Title: Rebels and Reformers - Biographies for Young People
Author: Ponsonby, Dorothea, Ponsonby, Arthur Ponsonby, Baron
Language: English
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[Illustration: SAVONAROLA

By Fra Bartolomeo]

  REBELS AND
  REFORMERS

  BIOGRAPHIES FOR
  YOUNG PEOPLE

  BY
  ARTHUR & DOROTHEA PONSONBY

  ILLUSTRATED

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK
  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
  1919



  _To_

  _Elizabeth_

  _and_

  _Matthew_



INTRODUCTION


This book is intended for young people who are beginning to take an
interest in historical subjects, and it may also be acceptable to those
who are too busy with their daily work to find much time or opportunity
for continuing, as they would like a full course of study. Many people
have not the leisure to read a three-volume biography, and so they miss
knowing anything at all about some of the great figures in history.

We have tried here to tell quite simply the story of the lives of a
dozen great men, some of whom may not be very familiar.

There are many books about men of action—soldiers, sailors, and
explorers—but it is not so easy to find any simple account of men who
have used their minds and their pens, rather than the sword, in the
work for the betterment of their country to which they have devoted
their lives.

We have chosen men who are not actually connected with one another in
any way. But although they lived in different lands and in different
centuries, they are linked by the same qualities; the same strain runs
through them all of fearlessness, moral courage, and independence of
character. Most of them were accounted rebels in their day, but the
rebel of one century is often the hero of the next. Though there may
be a strong resemblance in the aims of these men, their personalities
are different. For instance, there could not be two men more unlike one
another than Voltaire and Tolstoy, yet they both devoted their energy
and their genius to fighting superstition and shams. Most of our heroes
recognized no authority but that of their own conscience, and each of
them helped in his way the advance of progress in his country and in
the mind of humanity.

The twelve men chosen are not all perhaps the most famous, or what is
commonly called the “greatest,” that might have been selected. But that
is one of the reasons we have written about them. While every one knows
the story of Galileo, but few may have read about Tycho Brahe; Luther
is a familiar figure and Savonarola, perhaps, only a name; many lives
have been written of President Lincoln, but some have never read of
William Lloyd Garrison; Garibaldi is renowned, but Mazzini’s work for
Italy has not often been described.

We have done no more than just mention the political, scientific, or
literary accomplishments of these men or their philosophy and religious
thoughts, because we have wanted only to tell the story of their lives.
Struggles, difficulties, and dangers which have to be encountered,
ideas, ambitions, and even personal habits and peculiarities, all make
the true story of a man’s life inspiring and attractive. Ideas are
the mainspring of action. The original thoughts of great minds and the
unflinching resolve of courageous souls have done far more for the
advancement of mankind than any deeds of physical prowess, violence,
or force. Those of the younger generation to whom will fall the task
of correcting some of the many faults and errors of their predecessors
should remember in their work that they must rely on the wonderful
power of thought, on knowledge of the lessons of the past, and on a
clear vision of the future.

Maybe some of our readers will find these lives sufficiently
interesting to induce them to read more of these men in the great books
which have been written about them. If so, we shall feel that we have
succeeded in our object.
                                                          A. P.
                                                          D. P.



CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                      PAGE

  INTRODUCTION                                  vii

     I. SAVONAROLA (1452–1498)                    3

    II. WILLIAM THE SILENT (1533–1584)           27

   III. TYCHO BRAHE (1546–1601)                  59

    IV. CERVANTES (1547–1616)                    79

     V. GIORDANO BRUNO (1548–1600)               99

    VI. GROTIUS (1583–1645)                     121

   VII. VOLTAIRE (1694–1778)                    147

  VIII. HANS ANDERSEN (1805–1875)               173

    IX. MAZZINI (1805–1872)                     201

     X. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON (1805–1879)      223

    XI. THOREAU (1817–1862)                     245

   XII. TOLSTOY (1828–1910)                     269

        BIBLIOGRAPHY                            311



ILLUSTRATIONS


  Savonarola                         _Frontispiece_

  _By Fra Bartolomeo_

                                        FACING PAGE

  William the Silent                             28

  Tycho Brahe                                    60

  Cervantes                                      80

  Giordano Bruno                                100

  Grotius                                       122

  Voltaire                                      148

  Hans Christian Andersen                       174

  Mazzini                                       202

    _From portrait by Felix Moscheles_

  William Lloyd Garrison                        224

  Thoreau                                       246

  Tolstoy                                       270

    _From Aylmer Maude’s “Life of Tolstoy.” Constable, London_



REBELS AND REFORMERS



I

SAVONAROLA

1452–1498


  Should the whole army of my enemies be arrayed against me, my heart
  will not quake: for Thou art my refuge and wilt lead me to my latter
  end.


Most of us are very easily persuaded to do what every one else does,
because it is so much less trouble. It is disagreeable to be sneered
at or abused. Now and again we may do something because we know it to
be right at the risk of causing displeasure, but it is very hard to
keep on through a lifetime fighting against popular opinion or opposing
those who are considered our superiors and whom all the world look up
to as set in authority over us. The orders of those in command, those
who govern, those who set the fashion, and those who have riches with
all the laws and traditions behind them, are what is called authority.
If you defy authority from stupidity, obstinacy, or perversity, it is
merely foolish; but if you defy authority because you are convinced
that what you think is right, it is a very difficult thing to do; and
in doing it you are likely to make far more enemies than friends.
It is much easier to accept things as they are, to think of your own
enjoyment first and foremost, and let others do the wrangling while you
look on. But the mere spectators in life are no help to any one, not
even to themselves. Life is conflict. It is to the fighters who, with a
clear vision of better things, have bravely fought the evil around them
that we owe any changes for the better in the history of the world.

Savonarola, the Italian monk, was by no means a spectator; he was a
fighter of the most strenuous type. Historians may differ in their
accounts of his character and his work. But one thing is certain: few
men have lived a life of such vigorous activity or one that was so
filled with exciting incidents: few men have stood by their convictions
with such courage and persistence or suffered more cruelly for their
opinions. He spent the best part of his life fighting authority,
upsetting public opinion, and defying his superiors. He was defeated in
the end because those who were for the moment stronger than he killed
him. But perhaps his death, as in other cases that may occur to you,
was his greatest triumph. Men may kill the body of their victim, but
they cannot kill the spirit he has roused by his influence and example.
That lives on when all his persecutors are dead and forgotten.

Girolamo Savonarola was born in Ferrara, a town in Northern Italy,
in the year 1452. He was the third of five brothers and he had two
sisters. His grandfather was a physician and a man of learning, and
his father was a courtier of no great importance. Girolamo was devoted
to his mother, and he corresponded with her all through his eventful
life. As a boy he seems to have been very serious and reserved—one of
those boys whom other boys do not understand. He did not like playing
with other children, but preferred going out for long rambles by
himself. It was arranged by his family that he should be a doctor, like
his grandfather; but as he grew up and began to think deeply about
everything he saw around him, he became appalled at the cruelty and
wickedness and frivolity of the society in which he lived, and his
mind was filled with doubts and misgivings. Poets, players, fools,
court flatterers, knights, pages, scholars, and fair ladies were
entertained in the great red-brick castle of Ferrara, and below in the
dark dungeons lay, confined and chained, prisoners who had incurred the
Duke’s displeasure. It was in the precincts of this palace that young
Girolamo gained his first experience of life.

When he was nineteen he fell in love with a girl of the Strozzi family,
but he was rejected with disdain and told he was not sufficiently well
born to aspire to one of such noble birth. This added to the bitterness
of his heart, and his disgust for the world increased. For two years he
struggled with himself, uncertain whether he should obey his parents
or follow his own inclinations; and he prayed daily, “Lord, teach me
the way my soul should walk.” At last, in despair, he abandoned his
medical studies, left home, and fled secretly to a Dominican monastery
at Bologna, where he became a monk. Villari the historian describes the
touching scene on the very eve of his departure: “He was sitting with
his lute and playing a sad melody; his mother, as if moved by a spirit
of divination, turned suddenly round to him and exclaimed mournfully,
‘My son, this is a sign we are soon to part.’ He roused himself and
continued, but with a trembling hand, to touch the strings of the lute
without raising his eyes from the ground.” The next day he was gone. He
wrote from Bologna to tell his father of his determination to renounce
the world, where virtue was despised and vice held in honor. In the
convent he began at once to wear himself to a shadow by acting as a
servant and humbling himself by a life of the severest simplicity and
discipline. In “The Ruin of the World,” a poem he wrote when he was
twenty, he says, “The world is in confusion; all virtue is extinguished
and all good manners. I find no living light abroad, nor one who
blushes for his vices.”

It was not Savonarola’s young imagination that made him think the world
so very wicked. He was particularly observant, and noted carefully all
that was passing not only in Ferrara but in the rest of Italy, and
specially in Rome. At that time, indeed, while there were many men of
learning, great princes, great artists, and great ladies, the people as
a whole despised religion and led frivolous lives, given up to every
sort of dissipation. Vice, corruption, and robbery were common both in
the Church and outside, and all classes were degraded by the low tone
of morals.

After six quiet years in the convent, during which he wrote several
poems showing his horror at the immorality of the world as he saw it,
he was sent on a mission back to Ferrara. But he attracted no attention
there, for “no man is a prophet in his own country.” Shortly afterwards
he was recalled and sent to the Dominican Convent of San Marco in
Florence. This building is still carefully preserved because of the
beautifully designed frescoes which were painted on the walls of the
refectory, sacristy, and chapter house, as well as in the cells on the
upper floor, by the artist-monk Fra Angelico, who died in 1455, not
many years before Fra Girolamo made San Marco his headquarters and home.

In appearance, Savonarola was a man of middle height, with gaunt
features, heavy black brows, a large mouth, heavy jaw, and a protruding
underlip. This may sound unattractive, but features alone do not make
a face. It was his expression by which those who came in contact with
him were fascinated. His rugged features were beautified by a look of
gentle sympathy and benevolence mixed with firm determination, and his
eyes flashed with the fire of a deep and passionate enthusiasm. The
portrait given here is by Fra Bartolomeo, a friend who came under the
influence of Savonarola and was deeply impressed by his life and death.

In his great humility he was not at first aware that he had any special
power over other men. While traveling one day he found himself among a
lot of rough boatmen and soldiers who were indulging in coarse language
and blasphemous oaths. What could a young monk do in the midst of such
a crew? Yet in half-an-hour Savonarola had eleven of them kneeling at
his feet and imploring forgiveness. Such incidents as this must have
revealed to him the extraordinary influence he could wield. Curiously
enough, his first sermon in the great Church of San Lorenzo in Florence
was an entire failure. With his awkward gestures and unimpressive
manner he could not even hold his congregation, which gradually
dwindled away and left the church.

For two years he continued to preach to a few listless people in the
empty aisles of San Gemignano. All the time, no doubt, he was aware
that the power was growing in him and he was awaiting his opportunity.
Suddenly the moment came, and one day at Brescia he burst out and
became as it were transformed. Awestruck crowds then flocked to hear
him, and his wonderful oratory and penetrating eloquence developed
quickly, and soon pierced into the very souls of his congregations.
It often happened that men climbed walls and swarmed on the pillars to
catch sight of his striking features and hear the deep tones of his
thrilling voice. He practised no tricks of rhetoric, but his whole
being was poured out in a vehement tempest of eloquence, at one moment
melting his audience to tears, at another freezing them with terror.
The scribe himself who wrote down many of the sermons breaks off at
times with the words, “Here I was so overcome with weeping that I could
not go on.”

The gift of oratory is a very powerful, but in some ways a very
dangerous gift. The influence of the written word or the moral example
is slow, but far more likely to be permanent. An orator or preacher
witnesses the immediate effect of his words on his hearers, yet he
often forgets that his influence may cease the moment his audience
withdraws from his presence. But power such as was possessed by this
strange Italian monk is very rare. Some people were almost mesmerized,
and stories of supernatural events began to be told about him: a halo
of light was seen round his head, and his face was said to shine so
as to illuminate the whole church. In addition to his gifts as a
passionate preacher, Savonarola’s pen was a considerable help to him,
and he published a collection of his writings. “The Triumph of the
Cross” was his principal work; but all he wrote was inspired by extreme
piety and by his ardent desire to bring mankind nearer to God. He also
showed wisdom and judgment in council in solving difficult theological
problems.

Pico di Mirandola, a great scholar and a nobleman, was so much struck
by his extraordinary qualities that he urged Lorenzo de Medici, who
was at the time Lord of Florence, to invite him to come and stay in
the Tuscan capital; this accordingly was done. But no one suspected
that the humble monk who trudged on foot through the gateway of the
city was one day to be the practical ruler of Florence. He was in his
thirty-ninth year when he was elected Prior of San Marco.

Lorenzo, known as the Magnificent, was perhaps the most eminent of the
Medici family, who for some years were practically rulers of Florence.
Although he had a council who nominally conducted the affairs of State,
he generally managed to have it filled by men who were favorable to his
policy and his aims, and so he gradually became complete master of the
city. He was cruel, unscrupulous, and ambitious, and under his rule
the people were deprived of much of their liberty. But as an Italian
historian says, “If Florence was to have a tyrant she could never have
found a better or a more pleasant one.” While on the one hand he was
oppressing the people and persecuting those whom he suspected to be his
enemies, on the other hand he encouraged festivities and reveling, song
and dance, and general merriment.

In the previous century a very great change had come over Europe.
The period is known as the Renaissance, which means re-birth. The
darkness of the Middle Ages had passed, and there was a great revival
of learning, a reawakening of art and science, and new ideas about
religion and philosophy began to be discussed. The art of printing,
which had only lately been invented, made it possible for copies of
the works of the great classical authors to be distributed and widely
read, and in Italy some of the most eminent writers, painters, and
sculptors had come to the front. Greek was taught at the universities,
and professors traveled about lecturing to crowded classes on the great
masterpieces of Greek literature and philosophy, which till then had
been left neglected and forgotten. In the sixteenth century, therefore,
the influence and results of the movement were very apparent.

By his wealth, by his splendor, and by his patronage of art and
literature, Lorenzo de Medici did much to make Florence the center of
the civilized world. He himself was the leading spirit among artists
and men of letters who assembled around him. He spoke fluently about
poetry, music, sculpture, and philosophy, and actually used to sing his
own carnival songs in the streets to an admiring throng.

It was to this brilliant and powerful man, who was the chief authority
in the State, that Savonarola from the first refused to show any
respect whatsoever. He declared that his election as Prior was due
to God, not to Lorenzo. He saw, moreover, that while Lorenzo was
interested in art and learning, the people of Florence were badly
governed and had no freedom or independence. Although the very Convent
of San Marco, of which he was the head, had been enriched by the bounty
of Lorenzo, the Prior declined to do homage to him, or even to visit
him, and whenever Lorenzo walked in the gardens of the monastery he
carefully avoided him, saying that his intercourse was with God, not
with man. Lorenzo, however, was anxious to add this remarkable monk
to the select society he had gathered about him, and to have him join
the interesting discussions on art, letters, and philosophy which took
place at his banquets and assemblies. But Savonarola regarded him as an
enemy of the people and of true religion; and even when Lorenzo came to
Mass at San Marco he paid no attention to him, and though he found a
number of gold coins in the alms-chest, obviously the gift of Lorenzo,
he would not take the money for the convent, but sent it away to be
distributed among the poor. Savonarola did not believe in the Church
being rich except in the spiritual sense; in fact, the greed of the
Church for actual riches was what he constantly denounced.

Within the year, however, the Prince and the priest were destined to
meet, for Lorenzo on his deathbed sent for the Prior of San Marco. One
account tells how Savonarola came and, standing by the bedside, bade
Lorenzo repent of his sins and give up his wealth, but refused him
absolution because the dying man hesitated to restore their liberties
to the people of Florence. While some thought that the wise and great
prince was very prudent and lenient with the impossible, fanatical
monk, others were inclined to suspect that he was more probably afraid
of him.

Lorenzo’s son, Piero de Medici, succeeded his father, but he was too
weak and incompetent a man to count, and Savonarola, who continued with
increasing vehemence to denounce the guilt and corruption of mankind,
strengthened his own influence and control over the people. Piero
became alarmed and had him removed from Florence, so that for a time
he was obliged to preach outside at Prato and Bologna. But soon he
returned, journeying on foot over the Apennines, and he was welcomed
back with rapture at San Marco. He at once set about reforming the
convent, he opened schools, and he continued to preach and to prophesy.
He began to see visions and to hear mysterious voices, hallucinations
not unnatural to a man in a state of such intense spiritual exaltation
or mental excitement. He was a believer in dreams and revelations, and
the trances which followed his fasts were the cause of many of his
prophetic utterances. At the same time he perceived with astonishing
foresight the inevitable course of national events. He foretold the
coming of “the Sword of God,” which he declared he saw bent toward the
earth while the sky darkened, thunder pealed, lightning flashed, and
the whole world was devastated by famine, bloodshed, and pestilence.
Thus would the sons of guilty Italy be swept down and vanquished.
Shortly afterwards, it so happened that Charles VIII, King of France,
brought an army across the Alps, descended into Italy, and advanced on
Florence.

This brought on a crisis in the city. The panic-stricken Piero de
Medici, uncertain how to act, went out at last himself to meet the
French King, fell prostrate before him, and accepted at once the hard
terms he laid down. His cowardice was the signal for Florence to
rise up in fury. Piero was deposed, and other ambassadors, of whom
Savonarola was one, were commissioned to confer with Charles. The King
was much impressed by the Dominican preacher, but nevertheless he
entered the city and imperiously demanded the restoration of the Medici
as rulers. The Florentines boldly refused. “What,” asked Charles,
“if I sound my trumpets?” “Then,” answered Gino Capponi, one of the
magistrates, “Florence must toll her bells.” The idea of a general
insurrection startled the King, and after a further conference with
Savonarola he left the city.

The Medici had fallen for the moment, Charles VIII had withdrawn,
Florence was now free. It was not to the Medici family, to their
magistrates, or to their nobles that the people turned in their good
fortune, but to the Prior of San Marco, who, they considered, was
chiefly responsible for the favorable turn events had taken. After
seventy years of subjection to the Medici the people had forgotten the
art of self-government. Partly in gratitude, partly in confidence, and
partly in awe, they chose Savonarola as their ruler, and he became the
lawgiver of Florence. He began by exercising his power with discretion
and justice. His first thought was for the poor, for whom collections
were made. He proposed also to give more employment to the needy and
lighten the taxation that weighed too heavily upon them. His whole
scheme was inspired by his deep religious feeling. “Fear God,” was
his first command to the people whom he summoned to meet him in the
Cathedral. Then he exhorted them to prefer the republic to their
own selfish interests. He promised a general amnesty to political
offenders and the establishment of a General Council. He had studied
the principles of government and desired to set up a democratic system,
that is to say, to give the people the responsibility of governing
themselves instead of submitting to the aristocratic rule of a prince
and his nobles. With all his enthusiasm and apparent fanaticism, he
showed himself in many ways to be a practical man of affairs. His
preaching continued to be his chief method of exercising his influence.
The maintenance of the constitution, he told the people, depended on
God’s blessing: its head was Jesus Christ Himself. His aim was to
establish there and then practical Christianity such as Christ taught,
so that Florence might become the model city of the world. Men may
scoff and say this was the impossible dream of a madman. But it is
better to aim too high and fail than to accept, as many people do, a
low standard because it is too difficult and too much trouble to fight
against a vicious public opinion.

The immediate effect of Savonarola’s teaching was that the citizens of
Florence began suddenly to lead lives of strict simplicity, renouncing
frivolity, feasting, and gambling, and even dressing with austere
plainness, discarding their jewels and ornaments. The carnival of 1497
was celebrated by “a bonfire of the vanities” in the great square of
the town. Priceless manuscripts and precious folios were hurled from
the windows into the street and collected in carts with other articles
by troops of boys dressed in white. A huge pyramid twenty feet high
was erected in the Piazza. At the bottom of it were stacked masks and
dresses and wigs; on the step above, mirrors, puffs, curling-tongs,
hair-pins, powder and paint. Still higher were lutes, mandolines,
cards, chessmen, balls, dice; then came drawings and priceless
pictures and statues in wood and colored wax of gods and heroes.
Towering higher than anything else, on the top a figure of Satan was
enthroned, a monstrous puppet, filled with gunpowder and sulphur,
with goat’s legs and a hairy skin. At nightfall a great procession
accompanied Savonarola to the spot. Four monks with torches set fire
to the pyramid, and as it crackled and blazed the people danced and
yelled and screamed round it, while drums and trumpets sounded and
bells pealed from the church towers. This was the very crude method by
which Savonarola sought to abolish the luxury and the vanity which he
considered were degrading the lives of the people.

While Savonarola was at the height of his power and fame, filling
the cathedral with dense crowds who flocked to hear him, his enemies
were already engaged in plotting his downfall. He had succeeded in
destroying the authority of the Medici in Florence itself, but there
was another and a stronger authority outside with whom he had still to
reckon, and this was the Pope.

It is difficult to believe now, when a venerable and respected
ecclesiastic, living in quiet retirement at Rome, represents the head
of the Roman Catholic Church, that at the end of the fifteenth century
a series of men held that office who were Italian princes, many of whom
had for their chief purpose the enrichment of themselves and their
families by means of treachery and violence. It happened that the very
worst of these, a member of the Borgia family, whose infamous career
of crime is notorious in history, was Pope at this time under the name
of Alexander VI. A conflict was inevitable between this unscrupulous
prince and the high-minded priest who desired to free the Church from
the corrupt state which money, intrigue, and worldliness had brought it.

Alexander VI tried first by bribery to silence the daring preacher.
He offered him the red hat of a cardinal, but Savonarola replied, “No
hat will I have but that of a martyr reddened with my own blood.” The
Pope was joined by the Duke of Milan in attempting to deprive the Prior
of his power. He invited Savonarola to Rome, at first courteously,
but when a refusal came he repeated his commands peremptorily and
at last accompanied by threats, but still Savonarola refused to
obey. As he continued to preach both in Florence and in other towns,
Alexander became alarmed lest the strength of his voice might shake
even the power of Rome. An unsuccessful attempt was made on his life.
The citizens of Florence were already beginning to grow weary of the
austere regulations imposed upon them. The city became sharply divided
into two political factions. The supporters of Savonarola are called
the Piagnoni, his enemies the Arrabbiati. Even the children joined in
and greeted each other with showers of pebbles. One day the Prior was
insulted in the cathedral, where an ass’s skin was spread over the
cushion of the pulpit and sharp nails were fixed in the board on which
he would strike his hand.

Then at last, with great ceremonial, an order from the Pope was read
excommunicating him, that is to say, expelling him from the Church.
But still Savonarola took no notice whatever, declaring that a man so
laden with crime and infamy as Alexander was no true Pope. He continued
to preach and even to celebrate Mass in the cathedral. At the next
carnival, amidst extraordinary excitement and reveling, he ordered a
second bonfire of vanities, in which many costly objects were again
destroyed. His sermons contained hostile references to the Pope, whose
life and career were openly described, and he went so far as to address
letters to the great sovereigns of Europe, including Henry VII of
England, bidding them call a council to depose Alexander VI. One of
these letters was intercepted and sent to Rome by the Duke of Milan.

After a brief period of comparative quiet, during which Florence was
visited by the plague, a conspiracy for the restoration of the Medici
was discovered. Five leading citizens were found to be mixed up in the
plot, one of them a much respected old man called Bernardo del Nero.
All five were seized and put to death. It was said that had Savonarola
raised his voice he might anyhow have obtained mercy for Bernardo. But
he remained silent, and so increased the number of his enemies and the
exasperation of Pope Alexander.

Meanwhile, in the city itself another dispute arose. A bitter feud had
long existed between the Order of the Franciscan monks and the Order
of the Dominicans. The Franciscans having heard that Savonarola would
go through fire to prove the truth of his prophetic gifts, he was
challenged from the pulpit of Santa Croce to put his miraculous powers
to the test. He dismissed the proposal with contempt, but one of his
over-zealous followers accepted, and a trial by fire was arranged.
Savonarola no doubt saw the folly of the whole proceeding. He dared
not refuse, but he hesitated, and was accused of showing cowardice. On
April 7, 1498, two piles were erected in the Piazza. They were forty
yards long and five feet high, and composed of faggots and broom that
would easily blaze up. The stacks were separated by a narrow path
of two feet, down which the two priests were to pass. Every window
was full; even the roofs were packed; and it seemed as if the whole
population of the city had crowded to the spot. The two factions were
assembled in an arcade called the Loggia dei Lanzi. Disputes arose
between them. The Dominicans insisted that their champion should carry
the Host with him into the flames. This the Franciscans declared was
sacrilege. The mob, who had come to witness the barbarous spectacle,
some of them hoping to see a miracle, were impatient and disappointed,
and when, after hours of waiting, a shower of rain came and finally put
an end to the farce, they became infuriated.

You may think that people were very superstitious in those days, to
believe that men could walk through fire or that a man could prophesy
and that his face could shine with light. They were indeed very
superstitious, especially about religious happenings. But I rather
think many people still suffer from this weakness, although it may
be in a different way. Superstition is the sign of a shallow and
uneducated mind, or a mind that is unbalanced, and it will be a long
time before there are no people of that sort in the world. It is not
surprising, therefore, that these Florentines should have been aroused
to fury by this ridiculous business. They probably thought they were
being made fools of, and were ashamed, too, that they had taken the
whole thing seriously. Anyhow, some one had to pay.

Savonarola and his followers hurried back to their convent and only
just managed to escape. Although from the pulpit of the church the
Prior attempted to give his explanation of the events, it was clear
that from that moment his power was at an end. The fickle Florentines,
ready for the next sensation and prepared to submit with light-hearted
indifference to whatever faction was the most powerful at the moment,
drew away from their prophet and lawgiver and deserted him. His enemies
had gained the upper hand, and the Council, completely hostile to him,
eventually decreed his banishment.

Meanwhile the mob collected outside St. Mark’s. They threw a volley
of stones at the windows of the church, which was filled with people.
There was a panic. The convent gates were closed and barred. Some of
the monks had secretly brought in arms, helmets, halberts, crossbows,
and a barrel of gunpowder.

Savonarola strongly disapproved of this, and as he passed through the
cloisters with the Sacrament he bade them lay down their arms. Some
of them obeyed him. By the evening the mob had set fire to the doors.
They succeeded in scaling the walls and getting into the cloisters
and chapel. Here Savonarola was found praying before the altar, and
one of his friends, Fra Domenico, stood by him armed with an enormous
candlestick to guard him from the blows of his assailants. In the midst
of the turmoil and confusion, a traitorous monk declared that the
shepherd should lay down his life for his flock. Immediately Savonarola
gave himself up to the armed party which had been sent to arrest
him. His two most faithful friends, Fra Domenico and Fra Silvestro,
accompanied him. As he went he called out: “My brethren, remember never
to doubt. The work of the Lord is ever progressive, and my death will
only hasten it.”

As he came out into the street the mob greeted him with a shout of
ferocious joy. It was night, and the faces of the threatening, yelling
men in the torchlight must indeed have been terrifying. So great was
their fury that the guards could with difficulty protect him as they
led him and his companions to the great palace known as the Palazzo
Vecchio, where they were cast into a dungeon.

The account of Savonarola’s torture is most tragic and terrible.
He found that he simply could not bear the agony. While his limbs
were stretched and twisted on the rack his courage and his senses
forsook him, and he acknowledged himself guilty of any crime laid to
his charge. The torture lasted for three days, and in the intervals
he withdrew all he had said. “My God,” he cried, “I denied Thee for
fear of pain.” Finally his judges, who were drawn from his bitterest
enemies, condemned him to death. The Pope Alexander, who on hearing
the news praised his well-beloved Florentines as true sons of the
Church, wanted his enemy to be brought to Rome that he might see him
suffer death before him. But the Arrabbiati were determined that his
end should come in Florence itself. His two fellow-monks received the
same treatment as he did. Fra Domenico showed great courage, and under
the most cruel torture no syllable could be extracted from him which
could hurt his master. Fra Silvestro, on the other hand, collapsed at
the very sight of the rack, and acquiesced in every accusation brought
against his master or himself.

On his last night in this world, though worn with weakness and racked
by torture, nevertheless Savonarola slept a peaceful sleep with his two
companions, and spoke a few touching words imploring the pardon of God
for any sins he might have committed. The scaffold was erected on the
Piazza and connected with the magistrates’ platform by a wooden bridge.
As the three unfortunate Dominicans stepped over the planks, cruel boys
thrust pointed sticks through the crevices to prick their bare feet.
The first ceremony was to degrade them and deprive them of their robes.
This was done by the papal nuncio. Then Savonarola, after witnessing
the fate of his two friends, was taken himself and placed on the
center beam of the huge cross, from the arms of which his disciples’
bodies were already dangling. A shudder of horror seemed to seize the
multitude, and a voice was heard calling out, “Prophet, now is the time
to perform a miracle.” There was a silence as he neared the place. He
stood for a moment looking down on the crowd and his followers expected
him to speak. But he said no word. The halter was fastened round his
neck, light was set to the faggots, and in a few moments the great
preacher, the lawgiver of Florence, was burned alive, amidst jests and
taunts and curses, on the very spot where shortly before the vanities
had blazed. The last words that passed his lips as the flames reached
him were: “The Lord suffered as much for me.” His ashes were cast into
the river Arno so that no trace of him might remain. Not many years
after, with curious inconsistency, the Church wanted to canonize—that
is, to make a saint of the man whom she had burned. This, however, was
never done.

If we trust some of the accounts handed down to us, Savonarola can
be accused of having shown weakness in the face of torture; he can
be accused of having been too ambitious for political power and of
having, in the fear of losing his authority, allowed without protest
the execution of innocent men who were charged with conspiracy; he can
be accused of having traded on the reputation of being a prophet who
saw visions and to whom miraculous events occurred. He certainly placed
too much confidence in the permanent effect of his eloquent preaching,
and deluded himself in trusting in the loyalty of the people whom he
had apparently moved. He may, no doubt, be called a fanatic—that is
to say, a wild, odd man, who disregards every one and everything in
his zeal to pursue the object he has in view. Such people are not
frightened of making fools of themselves, and their peculiarities and
their strange behavior can be very easily ridiculed. But apart from
the contradictory accounts, and the incomplete records of history, we
have Savonarola’s actual sermons and writings, without which he might
indeed have been condemned as a charlatan. In them we can read in his
own stirring language of his noble intentions and lofty aspirations, of
his vigorous and single-minded pursuit of what he believed to be right,
and of his uncompromising hatred of worldliness, wickedness, and
crime. He was not immediately connected with the great movement known
as the Reformation, in which Luther a few years later was the principal
figure, when the Protestants broke off from the Roman Catholic Church.
But Luther declared Savonarola to have been the precursor of his
doctrine. And, indeed, his strong protest against the immorality
and corruption of the Papacy and his fervent desire to increase the
spiritual rather than the material authority of the Church—that
is to say, its influence over men’s minds rather than its worldly
power—helped to lay the foundations on which the great Reformers built.
At the same time it must not be supposed that he himself had any desire
to alter the creeds and traditions of the Roman Church.

A very fine description of Savonarola is introduced by one of our great
novelists, George Eliot, in the story of “Romola.” Referring to his
martyrdom, she says:

  Power rose against him not because of his sins but because of his
  greatness, not because he sought to deceive the world but because
  he sought to make it noble. And through that greatness of his he
  endured double agony: not only the reviling and the torture and the
  death-throe, but the agony of sinking from the vision of glorious
  achievement into that deep shadow where he could only say, “I count
  as nothing: darkness encompasses me: yet the light I saw was the true
  light.”
                                                            A. P.



II

WILLIAM THE SILENT

1533–1584


  Je maintiendrai


William of Orange of Nassau, or William the Silent as he is known,
was an extraordinarily interesting man, if only from the fact that
everything about him, from his titles and his circumstances to his
character, was a contradiction. For one thing, the name “Silent” gives
quite a wrong impression of him. It sounds as though he might have
been taciturn, shy, or difficult to get on with, but he happened to
be particularly easy and sympathetic, delightful as a companion, and
eloquent in speech. How this misnomer came about will be related later.

