PART II.

Mary Lorimer returned in safety to Beremouth under Horace Erskine's care, welcomed as may be supposed by the adopted father and her mother. Not that "Mother Mary," as Lady Greystock in the old Claudia Brewer days used to call her, could ever welcome Horace. She had never liked him; she had always felt that there was some unknown wrong about his seeking and his leaving Claudia; she had been glad that a long absence abroad had kept him from them while her darling Mary had been growing up; and it was with a spasm of fear that she heard of his spending that autumn at her sister's. And yet she had consented to his bringing Mary home. Yes, she had consented, for Mr. Brewer in his overflowing hospitality had asked him to come to them--had regretted that they had seen so little of him of late years--and had himself suggested that he should come when Mary returned.

Nine years does a great deal; it may even pay people's debts sometimes. But it had not paid Horace Erskine's debts: on the contrary, it had added to them with all the bewildering peculiarities that belong to calculations of interests and compound interests. He had got to waiting for another man's death. How many have had to become in heart death-dealers in this way! It was known that he would be his uncle's heir, and his uncle added to what he supposed Horace possessed a good sum yearly; making the man rich as he thought, and causing occasionally a slight passing regret that Horace was so saving. "He might do so much more if he liked on his good income," the elder Mr. Erskine would say. But he did not know of the many sums for ever paying to keep things quiet till death, the great paymaster, should walk in and demand stern rights of himself, the elder, and pass on the gold that we all must leave behind to the nephew, the younger one.

But in the nine years that had passed since the coward took his revenge on a brave woman by doing that which killed her husband, great things had happened to pretty Minnie Lorimer. The "county people" had been after her--those same old families who had flouted her mother, and prophesied eternal poverty to her poor pet baby--fatherless, too! a fact that finished the story of their faults with a note of peculiar infamy.

That a man of good family should marry without money, become the father of a lovely child, and _die_--that the mother should go back to that old poverty-stricken home where that stiff-looking maid-servant looked so steadily into the faces of all who stood and asked admittance--that they should pretend to be happy!--altogether, it was really too bad.

Why did not Mrs. Lorimer, widow, go out as a governess? Who was to bring up that unfortunate child on a paltry one hundred a year? Of course {184} she begged for help. Of course they were supported by Mr. Erskines's charity. A pretty humiliation of Lorimer's friends and relations!

Altogether, the whole of the great Lansdowne Lorimer connection had pronounced that to have that young widow and her daughter belonging to them was a trial very hard to bear. They had not done talking when Mary made that quiet walk to church--no one but her mother and Jenifer being in the secret--and reappeared in the county after a few months' absence as mistress of Beremouth. Mr. Brewer had counted his money, and had told the world what it amounted to. And this time he never apologized, he only confessed himself a person scarcely deserving of respect, because he had done so little good with the mammon of unrighteousness. But Mary now would tell him how to manage. He did perhaps take a little to the humble line. He hoped the world would forget and forgive his former shortcomings; such conduct would assuredly not now be persevered in; and that resolution was fulfilled without any doubt. The splendors of Beremouth were something to talk about, and the range of duties involved in a large hospitality were admirably performed.

Old Lady Caroline, whose pianoforte survived in Mrs. Morier's house at Marston, considered the matter without using quite as many words as her neighbors. "That man will be giving money to Lorimer's child." She was quite right. He had already invested five thousand pounds for Minnie. Lady Caroline (what an odd pride hers was!) went to Beremouth, and got upon business matter with "Mother Mary."

She would give that child five thousand pounds in her will if Mr. Brewer would not give her anything. Alas! it was already given. Mr. Brewer used to count among his faults that, with him, it was too much a word and a blow, especially when a good action was in question, and this curious unusual fault he had decidedly committed in the case of Minnie Lorimer. The money was hers safe enough, invested in the hands of trustees. "Safe enough," said Mr. Brewer exultingly; and then, looking with a saddened air on Lady Caroline, he added, gravely, that it couldn't be helped! "The man's a saint or a fool, I can't tell which," was Lady Caroline's very cute remark. "The most unselfish idiot that ever lived. Does Mary like him, or laugh at him, I wonder?"

But Lady Caroline cultivated Mr. Brewer's acquaintance. Not in an evil way, but because she had been brought up to _use_ the world, and to slave all mankind who would consent to such persecution. Not wickedly, I repeat, but with a fixed intention she cultivated Mr. Brewer, and she got money out of him.

Mr. Brewer still made experiments with ten pounds. He helped Lady Caroline in her many charities, as long as her charities were confined to food and clothing, so much a week to the poor, and getting good nursing for the sick. But once Lady Caroline used that charity purse for purposes of "souping"--it has become an English word, so I do not stop to explain it--and then Mr. Brewer scolded her. Nobody had ever disputed any point with Lady Caroline. But Mr. Brewer explained, with a most unexpected lucidity, how it would be _right_ for him to make her a Catholic, and yet _wrong_ for her to try her notions of conversion on him.

Lady Caroline kept up the quarrel for two years. She upbraided him for his neglect, on his own principles, of Claudia. She abused him for the different conduct pursued about his son. Mr. Brewer confessed his faults and stood by his rights at the same time. Two whole years Lady Caroline quarrelled, and Mr. Brewer never left the field. And afterward, some time after, when Lady Caroline was in her last illness, she said: "I believe that man Brewer may be right after all." When she was dead young Mary Lorimer had double the sum that had {185} been originally offered, and Freddy her largest diamond ring.

But another thing had to come out of all this. Mrs. Brewer became a Catholic; and that fact had made her recall her daughter to her side--that fact had made Horace Erskine say, at the inn at Hull, that he dreaded for the girl he, spoke to the influence of the home and the people she was going to--that fact had brought that passion of tears to Mary Lorimer's eyes, and had made her feel so angrily that he had taken an advantage of her.

Here, then, we are back again to the time at which we began the story. Mary got home and was welcomed.

The day after their arrival, if we leave Beremouth and its people, and go into Marston to Mrs. Morier, "old Mrs. Morier" they called her now, we shall see Jenifer walk into the pleasant upstairs drawing-room, where the china glittered on comer-shelves, and large jars stood under the long inlaid table, and say to her mistress: "Eleanor is come, if you please, ma'am."

Mrs. Morier looked up from her knitting. She had been sitting by the window, and the beautiful old lady looked like a picture, as Jenifer often declared, as she turned the face shadowed by fine lace toward her servant with a sweet, gentle air, and smiling said, "And so you want to go to Clayton--and Eleanor is to stay till you come back?" "Yes, ma'am--it's the anniversary." "Go, then," said the gentle lady. "And you must not leave me out of your prayers, my good Jenifer; for you may be sure that I respect and value them." "I'll be back in good time," said Jenifer; and the door closed, and Mrs. Morier continued her knitting.

Soon she saw from the window that incomparable Jenifer. Her brown light stuff gown, the black velvet trimming looking what Jenifer called _rich_ upon the same. Buttons as big as pennies all the way down the front--the good black shawl with the handsome border that had been Mr. Brewer's own present to her on the occasion of his wedding; the fine straw bonnet and spotless white ribbon--the crowning glory of the black lace veil--oh, Jenifer was _somebody_, I can tell you, at Marston; and Jenifer looked it.

It was with nothing short of a loving smile that Mrs. Morier watched her servant. Servant indeed, but true, tried, and trusty friend also; and when the woman was out of sight, and Mrs. Morier turned her thoughts to Jenifer's prayer, and what little she knew of it, she sighed--the sigh came from deep down, and the sigh was lengthened, and her whole thoughts seemed to rest upon it--it was breathed out, at last, and when it died away Mrs. Morier sat doing nothing in peaceful contemplation till the door opened, and she whom we have heard called Eleanor came in with inquiries as to the proper time for tea.

I think that this Eleanor was perhaps about eight-and-twenty years of age. She was strikingly beautiful. Perhaps few people have ever seen anything more faultlessly handsome than this young woman's form and face. She looked younger than she was. The perfectly smooth brow and the extraordinary fair complexion made her look young. No one would have thought, when looking at Eleanor, that she had ever _worked_. If the finest and loveliest gentlewoman in the world had chosen to put on a lilac cotton gown, and a white checked muslin apron, and bring up Mrs. Morier's early tea, she would perhaps have looked a little like Eleanor; provided her new employment had not endowed her with a momentary awkwardness. But admiration, when looking at this woman, was a little checked by a sort of atmosphere of pain--or perhaps it was only patience--that surrounded the beautiful face, and showed in every gesture and movement, and rested on the whole being, as it were.

{186}

Eleanor suffered. And it was the pain of the mind and heart, not of the body--no one who had sufficient sensibility to see what I have described could ever doubt that the inner woman, not the outer fleshly form of beauty, suffered; and that the woe, whatever it was, had written _patience_ on that too placid brow.

"And are they all well at Dr. Rankin's?" "Very well, ma'am, I believe. I saw Lady Greystock in her own rooms an hour before I came away. I said that I was coming here, and she said"--Eleanor smiled--"Lady Greystock said, ma'am, 'My duty to grandmamma Morier--mind you give the message right.'"

"Ah," said Mrs. Morier, "Lady Greystock is wonderfully well." "There is nothing the matter with her, ma'am." "Except that she never goes to Beremouth." What made the faint carnation mount to Eleanor's face?--what made the woman pause to collect herself before she spoke?--"Oh, ma'am, she is right not to try herself. She'll go there one day." "I suppose you like being at Dr. Rankin's?" "Very much. My place of wardrobe-woman is not hard, but it is responsible. It suits me well. And Mrs. Rankin is very good to me. And I am near Lady Greystock." "How fond you are of her!" "There is not anything I would not do for her," said the woman with animation. "I hope, indeed Dr. Rankin tells me to believe, that I have had a great deal to do with Lady Greystock's cure. She has treated me like a sister; and I can never feel for any one what I feel for her." "Lady Greystock always speaks of you in a truly affectionate way. She says you have known better days." "_Different_ days; I don't say _better_. I have nothing to wish for. Ever since the time that Lady Greystock determined on staying at Blagden, I have been quite happy." "You came just as she came." "Only two months after." "And did you like her from the first?" "Oh, Mrs. Morier, you know she was very ill when she came. I never thought of love, but of every care and every attention that one woman could show to another. Had it been life for life, I am sure she might have had _my_ life--that was all that I _then_ thought. But when she recovered and loved me for what I had done for her, then it was love for love. Lady Greystock gave me a new life, and I will serve her as long as I may for gratitude, and as a thanksgiving."

When Eleanor was gone, her pleasant manner, her beauty, the music of her voice, and the indescribable grace that belonged to her remained with Mrs. Morier as a pleasant memory, and dwelling on it, she lingered over her early tea, and ate of hashed mutton, making meditation on how Eleanor had got to be Jenifer's great friend; and whether their both being Catholics was enough to account for it.

This while Jenifer walked on toward Clayton. She stood at last on the top of a wide table-land, and looked from the short grass where the wild thyme grew like green velvet, and the chamomile gave forth fragrance as you trod it under foot, down a rugged precipice into the little seaport that sheltered in the cove below. The roofs of the strange, dirty, tumble-down houses were packed thickly below her. The nature of the precipitous cliff was to lie in terraces, and here and there goats and donkeys among the branching fern gave a picturesque variety to the scene, and made the practical Jenifer say to herself that Clayton Cove was not "that altogether abominable" when seen to the best advantage on the afternoon of a rich autumn day. A zigzag path, rather difficult to get upon on account of the steepness of the broken edge and the rolling stones, led from Jenifer's feet down to the terraces; short cuts of steps and sliding stones led from terrace to terrace, and these paths ended, as it appeared to the eye, in a chimney-top that sent up a volume of white smoke, and a {187} pleasant scent of wood and burning turf. By the side of the house that owned the chimney, which was whitewashed carefully, and had white blinds inside the green painted wood-work of small sash windows, appeared another roof, long, high, narrow, with a cross on the eastern gable, and that was the Catholic chapel--the house Father Daniels lived in; and after a moment's pause down the path went Jenifer with all the speed that a proper respect for her personal safety permitted. When the woman got to the last terrace, she opened a wicket gate, and was in a sunny garden, still among slopes and terraces, and loaded with flowers. Common flowers no doubt, but who ever saw Father Daniels's Canterbury bells and forgot them? There, safe in the bottom walk, wide, and paved with pebbles from the beach, Jenifer turned not to the right where the trellised back-door invited, but to the left, where the west door of the chapel stood open--and she walked in. There was no one there. She knelt down. After a while she rose, and kneeling before the image of our Lady, said softly: "Mother, she had no mother! Eleven years this day since that marriage by God's priest, and at his holy altar--eleven years this day since that marriage which the laws of the men of this country deny and deride. Mother, she had no mother! Oh, mighty Mother! forget neither of them. Remember her for her trouble, and him for his sin." Not for vengeance but for salvation, she might have added; but Jenifer had never been accustomed to explain her prayers. Then she knelt before the adorable Presence on the altar, and her prayer was very brief--"My life, and all that is in it!"--was it a vain repetition that she said it again and again? Again and again, as she looked back and thought of what _it had been_; as she thought of that which _it was_; and knew of the future that, blessed by our Lady's prayers, she should take it, whatever it might be, as the will of God. And so she said it; by so doing offering _herself_. One great thing had colored all her life; had, to her, been _life_-- _her_ life; she, with that great shadow on the past, with the weight of the cross on the present, with the fear of unknown ill on the future, gathered together all prayer, all hope, all fear, and gave it to God in those words of offering that were, on her lips, an earnest prayer; the prayer of submission, of offering, of faith--"_My life, and all that is in it_."

Jenifer could tell out her wishes to the Mother of God, and had told them, in the words she had used, but it was this woman's way to have no wishes when she knelt before God himself. "My life, and all that is in it;" that was Jenifer's prayer.

After a time she left the chapel, putting pieces of money, many, into the church box, and went into the house. She knew Mrs. Moore, the priest's housekeeper, very well. She was shown into Father Daniels's sitting-room. He was a venerable man of full seventy years of age, and as she entered he put down the tools with which he was carving the ornaments of a wooden altar, and said, "You are later than your note promised. I have therefore been working by daylight, which I don't often do." She looked at the work. It seemed to her to be very beautiful. "It is fine and teak-wood," said Father Daniels; "part of a wreck. They brought it to me for the church. We hope to get up a little mariner's chapel on the south side of the church before long, and I am getting ready the altar as far as I can with my own hands. 'Mary, star of the sea'--that will be our dedication. The faith spreads here. Mistress Jenifer; and I hope we are a little better than we used to be." And Father Daniels crossed himself and thanked God for his grace that had blessed that wild little spot, and made many Christians there. {188} Jenifer smiled, as the holy man spoke in a playful tone, and she said, "It is the anniversary, father." "Of Eleanor's marriage. Yes. I remembered her at mass. Has she heard anything of him?" "Yes, father; she has heard his real name, she thinks. She has always suspected, from the time that she first began to suspect evil, that she had never known him by his real name--she never believed his name to be Henry Evelyn, as he said when he married her."

"And what is his real name?"

"Horace Erskine," said Jenifer.

"What!" exclaimed Father Daniels, with an unusual tone of alarm in his voice. "The man who was talked of for Lady Greystock before she married--the nephew of Mrs. Brewer's sister's husband!" "Yes, sir." "Is she sure?" "No. She has not seen him. But she has traced him, she thinks. Corny Nugent, who is her second cousin, and knew them both when the marriage took place, went as a servant to the elder Mr. Erskine, and knew Henry Evelyn, as they called him in Ireland, when he came back from abroad. He _thought_ he knew him. Then Horace Erskine, finding he was an Irishman, would joke him about his religion, and how he was the only Catholic in the house, and how he was obliged to walk five miles to mass. Time was when Mr. Erskine, the uncle, would not have kept a Catholic servant. But since Mr. and Mrs. Brewer married, he has been less bigoted. He took Corny Nugent in London. It was just a one season's engagement. But when they were to return to Scotland they proposed to keep him on, and he stayed. After a little Horace Erskine asked him about Ireland; and even if he knew such and such places; and then he came by degrees to the very place--the very people--to his own knowledge of them. Corny gave crafty answers. But he disliked the sight of the man, and the positions he put him into. So he left. He left three months ago. And he found out Eleanor's direction, and told her that surely--surely and certainly--her husband, Henry Evelyn, was no other than his late master's nephew, who had been trying to marry more than one, only always some unlooked-for and unaccountable thing had happened to prevent it. Our Lady be praised, for her prayers have kept off that last woe--I make no doubt--thank God!"

"How many years is it since they married?" "Eleven, to-day. I keep the anniversary. He is older than he looks. He is thirty-two, this year, if he did not lie about his age, as well as everything else. He told Father Power he was of age. He said, too--God forgive him--that he was a Catholic."

"But when I followed Father Power at Rathcoyle," said the priest, "there was no register of the marriage. I was sent for on the afternoon of the marriage day. I found Father Power in a dying state. He was an old man, and had long been infirm. The marriage was not entered. It was known to have taken place. Your niece and her husband were gone. I walked out that evening to your brother's farm. He knew nothing of the marriage. He had received a note to say that Eleanor was gone with her husband, and that they would hear from them when they got to England. Why Father Power, who was a saintly man, married them, I do not know. It was unlawful for him to marry a Catholic and a Protestant. If your sister went through no other marriage, she has no claim on her Protestant husband. If she could prove that he passed himself off as a Catholic, she might have some ground against him--but, can she?"

"No, sir; on the contrary, she knew that she was marrying a Protestant; she had hopes of converting him; she learnt from {189} himself, afterward, that he had deceived the priest. She had said to him that she would many him if Father Power consented. He came back and said that the consent had been given. He promised to marry her in Dublin conformably to the license he had got there--or there he had lived the proper time for getting one, so he declared. But I have ceased to believe anything he said. Then my brother wrote the girl a dreadful letter to the direction in Liverpool that she had sent to him. Then, after some months, she wrote to me at Marston. She was deserted, and left in the Isle of Man. She supported herself there for more than a year. I told Mr. Brewer that I knew a sad story of the daughter of a friend, and one of her letters, saying her last gold was changed into silvery and that she was too ill and worn oat to win more, was so dreadful, that I feared for her mind. So Mr. Brewer went to Dr. Rankin, and got her taken in as a patient, at first, and when she got well she was kept on as wardrobe-woman. She had got a tender heart; when she heard of Lady Greystock's trial, she took to her. Dr. Rankin says he could never have cured Lady Greystock so perfectly nor so quickly, but for Eleanor."

"That is curious," said Father Daniels, musingly. "Have you been in Ireland since the girl left it with her husband?"

"I never was there in my life. My mother was Irish, and she lived as a servant in England. She married an Englishman, and she had two daughters, my sister--Eleanor's mother--and myself. My mother went back to Ireland a year after her husband's death, on a visit, and she left my sister and me with my father's family. She married in Ireland almost directly, and married well, a man with a good property, a farmer. She died, and left one son. My sister and I were four and five years older than this half-brother of ours. Then time wore on and my sister Ellen went to Ireland, and she married there, and the fever came to the place where they lived, and carried them both off, and she left me a legacy--my niece Eleanor--oh, sir I with such a holy letter of recommendation from her death-bed. Poor sister! Poor, holy soul! Our half-brother asked to have Eleanor to stay with him when she knew enough to be useful on the farm. He was a good Christian, and I let him take the girl. She was very pretty, people said, and I wished her to marry soon. Then there came--sent, he said, by a great rich English nobleman--a man who called himself a gardener, or something of that sort. He lodged close by; he made friends with my brother. He was often off after rare bog-plants, and seemed to lead a busy if an easy life. He would go to mass with them. But they knew he was a Protestant. Eleanor knew that her uncle would not consent to her marrying a Protestant. But, poor child, she gave her heart away to the gentleman in disguise. He had had friends there--a fishing party. Sir, he never intended honorably; but they were married by the priest, and he got over the holy man, whom everybody loved and honored, with his falseness, as he had got over the true-hearted and trusting woman whom he had planned to desert."

"Well," said Father Daniels, "you know I succeeded this priest for a short time at Rathcoyle. He died on that wedding day. I never understood how it all happened. I left a record to save Eleanor's honor; but she has no legal claim on her husband--it ought not to have been done." Jenifer shrank beneath the plainness of that truth--"_My life, and all that is in it,_" her heart said, sinking, as it were, at the sorrow that had come on the girl whom her sister had left to her with her dying breath.

"She ought not to have trusted a man who was a Protestant, and not willing to marry her in the only way that is legal by the Irish marriage-law." "_My life, and all that is in it._" {190} So hopelessly fell on her heart every word that the priest spoke, that, but for that offering of all things to God, poor Jenifer could scarcely have borne her trial.

"And if this Henry Evelyn should turn out to be Horace Erskine, why, he will marry some unhappy woman some time, of course, and the law of the land will give him one wife, and by the law of God another woman will claim him. Oh, if people would but obey holy church, and not try to live under laws of their own inventing." "_My life, and all that is in it!_" Again, only that could have made Jenifer bear the trials that were presented to her.

