still ring the Catholic signals, summoning To grave remembrance of the larger life That bears our own, like perishable fruit Upon its heaven-wide branches. At their sound The shepherd boy far off upon the hill, The workers with the saw and at the forge, The triple generation round the hearth — Grandames and mothers and the flute-voiced girls—” Fall on their knees and send forth prayerful cries To the kind Mother with the little Boy, Who pleads for helpless men against the storm, Lightning and plagues and all terrific shapes Of power supreme. Within the prettiest hollow of these hills, Just as you enter it, upon the slope Stands a low cottage neighbored cheerily By running water, which, at farthest end Of the same hollow, turns a heavy mill, And feeds the pasture for the miller’s cows, Blanchi and Nageli, Veilchen and the rest, Matrons with faces as Griselda mild, Coming at call. And on the farthest height* A little tower looks out above the pines Where mounting you will find a sanctuarj Open and still; without, the silent crowd AGATHA. 309 Of heaven-planted, incense-mingling flowers ; Within, the altar where the Mother sits ’Mid votive tablets hung from far-off years By peasants succored in the peril of fire, Fever, or flood, who thought that Mary’s love, Willing but not omnipotent, had stood Between their lives and that dread power which slew Their neighbor at their side. The chapel bell Will melt to gentlest music ere it reach That cottage on the slope, whose garden gate Has caught the rose-»tree boughs and stands ajar; So does the door, to let the sunbeams in ; For in the slanting sunbeams angels come And visit Agatha who dwells within — Old Agatha, whose cousins Kate ar d Kell Are housed by her in Love and Duty’s name, * They being feeble, with small withered wits, And she believing that the higher gift Was given to be shared. So Agatha Shares her one room, all neat on afternoons, As if some memory were sacred there And everything within the four* low walls An honored relic. One long summer’s day An angel entered at the rose-hung gate, With skirts pale blue, a brow to quench the pearl, Hair soft and blonde as infants’, plenteous As hers who made the wavy lengths once speak The grateful worship of a rescued soul. The angel paused before the open door To give good day. “ Come in,” said Agatha. I followed close, and watched and listened there. The angel was a lady, noble, young, Taught in all seemliness that fits a court, 810 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. All lore that shapes the mind to delicate use, Yet quiet, lowly, as a meek white dove That with its presence teaches gentleness. Men called her Countess Linda; little girls In Freiburg town, orphans whom she caressed, Said Mamma Linda: yet her years were few, Her outward beauties all in budding time, Her virtues the aroma of the plant That dwells in all its being, root, stem, leaf, And waits not ripeness. • “ Sit,” said Agatha. Her cousins were at work in neighboring homes But yet she was not lonely; all things round Seemed filled with noiseless yet responsive life, As of a child at breast that gently clings: Hot sunlight only or the breathing flowers Or the swift shadows of the birds and bees, But all the household goods, which, polished fair By hands that cherished them for service done, Shone as with glad content. The wooden beams Dark and yet friendly, easy to be reached, Bore three white crosses for a speaking sign; The walls had little pictures hung a-row, Telling the stories of Saint Ursula, And Saint Elizabeth, the lowly queen; And on the bench that served for table too, Skirting the wall to save the narrow space, There lay the Catholic books, inherited From those old times when printing still was young With stout-limbed promise, like a sturdy boy. And in the farthest corner stood the bed Where o’er the pillow hung two pictures wreathed With fresh-plucked ivy: one the Virgin’s death, And one her flowering tomb, while high above AGATHA. 811 She smiling bends and lets her girdle down For ladder to the soul that cannot trust In life which outlasts burial. Agatha Sat at her knitting, aged, upright, slim, And spoke her welcome with mild dignity. She kept the company of kings and queens And mitred saints who sat below the feet Of Francis with the ragged frock and wounds 5 And Rank for her meant Duty, various, Yet equal in its worth, done -worthily. Command was service; humblest service done By willing and discerning soul was glory. Fair Countess Linda sat upon the bench, Close fronting the old knitter, and they talked With sweet antiphony of young and old. Agatha. You like our valley, lady ? Iam glad You thought it well to come again. But rest — The walk is long from Master Michael’s inn. Countess Linda. Yes, but no walk is prettier. Agatha. It is true: There lacks no blessing here, the waters all Have virtues like the garments of the Lord, And heal much sickness; then, the crops and cows Flourish past speaking, and the garden flowers, Pink, blue, and purple, ’t is a joy to see How they yield honey for the singing bees. I would the whole world were as good a home. Countess Linda. And you are well off, Agatha ? — your friends Left you a certain bread: is it not so ? 312 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Agatha. Not so at all, dear lady. I had naught, Was a poor orphan; but I came to tend Here in this house, an old afflicted pair, Who wore out slowly; and the last who died, Full thirty years ago, left me this roof And all the household stuff. It was great wealth. And so I had a home for Kate and Nell. Countess Linda. But how, then, have you earned your daily bread These thirty years ? Agatha. Oh, that is easy earning. We help the neighbors, and our bit and sup Is never failing : they have work for us In house and field, all sorts of odds and ends, Patching and mending, turning o’er the hay, Holding sick children — there is always work; And they are very good — the neighbors are : Weigh not our bits of work with weight and scale, But glad themselves with giving us good shares Of meat and drink; and in the big farmhouse When cloth comes home from weaving, the good wife Cuts me a piece — this very gown — and says: “ Here, Agatha, you old maid, you have time To pray for Hans who is gone soldiering: The saints might help him, and they have much to do, ’T were well they were besought to think of him.” She spoke half jesting, but I pray, I pray For poor young Hans. I take it much to heart That other people are worse off than I — I ease my soul with praying for them alL AGATHA. 315 Countess Linda. That is your way of singing, Agatha; Just as the nightingales pour forth sad songs, And when they reach men’s ears they make men’s hearts Feel the more kindly. Agatha. Nay, I cannot sing: My voice is hoarse, and oft I think my prayers Are foolish, feeble things; for Christ is good Whether I pray or not — the Virgin’s heart Is kinder far than mine; and then I stop And feel I can do naught toward helping men, Till out it comes, like tears that will not hold. And I must pray again for all the world. ’T is good to me — I mean the neighbors are: To Kate and Nell too. I have money saved To go on pilgrimage the second time. Countess Linda. And do you mean to go on pilgrimage With all your years to carry, Agatha ? Agatha. The years are light, dear lady: ’t is my sins Are heavier than I would. And I shall go All the way to Einsiedeln with that load: 1 need to work it off. Countess Linda. What sort of sins, Dear Agatha ? I think they must be small. Agatha. Nay, but they may be greater than I know; ’T is but dim light I see by. So I try 314 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. All ways I know of to be cleansed and pure. I would not sink where evil spirits are. There’s perfect goodness somewhere: so I strive. Countess Linda. You were the better for that pilgrimage You made before ? The shrine is beautiful; And then you saw fresh country all the way. Agatha. Yes, that is true. And ever since that time The world seems greater, and the Holy Church More wonderful. The blessed pictures all, The heavenly images with books and wings, Are company to me through the day and night. The time ! the time ! It never seemed far back, Only to father’s father and his kin That lived before him. But the time stretched out After that pilgrimage : I seemed to see Far back, and yet I knew time lay behind, As there are countries lying still behind The highest mountains, there in Switzerland. Oh, it is great to go on pilgrimage! Countess Linda. Perhaps some neighbors will be pilgrims too. And you can start together in a band. Agatha. Not from these hills: people are busy here, The beasts want tendance. One who is not missed Can go and pray for others who must work. I owe it to all neighbors, young and old ; For they are good past thinking—lads and girh Given to mischief, merry naughtiness, Quiet it, as the hedgehogs smooth their spines. AGATHA. 315 For fear of hurting poor old Agatha. ’T is pretty : why, the cherubs in the sky Look young and merry, and the angels play On citherns, lutes, and all sweet instruments. I would have young things merry. See the Lord i A little baby playing with the birds; And how the Blessed Mother smiles at him. Countess Linda. I think you are too happy, Agatha, To care for heaven. Earth contents you well. Agatha. Nay, nay, I shall be called, and I shall go Right willingly. I shall get helpless, blind, Be like an old stalk to be plucked away: The garden must be cleared for young spring plants J T is home beyond the grave, the most are there, All those we pray to, all the Church’s lights — And poor old souls are welcome in their rags: One sees it by the pictures. Good Saint Ann, The Virgin’s mother, she is very old, And had her troubles with her husband too. Poor Kate and Nell are younger far than I, But they will have this roof to cover them. I shall go willingly ; and willingness Makes the yoke easy and the burden light. Countess Linda. When you go southward in your pilgrimage, Come to see me in Freiburg, Agatha. Where you have friends you should not go to inns. Agatha. Yes, I will gladly come to see you, lady, And you will give me sweet hay for a bed. « S16 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. And in the morning I shall wake betimes And start when all the birds begin to sing. Countess Linda. You wear your smart clothes on the pilgrimage. Such pretty clothes as all the women here Keep by them for their best: a velvet cap And collar golden-broidered ? They look well On old and young alike. Agatha. Nay, I have none — Never had better clothes than these you see. Good clothes are pretty, but one sees them best When others wear them, and I somehow thought ’T was not worth while. I had so many things More than some neighbors, I was partly shy Of wearing better clothes than they, and now I am so old and custom is so strong ’T would hurt me sore to put on finery. Countess Linda. Your gray hair is a crown, dear Agatha. Shake hands ; good-by. The sun is going down, And I must see the glory from the hill. I stayed among those hills; and oft heard more Of Agatha. I liked to hear her name, As that of one half grandame and half saint, Uttered with reverent playfulness. The lads And younger men all called her mother, aunt, Or granny, with their pet diminutives, And bade their lasses and their brides behave Right well to one who surely made a link ’Twixt faulty folk and God by loving both: AGATHA. 317 Not one but counted service done by her, Asking no pay save just lier daily bread. At feasts and weddings, when they passed in groups Along the vaie, and the good country wine, Being vocal in them, made them quire along In quaintly mingled mirth and piety, They fain must jest and play some friendly trick On three old maids ; but when the moment came Always they bated breath and made their sport Gentle as feather-stroke, that Agatha Might like the waking for the love it showed. Their song made happy music ’mid the hills, For nature tuned their race to harmony, And poet Hans, the tailor, wrote them songs That grew from out their life, as crocuses From out the meadow’s moistness. ’T was his song They oft sang, wending homeward from a feast — The song I give you. It brings in, you see, Their gentle jesting with the three old maids. Midnight by the chapel bell! Homeward, homeward all, farewell! I with you, and you with me, Miles are short with company. Heart of Mary , bless the way , Keep us all by night and day ! Moon and stars at feast with night Now have drunk their fill of light. Home they hurry, making time Trot apace, like merry rhyme. Heart of Mary , mystic rose , Send us all a sweet repose / 18 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Swiftly through the wood down hill, Run till you can hear the mill. Toni’s ghost is wandering now, Shaped just like a snow-white cow. Heart of Mary, morning star, Ward off danger, near or far! Toni’s wagon with its load Fell and crushed him in the road ’Twixt these pine-trees. Never fear! Give a neighbor’s ghost good cheer. Holy Babe, our God and Brother, Bind us fast to one another! Hark! the mill is at its work, Now we pass beyond the murk To the hollow, where the moon Makes her silvery afternoon. Good Saint Joseph , faithful spouse Help us all to keep our vows ! Here the three old maidens dwell, Agatha and Kate and Nell; See, the moon shines on the thatch, We will go and shake the latch. Heart of Mary , cup of joy, Give us mirth without alloy / Hush, ’t is here, no noise, sing low, Rap with gentle knuckles — so ! Like the little tapping birds, On the door; then sing good words. Meek Saint Anna, old and fair, Hallow all the snow-white hair! ) 4 AGATHA. 319 Little maidens old, sweet dreams 1 Sleep one sleep till morning beams. Mothers ye, who help us all, Quick at hand, if ill befall. Holy Gabriel , lily-laden, Bless the aged mother-maiden ! Forward, mount the broad hillside Swift as soldiers when they ride. See the two towers how they peep, Round-capped giants, o’er the steep. Heart of Mary , by thy sorrow, Keep us upright through the morrowi Now they rise quite suddenly Like a man from bended knee, Now Saint Margen is in sight, Here the roads branch off — good-night Heart of Mary, by thy grace, Give us with the saints a place / ARMGART SCENE I. A Salon lit with larrups and ornamented with green plants . An open piano , with many scattered sheets of music. Bronze busts of Beethoven and Gluck on pillars oppo¬ site each other. A small table spread with supper. To Fraulein Walpurga, who advances with a slight lameness of gait from an adjoining room , enters Graf Dornberg at the opposite door in a travelling dress. Graf. Good-morning, Fraulein! Walpurga. What, so soon returned ? ] feared your mission kept you still at Prague. Graf. But now arrived ! You see my travelling dress. 1 hurried from the panting, roaring steam Like any courier of embassy AVlio hides the fiends of war within his bag. Walpurga. Vo a know that Armgart sings to-night ? Graf. J T is close on half-past nine. Has sung! The Orpheus ARMGART. 321 Lasts not so long. Her spirits — were they high ? Was Leo confident ? Walpurga. He only feared Some tameness at beginning. Let the house Once ring, he said, with plaudits, she is safe. Graf. And .Armgart ? Walpurga. She was stiller than her wont. But once, at some such trivial word of mine, As that the highest prize might yet be won By her who took the second — she was roused. “ For me,” she said, u I triumph or I fail. I never strove for any second j)rize,” Graf. Poor human-hearted singing-bird ! She bears Caesar’s ambition in her delicate breast, And naught to still it with but quivering song! Walpurga, I had not for the world been there to-night: Unreasonable dread oft chills me more Than any reasonable hope can warm. Graf. You nave a rare affection for your cousin; As tender as a sister’s. Walpurga. Nay, I fear My love is little more than what I felt 21 822 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. For happy stories when I was a child. She fills my life that would be empty else, And lifts my naught to value by her side. Graf. She is reason good enough, or seems to be, Why all were born whose being ministers To her completeness. Is it most her voice Subdues us ? or her instinct exquisite, Informing each old strain with some new grace Which takes our sense like any natural good ? Or most her spiritual energy That sweeps us in the current of her song ? Warpurga. I know not. Losing either, we should lose That whole we call our Armgart. For herself, She often wonders what her life had been Without that voice for channel to her soul. She says, it must have leaped through all her limbs Made her a Maenad — made her snatch a brand And fire some forest, that her rage might mount In crashing roaring flames through half a land, Leaving her still and patient for a while. “ Poor wretch ! ” she says, of any murderess —» “ The world was cruel, and she could not sing: I carry my revenges in my throat; I love in singing, and am loved again.” Graf. Mere mood ! I cannot yet believe it more. Too much ambition has unwomaned her; But only for a while. Her nature hides One half its treasures by its very wealth, Taxing the hours to show it. ARMGAKX. 823 Walpurga. Hark! she comes. (Enter Leo with a wreath in his hand , holding the door open for Armgart, who wears a furred mantle and hood. She is followed by her maid, carrying an armful of bouquets.) Leo. Place for the queen of song! Graf (advancing toward Armgart, who throws off her hood and mantle, and shows a star of brilliants in her hair). A triumph, then. You will not be a niggard of your joy And chide the eagerness that came to share it. Armgart. 0 kind ! you hastened your return for me. I would you had been there to hear me sing! Walpurga, kiss me : never tremble more Lest Armgart’s wing should fail her. She has found This night the region where her rapture breathes — Pouring her passion on the air made live With human heart-throbs. Tell them, Leo, tell them How I outsang your hope and made you cry Because Gluck could not hear me. That was folly ! He sang, not listened : every linked note Was his immortal pulse that stirred in mine, And all my gladness is but part of him. Give me the wreath. (She crowns the bust of Gluck.) Leo (sardonically). Ay, ay, but mark you this * It was not part of him — that trill you made In spite of me and reason ! $24 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Armgart. You were wrong — Dear Leo, you were wrong: the house was held As if a storm were listening with delight And hushed its thunder. Leo. Will you ask the house To teach you singing ? Quit your Orpheus then, And sing in farces grown to operas, Where all the prurience of the full-fed mob Is tickled with melodic impudence: Jerk forth burlesque bravuras, square your arms Akimbo with a tavern wench’s grace, And set the splendid compass of your voice To lyric jigs. Go to ! I thought you meant To be an artist — lift your audience To see your vision, not trick forth a show To please the grossest taste of grossest numbers. Armgart (taking up Leo’s hand and kissing it ). Pardon, good Leo, I am penitent. I will do penance : sing a hundred trills Into a deep-dug grave, then burying them As one did Midas’ secret, rid myself Of naughty exultation. Oh I trilled At nature’s prompting, like the nightingales. Go scold them, dearest Leo. Leo. I stop my ears. Nature in Gluck inspiring Orpheus, Has done with nightingales. Are bird-beaks lips ? Graf. Truce to rebukes ! Tell us —who were not there — The double drama : how the expectant house Took the first notes. ARMGART. 3Z& Walpurga (turning from her occupation of decking the room with the flowers). Yes, tell us all, dear Armgart. Did you feel tremors ? Leo, how did she look ? Was there a cheer to greet her ? Leo. Not a sound. She walked like Orpheus in his solitude, And seemed to see naught but what no man saw. 7 T was famous. Not the Schroeder-Devrient Had done it better. But your blessed public Had never any judgment in cold blood — Thinks all perhaps were better otherwise, Till rapture brings a reason. Armgart (scornfully). . I knew that! The women whispered, “ Not a pretty face ! ” The men, “Well, well, a goodly length of limb; She bears the chrfcon.”—It were all the same Were I the Virgin Mother and my stage The opening heavens at the Judgment-day : Gossips would peep, jog elbows, rate the price Of such a woman in the social mart. What were the drama of the world to them, Unless they felt the liell-prong ? Leo. Peace, now, peace! I hate my phrases to be smothered o’er With sauce of paraphrase, my sober tune Made bass to rambling trebles, showering down In endless demi-semi-quavers. 326 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Armgart (taking a bon-bon from the table , uplifting it before putting it into her mouth, and turning away). Mum! Graf. Yes, tell us all the glory, leave the blame. Walpurga. You first, dear Leo — what you saw and heard; Then Armgart — she must tell us what she felt. Leo. Well! The first notes came clearly, firmly forth. And I was easy, for behind those rills I knew there was a fountain. I could see The house was breathing gently, heads were still; Parrot opinion was struck meekly mute, And human hearts were swelling. Armgart stood As if she had been new-created there And found her voice which found a melody. The minx ! Gluck had not written, nor I taught: Orpheus was Armgart, Armgart Orpheus. Well, well, all through the scena I could feel The silence tremble now, now poise itself With added weight of feeling, till at last Delight o’er-toppled it. The final note Had happy drowning m the unloosed roar That surged and ebbed and ever surged again, Till expectation kept it pent awhile Ere Orpheus returned. Pfui! He was changed: My demi-god was pale, had downcast eyes That quivered like a bride’s who fain would send Backward the rising tear. ARMGART. 827 Armgart ( advancing , but then turning away , as if to check her speech). I was a bride, As nuns are at their spousals. Leo. Ay, my lady, That moment will not come again : applause May come and plenty; but the first, first draught! (Snaps his fingers.) Music has sounds for it—I know no words. I felt it once myself when they performed •’My overture to Sintram. Well! ’tis strange, We know not pain from pleasure in such joy. Armgart ( turning quickly). Oh, pleasure has cramped dwelling in our souls, And when full Being comes must call on pain To lend it liberal space. Walpurga. I hope the house Kept a reserve of plaudits : I am jealous Lest they had dulled themselves for coming good That should have seemed the better and the best. Leo. No, ’t was a revel where they had but quaffed Their opening cup. I thank the artist’s star. His audience keeps not sober: once afire, They flame toward climax though his merit hold But fairly even. Armgart (her hand on Leo’s ami). Now, now, confess the truth: I sang still better to the very end — 828 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. All save the trill; I give that up to you, To bite and growl at. Why, you said yourself, Each time I sang, it seemed new doors were oped That you might hear heaven clearer. Leo (shaking his finger). I was raving. Armgart. I am not glad with that mean vanity Which knows no good beyond its appetite Full feasting upon praise ! I am only glad, Being praised for what I know is worth the praise ; Glad of the proof that I myself have part In what I worship! At the last applause — Seeming a roar of tropic winds that tossed The handkerchiefs and many-colored flowers, Falling like shattered rainbows all around — Think you I felt myself a prima donna ? No, but a happy spiritual star Such as old Dante saw, wrought in a rose Of light in Paradise, whose only self Was consciousness of glory wide-diffused, Music, life, power — I moving in the midst With a sublime necessity -of good. Leo (with a shrug). I thought it was a prima donna came Within the side-scenes ; ay, and she was proud To And the bouquet from the royal box Enclosed a jewel-case, and proud to wear A star of brilliants, quite an earthly star, Valued by thalers. Come, my lady, own Ambition has five senses, and a self That gives it good warm lodging when it sink* Plump down from ecstasy. ARMGART. 329 Armgart. Own it ? why not ? Am 1 a sage whose words must fall like seed Silently buried toward a far-off spring ? I sing to living men and my effect Is like the summer’s sun, that ripens corn Or now or never. If the world brings me gifts, Gold, incense, myrrh — ’twill be the needful sign That I have stirred it as the high year stirs Before I sink to winter. Graf. Ecstasies Are short — most happily ! We should but lose Were Armgart borne too commonly and long Out of the self that charms us. Could I choose, She were less apt to soar beyond the reach Of woman’s foibles, innocent vanities, Fondness for trifles like that pretty star Twinkling beside her cloud of ebon hair. Armgart (taking out the gem and looking at it ). This little star! I would it were the seed Of a whole Milky Way, if such bright shimmer Were the sole speech men told their rapture with At Armgart’s music. Shall I turn aside From splendors which flash out the glow I make, And live to make, in all the chosen breasts • Of half a Continent ? No, may it come, That splendor! May the day be near when men Think much to let my horses draw me home, And new lands welcome me upon their beach, Loving me for my fame. That is the truth Of what I wish, nay, yearn for. Shall I lie ? Pretend to seek obscurity — to sing 380 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. In hope of disregard ? A vile pretence! And blasphemy besides. For what is fame But the benignant strength of One, transformed To joy of Many ? Tributes, plaudits come As necessary breathing of such joy; And may they come to me ! Graf. The auguries Point clearly that way. Is it no offence To wish the eagle’s wing may find repose, As feebler wings do, in a quiet nest ? Or has the taste of fame already turned The Woman to a Muse .... Leo (going to the table). Who needs no supper. I am her priest, ready to eat her share Of good Walpurga’s offerings. Walpurga. Armgart, come. Graf, will you come ? Graf. Thanks, I play truant here, And must retrieve my self-indulged delay. But will the Muse receive a votary At any hour to-morrow ? Armgart. Any hour After rehearsal, after twelve at noon. ARMGART. 331 SCENE n. The same Salon, morning. Armgart seated, in her bonnet and walking-dress. The Graf standing near her against the piano. Graf. Armgart, to many minds the first success Is reason for desisting. I have known A man so versatile, he tried all arts, But when in each by turns he had achieved Just so much mastery as made men say, u could be king here if he would/’ he threw The lauded skill aside. He hates, said one, The level of achieved pre-eminence, He must be conquering still; but others said — Armgart. The truth, I hope : he Jiad a meagre soul, Holding no depth where love could root itself. “ Could if he would ? ” True greatness ever wills —* It lives m wholeness if it live at all, And all its strength is knit with constancy. Graf. He used to say himself he was too sane To give his life away for excellence Which yet must stand, an ivory statuette Wrought to perfection through long lonely years, Huddled in the mart of mediocrities. He said, the very finest doing wins The admiring only ; but to leave undone, Promise and not fulfil, like buried youth, Wins all the envious, makes them sigh your namt* 382 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. As that fair Absent, blameless Possible, Which could alone impassion them; and thus, Serene negation has free gift of all, Panting achievement struggles, is denied, Or wins to lose again. What say you, Armgart? Truth has rough flavors if we bite it through; I think this sarcasm came from out its core Of bitter irony. Armgart. It is the truth Mean souls select to feed upon. What then ? Their meanness is a truth, which I will spurn. The praise I seek lives not in envious breath Using my name to blight another’s deed. I sing for love of song and that renown Which is the spreading act, the world-wide share, Of good that I was born with. Had I failed — Well, that had been a truth most pitiable. I cannot bear to think what life would be With high hope shrunk to endurance, stunted aims Like broken lances ground to eating-knives, A self sunk down to look with level eyes At low achievement, doomed from day to day To distaste of its consciousness. But I — Graf. Have won, not lost, in your decisive throw. And I too glory in this issue ; yet, The public verdict has no potency To sway my judgment of what Armgart is: My pure delight in her would be but sullied, If it o’erflowed with mixture of men’s praise. And had she failed, I should have said, “ The pearl Remains a pearl for me, reflects the light ARMGART. 333 With, the same fitness that first charmed my gaze — Is worth as fine a setting now as then.” Armgart ( rising ). Oh, yon are good! But why will you rehearse The talk of cynics, who with insect eyes Explore the secrets of the rubbish-heap ? I hate your epigrams and pointed saws Whose narrow truth is but broad falsity. Confess your friend was shallow. Graf. I confess Life is not rounded in an epigram, And saying aught, we leave a world unsaid. I quoted, merely to shape forth my thought That high success has terrors when achieved — Like preternatural spouses whose dire love Hangs perilous on slight observances: Whence it were possible that Armgart crowned Might turn and listen to a pleading voice, Though Armgart striving in the race was deaf. You said you dared not think what life had been Without the stamp of eminence ; have you thought How you will bear the poise of eminence With dread of sliding ? Paint the future out As an unchecked and glorious career, ’T will grow more strenuous by the very love You bear to excellence, the very fate Of human powers, which tread at every step On possible verges. Armgart. I accept the peril. I choose to walk high with sublimer dread 334 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Rather than crawl in safety. And, besides, I am an artist as yon are a noble: I ought to bear the burden of my rank. Graf. Such parallels, dear Armgart, are but snares To catch the mind with seeming argument — Small baits of likeness ’mid disparity. Men rise the higher as their task is high, The task being well achieved. A woman’s rank Lies in the fulness of her womanhood: Therein alone she is royal. Armgart. Yes, I know The oft-taught Gospel: “ Woman, thy desire Shall be that all superlatives on earth Belong to men, save the one highest kind — To be a mother. Thou shalt not desire To do aught best save pure subservience: Nature has willed it so ! ” 0 blessed Nature ! Let her be arbitress j she gave me voice Such as she only gives a woman child, Best of its kind, gave me ambition too, That sense transcendent which can taste the joy Of swaying multitudes; of being adored For such achievement, needed excellence, As man’s best art must wait for, or be dumb. Men did not say, when I had sung last night, “ ’T was good, nay, wonderful, considering She is a woman ” — and then turn to add, “ Tenor or baritone had sung her songs Better, of course : she’s but a woman spoiled.” I beg your pardon, Graf, you said it. ARMGART. 335 Graf. No! How should I say it, Armgart ? I who own The magic of your nature-given art As sweetest effluence of your womanhood Which, being to my choice the best, must find The best of utterance. But this I say: Your fervid youth beguiles you; you mistake A strain of lyric passion for a life Which in the spending is a chronicle With ugly pages. Trust me, Armgart, trust me; Ambition exquisite as yours which soars Towards something quintessential you call fame, Is not robust enough for this gross world Whose fame is dense with false and foolish breath, Ardor, a-twin with nice refining thought, Prepares a double pain. Pain had been saved, Nay, purer glory reached, had you been throned As woman only, holding all your art As attribute to that dear sovereignty — Concentring your power in home delights Which penetrate and purify the world. Armgart. What! leave the opera with my part ill-sung While I was warbling in a drawing-room ? Sing in the chimney-corner to inspire My husband reading news ? Let the world hear My music only in his morning speech Less stammering than most honorable men’s ? No! tell me that my song is poor, my art The piteous feat of weakness aping strength-— That were fit proem to your argument. Till then, I am an artist by my birth — By the same warrant that I am a woman: 836 POEMS OF GEOFGE ELIOT. Nay, in the added rarer gift I see Supreme vocation: if a conflict comes, p er i s h — no, not the woman, hut the joys Which men make narrow by their narrowness. Oh, I am happy ! The great masters write For women’s voices, and great Music wants me! I need not crush myself within a mould Of theory called Nature : I have room To breathe and grow unstunted. Graf. Armgart, hear me, L meant not that our talk should hurry on To such collision. Foresight of the ills Thick shadowing your path, drew on my speech Beyond intention. True, I came to ask A great renunciation, but not this Toward which my words at first perversely strayed, As if in memory of their earlier suit, Forgetful. Armgart, do you remember too ? the suit Had but postponement, was not quite disdained — Was told to wait and learn — what it has learned — A more submissive speech. Armgart (with some agitation ). Then it forgot Its lesson cruelly. As I remember, ,r T was not to speak save to the artist crowned, Nor speak to her of casting off her crown. Graf. Nor will it, Armgart. I come not to seek Any renunciation save the wife’s, Which turns away from other possible love Future and worthier, to take his love ARMGART. 337 Who asks the name of husband. He who sought Armgart obscure, and heard her answer, “ Wait ” — May come without suspicion now to seek Armgart applauded. Armgart (turning toward him ). Yes, without suspicion Of aught save what consists with faithfulness In all expressed intent. Forgive me, Graf — I am ungrateful to no soul that loves me — To you most grateful. Yet the best intent Grasps but a living present which may grow Like any unfledged bird. You are a noble, And have a high career; just now you said ’T was higher far than aught a woman seeks Beyond mere womanhood. You claim to be More than a husband, but could not rejoice That I were more than wife. What follows, then ? You choosing me with such persistency As is but stretched-out rashness, soon must find Our marriage asks concessions, asks resolve To share renunciation or demand it. Either we both renounce a mutual ease, As in a nation’s need both man and wife Do public services, or one of us Must yield that something else for which each lives Besides the other. Men are reasoners : That premise of superior claims perforce Urges conclusion— “ Armgart, it is you.” Graf. But if I say I have considered this With strict prevision, counted all the cost Which that great good of loving you demands — Questioned by stores of patience, half resolved 22 838 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. To live resigned without a bliss whose threat Touched you as well as me — and finally, With impetus of undivided will Returned to say, “ You shall be free as now; Only accept the refuge, shelter, guard, My love will give your freedom ” —then your words Are hard accusal. Armgart. Well, I accuse myself. My love would be accomplice of your will. Graf. Again — my will ? Armgart. Oh, your unspoken will. Your silent tolerance would torture me, And on that rack I should deny the good I yet believed in. Graf. Then I am the man Whom you would love ? Armgart. Whom I refuse to love l No; I will live alone and pour my pain With passion into music, where it turns To what is best within my better self. I will not take for husband one who deems The thing my soul acknowledges as good — The thing I hold worth striving, suffering for, To be a thing dispensed with easily Or else the idol of a mind infirm. ARMGART. 889 Graf. Armgart, you are ungenerous ; you strain My thought beyond its mark. Our difference Lies not so deep as love — as union Through a mysterious fitness that transcends Formal agreement. Armgart. It lies deep enough To chafe the union. If many a man Refrains, degraded, from the utmost right, Because the pleadings of his wife’s small fears Are little serpents biting at his heel — How shall a woman keep her steadfastness Beneath a frost within her husband’s eyes Where coldness scorches ? Graf, it is your sorrow That you love Armgart. Nay, it is her sorrow That she may not love you. Graf. Woman, it seems, Has enviable power to love or not According to her will. Armgart. She has the will — I have — who am one woman — not to take Disloyal pledges that divide her will. The man who marries me must wed my Art — Honor and cherish it, not tolerate. Graf. The man is yet to come whose theory Will weigh as naught with you against his love Armgart. Whose theory will plead beside his love. 340 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Graf. Himself a singer, then ? who knows no life Out of the opera books, where tenor parts Are found to suit him ? Armgart. You are bitter, Graf. Forgive me; seek the woman you deserve, All grace, all goodness, who has not yet found A meaning in her life, nor any end Beyond fulfilling yours. The type abounds. Graf. And happily, for the world. Armgart. Yes, happily. Let it excuse me that my kind is rare: Commonness is its own security. Graf. Armgart, I would with all my soul I knew The man so rare that he could make your life As woman sweet to you, as artist safe. Armgart. Oh, I can live unmated, but not live Without the bliss of singing to the world, And feeling all my world respond to me. Graf. May it be lasting. Then, we two must part ? Armgart. T thank you from my heart for all. Farewell! ARMGART. 841 SCENE IIL A YEAR LATER. same salon . Walpurga is standing looking toward the window with an air °f uneasiness . Doctor Grahn. Doctor. Where is my patient, Fraulein ? Walpurga. Fled! escaped! Gone to rehearsal. Is it dangerous ? Doctor. No, no; her throat is cured. I only came To hear her try her voice. Had she yet sung ? Walpurga. No; she had meant to wait for you. She said, « The Doctor has a right to my first song.” Her gratitude was full of little plans, But all were swept away like gathered flowers By sudden storm. She saw this opera bill — It was a wasp to sting her: she turned pale, Snatched up her hat and mufflers, said in haste, a I go to Leo — to rehearsal — none Shall sing Fidelio to-night but me ! ” Then rushed down-stairs. Doctor (looking at his watch ). And this, not long ago ? 842 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Walpurga. Barely an hour. Doctor. I will come again, Returning from Charlottenburg at one. Walpurga. Doctor, I feel a strange presentiment. Are you quite easy ? Doctor. She can take no harm. ’T was time for her to sing: her throat is well, It was a fierce attack, and dangerous; I had to use strong remedies, but — well! At one, dear Fraulein, we shall meet again. SCENE IV. TWO HOURS LATER. Walpurga starts up, looking toward the door. Arm- gart enters, followed by Leo. She throws herself on a chair which stands with its back toward the door, speechless, not seeming to see anything. Walpurga casts a questioning terrified look at Leo. He shrugs his shoulders, and lifts up his hands, behind Arm gart, who sits like a helpless image, while Walpurga takes off her hat and mantle. Walpurga. Armgart, dear Armgart (kneeling and taking her hands), only speak to me, “ Armgart, dear Armgart, only speak to me.” ' ARMGART. 348 Your poor Walpurga. Oh, your hands are cold. Clasp mine, and warm them ! I will kiss them warm. (Armgart looks at her an instant , then draws away her hands, and, turning aside, buries her face against the back of the chair , Walpurga rising and standing near. Doctor Grahn enters .) Doctor. News ! stirring news to-day ! wonders come thick. Armgart (starting up at the first sound of his voice , and speaking vehemently). Yes, thick, thick, thick ! and you have murdered it! Murdered my voice — poisoned the soul in me, And kept me living. You never told me that your cruel cures Were clogging films — a mouldy, dead’ning blight*— A lava-mud to crust and bury me, Yet hold me living in a deep, deep tomb, Crying unheard forever ! Oh, your cures Are devil’s triumphs : you can rob, maim, slay, And keep a hell on the other side your cure Where you can see your victim quivering Between the teeth of torture — see a soul Made keen by loss — all anguish with a good Once known and gone ! (Turns and sinks back on her chair.) 0 misery, misery! You might have killed me, might have let me sleep After my happy day and wake — not here ! In some new unremembered world — not here, Where all is faded, flat — a feast broke off — Banners all meaningless — exulting words Dull, dull — a drum that lingers in the air Beating to melody which no man hears. S*4 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Doctor (after a moment's silence ). k sudden check has shaken you, poor child! All things seem livid, tottering to your sense, From inward tumult. Stricken by a threat You see your terrors only. Tell me, Leo: ? T is not such utter loss. (Leo, with a shrug , goes quietly out .) The freshest bloom Merely, has left the fruit; the fruit itself .... Armgart. Is ruined, withered, is a thing to hide Away from scorn or pity. Oh, you stand And look compassionate now, but when Death came With mercy in his hands, you hindered him. I did not choose to live and have your pity. You never told me, never gave me choice To die a singer, lightning-struck, unmaimed, Or live what you would make me with your cures — A self accursed with consciousness of change, A mind that lives in naught but members lopped, A power turned to pain — as meaningless As letters fallen asunder that once made A hymn of rapture. Oh, I had meaning once Like day and sweetest air. What am I now ? The millionth woman in superfluous herds. Why should I be, do, think ? ’T is thistle-seed, That grows and grows to feed the rubbish-heap. Leave me alone I Doctor. Well, I will come again; Send for me when you will, though but to rate m.0- That is medicinal — a letting blood. ARMGART. 345 Armgart. Oh, there is one physician, only one, Who cures and never spoils. Him I shau send for \ He comes readily. Doctor (to Walpurga). One word, dear Fraulein. SCENE V. ARMGART, WALPURGA. Armgart. Walpurga, have you walked this morning? Walpurga. Armgart. Go, then, and walk; I wish to be alone. Walpurga. I will not leave you. No. Armgart. Will not, at my wish ? Walpurga. Will not, because you wish it. Say no more. But take this draught. Armgart. The Doctor gave it you V It is an anodyne. Put it away. He cured me of my voice, and now he wanes To cure me of my vision and resolve — 346 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Drug me to sleep that I may wake again Without a purpose, abject as the rest To bear the yoke of life. He shall not cheat me Of that fresh strength which anguish gives the soul, The inspiration of revolt, ere rage Slackens to faltering. How I see the truth. Walpurga (setting down the glass ). Then you must see a future in your reach, With happiness enough to make a dower For two of modest claims. Armgart. Oh, you intone That chant of consolation wherewith ease Makes itself easier in the sight of pain. Walpurga. No; I would not console you, but rebuke. Armgart. That is more bearable. Forgive me, dear. Say what you will. But now I want to write. (She rises and moves toward a table .) Walpurga. I say then, you are simply fevered, mad; You cry aloud at horrors that would vanish If you would change the light, throw into shade The loss you aggrandize, and let day fall On good remaining, nay on good refused Which may be gain now. Did you not reject A woman’s lot more brilliant, as some held, Than any singer’s ? It may still be yours. Graf Dornberg loved you well. ARMGART. 347 Armgart. Not me, not me. He loved one well who was like me in all Save in a voice which made that All unlike As diamond is to charcoal. Oh, a man’s love ! Think you he loves a woman’s inner self Aching with loss of loveliness ? — as mothers Cleave to the palpitating pain that dwells Within their misformed offspring ? Walpurga. But the Graf Chose you as simple Armgart — had preferred That you should never seek for any fame But such as matrons have who rear great sons. And therefore you rejected him; but now_ Armgart. -Ay? now — now he would see me as I am, (She takes up a hand-mirror .} Russet and songless as a missel-thrush. An ordinary girl — a plain brown girl, Who, if some meaning flash from out her words, Shocks as a disproportioned thing — a Will That, like an arm astretch and broken off, Has naught to hurl — the torso of a souL I sang him into love of me : my song Was consecration, lifted me apart From the crowd chiselled like me, sister forms, But empty of divineness. Nay, my charm Was half that I could win fame yet renounce A wife with glory possible absorbed Into her husband’s actual. Walpurga. For shame! Armgart, you slander him. What would you say 348 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. If now he came to you and asked again That you would be his wife ? Arm g art. No, and thrice no I It would be pitying constancy, not love, That brought him to me now. I will not be A pensioner in marriage. Sacraments Are not to feed the paupers of the world. If he were generous — I am generous too. Walpurga. Proud, Armgart, but not generous. Armgart. He will not know until — Say no more* Walpurga. He knows already. Armgart ( quickly ). Is he come back ? Walpurga. Yes, and will soon be here. The Doctor had twice seen him and would go From hence again to see him. It is all one. Armgart. Well, he knows. Walpurga. What if he were outside f I hear a footstep in the ante-room. ARMGART. 349 Armgart (raising herself and assuming calmness). Why let him come, of course. I shall behave Like what I am, a common personage Who looks for nothing but civility. I shall not play the fallen heroine, Assume a tragic part and throw out cues For a beseeching lover. Walpurga. Some one raps. (Goes to the door.') A letter — from the Graf. Armgart. Then open it. (Walpurga still offers it.) Nay, my head swims. Read it. I cannot see. (Walpurga opens it , reads and pauses.) Read it. Have done ! No matter what it is. Walpurga (reads in a low , hesitating voice). “ I am deeply moved — my heart is rent, to hear of your illness and its cruel result, just now communicated to me by Dr. Grahn. But surely it is possible that this result may not be permanent. For youth such as yours, Time may hold in store something more than resigna¬ tion : who shall say that it does not hold renewal ? I have not dared to ask admission to you in the hours of a recent shock, but I cannot depart on a long mission without tendering my sympathy and my farewell. I start this evening for the Caucasus, and thence I proceed to India, where I am intrusted by the Government with business which may be of long duration.” (Walpurga sits down dejectedly.) $50 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Armgart (after a slight shudder , bitterly ). The Graf has much discretion. I am glad. He spares us both a pain, not seeing me. What I like least is that consoling hope —- That empty cup, so neatly ciphered “ Time,’* Handed me as a cordial for despair. {Slowly and dreamily) Time — what a word to fling as charity ! Bland neutral word for slow, dull-beating pain — Hays, months, and years ! — If I would wait for them. {She takes up her hat and puts it on , then wraps her mantle round her . Walpurga leaves the room.) Why, this is but beginning. (Walpurga re-enters.) Kiss me, dear. I am going now — alone — out — for a walk. Say you will never wound me any more With such cajolery as nurses use To patients amorous of a crippled life. Flatter the blind: I see. Walpurga. Well, I was wrong. In haste to soothe, I snatched at flickers merely. Believe me, I will flatter you no more. Armgart. Bear witness, I am calm. I read my lot As soberly as if it were a tale Writ by a creeping feuilletonist and called “The Woman’s Lot: a Tale of Everyday:” A middling woman’s, to impress the world With high superfluousness ; her thoughts a crop Of chick-weed errors or of pot-herb facts, Smiled at like some child’s drawing on a slate. ARMGART. 351 * Genteel ? ” “ Oh yes, gives lessons ; not so good As any man’s would be, but cheaper far.” “Pretty ? ” “No; yet she makes a figure fit For good society. Poor thing, she sews Both late and early, turns and alters all To suit the changing mode. Some widower Might do well, marrying her; but in these days !. ..« Well, she can somewhat eke her narrow gains By writing, just to furnish her with gloves And droschkies in the rain. They print her tilings Often for charity.” — Oh, a dog’s life ! A harnessed dog’s, that draws a little cart Voted a nuisance ! I am going now. Walpurga. Not now, the door is locked. Armgart. Give me the key! Walpurga. Locked on the outside. Gretchen has the key: She is gone on errands. Armgart. What, you dare to keep me Your prisoner ? Walpurga. And have I not been yours ? Your wish has been a bolt to keep me in. Perhaps that middling woman whom you paint With far-off scorn .... Armgart. I paint what I must be l What is my soul to me without the voice 352 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. That gave it freedom ? — gave it one grand touch And made it nobly human ? — Prisoned now, Prisoned in all the petty mimicries Called woman’s knowledge, that will fit the world As doll-clothes fit a man. I can do naught Better than what a million women do — Must drudge among the crowd and feel my life Beating upon the world without response, Beating with passion through an insect’s horn That moves a millet-seed laboriously. If I would do it! Walpurga {coldly). And why should you not ? Armgart {turning quickly). Because Heaven made me royal—wrought me out With subtle finish toward pre-eminence, Made every channel of my soul converge To one high function, and then flung me down, That breaking I might turn to subtlest pain. An inborn passion gives a rebel’s right: I would rebel and die in twenty worlds Sooner than bear the yoke of thwarted life, Each keenest sense turned into keen distaste, Hunger not satisfied but kept alive Breathing in languor half a century. All the world now is but a rack of threads To twist and dwarf me into pettiness And basely feigned content, the placid mask Of women’s misery. Walpurga {indignantly). Ay, such a mask As the few born like you to easy joy, ARMGART. 353 Cradled in privilege, take for natural On all the lowly faces that must look Upward to you ! What revelation now Shows you the mask or gives presentiment Of sadness hidden ? You who every day These five years saw me limp to wait on you, And thought the order perfect which gave me> The girl without pretension to be aught, A splendid cousin for my happiness : To watch the night through when her brain was fired With too much gladness — listen, always listen To what she felt, who having power had right To feel exorbitantly, and submerge The souls around her with the poured-out flood Of what must be ere she was satisfied ! That was feigned patience, was it ? Why not love, Love nurtured even with that strength of self Which found no room save in another’s life ? Oh, such as I know joy by negatives, And all their deepest passion is a pang Till they accept their pauper’s heritage, And meekly live from out the general store Of joy they were born stripped of. I accept — Nay, now would sooner choose it than the wealth Of natures you call royal, who can live In mere mock knowledge of their fellows’ woe, Thinking their smiles may heal it. Armgart ( tremulously ). Nay, Walpurga, I did not make a palace of my joy To shut the world’s truth from me. All my good Was that I touched the world and made a part In the world’s dower of beauty, strength, and bliss : It was the glimpse of consciousness divine 23 354 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Which pours out day and sees the day is good. Now I am fallen dark; I sit in gloom, Remembering bitterly. Yet you speak truth; I wearied you, it seems; took all your help As cushioned nobles use a weary serf, Not looking at his face. Walpurga. Oh, I but stand As a small symbol for the mighty sum Of claims unpaid to needy myriads; I think you never set your loss beside That mighty deficit. Is your work gone —■ The prouder queenly work that paid itself And yet was overpaid with men’s applause ? Are you no longer chartered, privileged, But sunk to simple woman’s penury, To ruthless Nature’s chary average — Where is the rebel’s right for you alone ? Noble rebellion lifts a common load; But what is he who flings his own load off And leaves his fellows toiling ? Rebel’s right ? Say rather, the deserter’s. Oh, you smiled From your clear height on all the million lots Which yet you brand as abject. Armgart. I was blind With too much happiness : true vision comes Only, it seems, with sorrow. Were there one This moment near me, suffering what I feel, And needing me for comfort in her pang — Then it were worth the while to live; not else. Walpurga. One — near you — why, they throng! you hardly stir But your act touches them. We touch afar. ARMGART. For did not swarthy slaves of yesterday Leap in their bondage at the Hebrews’ flight, Which touched them through the thrice millennial dark ? But you can find the sufferer you need With touch less subtle. Armgart. Who has need of me ? Walpurga. Love finds the need it fills. But you are hard. Armgart. Is it not you, Walpurga, who are hard ? You humored all my wishes till to-day, When fate has blighted me. Walpurga. You would not hear The “ chant of consolation :” words of hope Only imbittered you. Then hear the truth — A lame girl’s truth, whom no one ever praised For being cheerful. “ It is well,” they said: “Were she cross-grained she could not be endured.” A word of truth from her had startled you; But you — you claimed the universe ; naught less Than all existence working in sure tracks Toward your supremacy. The wheels might scathe A myriad destinies — nay, must perforce ; But yours they must keep clear of; just for you The seething atoms through the firmament Must bear a human heart — which you had not! For what is it to you that women, men, Plod, faint, are weary, and espouse despair Of aught but fellowship ? Save that you spurn To be among them ? Now, then, you are lame — 356 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Maimed, as yon said, and levelled with the crowd: Call it new birth — birth from that monstrous Self Which, smiling down upon a race oppressed, Says, “ All is good, for I am throned at ease.” Dear Armgart — nay, you tremble — I am cruel. Armgart. Oh no ! hark! Some one knocks. Come in! — come in! (Enter Leo.) Leo. See, Gretchen let me in. I could not rest Longer away from you. Armgart. Sit down, dear Leo. Walpurga, I would speak with him alone. (Walpurga goes out.') Leo ( hesitatingly ). You mean to walk ? Armgart. No, I shall stay within. (She takes off her hat and mantle , and sits down immediately. After a pause , speaking in a sub¬ dued tone to Leo.) How old are you ? Leo. Threescore and five. Armgart. That *s old I never thought till now how you have lived. They hardly ever play your music ? ARMGART. 