William of Orange took his title from the smallest of his lands, a tiny
province in France, near Avignon, of which he was the sovereign prince.
He was a German count and a Flemish magnate; a Lutheran by birth,
he was educated as a Catholic, but died a Calvinist. His character
was just as varied and full of contrasts as his circumstances, so he
interests and appeals to a great number of people, and we are agreed
that he is one of the most lovable and heroic characters in history.

William was born in 1533 in the German castle of Dillenburg, the eldest
of twelve children. His mother, Juliana of Stolberg, was a woman of
great character—a wise woman and religious in the truest sense of the
word. To the end of her life she was the adviser of her sons and a
support and comfort to her many children. Several of them inherited
her character, and principally William of Orange himself, and another,
Louis. William’s father, also called William, was a good man who
had gone through hard times, and who had finally, slowly but surely
embraced the Protestant religion. He appears to us to be rather a
washed-out edition of his remarkable son.

Orange spent the first eleven years of his life at Dillenburg. The
great fortress rose from a rocky bend of a river, with towers and
battlements and gateways such as one sees in mediæval pictures, and
could hold a thousand people. Here all his mother’s children were born,
and she managed her huge household in such a way as to become quite
celebrated as the best mother and housewife in the country.

[Illustration: WILLIAM THE SILENT]

When William was eleven years old he inherited, through the death of
a cousin, great lands in the Netherlands, and the little province of
Orange. Thus he became, in spite of his tender years, a very important
person, and through the wish of the Emperor Charles V, King of Spain
and the Netherlands, who had a great regard for the Nassau family,
he was sent to Brussels to be educated as a Catholic. Also at the
Emperor’s request he became a page at his court, and by the time he
was fifteen the Emperor had made an intimate friend of him, taking him
into his complete confidence, and allowing him to be present at the
gravest and most secret conclaves. He would ask William’s advice about
important matters of State and go by his judgments. This might have
been enough to turn the head of any one more than double the boy’s age,
but it did not appear to spoil William. He seemed only to profit and to
put to the best possible use all the knowledge he got of human nature
and of public affairs by being, so to speak, behind the scenes in this
very confidential and important position. Charles, who took pride in
discovering great men, showed in the case of Orange a great deal of
insight into character.

When he was eighteen the Emperor gave him a wife, a young girl of noble
family, Anne of Egmont. She lived six years and they had two children.
Judging by Orange’s letters to his wife he must have been a faithful
and loving husband, but he could not have seen much of her, as he was
nearly always away from home fighting for his master. Charles had made
him, at the age of twenty-one, General-in-Chief of his army on the
frontier of France, with which country Charles was at war.

It was on young William’s shoulder that the Emperor leant on the
celebrated occasion of his abdication, when, worn out with illness, old
before his time—for he was only fifty-five—sick of life and of his own
schemes and wars, he gave up his crown and titles to his son, Philip,
himself retiring into a monastery in the depths of Spain.

The superstition was still held at that period of history (and, in
fact, up to more recent days) that a king is a king by divine right,
and that he can therefore do no wrong. Charles’s record in crime is
no mean one, though it does not perhaps equal that of his son Philip
II. He was a despot, and a cruel despot, though he liked to regard
himself, as many kings have before and since him, as merely fatherly.
But he had behind his actions some sort of principle, while his son
appeared to have none whatever. Charles had never let the system of
Inquisition die down in the Netherlands, and on his accession he had
immediately made efforts to bring the people to submission, visiting
one of its principal towns with an army and taking away by force all
its privileges, and imposing heavy fines upon its inhabitants. He
passed edicts against the Protestantism of Luther, “to exterminate the
root and ground of this pest,” and it is said burnt in his lifetime at
the least fifty thousand people. How Charles could have been of service
to the Netherlands it is difficult to see, for he only committed crimes
against the people, crushing their independence wherever he could, and
using their great industry as revenue for his endless wars in other
parts of the world. Yet, as some of his admiring biographers tell us,
no man could have gone to church more regularly. He attended Mass
constantly, and listened to a sermon every Sunday.

On this occasion of giving up his crown he stood before the people of
the Netherlands, in the great hall of his palace at Brussels, clothed
in black Imperial robes, with a pale face and tears streaming down
his cheeks. He had a great sense of dramatic effect, and it was an
impressive spectacle. He had persuaded himself that he had nothing on
his conscience, and by so doing he persuaded his subjects too. He told
them in a choking voice that he had been nothing but a benefactor, and
that he had acted as he had done only for their good and because he
cared for them. He told them how he regretted leaving the Netherlands
and his reasons for going. A greater contrast could hardly be imagined
than this worn-out man and the young and noble-looking being on whose
shoulder he leant. But the Emperor, with a real regard for Orange,
which was a bright spot in his character, passed him on with words of
advice to Philip: for, believing as he did in young William’s great
powers of statesmanship, he wished that his own son might defer to him
and regard him as an adviser in time to come.

Philip at once set Orange to bring about peace between Spain and
France, and this he accomplished with brilliant success, securing
excellent terms for his master. Philip saw how great were Orange’s
persuasive powers as a diplomatist, and realized how valuable he could
be in his schemes.

Philip II was twenty-eight when he became king. He had not the pleasant
manner of his father, and he was not nearly so cultivated or so
diplomatic. Unlike Charles, he knew no language but Spanish. He was a
small and wretched-looking creature in appearance, with thin legs and
a narrow chest. His lower jaw protruded most horribly, and he had a
heavy hanging lip and enormous mouth, inherited from his father. He was
fair, with a yellow beard, and had a habit of always looking on the
ground when he spoke, as if he had some crime to hide or as though he
were suffering. This, it is said, came from pains in his stomach, the
result of too great a love of pastry. It had been thought politic that
he should marry Mary Tudor of England; and when Philip became king she
had been his wife two years. They ought certainly to have been very
happy together, having the same tastes—a hatred of Protestants and a
delight in burning and massacring—but in spite of this they did not get
on. Mary was older than Philip and very unattractive, so he neglected
her completely and left her to herself in England, where she shortly
afterwards died.

Philip’s ambition on his accession was to make peace with Europe in
order to be able to devote himself to putting down what he called
heresy. Orange was meanwhile chosen as a hostage by the King of France
while the treaty between the two countries was being completed, and it
was during his stay in France that Orange made the discovery which was
to influence his whole life.

While he was hunting one day with the King of France (Henry II) in
the Forest of Vincennes, he found himself alone with the King, who
at once began to talk of all his plans and schemes, of which he was
full to overflowing. The gist of the matter was a plot just formed
between himself and the other Catholic sovereigns to put a final end to
Protestantism or heresy. They had, Henry confided to Orange, solemnly
bound themselves to kill all the converts to the New Religion in France
and the Netherlands, and the Duke of Alva—a Spaniard and fellow-hostage
of Orange—was to carry out their schemes. The King described exactly
how they would set about ridding the world of “that accursed vermin,”
how they were to be discovered and how massacred. In his excitement and
enthusiasm the French King never observed how Orange was taking it. He
believed him to be party to the whole arrangement. He failed to notice
that Orange never opened his lips or spoke a word—for though absolutely
horrified, the Prince managed to control his expression and to remain
silent—and thus he earned his well-known but misleading title. But
Orange, hearing all this, made up his mind. His purpose was fixed,
and as soon as possible he got permission to visit the Netherlands,
where he was determined to persuade the people to show opposition to
the presence of the Spanish troops and to get them out of the country.
They were put there by Philip for the one and only purpose of crushing
independence and stamping on Protestantism. Orange found that an
Inquisition had been decided upon, more terrible than anything that had
gone before.

We have seen that already under Philip’s father the Netherlands had
been treated with great cruelty, and the Papal Inquisition had been
used to put a stop to Lutheranism. The spirit of the great Reformer had
taken a firm hold in this country, and Luther’s work, combined with the
work of Calvin in France, had made the country keenly Protestant and
determined to resist any sort of Catholic domination. The Netherlands
character itself was marked by one great quality which, in the words
of the historian Motley, was “the love of liberty and the instinct of
self-government.” The country was composed of brave and hardy races who
for centuries had been fighting for their liberty against great odds.
Divided as their country was into provinces, they had had no king of
their own, but had been governed by feudal lords and treated as slaves
and dependents, with no power or voice in their own government. From
this wretched position they emerged by their own efforts. By their
great industry and character they made themselves rich and powerful,
and, forming themselves in the cities into trade guilds and leagues,
they fought against, and in many cases turned out, the feudal lords,
governing themselves by their own laws and choosing their own governors
from among themselves. Seeing their great wealth and prosperity,
neighboring countries were desirous of adding these riches to their
own territories, and thus, through war and purchase, the Netherlands
fell under the dominion of Burgundy with its powerful reigning dukes,
and under Austria through further wars, and finally, by a marriage of
a Prince of Burgundy with a Princess of Spain, they became subjects of
the latter country.

Charles V was the first King of Spain and the Netherlands, and with
his rule the worst of their trials began. Under the Burgundian dukes
the people of the Netherlands had managed to retain self-government,
firmly clinging to their liberties, and at no price would they
consent to become a province of Spain. No two peoples could have
been more opposite in character—Spain quite behind the age, bigoted,
superstitious, violently Catholic, cruel and aristocratic; and the
Netherlands, full of life and activity, the rival of Italy in art and
learning, ready to go ahead and adopt all the advanced and enlightened
thought of the Reformation. In trade they had no rivals, for they were
the busiest manufacturers in the world. Their stuffs were celebrated
everywhere, and their ships visited all the ports in the world. This
happy, brave little people were to be crushed and persecuted for their
valor. But they were to find a deliverer—a leader who was to be the
source of their inspiration and courage in the awful days to come—one
who was willing, though he could gain nothing by it, to throw in his
lot with theirs, to suffer and endure the same as they.

Orange had not much sympathy with the Reformers. He was an aristocrat
and a Catholic, and had never thought of being anything but completely
loyal to kings—after all he was one of them: he had what is considered
the privilege of addressing crowned heads as “cousin.” But his sense of
justice was one of the strongest things in his character, and he was
quite determined to protect the harmless multitudes in the Netherlands
from the horrible punishments and deaths which were in store for them,
and these people were all his inferiors by birth—what are termed “the
masses.” Dyers, tanners, and trades-people were the only Protestants
in those days, so it was a more tremendous thing than one thinks for
an aristocrat to take up the cause of the people as Orange was about
to do. It is generally some remarkable man among the people who fights
for justice for his own class, and it was, as I have said, the more
wonderful for William to have taken up the cause of the people as his
sympathy did not come from his agreement with them on religion, but
purely from his manly, just, and generous disposition.

At this time in his twenty-seventh year, William was very rich,
prosperous, and powerful. Few perhaps realized that there lay within
him the seeds of future greatness. But though he had a thoughtful and
an intellectual nature, he also had a pleasure-loving, easygoing
nature, and nothing could exceed the luxury and magnificence of the
life he led in his great palace at Brussels. It was a life full of
color, variety, and amusement, with masquerades, banquets, chases, and
tourneys from morning till night. Twenty-four noblemen and eighteen
pages of gentle birth served in his household. One day, in order to
economize, Orange dismissed twenty-eight cooks! Princely houses in
Germany sent their cooks to learn in his kitchen, so celebrated was
the excellence of his dishes. He kept, as princes and noblemen did in
those days, open house, but he did not keep his money. A contemporary
historian—a Catholic and an opponent—describes him at this time:

  Never did arrogant or indiscreet word issue from his mouth under the
  impulse of anger or other passion. If any of his servants committed a
  fault, he was satisfied to admonish them gently, without resorting to
  menace or to abusive language. He was master of a sweet and winning
  power of persuasion, by means of which he gave form to the great
  ideas within him, and thus he succeeded in bending to his will the
  other lords about the court as he chose, beloved and in high favour
  above all men with the people by reason of a gracious manner that he
  had of saluting and addressing in a fascinating and familiar way all
  whom he met.

Orange had become a widower at twenty-five, but two years later he
married again; his bride was Anne of Saxony, the daughter of a great
German Lutheran magnate. The marriage met with great opposition from
the Catholics, and this seemed to make Orange only more determined.
There was nothing to recommend Anne except her wealth and lands. She
was lame and had no charm, and became later an odious and impossible
woman who made her husband very unhappy.

King Philip meanwhile continued to shower honors upon Orange. He made
him a Councilor of State and Stadtholder or Governor of Holland,
Zeeland, and Utrecht, and head of the troops in those provinces. If
Orange had been content to do as he was told, his prosperous, pleasant
life might have continued. Fortune from his birth had smiled upon him,
and everything that the heart of man could desire seemed to lie within
the hollow of his hand. But at the risk of losing everything—his high
honors and worldly position—he was to speak and to act as his heart and
conscience told him to, which was in direct opposition to the King and
to his own material welfare. From this time onwards Orange, in a quiet,
determined way, resisted Philip and his commands. His resistance was so
far guarded, as he could not as yet defy him openly. His first step by
way of protecting the Netherlanders was to use his position to persuade
some powerful members of the States General (a form of Parliament,)
to refuse supplies unless the Spanish troops were removed. Philip had
given Orange the names of “several excellent persons” suspected of
the New Religion and commanded Orange to put them to death. Orange
not only did not do this, but gave them warning so that they might
escape. Philip now issued an edict that no one should read or copy any
of the writings of Luther or Calvin, or discuss any doubtful matters
in the Scriptures, or break images, on pain of death by fire, or by
being beheaded or buried alive if a woman. The troops were to be there
to enforce the edicts. He made more bishoprics in the Netherlands in
order that the ruffian bishops might spy and pry and assist in finding
heretics. The principal ruffian was one Granvelle, on whom the Pope
conferred the title of cardinal.

Philip himself left the Netherlands for Spain, and made his
half-sister, Margaret of Parma, Regent. She was thirty-seven and an
ardent Catholic. Her recommendation to Philip was that she felt greater
horror for heretics than for any other form of evil-doer. She was not
particularly clever, but she had learnt to dissimulate—in other words,
to tell stories—and never to give a direct answer to a question. She
looked mannish, having a mustache, and she suffered from gout. This
gave the impression that she was masterful and like a man, which she
was not at all.

It was not long before Philip discovered that Orange was not seeing eye
to eye with him. He found out that, as commander of the Spanish troops,
he was using his position to check persecution. Philip therefore ceased
to admit him and Count Egmont, another suspect, to the inner councils.
But he was not willing to get rid of Orange or to drive him into
rebellion. He knew his power, and the service he could still render,
and he realized the great anger it would cause in the Netherlands were
William to be dismissed. When the persecution under Granvelle and the
enormities committed by the Spanish troops on innocent people became
too much for Orange to bear without open protest, Philip, fearing a
general revolt, undertook to do what Orange asked him. He dismissed
the troops temporarily, and the Cardinal retired into Spain to hatch
more horrible plots, especially against Orange, whom he hated more than
any one in the world. Orange had threatened to resign if he remained.
In doing this he was not in a temper; that was not his way, for he
scarcely ever lost his head. When he addressed himself to Philip with
these requests, he faced the consequences. He knew that he would almost
certainly incur the everlasting anger of the King.

The country having a moment’s respite from Granvelle, Orange now set
himself to obtain three things:

1. A regular meeting of the States General (or Parliament).

2. The organization of a real, single, and efficient Council of State
that should be the supreme source of government.

3. A relaxation of the persecution of heresy.

He worked ceaselessly amongst the nobles trying to get their powerful
aid on the side of the people and the Protestant Revolution, persuading
Count Egmont, one of the foremost and most powerful of the Flemish
noblemen, to go on a mission to Philip in Spain to beg him to relax his
persecutions.

William of Orange’s younger brother, Louis, had also taken up the cause
of the Reformers in a whole-hearted and enthusiastic spirit. He had
the advantage over his brother of being an avowed anti-Catholic, and
being perfectly free and fearless, he was able to do the most useful
work in the way of propaganda and in inspiring resistance to the
Catholics. He gathered together several violent and reckless young men,
young aristocrats of spirit but of bad reputation, and he gave these
young wastrels something to think about, something to work and to live
for. Under his leadership they held meetings, and formed themselves
into a League of Protest against the Inquisition, drawing up, as a
result of their meetings, a petition to the Regent, Margaret of Parma,
entitled _The Request_. But the writing of it was in such violent
language—though perfectly justifiable in the circumstances—that
Orange, who was more of a statesman than his brother, could not advise
the Regent to accept it. He believed it would do more harm than good.
But finally it was put into humbler and more polite language, and being
signed by two hundred nobles and burghers in Holland, it was presented
to the Regent. She was upset, and tried to get out of giving them any
answer to their requests. She assured them she would ask the King. One
of her court turned to her saying, “Is Your Highness to be terrorized
by these beggars?” and hereafter the Leaguers took upon themselves this
title, and went about in beggars’ garb of loose grey frieze, a terror
to the Catholics and a great force, as their numbers increased, in the
coming Revolution.

The position of Orange at this time, trying as he was to keep loyal to
the King and yet to protect the people against him, was becoming more
and more difficult to himself. At thirty, Orange was a very different
man from what he had been at twenty-six. He had much changed, and was
no longer the prosperous and brilliant grandee of those times, but worn
and thin and sad. He could not sleep. His position was an impossible
one. He could not yet be quite openly against the Catholics; he saw
no prospect at present of throwing off the Spanish yoke, and he was
not yet prepared for rebellion. He hated what we call propaganda, and
the narrowness of the Calvinists. He was charged with treason on one
side—the Spanish rulers regarded him as a rebel—and on the other he
was looked upon by the Beggars as a lukewarm friend. He was between
the devil and the deep sea, desperate and puzzled and seeing no way
out. But this state of things did not last long. The excesses of
the Spaniards were fast exasperating the Netherlanders. There were
constant small outbreaks of rebellion, and finally a great riot of
image-breaking in Antwerp. The troops were all recalled, and Orange was
commanded to put down the rebels, to quell and to destroy them by the
most extreme methods. Tumult, confusion, and outrage were everywhere,
and as Orange refused to punish in the way he was requested, his
command was brought to an end.

The Regent, through the advice of her brother, challenged him to
take the oath “to serve His Majesty, and to act toward and against
all and every as shall be ordered on his behalf, without limitation
or restriction.” The Prince refused. He might, he said, be asked to
kill his own wife. The Regent, still recognizing Orange’s power and
qualities, and always hoping to get him on her side, begged him to
remain with her and retain his offices. She pressed him to meet Egmont
and other influential Flemish magnates to discuss the situation. Orange
consented to this, and, seeing Egmont, begged him not to wait and
become a party to the frightful holocaust of blood which was about to
swamp the Netherlands. Egmont refused, partly out of loyalty to the
sovereign and partly out of weakness. Orange, in taking farewell of
him, embraced him and was convinced he would never see him again. He
never did, for Egmont was, a little later, taken and put to death by
the Catholics as a traitor.

This must have been the moment when Orange ceased to have any sympathy
with the Catholic Church. But he so far had not joined any other
sect, and had apparently no sympathy with the Calvinism which he was
afterwards to embrace. He retired now to his palace at Brussels and
gave up all his offices. Philip wrote him sham letters of regret while,
secretly, he advised Alva to seize Orange and bring him to punishment.
They had made their plans, and Orange was then formally outlawed as a
rebel, and his eldest son, who was at the University, seized and taken
to Spain—his father never saw him again. Orange left Brussels as an
outlaw, retiring to his brother’s castle of Dillenburg, where he lived
with his mother. Alva then arrived in Brussels at the head of a Spanish
army, one of the most splendid ever seen—healthy, well-trained, and
courageous. The outbursts of revolt had filled Philip and Granvelle
with a perfect fury of vengeance; there in the depths of Spain they had
been planning and hatching horrible plots together, and now they set to
and worked the Inquisition for all it was worth. The head Inquisitor,
Piter Titelman, with his underlings, would scour the country, rushing
into people’s houses, dragging out so-called heretics, accusing them,
and hanging or burning them without any evidence whatever.

What was the result? The more these fine people of the Netherlands were
trampled on, the stronger their spirit of resistance grew. Orange set
himself to raise and organize troops to protect them from Alva. He got
together some French Huguenots and Flemish refugees, but he was doomed
for the present to failure. He had not realized the strength of Alva as
a general and of his magnificently organized troops. Only the valiant
Louis, his brother, managed by extreme dash and courage to win one
victory. Orange struggled on, in spite of reverses. “With God’s help,”
he writes to his brother, “I am determined to go on”; but through lack
of funds he had to disband his mercenaries, or paid soldiers, and
retire again to Dillenburg. This was perhaps the most unhappy period
of Orange’s life. He was outlawed and almost a beggar, for he had
sold all he possessed—his jewels, his plate, and his lands; his wife
was showing signs of losing her mind, and instead of being a comfort
to her husband, she hurled abuse and cruel and unjust accusations at
him, blaming him for all their misfortunes and giving him no comfort
whatever. Only his wonderful mother stood by him and showed her
strength and understanding until she died.

Still Orange, with his fortunes at their lowest ebb, did not lose
heart or hope. He was lonely and abandoned, indeed, by most people;
his resources seem to have come to an end; still he continued to
make plans for saving his country. Every nerve he strained to get
support for his cause. Day and night he worked—sending messengers to
France and England to beg support and money for troops. He was finally
supplied with eighteen vessels, and, looking back on the course of
the struggle, this seems to have been the turning-point in the future
of the Netherlands. They were to suffer still untold misfortunes,
but from the moment that the struggle was carried on by sea, so, in
proportion, the Spaniards ceased to tell. “The Beggars of the Sea,” as
they now termed themselves, were an adventurous and fearless band. They
had several successes, and seized the town of Brill and some smaller
places. The revolt, gaining courage, spread like fire through Holland
and Zeeland, Utrecht and Friesland; all the principal towns of these
provinces hailed Orange as their leader and submitted themselves to his
authority. Louis of Nassau dashed into France and seized Valenciennes
and Mons. Orange himself was nearly taken by the Spaniards in a
surprise night attack. They came to his camp when he was asleep with
all his clothes on, as his habit was then, his arms beside him, and his
horse saddled; but he was awakened by his favorite lapdog, which lay on
his couch. So, in the statues of the Prince in Delft and The Hague, the
little dog lies at his feet in bronze.

A terrible event now crushed Orange and temporarily set back the cause
of Protestantism and freedom. This was the Massacre of St. Bartholomew
in Paris, when Coligny, the leader of the Huguenots—the French
Protestants—who had promised to come to the assistance of Orange, was
murdered by the Catholics.

Orange went to live in Delft, which became his home. He had made up
his mind to cast his lot for good and all with the Hollanders and
Zeelanders in their struggle for freedom. There in their midst he
continued to inspire their spirit of resistance and independence.
His was the moving spirit which helped the Dutch gradually by their
extraordinary endurance to wear down the Spanish armies. It was his
spirit, too, that kept the Spanish at bay at the celebrated siege
of Haarlem, when for seven months the inhabitants endured terrible
sufferings—the women fighting for their lives as well as the men—until
they were starved out. The relief of Leyden was effected by Orange’s
own personal exertions, though ill with fever.

In 1573 Orange became a Calvinist, so as to identify himself more
completely with the cause he had at heart. But he was not a bigoted
Calvinist any more than he had been a devoted Catholic. He had always
been ready to respect the good side of every religion. He never could
understand why people should not live happily together, praying in
their own way. The spirit of Religion appealed to him, not the letter
or the doctrine. He would have been content to remain a Catholic, had
it not been for the Church’s persecutions.

Now, his wife, Anne of Saxony, having left him and become insane,
Orange married again for the third time—Charlotte of Bourbon, who had
been a nun. This gave further offense to the Catholics.

The years 1576–78 were almost the most crowded, the most desperate, and
yet the most triumphant of William’s life. He was, he writes to his
brother, overwhelmed with work and grief and care. The terrible Spanish
army, storming the cities of the Netherlands and butchering their
inhabitants, seemed to have got the best of it. Many towns fell to
them, and Orange at one moment felt at the end of his tether, when the
fortunate occurrence of a mutiny for pay in the Spanish army and the
death of its Grand Commander gave Orange his opportunity. While Philip
hesitated, Orange acted. This brought about the union of Holland and
Zeeland, which is known as the Union of Delft, a crucial act and the
foundation of a great Power to come. Orange was given supreme authority
as ruler. He was to support the Reformed Religion, but no inquisition
was to be allowed into any man’s faith or conscience. For not only had
Orange to fight the Catholics, but he had to hold back the Calvinists,
who, immediately their power and numbers increased, revenged themselves
most horribly on those of different creeds. The horrors of the Spanish
Fury continued to increase. William called a conference of the States
General and drew up the Pacification of Ghent. By this treaty all the
seventeen provinces bound themselves into a solemn league to expel
the Spaniards, and made it law that the ultimate settlement of all
questions was to rest with the States General.

William’s appeals to the people of the Netherlands were masterpieces of
eloquence and reason. He put it that disunion had been their ruin—union
would save them. A stick is, he said, easily broken; a faggot of sticks
bound together resists. He appealed not only to Protestants but to
Catholics, asking them not to be taken in by the superstitious idea
that loyalty means absolutely cringing to the every wish of a king,
who is probably of all the people the most ignorant as to all that is
being done in his name. The States were stirred by his appeals, and
the Pacification was hailed with shouts of joy and relief. Orange at
this moment reached the height of his career, and he was persuaded by
his people to make a public entry into Brussels as their acknowledged
leader. He received a tremendously enthusiastic and brilliant
welcome. A little later, however, he had to suffer disappointment
in the breaking away of the Southern from the Northern Netherlands.
The persecution in the South had done its work and Philip gained the
allegiance of Belgium. Henceforward they had separate histories and are
known as Holland and Belgium. In his further struggles against Philip,
Orange felt scarcely strong enough to hold his United Provinces without
assistance from another country. He turned to France, offering to make
the Duc d’Anjou, brother of the French King, sovereign of the United
Provinces. His offer was accepted. The Duke proved to be a weak and
treacherous man; he was a complete failure, and, making himself odious
and impossible to his subjects, his rule was brought to an end.

The awful Granvelle had meanwhile whispered to Philip that they might
assassinate Orange (1580), and they finally drew up together a ban
putting a price upon the Prince’s head. They declared him a traitor and
as such banished him “perpetually from our realms.”

Orange, living quietly with his wife at Delft, took it very calmly. He
showed no fear; the Lord, he said, would dispose as He thought fit. But
he wrote and published his famous _Apology_, a very lengthy document
which is interesting as a history of his life. In it he answers the
accusations brought against him in the ban—that he is a foreigner, a
heretic, an enemy, a rebel, and so on.

The ban soon began to bear fruit, and several attempts were made on the
Prince’s life; one, a year later, was very nearly successful. A youth
offered him a petition, and as Orange took it he discharged a pistol at
the Prince’s head. The bullet went through his neck and through the
roof of his mouth, carrying away some teeth. The Prince was blinded and
stunned. When he came to his senses he called out, “Don’t kill him! I
forgive him my death.” Every one thought he had been mortally wounded,
and crowds went to the churches to offer up prayers for his recovery;
and he did recover, but his poor wife Charlotte, who had nursed him
devotedly, died of the shock. This had been a perfect marriage, lasting
seven years, and Charlotte had had six daughters, all of whom had
afterwards interesting and eventful histories. A year later William
married Louise de Coligny, the daughter of the famous French general.
She was one of the noblest and most attractive women of her day, and
gave her husband one son, a remarkable person and the first of many
illustrious Stadtholders.

In Delft, William with his wife, surrounded by his many children,
ranging in age from two to nearly thirty years, lived a very happy,
simple life. Their large plain house was in a pleasant street planted
with lime-trees, so that in June the surface of the canal they looked
upon was covered with their fallen blossoms. There in the street
William of Orange would sometimes be seen looking like any ordinary
burgher, very plainly dressed in a loose coat of gray frieze over a
tawny leather doublet, a high ruff round his neck and a wide-brimmed
hat of dark felt with a cord round it. In appearance, Orange was
rather tall, well-made and strong, but thin. His hair and complexion
were brown, and his eyes were brown, too, and very bright and large.
His head was small and well-shaped, but the brow was broad, and now,
late in life, very much wrinkled and furrowed with thought and care.
His mouth was firmly closed and rather melancholy. His whole appearance
was that of a man of great strength of character and of self-control.
At this time, though weary after many strenuous years of toil, he was
never more cheerful, amusing, and sympathetic. He was busy still as the
practical ruler of his devoted people—“Father of the Country,” as they
called him; but when the States begged him to become their sovereign he
refused. He had quite enough reward and consolation, he said, in the
devotion of Holland and Zeeland, and he wanted rest in his advanced
age. He was only fifty-one, but no doubt felt old, for he was old in
experience and sorrow, and so he asked to be excused more cares and
responsibilities.


In the summer of 1584, the Prince was one day with his wife going
to his dining-room for dinner, when a man presented himself at the
door of the dining-room and demanded a passport. The Princess was so
much alarmed at the man’s looks that she asked her husband about him.
The Prince said he was only a man who wanted a passport, and ordered
his secretary to prepare one. He then ate his meal quite calmly and
happily, and at the end of it walked out of the room leading the way
to his own apartments up some stairs. He had just begun to ascend them
when a figure emerged from a dark archway near the staircase and shot
a pistol straight at the Prince’s heart. One bullet went right through
him, and he, feeling his wound, cried out, “Oh, my God, have mercy upon
my soul! Oh, my God, have mercy upon this poor people!” and then he
died.

The murderer’s name was Balthazar Gerard. He had pretended to be a
Calvinist, and in this manner had approached Orange with all sorts
of pathetic stories to arouse his sympathy, and had got to know all
Orange’s habits and movements. Now he was seized by the Prince’s
devoted people and, in the barbarous custom of that day, tortured in
a most hideous fashion until he died, all of which he bore with great
bravery. He was an absolute fanatic, and believed he was doing a very
fine thing in ridding the world of Orange. Being dead, he could not
receive himself the reward promised by Philip, but his parents were
enriched and ennobled for their son’s act.

The Great Leader was no more, and it is easy to picture the indignation
and misery among his people. How were they to get on without his kind,
commanding figure, without his tact, his patience and resolution?
His death was indeed a calamity which put back the fortunes of the
Netherlands for many years, for his second son Maurice, who became
Governor, was only seventeen years old, and it was hard work to
continue the struggle. But Orange’s labors had not been in vain.
He was the real founder of the Dutch Republic, and he knew before
he died that the cause he had suffered for would at last succeed,
that the Hollanders were now in a position to offer successful
resistance to Philip. And his blood ran, too, in the veins of many
noble descendants—his children, and later his grandchildren and
great-grandchildren, who were to carry on his work. Some inherited his
extraordinary powers of statesmanship and others became great soldiers.

William of Orange, like all great men of character, had his enemies and
critics. He was accused of being governed by ambition and the desire
to see himself in high positions. He has been called insincere, and
even accused of cowardice on the field of battle. If we study his life
carefully it seems to be a complete refutation of these accusations. If
he had only cared for high posts and honors, how easily he might have
retained them! He need not have taken the line he did against Philip.
He might, as he was a Catholic, have overcome the feeling he had that
persecution was an intolerable thing and agreed to the general system
of Inquisition. In the beginning he owed everything to Charles V, so it
was not natural or possible to throw over his son immediately. Besides,
he was a statesman—one of the greatest of that age: he wanted to do
the best for his country. Like many open-minded persons, he was able to
see two sides to a question and to see it in its widest sense. He was
tolerant and ahead of his times. To be all this in an age of bigotry
and intolerance was to be insincere.

By circumstance William the Silent was placed in an extremely difficult
position, and all must admit that he came out of it with the greatest
glory. His troubles came upon him only because he was too honest. It is
a difficult thing to understand, but a man’s sufferings and troubles
are often a result of his own finest qualities, and so it was with
Orange. As to his lack of physical bravery, his life was also a living
contradiction of this criticism, as witness his indifference to the ban
put upon him. It did not make him in the least nervous, and he took no
precautions for protecting himself against assassins. For years, too,
his life was spent on the field of battle, meeting with great reverses
and hairbreadth escapes, yet he never shirked it, but endured and faced
it. It is true that, unlike his brother Louis, he had no actual joy
in battle. His blood was not stirred by the clash of arms, for he was
not naturally a soldier, any more than he was a rebel; circumstances
and his own fair-mindedness had made him so; while rebelling against
an utterly unfair and unlawful condition of things, he used all his
powers to moderate people’s passions, and to make them live peacefully
together. The end part of his life was spent in drawing up laws to that
purpose.