"And if gossip spoke truth he was very near marrying Lady Greystock once--Mr. Brewer, himself, thought it was going to be." One more great act of submission--"_My life, and all that is in it!_"--came forth from Jenifer's heart. She loved Mr. Brewer, with a faithful sort of worship--if such a trial as that had come on him through her trouble!--_that_ was over; _that_ had been turned aside; but the thought gave rise to a question, even as she thanked God for the averted woe.

'"Is it Eleanor's duty to find out if Henry Evelyn and Horace Erskine are one?" "Yes," said the priest "Yes; it is. It is everybody's duty to prevent mischief. It is her duty, as far as lies in her power, to prevent sin."

"And if it proves true--that which Corny Nugent says, what then?"

"Be content for the present. It is a very difficult case to act in."

Poor Jenifer felt the priest to be sadly wanting in sympathy--she turned again to him who knows all and feels all, and she offered up the disappointment that _would_ grow up in her heart--"_My life, and all that is in it!_"

She turned to go; and then Father Daniels spoke so kindly, so solemnly, with such a depth of sympathy in the tone of his voice--"God bless you, my child;" and the sign of the cross seemed to bless her sensibly. "Thank you, father!" And, without lifting her eyes, she left the room and the house; and still saying that prayer that had grown to be her strength and her help, she went up the steep rugged path to the spreading down; and then she turned round and looked on the great sea heaving, lazily under the sunset rays, that painted it in the far distance with gold and red, and a silvery light, till it touched the ruby-colored sky, and received each separate ray of glory on its breast just where earth and heaven seemed to meet--just where you could fancy another world looking into the depths of the great sea that flowed up into its gates. It seemed to do Jenifer good. The whole scene was so glorious, and the glory was so far-spreading--all the world seemed to rest around her bathed in warm light and basking in the smile of heaven. She stood still and said again, in a sweet soft voice: "_My life, and all that is in it!_"

Her great dread that day when Mr. Brewer had told her to put him and his into her prayer, had been lest the punishment of sin should come on the man who had deserted her dear girl, and lest that sin's effect in a heart-broken disease should fall on the girl herself.

When Mr. Brewer said, "Put me and mine into that prayer, Jenifer," the thought had risen that she would tell him of Eleanor. She had told him, and he had helped her. But she had never thought that, by acting on the impulse, the two women whose hearts Horace Erskine had crushed, as a wilful child breaks his playthings when he has got tired or out of temper, had been brought together under one roof, and made to love each other. Yet so it had been. The woman who could do nothing but pray _had_ prayed; and a thing had been done which no human contrivance could have effected. And as Jenifer stood gazing on the heavens that grew brighter and brighter, and on the water that reflected every glory, and seemed to bask with a living motion in the great magnificence that was poured upon it, she recollected how great a pain had been {191} spared her; she thought how terrible it would have been if Claudia Brewer had married Horace Erskine--Horace Erskine, the husband of the deserted Eleanor; and she gave thanks to God.

Now she drew her shawl tighter round her, and walked briskly on. She got across the down, and over a stone stile in the fence that was its boundary from the road. She turned toward Marston, and walked fast--it was almost getting cold after that glorious sunset, and she increased her pace and went on rapidly. She soon saw a carriage in the road before her, driving slowly, and meeting her. When it came near enough to recognize her, the lady who drove let her ponies go, and then pulled up at Jenifer's side. "Now, Mistress Jenifer," said Lady Greystock, looking bright and beautiful in the black hat, and long streaming black feather, that people wore in those days, "here am I to drive you home. I knew where you were going. Eleanor tells me her secrets. Do you know that? This is an anniversary; and you give gifts and say prayers. Are you comfortable? I am going to drive fast to please the ponies; they like it, you know." And very true did Lady Greystock's words seem; for the little creatures given their heads went off at a pace that had in it every evidence of perfect good will. "I came to drive you back, and to pick up Eleanor, and drive her to Blagden after I had delivered you up safely to grandmamma Morier. Mother Mary came to see me this afternoon. You had better go and see Minnie soon. Jenifer"--Jenifer looked up surprised at a strange tone in Lady Greystock's voice---"Jenifer," speaking very low, "if you can pray for my father and his wife, and all he loves, pray now. It would be hard for a man to be trapped by the greatness of his own good heart."

"Is there anything wrong, my dear?" Jenifer spoke softly, and just as she had been used to speak to the Claudia Brewer of old days.

"I can't say more," Lady Greystock replied; "here we are at Marston." Then she talked of common things; and told James, the man-servant, to drive the horses up and down the street while she bade Mrs. Morier "Good night." And they went into the house, and half an hour after Lady Greystock and Eleanor had got into the pony carriage, and were driving away. The quiet street was empty once more. The little excitement made by Lady Greystock and her ponies subsided. Good-byes were spoken, and the quiet of night settled down on the streets and houses of Marston.

Jenifer had wondered over Lady Greystock's words; and comforted herself, and stilled her fears, and set her guesses all at rest by those few long-used powerful words--"_My life, and all that is in it!_" She offered life, and gave up its work and its trials to God; and Jenifer, too, was at rest then.

But at Clayton things were not quite in the same peaceful state as in that little old-fashioned inland town. Clayton was very busy; and among the busy ones, though busy in his own way, was Father Daniels.

That morning a messenger had brought him a packet from Mrs. Brewer; for "Mother Mary" since becoming a Catholic had wanted advice, and wanted strength, and she had sought and found what she wanted, and now she had sent to the same source for further help. As soon as Jenifer was gone, Father Daniels put away his teak-wood and his carving tools, and packed up his drawings and his pencils. He was a man of great neatness, and his accuracy in all business, and his fruitful recollection of every living soul's wants, as far as they had ever been made known to him, were charming points of his character-- points, that is, natural gifts, that the great charity which belonged to his priesthood adorned and made meritorious. {192} While he "tidied away his things," as his housekeeper Mrs. Moore used to say, bethought and he prayed--his mind foresaw great possible woe; he knew, with the knowledge that is made up of faith and experience united, that some things seem plainly to know no other master than prayer. People are prayed out of troubles that no other power can touch. Every now and then this fact seems to be imprinted in legible characters on some particular woe, actual or threatened; and though Father Daniels, like a holy priest, prayed always and habitually, he yet felt, as we have said, with respect to the peculiar entanglements that the letter from Mrs. Brewer in the morning and the revelation made by Jenifer in the afternoon seemed to threaten. So, when he again sat down, it was with Mrs. Brewer's letter before him on the table, and a lamp lighted, and "the magnifiers," to quote Mrs. Moore again, put on to make the deciphering of Mrs. Erskine's handwriting as easy as possible. Mrs. Brewer's was larger, blacker, plainer--and her note was short. It only said: "Read my sister's letter, which I have just received. It seems so hard to give up the child; it would be much harder to see her less happy than she has always been at home. I don't like Horace Erskine. It is as if I was kept from liking him. I really have no reason for my prejudice against him. Come and see me if you can, and send or bring back the letter." Having put this aside. Father Daniels opened Mrs. Erskine's letter. It must be given just as it was written to the reader:

DEAREST MARY:

"You must guess how dreadful your becoming a Catholic is to us. I cannot conceive why, when you had been happy so long--these thirteen years--you should do this unaccountable thing now. There must have been some strange influence exercised over you by Mr. Brewer. I feared how it might be when, nine years ago, your boy was born, and you gave him up so weakly. However, I think you will see plainly that you have quite forfeited a mother's rights over Mary. She is seventeen, and will not have a happy home with you now. Poor child, she would turn Catholic to please you, and for peace sake, perhaps. But you cannot _wish_ such a misery for her. She will, I suppose, soon be the only Protestant in your house. I can't help blaming old Lady Caroline, even after her death; for she certainly brought the spirit of controversy into Beremouth, and stirred up Mr. Brewer to think of his rights. Now, I write to propose what is simply an act of justice on your part, though really, I must say, an act of great grace on the part of my husband. Horace is in love with Mary. As to the fancy he was supposed to have for Claudia, I _know_ that _that_ was only a fancy. He was taken with her wilful, spoilt-child ways--you certainly did not train her properly--and he wanted her money. Of course as you had been married four years without children, he did not suspect anything about Freddy. It was an entanglement well got rid of; and Claudia wanted no comforting, that was plain enough. But it is different now. Horace _is_ in love _now_. And if Mary is not made a Catholic by Mr. Brewer and you and old Jenifer, she will say, 'Yes,' like a good child. We are _extremely_ fond of her. And Mr. Erskine generously offers to make a very handsome settlement on her. I consider a marriage, and a very speedy one, with Horace the best thing; now that you have, by your own act, made her home so homeless to her. I am sure you ought to be very thankful for so obviously good an arrangement of difficulties. Let me hear from you as soon as Horace arrives. He is going to speak to you directly. "Your affectionate sister, "Lucia Erskine.

"P.S.--As Mr. Brewer has always said that, Mary being his adopted child, he should pay her on her marriage the full interest of the money which will be hers at twenty-one, {193} of course Horace expects that, as we do. Lady Caroline's ten thousand, Mr. Brewer's five thousand, and the hundred a year for which her father insured his life, and which I find that you give to her, will, with Horace's means, make a good income; and to this Mr. Erskine will, as Mary is my niece, add very liberally. I cannot suppose that you can think of objecting. L. E."

Father Daniels read this letter over very carefully. Then he placed it, with Mrs. Brewer's note, in his pocket-book, and immediately putting on his hat, and taking his stick, he walked into the kitchen.

"Where's your husband?" to Mrs. Moore.

"Mark is only just outside, sir."

"I shall be back soon. Tell him to saddle the cob." One of Mr. Brewer's experiments had been to give Father Daniels a horse, and to endow the horse with fifty pounds a year, for tax, keep, house-rent, physic, saddles, shoes, clothing, and general attendance. It was, we May say as we pass on, an experiment which answered to perfection. The cob's turnpikes alone remained as a grievance in Mr. Brewer's mind. He rather cherished the grievance. Somehow it did him good. It certainly deprived him of all feeling of merit. All thought of his own generosity was extinguished beneath the weight of a truth that could not be denied--"that cob is a never-ending expense to Father Daniels!" However, this time, without a thought of the never-ending turnpike's tax, the cob was ordered; being late, much to Mr. and Mrs. Moore's surprise; and Father Daniels walked briskly out of the garden, down the village seaport, past the coal-wharves, where everything looked black and dismal, and so pursued his way on the top of the low edge of the cliff, to a few tidy-looking houses half a mile from Clayton, which were railed in from the turfy cliff-side, and had painted on their ends, "Good bathing here." The houses were in a row. He knocked at the centre one, and it was opened by a man of generally a seafaring cast. "Mr. Dawson in?" "Yes, your reverence. His reverence, Father Dawson, is in the parlor;" and into the parlor walked Father Daniels. It was a short visit made to ascertain if his invalid friend could say mass for him the next morning at a later hour than usual--the hour for the parish mass, in fact; and to tell him why. They were dear friends and mutual advisers. They now talked over Mrs. Erskine's letter.

"There can be no reason in the world why Miss Lorimer should not marry Horace Erskine if she likes him, provided he is not Henry Evelyn. He stands charged with being Henry Evelyn, and of being the doer of Henry Evelyn's deeds. You must tell Mrs. Brewer. It is better never to tell suspicions, if you can, instead, tell facts. In so serious a matter you may be obliged to tell suspicions, just to keep mischief away at the beginning. Eleanor must see the man. As to claiming him, that's useless. She acted the unwise woman's part, and she most bear the unwise woman's recompense. He'll find somebody to marry him, no doubt; but no woman ought to do it; no marriage of his can be right in God's sight. So the course in the present instance is plain enough." Yes, it was plain enough; so Father Daniels walked back to Clayton and mounted the cob, and rode away through the soft sweet night air, and got to Beremouth just after ten o'clock.

"I am come to say mass for you to-morrow," he said to Mr. Brewer, who met him in the hall. "No, I won't go into the drawing-room. I won't see any one to-night. I am going straight to the chapel."

{194}

"Ring for night prayers then in five minutes, will you?" said Mr. Brewer. And Father Daniels, saying "Yes," walked on through the hall, and up the great stair-case to his own room and the chapel, which, were side by side. In five minutes the chapel bell was rung by the priest. Mrs. Brewer looked toward her daughter. "Mary must do as she likes;" said Mr. Brewer, in his open honest way driving his wife before him out of the room. There stood Horace Erskine. It was as if all in a moment the time for the great choice had come. They were at the door--the girl stood still. They were gone, they were crossing the hall; she could hear Mr. Brewer's shoes on the carpet--not too late for her to follow. Her light step will catch theirs--they may go a little further still before the very last moment comes. Her mother or Horace? How dearly she loved her mother, how her child's heart went after her, all trust and love--and Horace, _did_ she love him?--love him well enough to stay _there--there_ and _then_, at a moment that would weigh so very heavily in the scale of good and evil, right or wrong? If he had not been there she might have stayed, if she stayed now that he was there, should she not stay with him--more, leave her mother and stay with him? Thought is quick. She stood by the table; she looked toward the door, she listened--Horace held out his hand--"With me, Mary--with _me_!" And she was gone. Gone even while he spoke, across the hall, up the stairs and at that chapel door just as this last of the servants, without knowing, closed it on her. Then Mary went to her own room just at the head of the great stair-case, and opened the doors softly, and knelt down, keeping it open, letting the stair-case lamp stray into the darkness just enough to show her where she was. There she knelt till the night prayers were over, and when Mr. Brewer passed her door, she came out, a little glad to show them that she had not been staying down stairs with Horace. He smiled, and put his hand inside her arm and stopped her from going down. "My dear child," he said, "I have had the great blessing of my life given to me in the conversion of your mother. If God's great grace, for the sake of his own blessed mother, should fall on you, you will not quench it, my darling. Meanwhile, I shall never have a better time than _this_ time to say, that I feel more than ever a father to you. That if you will go on treating me with the childlike candor and trust that I have loved to see in you, you will make me happier than you can ever guess at, dear child." And then he kissed her, and Minnie eased her heart by a few sobs and tears, and her head rested on his shoulder, and she thanked him for his love. Then Father Daniels came out of the chapel, and advanced to where they stood. Mary had long known the holy man. He saw how it was in an instant. "Welcome home, Mary; you see I come soon. And now--when I am saying mass to-morrow, stay quietly in your own room, and pray to be taught to love God. Give yourself to him. Don't trouble about questions. His you are. Rest on the thought--and we will wait on what may come of it. I shall remember you at mass to-morrow. Good-night. God bless you."

"I can't come down again. My eyes are red," said Mary, to Mr. Brewer, when they were again alone. And he laughed at her. "I'll send mamma up," he said. And Mary went into her room. But she had taken no part _against_ her mother; so her heart said, and congratulated itself. She had not left her, and stayed with Horace. She had had those few words with her step-father. That was over, and very happily too. She had seen Father Daniels again. It was getting speedily like the old things, and the old times, before the long visit to Scotland, where Horace Erskine was the sun of her {195} new world. Somehow she felt that he was losing power every moment--also she felt, a little resentfully, that there had been things said or thought, or insinuated, about the dear home she was loving so well, which were unjust, untrue, unkind; nay, more, cruel, shameful!--and so wrong to unite _her_ to such ideas; to make her a party to such thoughts. In the midst of her resentment, her mother came in. "Nobody ever was so charming looking," was the first thought. "How young she looks--how much younger and handsomer than Aunt Erskine. What a warm loving atmosphere this house always had, and _has_." The last word with the emphasis of a perfect conviction. "And so you have made your eyes red on papa's coat--and I had to wipe the tears off with my pocket-handkerchief. Oh, you darling, I am sure Horace Erskine thought we had beaten you!" Then kisses, and laughter; not quite without a tear or two on both, sides, however. "Now, my darling, Horace has told us his love story--and so he is very fond of you?" "Mamma, mamma, I love you better than all the earth." Kisses, laughter, and just one or two tears, all over again.

"My darling child, you have been some months away from us--do you think you can quite tell your own mind on a question which is life-long in its results? I mean, that the thing that is pleasant in one place may not be so altogether delightful in another. I should like you to decide so great a question while in the full enjoyment of your own rights _here_. This is your _home_. _This_ is what you will have to exchange for something else when you marry. You are very young to marry--not eighteen, remember. Whenever you decide that question, I should like you to decide it on your own ground, and by your own mother's side."

"I wonder whether you know how wise you are?" was the question that came in answer. "Do you know, mother, that I cried like a baby at Hull, because I felt all you have said, and even a little more, and thought he was unkind to press me. You know Aunt Erskine had told me; and Horace, too, in a way--and he said at Hull he dreaded the influence of this place, and--and--" "But there is nothing for _you_ to dread. This home is yours; and its influence is good; and all the love you command here is your safety." Mrs. Brewer spoke boldly, and quite with the spirit of heroism. She was standing up for her rights. But Mr. Brewer stood at the door. "The lover wants to smoke in the park in the moonlight. Some information just to direct his thoughts, you little witch," for his step-child had tried to stop his mouth with a kiss--

"Papa, I am so happy. I won't, because I can't, plan to leave everything I love best in the world just as I come back to it." "But you must give Erskine some kind of an answer. The poor fellow is really very much in earnest. Come and see him." "No, I won't," said Mary, very much as the wilful Claudia might have uttered the words. But Mary was thinking that there was a great contrast between the genial benevolence she had come to, and the indescribable _something_ which was _not_ benevolence in which she had lived ever since her mother had become a Catholic. Mr. Brewer almost started. "I mean, papa, that I must live here unmolested at least one month before I can find out whether I am not always going to love _you_ best of all mankind. Don't you think you could send Horace off to Scotland again immediately?" "Bless the child! Think of the letters that have passed--you read them, or knew of them?" "_Knew_ of them," said Mary, nodding her head confidentially, and looking extremely naughty. "Well; and I asked him here!" "Yes; I know that." "And you now tell me to send him away! {196} My dear!" exclaimed Mr. Brewer, looking appealingly at his wife. "Dearest, you must tell Mr. Erskine that Mary really would like to be left quiet for awhile. Say so now; and to-morrow you can suggest his going soon, and returning in a few weeks." "And to-morrow I can have a cold and lie in bed. Can't I?" said Mary. But now they ceased talking, and heard Horace Erskine go out of the door to the portico. "There! he's gone. And I am sure I can smell a cigar--and I could hate smoking, couldn't I?" Mother and father now scolded the saucy child, and condemned her to solitude and sleep. And when they were gone the girl put her head out of the open window, and gazed across the spreading park, so peaceful in its far-stretching flat, just roughened in places by the fern that had begun to get brown under the hot sun; and then she listened to the sound of the wind that came up in earnest whispers from the woody corners, and the far-off forests of oak. The sound rose and fell like waves, and the silence between those low outpourings of mysterious sound was loaded with solemnity.

Do the whispering woods praise him; and are their prayers in the tall trees? She was full of fancies that night. But the words Father Daniels had said to her seemed to her to come again on the night-breeze, and then she was quiet and still. And yet--and yet--though she _tried_ to forget, and _tried_ to keep her mind at peace, the spirit within would rise from its rest, and say that she had left an atmosphere of evil speaking and uncharitableness; that malice and harsh judgment had been hard at work, and all to poison _home_, and to win her from it.

And while she was trying to still these troublings of the mind, Mr. Brewer, by her mother's side, was reading for the first time Mrs. Erskine's letter, which Father Daniels had returned. "My dear, my dear," said Mr. Brewer, "a very improper letter. I think Mary is a very extraordinary girl not to have been prejudiced against me. I shall always feel grateful to her. And as to this letter, which I call a very painful letter, don't you think we had better burn it?" And so, by the assistance of a lighted taper, Mr. Brewer cleared that evil thing out of his path for ever.

"Eleanor," said Lady Greystock, "how lovely this evening is. The moon is full, and how glorious! Shall we drive by a roundabout way to Blagden? James," speaking to the man who occupied the seat behind, "how far is it out of our way if we go through the drive in Beremouth Park, and come out by the West Lodge into the Blagden turnpike road?" "It will be two miles further, my lady. But the road is very good, and the carriage will run very light over the gravelled road in the park." "Then we'll go." So on getting to the bottom of the street in which Mrs. Morier lived, Lady Greystock took the road to Beremouth; and the ponies seemed to enjoy the change, and the whole world, except those three who were passing so pleasantly through a portion of it, seemed to sleep beneath the face of that great moon, wearing, as all full moons do, a sweet grave look of watching on its face.

"Isn't it glorious? Isn't it grand, this great expanse and this perfect calm? Ah, there goes a bat; and a droning beetle on the wing just makes one know what silence we are passing through. How pure the air feels. Oh, what blessings we have in life--how many more than we know of. I think of that in the still evenings often. Do you, Eleanor?"

"Yes, Lady Greystock." But Eleanor spoke in a very calm, business-like, convinced sort of manner; not the least infected by the tears of tenderness and the poetical feeling that Lady Greystock had betrayed.