357 Leo {raising his eyebrows and throwing out his lip). No! Schubert too wrote for silence: half his work Lay like a frozen Rhine till summers came That warmed the grass above him. Even so! Idis music lives now with a mighty youth. Arm g art. Do you think yours will live when you are dead ? Leo. Pfui! The time was, I drank that home-brewed wine And found it heady, while my blood was young: Now it scarce warms me. Tipple it as I may, I am sober still, and say: “My old friend Leo, Much grain is wasted in the world and rots; Why not thy handful ? ” Armgart. Strange ! since I have known you Till now I never wondered how you lived. When I sang well — that was your jubilee. But you were old already. Leo. Yes, child, yes: Youth thinks itself the goal of each old life 5 Age has but travelled from a far-off time Just to be ready for youth’s service. Well! It was my chief delight to perfect you. Akmgart. Good Leo! You have lived on little joys. But your delight in me is crushed forever. Your pains, where are they now ? They shaped intent 358 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Which action frustrates; shaped an inward sense Which is but keen despair, the agony Of highest vision in the lowest pit. Leo. Nay, nay, I have a thought: keep to the stage, To drama without song; for you can act — Who knows how well, when all the soul is poured Into that sluice alone. Armgart. I know, and you: The second or third best in tragedies That cease to touch the fibre of the time. No; song is gone, but nature’s other gift, Self-judgment, is not gone. Song was my speech, And with its impulse only, action came : Song was the battle’s onset, when cool purpose Glows into rage, becomes a warring god And moves the limbs with miracle. But now — Oh, I should stand hemmed in with thoughts and rules Say, “ This way passion acts,” yet never feel The might of passion. How should I declaim ? As monsters write with feet instead of hands. I will not feed on doing great tasks ill, Dull the world’s sense with mediocrity, And live by trash that smothers excellence. One gift I had that ranked me with the best — The secret of my frame — and that is gone. For all life now I am a broken thing. But silence there! Good Leo, advise me now. I would take humble work and do it well — Teach music, singing — what I can — not here, But in some smaller town where I may bring The method you have taught me, pass your gift ARMGART. 859 To others who can use it for delight. You think I can do that ? (Shepauses with a sob in her voice.) Leo. Yes, yes, dear child ! And it were well, perhaps, to change the place — Begin afresh as I did when I left Vienna with a heart half broken. Armgart ( roused by surprise). You ? Leo. Well, it is long ago. But I had lost — No matter! We must bury our dead joys And live above them with a living world. But whither, think you, you would like to go ? Armgart. To Freiburg. Leo. In the Breisgau ? It is too small. Akmgart. And why there ? Walpurga was born there, And loves the place. She quitted it for me These five years past. Now I will take her there. Dear Leo, I will bury my dead joy. Leo. Mothers do so, bereaved; then learn to love Another’s living child. Armgart. Oh, it is hard To take the little corpse, and lay it low, 360 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. And say, “None misses it but me.” She sings .... I mean Paulina sings Fidelio, And they will welcome her to-night. Leo. Well, well, ’T is better that our griefs should not spread far. 1870 . HOW LISA LOVED THE KING. S IX hundred years ago, in Dante’s time, Before his cheek was furrowed by deep rhyme—- When Europe, fed afresh from Eastern story, Was like a garden tangled with the glory Of flowers hand-planted and of flowers air-sown, Climbing and trailing, budding and full-blown, Where purple bells are tossed amid pink stars, And springing blades, green troops in innocent wars, Crowd every shady spot of teeming earth, Making invisible motion visible birth — Six hundred years ago, Palermo town Kept holiday. A deed of great renown, A high revenge, had freed it froiii the yoke Of hated Frenchmen, and from Calpe’s rock To where the Bosporus caught the earlier sun, J T was told that Pedro, King of Aragon, Was welcomed master of all Sicily, A royal knight, supreme as kings should be In strength and gentleness that make high chivalry. Spain was the favorite home of knightly grace, Where generous men rode steeds of generous race; Both Spanish, yet half Arab, both inspired By mutual spirit, that each motion fired With beauteous response, like minstrelsy Afresh fulfilling fresh expectancy. So when Palermo made high festival, The joy of matrons and of maidens all ■362 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Was the inock terror of the tournament, Where safety, with the glimpse of danger blent, Took exaltation as from epic song, Which greatly tells the pains that to great life belong. And in all eyes King Pedro was the king Of cavaliers : as in a full-gemmed ring The largest ruby, or as that bright star Whose shining shows us where the Hyads are. His the best jennet, and he sat it best; His weapon, whether tilting or in rest, W T as worthiest watching, and his face once seen Gave to the promise of his royal mien Such rich fulfilment as the opened eyes Of a loved sleeper, or the long-watched rise Of vernal day, whose joy o’er stream and meadow flies. But of the maiden forms that thick enwreathed The broad piazza and sweet witchery breathed, With innocent faces budding all arow From balconies and windows high and low, Who was it felt the deep mysterious glow, The impregnation with supernal fire Of young ideal love — transformed desire, Whose passion is but worship of that Best Taught by the many-mingled creed of each young breast ? ’T was gentle Lisa, of no noble line, Child of Bernardo, a rich Florentine, Who from his merchant-city hither came To trade in drugs ; yet kept an honest fame, And had the virtue not to try and sell Drugs that had none. He loved his riches well, But loved them chiefly for his Lisa’s sake, W r hom with a father’s care he sought to make The bride of some true honorable man: Of Perdicone (so the rumor ran), HOW LISA LOVED THE KING. 363 Whose birth was higher than his fortunes were; For still your trader likes a mixture fair Of blood that hurries to some higher strain Than reckoning money’s loss and money’s gain. And of such mixture good may surely come: Lords’ scions so may learn to cast a sum, A trader’s grandson bear a well-set head, And have less conscious manners, better bred; Nor, when he tries to be polite, be rude instead. 5 T was Perdicone’s friends made overtures To good Bernardo: so one dame assures Her neighbor dame who notices the youth Fixing his eyes on Lisa ; and in truth Eyes that could see her on this summer day Might find it hard to turn another way. She had a pensive beauty, yet not sad; Rather, like minor cadences that glad The hearts of little birds amid spring boughs; And oft the trumpet or the joust would rouse Pulses that gave her cheek a finer glow, Parting her lips that seemed a mimic bow By chiselling Love for play in coral wrought, Then quickened by him with the passionate thought, The soul that trembled in the lustrous night Of slow long eyes. Her body was so slight, It seemed she could have floated in the sky, And with the angelic choir made symphony; But in her cheek’s rich tinge, and in the dark Of darkest hair and eyes, she bore a mark Of kinship to her generous mother earth, The fervid land that gives the plumy palm-trees birth. She saw not Perdicone ; her young mind Dreamed not that any man hnd ever pined 364 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. For such a little simple maid as she: She had but dreamed how heavenly it would be To love some hero noble, beauteous, great, Who would live stories worthy to narrate, Like Roland, or the warriors of Troy, The Cid, or Amadis, or that fair boy Who conquered everything beneath the sun, And somehow, some time, died at Babylon Fighting the Moors. For heroes all were good And fair as that archangel who withstood The Evil One, the author of all wrong — That Evil One who made the French so strong; And now the flower of heroes must be he Who drove those tyrants from dear Sicily, So that her maids might walk to vespers tranquilly. Young Lisa saw this hero in the king, And as wood-lilies that sweet odors bring Might dream the light that opes their modest eyne Was lily-odored — and as rites divine, Round turf-laid altars, or ’neath roofs of stone, Draw sanctity from out the heart alone That loves and worships, so the miniature Perplexed of her soul’s world, all virgin pure, Filled with heroic virtues that bright form, Raona’s royalty, the finished norm Of horsemanship — the half of chivalry : For how could generous men avengers be, Save as God’s messengers on coursers fleet ? — These, scouring earth, made Spain with Syria meet In one self world where the same right had sway, And good must grow as grew the blessed day. No more; great Love his essence had endued With Pedro’s form, and entering subdued The soul of Lisa, fervid and intense, HOW LISA LOVED THE KING. 365 Proud in its choice of proud obedience To hardship glorified by perfect reverence. Sweet Lisa homeward carried that dire guest, And in her chamber through the hours of rest The darkness was alight for her with sheen Of arms, and plumed helm, and bright between Their commoner gloss, like the pure living spring ’Twixt porphyry lips, or living bird’s bright wing ’Twixt golden wires, the glances of the king Flashed on her soul, and waked vibrations there Of known delights love-mixed to new and rare: The impalpable dream was turned to breathing flesh. Chill thought of summer to the warm close mesh Of sunbeams held between the citron-leaves, Clothing her life of life. Oh, she believes That she could be content if he but knew (Her poor small self could claim no other due) How Lisa’s lowly love had highest reach Of winged passion, whereto winged speech Would be scorched remnants left by mountain flame. Though, had she such lame message, were it blame To tell what greatness dwelt in her, what rank She held in loving ? Modest maidens shrank From telling love that fed on selfish hope; But love, as hopeless as the shattering song Wailed for loved beings who have joined the throng Of mighty dead ones.Hay, but she was weak — Knew only prayers and ballads — could not speak With eloquence save what dumb creatures have, That with small cries and touches small boons crave. . She watched all day that she might see him pass With knights and ladies ; but she said, “ Alas! Though he should see me, it were all as one He saw a pigeon sitting on the stone 366 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Of wall or balcony: some colored spot His eye just sees, liis mind regardeth not. I have no music-touch that could bring nigh My love to his soul’s hearing. I shall die, And he will never know who Lisa was — The trader’s child, whose soaring spirit rose As hedge-born aloe-flowers that rarest years disclose. “ For were I now a fair deep-breasted queen A-horseback, with blonde hair, and tunic greei. Gold-bordered, like Costanza, I should need No change within to make me queenly there; For they the royal-hearted women are Who nobly love the noblest, yet have grace For needy suffering lives in lowliest place, Carrying a choicer sunlight in their smile, The heavenliest ray that pitieth the vile. My love is such, it cannot choose but soar Up to the highest; yet forevermore, Though I were happy, throned beside the king, I should be tender to each little thing With hurt warm breast, that had no speech to tell Its inward pang, and I would soothe it well With tender touch and with a low soft moan For company : my dumb love-pang is lone, Prisoned as topaz-beam within a rough-garbed stone.” So, inward-wailing, Lisa passed her days. Each night the August moon with changing phase Looked broader, harder on her unchanged pain; Each noon the heat lay heavier again On her despair; until her body frail Shrank like the snow that watchers in the vale See narrowed on the height each summer morn; While her dark glance burnt larger, more forlorn, HOW LISA LOVED THE KING. 367 As if the soul within her all on fire Made of her being one swift funeral pyre. Father and mother saw with sad dismay The meaning of their riches melt away: For without Lisa what would sequins buy ? What wish were left if Lisa were to die ? Through her they cared for summers still to come, Else they would be as ghosts without a home In any flesh that could feel glad desire. They pay the best physicians, never tire Of seeking what will soothe her, promising That aught she longed for, though it were a thing Hard to be come at as the Indian snow, Or roses that on Alpine summits blow — It should be hers. She answers with low voice, She longs for death alone — death is her choice; Death is the King who never did think scorn, But rescues every meanest soul to sorrow born. Yet one day, as they bent above her bed And watched her in brief sleep, her drooping head Turned gently, as the thirsty flowers that feel Some moist revival through their petals steal, And little flutterings of her lids and lips Told of such dreamy joy as sometimes dips A skyey shadow in the mind’s poor pool, She oped her eyes, and turned their dark gems full Upon her father, as in utterance dumb Of some new prayer that in her sleep had come. “ What is it, Lisa ? ” “ Father, I would see Minuccio, the great singer; bring him me.” For always, night and day, her unstilled thought, Wandering all o’er its little world, had sought How she could reach, by some soft pleading touch, King Pedro’s soul, that she who loved so much 368 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Dying, might have a place within his mind — A little grave which he would sometimes find And plant some flower on it — some thought, some mem- ory kind, Till in her dream she saw Minuccio Touching his viola, and chanting low A strain that, falling on her brokenly, Seemed blossoms lightly blown from off a tree, Each burdened with a word that was a scent — Raona, Lisa, love, death, tournament; Then in her dream she said, u He sings of me — Might be my messenger; ah, now I see The king is listening — ” Then she awoke, And, missing her dear dream, that new-born longing spoke. She longed for music: that was natural; Physicians said it was medicinal; The humors might be schooled by true consent Of a fine tenor and fine instrument; In brief, good music, mixed with doctor’s stuff, Apollo with Asklepios — enough ! Minuccio, entreated, gladly came. (He was a singer of most gentle fame — A noble, kindly spirit, not elate That he was famous, but the song was great — Would sing as finely to this suffering child As at the court where princes on him smiled.) Gently he entered and sat down by her, Asking what sort of strain she would prefer — The voice alone, or voice with viol wed; Then, when she chose the last, he preluded With magic hand, that summoned from the strings Aerial spirits, rare yet vibrant wings That fanned the pulses of his listener, And waked each sleeping sense with blissful stir. HOW LISA LOVED THE KING. 369 Her cheek already showed a slow faint blush, But soon the voice, in pure full liquid rush, Made all the passion, that till now she felt, Seem but cool waters that in warmer melt. Finished the song, she prayed to be alone With kind Minuccio; for her faith had grown To trust him as if missioned like a priest With some high grace, that when his singing ceased Still made him wiser, more magnanimous Than common men who had no genius. So laying her small hand within his palm, She told him how that secret glorious harm Of loftiest loving had befallen her; That death, her only hope, most bitter were, If when she died her love must perish too As songs unsung and thoughts unspoken do, Which else might live within another breast. She said, “Minuccio, the grave were rest, If I were sure, that lying cold and lone, My love, my best of life, had safely flown And nestled in the bosom of the king; See, T is a small weak bird, with unfledged wing. But you will carry it for me secretly, And bear it to the king, then come to me And tell me it is safe, and I shall go Content, knowing that he I love my love doth know.* Then she wept silently, but each large tear Made pleading music to the inward ear Of good Minuccio. “ Lisa, trust in me,” He said, and kissed her fingers loyally; “ It is sweet law to me to do your will, And ere the sun his round shall thrice fulfil, I hope to bring you news of such rare skill 24 370 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. As amulets have, that aches in trusting bosoms still.” He needed not to pause and first devise How he should tell the king; for in nowise Were such love-message worthily bested Save in fine verse by music rendered. He sought a poet-friend, a Siennese, And u Mico, mine,” he said, “ full oft to please Thy whim of sadness I have sung thee strains To make thee weep in verse : now pay my pains, And write me a canzon divinely sad, Sinlessly passionate and meekly mad With young despair, speaking a maiden’s heart Of fifteen summers, who would fain depart From ripening life’s new-urgent mystery — Love-choice of one too high her love to be — But cannot yield her breath till she has poured Her strength away in this hot-bleeding word Telling the secret of her soul to her soul’s lord.” Said Mico, “ Hay, that thought is poesy, I need but listen as it sings to me. Come thou again to-morrow.” The third day, When linked notes had perfected the lay, Minuccio had his summons to the court To make, as he was wont, the moments short Of ceremonious dinner to the king. This was the time when he had meant to bring Melodious message of young Lisa’s love : He waited till the air had ceased to move To ringing silver, till Falernian wine Made quickened sense with quietude combine, And then with passionate descant made each ear incline. Love , thou didst see me , light as morning’s breath , Roaming a garden in a joyous error , Laughing at chases vain , a happy child , HOW LISA LOVED THE KING. » Till of thy countenance ths alluring terror • In majesty from out the blossoms smiled, From out their life seeming a beauteous Death. O Love, who so didst choose me for thine own, Taking this little isle to tliy great sway } See now, it is the honor of thy throne That what thou gavest perish not away, Nor leave some sweet remembrance to atone By life that will be for the brief life gone: Hear, ere the shroud o’er these frail limbs be thrown Since every king is vassal unto thee, My heart’s lord needs must listen loyally — Oh tell him I am waiting for my Death ! Tell him, for that he hath such royal power T were hard for him to think how small a thing, How slight a sign, would make a wealthy dower For one like me, the bride of that pale king Whose bed is mine at some swift-nearing hour. Go to my lord, and to his memory bring That happy birthday of my sorrowing When his large glance made meaner gazers glad, Entering the bannered lists : ’twas then Iliad The wound that laid me in the arms of Death. Tell him, 0 Love, I am a lowly maid, No more than any little knot of thyme That he with careless foot may often tread; Yet lowest fragrance oft will mount sublime And cleave to things most high and hallowed, As doth the fragrance of my life’s springtime, My lowly love, that soaring seeks to climb Within his thought, and make a gentle bliss, More blissful than if mine, in being his : So shall I live in him and rest in Death. 372 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. « The strain was new. It seemed a pleading cry, And yet a rounded perfect melody, Making grief beauteous as the tear-filled eyes Of little child at little miseries. Trembling at first, then swelling as it rose, Like rising light that broad and broader glows, It filled the hall, and so possessed the air That not one breathing soul was present there, Though dullest, slowest, but was quivering In music’s grasp, and forced to hear her sing. But most such sweet compulsion took the mood Of Pedro (tired of doing what he would). Whether the words which that strange meaning bore Were but the poet’s feigning or aught more, Was bounden question, since their aim must be At some imagined or true royalty. He called Minuccio and bade him tell What poet of the day had writ so well ; For though they came behind all former rhymes, The verses were not bad for these poor times. “ Monsignor, they are only three days old,” Minuccio said; “ but it must not be told How this song grew, save to your royal ear.” Eager, the king withdrew where none was near, And gave close audience to Minuccio, Who meetly told that love-tale meet to know. The king had features pliant to confess The presence of a manly tenderness — Son, father, brother, lover, blent in one, In fine harmonic exaltation — The spirit of religious chivalry. He listened, and Minuccio could see The tender, generous admiration spread O’er all his face, and glorify his head With royalty that would have kept its rank HOW LISA LOVED THE KING . 3T3 Though his brocaded robes to tatters shrank. He answered without pause, “ So sweet a maid, In nature’s own insignia arrayed, Though she were come of unmixed trading blood That sold and bartered ever since the Flood, Would have the self-contained and single worth Of radiant jewels born in darksome earth. Eaona were a shame to Sicily, Letting such love and tears unhonored be: Hasten, Minuccio, tell her that the king To-day will surely visit her when vespers ring.” Joyful, Minuccio bore the joyous word, And told at full, while none but Lisa heard, How each thing had befallen, sang the song, And like a patient nurse who would prolong All means of soothing, dwelt upon each tone, Each look, with which the mighty Aragon Marked the high worth his royal heart assigned To that dear place he held in Lisa’s mind. She listened till the draughts of pure content Through all her limbs like some new being went — Life, not recovered, but untried before, From out the growing world’s unmeasured store Of fuller, better, more divinely mixed. ’T was glad reverse: she had so firmly fixed To die, already seemed to fall a veil Shrouding the inner glow from light of senses pale. Her parents wondering see her half arise — Wondering, rejoicing, see her long dark eyes Brimful with clearness, not of ’scaping tears, But of some light ethereal that enspheres Their orbs with calm, some vision newly learnt Where strangest fires erewhile had blindly burnt. She asked to have her soft white robe and band 374 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. And coral ornaments, and with her hand She gave her locks’ dark length a backward fall, Then looked intently in a mirror small, And feared her face might perhaps displease the king; “ In truth,’’ she said, “ I am a tiny thing; I was too bold to tell what could such visit bring.” Meanwhile the king, revolving in his thought That virgin passion, was more deeply wrought To chivalrous pity; and at vesper bell, With careless mien which hid his purpose well, Went forth on horseback, and as if by chance Passing Bernardo’s house, he paused to glance At the line garden of this wealthy man, This Tuscan trader turned Palermitan : But, presently dismounting, chose to walk Amid the trellises, in gracious talk With the same trader, deigning even to ask If he had yet fulfilled the father’s task Of marrying that daughter whose young charms Himself, betwixt the passages of arms, Noted admiringly. “ Monsignor, no, She is not married; that were little woe, Since she has counted barely fifteen years; But all such hopes of late have turned to fears; She droops and fades; though for a space quite brief — Scarce three hours past— she finds some strange relief.” The king avised: “ ’T were dole to all of us, The world should lose a maid so beauteous; Let me now see her; since I am her liege lord, Her spirits must wage war with death at my strong word.” In such half-serious playfulness, he wends, With Lisa’s father and two chosen friends, Up to the chamber where she pillowed sits HOW LISA LOVED THE KING. 375 Watching the open door, that now admits A presence as much better than her dreams, As happiness than any longing seems. The king advanced, and, with a reverent kiss Upon her hand, said, “ Lady, w r hat is this ? You, whose sweet youth should others’ solace be, Pierce all our hearts, languishing piteously. We pray you, for the love of us, be cheered, Nor be too reckless of that life, endeared To us who know your passing worthiness, And count your blooming life as part of our life’s bliss.” Those words, that touch upon her hand from him Whom her soul worshipped, as far seraphim Worship the distant glory, brought some shame Quivering upon her cheek, yet thrilled her frame With such deep joy she seemed in paradise, In wondering gladness, and in dumb surprise That bliss could be so blissful: then she spoke — “ Signor, I was too weak to bear the yoke, The golden yoke of thoughts too great for me; That was the ground of my infirmity. But now, I pray your grace to have belief That I shall soon be well, nor any more cause grief.* The king alone perceived the covert sense Of all her words, which made one evidence With her pure voice and candid loveliness, That he had lost much honor, honoring less That message of her passionate distress. He stayed beside her for a little while With gentle looks and speech, until a smile As placid as a ray of early morn On opening flower-cups o’er her lips was borne. When he had left her, and the tidings spread Through all the town how he had visited 376 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The Tuscan trader’s daughter, who was sick, Men said, it was a royal deed and catholic. And Lisa ? she no longer wished for death ; But as a poet, who sweet verses saith Within his soul, and joys in music there, Nor seeks another heaven, nor can bear Disturbing pleasures, so was she content, Breathing the life of grateful sentiment. She thought no maid betrothed could be more blest; For treasure must be'valued by the test Of highest excellence and rarity, And her dear joy was best as best could be; There seemed no other crown to her delight Now the high loved one saw her love aright. Thus her soul thriving on that exquisite mood, Spread like the May-time all its beauteous good O’er the soft bloom of neck, and arms, and cheek, And strengthened the sweet body, once so weak, Until she rose and walked, and, like a bird With sweetly rippling throat, she made her spring joys heard. The king, when he the happy change had seen, Trusted the ear of Constance, his fair queen, With Lisa’s innocent secret, and conferred How they should jointly, by their deed and word, Honor this maiden’s love, which like the prayer Of loyal hermits, never thought to share In what it gave. The queen had that chief grace Of womanhood, a heart that can embrace All goodness in another woman’s form; And that same day, ere the sun lay too warm On southern terraces, a messenger Informed Bernardo that the royal pair Would straightway visit him and celebrate HOW LISA LOVED THE KING 377 Their gladness at his daughter’s happier state, W hich they were fain to see. Soon came the king On horseback, with his barons, heralding The advent of the queen in courtly state ; And all, descending at the garden gate, Streamed with their feathers, velvet, and brocade, Through the pleached alleys, till they, pausing, made A lake of splendor hnid the aloes gray_ When, meekly facing all their proud array, The white-robed Lisa with her parents stood, As some white dove before the gorgeous brood Of dapple-breasted birds born by the Colchian flood The king and queen, by gracious looks and speech, Encourage her, and thus their courtiers teach How this fair morning they may courtliest be By making Lisa pass it happily. And soon the ladies and the barons all Draw her by turns, as at a festival Made for her sake, to easy, gay discourse, And compliment with looks and smiles enforce 5 A joyous hum is heard the gardens round; Soon there is Spanish dancing and the sound Of minstrel’s song, and autumn fruits are pluckt: Till mindfully the king and queen conduct Lisa apart to where a trellised shade Made pleasant resting. Then King Pedro said_ “ Excellent maiden, that rich gift of love Your heart hath made us, hath a worth above All royal treasures, nor is fitly met Save when the grateful memory of deep debt Lies still behind the outward honors done : And as a sign that 110 oblivion Shall overflood that faithful memory, We while we live your cavalier will be, 378 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Nor will we ever arm ourselves for fight, Whether for struggle dire or brief delight Of warlike feigning, but we first will take The colors you ordain, and for your sake Charge the more bravely where your emblem is Nor will we ever claim an added bliss To our sweet thoughts of you save one sole kist But there still rests the outward honor meet To mark your worthiness, and we entreat That you will turn your ear to proffered vows Of one who loves you, and would be your spouse. We must not wrong yourself and Sicily By letting all your blooming years pass by Unmated: you will give the world its due From beauteous maiden and become a matron true. Then Lisa, wrapt in virgin wonderment At her ambitious love’s complete content, Which left no further good for her to seek Than love’s obedience, said with accent meek — “ Monsignor, I know well that were it known To all the world how high my love had flown, There would be few who would not deem me mad. Or say my mind the falsest image had Of my condition and your lofty place. But hea7en has seen that for no moment’s space Have I forgotten you to be the king, Or me myself to be a lowly thing — A little lark, enamored of the sky, That soared to sing, to break its breast, and die. But, as you better know than I, the heart In choosing chooseth not its own desert, But that great merit which attracteth it; ’T is law, I struggled, but I must submit, And having seen a worth all worth above. HOW LISA LOVED TIIE KING. 379 I loyed you, love you, and shall always love. But that doth mean, my will is ever yours, Not only when your will my good insures, But if it wrought me what the world calls harm_ Fire, wounds, would wear from your dear will a charm. That you will be my knight is full content, And for that kiss — I pray, first for the queen’s consent/ Her answer, given with such firm gentleness, Pleased the queen well, and made her hold no less Of Lisa’s merit than the king had held. And so, all cloudy threats of grief dispelled, There was betrothal made that very morn ’Twixt Perdicone, youthful, brave, well-born, And Lisa, whom he loved; she loving well The lot that from obedience befell. The queen a rare betrothal ring on each Bestowed, and other gems, with gracious speectL And that no joy might lack, the king, who knew The youth was poor, gave him rich Ceffalu And Cataletta, large and fruitful lands — Adding much promise when he joined their hands. At last he said to Lisa, with an air Gallant yet noble: “Now we claim our share From your sweet love, a share which is not small: For in the sacrament one crumb is all/’ Then taking her small face his hands between, He kissed her on the brow with kiss serene, Fit seal to that pure vision her young soul had seen, Sicilians witnessed that King Pedro kept His royal promise : Perdicone stept To many honors honorably won, Living with Lisa in true union. Throughout his life the king still took delight 380 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. To call himself fair Lisa’s faithful knight; And never wore in field or tournament A scarf or emblem save by Lisa sent. Such deeds made subjects loyal in that land: They joyed that one so worthy to command, So chivalrous and gentle, had become The king of Sicily, and filled the room Of Frenchmen, who abused the Church’s trust, Till, in a righteous vengeance on their lust, Messina rose, with God, and with the dagger’s thrust. L’envoi. Reader, this story 'pleased me tony ago In the bright pages of Boccaccio, And where the author of a good we know, Let us not fail to pay the grateful thanks we ow& 1869. A MINOR PROPHET. I HAVE a friend, a vegetarian seer, By name Elias Baptist Butterworth, A harmless, bland, disinterested man, V hose ancestors in Cromwell’s day believed The Second Advent certain in five years, But when King Charles the Second came instead Revised their date and sought another world: I mean — not heaven but — America. A fervid stock, whose generous hope embraced The fortunes of mankind, not stopping short At rise of leather, or the fall of gold, Nor listening to the voices of the time As housewives listen to a cackling hen, With wonder whether she has laid her egg On their own nest-egg. Still they did insist Somewhat too wearisomely on the joys Of their Millennium, when coats and hats Would all be of one pattern, books and song6 All fit for Sundays, and the casual talk As good as sermons preached extempore. And in Elias the ancestral zeal Breathes strong as ever, only modified By Transatlantic air and modern thought. You could not pass him in the street and fail To note his shoulders’ long declivity, Beard to the waist, swan-neck, and large pale eyes,* Or, when lie lifts his hat, to mark his hair POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Brushed back to show his great capacity — A full grain’s length at the angle of the brow Proving him witty, while the shallower men Only seem witty in their repartees. Not that he’s vain, but that his doctrine needs The testimony of his frontal lobe. On all points he adopts the latest views ; Takes for the key of universal Mind The “ levitation ” of stout gentlemen; Believes the Eappings are not spirits’ work, But the Thought-atmosphere’s, a stream of brains In correlated force of raps, as proved By motion, heat, and science generally ; The spectrum, for example, which has shown The selfsame metals in the sun as here ; So the Thought-atmosphere is everywhere : High truths that glimmered under other names To ancient sages, whence good scholarship Applied to Eleusinian mysteries — The Vedas — Tripitaka — Vendidad — Might furnish weaker proof for weaker minds That Thought was rapping in the hoary past, And might have edified the Greeks by raps At the greater Dionysia, if their ears Had not been filled with Sophoclean verse. And when all Earth is vegetarian — When, lacking butchers, quadrupeds die out, And less Thought-atmosphere is reabsorbed By nerves of insects parasitical, Those higher truths, seized now by higher minds But not expressed (the insects hindering), Will either flash out into eloquence, Or better still, be comprehensible By rappings simply, without need of roots. A MINOR PROPHET. 383 J T is on this theme — the vegetarian world — That good Elias willingly expands : * He loves to tell in mildly nasal tones And vowels stretched to suit the widest views, The future fortunes of our infant Earth — When it will be too full of human kind To have the room for wilder animals. Saith he, Sahara will be populous With families of gentlemen retired From commerce in more Central Africa, Who order coolness as we order coal, And have a lobe anterior strong enough To think away the sand-storms. Science thus Will leave no spot on this terraqueous globe Unfit to be inhabited by man, The chief of animals : all meaner brutes Will have been smoked and elbowed out of life. No lions then shall lap Caffrarian pools, Or shake the Atlas with their midnight roar: Even the slow, slime-loving crocodile, The last of animals to take a hint, Will then retire forever from a scene Where public feeling strongly sets against him. Fishes may lead carnivorous lives obscure, But must not dream of culinary rank Or being dished in good society. Imagination in that distant age, Aiming at fiction called historical, Will vainly try to reconstruct the times When it was men’s preposterous delight To sit astride live horses, which consumed Materials for incalculable cakes ; When there were milkmaids who drew milk from cowli With udders kept abnormal for that end Since the rude mythopoeic period 384 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Of Aryan dairymen, who did not blush To call their milkmaid and their daughter one— Helplessly gazing at the Milky Way, Nor dreaming of the astral cocoa-nuts Quite at the service of posterity. ’T is to be feared, though, that the duller boys, Much given to anachronisms and nuts (Elias has confessed boys will be boys), May write a jockey for a centaur, think Europa’s suitor was an Irish bull, iEsop a journalist who wrote up Eox, And Bruin a chief swindler upon ’Change. Boys will be boys, but dogs will all be moral. With longer alimentary canals Suited to diet vegetarian. The uglier breeds will fade from memory, Or, being palaeontological, Live but as portraits in large learned books, Distasteful to the feelings of an age Nourished on purest beauty. Earth will hold No stupid brutes, no cheerful queernesses, No naive cunning, grave absurdity. Wart-pigs with tender and parental grunts, Wombats much flattened as to their contour, Perhaps from too much crushing in the ark, But taking meekly that fatality; The serious cranes, unstung by ridicule; Long-headed, short-legged, solemn-looking curs, (Wise, silent critics of a flippant age); Phe silly straddling foals, the weak-brained gees® Hissing fallaciously at sound of wheels — Ml these rude products will have disappeared Along with every faulty human type. By dint of diet vegetarian 411 will be harmony of hue and line, A MINOR PROPHET. 385 Bodies and minds all perfect, limbs well-turned, And talk quite free from aught erroneous. Thus far Elias in his seer’s mantle: But at this climax in his prophecy My sinking spirits, fearing to be swamped, Urge me to speak. “ High prospects these, my friend, Setting the weak carnivorous brain astretch; We will resume the thread another day.” “ To-morrow,” cries Elias, “ at this hour ? ” “ No, not to-morrow — I shall have a cold — At least I feel some soreness — this endemic — Good-by.” No tears are sadder than the smile With which I quit Elias. Bitterly I feel that every change upon this earth Is bought with sacrifice. My yearnings fail To reach that high apocalyptic mount Which shows in bird’s-eye view a perfect world, Or enter warmly into other joys Than those of faulty, struggling human kind. That strain upon my soul’s too feeble wing Ends in ignoble floundering: I fall Into short-sighted pity for the men Who living in those perfect future times Will not know half the dear imperfect things That move my smiles and tears — will never know The fine old incongruities that raise My friendly laugh; the innocent conceits That like a needless eyeglass or black patch Give those who wear them harmless happiness; lhie twists and cracks in our poor earthenware, That touch me to more conscious fellowship < 1 am not myself the finest Parian ^ 25 386 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT* With my coevals. So poor Colin Clout, To whom raw onion gives prospective zest, Consoling hours of dampest wintry work, Could hardly fancy any regal joys Quite unimpregnate with the onion’s scent: Perhaps his highest hopes are not all clear Of waitings from that energetic bulb: ? T is well that onion is not heresy. Speaking in parable, I am Colin Clout. A clinging flavor penetrates my life — My onion is imperfectness : I cleave To nature’s blunders, evanescent types Which sages banish from Utopia. “ Not worship beauty ? v say you. Patience, friend! I worship in the temple with the rest; But by my hearth I keep a sacred nook For gnomes and dwarfs, duck-footed waddling elves Who stitched and hammered for the weary man In days of old. And in that piety I clothe ungainly forms inherited From toiling generations, daily bent At desk, or plough, or loom, or in the mine, In pioneering labors for the world. Nay, I am apt when floundering confused From too rash flight, to grasp at paradox, And pity future men who will not know A keen experience with pity blent, The pathos exquisite of lovely minds Hid in harsh forms — not penetrating them Like fire divine within a common bush Which glows transfigured by the heavenly guest, So that men put their shoes off; but encaged Like a sweet child within some thick-walled cell, Who leaps and fails to hold the window-bars, But having shown a little dimpled hand A MINOR PROPHET. 887 Is visited thenceforth by tender hearts Whose eyes keep watch about the prison walls. A foolish, nay, a wicked paradox! For purest pity is the eye of love Melting at sight of sorrow; and to grieve Because it sees no sorrow, shows a love Warped from its truer nature, turned to love Of merest habit, like the miser’s greed. But I am Colin still: my prejudice Is for the flavor of my daily food. Not that I doubt the world is growing still As once it grew from Chaos and from Night 5 Or have a soul too shrunken for the hope Which dawned in human breasts, a double morn, With earliest watchings of the rising light Chasing the darkness; and through many an age Has raised the vision of a future time That stands an Angel with a face all mild Spearing the demon. I too rest in faith That man’s perfection is the crowning flower, Toward which the urgent sap in life’s great tree Is pressing — seen in puny blossoms now, But in the world’s great morrows to expand With broadest petal and with deepest glow. Yet, see the patched and plodding citizen Waiting upon the pavement with the throng While some victorious world-hero makes Triumphal entry, and the peal of shouts And flash of faces ’neath uplifted hats Run like a storm of joy along the streets ! He says, “ God bless him ! ” almost with a sob, As the great hero passes; he is glad The world holds mighty men and mighty deeds ; The music stirs his pulses like strong wine, 388 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. The moving splendor touches him with awe — ’T is glory shed around the common weal, And he will pay his tribute willingly, Though with the pennies earned by sordid toil. Perhaps the hero’s deeds have helped to bring A time when every honest citizen Shall wear a coat unpatched. And yet he feels More easy fellowship with neighbors there Who look on too; and he will soon relajjse From noticing the banners and the steeds To think with pleasure there is just one bun Left in his pocket, that may serve to tempt The wide-eyed lad, whose weight is all too much For that young mother’s arms : and then he falls To dreamy picturing of sunny days When he himself was a small big-cheeked lad In some far village where no heroes came, And stood a listener ’twixt his father’s legs In the warm firelight, while the old folk talked And shook their heads and looked upon the floor; And he was puzzled, thinking life was fine — The bread and cheese so nice all through the year And Christmas sure to come. Oh that good time! He, could he choose, would have those days again And see the dear old-fashioned things once more. But soon the wheels and drums have all passed by And tramping feet are heard like sudden rain: The quiet startles our good citizen; He feels the child upon his arms, and knows He is with the people making holiday Because of hopes for better days to come. But Hope to him was like the brilliant west Telling of sunrise in a world unknown, And from that dazzling curtain of bright hues He turned to the familiar face of fields A MINOR PROPHET. 889 Lying all clear in the calm morning land. Maybe’t is wiser not to fix a lens Too scrutinizing on the glorious times When Barbarossa shall arise and shake His mountain, good King Arthur come again, And all the heroes of such giant soul That, living once to cheer mankind with hope, They had to sleep until the time was ripe For greater deeds to match their greater thought. Yet no ! the earth yields nothing more Divine Than high prophetic vision — than the Seer Who fasting from man’s meaner joy beholds The paths of beauteous order, and constructs A fairer type, to shame our low content. But prophecy is like potential sound Which turned to music seems a voice sublime From out the soul of light; but turns to noise In scrannel pipes, and makes all ears averse. The faith that life on earth is being shaped To glorious ends, that order, justice, love, Mean man’s completeness, mean effect as sure As roundness in the dew-drop — that great faith Is but the rushing and expanding stream Of thought, of feeling, fed by all the past. Our finest hope is finest memory, As they who love in age think youth is blest Because it has a life to fill with love. Full souls are double mirrors, making still An endless vista of fair things before Repeating things behind: so faitli is strong Only when we are strong, shrinks when we shrink It comes when music stirs us, and the chords Moving on some grand climax shake our souls With influx new that makes new energies 390 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. It comes in swellings of the heart and tears That rise at noble and at gentle deeds — At labors of the master-artist’s hand Which, trembling, touches to a finer end, Trembling before an image seen within. It comes in moments of heroic love, Unjealous joy in joy not made for us — In conscious triumph of the good within Making us worship goodness that rebukes. Even our failures are a prophecy. Even our yearnings and our bitter tears After that fair and true we cannot grasp; As patriots who seem to die in vain Make liberty more sacred by their pangs. Presentiment of better things on earth Sweeps in with every force that stirs our souls To admiration, self-renouncing love, Or thoughts, like light, that bind the world in one Sweeps like the sense of vastness, when at night We hear the roll and dash of waves that break Nearer and nearer with the rushing tide, Which rises to the level of the cliff Because the wide Atlantic rolls behind, Throbbing respondent to the far-off orbs. 186 & BROTHER AND SISTER i. I CANNOT choose but think upon the time When our two lives grew like two buds that kiss At lightest thrill from the bee’s swinging chime, Because the one so near the other is. He was the elder and a little man Of forty inches, bound to show no dread, And I the girl that puppy-like now ran, Now lagged behind my brother’s larger tread. I held him wise, and when he talked to me Of snakes and birds, and which God loved the best, I thought his knowledge marked the boundary Where men grew blind, though angels knew the rest. If he said “ Hush ! ” I tried to hold my breath; Wherever he said “ Come ! ” I stepped in faith. n. Long years have left their writing on my brow, But yet the freshness and the dew-fed beam Of those young mornings are about me now, When we two wandered toward the far-off stream With rod and line. Our basket held a store Baked for us only, and I thought with joy 392 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. That I should have my share, though he had more, Because he was the elder and a boy. The firmaments of daisies since to me Have had those mornings in their opening eyes, The bunched cowslip’s pale transparency Carries that sunshine of sweet memories, And wild-rose branches take their finest scent From those blest hours of infantine content. hi. Our mother bade us keep the trodden ways, Stroked down my tippet, set my brother’s frill, Then with the benediction of her gaze Clung to us lessening, and pursued us still Across the homestead to the rookery elms, Whose tall old trunks had each a grassy mound, So rich for us, we counted them as realms With varied products: here were earth-nuts found, And here the Lady-fingers in deep shade; Here sloping toward the Moat the rushes grew, The large to split for pith, the small to braid; While over all the dark rooks cawing flew, And made a happy strange solemnity, A deep-toned chant from life unknown to me. IV. Our meadow-path had memorable spots: One where it bridged a tiny rivulet, Deep hid by tangled blue Forget-me-nots; And all along the waving grasses met BROTHER AND SISTER. 393 My little palm, or noddea 60 my cheek, Alien flowers with upturned faces gazing drew My wonder downward, seeming all to speak With eyes of souls that dumbly heard and knew. Then came the copse, where wild things rushed unseen, And black-scathed grass betrayed the past abode Of mystic gypsies, who still lurked between Me and each hidden distance of the road. A gypsy once had startled me at play, Blotting with her dark smile my sunny day. v. Thus rambling we were schooled in deepest lore, And learned the meanings that give words a soul, The fear, the love, the primal passionate store, Whose shaping impulses make manhood whole. Those hours were seed to all my after good; My infant gladness, through eye, ear, and touch, Took easily as warmth a various food To nourish the sweet skill of loving much. For who in age shall roam the earth and find Reasons for loving that will strike out love With sudden rod from the hard year-pressed mind ? Were reasons sown as thick as stars above, ’T is love must see them, as the eyes see light: Day is but Number to the darkened sight. VI. Our brown canal was endless to my thought; And on its banks I sat in dreamy peace, 394 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Unknowing how the good I loved was wrought Untroubled by the fear that it would cease. Slowly the barges floated into view, Rounding a grassy hill to me sublime With some Unknown beyond it, whither flew The parting cuckoo toward a fresh spring-time. The wide-arched bridge, the scented elder-flowers, The wondrous watery rings that died too soon, The echoes of the quarry, the still ]lours With white robe sweeping on the shadeless noon, Were but my growing self, are part of me, My present Past, my root of piety. VII. Those long days measured by my little feet • Had chronicles which yield me many a text; Where irony still finds an image meet Of full-grown judgments in this world perplext. One day my brother left me in high charge, To mind the rod, while he went seeking bait, And bade me, when I saw a nearing barge, Snatch out the line, lest he should come too late. Proud of the task, I watched with all my might For one whole minute, till my eyes grew wide, Till sky and earth took on a strange new light And seemed a dream-world floating on some tide — A fair pavilioned boat for me alone Bearing me onward through the vast unknown. BROTHER AND SISTER. 395 VIII. But sudden came the barge’s pitch-black prow, Nearer and angrier came my brother’s cry, And all my soul was quivering fear, when lo! Upon the imperilled line, suspended high, A silver perch ! My guilt that won the prey, Now turned to merit, had a guerdon rich Of hugs and praises, and made merry play, Until my triumph reached its highest pitch When all at home were told the wondrous feat, And how the little sister had fished well. In secret, though my fortune tasted sweet, I wondered why this happiness befell. u The little lass had luck,” the gardener said: And so I learned, luck was with glory wed. IX. We had the selfsame world enlarged for each By loving difference of girl and boy: The fruit that hung on high beyond my reach He plucked for me, and oft he must employ A measuring glance to guide my tiny shoe Where lay firm stepping-stones, or call to mind a This thing I like my sister may not do, For she is little, and I must be kind.” Thus boyish Will the nobler mastery learned Where inward vision over impulse reigns, Widening its life with separate life discerned, A Like unlike, a Self that self restrains. 396 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. His vears with others must the sweeter be For those brief days he spent in loving me. x. His sorrow was my sorrow, and his joy Sent little leaps and laughs through all my frame ; My doll seemed lifeless and no girlish toy Had any reason when my brother came. I knelt with him at marbles, marked his fling Cut the ringed stem and make the apple drop, Or watched him winding close the spiral string That looped the orbits of the humming top. Grasped by such fellowship my vagrant thought Ceased with dream-fruit dream-wishes to fulfil j My aery-picturing fantasy was taught Subjection to the harder, truer skill That seeks with deeds to grave a thought-tracked line, And by “ What is,” “ What will be” to define. XI. School parted us; we never found again That childish world where our two spirits mingled Like scents from varying roses that remain One sweetness, nor can evermore be singled- Fet the twin habit of that early time Lingered for long about the heart and tongue: We had been natives of one happy clime, And its dear accent to our utterance clung, BROTHER AND SISTER. 397 Till the dire years whose awful name is Change Had grasped our souls still yearning in divorce, And pitiless shajDed them in two forms that range Two elements which sever their life’s course. But were another childhood-world my share, I would be born a little sister there. 1869 STRADIVARIUS. Y OUR soul was lifted by the wings to-day Hearing the master of the violin : You praised him, praised the great Sebastian too Who made that fine Chaconne ; but did you think Of old Antonio Stradivari ? — him Who a good century and half ago Put his true work in that brown instrument ^.nd by the nice adjustment of its frame Gave it responsive life, continuous With the master’s finger-tips and perfected Like them by delicate rectitude of use. Not Bach alone, helped by fine precedent Of genius gone before, nor Joachim Who holds the strain afresh incorporate By inward hearing and notation strict Of nerve and muscle, made our joy to-day: Another soul was living in the air And swaying it to true deliverance Of high invention and responsive skill: That plain white-aproned man who stood at work Patient and accurate full fourscore years, Cherished his sight and touch by temperance, And since keen sense is love of perfectness Made perfect violins, the needed paths For inspiration and high mastery. No simpler man than he : he never cried, “ Why was I born to this monotonous task STRADIVARIUS. 