Chapter 17

"Go to the dormitory, you good-for-nothing, and find out on dry bread that a noun's a name of anything, like helefunt, hantelope, heagle, 'and, 'eart, ighway."

Miss Sally, with furtive eyes and sly movements, always reminded us by her speech of the _ci-devant_ butcher we once saw in London, who assured us he was "heducated at Hoxford."

The refectory had a sunken stone floor, and bare walls enclosing space enough to feed a hundred monks. It was principally used for drying clothes in wet weather and for storage of trunks and rough objects. At one end, where were fewest signs of volcanic upheaval or the passing of centuries of busy feet, stood always the table at which the pupils took their scanty fare. No white cloth ever covered this banqueting-board. In the daytime it was draped in a coarse green baize spotted with ink and grease. The pupils feasted upon this cloth, each with coarse mug and plate; at night it was removed to serve as cover for one of the beds! Once upon a time came an unexpected cold snap in the very heart of the soft Warwickshire summer. The sheets and blankets upon our beds, as also the silver and linen of our private table, were all marked with the pupils' names,--the school prospectus announcing that both linen and silver must come with each pupil. The supply of blankets, however, proved insufficient for such unseasonable weather, and, like Oliver Twist, we asked for "more."

"More" came.

And what, think you, was that "more"?

Nothing more nor less than that self-same inky and buttery baize, which we indignantly rejected, equally for our own sake as for the sake of those hapless girls shivering in their defrauded bed that we might be warm.

At Dothegirls Hall pupils were "taken in and done for," fed, lodged, taught, for twenty pounds--or _one hundred dollars_--a year. The luxury of bare comfort could scarcely be expected for that price. Yet Miss Sally must have made profit out of her starvelings, or Dothegirls Hall would not have existed. We always observed that a certain punishment was the usual one for every offence that children are likely to commit. Almost never a day that we did not hear low moanings from one or both of the dormitories, and thus knew that one, sometimes two or three, were incarcerated there "on dry bread" for twenty-four hours.

Once we questioned a victim, our interrogation-points assuming the shape of huge wedges of bread and jam.

"We are sent here on dry bread for missing our lessons, for having our shoes untied, for saying 'Yes' instead of 'Yes, Miss Sally,' for everything we do. I am sometimes three days of the week on dry bread."

"Why don't you write to your papa?" blurted a young American of wrathful turkey-cock aspect.

"Oh, I never had any papa," answered the poor child simply, "and I don't know where mamma lives."

Alas! this innocent remark expressed volumes. We knew that most of the poor creatures "had no papa and didn't know where mamma lived," that they were mere jetsam and flotsam thrown up on this quiet shore from the waves of the great ocean of London and forgotten by all the world save those whose business it was to pay and to receive the twenty pounds a year which was their sole importance.

Of course the best of St. John's belonged to the lodgers, and the best was delightful to tastes that prefer picturesqueness with moderate comfort to smug and dapper luxury. Miss Betsy did our cooking, the school-girls waited upon our table, the boys blacked our boots, "Mam'zel," the French governess from Kilkenny, made our beds when there was no servant, as often happened, birds nested in the ivy of our latticed windows, bees floated up from the fragrant meadows below to hum us to our afternoon naps, and our table-cloth we shook every day ourselves, having a deep purpose in refusing to allow it to be shaken by other hands.

It somehow always happened that the children's recess coincided with that white fluttering from our diamonded window.

One day, when we first came to St. John's, we heard two quiet whispers at the ivy's roots:

"Sometimes um shakes out bread-'n'-butter."

"'N' sometimes um shakes out _tart_!"

"O-o-o!" answered the first whisper. "_Tart?_ Truly _tart_?"

"Bet yer heye! One day I hadn't had nothink to heat all day, an' I was a-'idin' 'ere, 'cos Miss Sally howed me a trouncin'. I were just a-starvin'; an' I said to myself, 'Good Lord, don't I jest wish I had a-somethin' to heat!' Jest then, bang came a great piece o' goose-berry tart right on to my 'ead!"

"_Tart!_" murmured the first whisper, in utter amazement. "_Tart!_ Do ye s'pose we could get some more?"

"Let's see."

Then we conspirators above heard thick-toned mumble among the leaves,--

"Wishy, wishy, wishy wee, Wishy send some tart to me."

Fat little American legs flashed to the pantry.

Fat little American legs flashed back again.

Next instant came delighted cackle from among the ivy-roots:

"Blazes! Ef 'tain't _Tart an'_ CAKE!"

M. W. B.

The Art of Modern Novel-Writing.

OLD STYLE.

"Do you always choose such an early hour as this for your daily rambles?" he asked.

"Not always," she said, "but very often."

"And is it because the freshness of the morning tempts you out, or because you like to be alone?"