{197}

"Yes, Lady Greystock And when in great moments"--"Great moments! I like that," said Claudia--"when I have those thoughts I think of you." "Of me?" "Yes. And I am profoundly struck by the goodness of God, who endowed the great interest of my life with so powerful an attraction for me. I must have either liked or disliked you. I am so glad to love you."

"Eleanor, I wish you would tell me the story of your life." They had passed through the lodge gates now, and were driving through Beremouth Park. "You were not always what you are now."

"You will know it one day," said Eleanor, softly. "Oh, see how the moon comes out from behind that great fleecy cloud; just in time to light us as we pass through the shadows which these grand oaks cast. What lines of silver light lie on the road before us. It is a treat to be out in such a place on such a night as this. Stay, stay, Lady Greystock. What is that?"

Lady Greystock pulled up suddenly, and standing full in the moonlight, on the turf at the side of the carriage, was a tall, strong-built man. He took off his cap with a respectful air, and said, "I beg pardon. I did not intend to stop you. But if you will allow me I will ask your servant a question." He addressed Lady Greystock, and did not seem to look at Eleanor, though she was nearest to him. Eleanor had suddenly pulled a veil over her face; but Lady Greystock had taken hers from her hat, and her uncovered face was turned toward the man with the moonlight full upon it. He said to the servant, "Can you tell me where a person called Eleanor Evelyn is to be found? Mrs. Evelyn she is probably called. I want to know where she is." Before James, who had long known the person by his mistress's side as Mrs. Evelyn, could speak, or recover from his very natural surprise, Eleanor herself spoke. "Yes," she said, "Mrs. Evelyn lives not far from Marston. I should advise you to call on Mrs. Jenifer Stanton, who lives at Marston with Mrs. Morier. She will tell you about her." "She who lives with Madam Morier, of course?" said the man. "Yes; the same." "Goodnight."

"Good night," said Lady Greystock in answer, and obeying Eleanor's whispered "Drive on," she let the ponies, longing for their stable, break into their own rapid pace, and, soon out of the shadows, they were in the light--the broad, calm, silent light--once more.

TO BE CONTINUED

{198}

Translated from Le Correspondant

A PRETENDED DERVISH IN TURKESTAN. [Footnote 35]

BY ÉMILE JONVEAUX

[Footnote 35: "Herman Vambéry's Travels In Central Asia." Original German edition. Leipzic: Brockhaus,1865. Paris: Xavier. French translation by M. Forgues. Paris: Hachette.]

A brilliant imagination, a sparkling and ready wit, an indomitable energy, the happy gift of seeing and painting man and things in a lively manner, such are the qualities which we remark at first in the new explorer of central Asia. But he is not only a bold traveller, a delightful story-teller, full of spirit and originality, we must recognize also in him a learned orientalist, an eminent ethnologist and linguist.

Born in 1832, in a small Hungarian town, he began at an early age to study with passion the different dialects of Europe and Asia, endeavoring to discover the relations between the idioms of the East and West. Observing the strong affinity which exists between the Hungarian and the Turco-Tartaric dialects, and resolved to return to the cradle of the Altaic tongues, he went to Constantinople and frequented the schools and libraries with an assiduity which in a few years made of him a true effendi. But the nearer he approached the desired end, the greater was his thirst for knowledge. Turkey began to appear to his eyes only the vestibule of the Orient; he resolved to go on, and to seek even in the depths of Asia the original roots of the idioms and races of Europe. [Footnote 36] In vain his friends represented to him the fatigues and perils of such a tour. Infirm as he was (a wound had made him lame), could he endure a long march over those plains of sand where he would be obliged to fight against the terror of tempest, the tortures of thirst--where, in fine, he might encounter death under a thousand forms? and then, how was he to force his way among those savage and fanatic tribes, who are afraid of travellers; and who a few years before had destroyed Moorcraft, Conolly, and Stoddart? Nothing could shake the resolution of Vambéry; he felt strong enough to brave suffering, and as to the dangers which threatened him from man, his bold and inventive spirit would furnish him the means to avert them in calling to his assistance their very superstitions. Was he not as well versed in the knowledge of the Koran and the customs of Islam as the most devout disciple of the Prophet? He would disguise himself in the costume of a pilgrim dervish, and so would go through Asia, distributing everywhere benedictions, but making secretly his scientific studies and remarks. His foreign physiognomy might, it is true, raise against him some obstacles. But he counted on his happy star, and, above all, on his presence of mind, to succeed at last. These difficulties were renewed often in the course of his adventurous tour; more than once the suspicious look of some powerful tyrant was fixed upon him as if to say: "Your features betray you; you are a European!" The extraordinary coolness, the ingenious expedients to which Vambéry had recourse in these emergencies, give to the story of his travels an interest which novelists and dramatists might envy. To this powerful charm, the work of which we give a rapid sketch unites the merit of containing {199} the most valuable notes on the social and political relations, the manners and character, of the races which inhabit Central Asia.

[Footnote 36: The linguistic and ethnographical studies form a separate volume, which the author proposes to publish very soon.]

I.

It was early in July, 1862, that Vambéry, leaving Tabriz, began his long and perilous journey. Persia, at this period of the year, does not offer the enchanting spectacle which the enthusiastic descriptions of poets lead us to imagine. This boasted country displays only to the eye a heaven of fire, burning and desert plains, through the midst of which sometimes advances slowly a caravan covered with dust, exhausted by fatigue and heat. After a monotonous and painful march of fifteen days, our traveller sees at last rising from the horizon the outlines of a number of domes, half lost in a bluish fog. This is Teheran, the celestial city, the seat of sovereignty, as the natives pompously call it.

It was not easy to penetrate into this noble city; a compact crowd filled the streets, asses, camels, mules laden with straw, barley, and other marketable articles jostled each other in the strangest confusion. "Take care! Take care!" vociferated the passers-by; each one pressed, pushed, and blows of sticks and even of sabres were distributed with surprising liberality. Vambéry succeeded in getting safe and sound out of this tumult; he repaired to the summer residence of the Turkish ambassador, where all the effendis were assembled under a magnificent silken tent. Haydar Effendi, who represented the sultan at the court of the Shah, had known the Hungarian traveller in Constantinople; he received him most cordially, and very soon the guests, gathered round a splendid banquet, began to call up souvenirs of Stamboul, of the Bosphorus, and their delightful landscapes, so different from the arid plains of Persia.

The contrast of character is not less noticeable between the two nations who divide the supremacy of the Mohammedan world. The Ottoman, in consequence of his close relations with the West, is more and more penetrated by European manners and civilization, and gains by this contact an incontestable superiority. The Persian preserves more the primitive type of the Orientals, his mind is more poetic, his intelligence more prompt, his courtesy more refined; but proud of an antiquity which loses itself in the night of time, he is deeply hostile to our sciences and arts, of which he does not comprehend the importance. Some choice spirits, indeed, have endeavored to rejuvenate the worm-eaten institutions of Persia, and to lead their country in the way of progress. The pressing solicitations of the minister Ferrukh Khan engaged, some years ago, several nations of Europe, Belgium, Prussia, Italy, to send ambassadors in the hope of forming political and commercial relations with Iran; but their efforts were checked, Persia not being ripe for this regeneration.

Thanks to the generous hospitality of Haydar Effendi, Vambéry was rested from his fatigues. Impatient to continue his journey, he wished to take immediately the road to Herat; his friends dissuaded him from it, because the hostilities just declared between the sultan of this province and the sovereign of the Afghans rendered communications impossible. The northern route was quite as impracticable; it would have been necessary to cross during the winter months the vast deserts of central Asia. The traveller was forced to await a more favorable season. To remove gradually the obstacles which prevented the realization of his plan, he began immediately to draw around him the dervishes who every year pass through Teheran on their way to Turkey. These pilgrims or hadjis never fail to address themselves to the Ottoman embassy, for they are all _Sunnites_ and {200} recognize the emperor of Constantinople as their spiritual head; Persia, on the contrary, belongs to the sect of the _Shiites_, who may be called the Protestants of Islam, with so profound a horror have they inspired the faithful believers of Khiva, Bokhara, Samarcande, etc. Vambéry, who proposed to visit all these fanatic states, had then adopted the character of a pious and zealous Sunnite. Very soon it was noised abroad among the pilgrims that Reschid Effendi (_nom de guerre_ of our traveller) treated the dervishes as brothers, and that he was no doubt himself a dervish in disguise.

In the morning of the 20th of March, 1862, four hadjis presented themselves before him whom they regarded as the devoted protector of their sect. They came to complain of Persian officials who, on their return from Mecca, had imposed upon them an abusive tax long since abolished. "We do not demand the money of his excellency the ambassador," said he who appeared to be the chief; "the only object of our prayers is, that in future the Sunnites may be able to visit the holy places without being forced to endure the exactions of the infidel Shiites." Surprised at the disinterestedness of this language, Vambéry considered more attentively the austere countenances of his guests. In spite of their miserable clothing, a native nobility discovered itself in them; their words were frank, their looks intelligent. The little caravan of which they made a part, composed in all of twenty-four persons, was returning to Bokhara. The resolution of the European was immediately taken; he said to the pilgrims that for a long time he had had an extreme desire to visit Turkestan, this hearth of Islamite piety, this holy land which contained the tombs of so many saints. "Obedient to this sentiment," said he, "I have quitted Turkey; for many months I have awaited in Persia a favorable opportunity, and I thank God that have at last found companions with whom I may be able to continue my journey and accomplish my purpose."

The Tartars were at first much astonished. How could an effendi, accustomed to a life of luxury, resolve to encounter so many dangers, to endure so many trials? The ardent faith of the pretended Sunnite was hardly efficient to explain this prodigy, so the dervishes felt themselves bound to enlighten him on the sad consequences to which this excess of zeal might expose him. "We shall travel," they said, "for whole weeks without encountering a single dwelling, without finding the least rivulet where we can quench our thirst. More than that, we shall run the risk of perishing by the robbers who infest the desert, or of being swallowed up alive by tempests of sand. Reflect again, seigneur effendi, we would not be the cause of your death." These words were not without their effect, but, after coming so far, Vambéry was not easily discouraged. "I know," said he to the pilgrims, "that this world is an inn where we sojourn for some days, and from which we soon depart to give place to new travellers. I pity those restless spirits who, not content with having thought of the present, embrace in their solicitude a long future. Take me with you, my friends; I am weary of this kingdom of error, and I long to leave it."

Perceiving in him so firm a resolve, the chiefs of the caravan received the pretended Reschid as a travelling companion. A fraternal embrace ratified this engagement, and the European felt not without some repugnance the contact of these ragged garments which long use had impregnated with a thousand offensive odors.

Following the advice of one of the dervishes, Hadji Bilal, who entertained a particular friendship for him, the traveller cut his hair, adopted the Bokhariot costume, and the better to play the part of a pilgrim, an enemy of all worldly superfluity, he left behind his bedding, his linen, everything, in {201} short, which in the eyes of the Tartars had the least appearance of refinement or luxury. Some days after, he rejoined his companions in the caravansery where the hadjis had promised to meet him. There Vambéry ascertained, to his great surprise, that the miserable garments which had disgusted him so much were the state robes of the dervishes; their travelling dress was composed of numerous rags, arranged in the most picturesque manner and fastened at the waist by a fragment of rope. Hadji Bilal, raising his arms in the air, pronounced the prayer of departure, to which all the assistants responded by the sacramental _amen_, placing the hand upon the beard.

Vambéry quitted Teheran not without sadness and misgiving. In this city, placed on the frontiers of civilization, he had found devoted friends; now, in the company of strangers, he was about to face at once the perils of the desert and those, more to be feared, which threatened him from the cruelty of the inhabitants of the cities. He was roused from these reflections by joyous ballads sung by many of the pilgrims, others related the adventures of their wandering life or boasted of the charms of their native country, the fertile gardens of Mergolan and Khokand. Sometimes their patriotic and religious enthusiasm led them to intone verses from the Koran, in which Vambéry never failed to join with a zeal which did honor to the strength of his lungs. He had then the satisfaction of observing the dervishes look at one another and say, in an undertone, that Hadji Rescind was a true believer, who, without doubt, thanks to the good examples before his eyes, would soon walk in the steps of the saints.

At the end of five days the pilgrims reached the mountain of Mazendran, the western slope of which extends its base to the Caspian sea. Here the sterility of the country yields to the freshest, the richest vegetation; splendid forests, prairies covered with thick grass, extend themselves everywhere before the charmed eye of the traveller, and from time to time the murmur of a waterfall delights his ear. The sight of this smiling country drove away all the sad presentiments which had possessed the soul of Vambéry; mounted upon a gently-treading mule, he arrives full of confidence at Karatèpe, where he is to embark upon the Caspian sea. There an Afghan of high birth, whom the pretended Reschid had met upon his journey, and who knew the consideration which he enjoyed at the Ottoman embassy, offered him the hospitality of his house. The news of the arrival of pilgrims had collected a great number of visitors; squatted along the walls of the houses, they fixed upon Vambéry looks of mingled distrust and curiosity. "He is not a dervish," said some, "you can see that by his features and complexion." "The hadjis," replied others, "pretend that he is a near relation of the Turkish ambassador." All then, shaking their heads with a mysterious air, said in an undertone, "Only Allah can know what this foreigner is after." During this time, Vambéry pretended to be plunged in a profound meditation; in which as a Protestant, he committed a grave imprudence, for the Orientals, liars and hypocrites themselves, cannot believe in frankness, and always infer the contrary of whatever is told them. These suspicions, moreover, had nearly frustrated at the outset the bold designs of the European. The captain of the Afghan ship, employed in provisioning the Russian garrison, had consented for a small sum to take all the hadjis in his ship across the arm of the sea which divides Karatèpe from Ashourada. But learning the reports which were in circulation regarding our traveller, he refused to permit him to embark; "his attachment for the Russians not allowing him," he said, "to facilitate the secret designs of an emissary of Turkey." In vain Hadji Bilal, Hadji Salih, and others of the caravan endeavored to change his {202} resolution. All was useless, and Vambéry was doubting whether he should not be forced to retrace his steps, when his companions generously declared that they would not proceed without him.

Toward evening, the dervishes learned that a Turcoman named Yakaub proposed from a religious motive, and without desiring any recompense, to take them in his boat. The motive of this unexpected kindness was very soon discovered. Yakaub, having drawn Vambéry apart, confessed to him in an embarrassed tone, which contrasted singularly with his wild and energetic physiognomy, that he nourished a profound and hopeless passion for a young girl of his tribe; a Jew, a renowned magician who resided at Karatèpe, had promised to prepare an infallible talisman if the unhappy lover were able to procure for him thirty drops of essence of rose direct from Mecca. "You hadjis," added the Tartar, casting down his eyes, "never quit the holy places without bringing away some perfume; and as you are the youngest of the caravan, I hope that you will comprehend my vexation better than the others, and that you will help me." The companions of Vambéry had in fact several bottles of the essence, of which they gave a part to the Turkoman, and this precious gift threw the son of the desert into a genuine ecstasy.

The voyagers passed two days on a _kèseboy_ a boat provided with a mast and two unequal sails, which the Tartars use for the transport of cargoes. It was almost night when Yakaub cast anchor before Ashourada, the most southerly of the Russian possessions in Asia. The czar maintains constantly on this coast steamers charged with repressing the depredations of the Turkomen, which formerly inspired terror throughout the province. All natives before approaching the port of Ashourada must be provided with a regular passport, and must submit to the inspection of the Russian functionaries. This visit caused Vambéry some alarm; would not the sight of his features, a little too European, provoke from the Russian agent an indiscreet exclamation of surprise? and would not his incognito be betrayed? Happily, on the day of their arrival Easter was celebrated in the Greek Church, and, on account of this solemnity, the examination was a mere formality. The pilgrims continued their voyage, and landed the next day at Gomushtèpe, a distance of only three leagues from Ashourada.

II.

The hadjis were received by a chief named Khandjan, to whom they had letters of recommendation. The noble Turkoman was a man of about forty years; his fine figure, his dress of an austere simplicity, the long beard which fell upon his breast, gave him a dignified and imposing air. He advanced toward his guests, embraced them several times, and led the way to his tent. The news of the arrival of dervishes had already spread among the inhabitants; men, women, and children threw themselves before the pilgrims, disputing with one another the honor of touching their garments, believing that they thus obtained a share in the merits of these saintly personages. "These first scenes of Asiatic life," says Vambéry, "astonished me so much that I was constantly doubting whether I should first examine the singular construction of their tents of felt, or admire the beauty of the women, enveloped in their long silken tunics, or yield to the desire manifested by the arms and hands extended toward me. Strange spectacle! Young and old, without distinction of sex or rank, pressed eagerly round these hadjis covered yet with the holy dust of Mecca. Fancy my amazement when I saw women of great beauty, and even young girls, rush through the crowd to embrace me. These demonstrations of sympathy and respect, however, became fatiguing when we {203} arrived at the tent of the chief _ishan_ (priest), where our little caravan assembled. Then began a singular contest. Each one solicited as a precious boon the right of receiving under his tent the poor strangers. I had heard of the boasted hospitality of the nomad tribes of Asia, but I never could have imagined the extent of it. Khandjan put an end to the dispute by himself distributing among the inhabitants his coveted guests. He reserved only Hadji Bilal and myself, who were considered the chiefs of the caravan, and we followed him to his _ooa_ (tent)."

A comfortable supper, of boiled fish and curdled milk, awaited the two pilgrims. The touching kindness with which he had been received, the comfort by which he was surrounded, filled Vambéry with a joy which accorded ill with the gravity of his assumed character of dervish. His friend Hadji Bilal felt bound to advise him upon this subject. "You have remarked already," said he, "that my companions and I distribute _fatiha_ (blessings) to every one. You must follow our example. I know it is not the custom in _Roum_ (Turkey), but the Turkomen expect it and desire it. You will excite great surprise if, giving yourself out for a dervish, you do not take completely the character of one. You know the formula of this blessing; you must, then, put on a serious face and bestow your benedictions. You can add to them _nefes_ (holy breathings) when you are called to the sick; but do not forget to extend at the same time your hand, for every one knows that the dervishes subsist by the piety of the faithful, and they never leave a tent without receiving some little present."

The Hungarian traveller profited so well by the advice of Hadji Bilal that, five days after his arrival at Gomushtèpe, a crowd of believers and sick people besieged him from the moment that he rose, soliciting, one his blessing, another his sacred breathing, a third the talisman that was to cure him. Thanks to the complaisance and marvellous tact which characterized him, Vambéry henceforth identified himself completely with the venerable personage of Hadji Reschid, and never during a period of two years escaped him the smallest gesture or word which could possibly betray him. His reputation for sanctity increased every day, and procured for him numerous offerings, which he received with a truly Mussulman gravity. This increasing confidence permitted the European to form with the Turkomen frequent intimacies, of which he profited to study the social relations of these tribes, to discover the innumerable ramifications of which they are composed, and to form an exact idea of the bonds which unite elements in appearance so heterogeneous and confused. But he was obliged to exercise great prudence; a dervish, wholly preoccupied with heavenly things, never ought to ask the smallest question in regard to affairs purely worldly. Fortunately, the Tartars, so terrible and so impetuous, when they have completed their forays, pass the remainder of their time in absolute idleness, and then they amuse themselves with interminable political and moral discussions. Vambéry, dropping his beads with an exterior of pious revery, lent an attentive ear to all these conversations, of which he never lost the slightest detail.

One thing which surprised him among the Turkomen was to see that if all are too proud to obey, no one seems ambitious to command. "We are a people without a head," they say; "and we wish no head. Every one is king in our country," Yet, notwithstanding the absence of all restraint, of all authority, these savage robbers, the terror of their neighbors, live together amicably, and we find among them fewer robberies and murders, and more morality than among the majority of the Asiatic people. {204} This is explained by the action of an all-powerful law, which exercises over the inhabitants of the desert more empire than religion itself; we speak of the _Deb_, that is to say, the custom, the traditions. An invisible sovereign, obeyed everywhere, it sanctions robbery and slavery, and all the prescriptions of Islam fall to the ground before it. "How," asked Vambéry one day of a Tartar famous for his robberies and his great piety, "how can you sell your Sunnite brother, when the Prophet has said expressly: Every Mussulman is free?" "Bah!" he replied, "the Koran, this book of God, is more precious than a man, and yet you buy and sell it; Joseph, the son of Jacob, was a prophet, and yet they sold him, and was he ever the worse for it?" The influence of Deb extends throughout central Asia; in converting themselves to the worship of Mohammed, the nomad tribes have taken only the exterior form; they adored formerly the sun, the fire, and other natural phenomena--they personify them to-day under the name of Allah.

Many ancient and singular customs are found everywhere in central Asia; marriage is accompanied by characteristic rites. The young girl, in her rich bridal costume, bravely bestrides a furious courser, whom she urges to his utmost speed; with one hand she holds the rein, with the other she presses to her bosom a lamb just killed, which the bridegroom, mounted also on a fast horse, endeavors to take from her. All the young people of the tribe take a part in the eager pursuit, and the sandy desert then becomes the theatre of this fantastic contest.