899 Of making violins ? ” or flung them down To suit with hurling act a well-hurled curse At labor on such perishable stuff. Hence neighbors in Cremona held him dull, Called him a slave, a mill-horse, a machine, Begged him to tell his motives or to lend A few gold pieces to a loftier mind. Yet he had pithy words full fed by fact; For Fact, well-trusted, reasons and persuades, Is gnomic, cutting, or ironical, Draws tears, or is a tocsin to arouse —- Can hold all figures of the orator In one plain sentence; has her pauses too — Eloquent silence at the chasm abrupt Where knowledge ceases. Thus Antonio Made answers as Fact willed, and made them strong, Naldo, a painter of eclectic school, Taking his dicers, candlelight and grins From Caravaggio, and in holier groups Combining Flemish flesh with martyrdom — Knowing all tricks of style at thirty-one, And weary of them, while Antonio At sixty-nine wrought placidly his best, Making the violin you heard to-day — Naldo would tease him oft to tell his aims. “ Perhaps thou hast some pleasant vice to feed —. The love of louis d’ors in heaps of four, Each violin a heap — I Ve naught to blame ; My vices waste such heaps. But then, why work With painful nicety ? Since fame once earned By luck or merit — oftenest by luck — (Else why do I put Bonifazio’s name To work that 1 pinxit Naldo ? would not sell ?) Is welcome index to the wealthy mob 400 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Where they should pay their gold, and where they pay There they find merit — take your tow for flax, And hold the flax unlabelled with your name, loo coarse for sufferance.” Antonio then: “ I like the gold — well, yes — but not for meals. And as my stomach, so my eye and hand, And inward sense that works along with both, Have hunger that can never feed on coin. Who draws a line and satisfies his soul, Making it crooked where it should be straight ? An idiot with an oyster-shell may draw His lines along the sand, all wavering, Fixing no point or pathway to a point; An idiot one remove may choose his line, Straggle and be content; but God be praised, Antonio Stradivari has an eye That winces at false work and loves the true, With hand and arm that play upon the tool As willingly as any singing bird Sets him to sing his morning roundelay, Because he likes to sing and likes the song. Then Hal do : “ ’T is a petty kind of fame At best, that comes of making violins ; And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt gc To purgatory none the less.” But he: “ ? T were purgatory here to make them ill; And for my fame — when any master holds ’Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine, He will be glad that Stradivari lived, Made violins, and made them of the best. The masters only know whose work is good: They will choose mine, and while God gives them skill STRADIVARIUS. 101 I give them instruments to play upon, God choosing me to help Him.” “ What! were God At fault for violins, thou absent ? ” “ Yes; He were at fault for Stradivari’s work.” a Why, many hold Giuseppe’s violins As good as thine.” “ May be : they are different. His quality declines: he spoils his hand With over-drinking. But were his the best, He could not work for two. My work is mine, And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked I should rob God — since He is fullest good — Leaving a blank instead of violins. I say, not God Himself can make man’s best Without best men to help Him. I am one best Here in Cremona, using sunlight well To fashion finest maple till it serves More cunningly than throats, for harmony. ’T is rare delight: I would not change my skill To be the Emperor with bungling hands, And lose my work, which comes as natural As self at waking.” “ Thou art little more Than a deft potter’s wheel, Antonio ; Turning out work by mere necessity And lack of varied function. Higher arts Subsist on freedom — eccentricity — Uncounted inspirations — influence That comes with drinking, gambling, talk turned wild. Then moody misery and lack, of food — With every ditliyrambic fine excess : 402 POEMS OF GEORGE ELTOT. These make at last a storm which flashes out In lightning revelations. Steady work Turns genius to a loom; the soul must lie Like grapes beneath the sun till ripeness comes And mellow vintage. I could paint you now The finest Crucifixion ; yesternight Returning home I saw it on a sky Blue-black, thick-starred. I want two louis Tors To buy the canvas and the costly blues — Trust me a fortnight.” “ Where are those last two I lent thee for thy Judith ? — her thou saw’st In saffron gown, with Holofernes’ head And beauty all complete ? ” “ She is but sketched: I lack the proper model — and the mood. A great idea is an eagle’s egg, Craves time for hatching; while the eagle sits, Feed her.” “ If thou wilt call thy pictures eggs I call the hatching, Work. ’T is God gives skill, But not without men’s hands : He could not make Antonio Stradivari’s violins Without Antonio. Get thee to thy easel.” 1878. A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY. Y OUNG Hamlet, not the hesitating Dane, But one named after him, who lately strove For honors at our English Wittenberg — Blond, metaphysical, and sensuous, Questioning all things and yet half convinced Credulity were better; held inert ’Twixt fascinations of all opposites, And half suspecting that the mightiest soul (Perhaps his own ?) was union of extremes, Having no choice but choice of everything; As, drinking deep to-day for love of wine, To-morrow half a Brahmin, scorning life As mere illusion, yearning for that True Which has no qualities ; another day Finding the fount of grace in sacraments, And purest reflex of the light divine In gem-bossed pyx and broidered chasuble, Resolved to wear no stockings and to fast With arms extended, waiting ecstasy; But getting cramps instead, and needing change, A would-be pagan next: Young Hamlet sat A guest with five of somewhat riper age At breakfast with Horatio, a friend With few opinions, but of faithful heart, Quick to detect the fibrous spreading roots Of character that feed men’s theories, Yet cloaking weaknesses with charity 404 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. And ready in all service save rebuke. With ebb of breakfast and the cider-cup Came high debate : the others seated there Were Osric, spinner of line sentences, A delicate insect creeping over life Feeding on molecules of floral breath, And weaving gossamer to trap the sun; Laertes, ardent, rash, and radical; Discursive Rosencranz, grave Guildenstern, And he for whom the social meal was made — The polished priest, a tolerant listener, Disposed to give a hearing to the lost, And breakfast with them ere they went below. From alpine metaphysic glaciers first The talk sprang copious ; the themes were old, But so is human breath, so infant eyes, The daily nurslings of creative light. Small words held mighty meanings : Matter, Force, Self, Not-self, Being, Seeming, Space and Time — Plebeian toilers on the dusty road Of daily traffic, turned to Genii And cloudy giants darkening sun and moon. Creation was reversed in human talk: None said, “ Let Darkness be,” but Darkness was; And in it weltered with Teutonic ease, An argumentative Leviathan, Blowing.cascades from out his element, The thunderous Rosencranz, till “ Truce, I beg! ” Said Osric, with nice accent. 11 1 abhor That battling of the ghosts, that strife of terms For utmost lack of color, form, and breath, That tasteless squabbling called Philosophy; As if a blue-winged butterfly afloat A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY. 405 For just three days above the Italian fields, Poising in sunshine, fluttering toward its bride. Should fast and speculate, considering What were if it were not ? or what now is Instead of that which seems to be itself ? Its deepest wisdom surely were to be A sipping, marrying, blue-winged butterfly ; Since utmost speculation on itself Were but a three days’ living of worse sort—- A bruising struggle all within the bounds Of butterfly existence.” “ I protest,” Burst in Laertes, u against arguments That start with calling me a butterfly, A bubble, spark, or other metaphor Which carries your conclusions as a phrase In quibbling law will carry property. Put a thin sucker for my human lips Fed at a mother’s breast, who now needs food That I will earn for her; put bubbles blown From frothy thinking, for the joy, the love, The wants, the pity, and the fellowship (The ocean deeps I might say, were I bent On bandying metaphors) that make a man — Why, rhetoric brings within your easy reacn Conclusions worthy of — a butterfly. The universe, I hold, is no charade, No acted pun unriddled by a word, Nor pain a decimal diminishing With hocus-pocus of a dot or naught. For those who know it, pain is solely pain: Not any letters of the alphabet Wrought syllogistieally pattern-wise, Nor any cluster of fine images, Nor any missing of their figured dance 406 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. By blundering molecules. Analysis May show you the right physic for the ill, Teaching the molecules to find their dance, Instead of sipping at the heart of flowers. But spare me your analogies, that hold Such insight as the figure of a crow And bar of music put to signify A crowbar. 7 ’ Said the Priest, “ There I agree Would add that sacramental grace is grace Which to be known must first be felt, with all The strengthening influxes that come by prayer. I note this passingly — would not delay The conversation’s tenor, save to hint That taking stand with Rosencranz one sees Final equivalence of all we name Our Good and Ill — their difference meanwhile Being inborn prejudice that plumps you down An Ego, brings a weight into your scale Forcing a standard. That resistless weight Obstinate, irremovable by thought, Persisting through disproof, an ache, a need That spaceless stays where sharp analysis Has shown a plenum filled without it — what If this, to use your phrase, were just that Being Not looking solely, grasping from the dark, Weighing the difference you call Ego ? This Gives you persistence, regulates the flux With strict relation rooted in the All. Who is he of your late philosophers Takes the true name of Being to be Will ? X — nay, the Church objects naught, is content; Reason has reached its utmost negative, Physic and metaphysic meet in the inane And backward shrink to intense prejudice, A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY. 407 Making their absolute and homogene A loaded relative, a choice to be Whatever is — supposed: a What is not. The Church demands no more, has standing room And basis for her doctrine: this (no more) — That the strong bias which we name the Soul, Though fed and clad by dissoluble waves, Has antecedent quality, and rules By veto or consent the strife of thought, Making arbitrament that we call faith.” Here was brief silence, till young Hamlet spoke. “ I crave direction, Father, how to know The sign of that imperative whose right To sway my act in face of thronging doubts Were an oracular gem in price beyond Urim and Thummim lost to Israel. That bias of the soul, that conquering die Loaded with golden emphasis of Will — How find it where resolve, once made, becomes The rash exclusion of an opposite Which draws the stronger as I turn aloof.” “I think I hear a bias in your words,” The Priest said mildly — u that strong natural bent Which we call hunger. What more positive Than appetite ? — of spirit or of flesh, I care not — ‘ sense of need ? were truer phrase. You hunger for authoritative right, And yet discern no difference of tones, No weight of rod that marks imperial rule ? Laertes granting, I will put your case In analogic form: the doctors hold Hunger which gives no relish — save caprice That tasting venison fancies mellow pears — A symptom of disorder, and prescribe 408 POEMS OF GEOPvGE ELIOT. Strict discipline. Were I physician here I would prescribe that exercise of soul Which, lies in full obedience : you ask, Obedience to what ? The answer lies Within the word itself; for how obey What has no rule, asserts no absolute claim f Take inclination, taste—why, that is you, No rule above you. Science, reasoning On nature’s order — they exist and move Solely by disputation, hold no pledge Of final consequence, but push the swing Where Epicurus and the Stoic sit In endless see-saw. One authority, And only one, says simply this, Obey: Place yourself in that current (test it so!) Of spiritual order where at least Lies promise of a high communion, A Head informing members, Life that breathes With gift of forces over and above The plus of arithmetic interchange. ( The Church too has a body,’ you object, < Can be dissected, put beneath the lens And shown the merest continuity Of all existence else beneath the sun.’ I grant yon; but the lens will not disprove A present which eludes it. Take your wit, Your highest passion, widest-reaching thought: Show their conditions if you will or can, But though you saw the final atom-dance Making each molecule that stands for sign Of love being present, where is still your love ? How measure that, how certify its weight ? And so I say, the body of the Church Carries a Presence, promises and gifts Never disproved — whose argument is found A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY. 403 * In lasting failure of the search elsewhere For what it holds to satisfy man’s need. But I grow lengthy: my excuse must be Y our question, Hamlet, which has probed right through To the pith of our belief. And I have robbed Myself of pleasure as a listener. ’T is noon, I see; and my appointment stands For half-past twelve with Voltimand. Good-by.” Brief parting, brief regret — sincere, but quenched In fumes of best Havana, which consoles For lack of other certitude. Then said, Mildly sarcastic, quiet Guildenstern: “ I marvel how the Father gave new charm To weak conclusions : I was half convinced The poorest reasoner made the finest man, And held his logic lovelier for its limp.” “ I fain would hear,” said Hamlet, “how you find A stronger footing than the Father gave. How base your self-resistance save on faith In some invisible Order, higher Right Than changing impulse. What does Reason bid ? To take as fullest rationality What offers best solution : so the Church. Science, detecting hydrogen aflame Outside our firmament, leaves mystery Whole and untouched beyond; nay, in our blood And in the potent atoms of each germ The Secret lives — envelops, penetrates Whatever sense perceives or thought divines. Science, whose soul is explanation, halts With hostile front at mystery. The Church Takes mystery as her empire, brings its wealth Of possibility to fill the void 410 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. ’Twixt contradictions — warrants so a faith Defying sense and all its ruthless train Of arrogant e Therefores.’ Science with her lens Dissolves the Forms that made the other half Of all our love, which thenceforth widowed lives To gaze with maniac stare at what is not. The Church explains not, governs — feeds resolve By vision fraught with heart-experience And human yearning.” “Ay,” said Guildenstern, With friendly nod, “ the Father, I can see, Has caught you up in his air-chariot. His thought takes rainbow-bridges, out of reach By solid obstacles, evaporates The coarse and common into subtilties, Insists that what is real in the Church Is something out of evidence, and begs (Just in parenthesis) you ’ll never mind What stares you in the face and bruises you. Why, by his method I could justify Each superstition and each tyranny That ever rode upon the back of man, Pretending fitness for his sole defence Against life’s evil. How can aught subsist That holds no theory of gain or good ? Despots with terror in their red right hand Must argue good to helpers and themselves, Must let submission hold a core of gain To make their slaves choose life. Their theory. Abstracting inconvenience of racks, Whip-lashes, dragonnades and all things coarse Inherent in the fact or concrete mass, Presents the pure idea — utmost good Secured by Order only to be found In strict subordination, hierarchy A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY. 411 Of forces where, by nature’s law, the strong Has rightful empire, rule of weaker proved Mere dissolution. What can you object ? The Inquisition — if you turn away From narrow notice how the scent of gold Has guided sense of damning heresy — The Inquisition is sublime, is love Hindering the spread of poison in men’s souls: The flames are nothing: only smaller pain To hinder greater, or the pain of one To save the many, such as throbs at heart Of every system born into the world. So of the Church as high communion Of Head with members, fount of spirit force Beyond the calculus, and carrying proof In her sole power to satisfy man’s need: That seems ideal truth as clear as lines That, necessary though invisible, trace The balance of the planets and the sun — Until I find a hitch in that last claim. 1 To satisfy man’s need.’ Sir, that depends: We settle first the measure of man’s need Before we grant capacity to fill. John, James, or Thomas, you may satisfy: But since you choose ideals I demand Your Church shall satisfy ideal man, His utmost reason and his utmost love. And say these rest a-hungered — find no scheme Content them both, but hold the world accursed t A Calvary where Reason mocks at Love, And Love forsaken sends out orphan cries Hopeless of answer; still the soul remains Larger, diviner than your half-way Church, Which racks your reason into false consent, And soothes your Love with sops of selfishness.” 412 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. “ There I am with you,” cried Laertes. “ What To me are any dictates, though they came With thunders from the Mount, if still within I see a higher Right, a higher Good Compelling love and worship ? Though the earth Held force electric to discern and kill Each thinking rebel — what is martyrdom But death-defying utterance of belief, Which being mine remains my truth supreme Though solitary as the throb of pain Lying outside the pulses of the world ? Obedience is good: ay, but to what ? And for what ends ? For say that I rebel Against your rule as devilish, or as rule Of thunder-guiding powers that deny Man’s highest benefit: rebellion then Were strict obedience to another rule Which bids me flout your thunder.” “ Lo you now 1 Said Osric, delicately, “ how you come, Laertes mine, with all your warring zeal As Python-slayer of the present age — Cleansing all social swamps by darting rays Of dubious doctrine, hot with energy Of private judgment and disgust for doubt — To state my thesis, which you most abhor When sung in Daphnis-notes beneath the pines To gentle rush of waters. Your belief — In essence what is it but simply Taste ? I urge with you exemption from all claims That come from other than my proper wilL, An Ultimate within to balance yours, A solid meeting you, excluding you, Till you show fuller force by entering My spiritual space and crushing Me A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY. 413 To a subordinate complement of You: Such ultimate must stand alike for all. Preach your crusade, then: all will join who like The hurly-burly of aggressive creeds; Still your unpleasant Ought, your itch to choose What grates upon the sense, is simply Taste, Differs, I think, from mine (permit the word, Discussion forces it) in being bad.” The tone was too polite to breed offence, Showing a tolerance of what was “ bad ” Becoming courtiers. Louder Rosencranz Took up the ball with rougher movement, wont To show contempt for doting reasoners Who hugged some reasons with a preference, As warm Laertes did: he gave five puffs Intolerantly sceptical, then said: “ Your human good, which you would make supreme, How do you know it ? Has it shown its face In adamantine type, with features clear, As this republic, or that monarchy ? As federal grouping, or municipal ? Equality, or finely shaded lines Of social difference ? ecstatic whirl And draught intense of passionate joy and pain, Or sober self-control that starves its youth And lives to wonder what the world calls joy ? Is it in sympathy that shares men’s pangs, Or in cool brains that can explain them well ? Is it in labor or in laziness ? In training for the tug of rivalry To be admired, or in the admiring soul ? In risk or certitude ? In battling rage And hardy challenges of Protean luck, Or in a sleek and rural apathy 414 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Full fed with sameness \ Pray define your Good Beyond rejection by majority ; Next, tow it may subsist without the Ill Which seems its only outline. Show a world Of pleasure not resisted; or a world Of pressure equalized, yet various In action formative ; for that will serve As illustration of your human good — Which at its perfecting (your goal of hope) Will not be straight extinct, or fall to sleep In the deep bosom of the Unchangeable. What will you work for, then, and call it good With full and certain vision — good for aught Save partial ends which happen to be yours ? How will you get your stringency to bind Thought or desire in demonstrated tracks Which are but waves within a balanced whole ? Is 1 relative ’ the magic word that turns Your flux mercurial of good to gold ? Why, that analysis at which you rage As anti-social force that sweeps you down The world in one cascade of molecules, Is brother ‘ relative’ — and grins at you Like any convict whom you thought to send Outside society, till this enlarged And meant New England and Australia too. The Absolute is your shadow, and the space Which you say might be real were you milled To curves pellicular, the thinnest thin, Equation of no thickness, is still you.” “ Abstracting all that makes him clubbable,” Horatio interposed. But Rosencranz, Deaf as the angry turkey-cock whose ears Are plugged by swollen tissues when he scold* A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY. 416 At men’s pretensions : “ Pooh, your f Relative* Shuts you in, hopeless, with your progeny As in a Hunger-tower; your social good, Like other deities by turn supreme, Is transient reflex of a prejudice, Anthology of causes and effects To suit the mood of fanatics who lead The mood of tribes or nations. I admit If you could show a sword, nay, chance of sword Hanging conspicuous to their inward eyes With edge so constant threatening as to sway All greed and lust by terror ; and a law Clear-writ and proven as the law supreme Which that dread sword enforces — then your Right, Duty, or social Good, were it once brought To common measure with the potent law, Would dip the scale, would put unchanging marks Of wisdom or of folly on each deed, And warrant exhortation. Until then, Where is your standard or criterion ? 1 What always, everywhere, by all men 9 — why, That were but Custom, and your system needs Ideals never yet incorporate, The imminent doom of Custom. Can you find Appeal beyond the sentience in each man ? Frighten the blind with scarecrows ? raise an awe Of things unseen where appetite commands Chambers of imagery in the soul At all its avenues ? — You chant your hymns To Evolution, on your altar lay A sacred egg called Progress : have you proved A Best unique where all is relative, And where each change is loss as well as gain ? The age of healthy Saurians, well supplied With heat and prey, will balance well enough 416 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. A human age where maladies are strong And pleasures feeble ; wealth a monster gorged ? Mid hungry populations; intellect Aproned in laboratories, bent on proof That this is that and both are good for naught Save feeding error through a weary life ; While Art and Poesy struggle like poor ghosts To hinder cock-crow and the dreadful light, Lurking in darkness and the charnel-house, Or like two stalwart graybeards, imbecile With limbs still active, playing at belief, That hunt the slipper, foot-ball, hide-and-seek, Are sweetly merry, donning pinafores And lisping enndously in their speech. O human race ! Is this then all thy gain ? — Working at disproof, playing at belief, Debate on causes, distaste of effects, Power to transmute all elements, and lack Of any power to sway the fatal skill And make thy lot aught else than rigid doom ? The Saurians were better. — Guild enstern, Pass me the taper. Still the human curse Has mitigation in the best cigars.” Then swift Laertes, not without a glare Of leonine wrath: “ I thank thee for that word That one confession, were I Socrates, Should force you onward till you ran your head At your own image — flatly gave the lie To all your blasphemy of that human good Which bred and nourished you to sit at ease And learnedly deny it. Say the world Groans ever with the pangs of doubtful births ? Say, life ’s a poor donation at the best — Wisdom a yearning after nothingness — Nature’s great vision and the thrill supreme A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY. 417 Of thought-fed passion but a weary play — I argue not against you. Who can prove Wit to be witty when with deeper ground Dulness intuitive declares wit dull ? If life is worthless to you — why, it is. You only know how little love you feel To give you fellowship, how little force Responsive to the quality of things. Then end your life, throw off the unsought yoke. If not — if you remain to taste cigars, Choose racy diction, perorate at large With tacit scorn of meaner men who win No wreath or tripos — then admit at least A possible Better in the seeds of earth; Acknowledge debt to that laborious life Which, sifting evermore the mingled seeds, Testing the Possible with patient skill, And daring ill in presence of a good For futures to inherit, made your lot One you would choose rather than end it, nay, Rather than, say, some twenty million lots Of fellow-Britons toiling all to make That nation, that community, whereon You feed and thrive and talk philosophy. I am no optimist whose faith must hang On hard pretence that pain is beautiful And agony explained for men at ease By virtue’s exercise in pitying it. But this I hold: that he who takes one gift Made for him by the hopeful work of man, Who tastes sweet bread, walks where he will unarmed, His shield and warrant the invisible law, Who owns a hearth and household charities, Who clothes his body and his sentient soul W ith skill and thoughts of men, and yet denies 27 118 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. A human good worth toiling for, is cursed With worse negation than the poet feigned In Mephistopheles. The Devil spins His wire-drawn argument against all good With sense of brimstone as his private lot, And never drew a solace from the Earth.” Laertes fuming paused, and Guildenstern Took up with cooler skill the fusillade: “ I meet your deadliest challenge, Rosencranz: Where get, you say, a binding law, a rule Enforced by sanction, an Ideal throned With thunder in its hand ? I answer, there Whence every faith and rule has drawn its force Since human consciousness awaking owned An Outward, whose unconquerable sway Resisted first and then subdued desire By pressure of the dire Impossible Urging to possible ends the active soul And shaping so its terror and its love. Why, you have said it — threats and promises Depend on each man’s sentience for their force: All sacred rules, imagined or revealed, Can have no form or potency apart From the percipient and emotive mind. God, duty, love, submission, fellowship, Must first be framed in man, as music is, Before they live outside him as a law. And still they grow and shape themselves anew, With fuller concentration in their life Of inward and of outward energies Blending to make the last result called Man, Which means, not this or that philosopher Looking through beauty into blankness, not The swindler who has sent his fruitful lie A COLLEGE BliEAKFAST-PARTY. 419 By the last telegram: it means the tide Of needs reciprocal, toil, trust, and love — The surging multitude of human claims Which make “ a presence not to be put by n Above the horizon of the general soul. Is inward Reason shrunk to subtleties, And inward wisdom pining passion-starved ? — The outward Reason has the world in store, Regenerates passion with the stress of want, Regenerates knowledge with discovery, Shows sly rapacious Self a blunderer, Widens dependence, knits the social whole In sensible relation more defined. Do Boards and dirty-handed millionnaires Govern the planetary system ? — sway The pressure of the Universe ? — decide That man henceforth shall retrogress to ape, Emptied of every sympathetic thrill The All has wrought in him ? dam up henceforth The flood of human claims as private force To turn their wheels and make a private hell For fish-pond to their mercantile domain ? What are they but a parasitic growth On the vast real and ideal world Of man and nature blent in one divine ? Why, take your closing dirge — say evil grows And good is dwindling; science mere decay, Mere dissolution of ideal wholes Which through the ages past alone have made The earth and firmament of human faith; Say, the small arc of Being we call man Is near its mergence, what seems growing life Naught but a hurrying change toward lower types, The ready rankness of degeneracy. Well, they who mourn for the world’s dying gooa 420 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. May ta^e their common sorrows for a rock, On it erect religion and a church, A worship, rites, and passionate piety — The worship of the Best though crucified And God-forsaken in its dying pangs; The sacramental rites of fellowship In common woe; visions that purify Through admiration and despairing love Which keep their spiritual life intact Beneath the murderous clutches of disproof And feed a martyr-strength.” “ Religion high 1 99 (Rosencranz here) u But with communicants Fey as the cedars upon Lebanon— A child might count them. What the world demands Is faith coercive of the multitude.” “ Tush, Guildenstern, you granted him too much,” Burst in Laertes; “ I will never grant One inch of law to feeble blasphemies Which hold no higher ratio to life — Full vigorous human life that peopled earth And wrought and fought and loved and bravely died—■ Than the sick morning glooms of debauchees. Old nations breed old children, wizened babes Whose youth is languid and incredulous, Weary of life without the will to die ; Their passions visionary appetites Of bloodless spectres wailing that the world For lack of substance slips from out their grasp *, Their thoughts the withered husks of all things dead, Holding no force of germs instinct with life, Which never hesitates but moves and grows. Yet hear them boast in screams their godlike ill, A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY. 421 Excess of knowing! Fie on you, Rosencranz! You lend your brains and fine-dividing tongue For bass-notes to this shrivelled crudity, This immature decrepitude that strains To fill our ears and claim the prize of strength For mere unmanliness. Out on them all! — Wits, puling minstrels, and philosophers, Who living softly prate of suicide, And suck the commonwealth to feed their ease While they vent epigrams and threnodies, Mocking or wailing all the eager work Which makes that public store whereon they feed. Is wisdom flattened sense and mere distaste ? Why, any superstition warm with love, Inspired with purpose, wild with energy That streams resistless through its ready frame, Has more of human truth within its life Than souls that look through color into naught — Whose brain, too unimpassioned for delight, Has feeble ticklings of a vanity Which finds the universe beneath its mark, And scorning the blue heavens as merely blue Can only say, ‘ What then ? 9 — pre-eminent In wondrous want of likeness to their kind, Founding that worship of sterility Whose one supreme is vacillating Will Which makes the Light, then says, ‘ ? T were better not, ; " Here rash Laertes brought his Handel-strain As of some angry Polypheme, to pause; And Osric, shocked at ardors out of taste, Relieved the audience with a tenor voice And delicate delivery. “ For me, I range myself in line with Rosencranz 422 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Against all schemes, religious or profane, That flaunt a Good as pretext for a lash To flog us all who have the better taste, Into conformity, requiring me At peril of the thong and sharp disgrace To care how mere Philistines pass their lives; Whether the English pauper-total grows From one to two before the naughts; how far Teuton will outbreed Roman; if the class Of proletaires will make a federal band To bind all Europe and America, Throw, in their wrestling, every government, Snatch the world : s purse and keep the guillotine: Or else (admitting these are casualties) Driving my soul with scientific hail That shuts the landscape out with particles ; Insisting that the Palingenesis Means telegraphs and measure of the rate At which the stars move — nobody knows where. So far, my Rosencranz, we are at one. But not when you blaspheme the life of Art, The sweet perennial youth of Poesy, Which asks no logic but its sensuous growth, No right but loveliness; which fearless strolls Betwixt the burning mountain and the sea, Reckless of earthquake and the lava stream, Filling its hour with beauty. It knows naught Of bitter strife, denial, grim resolve, Sour resignation, busy emphasis Of fresh illusions named the new-born True, Old Error’s latest child ; but as a lake Images all things, yet within its depths Dreams them all lovelier — thrills with sound And makes a harp of plenteous liquid chords — So Art or Poesy: we its votaries A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY. 42a Are the Olympians, fortunately born From the elemental mixture ; ’t is our lot To pass more swiftly than the Delian God, But still the earth breaks into flowers for us, And mortal sorrows when they reach our ears Are dying falls to melody divine. Hatred, war, vice, crime, sin, those human storms, Cyclones, floods, what you will — outbursts of force ■— Feed art with contrast, give the grander touch To the master’s pencil and the poet’s song, Serve as Vesuvian fires or navies tossed On yawning waters, which when viewed afar Deepen the calm sublime of those choice souls Who keep the heights of poesy and turn A fleckless mirror to the various world, Giving its many-named and fitful flux An imaged, harmless, spiritual life, With pure selection, native to art’s frame, Of beauty only, save its minor scale Of ill and pain to give the ideal joy A keener edge. This is a mongrel globe; All finer being wrought from its coarse earth Is but accepted privilege : what else Your boasted virtue, which proclaims itself A good above the average consciousness ? Nature exists by partiality (Each planet’s poise must carry two extremes With verging breadths of minor wretchedness): We are her favorites and accept our wings. For your accusal, Rosencranz, that art Shares in the dread and weakness of the time, I hold it null; since art or poesy pure, Being blameless by all standards save her own, Takes no account of modern or antique In morals, science, or philosophy: 424 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT No dull elenchus makes a yoke for heq Whose law and measure are the sweet consent* Of sensibilities that move apart From rise or fall of systems, states or creeds — Apart from what Philistines call maids weal.” “ Ay, we all know those votaries of the Muse Ravished with singing till they quite forgot Their manhood, sang, and gaped, and took no food* Then died of emptiness, and for reward Lived on as grasshoppers ” — Laertes thus : But then he checked himself as one who feels His muscles dangerous, and Guildenstern Filled up the pause with calmer confidence. “You use your wings, my Osric, poise yourself Safely outside all reach of argument, Then dogmatize at will (a method known To ancient women and philosophers, Nay, to Philistines whom you most abhor); Else, could an arrow reach you, I should ask Whence came taste, beauty, sensibilities Refined to preference infallible ? Doubtless, ye 7 re gods — these odors ye inhale, A sacrificial scent. But how, I pray, Are odors made, if not by gradual change Of sense or substance ? Is your beautiful A seedless, rootless flower, or has it grown With human growth, which means the rising sun Of human struggle, order, knowledge ? — sense Trained to a fuller record, more exact — To truer guidance of each passionate force ? Get me your roseate flesh without the blood; Get fine aromas without structure wrought From simpler being into manifold : A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY. 425 Then and then only flaunt your Beautiful As what can live apart from thought, creeds, states, Which mean life's structure. Osric, I beseech — The infallible should be more catholic — Join in a war-dance with the cannibals, Hear Chinese music, love a face tattooed, Give adoration to a pointed skull, And think the Hindu Siva looks divine: 'T is art, ’t is poesy. Say, you object: How came you by that lofty dissidence, If not through changes in the social man Widening his consciousness from Here and Now To larger wholes beyond the reach of sense j Controlling to a fuller harmony The thrill of passion and the rule of fact; And paling false ideals in the light Of full-rayed sensibilities which blend Truth and desire ? Taste, beauty, what are they But the soul’s choice toward perfect bias wrought By finer balance of a fuller growth — Sense brought to subtlest metamorphosis Through love, thought, joy — the general human store Which grows from all life’s functions ? As the plant Holds its corolla, purple, delicate, Solely as outflush of that energy Which moves transformingly in root and branch.” Guildenstern paused, and Hamlet quivering Since Osric spoke, in transit imminent From catholic striving into laxity, Ventured his word. “ Seems to me, Guildenstern, Your argument, though shattering Osric’s point That sensibilities can move apart From social order, yet has not annulled His thesis that the life of poesy 426 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. (Admitting it must grow from out the whole) Has separate functions, a transfigured realm Freed from the rigors of the practical, Where what is hidden from the grosser world — Stormed down by roar of engines and the shouts Of eager concourse — rises beauteous As voice of water-drops in sapphire caves; A realm where finest spirits have free sway In exquisite selection, uncontrolled By hard material necessity Of cause and consequence. For you will grant The Ideal has discoveries which ask No test, no faith, save that we joy in them: A new-found continent, with spreading lands Where pleasure charters all, where virtue, rank, Use, right, and truth have but one name, Delight Thus Art’s creations, when etherealized To least admixture of the grosser fact Delight may stamp as highest.” “ Possible! ” Said Guildenstern, with touch of weariness, “ But then we might dispute of what is gross, What high, what low.” “ Nay,” said Laertes, “ ask The mightiest makers who have reigned, still reign Within the ideal realm. See if their thought Be drained of practice and the thick warm blood Of hearts that beat in action various Through the wide drama of the struggling world. Good-by, Horatio.” Each now said “ Good-by.” Such breakfast, such beginning of the day A COLLEGE BREAKFAST-PARTY. 427 Is more than half the whole. The sun was hot On southward branches of the meadow elms, The shadows slowly farther crept and veered Like changing memories, and Hamlet strolled Alone and dubious on the empurpled path Between the waving grasses of new June Close by the stream where well-compacted boats Were moored or moving with a lazy creak To the soft dip of oars. All sounds were light As tiny silver bells upon the robes Of hovering silence. Birds made twitterings That seemed but Silence’ self o’erfull of love. ’T was invitation all to sweet repose ; And Hamlet, drowsy with the mingled draughts Of cider and conflicting sentiments, Chose a green couch and watched with half-closed eyes The meadow-road, the stream and dreamy lights, Until they merged themselves in sequence strange With undulating ether, time, the soul, The will supreme, the individual claim, The social Ought, the lyrist’s liberty, Democritus, Pythagoras, in talk With Anselm, Darwin, Comte, and Schopenhauer, The poets rising slow from out their tombs Summoned as arbiters — that border-world Of dozing, ere the sense is fully locked. And then he dreamed a dream so luminous He woke (he says) convinced ; but what it taught Withholds as yet. Perhaps those graver shades Admonished him that visions told in haste Part Tfrith their virtues to the squandering lips And leave the soul in wider emptiness. April, 1874. I TWO LOVERS. T WO lovers by a moss-grown spring : They leaned soft cheeks together them Mingled the dark and sunny hair, And heard the wooing thrushes sing. 0 budding time l 0 love’s blest prime l Two wedded from the portal stept: The bells made happy carollings, The air was soft as fanning wings, White petals on the pathway slept. 0 pure-eyed bride! 0 tender pride! Two faces o’er a cradle bent: Two hands above the head were locked: These pressed each other while they rocked; Those watched a life that love had sent. O solemn hour ! 0 hidden power! Two parents by the evening fire : The red light fell about their knees On heads that rose by slow degrees Xjike buds upon the lily spire. O patient life! 0 tender strife! Two lovers by a moss-grown spring, TWO LOVERS. 429 The two still sat together there, The red light shone about their knees \ But all the heads by slow degrees Had gone and left that lonely pair. 0 voyage fast! O vanished past I The red light shone upon the floor And made the space between them wide \ They drew their chairs up side by side, Their pale cheeks joined, and said, “ Once more ! n O memories ! 0 past that is l im, SELF AND LIFE. Self. C HANGEFUL comrade, Life of min** Before we two must part, I will tell thee, thou shalt say, What thou hast been and art. Ere I lose my hold of thee Justify thyself to me. Life. I was thy warmth upon thy mother’s knee When light and love within her eyes were one We laughed together by the laurel-tree, Culling warm daisies ’neath the sloping sun j We heard the chickens’ lazy croon, Where the trellised woodbines grew, And all the summer afternoon Mystic gladness o’er thee threw. Was it person ? Was it thing ? Was it touch or whispering ? It was bliss and it was I: Bliss was what thou knew’st me by * Self. Soon I knew thee more by Fear And sense of what was not, Haunting all I held most dear $ I had a double lot: Ardor, cheated with alloy, Wept the more for dreams of joy. SELF AND LIFE. 481 Life. Remember how thy ardor’s magic sense Made poor things rich to thee and small things great \ How hearth and garden, field and bushy fence, Were thy own eager love incorporate ; And how the solemn, splendid Past O’er thy early widened earth Made grandeur, as on sunset cast Dark elms near take mighty girth. Hands and feet were tiny still When we knew the historic thrill, Breathed deep breath in heroes dead; Tasted the immortals’ bread. Self. Seeing what I might have been Reproved the thing I was, Smoke on heaven’s clearest sheen, The speck within the rose. By revered ones’ frailties stung Reverence was with anguish wrung. Life. But all thy anguish and thy discontent Was growth of mine, the elemental strife Toward feeling manifold with vision blent To wider thought: I was no vulgar life That, like the water-mirrored ape, Not discerns the thing it sees, Nor knows its own in others’ shape, Railing, scorning, at its ease. 432 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Half man’s truth must hidden ho If unlit by Sorrow’s eye. I by Sorrow wrought in thee Willing pain of ministry. Self. Slowly was the lesson taught Through passion, error, care; Insight was the loathing fraught And effort with despair. Written on the wall I saw “ Bow ! ” I knew, not loved, the law. Life. But then I brought a love that wrote within I he law of gratitude, and made thy heart Beat to the heavenly tune of seraphim Whose only joy in having is, to impart: Till thou, poor Self — despite thy ire, Wrestling ’gainst my mingled share, Thy faults, hard falls, and vain desire Still to be what others were — Filled, o’erflowed with tenderness Seeming more as thou wert less, Knew me through that anguish past As a fellowship more vast. Self. Yea, I embrace thee, changeful Life I Far-sent, unchosen mate! Self and thou, no more at strife, Shall wed in hallowed state. Willing spousals now shall prove Life is justified by love. “ SWEET EVENINGS COME AND GO, LOVE." “ La noche buena se viene, La noche buena se va, Y nosotros nos iremos Y no volveremos mas.” — Old Villancico. S WEET evenings come and go, love, They came and went of yore: This evening of our life, love, Shall go and come no more. When we have passed away, love, All things will keep their name; But yet no life on earth, love. With ours will be same. The daisies will be there, love, The stars in heaven will shine i I shall not feel thy wish, love, Nor thou my hand in thine. A better time will come, love, And better souls be born: I would not be the best, love, To leave thee now forlorn. 28 THE DEATH OF MOSES. M OSES, who spake with God as with his friena, And ruled his people with the twofold power Of wisdom that can dare and still be meek, Was writing his last word, the sacred name Unutterable of that Eternal Will Which was and is and evermore shall be. Yet was his task not finished, for the flock Needed its shepherd and the life-taught sage Leaves no successor; but to chosen men, The rescuers and guides of Israel, A death was given called the Death of Grace, Which freed them from the burden of the flesh But left them rulers of the multitude And loved companions of the lonely. This Was God’s last gift to Moses, this the hour When soul must part from self and be but soul God spake to Gabriel, the messenger Of mildest death that draws the parting life Gently, as when a little rosy child Lifts up its lips from off the bowl of milk And so draws forth a curl that dipped its gold In the soft white — thus Gabriel draws the soul. Go bring the soul of Moses unto me ! ” And the awe-stricken angel answered, “ Lord, How shall I dare to take his life who lives Sole of his kind, not to be likened once In all the generations of the earth ? ” THE DEATH OF MOSES. 485 Then God called Michael, him of pensive brow, Snow-vest and flaming sword, who knows and acts: “ Go bring the spirit of Moses unto me ! ” But Michael with such grief as angels feel, Loving the mortals whom they succor, pled: “ Almighty, spare me; it was I who taught Thy servant Moses; he is part of me As I of thy deep secrets, knowing them.” Then God called Zamael, the terrible, The angel of fierce death, of agony That comes in battle and in pestilence Remorseless, sudden or with lingering throes. And Zamael, his raiment and broad wings Blood-tinctured, the dark lustre of his eyes • Shrouding the red, fell like the gathering night Before the prophet. But that radiance Won from the heavenly presence in the mount Gleamed on the prophet’s brow and dazzling pierced Its conscious opposite : the angel turned His murky gaze aloof and inly said: “ An angel this, deathless to angel’s stroke.” But Moses felt the subtly nearing dark: “ Who art thou ? and what wilt thou ? ” Zamael then: “ I am God’s reaper; through the fields of life I gather ripened and unripened souls Both willing and unwilling. And I come Now to reap thee.” But Moses cried, Firm as a seer who waits the trusted sign: “Reap thou the fruitless plant and common herb — Not him who from the womb was sanctified To teach the law of purity and love.” And Zamael baffled from his errand fled. 436 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. But Moses, pausing, in the air serene Heard now that mystic whisper, far yet near, The all-penetrating Voice, that said to him, “ Moses, the hour is come and thou must die." “ Lord, I obey; but thou rememberest How thou, Ineffable, didst take me once Within thy orb of light untouched by death." Then the voice answered, “ Be no more afraid: With me shall be thy death and burial." So Moses waited, ready now to die. And the Lord came, invisible as a thought, Three angels gleaming on his secret track, Prince Michael, Zagael, Gabriel, charged to guard The soul-forsaken body as it fell And bear it to the hidden sepulchre Denied forever to the search of man. And the Voice said to Moses: “ Close thine eyes." He closed them. “ Lay thine hand upon thine heart, And draw thy feet together." He obeyed. And the Lord said, “ O spirit! child of mine ! A hundred years and twenty thou hast dwelt Within this tabernacle wrought of clay. This is the end: come forth and flee to heaven." But the grieved soul with plaintive pleading cried, “ I love this body with a clinging love : The courage fails me, Lord, to part from it." u 0 child, come forth ! for thou shalt dwell with About the immortal throne where seraphs joy Ln growing vision and in growing love." Yet hesitating, fluttering, like the bird With young wing weak and dubious, the soul. THE DEATH OF MOSES. 437 Stayed. But behold ! upon the death-dewed lips A kiss descended, pure, unspeakable — The bodiless Love without embracing Love That lingered in the body, drew it forth With heavenly strength and carried it to heaven. But now beneath the sky the watchers all, Angels that keep the homes of Israel Or on high purpose wander o’er the world Leading the Gentiles, felt a dark eclipse: The greatest ruler among men was gone. And from the westward sea was heard a wail, A dirge as from the isles of Javanim, Crying, “ Who now is left upon the earth Like him to teach the right and smite the wrong ? 99 And from the East, far o’er the Syrian waste, Came slowlier, sadlier, the answering dirge: “ No prophet like him lives or shall arise In Israel or the world forevermore.” But Israel waited, looking toward the mount, Till with the deepening eve the elders came Saying, “ His burial is hid with God. We stood far off and saw the angels lift His corpse aloft until they seemed a star That burnt itself away within the sky.” The people answered with mute orphaned gaze Looking for what had vanished evermore. Then through the gloom without them and within The spirit’s shaping light, mysterious speech, Invisible Will wrought clear in sculptured sound, The thought-begotten daughter of the voice, Thrilled on their listening sense : “ He has no tomb. He dwells not with you dead, but lives as Law.” ARION. (Herod, i. 24.) A RIObT, whose melodic soul Taught the dithyramb to roll Like forest fires, and sing Olympian suffering, Had carried his diviner lore From Corinth to the sister shore Where Greece could largelier be, Branching o’er Italy. Then weighted with his glorious name And bags of gold, aboard he came ’Mid harsh seafaring men To Corinth bound again. The sailors eyed the bags and thought: “ The gold is good, the man is naught — And who shall track the wave That opens for his grave ? ” With brawny arms and cruel eyes The}^ press around him where he lies In sleep beside his lyre, Hearing the Muses quire. ARION. 489 He waked and saw this wolf-faced Death Breaking the dream that filled his breath With inspiration strong Of yet unchanted song. u Take, take my gold and let me live ! ,f He prayed, as kings do when they give Their all with royal will, Holding born kingship still. To rob the living they refuse, One death or other he must choose, Either the watery pall Or wounds and burial. "My solemn robe then let me don, Give me high space to stand upon, That dying I may pour A song unsung before.” It pleased them well to grant this prayer, To hear for naught how it might fare With men who paid their gold For what a poet sold. In flowing stole, his eyes aglow With inward fire, he neared the prow And took his god-like stand, The cithara in hand. The wolfish men all shrank aloof, And feared this singer might be proof Against their murderous power, After his lyric hour. 440 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. But he, in liberty of song, Fearless of death or other wrong, With full spondaic toll Poured forth his mighty soul: Poured forth the strain his dream had taught A nome with lofty passion fraught Such as makes battles won On fields of Marathon. The last long vowels trembled then As awe within those wolfish men: They said, with mutual stare, Some god was present there. But lo ! Arion leaped on high, Ready, his descant done, to die 5 Not asking, “ Is it well ? ” Like a pierced eagle felL 1*73. ‘ OH MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE . 1 Lxmgum illud tempus, quum non ero, magis me movet, qua.rn hoe exiguum. — Cicero, ad Att., xii. 18 . O H may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence : live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars And with their mild persistence urge man’s search To vaster issues. So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world, Breathing as beauteous order that controls With growing sway the growing life of man. So we inherit that sweet purity For which we struggled, failed, and agonized With widening retrospect that bred despair. Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued, A vicious parent shaming still its child Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved; Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies, Die in the large and charitable air. And all our rarer, better, truer self, That sobbed religiously in yearning song, That watched to ease the burden of the world c 442 POEMS OF GEORGE ELIOT. Laboriously tracing what must be, And what may yet be better — saw within A worthier image for the sanctuary, And shaped it forth before the multitude Divinely human, raising worship so To higher reverence more mixed with love —* That better self shall live till human Time Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb Unread forever. This is life to come, Which martyred men have made more glorious For us who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty — Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense. So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world. 1867. SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. . ♦ CONTENTS. Page The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton . . 3 Mr. Gilfil’s Love-Story.. Janet’s Repentance. . 221 A Life of George Eliot.. 401 SCENES OE CLERICAL LIFE. THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REVEREND AMOS BARTON. VOL. IV. . THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REVEREND AMOS BARTON. - - CHAPTER I. Shepperton Church was a very different-looking building five-and-twenty years ago. To be sure, its substantial stone tower looks at you through its intelligent eye, the clock, with the friendly expression of former days; but in everything else what changes ! Now there is a wide span of slated roof flanking the old steeple ; the windows are tall and symmet¬ rical 3 the outer doors are resplendent with oak-graining, the inner doors reverentially noiseless with a garment of red baize; and the walls, you are convinced, no lichen will ever again effect a settlement on — they are smooth and innutrient as the summit of the Rev. Amos Barton’s head, after ten years of baldness and supererogatory soap. Pass through the baize doors and you will see the nave filled with well-shaped benches, understood to be free seats ; while in certain eligible corners, less directly under the fire of the clergyman’s eye, there are pews reserved for the Shepperton gentility. Ample galleries are supported on iron pillars, and in one of them stands the crowning glory, the very clasp or aigrette of Shep¬ perton church-adornment — namely, an organ, not vary much out of repair, on which a collector of small rents, differentiated by the force of circumstances into an organist, will accompany the alacrity of your departure after the blessing, by a sacred minuet or an easy “ Gloria.” Immense improvement! says the well-regulated mind, which unintermittingly rejoices in the New Police, the Tithe Com- 4 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. mutation Act, the penny-post, and all guarantees of human advancement, and has no moments when conservative-reform¬ ing intellect takes a nap, while imagination does a little Toryism by the sly, revelling in regret that dear, old, brown, crumbling, picturesque inefficiency is everywhere giving place to spick-and-span new-painted, new-varnished efficiency, which will yield endless diagrams, plans, elevations, and sections, but alas ! no picture. Mine, I fear, is not a well-regulated mind : it has an occasional tenderness for old abuses; it lingers with a certain fondness over the days of nasal clerks and top-booted parsons, and has a sigh for the departed shades of vulgar errors. So it is not surprising that I recall with, a fond sadness Shepperton Church as it was in the old days, with its outer coat of rough stucco, its red-tiled roof, its heterogeneous windows patched with desultory bits of painted glass, and its little flight of steps with their wooden rail running up the outer wall, and leading to the school- children’s gallery. Then inside, what dear old quaintnesses ! which I began to look at with delight, even when I was so crude a member of the congregation, that my nurse found it necessary to provide for the reinforcement of my devotional patience by smuggling bread-and-butter into the sacred edifice. There was the chan¬ cel, guarded by two little cherubim looking uncomfortably squeezed between arch and wall, and adorned with the escutch¬ eons of the Oldinport family, which showed me inexhaustible possibilities of meaning in their blood-red hands, their death’s- heads and cross-bones, their leopards’ paws, and Maltese crosses. There were inscriptions on the panels of the singing- gallery, telling of benefactions to the poor of Shepperton, with an involuted elegance of capitals and final flourishes, which my alphabetic erudition traced with ever-new delight. No benches in those days ; but huge roomy pews, round which devout church-goers sat during “ lessons,” trying to look any¬ where else than into each other’s eyes. No low partitions allowing you, with a dreary absence of contrast and mystery, to see'everything at all moments ; but tall dark panels, under whose shadow I sank with a sense of retirement through the AMOS BARTON. b Litany, only to feel with more intensity my burst into the conspicuousness of public life when I was made to stand up on the seat during the psalms or the singing. And the singing was no mechanical affair of official routine; it had a drama. As the moment of psalmody approached, by some process to me as mysterious and untraceable as the open¬ ing of the flowers or the breaking-out of the stars, a slate ap¬ peared in front of the gallery, advertising in bold characters the psalm about to be sung, lest the sonorous announcement of the clerk should still leave the bucolic mind in doubt on that head. Then followed the migration of the clerk to the gallery, where, in company with a bassoon, two key-bugles, a carpenter understood to have an amazing power of singing “ counter," and two lesser musical stars, he formed the complement of a choir regarded in Shepperton as one of distinguished attrac¬ tion, occasionally known to draw hearers from the next parish. The innovation of hymn-books was as yet undreamed of; even the New Version was regarded with a sort of melancholy tolerance, as part of the common degeneracy in a time when prices had dwindled, and a cotton gown was no longer stout enough to last a lifetime ; for the lyrical taste of the best heads in Shepperton had been formed on Sternhold and Hop¬ kins. But the greatest triumphs of the Shepperton choir were reserved for the Sundays when the slate announced an Anthem, with a dignified abstinence from particularization, both words and music lying far beyond the reach of the most ambitious amateur in the congregation: — an anthem in which the key-bugles always ran away at a great pace, while the bassoon every now and then boomed a flying shot after them. As for the clergyman, Mr. Gilfil, an excellent old gentleman, who smoked very long pipes and preached very short sermons, I must not speak of him, or I might be tempted to tell the story of his life, which had its little romance, as most lives have between the ages of teetotum and tobacco. And at present I am concerned with quite another sort of clergyman — the Rev. Amos Barton, who did not come to Shepperton Until long after Mr. Gilfil had departed this life — until after 6 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. an interval in which Evangelicalism and the Catholic Question had begun to agitate the rustic mind with controversial de¬ bates. A Popish blacksmith had produced a strong Protes¬ tant reaction by declaring that, as soon as the Emancipation Bill was passed, he should do a great stroke of business in gridirons ; and the disinclination of the Shepperton parish¬ ioners generally to dim the unique glory of St. Lawrence, rendered the Church and Constitution an affair of their busi¬ ness and bosoms. A zealous Evangelical preacher had made the old sounding-board vibrate with quite a different sort of elocution from Mr. Gilfil’s ; the hymn-book had almost super¬ seded the Old and New Versions ; and the great square pews were crowded with new faces from distant corners of the parish — perhaps from Dissenting chapels. You are not imagining, I hope, that Amos Barton was the incumbent of Shepperton. He. was no such thing. Those were days when a man could hold three small livings, starve a curate apiece on two of them, and live badly himself on the third. It was so with the Vicar of Shepperton ; a vicar given to bricks and mortar, and thereby running into debt far away in a northern county — who executed his vicarial functions towards Shepperton by pocketing the sum of thirty-five pounds ten per annum, the net surplus remaining to him from the proceeds of that living, after the disbursement of eighty pounds as the annual stipend of his curate. And now, pray, ,ean you solve me the following problem ? Given a man with a wife and six children : let him be obliged always to exhibit himself when outside his own door in a suit of black broad¬ cloth, such as will not undermine the foundations of the Establishment by a paltry plebeian glossiness or an unseemly whiteness at the edges ; in a snowy cravat, which is a serious investment of labor in the hemming, starching, and ironing departments ; and in a hat which shows no symptom of taking to the hideous doctrine of expediency, and shaping itself according to circumstances ; let him have a parish large enough to create an external necessity for abundant shoe- leather, and an internal necessity for abundant beef and mutton, as well as poor enough to require frequent priestly AMOS BARTON. ? consolation in the shape of shillings and sixpences; and, lastly, let him be compelled, by his own pride and other people’s, to dress his wife and children with gentility from bonnet-strings to shoe-strings. By what process of division can the sum of eighty pounds per annum be made to yield a quotient which will cover that man’s weekly expenses ? This was the problem presented by the position of the Rev. Amos Barton, as curate of Shepperton, rather more than twenty years ago. What was thought of this problem, and of the man who had to work it out, by some of the well-to-do inhabitants of Shep¬ perton, two years or more after Mr. Barton’s arrival among them, you shall hear, if you will accompany me to Cross Farm, and to the fireside of Mrs. Patten, a childless old lady, who had got rich chiefly by the negative process of spending nothing. Mrs. Patten’s passive accumulation of wealth, through all sorts of “ bad times,” on the farm of which she had been sole tenant since her husband’s death, her epigrammatic neighbor, Mrs. Hackit, sarcastically accounted for by supposing that a six¬ pences grew on the bents of Cross Farm ; ” while Mr. Hackit, expressing his views more literally, reminded his wife that “ money breeds money.” Mr. and Mrs. Hackit, from the neigh¬ boring farm, are Mrs. Patten’s guests this evening; so is Mr. Pilgrim, the doctor from the nearest market-town, who, though occasionally affecting aristocratic airs, and giving late dinners with enigmatic side-dishes and poisonous port, is never sc comfortable as when he is relaxing his professional legs in one of those excellent farm-houses where the mice are sleek and the mistress sickly. And he is at this moment in clover. For the flickering of Mrs. Patten’s bright fire is reflected in her bright copper tea-kettle, the home-made muffins glisten with an inviting succulence, and Mrs. Patten’s niece, a single lady of fifty, who has refused the most ineligible offers out of devotion to her aged aunt, is pouring the rich cream into the fragrant tea with a discreet liberality. Reader ! did you ever taste such a cup of tea as Miss Gibbs is this moment handing to Mr. Pilgrim ? Do you know the dulcet strength, the animating blandness of tea sufficiently 8 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. blended with real farm-house cream? No — most likely you are a miserable town-bred reader, who think of cream as a thinnish white fluid, delivered in infinitesimal pennyworths down area steps; or perhaps, from a presentiment of calves’ brains, you refrain from any lacteal addition, and rasp your tongue with unmitigated bohea. You have a vague idea of a milch cow as probably a white plaster animal standing in a butterman’s window, and you know nothing of the sweet his¬ tory of genuine cream, such as Miss Gibbs’s: how it was this morning in the udders of the large sleek beasts, as they stood lowing a patient entreaty under the milking-shed; how it fell with a pleasant rhythm into Betty’s pail, sending a delicious incense into the cool air ; how it was carried into that temple of moist cleanliness, the dairy, where it quietly separated itself from the meaner elements of milk, and lay in mellowed whiteness, ready for the skimming-dish which transferred it to Miss Gibbs’s glass cream-jug. If I am right in my conjecture, you are unacquainted with the highest possibilities of tea; and Mr. Pilgrim, who is holding that cup in his hand, has an idea beyond you. Mrs. Hackit declines cream ; she has so long abstained from it with an eye to the weekly butter-money, that abstinence, wedded to habit, has begotten aversion. She is a thin woman with a chronic liver-complaint, which would have secured her Mr. Pilgrim’s entire regard and unreserved good word, even if he had not been in awe of her tongue, which was as sharp as his own lancet. She has brought her knitting — no frivolous fancy knitting, but a substantial woollen stocking; the click- click of her knitting-needles is the running accompaniment to all her conversation, and in her utmost enjoyment of spoiling a friend’s self-satisfaction, she was never known to spoil a stocking. Mrs. Patten does not admire this excessive click-clicking activity. Quiescence in an easy-chair, under the sense of com¬ pound interest perpetually accumulating, has long seemed an ample function to her, and she does her malevolence gently. She is a pretty little old woman of eighty, with a close cap and tiny flat white curls round her face, as natty and unsoiled AMOS BARTON. 9 and invariable as the waxen image of a little old lady under t glass-case ; once a lady’s-maid, and married for her beauty, She used to adore her husband, and now she adores her money, cherishing a quiet blood-relation’s hatred for her niece, Janet Gibbs, who, she knows, expects a large legacy, and whom she is determined to disappoint. Her money shall all go in a lump to a distant relation of her husband’s, and Janet shall be saved the trouble of pretending to cry, by finding that she is left with a miserable pittance. Mrs. Patten has more respect for her neighbor Mr. Hackit than for most people. Mr. Hackit is a shrewd substantial man, whose advice about crops is always worth listening to, and who is too well off to want to borrow money. And now that we are snug and warm with this little tea- party, while it is freezing with February bitterness outside, we will listen to what they are talking about. “ So,” said Mr. Pilgrim, with his mouth only half empty of muffin, “ you had a row in Shepperton Church last Sunday. I was at Jem Hood’s, the bassoon-man’s, this morning, attending his wife, and he swears he ’ll be revenged on the parson — a confounded, methodistical, meddlesome chap, who must be put¬ ting his finger in every pie. What was it all about ? ” “ Oh, a passill o’ nonsense,” said Mr. Hackit, sticking one thumb between the buttons of his capacious waistcoat, and retaining a pinch of snuff with the other — for he was but moderately given to “ the cups that cheer but not inebriate,” and had already finished his tea; “they began to sing the wedding psalm for a new-married couple, as pretty a psalm an’ as pretty a tune as any in the prayer-book. It’s been sung for every new-married couple since I was a boy. And what can be better ? ” Here Mr. Hackit stretched out his left arm, threw back his head, and broke into melody — “ ‘ Oh what, a happy thing it in And joyful for to see. Brethren to dwell together in Friendship and unity ' But Mr. Barton is all for the hymns, and a sort o’ music as 1 can’t join in at all.” 10 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. “And so,” said Mr. Pilgrim, recalling Mr. Hackit from lyrical reminiscences to narrative, “ he called out Silence ! did he ? when he got into the pulpit; and gave a hymn out him¬ self to some meeting-house tune ? ” “Yes,” said Mrs. Hackit stooping towards the candle to pick up a stitch, “ and turned as red as a turkey-cock. I often say, when he preaches about meekness, he gives himself a slap in the face. He’s like me — he ’s got a temper of his own.” “ Rather a low-bred fellow, I think, Barton,” said Mr. Pil¬ grim, who hated the Rev. Amos for two reasons — because ho had called in a new doctor, recently settled in Shepperton; and because, being himself a dabbler in drugs, he had the credit of having cured a patient of Mr. Pilgrim’s. “ They say his father was a Dissenting shoemaker; and he’s half a Dis¬ senter himself. Why, doesn’t he preach extempore in that cottage up here, of a Sunday evening ? ” “ Tchuh ! ” — this was Mr. Hackit’s favorite interjection — “ that preaching without book’s no good, only when a man has a gift, and has the Bible at his fingers’ ends. It was all very well for Parry — he’d a gift; and in my youth I’ve heard the Ranters out o’ doors in Yorkshire go on for an hour or two on end, without ever sticking fast a minute. There was one clever chap, I remember, as used to say, ‘ You ’re like the wood-pigeon; it says do, do, do all day, and never sets about any work itself.’ That’s bringing it home to people. But our parson’s no gift at all that way ; he can preach as good a sermon as need be heard when he writes it down. But when he tries to preach wi’out book, he rambles about, and does n’t stick to his text; and every now and then he flounders about like a sheep as has cast itself, and can’t get on its legs again. You would n’t like that, Mrs. Patten, if you was to go to church now?” “Eh, dear,” said Mrs. Patten, falling back in her chair, and lifting up her little withered hands, “ what ’ud Mr. Gilfil say, if he was worthy to know the changes as have come about i’ the church these last ten years ? I don’t understand these new sort o’ doctrines. When Mr. Barton comes to see me, he talks about nothing but my sins and my need o’ marcy. Now, AMOS BARTON. 11 Mr. Hackit, I ’ve never been a sinner. From the fnst begin¬ ning, when I went into service, I al’ys did my duty by my emplyers. I was a good wife as any in the county — nevei aggravated my husband. The cheese-factor used to say my cheese was al’ys to be depended on. I Ve known women, as their cheeses swelled a shame to be seen, when their husbands had counted on the cheese-money to make up their rent; and yet they’d three gowns to my one. II I ’m not to be saved, I know a many as are in a bad way. But it ’s well for me as I can’t go to church any longer, for if tli’ old singers are to be done away with, there ’ll be nothing left as it was in Mr. Patten’s time ; and what’s more, I hear you’ve settled to pull the church down and build it up new ? ” Now the fact was that the Rev. Amos Barton, on his last visit to Mrs. Patten, had urged her to enlarge her promised subscription of twenty pounds, representing to her that she was only a steward of her riches, and that she could not spend them more for the glory of God than by giving a heavy sub¬ scription towards the rebuilding of Shepperton Church — a practical precept which was not likely to smooth the way to her acceptance of his theological doctrine. Mr. Hackit, who had more doctrinal enlightenment than Mrs. Patten, had been a little shocked by the heathenism of her speech, and was glad of the new turn given to the subject by this question, addressed to him as church-warden and an authority in all parochial matters. “ Ah,” he answered, “ the parson’s bothered us into it at last, and we ’re to begin pulling down this spring. But we have n’t got money enough yet. I was for waiting till we’d made up the sum, and, for my part, I think the congregation’s fell off o’ late; though Mr. Barton says that’s because there’s been no room for the people when they’ve come. You see, the con¬ gregation got so large in Parry’s time, the people stood in the aisles ; but there’s never any crowd now, as I can see.” “Well,” said Mrs. Hackit, whose good-nature began to act now that it was a little in contradiction with the dominant tone of the conversation, “ 1 like Mr. Barton. I think he ’s a good sort o’ man, for all he’s not overburtlien’d i’ th’ upper 12 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. storey ; and his wife’s as nice a lady-like woman as I ’d wish to see. How nice she keeps her children! and little enough money to do’t with; and a delicate creatur’— six children, and another a-coming. I don’t know how they make both ends meet, I’m sure, now her aunt has left ’em. But I sent ’em a cheese and a sack o’ potatoes last week; that’s some¬ thing towards filling the little mouths.” “ Ah! ” said Mr. Hackit, “ and my wife makes Mr. Barton a good stiff glass o’ brandy-and-water, when he comes in to supper after his cottage preaching. The parson likes it; it puts a bit o’ color into his face, and makes him look a deal handsomer.” This allusion to brandy-and-water suggested to Miss Gibbs the introduction of the liquor decanters, now that the tea was cleared away ; for in bucolic society five-and-twenty years ago, the human animal of the male sex was understood to be per¬ petually athirst, and “ something to drink ” was as necessary a “ condition of thought ” as Time and Space. “Now, that cottage preaching,” said Mr. Pilgrim, mixing himself a strong glass of “ cold without,” “ I was talking about it to our Parson Ely the other day, and he does n’t approve of it at all. He said it did as much harm as good to give a too familiar aspect to religious teaching. That was what Ely said — it does as much harm as good to give a too familiar aspect to religious teaching.” Mr. Pilgrim generally spoke with an intermittent kind of splutter; indeed, one of his patients had observed that it was a pity such a clever man had a “ ’pediment ” in his speech. But when he came to what he conceived the pith of his argu¬ ment or the point of his joke, he mouthed out his words with slow emphasis; as a hen, when advertising her accouchement, passes at irregular intervals from pianissimo semiquavers to fortissimo crotchets. He thought this speech of Mr. Ely’s particularly metaphysical and profound, and the more decisive of the question because it was a generality which represented no particulars to his mind. “Well, I don’t know about that,” said Mrs. Hackit, who had always the courage of her opinion, “ but I know, some of our AMOS BARTON. 18 laborers and. stockingers as used never to come to church, come to the cottage, and that ’s better than never hearing anything good from week’s end to week’s end. And there’s that Track Society as Mr. Barton has begun —I ’ve seen more o’ the poor people with going tracking, than all the time I’ve lived in the parish before. And there’d need be something done among ’em; for the drinking at them Benefit Clubs is shameful. 1 here’s hardly a steady man or steady woman either, but what’s a Dissenter.” During this speech of Mrs. Hackit’s, Mr. Pilgrim had emit¬ ted a succession of little snorts, something like the treble grunts of a guinea-pig, which were always with him the sign of suppressed disapproval. But he never contradicted Mrs. Hackit — a woman whose " pot-luck ” was always to be relied on, and who on her side had unlimited reliance on bleeding, blistering, and draughts. Mrs. Patten, however, felt equal disapprobation, and had no reasons for suppressing it. "Well,” she remarked, "I’ve heared of no good from inter¬ fering with one’s neighbors, poor or rich. And I hate the sight o’ women going about trapesing from house to house in all weathers, wet or dry, and coming in with their petticoats dagged and their shoes all over mud. Janet wanted to join in the tracking, but I told her I’d have nobody tracking out o’ my house ; when I’m gone, she may do as she likes. I never dagged my petticoats in my life, and I’ve no opinion o’ that sort o’ religion.” "No,” said Mr. Hack if, who was fond of soothing the acer¬ bities of the feminine mind with a jocose compliment, "you held ycrur petticoats so high, to show your tight ankles: it is n’t everybody as likes to show her ankles.” This joke met with general acceptance, even from the snubbed Janet, whose ankles were only tight in the sense of looking extremely squeezed by her boots. But Janet seemed always to identify herself with her aunt’s personality, holding her own under protest. Under cover of the general laughter the gentlemen replen¬ ished their glasses, Mr. Pilgrim attempting to give his the 14 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. character of a stirrup-cup by observing that he “must be going.” Miss Gibbs seized this opportunity of telling Mrs. Hackit that she suspected Betty, the dairymaid, of frying the best bacon for the shepherd, when he sat up with her to “ help brew j ” whereupon Mrs. Hackit replied that she had always thought Betty false ; and Mrs. Patten said there was no bacon stolen when she was able to manage. Mr. Hackit, who often complained that he “ never saw the like to women with their maids — he never had any trouble with his men,” avoided lis¬ tening to this discussion, by raising the question of vetches with Mr. Pilgrim. The stream of conversation had thus di¬ verged ; and no more was said about the Rev. Amos Barton, who is the main object of interest to us just now. So we may leave Cross Farm without waiting till Mrs. Hackit, resolutely donning her clogs and wrappings, renders it incumbent on Mr. Pilgrim also to fulfil his frequent threat of going. CHAPTER II. It was happy for the Rev. Amos Barton that he did not, like us, overhear the conversation recorded in the last chapter. Indeed, what mortal is there of us, who would find his satis, faction enhanced by an opportunity of comparing the picture he presents to himself of his own doings, with the picture they make on the mental retina of his neighbors ? We are poor plants buoyed up by the air-vessels of our own conceit: alas for us, if we get a few pinches that empty us of that windy self-subsistence ! The very capacity for good would go out of us. For, tell the most impassioned orator, suddenly, that his wig is awry, or his shirt-lap hanging out, and that he is tick¬ ling people by the oddity of his person, instead of thiilling them by the energy of his periods, and you would infallibly dry up the spring of his eloquence. That is a deep and wids* AMOS BARTON. 15 saying, (‘Rat no miracle can be wrought without faith — with, out the wori'eRs faith in himself, as well as the recipient’s faith in him. And the greater part of the worker’s faith in himself is made up of the faith that others believe in him. Let me be persuaded that my neighbor Jenkins considers me a blockhead, and I snail never shine in conversation with him any more. Let me discover that the lovely Phoebe thinks my squint intolerable, and I shall never be able to fix her blandly with my disengaged eye a§^.in. Thank heaven, then, that a little illusion is left to us, to enable us to be useful and agreeable — that we don’t know exactly what our friends think of us —- that the world is not made of looking-glass, to show us just the figure we are mak- ing, and just what is going on behind our backs - By the help of dear friendly illusion, we are able to dream that we are charming — and our faces wear a becoming air of self-posses¬ sion ; we are able to dream that other men admire our talents — and our benignity is undisturbed; we are able to dream that we are doing much good — and we do a little. Thus it was with Amos Barton on that very Thursday even- ing, when he was the subject of the conversation at Cross Farm. He had been dining at Mr. Farquhar’s, the secondary squire of the parish, and, stimulated by unwonted gravies and port-wine, had been delivering his opinion on affairs parochial and extra-parochial with considerable animation. And he was now returning home in the moonlight —a little chill, it is true, for he had just now no great-coat compatible with clerical dig¬ nity, and a fur boa round one’s neck, with a waterproof cape over one’s shoulders, doesn’t frighten away the cold from one’s legs; but entirely unsuspicious, not only of Mr. Hackit’s esti¬ mate of his oratorical powers, but also of the critical remarks passed on him by the Misses Farquhar as soon as the drawing¬ room door had closed behind him. Miss Julia had observed that she never heard any one sniff so frightfully as Mr. Barton did — she had a great mind to offer him her pocket-handker¬ chief ; and Miss Arabella wondered why he always said he was going for to do a thing. He, excellent man! was medi¬ tating fresh pastoral exertions on the morrow; he would set 16 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. on foot his lending library; in which he had introduced somt books that would be a pretty sharp blow to the Dissenters — one especially, purporting to be written by a working man, who, out of pure zeal for the welfare of his class, took the trouble to warn them in this way against those hypocritical thieves, the Dissenting preachers. The Rev. Amos Barton profoundly believed in the existence of that working man, and had thoughts of writing to him. Dissent, he considered, would have its head bruised in Shepperton, for did he not attack it in two ways ? He preached Low-Church doctrine — as evan¬ gelical as anything to be heard in the Independent Chapel; and he made a High-Church assertion of ecclesiastical powers and functions. Clearly, the Dissenters would feel that “the parson” was too many for them. Nothing like a man who combines shrewdness with energy. The wisdom of the serpent, Mr. Barton considered, was one of his strong points. Look at him as he winds through the little churchyard! The silver light that falls aslant on church and tomb, enables you to see his slim black figure, made all the slimmer by tight pantaloons, as it flits past the pale gravestones. He walks with a quick step, and is now rapping with sharp decision at the vicarage door. It is opened without delay by the nurse, cook, and housemaid, all at once — that is to say, by the ro¬ bust maid-of-all-work, Nanny; and as Mr. Barton hangs up his hat in the passage, you see that a narrow face of no par¬ ticular complexion— even the small-pox that has attacked it seems to have been of a mongrel, indefinite kind — with fea¬ tures of no particular shape, and an eye of no particular ex¬ pression, is surmounted by a slope of baldness gently rising from brow to crown. You judge him, rightly, to be about forty. The house is quiet, for it is half-past ten, and the children have long been gone to bed. He opens the sitting-room door, but instead of seeing his wife, as he expected, stitching with the nimblest of fingers by the light of one candle, he finds her dispensing with the light of a caudle altogether. She is softly pacing up and down by the red firelight, holding in her arms little Walter, the year-old baby, who looks over her shoulder with large wide-open eyes, while the patient mother pats his AMOS BASTON. 17 back with her soft hand, and glances with a sigh at the heap of large and small stockings lying unmended on the table. She was a lovely woman — Mrs. Amos Barton ; a large, fair, gentle Madonna, with thick, close, chestnut curls beside her well-rounded cheeks, and with large, tender, short-sighted eyes. The flowing lines of her tall figure made the limpest dress look graceful, and her old frayed black silk seemed to repose on her bust and limbs with a placid elegance and sense of distinc¬ tion, in strong contrast with the uneasy sense of being no fit, that seemed to express itself in the rustling of Mrs. Farquhar’s gros de Naples. The caps she wore would have been pro¬ nounced, when off her head, utterly heavy and hideous_for in those days even fashionable caps were large and floppy; but surmounting her long arched neck, and mingling their borders of cheap lace and ribbon with her chestnut curls, they seemed miracles of successful millinery. Among strangers she was shy and tremulous as a girl of fifteen; she blushed crim¬ son if any one appealed to her opinion; yet that tall, graceful, substantial presence was so imposing in its mildness, that men spoke to her with an agreeable sensation of timidity. Soothing, unspeakable charm of gentle womanhood! which supersedes all acquisitions, all accomplishments. You would never have asked, at any period of Mrs. Amos Barton’s life, if she sketched or played the piano. You would even perhaps have been rather scandalized if she had descended from the serene dignity of being to the assiduous unrest of doing. Happy the man, you would have thought, whose eye will rest on her in the pauses of his fireside reading — whose hot ach¬ ing forehead will be soothed by the contact of her cool soft hand — who will recover himself from dejection at his mis¬ takes and failures in the loving light of her unreproaching eyes! You would not, perhaps, have anticipated that this bliss would fall to the share of precisely such a man as Amos Barton, whom you have already surmised not to have the re¬ fined sensibilities for which you might have imagined Mrs. Barton’s qualities to be destined by pre-established harmony. But I, for one, do not grudge Amos Barton this sweet wife. I have all my life had a sympathy for mongrel ungainly dogs, VOL. IV. & 18 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. who are nobody's pets ; and I would rather surprise one of them by a pat and a pleasant morsel, than meet the conde¬ scending advances of the loveliest Skye-terrier who has his cushion by my lady’s chair. That, to be sure, is not the way of the world: if it happens to see a fellow of fine proportions and aristocratic mien, who makes no faux jjas, and wins golden opinions from all sorts of men, it straightway picks out for him the loveliest of unmarried women, and says, There would be a proper match! Not at all, say I: let that successful, well-shapen, discreet, and able gentleman put up with some¬ thing less than the best in the matrimonial department; and let the sweet woman go to make sunshine and a soft pillow for the poor devil whose legs are not models, whose efforts are often blunders, and who in general gets more kicks than half¬ pence. She—the sweet woman — will like it as well; for her sublime capacity of loving will have all the more scope; and I venture to say, Mrs. Barton’s nature would never have grown half so angelic if she had married the man you would perhaps have had in your eye for her — a man with sufficient income and abundant personal eclat . Besides, Amos was an affection¬ ate husband, and, in his way, valued his wife as his best treasure. But now he has shut the door behind him, and said, “ Well, Milly! ” “Well, dear!” was the corresponding greeting, made elo¬ quent by a smile. “ So that young rascal won’t go to sleep! Can’t you give him to Nanny ? ” “Why, Nanny has been busy ironing this evening; but I think I ’ll take him to her now.” And Mrs. Barton glided towards the kitchen, while her husband ran up-stairs to put on his maise-colored dressing-gown, in which costume he was ,quietly filling his long pipe when his wife returned to the sitting-room. Maize is a color that decidedly did not suit his complexion, and it is one that soon soils; why, then, did Mr. Barton select it for domestic wear ? Perhaps because he had a knack of hitting on the wrong thing in garb as well as in grammar. AMOS BARTON. 19 Mrs. Barton now lighted her candle, and seated herself be* fore her heap of stockings. She had something disagreeable to tell her husband, but she would not enter on it at once. “ Have you had a nice evening, dear ? ” “Yes, pretty well. Ely was there to dinner, but went away rather early. Miss Arabella is setting her cap at him with a vengeance. But I don’t think he’s much smitten. I’ve a notion Ely’s engaged to some one at a distance, and will aston¬ ish all the ladies who are languishing for him here, by bring¬ ing home his bride one of these days. Ely’s a sly dog ; he ’ll like that.” “Did the Farquhars say anything about the singing last Sunday ? ” “ Yes; Earquhar said he thought it was time there was some improvement in the choir. But he was rather scanda¬ lized at my setting the tune of ‘ Lydia.’ He says he’s always hearing it as he passes the Independent meeting.” Here Mr. Barton laughed — he had a way of laughing at criticisms that other people thought damaging — and thereby showed the remainder of a set of teeth which, like the remnants of the Old Guard, were few in number, and very much the worse for wear. “ But,” he continued, “ Mrs. Farquhar talked the most about Mr. Bridmain and the Countess. She has taken up all the gossip about them, and wanted to convert me to her opin¬ ion, but I told her pretty strongly what I thought.” “ Dear me ! why will people take so much pains to find out evil about others ? I have had a note from the Countess since you went, asking us to dine with them on Friday.” Here Mrs. Barton reached the note from the mantel-piece, and gave it to her husband. We will look over his shoulder while he reads it: — Sweetest Milly, — Bring your lovely face with your husband to dine with us on Friday at seven — do If not, I will be sulky with you till Sunday, when I shall be obliged to see you, and shall long to kiss you that very moment. Yours, according to your answer, Caroline Czerlaski. “Just like her, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Barton. “I suppose we can go ? ” 20 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. “ Yes ; I Lave no engagement. The Clerical Meeting is to* morrow, you know.” “ And, dear, Woods the butcher called, to say he must have some money next week. He has a payment to make up.” This announcement made Mr. Barton thoughtful. He puffed more rapidly, and looked at the fire. “ I think I must ask Hackit to lend me twenty pounds, for it is nearly two months till Lady-day, and we can’t give Woods our last shilling.” “ I hardly like you to ask Mr. Hackit, dear — he and Mrs. Hackit have been so very kind to us; they have sent us so many things lately.” “ Then I must ask Oldinport. - 7 m going to write to him to-morrow morning, for to tell him the arrangement I’ve been thinking of about having service in the workhouse while the church is being enlarged. If he agrees to attend service there once or twice, the other people will come. Net the large fish, and you ’re sure to have the small fry.” “ I wish we could do without borrowing money, and yet I don’t see how we can. Poor Fred must have some new shoes; I could n’t let him go to Mrs. Bond’s yesterday because his toes were peeping out, dear child ! and I can’t let him walk anywhere except in the garden. He must have a pair before Sunday. Really, boots and shoes are the greatest trouble of my life. Everything else one can turn and turn about, and make old look like new ; but there’s no coaxing boots and shoes to look better than they are.” Mrs. Barton was playfully undervaluing her skill in meta¬ morphosing boots and shoes. She had at that moment on her feet a pair of slippers which had long ago lived through the prunella phase of their existence, and were now running a respectable career as black silk slippers, having been neatly covered with that material by Mrs. Barton’s own neat fingers. Wonderful fingers those ! they were never empty ; for if she went to spend a few hours with a friendly parishioner, out came her thimble and a piece of calico or muslin, which, before she left, had become a mysterious little garment with all sorts of hemmed ins and outs. She was even trying to persuada AMOS BARTON. 21 her husband to leave off tight pantaloons, because if he would wear the ordinary gun-cases, she knew she could make them so well that no one would suspect the sex of the tailor. But by this time Mr. Barton has finished his pipe, the candle begins to burn low, and Mrs, Barton goes to see if Nanny has succeeded in lulling Walter to sleep. Nanny is that moment putting him in the little cot by his mother’s bedside; the head, with its thin wavelets of brown hair, indents the little pillow; and a tiny, waxen, dimpled fist hides the rosy lips, for baby is given to the infantine pecca¬ dillo of thumb-sucking. So Nanny could now join in the short evening prayer, and all could go to bed. Mrs. Barton carried up-stairs the remainder of her heap oi stockings, and laid them on a table close to her bedside, where also she placed a warm shawl, removing her candle, before she put it out, to a tin socket fixed at the head of her bed. Her body was very weary, but her heart was not heavy, in spite of Mr. Woods the butcher, and the transitory nature of shoe-leather; for her heart so overflowed with love, she felt sure she was near a fountain of love that would care for hus¬ band and babes better than she could foresee ; so she was soon asleep. But about half-past five o’clock in the morning, if there were any angels watching round her bed — and angels might be glad of such an office — they saw Mrs. Barton rise up quietly, careful not to disturb the slumbering Amos, who was snoring the snore of the just, light her candle, prop her¬ self upright with the pillows, throw the warm shawl round her shoulders, and renew her attack on the heap of undarned stockings. She darned away until she heard Nanny stirring, and then drowsiness came with the dawn ; the candle was put out, and she sank into a doze. But at nine o’clock she was at the breakfast-table, busy cutting bread-and-butter for five hun- . gry mouths, while Nanny, baby on one arm, in rosy cheeks, fat neck, and night-gown, brought in a jug of hot milk-and- water. Nearest her mother sits the nine-year-old Patty, the eldest child, whose sweet fair face is already rather grave sometimes, and who always wants to run up-stairs to save 22 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. mamma’s legs, which get so tired of an evening. Then there are four other blond heads — two boys and two girls, gradu- ally decreasing in size down to Chubby, who is making a round 0 of her mouth to receive a bit of papa’s “baton.” Papa’s attention was divided between petting Chubby, rebuk¬ ing the noisy Fred, which he did with a somewhat excessive sharpness, and eating his own breakfast. He had not yet looked at mamma, and did not know that her cheek was paler than usual. But Patty whispered, “Mamma, have you the headache ? ” Happily coal was cheap in the neighborhood of Shepperton, and Mr. Hackit would at any time let his horses draw a load for “ the parson ” without charge; so there was a blazing fire in the sitting-room, and not without need, for the vicarage gar¬ den, as they looked out on it from the bow-window, was hard with black frost, and the sky had the white woolly look that portends snow. Breakfast over, Mr. Barton mounted to his study, and occu¬ pied himself in the first place with his letter to Mr. Oldinport. It was very much the same sort of letter as most clergymen would have written under the same circumstances, except that instead of perambulate, the Rev. Amos wrote preambulate, and instead of “ if haply,” “ if happily,” the contingency indicated being the reverse of happy. Mr. Barton had not the gift of perfect accuracy in English orthography and syntax, which was unfortunate, as he was known not to be a Hebrew scholar, and not in the least suspected of being an accomplished Gre¬ cian. These lapses, in a man who had gone through the Eleusinian mysteries of a university education, surprised the young ladies of his parish extremely; especially the Misses Farquhar, whom he had once addressed in a letter as Dear Mads., apparently an abbreviation for Madams. The persons least surprised at the Rev. Amos’s deficiencies were his clerical brethren, who had gone through the mysteries themselves. At eleven o’clock, Mr. Barton walked forth in cape and boa, with the sleet driving in his face, to read prayers at the work- house, euphuistically called the “ College.” The College was a huge square stone building, standing on the best apology for AMOS BARTON. 28 an elevation of 'ground that could be seen for about ten miles round Shepperton. A flat ugly district this; depressing enough to look at even on the brightest days. The roads are black with coal-dust, the brick houses dingy with smoke; and at that time-—the time of handloom weavers — every other cottage had a loom at its window, where you might see a pale, sickly-looking man or woman pressing a narrow chest against a board, and doing a sort of tread-mill work with legs and arms. A troublesome district for a clergyman; at least to one who, like Amos Barton, understood the “cure of souls” in something more than an official sense ; for over and above the rustic stupidity furnished by the farm-laborers, the miners brought obstreperous animalism, and the weavers an acrid Radicalism and Dissent. Indeed, Mrs. Hackit often observed that the colliers, who many of them earned better wages than Mr. Barton, “passed their time in doing nothing but swilling ale and smoking, like the beasts that perish 99 (speaking, we may presume, in a remotely analogical sense) ; and in some of the ale-house corners the drink was flavored by a dingy kind of infidelity, something like rinsings of Tom Paine in ditch- water. A certain amount of religious excitement created by the popular preaching of Mr. Parry, Amos’s predecessor, had nearly died out, and the religious life of Shepperton was fall¬ ing back towards low-water mark. Here, you perceive, was a terrible stronghold of Satan ; and you may well pity the Rev. Amos Barton, who had to stand single-handed and summon it to surrender. We read, indeed, that the walls of Jericho fell down before the sound of trumpets; but we nowhere hear that those trumpets were hoarse and feeble. Doubtless they were trumpets that gave forth clear ringing tones, and sent a mighty vibration through brick and mortar. But the oratory of the Rev. Amos resembled rather a Belgian railway-horn which shows praiseworthy intentions inadequately fulfilled. He often missed the right note both in public and private exhorta¬ tion, and got a little angry in consequence. For though Amos thought himself strong, he did not feel himself strong. Na¬ ture had given him the opinion, but not the sensation. With¬ out that opinion he would probably never have worn cambric 24 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. bands, but would have been an excellent cabinet-maker and deacon of an Independent church, as his father was before him (he was not a shoemaker, as Mr. Pilgrim had reported). He might then have sniffed long and loud in the corner of his pew in Gun Street Chapel; he might have indulged in halting rhetoric at prayer-meetings, and have spoken faulty English in private life ; and these little infirmities would not have pre¬ vented him, honest faithful man that he was, from being a shining light in the Dissenting circle of Bridgeport. A tallow dip, of the long-eight description, is an excellent thing in the kitchen candlestick, and Betty’s nose and eye are not sensitive to the difference between it and the finest wax; it is only when you stick it in the silver candlestick, and introduce it into the drawing-room, that it seems plebeian, dim, and in¬ effectual. Alas for the worthy man who, like that candle, gets himself into the wrong place ! It is only the very largest souls who will be able to appreciate and pity him — who will dis¬ cern and love sincerity of purpose amid all the bungling feeble¬ ness of achievement. But now Amos Barton has made his way through the sleet as far as the College, has thrown off his hat, cape, and boa, and is reading, in the dreary stone-floored dining-room, a por¬ tion of the morning service to the inmates seated on the benches before him. Remember, the New Poor-law had not yet come into operation, and Mr. Barton was not acting as paid chaplain of the Union, but as the pastor who had the cure of all souls in his parish, pauper as well as other. After the prayers he always addressed to them a short discourse on some subject suggested by the lesson for the day, striving if by this means some edifying matter might find its way into the pauper mind and conscience — perhaps a task as trying as you could well imagine to the faith and patience of any honest clergyman. For, on the very first bench, these were the faces on which his eye had to rest, watching whether there was any stirring under the stagnant surface. Right in front of him — probably because he was stone-deaf, and it was deemed more edifying to hear nothing at a short distance than at a long one — sat “ Old Maxum,” as he was AMOS BARTON. ' 26 familiarly called, his real patronymic remaining a mystery to most persons. A fine philological sense discerns in this cog¬ nomen an indication that the pauper patriarch had once been considered pithy and sententious in his speech; but now the weight of ninety-five years lay heavy on his tongue as well as on his ears, and he sat before the clergyman with protruded chin, and munching mouth, and eyes that seemed to look at emptiness. Next to him sat Poll Fodge — known to the magistracy of her county as Mary Higgins—-a one-eyed woman, with a scarred and seamy face, the most notorious rebel in the work- house, said to have once thrown her broth over the master’s coat-tails, and who, in spite of nature’s apparent safeguards against that contingency, had contributed to the perpetuation of the Fodge characteristics in the person of a small boy, who was behaving naughtily on one of the back benches. Miss Fodge fixed her one sore eye on Mr. Barton with a sort of hardy defiance. Beyond this member of the softer sex, at the end of the bench, sat “ Silly Jim,” a young man afflicted with hydro¬ cephalus, who rolled his head from side to side, and gazed at the point of his nose. These were the supporters of Old Maxum on his right. On his left sat Mr. Fitchett, a tall fellow, who had once been a footman in the Oldinport family, and in that giddy ele¬ vation had enunciated a contemptuous opinion of boiled beef, which had been traditionally handed down in Shepperton as the direct cause of his ultimate reduction to pauper commons. His calves were now shrunken, and his hair was gray without the aid of powder ; but he still carried his chin as if he were conscious of a stiff cravat; he set his dilapidated hat on with a knowing inclination towards the left ear; and when he was en field-work, he carted and uncarted the manure with a sort of flunky grace, tne ghost of that jaunty demeanor with which he used to ush^i m my lady’s morning visitors. The flunky nature was nownere completely subdued but in his stomach, and he still divided society into gentry, gentry’s flunkies, and the people whu provided for them. A clergyman without a SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. 26 flunky was an anomaly, belonging to neither of these classes, Mr. Fitchett had an irrepressible tendency to drowsiness under spiritual instruction, and in the recurrent regularity with which he dozed off until he nodded and awaked himself, he looked not unlike a piece of mechanism, ingeniously con¬ trived for measuring the length of Mr. Barton’s discourse. Perfectly wide-awake, on the contrary, was his left-hand neighbor, Mrs. Brick, one of those hard undying old women, to whom age seems to have given a network of wrinkles, as a coat of magic armor against the attacks of winters, warm or cold. The point on which Mrs. Brick was still sensitive — the theme on which you might possibly excite her hope and f ear __ was snuff. It seemed to be an embalming powder, helping her soul to do the office of salt. 'And now, eke out an audience of which this front benchful was a sample, with a certain number of refractory children, over whom Mr. Spratt, the master of the workhouse, exer¬ cised an irate surveillance, and I think you will admit that the university-taught clergyman, whose office it is to bring home the gospel to a handful of such souls, has a sufficiently hard task. For, to have any chance of success, short of miraculous intervention, he must bring his geographical, chronological, exegetical mind pretty nearly to the pauper point of view, or of no view; he must have some approximate conception of the mode in which the doctrines that have so much vitality in the plenum of his own brain will comport themselves in vacuo -— that is to say, in a brain that is neither geographical, chronological, nor exegetical. It is a flexible imagination that can take such a leap as that, and an adroit tongue that can adapt its speech to so unfamiliar a position. The Rev, Amos Barton had neither that flexible imagination, nor that adroit tongue. He talked of Israel and its sins, of chosen vessels, of the Paschal lamb, of blood as a medium of recon¬ ciliation ; and he strove in this way to convey religious truth within reach of the Fodge and Fitchett mind. This very morning, the first lesson was the twelfth chapter of Exodus, and Mr. Barton’s exposition turned on unleavened bread. Nothing in the world more suited to the simple understanding AMOS BARTON. 2’i than instruction through familiar types and symbols! But there is always this danger attending it, that the interest or comprehension of your hearers may stop short precisely at the point where your spiritual interpretation begins. And Mr. Barton this morning succeeded in carrying the pauper imagination to the dough tub, but unfortunately was not able to carry it upwards from that well-known object to the un¬ known truths which it was intended to shadow forth. Alas ! a natural incapacity for teaching, finished by keep¬ ing “terms” at Cambridge, where there are able mathema¬ ticians, and butter is sold by the yard, is not apparently the medium through which Christian doctrine will distil as wel¬ come dew on withered souls. And so, while the sleet outside was turning to unquestion¬ able snow, and the stony dining-room looked darker and drearier, and Mr. Fitchett was nodding his lowest, and Mr. Spratt was boxing the boys’ ears with a constant rinforzando , as he felt more keenly the approach of dinner-time, Mr. Barton wound up his exhortation with something of the February chill at his heart as well as his feet. Mr. Fitchett, thoroughly roused now the instruction was at an end, obse¬ quiously and gracefully advanced to help Mr. Barton in putting on his cape, while Mrs. Brick rubbed her withered forefinger round and round her little shoe-shaped snuff-box, vainly seeking for the fraction of a pinch. I can’t help thinking that if Mr. Barton had shaken into that little box a small portion of Scotch high-dried, he might have produced something more like an amiable emotion in Mrs. Brick’s mind than anything she had felt under his morning’s exposition of the unleavened bread. But our good Amos labored under a deficiency of small tact as well as of small cash ; and when he observed the action of the old woman’s forefinger, he said, in his brusque way, “So your snuff is all gone, eh ?” Mrs. Brick’s eyes twinkled with the visionary hope that the parson might be intending to replenish her box, at least mediately, through the present of a small copper. “ Ah, well! you ’ll soon be going where there is no more snuff. You’ll be in need of mercy then, You must remember 28 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. that you may have to seek for mercy and not find it, just as you ’re seeking for snuff.” At the first sentence of this admonition, the twinkle sub¬ sided from Mrs. Brick’s eyes. The lid of her box went “ click ! ” and her heart was shut up at the same moment. But now Mr. Barton’s attention was called for by Mr. Spratt, who was dragging a small and unwilling boy from the rear. Mr. Spratt was a small-featured, small-statured man, with a remarkable power of language, mitigated by hesitation, who piqued himself on expressing unexceptionable sentiments in unexceptionable language on all occasions. “ Mr. Barton, sir — aw — aw — excuse my trespassing on your time — aw — to beg that you will administer a rebuke to this boy ; he is — aw — aw — most inveterate in ill-behavior during service-time.” The inveterate culprit was a boy of seven, vainly contending against a cold in his nose by feeble sniffing. But no sooner had Mr. Spratt uttered his impeachment, than Miss Fodge rushed forward and placed herself between Mr. Barton and the accused. u That’s my child, Muster Barton,” she exclaimed, further manifesting her maternal instincts by applying her apron to her offspring’s nose. “ He’s al’ys a-findin’ faut wi’ him, and a-poundin’ him for nothin’. Let him gooan’ eat his roost goose as is a-smellin’ up in our noses while we ’re a-swallering them greasy broth, an’ let my boy alooan.” Mr. Spratt’s small eyes flashed, and he was in danger of uttering sentiments not unexceptionable before the clergyman ; but Mr. Barton, foreseeing that a prolongation of this episode would not be to edification, said “ Silence!” in his severest tones. “ Let me hear no abuse. Your boy is not likely to behave well, if you set him the example of being saucy.” Then stoop* ing down to Master Fodge, and taking him by the shoulder, “ Do you like being beaten ? ” “ No-a.” “ Then what a silly boy you are to be naughty. If you were not naughty, you would n’t be beaten. But if you are naughty, AMOS BARTON. 