Part 3

This admirable house, in the centre of the town, gabled, elaborately timbered, and much restored, is a really imposing monument. The basement is occupied by a linen-draper, who flourishes under the auspicious sign of the Mere de Famille; and above her shop the tall front rises in five overhanging stories. As the house occupies the angle of a little _place_, the front is double, and carved and interlaced, has a high picturesqueness. The Maison d'Adam is quite in the grand style, and I am sorry to say I failed to learn what history attaches to its name.

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I remember going around to the church, after I had left the good sisters, and to a little quiet terrace, which stands in front of it, ornamented with a few small trees and bordered with a wall, breast high, over which you look down steep hillsides, off into the air, and all about the neighboring country. I remember saying to myself that this little terrace was one of those felicitous nooks which the tourist of taste keeps in his mind as a picture.

HENRY JAMES, _A Little Tour in France._

A COUNTRY TOWN

THEY wake you early in this hilly town. It was hardly light this morning when up and down through all its highways went a vigorous drum beat. Reluctantly peeking from the window to see the troops enter our square I was disappointed to find that one regimental drummer, marching unaccompanied and lonely, had done all this mischief. What useful purpose did he serve? After a brief respite and repose the noise of another commotion came in with the morning air; a murmur which grew and became a chatter and at last a din! The next journey to the window showed that the morning market was in full swing. Piles of fresh greens and rich-colored vegetables were tended by gnarled old peasant women sitting under widespread umbrellas of faded colors. But what a pleasant air it was that came through the opened sash; a mountain air with just that faint flavor of garlic tinging it which presages something satisfying to be found later. Strengthened for a time by our coffee and rolls we wandered through these winding streets. We saw the weather-beaten, leaden fleche of the cathedral high on the hill, but for the time were satisfied to study the many ancient houses which still remain. Their fronts framed in dark oak with a filling of amber-colored plaster topple over the public ways until they almost meet. Here and there the oak beams are carved, and grinning man or snarling monster regards you from corbel or boss. In places too there are bits of old Gothic detail and one doorway of true Flamboyant work. There is the true poetry of architecture! In England the Decorated Period gives you what is handsome, the Perpendicular what is stately. In France the cathedrals of Paris and of Rheims are splendidly serious and correct; but if in Gothic work you seek imaginative, unrestrained, carelessly free poetry it is to be found in the flowing lines and exuberant fancy of the work of the Flamboyant period.

We found much needed restoration in the hors-d'oeuvres, the omelette, the cutlet, the salads and the cheese of dejeuner,--and then followed coffee under the awning of the cafe. Here we looked out on the Grand Place which had now become sleepy, all signs of the market and its business having disappeared. On it front the Mairie, the Bureau des Postes, the Hotel du Lion d'Or and various centres of local commerce. We watched our neighbors in the cafe; the colonel with clanking sword in vigorous discussion with a local magnate; the retired bourgeois who played a desultory game of billiards or a deeply thought out match at dominoes. A quiet square it was now, and, in the shade of its plane trees, comfortable and at peace with the world, we fell asleep and made up for the wakefulness of our earlier hours.

ROBERTS, _Letters from France._

OUR LADY OF THE ROCKS

HIGH throned above th' encircling meadows fair Our Lady of the Rocks holds queenly sway! Bright kerchiefed peasants daily wend their way With clattering sabots up the winding stair, Pausing at each rude rock-hewn station, there To bend the knee and many an Ave say. Up, up they climb, their voices echoing gay Till by the Virgin's shrine they kneel in prayer.

This is that "Jacob's Ladder" famed afar To which the Kings of France made pilgrimage Asking for favors both in Peace and War. Well named!--for Heavenwards the way is tending, And all these happy, pious folk presage Angels of God ascending and descending. H. L. P.

BUT, when so sad thou canst no sadder, Cry, and upon thy so sore loss Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder Pitched between heaven and Charing Cross.