The ceremonies prescribed for funerals are not less singular. When a member of a Turkoman family dies, the mourners come every day for an entire year, at the hour when the deceased expired, to utter sobs and cries, in which the relations are bound to join. This custom seems to prove that the Tartars, superior in this respect to civilized people, consecrate to their dead a remembrance more profound and more durable; but, in fact, one must abate a little of this praise; the tears and prolonged mourning are only a matter of form, and Vambéry often could hardly suppress a smile when he saw the head of the family tranquilly smoking his pipe or enjoying his repast, interrupting himself now and then to join the noisy lamentations of the choir. It is the same with the ladies; they cry, they weep in the most lugubrious fashion, without ceasing to turn the wheel or rock the cradle. But what then? is not human nature the same everywhere, and do the Turkoman ladies differ so much from our inconsolable widows, to whom, as La Fontaine says with good-natured malice, "mourning very soon becomes an ornament."

Vambéry, venerated as one of the elect of the prophet, often passed his evenings among these Tartar families. Then, surrounded by a large audience, the troubadour, accompanying himself upon the guitar, chanted the poetry of Koroghi, of Aman Mollah, or more frequency of Makhdumkuli, the Ossian of the desert, whom his compatriots regard as a demigod. This holy personage, who had never studied in the colleges of Bokhara, received the gift of all science by a divine inspiration. He was one day transported in a dream to Mecca, in presence of the Prophet and of the first caliphs. Seized with respect and fear at the sight of this august assembly, he prostrated himself, and, throwing around him a timid look, perceived Omar, the patron of the Turkomen, who, with a benevolent air, signed him to approach. He received then the benediction of the Prophet, a light blow on the forehead, which awakened him. From this moment a celestial poesy flowed from his lips; he composed heroic hymns which the Tartars regard to-day as the most beautiful productions of the human mind.

{205}

About this time, a mollah having undertaken a trip to Atabeg and the Göklen, our traveller seized the occasion to examine the Greek ruins which perpetuate among these savage people the remembrance of the conquests of Alexander. He recognized the wall built by the Macedonian hero to oppose a barrier to the menacing stream of the desert tribes. The legend of the Turkomen shows how the oriental imagination clothes the events of history with poetic and religious fiction. Alexander, they say, was a profoundly religious Mussulman; and as the saints exercise all power over the invisible world, he commanded the spirits of darkness, and it was by his order that the genii built the sacred wall.

Notwithstanding the generous hospitality of Khandjan, Vambéry began to get tired of his residence at Gomushtèpe. The continual raids of the Turkomen peopled their tents with a crowd of Persian slaves, whose tortures revolted any one who had a spark of humanity. These unhappy beings, surprised for the most part in a nocturnal attack, were dragged from their families, and loaded with heavy chains which betrayed the slightest movement and hindered every attempt at flight. Khandjan himself possessed two young Iranians of eighteen and twenty years, and, singularly enough, this man, so good and so hospitable, overwhelmed these young men with injuries and insults on the slightest pretext. Our traveller could not, without betraying himself, manifest the least compassion for these poor slaves. Notwithstanding, the pity which they sometimes surprised in his looks induced them to address him. They begged him to write to their relatives, imploring them to sell cattle, gardens, and dwellings in order to release them from this frightful captivity; for the Turkomen often maltreat their prisoners merely in the hope of obtaining a great ransom for them.

Vambéry then learned with joy that the khan of Khiva, for whom the physicians had prescribed the use of buffalo's milk, had sent his chief of caravans to Gomushtèpe to buy two pair of these animals, in order to have them acclimated in his own country. To join an officer who knew the invisible paths of the desert better than the most experienced guides, was an unexpected good fortune for the pilgrims, and Vambéry urged Hadji Bilal to improve so good an opportunity; but Hadji Bilal was surprised at the impatience of his friend, and remarked that it was extremely childish. "It is of no use to be in a hurry," said he; "you will remain on the banks of the Gorghen until destiny shall decree that you quench your thirst at another river, and it is impossible to tell when the will of Allah will be manifested." This answer was not particularly satisfactory to Vambéry; but he could not attempt the desert alone; he was forced then to submit to the oriental slowness of his companions.

The little caravan was to return to Etrek, the capital of a tribe of warriors, to wait until the chief of caravans should join it. One of the most renowned chiefs of this tribe came just at this time to Gomushtèpe. His name was Kulkhan-_le-Pir_ (chief). His sombre and wild physiognomy, little calculated to inspire confidence, never brightened at the sight of the pious pilgrims; nevertheless, out of regard for Khandjan, he consented to take the hadjis under his protection, recommending to them to be ready to start with him in two days, for he awaited in order to return to his tent at Etrek only the arrival of his son, who had gone on a raid. Kulkhan spoke of this expedition with the paternal pride which makes the heart of a European beat in learning that his son has covered himself with glory on the field of battle. Some hours later, the young man, followed by seven Turkomen, appeared on the banks of the Gorghen. A great crowd had gathered, and admiration was painted upon every face when the proud cavaliers threw themselves with their {206} prey, ten magnificent horses, into the midst of the river, which they crossed swimming. They landed immediately, and even Vambéry, in spite of the contempt with which these acts of pillage inspired him, could not take his eyes from these bold warriors, who, in their short riding-habit, the chest covered with their abundant curling hair, gaily laid down their arms.

About noon the next day the traveller quitted Gomushtèpe, and was escorted for a considerable distance by Khandjan, who wished to fulfil punctually all the duties of hospitality. It was not without heartfelt regret that he parted from this devoted host, from whom he had received so many marks of interest. The pilgrims travelled toward the north-east; their road, which led them from the coast, was bordered by many mounds raised by the Turkomen in memory of their illustrious dead. When a warrior dies, every man of his tribe is bound to throw at least seven shovelsful of earth upon his grave. So these mausoleums often appear like little hills. This custom must be very ancient among the Asiatics; the Huns brought it into Europe, and we find traces of it to-day in Hungary. Half a league from Gomushtèpe the little caravan reached magnificent prairies, the herbage of which, knee-high, exhaled a delicious fragrance. But these blessings of nature are thrown away upon the Turkomen, who, wholly occupied in robbery and pillage, never dream of enriching themselves by peaceful, pastoral occupations. "Alas!" thought our European, "what charming villages might shelter themselves in this fertile and beautiful country. When will the busy hum of life replace the silence of death which broods over these regions?"

Approaching Etrek, the landscape suddenly changes. This lonely verdure is exchanged for the salt lands of the desert, whose rank odor and repulsive appearance seem to warn the traveller of the sufferings which await him in these immense solitudes. Little by little Vambéry felt the ground become soft under foot; his camel slipped, buried himself at each step, and gave such evident signs of intending to throw him in the mud, that he thought it prudent to dismount without waiting for a more pressing invitation. After tramping an hour and a half in the mire the pilgrims reached Kara Sengher (black wall), where rose the tent of their host, Kulkhan-le-Pir. The district of Etrek is, to the populations of Mazendran and Taberistan, a by-word of terror and malediction. "May you be carried to Etrek," is the most terrible imprecation which fury can extort from a Persian. One cannot pass before the tents of the Turkomen of Etrek without seeing the unhappy Iranian slaves, wasted by fatigue and privations, and bent under the weight of their chains. But the nomad tribes of Tartary offer a singular mixture of vice and virtue, of justice and lawlessness, of benevolence and cruelty. Vambéry, in his character of dervish, made frequent visits among the Tartars. He always returned loaded with presents and penetrated with gratitude for their charitable hospitality. To this sentiment succeeded a profound horror at the barbarous treatment inflicted upon their slaves. At Gomushtèpe such a spectacle had already revolted him; and yet this city, compared to Etrek, might be considered the _Ultima Thule_ of humanity and civilization.

One day, returning to his dwelling, Vambéry met one of the slaves of Kulkhan, who, in a piteous tone, begged him to give him to drink. This unfortunate being had labored ever since morning in a field of melons, exposed to the heat of a burning sun, without any other food than salt fish, and without a drop of water to quench his thirst. The sight of this poor sufferer, and of the cheers which ran down over his thick black beard, made Vambéry forget the danger {207} to which an imprudent compassion might expose himself. He gave his bottle to the slave, who drank eagerly and fled, not without having passionately thanked his benefactor.

Another time the European and Hadji Bilal called on a rich Tartar, who, learning that Vambéry was a disciple of the Grand Turk, cried, with great glee, "I will show you a spectacle which will delight you; we know how well the Russians and the Turks agree, and I will show you one o£ your enemies in chains." He then called a poor Muscovite slave, whose pallid features and expression of profound sadness touched Vambéry to the heart. "Go and kiss the feet of this effendi," said the Turkoman to the prisoner. The poor fellow was about to obey, but our traveller stopped him by a gesture, saying that he had that morning begun a great purification and that he did not wish to be defiled by the touch of an infidel.

At last a messenger came to inform the pilgrims that the chief of caravans was about to leave, and that he would meet them at noon the next day on the shore opposite Etrek. The hadjis therefore began their journey, escorted by Kulkhan-le-Pir, who, thanks to the introduction of Kulkhan, neglected nothing for the security of his guests. Now, as these districts are infested by brigands and very dangerous for caravans, the protection of this _graybeard_ was very useful to the travellers. Kulkhan was, in fact, the spiritual guide and grand high-priest of these fierce robbers; he united to a character naturally ferocious a consummate hypocrisy which made him a curious type of the desert chiefs. One ought to have heard this renowned bandit, who had ruined so many families, explaining to his assembled disciples the rites prescribed for purifications, and telling them how a good Mussulman ought to cut his moustache, etc. A sort of pious ecstasy, a perfect serenity, the fruit of a good conscience, was visible meanwhile upon the countenances of these men, as if they already enjoyed a foretaste of the delight of Mohammed's paradise.

The chief of caravans now joined the pilgrims. Vambéry desired very much to win the good graces of so important a man, and was, therefore, much alarmed when he saw that this dignitary, who had received the other pilgrims with marks of great respect, treated him with great coldness. Hadji Bilal eagerly undertook the defence of his friend. "All this," he cried angrily, "is no doubt the work of that miserable Mehemmed, who, even while we were in Etrek, tried to make us believe that our Hadji Reschid, so holy and so learned in the Koran, was a European in disguise! The Lord, pardon my sins!" This was the favorite exclamation of the good dervish in his moments of greatest agitation. "Be patient," he added, addressing his companion, "once arrived at Khiva, I will set this opium-eater right." Mehemmed was an Afghan merchant, born at Kandahar, who had frequently met Europeans. He thought he discovered in Vambéry a secret agent travelling, no doubt, with great treasure, and he hoped, by frightening him, to extort from him considerable sums; but the European was too cunning to be taken in this trap, and he found a secure protection in his reputation for sanctity and in the generous friendship of Hadji Bilal.

This incident had no immediate consequences. The chief of caravans, who was now chief of the united caravans, ordered each pilgrim carefully to fill his bottle, for they would travel now many days without meeting any spring. Vambéry followed the example of his companions, but with a negligent air which Hadji Salih thought himself bound to reprove. "You do not know yet," said he, "that in the desert each drop of water becomes a drop of life. The thirsty traveller watches over his bottle as a miser over his treasure; it is as precious to him as his eye-sight."

They travelled the whole day over a sandy soil, at times slightly undulating, but where it was impossible to discover the least trace of a path. The sun alone indicated their course, and during the night the _kervanbashi_ (chief of caravans) guided himself by the polar star, called by the Turkomen the iron pin, because it is motionless. Gradually the sand gave place to a hard and flinty soil, on which through the silent night resounded the foot-fall of the camels. At day-break the caravan stopped to take some hours of rest, and presently Vambéry perceived the kervanbashi engaged eagerly in conversation with Hadji Bilal and Hadji Salih, the subject of which their looks, constantly directed toward him, sufficiently indicated. He pretended not to observe it, and occupied himself with renewed earnestness in turning over the pages of the Koran. Some moments after his friends came to him, and said "his foreign features excited the distrust of the kervanbashi, for this man had already incurred the anger of the king because he had some years before conducted to Khiva a European, whom this single journey had enabled to put down on paper with diabolical art all the peculiarities of the country, and he never should be able to save his head if he committed another such blunder. It is with great difficulty," added the dervishes, "that we have persuaded him to take you with us, and he has made it a condition, first, that you shall consent to be searched, and secondly, that you will swear, by the tomb of the Prophet, that you will not carry about you secretly a _wooden pen_ as these detestable Europeans always do."

These words, we may imagine, were not very agreeable to Vambéry, but he had too much self-control to permit his agitation to be seen. Pretending to be very angry, he turned toward Hadji Salih, and, loud enough to be heard by the chief of caravans, replied, "Hadji, you have seen me in Teheran, and you know who I am; say to the kervanbashi that an honest man ought not to listen to the gossip of an infidel." This pretended indignation produced the desired effect; no one afterward expressed a doubt in regard to the pilgrim. Vambéry could not resolve to keep his promise, and, whatever it might have cost him to deceive his friends, he continued to make in secret some rapid notes. "Let one imagine," says he, to excuse himself, "the latter disappointment of a traveller who arriving at last, after long efforts and great peril, before a spring for which he has eagerly sighed, finds himself forbidden to moisten his parched lips."

The caravan advanced slowly through the desert; in compassion for the camels, who suffered much from the sand, upon which they could hardly walk, the pilgrims dismounted when the road became very bad. These forced marches were a severe trial to Vambéry on account of his lameness; but he endeavored to forget, his fatigue and to take a part in the noisy conversations of his companions. The nephew of the kervanbashi, a Turkoman of Khiva, entertained a particular affection for him; full of respect for his character as dervish, and won by the benevolence of his looks, he took great pleasure in talking to him of his _tent_, the only manner in which the prescriptions of the Prophet permitted him to speak of the young wife whom he had left at home. Separated for a whole year from the object of his tenderness, Khali Mallah appealed to the science of the pretended hadji to pierce the veil which absence had placed between himself and his family. Vambéry gravely took the Koran, pronounced some cabalistic words, closed his eyes, and opened the book precisely at a passage in which women are spoken of. He interpreted the sacred text so as to draw from it an oracle sufficiently vague, at which the young Tartar was transported with joy.

On the 27th of May the travellers reached the table-lands of Korentaghi, a chain of mountains surrounded by vast valleys, to the west of which extend ruins probably of Greek origin. {209} The nomads who inhabit this district came in crowds to visit the caravan, and for some hours the encampment had the appearance of a bazaar. The merchants and drovers who accompanied the kervanbashi concluded important bargains with the natives, mostly on credit; but Vambéry was surprised to see the debtor, instead of giving the note as a guarantee to the creditor, tranquilly put it in his own pocket. Our European could not refrain from speaking of this, and he received from one of the merchants this answer of a patriarchal simplicity: "What should I do with the paper? it would not do me any good; but the debtor requires it in order to remind him of the amount of the debt and of the time when it is to be paid."

Two days after a dark blue cloud appeared in the horizon toward the north; this was Petit-Balkan, the elevation, the picturesque landscapes, and the rich mineral resources of which are celebrated in all Turkoman poetry. The travellers passed along the chain of mountains, perceiving here and there green and fertile prairies, and yet the profound solitude of these beautiful valleys filled the soul with a vague sadness. Beyond commences the Great Desert, where the traveller marches for many weeks without finding a drop of water to quench his thirst, or a tree to shelter him from the rays of the sun. In winter the cold is intense, in summer the heat; but the two seasons present an equal danger, and frequent tempests swallow up whole caravans under drifts of snow or whirlwinds of sand.

"In proportion," says Vambéry, "as the outlines of Balkan disappear from the horizon, the limitless desert shows itself, terrible and majestic. I had often thought that imagination and enthusiasm enter largely into the profound impression produced by the sight of these immense solitudes. I deceived myself. In my own beloved country I have often seen vast plains of sand; in Persia I have crossed the salt desert; but how different were my feelings to-day! It is not imagination, it is nature herself who lights the sacred torch of inspiration. The interminable hills of sand, the utter absence of life, the frightful calm of death, the purple tints of the sun at his rising and setting, all warn us that we are in the Great Desert, all fill our souls with an inexpressible emotion."

After travelling many days, the provision of water beginning to be exhausted, Vambéry knew for the first time the horrible tortures of thirst. "Alas!" he thought, "saving and blessed water, the most precious of all the elements, how little have I known your value! what would I not give at this moment for a few drops of your divine substance!" The unfortunate traveller had lost his appetite, he experienced an excessive prostration, a devouring fire consumed his veins, he sank upon the ground in a state of complete exhaustion. Suddenly he heard resound the magic words, "Water! water!" He looked up and saw the kervanbashi distribute to each of his companions two glasses of the precious liquid. The good Turkoman had the habit whenever he crossed the desert of hiding a certain quantity of water, which he distributed to the members of his caravan when their sufferings became intolerable. This unexpected succor revived the strength of Vambéry, and he acknowledged the justice of the Tartar proverb: "The drop of water given in the desert to the traveller dying of thirst, effaces a hundred, years of sin."

The next day numerous tracks of gazelles and wild asses announced to the travellers that springs were to be found in the neighborhood; thither they hastened to fill their bottles, and, relieved now from all anxiety lest water should fail them before their arrival at Khiva, they gave themselves up to transports of joyful enthusiasm. Toward evening they reached the table-land of Kaflankir, an island {210} of verdure in the midst of a sea of sand. Its fertile soil, covered with luxuriant vegetation, gives asylum to a great number of animals; two deep trenches surround this oasis, which the Turkomen say are ancient branches of the Oxus. The caravan, instead of going directly to Khiva, made a circuit to avoid a tribe of marauders; the first of June it arrived within sight of the great Tartar city, which, with its domes, its minarets, its smiling gardens, the luxuriant vegetation which surrounds it, appeared to the travellers, worn by the monotony of the desert, an epitome of the delights of nature and of civilization.

III.

On entering the city their admiration was somewhat lessened. Khiva is composed of three or four thousand houses, constructed of earth, scattered about in all directions and surrounded by a wall, also of clay, ten feet high. But at every step the pious Khivites offered them bread and dried fruits, begging their blessing. For a long time Khiva had not received within its walls so great a number of hadjis; every face expressed astonishment and admiration, and on all sides resounded acclamations of welcome. Entering into the bazaar, Hadji Bilal intoned a sacred canticle, in which his companions joined; the voice of Vambéry predominated; and his emotion was very great when he saw the surrounding crowd rush toward him, to kiss his hands, his feet covered with dust, and even the rags which composed his dress.

According to the usage of the country, the travellers returned immediately to the caravan which served as custom-house. The principal _mehrum_ (royal chamberlain) fulfilled the functions of director; hardly had he addressed the usual questions to the kervanbashi when the miserable Afghan before spoken of, furious at having been thwarted in his avaricious designs, advancing, cried in a tone of raillery: "We have brought to Khiva three interesting quadrupeds, and a biped who is not less so." The first part of the expression, of course, alluded to the buffaloes which had been brought from Gomushtèpe; the second was pointed at Vambéry. Instantly all eyes were fixed upon him, and he could distinguish among the murmurs of the crowd the words: "Spy, European, Russian." Imagine his agitation! The khan of Khiva, a cruel fanatic, had the reputation of reducing to slavery or destroying by horrible tortures all suspected strangers. In this emergency Vambéry was not intimidated; often he had considered the possible consequences of his bold enterprise, and looked death in the face.

The mehrum, lifting his brows, considered the foreign countenance of the unknown, and rudely ordered him to approach. Vambéry was about to reply when Hadji Bilal, who did not know what was going on, eagerly entered to introduce his friend to the Khivite officer; the exterior of the Turkoman dervish inspired so much confidence that suspicions were instantly changed into respectful excuses.

This peril avoided, Vambéry could not deny that his European features raised in his way every moment new difficulties; he must have a powerful protector always ready to defend him. He presently remembered that an important man, named Shukrullah Bay, who had been for ten years ambassador to the sultan from the khan of Khiva, must know Constantinople and every official of that city. Vambéry thought he should find in this dignitary the support which he desired, and he repaired the same day to the _medusse_ (college) of Mohammed Emin Khan, where he resided. Informed that an effendi, recently arrived from Stamboul, wished to see him, the ex-minister immediately appeared. His surprise, already very great, was not diminished when he saw enter a mendicant covered with {211} rags and frightfully disfigured; but after exchanging a few words with his strange visitor, his distrust vanished; he addressed him question after question regarding his friends whom he had left at Constantinople, and, from the mere pleasure of hearing him speak of them, he forgot to raise a doubt regarding the supposed quality of the traveller. "In the name of God, my dear effendi," said he at last, "how could you quit such a paradise as Stamboul to come into our frightful country?" The pretended Reschid sighed deeply. "Ah, pir!" he replied, putting a hand upon his eyes in sign of obedience. Shukrullah was too good a Mussulman not to understand these words; he was persuaded that his guest belonged to some order of dervishes, and had been charged by his _pir_ (spiritual chief) with some mission which a disciple was bound to accomplish even at the peril of his life. Without asking any farther explanations, he merely inquired the name of the order to which Vambéry was attached. Vambéry mentioned the Nakish bendi, [Footnote 37] implying that Bokhara was the end of his pilgrimage, and he retired, leaving the Khivite minister marvelling at his learning, his wit, his sanctity, and his extensive acquaintance.