"I rather think it is because I like to be alone."

"Then for once you have failed of your object. But let me at least plead that I have sinned in ignorance." And he held out his hand, with a laugh.

NEW STYLE.

He watched her for a moment in silence, wondering curiously whether the faint increase of color in her face was due to his unexpected appearance. When he spoke at last, there was a certain constraint in voice and manner, as though back of his apparent cordiality there lurked sundry misgivings as to the wisdom of his present course, and a sense of irritation at the failure of his own nature to grasp completely the subtile organization of his companion. "Do you always choose such an early hour as this for your daily rambles?" he asked, studying with a half-tender scrutiny the irregular, sensitive face before him.

The girl faltered, and raised her eyes to meet his glance. They were strange, light eyes,--not beautiful, but very rare in their peculiar tint of green-gray glass. They looked straight before them, brilliant and baffling. "Not always," she said, with lingering emphasis, "but very often."

Her voice was clear and sweet, though it lacked the cultivated modulations of other tones he knew and loved. There was something in its cadences that recalled to him the flute-notes of the English white-throat, a melody that attracts only to disappoint. He smiled softly at her transparent reticence, and followed up his question. "Is it because the freshness of the morning tempts you out?" he said. "Or"--dropping his voice with sudden meaning--"is it because you like to be alone?"

She hesitated, as though seeking some form of words that would negatively express what was passing in her mind, yet not give her thoughts too clear a reading. There was a touch both of defiance and of expectation in the quick turn of her head and the gleam of her half-shut eyes. "I rather think it is because I like to be alone," she said, at length.

He bowed slightly, and his face, accustomed to alter its expression with facile ease, assumed a look of well-bred regret, tempered with the faintest tinge of amusement. "Then for once you have failed of your object," he whispered apologetically. "But let me at least plead"--here the amused expression deepened, and a gleam of malice brightened his keen eyes--"let me at least plead that I have sinned in ignorance."

A. R.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

"Two Years in the Jungle. The Experiences of a Hunter and Naturalist in India, Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula, and Borneo." By William T. Hornaday. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

The author of this book, who is now chief taxidermist of the National Museum, was sent out in 1876 to the countries enumerated on the title-page as collector for Professor Ward's "Natural Science Establishment" at Rochester. His skill and deftness in preparing skins and skeletons for mounting were, as we are led to suppose, what specially qualified him for this mission; but if he had not possessed, in addition, many characteristics less common, perhaps, but more generally attractive, he could hardly have executed it with the same facility and completeness, still less have found in it matter for this thoroughly entertaining narrative. His ardor as a sportsman and a naturalist seems to have sprung from a stronger, independent love of "wild life," an instinctive preference for the haunts and habits of uncivilized races, apart from the pursuits for which they give scope. This may be thought to argue ignoble tastes; but the reverse conclusion would be more correct. Mr. Hornaday is a believer in the "gentle savage." The Dyak seems to him "the model man," not on account of his defects, which are few, but of his virtues, which are many. He is manly, truthful, honest, chaste, and even when drunk--which happens only on rare festive occasions and is a result of his intercourse with "the rascally Chinaman"--is perfectly decorous, and, as our author was assured, would never "dream of violating the laws of decency and good temper." For the Hindu, on the other hand, as an entirely conventional and artificial creature, obsequious, hypocritical, inhospitable, disdainful of the race on whom he fawns and before whom he trembles as "unclean," Mr. Hornaday has no other feeling than aversion and contempt. He gives an amusing account of his indignation on finding that a vessel from which he had drunk was regarded by a "ghee-seller" as "defiled." "I was strongly tempted," he writes, "to knock his ghee-pots about his ears, take thirty rupees' worth of satisfaction out of his royal highness, and then go up to court and pay my fine." It will be seen that Mr. Hornaday is a true-born American, and not disposed to stand any nonsense that conflicts with the great law of human equality. But though this trait makes him appear somewhat uncharitable toward prejudices that have survived the Declaration of Independence, it shows itself in its most amiable light in his own free and sociable disposition, his readiness to be on terms of good-fellowship with men of all sorts and conditions, and his heartiness in responding to any show of friendship in act or demeanor. Hence, on one occasion, even a Hindu, a fellow-traveller in a railway-carriage, roused his kindliest sentiments by offering him a handful of cooked "dal" after plastering it over a little pile of "chapatties." "I was completely taken aback for an instant, for the old gentleman's hands were as grimy as my own; but I accepted the food with my politest bow and ate it down with every appearance of gratitude. I would have eaten it had it been ten times as dirty as it undoubtedly was. It was an act as friendly as any man could perform, and I was pleased to find such a feeling of pure charity and benevolence in a native." Nor does his nationality prevent him from doing justice to the English character as it came under his observation in the East. He recognizes the benevolence of the English rule in India, and considers Sarawak under Rajah Brooke "the model of a good government." With individual Englishmen--who, he considers, are seen to the best advantage out of their own country--he found no difficulty in forming the most cordial relations. We have no doubt that his own qualities, his good humor, frankness, intelligence, and vivacity, coupled with his enthusiasm for pursuits in which almost all Englishmen take a strong interest, rendered him a very attractive and agreeable companion, and caused the "Britishers" with whom he came in contact to set him down at once for what he evidently is, an uncommonly good specimen of the Yankee.