So in the night my soul, my daughter, Cry, clinging heaven by the hems, And lo! Christ walking on the water Not of Gennesaret but Thames. FRANCIS THOMPSON.

OFT have I seen at some cathedral door A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er; Far off the noises of the world retreat; The loud vociferations of the street Become an undistinguishable roar. So as I enter here from day to day, And leave my burden at this minster gate, Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, The tumult of the time disconsolate To inarticulate murmurs dies away, While the eternal ages watch and wait.

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers! This crowd of statues, on whose folded sleeves Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers! But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves, And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers! Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain, What exultations trampling on despair, What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, What passionate outcry of the soul in pain Uprose this poem of the earth and air, This mediaeval miracle of song! H. W. LONGFELLOW.

THE CATHEDRAL

LOOKING up suddenly, I found mine eyes Confronted with the minster's vast repose. Silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff Left inland by the ocean's slow retreat.

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It rose before me, patiently remote From the great tides of life it breasted once, Hearing the noise of men as in a dream I stood before the triple northern port, Where dedicated shapes of saints and kings, Stern faces bleared with immemorial watch, Looked down benignly grave and seemed to say, _Ye come and go incessant; we remain Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past; Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, Of faith so nobly realized as this._ JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

CHARTRES

ALL day the sky had been banked with thunderclouds, but by the time we reached Chartres, toward four o'clock, they had rolled away under the horizon, and the town was so saturated with sunlight that to pass into the cathedral was like entering the dense obscurity of a church in Spain. At first all detail was imperceptible: we were in a hollow night. Then, as the shadows gradually thinned and gathered themselves up into pier and vault and ribbing, there burst out of them great sheets and showers of color. Framed by such depths of darkness, and steeped in a blaze of mid-summer sun, the familiar windows seemed singularly remote and yet overpoweringly vivid. Now they widened into dark-shored pools splashed with sunset, now glittered and menaced like the shields of fighting angels. Some were cataracts of sapphires, others roses dropped from a saint's tunic, others great carven platters strewn with heavenly regalia, others the sails of galleons bound for the Purple Islands; and in the western wall the scattered fires of the rose window hung like a constellation in an African night. When one dropped one's eyes from these ethereal harmonies, the dark masses of masonry below them, all veiled and muffled in a mist pricked by a few altar lights, seemed to symbolize the life on earth, with its shadows, its heavy distances and its little islands of illusions. All that a great cathedral can be, all the meanings it can express, all the tranquillizing power it can breathe upon the soul, all the richness of detail it can fuse into a large utterance of strength and beauty, the cathedral of Chartres gave us in that perfect hour.

EDITH WHARTON, _Fighting France._

AT HIGH MASS

THOU Who hast made this world so wondrous fair;-- The pomp of clouds; the glory of the sea; Music of water; songbirds' melody; The organ of Thy thunder in the air; Breath of the rose; and beauty everywhere-- Lord, take this stately service done to Thee, The grave enactment of Thy Calvary In jewelled pomp and splendor pictured there!

Lord, take the sounds and sights; the silk and gold; The white and scarlet; take the reverent grace Of ordered step; window and glowing wall-- Prophet and Prelate, holy men of old; And teach us children of the Holy Place Who love Thy Courts, to love Thee best of all. ROBERT HUGH BENSON.

THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE

ALL else for which the builders sacrificed, has passed away--all their living interests, and aims, and achievements. We know not for what they labored, and we see no evidence of their reward. Victory, wealth, authority, happiness--all have departed, though bought by many a bitter sacrifice. But of them, and their life and their toil upon the earth, one reward, one evidence, is left to us in those gray heaps of deep-wrought stone. They have taken with them to the grave their powers, their honors, and their errors; but they have left us their adoration.

JOHN RUSKIN.