29 God will be angry, as well as Mr. Spratt; and God can burn y° u i° ie ^cr. That will be worse than being beaten.” Master Fodge’s countenance was neither affirmative nor neg¬ ative of this proposition. /‘But,” continued Mr. Barton, “if you will be a good boy, God will love you, and you will grow up to be a good man. Now, let me hear next Thursday that you have been a good boy.” Master Fodge-had no distinct vision of the benefit that would accrue to him from this change of courses. But Mr. Baiton, being aware that Miss Fodge had touched on a delicate subject in alluding to the roast goose, was determined to wit¬ ness no more polemics between her and Mr. Spratt, so, saying good morning to the latter, he hastily left the College. The snow was falling in thicker and thicker flakes, and already the vicarage-garden was cloaked in white as he passed though the gate. Mrs. Barton heard him open the door, and ran out of the sitting-room to meet him. “I bn afraid your feet are very wet, dear. What a terrible morning! Let me take your hat. Your slippers are at the fire.” Mr. Barton was feeling a little cold and cross. It is diffi¬ cult, when you have been doing disagreeable duties, without praise, on a snowy day, to attend to the very minor morals. So he showed no recognition of Milly’s attentions, but simply said, “Fetch me my dressing-gown, will you?” It is down, dear. I thought you would n’t go into the study, because you said you would letter and number the books for the Lending Library. Patty and I have been covering them, and they are all ready in the sitting-room.” “ I can’t do those this morning,” said Mr. Barton, as he took off his boots and put his feet into the slippers Milly had brought him j “you must put them away into the parlor.” The sitting room was also the day nursery and schoolroom; and while Mamma’s back was turned, Dickey, the second boy, had insisted on superseding Chubby in the guir ^ice of a head¬ less horse, of the red-wafered species, which she was drawing round the room, so that when Papa opened the door Chubby Was giving tongue energetically. 30 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. “ Milly, some of these children must go away. I want to be quiet.” “Yes, dear. Hush, Chubby; go with Patty, and see what Nanny is getting for our dinner. Now, Fred and Sophy and Dickey, help me to carry these books into the parlor. There are three for Dickey. Carry them steadily.” Papa meanwhile settled himself in his easy-chair, and took up a work on Episcopacy, which he had from the Clerical Book Society; thinking he would finish it and return it this after¬ noon, as he was going to the Clerical Meeting at Milby Vicar¬ age, where the Book Society had its headquarters. The Clerical Meetings and Book Society, which had been founded some eight or ten months, had had a noticeable effect on the Rev. Amos Barton. When he first came to Shepperton he was simply an evangelical clergyman, whose Christian ex¬ periences had commenced under the teaching of the Rev. Mr. Johns, of Gun Street Chapel, and had been consolidated at Cambridge under the influence of Mr. Simeon. John Newton and Thomas Scott were his doctrinal ideals; he would have ta¬ ken in the “ Christian Observer ” and the “ Record,” if he could have afforded it; his anecdotes were chiefly of the pious-jocose kind, current in Dissenting circles; and he thought an Episco¬ palian Establishment unobjectionable. But by this time the effect of the Tractarian agitation was beginning to be felt in backward provincial regions, and the Tractarian satire on the Low-Church party was beginning to tell even on those who disavowed or resisted Tractarian doc¬ trines. The vibration of an intellectual movement was felt from the golden head to the miry toes of the Establishment; and so it came to pass that, in the district round Milby, the market-town close to Shepperton, the clergy had agreed to have a clerical meeting every month wherein they would exercise their intellects by discussing theological and ecclesiastical questions, and cement their brotherly love by discussing a good dinner. A Book Society naturally suggested itself as an adjunct of this agreeable plan ; and thus, you perceive, there was provision made for ample friction of the clerical mind. AMOS BARTON. 31 Now ? the Rev. Amos Barton was one of those men who have a decided will and opinion of their own; he held himself bolt o.piight> and had no self-distrust. He would march very de¬ terminedly along the road he thought best; but then it was wonderfully easy to convince him which was the best road. And so a very little unwonted reading and unwonted discus¬ sion made him see that an Episcopalian Establishment was much more than unobjectionable, and on many other points he began to feel that he held opinions a little too far-sighted and profound to be crudely and suddenly communicated to ordinary minds. He was like an onion that has been rubbed with spices; the strong original odor was blended with something new and foreign. The Low-Church onion still offended refined High-Church nostrils, and the new spice was unwelcome to the palate of the genuine onion-eater. We will not accompany him to the Clerical Meeting to-day, because we shall probably want to go thither some day when he will be absent. And just now X am bent on introducing you to Mr. Bridmain and the Countess Czerlaski, with whom Mr. and Mrs. Barton are invited to dine to-morrow. CHAPTER ILL Outside, the moon is shedding its cold light on the cold snow, and the white-bearded fir-trees round Camp Villa are casting a blue shadow across the white ground, while the Rev. Amos Barton and his wife are audibly crushing the crisp snow beneath their feet, as, about seven o’clock on Friday evening, they approach the door of the above-named desirable country residence, containing dining, breakfast, and drawing rooms, &c., situated only half a mile from the market-town of Milby. Inside, there is a bright fire in the drawing-room, casting a pleasant but uncertain light on the delicate silk dress of a 32 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. lady who is reclining behind a screen in the corner of the sofa, and allowing you to discern that the hair of the gentleman who is seated in the arm-chair opposite, with a newspaper over his knees, is becoming decidedly gray. A little “ King Charles,” with a crimson ribbon round his neck, who has been lying curled up in the very middle of the hearth-rug, has just discovered that that zone is too hot for him, and is jumping on the sofa, evidently with the intention of accommodating his person on the silk gown. On the table there are two wax- candles, which will be lighted as soon as the expected knock is heard at the door. The knock is heard, the candles are lighted, and presently Mr. and Mrs. Barton are ushered in — Mr. Barton erect and clerical, in a faultless tie and shining cranium; Mrs. Barton graceful in a newly turned black silk. “ Now this is charming of you,” said the Countess Czerlaski, advancing to meet them, and embracing Milly with careful elegance. “ I am really ashamed of my selfishness in asking my friends to come and see me in this frightful weather.” Then, giving her hand to Amos, “ And you, Mr. Barton, whose time is so precious ! But I am doing a good deed in drawing you away from your labors. I have a plot to prevent you from martyrizing yourself.” While this greeting was going forward, Mr. Bridmain, and Jet the spaniel, looked on with the air of actors who had no idea of by-play. Mr. Bridmain, a stiff and rather thick-set man, gave his welcome with a labored cordiality. It was astonishing how very little he resembled his beautiful sister. For the Countess Czerlaski was undeniably beautiful. As she seated herself by Mrs. Barton on the sofa, Milly’s eyes, indeed, rested — must it be confessed ? — chiefly on the details of the tasteful dress, the rich silk of a pinkish lilac hue (the Countess always wore delicate colors in an evening), the black lace pelerine, and the black lace veil falling at the back of the small closely braided head. For Milly had one weakness — don’t love her any the less for it, it was a pretty woman’s weakness — she was fond of dress; and often, when she was making up her own economical millinery, she had romantic AMOS BARTON. 33 visions how nice it would "be to put on really handsome stylish tilings — to have very stiff balloon sleeves, for example, with- out which a woman’s dress was nought in those days. You and I, too, reader, have our weakness, have we not ? which makes us think foolish things now and then. Perhaps it may lie in an excessive admiration for small hands and feet, a tall lithe figure, large dark eyes, and dark silken braided hair. All these the Countess possessed, and she had, moreover, a deli¬ cately formed nose, the least bit curved, and a clear brunette complexion. Her mouth, it must be admitted, receded too much from her nose and chin, and to a prophetic eye threatened “ nut-crackers ” in advanced age. But by the light of fire and wax-candles that age seemed very far off indeed, and you would have said that the Countess was not more than thirty. Look at the two women on the sofa together! The large, fair, mild-eyed Milly is timid even in friendship: it is not easy to her to speak of the affection of which her heart is full. The lithe, dark, thin-lipped Countess is racking her small brain for caressing words and charming exaggerations. “ And how are all the cherubs at home ?” said the Countess, stooping to pick up Jet, and without waiting for an answer. “ I have been kept in-doors by a cold ever since Sunday, or I should not have rested without seeing you. What have you done with those wretched singers, Mr. Barton ? ” “ Oh, we have got a new choir together, which will go on very well with a little practice. I was quite determined that the old set of singers should be dismissed. I had given orders that they should not sing the wedding psalm, as they call it, again, to make a new-married couple look ridiculous, and they sang it in defiance of me. I could put them into the Ecclesi¬ astical Court, if I chose for to do so, for lifting up their voices in church in opposition to the clergyman.” “And a most wholesome discipline that would be,” said the Countess; “indeed, you are too patient and forbearing, Mr. Barton. For my part, I lose my temper when I see how far you are from being appreciated in that miserable Shepperton.” If, as is probable, Mr. Barton felt at a loss what to say in VOL. IV. 3 34 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE reply to the insinuated compliment, it was a relief to him that dinner was announced just then, and that he had to offer his arm to the Countess. As Mr. Bridmain was leading Mrs. Barton to the dining* room, he observed, “ The weather is very severe.” “ Very, indeed,” said Milly. Mr. Bridmain studied conversation as an art. To ladies he spoke of the weather, and was accustomed to consider it under three points of view: as a question of climate in general, com¬ paring England with other countries in this respect; as a per¬ sonal question, inquiring how it affected his lady interlocutor in particular; and as a question of probabilities, discussing whether there would be a change or a continuance of the pres¬ ent atmospheric conditions. To gentlemen he talked politics, and he read two daily papers expressly to qualify himself for this function. Mr. Barton thought him a man of considerable political information, but not of lively parts. “ And so you are always to hold your Clerical Meetings at Mr. Ely’s ?” said the Countess, between her spoonfuls of soup. (The soup was a little over-spiced. Mrs. Short of Camp Villa, •who was in the habit of letting her best apartments, gave only moderate wages to her cook.) “Yes,” said Mr. Barton; “Milby is a central place, and there are many conveniences in having only one point of meeting.” “Well,” continued the Countess, “every one seems to agree in giving the precedence to Mr. Ely. For my part, I cannot admire him. His preaching is too cold for me. It has no fervor — no heart. I often say to my brother, it is a great comfort to me that Shepperton Church is not too far off for us to go to ; don’t I, Edmund ? ” “Yes,” answered Mr. Bridmain ; “they show us into such a bad pew at Milby — just where there is a draught from that door. I caught a stiff neck the first time I went there.” “ Oh, it is the cold in the pulpit that affects me, not the cold in the pew. I was writing to my friend Lady Porter this morning, and telling her all about my feelings. She and I think alike on such matters. She is most anxious that when AMOS BARTON. 3b Sir William has an opportunity of giving away the living at their place, Dippley, they should have a thoroughly zealous, clever man, there. I have been describing a certain friend of mine to her, who, I think, would be just to her mind. And there is such a pretty rectory, Milly; should n’t I like to see you the mistress of it ? ” Milly smiled and blushed slightly. The Rev. Amos blushed very red, and gave a little embarrassed laugh — he could rarely keep his muscles within the limits of a smile. At this moment John, the man-servant, approached Mrs. Barton with a gravy-tureen, and also with a slight odor of the stable, which usually adhered to him throughout his in-door functions. John was rather nervous; and the Countess, hap¬ pening to speak to him at this inopportune moment, the tureen slipped and emptied itself on Mrs. Barton’s newly turned black silk. “ Oh, horror! Tell Alice to come directly and rub Mrs. Barton’s dress,” said the Countess to the trembling John, carefully abstaining from approaching the gravy-sprinkled spot on the floor with her own lilac silk. But Mr. Bridmain, who had a strictly private interest in silks, good-naturedly jumped up and applied his napkin at once to Mrs. Barton’s gown. Milly felt a little inward anguish, but no ill-temper, and tried to make light of the matter for the sake of John as well as others. The Countess felt inwardly thankful that her own delicate silk had escaped, but threw out lavish interjections of distress and indignation. “Dear saint that you are,” she said, when Milly laughed, and suggested that, as her silk was not very glossy to begin with, the dim patch would not be much seen ; “ you don’t mind about these things, I know. Just the same sort of thing happened to me at the Brincess Wengstein’s one day, on a pink satin. I was in an agony. But you are so indifferent to dress; and well you may be. It is you who make dress pretty, and not dress that makes you pretty.” Alice, the buxom lady’s-maid, wearing a much better dress than Mrs. Barton’s, now appeared to take Mr. Bridmain’s place 36 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. in retrieving the mischief, and after a great amount of supple mentary rubbing, composure was restored, and the business oi dining was continued. When John was recounting his accident to the cook in the kitchen, he observed, “ Mrs. Barton’s a hamable woman; I’d a deal sooner ha’ throwed the gravy o’er the Countess’s fine gownd. But laws ! what tantrums she’d ha’ been in arter the visitors was gone.” “You’d a deal sooner not ha’ throwed it down at all, I should think,” responded the unsympathetic cook, to whom John did not make love. “ Who d’ you think’s to make gravy anuff, if you ’re to baste people’s gownds wi’ it ? ” “ Well,” suggested John, humbly, “you should wet the bot¬ tom of the duree a bit, to hold it from slippin’.” “ Wet your granny ! ” returned the cook ; a retort which she probably regarded in the light of a reductio ad absurdum, and which in fact reduced John to silence. Later on in the evening, while John was removing the tea- things from the drawing-room, and brushing the crumbs from the table-cloth with an accompanying hiss, such as he was wont to encourage himself with in rubbing down Mr. Brid- main’s horse, the Rev. Amos Barton drew from his pocket a thin green-covered pamphlet, and, presenting it to the Countess, said — “You were pleased, I think, with my sermon on Christmas Day. It has been printed in ‘ The Pulpit,’ and I thought you might like a copy.” “ That indeed I shall. I shall quite value the opportunity of reading that sermon. There was such depth in it! — such argument! It was not a sermon to be heard only once. I am delighted that it should become generally known, as it will be, now it is printed in ‘ The Pulpit.’ ” a Yes,” said Milly, innocently, “I was so pleased with the editor’s letter.” And she drew out her little pocket-book, where she carefully treasured the editorial autograph, while Mr. Barton laughed and blushed, and said, “Nonsense, Milly! ” “You see,” she said, giving the letter to the Countess, “I am very proud of the praise my husband gets.” AMOS BARTON. '61 The sermon in question, by the bye, was an extremely argu¬ mentative one on the Incarnation; which, as it was preached to a congregation not one of whom had any doubt of that doc¬ trine, and to whom the Socinians therein confuted were as unknown as the Arimaspians, was exceedingly well adapted to trouble and confuse the Sheppertonian mind. “ Ah,” said the Countess, returning the editor’s letter, “ he may well say he will be glad of other sermons from the same source. But I would rather you should publish your sermons in an independent volume, Mr. Barton; it would be so desir¬ able to have them in that shape. For instance, I could send a copy to the Dean of Radborough. And there is Lord Blarney whom I knew before he was Chancellor. I was a special favor¬ ite of his, and you can’t think what sweet things he used to say to me. I shall not resist the temptation to write to him one of these days sans fa$on, and tell him how he ought to dispose of the next vacant living in his gift.” Whether Jet the spaniel, being a much more knowing dog than was suspected, wished to express his disapproval of the Countess’s last speech, as not accordant with his ideas of wis¬ dom and veracity, I cannot say; but at this moment he jumped off her lap, and turning his back upon her, placed one paw on the fender, and held the other up to warm, as if affecting to abstract himself from the current of conversation. But now Mr. Bridmain brought out the chess-board, and Mr. Barton accepted his challenge to play a game, with immense satisfaction. The Rev. Amos was very fond of chess, as most people are who can continue through many years to create interesting vicissitudes in the game, by taking long-meditated moves with their knights, and subsequently discovering that they have thereby exposed their queen. Chess is a silent game; and the Countess’s chat with Milly is in quite an under-tone—probably relating to women’s mat¬ ters that it would be impertinent for us to listen to ; so we will leave Camp Villa, and proceed to Milby Vicarage, where Mr. Farquhar has sat out two other guests with whom he has been dining at Mr. Ely’s, and is now rather wearying that reverend gentleman by his protracted small-talk. 38' SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. Mr. Ely was a tall, dark-haired, distinguished-looking man of three-and-thirty. By the laity of Milby and its neighbor¬ hood he was regarded as a man of quite remarkable powers and learning, who must make a considerable sensation in Lon¬ don pulpits and drawing-rooms on his occasional visits to the metropolis ; and by his brother clergy he was regarded as a discreet and agreeable fellow. Mr. Ely never got into a warm discussion; he suggested what might be thought, but rarely said what he thought himself; he never let either men or women see that he was laughing at them, and he never gave any one an opportunity of laughing at him. In one thing only he was injudicious. He parted his dark wavy hair down the middle; and as his head was rather flat than otherwise, that style of coiffure was not advantageous to him. Mr. Earquhar, though not a parishioner of Mr. Ely’s, wa8 one of his warmest admirers, and thought he would make an unexceptionable son-in-law, in spite of his being of no particu¬ lar “ family.” Mr. Farquhar was susceptible on the point of “ blood ” — his own circulating fluid, which animated a short and somewhat flabby person, being, he considered, of very superior quality. “ By the bye,” he said, with a certain pomposity counteracted by a lisp, “what an ath Barton makth of himthelf, about that Bridmain and the Counteth, ath she callth herthelf. After you were gone the other evening, Mithith Farquhar wath telling him the general opinion about them in the neighbor¬ hood, and he got quite red and angry. Bleth your thoul, he believeth the whole thtory about her Polish huthband and hith wonderful etlicapeth ; and ath for her — why, he thinkth her perfection, a woman of motht refined feelingth, and no end of thtuff.” Mr. Ely smiled. “ Some people would say our friend Bar¬ ton was not the best judge of refinement. Perhaps the lady hatters him a little, and we men are susceptible. She goes to Shepperton Church every Sunday — drawn there, let us suppose, by Mr. Barton’s eloquence.” “ Pthaw,” said Mr. Farquhar: “ now, to my mind, you have only to look at that woman to thee what she ith — throwing AMOS BARTON. her eyth about when she comtli into church, and drething in a way to attract attention. I should thay, she’th tired of her brother Bridmain and looking out for another brother with a thtronger family likeneth. Mithith Farquhar ith very fond of Mithith Barton, and ith quite dithtrethed that she should athothiate with thuch a woman, tho she attacked him on the thubject purpothly. But I tell her it’th of no uthe, with a pig-headed fellow like him. Barton ’th well-meaning enough, but tho contheited. I’ve left off giving him my advithe.” Mr. Ely smiled inwardly and said to himself, “What a punishment ! ” But to Mr. Farquhar he said, “ Barton might be more judicious, it must be confessed.” He was getting tired, and did not want to develop the subject. “ Why, nobody vithit-th them but the Bartonth,” continued Mr. Farquhar, “and why should thuch people come here, unleth they had particular reathonth for preferring a neigh¬ borhood where they are not known ? Pooh ! it lookth bad on the very fathe of it. You called on them, now; how did you find them ? ” “ Oh ! — Mr. Bridmain strikes me as a common sort of man, who is making an effort to seem wise and well-bred. He comes down on one tremendously with political information, and seems knowing about the king of the French. The Countess is certainly a handsome woman, but she puts on the grand air a little too powerfully. Woodcock was immensely taken with her, and insisted on his wife’s calling on her and asking her to dinner ; but I think Mrs. Woodcock turned restive after the first visit, and would n’t invite her again.” “Ha. ha! Woodcock hath alwayth a thoft place in hith heart for a pretty fathe. It ’-th odd how he came to marry that plain woman, and no fortune either.” “Mysteries of the tender passion,” said Mr. Ely. “Iam not initiated yet, you know.” Here Mr. Farquhar’s carriage was announced, and as we have not found his conversation particularly brilliant under the stimulus of Mr. Ely’s exceptional presence, we will not 40 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. accompany him home to the less exciting atmosphere of domestic life. Mr. Ely threw himself with a sense of relief into his easiest chair, set his feet on the hobs, and in this attitude of bachelor enjoyment began to read Bishop Jebb’s Memoirs. ♦ CHAPTER IV. I am by no means sure that if the good people of Milby had known the truth about the Countess Czerlaski, they would not have been considerably disappointed to find that it was very far from being as bad as they imagined. Nice distinctions are troublesome. It is so much easier to say that a thing is black, than to discriminate the particular shade of brown, blue, or green, to which it really belongs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbor is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion. Besides, think of all the virtuous declamation, all the pene¬ trating observation, which had been built up entirely on the fundamental position that the Countess was a very objection¬ able person indeed, and which would be utterly overturned and nullified by the destruction of that premiss. Mrs. Phipps, the banker’s wife, and Mrs. Landor, the attorney’s wife, had invested part of their reputation for acuteness in the suppo¬ sition that Mr. Bridmain was not the Countess’s brother. Moreover, Miss Phipps was conscious that if the Countess was not a disreputable person, she, Miss Phipps, had no compen¬ sating superiority in virtue to set against the other lady’s manifest superiority in personal charms. Miss Phipps’s stumpy figure and unsuccessful attire, instead of looking down from a mount of virtue with an aureole round its head, would then be seen on the same level and in the same light as AMOS BARTON. 41 jhe Countess Czerlaski’s Diana-like form and well-chosen drapery. Miss Phipps, for her part, did n’t like dressing for effect — she had always avoided that style of appearance which was calculated to create a sensation. Then what amusing innuendoes of the Milby gentlemen over their wine would have been entirely frustrated and re¬ duced to nought, if you had told them that the Countess had really been guilty of no misdemeanors which demanded her exclusion from strictly respectable society; that her husband had been the veritable Count Czerlaski, who had had won¬ derful escapes, as she said, and who, as she did not say, but as was said in certain circulars once folded by her fair hands, had subsequently given dancing lessons in the metropolis; that Mr. Bridmain was neither more nor less than her half- brother, who, by unimpeached integrity and industry, had won a partnership in a silk-manufactory, and thereby a moderate fortune, that enabled him to retire, as you see, to study poli tics, the weather, and the art of conversation at his leisure. Mr. Bridmain, in fact, quadragenarian bachelor as he was, felt extremely well pleased to receive his sister in her widow¬ hood, and to shine in the reflected light of her beauty and title. Every man who is not a monster, a mathematician, or a mad philosopher, is the slave of some woman or other. Mr. Bridmain had put his neck under the yoke of his handsome sister, and though his soul was a very little one — of the smallest description indeed — he would not have ventured to sail it his own. He might be slightly recalcitrant now and then, as is the habit of long-eared pachyderms, under the thong of the fair Countess’s tongue; but there seemed little probability that he would ever get his neck loose. Still, a bachelor’s heart is an outlying fortress that some fair enemy may any day take either by storm or stratagem ; and there was always the possibility that Mr. Bridmain’s first nuptials might occur before the Countess was quite sure of her second. As it was, however, he submitted to all his sister’s caprices, never grumbled because her dress and her maid formed a considerable item beyond her own little income of sixty pounds per annum, and consented to 42 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. lead with her a migratory life, as personages on the debatable ground between aristocracy and commonalty, instead of set¬ tling in some spot where his five hundred a-year might have won him the definite dignity of a parochial magnate. The Countess had her views in choosing a quiet provincial place like Milby. After three years of widowhood, she had brought her feelings to contemplate giving a successor to her lamented Czerlaski, whose fine whiskers, fine air, and romantic fortunes had won her heart ten years ago, when, as pretty Caroline Bridmain, in the full bloom of five-and-twenty, she was governess to Lady Porter’s daughters, whom he initiated into the mysteries of the pas de basque , and the Lancers’ quadrilles. She had had seven years of sufficiently happy matrimony with Czerlaski, who had taken her to Paris and Germany, and introduced her there to many of his old friends with large titles and small fortunes. So that the fair Caroline had had considerable experience of life, and had gathered there¬ from, not, indeed, any very ripe and comprehensive wisdom, but much external polish, and certain practical conclusions of a very decided kind. One of these conclusions was, that there were things more solid in life than fine whiskers and a title, and that, in accepting a second husband, she would legald these items as quite subordinate to a carriage and a settlement. Now, she had ascertained, by tentative residences, that the kind of bite she was angling for was difficult to be met with at watering-places, which were already preoccupied with abundance of angling beauties, and were chiefly stocked with men whose whiskers might be dyed, and whose incomes weie still moie problematic j so she had determined on trying a neighborhood where people were extremely well acquainted with each other’s affairs, and where the women were mostly ill-dressed and ugly. Mr. Bridmain’s slow brain had adopted his sister s views, and it seemed to him that a woman so handsome and distinguished as the Countess must certainly make a match that might lift himself into the region of county celebrities, and give him at least a sort of cousinship to the quarter-sessions. All this, which was the simple truth, would have seemed AMOS BARTON 43 extremely flat to the gossips of Milby, who had made up then minds to something much more exciting. There was nothing here so very detestable. It is true, the Countess was a little vain, a little ambitious, a little selfish, a little shallow and frivolous, a little given to white lies. — But who considers such slight blemishes, such moral pimples as these, disqualifi¬ cations for entering into the most respectable society ! In¬ deed, the severest ladies in Milby would have been perfectly aware that these characteristics would have created no wide distinction between the Countess Czerlaski and themselves $ and since it was clear there was a wide distinction — why, it must lie in the possession of some vices from which they were undeniably free. Hence it came to pass that Milby respectability refused to recognize the Countess Czerlaski, in spite of her assiduous cliurch-going, and the deep disgust she was known to have expressed at the extreme paucity of the congregations on Ash Wednesdays. So she began to feel that she had miscalculated the advantages of a neighborhood where people are well ac¬ quainted with each other’s private affairs. Under these cir¬ cumstances, you will imagine how welcome was the perfect credence and admiration she met with from Mr. and Mrs. Barton. She had been especially irritated by Mr. Ely’s be¬ havior to her; she felt sure that he was not in the least struck with her beauty, that he quizzed her conversation, and that he spoke of her with a sneer. A woman always knows where she is utterly powerless, and shuns a coldly satirical eye as she would shun a Gorgon. And she was especially eager for clerical notice and friendship, not merely because that is quite the most respectable countenance to be obtained in society, but because she really cared about religious matters, and had an uneasy sense that she was not altogether safe in that quarter. She had serious intentions of becoming quite pious — without any reserves — when she had once got her carriage and settlement. Let us do this one sly trick, says Ulysses to Neoptolemus, and we will be perfectly honest ever after —• aXX’ rjbv yap roc Krrpxa ttjs viktjs XafieiVf roXpa • St/catoi 5’ avdis (KcfravovptOa. 44 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. The Countess did not quote Sophocles, but she said to herself, u Only this little bit of pretence and vanity, and then I will be quite good, and make myself quite safe for another world.” And as she had by no means such fine taste and insight in theological teaching as in costume, the Rev. Amos Barton seemed to her a man not only of learning — that is always understood with a clergyman —• but of much power as a spirit¬ ual director. As for Milly, the Countess really loved her as well as the preoccupied state of her affections would allow. For you have already perceived that there was one being to whom the Countess was absorbingly devoted, and to whose desires she made everything else subservient — namely, Caro¬ line Czerlaski, 7iee Bridmain. Thus there was really not much affectation in her sweet speeches and attentions to Mr. and Mrs. Barton. Still their friendship by no means adequately represented the object she had in view when she came to Milby, and it had been for some time clear to her that she must suggest a new change of residence to her brother. The thing we look forward to often comes to pass, but never precisely in the way we have imagined to ourselves. The Countess did actually leave Camp Villa before many months were past, but under circumstances which had not at all entered into her contemplation. ♦ CHAPTER V. The Rev. Amos Barton, whose sad fortunes I have under¬ taken to relate, was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal or exceptional character; and perhaps I am doing a bold thing to bespeak your sympathy on behalf of a man who was so VQvy far from remarkable, — a man whose virtues were not AMOS BARTON. 45 heroic, and who had no undetected crime within his breast; who had not the slightest mystery hanging about him, but was palpably and unmistakably commonplace; who was not even in love, but had had that complaint favorably many years ago. “ An utterly uninteresting character! ” I think I hear a lady reader exclaim — Mrs. Farthingale, for example, who prefers the ideal in fiction; to whom tragedy means ermine tippets, adultery, and murder; and comedy, the adven¬ tures of some personage wild is quite a “character.” But, my dear madam, it is so very large a majority of your fellow-countrymen that are of this insignificant stamp. At least eighty out of a hundred of your adult male fellow-Britons returned in the last census are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms ; they have probably had no hair¬ breadth escapes or thrilling adventures; their brains are cer¬ tainly not pregnant with genius, and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a volcano. They are simply men of complexions more or less muddy, whose conversation is more or less bald and disjointed. Yet these commonplace people — many of them — bear a con¬ science, and have felt the sublime prompting to do the painful right; they have their unspoken sorrows, and their sacred joys; their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first born, and they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not a pathos in their very insignificance — in our comparison of their dim and narrow existence with the glorious possibilities of that human nature which they share ? Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull gray eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones. In that case, I should have no fear of your not caring to know what farther befell the Rev. Amos Barton, or of your thinking the homely details I have to tell at all beneath your attention. As it is, you can, if you please, decline to pursue my story farther ; and you will easily find 4b SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. reading more to your taste, since I learn from the newspapers that many remarkable novels, full of striking situations, thrill¬ ing incidents, and eloquent writing, have appeared only within the last season. Meanwhile, readers who have begun to feel an interest in the Rev. Amos Barton and his wife, will be glad to learn that Mr. Oldinport lent the twenty pounds. But twenty pounds are soon exhausted when twelve are due as back payment to the butcher, and when the possession of eight extra sovereigns in February weather is an irresistible temptation to order a new great-coat. And though Mr. Bridmain so far departed from the necessary economy entailed on him by the Countess’s ele¬ gant toilet and expensive maid, as to choose a handsome black silk, stiff, as his experienced eye discerned, with the genuine strength of its own texture, and not with the factitious strength of gum, and present it to Mrs. Barton, in retrieval of the accident that had occurred at his table, yet, dear me — as every husband has heard — what is the present of a gown when you are deficiently furnished with the et-ceteras of apparel, and when, moreover, there are six children whose wear and tear of clothes is something incredible to the non-maternal mind ? Indeed, the equation of income and expenditure was offering new and constantly accumulating difficulties to Mr. and Mrs. Barton; for shortly after the birth of little Walter, Milly’s aunt, who had lived with her ever since her marriage, had with¬ drawn herself, her furniture, and her yearly income, to the household of another niece; prompted to that step, very prob¬ ably, by a slight “ tiff ” with the Rev. Amos, which occurred while Milly was up-stairs, and proved one too many for the elderly lady’s patience and magnanimity. Mr. Barton’s temper was a little warm, but, on the other hand, elderly maiden ladies are known to be susceptible; so we will not suppose that all the blame lay on his side — the less so, as he had every motive for humoring an inmate whose presence kept the wolf from the door. It was now nearly a year since Miss Jackson’s depar¬ ture, and, to a fine ear, the howl of the wolf was audibly approaching. It was a sad thing, too, that when the last snow had melted. AMOS BARTON. 47 when the purple and yellow crocuses were coming up in the garden, and the old church was already half pulled down, Milly had an illness which made her lips look pale, and rendered it absolutely necessary that she should not exert herself for some time. Mr. Brand, the Shepperton doctor so obnoxious to Mr. Pilgrim, ordered her to drink port-wine, and it was quite neces¬ sary to have a charwoman very often, to assist Nanny in all the extra work that fell upon, her. Mrs. Hackit, who hardly ever paid a visit to any one but her oldest and nearest neighbor, Mrs. Patten, now took the unusual step of calling at the vicarage one morning; and the tears came into her unsentimental eyes as she saw Milly seated pale and feeble in the parlor, unable to persevere in sewing the pin¬ afore that lay on the table beside her. Little Dickey, a boister¬ ous boy of five, with large pink cheeks and sturdy legs, was having his turn to sit with Mamma, and was squatting quiet as a mouse at her knee, holding her soft white hand between his little red black-nailed fists. He was a boy whom Mrs. Hackit, in a severe mood, had pronounced “ stocky ” (a word that etymologically, in all probability, conveys some allusion to an instrument of punishment for the refractory); but see¬ ing him thus subdued into goodness, she smiled at him with her kindest smile, and, stooping down, suggested a kiss—a favor which Dickey resolutely declined. “Now do you take nourishing things enough ?” was one of Mrs. Hackit’s first questions, and Milly endeavored to make it appear that no woman was ever so much in danger of being over-fed and led into self-indulgent habits as herself. But Mrs. Hackit gathered one fact from her replies, namely, that Mr. Brand had ordered port-wine. While this conversation was going forward, Dickey had been furtively stroking and kissing the soft white hand ; so that at last, when a pause came, his mother said, smilingly, “ Why are you kissing my hand, Dickey ? ” “ It id to yovely,” answered Dickey, who, you observe, was decidedly backward in his pronunciation. Mrs. Hackit remembered this little scene in after days, and thought with peculiar tenderness and pity of the “ stocky boy.” 48 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. The next day there came a hamper with Mrs. Hackit’s re¬ spects ; and on being opened it was found to contain half-a- dozen of port-wine and two couples of fowls. Mrs. Farquhar, too, was very kind; insisted on Mrs. Barton’s rejecting all arrowroot but hers, which was genuine Indian, and carried away Sophy and Fred to stay with her a fortnight. These and other good-natured attentions made the trouble of Milly’s illness more bearable; but they could not prevent it from swelling expenses, and Mr. Barton began to have serious thoughts of representing his case to a certain charity for the relief of needy curates. Altogether, as matters stood in Shepperton, the parishioners were more likely to have a strong sense that the clergyman needed their material aid, than that they needed his spiritual aid, — not the best state of things in this age and country, where faith in men solely on the ground of their spiritual gifts has considerably diminished, and especially unfavorable to the influence of the Rev. Amos, whose spiritual gifts would not have had a very commanding power even in an age of faith. \ But, you ask, did not the Countess Czerlaski pay any atten¬ tion to her friends all this time ? To be sure she did. She was indefatigable in visiting her “ sweet Milly,” and sitting with her for hours together. It may seem remarkable to you that she neither thought of taking away any of the children, nor of providing for any of Milly’s probable wants ; but ladies of rank and of luxurious habits, you know, cannot be expected to surmise the details of poverty. She put a great deal of eau-de-Cologne on Mrs. Barton’s pocket-handkerchief, re¬ arranged her pillow and footstool, kissed her cheeks, wrapped her in a soft warm shawl from her own shoulders, and amused her with stories of the life she had seen abroad. When Mr. Barton joined them she talked of Tractarianism, of her deter¬ mination not to re-enter the vortex of fashionable life, and of her anxiety to see him in a sphere large enough for his talents. Milly thought her sprightliness and affectionate warmth quite charming, and was very fond of her; while the Rev. Amos had a vague consciousness that he had risen into aristocratic AMOS BARTON. life, and only associated with his middle-class parishioners in a pastoral and parenthetic manner. However, as the days brightened, Milly’s cheeks and lips brightened too; and in a few weeks she was almost as active as ever, though watchful eyes might have seen that activity was not easy to her. Mrs. Hackit’s eyes were of that kind, and one day, when Mr. and ]\Irs. Barton had been dining with her for the first time since Milly’s illness, she observed to her husband — “ That poor thing’s dreadful weak an’ dilicate; she won’t stan’ havin’ many more children.” Mr. Barton, meanwhile, had been indefatigable in his voca¬ tion. He had preached two extemporary sermons every Sun¬ day at the workhouse, where a room had been fitted up for divine service, pending the alterations in the church ; and had walked the same evening to a cottage at one or other extrem¬ ity of his parish to deliver another sermon, still more extem¬ porary, in an atmosphere impregnated with spring-flowers and perspiration. After all these labors you will easily conceive that he was considerably exhausted by half-past nine o’clock in the evening, and that a supper at a friendly parishioner’s, with a glass, or even two glasses, of brandy-and-water after it, was a welcome reinforcement. Mr. Barton was not at all an ascetic; he thought the benefits of fasting were entirely con¬ fined to the Old Testament dispensation; he was fond of re¬ laxing himself with a little gossip; indeed, Miss Bond, and other ladies of enthusiastic views, sometimes regretted that Mr. Barton did not more uninterruptedly exhibit a superiority to the things of the flesh. Thin ladies, who take little exer¬ cise, and whose livers are not strong enough to bear stimu¬ lants, are so extremely critical about one’s personal habits ! And, after all, the Rev. Amos never came near the borders of a vice. His very faults were middling — he was not very un¬ grammatical. It was not in his nature to be superlative, in anything; unless, indeed, he was superlatively middling, the quintessential extract of mediocrity If there was any one point on which he showed an inclination to be excessive, it was confidence in his own shrewdness and ability in practical matters, so that was very full of plans which were some- YOL. IV 50 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. thing like his moves in chess — admirably well calculated, supposing the state of the case were otherwise. For example, that notable plan of introducing anti-Dissenting books into his Lending Library did not in the least appear to have bruised the head of Dissent, though it had certainly made Dissent strongly inclined to bite the Rev. Amos’s heel. Again, he vexed the souls of his churchwardens and influential parish¬ ioners by his fertile suggestiveness as to what it would be well for them to do in the matter of the church repairs, and other ecclesiastical secularities. “ I never saw the like to parsons,” Mr. Hackit said one day in conversation with his brother churchwarden, Mr. Bond; “ they ’re al’ys for meddling with business, an’ they know no more about it than my black filly.” “Ah,” said Mr. Bond, “they’re too high learnt to have much common-sense.” “Well,” remarked Mr. Hackit, in a modest and dubious tone, as if throwing out a hypothesis which might be consid¬ ered bold, “ I should say that’s a bad sort of eddication as makes folks unreasonable.” So that, you perceive, Mr. Barton’s popularity was in that precarious condition, in that toppling and contingent state, in which a very slight push from a malignant destiny would utterly upset it. That push was not long in being given, as you shall hear. One fine May morning, when Amos was out on his parochial visits, and the sunlight was streaming through the bow-window of the sitting-room, where Milly was seated at her sewing, occasionally looking up to glance at the children playing in the garden, there came a loud rap at the door, which she at once recognized as the Countess’s, and that well-dressed lady presently entered the sitting-room, with her veil drawn over her face. Milly was not at all surprised or sorry to see her ; but when the Countess threw up her veil, and showed that her eyes were red and swollen, she was both surprised and sorry. “ What can be the matter, dear Caroline ? ” Caroline threw down Jet, who gave a little yelp; then she threw her arms round Milly’s neck, and began to sob; then AMOS BARTON. 51 she threw herself on the sofa, and begged for a glass of watei; then she threw off her bonnet and shawl; and by the time Hilly’s imagination had exhausted itself in conjuring up calam¬ ities she said — “Dear, how shall I tell you? I am the most wretched woman. To be deceived by a brother to whom I have been so devoted — to see him degrading himself — giving himself utterly to the dogs ! ” “ What can it be ? ” said Milly, who began to picture to herself the sober Mr. Bridmain taking to brandy and betting. “ He is going to be married — to marry my own maid, that deceitful Alice, to whom I have been the most indulgent mis¬ tress. Did you ever hear of anything so disgraceful ? so mor¬ tifying ? so disreputable ? ” “And has he only just told you of it ? ” said Milly, who, having really heard of worse conduct, even in her innocent life, avoided a direct answer. “ Told me of it! he had not even the grace to do that. I went into the dining-room suddenly and found him kissing her — disgusting at his time of life, is it not ? — and when I reproved her for allowing such liberties, she turned round saucily, and said she was engaged to be married to my brother, and she saw no shame in allowing him to kiss her. Edmund is a miserable coward, you know, and looked frightened; but when she asked him to say whether it was not so, he tried to summon up courage and say yes. I left the room in disgust, and this morning I have been questioning Edmund, and find that he is bent on marrying this woman, and that he has been putting off telling me — because he was ashamed of himself, I suppose. I could n’t possibly stay in the house after this, with my own maid turned mistress. And now, Milly, I am come to throw myself on your charity for a week or two. Will you take me in ? ” “ That we will,” said Milly, “ if you will only put up with our poor rooms and way of living. It will be delightful to have you ! ” “ It will soothe me to be with you and Mr. Barton a little while. I feel quite unable to go among my other friends just 52 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. at present. What those two wretched people will do I don’t know — leave the neighborhood at once, I hope. I entreated my brother to do so, before he disgraced himself.” When Amos came home, he joined his cordial welcome and sympathy to Milly’s. By-and-by the Countess’s formidable boxes, which she had carefully packed before her indignation drove her away from Camp Villa, arrived at the vicarage, and were deposited in the spare bedroom, and in two closets, not spare, which Milly emptied for their reception. A week after¬ wards, the excellent apartments at Camp Villa, comprising dining and drawing rooms, three bedrooms and a dressing- room, were again to let, and Mr. Bridmain’s sudden departure, together with the Countess Czeriaski’s installation as a visitor at Shepperton Vicarage, became a topic of general conversa¬ tion in the neighborhood. The keen-sighted virtue of Milby and Shepperton saw in all this a confirmation of its worst suspicions, and pitied the Rev. Amos Barton’s gullibility. But when week after week, and month after month, slipped by without witnessing the Countess’s departure — when sum¬ mer and harvest had fled, and still left her behind them occu¬ pying the spare bedroom and the closets, and also a large proportion of Mrs. Barton’s time and attention, new surmises of a very evil kind were added to the old rumors, and began to take the form of settled convictions in the minds even of Mr. Barton’s most friendly parishioners. And now, here is an opportunity for an accomplished writer to apostrophize calumny, to quote Virgil, and to show that he is acquainted with the most ingenious things which have been said on that subject in polite literature. But what is opportunity to the man who can’t use it ? An unfecundated egg, which the waves of time wash away into nonentity. So, as my memory is ill-furnished, and my note¬ book still worse, I am unable to show myself either erudite or eloquent apropos of the calumny whereof the Rev. Amos Barton was the victim. I can only ask my reader, — did you ever upset your ink-bottle, and watch, in helpless agony, the rapid spread of Stygian blackness over your fair manuscript or fairer table-cover ? With a like inky swiftness did gossip SlIEPPERTON ClIUllCU 1 ifl 8 l| II AMOS BARTON. 58 now blacken the reputation of the RevJAmos Barton, causing the unfriendly to scorn and even the friendly to stand aloof, at a time when difficulties of another kind were fast thicken¬ ing around him.. CHAPTER VL Ottr November morning, at least six months after tho Countess Czerlaski had taken up her residence at the vicar¬ age, Mrs. Hackit heard that her neighbor Mrs. Patten had an attack of her old complaint, vaguely called “ the spasms. 