[Footnote 37: A celebrated order which originated in Bokhara, where its principal establishment still exists.]

The khan, hearing of the arrival of a Turk, the first who had ever come from Constantinople to Khiva, sent in all haste a _yasoul_ (officer of the court) to give the European a small present and inform him that the _hazret_ (sovereign) would give him audience the same evening, for he greatly desired to receive the blessing of a dervish born in the holy land. Our voyager, therefore, accompanied by Shukrullah Bay, who made it a point to present him, repaired to the palace of the formidable monarch. We will leave Vambéry to relate himself this curious interview:

"It was the hour of public audience, and the principal entrance and halls of the palace were filled with petitioners of every rank, sex, and age. The crowd respectfully made way at our approach, and my ear was agreeably tickled when I heard the women say to each other: 'See the holy dervish from Constantinople; he comes to bless our khan, and may Allah hear his prayer!' Shukrullah Bay had taken care to make it known that I was very intimate with the highest dignitaries in Stamboul, and that nothing should be omitted to render my reception most solemn. After waiting a few moments, two yasouls came to take me by the arm, and, with the most profound demonstrations of respect, conducted me in the presence of Seid Mehemmed Khan.

"The prince was seated upon a sort of platform, his left arm resting upon a velvet cushion, his right hand holding a golden sceptre. According to the prescribed ceremonial, I raised my two hands, a gesture which was immediately imitated by the khan and others present; then I recited a verse from the Koran, followed by a prayer much used beginning with the words: '_Allahuma Rabbina_.' I concluded with an _amen_, which I pronounced with a resounding voice, holding my beard with both hands. '_Kaboul bolgay!_' (may thy prayer be heard), responded in unison all the assistants. Then I approached the sovereign and exchanged with him the _mousafeha_, [Footnote 38] after which I retired a few steps. The khan addressed me several questions regarding the object of my journey, and my impressions in crossing the Great Desert.

[Footnote 38: Salute prescribed by the Koran, during which the right and left hand of each party are placed flatly one upon the other. ]

"'My sufferings have been great,' I replied, 'but my reward is greater yet, since I am permitted to behold the splendor of your glorious majesty. I return thanks to Allah for this favor, and I see in it a good omen for the rest of my pilgrimage.'

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"The king, evidently flattered, asked how long I proposed to remain at Khiva, and if I were provided with the necessary funds for pursuing my journey.

"'My intention,' I replied, 'is to visit before my departure the tombs of the saints who repose in the vicinity of Khiva. As to the means of pursuing my journey, I give myself no anxiety. We dervishes occupy ourselves very little with such trifles. The sacred breathing which I have received from the chief of my order suffices, moreover, to sustain me four or five days without any other nourishment; therefore the only prayer which I address to heaven is that your majesty may live a hundred and twenty years.'

"My words had gained the good graces of the khan; he offered me twenty ducats, and promised to make me a present of an ass. I declined the first of these presents, because poverty is the necessary attribute of a dervish; but I accepted the animal with gratitude, not without piously remarking that the precept of the Prophet requires that a white ass should be used for pilgrimages. The king assured me that I should have one of this color, and he put an end to the interview, begging me to accept at least during my short residence in his capital two _tenghe_ (1 franc 50 centimes) a day for my maintenance.

"I retired joyfully, receiving at every step the respectful homage of the crowd, and regained my own dwelling. Once alone, I uttered a sigh of satisfaction, thinking of the danger which I had incurred, and the happy manner in which I had escaped it. This dissolute khan, savage and brutal tyrant, had treated me with unexampled kindness; I was now free from all fear, and at liberty to go where I liked. During the entire evening, the audience of the khan was present to my mind; I saw again the Asiatic despot, with his pallid countenance, his eyes deeply sunk in the orbits, his beard sprinkled with white, his white lips and trembling voice. So, I thought, Providence has permitted that fanaticism itself should serve as a bit to this suspicious and cruel tyrant."

It was soon understood in Khiva that the dervish of Constantinople was in great favor with the khan, therefore the notables of the city delayed not to overwhelm him with visits and invitations; the _oulemas_ especially, anxious to enlighten themselves with his light, asked him a thousand questions regarding various religious observances. Vambéry, repressing his impatience, was obliged to spend whole hours instructing these fervent disciples on the manner of washing the feet, the hands, the face; explaining to them how, not to violate any precept, the true believers ought to sit down, to rise, to walk, sleep, etc. The pretended pilgrim, who was supposed to be a native of Stamboul, venerated seat of religion, passed for an infallible oracle, for the sultan of Constantinople and the grandees of his court are regarded at Khiva as the most accomplished observers of the law. They there represent the Turkish emperor as _coiffé_ in a turban at least fifty or sixty yards long, wrapped in a long trailing robe, and wearing a beard which falls to the girdle. To inform the Khivites that this prince dresses like a European, and has his clothes cut by Dusautoy, would only excite their pious indignation; any one who would attempt to disabuse them on these points would pass for an impostor, and would only risk his own life. Vambéry was obliged to answer the most ridiculous questions: one wished to know if in the whole world there was any city to be compared to Khiva; another, if the meals of the grand sultan were sent to him every day from Mecca, and if it only took one minute for them to come from the Kaaba to the palace at Constantinople. What would these pious enthusiasts say if they could know with what honor _Chateau-Lafitte and Chateau-Margeaux_ figure upon the table of the actual successor of the Prophet?

{213}

The convent which gave asylum to the pilgrims served also as a public square; it contained a mosque, the court of which, ornamented with a piece of water surrounded with beautiful trees, was the favorite lounge of all the idle people in town. The women came there to fill the heavy jugs which they afterward carried to their dwellings. More than one of these recalled to the European the daughters of his dear Hungary; he took great pleasure in watching them, and never refused them his blessing, his powder of life, or even his sacred breathing, which had the power of curing all infirmities. On these occasions, the sick person squatted upon the threshold of the door, the pretended dervish, moving his lips as if in prayer, extended a hand over the patient, then he breathed three times upon her and uttered a profound sigh. Very often the innocent creatures fancied that they had experienced immediate relief, so great is the power of the imagination!

During the time that Vambéry was at Khiva, a fair had assembled there from twenty leagues round all the rich natives. Most of these came to the markets not so much to buy and sell as to gratify that love of display so inveterate among the Orientals; their purchases were often limited to a few needles or similar trifles; but it was an excellent occasion to parade their beautiful horses, to display their richest clothes and their finest weapons. Khiva, moreover, is the centre of an active commerce; beside the fruits, which enjoy great renown, and are exported to Persia, Turkey, Russia, and China, the stalls of the fair contain excellent manufactured articles. Beside the _urgendi tchapani_, a kind of dressing robe made of woollen or silken stuffs of two colors, are displayed the linens of Tash-hauz, the bronzes of Khiva, muslins, calicoes, cloth, sugar, iron sent by Russia to be exchanged for cotton, silk, and furs, which the caravans deliver in the spring at the markets of Orenbourg, and in the autumn at those of Astrakan. The transactions with Bokhara are equally important: they export thither robes and linens, and receive in exchange tea, spices, paper, and fancy articles.

Vambéry, divided between the friendship of Hadji Bilal and his daily increasing intimacy with Shukrullah Bay, led a very agreeable life at Khiva. Unhappily this calm was troubled by the secret intrigues of the mehter (minister of the interior), who was a personal enemy of the Khivite ambassador. He persuaded the khan that our traveller was a secret agent of the sultan of Bokhara, and Seid Mehemmed resolved to have a second interview with the would-be dervish, and submit him to a strict examination. Vambéry, exhausted by the extreme heat, was taking a siesta in his cell when he was warned by a messenger to report himself to the sovereign. Surprised at this unexpected order, he departed with some anxiety. In order to reach the palace he was obliged to cross the grand square, where were assembled all the prisoners taken in a recent war against the neighboring tribe of the Tchandors, and the sight of these unfortunate beings impressed him most painfully. The khan in company with the mehter awaited his arrival; he overwhelmed him with artful questions, and said that, knowing how thoroughly versed he was in the worldly sciences, he should like very much to see him write some lines after the manner of Stamboul. The necessary materials having been brought, Vambéry wrote the following epistle, when, under pompous flowers of rhetoric, he slipped in a bit of raillery pointed at the mehter, who was extremely vain of his own beautiful writing:

{214}

"Most majestic, powerful, terrible, and formidable monarch and sovereign:

"Inundated with the royal favor, the poorest and most humble of your servants has, until this day, consecrated little time to the study of penmanship, for he remembers the Arab proverb: 'Those who have a beautiful handwriting have ordinarily very little wit.' But he knows also the Persian adage: 'Every defect which pleases a king becomes a virtue.' This is why he ventures respectfully to present these lines."

The khan, charmed with the pompous eloquence of our traveller, made him sit beside him, offered him tea and bread, and had with him a long political conversation, the subject of which had been agreed upon beforehand. In his quality of dervish, the adroit European maintained an austere silence. Seid Mehemmed drew from him with great difficulty some sententious phrases, which offered not the slightest pretext to the malicious designs of the mehter.

On leaving the royal audience, a yasoul conducted Vambéry to the treasurer to receive his daily allowance. He was obliged to cross a vast court, where a horrible spectacle awaited him. Three hundred Tchandors, covered with rags and wasted by hunger till they looked like living skeletons, were expecting the sentence which was to decide their fate. The younger ones, chained one to another by iron collars, were to be sold as slaves or given as presents to the favorites of the king. More cruel punishments were reserved for those whose age caused them to be considered as chiefs. While some of them were conducted to the block upon which already many heads had fallen, eight of these unhappy old men were thrown upon the ground while the executioner tore out their eyes. It is impossible to enter upon the frightful details of these barbarous punishments. Arriving at the office of the treasurer, Vambéry found him singularly occupied in sorting silken vestments of dazzling colors, covered with large golden embroidery. These were the _khilat_, or robes of honor, which were to be sent to the camp to recompense the services of the warriors; they were designated as robes of four, twelve, twenty, or forty heads. This singular mode of distinguishing them, which the designs upon the tissue in no way explained, having excited the curiosity of Vambéry, he inquired the reason. "What!" was the reply, "have you never seen similar ones in Turkey? In that case, come to-morrow to assist at the distribution of these glorious emblems. The most beautiful of these vestments are intended for those soldiers who have brought forty enemies' heads, the most simple for those who have furnished only four." In spite of the horror which this custom inspired, the European could not without exciting suspicion refuse the invitation thus extended to him. Accordingly, the next morning he saw arrive in the principal square of Khiva a hundred cavaliers covered with dust; each one of them led at least one prisoner fastened to the pommel of the saddle, or to the tail of his horse; women and children bound in the same manner making a part of the booty. Beside, all the soldiers carried behind them large bags filled with heads cut off from the vanquished. They delivered the captives to the officer in charge, and then emptied their bags, rolling out the contents upon the ground with as much indifference as if they had been potatoes. These noble warriors received in exchange an attestation of their great exploits, and this billet would give them a right after a few days to a pecuniary recompense.

These barbarous customs are not peculiar to Khiva; they are found in all central Asia. Tradition, law, and religion agree in sanctioning them. During the first years of his reign, the khan of Khiva, wishing to display his zeal for the Mussulman faith, proceeded with the utmost rigor not only against the heretic Tchandors, but also against his own subjects who were found guilty of the least infraction of the commandments of the Prophet. The oulemas endeavored to moderate the too ardent piety of the king; but, notwithstanding their intervention, not a day passes without {215} some person admitted to audience of the khan being dragged from the palace, after hearing the words, equivalent to his death-warrant: "_Alib barin!_" (take him away).

Notwithstanding the cruelties by which Khiva is disgraced, it was in this city that Vambéry passed, under the costume of a dervish, the most agreeable days of his journey. Whenever he appeared in public places he was surrounded by a crowd of the faithful, who heaped presents upon him. Thus, though he never accepted considerable sums, and though he shared the offerings of the pious believers with his brethren the hadjis, his situation was much improved; he was provided with a well-lined purse, and a vigorous ass; in short, he was perfectly equipped for his journey. His companions were very anxious to arrive at Bokhara, fearing that the heat might render it impracticable to cross the desert, and they urged Vambéry to terminate his preparations for departure. Before quitting Khiva our European wished to bid adieu to the excellent protector to whose hospitable reception he owed so much.

"I was deeply moved," he says, "to hear the arguments which the good Shukrullah Bay employed to dissuade me from my enterprise. He painted Bokhara under the most gloomy colors, the distrustful and hypocritical emir, hostile to all strangers, and who had even treacherously put to death a Turk sent to him by Reschid Pacha. The anxiety of this worthy old man, so convinced at first of the reality of my sacred character, surprised me extremely. I began to think that he had penetrated the secret of my disguise, and perhaps divined who I was. Accustomed to European ideas, Shukrullah Bay understood our ardor for scientific researches, for in his youth he had passed many years in St. Petersburg, and often also, during his residence in Constantinople, he had formed affectionate intimacies with Europeans. Was it on this account that he had manifested so warm a friendship for me? In parting from him I saw a tear glisten in his eye; who can tell what sentiment caused it to flow?"

Vambéry gave the khan a last benediction. The prince recommended to him on his return from Samarcande to pass through his capital, for he wished to send with the pilgrim a representative, charged to receive at Constantinople the investiture which the masters of Khiva wish to obtain from every new sultan. This was by no means the plan of our traveller. "_Kismet_," he replied, with his habitual presence of mind; a word altogether in the spirit of his character, and which signifies that one commits a grave sin when one counts upon the future.

{216}

From Aubrey De Vere's May Carols.

MATER DIVINAE GRATIAE.

The gifts a mother showers each day Upon her softly-clamorous brood: The gifts they value but for play,-- The graver gifts of clothes and food,--

Whence come they but from him who sows With harder hand, and reaps, the soil; The merit of his laboring brows, The guerdon of his manly toil?

From him the grace: through her it stands Adjusted, meted, and applied; And ever, passing through her hands, Enriched it seems, and beautified.

Love's mirror doubles love's caress: Love's echo to love's voice is true:-- Their sire the children love not less Because they clasp a mother too.

As children when, with heavy tread, Men sad of face, unseen before, Have borne away their mother dead-- So stand the nations thine no more.

From room to room those children roam, Heart-stricken by the unwonted black: Their house no longer seems their home: They search; yet know not what they lack.

Years pass: self-will and passion strike Their roots more deeply day by day; Old servants weep; and "how unlike" Is all the tender neighbors say.

And yet at moments, like a dream, A mother's image o'er them flits: Like hers their eyes a moment beam; The voice grows soft; the brow unknits.

Such, Mary, are the realms once thine, That know no more thy golden reign. Bold forth from heaven thy Babe divine! O make thine orphans thine again!

{217}

From The Month

PAMPHLETS ON THE EIRENICON.

The appearance of a work such as the "Eirenicon," from the pen of one in so conspicuous a position as Dr. Pusey, was sure to attract general attention, and to call forth a great number of comments and answers more or less favorable to it or severe upon it. It gives an occasion for, and indeed invites, the frankest discussion of a very wide range of most important questions; and in doing so it has rendered a great service to the cause of truth. Many of these questions are of that kind which those whom the "Eirenicon" itself may be supposed more particularly to represent have been in the habit of avoiding, at all events in public, although their own ecclesiastical position depended entirely upon them. It is a very great gain that these should now be opened for discussion, at the invitation of one who has long passed as a leader among Anglicans. Moreover, a book which handles so many subjects and contains so many assertions has naturally raised questions as to itself which require consideration. It is a comparatively easy matter to look on it as a simple overture for peace, or to speculate on the possibility of that "union by means of explanations" which Dr. Pusey tells us is his dearest wish. Even here we are directly met by the necessity of further investigations. Dr. Pusey puts a certain face on the Thirty-nine Articles, and on Catholic doctrines and statements with regard to the questions to which those Articles refer. Is he right in his representation either of the definitions of his own communion or of the support which those definitions may receive from authorities external to it? Is it true that the "Catholic" interpretation is the legitimate sense of the Articles? Is it true that that interpretation is supported by Roman and Greek authorities? Is there no statement, for instance, in the Council of Trent about justification to which any in the Anglican communion can object? It must be quite obvious that a great number of sanguine assertions such as these require examination in detail; and surely no one can complain if they are not admitted on Dr. Pusey's word. Then again, unfortunately, he was not content with painting his own communion in his own colors; he must needs give a description of the Catholic system also. He has told us--and we are both willing and bound to believe him--that he has not drawn this sketch in a hostile spirit; perhaps he will some day acknowledge--which is much more to the point--that he has drawn it in great and lamentable ignorance, the consciousness of which ought to have deterred him from attempting it. Surely there are some enterprises which are usually undertaken by none but the dullest or the most presumptuous of men. Such an enterprise is that of giving an account of a practical system which influences and forms the hearts and minds of thousands of our fellow-creatures, when we have ourselves lived all our days as entire strangers to it. If it be something simply in the natural order, such as the polity or the customs of a foreign nation, we do not feel so much surprise at the blunders made by the {218} writer who undertakes to describe them, as at his temerity in making the attempt. This is, of coarse, enhanced greatly in proportion as we ascend into the higher spheres of the spiritual and supernatural life. It is strange enough to see any sensible man writing as if he could fairly characterize the devotional sentiments and religious thoughts of men of a different belief; but it becomes something more than strange when this venturesome critic proceeds not only to characterize, but to condemn and to denounce in the strongest language that which he might in all reason and modesty have supposed himself, at least, not quite able fully to comprehend; and this at the very time that he is proposing peace.

We are not, however, here concerned with this more painful view of the subject. We are only pointing out that the elaborate chapter of accusation against the Catholic Church which Dr. Pusey has drawn up could not fail to be received with great indignation on the part of Catholics, and that the overtures which accompany it cannot be fairly dealt with until it has been thoroughly sifted by criticism as well as by controversy. How can we explain a "system" which we deny to exist? Of course, no Catholic will acknowledge Dr. Pusey's representation as anything but a monstrous caricature. Of course, also, the chief heads of accusation can be easily dealt with one by one, and positive statements given as to what is really taught, thought, and felt by Catholics with regard to them. But this leaves the book untouched. How came these charges to be made? What grounds has Dr. Pusey for asserting that to be true which we all know to be so false? Does he quote rightly? Has he understood the books he cites, where he has read them? And has he read them through? Are the authors whom he gives as fair specimens of Catholic teaching acknowledged as writers of credit, or are some of them even on the Index? Has he ever understood the Catholic doctrines on which he is severe, such as the immaculate conception and the papal infallibility, or the meaning of the Catholic authorities whom he seems to set in some sort of opposition to others, such as Bossuet and the bishops, whose answers he quotes from the "Pareri?" It is true that questions like this are to some extent personal; but Dr. Pusey makes it necessary to ask them, and he is the one person in the world who ought to wish that they should be thoroughly handled. We cannot believe that he approves of the tactics of some Anglican critics, who speak as if the ark of their sanctuary were rudely touched when it is said that he can be mistaken or ignorant about anything. He has never shown any lack of controversial courage. Up to the present time we are not aware of a single publication of any note from the Catholic side of the question which has not exposed some one or two distinct and important errors of fact, quotation, historical statement, or some grave misconception of doctrine on his part; and this, it is to be observed, has hitherto only been done incidentally by writers who have not addressed themselves to the systematic examination of the "Eirenicon" as a work of learning.

Lastly, this miscellaneous work has occasioned a call which, also, we are glad to feel sure, will be adequately answered; a call for calm and learned statements from Catholic theologians on some of the chief controversial questions touched on by Dr. Pusey. What is the real unity of the church? What is the true doctrine of her infallibility and of that of the Roman Pontiff? and how are the commonly alleged (though so often refuted) objections--as, for instance, that about what Dr. Pusey calls _formal heresy_ of Liberius--to the met? What is really meant by the immaculate conception, and what was in truth the history of the late definition? {219} These, and a few more important matters--such as the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the historical truth as to the cases of Meletius and the African churches--will be treated at length in the forthcoming volume of essays announced under the title of "Peace through the Truth." The case of the Anglican ordinations has been incidentally raised by Dr. Pusey; but it will be natural for Catholic critics to wait for a volume on the subject which has been announced by Mr. F. G. Lee. As far as the alleged sanction of those ordinations by Cardinal Pole is concerned, Dr. Pusey does not seem inclined to raise the question again.