In thinking over the character of Orange, the fact that strikes one
most is that his character deepened and strengthened as he grew older
and in proportion to his sufferings. If he had not been tried to
the very limit by misfortunes, and if he had always been rich and
prosperous, the finest things in his character might have remained
untried and unknown to us. We should not have realized that beside his
charming qualities, his great understanding of men, his gentleness
and generosity, there lay heroic qualities of endurance, devotion,
and courage. That he should not by nature have been an ascetic,
despising amusements, good food, and fine clothes, and the lighter
side of existence, but an aristocrat, easygoing, enjoying possessions
and the beauty of life, and with some human weaknesses, only draws
us more closely to him, for it makes us understand the struggles and
difficulties he had to overcome in himself in order to do what he did.
He gave away everything he had, and at one time possessed hardly the
common necessaries of life, so that he was almost a beggar as well as
an outlaw. In the darkest hours of his life he tried to smile and to
appear cheerful for the sake of his people, and to encourage them,
which made his enemies say he was flippant and heartless. But he was
a truly religious man, inheriting from his mother the religious
spirit—reverence and belief in good and trust in God.

In the words of Motley, “He went through life bearing the load of a
people’s sorrow upon his shoulders with a smiling face, and when he
died the little children cried in the streets.”

  D. P.



III

TYCHO BRAHE

1546–1601

  Esse potius quam haberi


There is a small island called Hveen which lies in the Sound half-way
between the coasts of Denmark and Sweden and about ten miles north of
Copenhagen. It looks now a rather desolate and abandoned place. But if
you had been alive about the year 1580 and had gone there, you would
have been very much surprised at what you found. On landing you would
have seen right above you in the middle of the island, rising up out
of the trees, a wonderful castle with galleries and turrets and gilded
spires, just like a palace in a fairy tale. Let us imagine it was
summer, and you were very bold and wended your way up the rocks through
a grove of fruit trees into a lovely garden with avenues and terraces
and fountains and gorgeous flower-beds. An attendant is standing in the
porch, and you ask him to show you round, as you are naturally curious
to see what the inside of such a place is like. The inside is even more
surprising. As you pass through the hall and along the stone corridors
lit by stained-glass windows, the song of caged birds, the splash of
fountains, and the distant sound of music greet your ear. You notice
Latin inscriptions painted over the doors and rich decoration on all
sides.

Through the windows of the spacious rooms filled with carved furniture
and decorated with pictures and tapestries you catch a glimpse of a
glorious view of the Swedish and Danish coast, with the towers of
Copenhagen in the far distance. In the great library there are cabinets
of rare and beautiful objects: the walls are lined with books: the
tables are piled with papers all covered with numbers and geometrical
figures: curious-looking instruments stand on the shelves: an enormous
brass globe occupies one corner of the room and a complicated-looking
clock, all wheels and works, stands in another. Down in the basement
you find a vast apartment where masses of bottles and crucibles and
retorts and glasses filled with strange-colored mixtures are ranged on
shelves and tables. Who on earth lives in such a place as this? you ask
the attendant. It is the Castle of Uraniborg, he tells you, the home
of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe—the greatest astronomer of the
age—who is known as “the noblest of the learned and the most learned of
the nobles,” and he whispers under his breath that he is a magician.

[Illustration: TYCHO BRAHE]

Laughter and the sound of animated voices reach you as you pass the
door of the banqueting hall. Your informant explains that there are
guests in the castle—a prince and his suite have spent the day there,
and some learned men from foreign lands form part of the company. The
evening is closing in, and attendants come hurrying from all quarters
carrying books and instruments; a student from one of the observatories
in the towers goes into the hall to inform his master that the night
is clear. Through the open doorway you catch sight of the great
man himself, sitting at the end of his dining-table, discoursing
vivaciously to his guests. He is a broad-shouldered, burly-looking man,
with short, bright red hair and a thick mustache curling over an auburn
beard. But what an odd nose he has got! it seems to shine like metal.
It _is_ metal, the attendant tells you: for once, as a student, he
fought a duel with another student, and his adversary got the best of
it and slashed Tycho’s nose right off with his sword. He made himself
a new nose out of a mixture of gold and silver, which he stuck on and
wore for the rest of his life. Crouching at the foot of his chair you
observe a funny little dwarf, his jester, who from time to time takes
morsels of food from his hand and interrupts the conversation with some
ridiculous joke.

Soon the banquet is over, the procession passes out, and you notice
how grandly the astronomer is dressed, with doublet and white ruff, a
sword at his side, a chain of gold round his neck. The prince and his
courtiers do not appear more magnificent. Is it out of compliment to
his guests? No, you are told; when he goes to watch the stars, even
alone, he always dresses like this, as if he were some great ambassador
accredited by the earth to the heavens.

The guests walk across the castle yard, down a flight of steps to a
domed subterranean building not far off called Stjerneborg—the castle
of the stars—which is entirely given up to astronomical requirements,
the only decoration on the walls being portraits of astronomers,
including one of Tycho himself. There, when the prince has left the
island and the other guests have retired to rest, the astronomer will
remain rapt in contemplation of the mysteries of the universe.


Our remotest ancestors were struck with awe and interest when they
looked at the heavens. They believed them to be the residence of God,
and at the same time they were their clock and calendar. Astronomy
is a very ancient science. It was practised by the Egyptians, the
Chinese, and the Babylonians in the remotest ages of history, as well
as by the Arabs and Greeks. The most marvelous discoveries have been
made with regard to the number and motion of the stars since the days
when primæval man looked on the heavens as a great blue vault “fretted
with golden fire.” It may have been thought once that the stars could
be numbered. The telescope and photography have shown this to be
impossible, and have taught us the overwhelming fact that our universe
contains, at the very least, one hundred millions of suns, and that
the light from some of the most distant stars has taken over 18,000
years to reach us! This seems very bewildering, though not more so than
to know that there are animals so minute that if a thousand of them
were ranged abreast they would easily swim, without being thrown out
of line, through the eye of the finest needle. We live in the midst
of incomprehensible marvels, infinitely great and infinitely small,
between the limitless future and the limitless past.

What wonderful patience and toil it must have required for the
astronomers of all nations, working together and comparing notes, to
store up the vast amount of knowledge of the heavens which we now
possess. It is amazing, too, to think how three or four hundred years
ago they were able to make so many discoveries and calculations without
the aid of a telescope. For before 1600 the telescope was practically
unknown. So when you see standing in a modern observatory gigantic
instruments, thirty or forty feet long, of marvelous ingenuity and
highly complicated mechanism, which in spite of their size and weight
are capable of being moved by a hair’s breadth and adjusted to the
hundredth part of an inch: their object-glasses alone perhaps over
thirty inches in diameter, costing thousands of dollars; and then you
think of these early astronomers gazing through a hole in a vaulted
roof at the tiny specks of light with their naked eye, the work they
accomplished appears still more astounding. It is true that their
discoveries were at first casual and haphazard. But at last it occurred
to one of them that the progress of astronomy depended on continuous
observation and the most scrupulously accurate calculations, carefully
planned and carried on over a number of years. It was Tycho Brahe who
first did this.

You have heard of Copernicus, the Pole, who was really the founder of
modern astronomy, because he discovered that the earth went round the
sun and was not the center of the universe, as every one had supposed.
He died three years before Tycho Brahe was born. Galileo, the famous
Italian, was born in 1564 and lived till he was seventy-eight. He made
further discoveries about the stars and used a telescope of a very
primitive kind. He supported Copernicus’s theory with regard to the
relative movement of the earth and the sun, and this brought upon him
the serious displeasure of the Church. The notion that the earth was
not the center of the universe was considered wicked and blasphemous.
The Pope commanded him to come to Rome, and after a long trial he was
made, under the threat of torture, to retract what he had said. The
story is that as he turned away at the end of his trial he stamped his
foot on the ground and muttered: “E pur si muove!” (And yet it _does_
move!)

Kepler is another well-known astronomer, of whom we shall hear again.
These three are all more eminent men than Tycho Brahe, whose fame does
not depend on any startling discovery, but on the fact that he devised
wonderful instruments, and by unceasing energy and industry collected
a mass of material which was of untold value to his successors. But
perhaps most of all it is his romantic life and his strong character
which make him stand out in history.

Tycho was born in 1546 and was the eldest of ten children. His father,
Otto Brahe, was lord of Knudstrup in Scaane, which now forms part of
Sweden. At an early age he was adopted by his uncle, Jorgen Brahe, who
treated him as if he were his son, had him educated at Copenhagen, but
by spoiling him a good deal was no doubt responsible for the somewhat
conceited and domineering manner he developed in later years. At the
age of fourteen Tycho received what might be termed his “call” from
the heavens. It came in the form of an eclipse of the sun, which
roused the boy’s interest to such an extent that from that moment he
made up his mind to turn his attention to astronomy. It is a curious
fact that ten years later, when chemistry had so absorbed him that
he had almost abandoned his astronomical studies, he again received
a sign from the heavens. This time it was the appearance of a new
star which he observed one night while walking from his laboratory,
and which caused him to take up again the beloved pursuit of which he
never wearied to his dying day. He discovered the new star, and it may
be equally truly said that the star discovered him. But at first the
idea of his devoting his time to astronomy was not at all favored or
encouraged. After he had spent three years in the Copenhagen University
his uncle sent him to Leipzig, where it was intended he should study
law. His tutor, who accompanied him, conscientiously tried to make
Tycho devote all his attention and time to his legal studies, but his
task was almost hopeless. It is impossible to force any one to take an
interest in something he does not like. These obstacles only served to
strengthen Tycho’s resolve. He devoured every book he could find on
astronomy, and at night, unknown to his tutor, he would creep out and
begin his first intercourse with the stars. A copy of Ptolemy’s great
work on astronomy, copiously annotated and marked by the schoolboy,
is preserved as one of the chief treasures in the library of the
University at Prague.

While he was thus engaged a fatal accident befell his uncle. Jorgen
Brahe was riding in attendance on the King of Denmark when a bridge
collapsed under them. He plunged into the water and attempted to save
the King’s life. In consequence of this he contracted a chill, which
soon afterwards caused his death. Tycho hurried home to Copenhagen,
but he did not stay long. He returned to Germany and continued his
studies at Wittenberg, the home of the great Reformer Luther, who had
been dead only about twenty years. He seems to have had no desire to
go home, for he settled down at Rostock and then at Augsburg, where
he was fortunate enough to find many scientific men with whom he
could associate and exchange ideas. Here it was that he invented and
constructed some remarkable astronomical instruments, one of which
was that enormous globe you saw in his library. It was four feet in
diameter, and covered with a coating of brass on which was engraved a
representation of the heavens founded on his own observations.

Otto Brahe, who was governor of Helsingborg Castle, died in 1570, and
Tycho returned to Denmark to arrange his father’s affairs. Another
uncle placed his house at the disposal of his remarkable young nephew,
and soon Tycho was eagerly watching his new star, about which he wrote
a book in Latin. There was some difficulty about publishing the book,
because it was supposed to be beneath the dignity of a nobleman to
demean himself by writing books. However, by the assistance of friends,
it was published and added very much to his reputation. This was an
age when nobles and aristocrats had great power and dominated the
country. Like nobles in all ages, physical work in time of peace or
mental work of any kind was beneath their dignity: they occupied most
of their time in pleasure and amusement. They considered themselves the
elect, who were born to be served. Although he belonged by birth to
this class, Tycho detested the frivolous, aimless lives they led. In a
letter in which he expresses his intention of leaving Denmark, he says:

  Neither my country nor my friends keep me back; one who has courage
  finds a home in every place and lives a happy life every where.
  Friends, too, one can find in all countries. There will always
  be time enough to return to the cold North to follow the general
  example, and, like the rest, in pride and luxury to play for the rest
  of one’s years with wine, dogs, and horses (for if these were lacking
  how could the nobles be happy?). May God, as I trust He will, accord
  me a better lot.

He traveled about in Germany, Austria, and Italy, and he made great
friends with the Landgrave of Hesse, who was very much interested
in mathematics and astronomy and had a fine observatory of his own.
While Tycho was staying with him at Cassel a serious fire broke out
in the palace. But such was the astronomer’s power of concentration
and absorption in his work that, regardless of the general alarm, he
could not be persuaded to leave his study until he had finished the
particular piece of work with which he was occupied at the moment.

The fame of the great astronomer was now spreading, and the King of
Denmark, Frederick II, who heard his praises sung by the Landgrave
of Hesse, was determined to show his appreciation of the remarkable
talents of his subject in a practical way. He therefore presented Tycho
Brahe with the island of Hveen, in the Baltic, as his own personal
property, with sufficient money to erect on it whatever buildings he
might desire. The foundation of the great castle was laid on August
30, 1576. A party of scientific friends had assembled, and the time
had been chosen so that the heavenly bodies were auspiciously placed.
Libations of costly wines were poured forth and the stone was laid
with due solemnity. Here at Uraniborg, the castle you visited, he
lived for about twenty years, keeping a diary not only of astronomical
observations but of all events that passed on the island.

The peasants on the island, whom he doctored and to whom he gave
medicines for nothing, regarded him of course as a wizard, and a number
of strange legends were circulated about the magician and his wonderful
castle. Many visitors came to visit him at Uraniborg from all parts
of the world—distinguished astronomers, mathematicians, philosophers,
divines, princes and kings. Queen Sophie of Denmark came on several
occasions and brought her father, Duke Ulrich of Mecklenburg. In 1590
James VI of Scotland, who thirteen years later became James I of
England, came over to marry Princess Anne of Denmark. She had intended
to go to the home of her betrothed, but owing to stormy weather had
been wrecked off the coast of Norway. James therefore, who rather
feared that Queen Elizabeth might interfere and upset his plans of
marriage, sailed forth himself to fetch his bride. The marriage was
celebrated at Oslo, on the coast of Norway, and the royal couple came
subsequently on a visit to Copenhagen. James took the opportunity to
visit Uraniborg, and was very much interested in Tycho Brahe’s work.
On leaving the island he asked what he should give the astronomer in
return for his hospitality. Tycho, like a true courtier, replied: “Some
of your Majesty’s own verses.” The King was delighted and readily
acquiesced. Tycho’s opinion of the literary efforts of the poet King is
not recorded. Queen Elizabeth’s Minister at the Court of Denmark also
visited the island, and Duncan Liddel, the Scottish astronomer.

Tycho was a great talker; he had a somewhat overbearing and arrogant
manner, and was intolerant and contemptuous with those whom he
considered to be his inferiors intellectually. But although he was
conceited he was thoroughly genuine, and despised the shams and
artificialities of life. His motto was _Esse potius quam haberi_ (To be
rather than to seem to be). That is to say, he did not value reputation
and fame unless it was accompanied by real accomplishment. He preferred
working hard for the pure satisfaction of doing good work, even if it
were not recognized, and he despised people who got credit and fame
without really deserving it. He was quite right. And it is worth
remembering that many people who are doing valuable work in the world
remain absolutely unknown: while many of the names which appear most
frequently before the public are those of men who have become famous by
chance and not by merit.

In addition to being an astronomer, Tycho was a skilled mechanic,
mathematician, and architect: he wrote verses which were much admired
and was a great lover of music. It was only natural in such an age
that a man who devoted himself to astronomy and chemistry should
believe in astrology and alchemy; and it is not to be wondered at that
Tycho Brahe should have attempted to find some connection between the
movements of the stars and the course of events in the lives of men.
When the King of Denmark asked him to cast the horoscope of some of the
young princes, that is to say, foretell their future by the position
of the stars at the time of their birth, he did it very elaborately,
but with a caution that too much reliance should not be placed on
such prophecies. His first attempt at prophesying was anything but
successful. He said the eclipse of the moon in 1566 meant that the
Turkish Sultan would die. Presently the news arrived of the Sultan’s
death, but it appeared that it had taken place _before_ the eclipse—a
fact which caused people to laugh at Tycho’s expense. But he certainly
made one very singular prediction from the appearance of the comet
of 1577. It announced, he declared, that in the north, in Finland,
there would be born a prince who would lay waste Germany and vanish in
1632. Now, Gustavus Adolphus, the King of Sweden, was born in Finland,
overran Germany, and died in 1632.

Tycho, indeed, was superstitious by nature. If he met an old woman or a
hare on going out, he took it as a bad omen and would return home; and
he often listened attentively to the sayings and prophecies of Jeppe,
his dwarf jester.

It is not surprising that such a man as this did not marry one of his
own class. A lady of the nobility would have been too frightened to
lead such an adventurous life and an educated woman would have refused
to submit to so domineering and tyrannical a nature in a husband. When
he was twenty-seven he married a poor peasant girl by whose beauty he
had been struck, and she seems to have been more of a servant than a
companion to him.

The glories of the Castle of Uraniborg were not destined to last for
long, and no one was to blame for this but Tycho himself, though he
certainly had enemies who were jealous of him, and who were only too
ready to take advantage of the decline in his fortunes. A series
of unpleasant incidents, combined with his somewhat restless and
discontented spirit, forced him at last to abandon his magnificent
home and to leave his native land for good. He had neglected his
duties, squandered his money, and displeased people by his views. The
peasants on the island complained of ill-treatment. A disagreeable
lawsuit with regard to his daughter’s marriage worried him, and many
of his influential friends at court had died or retired. He addressed
a letter to the King of Denmark, Christian IV, the son of his original
patron, Frederick II, hoping to be restored to favor, but he was
sternly rebuked and his pension was withdrawn. A poem lamenting over
the ingratitude of Denmark shows with what keen regret he left the
country. It must have been a tragic moment when all his instruments and
treasures were packed up and the castle and observatory left deserted.
There is hardly any trace even of the ruins on the island to-day. The
truth is that a man engaged in intellectual work is only hampered by
such lavish patronage. Tycho’s head was turned, and indeed he would
have required to have a very strong character to remain unaffected in
such peculiar conditions.

Undismayed, however, by temporary bad fortune, the astronomer, after
a year or so of travel, during which he never ceased from his work,
turned from one royal patron to another. He was received at Prague in
1599 by the Emperor Rudolph the Second, who pensioned him and gave him
the castle of Benatke, near by, where he established himself and his
family and set up at once an observatory. Comfortable as he was, still
he yearned for his fatherland and never forgot the great generosity of
his munificent friend, King Frederick II.

Among the disciples and assistants who gathered round him here was
Johann Kepler, whom we mentioned before. He was then twenty-eight
years old, and lived to become an even greater astronomer than Tycho
Brahe himself. He owed a great deal to the profound and extensive
observations of his master on the subject of fixed stars, and with the
aid of all the careful information which Tycho had gathered together
and bequeathed to his favorite pupil on his death, he made important
discoveries with regard to the movements of the planets, and elaborated
a much more advanced idea of the universe. Curiously enough, Tycho
Brahe, with all his astonishing industry, never completely accepted the
system of Copernicus. His idea was that the earth was the center of the
universe and the sun formed the center for the orbits of the planets,
but the sun itself, together with the planets, moved round the earth.

By his diligent observation of a thousand fixed stars, he gave to the
world a catalogue of accurate positions of these bodies which took the
place of the old catalogue of Ptolemy of Alexandria, who lived in the
second century. This catalogue of observations held its own for more
than a hundred years, until telescopes and clocks of precision came
into use. It was the mighty impulse that Tycho Brahe gave to practical
astronomy that caused that science to be taken up at universities,
among which those of Copenhagen and Leyden were the first to found
observatories.

In 1601, at the age of fifty-five, Tycho Brahe died after a short
illness. He was accorded by the Emperor’s orders a funeral of great
pomp, and buried in the Teyn Church at Prague. In the funeral oration
pronounced over his grave he was well described thus:

  In his words were truth and brevity, in his demeanor and countenance
  sincerity, in his counsel wisdom, in his deeds success. In him was
  nothing artificial or hypocritical, but he spoke his mind straight
  out, and to this no doubt is due the hatred with which many regarded
  him. He coveted nothing but time, and his endeavor was to be of
  service to all and hurtful to none.

The tomb, with the effigy of the great Danish astronomer and the
epitaph composed by Kepler, was restored and put in order in 1901, on
the celebration of the three-hundredth anniversary of his death.

By his wonderful industry Tycho Brahe laid the foundations on which
others were able to build up great inventions and great discoveries. A
discoverer or inventor may only put the finishing touch to the labor of
others who have gone before him, preparing the way. Their names may not
be known, their work may be forgotten, while he gets all the praise and
renown for the famous achievement, which, however, without the help of
his predecessors he could never have accomplished. You may see a man
trying to pull a stiff cork out of a bottle. He fails. Another man
tries. He too fails. A third man tries and out it comes. “Ah,” every
one says, “he has done what the others could not do.” But the truth is
that he succeeded because the first two men loosened the cork before
him. Much of the great preparatory toil of the world’s work has been
done by men and women whose names do not appear in any record. Tycho,
however, did leave his mark, for it was not usual for a man of noble
birth to devote his time to arduous study.

By far the greater number of men who are famous in history, especially
those who have achieved renown in science and the arts, have been
men of humble origin who have had to work for their living and even
struggle against the adversity which poverty brings. It is this very
struggle and continuous effort that is the making of them. Those who
are born in more fortunate circumstances, and are surrounded by luxury
and comfort which tempt them to lead lives of ease and idleness rarely
succeed in accomplishing notable achievements. Alexander Humboldt, who
lived at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth
century, is another notable instance of a man of high position (and in
his case, too, considerable means) giving up his life to an untiring
pursuit of knowledge and to amassing a remarkable amount of valuable
scientific information.

To work when you need not work, to prevent your time being wasted in
pleasure and amusements and your efforts being relaxed by comforts
and luxuries, is perhaps even more difficult than the struggle against
necessity and poverty. Only a few great men brought up in such
circumstances have succeeded. Tycho Brahe was one of them, and it is
very greatly to his credit that by strength of will and character he
overcame to the extent he did these formidable obstacles.

  A. P.



IV

CERVANTES

1547–1616

  Leisure, an agreeable residence, pleasant fields, serene skies,
  murmuring streams, and tranquillity of mind—by these the most barren
  muse may become fruitful and produce that which will delight and
  astonish the world.


It is not often that great men are recognized in their lifetime. They
may have a few admirers, but their work is probably the subject of
dispute and disagreement, and not till years have passed, and the
smaller men who attracted momentary attention have been forgotten, are
they valued at last at their true worth. Thus it may happen that men
who are talked about a great deal, and rather noisily praised by their
contemporaries, disappear almost entirely from the memory of man in
succeeding generations, while men who in their day have despaired of
success, have been neglected, and have sometimes felt the humiliation
of failure, live on in their work long after their death and exercise
an influence more far-reaching than they themselves ever dreamed of.

Of course you have heard of Don Quixote, and you have probably read
some of his amusing adventures—how he went about with his funny little
squire, Sancho Panza, and gave proof of his heroism in many diverting
ways. But the book in which his adventures are written is not only an
entertaining story—it is a wonderfully accurate picture of Spanish life
in the sixteenth century, and is a record of many interesting events
that took place outside Spain as well. When it was published in 1605,
the book was very popular in Spain, but nobody thought it was going
to become one of the world’s greatest books, no one guessed that it
would be translated into more foreign languages than any other book in
the world except the Bible and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.” No one,
therefore, paid much attention to the author, and his very birthplace
was not even remembered after he died. But when the Spaniards found
that Cervantes had become famous throughout the world, then they took
the trouble to unearth something about his history, and it was found
that he had a claim to fame as a man, apart from his renown as an
author.

Cervantes was a soldier. It is not usual for a soldier to write
imaginative books. But he was not a soldier in a regular army, drilling
every day in a barrack square, but a soldier who went out and fought,
endured fearful hardships, and had the most terrible adventures. He
gained in this way a very wide knowledge of the world, which, combined
with his powerful imagination, made him into one of the world’s
great geniuses.

[Illustration: CERVANTES]

Let us try and follow him through the main events of his crowded
life. Miguel de Cervantes was born in 1547. Alcala de Henares in New
Castille was his birthplace, but very little is known of his childhood.
As a boy he used to watch the strolling players in the town, and he
relates details of his recollection of them which remained stamped on
his memory. They would come round and give performances in the market
square. Their properties consisted of a sack which held four white
sheepskin dresses trimmed with gilt leather, four beards, wigs, and
crooks. The decoration of the theater was an old blanket hung on two
ropes. One can well imagine that their performances and the verses
of the comedies remained with him vividly when he was grown up. His
education was supposed to have been neglected because he never went
to a university. But if he made mistakes in his writings which a man
who had passed examinations would have avoided, he managed to obtain
a knowledge of men and life—a more important knowledge, which many a
ripe scholar might envy. At an early age he tried his hand at writing,
and at twenty-one his poems, on the death of the Queen of Spain, were
especially praised by his tutor.

Years were destined to pass before Cervantes settled down to any
literary work. I expect he knew he had the talent, but there was
very little chance for him to test it. He liked adventure and wanted
to be up and doing, so he seized the first opportunity he could of
gaining some experience of the world outside his own country. He went
to Rome and became a page in the household of an envoy of the Pope
whose acquaintance he had made in Madrid. But this did not suit him,
because the life of a page or chamberlain was intolerably slow and
uneventful. Bowing and scraping, entertaining and intriguing, was not
in his line at all. He resigned his post and enlisted as a soldier in
a Spanish regiment in Italy. Pope Pius V was organizing at that time a
Holy League against the Turks, whose great conquests were alarming the
States of Europe. But there was some difficulty in getting European
nations to agree to any plan for attacking Turkey. They were jealous
of one another and would not all act together. At last, after a long
delay, which was spent by Cervantes in Naples, the League, consisting
of the Pope, Venice, and Spain, was organized under the command of the
famous Don John of Austria, a brilliant general, who was half-brother
of King Philip II of Spain. The fleet of these three States was the
largest that had ever sailed under a Christian flag. It consisted of
galleys rowed by a large number of oarsmen, who were all criminals
under sentence. In the Turkish fleet the oarsmen were Christian slaves.
The object of the allies was to recover Cyprus from the Turks. But
before they could reach so far a great naval engagement took place in
the Gulf of Lepanto, at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth. After some
hard fighting the allied fleets were victorious.

Miguel de Cervantes, though he was acting only as a common soldier,
behaved with conspicuous heroism. Weak with fever which he had caught
at Naples, he insisted, in spite of protests, on obtaining the command
of a dozen men, and stood with them in a position exposed to the
hottest fire of the enemy. From his ship he boarded one of the Turkish
galleys and received three gunshot wounds—two in the breast and one
shattering his left hand, which was maimed for the rest of his life.
His conduct won for him the applause of all his comrades, and he always
looked back on this episode as the most glorious in his career.

Twenty thousand Turks perished, and a hundred and seventy of their
galleys were captured in this memorable fight at Lepanto, which, if
it did not destroy, anyhow arrested the power of Turkey. A great
storm followed the victory, and Don John sailed away to Messina with
his wounded men, whom he landed there. Cervantes, whose wounds were
very severe, was among them. He received a special grant of money for
his distinguished service. But so eager was he to be at the front
again that it was not long before he had joined Don John in his
second attempt to overcome the Turkish fleet, which, however, was
unsuccessful.

A campaign in Africa followed and Tunis was captured, soon, however,
to be recaptured by the Turks, whose power remained unbroken. These
expeditions occupied nearly four years, and Cervantes went through the
experience of the hardships of war, the joy of victory, and the despair
of defeat. He was now a sick and maimed soldier who had witnessed
deeds of knightly valor, but had also known the wearisome delays, the
failures, and the disappointments of a soldier’s life.

Having been away for six years, he asked leave to return to his native
land. This was granted, and he left Naples in a galley called _El
Sol_ with letters from Don John to the King, in which he was strongly
recommended as “a man of valor, of merit, and of many signal services.”
But on the voyage a terrible calamity befell him, which was to be the
greatest of all his adventures and the severest of all his trials. Just
as he was rejoicing at the sight of the Spanish coast, a squadron of
corsairs, or pirates, under a redoubtable captain who was the terror of
the Mediterranean, bore down on _El Sol_. A desperate fight followed,
but the pirate galleys were too strong. A number of Spaniards were
captured, and Cervantes found himself carried off to Africa and placed
at the mercy of a savage Greek who was noted for his wild ferocity. As
letters were found on him from Don John of Austria, he was considered a
prize of considerable value, for whom a large ransom might be demanded.
Accordingly he was sent to Algiers heavily chained, and was treated
there with the greatest severity.

During his captivity, which lasted as long as five years, Cervantes
showed the most splendid courage; adversity, indeed, brought out the
finest qualities in his character. He persistently organized plans of
escape, the failure of one never deterring him from preparing another.
On the first occasion his project was defeated by a Moor, who was
engaged as a guide but deserted at the last moment, and the party
of fugitives were obliged to return to Algiers, where Cervantes was
severely punished. The next year a sum of money was sent over by his
parents, but was not sufficient for his ransom. His brother Rodrigo,
who was one of the prisoners, was, however, set free, and went home to
Spain with a request that a war vessel should be despatched to Algiers
to rescue the others. Cervantes in the meantime made all the necessary
arrangements for escape. He concealed about fifty of the Spanish
fugitives in a cave outside the town, and actually managed to have them
supplied with food for six months. It was a long time to wait, but at
last the day came when the ship was expected, and he and his comrades
were in readiness. But, as bad luck would have it, a traitor betrayed
them at the critical moment and their secret got out. A force of armed
Turks discovered and captured them. Cervantes immediately took upon
himself the whole blame and declared that he alone was responsible.
Though threatened with torture and even death, he refused to implicate
any one of his companions in the scheme of flight. The cruel Turkish
Governor, Hassan Pasha, before whom he was brought did not as a rule
hesitate to hang, impale, or mutilate his prisoners. But in this case
he appears to have been overawed by the astounding fearlessness of the
remarkable Spaniard who was brought before him.

While in captivity Cervantes addressed a rhymed letter to the King’s
secretary describing the sufferings of himself and his companions and
appealing for help from Spain. Although nothing came of this, the
undaunted hero set about devising a new plan of escape, which yet again
was destined to be frustrated. This time his messenger was caught and
ordered to be impaled, while he himself was condemned to receive two
thousand blows with a stick; this latter sentence, fortunately, was
never carried out. Notwithstanding repeated failure and the dangerous
risks he ran, Cervantes on the first opportunity hatched another plot.

Two merchants agreed to provide an armed vessel in which sixty of the
principal captives were to embark. A Spanish monk called Blanco de Paz,
who seems for some unknown motive to have conceived a deadly hatred for
Cervantes, revealed the scheme before it could be carried out. In spite
of this, however, the adventurous captive might easily have escaped
from the terrible life to which he was doomed had he consented to the
proposal of the merchants to go away alone. But he firmly refused to
abandon his companions in their distress, and in order that none of
his friends might suffer, he came forward once more and gave himself
up to the Governor. He was bound and led with a rope round his neck
before Hassan. As usual, he displayed no fear, although this time he
fully expected that he would be hanged or impaled, or at least have his
nose and ears cut off by the Governor’s orders. But for some mysterious
reason—probably the hope that a very high price would be offered for so
remarkable a man—nothing worse than five months’ close confinement in
chains was meted out to him. Hassan declared that so long as he had the
maimed Spaniard in safe keeping his Christians, ships, and city were
secure.

Meanwhile, in Spain more active steps were taken to collect sufficient
money for his ransom. His father had died, but his mother and sister
managed to raise a considerable sum, and money came in from other
sources. Messengers were despatched to Africa, and after a long dispute
over the bargain with the Turkish Pasha, Cervantes, who had actually
embarked on a ship bound for Constantinople, was at last set at liberty.