1 '' Accordingly, about eleven o’clock, she put on her velvet bon net and cloth cloak, with a long boa and muff large enough to stow a prize baby in; for Mrs. Hackit regulated her costume by tho calendar, and brought out her furs on the first of November, whatever might be the temperature. She was not a woman weakly to accommodate herself to shilly-shally pro¬ ceedings. If the season did n’t know what it ought to do, Mrs. Hackit did. In her best days, it was always sharp weather at “ Gunpowder Plot,” and she did n’t like new fashions. And this morning the weather was very rationally in accord¬ ance with her costume, for as she made her way through the fields to Cross Farm, the yellow leaves on the hedge-girt elms which showed bright and golden against the low-hanging pur¬ ple clouds, were being scattered across the grassy path by the coldest of November winds. “Ah,” Mrs. Hackit thought to herself, “I dare say we shall have a.sharp pinch this winter, and if we do, I should n’t wonder if it takes the old lady off, They say a green Yule makes a fat churchyard ; but so does a white Yule too, for that matter. When the stool’s rotten enough, no matter who sits on it.” However, on her arrival at Cross Farm, the prospect of Mrs. Patten’s decease was again thrown into the dim distance in her imagination, for Miss Janet Gibbs met her with the news 54 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. that Mrs. Patten was much better, and led her, without any preliminary announcement, to the old lady’s bedroom. Janet had scarcely reached the end of her circumstantial narrative how the attack came on and what were her aunt’s sensations — a narrative to which Mrs. Patten, in her neatly plaited night¬ cap, seemed to listen with a contemptuous resignation to her niece’s historical inaccuracy, contenting herself with occasion¬ ally confounding Janet by a shake of the head — when the clatter of a horse’s hoofs on the yard pavement announced the arrival of Mr. Pilgrim, whose large, top-booted person pres¬ ently made its appearance up-stairs. He found Mrs. Patten going on so well that there was no need to look solemn. He might glide from condolence into gossip without offence, and the tempation of having Mrs. Hackit’s ear was irresistible. “What a disgraceful business this is turning out of your parson’s,” was the remark with which he made this agreeable transition, throwing himself back in the chair from which he had been leaning towards the patient. “ Eh, dear me ! ” said Mrs. Hackit, “ disgraceful enough. I stuck to Mr. Barton as long as I could, for his wife’s sake ; but I can’t countenance such goings-on. It’s hateful to see that woman coming with ’em to service of a Sunday, and if Mr. Hackit was n’t churchwarden and I did n’t think it wrong to forsake one’s own parish, I should go to Knebley Church. There’s a many parish’ners as do.” “ I used to think Barton was only a fool,” observed Mr. Pil¬ grim, in a tone which implied that he was conscious of having been weakly charitable. “ I thought he was imposed upon and led away by those people when they first came. But that’s impossible now.” “ Oh, it’s as plain as the nose in your face,” said Mrs. Hackit, unreflectingly, not perceiving the equivoque in her comparison — “ cornin’ to Milby, like a sparrow perchin’ on a bough, as I may say, with her brother, as she called him ; and then all on a sudden the brother goes off with himself, and she throws herself on the Bartons. Though what could make her take up with a poor notomise of a parson, as has n’t got enough to keep wife and children, there’s One above knows — I don’t.” AMOS BARTON. 55 "Mr. Barton may have attractions we don’t know of,” said Mr. Pilgrim, who piqued himself on a talent for sarcasm. “The Countess has no maid now, and they say Mr. Barton is handy in assisting at her toilet — laces her boots, and so forth.” “ Tilette be fiddled! ” said Mrs. Hackit, with indignant boldness of metaphor; “ an’ there ’s that poor thing a-sewing her fingers to the bone for them children — an’ another cornin’ on. What she must have to go through! It goes to my heart to turn my back on her. But she’s i’ the wrong to let herself be put upon i’ that manner.” “Ah! I was talking to Mrs. Farquhar about that the other day. She said, ‘I think Mrs. Barton a v-e-r-y w-e-a-k w-o-m-a-n.’ ” (Mr. Pilgrim gave this quotation with slow emphasis, as if he thought Mrs. Farquhar had uttered a re¬ markable sentiment.) “ They find it impossible to invite her to their house while she has that equivocal person staying with her.” “Well!” remarked Miss Gibbs, "if I was a wife, nothing should induce me to bear what Mrs. Barton does.” “Yes, it’s fine talking,” said Mrs. Patten, from her pillow; u old maids’ husbands are al’ys well-managed. If you was a wife you’d be as foolish as your betters, belike.” “ All my wonder is,” observed Mrs. Hackit, “ how the Bar¬ tons make both ends meet. You may depend on it, she’s got nothing to give ’em; for I understand as he’s been havin’ money from some clergy charity. They said at fust as she stuffed Mr. Barton wi’ notions about her writing to the Chan¬ cellor an’ her fine friends, to give him a living. Howiver, I don’t know what’s true an’ what’s false. Mr. Barton keeps away from our house now, for I gave him a bit o’ my mind one day. Maybe he’s ashamed of himself. He seems to me to look dreadful thin an’ harassed of a Sunday.” “ Oh, he must be aware he’s getting into bad odor every¬ where. The clergy are quite disgusted with his folly. They say Carpe would be glad to get Barton out of the curacy if he could; but he can’t do that without coming to Shepperton himself, as Barton’s a licensed curate ; and he would n’t like that, I suppose.” 56 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. At this moment Mrs. Patten showed signs of uneasiness which recalled Mr. Pilgrim to professional attentions ; and Mrs. Hackit, observing that it was Thursday, and she must see after the butter, said good-by, promising to look in again soon, and bring her knitting. This Thursday, by the bye, is the first in the month — the day on which the Clerical Meeting is held at Milby Vicarage j and as the Rev. Amos Barton has reasons for not attending, he will very likely be a subject of conversation amongst his clerical brethren. Suppose we go there, and hear whether Mr. Pilgrim has reported their opinion correctly. There is not a numerous party to-day, for it is a season of sore throats and catarrhs; so that the exegetical and theologi¬ cal discussions, which are the preliminary of dining, have not been quite so spirited as usual; and although a question rela¬ tive to the Epistle of Jude has not been quite cleared up, the striking of six by the church clock, and the simultaneous announcement of dinner, are sounds that no one feels to oe importunate. Pleasant (when one is not in the least bilious) to enter a comfortable dining-room, where the closely drawn red curtains glow with the double light of fire and candle, where glass and silver are glittering on the pure damask, and a soup-tureen gives a hint of the fragrance that will presently rush out to inundate your hungry senses, and prepare them, by the deli¬ cate visitation of atoms, for the keen gusto of ampler contact! Especially if you have confidence in the dinner-giving capacity of your host — if you know that he is not a man who en¬ tertains grovelling views of eating and drinking as a mere satisfaction of hunger and thirst, and, dead to all the finer influences of the palate, expects his guest to be brilliant on ill-flavored gravies and the cheapest Marsala. Mr. Ely was particularly worthy of such confidence, and his virtues as an Amphitryon had probably contributed quite as much as the central situation of Milby to the selection of his house as a clerical rendezvous. He looks particularly grace¬ ful at the head of his table, and, indeed, on all occasions where he acts as president or moderator: he is a man whr AMOS BARTON. 57 seems to listen well, and is an excellent amalgam of dissimilar ingredients. At the other end of the table, as “Vice,” sits Mr. Fellowes, rector and magistrate, a man of imposing appearance, with a mellifluous voice and the readiest of tongues. Mr. Fellowes once obtained a living by the persuasive charms of his conver¬ sation, and the fluency with which he interpreted the opinions of an obese and stammering baronet, so as to give that elderly gentleman a very pleasing perception of his own wisdom. Mr. Fellowes is a very successful man, and has the highest charac¬ ter everywhere except in his own parish, where, doubtless because his parishioners happen to be quarrelsome people, he is always at fierce feud with a farmer or two, a colliery pro¬ prietor, a grocer who was once churchwarden, and a tailor who formerly officiated as clerk. At Mr. Ely’s right hand you see a very small man with a sallow and somewhat puffy face, whose hair is brushed straight up, evidently with the intention of giving him a height some¬ what less disproportionate to his sense of his own importance than the measure of five feet three accorded him by an over¬ sight of nature. This is the Rev. Archibald Duke, a very dys¬ peptic and evangelical man, who takes the gloomiest view of mankind and their prospects, and thinks the immense sale of the “Pickwick Papers,” recently completed, one of the strongest proofs of original sin. Unfortunately, though Mr. Duke was not burdened with a family, his yearly expenditure was apt considerably to exceed his income ; and the unpleasant cir¬ cumstances resulting from this, together with heavy meat- breakfasts, may probably have contributed to his desponding views of the world generally. Next to him is seated Mr. Furness, a tall young man, with blond hair and whiskers, who was plucked at Cambridge entirely owing to his genius ; at least I know that he soon afterwards published a volume of poems, which w r ere considered remarkably beautiful by many young ladies of his acquaint¬ ance^ Mr. Furness preached his own sermons, as any one of tolerable critical acumen might have certified by comparing them with his poems: in both, there was an exuberance of 58 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. metaphor and simile entirely original, and not in the least borrowed from any resemblance in the things compared. On Mr. Furness’s left you see Mr. Pugh, another young curate, of much less marked characteristics. He had not pub¬ lished any poems ; he had not even been plucked; he had neat black whiskers and a pale complexion; read prayers and a sermon twice every Sunday, and might be seen any day sally¬ ing forth on his parochial duties in a white tie, a well-brushed hat, a perfect suit of black, and well-polished boots — an equipment which he probably supposed hieroglyphically to represent the spirit of Christianity to the parishioners of Whittlecombe. Mr. Pugh’s vis-a-vis is the Rev. Martin Cleves, a man about forty — middle-sized, broad-shouldered, with a negligently tied cravat, large irregular features, and a large head thickly cov¬ ered with lanky brown hair. To a superficial glance, Mr. Cleves is the plainest and least clerical-looking of the party; yet, strange to say, there is the true parish priest, the pastor beloved, consulted, relied on by his flock; a clergyman who is not associated with the undertaker, but thought of as the sur¬ est helper under a difficulty, as a monitor who is encouraging rather than severe. Mr. Cleves has the wonderful art of preaching sermons which the wheelwright and the blacksmith can understand; not because he talks condescending twaddle, but because he can call a spade a spade, and knows how to disencumber ideas of their wordy frippery. Look at him more attentively, and you will see that his face is a very interesting one — that there is a great deal of humor and feeling playing in his gray eyes, and about the corners of his roughly cut mouth: — a man, you observe, who has most likely sprung from the harder-working section of the middle class, and has hereditary sympathies with the checkered life of the people. He gets together the working men in his parish on a Monday evening, and gives them a sort of conversational lecture on useful practical matters, telling them stories, or reading some select passages from an agreeable book, and commenting on them; and if you were to ask the first laborer or artisan in Tripplegate what sort of man the parson was, he would say, AMOS BARTON. 59 — a uncommon knowin’, sensible, free-spoken gentleman; very kind an’ good-natur’d too.” Yet for all this, he is per¬ haps the best Grecian of the party, if we except Mr. Baird, the young man on his left. Mr. Baird has since gained considerable celebrity as an origi¬ nal writer and metropolitan lecturer, but at that time he used to preach in a little church something like a barn, to a congre¬ gation consisting of three rich farmers and their servants, about fifteen laborers, and the due proportion of women and children. The rich farmers understood him to be “ very high learnt; ” but if you had interrogated them for a more precise description, they would have said that he was “a thinnish- faced man, with a sort o’ cast in his eye, like.” Seven, altogether: a delightful number for a dinner-party, supposing the units to be delightful, but everything depends on that. During dinner Mr. Fellowes took the lead in the conversation, which set strongly in the direction of mangold- wurzel and the rotation of crops; for Mr. Fellowes and Mr. Cleves cultivated their own glebes. Mr. Ely, too, had some agricultural notions, and even the Rev. Archibald Duke was made alive to that class of mundane subjects by the possession of some potato-ground. The two young curates talked a little aside during these discussions, which had imperfect interest for their unbeneficed minds ; and the transcendental and near¬ sighted Mr. Baird seemed to listen somewhat abstractedly, knowing little more of potatoes and mangold-wurzel than that they were some form of the “ Conditioned.” “ What a hobby farming is with Lord Watling! ” said Mr. Fellowes, when the cloth was being drawn. “ I went over his farm at Tetterley with him last summer. It is really a model farm; first-rate dairy, grazing and wheat land, and such splendid farm-buildings ! An expensive hobby, though. He sinks a good deal of money there, 1 fancy. He has a great whim for black cattle, and he sends that drunken old Scotch bailiff of his to Scotland every year, with hundreds in his pocket, to buy these beasts.” * By the bye,” said Mr. Ely, " do you know who is the man t( whom Lord Watling has given the Bramhill livings ?” 60 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. “A man named Sargent. I knew him at Oxford, His brother is a lawyer, and was very useful to Lord Watling in that ugly Brounsell affair. That’s why Sargent got the living.” “ Sargent,” said Mr. Ely. “ I know him. Is n’t he a showy, talkative fellow; has written travels m Mesopotamia, or some thing of that sort ? ” “ That’s the man.” “ He was at Witherington once, as Bagshawe’s curate. He got into rather bad odor there, through some scandal about a flirtation, I think.” “ Talking of scandal,” returned Mr. Fellowes, “have you heard the last story about Barton ? Nisbett was telling me the other day that he dines alone with the Countess at six, while Mrs. Barton is in the kitchen acting as cook.” “Bather an apocryphal authority, Nisbett,” said Mr. Ely. “ Ah,” said Mr. Cleves, with good-natured humor twinkling in his eyes, “ depend upon it, that is a corrupt version. The original text is, that they all dined together with six — meaning six childi'en — and that Mrs. Barton is an excellent cook.” “ I wish dining alone together may be the worst of that sad business,” said the Rev. Archibald Duke, in a tone implying that his wish was a strong figure of speech. “Well,” said Mr. Fellowes, filling his glass and looking jocose, “ Barton is certainly either the greatest gull in exist¬ ence, or he has some cunning secret, — some philtre or other to make himself charming in the eyes of a fair lady. It is n’t all of us that can make conquests when our ugliness is past its bloom.” “ The lady seemed to have made a conquest of him at the very outset,” said Mr. Ely. “I was immensely amused one night at Granby’s when he was telling us her story about her husband’s adventures. He said, ‘ When she told me the tale, I felt I don’t know how, — I felt it from, the crown of my head to the sole of my feet.’ ” Mr. Ely gave these words dramatically, imitating the Rev. Amos’s fervor and symbolic action, and °very one laughed AMOS BARTON. 61 except Mr. Duke, whose after-dinner view of things was not apt to be jovial. He said — “ 1 think some of us ought to remonstrate with Mr. Barton on the scandal he is causing. He is not only imperilling his own soul, but the souls of his flock.” “ Depend upon it,” said Mr. Cleves, “ there is some simple explanation of the whole affair, if we only happened to know it. Barton has always impressed me as a right-minded man, who has the knack of doing himself injustice by his manner.” “Now / never liked Barton,” said Mr. Fellowes. “He’s not a gentleman. Why, he used to be on terms of intimacy with that canting Prior, who died a little while ago; — a fellow who soaked himself with spirits, and talked of the Gospel through an inflamed nose.” “The Countess has given him more refined tastes, I dare say,” said Mr. Ely. “Well,” observed Mr. Cleves, “the poor fellow must have a hard pull to get along, with his small income and large family. Let us hope the Countess does something towards making the pot boil.” “Not she,” said Mr. Duke; “there are greater signs of poverty about them than ever.” “Well, come,” returned Mr. Cleves, who could be caustic sometimes, and who was not at all fond of his reverend brother, Mr. Duke, “that’s something in Barton’s favor at all events. He might be poor without showing signs of poverty.” Mr. Duke turned rather yellow, which was his way of blush' ing, and Mr. Ely came to his relief by observing — “ They ’re making a very good piece of work of Shepperton Church. Dolby, the architect, who has it in hand, is a very clever fellow.” “It’s he who has been doing Coppleton Church,” said Mr. Furness. “ They’ve got it in excellent order for the visitation.” This mention of the visitation suggested the Bishop, and thus opened a wide duct, which entirely diverted the stream 62 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. of animadversion from that small pipe — that capillary vessel the Rev. Amos Barton. The talk of the clergy about their Bishop belongs to the esoteric part of their profession ; so we will at once quit the dining-room at Milby Vicarage, lest we should happen to over¬ hear remarks unsuited to the lay understanding, and perhaos dangerous to our repose of mind* ♦ CHAPTER VII. I dare say the long residence of the Countess Czerlaski at Shepperton Vicarage is very puzzling to you also, dear reader, as well as to Mr. Barton’s clerical brethren; the more so, as I hope you are not in the least inclined to put that very evil interpretation on it which evidently found acceptance with the sallow and dyspeptic Mr. Duke, and with the florid and highly peptic Mr. Eellowes. You have seen enough, I trust, of the Rev. Amos Barton, to be convinced that he was more apt to fall into a blunder than into a sin — more apt to be deceived than to incur a necessity for being deceitful: and if you have a keen eye for physiognomy, you will have detected that the Countess Czerlaski loved herself far too well to get entangled in an unprofitable vice. How, then, you will say, could this fine lady choose to quar¬ ter herself on the establishment of a poor curate, where the carpets were probably falling into holes, where the attendance was limited to a maid-of-all-work, and where six children were running loose from eight o’clock in the morning till eight o’clock in the evening ? Surely you must be straining probability. Heaven forbid ! For not having a lofty imagination, as you perceive, and being unable to invent thrilling incidents for your amusement, my only merit must lie in the truth with AMOS BARTON. 63 which I represent to you the humble experience of ordinary fellow-mortals. I wish to stir your sympathy with common¬ place troubles — to win your tears for real sorrow: sorrow such as may live next door to you — such as walks neither in rags nor in velvet, but in very ordinary decent apparel. Therefore, that you may dismiss your suspicions as to the truth of my picture, I will beg you to consider, that at the time the Countess Czerlaski left Camp Villa in dudgeon, she had only twenty pounds in her pocket, being about one-third of the income she possessed independently of her brother. You will then perceive that she was in the extremely incon¬ venient predicament of having quarrelled, not indeed with her bread and cheese, but certainly with her chicken and tart — a predicament all the more inconvenient to her, because the habit of idleness had quite unfitted her for earning those ne¬ cessary superfluities, and because, with all her fascinations, she had not secured any enthusiastic friends whose houses were open to her, and who were dying to see her. Thus she had completely checkmated herself, unless she could resolve on one unpleasant move — namely, to humble herself to her brother, and recognize his wife. This seemed quite impossible to her as long as she entertained the hope that he would make the first advances; and in this flattering hope she remained month after month at Shepperton Vicarage, gracefully over¬ looking the deficiencies of accommodation, and feeling that she was really behaving charmingly. “Who indeed, 5 ’ she thought to herself, “ could do otherwise, with a lovely, gentle creature like Milly ? I shall really be sorry to leave the poor thing.” So, though she lay in bed till ten, and came down to a sepa¬ rate breakfast at eleven, she kindly consented to dine as early as five, when a hot joint was prepared, which coldly furnished forth the children’s table the next day; she considerately pre¬ vented Milly from devoting herself too closely to the children, by insisting on reading, talking, and walking with her; and she even began to embroider a cap for the next baby, which must certainly be a girl, and be named Caroline. After the first month or two of her residence at the Vicar- 64 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. age, the Rev. Amos Barton became aware — as, indeed, it was unavoidable that he should — of the strong disapprobation it drew upon him, and the change of feeling towards him which it was producing in his kindest parishioners. But, in the first place, he still believed in the Countess as a charming and in* fluential woman, disposed to befriend him, and, in any case, he could hardly hint departure to a lady guest who had been kind to him and his, and who might any day spontaneously announce the termination of her visit; in the second place, he was conscious of his own innocence, and felt some con¬ temptuous indignation towards people who were ready to imagine evil of him; and, lastly, he had, as 1 have already intimated, a strong will of his own, so that a certain obstinacy and defiance mingled itself with his other feelings on the subject. The one unpleasant consequence which was not to be evaded or counteracted by any mere mental state, was the increasing drain on his slender purse for household expenses, to meet which the remittance he had received from the clerical charity threatened to be quite inadequate. Slander may be defeated by equanimity; but courageous thoughts will not pay your baker’s bill, and fortitude is nowhere considered legal tender for beef. Month after month the financial aspect of the Rev. Amos’s affairs became more and more serious to him, and month after month, too, wore away more and more of that armor of indignation and defiance with which he had at first defended himself from the harsh looks of faces that were once the friendliest. But quite the heaviest pressure of the trouble fell on Milly — on gentle, uncomplaining Milly — whose delicate body was becoming daily less fit for all the many things that had to be done between rising up and lying down. At first, she thought the Countess’s visit would not last long, and she was quite glad to incur extra exertion for the sake of making her friend comfortable. I can hardly bear to think of all the rough work she did with those lovely hands — all by the sly, without let¬ ting her husband know anything about it, and husbands are not clairvoyant: how she salted bacon, ironed shirts and era* AMOS BAKTOft 65 vats, put patches on patches, and re-darned darns. Then there was the task of mending and eking Out baby-linen in prospect, and the problem perpetually suggesting itself how she and Nanny should manage when there was another baby, as there would be before very many months were past. When time glided on, and the Countess’s visit did not end, Milly was not blind to any phase of their position. She knew of the slander; she was aware of the keeping aloof of old friends ; but these she felt almost entirely on her husband’s account. A loving woman’s world lies within the four walls of her own home ; and it is only through her husband that she is in any electric communication with the world beyond. Mrs. Simpkins may have looked scornfully at her, but baby crows and holds out his little arms none the less blithely ; Mrs. Tomkins may have left off calling on her, but her husband comes home none the less to receive her care and caresses; it has been wet and gloomy out of doors to-day, but she has looked well after the shirt buttons, has cut out baby’s pinafores, and half finished Willy’s blouse. So it was with Milly. She was only vexed that her hus¬ band should be vexed — only wounded because he was miscon¬ ceived. But the difficulty about ways and means she felt in quite a different manner. Her rectitude was alarmed lest they should have to make tradesmen wait for their money; her motherly love dreaded the diminution of comforts for the children; and the sense of her own failing health gave ex¬ aggerated force to these fears. Milly could no longer shut her eyes to the fact, that the Countess was inconsiderate, if she did not allow herself to entertain severer thoughts; and she began to feel that it would soon be a duty to tell her frankly that they really could not afford to have her visit farther prolonged. But a process was going forward in two other minds, which ultimately saved Milly from having to perform this painful task. In the first place, the Countess was getting weary of Shep- perton — weary of waiting for her brother’s overtures which never came ; so, one fine morning, she reflected that forgive- ness was a Christian duty, that a sister should be placable, VOL. iv 5 66 SCENES OP CLERICAL LIFE. that Mr. Bridmain must feel the need of her advice, to which he had been accustomed for three years, and that very likely u that woman ” did n’t make the poor man happy. In this amiable frame of mind she wrote a very affectionate appeal, aod addressed it to Mr. Bridmain, through his banker. Another mind that was being wrought up to a climax was Nanny’s, the maid-of-all-work, who had a warm heart and a still warmer temper. Nanny adored her mistress : she had been heard to say, that she was “ ready to kiss the ground as the missis trod on; ” and Walter, she considered, was her baby, of whom she was as jealous as a lover. But she had, from the first, very slight admiration for the Countess Czer- laski. That lady, from Nanny’s point of view, was a person¬ age always “ drawed out i’ fine clothes,” the chief result of whose existence was to cause additional bed-making, carrying of hot water, laying of table-cloths, and cooking of dinners. It was a perpetually heightening “ aggravation ” to Nanny that she and her mistress had to “ slave ” more than ever, because there was this fine lady in the house. “ An’ she pays nothin’ for’t neither,” observed Nanny to Mr. Jacob Tomms, a young gentleman in the tailoring line, who occasionally — simply out of a taste for dialogue — looked into the vicarage kitchen of an evening. “ I know the master’s shorter o’ money than iver, an’ it meks no end o’ difference i’ th’ housekeepin’ — her bein’ here, besides bein’ obliged to have a charwoman constant.” “ There ’s fine stories i’ the village about her,” said Mr. Tomms. “ They say as Muster Barton’s great wi’ her, or else she’d niver stop here.” “ Then they say a passill o’ lies, an’ you ought to be ashamed to go an’ tell ’em o’er again. Do ijou think as the master, as has got a wife like the missis, ’ud go running arter a stuck-up piece o’ goods like that Countess, as isn’t fit to black the missis’s shoes ? I’m none so fond o’ the master, but I know better on him nor that.” “ Well, I did n’t b’lieve it,” said Mr. Tomms, humbly. “ B’lieve it ? you’d ha’ been a ninny if yer did. An’ she’s a nasty, stingy thing, that Countess. She’s niver giv me a AMOS BARTON. 67 sixpence nor an old rag neither, sin’ here she’s been. A-lyin’ a bed an’ a-comin’ down to breakfast when other folks wants their dinner ! ” If such was the state of Nanny’s mind as early as the end of August, when this dialogue with Mr. Tomms occurred, you may imagine what it must have been by the beginning of November, and that at that time a very slight spark might any day cause the long-smouldering auger to flame forth in open indignation. That spark happened to fall the very morning that Mrs. Hackit paid the visit to Mrs. Patten, recorded in the last chapter. Nanny’s dislike of the Countess extended to the innocent dog Jet, whom she “ could n’t a-bear to see made a fuss wi’ like a Christian. An’ the little ouzel must be washed, too, ivery Saturday, as if there was n’t children enoo to wash, wi’out washin’ dogs.” Now this particular morning it happened that Milly was quite too poorly to get up, and Mr. Barton observed to Nanny, on going out, that he would call and tell Mr. Brand to come. These circumstances were already enough to make Nanny anxious and susceptible. But the Countess, comfortably igno¬ rant of them, came down as usual about eleven o’clock to her separate breakfast, which stood ready for her at that hour in the parlor; the kettle singing on the hob that she might make her own tea. There was a little jug of cream, taken accord¬ ing to custom from last night’s milk, and specially saved for the Countess’s breakfast. Jet always awaited his mistress at her bedroom door, and it was her habit to carry him down¬ stairs. “ Now, my little Jet,” she said, putting him down gently on the hearth-rug, “ you shall have a nice, nice breakfast.” Jet indicated that he thought that observation extremely pertinent and well-timed, by immediately raising himself on his hind-legs, and the Countess emptied the cream-jug into the saucer. Now there was usually a small jug of milk standing on the tray by the side of the cream, and destined for Jet’s breakfast, but this morning Nanny, being “moithered,” had forgotten that part of the arrangements, so that when the 68 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. Countess had made her tea, she perceived there was no see* ond jug, and rang the bell. Nanny appeared, looking very red and heated — the fact was, she had been “ doing up ” the kitchen fire, and that is a sort of work which by no means con¬ duces to blandness of temper, “Nanny, you have forgotten Jet’s milk; will you bring me some more cream, please ? ” This was just a little too much for Nanny’s forbearance. “ Yes, I dare say. Here am I wi’ my hands full o’ the chil¬ dren an’ the dinner, and missis ill a-bed, and Mr. Brand a-comin’; and I must run o’er the village to get more cream, ’cause you’ve give it to that nasty little blackamoor.” “ Is Mrs. Barton ill ? ” “ Ill — yes — I should think she is ill, and much you care. She’s likely to be ill, moithered as she is from mornin’ to night, wi’ folks as had better be elsewhere.” “ What do you mean by behaving in this way ? ” “ Mean ? Why I mean as the missis is a-slavin’ her life out an’ a-sittin’ up o’ nights, for folks as are better able to wait of her, i’stid o’ lyin’ a-bed an’ doin’ nothin’ all the blessed day, but mek work.” “ Leave the room and don’t be insolent.” “ Insolent! I’d better be insolent than like what some folks is, — a-livin’ on other folks, an’ bringin’ a bad name on ’em into the bargain.” Here Nanny flung out of the room, leaving the lady to digest this unexpected breakfast at her leisure. The Countess was stunned for a few minutes, but when she began to recall Nanny’s words, there was no possibility of avoiding very unpleasant conclusions from them, or of failing to see her position at the Vicarage in an entirely new light. The interpretation too of Nanny’s allusion to a “ bad name ” did not lie out of the reach of the Countess’s imagination, and she saw the necessity of quitting Shepperton without delay. Still, she would like to wait for her brother’s letter-— no — she would ask Milly to forward it to her — still better, she would go at once to London, inquire her brother’s address at his banker’s, and go to see him without preliminary. AMOS BARTON. 69 She went up to Milly’s room, and, after kisses and inquiries, sa id—“I find, on consideration, dear Hilly, from the letter I had yesterday, that I must bid you good-by and go up to Lon¬ don at once. But you must not let me leave you ill, you naughty thing.” “ Oh, no,” said Milly, who felt as if a load had been taken off her back, “ I shall be very well in an hour or two. Indeed^ I ’m much better now. You will want me to help you to pack. But you won’t go for two or three days ? ” “ Yes, I must go to-morrow. But I shall not let you help me to pack, so don’t entertain any unreasonable projects, but lie still. Mr. Brand is coming, Nanny says.” The news was not an unpleasant surprise to Mr. Barton when he came home, though he was able to express more regret at the idea of parting than Milly could summon to her lips. He retained more of his original feeling for the Countess than Milly did, for women never betray themselves to men as they do to each other; and the Rev. Amos had not a keen instinct for character. But he felt that he was being relieved from a difficulty, and in the way that was easiest for him. Is either he nor Milly suspected that it was Nanny who had cut the knot for them, for the Countess took care to give no sign on that subject. As for Nanny, she was perfectly aware of the relation between cause and effect in the affair, and secretly chuckled over her outburst of u sauce ” as the best morning s work she had ever done. So, on Friday morning, a fly was seen standing at the Vicar¬ age gate with the Countess’s boxes packed upon it; and pres ently that lady herself was seen getting into the vehicle. After a last shake of the hand to Mr. Barton, and last kisses co Milly and the children, the door was closed; and as the fly rolled off, the little party at the Vicarage gate caught a last glimpse of the handsome Countess leaning and waving kisses from the carriage window. Jet’s little black phiz was also seen, and doubtless he had his thoughts and feelings on the occasion, but he kept them strictly within his own bosom. The schoolmistress opposite witnessed this departure, and lost no time in telling it to the schoolmaster, who again ccm- 70 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. immicated the news to the landlord of “ The Jolly Colliers,* at the close of the morning school-hours. Ranny poured the joyful tidings into the ear of Mr. Farquliar’s footman, who happened to call with a letter, and Mr. Brand carried them to all the patients he visited that morning, after calling on Mrs. Barton. So that, before Sunday, it was very generally known in Shepperton parish that the Countess Czerlaski had left the Vicarage. The Countess had left, but alas, the. bills she had con¬ tributed to swell still remained; so did the exiguity of the children’s clothing, which also was partly an indirect conse¬ quence. of. her presence; and so, too, did the coolness and alienation in the parishioners, which could not at once vanish befoie the fact of her departure. The Rev. Amos was not exculpated — the past was not expunged. But what was worse than all, Milly’s health gave frequent cause for alarm, and the prospect of baby’s birth was overshadowed by more than the usual fears. The birth came prematurely, about six weeks after the Countess’s departure, but Mr. Brand gave favorable reports to all inquirers on the following day, which was Saturday. On Sunday, after morning service, Mrs. Hackit called at the Vicarage to inquire how Mrs. Barton was, and was invited up-stairs to see her. Milly lay placid and lovely in her feebleness, and held out her hand to Mrs. Hackit with a beaming smile. It was very pleasant to her to see her old friend unreserved and cordial once more. The seven months’ baby was very tiny and very red, but “hand¬ some is that handsome does ” — he was pronounced to be u doing well,” and Mrs. Hackit went home gladdened at heart to think that the perilous hour was over. AMOS BARTON. 71 CHAPTER, VIIL The following Wednesday, when Mr. and Mrs. Hackit were seated comfortably by their bright hearth, enjoying the long afternoon afforded by an early dinner, Rachel, the housemaid, came in and said — “ If you please ’m, the shepherd says, have you heard as Mrs. Barton’s wuss, and not expected to live ? ” Mrs. Hackit turned pale, and hurried out to question the shepherd, who, she found, had heard the sad news at an ale¬ house in the village. Mr. Hackit followed her out and said, “ You’d better have the pony-chaise, and go directly.” “ Yes,” said Mrs. Hackit, too much overcome to utter any exclamations. “ Rachel, come an’ help me on wi’ my things.” When her husband was wrapping her cloak round her feet iir the pony-chaise, she said — “ If I don’t come home to-night, I shall send back the pony- chaise, and you ’ll know I’m wanted there.” “Yes, yes.” It was a bright frosty day, and by the time Mrs. Hackit arrived at the Vicarage, the sun was near its setting. There was a carriage and pair standing at the gate, which she recognized as Hr. Madeley’s, the physician from Bother by. She entered at the kitchen door that she might avoid knock¬ ing, and quietly questioned Nanny. No one was in the kitchen, but, passing on, she saw the sitting-room door open, and Nanny, with Walter in her arms, removing the knives and forks, which had been laid for dinner three hours ago. “ Master says he can’t eat no dinner,” was Nanny’s first word. “He’s never tasted nothin’ sin’ yesterday morning but a cup o’ tea.” “When was your missis took worse “O’ Monday night. They sent foe Hr. Madeley i’ middle o’ the day yisterday, an’ he’s here again now.” “Is the baby alive ? ” SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. 79 € jU “ No, it died last night. The children ’s all at Mrs. Bond’s. She come and took ’em away last night, but the master says they must be fetched soon. He’s up-stairs now, wi’ Hr. Madeley and Mr. Brand.” At this moment Mrs. Hackit heard, the sound of a heavy, slow foot, in the passage; and presently Amos Barton entered, with dry despairing eyes, haggard and unshaven. He ex¬ pected to find the sitting-room as he left it, with nothing to meet his eyes but Milly’s work-basket in the corner of the sofa, and the children’s toys overturned in the bow-window. But when he saw Mrs. Hackit come towards him with answer¬ ing sorrow in her face, the pent-up fountain of tears was opened; he threw himself on the sofa, hid his face, and sobbed aloud. “ Bear up, Mr. Barton,” Mrs. Hackit ventured to say at last; “ bear up, for the sake o.’ them dear children.” “ The children,” said Amos, starting up. 66 They must be sent for. Some one must fetch them. Milly will want to — ” He could n’t finish the sentence, but Mrs. Hackit under¬ stood him, and said, “I’ll send the man with the pony- carriage for ’em.” She went out to give the order, and encountered Dr. Made- ley and Mr. Brand, who were just going. Mr. Brand said: “ I am very glad to see you are here, Mrs Hackit. No time must be lost in sending for the children. Mrs. Barton wants to see them.” “ Do you quite give her up, then ? ” “ She can hardly live through the night. She begged us to tell her how long she had to live; and then asked for the children.” The pony-carriage was sent; and Mrs. Hackit, returning to Mr. Barton, said she should like to go up-stairs now. He went up-stairs with her and opened the door. The chamber fronted the west; the sun was just setting, and the red light fell full upon the bed, where Milly lay with the hand of death visibly upon her. The feather-bed had been removed, and she lay low on a mattress, with her head slightly raised by pil- AMOS BARTON. 73 lows. Her long fair neck seemed to be struggling with a painful effort; her features were pallid and pinched, and her eyes were closed. There was no one in the room but the nurse, and the mistress of the free school, who had come to give her help from the beginning of the change. Amos and Mrs. Hackit stood beside the bed, and Milly opened her eyes. “ My darling, Mrs. Hackit is come to see you.” Milly smiled and looked at her with that strange, far-off look which belongs to ebbing life. "Are the children coming?” she said, painfully. “ Yes, they will be here directly.” She closed her eyes again. Presently the pony-carriage was heard; and Amos, motion¬ ing to Mrs. Hackit to follow him, left the room. On their way down-stairs, she suggested that the carriage should remain to take them away again afterwards, and Amos assented. There they stood in the melancholy sitting-room_the five sweet children, from Patty to Chubby —all, with their mothers eyes all, except Patty, looking up with a vague fear at their father as he entered. Patty understood the great sorrow that was come upon them, and tried to check her sobs as she heard her papa’s footsteps. “My children,” said Amos, taking Chubby in his arms, “ G°d is going to take away your dear mamma from us. She wants to see you to say good-by. You must try to be very good and not cry.” He could say no more, but turned round to see if Nanny was there with Walter, and then led the way up-stairs, leading Dickey with the other hand. Mrs. Hackit followed with Sophy and Patty, and then came Nanny with Walter and Fred. It seemed as if Milly had heard the little footsteps on the stairs, for when Amos entered her eyes were wide open, eagerly looking towards the door. They all stood by the bedside — Amos nearest to her, holding Chubby and Dickey. But she motioned for Patty to come first, and clasping the poor pale child by the hand, said — 74 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. “ Patty, I’m going away from you. Love your papa. Com¬ fort him ; and take care of your little brothers and sisters, God will help you.” Patty stood perfectly quiet, and said, “Yes, mamma.” The mother motioned with her pallid lips for the dear child to lean towards her and kiss her; and then Patty’s great an¬ guish overcame her, and she burst into sobs. Amos drew her towards him and pressed her head gently to him, while Milly beckoned Fred and Sophy, and said to them more faintly — “ Patty will try to be your mamma when I am gone, my darlings. You will be good and not vex her.” ■ They leaned towards her, and she stroked their fair heads, and kissed their tear-stained cheeks. They cried because mam¬ ma was ill and papa looked so unhappy, but they thought, perhaps next week things would be as they used to be again. The little ones were lifted on the bed to kiss her. Little Walter said, “ Mamma, mamma,” and stretched out his fat arms and smiled; and Chubby seemed gravely wondering; but Dickey, who had been looking fixedly at her, with lip hanging down, ever since he came into the room, now seemed suddenly pierced with the idea that mamma was going away somewhere; his little heart swelled, and he cried aloud. Then Mrs. Hackit and Nanny took them all away. Patty at first begged to stay at home and not go to Mrs. Bond’s again; but when Nanny reminded her that she had better go to take care of the younger ones, she submitted at once, and they were all packed in the pony-carriage once more. Milly kept her eyes shut for some time after the children were gone. Amos had sunk on his knees, and was holding her hand while he watched her face. By-and-by she opened her eyes, and drawing him close to her, whispered slowly — “ My dear — dear -— husband — you have been — very —• good to me. You — have -— made me — very — happy.” She spoke no more for many hours. They watched her breathing becoming more and more difficult, until evening deepened into night, and until midnight was past. About half-past twelve she seemed to be trying to speak, and they leaned to catch her words. AMOS BARTON. 75 *Music — music — did n’t you hear it ? 99 Amos knelt by the bed and held her hand in his. He did not believe in his sorrow. It was a bad dream. He did not know when she was gone. But Mr. Brand, whom Mrs. Hackit had sent for before twelve o’clock, thinking that Mr. Barton might probably need his help, now came up to him, and said — “She feels no more pain now. Come, my dear sir, come with me.” “She isn’t dead?” shrieked the poor desolate man, strug¬ gling to shake off Mr. Brand, who had taken him by the arm. But his weary weakened frame was not equal to resistance, and he was dragged out of the room. CHAPTER IX. They laid her in the grave — the sweet mother with her baby in her arms — while the Christmas snow lay thick upon the graves. It was Mr. Cleves who buried her. On the first news of Mr. Barton’s calamity, he had ridden over from Trip- plegate to beg that he might be made of some use, and his silent grasp of Amos’s hand had penetrated like the painful thrill of life-recovering warmth to the poor benumbed heart of the stricken man. The snow lay thick upon the graves, and the day was cold and dreary; but there was many a sad eye watching that black procession as it passed from the Vicarage to the church, and from the church to the open grave. There were men and women standing in that churchyard who had bandied vulgar jests about their pastor, and who had lightly charged him with sin; but now, when they saw him following the coffin, pale and haggard, he was consecrated anew by his great sorrow, and they looked at him with respectful pity. All the children were there, for Amos had willed it so, think ing that some dim memory of that sacred moment might re 76 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. main even with little Walter, and link itself with what he would hear of his sweet mother in after years. He himself led Patty and Dickey; then came Sophy and Fred; Mr. Brand had begged to carry Chubby, and Nanny followed with Wal¬ ter. They made a circle round the grave while the coffin was being lowered. Patty alone of all the children f^lt that mamma was in that coffin, and that a new and sadder life had begun for papa and herself. She was pale and trembling, but she clasped his hand more firmly as the coffin went down, and gave no sob. Fred and Sophy, though they were only two and three years younger, and though they had seen mamma in her coffin, seemed to themselves to be looking at some strange show. They had not learned to decipher that terrible hand¬ writing of human destiny, illness and death. Dickey had rebelled against his black clothes, until he was told that it would be naughty to mamma not to put them on, when he at once submitted; and now, though he had heard Nanny say that mamma was in heaven, he had a vague notion that she womd come home again to-morrow, and say he had been a good boy and let him empty her work-box. He stood close to his father, with great rosy cheeks, and wide-open blue eyes, looking first up at Mr. Cleves and then down at the coffin, and thinking he and Chubby would play at that when they got home. The burial was over, and Amos turned with his children to re-enter the house—-the house where, an hour ago, Milly’s dear body lay, where the windows were half-darkened, and sorrow seemed to have a hallowed precinct for itself, shut out from the world. But now she was gone; the broad snow- reflected daylight was in all the rooms ; the Vicarage again seemed part of the common working-day world, and Amos, for the first time, felt that he was alone — that day after day, month after month, year after year, would have to be lived through without Milly’s love. Spring would come, and she would not be there; summer, and she would not be there ; and he would never have her again with him by the fireside in the long evenings. The seasons all seemed irksome to his thoughts; and how dreary the sunshiny days that would be AMOS BARTON. •n sure to come! She was gone from him; and he could never show her his love any more, never make up for omissions in the past by filling future days with tenderness. Oh the anguish of that thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the light answers we returned to their plaints or their pleadings, for the little reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God had given us to know! Amos Barton had been an affectionate husband, and while Milly was with him, he was never visited by the thought that perhaps his sympathy with her was not quick and watchful enough; but now he re-lived all their life together, with that terrible keenness of memory and imagination which bereave¬ ment gives, and he felt as if his very love needed a pardon for its poverty and selfishness. No outward solace could counteract the bitterness of this inward woe. But outward solace came. Cold faces looked kind again, and parishioners turned over in their minds what they could best do to help their pastor. Mr. Oldinport wrote to express his sympathy, and enclosed another twenty-pound note, begging that he might be permitted to contribute in this way to the relief of Mr. Barton’s mind from pecuniary anxie¬ ties, under the pressure of a grief which all his parishioners must share; and offering his interest towards placing the two eldest girls in a school expressly founded for clergymen’s daughters. Mr. Cleves succeeded in collecting thirty pounds among his richer clerical brethren, and, adding ten pounds himself, sent the sum to Amos, with the kindest and most delicate words of Christian fellowship and manly friendship. Miss Jackson forgot old grievances, and came to stay some months with Milly’s children, bringing such material aid as she could spare from her small income. These were substantia] helps, which relieved Amos from the pressure of his money difficulties ; and the friendly attentions, the kind pressure of the hand, the cordial looks he met with everywhere in his parish, made him feel that the fatal frost 'which had settled on his pastoral duties, during the Countess’s residence at the ,g SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. Vicarage, was completely thawed, and that the hearts of hi? parishioners were once more open to him. No one breathed the Countess’s name now; for Milly’s memory hallowed her hnsband, as of old the place was hah lowed on which an angel from God had alighted. When the spring came, Mrs. Hackit begged that she might have Dickey to stay with her, and great was the enlargement of Dickey’s experience from that visit. Every morning he was allowed — being well wrapt up as to his chest by Mrs. Hackit’s own hands, but very bare and red as to his legs — to run loose in the cow and poultry yard, to persecute the turkey- cock by satirical imitations of his gobble-gobble, and to put difficult questions to the groom as to the reasons why horses had four legs, and other transcendental matters. Then Mr. Hackit would take Dickey up on horseback when he rode round his farm, and Mrs. Hackit had a large plum-cake in cut, ready to meet incidental attacks of hunger. So that Dickey had considerably modified his views as to the desirability of Mrs. Hackit’s kisses. The Misses Farquhar made particular pets of Fred and Sophy, to whom they undertook to give lessons twice a-week in writing and geography; and Mrs. Farquhar devised many treats for the little ones. Patty’s treat was to stay at home, or walk about with her papa; and when he sat by the fire in an evening, after the other children were gone to bed, she would bring a stool, and, placing it against his feet, would sit down upon it and lean her head against his knee. Then his hand would rest on that fair head, and he would feel that Milly’s love was not quite gone out of his life. So the time wore on till it was May again, and the church was quite finished and reopened in all its new splendor, and Mr. Barton was devoting himself with more vigor than ever to his parochial duties. But one morning — it was a very bright morning, and evil tidings sometimes like to fly in the finest weather — there came a letter for Mr. Barton, addressed in the Vicar’s handwriting. Amos opened it with some anxiety _somehow or other he had a presentiment of evil. The letter contained the announcement that Mr. Carpe had resolved on AMOS BARTON. T9 coming to reside at Shepperton, and that, consequently, in six months from that time Mr. Barton’s duties as curate in that parish would be closed. Oh, it was hard ! Just when Shepperton had become the place where he most wished to stay — where he had friends who knew his sorrows — where he lived close to Milly’s grave. To part from that grave seemed like parting with Milly a second time; for Amos was one who clung to all the material links between his mind and the past. His imagination was not vivid, and required the stimulus of actual perception. It roused some bitter feeling, too, to think that Mr. Carpe’s wish to reside at Shepperton was merely a pretext for remov¬ ing Mr. Barton, in order that he might ultimately give the curacy of Shepperton to his own brother-in-law, who was known to be wanting a new position. Still, it must be borne; and the painful business of seeking another curacy must be set about without loss of time. After the lapse of some months, Amos was obliged to renounce the hope of getting one at all near Shepperton, and he at length resigned himself to accepting one in a distant county. The parish was in a large manufacturing town, where his walks would lie among noisy streets and dingy alleys, and where the children would have no garden to play in, no pleasant farm¬ houses to visit. It was another blow inflicted on the bruised man. CHAPTER X. At length the dreaded week was come, when Amos and his children must leave Shepperton. There was general regret among the parishioners at his departure: not that any one of them thought his spiritual gifts pre-eminent, or was conscious of great edification from his ministry. But his recent troubles SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. SO had called out their better sympathies, and that is always a source of love. Amos failed to touch the spring of goodness by his sermons, but he touched it effectually by his sorrows; and there was now a real bond between him and his flock. “ My heart aches for them poor motherless children,” said Mrs. Hackit to her husband, “ a-going among strangers, and into a nasty town, where there’s no good victuals to be had, and you must pay dear to get bad uns.” Mrs. Hackit had a vague notion of a town life as a combina¬ tion of dirty backyards, measly pork, and dingy linen. The same sort of sympathy was strong among the poorer class of parishioners. Old stiff-jointed Mr. Tozer, who was still able to earn a little by gardening “jobs,” stopped Mrs. Cramp, the charwoman, on her way home from the Vicarage* where she had been helping Nanny to pack up the day before the departure, and inquired very particularly into Mr. Barton’s prospects. “ Ah, poor mon,” he was heard to say, “ I’m sorry for un. He hed n’t much here, but he ’ll be wuss off theer. Half a loaf’s better nor ne’er un.” The sad good-byes had all been said before that last evening; and after all the packing was done and all the arrangements were made, Amos felt the oppression of that blank interval in which one has nothing left to think of but the dreary future — the separation from the loved and familiar, and the chilling entrance on the new and strange. In every parting there is an image of death. Soon after ten o’clock, when he had sent Nanny to bed, that she might have a good night’s rest before the fatigues of the morrow, he stole softly out to pay a last visit to Milly’s grave. It was a moonless night, but the sky was thick with stars, and their light was enough to show that the grass had grown long on the grave, and that there was a tombstone telling in bright letters, on a dark ground, that beneath were deposited the remains of Amelia, the beloved wife of Amos Barton, who died in the thirty-fifth year of her age, leaving a husband and six children to lament her loss. The final words of thf inscription were, “ Thy will be done.” AMOS BARTON. 