We have thus a tolerably large promise of work for theological writers and readers; and it cannot but be looked on as a good sign that so strong an impulse to controversial activity should have been given by one who has not hitherto been fond of inviting attention to the difficulties of his own position. It is but natural that the more solid and erudite works called forth by the "Eirenicon" should be the last to appear; and any one who has read but a few pages of that work will understand the difficulty which its writer has imposed on any conscientious critic by a frequently loose way of quoting, and an occasional habit of giving no authority at all for statements that certainly require more proof than a bare assertion. But we have already the beginning of a most valuable collection of publications by men of the highest position, dealing either with detached portions of Dr. Pusey's work or in a summary way with its general plan; and some service has been done by letters in the papers, such as those of Canon Estcourt and Mr. Rhodes. Father Gallwey's "Sermon" has been widely circulated; Canon Oakeley has given us an interesting pamphlet on the "Leading Topics of the Eirenicon;" Dr. Newman has written a letter to its author, and is understood to be preparing a second; and his grace the Archbishop of Westminster has dealt with several of Dr. Pusey's assertions in his "Pastoral Letter on the Reunion of Christendom." We propose now to deal shortly with some of these publications, which, though they belong to the earlier and more incidental stage of the controversy, are of the highest value in themselves and on account of the position of their authors. [Footnote 39]

[Footnote 39: We have found it impossible to deal with so important and authoritative a è as his Grace's "Letter" in our present paper.]

We must first, however, speak of a work put forth by Dr. Pusey as a sequel or a companion to the "Eirenicon." This is a republication (with leave of the author) of the celebrated Tract 90, preceded by an historical preface from Dr Pusey's own pen, and followed by a letter of Mr. Keble on "Catholic Subscription to the Articles," which was widely circulated, though not published, in 1861. Of the tract itself we need not, of course, speak. Dr. Pusey's preface, however, is open to one or two obvious remarks. It is remarkable for the manner in which he identifies himself with the Mr. Newman of the day, though it appears that the proof of the tract in question was submitted to Mr. Keble, and its publication urged by him, while Dr. Pusey himself was only made aware of its existence by the clamor with which it was received. Then, again, the remarkable difference of view between Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman as to the "Catholic" interpretation of the Articles forces itself again upon our notice. From the tract itself all through, and its explanations by its author at the time and since, it is perfectly clear that nothing more was meant by it than to claim such latitude of interpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles as would admit the "Catholic" sense on equal terms, as it were, with the anti-Catholic; and the same view is urged by Mr. Keble in his letter. The writer of the tract supposes that the Anglican formularies were drawn {220} up with designed ambiguity, in order to catch Catholic subscriptions. He compares the tactics adopted by the framers of the Articles to those which were followed by M. Thiers: "A French minister, desirous of war, nevertheless, as a matter of policy, draws up his state papers in such moderate language that his successor, who is for peace, can act up to them without compromising his own principles. . . . The Protestant confession was drawn up with the purpose of including Catholics; and Catholics now will not be excluded. What was an economy in the reformers is a protection to us" (Tract 90, conclusion). This is a plain common-sense view of the matter, and is abundantly supported by history. But it obviously leaves a stain on the Anglican establishment, which will appear of vital or of trifling importance according to the different views under which that community is regarded. If it is looked upon as a political and national organization, it was no doubt a stroke of prudence so to frame the formularies as to include both sides. If it is considered as a church of Christ, it can hardly be anything but discreditable that it should thus compromise divine truth. But Dr. Pusey's view of the "Catholic interpretation," as expressed both in his present preface and in the "Eirenicon," claims for it the exclusive title of the natural and legitimate sense. It may seem almost incredible that any one should maintain this; but so it is. Dr. Pusey thus speaks of the "Protestant" interpretations: "We had all been educated in a traditional system, which had practically imported into the Articles a good many principles _which were not contained in them nor suggested by them;_ yet which were habitually identified with them. . . . . We proposed no system to ourselves, but laid aside piece by piece the system of ultra-Protestant interpretation, which had incrusted round the Articles. This doubtless appeared in our writings from time to time; but the expositions to which we were accustomed, and which were to our minds the genuine expositions of the Articles, had never before been brought into one focus, as they were in Tract 90. . . . Newman explained that it was written solely against this system of interpretation, which brought meanings into the Articles, not out of them, and also why he wrote it at all" (Pref., v.-vii.) Yet the words of Mr. Newman's explanation, which are quoted immediately after this last passage, distinctly contradict the interpretation of the tract put forward by Dr. Pusey. Mr. Newman says that the Anglican Church, as well as the Roman, in his opinion, has a "traditionary system beyond and beside the letter of its formularies. . . . . And this traditionary system not only inculcates what I cannot conceive (receive?), but would exclude any difference of belief from itself. _To this exclusive modern system_ I desire to oppose myself; and it is as doing this, doubtless, that I am incurring the censure of the four gentlemen who have come before the public. _I want certain points to be left open which they would close._. . . In thus maintaining that we have open questions, or, as I have expressed it in the tract, 'ambiguous formularies,' I observe, first, that I am introducing no novelty." He then gives an instance which shows that the principle is admitted. Again, he says: "The tract is grounded on the belief that the Articles _need_ not be so closed as the received methods of teaching closes them, and _ought_ not to be for the sake of many persons" (Letter to Dr. Jelf, quoted by Dr. Pusey, p. vii.)

It is obvious that the interpretations contained in the tract, however admissible on the hypothesis of their author, become little less than extravagant when they are considered in the light in which Dr. Pusey now puts them forward; and it is but fair to Dr. Newman and others to point out the change. Moreover, it is not {221} impossible that this republication of the tract, together with the avowals made in the "Eirenicon" as to the interpretation of the Articles, may be considered as a kind of challenge thrown out on the part of Dr. Pusey and his followers to the authorities of the establishment and the parties within it that are most opposed to "Catholic" opinions. It may be considered fairly enough that if this "claim to hold all Roman doctrine"--as far as those well-used words apply to it--is allowed to pass unnoticed, the position of the "Anglo-Catholic" clergy in the establishment will be made as secure as silent toleration on the part of authorities can make it. [Footnote 40] Be it so by all means; but let it be understood that the claim now made is quite different from that made by Mr. Newman in 1841; and that if it enjoys immunity from censure, on account of the far greater latitude now allowed in the establishment to extreme opinions of every color except one, it has still to free itself from the charge of being one of the most grotesque contortions of language that has ever been seriously advocated as permissible by reasonable men. One of the Articles, for instance--to take the case adduced by Canon Oakeley--says that "transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of the bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions." On the other hand, let us place the Tridentine Canon: "If any one saith that in the sacred and holy sacrament of the eucharist the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood--the species only of the bread and wine remaining--which conversion the Catholic Church most aptly calls transubstantiation, let him be anathema." (Sess. xiii.) Not only does Dr. Pusey assert that there is a sense in which the two statements are compatible, but he maintains that such an interpretation is the one single obvious grammatical and legitimate interpretation of the words of the Anglican Article. We can only imagine one process of reasoning by which this conclusion can be maintained; and we have little doubt that if Dr. Pusey's argument were drawn out it would come to this. The Articles must mean "Catholic" doctrine, whether they seem to do so or not, because the Anglican Church is a true and orthodox portion of the Catholic Church. And a part of the proof that she is such a portion consists in the fact that her formularies signify Catholic doctrine!

[Footnote 40: Canon Oakeley, in the pamphlet of which we shall presently speak, says of Dr. Pusey's interpretation: "Dr. Pusey's avowal, moreover, not merely involves the acceptance of that interpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles for which Mr. Newman was censured by nearly every bishop of the establishment, but goes beyond that interpretation in a Catholic direction, inasmuch as it comprehends the doctrine of transubstantiation, which Mr. Newman, I believe, never thought to be included within the terms of the Articles. It also goes beyond Mr. Newman's argument in his tract, _in that it supports the Catholic sense of the Articles to be their obvious and only true sense._ Instead of being merely one of the senses which are compatible with honest subscription. And here I must say, in passing, that I think Dr. Pusey somewhat unfair on Mr. Ward in attributing to him the unpopularity of Tract 90, since, in extending the interpretation of the tract to our doctrine of the blessed eucharist. Dr. Pusey is in fact adopting Mr. Ward's Construction of the Articles, and not Mr. Newman's" (p, 6).]

The other noticeable feature in Dr. Pusey's preface is an attempt to throw the blame of the undoubted unpopularity of Tract 90 upon Mr. Ward rather than on the tract itself. Mr. Ward was probably at one time the best-abused person of all the followers of the tractarian movement; and if powerful reasoning, keen logic, unflinching openness, and courageous honesty are enough to make a person merit wholesale abuse, Mr. Ward certainly deserved it. But to attribute the unpopularity of No. 90 to him is simply to forget dates and distort facts. {222} In 1841, when the clamor against No. 90 was at its height, Mr. Ward, though well known in Oxford for his decided opinions and thorough honesty in avowing them, and though highly influential (as he could not fail to be) over those who came within his reach, was hardly known in the country at large. Dr. Pusey's mistake has been pointed out by Canon Oakeley in the appendix to his pamphlet, of which we shall speak presently. He observes that the word "non-natural"--of which he gives a very plain and simple explanation, which quite vindicates it from the interpretation commonly put upon it--was not used till the appearance of "The Ideal of a Christian Church" in 1844.

Canon Oakeley's pamphlet, like everything that he writes, is graceful and courteous, lucid and cogent; and it ought to have all the greater weight with Dr. Pusey from the evident disinclination of the author to think or speak with severity. In fact, Dr. Pusey has already [Footnote 41] had occasion to correct an over-sanguine conclusion as to his own position which had been formed by Canon Oakeley in consequence of certain explanations which he addressed to a Catholic paper.

[Footnote 41: In his second letter to the "Weekly Register."]

We think that the fullest credit should be given to Dr. Pusey for these explanations; but they must not be allowed to counterbalance assertions which he has never withdrawn, and seems never to have meant to withdraw. He has only negatively declared something about the intention he had in making them. He says they were not meant to hurt Catholics; he does not say that they were not meant to frighten Anglicans. We refer, of course, to the large number of pages which he has devoted to attacks on what he chooses to consider as the practical system of Catholicism, chiefly with regard to the _cultus_ of our Blessed Lady, and which no Catholic can read without intense indignation. He has heaped up a number of extracts from books of very little authority, and put forward as characteristics of the Catholic system the pious contemplations of individuals, as well as tenets which have been actually condemned. The charge is urged with all the recklessness of an advocate, with eager rhetoric rather than calm argument, with all the looseness of insinuation and inaccuracy of quotation which mark the productions of a heated partizan. [Footnote 42]

[Footnote 42: A writer in the current number of "Macmillan's Magazine" (Feb., 1866) observes: "We could scarcely transcribe all that is here set forth without offending the religious taste of our readers, and appearing to gloat over the degradation of a church which, amidst all its aberrations and after all ita crimes, is a part of Christendom. We may reasonably hope, also, that there is something to be said upon the other side: for, without casting any suspicion upon Dr. Pusey's honesty, we must remember that he is personally under a strong temptation to scare the wavering members of his party from defection to the Church of Rome" (p. 277). This is the opinion of an intensely anti-Catholic writer; and it would be easy to quote scores of similar criticisms. A letter from Oxford, in the "London Review" of February 3, says: "It seems a gentle irony, certainly, to call a book an 'Eirenicon' which most mercilessly exposes the errors, perversions, and tendencies of those whom it proposes to conciliate. A great portion of the book might have been written by the most distinguished Papophobe--we will not say Dr. Cumming, for the style does not remind us of his publications." The writer in "Macmillan" adds an observation on another point which is well worthy of Dr. Pusey's consideration: "Dr. Pusey's argument, both against Mariolatry and Papal infallibility, _appeals to principles essentially rationalistic_, which are capable, as we conceive, of being turned with fatal effect against himself" (p. 230).]

No part of his book shows more earnestness than this. Such being the case, it seems to us very strange that any one should expect Catholics to be satisfied with a simple assurance from Dr. Pusey that "nothing was further from my wish than to write anything which should be painful to those in your communion." [Footnote 43]

[Footnote 43: Dr. Pusey to the "Weekly Register," Nov. 25, 1865.]

We suppose that if some one were to write a pamphlet of a hundred pages full of the hardest and most vulgar insinuations against something that Dr. Pusey holds dear and sacred, his opinion of it would hardly be changed by the assurance, unaccompanied by a single retraction, "I never meant to hurt your feelings." He would naturally ask in what sort of atmosphere such a person had lived, to be able to think that such things _could_ be said without being "painful." He disclaims {223} all desire to "prescribe to Italians and Spaniards what they shall hold, or how they shall express their pious opinions." But he is not speaking of Spaniards or Italians only in many of the most offensive passages of his work. He says, for instance, that it "is a practical question, affecting our whole eternity: What shall I do to be saved? The practical answer to the Roman Catholic seems to me to be, Go to Mary, and you will be saved; in our dear Lord's own words it is, Come unto me; in our own belief it is, Go to Jesus, and you will be saved" (p. 182). Can anything be more shocking than the contrast insinuated here? Or, again, when he says in another place, "One sees not where there shall be any pause or bound, short of that bold conception, 'that every prayer, both of individuals and of the church, should be addressed to St. Mary?'" Dr. Pusey must be perfectly aware of the effect of words like these from him upon the mass of his readers. It is certainly no sufficient _withdrawal_ of them to write a letter to a Catholic newspaper, of limited circulation, saying that he "never thought of imputing to any of the writers whom he quoted that they took from our Lord any of the love which they gave to his mother." Whatever he may think about the writers themselves, he certainly asserts in the face of the world that they teach others to do this. He asserts that there is a "system" in the Catholic Church, of which this is the effect. If he "had no thought of criticising holy men who held it," he still will not take Catholic explanations of their words, which show that they did _not_ hold it; and his own words imply, or at all events admit of, a reservation, that such is the tendency of the system, from which certain individuals escape in consequence of their holiness. Now, it is this assertion about the system of the church which offends Catholics. They care little about their own "feelings;" they resent false charges against the church all the more when they proceed from one who professes to be nearer to them than others, and to be a lover of peace, and who might easily have satisfied himself that his accusations were groundless. People have not complained of Dr. Pusey's intention in saying these things, but of his having said them. They willingly accept his statement as to his intention; but misrepresentations retain their mischievous character till they have been formally withdrawn, whatever may have been the temper in which they have been put forward.

It is, moreover, obvious that this, which to ordinary eyes is the prominent feature in Dr. Pusey's volume, must be taken into account in all conclusions concerning the present state of mind among Anglicans that are founded upon the reception which the "Eirenicon" has met with among them. We think that there are but few among them, as there are certainly very few among Catholics, who attach much practical importance to the vague and dreamy ideas about corporate union by means of mutual explanations which are put forward in other parts of the work. It is perfectly clear that Dr. Pusey's account of the Articles would be repudiated at once by all the Anglican authorities; and equally clear that the points to which he still objects, such as the papal infallibility and the dogma of the immaculate conception, are among those which can never be conceded on the side of the church. The proposals for union are not, therefore, generally looked upon as matters for practical consideration; though, as Dr. Newman has remarked, they may hereafter lead to results of the highest importance. What has struck the Anglican public in the book is its attack on Catholicism, which has, no doubt, surprised Protestants as much as Catholics by its violence. We say, therefore, that to consider Dr. Pusey's unrebuked declaration about the possibility of union as a great sign of progress among Anglicans, without {224} taking into consideration the other features of the work which he has put forth, is to ignore the most essential circumstances of the case. Canon Oakeley compares the outcry with which similar declarations were once received on Mr. Ward's part and his own with the indifference and absence of opposition now evinced toward Dr. Pusey. It is true that the cases are in some respects parallel; but there is this vital difference, that neither Mr. Ward nor Canon Oakeley accompanied their declarations as to Roman doctrine with virulent abuse of Roman practice; and we may feel pretty certain that the "Ideal of a Christian Church" would never have been made the ground of an academical condemnation of its author if it had contained the hundred pages on the _cultus_ of the Blessed Virgin on which Dr. Pusey has expended so much care, and which he has adorned with so much apparent erudition. Englishmen judge roughly, and in the main fairly; and they will look on the proposals for union as an amiable eccentricity in a writer who has pandered so lovingly to their favorite prejudices.

Canon Oakeley has drawn out very clearly another very important qualification, which must modify our feelings of joy at the apparent progress of Anglicans in general toward greater tolerance of Catholic opinions among themselves. He has shown that this seemingly good sign is in reality only an indication of increasing indifference to doctrine of every kind. It is the reflection on the broad mirror of public opinion of the uniformly latitudinarian tendency of the authorities of the establishment, as evinced in the succession of judicial decisions of which we have all heard so much. It is not wonderful that Puseyism should share in this universal indulgence. We have also to thank Canon Oakeley for a calm and forcible vindication of the Catholic devotion to our Blessed Lady, which has been made the subject of so violent an attack by Dr. Pusey--perhaps more in the form of an apology than was necessary--and for some very sensible remarks on the dream of "corporate union."

There is one writer in England whose words on this subject will be listened to with almost equal interest by Catholics and Protestants. The conflict passes into a new phase with the appearance of Dr. Newman upon the scene. It is "the great Achilles moving to the war." The gleam of well-worn armor flashes on the eye, and the attention of both armies is riveted on him as he lifts his spear. He cannot mutter his favorite motto:

[Greek text]

for it is but lately that he struck down and kicked off the field a swaggering bully from the opposite ranks hardly worthy of his steel. It is different now. He will begin in Homeric fashion with a complimentary harangue to the champion on the other side; but then will come the time for blows--blows of immense force, dealt out with a gentle affectionateness which enhances their effect tenfold. Dr. Newman begins by a generous tribute to Dr. Pusey himself, and to those whom he may be supposed to influence. No one can speak more strongly on the paramount rights of conscience, which is not to be stifled for the sake of making a path easy or removing a wearisome difficulty. Dr. Pusey is allowed to have every right to mention the conditions on which he proposes union, though Dr. Newman does not agree with them, and thinks that he would himself not hold to them; he has also the right to state what it is that he objects to, as requiring explanation, in the Catholic system. But then the tone changes, and business begins. Dr. Newman tells his old friend in the plainest way that "there is much both in the matter and manner of his volume calculated to wound those who love him well, but truth more;" and he points out the {225} glaring inconsistency of "professing to be composing an Irenicon while treating Catholics as foes;" and characterizes, in his happy way, the proceeding of Dr. Pusey as "discharging an olive branch as from a catapult." The hundred pages on the subject of the Blessed Virgin which are contained in the "Eirenicon" are so palpably "one-sided" that no one can venture to deny it. Few have characterized them in stronger terms than Dr. Newman. "What could an Exeter Hall orator, what could a Scotch commentator on the Apocalypse, do more for his own side of the controversy by the picture he drew of us?" Further on he pointedly reminds Dr. Pusey that he all the time knew better. After a proof from the fathers as to the doctrine in question, he says, "You know what the fathers assert; but if so, have you not, my dear friend, been unjust to yourself in your recent volume, and made far too much of the differences which exist between Anglicans and us on this particular point? It is the office of an Irenicon to smooth difficulties" (p. 83); and again, "As you revere the fathers, so you revere the Greek Church; and here again we have a witness in our behalf, _of which you must be aware as fully as we are_, and of which you must really mean to give us the benefit" (p. 95); and again, "Then I think you have not always made your quotations with that consideration and kindness which is your rule" (p. 111). The calm gentleness of the language will certainly not conceal from Dr. Pusey the gravity and severity of the rebuke thus administered. Moreover, Dr. Newman has complaints of his own to urge. With the most questionable taste Dr. Pusey has actually brought "to life one of" Dr. Newman's "own strong sayings, in 1841, about idolatry;" he has at least been understood to father upon him the well-known saying, that "the establishment is the great bulwark against infidelity in this land;" he has used some words from Dr. Newman's notes to St. Athanasius in a collection of passages from the fathers, the apparent purpose of which is to defend some Anglican doctrine about the sufficiency of Holy Scripture against a supposed Catholic contradiction. Dr. Newman also most clearly distinguishes his own intention in publishing Tract 90 from that of Dr. Pusey in its recent republication.

The introduction to the letter before us concludes with a passage of singular interest, in which Dr. Newman vindicates the right of a convert to speak freely about the system of the church to which he has submitted. We must confess that we hardly understood the passages in Dr. Pusey's work, to which reference is here made, as denying the right of free comment to a convert, in the sense in which Dr. Newman affirms it. Dr. Pusey has a standard and measure of his own (external to the Anglican establishment), by which he criticises, approves, or condemns this or that feature in it; and he distinctly contemplates at least the possibility of his being driven to quit it by its formal adoption of heresy. Certainly, to submit to the Catholic Church, and yet retain the right of measuring her in such a way by an external standard, would be a contradiction in terms. But this does not touch the right of a convert either to choose freely, according to his own tastes and leanings, among those varieties of devotion and practice which the church expressly leaves to his choice, or to express his opinion on such subjects (so that it be done with charity), or on any other matters which fall within the wide and recognized range of open questions. If Dr. Pusey meant to deny this right, he will be convinced by the frank use made of it by Dr. Newman in the passage before us. No one, certainly, will assail _him_ as unorthodox; yet he takes his stand openly on one particular side with regard to some of the moot questions of the day, as to which certainly a large {226} number of English Catholics will be as ready to say that they do not altogether agree with him as to acknowledge that he has a perfect right to the opinions which he expresses. Perhaps we should rather say that they will profess their admiration for the authors whom he so far at least disavows as to question their right to be treated in controversy as the legitimate and exclusive representatives of English Catholicism; for we need not understand Dr. Newman's words about the late Father Faber and the editor of the "Dublin Review" as meaning more than this; and his point, as against Dr. Pusey, is fully secured by the indisputable fact that those distinguished men have never considered themselves, or let others consider them, as such representatives.