It is not from the boasting of Cervantes himself that we have the
particulars of his behavior during these five years of captivity.
Blanco de Paz circulated malicious reports about him, and this led
to an investigation. It is, therefore, on the authority of his
fellow-captives that the story comes down to us. They witnessed to his
good-temper and cheerfulness, for he had an overpowering sense of humor
which must have saved his companions from depression and despair; they
tell of his courage in danger, his resolution under suffering, his
patience in trouble, and his daring and cleverness in action.

Had he lived in the days of newspapers, the fame of his exploits would
have been proclaimed to all the world. He would have been petted and
spoilt as a hero, and all the empty flattery and cheap advertisement
which is heaped on any one in our day who appeals for the moment to
the popular imagination would have been loaded upon him without stint.
As it was, he arrived to find his family impoverished and in trouble,
his patron, Don John of Austria, dead, and no one to say a good word
for him in high quarters. He had been away ten years and was now only
thirty-three.

In 1580, the year of Cervantes’ return to his native land, Spain was
at the very height of her power. Philip II ruled not only over Spain
but over Portugal and the Netherlands: more than half Italy belonged to
him, as well as Oran and a considerable territory on the African shore
of the Mediterranean, and in addition all that was European in Southern
Asia. In the New World, from Chile to Florida, three-quarters of the
known continent came under his rule.

By sea and by land Spain was predominant and was the envy and
admiration of her neighbors. But with all this greatness, which was
only the greatness of size, decay was present in the heart of the
Empire. Under Philip, the rot spread further.

Lust for gold, which poured into the country from her rich colonies,
and rage for dominion absorbed every wholesome passion in Spain, and
gradually she fell away from her position of domination. It is one of
the many instances which show how Imperial ambition and the worship
of force can bring about a country’s ruin. Men begin to boast about
the number of square miles and the number of million souls that come
under their flag. Their minds become occupied with material ends: the
Government pursues a policy of aggression and aggrandizement: and the
urgent needs of improvement in the social and economic condition of
the common people are neglected. To wring as much as possible from the
people at home and to acquire as much secret influence as possible in
the affairs of other nations was the rule of Philip’s conduct and the
object of his life.

There were wars without number, and Cervantes seems to have found a
fresh opportunity of serving his country as a soldier in Portugal,
but the evidence for this is doubtful. But, what is more important,
he now became more active with his pen, and wrote a number of poems
and plays. The most famous of these was “Galatea,” a poetical romance
which brought him to the front. Nevertheless, he found he could not
get enough money by writing to keep his home—in fact, to the end, his
life was a perpetual struggle with poverty.

At the age of thirty-seven he married a lady who rejoiced in the
high-sounding name of Doña Catalina de Palacios Salazan y Vezmediano.
Hardly anything is known of her, except the dowry which she brought
with her, which consisted amongst other things of plantations of
vines, household furniture, two linen sheets, three of cotton, a
cushion stuffed with wool, one good blanket and one worn, garments,
four beehives, forty-live hens and pullets and one cock. Her neighbors
considered that so rich a young woman was throwing herself away on the
obscure maimed soldier who was many years her senior. She survived her
husband by ten years.

Cervantes began now to work at his writing very seriously, but he was
quite unable to compete with the principal Spanish dramatist of the
time, Lope de Vega, who was a great popular favorite, and, though the
younger of the two, outstripped his rival easily in his powers of
production, which were prodigious. But he was known as “the universal
envier” of the applause given to others. In his lifetime Lope is said
to have written one thousand eight hundred plays, not to mention
innumerable poems and stories. He was a dissolute character, with great
energy, boundless invention, and considerable wit. But few of his
plays have survived, and outside Spain the name of Lope de Vega is but
little known to-day. The Spanish drama of this period was the model
copied by other countries. The bustling farce originated in Spain, and
Elizabethan and Jacobean writers took many of the plots for their plays
from Spanish dramatists.

But Cervantes could not make a living out of writing; unlike Lope, he
had no powerful and influential friends. He had therefore to look for
other employment. The Invincible Armada was just then being fitted up,
and he got a post as agent for collecting provisions, and afterwards
he was appointed to the very humble position of tax-collector—an
occupation he must have hated, as he got into trouble more than once,
having to pay the debts of people whom he had trusted too much. He
applied for a higher post in the Government service, but his petition
was dismissed and he was forced to continue the distasteful work at
a reduced salary, falling into such extreme poverty at one time that
he actually was in need of common cloth to cover his nakedness. His
unbusinesslike habits made people suspect his honesty. He drifted lower
and lower, until at last he was imprisoned in Seville for mistakes in
his accounts. From the court he could expect nothing. Philip was not
likely to be sympathetic to a struggling writer or even grateful to an
old soldier, and prayers from Cervantes were set aside unanswered. Nor
when Philip’s son, Philip III, succeeded to the throne did any crumb
of royal favor fall his way.

In the face of all these disadvantages and troubles the great work of
his genius was being conceived and written, and in 1605 the first part
of “Don Quixote” appeared. Although it was an immediate success with
the people, the Church of course expressed strong disapproval, and
literary men criticized it, Lope de Vega wrote: “No poet is as bad as
Cervantes nor so foolish as to praise ‘Don Quixote.’”

The books people read most of all in those days were romances of
chivalry, recording absurd adventures of wonderful knights-errant
who wandered about capturing princesses from castles and performing
great deeds of prowess—all written quite seriously. Cervantes wanted
to ridicule this sort of literature and show up its absurdity. But so
fertile was his imagination and so varied had been his own experiences
that at the same time, as I have already said, he succeeded in giving a
wonderfully graphic picture of Spanish life, bringing in all classes of
society and also recording many of his own adventures as a soldier.

Don Quixote himself, though a ridiculous figure in a way, is depicted
as a delightful gentleman filled with generous and high-minded
sentiments, courteous and kindly, a champion of the downtrodden,
and a protector of the weak. The word “quixotic,” which is used in
every language in the civilized world, conveys precisely the knight’s
character. It means a man with impossibly extravagant romantic and
chivalrous notions, but a man with high ambitions who is a champion and
reformer at heart. The book was not the work of a learned scholar or
professor; it was the outcome of natural genius which appealed directly
to all classes and all ages. The saying at the time was that “Children
turn its leaves, young people read it, grown men understand it, old
folks praise it.” The English were among the first to appreciate the
wonderful book of adventures and it was translated in 1612.

About the second part of “Don Quixote” there is a curious story. While
Cervantes was at work at it, some one who called himself Avellaneda
(some think it was his old enemy, Blanco de Paz) wrote and published a
second part, which was a sort of imitation rather cleverly done, but,
of course, without any of the merits of the original. It contains an
ill-natured prologue referring to the author of the first part as a
cripple, a backbiter, a malefactor, and a jailbird, and reproaching
him for having more tongue than hands (a reference to his maimed left
hand). Cervantes was naturally indignant at this attempt to spoil his
book. He hastened to issue his own second part, and thus completed his
great work, which, throughout, is of the same high quality. It is
possible that had it not been for the intrusion of this impertinent
interloper the second part of “Don Quixote” might never have been
finished.

The whole book was written at a time when the poor unfortunate author
was struggling sometimes actually for bread. But nowhere in it can be
found any trace of malice or bitterness. The second part was finished
as he was approaching the seventieth year of a life of toil, privation,
and disappointment. But his unfailing cheerfulness and good-humor never
left him. This is very remarkable, because so many authors who have
written satire have been unable to resist spiteful digs at other people.

It is a great pity there is no proper portrait of Cervantes. Velasquez,
the greatest Spanish painter, lived just a little too late, but his
master and father-in-law, Pacheco, painted a picture representing the
release of captives from Algiers, and a boatman in that picture is
supposed to represent Cervantes. There is also a doubtful portrait by a
painter called Jaurequi. But many portraits came out, one of which is
reproduced here, which were made up from his own description of himself:


  He whom you see here of aquiline features with chestnut hair, a
  smooth, unruffled forehead, with sparkling eyes and a nose arched
  though well proportioned—a beard of silver which not twenty years
  since was of gold—great mustaches, a small mouth, the teeth of no
  account, for he has but six of them, and they in bad condition
  and worse arranged, for they do not hold correspondence with one
  another; the body between two extremes, neither great nor little; the
  complexion bright, rather white than brown; somewhat heavy in the
  shoulders—this, I say, is the aspect of the author of “Don Quixote de
  la Mancha.”


He also tells us he had an infirmity of speech and was nearsighted.

The Archbishop of Toledo, who was one of the few people who befriended
him, was once questioned by some French visitors about him. “I found
myself compelled to say,” he confesses, “that he was an old man, a
soldier, a gentleman, and poor.” “If it is necessity that compels him
to write,” replied one of the strangers, “may God send he may never
have abundance, so that, poor himself, he may make the whole world
rich.”

Cervantes lived for some years in a very poor part of Valladolid. The
family, consisting of his wife, his daughter, his sister, a niece,
and a cousin, were more or less dependent on him, though the women by
their needlework helped to keep the household going. The sidelights
cast by scraps of evidence which have been collected about members of
his family do not give at all an attractive impression of his domestic
life. It was altogether rather squalid and wretched: he lived cooped up
in hugger-mugger fashion, doing odds and ends of work for business men
into whose characters he could not afford to pry too curiously. But
Cervantes’ mind was in no way poisoned by his surroundings.

Even if “Don Quixote” had never been written, the stories called
“Novelas Examplares” would have entitled Cervantes to the foremost
place among Spanish novelists.

Sir Walter Scott admired them greatly, and declared that they had first
inspired him with the ambition of excelling in fiction. Cervantes went
on writing to the very end of his life. An anecdote he tells in one of
his last writings shows the sort of cheerful way in which he looked
upon failing health, old age, and death. He relates how a student
overtook him as a companion on the road one day, and hearing the name
of Miguel de Cervantes, at once alighted from his ass and (to put it in
his own words)—


  made for me and hastily seized me by the left hand, cried “Yes,
  yes; it is he of the crippled hand, sure enough, the all-famous,
  the merry writer, and indeed the joy of the Muses!” To me, who in
  these brief terms saw of my praises the grand compass, it seemed
  to be discourteous not to respond to them, so, embracing him round
  the neck, whereby I made entire havoc of his collar, I said: “This
  is a mistake in which many friends from ignorance have fallen. I,
  sir, am Cervantes; but not the joy of the Muses, nor any of the fine
  things your worship has said. Regain your ass and mount, and let us
  travel together in pleasant talk for the rest of our short journey.”
  The polite student did so, we reduced our speed a little, and at
  a leisurely pace pursued our journey, in the course of which my
  infirmity was touched upon. The good student checked my mirth in a
  moment: “This malady is the dropsy, which not all the water of the
  ocean, let it be ever so sweet drinking, can cure. Let your worship
  set bounds to your drink, not forgetting to eat, for so without other
  medicine you will do well.” “That many have told me,” answered I.
  “but I can no more give up drinking for pleasure than I had been born
  for nothing else. My life is slipping away, and by the diary my pulse
  is keeping, which at the latest will end its reckoning this coming
  Sunday, I have to close my life’s account. Your worship has come to
  know me in a rude moment, since there is no time for me to show my
  gratitude for the good-will you have shown me.”


He ends his narrative with the words:


  Good-by, humors; good-by, pleasant fancies; good-by, merry friends;
  for I perceive I am dying, in the wish to see you happy in the other
  life.


Cervantes died on April 19, 1616, at Madrid, and was buried without any
ceremony. No stone or inscription even marked his grave. When, thirty
years later, Lope de Vega died, grandees bore his coffin and bishops
officiated at the funeral ceremonies, which lasted nine days.

Look out for people about whom a tremendous fuss is made, and remember
that loud applause is not necessarily the accompaniment of real merit.

No wise man expects to get immediate credit for his achievements. He
does not work for personal renown, but for the love of his art or
the attainment of his ideals. Fame is cheaply won by many who little
deserve it. But to leave so rich a legacy to mankind as Cervantes did,
and a name so highly honored for all time, is the privilege of very few.

  A. P.



V

GIORDANO BRUNO

1548–1600

  I have fought: that is much—victory is in the hands of fate. Be that
  as it may with me, this at least future ages will not deny of me, be
  the victor who may—that I did not fear to die, yielded to none of my
  fellows in constancy, and preferred a spirited death to a cowardly
  life.


As the world grows older knowledge increases. From time to time men
have to correct and alter their opinions and beliefs. What at one
period is accepted as true may be proved at a later period to be false.
But we do not like abandoning our favorite beliefs, and we are apt to
get rather annoyed with a reformer, a discoverer, or an inventor who
comes along with new notions and upsets our ideas. Even to-day such a
man is often laughed at or abused. In mediæval times he was made to
suffer as an outcast and even sometimes as a criminal.

You will read many books about heroes who have displayed courage and
endurance in battle, exploration, and adventure. But men who have had
to overcome prejudices and to stand by their opinions in spite of
almost universal opposition have also played an important part in the
world’s history, though you may hear less about them. Moral courage is
more rare than physical courage. To display physical courage may make a
man a popular hero. If he fails he is stamped as a coward. To display
moral courage more often than not makes a man unpopular. There is no
audience to applaud and it is quite easy to be a moral coward without
any one, even intimate friends, finding it out. It is far simpler to
say “Yes” when every one else is saying “Yes.” He who rows against the
stream cannot hope to carry many with him, and his progress must be
slow.

Nothing can have upset men’s calculations more than the first great
discoveries of astronomy. No doubt people scoffed when Pythagoras told
them the earth was round and not flat, as they supposed. But it was
a still more disturbing idea to be told that the earth was not the
center of the universe, with the sun and moon and stars revolving round
it. Most men firmly believed this to be the case up to the fifteenth
century. And when Copernicus first elaborated in a book, between 1506
and 1512, the heliocentric theory, that is to say the theory that
the sun was the center round which the earth and the other planets
revolved, it was a long time before any one would treat such an idea
seriously. We may laugh at the ignorance of our forefathers, and we may
declare glibly that of course the earth goes round the sun, but there
are not many of us who would be ready to explain scientifically
why we know this to be a fact. We, too, have to accept a great deal
on other people’s authority because _we are told_ it is true, and
not because _we know_ it is true. And to us again the new idea often
appears unwelcome and disturbs our most cherished beliefs.

[Illustration: GIORDANO BRUNO]

But, anyhow, we know now that a man’s deeds and his loyalty to his own
convictions are far more important than any declaration he may make of
his beliefs, especially when such a declaration is forced from him or
made to please others. Some people find it very difficult to believe
things of which they cannot see the clear explanation. Other people,
with very little effort, can believe almost anything they are told.
They are like the White Queen in “Alice Through the Looking Glass,”
who, when Alice said she could not believe impossible things, replied,
“I dare say you haven’t had much practice. When I was your age I always
did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I believed as many as six
impossible things before breakfast.”

In the sixteenth century doubt and disbelief in any of the
hard-and-fast rules and dogmas of the Church was not tolerated.
Any one who was bold enough to refuse to say he believed what he
conscientiously knew he could not believe was liable to be punished
with the utmost severity.


In the Campo dei Fiori, the largest open space in Rome, a vast
concourse of people assembled on February 17th in the year 1600. In
the center of the place stood a huge pile of faggots: from the midst
of its logs and branches there rose a stake. On many of the eager and
expectant faces which crowded round might have been seen an expression
of malignant triumph. The Church was taking revenge on a heretic who
had refused to accept all the doctrines laid down by its authority, a
heretic who actually taught that the earth moved round the sun.

Soldiers clear the way for the procession which advances solemnly to
the spot. A small, thin man with a black beard, clothed in the garb of
a condemned victim of the Inquisition—a sulphur-colored cloak painted
with flames and devils—is led up to the pile. The priests even now, at
the last moment, argue with him and attempt to make him acknowledge
his error. With a look of melancholy but unconquerable determination
he refuses to listen to them or to receive any consolation from them.
A jeer rises from the multitude. He is taken and chained to the stake.
Will he not at the last moment recant? Will he not utter the words
that will save him from such cruel torture? Will he not pray for
mercy? They wait a moment, but he remains silent, calm, and obdurate.
The faggots are lit, the branches crackle; flames leap up; the victim
writhes, but not a single cry escapes him. Amid frantic shouts from
the crowd the smoke envelops him. In a few moments all that remains
is a pile of ashes, which are scattered to the winds.... This was the
end of Giordano Bruno, the Italian philosopher and poet, who refused
to consent to what he thought was false and refused to deny what he
thought was true.


It has been said that men resemble the earth which bears them. The
volcanic slope of Mount Vesuvius was the birthplace of this fiery and
unconquerable fighter. He was born in 1548 at Nola, and was the son
of a soldier. Not only does he seem in his early youth to have had a
great love of learning, but he was able to get the very best tuition
in Naples, where he lodged with an uncle who was a weaver of velvet.
His knowledge of science, mathematics, and the classics, as well as
of poetry and music, was astonishing even when he was quite young.
Besides Italian, he spoke Latin and Spanish fluently and knew something
of Greek. In spite of his ardent nature, his first step was to shut
himself up as a Dominican monk at the age of fourteen. He remained for
thirteen years in monastic seclusion, and was duly promoted to holy
orders and to the priesthood. He pursued his studies all this time
with the greatest diligence. He laid in stores of learning which were
the foundation of his independent views and writings in after-life.
But it was impossible that a man of such fire and energy should tamely
settle down to a quiet life of prayer and contemplation. The Church
was in a pitiable state of ignorance and corruption. Young Giordano’s
keen intelligence, strengthened by study and roused by his restless
energy, soon drove him into conflict with his superiors. This was
the first of a series of conflicts in which he combated the forces
of authority wherever he went all his life through. He was accused
of impiety because of the broad views he expressed about some of the
principal doctrines of the Church. His position became intolerable, so
he cast off his monkish robe and fled to Genoese territory, where he
remained a few months supporting himself by teaching grammar to boys
and occupying his leisure in reading astronomy. In this latter science
he at once accepted the views of Copernicus. “The earth,” he said,
“moves; it turns on its own axis and moves round the sun.” But what is
now taught to every school child was thought then a dangerous doctrine,
contrary to the teaching of Aristotle, which the Church supported.
He also went further than any of his predecessors in suggesting that
there were other worlds which were inhabited. The revival of learning
which had been going on during the previous hundred years, while it
had encouraged the more educated and cultured few to pursue their
studies and think out new ideas, had also had the effect of making the
many who mistrusted reform and were frightened of change much more
particular and severe about the opinions and beliefs which men should
be allowed to hold. The new ideas ultimately prevailed, but only after
a desperate struggle. Had the school of thought which Bruno represented
been allowed to develop without hindrance, the advance of enlightenment
in Europe would have been far more rapid than was actually the case.

Giordano Bruno wandered over Europe alone like a knight-errant of
truth. Persecuted in one country, he fled to another, everywhere
stirring up dispute and controversy, urging men to _think_, and
denouncing the fanatical and pretended beliefs which were making
them thoughtless and cruel. Geneva, Lyons, Paris, London, Oxford,
Wittenberg, Helmstedt, and Venice—these were some of the places he
visited, the centers of the world’s active thought, where he could meet
the leading men of the day.

Now, we cannot enter into the very difficult question of religious
belief as it was understood in those days. Nor, indeed, would such a
study be very profitable to any one. The wrangling of theologians has
very little to do with true religion. Bruno knew this. While he was
opposed to the Roman Catholic Church, of which he had been accepted as
a member in his youth, he hated just as much at the other extreme the
narrow intolerance of the followers of Calvin, the French Reformers,
who also treated those who disagreed with them with great harshness
and cruelty. Besides, there was almost as much stupid wrangling and
brutal intolerance between Calvinists and Lutherans as there was
between Catholics and Protestants. Bruno therefore did not stay
long in Geneva, which was the headquarters of the Calvinists. Even
in Wittenberg, where he was very well received, while admiring the
attitude of the great Reformer Luther, who a few years before had been
the foremost figure in the great struggle with the Roman Catholic
Church, known as the Reformation, he by no means sympathized with
the teaching of Protestantism. On the contrary, he referred to the
German Reformers, when he was before the Inquisition in Venice, in the
following way: “I regard them as more ignorant than I am; I despise
them and their doctrine. They do not deserve the name of theologians
but of pedants.”

Before we follow the wandering philosopher on his travels, let us try
to understand a little of what he thought himself. He was not, as
he was accused of being, just a blasphemous atheist who went about
offending the religious feelings of all with whom he came in contact.
He was not a rude, untutored sceptic or disbeliever who shocked people
by laughing at their beliefs. He did not merely indulge in abuse and
spiteful criticism. Though this is the view which was spread about him
by many of his contemporaries and taught about him for many years after
his death, nothing could be further from the truth. Giordano Bruno was
extremely spiritual-minded. So far was he from being an atheist (which
would have been just as narrow and dogmatic a point of view as that of
any of the other extremes), he saw God everywhere and in everything,
and his vision extended to the whole universe. He saw the essence of
Divine perfection in man, but deplored the many causes which prevented
it from showing itself. He wanted the mind of man to be free, and
not fettered by all sorts of elaborate creeds and regulations. This
freedom he demanded for himself, and he insisted that all questions
should be considered as open. What he detested most were the disputes
about religion of the various sects, the bitter and angry spirit they
produced, and the ruthless persecutions carried on by religious bodies
on all sides. Through freedom and enlightenment alone he saw that
mankind could progress, and not through submission and ignorance. But
all this was quite unintelligible to the vast majority, who took the
narrow and bigoted views on religion which were common in those days.
He was not a mere student of books, nor was he content with thoughts
alone on the great problems of religion and philosophy: he taught, he
wrote, he lectured, he spoke with such lively eloquence and striking
persuasiveness, and sometimes with such violence of language, that
it was impossible to ignore him. His views were fascinating by their
novelty and boldness, but he entirely lacked caution and prudence. In
these circumstances it is not surprising that he was excommunicated
from the Church, expelled from universities, and driven out of the
towns he visited.

For sixteen years he wandered about Europe at a time when to travel
meant spending eight days on the road from Paris to Calais: he had
to put up in inns with very rough fare and sometimes only a bed of
straw. Books were now printed, but they still circulated very slowly,
and the fame of a professor was made more by “disputation,” that is
to say, lecture and debate, than by the publication of his writings.
Nevertheless, the wandering Italian published several books in every
town he visited. With the exception of a few that have been lost, most
of his philosophical writings and poems have been collected together
and preserved.

Bruno found France torn by internal quarrels between the Protestant
Huguenots and the Roman Catholics, which had been going on for some
years in the shape of a destructive civil war. Only eight years
before, in 1572, there had been a wholesale massacre of Protestants
in Paris on St. Bartholomew’s Eve, when Charles IX was king. All this
served to show Bruno to what excesses men could be driven in religious
strife. After a visit to Toulouse, where he taught astronomy and
philosophy, he proceeded to Paris. Here, although he refused to attend
Mass, he managed to become a professor, chiefly by the favor of King
Henry III, who, however, required to be satisfied first of all that
Bruno’s wonderful memory came “by knowledge and not by magic arts.”
In gratitude for these favors the philosopher referred to the King
in his writings with exaggerated praise. It was indeed one of the
charges against him, when he came to his trial in Venice, that he had
praised the heretic prince, the news of whose assassination in 1589 was
received in Rome with a salute of cannon.

Bruno’s method of lecturing must have been very startling to those
who were accustomed to the grave airs of the learned professors. He
was enthusiastic and eloquent, and so eager that his hearers should
grasp his meaning that he would adopt every sort of different manner
of addressing them. Sometimes grave and prophet-like, at other times
lively and gay: sometimes fierce and combative, and then, again,
indulging in gross buffoonery. He was bent on attracting attention
and rousing the indifference of his audiences. In his writings, too,
he showed varying moods. The wit, the scoffer, the poet, the mystic,
and the prophet all appear. Great as his learning was, he depended
more on his intuitions; that is to say, the imaginative poet in him
was stronger than the scientific scholar. But some of the wisest
philosophers in after-years owed a great deal to his wonderfully
far-reaching thoughts and ideas.

In 1583 he went to London with letters furnished by the King of
France to his Ambassador. He found Queen Elizabeth very sympathetic.
A friendly welcome was extended by her court to all foreigners, and
she herself spoke Italian fluently. He was also fortunate in having a
cultured and liberal-minded patron in the Ambassador, M. Castelnau de
Mauvissière, who was endeavoring to negotiate a marriage between Queen
Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou. Bruno, who was excused from attending
Mass in the Embassy chapel, was no doubt grateful for the considerate
way in which he was treated, for several books produced by him
during his stay in England were dedicated to the Ambassador. He also
alludes to the Ambassador’s wife with respectful praise, and remarks
enthusiastically about his little daughter: “Her perfected goodness
makes one marvel whether she be flown from heaven or be a creature of
this common earth.”

London had only a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants in those days,
and was not such an important place as Paris or even Lisbon. Foreign
visitors were not well received as a rule by the people, and English
students seldom traveled abroad. Though the Queen prided herself on
her learning, very little education and no freedom of discussion were
allowed among her humbler subjects. Printers were only licensed in
London, Oxford, and Cambridge, and every publication was rigorously
examined. Without his introduction to the court, Bruno would probably
have been silenced after a very short time. As it was, in England no
more than elsewhere could the philosopher take things quietly, though
he very much appreciated the comparative liberty of thought and speech
he was allowed. He had no sooner arrived in London than he sent to
Oxford University a challenge which he appropriately called “The
Awakener.” With a loud flourish of trumpets, he described himself as:


  a doctor in perfected theology; a professor of pure and blameless
  wisdom; a philosopher known, approved, and honorifically acknowledged
  by the foremost academies of Europe; to none a stranger except to the
  barbarians and the vulgar; a waker of slumbering souls; a breaker of
  presumptuous and stubborn ignorance.


Both to the Sorbonne in Paris and the Wittenberg University he
addressed himself in much more dignified and modest language. He
evidently did not take Oxford very seriously, and indeed there was very
little intellectual life in that University, which was under the rule
of the Queen’s favorite, Lord Leicester. The professors were court
nominees, and Bruno describes them as “men arrayed in long robes of
velvet, with hands most precious for the multitude of costly rings on
their fingers, golden chains about their necks, and with manners as
void of courtesy as cowherds.” He also thought they knew a good deal
more of beer than of Greek. The students were very young, ignorant, and
boorish, occupied in drinking, dueling, and toasting in ale-houses and
country inns. However, he had a very high opinion of the University
as a whole, and consented to deliver a series of lectures and also
held a public disputation before the Chancellor and an illustrious
foreign visitor. He appears to have aroused the pedagogues to fury,
and, by his own account, fifteen times he worsted his chief adversary,
who could only reply by abuse. He stood up in the assembly a small
man, “rough hewn,” with disheveled hair, wearing an old coat with
several buttons wanting, while the Oxford doctors, whose opposition he
describes as based on “ignorance, presumption, and rustic rudeness,”
wore “twelve rings on two fingers and two chains of shining gold.”
While they were attempting to defend the old teaching of Aristotle
from the attacks of a man they regarded as an eccentric charlatan,
he explained his new ideas, which were to them startling and highly
objectionable.

Small wonder that after three months his public lectures were brought
to an end and he returned to London. Here he made several friends,
among them Sir Philip Sidney, the poet-soldier, of whom he had already
heard in Italy, for Sidney had studied at Padua. Fulk Greville, who
described himself on his epitaph as “Servant to Queen Elizabeth,
Councilor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney,” also became
intimate with him, and at his house Bruno held a second disputation, at
which he again seems to have aggravated his hearers. He had a sincere
admiration for Sidney and dedicated a book of sonnets to him. The
protection given to him by Queen Elizabeth he repaid by referring to
her in his poems in terms of the highest flattery, which no doubt she
appreciated. But this praise of a Protestant Queen, who herself was
excommunicated, was eventually brought against him by his judges. He
was greatly impressed by the beauty and bearing of English women and
by “the Briton’s terrible energy, who, regardless of the stormy deep
and the towering mountains, goes down to the sea in ships mightily
exceeding Argonautic art.” After two years in England he returned to
Paris with the French Ambassador, who, he says, “saved him from the
Oxford pedants and from hunger.” But he did not stay long in Paris,
“because of the tumults,” and proceeded on his wanderings into Germany.

At Marburg, the rector of the University refused Bruno permission to
hold public disputations on philosophy, at which, the rector himself
says, “he fell into a passion of anger and he insulted me in my
house.” No doubt he made it very unpleasant for any one who attempted
to thwart him, for he was headstrong and impetuous. At Wittenberg he
was permitted to enter his name on the lists of the University, and
also to give private lectures. The professors of Toulouse, Paris, and
Oxford, he declared, received him “with grimaces, upturned noses,
puffed cheeks, and with loud blows on the desk,” but the learned men
of Wittenberg showed him courtesy and left him in peace. In fact, he
was able to remain there working for two years, until, owing to the
feud between the Lutherans and the Calvinists, in which the latter got
the upper hand, he found himself compelled to quit the city. On his
departure he pronounced a great oration in praise of wisdom, which
malicious public opinion described as a speech in favor of the devil.

His next halt was at Prague, where he was received by the Emperor
Rudolph II, the patron of Tycho Brahe and Kepler, and a student of
philosophy and astronomy as well as of magic and astrology. The Italian
philosopher addressed a small work to His Majesty, in which he repeats
that his mission is to free the souls of men and to triumph over
ignorance: he laments the hateful quarreling of different creeds, and
proclaims charity and love to be the only true religion. As he did not
meet with sympathy or support in Prague, he passed on to Helmstedt,
where the Duke of Brunswick charged him with the education of his son.
But here again he got at cross-purposes with the authorities, and
this brought down on him a sentence of excommunication. He justified
himself, and wrote a scathing attack on the pastor and rector of the
University, who were his chief enemies. But it was not possible for
him to remain, so he turned his steps toward Frankfort. This town was
the center of the German book trade: fairs were held at Easter and
Michaelmas, and people came from other countries to try and exchange
books, which were still very rare. Bruno published several books here,
and one might think he would have been left to pursue his studies
without interference. But the burgomaster, or mayor, sternly refused
to allow him to lodge with his printer. A convent of Carmelites
therefore gave him shelter, and there he is said to have been “busied
with writing for the most part all day long, or in going to and fro
indulging in subtle inquiries, wrapt in thought and filled with
fantastic meditations upon new things.”

It is very curious that Giordano Bruno should ever have been persuaded
to return to Italy. But he seems not to have thought it impossible that
he could become reconciled to the Church while retaining for himself a
certain freedom of thought. No doubt he was also tempted to return by
his love of his native land. Yet he must have had a foreboding of the
danger he was running when he wrote, on leaving Frankfort: “The wise
man fears not death; nay, even there are times when he sets forth to
meet it bravely.”

Bruno now made the acquaintance of the traitor by whose falseness he
was eventually to be handed over to a cruel fate. Giovanni Mocenigo
was a member of one of the foremost Venetian families. But the
wisdom of his ancestors, seven of whom had been Doges—that is, chief
magistrates—of Venice, had degenerated in him into cunning. He came
across Bruno’s books, and out of curiosity, believing that there was
something occult and supernatural about Bruno’s teaching, he invited
him to come and stay with him in Venice. The philosopher innocently
accepted the invitation. His reputation as a man of lively conversation
preceded him, and he found himself cordially received in Venetian
literary society. But very soon Mocenigo began to grow discontented
with his master. He was quite unable to understand his teaching or
to profit in the smallest degree by the Art of Memory, which was one
of Bruno’s favorite principles of instruction. In fact, the two were
completely out of sympathy, and the patron began to insist that he
got no return for his generous hospitality. Bruno at first tried to
reason with him, but finding him hopelessly dense and narrow-minded,
became exasperated and begged he might be set at liberty to return
to Frankfort. Mocenigo then determined to betray him because of his
religious opinions. He consulted his confessor, and then denounced his
unfortunate guest to the Father Inquisitor at Venice as a wicked and
irreligious man. Accompanied by his servant and five or six gondoliers,
he burst in upon Bruno while he was in bed and dragged him to a garret,
where he locked him up. The trial took place in 1592. The charges
brought against Giordano Bruno were that he had criticized the methods
of the Church, desired and foretold its reform, disputed its doctrines,
consorted with heretics, and taught principles which were repugnant to
Catholics. The culprit gave a complete account of his life; he said he
was sorry if he had done what was wrong or taught what was false, and
was ready to atone for any scandal he had given in the past, but he did
not retract a single one of his convictions.