81 The husband was now advancing towards the dear mound from which he was so soon to be parted, perhaps forever. He stood a few minutes reading over and over again the words on the tombstone, as if to assure himself that all the happy and unhappy past was a reality. For love is frightened at the intervals of insensibility and callousness that encroach by little and little on the dominion of grief, and it makes efforts to recall the keenness of the first anguish. Gradually, as his eye dwelt on the words, “ Amelia, the beloved wife,” the waves of feeling swelled within his soul, and he threw himself on the grave, clasping it with his arms, and kissing the cold turf. “ Milly, Milly, dost thou hear me ? I did n’t love thee enough — I was n’t tender enough to thee — but I think of it all now.” The sobs came and choked his utterance, and the warm tears fell. CONCLUSION. Only once again in his life has Amos Barton visited Milly’? grave. It was in the calm and softened light of an autumna 1 afternoon, and he was not alone. He held on his arm a young woman, with a sweet, grave face, which strongly recalled the expression of Mrs. Barton’s, but was less lovely in form and color. She was about thirty, but there were some premature lines round her mouth and eyes, which told of early anxiety. Amos himself was much changed. His thin circlet of hair was nearly white, and his walk was no longer firm and upright. But his glance was calm, and even cheerful, and his neat linen told of a woman’s care. Milly did not take all her love from the earth when she died. She had left some of it in Patty’s heart. All the other children were now grown up, and had gone their several ways. Dickey, you will be glad to hear, had * VOL. IV. 82 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. shown remarkable talents as an engineer. His cheeks are still ruddy, in spite of mixed mathematics, and his eyes are still large and blue; but in other respects his person would present no marks of identification for his friend Mrs. Hackit, if she were to see him; especially now that her eyes must be grown very dim, with the wear of more than twenty additional years. He is nearly six feet high, and has a proportionately broad chest; he wears spectacles, and rubs his large white hands through a mass of shaggy brown hair. But I am sure vou have no doubt that Mr. Richard Barton is a thoroughly good fellow, as well as a man of talent, and you will be glad any day to shake hands with him, for his own sake as well as his mother’s. Patty alone remains by her father’s side, and makes the evening sunshine of his life. SCENES OF CLERICAL LIF^. MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. CHAPTER I. When old Mr. Gilfil died, thirty years ago, there was general sorrow in Shepperton ; and if black cloth had not been hung round the pulpit and reading-desk, by order of his nephew and principal legatee, the parishioners would certainly have subscribed the necessary sum out of their own pockets, rather than allow such a tribute of respect to be wanting. All the. farmers’ wives brought out their black bombazines ; and Mrs. Jennings, at the Wharf, by appearing the first Sunday after Mr. Gilfil’s death in her salmon colored ribbons and green shawl, excited the severest remark. To be sure, Mrs. Jennings was a new-comer, and town-bred, so that she could hardly be expected to have very clear notions of what was proper; but as Mrs. Higgins observed in an undertone to Mrs. Parrot when they were coming out of church, “ Her husband, who’d been born i’ the parish, might ha’ told her better.” And unreadi¬ ness to put on black on all available occasions, or too great an alacrity in putting it off, argued, in Mrs. Higgins’s opinion, a dangerous levity of character, and an unnatural insensibility to the essential fitness of things. “Some folks can’t a-bear to put off their colors,” she re¬ marked; “but that was never the way i’ my family. Why, Mrs. Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr. Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o’ black two year together 1 ” 86 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. “Ah,” said Mrs. Parrot, who was conscious of inferiority in this respect, “ there is n’t many families as have had so many deaths as yours, Mrs. Higgins.” Mrs. Higgins, who was an elderly widow, “ well left,” re¬ flected with complacency that Mrs. Parrot’s observation was no more than just, and that Mrs. Jennings very likely belonged to a family which had had no funerals to speak of. Even dirty Dame Fripp, who was a very rare church-goer, had been to Mrs. Hackit to beg a bit of old crape, and with this sign of grief pinned on her little coal-scuttle bonnet, was seen dropping her curtsy opposite the reading-desk. This manifestation of respect towards Mr. Gilfil’s memory on the part of Dame Fripp had no theological bearing whatever. It was due to an event which had occurred some years back, and which, I am sorry to say, had left that grimy old lady as in¬ different to the means of grace as ever. Dame Fripp kept leeches, and was understood to have such remarkable influence over those wilful animals in inducing them to bite under the most unpromising circumstances, that though her own leeches were usually rejected, from a suspicion that they had lost {heir appetite, she herself was constantly called in to apply the more lively individuals furnished from Mr. Pilgrim’s sur¬ gery, when, as was very often the case, one of that clever man’s paying patients was attacked with inflammation. Thus Dame Fripp, in addition to “property” supposed to yield her no less than half-a-crown a-week, was in the receipt of profes¬ sional fees, the gross amount of which was vaguely estimated by her neighbors as “ pouns an’ pouns.” Moreover, she drove a brisk trade in lollipop with epicurean urchins, who reck¬ lessly purchased that luxury at the rate of two hundred per cent. Nevertheless, with all these notorious sources of in¬ come, the shameless old woman constantly pleaded poverty, and begged for scraps at Mrs. Hackit’s, who, though she always said Mrs. Fripp was “ as false as two folks,” and no better than a miser and a heathen, had yet a leaning towards her as an old neighbor. “ There’s that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea leaves again,” Mrs. Hackit would say; “an’ I’m fool MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 87 enough, to give ’em her, though Sally wants ’em all the while to sweep the floors with ! ” Such was Dame Fripp, whom Mr. Gilfil, riding leisurely m top-boots and spurs from doing duty at Knebley one warm Sunday afternoon, observed sitting in the dry ditch near her cottage, and by her side a large pig, who, with that ease and confidence belonging to perfect friendship, was lying with his head in her lap, and making no effort to play the agreeable beyond an occasional grunt. “ Why, Mrs. Fripp,” said the Vicar, “ I did n’t know you had such a fine pig. You ’ll have some rare flitches at Christmas ! ” “ Eh, God forbid! My son gev him me two ’ear ago, an’ he’s been company to me iver sin’. I could n’t find i’ my heart to part wi’m, if I niver knowed the taste o’ bacon-fat again. “ Why, he ’ll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him ? ” “ Oh, he picks a bit hisself wi’ rootin’, and I dooant mind doing wi’out to gi’ him summat. A bit o’ coompany’s meat an’ drink too, an’ he toilers me about, and grunts when I spake to ’m, just like a Christian.” Mr. Gilfil laughed, and I am obliged to admit that he said good-by to Dame Fripp without asking her why she had not been to church, or making the slightest effort for her spiritual edification. But the next day he ordered his man David to take her a great piece of bacon, with a message, saying, the parson wanted to make sure that Mrs. Fripp would know the taste of bacon-fat again. So, when Mr. Gilfil died, Dame Fripp manifested her gratitude and reverence in the simple dingy fashion I have mentioned. You already suspect that the Vicar did not shine in the more spiritual functions of his office ; and indeed, the utmost I can say for him in this respect is, that he performed those functions with undeviating attention to brevity and despatch. He had a large heap of short sermons, rather yellow and worn at the edges, from which he took two every Sunday, securing perfect impartiality in the selection by taking them as they came, without reference to topics; and having preached one 88 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. of these sermons at Shepperton in the morning, he mounted his horse and rode hastily with the other in his pocket to Knebley, where he officiated in a wonderful little church, with a checkered pavement which had once rung to the iron tread of military monks, with coats of arms in clusters on the lofty roof, marble warriors and their wives without noses occupying a large proportion of the area, and the twelve apostles, with their heads very much on one side, holding didactic ribbons, painted in fresco on the walls. Here, in an absence of mind to which he was prone, Mr. Gilfil would sometimes forget to take off his spurs before putting on his surplice, and only become aware of the omission by feeling something myste¬ riously tugging at the skirts of that garment as he stepped into the reading-desk. But the Knebley farmers would as soon have thought of criticising the moon as their pastor. He belonged to the course of nature, like markets and toll-gates and dirty bank-notes; and being a vicar, his claim on their veneration had never been counteracted by an exasperating claim on their pockets. Some of them, who did not indulge in the superfluity of a covered cart without springs, had dined half an hour earlier than usual — that is to say, at twelve o’clock — in order to have time for their long walk through miry lanes, and present themselves duly in their places at two o’clock, when Mr. Oldinport and Lady Felicia, to whom Knebley Church was a sort of family temple, made their way among the bows and curtsies of their dependants to a carved and canopied pew in the chancel, diffusing as they went a delicate odor of Indian roses on the unsusceptible nostrils of the congregation. The farmers’ wives and children sate on the dark oaken benches, but the husbands usually chose the distinctive dig¬ nity of a stall under one of the twelve apostles, where, when the alternation of prayers and responses had given place to the agreeable monotony of the sermon, Paterfamilias might be seen or heard sinking into a pleasant doze, from which he infallibly woke up at the sound of the concluding doxology. And then they made their way back again through the miry lanes, perhaps almost as much the better for this simple MR. GILFIIAS LOVE-STORY. 89 weekly tribute to what they knew of good and right, as many a more wakeful and critical congregation of the present day. Mr. Gilfil, too, used to make his way home in the later }eais of his life, for he had given up the habit of dining at Knebley Abbey on a Sunday, having, I am sorry to say, had a very bitter quarrel with Mr. Oldinport, the cousin and prede¬ cessor of the Mr. Oldinport who flourished in the Rev. Amos Lai ton s time. That quarrel was a sad pity, for the two had had many a good day’s hunting together when they were younger, and in those friendly times not a few members of the hunt envied Mr. Oldinport the excellent terms he was on with his vicar 5 for, as Sir Jasper Sitwell observed, “next to a man’s wife, there’s nobody can be such an infernal plague to you as a parson, always under your nose on your own estate.” I fancy the original difference which led to the rupture was very slight; but Mr. Gilfil was of an extremely caustic turn, his satire having a flavor of originality which was quite wanting in his sermons.; and as Mr. Oldinport’s armor of conscious virtue presented some considerable and conspicuous gaps, the Vicar’s keen-edged retorts probably made a few incisions too deep to be forgiven. Such, at least, was the view of the case presented by Mr. Hackit, who knew as much of the matter as any third person. For, the very week after the quarrel, when presiding at the annual dinner of the Asso¬ ciation for the Prosecution of Felons, held at the Oldinport Arms, he contributed an additional zest to the conviviality on that occasion by informing the company that “the parson had given the Squire a lick with the rough side of his tongue.” The detection of the person or persons who had driven off Mr. Parrot’s heifer, could hardly have been more welcome news to the Shepperton tenantry, with whom Mr. Oldinport was in the worst odor as a landlord, having kept up his rents in spite of falling prices, and not being in the least stung to emulation by paragraphs in the provincial newspapers, stating that the Honorable Augustus Purwell, or Viscount Blethers, had made a return of ten per cent on their last rent-day. The fact was, Mr. Oldinport had not the slightest intention of standing for Parliament, whereas he had the strongest intern 90 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. tion of adding to his unentailed estate. Hence, to the Shep perton farmers it was as good as lemon with their grog to know that the Vicar had thrown out sarcasms against the Squire’s charities, as little better than those of the man who stole a goose, and gave away the giblets in alms. For Shep- perton, you observe, was in a state of Attic culture compared with Knebley; it had turnpike roads and a public opinion, whereas, in the Boeotian Knebley, men’s minds and wagons alike moved in the deepest of ruts, and the landlord was only grumbled at as a necessary and unalterable evil, like the weather, the weevils, and the turnip-fly. Thus in Shepperton this breach with Mr. Oldinport tended only to heighten that good understanding which the Vicar had always enjoyed with the rest of his parishioners, from the generation whose children he had christened a quarter of a century before, down to that hopeful generation represented by little Tommy Bond, who had recently quitted frocks and trousers for the severe simplicity of a tight suit of corduroys, relieved by numerous brass. buttons. Tommy was a saucy boy, impervious to all impressions of reverence, and exces¬ sively addicted to humming-tops and marbles, with which recreative resources he was in the habit of immoderately dis¬ tending the pockets of his corduroys. One day, spinning his top on the garden-walk, and seeing the Vicar advance directly towards it, at that exciting moment when it was beginning to “ sleep ” magnificently, he shouted out with all the force of his lungs — “ Stop! don’t knock my top down, now ! ” From that day “ little Corduroys ” had been an especial favorite with Mr. Gilfil, who delighted to provoke his ready scorn and wonder by putting questions which gave Tommy the meanest opinion of his intellect. “Well, little Corduroys, have they milked the geese to-day ? ” “ Milked the geese! why, they don’t milk the geese, you silly! ” “ No ! dear heart! why, how do the goslings live, then ? ” The nutriment of goslings rather transcending Tommy’s observations in natural history, he feigned to understand this MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 91 question in an exclamatory rather than an interrogatory sense, and became absorbed in winding up his top. “ Ah, I see you don’t know how the goslings live ! But did you notice how it rained sugar-plums yesterday ? ” (Here Tommy became attentive.) “ Why, they fell into my pocket as I rode ?-long. You look in my pocket and see if they did n’t.” Tommy, without waiting to discuss the alleged antecedent, lost no time in ascertaining the presence of the agreeable consequent, for he had a well-founded belief in the advantages of diving into the Vicar’s pocket. Mr. Gilfil called it his wonderful pocket, because, as he delighted to tell the “ young shavers ” and u two-shoes ” — so he called all little boys and girls—whenever he put pennies into it, they turned into sugar-plums or gingerbread, or some other nice thing. Indeed, little Bessie Parrot, a flaxen-neaded “ two-shoes,” very white and fat as to her neck, always had the admirable directness and sincerity to salute him with the question — “ What zoo dot in zoo pottet ? ” You can imagine, then, that the christening dinners were none the less merry for the presence of the parson. The farmers relished his society particularly, for he could not only smoke his pipe, and season the details of parish affairs with abundance of caustic jokes and proverbs, but, as Mr. Bond often said, no man knew more than the Vicar about the breed of cows and horses. He had grazing-land of his own about five miles off, which a bailiff, ostensibly a tenant, farmed under his direction; and to ride backwards and forwards, and look after the buying and selling of stock, was the old gentleman’s chief relaxation, now his hunting-days were over. To hear him discussing the respective merits of the Devonshire breed and the short-horns, or the last foolish decision of the magis¬ trates about a pauper, a superficial observer might have seen little difference, beyond his superior shrewdness, between the Vicar and his bucolic parishioners; for it was his habit to approximate his accent and mode of speech to theirs, doubtless because he thought it a mere frustration of the purposes of language to talk of “ shear-hogs ” and “ ewes ” to men who 02 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. habitually said “ sharrags ” and “yowes.” Nevertheless the farmers themselves were perfectly aware of the distinction between them and the parson, and had not at all the less belief in him as a gentleman and a clergyman for his easy speech and familiar manners. Mrs. Parrot smoothed her apron and set her cap right with the utmost solicitude when she saw the Vicar coming, made him her deepest curtsy, and «very Christmas had a fat turkey ready to send him with her “ duty.” And in the most gossiping colloquies with Mr. Gilfil, you might have observed that both men and women “ minded their words,” and never became indifferent to his approbation. The same respect attended him in his strictly clerical func¬ tions. The benefits of baptism were supposed to be somehow bound up with Mr. GilfiTs personality, so metaphysical a dis¬ tinction as that between a man and his office being, as yet, quite foreign to the mind of a good Shepperton Churchman, savoring, he would have thought, of Dissent on the very face of it. Miss Selina Parrot put off her marriage a whole month when Mr. Gilfil had an attack of rheumatism, rather than be married in a makeshift manner by the Milby curate. “We’ve had a very good sermon this morning,” was the frequent remark, after hearing one of the old yellow series, heard with all the more satisfaction because it had been heard for the twentieth time; for to minds on the Shepperton level it is repetition, not novelty, that produces the strongest effect; and phrases, like tunes, are a long time making themselves at home in the brain. Mr. GilfiFs sermons, as you may imagine, were not of a highly doctrinal, still less of a polemical, cast. They perhaps did not search the conscience very powerfully; for you remem¬ ber that to Mrs. Patten, who had listened to them thirty years, the announcement that she was a sinner appeared an uncivil heresy; but, on the other hand, they made no unreasonable demand on the Shepperton intellect — amounting, indeed, to little more than an expansion of the concise thesis, that those who do wrong will find it the worse for them, and those who do well will find it the better for them ; the nature of wrong¬ doing being exposed in special sermons against lying, back- MR. GILFIL’S LOYE-STORY. 93 biting, anger, slothfulness, and the like ; and well-doing being interpreted as honesty, truthfulness, charity, industry, and other common virtues, lying quite on the surface of life, and having very little to do with deep spiritual doctrine. Mrs. Patten understood that if she turned out ill-crushed cheeses, a just retribution awaited her; though, I fear, she made no particular application of the sermon on backbiting. Mrs. Hackit expressed herself greatly edified by the sermon on honesty, the allusion to the unjust weight and deceitful bal¬ ance having a peculiar lucidity for her, owing to a recent dispute with her grocer; but I am not aware that she ever appeared to be much struck by the sermon on anger. As to any suspicion that Mr. Gilfil did not dispense the pure Gospel, or any strictures on his doctrine and mode of delivery, such thoughts never visited the minds of the Shep- perton parishioners — of those very parishioners who, ten or fifteen years later, showed themselves extremely critical of Mr. Barton’s discourses and demeanor. But in the interim they had tasted that dangerous fruit of the tree of knowledge innovation, which is well known to open the eyes, even in an uncomfortable manner. At present, to find fault with the sermon was regarded as almost equivalent to finding fault with religion itself. One Sunday, Mr. Hackit’s nephew, Master Tom ^Stokes, a flippant town youth, greatly scanda¬ lized his excellent relatives by declaring that he could write as good a sermon as Mr. Gilfil’s; whereupon Mr. Hackit sought to reduce the presumptuous youth to utter confusion, by offering him a sovereign if he would fulfil his vaunt. The sermon was written, however; and though it was not ad¬ mitted to be anywhere within reach of Mr. Gilfil’s, it was yet so astonishingly like a sermon, having a text, three divisions, and a concluding exhortation beginning ~o were so striking that no one but a tailor could notice the perfections of his velvet coat; and his small white hands, with their blue veins and taper MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. m fingers, quite eclipsed the beauty of his lace ruffles. The face, however — it was difficult to say why — was certainly not pleasing. Nothing could be more delicate than the blond complexion — its bloom set off by the powdered hair — than the veined overhanging eyelids, which gave an indolent ex¬ pression to the hazel eyes ; nothing more finely cut than the transparent nostril and the short upper-lip. Perhaps the chin and lower jaw were too small for an irreproachable profile, but the defect was on the side of that delicacy and finesse which was the distinctive characteristic of the whole person, and which was carried out in the clear brown arch of the eyebrows, and the marble smoothness of the sloping forehead. Impossible to say that this face was not eminently hand¬ some; j'et, for the majority, both of men and women, it was destitute of charm. Women disliked eyes that seemed to be indolently accepting admiration instead of rendering it; and men, especially if they had a tendency to clumsiness in the nose and ankles, were inclined to think this Antinous in a pigtail a “confounded puppy.” I fancy that was frequently the inward interjection of the Rev. Maynard Gilfil, who was seated on the opposite side of the dining-table, though Mr. GilfiFs legs and profile were not at all of a kind to make him peculiarly alive to the impertinence and frivolity of personal advantages. His healthy open face and robust limbs were after an excellent pattern for every-day wear, and, in the opinion of Mr. Bates, the north-country gardener, would have become regimentals “ a fain saight ” better than the “ peaky ” features and slight form of Captain Wybrow, notwithstanding that this young gentleman, as Sir Christopher’s nephew and destined heir, had the strongest hereditary claim on the gardener’s respect, and was undeniably “ clean-limbed.” But alas ! human longings are perversely obstinate; and to the man whose mouth is watering for a peach, it is of no use to offer the largest vegetable marrow. Mr. Gilfil was not sensi¬ tive to Mr. Bates’s opinion, whereas he was sensitive to the opinion of another person, who by no means shared Mr. Bates’s preference. Who the other person was it would not have required a very 104 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. keen observer to guess, from a certain eagerness in Mr, Gilfil’s glance as that little figure in white tripped along the lawn with the cushions. Captain Wybrow, too, was looking in the sanle direction, but his handsome face remained handsome — and nothing more. “Ah,” said Sir Christopher, looking up from his paper, “ there’s my lady. Ring for coffee, Anthony ; we ’ll go and join her, and the little monkey Tina shall give us a song.” The coffee presently appeared, brought —not as usual by the footman, in scarlet and drab, but — by the old butler, in threadbare but well-brushed black, who, as he was placing it on the table, said — “ If you please, Sir Christopher, there’s the widow Hartopp a-crying P the still-room, and begs leave to see your honor.” “ I have given Markham full orders about the widow Har¬ topp” said Sir Christopher, in a sharp decided tone. “I have nothing to say to her.” « Your honor,” pleaded the butler, rubbing his hands, and putting on an additional coating of humility, “ the pool wo¬ man ’s dreadful overcome, and says she can’t sleep a wink this blessed night without seeing your honor, and she begs you to pardon the great freedom she’s took to come at this time. She cries fit to break her heart.” “ Ay, ay; water pays no tax. Well, show her into the library.” Coffee despatched, the two young men walked out through the open window, and joined the ladies on the lawn, while Sir Christopher made his way to the library, solemnly followed by Rupert, his pet blood-hound, who, in his habitual place at the Baronet’s right hand, behaved with great urbanity during dinner ; but when the cloth was drawn, invariably disappeared under the table, apparently regarding the claret-jug as a mere human weakness, which he winked at, but refused to sanction. The library lay but three steps from the dining-room, on the other side of a cloistered and matted passage. The oriel win¬ dow was overshadowed by the great beech, and this, with the flat heavily carved ceiling and the dark hue of the old books MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 105 that lined the walls, made the room look sombre, especially on entering it from the dining-room, with its aerial curves and cream-colored fretwork touched with gold. As Sir Christo¬ pher opened the door, a jet of brighter light fell on a woman in a widow’s dress, who stood in the middle of the room, and made the deepest of curtsies as he entered. She was a buxom woman approaching forty, her eyes red with the tears which had evidently been absorbed by the handkerchief gathered into a damp ball in her right hand. “ Now, Mrs. Hartopp,” said Sir Christopher, taking out his gold snuff-box and tapping the lid, “ what have you to say to me ? Markham has delivered you a notice to quit, I suppose ?” “ Oh yis, your honor, an* that’s the reason why I’ve come. I hope your honor ’ll think better on it, an’ not turn me an’ my poor children out o’ the farm, where my husband al’ys paid his rent as reglar as the day come.” “ Nonsense! I should like to know what good it will do you and your children to stay on a farm and lose every farthing your husband has left you, instead of selling your stock and going into some little place where you can keep your money together. It is very well known to every tenant of mine that I never allow widows to stay on their husband’s farms.” “ Oh, Sir Christifer, if you ivould consider — when I’ve sold the hay an’ corn, an’ all the live things, an’ paid the debts, an’ put the money out to use, I shall have hardly enough to keep our souls an’ bodies together. An’ how can I rear my boys and put ’em ’prentice ? They must go for day laborers, an’ their father a man wi’ as good belongings as any on your honor’s estate, an’ niver threshed his wheat afore it was well i’ the rick, nor sold the straw off his farm, nor nothin’. Ask all the farmers round if there was a stiddier, soberer man than my husband as attended Ripstone market. An’ he says, 1 Bessie,’ says he — them was his last words — ‘ you ’ll mek a shift to manage the farm, if Sir Christifer ’ull let you stay on.’ ” “Pooh, pooh!” said Sir Christopher, Mrs. Hartopp’s sobs having interrupted her pleadings, “ now listen to me, and try 106 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. io understand a little common-sense. You are about as abk to manage the farm as your best milch cow. You ’ll be obliged to have some managing man, who will either cheat you out of your money, or wheedle you into marrying him.” “ Oh, your honor, I was never that sort o’ woman, an’ nobody has known it on me.” “Very likely not, because you were never a widow before. A woman ’s always silly enough, but she’s never quite as great a fool as she can be until she puts on a widow’s cap. Now, just ask yourself how much the better you will be for staying on your farm at the end of four years, when you’ve got through your money, and let your farm run down, and are in arrears for half your rent; or, perhaps, have got some great hulky fellow for a husband, who swears at you and kicks your children.” “ Indeed, Sir Christifer, I know a deal o’ farmin’, an’ was brought up i’ the thick on it, as you may say. An’ there was my husband’s great-aunt managed a farm for twenty year, an’ left legacies to all her nephys an’ nieces, an’ even to my hus¬ band, as was then a babe unborn.” “ Psha! a woman six feet high, with a squint and sharp elbows, I dare say — a man in petticoats. Not a rosy-cheeked widow like you, Mrs. Hartopp.” “Indeed, your honor, I never heard of her squintin’, an* they said as she might ha’ been married o’er and o’er again, to people as had no call to hanker after her money.” “ Ay, ay, that’s what you all think. Every man that looks at you wants to marry you, and would like you the better the more children you have and the less money. But it is useless to talk and cry. I have good reasons for my plans, and never alter them. What you have to do is to make the best of your stock, and to look out for some little place to go to, when you leave The Hollows. Now, go back to Mrs. Bellamy’s room, and ask her to give you a dish of tea.” Mrs. Hartopp, understanding from Sir Christopher’s tone that he was not to be shaken, curtsied low and left the library, while the Baronet, seating himself at his desk in the oriel window, wrote the following letter: — MR. GILFILV; LOVE-STORY. 101 Mr. Markham, — Take no steps about letting Crowsloot Cottage, as I intend to put in the widow Hartopp when she leaves her farm; and if you will be here at eleven on Saturday morning, I will ride round with you, and settle about making some repairs, and see about adding a bit of land to the take, as she will want to keep a cow and some pigs. Yours faithfully, Christopher Cheverel After ringing the bell and ordering this letter to be sent, Sir Christopher walked out to join the party on the lawn. But finding the cushions deserted, he walked on to the eastern, front of the building, where, by the side of the grand entrance, was the large bow-window of the saloon, opening on to the gravel-sweep, and looking towards a long vista of undulating turf, bordered by tall trees, which, seeming to unite itself with the green of the meadows and a grassy road through a planta¬ tion, only terminated with the Gothic arch of a gateway in thf', far distance. The bow-window was open, and Sir Christopher, stepping in, found the group he sought, examining the prog¬ ress of the unfinished ceiling. It was in the same style of florid pointed Gothic as the dining-room, but more elaborate in its tracery, which was like petrified lace-work picked out with delicate and varied coloring. About a fourth of it still remained uncolored, and under this part were scaffolding, lad¬ ders, and tools; otherwise the spacious saloon was empty of furniture, and seemed to be a grand Gothic canopy for the group of five human figures standing in the centre. “ Francesco has been getting on a little better the last day or two,” said Sir Christopher, as he joined the party : “he’s a sad lazy dog, and I fancy he has a knack of sleeping as he stands, with his brushes in his hands. But I must spur him on, or we may not have the scaffolding cleared away before the bride comes, if you show dexterous generalship in your wooing, eh, Anthony ? and take your Magdeburg quickly.” “Ah, sir, a siege is known to be one of the most tedious operations in war,” said Captain Wybrow, with an easy smile. “Not when there’s a traitor within the walls in the shape of a soft heart. And that there will be, if Beatrice has her mother’s tenderness as well as her mother’s beauty.” 108 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. “ What do you think, Sir Christopher,” said Lady Cheverel, who seemed to wince a little under her husband’s reminis¬ cences, “of hanging Guercino’s ‘ Sibyl’ over that door when we put up the pictures ? It is rather lost in my sitting-room.” “Very good, my love,” answered Sir Christopher, in a tone of punctiliously polite affection ; “ if you like to part with the ornament from your own room, it will show admirably hera Our portraits, by Sir Joshua, will hang opposite the window, and the ‘ Transfiguration ’ at that end. You see, Anthony, I am leaving no good places on the walls for you and your wife. We shall turn you with your faces to the wall in the gallery, and you may take your revenge on us by-and-by.” While this conversation was going on, Mr. Gilfil turned to Caterina and said — “ I like the view from this window better than any other in the house.” She made no answer, and he saw that her eyes were filling with tears; so he added, “ Suppose we walk out a little; Sir Christopher and my lady seem to be occupied.” Caterina complied silently, and they turned down one of the gravel walks that led, after many windings under tall trees and among grassy openings, to a large enclosed flower-garden. Their walk was perfectly silent, for Maynard Gilfil knew that Caterina’s thoughts were not with him, and she had been long used to make him endure the weight of those moods which she carefully hid from others. They reached the flower-garden, and turned mechanically in at the gate that opened, through a high thick hedge, on an expanse of brilliant color, which, after the green shades they had passed through, startled the eye like flames. The effect was assisted by an undulation of the ground, which gradually descended from the entrance-gate, and then rose again towards the opposite end, crowned by an orangery. The flowers were glowing with their evening splendors ; verbenas and helio¬ tropes were sending up their finest incense. It seemed a gala where all was happiness and brilliancy, and misery could find no sympathy. This was the effect it had on Caterina. As she wound among the beds of gold and blue and pink, where the MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 109 flowers seemed to be looking at her with wondering elf-like eyes, knowing nothing of sorrow, the feeling of isolation in her wretchedness overcame her, and the tears, which had been before trickling slowly down her pale cheeks, now gushed forth accompanied with sobs. And yet there was a loving human being close beside her, whose heart was aching for hers, who was possessed by the feeling that she was miserable, and that he was helpless to soothe her. But she was too much irritated by the idea that his wishes were different from hers, that he rather regretted the folly of her hopes than the proba¬ bility of their disappointment, to take any comfort in his sympathy. Caterina, like the rest of us, turned away from sympathy which she suspected to be mingled with criticism, as the child turns away from the sweetmeat in which it suspects imperceptible medicine. “Dear Caterina, I think I hear voices,” said Mr. Gilfil; “they may be coming this way.” She checked herself like one accustomed to conceal her emotions, and ran rapidly to the other end of the garden, where she seemed occupied in selecting a rose. Presently Lady Cheverel entered, leaning on the arm of Captain Wybrow, and followed by Sir Christopher. The party stopped to ad¬ mire the tiers of geraniums near the gate; and in the mean time Caterina tripped back with a moss rose-bud in her hand, and, going up to Sir Christopher, said — “ There, Padroncello — there is a nice rose for your button-hole.” “Ah, you black-eyed monkey,” he said, fondly stroking her cheek; “ so you have been running off with Maynard, either to torment or coax him an inch or two deeper into love. Come, come, I want you to sing us ‘ Ho perduto ’ before we sit down to picquet. Anthony goes to-morrow, you know; you must warble him into the right sentimental lover’s mood, that he may acquit himself well at Bath.” He put her little arm under his, and calling to Lady Cheverel, “ Come, Henrietta ! ” led the way towards the house. The party entered the drawing-room, which, with its oriel window, corresponded to the library in the other wing, and had also a flat ceiling heavy with carving aud blazonry; but 110 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. the window being unshaded, and the walls hung with full- length portraits of knights and dames in scarlet, white, and gold, it had not the sombre effect of the library. Here hung the portrait of Sir Anthony Cheverel, who in the reign of Charles II. was the renovator of the family splendor, which had suffered some declension from the early brilliancy of that Chevreuil who came over with the Conqueror. A very impos¬ ing personage was this Sir Anthony, standing with one arm akimbo, and one fine leg and foot advanced, evidently with a view to the gratification of his contemporaries and posterity. You might have taken off his splendid peruke, and his scarlet cloak, which was thrown backward from his shoulders, with¬ out annihilating the dignity of his appearance. And he had known how to choose a wife, too, for his lady, hanging oppo¬ site to him, with her sunny brown hair drawn away in bands from her mild grave face, and falling in two large rich curls on her snowy gently sloping neck, which shamed the harsher hue and outline of her white satin robe, was a fit mother of “ large-acred ” heirs. In this room tea was served; and here, every evening, as regularly as the great clock in the court-yard with deliberate bass tones struck nine, Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel sat down to picquet until half-past ten, when Mr. Gilfil read prayers to the assembled household in the chapel. But now it was not near nine, and Caterina must sit down to the harpsichord and sing Sir Christopher’s favorite airs, by Gluck and Paesiello, whose operas, for the happiness of that generation, were then to be heard on the London stage. It happened this evening that the sentiment of these airs, “ Che faro senza Eurydice ? ” and “ Ho perduto il bel sembiante ,” in both of which the singer pours out his yearning after his lost love, came very close to Caterina’s own feeling. But her emotion, instead of being a hindrance to her singing, gave her additional power. Her singing was what she could do best; it was her one point of superiority, in which it was probable she would excel the highborn beauty whom Anthony was to woo; and her love, her jealousy, her pride, her rebellion against her destiny, made one stream of passion which welled MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. Ill forth in the deep rich tones of her voice. She had a rare con¬ tralto, which Lady Cheverel, who had high musical taste, had been careful to preserve her from straining. “ Excellent, Caterina,” said Lady Cheverel, as there was a pause after the wonderful linked sweetness of “ Che faro.” Ci I never heard you sing that so well. Once more ! ” It was repeated; and then came, u IIo perdutof which Sir Christopher encored, in spite of the clock, just striking nine. When the last note was dying out he said — “ There ’s a clever black-eyed monkey. Now bring out the table for picquet.” Caterina drew out the table and placed the cards ; then, with her rapid fairy suddenness of motion, threw herself on her knees, and clasped Sir Christopher’s knee. He bent down, stroked her cheek, and smiled. “ Caterina, that is foolish,” said Lady Cheverel. “ I wish you would leave off those stage-players’ antics.” She jumped up, arranged the music on the harpsichord, and then, seeing the Baronet and his lady seated at picquet, quietly glided out of the room. Captain Wybrow had been leaning near the harpsichord during the singing, and the chaplain had thrown himself on a sofa at the end of the room. They both now took up a book. Mr. Gilfil chose the last number of the “ Gentleman’s Maga¬ zine ; ” Captain Wybrow, stretched on an ottoman near the door, opened “ Faublas ; ” and there was perfect silence in the room which, ten minutes before, was vibrating to the passion¬ ate tones of Caterina. She had made her way along the cloistered passages, now lighted here and there by a small oil-lamp, to the grand-stair¬ case, which led directly to a gallery running along the whole eastern side of the building, where it was her habit to walk when she wished to be alone. The bright moonlight was streaming through the windows, throwing into strange light and shadow the heterogeneous objects that lined the long walls: Greek statues and busts of Roman emperors; low cabinets filled with curiosities, natural and antiquarian ; tropi¬ cal birds and huge horns of beasts ; Hindoo gods and strange 112 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. shells ; swords and daggers, and bits of chain-armor; Roman lamps and tiny models of Greek temples; and, above all these, queer old family portraits — of little boys and girls, once the hope of the Cheverels, with close-sliaven heads imprisoned in stiff ruffs — of faded, pink-faced ladies, with rudimentary features and highly developed head-dresses — of gallant gentle¬ men, with high hips, high shoulders, and red pointed beards. Here, on rainy days, Sir Christopher and his lady took their promenade, and here billiards were played; but, in the even¬ ing, it was forsaken by all except Caterina — and, sometimes, one other person. She paced up and down in the moonlight, her pale face and thin white-robed form making her look like the ghost of some former Lady Cheverel come to revisit the glimpses of the moon. By-and-by she paused opposite the broad window above the portico, and looked out on the long vista of turf and trees now stretching chill and saddened in the moonlight. Suddenly a breath of warmth and roses seemed to float towards her, and an arm stole gently round her waist, while a soft hand took up her tiny fingers. Caterina felt an electric thrill, and was motionless for one long moment; then she pushed away the arm and hand, and, turning round, lifted up to the face that hung over her, eyes full of tenderness and reproach. The fawn-like unconsciousness was gone, and in that one look were the ground tones of poor little Caterina’s nature — intense love and fierce jealousy. “ Why do you push me away, Tina ? ” said Captain Wybrow in a half-whisper; " are you angry with me for what a hard fate puts upon me ? Would you have me cross my uncle — who has done so much for us both — in his dearest wish ? You know I have duties —we both have duties — before which feeling must be sacrificed.” “ Yes, yes,” said Caterina, stamping her foot, and turning away her head ; “ don’t tell me what I know already.” There was a voice speaking in Caterina’s mind to which she had never yet given vent. That voice said continually, “ Why did he make me love him — why did he let me know he loved MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 113 me, if he knew all the while that he couldn’t brave every¬ thing for my sake ? ” Then love answered, “ He was led on by the feeling of the moment, as you have been, Caterina; and now you ought to help him to do what is right.” Then the voice rejoined, “ It was a slight matter to him. He does n’t much mind giving you up. He will soon love that beautiful woman, and forget a poor little pale thing like you.” Thus love, anger, and jealousy were struggling in that young soul. “ Besides, Tina,” continued Captain Wybrow in still gentler tones, “ I shall not succeed. Miss Assher very likely prefers some one else; and you know I have the best will in the world to fail. I shall come back a hapless bachelor — perhaps to find you already married to the good-looking chaplain, who is over head and ears in love with you. Poor Sir Christopher has made up his mind that you ’re to have Gilfil.” “ Why will you speak so ? You speak from your own want of feeling. Go away from me.” “ Don’t let us part in anger, Tina. All this may pass away. It ’s as likely as not that I may never marry any one at all, These palpitations may carry me off, and you may have the satisfaction of knowing that I shall never be anybody’s bride¬ groom. Who knows what may happen ? I may be my own master before I get into the bonds of holy matrimony, and be able to choose my little singing-bird. Why should we distress ourselves before the time ? ” “ It is easy to talk so when you are not feeling,” said Cate- rina, the tears flowing fast. “ It is bad to bear now, whatever may come after. But you don’t care about my misery.” “ Don’t I, Tina ? ” said Anthony in his tenderest tones, again stealing his arm round her waist, and drawing her towards him. Poor Tina was the slave of this voice and touch. Grief and resentment, retrospect and foreboding, vanished — all life before and after melted away in the bliss of that moment, as Anthony pressed his lips to hers. Captain Wybrow thought, “ Poor Little Tina! would make her very happy to have me. But she is a mad little thing.” VOL. IV. 114 SCENES OF CLEKICAL LIFE. At that moment a loud bell startled Caterina from her trance of bliss. It was the summons to prayers in the chapel, and she hastened away, leaving Captain Wybrow to follow slowly. It was a pretty sight, that family assembled to worship in the little chapel, where a couple of wax-candles threw a mild faint light on the figures kneeling there. In the desk was Mr. Gilfil, with his face a shade graver than usual. On his right hand, kneeling on their red velvet cushions, were the master and mistress of the household, in their elderly digni¬ fied beauty. On his left, the youthful grace of Anthony and Caterina, in all the striking contrast of their coloring—he, with his exquisite outline and rounded fairness, like an Olym¬ pian god; she, dark and tiny, like a gypsy changeling. Then there were the domestics kneeling on red-covered forms,_ the women headed by Mrs. Bellamy, the natty little old house¬ keeper, in snowy cap and apron, and Mrs. Sharp, my lady's maid, of somewhat vinegar aspect and flaunting attire ; the men by Mr. Bellamy the butler, and Mr. Warren, Sir Christo¬ pher’s venerable valet. A few collects from the Evening Service were what Mr. Gilfil habitually read, ending with the simple petition, “ Lighten our darkness.” And then they all rose, the servants turning to curtsy and bow as they went out. The family returned to the drawing¬ room, said good-night to each other, and dispersed—all to speedy slumber except two. Caterina only cried herself to sleep after the clock had struck twelve. Mr. Gilfil lay awake still longer, thinking that very likely Caterina was crying. Captain Wybrow, having dismissed his valet at eleven, was soon in a soft slumber, his face looking like a fine cameo in high relief on the slightly indented pillow. MR GILML’S LOVE-STORY. 115 CHAPTER III. The last chapter has given the discerning reader sufficient insight into the state of things at Cheverel Manor in the summer of 1788. In that summer, we know, the great nation of France was agitated by conflicting thoughts and passions, which were but the beginning of sorrows. And in our Cate¬ rings little breast, too, there were terrible struggles. The poor bird was beginning to flutter and vainly dash its soft breast against the hard iron bars of the inevitable, and we see too plainly the danger, if that anguish should go on heightening instead of being allayed, that the palpitating heart may be fatally bruised. Meanwhile, if, as I hope, you feel some interest in Caterina and her friends at Cheverel Manor, you are perhaps asking, How came she to be there ? How was it that this tiny dark¬ eyed child of the south, whose face was immediately sugges¬ tive of olive-covered hills and taper-lit shrines, came to have her home in that stately English manor-house, by the side of the blond matron, Lady Cheverel — almost as if a humming¬ bird were found perched on one of the elm-trees in the park, by the side of her ladyship’s handsomest pouter-pigeon ? Speaking good English, too, and joining in Protestant prayers ? Surely she must have been adopted and brought over to Eng¬ land at a very early age. She was. During Sir Christopher’s last visit to Italy with his lady, fifteen years before, they resided for some time at Milan, where Sir Christopher, who was an enthusiast for Gothic archi¬ tecture, and was then entertaining the project of metamor¬ phosing his plain brick family mansion into the model of a Gothic manor-house, was bent on studying the details of that marble miracle, the Cathedral. Here Lady Cheverel, as at other Italian cities where she made any protracted stay, en gaged a maestro to give her lessons in singing, for she had then not only fine musical taste, but a fin© soprano voice. 