The greater part, however, of Dr. Newman's present letter is given to an exquisite defence of Catholic doctrine and devotion as regards our Blessed Lady. Its power and beauty are so great as to fill us with inexpressible sadness at the thought that Dr. Newman has written comparatively so little on similar subjects since he has been a Catholic. This short and very condensed sketch on one particular point has given him an opportunity of exercising, on however limited a scale, those powers as to which he is simply unrivalled. There is the keen penetration of the sense of Scripture, and of the relation between different and distinct parts of the Holy Volume. After putting forward the patristic view of our Blessed Lady as the second Eve, Dr. Newman has occasion to defend that interpretation of the vision of the woman in the Apocalypse which understands it of her. This has given him occasion to explain how it is that this interpretation may be the true one, although there is no great amount of positive testimony for it in the fathers, and to refute from the general principles of scriptural language that which looks upon the image as simply a personification of the church. This passage is a real and great gain in scriptural interpretation. Then, again, here is the masterly and discriminating erudition, not dealing with the fathers as an ill-arranged and incoherent mass of authorities, but giving to each witness his due place and weight, pointing out what parts of the church and what apostolical tradition he represents, and blending the different sufferages into one harmonious statement. History is brought in to trace the gradual development of devotion on points as to which doctrine, on the other hand, was always uniform; and to give a natural and simple explanation of the chronological order in which the heart, as it were, of the church seems to have mastered the different portions of the wonderful deposit which the apostles sowed in her mind. The effect of Dr. Newman's explanation of the comparatively later growth of certain devotions, which in themselves might have been expected to precede others, is not only to remove the apparent difficulty, but to make every other view appear more difficult than that which he gives. Equally beautiful and convincing is his explanation in the appendix of the historical account which may be given of the strange sayings of certain fathers as to our Blessed Lady having possibly fallen into faults of infirmity. Some most accurate and delicate tests for the discernment of a real tradition are here given, as well as reasons for the apparent absence of such a tradition in a special case. Dr. Newman is one of the few writers who show us, first, that they thoroughly understand a difficulty or an objection; then, that they can make it even stronger; and then, that they can not only say something against it, or crush it, but even unravel it, and show that it was to be expected. In every one of these respects Dr. Pusey is his exact contrary. Then again, Dr. Newman brings together a series of passages from the fathers of the "undivided church"--to use the now term invented, we believe, by Mr. Keble--of which, of course, {227} Dr. Pusey was aware, but of which he has said nothing in his "Eirenicon." These testify amply not only to the doctrine but to the devotion of the fourth and fifth centuries as to our Blessed Lady. He is, of course, sparing of quotations in a work like the present; but he crowns his argument from authority by a number of passages not from popular books of devotion among the Greeks, but from their liturgies and authoritative formularies--on which Dr. Pusey would have founded a strong argument to the effect that our Lady is elevated to the place of our Lord, if he had been able to find them in circulation among Catholics. In fact, a number of formal Greek devotions end with the words, "through the Theotocos," instead of "per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum." The contrast between the cogency and appositeness of every word of Dr. Newman's few quotations (almost universally given at length), and the utter illusiveness and bewildering misapplication of the clouds upon clouds of citations paraded in Dr. Pusey's volume, is wonderfully striking. Nor, again, is the difference less great between the two when a personal remark has to be made. Dr. Newman has no hard words for any one. He does not shrink from pointing out faults, as we have already said. He tells Dr. Pusey plainly enough that he does not think that he even understands what the immaculate conception means; and when he speaks of Anglicans being ignorant of the Catholic doctrine of original sin, he seems carefully to omit exempting Dr. Pusey from the general statement. He says again pointedly, "He who charges us with making Mary a divinity is thereby denying the divinity of Jesus. _Such a man does not know what divinity is._" He complains of the unfairness--of which, we are sorry to say, Dr. Pusey seems habitually guilty--of taking a strong and apparently objectionable passage from an author who, either in the immediate context or elsewhere, has qualified it by other statements, which any one but a partizan writer would feel bound to take into consideration and to place by its side, without giving the reader any intimation that such qualifications exist. "When, then, my dear Pusey, you read anything extravagant in praise of our Lady, is it not charitable to ask, even while you condemn it in itself, Did the author write nothing else?" (p. 101). He refuses to receive Dr. Pusey's collection of strong passages as a fair representation of the minds of the authors from whom they are quoted. He speaks of their "literal and absolute sense, as any Protestant would naturally take them, and as the writers doubtless did not use them" (p. 118). And again: "I know nothing of the originals, and cannot believe that they have meant what you say" (p. 120). But with all this strong and decisive language, which we may be sure is the very gentlest that he can use, and implies an estimate of the "Eirenicon" by no means in accordance with that of its admirers, he is so uniformly calm and affectionate in manner that we cannot but hope that Dr. Pusey and others who think with him will be won over to think more seriously of the extreme gravity of their step in casting forth upon the world of English readers so extremely intemperate an accusation against the Catholic Church as that which they have put in circulation. Nor can we abandon the hope that they will listen to Dr. Newman's clear and unanswerable statement of the doctrine of the fathers as to our Blessed Lady, and see how truly he has pointed to the flaws and defects in their own thoughts with regard to her. They will certainly be hardly able to deny that they have misunderstood not only the immaculate conception, against which they have talked so loudly, but even, it may be, original sin itself; nor do we think that it can be questioned that he has put his finger upon the fundamental error--not to say heresy---to which all their low conceptions as to the Blessed Mother of God {228} are to be assigned as their ultimate cause. Dr. Pusey, as Dr. Newman remarks, seems to have no idea that our Blessed Lady had any other part or position in the incarnation than as its _physical instrument_--much the same part, as it were, that Juda or David may have had. The fathers, on the contrary, from the very first, speak of her "as an intelligent, responsible cause of our Lord's taking flesh;" "her faith and obedience being accessories to the incarnation, and gaining it as her reward" (p. 38). Dr. Newman insists on this vital and all-important difference more than once, and seems to consider it the explanation of the strange blindness of these students of antiquity. If they can once gain a new and more Catholic idea as to that which is the foundation alike of our Blessed Lady's greatness and the devotion of the church to her--and certainly they must be very blind or very obstinate not to see the reasons for such an idea in Dr. Newman's pages--then the "Eirenicon" will have produced incidentally a far greater blessing to themselves and others than if its strange interpretation of the Anglican Articles had been allowed as legitimate in England, and there had been half a score of Du Pins in France ready to enter into negotiations with the Archbishop of Canterbury on the basis of its propositions. These good men have in fact been living and teaching and studying the fathers with one of the great seminal facts, so to speak, of Christianity absent from their minds or entirely undeveloped in them. "It was the creation of a new idea and a new sympathy, a new faith and worship, when the holy apostles announced that God had become incarnate; we a supreme love and devotion to him became possible, which seemed hopeless before that revelation. _But beside this, a second range of thoughts was opened on mankind, unknown before, and unlike any other, as soon as it was understood that that incarnate God had a mother. The second idea is perfectly distinct from the former--the one does not interfere with the other."_ We conceive that these words will fall strangely on the ears of Dr. Pusey, though they might not perhaps do so on those of the author of the "Christian Year" and the "Lyra Innocentium;" and if they do so, after the incontestable proof which Dr. Newman has adduced from the early fathers of their view of the position of our Blessed Lady in the economy of the incarnation, it will only remain for Dr. Pusey either to confute that proof or to acknowledge that he has been reasoning on that great mystery without the guidance of the church, deaf to the teaching of the fathers, and that he has incurred the usual fate of men who so reason. May the prayers of the Blessed Mother, against whose honor he has raised his voice so harshly, save him from closing his eyes still more firmly!

It appears to be one of the characteristics of Dr. Newman to look at particular questions and phases of opinion with regard to a wider and more comprehensive range of thought than other men. Possibly his retired position favors this habit of mind; but it is, of course, far more naturally to be attributed to a loftier intellectual stature and a wider knowledge of history than others possess. Such a man is eminently fitted for a controversy like the present, in which the word peace has been blurted forth in so uncouth a manner, while yet it is not the less the expression of the real and powerful longings of a thousand hearts. It is a most unpromising overture, but it is an overture nevertheless. Dr. Newman is not only fitted to deal with it on account of his tender and large sympathies, and of the affectionate solicitude with which he has always treated his former friends; he is able also not indeed to go to the very verge of Catholic doctrine for their sakes, or to encourage delusive hopes of a compromise which would patch up rather than unite, but to speak with calm {229} accuracy, looking on his own times as a philosophical historian of the church may look at them by-and-bye, and point out what may be accidental, transient, local, in the features of the religion of the present day. No one can be less inclined to exaggerate, for instance, the differences between English and Italian devotion; and we have seldom felt ourselves in a more Italian atmosphere, out of Italy, than in the oratory at Edgbaston. But he is not afraid of giving full weight to national differences of character, nor of avowing himself a hearty Englishman. In the same way, without going into the question of fact as to alleged extravagances--which, after all, is of no real cogency in the argument--he is ready to admit that there may be such, and puts forward a simple common-sense argument to show that such may be expected in the living working of energetic ideas generally, and especially of such ideas in matters of religion, which acts on the affections. This is the true philosophical answer; and it by no means excludes other answers that might be given to particular charges, which might be proved to be false in fact, or to apply to matters so grave as that the church would never be allowed to permit the alleged corruption.

Dr. Newman never shrinks from allowing the full force of any principle that he has laid down. Thus, he has distinguished between faith as to our Blessed Lady's position in the kingdom of her Son and the devotion to her founded upon that faith. The faith may have been from the beginning, and actually was so, as he proves from the early fathers; but the full devotion may not all at once have been developed; or again, it may have been checked in particular countries at a particular time, and so make no show in the writings of some fathers of that age, in consequence of the baneful influence of a prevalent heresy which cut at the faith itself. This, which is really almost self-evident, enables him not only to explain the passages in St. Chrysostom and St. Basil which are sometimes objected to, but to grant that there are no certain traces of _devotion_, strictly so called, to our Blessed Lady in the writings of others beside these. There need not be, according to his principles. It must be remembered that all these statements admit of great development and explanation; they are germs of thought, and are only put forward most concisely in Dr. Newman's present letter. It is more to our present purpose to observe how ready he is to look through the cloud of charges, great and small, which Dr. Pusey has blown in the face of Catholics, and to discern in the book of his old friend a new and important turning-point in the Anglican controversy. He thinks that the indignation of Catholics has led them in consequence to misconceive Dr. Pusey, so as not, it would seem, to give him credit for really pacific intentions. We think that no one has denied--what, indeed, it does not become a critic to question--the reality of a purpose distinctly avowed; but at the same time we must repeat that it has never been denied by Dr. Pusey, nor do we think it ever can be denied, that the book was written with a clear and distinct intention so to represent Catholicism as to deter people from submitting to it except on certain terms pointed out by the author. Possibly Dr. Newman only means that Catholics have been more alienated by Dr. Pusey's most unhandsome attack than attracted by his professions of friendship; and certainly never was a friendly expostulation, never was an earnest request for explanation on certain points which appear to be difficulties in the way of a much-desired union, proposed in a way less calculated to conciliate. Dr. Newman, therefore, neither wonders nor complains at the strong feeling with which the "Eirenicon" has been received; but he looks beyond the present moment, and, recalling the former phases of opinion as to {230} Catholicism which have prevailed among Anglicans, he sees in Dr. Pusey's proceeding nothing less than the putting "the whole argument between you and us on a new footing"--a footing which may really and profitably be used by those who desire peace. No English Catholic but will most heartily rejoice in this statement of Dr. Newman; and surely one of our first feelings must be that of thankfulness that he is among us at a time like this, and that circumstances will give him a more patient hearing and a more ready acceptance, on the part of those whose souls may be staked on the issue of this controversy, than he might otherwise meet with. From him, at least, Anglicans will hear no extreme or novel doctrine; him, at least, they will never accuse of not loving everything that is English. He, if any one, may convince them that no true child of the "undivided church" would be found at the present day outside the communion of the Holy See; that the church is the same now as she ever was, and as she ever will be; that she can never compromise with her enemies, though she yearns with unutterable love to take back every wanderer to her heart.

Experience has happily shown that the great Shepherd of souls leads men on in a way they neither discern nor desire, when they have once set themselves to wish and pray for greater light; and that prophecies of ill and suspicions of sinister purposes, which have not lacked ample foundation, have yet been often defeated in the indulgent dispensations of grace. Nor, indeed, at the present time, are all the signs of the sky evil. In its most disagreeable and inexcusable features the "Eirenicon" is not, we are convinced, a fair representation of the mind of a great number who might commonly be supposed to sympathize with its author. He has put himself for the moment at their head; and they are, of course, slow to repudiate his assistance; but we do not believe that the earnest men who publish so many Catholic devotions, and who, however mistakenly, attempt to reproduce in their own churches the external honors paid by Catholics to him whom they also think that they have with them, would willingly make themselves responsible for the hundred pages with which Dr. Newman's present pamphlet is engaged. The advance toward Catholicism among the Anglicans has, in fact, left Dr. Pusey some way behind other and younger men. Even as to himself, he is hardly further away than others have been who are now within the church.

Only it must not be forgotten that the largest and most charitable thoughts as to the meaning and intentions of individuals, and the most hopeful anticipations as to the ultimate result of their movements, do not exhaust the duties imposed upon Catholic writers at the present moment. Let us see ever so much of good in demonstrations such as this, and believe that there is a still greater amount of good which we do not see. We may forbear to press men harshly, to point out baldly the inconsistencies of their position; we may put up with the rudeness of the language in which they propose peace. They may be haughty and ungenerous now; but this is not much to bear for the sake of that unity which those who know it love better than those who are strangers to it. Let us be ready, as far as persons are concerned, to be tender in exposing faults even wanton, and misconceptions which, as we think, common industry and fairness might have obviated. For Dr. Pusey himself we can wish no severer punishment than that he should be able some day to look upon his own work with the eyes of a Catholic. He has himself shown us, by the use which he has made of old expressions of Dr. Newman and others, who have long since repudiated them, that the retraction of charges against the Catholic Church by their authors does not prevent {231} others from repeating them. We are sorry to say--what we still believe will be acknowledged as true by all who have been at the pains--pains not taken by some who have written on this subject--of not merely considering the animus and motives of Dr. Pusey, but of examining his book in detail, and taking its measure as a work of erudition and controversy--that, unattractive in style, rambling, incoherent, vague, and intentionally "loose" as it is, it has one great quality, however unintentional--that of being a perfect storehouse of misrepresentation. We speak simply as critics, and we disclaim all attempts to account for the phenomenon. It contains an almost unparalleled number of misstatements of every kind and degree. Its author's reputation will give weight and currency to these. Though never perhaps likely to be a popular book, it will still take its place in Protestant libraries, and will be much used in future controversies. No one can tell how often we shall have certain extraordinary statements about the sanctification of the Blessed Virgin, her active and passive conception, the protest of the Greek Church against the doctrine, Bellarmine's assertion about general councils, transubstantiation, extreme unction, and the like, brought up against us; and the erroneous conclusions founded upon them cannot be neglected by the defenders of Catholic truth. It is, therefore, essential not that Dr. Pusey should be attacked in an unkindly spirit, but that his book should be handled critically, and, as far as may be, whatever it contains of misstatement, misquotation, unfair insinuation and conclusion catalogued and exposed. It must be remembered that there is a great demand for the materials of anti-Catholic controversy. Dr. Pusey does not subscribe to the societies which mostly hold their meetings in Exeter Hall in the month of May; but he might well be made a life-governor of all of them in consideration of this book. It will be used by the zealots who try to win the poor peasants of Connaught to apostasy by means of food and clothing, and by the more decorous "Anglo-Continentals," who are just now rubbing their hands at the prospects of infidelity in Italy. Alas! it not only teems with snares for the learned and conscientious, but it is full of small insinuations for the ignobler herd of paid agents and lecturers--"what the poorer people believe in Rome," what Catholic churches are called in south India, what Cardinal Wiseman is reported to have said of Archbishop Affré, "who died in recovering his people at the barricades." These things may be passed by as simply faults of taste; but the pretensions of the book to learning, and its historical and doctrinal statements, cannot be admitted without sifting. Dr. Pusey has imposed an unwelcome task on Catholic critics. At the very time that they would be conciliating his followers, they are forced to attack him. It has seemed to us indeed that ordinary care in examining authorities, an attention to the common-sense rule that strangers cannot understand a system from without, the use of the many means at his disposal of ascertaining the Catholic meaning of Catholic language, more self-restraint in assertion, in urging arguments that appeared telling and conclusions that were welcome to himself, and somewhat less of confidence in his own attainments as a theologian, would have spared those who wish him well this painful undertaking at a time when they would gladly say no word that may sound harsh to his ears. But, after all, truth is more precious than peace, and peace can only be had through the truth; and we can cordially return to Dr. Pusey the assurance which he himself has proffered to Catholics, that those engaged in the ungrateful task of subjecting his volume to the analysis of criticism have no intention whatever of wounding his feelings.

{232}

[ORIGINAL.]

CURIOSITIES OF ANIMAL LIFE.

There is an old aphorism which says that "all life comes from an egg"--_omne vivum ex ovo_; but this, like a good many other old aphorisms, is only a convenient and attractive way of stating a falsehood. It is very true that almost all animals, from man down to the mollusk, pass through the egg stage at an early period of their existence; but we purpose to show our readers in this article that there are others which appear to be sometimes exempted from the common lot of their kind, and which indeed come into the world in such curious fashions that we may almost say of them, in the words of Topsey, that they "never were born; 'spect they _growed_."

To begin with, what is an egg? According to the popular idea, it is an oval-shaped body, consisting of a hard, thin shell inclosing a whitish substance called the albumen, within which is a yellowish matter called the yolk; it is the embryo form of the young of birds and some other animals, which finally emerge from the shell after the egg has been acted upon for some time by the heat of the parent's body. Now this definition may do well enough as a loose description of the more familiar varieties of eggs, but it will not do for all. It will perhaps surprise the unscientific reader to be told that every animal whatever produces eggs. A "mare's nest" is the popular expression of a myth, an absurdity; but _mare's eggs_ are no myths; they are just as real as hen's eggs; only we never see them, because they are hatched in the parent's body before the young colt is brought forth. The same is true of the eggs of all the other quadrupeds and of viviparous animals in general.

An egg, therefore, like the seed of a plant, is the germ from which the embryo is developed. It may have a shell, or it may not; it may be comparatively large, like birds' eggs, or it may be so small as to be with difficulty discerned by the naked eye. When it is first formed it is simply an aggregation of fluid matter, very minute in size, and exceedingly simple in structure. By degrees this fluid is transformed into the small particles or granules which form the yolk; the yolk shapes itself into a multitude of _cells_--little microscopic bodies consisting of an external membrane, or cell-wall, and of an inner nucleus, which may be either solid or fluid; and in due process of time a number of cells combine and form a living being. The albumen, or "white," is, like the shell, an accessory. It performs important functions in the development of the young from the germ, but we will not stop to explain them here; the true egg is the yolk. In the lowest forms of animal life the egg is a mere cell, with a light spot in one part of it, and the creature which is developed from it is almost as simple in structure as the egg itself.

The ordinary mode of reproduction, as we have already said, is by the formation of an egg in the body of the parent, from which the young may be hatched either before or after they are brought into the world. But there are certain of the lower orders of animals which sometimes multiply and {233} perpetuate their kind in other ways also. Professor Henry James Clark, of Harvard University, has lately published an interesting treatise [Footnote 44] on animal development, in which he gives some curious instances of the phenomena to which we refer. We have drawn a good deal of what we have just said about the structure of eggs from his valuable work, and we purpose now to follow him in his remarks upon the processes of reproduction by what is called _budding_ and _division_.

[Footnote 44: "Mind in Nature; or, The Origin of Life and the Mode of Development of Animals." 8vo. New York: D. Appleton & Co.]