It may be well here just to say a word about the Inquisition, which
has been so often mentioned and figures so prominently in the history
of these times.

The Holy Office, as it was first called, was instituted early in the
thirteenth century. Its practical founder was a Spanish monk, Domenigo
de Guzman, who afterwards was known as St. Dominic. The Popes at first
regarded the institution with disapproval, as it was set up as a quite
independent body, and bishops even were not allowed to interfere with
its proceedings. Towards the end of the fifteenth century it was
re-established on a far more active basis under the Grand Inquisitor
Torquemada, who organized the most fiendish cruelties for which any
human being has ever been responsible. The object of the Inquisition
was to suppress heresy, that is to say, either force people into
the Romish Church or, should they refuse, kill them or make their
lives intolerable. The mildest form of punishment was called public
penitence, which meant being made an outcast in society, closely
watched by the ecclesiastical authorities, and heavily fined. Tortures
of indescribable kinds were used; people were imprisoned for life or
burned alive, though sometimes as a favor they might be strangled
before they were burned. The burning of a heretic was a great public
function which attracted crowds of spectators. In order to make the
pageant more ghastly, grotesque dolls and corpses which had been dug up
out of their graves were carried in the procession and made to dance
round the flames.

In Spain the Inquisition directed its attention chiefly to Jews and
Moors. But it became established in other parts of Europe, notably
in the Netherlands and in Italy. Torquemada was Grand Inquisitor for
eighteen years. During that time he had 10,220 people burned alive and
97,000 condemned to public penitence or perpetual imprisonment. The
Inquisition was far more active and severe in Spain than in Italy,
where it dealt chiefly with Protestants. But a resident at Rome in
1568, which is just about the time we are dealing with, wrote: “Some
are daily burned, hanged, or beheaded; the prisons and places of
confinement are filled, and they are obliged to build new ones.”
The independence, the secrecy, and the far-extended power of the
Inquisition made it formidable and terrifying while it lasted. The
hideous cruelty and savage barbarity of its methods render the story of
the Inquisition one of the blackest pages of the history of the world.

From such a body as this there was very little chance that a man with
Bruno’s views would receive justice or mercy.

Venice was at this time an independent republic, and was a city of
refuge for many who were expelled from other parts of Italy. Rome was
jealous of the independent attitude of Venice, and the Pope demanded
that all spiritual offenders should be delivered up to him. The
Venetian authorities protested in this case, but were obliged to yield.
A lawyer who was consulted during the dispute, while acknowledging
that Bruno’s errors in heresy were very grave, declared that he
possessed “a most excellent rare mind, with exquisite learning and
wisdom.”

On his arrival in Rome he was at once cast into a dungeon, as the Pope
hoped to break his spirit by prolonged imprisonment. For six whole
years (1593 to 1599) nothing was heard of him. What his sufferings
were in the dark dungeons of the Inquisition no one can tell. Whatever
methods may have been used to overcome his obstinate determination,
they were unsuccessful. For when at last he was visited in 1599 he
said that “he ought not to recant and he would not recant; that he had
nothing to recant, nor any reason to recant, nor knew he what he should
recant.” Had he not written, too: “There are men in whom the working of
the will of God is so powerful that neither threats nor contumely can
cause them to waver. He who fears the body has never felt himself to be
one with God. He alone is truly wise and virtuous who fears no pain,
and he is happy who regards things with the eye of reason.”

At last sentence of death was passed on him. “Perhaps you pronounce
your sentence with greater fear than that with which I receive it,” was
his only reply to his inhuman judges. From the presence of the great
assemblage of cardinals and theologians who sat in judgment over him,
the man whom suffering could not move and for whom the condemnation
of such a tribunal was no degradation was led from the judgment hall
and handed over to the governor of the city. A day or two more in a
solitary cell and the end came.

There was a multitude of pilgrims in Rome at the time. Some fifty
cardinals were assembled to celebrate the jubilee of the Pope. The
Church was mustered in all its glory. The last agony of the philosopher
no doubt served to enhance these triumphant celebrations, although the
burning of a heretic was such a common occurrence that it probably
caused very little stir. The concluding scene has already been
described.

Nearly three hundred years later, in 1889, a statue of Giordano Bruno,
a picture of which is reproduced here, was erected on the very spot in
the Campo dei Fiori at Rome where he was burned. The world is learning
slowly to respect liberty of conscience, to admire sincerity, to
detest intolerance, and to stamp out the spirit of persecution. We are
beginning to understand that a really religious nature may exist apart
from any profession of faith in any particular set of doctrines. And no
sensible man now would condemn as wicked and irreligious a courageous
thinker who fought throughout his career for freedom and independence
of thought, and refused to alter his convictions to please others or
even to save his own life.

  A. P.



VI

GROTIUS

1583–1645

  I shall never cease to use my utmost endeavors for establishing peace
  among Christians; and if I should not succeed it will be honorable to
  die in such an enterprise.


When we read history, what a lot we have to learn about wars! Invasions
and conquests and sieges and battles seem to cover more pages than
anything else. I think there is hardly a country in Europe that England
has not fought against at one time or another, and not only in Europe,
but in Asia, Africa, and America. And although nations are supposed to
be getting more civilized, it does not seem to make any difference—they
go on fighting one another just the same. If we took the wars from
the Roman invasion of Britain down to 1914, it would be a very long
list. We might be able to give the dates and name the chief battles,
but I doubt if we could always say what was the cause of the war. The
causes of war are generally most difficult to discover, and historians
become rather confused and obscure when they deal with that part of the
subject. The truth is that causes are very difficult to disentangle.
Generally there is an occasion as well as a cause. The cause is the
general state of feeling that exists between two countries, which again
has to be traced back to a number of different incidents and accidents:
the occasion may be some quite trifling event, which is just enough to
set the fire blazing. Without the occasion the state of feeling might
in time improve, and the same trifling event, or a more serious event
which concerned two countries who were on friendly terms, might never
lead to war at all.

In the more barbarous ages men fought one another because one race
hated another race, or wanted to capture its goods and its property.
Men walked about ready and eager to fight, and no one wanted to stop
them. We pretend we are much more civilized now, and that we do not
have these feelings, and yet without these excuses we have constant
wars. It does not say much for what we are pleased to call our
civilization. Because, after all, killing a large number of people,
devastating countries, and destroying homes is not an occupation that
any one approves.

Then a period came when kings and great conquerors wanted to win power
and renown by leading their armies out to battle and subduing their
neighbors. The motive was very much the same as that of the barbarous
man, but it was less natural and spontaneous, because the people
themselves were less inclined to fight. They were, however, prepared
and drilled, and taught that their country’s greatness depended on
its power of conquest and the size of its territory.

[Illustration: HUGO GROTIUS.]

Then, too, a large number of wars were religious wars. Men feel very
deeply about their own religion, and in the Middle Ages they were
always ready to fight others who did not share their particular belief.
The Crusades were by way of being religious wars, but they were more an
opportunity for great fighters to go out and distinguish themselves on
the battlefield. Civilized people do not fight about religion now, but
there is no subject that makes them quarrel and dispute more violently.

When kings were no longer able to drive their people to fight just to
satisfy their personal ambition, and when people became more tolerant
about religious differences, other causes for wars arose. Governments
became ambitious and wanted their countries to expand and acquire great
colonial possessions, and acute rivalry grew up between nations. This
was encouraged by the richer classes, who could profit by extended
trade, and as the means of communication and of conveyance suddenly
became much easier because of steamships, trains, and telegraphy, the
desire as well as the possibility of building great Empires was very
much increased. The governing classes and those who were rich and
idle were not very much concerned about the pressing need for social
reform which the vast mass of the people were longing for. They were
interested in wars, and they could easily make them popular by means
of the newspapers which they had at their command. Meanwhile, the
people became gradually more peace-loving. But this made no difference,
because they had no say in controlling the relations of their country
with other nations; they were very easily misled because of their
ignorance of foreign policy and foreign countries, and they could
always be roused to fight by being told that their country was in
danger.

A disbelief in force was, however, slowly growing up, and people were
no longer impressed by the glory of war. In their relations with one
another individual men left off fighting, because they found that
quarrels were better settled by reason, and they knew that the man who
happened to be the strongest physically or the most skillful with arms
was not necessarily in the right, though he might kill or maim his
opponent.

But while many nations within their own borders were able to establish
peaceful relations between their citizens by means of law and order,
the relationship between the nations themselves could not be regulated
in the same way. In their infancy the nations recognized no law, no
regulations for warfare, and no binding sense of obligation. There was
no supreme authority who could insist on obedience, and the only way of
settling differences was to fight it out. Agreements between one ruler
and another were of little value; terrible barbarities and wholesale
massacre were resorted to without protest; no sort of code of honor
or humanity was recognized, and justification for hideous cruelty was
often found by the Church in the pages of the Bible.

At a period when Europe was one broad battlefield, when wars were
raging between races, between nations, and between religious sects,
and hatred, misery, cruelty, and torture were filling the world with
horror, and in a country that was suffering more than any other from
these fearful evils, was born a man who, in spite of the darkness
around him and in spite of the overwhelming forces which seemed to be
subduing mankind, set to work to save civilization from ruin and to
establish law and reason in the relations of nations. This man was Huig
de Groot, known afterwards to the world as Hugo Grotius, who was born
at Delft, in Holland, on Easter Day of 1583. He will be recognized for
all time as the founder of international law, and as the first man who
awakened the conscience of governments to a higher moral sense, to more
humanitarian feelings, and to the recognition of the fact that there
was such a thing as international duty. “I saw,” he said, “in the whole
Christian world a license of fighting at which even barbarous nations
might blush. Wars were begun on trifling pretexts or none at all, and
carried on without any reverence of law, Divine or human. A declaration
of war seemed to let loose every crime.”

The foundation of his idea was that the Law of Nations, that is to
say, the agreements made between governments, should be brought into
harmony with the principles of natural morality and the commands of
justice written, as he said, by God on the hearts and minds of men.
This he called the Law of Nature, which man could discover by right
reason. He wanted, in fact, the same ideas of right and wrong which
people were taught to adopt in their dealings with one another to be
applied to the dealings of one nation with another. Instead of saying
that justice, honor, generosity, and friendship meant one thing between
man and man and quite another thing between nation and nation, he
tried to combine the two and bring the lower one up to the level of
the higher. Out of this union between the two sorts of law he hoped to
create an international law which would put an end to the unreasonable,
uncivilized, and perpetually dangerous relationship which existed
between nations.

The great book he wrote was called “De Jure Belli ac Pacis” (Concerning
the Law of War and Peace). He collected together in it quotations from
a number of great men, and elaborated his argument with wonderful
clearness and great learning. He condemned the atrocities of warfare,
and more especially he pointed to a way in which war might be avoided.
He examined various methods by which international questions might
be settled without war, and proposed the idea of conferences and
international arbitration. In fact, it may be said that the seed of
arbitration was first sown when Grotius wrote the words: “But specially
are Christian kings and States bound to try this way of avoiding war.”
The book, indeed, in the hands of those who followed him, became a
mighty weapon against the follies of rulers and the cruelties of
war. It could not have been written by a mere scholar; it was not
just a collection of quotations and clever theories; it was the work
of a man whose nobility of heart and mind and whose earnestness and
unselfishness made his voice echo through the nations and through the
ages.

But you, who have known a war compared to which the wars of the past
seem as little battles, may well ask whether the ideas of Grotius have
really spread and become of any permanent good. Well, I will try to
answer that question. The tremendous scale of the great European war
of the twentieth century is not a measure of the wicked disposition of
the nations concerned, but is due more especially to the easy methods
of transport and communication, to the rapid manner in which munitions
can be manufactured, and to the diabolical nature of modern inventions
and engines of destruction. That war could not be prevented is not due
to the frantic desire of the peoples to fight, but to the policy of
governments and ministers, to the faulty methods of intercourse between
nations, which is called diplomacy, and to the inability of the people
to control their governments. So far from this catastrophe showing
nations are more evilly disposed towards one another than formerly, it
is undoubtedly true that mutual knowledge was beginning to produce a
new sympathy and understanding, and though it has been checked, that
movement will revive and continue, perhaps with greater vigor.

Although there may be much to alter and much to mend in ways that
Grotius never dreamed of, the prospect of the cessation of war is
decidedly nearer, in spite of this great failure. Such a prospect
may still be very remote—we cannot say—but it is as inevitable as
the rising of the sun, and we can either help or hinder its coming.
Therefore, in considering the fact that the mind of man has been slowly
preparing for the abolition of the rule of force and the establishment
of the reign of reason, and that moral law has been slowly but surely
gaining ground over belief in violence, we should ever turn with
gratitude to the man who took the first and most difficult step, and
who had sufficient foresight and courage, when things seemed most
hopeless, to look into the future.

The publication of such a book naturally caused a great stir. It came
out in 1625, and was immediately placed by the Pope upon the Index—that
is, the list of books which Catholics were forbidden to read. It was
not a popular book in the sense that it could be read by every one. The
appeal was to thinking men. Its influence therefore was very gradual.
But slowly the ideas set forth by Grotius found their way into laws
and into treaties, and eminent lawyers in European universities took
the great work as a starting-point of the further development of
principles of international law. There are two interesting instances of
how the influence of the book was immediately felt. Gustavus Adolphus
of Sweden, who was the greatest general of the time, made a careful
study of “De Jure Belli ac Pacis”: he kept it by his bedside, and it
was found in his tent after his death on the field of Lützen. Gustavus
constantly stood for mercy, and began on a large scale the better
conduct of modern war. He made speeches to his soldiers dissuading them
from cruelty or rebuking them for it.

The other instance was in the case of the capture of La Rochelle by
Cardinal Richelieu, who governed France in the name of Louis XIII.
La Rochelle was the stronghold of French Protestantism. All Europe
expected that the inhabitants would be massacred, in accordance with
the spirit of cruel intolerance which was usual at that time, and which
would certainly be expected from the merciless Cardinal. But to the
amazement of the world there were no massacre, no destruction, and no
plunder, and the Huguenots were treated with mercy and even respect.
At a later period, indeed, Cardinal Richelieu freed the writings of
Grotius from the French censorship, and declared him one of the three
great scholars of his time.

The Treaty of Westphalia, which closed the Thirty Years War in
1648, may be added as another instance of how Grotius had brought in
a new epoch in international affairs, for it contained principles
which he had been the first to bring into the thought of the world.
Nevertheless, the immediate influence of Grotius’ book was not so great
as the lasting service he rendered in laying the foundation of a new
science of International Law, on which succeeding generations slowly
built up and strengthened the sense of morality between nations. There
is still very much to be added; and new problems and new conditions
require new plans and new designs. But the foundation was well laid and
can never be shifted.

The book was criticized by some who declared that it was just a
shapeless collection of quotations, and that the argument was lost
under the mass of extracts from other authorities. It is true that its
arrangement and style were rather heavy and clumsy, and there is much
in the book that may appear to us, three hundred years afterwards, as
rather crude, but attack has come for the most part from those who
are quite unable to understand the high ideal toward which Grotius
was reaching out. A prominent English international jurist, Sir James
Mackintosh, has declared that this great work “is perhaps the most
complete that the world has yet owed, at so early a stage in the
progress of any science, to the genius and learning of one man.”

Now, I must give you some account of the life of the writer of this
famous book. As you may imagine, a man of such decided character, who
had the courage to express new and original views, was not allowed to
live in peace and quiet.

His father, John de Groot, was four times burgomaster of Delft and
one of the curators of the University of Leyden. He was a great
scholar, and acted as tutor to his son Hugo. At a very early age the
boy showed the most extraordinary powers. At ten, his Latin verses
were praised by learned men; at eleven, poets declared that he would
be a second Erasmus; at twelve, he was admitted to the University of
Leyden. He was, in fact, very precocious. It very often happens with
precocious children that they are made to show off, and are so spoilt
by their parents that they become conceited, and when they grow up they
disappoint the expectations formed about them when they were young.
But his parents were sensible, and he himself was naturally humble and
modest, and so he continued his studies and enriched his mind without
any harm being done to his character. He produced immense learned books
on many different subjects, and at the age of fifteen held public
disputes in mathematics, philosophy, and law.

In 1598 he was appointed to accompany a special Embassy which was
being sent by the Netherlands to the King of France, Henry IV. His
reputation had gone before him. The men of the day crowded to see him,
and the King received him and with his own hand hung his portrait
round the youth’s neck. So much flattery might easily have turned his
head, but he already showed a calm judgment and the wisdom of a man of
long experience. He did not loiter in this pleasant atmosphere, but
returned to his work in Holland. But there was another danger before
him. He might have buried himself in his studies, and, like other
learned men of his time, and, indeed, of all times, accumulated a lot
of useless knowledge. So many great scholars have become experts in
some particular subject, and have shut themselves off from contact
with their fellow-men. Their mind becomes their idol, and they fail
to see that mere brain-power is of little service if it is not used
for some great purpose, and if it is not inspired by moral and humane
sentiments. Grotius avoided this course; he was anxious for active
life, and wanted to join in and help his country and humanity in
some practical way. He had avoided becoming a prig, a prodigy, or a
bookworm, and when he took up the career of a lawyer he also avoided
using his rapid promotion for the purpose of money-making and personal
success. His extraordinary talents were like the spreading sails of a
ship. They might have capsized him if he had not had plenty of ballast.

How little he thought of fame and applause, and how he worked for true
knowledge and in order to prepare himself for the future, is shown by
the discovery at The Hague, two hundred years later, of a manuscript
of a big book written by him when he was twenty-two, but never
published. One of the chapters of this book he issued as a treatise
under the title of “Mare Liberum.” It was an argument against the
claim made by some nations, specially Portugal at this time, that the
seas could be owned by a nation, and that no other nation could fish
in them or navigate them without her permission. Grotius maintained
the freedom of the seas was necessary to enable nations to communicate
with one another, and it could not be taken away by any power whatever.
James I very much disapproved of this book, as he thought it interfered
with the rights of Great Britain. He ordered his Ambassador in
Holland to take measures against the author. But as nothing could be
done, the King instructed the great English lawyer, John Selden, to
write a reply, which he did in a learned book called “Mare Clausum.”
But Grotius really had the best of the argument, and his view was
eventually adopted.

Grotius, who had now gained an international reputation, was
given various high appointments, such as Public Historiographer,
Attorney-General for the province of Holland, and councilor of
Rotterdam. He went to England and was received by the King with the
greatest cordiality, in spite of the recent dispute. He made many
friends in England, notably with the celebrated scholar, Isaac
Casaubon, who expressed the highest opinion of the great Dutchman in a
letter written in April, 1613. He says:

  I cannot say how happy I esteem myself in having seen so much of one
  so truly great as Grotius. A wonderful man! This I knew him to be
  before I had seen him; but the rare excellence of that divine genius
  no one can sufficiently feel who does not see his face and hear him
  speak. Probity is stamped on his features; his conversation savors of
  true piety and profound learning. It is not only upon me that he has
  made this impression; all the pious and learned to whom he has been
  introduced here have felt the same towards him; the King especially
  so.

Grotius returned to his country, where serious trouble awaited him.
The cause of it all was, to begin with, a religious squabble between
two sects, the one followers of Arminius, who believed in free-will,
the other followers of Gomarus, who believed in predestination. This
senseless dispute on a question which can never be settled—that is
to say, whether man is free to shape his own destiny or whether his
acts are all fated beforehand by God—was only an excuse for a quarrel
between the more bigoted and intolerant religious sects who sided with
Gomarus and the freer and more broadminded who followed Arminius. The
whole country was convulsed by the controversy. The Arminians drew
up a Remonstrance, which was answered by a Counter Remonstrance, and
the Parliament issued an Edict of Pacification, urging tolerance and
forbearance, which was largely due to the influence of Grotius.

Advantage was taken of this disturbance by Prince Maurice of Orange,
the second son of William the Silent. He was an accomplished soldier,
but a weak and untrustworthy statesman, and thought it a good
opportunity to assert himself and satisfy his personal ambition to
become a monarch. He undertook what he was pleased to call a pacific
campaign, and seeing that the Gomarists were more popular than their
opponents, many of whom favored a republic rather than a monarchy, he
practically took their side.

Olden Barneveld, the Grand Pensionary, who now led the opposition
to the Prince, is one of the notable figures in the history of the
Netherlands. He was an old and experienced minister, a true patriot,
a humane and broadminded man, who had rendered the most distinguished
service to his country. The Gomarists sided with the Prince, the
Arminians with the Grand Pensionary. Grotius unhesitatingly followed
Olden Barneveld, and struggled with all his great powers for peace
and toleration. He had conferences with Prince Maurice, headed a
deputation, made eloquent appeals, but all in vain. The Prince
continued his campaign, the civic guards were disarmed and disbanded
wherever they resisted him. Barneveld and Grotius, and also Hoogerbertz
of Leyden, who had joined them, were arrested and taken to the castle
at The Hague. Barneveld, now an old man of over seventy, was subjected
to twenty-three examinations, during which he was neither allowed to
take down questions in writing, to make memoranda of his answers,
nor to refer to notes. In spite of his reputation, his services, and
his advanced age, he was condemned to death and executed. From the
scaffold he cried to the spectators: “My friends, believe not that I am
a traitor. I have lived a good patriot, and such I die.” Grotius was
condemned to imprisonment for life and his property was confiscated.
Their followers were seized, imprisoned, or banished to neighboring
countries, just as the Puritans were driven from England and the
Huguenots from France.

It was in June, 1619, that Grotius was shut up in the fortress of
Louvenstein; he was only thirty-six, and he had no prospect now before
him but that of lifelong captivity. Eleven years before he had married
Marie Reigersberg, a lady of great intelligence and high character.
She now stepped in, showed wonderful ingenuity, and played a very
courageous part in her husband’s fortunes.

Pressure had been brought to bear on her after the execution of
Barneveld. The scaffold on which he had been executed was left standing
for fifteen days, so as to frighten the other prisoners. Grotius’
wife was specially urged to get an acknowledgment of guilt from her
husband and solicit a pardon for him, and promises were held out to her
of a favorable hearing on the part of the Prince of Orange. But she
stoutly refused to cast this dishonor on her husband, and with fierce
resolution declared: “I will not do it—if he has deserved it, let them
strike off his head.”

In the prison of Louvenstein Grotius found consolation in his studies.
He never yielded to despair, but occupied his whole time reading,
composing, and translating. His devoted wife, after several petitions,
at last received permission to share his captivity, on the condition
that if she came out she would not be allowed to return. She made
friends with the jailer’s wife and others who might be of use, and
after nearly two years she thought out a method of escape. The prisoner
was allowed books. These were sent in a large chest, and those he had
done with were sent back, together with his washing, to Gorcum. After a
time Marie Grotius noticed that the warders let the chest pass without
opening it. One day she persuaded her husband, after much entreaty, to
get into the chest, in which she had had some holes bored. She locked
it up and asked the soldiers to come in and carry it out as usual.
It was a great risk, for she must have known that, had her plot been
discovered, she and her husband would suffer heavy penalties. She must
have exercised great self-control to prevent herself showing any sign
of agitation or excitement. The soldiers complained that the chest was
unusually heavy. “There must be an Arminian in it,” said one of them
jestingly. Madame Grotius replied calmly, “There are indeed Arminian
books in it.” There was a river to be crossed, and the chest was put in
a boat. The soldiers declared it ought to be opened, but a maid and a
valet who were in the plot managed to prevent this. The precious load
was to be taken to the house of one of Grotius’ friends in Gorcum. But
if it was to be heaved about like ordinary luggage, what would happen
to the unfortunate captive inside, who was terribly cramped as it was?
The maid had great presence of mind, and told the people on the shore
that the chest was full of glass, and must be moved with particular
care. So they got a horse-chair and shifted it very carefully to the
appointed place. Grotius’ friend received the chest, and after he had
sent all his servants out on various errands, opened it and greeted the
escaped prisoner with open arms.

Grotius declared he was none the worse for the adventure, although he
had naturally felt anxious lest he might be discovered. There was no
time to be lost; he disguised himself as a mason, carrying a rule, hod,
and trowel, and went out of the back door, accompanied by the maid, who
did not leave him until he had reached safety. Then she returned to his
wife and told her how successfully the plot had worked. Marie Grotius
immediately informed the governor of the prison that her husband had
escaped. She was placed in close confinement, but after a few days, by
order of the States General, she was released and joined her husband,
who had gone to Paris after spending a day or two at Antwerp.

On arriving in France, Louis XIII gave Grotius a cordial welcome,
and a high pension was conferred on him. French pensions were easily
granted, all the more so as they were rarely paid. It was in France, at
the château of Balagni, which had been lent to him, that Grotius gave
final shape to the great work of his life, the book on war and peace
which I have already mentioned. A man treated as he had been might
have been tempted to indulge in an attack on the authorities; he might
have occupied his time satirizing his enemies and scoffing at the many
signs of human folly he saw around him. But he did nothing of the sort.
After writing an apology defending himself against the charges brought
against him, he worked day and night to reconstruct, reform, and
improve the foundations of human society. The book brought him in no
profit whatever in the way of money, but it brought him reputation so
widely spread and of such a lasting nature as no other legal work has
ever enjoyed. He did not contemplate immediate success, but even so, he
said, “ought we not to sow the seed which may be useful for posterity.”

But Grotius and his wife were very badly off, as the pension was paid
irregularly. Cardinal Richelieu wanted to make use of his talents,
but the terms he demanded, which would have deprived Grotius from
having any freedom, prevented any such arrangement being possible.
Accordingly, the Cardinal made things uncomfortable for him, and
Grotius decided once more to attempt to live in his native land. But
his reception in Holland was anything but cordial. His enemies were
active, and the States General offered a high reward to any one who
would deliver him up to them. So again he became an exile, and took
refuge this time in Hamburg. He hoped his countrymen might return
to reason, and so refused flattering offers made to him by the King
of Denmark, by Spain, and even by Wallenstein, who was practically
dictator of Germany.

At last he gave up all hope and entered the service of Sweden as
Ambassador in Paris. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden had died, and his
only child Christina became Queen. During her childhood the Chancellor
Oxenstiern acted as Regent. Grotius received his appointment from
him in 1635. His mission was important and somewhat delicate. He had
to keep up an active alliance between France and Sweden. Cardinal
Richelieu was not easy to deal with, but the Ambassador showed his
usual qualities of moderation and firmness, and succeeded towards the
close of his embassy in renewing the treaty between Sweden and France
on terms which were considered to do great honor to his diplomatic
talents. He was troubled a good deal by the etiquette and ceremonial
of diplomacy, and became involved in foolish disputes about rank and
ceremonial questions, to which diplomatists have always attributed an
exaggerated amount of importance. We can imagine that Grotius, with
his clear mind and disregard of trivialities, may have offended his
colleagues. It must have irritated them to associate with a man who,
instead of chattering nonsense while waiting in the ante-rooms at
court, would sit apart studying his Greek Testament.

He remained in the Swedish service for about ten years, but the life
became irksome to him; the Swedish Government were inclined to think
that a man who devoted so much of his time to writing could not give
sufficient attention to diplomatic work, and at last Grotius applied
for his recall. This was granted by Queen Christina, who had a very
high opinion of the Ambassador, and received him in Stockholm on his
return with every mark of favor. On quitting France, he passed on
his way to Sweden through Amsterdam and Rotterdam, where he was more
kindly received. The Queen of Sweden did her best to persuade Grotius
to remain in her service as a Councilor of State, but he was bent on
returning to Holland. Accordingly, on August 12, 1645, having received
presents of money and plate from the Queen, he embarked for Lübeck. A
violent storm drove the vessel on to the Pomeranian coast. Grotius,
after a journey in an open wagon through wind and rain, arrived very
ill at Rostock. Here he died in the presence of a Lutheran pastor, John
Quistorp, who has left an account of his last moments. Quistorp, at
his bedside, read him the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican,
ending with the words, “God be merciful to me, a sinner,” and the dying
scholar and statesman answered, “I am that Publican.” After repeating a
prayer with the pastor, Grotius sank exhausted and breathed his last.
He was buried first of all at Rostock, but as his wish was to rest in
his native soil, his body was taken after a time to the Netherlands.
It is difficult to believe, were it not historically true, that as the
coffin was borne through the city of Rotterdam stones were thrown at it
by the bigoted mob. It was laid finally in a crypt beneath the great
church of Delft, his birthplace. The remains of two great champions of
liberty and justice lie beneath the same roof, for close by the grave
of Grotius is the sculptured tomb of William the Silent. His wife died
shortly afterwards at The Hague. She had stood by him in the hour of
need, encouraged him, consoled him, and helped him, and the story of
his life will never be read without praise being given to the noble
part she played in it.

I have said very little about the writings of Grotius, because it is
impossible to describe fully all the learned books he brought out.
Just as in the field of politics he worked for pacification, so in
the world of religion he endeavored to the utmost of his ability to
produce universal peace. He tried to find a simple statement of belief
to which all contending parties would agree, and published a book
called “The Road to Religious Peace.” “Perhaps,” he said, “by writing
to reconcile such as entertain very opposite sentiments, I shall
offend both parties: but if that should so happen I shall comfort
myself with the example of him who said, ‘If I please men I am not the
servant of Christ.’” He did offend both parties. No mere form of words
can reconcile deep-seated differences in religious sentiment. Others
before Grotius, and many too since, have made the same attempt to bring
the different sections of religious thought together, but none have
succeeded. The only advance that has been made has been an increase
in the spirit of tolerance, which tends to prevent any outrageous
persecution of one sect by another.

It seems curious that Christians, who people the nations which are by
way of being the most civilized, should be more torn with religious
discord, and should be more responsible for the world’s wars, than
the peoples of other religions who inhabit the globe. They pretend to
be followers of the Prince of Peace and to believe in the brotherhood
of mankind, while the Church of Christ has become split into an
ever-increasing number of warring sects, and the jealousy and enmity of
nations are allowed to break into ever more ferocious armed conflict
and mutual massacre.

The hope of improvement in these fundamental human relationships,
national and religious, depends to a large extent on the number of men
who are wise or farsighted enough to turn the mind of man away from
the differences that lead to division and to strengthen the forces that
lead to unity—in fact, to substitute harmony for discord. But the work
will always progress slowly, because there are still so many natures
which prefer fighting just from the love of quarreling, and they turn
their anger against a conciliator even more violently than against
those with whom they bitterly disagree.

Grotius himself saw no apparent result of his great work, and time
alone has proved in his case that the originator of great ideals and
the worker for truth leaves to the world a gift for which countless
generations that succeed him are grateful, though he may only receive
scoffs and rebuke from men of his own time.

Unlike Giordano Bruno and Voltaire, he did not turn his talents
into weapons of attack and destruction. He respected other people’s
opinions, and was able to judge with impartiality his worst enemies.
This is an extremely rare quality in one who is engaged in controversy.
For instance, in his history of the Netherlands, he commented without
a trace of ill-will on the policy and even praised the services as
commander and patriot of Maurice of Orange—the man who had unjustly
deprived him of his home, his property, and his freedom. No personal
petty spite could disturb his judgment. With deep penetration he
recognized that the spirit of the age was clouded by want of reason,
and nations and individuals were forced unnecessarily into strife from
want of proper guidance. His high-minded character, his well-balanced
judgment, and his disinterested motive gave Grotius a reserve of
strength and a noble resolution which few have possessed in the same
degree or used with equal effect.

  A. P.



VII

VOLTAIRE

1694–1778

  I have no scepter, but I have a pen.


Of the twelve men written of in this book, with the exception of
Tolstoy, who died recently, Voltaire will probably be the best known
by name. He is rather different from most of the others, because
he preferred to try and reach men’s minds by argument rather than
their hearts by religious appeal. He was a great disturber of smug,
self-satisfied opinion; he knew how utterly fatal were laziness of mind
and stagnation of ideas. He wanted to disturb, to annoy, to provoke,
and, more even than any of the others, he succeeded in his object.