116 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. Those were days when very rich people used manuscript music, and many a man who resembled Jean Jacques in noth¬ ing else, resembled him in getting a livelihood “a copier la musique k taut la page/’ Lady Cheverel having need of this service, Maestro Albani told her he would send her a poveraccio of his acquaintance, whose manuscript was the neatest and most correct he knew of. Unhappily, the poveraccio was not always in his best wits, and was sometimes rather slow in consequence; but it would be a work of Christian charity worthy of the beautiful Signora to employ poor Sarti. The next morning, Mrs. Sharp, then a blooming abigail of three-and-thirty, entered her lady’s private room and said, “If y° u please, my lady, there’s the frowiest, shabbiest man you ever saw, outside, and he’s told Mr. Warren as the singing-master sent him to see your ladyship. But I think you ’ll hardly like him to come in here. Belike he’s only a beggar.” “ Oh yes, show him in immediately.” Mrs. Sharp retired, muttering something about “ fleas and worse.” She had the smallest possible admiration for fair Ausonia and its natives, and even her profound deference for Sir Christopher and her lady could not prevent her from ex¬ pressing her amazement at the infatuation of gentlefolks in choosing to sojourn among “ Papises, in countries where there was no getting to air a bit o’ linen, and where the people smelt o’ garlic fit to knock you down.” However she presently reappeared, ushering in a small meagre man, sallow and dingy, with a restless wandering look in his dull eyes, and an excessive timidity about his deep reverences, which gave him the air of a man who had been long a solitary prisoner. Yet through all this squalor and wretchedness there were some traces discernible of compara¬ tive youth and former good looks. Lady Cheverel, though not very tender-hearted, still less sentimental, was essentially kind, and liked to dispense benefits like a goddess, who looks down benignly on the nalt, the maimed, and the blind that approach her shrine. She was smitten with some compassion at the sight of poor Sarti, who struck her as the mere battered MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 11? wreck of a vessel that might have once floated gayly enough on its outward voyage to the sound of pipes and tabors. She spoke gently as she pointed out to him the operatic selections she wished him to copy, and he seemed to sun himself in her auburn, radiant presence, so that when he made his exit with the music-books under his arm, his bow, though not less rever¬ ent, was less timid. It was ten years at least since Sarti had seen anything so bright and stately and beautiful as Lady Clieverel. For the time was far off in which he had trod the stage in satin and feathers, the primo tenore of one short season. He had com¬ pletely lost his voice in the following winter, and had ever since been little better than a cracked fiddle, which is good for nothing but firewood. For, like many Italian singers, he was too ignorant to teach, and if it had not been for his one talent of penmanship, he and his young helpless wife might have starved. Then, just after their third child was born, fever came, swept away the sickly mother and the two eldest chil¬ dren, and attacked Sarti himself, who rose from his sick-bed with enfeebled brain and muscle, and a tiny baby on his hands, scarcely four months old. He lodged over a fruit-shop kept by a stout virago, loud of tongue and irate in temper, but who had had children born to her, and so had taken care of the tiny yellow, black-eyed bambinetta , and tended Sarti himself through his sickness. Here he continued to live, earning a meagre subsistence for himself and his little one by the work of copying music, put into his hands chiefly by Maestro Albani. He seemed to exist for nothing but the child: he tended it, he dandled it, he chatted to it, living with it alone in his one room above the fruit-shop, only asking his landlady to take care of the marmoset during his short absences in fetching and carrying home work. Customers frequenting that fruit-shop might often see the tiny Caterina seated on the floor with her legs in a heap of pease, which it was her delight to kick about; or perhaps deposited, like a kitten, in a large basket out of harm’s way. Sometimes, however, Sarti left his little one with another kind of protectress. He was very regular in his devotions, 118 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. which he paid thrice a-week in the great cathedral, carrying Caterina with him. Here, when the high morning sun was warming the myriad glittering pinnacles without, and strug¬ gling against the massive gloom within, the shadow of a man with a child on his arm might be seen flitting across the more stationary shadows of pillar and mullion, and making its way towards a little tinsel Madonna hanging in a retired spot near the choir. Amid all the sublimities of the mighty cathedral, poor Sarti had fixed on this tinsel Madonna as the symbol of divine mercy and protection, —just as a child, in the presence of a great landscape, sees none of the glories of wood and sky, but sets its heart on a floating feather or insect that happens to be on a level with its eye. Here, then, Sarti worshipped and prayed, setting Caterina on the floor by his side; and now and then, when the cathedral lay near some place where he had to call, and did not like to take her, he would leave her there in front of the tinsel Madonna, where she would sit, perfectly good, amusing herself with low crowing noises and see-sawings of her tiny body. And when Sarti came back, he always found that the Blessed Mother had taken good care of Caterina. That was briefly the history of Sarti, who fulfilled so well the orders Lady Cheverel gave him, that she sent him away again with a stock of new work. But this time, week after week passed, and he neither reappeared nor sent home the music intrusted to him. Lady Cheverel began to be anxious, and was thinking of sending Warren to inquire at the address Sarti had given her, when one day, as she was equipped for driving out, the valet brought in a small piece of paper, which, he said, had been left for her ladyship by a man who was car¬ rying fruit. The paper contained only three tremulous lines, in Italian: — “ Will the Eccelentissima, for the love of God, have pity on a dying man, and come to him ? ” Lady Cheverel recognized the handwriting as Sarti’s in spite of its tremulousness, and, going down to her carriage, ordered the Milanese coachman to drive to Strada Quinquagesima, Numero 10. The coach stopped in a dirty narrow street MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 119 opposite La Pazzini’s fruit-sliop, and that large specimen of womanhood immediately presented herself at the door, to the extreme disgust of Mrs. Sharp, who remarked privately to Mr. Warren that La Pazzini was a “hijeous porpis.” The fruit- woman, however, was all smiles and deep curtsies to the Ec- celentissima, who, not very well understanding her Milanese dialect, abbreviated the conversation by asking to be shown at once to Signor Sarti. La Pazzini preceded her up the dark narrow stairs, and opened a door through which she begged her ladyship to enter. Directly opposite the door lay Sarti, on a low miserable bed. His eyes were glazed, and no move¬ ment indicated that he was conscious of their entrance. On the foot of the bed was seated a tiny child, apparently not three years old, her head covered by a linen cap, her feet clothed with leather boots, above which her little yellow legs showed thin and naked. A frock, made of what had once been a gay flowered silk, was her only other garment. Her large dark eyes shone from out her queer little face, like two precious stones in a grotesque image carved in old ivory. She held an empty medicine-bottle in her hand, and was amusing herself with putting the cork in and drawing it out again, to hear how it would pop. La Pazzini went up to the bed and said, “ Ecco la nobilis- sima donna!” but directly after screamed out, “Holy mother! he is dead ! ” It was so. The entreaty had not been sent in time for Sarti to carry out his project of asking the great English lady to take care of his Caterina. That was the thought which haunted his feeble brain as soon as he began to fear that his illness would end in death. She had wealth — she was kind — she would surely do something for the poor orphan. And so, at last, he sent that scrap of paper which won the fulfil¬ ment of his prayer, though he did not live to utter it. Lady Cheverel gave La Pazzini money that the last decencies might be paid to the dead man, and carried away Caterina, meaning to consult Sir Christopher as to what should be done with her. Even Mrs. Sharp had been so smitten with pity by the scene she had witnessed when she was summoned up-stairs to fetch 120 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. Caterina, as to shed a small tear, though she was not at all subject to that weakness; indeed, she abstained from it oc principle, because, as she often said, it was known to be the worst thing in the world for the eyes. On the way back to her hotel, Lady Clieverel turned over various projects in her mind regarding Caterina, but at last one gained the preference over all the rest. Why should they not take the child to England, and bring her up there ? They had been married twelve years, yet Clieverel Manor was cheered by no children’s voices, and the old house would be all the better for a little of that music. Besides, it would be a Christian work to train this little Papist into a good Protes¬ tant, and graft as much English fruit as possible on the Italian stem. Sir Christopher listened to this plan with hearty acquies¬ cence. He loved children, and took at once to the little black-eyed monkey — his name for Caterina all through her short life. But neither he nor Lady Clieverel had any idea of adopting her as their daughter, and giving her their own rank in life. They were much too English and aristocratic to think of anything so romantic. No! the child would be brought up at Clieverel Manor as a protegee, to be ultimately useful, perhaps, in sorting worsteds, keeping accounts, reading aloud, and otherwise supplying the place of spectacles when her ladyship’s eyes should wax dim. So Mrs. Sharp had to procure new clothes, to replace the linen cap, flowered frock, and leathern boots; and now, strange to say, little Caterina, who had suffered many unconscious evils in her existence of thirty moons, first began to know conscious troubles. “ Ignorance,” says Ajax, “ is a painless evil; ” so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it. At any rate, cleanliness is sometimes a painful good, as any one can vouch who has had his face washed the wrong way, by a pitiless hand with a gold ring on the third finger. If you, reader, have not known that ini¬ tiatory anguish, it is idle to expect that you will form any approximate conception of what Caterina endured under Mrs. Sharp’s new dispensation of soap-and-water. Happily, this MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 121 purgatory came presently to be associated in her tiny brain with a passage straightway to a seat of bliss — the sofa in Lady Cheverel’s sitting-room, where there were toys to be broken, a ride was to be had on Sir Christopher’s knee, and a spaniel of resigned temper was prepared to undergo small tortures without flinching. CHAPTER IY. In three months from the time of Caterina’s adoption—. namely, in the late autumn of 1773 — the chimneys of Cheve- rel Manor were sending up unwonted smoke, and the servants were awaiting in excitement the return of their master and mistress after a two years’ absence. Great was the astonish¬ ment of Mrs. Bellamy, the housekeeper, when Mr. Warren lifted a little black-eyed child out of the carriage, and great was Mrs. Sharp’s sense of superior information and experi¬ ence, as she detailed Caterina’s history, interspersed with copious comments, to the rest of the upper servants that evening, as they were taking a comfortable glass of grog together in the housekeeper’s room. A pleasant room it was as any party need desire to muster in on a cold November evening. The fireplace alone was a picture : a wide and deep recess with a low brick altar in the middle, where great logs of dry wood sent myriad sparks up the dark chimney-throat; and over the front of this recess a large wooden entablature bearing this motto, finely carved in old English letters, “ jFear @ofj anh fjcmour tjje Ifttng.” And beyond the party, who formed a half moon with their chairs and well-furnished table round this bright fireplace, what a space of chiaroscuro for the imagination to revel in ! Stretch¬ ing across the far end of the room, what an oak table, high enough surely for Homer’s gods, standing on four massive 122 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. legs, bossed and bulging like sculptured urns ! and, lining the distant wall, what vast cupboards, suggestive of inexhaustible apricot jam and promiscuous butler’s perquisites ! A stray picture or two had found their way down there, and made agreeable patches of dark brown on the buff-colored walls. High over the loud-resounding double door hung one which, from some indications of a face looming out of blackness, might, by a great synthetic effort, be pronounced a Magdalen. Considerably lower down hung the similitude of a hat and feathers, with portions of a ruff, stated by Mrs. Bellamy to represent Sir Francis Bacon, who invented gunpowder, and, in her opinion, “ might ha’ been better emplyed.” But this evening the mind is but slightly arrested by the great Verulam, and is in the humor to think a dead philosopher less interesting than a living gardener, who sits conspicuous in the half-circle round the fireplace. Mr. Bates is habitually a guest in the housekeeper’s room of an evening, preferring the social pleasures there — the feast of gossip and the flow of grog — to a bachelor’s chair in his charming thatched cottage on a little island, where every sound is remote but the cawing of rooks and the screaming of wild geese : poetic sounds, doubt¬ less, but, humanly speaking, not convivial. Mr. Bates was by no means an average person, to be passed without special notice. He was a sturdy Yorkshireman, ap¬ proaching forty, whose face Nature seemed to have colored when she was in a hurry, and had no time to attend to nuances, for every inch of him visible above his neckcloth was of one impartial redness; so that when he was at some distance your imagination was at liberty to place his lips anywhere between his nose and chin. Seen closer, his lips were discerned to be of a peculiar cut, and I fancy this had something to do with the peculiarity of his dialect, which, as we shall see, was individual rather than provincial. Mr. Bates was further dis¬ tinguished from the common herd by a perpetual blinking of the eyes; and this, together with the red-rose tint of his com¬ plexion, and a way he had of hanging his head forward, and rolling it from side to side as he walked, gave him the air of a Bacchus in a blue apron, who, in the present reduced circum- MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 123 stances of Olympus, had taken to the management of his own vines. Yet, as gluttons are often thin, so sober men are often rubicund; and Mr. Bates was sober, with that manly, British, churchman-like sobriety which can carry a few glasses of grog without any perceptible clarification of ideas. “ Dang my boottons ! ” observed Mr. Bates, who, at the conclusion of Mrs. Sharp’s narrative, felt himself urged to his strongest interjection, “it’s what I shouldn’t ha’ looked for from Sir Cristhifer an’ my ledy, to bring a furrin child into the coonthry; an’ depend on’t, whether you an’ me lives to see’t or noo, it ’ll coom to soom harm. The first sitiation iver I held — it was a hold hancient habbey, wi’ the biggest orchard o’ apples an’ pears you ever see—there was a French valet, an’ he stool silk stoockins, an’ shirts, an’ rings, an’ ivery- thin’ he could ley his hands on, an’ run awey at last wi’ th’ missis’s jewl-box. They ’re all alaike, them furriners. It roons i’ th’ blood.” “ Well,” said Mrs. Sharp, with the air of a person who held liberal views, but knew where to draw the line, “I’m not a-going to defend the furriners, for I’ve as good reason to know what they are as most folks, an’ nobody ’ll ever hear me say but what they ’re next door to heathens, and the hile they eat wi’ their victuals is enough to turn any Christian’s stomach. But for all that — an’ for all as the trouble in re¬ spect o’ washin’ and managin’ has fell upo’ me through the journey — I can’t say but what I think as my Lady an’ Sir Cristifer’s done a right thing by a hinnicent child as does n’t know its right hand from its left, i’ bringing it where it’ll learn to speak summat better nor gibberish, and be brought up i’ the true religion. For as for them furrin churches as Sir Cristifer is so unaccountable mad after, wi’ pictures o’ men an’ women a-showing themselves just for all the world as God made ’em, I think, for my part, as it’s almost a sin to go into ’em.” “ You ’re likely to have more foreigners, however,” said Mr. Warren, who liked to provoke the gardener, “ for Sir Christopher has engaged some Italian workmen to help in the alterations in the house.” 124 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. “ Operations ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Bellamy, in alarm. “ What operations ? ” “ Why,” answered Mr. Warren, “ Sir Chr'stopher, as I un¬ derstand, is going to make a new thing of the old Manor- house, both inside and out. And he’s got portfolios full of plans and pictures coming. It is to be cased with stone, in the Gothic style — pretty near like the churches, you know, as far as I can make out; and the ceilings are to be beyond anything that’s been seen in the country. Sir Christopher ’s been giving a deal of study to it.” “ Dear heart alive! ” said Mrs. Bellamy, “ we shall be pisoned wi’ lime an’ plaster, an’ hev the house full o’ workmen colloguing wi’ the maids, an’ makin’ no end o’ mischief.” “ That ye may ley your life on, Mrs. Bellamy,” said Mr. Bates. “ Howiver, I ’ll noot denay that the Goothic stayle’s prithy anoof, an’ it’s woonderful how near them stoon-carvers cuts oot the shapes o’ the pine apples, an’ shamrucks, an’ rooses. I dare sey Sir Cristhifer ’ll meek a naice thing o’ the Manor, an’ there woon’t be many gentlemen’s houses i’ the coonthry as ’ll coom up to’t, wi’ sich a garden an’ pleasure- groons an’ wall-fruit as King George maight be prood on.” “ Well, I can’t think as the house can be better nor it is, Gothic or no Gothic,” said Mrs. Bellamy; “ an’ I’ve done the picklin’ and preservin’ in it fourteen year Michaelmas was a three weeks. But what does my lady say to’t ? ” “ My lady knows better than cross Sir Cristifer in what he’s set his mind on,” said Mr. Bellamy, who objected to the criti¬ cal tone of the conversation. “ Sir Cristifer ’ll hev his own way, that you may tek your oath. An’ i’ the right on’t too. He’s a gentleman born, an’s got the money. But come, Mes- ter Bates, fill your glass, an’ we ’ll drink health an’ happiness to his honor an’ my lady, and then you shall give us a song. Sir Cristifer does n’t come hum from Italy ivery night.” This demonstrable position was accepted without hesitation as ground for a toast; but Mr. Bates, apparently thinking that his song was not an equally reasonable sequence, ignored the second part of Mr. Bellamy’s proposal. So Mrs. Sharp, who had been heard to say that she had no thoughts at all of MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 121 many in g Mr. Bates, though he was “a sensable fresh-colored man as many a woman ’ud snap at for a husband,” enforced Mr. Bellamy’s appeal. “Come, Mr. Bates, let us hear ‘Roy’s Wife.’ I’d rether hear a good old song like that, nor all the fine Italian toodlin.” Mr. Bates, urged thus flatteringly, stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, threw himself back in his chair with his head in that position in which he could look directly towards the zenith, and struck up a remarkably staccato ren- dering of “Roy’s Wife of Aldivallocli.” This melody may certainly be taxed with excessive iteration, but that was pre¬ cisely its highest recommendation to the present audience, who found it all the easier to swell the chorus. Nor did it at all diminish their pleasure that the only particular concerning “Roy’s Wife,” which Mr. Bates’s enunciation allowed them to gather, was that she “ chated ” him, — whether in the matter of garden stuif or of some other commodity, or why her name should, in consequence, be repeatedly reiterated with exulta¬ tion, remaining an agreeable mystery. Mr. Bates’s song formed the climax of the evening’s good-* fellowship, and the party soon after dispersed — Mrs. Bellamy perhaps to dream of quicklime flying among her preserving- pans, or of love-sick housemaids reckless of unswept corners — and Mrs. Sharp to sink into pleasant visions of indepen¬ dent housekeeping in Mr. Bates’s cottage, with no bells to answer, and with fruit and vegetables ad libitum. Caterina soon conquered all prejudices against her foreign blood; for what prejudices will hold out against helplessness and broken prattle ? She became the pet of the household, thrusting Sir Christopher’s favorite bloodhound of that day, Mrs. Bellamy’s two canaries, and Mr. Bates’s largest Dorking hen, into a merely secondary position. The consequence was, that in the space of a summer’s day she went through a great cycle of experiences, commencing with the somewhat acidu¬ lated good-will of Mrs. Sharp’s nursery discipline. Then came the grave luxury of her ladyship’s sitting-room, and, perhaps, the dignity of a ride on Sir Christopher’s knee, some* SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. 152G times followed by a visit with him to the stables, where Cat erina soon learned to hear without crying the baying of the chained bloodhounds, and to say, with ostentatious bravery, clinging to Sir Christopher’s leg all the while, “Dey not hurt Tina.” Then Mrs. Bellamy would perhaps be going out to gather the rose-leaves and lavender, and Tina was made proud and happy by being allowed to carry a handful in her pinafore ; happier still, when they were spread out on sheets to dry, so that she could sit down like a frog among them, and have them poured over her in fragrant showers. Another frequent pleasure was to take a journey with Mr. Bates through the kitchen-gardens and the hot-houses, where the rich bunches of green and purple grapes hung from the roof, far out of reach of the tiny yellow hand that could not help stretching itself out towards them; though the hand was sure at last to be satisfied with some delicate-flavored fruit or sweet-scented flower. Indeed, in the long monotonous leisure of that great country-house, you may be sure there was always some one who had nothing better to do than to play with Tina. So that the little southern bird had its northern nest lined with tenderness, and caresses, and pretty things. A loving sensi¬ tive nature was too likely, under such nurture, to have its susceptibility heightened into unfitness for an encounter with any harder experience ; all the more, because there were gleams of fierce resistance to any discipline that had a harsh or unlov¬ ing aspect. For the only thing in which Caterina showed any precocity was a certain ingenuity in vindictiveness. When she was five years old she had revenged herself for an unpleas¬ ant prohibition by pouring the ink into Mrs. Sharp’s work- basket ; and once, when Lad} 7 Cheverel took her doll from her, because she was affectionately licking the paint off its face, the little minx straightway climbed on a chair and threw down a flower-vase that stood on a bracket. This was almost the only instance in which her anger overcame her awe of Lady Cheverel, who had the ascendancy always belonging to kind¬ ness that never melts into caresses, and is severely but uni¬ formly beneficent. By-and by the happy monotony of Cheverel Manor was MR. GrILFIJ/S LOVE-STORY. 127 broken in upon iD the way Mr. Warren had announced. The roads through the park were cut up by wagons carrying loads of stone from a neighboring quarry, the green courtyard be¬ came dusty with lime, and the peaceful house rang with the sound of tools. For the next ten years Sir Christopher was occupied with the architectural metamorphosis of his old family mansion ; thus anticipating, through the prompting of his individual taste, that general reaction from the insipid imitation of the Palladian style, towards a restoration of the Gothic, which marked the close of the eighteenth century. This was the object he had set his heart on, with a singleness of determination which was regarded with not a little con¬ tempt by his fox-hunting neighbors, who wondered greatly that a man with some of the best blood in England in his veins, should be mean enough to economize in his cellar, and reduce his stud to two old coach-horses and a hack, for the sake of riding a hobby, and playing the architect. Their wives did not see so much to blame in the matter of the cellar and stables, but they were eloquent in pity for poor Lady Cheverel, who had to live in no more than three rooms at once, and who must be distracted with noises, and have her constitution undermined by unhealthy smells. It was as bad as having a husband with an asthma. Why did not Sir Christopher take a house for her at Bath, or, at least, if he must spend his time in overlooking workmen, somewhere in the neighborhood of the Manor ? This pity was quite gratui¬ tous, as the most plentiful pity always is; for though Lady Cheverel did not share her husband’s architectural enthusiasm, she had too rigorous a view of a wife’s duties, and too pro¬ found a deference for Sir Christopher, to regard submission as a grievance. As for Sir Christopher, he was perfectly in¬ different to criticism. “ An obstinate, crotchety man,” said his neighbors. But I, who have seen Cheverel Manor, as he bequeathed it to his heirs, rather attribute that unswerving architectural purpose of his, conceived and carried out through long years of systematic personal exertion, to something of the fervor of genius, as well as inflexibility of will; and in . walking through those rooms, with their splendid ceilings and i'2 8 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. their meagre furniture, which tell how all the spare money had been absorbed before personal comfort was thought of, I have felt that there dwelt in this old English baronet some of that sublime spirit which distinguishes art from luxury, and worships beauty apart from self-indulgence. While Cheverel Manor was growing from ugliness into beauty, Caterina too was growing from a little yellow bantling into a whiter maiden, with no positive beauty indeed, but with a certain light airy grace, which, with her large appeal¬ ing dark eyes, and a voice that, in its low-toned tenderness, recalled the love-notes of the stock-dove, gave her a more than usual charm. Unlike the building, however, Caterina’s devel¬ opment was the result of no systematic or careful appliances. She grew up very much like the primroses, which the gar¬ dener is not sorry to see within his enclosure, but takes no pains to cultivate. Lady Cheverel taught her to read and write, and say her catechism; Mr. Warren, being a good ac¬ countant, gave her lessons in arithmetic, by her ladyship’s desire; and Mrs. Sharp initiated her in all the mysteries of the needle. But, for a long time, there was no thought of giv¬ ing her any more elaborate education. It is very likely that to her dying day Caterina thought the earth stood still, and that the sun and stars moved round it; but so, for the matter of that, did Helen, and Dido, and Desdemona, and Juliet; whence I hope you will not think my Caterina less worthy to be a heroine on that account. The truth is, that, with one excep¬ tion, her only talent lay in loving; and there, it is probable, the most astronomical of women could not have surpassed her. Orphan and protegee though she was, this supreme talent of hers found plenty of exercise at Cheverel Manor, and Caterina had more people to love than many a small lady and gentle¬ man affluent in silver mugs and blood relations. I think the first place in her childish heart was given to Sir Christopher, for little girls are apt to attach themselves to the finest-looking gentleman at hand, especially as he seldom has anything to do with discipline. Next to the Baronet came Dorcas, the merry rosy-cheeked damsel who was Mrs. Sharp’s lieutenant in the nursery, and thus played the part of the raisins in a MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 123 dose of senna. It was a black day for Caterina when Dorcas married the coachman, and went, with a great sense of eleva¬ tion in the world, to preside over a “ public ” in the noisy town of Sloppeter. A little china-box, bearing the motto “ Though lost to sight, to memory dear,” which Dorcas sent her as a remembrance, was among Caterina’s treasures ten years after. The one other exceptional talent, you already guess, was music. When the fact that Caterina had a remarkable ear for music, and a still more remarkable voice, attracted Lady Cheverel’s notice, the discovery w r as very welcome both to her and Sir Christopher. Her musical education became at once an object of interest. Lady Cheverel devoted much time to it; and the rapidity of Tina’s progress surpassing all hopes, an Italian singing-master was engaged, for several years, to spend some months together at Cheverel Manor. This un¬ expected gift made a great alteration in Caterina’s position. After those first years in which little girls are petted like puppies and kittens, there comes a time when it seems less obvious what they can be good for, especially when, like Caterina, they give no particular promise of cleverness or beauty; and it is not surprising that in that uninteresting period there was no particular plan formed as to her future position. She could always help Mrs. Sharp, supposing she were fit for nothing else, as she grew up; but now, this rare gift of song endeared her to Lady Cheverel, who loved music above all things, and it associated her at once with the pleas¬ ures of the drawing-room. Insensibly she came to be re¬ garded as one of the family, and the servants began to under¬ stand that Miss Sarti was to be a lady after all. “ And the raight on’t too,” said Mr. Bates, u for she has n’t the cut of a gell as must work for her bread; she's as nesh an’ dilicate as a paich blossom — welly laike a linnet, wi’ on’y joost body anoof to hold her voice.” But long before Tina had reached this stage of her history, a new era had begun for her, in the arrival of a younger com¬ panion than any she had hitherto known. When she was no more than seven, a ward of Sir Christopher’s a lad of 9 VOL. IV. 130 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. fifteen, Maynard Gilfil by name — began to spend bis vacations at Cheverel Manor, and found there no playfellow so much to his mind as Caterina. Maynard was an affectionate lad, who retained a propensity to white rabbits, pet squirrels, and guinea-pigs, perhaps a little beyond the age at which young gentlemen usually look down on such pleasures as puerile. He was also much given to fishing, and to carpentry, considered as a fine art, without any base view to utility. And in all these pleasures it was his delight to have Caterina as his companion, to call her little pet names, answer her wondering questions, and have her toddling after him as you may have seen a Blenheim spaniel trotting after a large setter. When¬ ever Maynard went back to school, there was a little scene of parting. “ You won’t forget me, Tina, before I come back again ? I shall leave you all the whip-cord we’ve made ; and don’t you let Guinea die. Come, give me a kiss, and promise not to forget me.” As the years wore on, and Maynard passed from school to college, and from a slim lad to a stalwart young man, their companionship in the vacations necessarily took a different form, but it retained a brotherly and sisterly familiarity. With Maynard the boyish affection had insensibly grown into ardent love. Among all the many kinds of first love, that which begins in childish companionship is the strongest and most enduring: when passion comes to unite its force to long affection, love is at its spring-tide. And Maynard Gilfil’s love was of a kind to make him prefer being tormented by Caterina to any pleasure, apart from her, which the most benevolent magician could have devised for him. It is the way with those tall large-limbed men, from Samson downwards. As for Tina, the little minx was perfectly well aware that Maynard was her slave; he was the one person in the world whom she did as she pleased with; and I need not tell you that this was a symptom of her being perfectly heart-whole so far as he was concerned : for a passionate woman’s love is always over¬ shadowed by fear. Maynard Gilfil did not deceive himself in his interpretation MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 131 oi Caterina’s feelings, but he nursed the hope that some time or other she would at least care enough for him to accept his love. So he waited patiently for the day when he might ven¬ ture to say, “ Caterina, I love you! ” You see, he would have been content with very little, being one of those men who pass through life without making the least clamor about them¬ selves ; thinking neither the cut of his coat, nor the flavor of his soup, nor the precise depth of a servant’s bow, at all momen¬ tous. He thought — foolishly enough, as lovers will think — that it was a good augury for him when he came to be domesti¬ cated at Cheverel Manor in the quality of chaplain there, and curate of a neighboring parish ; judging falsely, from his own case, that habit and affection were the likeliest avenues to love. Sir Christopher satisfied several feelings in installing Maynard as chaplain in his house. He liked the old-fashioned dignity of that domestic appendage; he liked his ward’s companion¬ ship; and, as Maynard had some private fortune, he might take life easily in that agreeable home, keeping his hunter, and observing a mild regimen of clerical duty, until the Cum- bermoor living should fall in, when he might be settled for life in the neighborhood of the Manor. “ With Caterina for a wife, too,” Sir Christopher soon began to think; for though the good Baronet was not at all quick to suspect what was un¬ pleasant and opposed to his views of fitness, he was quick to see what would dovetail with his own plans ; and he had first guessed, and then ascertained, by direct inquiry, the state of Maynard’s feelings. He at once leaped to the conclusion that Caterina was of the same mind, or at least would be, when she was old enough. But these were too early days for any¬ thing definite to be said or done. Meanwhile, new circumstances were arising, which, though they made no change in Sir Christopher’s plans and prospects, converted Mr. Gilfil’s hopes into anxieties, and made it clear to him not only that Caterina’s heart was never likely to be his, but that it was given entirely to another. Once or twice in Caterina’s childhood, there had been another boy-visitor at the Manor, younger than Maynard Gilfil — a beautiful boy with brown curls and splendid clothes 132 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. on whom Caterina had looked with shy admiration. This was Anthony Wybrow, the son of Sir Christopher’s younger sister, and chosen heir of Clieverel Manor. The Baronet had sacri¬ ficed a large sum, and even straitened the resources by which he was to carry out his architectural schemes, for the sake of removing the entail from his estate, and making this boy his heir — moved to the step, I am sorry to say, by an implacable quarrel with his elder sister ; for a power of forgiveness was not among Sir Christopher’s virtues. At length, on the death of Anthony’s mother, when he was no longer a curly-headed boy, but a tall young man, with a captain’s commission, Chev- erel Manor became his home too, whenever he was absent from his regiment. Caterina was then a little woman, between six¬ teen and seventeen, and I need not spend many words in ex¬ plaining what you perceive to be the most natural thing in the world. There was little company kept at the Manor, and Captain Wybrow would have been much duller if Caterina had not been there. It was pleasant to pay her attentions — to speak to her in gentle tones, to see her little flutter of pleasure, the blush that just lit up her pale cheek, and the momentary timid glance of her dark eyes, when he praised her singing, leaning at her side over the piano. Pleasant, too, to cut out that chaplain with his large calves ! What idle man can withstand the temptation of a woman to fascinate, and another man to eclipse ? —especially when it is quite clear to himself that he means no mischief, and shall leave everything to come right again by-and-by. At the end of eighteen months, however, during which Captain Wybrow had spent much of his time at the Manor, he found that matters had reached a point which he had not at all contemplated. Gentle tones had led to tender words, and tender words had called forth a response of looks which made it impossible not to carry on the crescendo of love- making. To find one’s self adored by a little, graceful, dark¬ eyed, sweet-singing woman, whom no one need despise, is an agreeable sensation, comparable to smoking the finest Latakia, and also imposes some return of tenderness as a duty. Perhaps you think that Captain Wybrow, who knew that it MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 133 would be ridiculous to dream of bis marrying Caterina, must have been a reckless libertine to win her affections in this manner! Not at all. He was a young man of calm passions, who was rarely led into any conduct of which he could not give a plausible account to himself j and the tiny fragile Caterina was a woman who touched the imagination and the affections rather than the senses. He really felt very kindly towards her, and would very likely have loved her—-if he had been able to love any one. But nature had not endowed him with that capability. She had given him an admirable figure, the whitest of hands, the most delicate of nostrils, and a large amount of serene self-satisfaction; but, as if to save such a delicate piece of work from any risk of being shattered, she had guarded him from the liability to a strong emotion. There was no list of youthful misdemeanors on record against him, and Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel thought him the best of nephews, the most satisfactory of heirs, full of grateful deference to themselves, and, above all things, guided by a sense of duty. Captain Wybrow always did the thing easiest and most agreeable to him from a sense of duty: he dressed expensively, because it was a duty he owed to his position; from a sense of duty he adapted himself to Sir Christopher’s inflexible will, which it would have been troublesome as well as useless to resist; and, being of a delicate constitution, he took care of his health from a sense of duty. His health was the only point on which he gave anxiety to his friends; and it was owing to this that Sir Christopher wished to see his nephew early married, the more so as a match after the Baro¬ net’s own heart appeared immediately attainable. Anthony had seen and admired Miss Assher, the only child of a lady who had been Sir Christopher’s earliest love, but who, as things will happen in this world, had married another baronet instead of him. Miss Assher’s father was now dead, and she was in possession of a pretty estate. If, as was probable, she should prove susceptible to the merits of Anthony’s person and char¬ acter, nothing could make Sir Christopher so happy as to see a marriage which might be expected to secure the inheri¬ tance of Cheverel Manor from getting into the wrong hands. 134 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. Anthony had already been kindly received by Lady Assher as the nephew of her early friend ; why should he not go to Bath, where she and her daughter were then residing, follow up the acquaintance, and win a handsome, well-boi . and suffi¬ ciently wealthy bride ? Sir Christopher’s wishes were communicated to his nephew, who at once intimated his willingness to comply with them — from a sense of duty. Caterina was tenderly informed by her lover of the sacrifice demanded from them both; and three days afterwards occurred the parting scene you have witnessed in the gallery, on the eve of Captain Wybrow’s departure for Bath. ♦ CHAPTER V. The inexorable ticking of the clock is like the throb of pain to sensations made keen by a sickening fear. And so it is with the great clockwork of nature. Daisies and buttercups give way to the brown waving grasses, tinged with the warm red sorrel; the waving grasses are swept away, and the mead¬ ows lie like emeralds set in the bushy hedgerows; the tawny- tipped corn begins to bow with the weight of the full ear; the reapers are bending amongst it, and it soon stands in sheaves; then, presently, the patches of yellow stubble lie side by side ?ith streaks of dark-red earth, which the plough is turning up m preparation for the new-thrashed seed. And this passage from beauty to beauty, which to the happy is like the flow of a melody, measures for many a human hea. j the approach of foreseen anguish —• seems hurrying on the moment when the shadow of dread will be followed up by the reality of despair. How cruelly hasty that summer of 1788 seemed to Caterina! Surely the roses vanished earlier and the berries on the moun¬ tain-ash were more impatient to redden, anil bring on the autumn, when she would b n * ?.oe to face with her misery, and MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 13£ witness Anthony giving all his gentle tones, tender words, and soft looks to another. Before the end of July, Captain Wybrow had written word that Lady Assher and her daughter were about to fly from the heat and gayety of Bath to the shady quiet of their place at Farleigh, and that he was invited to join the party there. His letters implied that he was on an excellent footing with both the .adies, and gave no hint of a rival; so that Sir Chris¬ topher was more than usually bright and cheerful after read¬ ing them. At length, towards the close of August, came the announcement that Captain Wybrow was an accepted lover, and after much complimentary and congratulatory correspon¬ dence between the two families, it was understood that in Sep¬ tember Lady Assher and her daughter would pay a visit to Cheverel Manor, when Beatrice would make the acquaintance of her future relatives, and all needful arrangements could be discussed. Captain Wybrow would remain at Farleigh till then, and accompany the ladies on their journey. In the interval, every one at Cheverel Manor had something to do by way of preparing for the visitors. Sir Christopher was occupied in consultations with his steward and lawyer, and in giving orders to every one else, especially in spurring on Francesco to finish the saloon. Mr. Gfilfil had the respon¬ sibility of procuring a lady’s horse, Miss Assher being a great rider. Lady Cheverel had unwonted calls to make and invita¬ tions to deliver. Mr. Bates’s turf, and gravel, and flower-beds were always at such a point of neatness and finish that noth¬ ing extraordinary could be done in the garden, except a little extraordinary scolding of the under-gardener, and this addition Mr. Bates did not neglect. Happily for Caterina, she too had her task, to fill up the long dreary daytime: it was to finish a chair-cushion which would complete the set of embroidered covers for the drawing¬ room, Lady Cheverel’s year long work, and the only noteworthy bit of furniture in the Manor. Over this embroidery she sat with cold lips and a palpitating heart, thankful that this mis erable sensation throughout the daytime seemed to counteract the tendency to tears which returned with night and solitude 136 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. She was most frightened when Sir Christopher approached her. The Baronet’s eye was brighter and his step more elas¬ tic than ever, and it seemed to him that only the most leaden or churlish souls could be otherwise than brisk and exult¬ ing in a world where everything went so well. Dear old gentleman ! he had gone through life a little flushed with the power of his will, and now his latest plan was succeeding, and Cheverel Manor would be inherited by a grand-nephew, whom he might even yet live to see a fine young fellow with at least the down on his chin. Why not ? one is still young at sixty. Sir Christopher had always something playful to say to Caterina. “ Now, little monkey, you must be in your best voice; you ’re the minstrel of the Manor, you know, and be sure you have a pretty gown and a new ribbon. You must not be dressed in russet, though you are a singing-bird.” Or perhaps, “ It is your turn to be courted next, Tina. But don’t you learn any naughty proud airs. I must have Maynard let off easily.” Caterina’s affection for the old Baronet helped her to sum¬ mon up a smile as he stroked her cheek and looked at her kindly, but that was the moment at which she felt it most difficult not to burst out crying. Lady Cheverel’s conversa¬ tion and presence were less trying; for her ladyship felt no more than calm satisfaction in this family event; and besides, she was further sobered by a little jealousy at Sir Christo¬ pher’s anticipation of pleasure in seeing Lady Assher, en¬ shrined in his memory as a mild-eyed beauty of sixteen, with whom he had exchanged locks before he went on his first travels. Lady Cheverel would have died rather than confess it, but she could n’t help hoping that he would be disappointed in Lady Assher, and rather ashamed of having called her so charming. Mr. Gilfil watched Caterina through these days with mixed feelings. Her suffering went to his heart; but, even for her sake, he was glad that a love which could never come to good should be no longer fed by false hopes; and how could he help saying to himself, “ Perhaps, after a while, Caterina 18 ,? MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. will be tired of fretting about that cold-hearted puppy, and then — ” At length the much-expected day arrived, and the brightest of September suns was lighting up the yellowing lime-trees, as about five o’clock Lady Assher’s carriage drove under the por¬ tico. Caterina, seated at work in her own room, heard the rolling of the wheels, followed presently by the opening and shutting of doors, and the sound of voices in the corridors. Remembering that the dinner-hour was six, and that Lady Cheverel had desired her to be in the drawing-room early, she started up to dress, and was delighted to find herself feeling suddenly brave and strong. Curiosity to see Miss Assher — the thought that Anthony was in the house — the wish not to look unattractive, were feelings that brought some color to her lips, and made it easy to attend to her toilet. They would ask her to sing this evening, and she would sing well. Miss Assher should not think her utterly insignificant. So she put on her gray silk gown and her cherry-colored ribbon with as much care as if she had been herself the betrothed; not forgetting the pair of round pearl earrings which Sir Christopher had told Lady Cheverel to give her, because Tina’s little ears were so pretty. Quick as she had been, she found Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel in the drawing-room chatting with Mr. Gilfil, and telling him how handsome Miss Assher was, but how entirely unlike her mother — apparently resembling her father only. “ Aha ! ” said Sir Christopher, as he turned to look at Cater¬ ina, “ what do you think of this, Maynard ? Did you ever see Tina look so pretty before ? Why, that little gray gown has been made out of a bit of my lady’s, has n’t it ? It does n’t take anything much larger than a pocket-handkerchief to dress the little monkey.” Lady Cheverel, too, serenely radiant in the assurance a sin¬ gle glance had given her of Lady Assher’s inferiority, smiled approval, and Caterina was in one of those moods of self-pos¬ session and indifference which come as the ebb-tide between the struggles of passion. She retired to the piano, and busied berself with arranging her music, not at all insensible to the 138 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. pleasure of being looked at with admiration the while, and thinking that, the next time the door opened, Captain Wybrow would enter, and she would speak to him quite cheerfully. But when she heard him come in, and the scent of roses floated towards her, her heart gave one great leap. She knew nothing till he was pressing her hand, and saying, in the old easy way, “ Well, Caterina, how do you do ? You look quite blooming.” She felt her cheeks reddening with anger that he could speak and look with such perfect nonchalance. Ah! he was too deeply in love with some one else to remember anything he had felt for her. But the next moment she was conscious of her folly ; — ee as if he could show any feeling then! ” This conflict of emotions stretched into a long interval the few mo¬ ments that elapsed before the door opened again, and her own attention, as well as that of all the rest, was absorbed by the entrance of the two ladies. The daughter was the more striking, from the contrast she pre¬ sented to her mother, a round-shouldered, middle-sized woman, who had once had the transient pink-and-white beauty of a blonde, with ill-defined features and early embonpoint. Miss Assher was tall, and gracefully though substantially formed, carrying herself with an air of mingled graciousness and self-confidence; her dark-brown hair, untouched by powder, hanging in bushy curls round her face, and falling behind in long thick ringlets nearly to her waist. The brilliant carmine tint of her well-rounded cheeks, and the finely cut outline of her straight nose, produced an impression of splendid beauty, in spite of common-place brown eyes, a narrow forehead, and thin lips. She was in mourning, and the dead black of her crape dress, relieved here and there by jet ornaments, gave the fullest effect to her complexion, and to the rounded whiteness of her arms, bare from the elbow. The first coup d'ocil was dazzling, and as she stood looking down with a gracious smile on Caterina, whom Lady Cheverel was presenting to her, the poor little thing seemed to herself to feel, for the first time, all the folly of her former dream. “ We are enchanted with your place, Sir Christopher,” said Lady Assher, with a feeble kind of pompousness, which she MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. 139 seemed to be copying from some one else; “ I’m sure your nephew must have thought Farleigh wretchedly out of order. Poor Sir John was so very careless about keeping up the house and grounds. I often talked to him about it, but he said, ‘ Pooh, pooh! as long as my friends find a good dinner and a good bottle of wine, they won’t care about my ceilings being rather smoky.’ He was so very hospitable, was Sir John.” “ I think the view of the house from the park, just after we passed the bridge, particularly fine,” said Miss Assher, inter¬ posing rather eagerly, as if she feared her mother might be making infelicitous speeches, “and the pleasure of the first glimpse was all the greater because Anthony would describe nothing to us beforehand. He would not spoil our first im¬ pressions by raising false ideas. I long to go over the house, Sir Christopher, and learn the history of all your architectural designs, which Anthony says have cost you so much time and study.” “ Take care how you set an old man talking about the past, my dear,” said the Baronet; “ I hope we shall find something pleasanter for you to do than turning over my old plans and pic¬ tures. Our friend Mr. Gilfil here has found a beautiful mare for you, and you can scour the country to your heart’s content. Anthony has sent us word what a horsewoman you are.” Miss Assher turned to Mr. Gilfil with her most beaming smile, and expressed her thanks with the elaborate gracious¬ ness of a person who means to be thought charming, and is sure of success. “Pray do not thank me,” said Mr. Gilfil, “till you have tried the mare. She has been ridden by Lady Sara Linter for the last two years; but one lady’s taste may not be like another’s in horses, any more than in ether matters.” While this conversation was passing, Captain Wybrow was leaning against the mantel-piece, contenting himself with re¬ sponding from under his indolent eyelids to the glances Miss Assher was constantly directing towards him as she spoke. “ She is very much in love with him,” thought Caterina. But she was relieved that Anthony remained passive in his atten¬ tions. She thought, too, that he was looking paler and more 140 SCENES OP CLERICAL LIFE. languid than usual. “ If he did n’t love her very much — H he sometimes thought of the past with regret, I think I could bear it all, and be glad to see Sir Christopher made happy.” During dinner there was a little incident which confirmed these thoughts. When the sweets were on the table, there was a mould of jelly just opposite Captain Wybrow, and being inclined to take some himself, he first invited Miss Assher, who colored, and said, in rather a sharper key than usual, “ Have you not learned by this time that I never take jelly?” “Don’t you?” said Captain Wybrow, whose perceptions were not acute enough for him to notice the difference of a semitone. “ I should have thought you were fond of it. There was always some on the table at Farleigh, I think.” u You don’t seem to take much interest in my likes and dislikes.” “ Itoo much possessed by the happy thought that you like me,” was the ex officio reply, in silvery tones. This little episode was unnoticed by every one but Caterina. Sir Christopher was listening with polite attention to Lady Assher’s history of her last man-cook, who was first-rate at gravies, and for that reason pleased Sir John — he was so particular about his gravies, was Sir John : and so they kept the man six years in spite of his bad pastry. Lady Cheverel and Mr. Gilfil were smiling at Rupert the bloodhound, who had pushed his great head under his master’s arm, and was taking a survey of the dishes, after snuffing at the contents of the Baronet’s plate. When the ladies were in the drawing-room again, Lady Assher was soon deep in a statement to Lady Cheverel of her views about burying people in woollen. “To be sure, you must have a woollen dress, because it’s the law, you know; but that need hinder no one from putting linen underneath. I always used to say, ‘ If Sir John died to-morrow, I would bury him in his shirt; ’ and I did. And let me advise you to do so by Sir Christopher. You never saw Sir John, Lady Cheverel. He wus a large tall man, with a nose just like Beatrice, and so ^v ©articular about his shirts.” MR. GILFIL’S LOVE-STORY. W Miss Assher, meanwhile, had seated herself by Caterina, and, with that smiling affability which seems to say, “ I am really not at all proud, though you might expect it of me/ 5 said — u Anthony tells me you sing so very beautifully. I hope we shall hear you this evening.” “ Oh yes/ 5 said Caterina, quietly, without smiling; “ I al¬ ways sing when I am wanted to sing. 55 “ I envy you such a charming talent. Do you know, I have no ear; I cannot hum the smallest tune, and I delight in music so. Is it not unfortunate ? But I shall have quite a treat while I am here ; Captain Wybrow says you will give us some music every day. 55 “I should have thought you wouldn’t care about music if you had no ear,” said Caterina, becoming epigrammatic by force of grave simplicity. “ Oh, I assure you, I dote on it; and Anthony is so fond of it; it would be so delightful if I could play and sing to him ; though he says he likes me best not to sing, because it does n’t belong to his idea of me. What style of music do you like best ? ” “ I don’t know. I like all beautiful music.” “ And are you as fond of riding as of ?nusic ? ” “ No ; I never ride. I think I should be very frightened.” " Oh no ! indeed you would not, after a little practice. I have never been in the least timid. I think Anthony is more afraid for me than I am for myself; and since I have been riding with him, I have been obliged to be more careful, be¬ cause he is so nervous about me.” Caterina made no reply; but she said to herself, “ I wish she would go away and not talk to me. She only wants me to admire her good-nature, and to talk about Anthony.” Miss Assher was thinking at the same time, “ This Miss Sarti seems a stupid little thing. Those musical people often are. But she is prettier than I expected; Anthony said she was not pretty.” Happily at this moment Lady Assher called her daughter’s attention to the embroidered cushions, and Miss Assher, walk- 142 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. ing to the opposite sofa, was soon in conversation with Lady Cheverel about tapestry and embroidery in general, while her mother, feeling herself superseded there, came and placed her- self beside Caterina. “ I hear you are the most beautiful singer/’ was of course the opening remark. “ All Italians sing so beautifully. I travelled in Italy with Sir John when we were first married, and we went to Venice, where they go about in gondolas, you know. You don’t wear powder, I see. No more will Beatrice; though many people think her curls would look all the better for powder. She has so much hair, has n’t she ? Our last toaid dressed it much better than this ; but, do you know, she wore Beatrice’s stockings before they went to the wash, and we could n’t keep her after that, could we ? ” Caterina, accepting the question as a mere bit of rhetorical effect, thought it superfluous to reply, till Lady Assher re¬ peated, “ Could we, now ? ” as if Tina’s sanction were essential to her repose of mind. After a faint “ No,” she went on. “ Maids are so very troublesome, and Beatrice is so particu¬ lar, you can’t imagine. I often say to her, ‘My dear, you can’t have perfection.’ That very gown she has on — to be sure, it fits her beautifully now — but it has been unmade and made up again twice. But she is like poor Sir John — he was so very particular about his own things, was Sir John. Is Lady Cheverel particular?” “ Rather. But Mrs. Sharp has been her maid twenty years.” “ I wish there was any chance of our keeping Griffin twenty years. But I am afraid we shall have to part with her because her health is so delicate; and she is so obstinate, she will not take bitters as I want her. You look delicate, now. Let me recommend you to take camomile tea in a morning, fasting. Beatrice is so strong and healthy, she never takes any medi¬ cine ; but if I had had twenty girls, and they had been delicate, I should have given them all camomile tea. It strengthens the constitution beyond anything. Now, will you promise me to take camomile tea ? ”