Let us look first at that exceedingly beautiful and wonderful animal commonly called the sea anemone, on account of the delicate fringed flower so much loved by poets. You may often find it on our coasts contracted into a lump of gelatinous substance looking like whitish-brown jelly; [Footnote 45] watch it for a while, and you will see the body rise slightly, while a delicate crown of tentacles, or feelers, steals out at the top. The jelly-like mass continues to increase in height, and the wreath of tentacles gradually expands. Soon you will perceive that this graceful fringe surrounds a wide opening; this is the animal's mouth. When expanded to its full size the anemone is about three or four inches in height. The body consists of a cylindrical gelatinous bag, the bottom of which is flat and slightly spreading at the margin. The upper edge of this bag is turned in, so as to form a sack within a sack; this is the stomach. The whole summit of the body is crowned by the soft plumy fringes which give it such a remarkable resemblance to a flower. At the base it has a set of powerful muscles, by which it attaches itself to rocks and shells so firmly that it can hardly be removed without injury. Another set of muscles enables it to contract itself almost instantaneously into a shapeless lump. It is extremely sensitive, not only shrinking from the slightest touch, but even drawing in its tentacles if so much as a dark cloud passes over it. Anemones may be found, say the authors of "Sea-side Studies," "in any small pools about the rocks which are flooded by the tide at high water. Their favorite haunts, however, where they occur in greatest quantity, are more difficult to reach; but the curious in such matters will be well rewarded, even at the risk of wet feet and a slippery scramble over rocks covered with damp sea-weed, by a glimpse into their more crowded abodes. Such a grotto is to be found on the rocks of East Point at Nahant. It can only be reached at low tide, and then one is obliged to creep on hands and knees to its entrance in order to see through its entire length; but its whole interior is studded with these animals, and as they are of various hues, pink, brown, orange, purple, or pure white, the effect is like that of brightly-colored mosaics set in the roof and walls. When the sun strikes through from the opposite extremity of this grotto, which is open at both ends, lighting up its living mosaic-work, and showing the play of the soft fringes whenever the animals are open, it would be difficult to find any artificial grotto to compare with it in beauty. There is another of the same kind on Saunders's ledge, formed by a large boulder resting on two rocky ledges, leaving a little cave beneath, lined in the same way with variously-colored sea anemones, so closely studded over its walls that the surface of the rock is completely hidden. They are, however, to be found in larger or smaller clusters, or scattered singly, in any rocky fissures overhung by sea-weed and accessible to the tide at high water."

[Footnote 45: "Sea-side Studies in Natural History." By Elizabeth Alexander Agassiz. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1865.]

Mr. Gosse, in his "History of British Sea Anemones and Corals," mentions the existence of a singular connection between a certain variety of these animals and a species of hermit crab that lives in the deserted {234} shell of a mollusk. An anemone is always found attached to the shell which the crab inhabits, and is so placed that its fringed month comes just below the mouth of the crab. Whatever food comes within reach of either animal can, therefore, be shared in common. The crab is so far from objecting to this community of goods that he seems unhappy without his companion. Though he is a hermit, he is not exempt from the common lot of housekeepers; he submits every now and then to the trouble of _moving-day_.

Mr. Gosse observed one in the act of changing houses. No sooner had he taken possession of the new shell than he began removing the anemone from the old one, running his claw under it to separate it from the shell, and then bringing it to the new house, where, having placed it in its customary position, he held it down until it had attached itself, and now and then pressed it closer, or gave it a pat to hasten the process. In another instance, observed by Mr. Holdsworth, the crab, after vainly trying for more than an hour to remove his companion anemone, deserted his new quarters and went back to the old, rather than submit to a separation.

The anemone, for all that it is so delicate and graceful in appearance, is a gluttonous little beast, eats raw meat in the aquarium, and when upon its native coast sucks mussels and cockles out of their shells. Queer compound of plant and animal in appearance, its natural kingdom seems still more doubtful than ever if we watch it while it is undergoing certain processes of reproduction. It does indeed generally produce its young by maternal gestation; eggs are formed in the cavity that surrounds its stomach, and at the proper time the young swim out of the parent's mouth. But it has other modes of propagation, one of which is almost exactly like the process of raising plants from suckers. Very often you may see, growing out of the lower part of the body of the anemone, and as a general thing near the edge of the basal disc by which it attaches itself to the shell or rock, little rounded protuberances, like buds; well, they are buds--the buds of young anemones. In a short time six small tentacles make their appearance on the top of each bud. A minute oblong aperture opens in the midst of them. A digestive cavity is formed. The curious internal structure of the animal (which we have not space here to describe) is gradually developed. The bud becomes elongated and enlarged every way. The tentacles multiply; the small aperture grows into a mouth; and finally the young anemone drops off from its parent and floats away to shift for itself. Professor Clark has seen as many as twenty thus detach themselves in the course of a single month. This is the process of generation by _budding_ or _gemmation_, of which we spoke on a previous page.

But we have not yet exhausted the list of wonders displayed by this extraordinary plant-animal. We have seen that it has at least two ways of being born; what will our readers say when we assure them that it has not only two but _four?_ The remaining two both come under the head of what is called _voluntary self-division_. One of them is strikingly like the propagation of plants by cuttings. Little pieces break off from the anemone at the base and float away. For a long time they give no sign of life; but when they have recovered, so to speak, from the shock of separation, they begin to shoot out their tentacles and grow up into perfect individuals. The fourth method of generation is still more wonderful. Now and then you find an anemone whose upper disc is contracted in a peculiar manner at opposite sides. The contraction increases until the disc loses its circular form and presents the shape of the figure 8. The two halves of the 8 next separate, and you {235} have an anemone with two mouths, each surrounded by its own set of tentacles. Then the processes of constriction and separation continue all down the body of the animal from summit to base, and the result is two perfect anemones, each complete in its organization. It is well that the lower orders of creatures have none of the laws of inheritance and primo-geniture that bother mankind, or such irregular methods of coming into the world might breed a great deal of trouble among them. Here, for instance, you have two anemones, which we will call A and B, formed by the splitting asunder of a single individual; what relation are they to each other? Are they brother and sister or parent and child? And if the latter, how is any one to decide which is the parent? Then suppose A raises offspring in the usual way from eggs, what relation are these young to B? Are they sisters, or nieces, or grandchildren?

Let us now look at another animal, the stentor, or trumpet-animalcule. This is a minute infusorian, very common in ponds and ditches, where it forms colonies on the stems of water-weeds or submerged sticks and stones. Some of the varieties have a deep blue color, and a settlement of them looks very much like a patch of blue mould. The stentor is shaped like a little tube, about one-sixteenth of an inch in length, spread out at the upper end like a trumpet, and tapering at the lower almost to a point. When it has fixed upon a place of abode, it constructs a domicile, consisting of a gelatinous sheath, perhaps half as high as itself. It lives inside this sheath, with its smaller extremity attached to the bottom of it, and its wide, funnel-shaped end projecting above the top. When disturbed it retreats into the house and shrinks into a globular mass. The disc of the trumpet end is not perfectly regular; on one side the edge turns inward so as to form a notch, and curls upon itself in a spiral form. Within this spiral is the mouth, and a long funnel-shaped throat reaches from it to the digestive cavity. Opposite the mouth there is a globular cavity, from which a tube extends to the lower extremity of the body. The cavity seems to perform the functions of a heart, and the tube takes the place of veins and arteries. Once in three-quarters of a minute this heart-like organ contracts and forces the fluid which it contains into the tube; the latter in its turn, after expanding very sensibly to receive the flow, contracts and returns it to the heart.

The stentor propagates by budding, like the anemone. The first change that takes place is a division of this contractile vesicle into two distinct organs at about mid-height of the body, the lower portion developing a globular cavity like the upper one. Soon after this a shallow pit opens in the side of the stentor, in a line with the new vesicle. This pit is the future mouth. A throat or oesophagus is next fashioned; and all being ready for the accommodation of the new animal the process of division begins, and goes on so rapidly that it is all done in about two hours.

A still more curious animal, in some respects, than either of those we have just mentioned is the hydra, one of the simplest of the zoophytes. To all intents and purposes it is nothing but a narrow sack, about half an inch in length, open at one end, where the mouth is situated, and attaching itself by the other to pond-lilies, duck-weeds, or stones on the margins of lakes. Around the mouth it has from five to eight slender tentacles, which are used as feelers and for the purpose of seizing the food. What it does with its food after it has swallowed it is, strange as the statement may sound, a question to which naturalists have not yet found a satisfactory answer; for the hydra has no digestive organs, and its stomach is merely a pouch formed by the folding in of the outer skin. It has no glands, no mucous membrane, no appliances of any sort for the performance of the chemical process {236} which we call digestion. You may turn a hydra inside out and it will get along just as well as it did before, and swallow its prey with just as good an appetite. The French naturalist Trembley was the first to notice this remarkable fact. With the blunt end of a small needle he pushed the bottom of the sack through the body and out at the mouth, just as you would invert a stocking. He found that the animal righted itself as soon as it was left alone; so he repeated the operation, and this time made use of persuasion, in the form of a bristle run crosswise through the body, to induce the victim to remain inside out. In the course of a few days its interior and exterior departments were thoroughly reorganized, and it ate as if nothing had happened. Trembley next undertook to engraft one individual upon another! For this purpose he crammed the tail of one deep down into the cavity of another, and, in order to hold them in their position, stuck a bristle through both. What was his surprise to find them, some hours afterward, still spitted upon the bristle, but hanging _side by side_ instead of one within the other! How they had got into such a position he could not imagine. He arranged another pair, and on watching them the mystery was solved. The inner one first drew up its tail and pushed it out through the hole in the outer one's side where the bristle entered. Then it pulled its head out after the tail, and sliding along the spit completely freed itself from its companion. This it repeated as often as the experiment was tried in that way. It then occurred to M. Trembley that if the inner hydra were turned inside out, so as to bring the stomachs of the two animals in contact, union would take place more readily; and so it proved. The little creatures seemed much pleased with the arrangement, and made no attempt to escape. In a short time they were united as one body, and enjoyed their food in common.

It was perhaps only natural to expect that animals which care so little about their individuality that two specimens can be turned into one, would be equally ready to multiply themselves by the simple process of being cut to pieces. In other words, you may make one hydra out of two, or two out of one, just as you please. M. Trembley divided them in every conceivable manner. He cut them in two, and, instead of dying, one half shot out a new head and the other developed a new tail. He sliced them into thin rings, and each slice swam away, got itself a set of tentacles, and grew into a perfectly formed individual. He split them into thin longitudinal strips, and each strip reproduced what was wanting to give it a complete body. Some he split only part way down from the mouth, and the result was a hydra, like the fabled monster, with many heads. The famous cat with nine lives is nothing to these little zoophytes. They seem sublimely indifferent not only to the most fearful wounds, but even to disease and, we are tempted to add, decomposition itself. A part of the body decays, and the hydra simply drops it off, like a worn-out garment, and lives on as if it had lost nothing.

If it can do all this, we need not wonder that it can reproduce its kind by budding. Indeed, after we have seen a living creature split itself up into a dozen distinct individuals any other process of generation must seem tame by comparison. At certain seasons of the year very few hydras can be found which have not one, two, or three young ones growing out of their bodies. The budding begins in the form of a simple bulging from the side of the parent, something like a wart. This is gradually elongated, and after a time tentacles sprout from the free end, and a mouth is formed. The young is now in a condition to seek its own prey. Its independence is finally accomplished by a constriction of the base of the new body at the point where it is attached to the old stock, until finally it cuts itself off. Before {237} this separation takes place, however, it has often begun to reproduce its own young, and so we sometimes see a large colony of hydras all connected together, like minute branching waterweed.

After all, you may say, it is not so very wonderful that a simple animal like the hydra, which has no intestines, and scarcely any special organs whatever, should be able to reproduce its lost parts, or to multiply itself by the simple processes of growth and subsequent division. Well, then, let us take a more complex creature, and we have a remarkable example at hand in a certain marine worm called _myrianida fasciata_. It is an inch or two in length, tapering off gradually from the head. The body is marked with numerous rings or joints, attached to which are oar-like appendages, serving not only as instruments of propulsion but also as gills, or breathing organs. An intestine extends from the head in a direct course to the posterior. Blood-vessels are arranged about it like a net-work, and connect with similar vessels in the gills. It has an organ which serves the purpose of a heart, a nervous cord swollen at every joint into knots or ganglions, and, in the head, one principal ganglion, which may be considered as the brain. Its reproductive organs are situated only in the posterior rings, and are located there in reference to the peculiar mode of generation which we are about to describe. The young worm begins to grow immediately in front of the parent's tail, that is to say, between the last joint or ring and the next before the last, and is formed by the successive growth of new rings. Before it is old enough to be cast off another appears between its anterior end and the next joint of the old stock; and so on until we have six worms at once, all strung together behind the parent, and hanging, so to speak, from one another's tails. They drop off separately, in the order of their age. Now in this case, you will observe, there must be a division of several organs--the intestine, the blood-vessels, and the nervous cord; and each of the six young must develop a heart, a brain, and a pair of eyes. An odd result of their method of growth (the first one being formed, you will remember, not behind the parent but _between_ her last two rings) is that the eldest offspring appropriates the tail of his mother, while his five brothers and sisters have to find tails of their own. We are here tempted to indulge in a curious speculation: this first born produces its young in the same way itself was produced, and passes on its inherited tail to the next generation. The eldest born of that generation bequeaths it to the next, and so on. What becomes of that ancestral tail in the course of years? Does it at last wear out and drop off? Does the worm that bears it die after a time without leaving any children? Or is it possible that the process of entail has been going on without interruption ever since the year one of the world, and that there may be a _myrianida fasciata_ now living with a tail as old as creation? Not very probable, certainly; but if any solution has been offered of the great tail problem, we do not happen to have heard of it.

Professor Clark also tried various experiments upon the common flat worm, or _planaria_, which may be found so readily in our ponds, creeping over stones and aquatic plants, and is so easily recognized by its opaque white color, and the liver-colored ramifications of its intestine. He cut the creature in two, and immediately after the operation the halves crawled away as if nothing had happened; the anterior part preceding an ideal tail, and the posterior one following an equally imaginary head and brain. He watched the pieces from day to day, and found that each reproduced its missing half by a slow process of budding and growth. This _planaria_ may be cut into several pieces, and each will reproduce what is requisite to complete the mangled organism. If the tail of a lizard be broken off, a {238} new one will grow; and crabs, lobsters, spiders, etc., are known to replace their amputated limbs. The instances we now and then meet with of what are called _monsters_--two-headed dogs, calves with six legs, and, more rarely, even double-headed human beings, are examples of the phenomenon of budding--which is very common, by the way, among fishes; and there is an animalcule called the _amoeba_ which shows a more remarkable tenacity of life than any of the other creatures we have mentioned, since you may divide and subdivide it until it is physically impossible to reduce it to particles any smaller, and yet each piece will live.

The discovery that animals may originate in so many ways independent of maternal gestation naturally suggests the inquiry whether further researches may not develop still other methods of reproduction, in which the new-born creature shall have no connection whatever with any previously existing individual. Thus we are brought back to the question which was thought to have been settled long ago, whether generation ever takes place spontaneously, as Aristotle and the old physicists supposed it did. Later naturalists, following the Italian, Redi, utterly rejected the supposition; but within the present century it has found many reputable supporters, and Professor Clark is one of them. When organic matter decays, numbers of _infusoria_, or microscopic plants and animals, arise in it. Where do they come from? Do the disorganized particles, set free by the process of decomposition, combine into new forms, which are then endowed with life by the direct action of Almighty power; or is the decaying substance merely the _nest_ in which minute eggs or seeds, borne thither upon the air, or dropped by insects, find conditions suitable for their development in the ordinary natural way? The question is not easily answered. Many of these germs are so excessively minute as to defy detection. Some of the infusoria are no larger than the twenty-four-thousandth of an inch in diameter, and it is estimated that a drop of water might contain five hundred millions of them. It is obvious that the germs of such little creatures must be invisible even with the best microscope. The problem can only be solved by placing a portion of the decomposing matter under such conditions that any germs it may contain shall infallibly be killed and that none can possibly reach it; then, if infusoria appear, we shall know that they have been generated spontaneously. The great difficulty is in securing these conditions. For the development of the living forms we require both water and air. How are we to be certain that there are no living germs in the organic matter before we begin the experiment? that there are none in the water? that none are brought by the air? The action of heat has been relied upon for the destruction of germs in the organic matter and the water, and it has been sought to purify the air from them by passing it through sulphuric add; but experience has shown that sulphuric add does not kill the germs; so of course experiments performed in that way prove nothing. Professor Clark quotes a series of very delicate experiments tried by Professor Jeffries Wyman, of Harvard University, which seem to us to come nearer to proving spontaneous generation than any others with which we are acquainted. He proceeded in three different methods, as follows:

1. The organic matter, consisting of a solution of beef or mutton juice (or, in a few instances, vegetable matter), was placed in a flask fitted with a cork through which passed a glass tube. The cork was pushed deeply into the mouth of the flask, and the space above it was filled with an adhesive cement, composed of resin, wax, and varnish. The tube was drawn to a narrow neck a little way above the cork, and bent at right angles, and {239} the end of it inserted in an iron tube, where it was secured by a cement of plaster of Paris. The rest of the iron tube was filled with wires, leaving only very narrow passages between them. The solution in the flask was then boiled--in some cases as long as two hours--in order to kill any germs which might be enclosed, and to expel the air. The iron tube and wires at the same time were heated to redness. When the boiling had continued long enough the heat was withdrawn from beneath the flask, and the steam was allowed slowly to condense. As it did so, air flowed in between the red-hot wires, which had been kept at a temperature high enough, it was supposed, to destroy any germs in the air that passed through them. The flask was then hermetically sealed by fusing the glass tube with the blow-pipe. When opened, several days afterward, it was found to contain animal life.

2. A similar solution was placed in a flask the neck of which, instead of being supplied with a cork and tube, was drawn out and bent at right angles, and then fitted to the iron tube containing wires. The experiment was performed as by method No. 1, and with the same result.

3. That there might be no suspicion of imperfectly sealed joints, a solution was put into a flask with a narrow neck, and the neck itself was then closed by fusing the glass. The whole flask was then immersed in boiling water. At the expiration of a few days living infusoria were found in two instances out of four.

Now these experiments undoubtedly prove that generation sometimes occurs spontaneously, provided it be true, as Professor Clark assumes, that there was no imperfection in the closing of the flasks (which we see no reason to doubt), and that the infusorial germs are destroyed by boiling. We confess that it is hard to believe they could have survived such a heat as was applied to them in these cases; but is it certain that they could not? A writer in an English review a few years ago, whom we believe to have been Mr. G. H. Lewes, announced that he had boiled certain germs _an hour and three-quarters_, and yet they remained perfectly unaltered. At most, therefore, we can regard spontaneous generation as a probable phenomenon.

Whether spontaneous generation, if it occurs at all, occurs by the formation of an egg from which the animalcule is hatched, or by the immediate formation of the adult, Professor Clark does not attempt to say; but the French naturalist M. Pouchet, who is one of the foremost advocates of the theory, holds that an egg is produced first. If this is true we shall have a striking correlative to the proposition with which we began this paper: not only can living creatures be developed where no egg has been deposited, but eggs can be produced where there is no animal to lay them. _Omne ovum e vivo_ will be no more true than _Omne vivum ex ovo._

{240}

From Chambers's Journal

POOR AND RICH.

In a shattered old garret scarce roofed from the sky, Near a window that shakes as the wind hurries by, Without curtain to hinder the golden sun's shine, Which reminds me of riches that never were mine-- I recline on a chair that is broken and old. And enwrap my chilled limbs--now so aged and cold-- 'Neath a shabby old coat, with the buttons all torn. While I think of my youth that Time's footprints have worn. And remember the comrades who've one and all fled, And the dreams and the hopes that are dead with the dead.

But the cracked plastered walls are emblazoned and bright With the dear blessed beams of the day's welcome light. My old coat's a king's robe, my old chair is a throne, And my thoughts are my courtiers that no king could own; For the truths that they tell, as they whisper to me, Are the echoes of pleasures that once used to be, The glad throbbings of hearts that have now ceased to feel, And the treasures of passions which Time cannot steal; So, although I know well that my life is near spent, Though I'll die without sorrow, I live with content.

Though my children's soft voices no music now lend; Without wife's sweet embraces, or glance of a friend; Yet my soul sees them still, as it peoples the air With the spirits who crowd round my broken old chair. If no wealth I have hoarded to trouble mine ease, I admit that I doted on gems rich as these; And when death snatched the casket that held each fair prize, It flew to my heart where it happily lies; So, 'tis there that the utt'rings of love now are said By those dear ones, whom all but myself fancy dead.

So, though fetid the air of my poor room may be. It still has all the odors of Eden for me. For my Eve wanders here, and my cherubs here sing, As though tempting my spirit like theirs to take wing. Though my pillow be hard, where so well could I rest As on that on which Amy's fair head has been pressed? So let riches and honor feed Mammon's vain heart, From my shattered old lodging I'll not wish to part; And no coat shall I need save the one I've long worn. Till the last thread be snapped, and the last rent be torn.

{241}

From The Lamp.

ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY.

BY ROBERT CURTIS.

[CONCLUSION.]