In his long life he wrote an astonishing number of letters, poems,
plays, and pamphlets, and he wrote very beautifully. But his fame
does not rest on his literary genius. Had his works all been romances
and plays, and were he to be judged on his merits as a writer, genius
though he was, there are many greater geniuses than he. It was his
striking personality, his startling opinions, and his daring and
original arguments which gained for him his reputation and his
extraordinary influence. In fact, the middle of the eighteenth century
in France is known as “the age of Voltaire.” Of course, he made many
bitter enemies, and to this day his opinions are warmly disputed.
His method was often unnecessarily provocative. He was stingingly
satirical; he scoffed, he jeered, he ridiculed his opponents, and by
the brilliant thrusts of his pointed wit cut them to the quick. On the
whole, his object was more to destroy than to construct, and he left
no new scheme or systems of belief, of thought or policy for others
to follow when his personal influence had passed away. Although there
is a good deal that is far from admirable in his career, the force of
his personality was so great that he could not be ignored, and all he
wrote and all he said was eagerly read and listened to by every one.
He loathed shams and superstitions, and he fought most vehemently in
his later life against injustice and oppression. In fact, he was a
strange mixture. One can hardly believe that the sly, fawning courtier
can be the same man as the bold and courageous champion of liberty and
justice, or that the mischievous joker and the great dramatist are one
and the same person. In his long life he went through different phases,
but taking him as a whole, he stands out as the principal figure of the
eighteenth century in Europe.

[Illustration: VOLTAIRE]

Voltaire’s real name was François Marie Arouet. He was the youngest
of the five children of a well-to-do solicitor, and was born in Paris
on November 21, 1694. He had to be hurriedly baptized, as no one
expected that the puny little infant would live. His first teacher was
his godfather, a rather disreputable priest, called Châteauneuf, and
he was taught at an early age that religion, as it existed in France
at that time, was mere superstition and pretense. His mother died
when he was seven, and at the age of ten he was sent off to a large
Jesuit college, where, as he afterwards tells us, he learned “Latin
and nonsense.” His quick wits, however, made him absorb an immense
quantity of information; and instead of playing with the other boys,
he would walk and talk with the masters. One of them said at the time,
“That boy wants to weigh the great questions of Europe in his little
scales.” The verses he wrote brought him into prominence, and his
godfather introduced him to Ninon de l’Enclos, a famous old lady of
nearly eighty, who was still the center of the most brilliant society
in Paris. When she died, a few months later, she left him two thousand
francs with which to buy books.

Acting at school encouraged in him a love of drama, and he soon began
to try his hand at writing plays. He was only twelve when he wrote a
petition in verse to the King, asking for a pension for an old soldier.
Louis XIV read it, and the old soldier got his pension. His father
wanted him to be a lawyer, and laughed at the idea of his becoming
an author; but although he was made to study law, the boy stood up to
the rough old man and refused to give in. He soon got into a very gay
but very frivolous society, which he amused by his audacity and wit.
Sometimes he would return home very late from his orgies, and father
Arouet would lock him out so that he had to walk the streets all
night. In fact, the peppery old father and the mad young scapegrace
were perpetually quarreling. The boy was irrepressible, and it was
useless his father trying to subject him to discipline. He was given
a post as attaché to the Ambassador to the Netherlands, but this did
not last. He occupied himself in a purely frivolous way, had a love
affair with a young lady at The Hague, and was sent home again. On his
return he was invited to a castle at Fontainebleau where there was a
magnificent library. Here this surprising young gentleman began working
very seriously at some of the greatest of the books he produced in
after-life.

In an age when any free expression of ideas was liable to be severely
punished it was fairly probable that such a young man as this would
get into trouble. Curiously enough, young Arouet’s first experience of
prison came about in consequence of the publication of a poem which he
had not written. The poem was a satire on the Regent Orleans who ruled
over France while Louis XV was still a child. Suspicion fell on him,
and he was locked up in the Bastille, the fortress into which many
innocent men were cast and often forgotten. He was not allowed pen and
ink for some time, but his active brain and wonderful memory allowed
him to conceive and invent many things which he afterwards produced in
writing. His imprisonment lasted a year, and he came out with his name
changed to Voltaire, supposed to be an anagram on Arouet, L. J. (le
jeune).

His father was enraged at his imprisonment. “I told you so! I knew his
idleness would lead to disgrace,” he said. But the boy did not feel at
all disgraced. When he came home he set to work, and before the end of
the year he brought out his first play, _Œdipe_, which was the real
beginning of his brilliant career.

It was an immediate success, and attracted a great deal of attention.
Even the Regent and his family came to one of the performances. In
consequence of this, Voltaire was asked to grand houses and was the
guest of great people, whom he amused and entertained in his original
way. He received a pension from the Court, and when his father died
more money came to him. He invested his capital very judiciously, and,
unlike most geniuses, he thoroughly understood his bank-book, so that
he never fell into need or poverty.

His next production was _The Henriade_, an epic poem on Henry of
Navarre. The chief event in it was the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and
this gave him an opportunity of expressing his hatred of fanaticism
and superstition. It was censored, but he managed secretly to get two
thousand copies into Paris, and the very fact of its being forbidden
fruit ensured its success. As time went on, he came into close contact
with the Court, and was patronized by Marie Leczinska, daughter of the
ex-King of Poland, who was to be married to Louis XV. She read his
poems and plays with pleasure and amusement, and for three months he
was the idol of the royal circle. Anxious, however, as he had been to
go to Court, he was more than glad to get away.

Voltaire never enjoyed good health. Hardly a week passed without
his suffering, and when he became a victim to smallpox his case was
serious. In this connection as much as in any other, Voltaire’s pluck
and indomitable will-power showed itself. He fought ill-health all his
life through, and triumphed. His great secret was work. Others might
make an excuse of illness to take a holiday. That was not his way.
He dictated, he wrote, he read, to prevent physical weakness getting
the mastery over him. Another of his finer characteristics was his
undefeated persistence. He never would give in. For instance, when a
play of his was a failure, he was disappointed, but took it back and
rewrote it. Even at the age of eighty-three he did this with a play
that did not please him. All attempts to silence, suppress, insult, or
ignore such a man were bound to fail. There are two instances of his
being twice badly insulted. A spy named Beauregard, whom he offended,
waylaid him in the street and beat him. And again later, the Chevalier
de Rohan, an arrogant nobleman, fell out with him, and had him thrashed
by his servants. Voltaire took lessons in fencing, and after three
months challenged Rohan, who accepted the challenge. But on the morning
appointed for the duel Voltaire was arrested, and sent a second time to
the Bastille. He was kept in confinement for a fortnight, and then, at
his own request, packed off to England.

George II was King of England. He was no lover of “boetry,” but Queen
Caroline was, and was pleased to welcome him. Voltaire’s chief friend
in England was Bolingbroke, and he soon became acquainted with the
leading people of the day. There were Swift and Addison, whose writings
he greatly admired; Pope, Congreve, Gay, the Walpoles, and Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough. Newton died during his visit; he attended the
funeral at Westminster Abbey, and was much impressed by the tribute
paid by the nation to a man of science. He diligently mastered the
English language, and wrote not only letters but plays and poems in
it. He expresses in his writings the greatest appreciation of British
liberty, freedom of speech, and absence of intolerance. The Quakers
specially interested him. He liked the simplicity of their religion,
and the absence of formulas, dogmas, creeds, and ritual. He quotes one
of them as saying in reply to his question, “You have no priests,
then?” “No, friend, and we get on very well without them.”

Moreover, as an inveterate hater of war, he revered a sect so far
removed from the brutality of military government as to hold peace for
a first principle of the Christian faith. His affection for England and
the English spirit can be summed up in the words he used with regard
to Swift’s writings, “How I love people who say what they think! We
only half live if we dare only half think.” Through him a more intimate
knowledge of England was spread, not only in France but in other parts
of the Continent.

In 1729, when he was thirty-five, he obtained a license to return
to France, which he had only been able to visit secretly, now and
then, during his stay in England. He devoted the next four years to
great literary activity. Whatever he wrote always produced a certain
sensation, and often brought him into trouble. Among the best of his
productions were _Zaïre_, the most successful of all his plays, and
_The Temple of Taste_, a brilliant burlesque, in which he satirized
the overrated celebrities of the day. Owing to the death of one of
his patrons with whom he had been staying, he was obliged to go into
uncomfortable lodgings in a poor quarter of Paris. But whether he was
in a castle or a garret, his genius for hard work never left him. The
censor kept his eye on this man, who seemed bent on startling and
shocking the authorities, so that Voltaire was often obliged to get
his writings privately printed and secretly distributed, and even on
some occasions to deny the authorship of the offending works. Things
came to a head when his _English Letters_ appeared. They were by way
of being criticism and praise of England, but at the same time they
were a vehement attack on everything established in Church and State
in France. The printer was thrown into the Bastille. The book was
denounced and publicly burnt by the hangman as “scandalous, contrary
to religion, to morals, and respect for authority.” His lodgings were
searched, but when the officer came to arrest him the author was found
to have escaped.

France, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, more than any
other country at any other time, produced a number of women who
occupied a very leading position, not only in the high society of
Paris, but in the intellectual and political life of the nation.
They collected in their houses all the eminent men of letters and
science and politics, who not only came to meet one another, but were
attracted by the charm, the beauty, the wit, and the intelligence of
their hostesses. Attempts have been made at other times and in other
countries to imitate these French _salons_, but without anything
like the same success. The names of some of these women have become
historical—Madame de Sévigné, Madame de Staël, Ninon de l’Enclos,
Madame du Châtelet, Madame du Deffand, Mademoiselle de l’Espinasse—to
mention only a few of them. Voltaire was a favorite with those of his
time, more especially with Madame du Châtelet, who went so far as to
place her castle at Cirey at his disposal. She was a very clever woman,
wrote books on philosophy, and at the same time she was extremely
frivolous—just the sort of combination Voltaire loved. At Cirey he
interested himself in refurnishing the house and in gardening. He set
up a laboratory and experimented in physics; he busied himself with
iron-founding; he studied astronomy and philosophy with his hostess,
made love to her, quarreled with her over trifles, for she had a very
hot temper; and all the while kept on producing an almost incredible
amount of writings. Cirey became his home and headquarters till Madame
du Châtelet died in 1749. During this period he came again into Court
favor, wrote a play which was performed before the King, and was made
Historiographer and Gentleman of the Chamber.

One of the most curious and interesting incidents in Voltaire’s
life was his friendship with Frederick the Great of Prussia. After
the exchange of many enthusiastic and ridiculously complimentary
letters, they met first in 1740, and subsequently Voltaire went over
to Berlin on a diplomatic mission. But it was not till 1751 that he
went and stayed for any length of time with his royal friend. Half
the world watched the meetings of the two most prominent men of the
day. They were very different, and this made their intimacy all the
more surprising. The very slender link that united them was little
more than flattery. The worst qualities of both soon came to the
front, and led finally to their separation. Frederick was an arrogant
disciplinarian, combining with his genius as a soldier an artistic
sense and some literary talent. He welcomed Voltaire because he liked
to gather round him celebrated men of every description, and he hoped
to gain advantage from the advice and amusement from the company of
the greatest writer and wit of his age. Voltaire, on his side, loved
appreciation, especially from great people. The pomp and display of
Courts attracted him; he was taken in by the honors and praise that
were lavishly showered on him. He was content to correct Frederick’s
writings, and to be in close contact with the great man. But, like a
spoilt child, he became mischievous, and the harmony between the two
men, which was only on the surface, became a hideous discord.

Voltaire was given apartments in the palace; he was made a royal
chamberlain, decorated with an order, and granted a pension. Royal
servants attended on him; he supped with the King, and took part in an
endless round of feasts and entertainments. But foolishly delighted
as he was with all these honors, he noticed that the King was apt to
give a sly scratch with one hand while patting and stroking with the
other. Voltaire used to refer to him by the nickname “Luc,” after an
ape which had a knack of biting. “The supper parties are delicious,”
he wrote; “the King is the life of the company. I have operas and
comedies, reviews and concerts, my studies and books: Berlin is fine,
the princesses charming, the maids of honor handsome, BUT ... !”

The magnificence of his style of living gradually began to fall off,
and Frederick cut down his allowance of sugar, coffee and chocolate,
and the philosopher stooped to pocketing candle-ends from the royal
apartments. Voltaire began quarreling with others at the Court. Plots
and intrigues, petty jealousies and rivalries began to make his life
intolerable. He was mixed up in a discreditable affair connected with
money matters which came out in a sordid dispute between him and a Jew
named Hirsch. In fact, all the glamour was fading; the glitter was
proving to be very far from gold. He never took the trouble to learn
German, as French was the language of the Court and good German books
were rare. Lessing, the founder of modern German literature, was still
quite a young man. The two men met and made friends, but the inevitable
quarrel soon separated them.

At last Voltaire became bored to death with correcting Frederick’s
verses: “See,” he exclaimed when a batch was sent to him, “what a
quantity of dirty linen the King has sent me to wash.” The remark
reached the royal ear, while on the other hand Voltaire was told that
Frederick when speaking of him had said something about “sucking an
orange and throwing away the rind.” The finishing touch to the growing
estrangement was put by Voltaire’s wittiest and most pitiless personal
satire on Maupertuis, the president of the Berlin Academy, a vain but
worthy individual. Frederick could not help laughing at it, but he
forbade its publication. Voltaire pretended to agree, but in a few
days the _Diatribe of Doctor Akakia_ appeared. It was received with
great applause and merriment, but Frederick was furious. He ordered the
pamphlet to be burned by the hangman and insisted on an apology from
Voltaire, who in his turn sent back his order and chamberlain’s key.
This was the last straw, and Voltaire left Berlin. But he carried off
with him a volume of Frederick’s verses, probably as a curiosity. He
was arrested at Frankfurt and treated with uncalled-for brutality by
order of the King.

The whole visit reflects no credit whatever on either of the parties.
Voltaire’s foolish vanity and hot temper seem to have obscured an
intellect shrewd enough to have known that such a life as he lived
in the Prussian capital was empty, profitless, and utterly vain. For
Frederick there was more excuse, because monarchs at all times have
claimed service and homage in return for a passing smile of friendship;
Court attendance they have considered a sufficiently rich reward for
any devotion; and thrones have ever been surrounded by the refuse of
orange-rinds out of which the juice has been sucked.

Voltaire, now over sixty, entered upon the last phase of his life,
which was the calmest and certainly the noblest. After wandering from
place to place, he settled down at last in a house just outside Geneva,
which he called _Les Délices_. Here he entertained many visitors
and had a private theater in which his own plays were performed,
he himself always taking a part and stage managing. He kept up a
voluminous correspondence and continued to exchange letters with
Frederick, quarreling as usual but finally making it up. He wrote at
this time one of his most famous works, “Candide,” which was inspired
by an earthquake at Lisbon, and in it he ridiculed the idea that
everything was for the best in the best possible of all worlds. The
book was burned by order of the Council of Geneva. But Voltaire was now
accustomed to his writings being treated in this way.

In appearance he must have been a very peculiar figure. He was very
thin, he had a long nose and protruding chin, and his face always wore
an amused but rather mischievous smile. His sparkling eyes, peering
from under his heavy wig, showed he was very much alive. His health
always troubled him, and nobody spoke about dying so much or thought so
little about death. From _Les Délices_ he would drive into Geneva in
an extraordinary old-fashioned carriage painted blue with gold stars
and drawn by four horses. On one occasion a crowd assembled to see him
alight. “What do you want to see, boobies?” he cried. “A skeleton?
Well, here is one!” And he threw off his cloak.

A few years later he bought another property near by, called Ferney,
and erected a château, where he spent the remainder of his days. Here
he developed into a complete country gentleman, and came to be known
all over Europe as the Squire of Ferney. He took great pride in all
the details of the arrangements in the house. He had a bath-room made,
which in those days was an almost unknown luxury, but he was very
particular in matters of cleanliness and was very neat and tidy. His
niece, Madame Denis, however, who kept house for him, was slovenly
and a bad manager. She was an ugly and tiresome woman, without humor
or even common sense. She actually wrote a comedy, which the players,
out of respect for Voltaire, declined to act. She was responsible for
a good deal of extravagance in the household, as well as neglect in
keeping the house clean. Her uncle, who could not bear the sight of a
cobweb, took advantage of her absence in Paris at one time to have the
whole house cleaned from top to bottom. There were a large number of
servants, and two of them once robbed their master. The police having
got wind of the matter, Voltaire sent a message to the culprits to
fly directly, or else he would not be able to save them from hanging.
He even sent them money for the journey. So touched were they by
his generosity that, having got away successfully, they settled
down to live honest lives. Gardens, park, farms, nurseries, bees and
silkworms, all received personal attention from this wonderful little
old philosopher. An immense number of visitors, many of them celebrated
people, were entertained, and after theatricals, sometimes as many as
eighty people sat down to supper. Indeed, he became a little weary of
being what he called “an hotel-keeper.” Some visitors stayed with him
for a considerable time, and the grand-niece of the poet Corneille he
adopted as a daughter.

Though now an old man, his life at Ferney, like his life at Cirey,
was one of ceaseless activity. Never can any one have written so many
letters. Seven thousand have been printed, but there are many more:
and his correspondents ranged from kings and empresses to the humblest
and most undistinguished people. With all his faults, and he had many,
Voltaire never fell a prey to two of the worst failings of which a
human being can be guilty—indifference and indolence.

Let us try and picture a day at Ferney. Voltaire did not appear till
eleven o’clock. He remained in his room, where he had five desks all
very carefully and neatly arranged with the notes and papers for the
various works on which he was engaged. The rest of the morning he spent
in garden or farm superintending and giving orders. He dined with the
house-party, eating very little himself, his only form of indulgence
being coffee. After some conversation with his guests in the early
afternoon, he retired to his study and refused to be interrupted by
anybody till supper-time. Then he came out in very lively spirits, led
the conversation, provoked discussion, and amused every one with his
jokes and repartees. In the evening there was probably a theatrical
entertainment in his little theater, or he would read out some of
his poems, or play chess, the only game he ever indulged in. When he
went to bed he started work afresh, and as he slept very little, this
would go on sometimes far into the night, especially if he had a play
on hand. Madame Denis looked after the guests, some of whom, to their
great annoyance, saw very little of their host.

It was in the last twenty years of his life that Voltaire played such a
noble part in championing the cause of men who were subjected to gross
and cruel persecution. The most famous case is that of Callas. He was a
Protestant shopkeeper in Toulouse, a kind and benevolent old man. The
monstrous accusation brought against him was that of murdering his son,
who, as a matter of fact, committed suicide in a fit of melancholy. The
motive of the murder was supposed to be that the son wanted to become
a Roman Catholic, and his father, rather than allow it, killed him.
Callas was tried and condemned without a shred of evidence against him.
He was tortured with hideous cruelty, broken on the wheel, and finally
strangled. This was in 1762. Some of the family fled to Switzerland,
and Voltaire heard of the case. He soon saw that behind it lay the
thing he hated most in the world, namely, religious intolerance. He set
to work with an energy and perseverance which were quite extraordinary.
He left off his usual literary work; he examined evidence, drew up
reports, wrote statements and narratives, collected a fund, composed
pamphlets, wrote to influential people, and devoted his whole time and
thoughts and much money to the cause he had undertaken. He succeeded in
getting a new trial, and at last, three years after the savage sentence
had been passed on Callas, a unanimous verdict of complete innocence
was recorded by a council of forty judges. The whole of Europe had
heard of the case, because it was Voltaire who had taken up the cause
of the poor and honest man who had been the victim of a vile plot.
Nothing in his life gave him more satisfaction than his success in this
affair. Thirteen years later an old woman in Paris, in reply to some
one who asked who the little old man was whom crowds surrounded, said,
“It is the saviour of Callas.” No honor that ever came to Voltaire gave
him so much pleasure as that simple answer.

Nor was the case of Callas the only one in which he took an active
interest. A man called Sirven was persecuted in much the same way, and
would have suffered a similar fate had he not escaped. It took nine
years for justice to be done this time, and Voltaire was seventy-seven
when the case was retried and the accused declared innocent. Further,
there was the case of Espinasse, who was sentenced to the galleys for
giving supper and a bed to a Protestant minister; of Montbailli, who
was falsely accused of murdering his mother; of La Barre; and several
others, who for one reason or another were victims of persecution.
Voltaire’s hatred of injustice had always been strong. He showed it
when he was a much younger man. One occasion was the death of Adrienne
Lecouvreur, the great actress, who had performed in several of his
plays. Because she was an actress she was refused Christian burial.
His fury knew no bounds, more especially as he had seen an actress
buried in London with every mark of respect and sympathy. He wrote
a poem which showed the depths of his indignation at this senseless
intolerance.

Voltaire’s finest qualities, in fact, came to the front in his
character of champion of the persecuted. The cynical satirist was
merged into the generous and courageous upholder of justice. The
oppressed and needy may get sympathy from others who are in like
condition, but it is much more rare for one who is neither poor nor
downtrodden to give them not only sympathy, but practical and useful
support.

Voltaire, as already said, detested intolerance. He expressed this in
a well-known phrase, which he repeated both in his writings and in his
conversation, “_Écrasez l’infâme_” (Crush the infamous). His enemies
declared that he meant God, Christ, Christianity, and religion. But
this was very far from true. By _l’infâme_ he meant intolerance,
bigotry, superstition, persecution, and all the hideous evils that
blighted the true spirit of religion. It was _l’infâme_ that enforced
the doctrines of religion by fire, torture, and imprisonment, it was
_l’infâme_ that encouraged oppression and tyranny; it was _l’infâme_
that was the barrier to liberty, progress, and enlightenment; and
_l’infâme_ was Voltaire’s lifelong enemy. He did as much as any one to
combat this evil spirit. But it requires more than a man, it requires
a people, to succeed completely; and no people have even yet got the
power in any land. Voltaire was certainly not a sentimentalist, and it
is interesting to note that he was the first influential writer who was
struck more by the futility than the cruelty of war. He regarded both
war and the intrigues of diplomacy which create it as being absolutely
contrary to the best interests of nations.

It is a pity Voltaire ever left Ferney. However, he very naturally
wanted to revisit Paris, which he had not seen for twenty-eight years.
Also he wanted to superintend the production of a new tragedy he had
just written. Madame Denis, who was bored with Ferney, seems to have
encouraged him to go. Instead, therefore, of dying quietly in his
home, he passed the last few weeks of his life in a perfect orgy of
entertainment and excitement, and there is something pathetic in the
vain little old man, masquerading for the benefit of Paris crowds.
And yet his last visit to Paris, which amounted to an event of public
importance, was very characteristic of the man’s whole life. He
received all sorts of distinguished visitors; society flocked to see
him; the French Academy, by whom in old days he had been rejected, paid
him every compliment possible; actors welcomed him with enthusiasm; the
middle-class turned out in crowds to see him; the Protestants worshiped
the man who had fought against persecution; the mob filled the streets
in awe of a man who could stand up so boldly against the powers of
government; the Court and the Church avoided him because they feared
him, while the preachers denounced him from their pulpits.

One of his oldest friends was greeted by him on his arrival with the
words, “I have left off dying to come and see you.” The Academy’s
reception was a great function. A gorgeous coach was sent for him, and
as the crowd waited he appeared in the doorway, a very lean figure,
with his old-fashioned gray wig surmounted by a little square cap. He
wore a red coat lined with ermine, white silk stockings on his shrunken
legs, large silver buckles on his shoes, a little cane in his hand
with a crow’s beak for a handle, and over all this wonderful dress,
a sable cloak which had been given to him by Catherine, Empress of
Russia. At the Louvre two thousand people assembled, and greeted him
with shouts of “Long live Voltaire!” Afterwards, at the theater, he
appeared in a box, and the whole audience rose and received him with
frantic applause. An actor came forward and crowned him with a wreath
of laurels, while the people stormed and shouted. It certainly was
a triumph, a remarkable triumph, not only for the man, but for his
opinions. There was no discordant voice. As one who was present said,
“Envy, hatred, fanaticism, and intolerance dared not murmur.”

But all these entertainments were too much for the old man. He grew
more feeble and ill, and died at last on May 30, 1778, at the age of
eighty-three. Shortly before his death Voltaire signed a declaration
which summed up his belief: “I die worshiping God, loving my friends,
and not hating my enemies, but detesting superstition.” His body,
dressed up as though he were alive, was taken out of Paris in a
carriage and buried at Scellières, about a hundred miles away. The
bishops of the diocese sent an order to forbid the burial, but it was
too late. No newspaper was allowed to mention his death or anything
about him, and the Academy was forbidden to hold the service which was
customary on the death of a member. In the twentieth century just the
same orders were issued by the Russian Government when Tolstoy died.
Nothing is feared more by Church and State than the influence of a
great reformer.

Over Voltaire’s body controversy raged just as it had over the living
man.

On the eve of the French Revolution the National Assembly of France
made Louis XVI sign a decree ordering Voltaire’s remains to be
transferred to Paris. This was done with great pomp and ceremony. A
long procession with banners and music passed through the city. An
immense sarcophagus, forty feet high, surmounted by a full-length
figure of Voltaire and a winged figure of Immortality, was drawn along
by twelve white horses. On it was written, “He avenged Callas, La
Barre, Sirven, and Montbailli. Poet, philosopher, historian, he gave
a great impulse to the human mind; he prepared us to become free.” A
hundred thousand people walked in the procession through crowds of
hundreds of thousands more. The body was buried in the Panthéon. But
this was not its last resting-place. In 1814, on the restoration of the
Bourbon Kings, his bones were removed and thrown into a waste place
outside the city. This was discovered in 1864, when his heart, which
had been in the possession of the Villette family, was placed inside
the empty tomb.

It has been impossible to enumerate even Voltaire’s principal writings,
but mention must be made of one of the most remarkable of his works,
which was his “Philosophical Dictionary.” It contained brief articles
on an enormous variety of subjects, each one brimful of interest,
whether they were treated with serious thought and profound learning
or with sarcasm and biting irony. He kept on adding to it until it
reached eight volumes, and, needless to say, it shocked and infuriated
as well as delighted those who read it. He also assisted with many
contributions to the great encyclopædia which Diderot and d’Alembert
helped to compile, and which created a great stir and exercised a
considerable influence on the contemporary thought of France.

Madame du Deffand, one of the many brilliant women of
eighteenth-century France, who knew Voltaire well and corresponded
with him for many years, said of him that “he was good to read and
bad to know.” His faults were certainly very marked, and to some
extent spoilt his virtues. His vanity was almost ridiculous; he was
quite unscrupulous in making money, in attacking his enemies, and in
defending himself; he scoffed with cruel and bitter words, but he never
mocked at any men who lived good lives. Mischief prompted him more than
malice. He could not help laughing at people who pulled long faces and
were incapable of laughing at themselves.

He certainly disbelieved in the creeds of the Church; but by partaking,
on one occasion, of the Communion, building a church, and joining a
religious order, it looked as if he were insincere, though he is not
the only person who has conformed to religious observances in which he
did not really believe. But Voltaire scandalized people by doing it all
with his tongue in his cheek; in fact, he was altogether irreverent
by nature, and reverence is a quality which the strongest opponent
of any creed ought always to display. Granting all these defects,
however, Voltaire’s influence in opening men’s minds, showing up what
was false, sham, and hypocritical, was quite immeasurable. He had, too,
the great virtue of humanity. This is not just sentimental kindness
and empty sympathy, but, as John Morley expresses it, “Humanity armed,
aggressive, and alert; never slumbering and never wearying; moving
like an ancient hero, over the land to slay monsters, is the rarest of
virtues, and Voltaire is one of its master types.”

A great upheaval was not far off, and gradually the way was being
prepared for a better day in France and in Europe. Another man was at
work, Jean Jacques Rousseau, whom Voltaire knew, but did not like.
While Voltaire was appealing to the minds of the thoughtful, Rousseau
was reading the hearts of the people and stirring their imagination.
The age was one of extreme corruption, frivolity, and luxury on one
side, and poverty, degradation, and misery on the other: an age of bad
laws, stale traditions, and reckless cruelty. Voltaire and his friends
were sowing the seeds of revolt. The people, only half-conscious, were
being driven, as they so easily can be in any country where they are
kept ignorant, partly by circumstances, partly by weak men, and partly
by an atrocious social system, into the precipice of disaster.

The crash came in the great French Revolution, the greatest convulsion
through which any country has ever passed. With all its bloodshed
and violent excesses, and in spite of the reaction which quickly
followed it in the rise of Napoleon, the Revolution finally destroyed
a disastrous method of government, and freed the people from the worst
forms of oppression which had grown up in the long reigns of Louis XIV
and Louis XV. Voltaire did not live to see this tremendous change; he
would have deplored its violence, but his responsibility for the growth
of the ideas which made such a thing possible was by no means small.

  A. P.



VIII

HANS ANDERSEN

1805–1875

  It matters not to have been born in a duck-yard, if one has been
  hatched from a swan’s egg.


This is the story of Hans Andersen, the son of a poor cobbler and his
wife a washerwoman. Nearly every child in the world has read his Fairy
Stories, and the romance of his own life is almost as marvelous as one
of these—more marvelous, perhaps, because it is really true. All the
things he dreamt of—all the things he longed to happen, came true, so
that when he was fifty he wrote it down and called it “The Story of My
Life.”

Hans Andersen was born rather more than a hundred years ago in the
ancient city of Odense, in Denmark. His parents were very poor, so poor
that they had only one room under a steep gabled roof. In this room,
which was kitchen, workshop, parlor, and bedroom, Hans Andersen opened
his eyes, to the sound of his father hammering shoes. He was born in
a great bed with curtains—which had been made by his father out of a
nobleman’s coffin; there were bits of ragged crape still hanging about
the woodwork of the bed. The little room which was Hans’ home was to
him exciting and delightful beyond measure. It was full of all sorts of
things—the walls were covered with pictures, and the tables and chests
had shiny cups and glasses and jugs upon them. The room was always
decorated with fresh birch and beech boughs, and bunches of sweet herbs
hung from the rafters. In the lattice window grew pots of mint. Close
to the window was the cobbler’s workshop and a shelf of books. The
door was painted with rough landscapes, and when the little boy was in
bed he would gaze at these and make up stories about them. His father
and mother, before they came to bed, would say to one another in low
voices how nice and quiet Hans was, believing him to be asleep—when he
was really wide awake enjoying his own thoughts and fancies about the
pictures. Between the Andersens’ cottage and their neighbor’s there
stood a box of earth, which Andersen’s mother planted with chives and
parsley. This was their garden, and you can read about it in the “Snow
Queen.” As Hans grew up he thought there was nothing so nice in the
world as his own little home, and he loved to beautify it with garlands
of flowers and wild plants, which he would put about in glasses. He
was very fond of his mother, who was not, it seems, a particularly
attractive woman. She was good-natured, but silly and thriftless, never
thinking of the morrow so long as they had a roof over their heads
that day. She was careless, too, about Hans as an infant, and was in
the truest sense of the word uneducated. Hans got his love of reading
and his imagination from his unsuccessful, unhappy father. The cobbler
was a far more educated person than his wife, and he was better born.
But owing to his family’s misfortunes—for they had come down in the
world—he was obliged, much against his will, to take up shoemaking;
this work he settled down to with a sad and bitter heart. All his spare
time he gave to reading. Books became his one comfort. He was never
seen to smile except when he was reading. Sometimes he would read aloud
in the evenings and his wife would gaze at him completely puzzled—not
understanding, but admiring him all the same.