Mr. Hornaday has the good sense to spare us the tedium of reading any fresh descriptions of regions and places sufficiently well known or only casually visited in the course of his travels. The few and slight exceptions prove, indeed, that he would hardly be a safe guide when off his own ground. His criticism of the Taj Mahal, than which "no other structure in the world has been so greatly overpraised," may be accepted as an instance of an independent impression and an offset to the extravagance of some of its admirers, but will scarcely testify to his competency to pass judgment on works of art in the tone of a recognized authority. Nor does his notion that Cairo was the capital of ancient Egypt, that "we may take pleasure in thinking that the city is to-day very like what it was when the Pyramids were new," (!) and "believe that these are the same cramped and crooked streets, the same latticed windows and overhanging upper stories, the same bazaars and workshops and wells, that were here when the brethren of Joseph came down, as envoys extraordinary, to practise the arts of diplomacy in the court of Pharaoh," suggest any profound acquaintance with the history of the country and the mutations it has undergone. But it would be very unfair to dwell on such points as these. In general, as has been intimated, Mr. Hornaday sticks to his last with a rare and commendable closeness. The sights which he finds most attractive in famous seaports are the fish-markets and the natural-history museums. The themes on which he loves to dilate are the habits of the crocodile, the elephant, and the orang-utan, the modes of hunting and killing them, and, above all, the process of skinning and dissecting them. But he does not delight in slaughter for the sake of sport, nor regard the forest or the river as simply the habitat of uncouth monsters, nor make the account of his journeys the record of a mere business enterprise. He has a keen love of adventure, a strong sense of the humorous aspect of his experiences, and an inexhaustible flow of spirits. He writes in an animated but unpretentious style, and without any attempt at elaborate description contrives to leave clear impressions of his achievements and surroundings. His ardor and good spirits are infectious, and the reader is as little wearied as he himself appears to have been by his long and devious tramps over the hills, through the swamps, and amid the tangled undergrowth of the jungle.

Books on Artists.

"Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Dore". Compiled from Material supplied by Dore's Relations and Friends and from Personal Recollection. With many Original Unpublished Sketches and Selections from Dore's best Published Illustrations. By Blanche Roosevelt. New York: Cassell & Co.

"Eugene Delacroix, par lui-meme." Paris: J. Ronam.

"J. F. Millet." Par Charles Yriarte. "Hans Holbein." Par Jean Rousseau. (Bibliotheque d'Art Moderne.) Paris: Jules Ronam.

Mrs. Roosevelt's volume is an engaging jumble of fact and fancy, a medley of impressions, hasty generalizations, souvenirs, reminiscences, all jotted down apparently in such breathless haste that we can only wonder that the result is a coherent and tolerably serious study of Gustave Dore, his life and his works. The author's methods are, indeed, those of the great designer himself, who obtained brilliant results regardless of careful processes. A genuine biography of Dore is yet to be written; but here we have a rather fascinating book of five hundred pages, full of personal and intimate narrations by the artist's family and friends, profuse, _naif_, tender, overflowing with French sentiment and an intense sympathy and _camaraderie_. Interspersed with this biographical matter are innumerable pen-and-ink sketches, caricatures, designs, and finished pictures, illustrating the natural evolution of Dore's marvellous talent, the first instances of which show what he could do at the age of five. In fact, long before he could read the child showed clear signs of possessing a distinctively artistic organization. His practice with pen and pencil was pursued, however, without any sympathy or encouragement from his family, and his father, at least, was strongly averse to his taking up the career of an artist. In 1847, when Gustave was in his fifteenth year, his parents, who resided at Strasbourg, took him for a fortnight to Paris. The delights of the capital made a strong impression on the mind of the stripling, and he ardently wished to remain there. The thought occurred to him of offering some of his work to publishers, and, dashing off a few caricatures, he took advantage of the momentary absence of his parents to show them to Philipon, who had just founded his "Journal pour Rire." The result was that the publisher instantly engaged Gustave as one of the regular artists for his paper, and the boy remained in Paris, supporting himself and paying for his tuition at the Lycee Charlemagne, where he had Taine and About for fellow-collegians. This early success, combined with the most untiring industry and steady, almost passionate, devotion to his work, is one of the most remarkable biographical facts on record. A year later the elder Dore died, and his widow came to Paris to reside with her two sons, the chief expenses of the _menage_ being supported by Gustave, then little more than sixteen years of age. Between the years 1850 and 1870 he is said to have made by his pencil seven millions of francs,--almost a million and a half of dollars. Besides this enormous activity, a supreme and jealous ambition induced him to undertake not only every piece of work offered, from Bible-illustrations to a comic almanac, but whatever his brain or his fancy could conceive as possible for artist to achieve. Inspiration seized him at each new idea, bold and striking images, fantastic fancies, all the splendors of a magnificent or grotesque ideal. His work was a delirium; in a single morning he has been known to throw off twenty blocks which brought him ten thousand francs. He was, however, perpetually discontented, disgusted with his vocation, and envious of successful painters. He had almost a convulsion one day on hearing that Meissonier had received two hundred thousand francs for a single painting. "What!" he exclaimed; "a thing like that? Now, look at me. I can paint; I know I could paint better than Meissonier, at any rate. Have I ever been paid two hundred thousand francs for anything? No; and I never shall be. The fact is that no one understands me. I shall live and die misunderstood, or never comprehended at all,--which is worse." Fired by emulation, he shut himself up to create masterpieces which should surpass Meissonier and paralyze the world; and in a short time he showed his friend Lacroix twelve colossal canvases on which he had painted revolting realistic pictures which he called the "Abominations of Paris." "What do you think of Meissonier now?" he asked.