HUNTING THE STAG

WE spent yesterday in the Foret de C----. As the Emperor had guests we were not admitted at the Chateau, but we tramped for long through the woods. The grassy roads run beneath the embowering beeches straight from carrefour to carrefour. The gnarled and twisted trunks give to each tree a personal character and make it a master-piece of Nature. Of a sudden we came on the Imperial hunt winding in gay procession through the forest to its rendezvous. Hunting horns in triple rings of brass encircled the leading horsemen. From time to time we heard from them the familiar strains which echo through the Latin Quarter at Mi-Careme. Then followed in brilliant liveries a troop of lackeys, grooms, and other servants, and the pack of staghounds held in leash but sniffing and yelping. Next came the hunters themselves on high-bred mounts and in court costumes of ancient design. Lastly there were barouches and landaus carrying the ladies of the Court "en grande tenue." The sunlight flickering through the beech branches enlivened this brilliant train as it wound through the forest glades and disappeared down a green allee.

We had continued our walk for scarce a mile when, but a short distance from us, a stag crossed our path--stood startled--with head erect,--and then with confident leaps vanished in the forest just as the distant hounds became aware of him and joined in a wild chorus. In a few moments the pack came in a rush across our path. Up the different allees rode the horsemen in haste--asking of us news of the stag. We on foot joined in the pursuit,--but at last the forest swallowed one after the other, stag, and hounds, and hunters, and the sound of dog and horn.

On leaving the forest we passed the small Chateau. Its conical turret roofs and lofty chimneys, and its flashing finials and girouettes make a brave show above the forest trees. The terraces overlook wide meadow lands through which the river winds until it is lost in the hazy distance.

ROBERTS, _Letters from France._

CLOTILDE

IN Geraudun were brothers three, They had one sister dear; The cruel Baron her lord must be, And the fellest and fiercest knight is he In the country far or near.

He beat that lovely lady sore With a staff of the apple green, Till her blood flowed down on the castle floor, And from head to foot the crimson gore On her milk-white robe was seen.

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Her robe was stained with the ruby tide Once pure as the fleece so white; And she hied her to the river-side To wash in the waters bright.

While there she stood three knights so gay Came riding bold and free. "Ho! tell us young serving maiden, pray Where yon castle's lady may be?"

"Alas! no serving maid am I, But the lady of yonder castle high!"

"O sister, sister, truly tell Who did this wrong to thee?"

"Dear brothers it was the husband fell To whom you married me."

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The brothers spurred their steeds in haste And the castle soon they gained. From chamber to chamber they swiftly passed Nor paused till they reached the tower at last Where the felon knight remained:

They drew their swords so sharp and bright They thought on their sister sweet; They struck together the felon knight, And his head rolled at their feet! _Translated by_ LOUIS S. COSTELLO.

AEGINASSOS

THE ISLES OF GREECE

THE isles of Greece! The isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung,-- Where grew the arts of war and peace,-- Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet But all, except their sun, is set. BYRON.

THE ODYSSEY

AS one that for a weary space has lain Lull'd by the song of Circe and her wine In gardens near the pale of Proserpine, Where the AEgean isle forgets the main, And only the low lutes of love complain, And only shadows of wan lovers pine,-- As such an one were glad to know the brine Salt on his lips, and the large air again,-- So gladly from the songs of modern speech Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers, And through the music of the languid hours They hear, like Ocean on a western beach, The surge and thunder of the Odyssey. ANDREW LANG.

ULYSSES

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THERE lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail; There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me-- That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honor and his toil; Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the paths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. ALFRED TENNYSON.

The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A

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Transcriber's Notes:

Text uses both Aeginossis and AEginassos.

Page 25, "Leornardesquely" changed to "Leonardesquely" (Leonardesquely perfect, of)

Page 65, "hors-oeuvres" changed to "hors d'oeuvres" (in the hors-d'oeuvres)

Page 65, "d'ejeuner" changed to "dejeuner" (cheese of dejeuner)

Page 90, "AEaean" changed to "AEgean" (the AEgean isle)

End of Project Gutenberg's Hospital Sketches, by Robert Swain Peabody