[Illustration: HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN]

As Hans grew older, he and his father became great friends, and they
went long walks together; and while his father sat and thought or read,
Hans ran about picking wild strawberries and making pretty garlands of
flowers. The cobbler certainly rather neglected his shoemaking, and
as he was different from his neighbors, they shunned him and thought
all sorts of evil things about him. The cobbler’s one wish was to get
away from the city and to live in the country. On hearing one day
that the squire of a large village required a shoemaker about the
place, he offered himself as such. Then he would have a cottage and a
little garden and perhaps a cow. The squire’s wife sent him a piece of
silk to make a specimen of dancing shoes. For the next few days the
family could talk of nothing else but these shoes and of their hopes
for the future. Hans prayed to God to fulfil his father’s wishes. At
last the shoes were finished and were gazed upon with admiration by
Hans and his mother. Off went the cobbler with the shoes wrapped up in
his apron—while his little family waited in impatience and anxiety at
home. When the cobbler returned his face was quite pale and they saw
something dreadful had happened. He told them the squire’s wife had
not even tried on the shoes. She had just looked at them, and said the
silk was spoiled and that she would not require him as shoemaker. The
cobbler then and there took out his knife and cut the poor shoes in
pieces. So all their hopes were dashed to the ground; their rosy hopes
of a life in the country with a cow and a garden faded like a dream,
and they wept.

Hans Andersen as a child had no boy friends, and he hardly did any
lessons, but he was very far from being bored, because he had such
a lively imagination and could always invent games and stories for
himself. His father would make him toys, pictures that changed their
shapes when pulled with a string, and a mill which made the miller
dance when it went round, and peep-shows of funny rag dolls. What he
liked best was making dolls’ clothes. In the little garden he would
sit for hours near the one gooseberry-bush. This, with the help of a
broomstick and his mother’s apron, he made into a little tent, and
there he would sit in all weathers, fancying things and inventing
stories. Very occasionally he went to a school, and at one school he
made friends with a little girl and would tell her stories. They were
mostly about himself—how he was of noble birth only the fairies had
changed him in his cradle, and all sorts of other inventions. One day
he heard the little girl say, “He is a fool like his grandpapa,” and
poor Hans trembled and never spoke to her about these things again. He
had a mad old grandfather at the lunatic asylum, where he sometimes
went. His grandmother, the mother of his father, was a dear old lady
who looked after the garden of the asylum, and brought flowers to
the Andersens every Sunday. She would recount to Hans stories of her
youth—of her mother’s mother, who had been quite a grand lady, and
of her own happy childhood in more prosperous circumstances. Strange
sights Hans would see in the court at the asylum, sights that would
haunt him for days and even years, so that he would beg his parents to
put him in their big bed and draw the curtains that he might feel safe.
He grew up religious in a sort of superstitious way, and this was his
mother’s influence. He was shocked at his father, as his mother and
the neighbors were—“there is no other devil than that which is in our
own hearts,” said his father one day, and Andersen’s mother burst into
tears and prayed to God to forgive his father. The cobbler died when
Hans was only eleven years old, and he was left alone with his mother.

He continued to play with his toy theater and peep-shows and made
dolls’ clothes. But he also read all he could lay hands on, and a great
deal of Shakespeare, which made a deep impression on him. He liked best
the plays where there are ghosts and witches—he felt he must go on the
stage. He jotted down at this time the titles of twenty-five plays; the
spelling of the titles being most peculiar!

Naturally young Hans Andersen was the laughing-stock of the
neighborhood. Nobody understood him, and Hans singing in the lanes and
sewing and reading at home was simply regarded as a lunatic. By the
time he was fourteen he had not a single friend of his own age. Boys
teased him, and screamed at him, “There goes the play scribbler,” so
that Hans shrank from them and would hide himself at home from their
mocking eyes and voices. He longed, like the ugly duckling of his
story, for the companionship of people cleverer and nobler than himself.

He was indeed very funny to look at, quite comically ugly with his
large nose and feet and very small Japanese eyes, and he was so tall
and gawky that his clothes were always too small for him, which made
him look still odder. He became persuaded that his voice was going to
make his fortune, and an old woman who washed clothes in the river told
Andersen that the Empire of China lay under the water there. Hans
quite believed her. He thought to himself that perhaps one moonlight
night, when he would be singing by the water’s edge, a Chinese Prince
might push his way through the earth on hearing his song, and would
take him down into his country and there make him rich and noble. Then
he might let him visit Odense again, where he would live and build a
castle, the envied and admired of everybody. Long after—Andersen says
in his autobiography—when he was reading his poems and stories aloud in
Copenhagen, he hoped for such a Prince to appear in the audience who
would sympathize and help him.

But the gentry, though much amused by the cobbler’s peculiar son, were
sorry for him. He seemed to them a strange and freakish being, who,
though he could recite plays from memory and make poetry, was yet so
ignorant that he knew no grammar, or even how to spell. They laughed
at Hans’ absurdly ambitious and childish ideas, that he was at once
going to be a great writer, or singer, or actor, without any education
at all. One family tried their best to get him into the local school,
or to enter some trade, but he would not hear of it. He was, however,
sent to the ragged school for a time to learn scripture, writing, and
arithmetic. They found he could hardly write a line correctly, and
he was dreadfully bored by this sort of learning. He must have been
an annoying pupil, for he was always dreamy and absent-minded, and
never looked at his lessons except on his way to and from school. He
tried to please the master by bringing him bunches of wild flowers.
He left the school as ignorant as he had entered it. At about the age
of fourteen he was confirmed, and wore for the first time a pair of
boots—of these he was so tremendously proud that when he walked up
the aisle of the church he drew his trousers right up so that every
one might see the boots, and he rejoiced that they squeaked so loudly
that every one’s attention might be drawn to them—at the same time he
felt he ought not to be thinking so much of his boots and so little of
his Maker. The story of the Red Shoes was inspired by them. Naturally
his relations began to get a little anxious about this time as to his
future. He was fourteen and he had not yet done anything sensible, and
was what ordinary people would call a dunce. He had, it is true, shown
extraordinary skill with his needle, and this pointed to his being a
tailor. While his relations talked and worried over Hans together and
came to no conclusion the boy continued his desultory life. But he
had great schemes in his head, and was making up his mind to take his
fate into his own hands. He would, like the heroes he had read about,
set out by himself to seek his fortune. This meant that he would go to
Copenhagen and there find work at the Theater. This idea had come to
him when the actors from the Royal Theater there had come to Odense.

Andersen had one day got permission to appear on the stage as a
shepherd. His enthusiasm and funny childish ways amused and interested
the actors, and Hans at once thought he was a born actor and that his
fortune was made. He heard these same actors speak about a thing called
a Ballet, which seemed to be finer than anything in the world, and of
a wonderful lady who danced in the Ballet, and Hans pictured her as a
sort of fairy queen who would help him and make him famous. His mother
was rather alarmed at these plans, but Hans said in answer to her
objections, “You go through a frightful lot of hardships, and then you
become famous.” So the mother consulted a wise woman, who, examining
the coffee grouts, said that Hans Christian Andersen would become a
great man, and that one day Odense would be illuminated in his honor.
Hans’ mother was then quite satisfied. The boy packed up his little
bundle to take him to the ship, and so to Copenhagen. He had about nine
dollars in his pocket, and was fourteen years old. Most people would
say what a mad expedition and how absurd, but Hans had no fear, he was
happy, for he had his wish, and was quite sure that he would make his
fortune.

When he arrived at Copenhagen he rushed off to see the Fairy Queen,
the dancer he had heard about, and told her how he wished to go on the
stage. To show her what he could do, he took off his boots and made a
drum out of his hat, and so began to dance and sing. As he had such a
very odd appearance, his heavy elephantine gambols simply terrified the
poor lady, she took him for an escaped lunatic, and of course showed
him the door.

But Hans Andersen, still hopeful, went off to the Director of the
Theater, and there met with another rebuff. He was told that only
educated people were engaged for the stage. This was hard to bear,
and after various adventures and disappointments Hans found he had
only fifty cents left—so either he must return to Odense by the first
coasting ship, or stop at Copenhagen and learn a trade. He chose a
trade, and apprenticed himself to a joiner, but there the roughness and
coarse talk of his fellow-joiners upset him so much that he left the
same day. So there he was, friendless and with nothing to do but to
wander the streets. In his wanderings, he suddenly remembered the name
of a man he had heard the Odense people talk about, a musician, the
Director of the Conservatoire. So off he went to this man’s house, with
the purpose of asking him to take him as a pupil. When he arrived he
found the musician was having a dinner-party, but Andersen was allowed
in, and telling them of his object he was taken to the piano, and there
played and recited. When he had finished, he burst into tears, but the
company applauded and raised a small collection of money for him. The
kind musician arranged that he should have lessons in singing, and
Hans, full of joy, wrote to his mother that his fortune was in sight.

For the next nine months he was supported by these “noble-minded men,”
as he called them, but when he lost his voice about the age of fifteen,
they advised him to return to his native town and learn a handicraft,
but rather than do this the poor boy was ready to endure every
hardship. He lived now in a garret in the lowest quarter of Copenhagen,
and had nothing to eat but a cup of coffee in the morning and a roll
eaten on a bench later in the day. He was very proud and sensitive, so
he would pretend that he had had plenty to eat and that he had been
dining out with friends, also that he was quite warm, when his clothes
were absolutely threadbare and patched, and his wretched boots let in
all the wet, so that his feet were sometimes not dry for weeks. When he
lay down to sleep in his attic, he tells us, after saying his prayers,
he was helped by his trust in God that everything would turn out right
in the end; and indeed it was almost miraculous the way something or
somebody always turned up to help.

Kind-hearted people taught him German and Danish, and sent him to the
dancing school to learn dancing, but they did not give him money,
because they had no idea how poor he was, as he said nothing about
it. The courage and determination he showed at this time were really
remarkable in so young a boy, and in spite of being very nearly
starved he continued to write poems and plays. One play he sent to
the Royal Theater without giving his name, and never doubted in his
childish ignorance that it would be accepted. It was sent back to him
with a curt note saying that the play showed such a lack of education
that it was absurd. But the only effect this had on Andersen was to
make him write another, and he sent that to the manager of the theater;
but this time those who read it said it showed unmistakable signs of
talent, and advised that Andersen’s friends should ask the King to help
with money to support and educate the boy. Frederick VI of Denmark was
like the kind kings in Andersen’s stories. He arranged at once that
Hans should be sent to the Latin School at Slagelse for three years, to
be properly educated and cared for. This was arranged and Hans went off
to school, but his time there was not at all happy.

The adventurous, free life he led in Copenhagen, though he had been
hungry and cold, had been much more to his liking. In the story of
his life he writes about this period with the greatest bitterness.
He had been so happy at the prospect of learning, and when he got to
school, he felt like a wild bird shut up in a cage. “I behaved,” he
said, “like one who is thrown into the water without being able to
swim. It was a matter of life and death to me to make progress, but
there came one billow after another—one called Mathematics, another
called Grammar, another called Geography—and I began to fear I should
never swim through them all.” He was terribly frightened of failing,
and began to think he was a dunce, for he was seventeen and had to be
put with the smallest boys in the school, which was very discouraging,
but it was greatly the master’s fault. He treated Hans as he would
ninety-nine boys out of a hundred. He never ceased laughing at him,
and seldom, if ever, encouraged him; so damping was he that Andersen
really began to feel he was not worth all the trouble and money that
were being spent upon him. Andersen, with his sensitive, imaginative
nature, was apt to make mountains out of molehills. His imagination,
indeed, was quite extraordinary, extravagant, and out of proportion to
his other faculties. He needed a kind, understanding person to guide
him, but he was left to himself and had few, if any, friends. The
ordinary dull routine of school life made him suffer. He describes it
all in his book as a sort of “Dotheboys Hall,” when it was really just
an ordinary school like any other at that date. His anxiety to get
on may be guessed at when we read that he nearly worried himself to
death, because he got “Very good” in a report for conduct, instead of
“Remarkably good.” “I am a strange being,” he once wrote. “If the wind
blows a wee bit sharply the water always comes into my eyes, though I
know very well that life cannot be a perpetual May day.”

When he was twenty his master moved to Elsinore, and Andersen went
with him. He was pleased and excited at the change; the beautiful
country round Elsinore filled him with joy; but, alas! he got on
still less well with his master, who treated him, Andersen says, as a
perfectly stupid, brutish boy. At that period it was considered the
right thing for schoolmasters, and even parents, never to praise a
child or encourage him for fear of spoiling him. Yet all the time this
master was scolding and laughing at Hans, he was writing to the boy’s
friends, praising his nature, his warm heart and imagination, and his
diligence in work. He recommended him as worthy of any support in the
way of money or education that might be given him. One day Andersen
brought his master a poem he had written, and the man scoffed and
said it was mere idle trash, and only fit for the rubbish-heap. This
quite finished Hans; he was found by another master in deep distress.
The same master told Andersen’s friends of the boy’s unhappiness
and advised his removal. He was taken away. So ended what Andersen
describes as the “darkest and bitterest period of my life.” He had been
at school a little more than three years.

Andersen now became a student at Copenhagen. He worked hard and
conscientiously, but was always stupid at examinations, and at Latin
and Greek. In his spare time he wrote poems, plays, and sketches, and
published his first considerable book called “A Journey on Foot from
Holmen’s Canal to the East Point of Amager.” This strange volume
is such a confused jumble of things that it is rather like a dream.
But even in the jumble you can see Andersen’s gift, in the little
fairy-like touches and the beautiful descriptions of nature and of
seasons. The Danes liked the book, for rather childish and fantastic
things amuse them. Most of Andersen’s work, however, was pronounced to
be wishy-washy and silly by the critics, and Andersen failed and failed
again; yet he never gave up trying and never apparently lost belief in
his own talent. Still he got very cast down and unhappy, and felt that
he must get away and have a complete change. The same kind King who
had helped him with his education, then allowed him money for foreign
travel, and Andersen went off for a long spell abroad—to Italy, to
France, and to Germany.

Away from his own country he got great inspiration, he says, and
started by writing a novel which he was certain would take the world by
storm. It was a most bitter blow that when the book was published every
one laughed at it, and the reviews which reached him abroad pronounced
it to be dull, sentimental, and unreal. But Andersen had made up his
mind that he would be either a great novelist or a great dramatist; so
on he went, writing with his usual persistence and courage. He did at
last succeed in bringing out a successful novel.

So immediate was its success that the author’s reputation seemed
made. This type of novel, which is very romantic and very impossible,
would not be appreciated nowadays; but again its charm lay in its
descriptions of scenery and places. Andersen was delighted, and at once
made up his mind that he was to be one of the greatest novelists the
world had ever seen. But this was not to be, for except for one or two
rather beautiful books of travel, his serious books were not great, and
were not to make him famous.

Now Andersen had a talent which he did not take seriously himself, and
if it had not been for his friends, perhaps the world would never have
known of it.

When Hans Andersen was in a good humor and wanted to keep children
quiet and amused—nicely behaved and nice-looking children they had
to be—he used to tell them fairy tales. Odense, his birthplace, was
a home of legends, and folk stories he had heard as a child stuck in
his memory. These he wove into stories in the most wonderful manner.
He had a peculiar way of telling these stories which simply delighted
children. He never in telling them troubled about grammar; he would use
childish words and baby language. Then he would act and jump about and
make the most comic faces. Nobody who had not heard him could guess how
lively and amusing these stories were; but it never seemed to strike
Andersen that he might write them down: he did not think them worth
it. When some one suggested that he might write them down and print
them, so that they should be known by other people, not only his own
small circle of friends, Andersen laughed at the idea, but decided to
do it just for fun. He would write them down as he told them. Now this
is easier said than done, for when you begin to put pen to paper your
inclination is to write a thing like an essay and not as if you were
talking to somebody. Yet what you feel when you read Hans Andersen’s
stories is just this, that they are told and not written. He printed
first a tiny volume, and called it “Fairy Tales as Told to Children”;
it cost ten cents. In this volume were “The Tinder Box,” “Little Claus
and Big Claus,” and “Little Ida’s Flowers,” and this was followed by a
second part with “Thumbeline” and “The Traveling Companion,” and then a
third number appeared containing “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and “The
Little Mermaid.” The three parts made the first volume of his tales.

Andersen still refused to take these “small things,” as he called
them, seriously. He was certainly not encouraged by the critics, for
they were too stupid and conventional to see the point of these tales.
Some were too grand even to look at them, and some were shocked. One
wrote that no child should be allowed to read “The Tinder Box,” for it
wasn’t at all nice that a Princess should ride on a dog’s back, and be
kissed by a soldier. Hans Andersen was advised by these dense people
not to waste any more time on such things. There was also much scolding
about the conversational style of the writing. It was quite unlike
the heavy, pompous stuff people were accustomed to at that date. “This
is not the way people write,” it was said, “this is not grammar.” But
there were people who saw at once the beauty of these stories, who
declared that they would make Andersen immortal.

Andersen himself did not trouble much about it one way or the other;
he still thought about the success of his novel, and made plans for
writing another with Napoleon as his hero. He would compel people to
see what a great dramatist and novelist he was. He wrote and translated
many operettas and plays. One was produced at the Royal Theater with
great success. It was a poor play but well acted, and containing some
noble sentiments; it pleased the honest Danes. But the Fairy Tales went
on appearing at intervals, and found their way into most Danish homes.
In fact, they were building up Hans Andersen’s reputation for him all
over the world. Andersen soon found that he had great admirers among
children, and there were very few nurseries where they didn’t know the
stories by heart. Perhaps his own country had not been quite so eager
about them as some others—Germany and Sweden, and even England, which
is supposed to be slow and conservative about new things, were very
enthusiastic. When Andersen visited England at the age of forty-three,
he found he was quite a lion. Great ladies would repeat his stories
from memory, and he was asked out to breakfasts, teas, and dinners, to
meet other important people of the day. He was delighted, because he
loved to be appreciated. Dickens was specially kind to him and asked
Andersen to stay with him. Andersen wrote about England to his friends
in Denmark: “Here I am regarded as a Danish Walter Scott, while in
Denmark I am supposed to be a sort of third-class author.” He fumed and
fretted in quite a childish way that the Danish papers did not pay more
attention to his reception in England; it made him feel quite ill, he
says.

So after writing an immense poem and another novel, which both failed,
he devoted himself to the Fairy Tales.

Andersen in his own “Life” says about his Fairy Tales, that he would
willingly have given up writing them, but that they forced themselves
upon him. He knew that the critics would object to the style of
the writing, and that was why, at the beginning, he had called the
stories “Fairy Tales for Children,” but he had meant them as much for
the grown-ups. He found that people of different ages were equally
amused by them—the older ones by the deeper meaning, and children by
the fancies, so like their own, and the amusing, lively style of the
writing. Indeed, Andersen’s great gift is that he appeals to so many
different sorts of people, that he himself has so many sides. He is
tender, sad, and wistful, but also absurd, fantastic, and amusing. At
one moment he makes us cry, the next instant we laugh. Andersen had
been able to keep the imagination of a child of five or six, though
he was a grown-up man of over thirty when he began to publish his
stories. He saw through a child’s eyes, and never felt any difficulty
in imagining all the playthings coming alive. He does not, for one
thing, distinguish between things and persons. He makes inanimate
things human, and he does it without any effort or apparent stretching
of the imagination. It seems quite the most ordinary thing in the
world, when Andersen tells us about it, that an inkpot should talk
with a pen, and that flowers, dolls, earwigs, beetles, clouds, and the
necks of bottles should all converse with one another, and have their
special personalities. He could write about anything, and the telling
of utterly improbable things quite simply and naturally, is one of
his great gifts. “Tell us a story about a darning-needle,” said the
Danish sculptor Thorwaldsen, who was never tired of hearing him; and
that was how the story came to be written. “I am not a fellow, I am a
young lady,” said the darning-needle, and how could a darning-needle be
anything else?

Many incidents of Andersen’s curious childhood inspired his stories
as well as folk-lore. Beautifully as he has adapted legends—such as
the “Wild Swans” and the “Swineherd”—his own inventions are, I think,
the best of all. What more lovely and touching story can be imagined
than the “Little Mermaid,” or more charming than “Thumbeline”? In
the “Little Mermaid,” and that thrilling “Story of the Traveling
Companion,” we seem to see the author’s great belief in good, in love,
and self-sacrifice; yet he never points a moral or annoys by preaching.
That was the last thing he could be; he was much too aware of his own
failings to think of lecturing other people about theirs, even in
a story. Some of his heroes play the most shocking pranks, such as
the soldier in “The Tinder Box,” who kills an old woman; and Little
Claus’ behavior is rather odd; yet they never seem to meet with any
retribution. On the contrary, they thrive exceedingly.

Andersen had a great gift of satire, which in some cases may be
rather bitter and unkind, but in Andersen’s it could not possibly
offend people. He laughs at the world, and at people’s foibles in
such an amused, kindly spirit, though he does show up most clearly
the absurdity and emptiness of such things as riches and power, which
believe that everything is within their grasp. “The Little Nightingale”
and “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” are examples of this sort of story.

In the world that Andersen writes about—a world of children, birds,
flowers, supernatural beings, and friendly kings—ugly, sordid,
unsatisfactory things have no place. Andersen himself could never
really face the ugly and cruel, he could not even write or talk
about them; so that this delicate talent of his was not the one to
make him write good books about real life, for in the world there are
both good and bad. His plays and novels were not true to life; they
were sentimental and boring, and only when Andersen has been able to
describe nature in his novels does his poetic talent shine through.

Plants were Andersen’s favorite things, as anyone can see who reads
“The Fir Tree,” “Little Ida’s Flowers,” or “The Snow Queen.” “Flowers
know that I love them,” he said. He likened them to sleeping children,
for he loved simplicity and unconsciousness. Only in the vegetable
world he felt was there complete peace and harmony, without any jarring
element. When he saw a fallen tree he felt he must weep, and when
the buds began to swell in the spring, he would laugh aloud for joy.
After flowers, Andersen loved birds better than four-footed animals,
and then children. I suppose some people might be shocked at this. He
didn’t love children in the mass; there are, after all, nice and nasty
children; but he had great friends among them.

When he was old, his admirers in Denmark put up a statue to him in
Copenhagen, showing him as an old man with uplifted finger and a
smiling face, surrounded by a host of children. It sounds all right
to those who didn’t know Andersen. Well, he was quite cross about it,
and said he didn’t feel like that at all. It was annoying to have
himself represented as “a venerable, toothless old man, with a pack of
children crowding round,” as he expressed it.

Andersen, by the time he was middle-aged, was celebrated over a great
part of the world. He was fashionable in his own town of Copenhagen,
and people would nudge one another in the street as he passed,
saying, “There goes the Poet.” Actresses recited his stories, and he
himself read them aloud at parties, which would be considered very
great occasions. In some ways it sounds rather trying. He had a way
of reading his favorites over and over again, and demanding absolute
attention; the ladies must stop knitting, the gentlemen must cease to
smoke. In spite of these rules and regulations his extraordinary way
of reading, his charming voice, his faces and antics, astonished and
interested his audience so much that they put up with anything, and
would have been willing to stand on their heads, if he had asked them
to.

Andersen was made very happy by success, and he says in his “Life,”
that it made up to him for all the hard words the critics had spoken.
“There came within me,” he says, “a sense of rest, a feeling that all,
even the bitter in my life, had been needful for my development and
fortune.”

It was a constant source of wonder and delight to him to find himself
where he was. He, the son of a poor cobbler and a washerwoman, who
had run about as a child in wooden shoes, now to be treated by the
most important people as their equal, and to enjoy the best that the
world can give. He was friends with princes, and kings were as fathers
to him. On his travels, which were like fairy tale travels, he found
himself welcomed in every drawing-room of every capital in Europe. He
met Dumas and Victor Hugo in France; in Germany, Heine, the brothers
Grimm, and Mendelssohn and Schumann; and Dickens, as we know, in
England. And he didn’t meet these people in a stiff, formal way, but
in their dressing-gowns, so to speak. His childlike nature drew people
to him, and he was friendly and intimate with them at once. All these
things appeared to him more marvelous even than the most fantastic
incidents of his own fairy tales. He would often, when enjoying some
quite ordinary luxury, which most people take as a matter of course,
such as lying on a sofa in a new dressing-gown surrounded by books,
think of his childhood and wonder.

That Andersen should have been impressed by grandeur, by kings and
princes in their castles, and the trappings of wealth, is quite
natural. He was pleased and amazed, as a child and as a peasant are
pleased and amazed. It appealed to his romantic imagination, and the
marvel of the contrast with his own childhood and early manhood never
ceased to delight him, and to make him thankful. He was not a snob,
for a snob is one who despises the less fortunate, but he had a real
democratic feeling and never forgot that he was a peasant to start
with. He knew that poor people have just as much nobility of soul as
the better off, and he shows this in his stories. He is always pointing
out the beauty of simple, humble things; of the things that people pass
by without noticing. In a lovely but little-known story, “The Conceited
Apple Blossom,” though it is only about flowers, you can think of them
as people, and it becomes really an allegory on rich and poor. Andersen
said about poor people that they were as defenseless as children, and
therefore he felt specially tender toward them. When at his literary
jubilee, celebrated at Copenhagen, he received gold snuffboxes from
kings, and letters from ladies declaring their love from all over the
world, he treasured most, four-leaved clovers sent him by peasants, and
a waistcoat made for love by an admiring tailor.

Hans Andersen was very vain, and sometimes very silly. He thirsted
for praise and encouragement, all the more so, that for so many years
he had met with nothing but contempt. Praise was to him, he says, as
necessary as sunshine and water to flowers, and without it he perished.
Praise made him feel nice, humble, and grateful, but disagreeable
criticism made him bitter and proud. He made no effort to conceal his
vanity. If he had been praised he wanted everybody to know about it.
Once he shouted to a friend on the other side of the street, “Well,
what do you think? I am read in Spain now. Good-by!”

But Hans Andersen’s character was full of contradictions. Though
acutely sensitive and easily dejected, yet he was dogged, and sometimes
almost pushing in his desire to be thought a great writer. From
earliest days he had been full of enterprise and energy—the energy of
the spirit, for his health had never been good, and had been made worse
by privations. At thirty he said he felt sixty, but at sixty he felt
younger.

The great Danish writer, Brandes, has written a splendid Essay on
Andersen, in which he says in reference to him, “He who possesses
talent should also possess courage.” And Hans Andersen did possess
these, the happiest perhaps of all combinations of qualities.

We may be glad to know that Hans Andersen was not vain of his looks;
indeed, he thought himself very ugly. But he fancied that he looked
distinguished. He had his hair curled every day, and he wore very high
starched collars to hide his long neck, and very baggy trousers to hide
his legs. But in spite of this he was always extremely odd to look
at—immensely tall and shambling, with huge feet like boats, a great
Roman nose, and almost invisible eyes. But this did not prevent his
being simply idolized by the ladies of Denmark, several of whom wrote
and asked him to marry them!

The end of Andersen’s life was certainly the happiest period. For
fifteen years at least, he had enjoyed the fact that of all Danish
writers he was the most famous in the world. He _was_ a genius, for
what he wrote was absolutely original, and peculiar to himself. His
fairy stories are beautiful inspirations with nothing to do with
education or learning.

Andersen was fortunate in being appreciated, and his works were at
the height of their popularity during his lifetime. It is rather
pathetic that this being so, there should still have lingered in his
mind wistful regrets for his serious works, the unsuccessful novels
and plays. “Do you not think,” he said when he was quite old, to a
well-known English critic, “that the people will come back to my ‘Two
Baronesses’?” (a very bad novel he wrote). Fortunately his critic had
not read the book.

No human being is entirely satisfied, nor should he be, for he would
then become complacent and conceited, though in Andersen’s case, as we
know, nearly every dream of his youth came true.

Hans Andersen was seventy when he died. His last days were spent
happily and peacefully with some friends in a house called “Rolighed,”
which means peace or quietude, outside Copenhagen. It overlooked the
Sound, that sheltered and beautiful bit of coast which lies between the
town of Copenhagen and the turbulent Kattegat. From his window Andersen
could watch the ships going by like “a flock of wild swans,” as he
described it, and he could see in the distance Tycho Brahe’s island
sparkling in the sun.

Even when he was ill, he was able to get about the garden to look at
the wild flowers he had planted there, and to make his own original
nosegays which he had loved to do as a child.

Surrounded by the kindest and most loving friends, he was spared all
suffering and discomfort at the end, for he had an illness which
gradually weakened him and he simply went to sleep never to wake again.
When he was dying he said very often, “How beautiful the world is! How
happy I am!”

It was this spirit of Andersen’s, which to the end found beauty and
joy in life, that makes his stories so fresh and eternal. For though
Hans Andersen died a long time ago, he still lives in his writings. In
nearly all countries they are known and read. For the truly great works
of men are a gift to the whole world, and belong to all countries and
to all time. I think these stories of Hans Andersen’s will probably
live for ever, long after we are gone—perhaps so long as this world
shall last.

  D. P.



IX

MAZZINI

1805–1872

  The supreme virtue is sacrifice—to think, work, fight, suffer, where
  our lot lies, not for ourselves but others, for the victory of good
  over evil.


After the fall of Napoleon in 1815 there was a determination among
the sovereigns of Europe to strengthen their position and prevent
any progressive movements which might lead to a breach between the
peoples and their rulers. This was due to a fear and dislike of the
ideas which had brought about the great Revolution in France. The
Austrian Minister Metternich was very powerful, and exercised a great
influence far beyond his own country. He was more than conservative:
he was reactionary, and did all in his power to repress any signs
of revolution. For a time he was successful, and all opponents of
established government were treated with the greatest severity. But
he did not succeed in dispelling the restlessness and discontent. He
only drove it beneath the surface and increased its force, so that when
it broke out it carried all before it. Ideas with regard to liberty,
human rights, and nationality spread rapidly, and by 1830 there were in
half the countries of Europe bodies of exasperated men who were ready
to sacrifice their lives to fight against the injustices of autocratic
rule. The consequence of this was that two waves of revolution spread
over Europe: the first about 1830, the second in 1848, when Metternich,
finding his policy utterly defeated, fled into exile.

We are here concerned only with the case of Italy. What we know now as
the kingdom of Italy was formerly divided up into many separate States.
In the north the provinces of Lombardy and Venice belonged to Austria;
Piedmont and the island of Sardinia formed the kingdom of Sardinia;
there were Grand Dukes of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany; the Pope ruled
over the Papal States, which stretched across the middle of Italy;
and the lower part of the boot and the island of Sicily formed the
kingdom of Naples and the two Sicilies. These States quarreled with one
another, and in many of them the people suffered from bad government.
Gradually the idea grew that the Austrians must be driven out and a
united Italy established—one country ruled by one Government. But it
took more than forty years to accomplish this.

[Illustration: MAZZINI

From portrait by Felix Moscheles]

It requires three sorts of minds to bring about a great change of
this sort. The people must be educated, and when educated their
indignation must be controlled, so that its full force may be felt at
the right moment. Those who cling to the old order of things must
be overthrown, and the new order must be firmly established so as to
be lasting. In fact, you want a man of ideas, a man of action, and a
statesman, not necessarily acting together, but keeping the same object
in view.

Italy was singularly fortunate in this respect. There emerged at the
critical period, among the many who were ready to serve the cause,
three outstanding figures: Mazzini, the man of ideas; Garibaldi, the
man of action; and Cavour, the statesman. The man of action and the
statesman are likely to get the most credit when the great decisive
actions in the final stages of a successful revolution take place. But
the work of the reformer, who in the earlier and more difficult times
sees a spark of light in the darkness and proceeds patiently, with
the whole weight of public opinion against him, to preach, educate,
and prepare the ground, is certainly more difficult and in some ways
perhaps even more admirable.

Giuseppe Mazzini was born in Genoa in 1805. His father was a doctor
who devoted much of his time to unpaid service of the poor, and his
mother was a woman of strong character who took a close interest in
the great political movements of the time. Giuseppe was a studious and
thoughtful boy, but delicate in health. He noticed how his parents
treated with equal courtesy people from all ranks of life; he listened
to reminiscences of the French Republican wars and read the praises
of the democratic form of government in the pages of Greek and Roman
history. There was no question of conversion with him. His sympathies
grew naturally in favor of popular government as against the rule of
despotic princes. When he was sixteen the collapse of a rising in
Piedmont made such a deep impression on him that he neglected his
lessons and insisted on dressing in black, a habit he kept up to the
end of his life.