He longed ardently to be a painter, and was never at peace with critical Paris while it refused him the name of painter and called him only a designer. London was dearer to his heart from the fact that there were enshrined in the Dore Gallery and made one of the sights of the town his stupendous canvases imaging forth his conceptions of Scripture subjects. What he might have done as a painter had he studied at any early age under good masters must be left to conjecture, although his paintings carry with them a clear confession that naturally he did not possess a good eye for color. He was always impatient of criticism which made him feel that there was any lack of _technique_ in his works. "He has it all in him, but lacks 'school,'" was the verdict of the critics. Undoubtedly, wishing to do all that man has done, Dore would have liked to focus his powers on marvels of refinement and exactness, like Meissonier's; but he was proud of his distinctive characteristics, and wanted the least block he touched to show something Doreish.

"Now you will give us some Velasquezes," a lady said to him during his journey in Spain.

"No, madame," he replied; "I shall give you some more 'Dores.'"

What he enjoyed was an audacious and gigantic experiment, a subject which allowed him free and bold handling and a mystic, half-grotesque attitude toward what he found in it of poetry or strength. The feverish and hurried character of his work is sadly evident in many of his most ambitious designs. His illustrations of Milton, Dante, and the Wandering Jew may be said to show his powers at their best,--and perhaps we ought to include his Bible-pictures. Too often he uses without apparent motive feeble allegory and fantasy; and many of his later works must be considered by his most charitable critics not only obscure, but almost insane.

To turn from Dore to Delacroix is to take up the very different career of one of those "immortals" among whose works the great designer was eager to see his own unlucky paintings enrolled. Opposite as these two artists were, they had nevertheless certain things in common: their work was their life,--all personal gratification was subordinated to art,--each denied himself marriage, and yet enjoyed the untiring devotion of some sort of womankind. Dore had both his mother and his nurse to humor and spoil him. Delacroix endured the affectionate tyranny of his housekeeper, who watched over him as a lioness over her young. Delacroix, who was frail, sensitive, feverishly carried away by his work, needed just the careful intervention which this woman imposed to save him from the depressing influences of every-day life. She kept all uncongenial visitors from him. He was fastidious to a degree,--could not use a spoiled palette, and Jenny learned to prepare his palette, colors, and brushes with the nicest care. Delacroix began with a masterpiece. He was only twenty-three when he produced his "Dante and Virgil," which put him at the head of the so-called "romantic school." His clear intellect, his strength as a draughtsman, his abundance of invention, his wonderful color, made themselves felt at once. He had a long career in which to develop, and he was tireless in reinforcing his own great powers by profound and careful study of great authors, besides working perpetually to discover the secrets of the splendid paintings of Raphael, Velasquez, Veronese, and, above all, Rubens. It was his habit to spend whole days at the Jardin des Plantes, watching the animals, observing their postures and movements, aiming to pluck the heart out of the mystery of each organization. In 1828 he went to England, and, although he disliked the country, its architecture, the ill-made shoes and soiled stockings of the women, he carried back with him powerful impressions from Constable and from Kean's impersonations of Shakespeare which animated all his later work. His picture of "Hamlet," although it was not completed until 1843, owes its conception to this period. His lithographs of "Faust" elicited from Goethe the remark, "He has surpassed the pictures I had made for myself of the scenes written by myself."