To his father’s disappointment he showed himself quite unfit to
become a doctor; the very sight of an operation made him faint. He
was allowed, therefore, to study law, and at the same time foreign
literature, history, and poetry occupied a great part of his time. He
was also very fond of music. Except on rare occasions when he went to
the theater, he spent his evenings at home with his mother after going,
during the day, for long solitary walks. While doing useful work as
the poor man’s lawyer, he began to write reviews and essays for the
newspapers. But his articles became so advanced in tone that two of the
newspapers to which he contributed were suppressed.

As a consequence of the rapid growth of discontent against the
misgovernment of the petty Sovereigns of the States of Italy, a secret
revolutionary body had been formed, which was known as the Carbonari
(the word means “charcoal burners,” of which there were many in the
mountains of Calabria). It was a sort of Freemasons’ Society. Mazzini
disapproved of the mysteries and theatrical forms in which the members
indulged, but as it was the only revolutionary organization in the
country, he became a member and swore the usual oath of initiation
over a bared dagger. He worked for them zealously, but his intention
was to form a far more vigorous association. The Government had their
eye on the Carbonari, and Mazzini was arrested and sent to prison.
In his prison room at Savona he had much time for reflection. He
gazed upon the sky and sea and read the only three books permitted
to him, the Bible, Byron, and Tacitus. Here it was that he thought
out the organization of a new society, the aim of which was to be the
liberation of Italy from tyranny and its unification under a republican
form of government. This society was “Young Italy,” which became famous
throughout Europe; its motto was “God and the people.” A further
unsuccessful insurrection of the Carbonari convinced Mazzini of the
necessity of his new scheme. When, however, he was set free, so many
restrictions were placed on his liberty that he decided to live at
Marseilles. Here, with a few others, in one single room, he worked for
two years with the most astonishing industry.

His famous letter to Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, was written from
Marseilles. In it he urged the King to take the lead in the impending
struggle for Italian independence. All over Italy a great sensation
was produced by this letter, but the Sardinian Government was deeply
offended, and his arrest was ordered should he cross the frontier.
He also issued the manifesto of Young Italy, and in response to it,
members joined from all parts of Italy. But a complaint was made to the
French Government, and Mazzini was obliged to retire from Marseilles
and take refuge in Switzerland.

A great blow came to him which affected both his health and his mind.
His greatest friend, Jacopo Ruffini, was one of the leaders in an
unsuccessful rising in Genoa. He was captured with several others and
executed. For a time Mazzini was dismayed, but his unflagging energy
kept him at work, and from Geneva he organized a band of exiles which
included Germans and Poles as well as Italians, and the invasion of
Savoy was planned. Mazzini accompanied the expedition himself, but the
attack broke down without a single shot being fired.

Time after time the efforts of this irrepressible enthusiast were
destined to fail. He had to work in secret, and little by little he
acquired the habit of plotting and scheming and adopted the methods of
a conspirator. But he never lost sight of his great ideal, and in spite
of severe trials and cruel disappointments he was able to retain in
his deeply religious nature a lofty and high-minded purpose. Mazzini
was a most striking man in appearance. Of medium height and slightly
built, his outward air of quiet melancholy concealed an inward burning
passion, which only shone out through the fire in his eyes. He had a
dark olive complexion, with black hair and beard. He always wore a
black, tight-fitting frock-coat, with a black silk handkerchief round
his neck in place of a collar. Except for his mother, women played a
very small part in Mazzini’s life. One woman, who was a widow called
Giudetta Sidoli, kept up an affectionate correspondence with him for
a time, but there was never any question of their marrying. His work,
his poverty, and his restless wandering made it impossible for him to
settle down as a married man.

After forming a “Young Europe” association of men who believed in
liberty, equality, and fraternity for all mankind, and after issuing a
newspaper called _Young Switzerland_ he was forced by the authorities
to leave Switzerland, and he took refuge in England. As a lover of the
beauties of nature, he complained at first at having to go to what he
called “the sunless and musicless island.” “We have lost,” he wrote
from London, “even the sky which the veriest wretch on the Continent
can look at.” In time, however, he came to regard with great affection
the country which has been a home and refuge to many disconsolate
wanderers and outcasts from foreign lands.

Mazzini came to England in 1837, and was obliged to live at first
in great poverty. But he had not come to rest. It was always a hard
struggle for him. After a heated correspondence with his father, he
ceased to receive any money from home, and he got into such low water
that he actually had to pawn his rings, his watch, his books, and even
on one occasion his boots and waistcoat, in order to get money for
food. His generosity to others who were still worse off than himself
made things more difficult. In the winter he risked his health by
giving away his only overcoat. At last he had to go to moneylenders.
It was indeed a desolate and miserable period for him, and had it
not been for the great spirit within him, he might have broken down
completely in despair. But he battled on, learned the English language,
wrote articles for English newspapers, and began to make English
friends. His sympathies were always on the side of the destitute and
the downtrodden; he taught in an evening school for poor Italian
children, and worked to prevent small boys of poverty-stricken parents
in Southern Italy being brought to England by scoundrels who made them
grind organs.

His first close English friendship was with the great writer, Thomas
Carlyle, and his wife. “They love me as a brother,” he wrote, “and
would like to do me more good than it is in their power to do.” He
liked Carlyle’s open nature and broad views, but they often had heated
arguments. “He may preach the merit of holding one’s tongue,” said
the Italian, “but the merit of silence is not his.” Mrs. Carlyle was
at first very sympathetic and interested in his political views, but
after a while she, like her husband, expressed disapproval of his
revolutionary ideas. However, he continued to be a frequent caller,
coming in all weathers, “his doeskin boots oozing out water upon the
carpets in a manner frightful to behold.”

Two or three years later, the breach between the two men widened, and
they saw no more of one another. But Carlyle retained his respect for
the strange Italian exile, who he declared was the most pious man he
had ever met.

In many other English families Mazzini was received with warm
cordiality. He wrote a great deal and completed the greater part of
the finest of all his works, “The Duties of Man.” But Italy was always
in his thoughts; he kept in constant communication with the Italian
leaders, for he dreaded dying with his work undone. It was during
this period that the British Home Secretary, Sir John Graham, ordered
Mazzini’s letters to be opened as they passed through the British Post
Office, and communicated their contents to the Neapolitan Government.
A great stir was caused by this. There were debates in Parliament,
a Committee of Inquiry was appointed, and Mazzini’s character was
successfully vindicated. This episode, which was very discreditable to
the British Government, brought him many new friends.

In 1848 the good news came of the rising in North Italy and the
expulsion of the Austrians from Venice and Lombardy. A flood of
patriotism spread over Italy, and volunteers poured to the front from
all parts. Mazzini immediately hurried to Milan, where he was received
in triumph as the prophet who had been cast out, but who had preached
and suffered while others fell away and doubted. Fighting continued,
but the King, Charles Albert, was a timid man, quite incapable of
dealing in a masterful way with the situation that had arisen. He was
willing to consult Mazzini, but the enthusiastic reformer would have no
dealings with him. He refused for a moment to set aside his hatred of
monarchy, which he described as “a hereditary lie.” This was not the
only instance in which his zeal for the republican form of government
prevented him from co-operating with others who were just as eager as
he was for a united Italy.

The war continued. The Austrians gained victories and Milan was
occupied. Mazzini shouldered a rifle and served in a small force
under Garibaldi. Meanwhile, in Central Italy, the Pope had fled and
Rome was declared a republic. Three men were appointed to take over
the government with supreme powers. Of this triumvirate Mazzini was a
member. The opportunity had come for him to display his powers as a
ruler, and to put into practical form the theories about which he had
written and preached so much; but it proved to be short. Nevertheless,
he managed to deal with a difficult situation with the utmost skill,
showing wisdom and moderation, erring, if anything, on the side of
leniency toward his enemies. He adopted none of the pomp and ceremony
of a ruler, but lived with austere simplicity, unguarded, and
accessible to all who wished to approach him. By this mild authority
he maintained order in the city, and he might have succeeded in setting
up good government in a permanent form, had it not been for the
intervention of France. The attack on the Romans by Louis Napoleon has
been described as one of the meanest political crimes, and indeed there
was no excuse for it. The siege lasted nearly a month, and the city
fell. The victors entered Rome. Garibaldi with three thousand followers
refused to surrender and retreated. Mazzini fled the country. So ended
his brief experience as a ruler.

He could not remain in Switzerland; he therefore returned to London.
The death of his mother in 1852 came as a great blow to him. He had
seen her in Milan and had always kept in close correspondence with
her. “I have now no mother on earth except my country,” he wrote, “and
I shall be true to her as my mother has been true to me.” She left
him a small annuity, so that although he was poor, he was not in the
desperate state of want he had been in formerly. He had to live very
simply, however, his cigars being his only luxury. His most constant
companions were his tame linnets and canaries, which perched about
on his head and shoulders and hopped about among his papers in the
thick, smoky atmosphere of his one room. He was very much appreciated
and respected by many prominent men of the time, and his endeavor to
enlist English sympathy for his political schemes was not unsuccessful.

It was perhaps a pity that Mazzini did not devote the remainder of
his days to literary work, for as a writer he would certainly have
made a great mark. His work as an agitator ceased to be useful or
even helpful. The course of events showed that if Italian Unity was
to be won it must be under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel, who
had succeeded Charles Albert as King of Piedmont and Sardinia, and
was prepared to come forward as the leader of the movement. Gallant
little Piedmont continued to be the leading spirit of the States of
Italy. Cavour, the statesman, a man of very different stamp from
Mazzini, worked slowly and patiently in the one direction in which
he saw success was possible. He despised Mazzini and his doctrines,
and probably regarded him as a nuisance. The practical, capable,
hard-headed man of affairs found no use for the enthusiast and the
agitator, and did not even recognize the great services which the
idealist had rendered in preparing and educating the mind of the
people. Mazzini, on the other hand, suspected Cavour and mistrusted
him, and doggedly refused to abandon his hope of a republican form of
government. He thought a united Italy would succeed best if monarchy
were abolished; and in this belief perhaps he may only have been rather
in advance of his times. All the time he overestimated the strength
of his own following and ignored the true state of affairs. This was
partly due to his enforced exile, which kept him out of contact with
the movements in Italy. With Garibaldi, the great man of action, his
relations were also strained. They never saw eye to eye, and constantly
differed as to the best course to take. Garibaldi believed in the
King. Mazzini could never get over his engrained prejudice against
monarchy. Garibaldi was irritated with Mazzini and called him “the
great doctrinaire.” But although they so often found it impossible to
act together, they became reconciled in the end, and each recognized
the other’s great talents and services.

Mazzini was accused of encouraging political assassination. Many
charges were brought against him which were absolutely false, and he
was wrongly suspected of being at the back of various plots which were
discovered for the assassination of Victor Emmanuel and Louis Napoleon.
He had indeed said that exceptional moments might arise when the
killing of a tyrant might be the only means of putting an end to the
intolerable oppression. In his early days, too, a young man came to him
with a plan for the assassination of the King, Charles Albert. Mazzini,
having failed to dissuade him, helped him on his journey and sent him
a dagger. But in late life he not only vigorously discouraged plots of
this sort, but actually stopped them. It is true, however, that his
attempts to justify violence on certain occasions, and the arguments
he used, came sadly below the noble ideas he held as to the sacredness
of human life.

Napoleon III he hated as much as he did the Austrians. For a moment he
was hopeful, after the French victory of Solferino in 1859, and thought
the Austrian domination of Italy was at an end. But when the peace of
Villafranca came, by which Venetia was abandoned to the enemy, and
Cavour resigned, he voiced the feeling of his country when he denounced
the betrayal and treachery of the French Emperor. He hurried out to
Florence, but the people dreaded any repetition of his unsuccessful
risings, and he found he was powerless. Cavour became chief minister
again, and Garibaldi began to lay his plans for the action which was
to be eventually the determining factor in the liberation of Italy.
Mazzini welcomed Garibaldi’s leadership, and was ready to keep himself
in the background. But his suspicion of Cavour, his want of proper
information, and his occasional untimely interference made him useless
at this period of the struggle. He kept on dividing opinion at a time
when united action was the one obvious means of achieving success.
“Even against your wish you divide us,” said one of Garibaldi’s
followers to him at Naples, where he was trying to make the people
insist on an Italian National Assembly drawing up a new Constitution
under the King. At last, worn out in mind and body, he left Naples
after having a friendly interview with Garibaldi. It was not his
jealousy of successful rivals that made Mazzini so difficult to work
with in these critical times. It was his fear that others could not
carry out the great object in view unless they worked on his lines
and shared his distrust of the rule of kings and the intrigues of
statesmen. He refused to see that the royalists were as seriously bent
on unity as he was himself. He became a broken and disappointed man,
believing he had failed, and despondent as to the future.

Unity was not yet complete: Rome and Venetia were still to be won.
On his return to England in 1860, Mazzini was content to suspend
any open republican agitation, but he kept up a good deal of secret
correspondence. His health began to break down, but his will-power
was still very strong. “It is absurd to be ill,” he said, “while
nations are struggling for liberty.” Victor Emmanuel had some private
communications with him, for, curiously enough, the two men had
a certain fascination for each other. The King shared the great
agitator’s hatred of Austria and his impatient desire to see the
nationalities of Eastern Europe set free. But nothing came of this.
Victor Emmanuel, who was now the figurehead of the whole movement, was
a rough, good-natured, rather stupid man, who by his qualities as a
soldier won the loyalty and devotion of his people. He was essentially
a man of action, and military fame attracted him more than anything
else. When Garibaldi visited England he had an enthusiastic reception
from the public. Mazzini conferred with him, collected money for him,
and went as far as Lugano with the intention of supporting him when the
volunteers crossed from Sicily for the march on Rome. But he went no
further.

There was fighting again in 1866. The Italians were defeated, and
Napoleon III concluded a peace by which the Austrians ceded Venetia
to him, and he handed it over to Italy. This was rather a humiliating
conclusion of this part of the struggle, and Mazzini resented it. In
spite of the failure of so many of his efforts, he appeared to many
of his fellow-countrymen as a distant and rather wonderful figure,
surrounded by an atmosphere of mystery, with the one thought of his
beloved country ever in his mind. Their confidence and respect for him
were shown by the fact that forty thousand people signed the petition
for his amnesty—that is to say, his return to Italy; but when at last
it was granted he refused to take his seat as a deputy in Parliament,
for although he had been duly elected by Messina he would not take the
oath of allegiance to the monarchy.

The republic now came to be a more important object to him than unity.
He plotted and schemed, and went so far as to intrigue with Bismarck
in order to get the help of Germany in what would have been a civil
war. He admired Bismarck’s tremendous determination, and he believed in
German unity, but he added, “I abhor the Empire and the supremacy it
arrogates over Europe.”

Here is a description of the Italian political idealist by one of the
secret committee of Genoa, where each man came to the meeting armed
with a revolver: “A low knock was heard at the door, and there he was
in body and soul, the great Magician, who struck the fancy of the
people like a mythical hero. Our hearts leaped, and we went reverently
to meet that great soul. He advanced with a child’s frank courtesy
and a divine smile, shaking hands like an Englishman and addressing
each one of us by name, as if our names were written on our foreheads.
He was not disguised; he wore cloth shoes and a capote, and with his
middle, upright stature he looked like a philosopher straight from his
study, who never dreamed of troubling any police in the world.”

All his plots broke down, and again he was imprisoned at Palermo. Here
he read a great deal, smoked incessantly bad cigars, and laid the
schemes of fresh books. When Rome was captured he was released. Italian
unity was accomplished, but because Italy was not republican, Mazzini
felt his dream was spoilt.

For the remainder of his days he lived at Pisa. Daily, people saw the
white-haired stranger taking his walks and stopping frequently to talk
to children: and here he died in March, 1872. He was buried by his
mother’s side in Genoa. By a unanimous vote the Italian Parliament
expressed the national sorrow, and the president pronounced a eulogy
on the departed patriot, who had devoted his life to his country’s
freedom.

Mazzini was one of those curious independent men, of passionate
sincerity and tremendous energy, who make things very uncomfortable,
and who will always be detested by those easygoing people who prefer
to accept things as they are so long as their own ease and comfort are
not disturbed. His astonishing talents and qualities were balanced by
great faults, but they were more faults of judgment than of character.
He was very far from perfect. But the perfect man has yet to appear,
and if he does appear he will probably be quite intolerable, because
there is always something in people’s faults which endears them to
us. Mazzini was a lonely figure, courageous, humble, and without
personal ambition. But he could not work successfully with others, for
he would never compromise. He seems to have had peculiar difficulty
in translating his thoughts and ideas into action. In fact, running
through his whole career, there is a strange contradiction between his
lofty ideals, his deep religious beliefs, his noble ambitions, on the
one hand, and his petty intrigues, his futile plots, and his false
estimate of men, on the other hand. Judged by his writings, he would
appear to be a great hero whose moral purpose was an inspiration to the
whole world, but whose talents had never been fully developed, because
they were neglected for other forms of activity. Judged by his actions,
he appears a determined but perpetually misguided agitator, obstinate,
impulsive, and adopting the methods of a conspirator.

He knew the religious spirit must be the foundation of any great
moral movement. But his religion was broad and simple: he thought
the orthodox Christian doctrine had much in it which prevented it
having the power and influence it ought. He had a firm belief in
democracy—that is to say, in the rule of the people as opposed to the
absolute rule of kings and ministers. But he saw that advance in this
direction could only be brought about through education, and that was
why he devoted so much of his time to educating poor people and writing
books for them.

The whole idea of nationality was, in Mazzini’s opinion, based on the
will of the people. It must be remembered that in his day Europe was
divided up, to a large extent, into territories formed by the interests
and ambitions of royal dynasties, or in the name of the absurd
principle known as “the balance of power,” which means the grouping of
two sets of nations in opposition to one another—a policy which has
been the cause of many wars. Nationality, Mazzini maintained, was not
just a question of people of the same race, or people who spoke the
same language, or even people who lived in the same country, having
the right to make themselves into a separate nation. In the case of
Italy, as in the case of Great Britain, the geographical area is so
well defined by Nature, with its seas and mountains, that the problem
presented is quite easy. But there are other territories where neither
geographical formation, nor language, nor race, shows very accurately
what the frontiers of the nation should be. History and tradition may
form some guide, but the needs and wishes of the people concerned
should always be taken into account. “Nationalities,” said Mazzini,
“can be founded only for, and upon, and by the people.”

It was the fundamental truth which he always sought for. He was a
patriot in the best sense of the word. But he hated sentimental
bragging and showy patriotism. A man must not borrow luster from his
country, but give luster to it by service and devotion. Patriotism to
him was an intense regard for his country’s moral greatness. “The honor
of a country,” he declared, “depends much more on removing its faults
than on boasting of its qualities.”

His service to his country is difficult to measure. Although his
practical part in the actual accomplishment of Italian unity cannot
be compared with that of Cavour and Garibaldi, it was his bold vision
which first saw that the object was attained: it was he that gave
others the faith to pursue it: without him the great achievement might
have been long delayed. It was Mazzini who supplied the fuel for the
furnace, the impulse for the blow, and the unselfish motive which alone
could stir his fellow-countrymen to noble deeds.

The services of such a man are seldom recognized at the time. But when
the fight is over and the general survey is made of all the stages
which led ultimately to success, people come to understand the great
value and the enormous influence of the noble ideas which first set the
movement going.

  A. P.



X

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

1805–1879

  My country is the world; my countrymen are all mankind.


William Lloyd Garrison was the man who more than any one else helped
to abolish slavery. He was what we call a Pioneer—or one who leads
the way—because, though some people had hoped for the gradual freedom
of the negroes, and a few had worked for it, Garrison was the first
to ask for their immediate freedom and to set to work to make this
question the most living and important one of the day. For he believed
that if a thing is wrong in itself it should not exist another hour.
Garrison was born at Newburyport, Mass., December 10, 1805. Like
Thoreau and Hans Andersen, he was of humble birth and had a very
hard childhood. His mother had been deserted by his father, and he
was obliged to earn money to help her keep the home together. So as
quite a small boy he went about peddling apples, and later worked at
shoemaking and cabinet-making and other trades; he hated them all,
and on one occasion ran away to sea. There was no time for learning
from books, and he had practically no schooling. But when he was
thirteen he became apprenticed to the printers’ business in the office
of the Newburyport _Herald_, and to this work he took like a duck to
water. He showed peculiar skill at printing, and also a great gift for
writing. He wrote and sent articles to different papers and he read a
great deal. He liked romantic books, the novels of Sir Walter Scott
and the poems of Byron particularly. He wrote poetry himself which is
considered good. His mother had always warned her son against being
an author, as she believed the lot of all literary men was to die of
starvation in a garret. Nevertheless, Garrison seemed cut out for an
editor or writer. He was left alone in the world when he was eighteen,
for his mother died and his only brother, a bad lot, had disappeared.
His apprenticeship with the printer ended when he was twenty-one. At
this time he was a very taking and charming young man, with a refined,
sensitive, clean-shaven face, and always well dressed; pleasant, mildly
ambitious, and social, enjoying parties and going to church regularly,
he conformed outwardly to what the world thinks is the right and proper
thing. But there was more in William Lloyd Garrison than met the eye.
His friends, who had complete trust in him, now lent him money to start
a newspaper of his own. He called it the Newburyport _Free Press_, and
became the editor and proprietor of it, and wrote, too, most of the
articles. But the views in them were much too independent to please
the ordinary person, and it failed.

Garrison had always had a strong tendency to question authority—he was
not going to take anybody’s word for a thing without thinking it all
out for himself—as a boy he had taken up the cause of liberty wherever
it had arisen and had been greatly moved by the struggles of the Greeks
to throw off Turkish tyranny. But now again he was a printer in search
of work, and after hard times he became the editor of a temperance
paper, _The National Philanthropist_, in Boston, and then again the
proprietor of a newspaper called _The Journal of the Times_. Once more
he showed himself to be very much ahead of people in moral matters. In
a number of this paper he wrote a forcible article on a law which had
been passed in one of the States of America against teaching the blacks
to read and write. He said how pitiable it was to seal up the mind and
intellect of man to brutal incapacity.

[Illustration: WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON]

“This state of things,” he declared with vehemence, “must come to
an end.” The article drew the attention to him of a much older
man—Benjamin Lundy—an excellent Quaker who had for some years past been
agitating against slavery, and he now got into touch with Garrison.
Garrison was deeply moved by Lundy’s preaching, and equally disgusted
with the attitude of the clergy, to whom Lundy appealed in vain.

It was almost impossible to get a church or a school for an
anti-slavery meeting, and when they did succeed, on one occasion,
the meeting was broken up by a clergyman who denounced the agitation
against slavery as dangerous. “The moral cowardice, the chilling
apathy, the criminal unbelief and cruel skepticism that were revealed,”
says Garrison on that occasion, “filled me with rage,” and from that
time he ceased to go to church.

Garrison was asked now by Lundy to become editor with him of a paper
called _The Genius of Universal Emancipation_, whose object was to
suppress drink and to free the negro. Garrison joined him. He wrote
most of the articles and Lundy did the lecturing. The articles were
very clear and forcible. “For ourselves,” the paper declared, “we are
resolved to agitate this subject to the utmost; nothing but death shall
prevent us from denouncing a crime which has no parallel in human
depravity.” Garrison worked hard: he got subscribers to the paper
and managed to start a petition against slavery, which was signed by
over two thousand people, and was presented to Congress. The answer
came back that agitation would make the slaves restless and difficult
to manage, and would put ideas into their heads when they might be
comparatively happy and contented.

You can imagine the scorn Garrison felt for his Government. What
else could he feel about a Government which boasted of itself as
a democratic Government, which desired all people to have equal
opportunities, rich or poor, and which, while sitting in the Capitol
could see every day the manacled slave driven past the door to market?
Custom, as it so often does, had blunted the sensibilities of these
Senators: they remained untouched and unmoved. It needed a young,
fresh, open mind like that of Garrison to show them the way. He was
only twenty-six, but he saw clearly what much older men did not see,
that in the long run the moral point of view is the only point of view,
that right or justice is the only thing to work for, and all other
issues are of no account at all. But it does not, perhaps, seem to us
now a very wonderful thing that Garrison should have been so shocked
and horrified at what he saw and heard about slavery. What strikes us
as incredible now is that there were many thousands of people, and
quite humane, kind people too, who defended it. It was the custom of
the country and part of the Constitution. Many people didn’t trouble
to reason about it; indeed, they believed that were slavery abolished
the country would be ruined—they would have no cotton, no corn, no
tobacco, because there would be no laborers to till the soil or to
harvest the crops. The black men and women did the work for nothing.
But so short-sighted and stupid were commercial people generally, that
they could not see that slavery, besides being a moral wrong, was
also a mistake economically. In the long run it was more expensive,
because the work was less well done; an intelligent person who takes
some interest in his work will do it very much better than one hardly
removed from the animals.

One Sunday in Baltimore, Garrison was visited by a slave who had
just been whipped with a cowhide, and whose back was bleeding from
twenty-seven gashes, while his head was terribly bruised. He had not
loaded a wagon to his master’s liking, and this was his punishment.
Garrison could hear as he passed down the street the sound of whips
and cries of agony. There seemed no mercy or justice anywhere, and his
country’s barbarity made Garrison’s cheeks burn with shame.

How did such a state of things arise, one may ask; how did these black
men and women come to be living in such numbers on American soil?
It happened in this way: the English in the past, having conquered
lands in different parts of the world, needed men to work and develop
these lands. They were mostly wild and uncultivated. The British, the
Spaniards, and the Portuguese were chiefly responsible for the slave
trade. Prince Henry the Navigator, a Portuguese, had been the first
to bring negroes into Europe in the fifteenth century, capturing them
on his exploring expeditions round the coast of Africa. Sir John
Hawkins was the first Englishman to engage in the traffic, and in
the seventeenth century the slave trade was mostly in English hands.
England made a very good business of supplying slaves to the Spanish
settlements, and imported also a huge cargo of negroes to Virginia for
tobacco planting, and this was the beginning of slavery in America.

This hunting of human beings to make them slaves was more barbarous
than anything the negroes themselves could have imagined. These
wretched black men, having been captured, their huts destroyed and
whole villages burnt, were placed on ships which brought them to our
colonies, to the West Indies and Jamaica; so packed and overloaded
were these ships and the poor negroes were so ill-treated that many
died on the way; out of a hundred only fifty would be any good for
work. This was one of the prices paid for what is called expansion and
having colonies. When the English came to know the real nature of this
dreadful business, all the best opinion was against it; but the Quakers
were the first to take any practical action against the slave trade,
which they did as early as the seventeenth century, both in America and
England, by turning out of their society all who should be engaged in
it. Gradually the British did away with slavery in their colonies, and
it was finally abolished in 1833, when Lord Grey was Prime Minister;
but the honor of being the first to abolish it lies not with England
but with Denmark, who forbade it in its possessions at the end of the
eighteenth century. Several countries followed the example of England
after she had put down slavery so far as it concerned herself, but the
United States was the last to fall in.

Garrison in his campaign against slavery was not going to tolerate any
half-measures; if a thing was a sin, then it should not exist another
day: it was real anguish to have to think of the sufferings of these
poor people, and he could not rest or be happy for a moment so long
as injustice and such a barbarous state of things existed. Therefore,
the immediate freedom of the negro was the only thing to strive and
live for. Here he and Lundy disagreed—not as to the evil of slavery,
but on the question of the best way to put an end to it. Lundy was not
so extreme as Garrison. His view was that the negro should gradually
be set free and sent to colonize in another country. Garrison asked
for his immediate freedom on American soil. His attitude made the
slave-owners very angry, and also filled them with alarm: they had
heard a good deal of talk about freeing the negro in the future, but
never had the demand been made for his immediate release. So Garrison
now broke his partnership with Lundy and started on his campaign
alone. For a so-called libel on a slave trader he was sent to prison,
and being unable to pay the fine, he was forty-nine days in jail,
until he was released by Arthur Tappan, of New York, a famous Quaker
philanthropist and abolitionist, who paid his fine for him. Garrison
was no martyr, but his anger was aroused against the slave-owners and
he felt more desperately keen about his cause than ever. Once more he
looked to the churches to support him, and again they failed him. In
Boston they closed their doors against him, and it was a society of
free-thinkers who finally gave Garrison a hall to lecture in, and some
who heard him there were moved to join him and assist in his campaign.

Never did a man have more uphill work in trying to move these people
out of their sloth and indifference. He visited all the principal
people in Boston and urged them to think; he implored the clergy to
turn to Christianity and bring it into practice. Coldheartedness and
utter contempt of the negro he met with everywhere. He was disheartened
but undefeated; his hatred of injustice, his loathing of cruelty, his
pity, all these feelings carried him on.

In order to further his views he set up a paper of his own in Boston.
He had no money nor a single subscriber, but he found a sympathetic
partner, and these two printed their own paper, their only helper
being a negro boy. It was called _The Liberator_, and its motto was
“My country is the world; my countrymen are all mankind.” By this he
meant that he worked for the good of the whole world, not only for that
portion of it to which he himself belonged, for only by treating men of
other countries as your friends and brothers will you have progress,
peace, and true prosperity at home.

In the first number of _The Liberator_, Garrison had a manifesto, or
address, to the public, the words of which became the whole spirit of
his life. He declared that he would work for and think of nothing else
but the freedom of the slave, and ended up with the words, “I am in
earnest: I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat
a single inch, and I will be heard.” This address was signed by twelve
men, all poor, but after they had met together one evening for the
purpose of signing the address they stepped out into the starry night
with glad hearts and an object to live for. This address of Garrison’s
lost him many subscribers, because it went too far and was thought too
extreme, but gradually it gained him influence and power. It was the
seed of many anti-slavery societies, and it started other newspapers
working with the same objects. _The Liberator_ was destined to contain
President Lincoln’s declaration of emancipation.

An anti-slavery society had been started in England, supported by the
great and courageous clergyman Wilberforce, who had been for years
working against slavery and had helped to bring it to an end in the
British possessions. Garrison was asked to go over and speak to the
English society, which he did, and was received with great enthusiasm.
The English were very much impressed by Garrison’s sincerity and the
burning enthusiasm that lay under his quiet and modest manner. He was
not the sort of man they imagined an American agitator to be. He was,
of course, very greatly encouraged, but on his return to America hard
times awaited him, because he had stated in England that the United
States was a sham so long as it allowed the present state of things to
exist. A meeting in New York to start an anti-slavery league was broken
up and the hall emptied by a furious mob. Another mob also besieged
and tried to destroy the offices of _The Liberator_ at Boston. There
was great excitement everywhere: Garrison’s work had begun to tell.
Disagreeable though violent opposition is, it is often the first step
toward being heard. Now, Garrison undoubtedly criticized his country;
he found fault with it, and used very strong language about the
slave-owners. The commonly held view is that any criticism of one’s
country is treacherous, mischievous, and unpatriotic, but Garrison said:

  I speak the truth, painful, humiliating, and terrible as it is,
  and because I am bold and faithful to do so, am I to be branded
  as the calumniator and enemy of my country? If to suffer sin upon
  my brother be to hate him in my heart, then to suffer sin upon my
  country would be an evidence not of my love but hatred of her; it is
  because my affection for her is intense and paramount to all selfish
  considerations that I do not parley with her crime. I know that she
  can neither be truly happy nor prosperous while she continues to
  manacle every sixth child born on her soil.

Who, then, one may ask, is the true patriot? He who has before his eyes
a high ideal for his country, who wishes it to be the best, the most
civilized and the most prosperous, its people educated, far-seeing,
and humane; who does not shut his eyes to his country’s faults and to
the mistakes of its governments, but who strives to help as he would
help a friend to remedy his faults—to show people how things might
be better and how to set about improving them? Or is the patriot the
man who in the face of monstrous evils cries “It is God’s will,” or
“My country, right or wrong”? Where should we be now were it not for
the men who obeyed their own consciences rather than the commands
of the State? When we think that burning people at the stake for
their religious beliefs, hanging them for sheep-stealing, putting
women to death for petty thefts, or working small children in mines
were considered right, when we remember that these inhuman laws were
regarded by the patriot of the time as the will of God, and the people
who wished to see them altered as disloyal to their rulers, we may be a
little less bitter against the reformer of the present day: the man who
sees that there are still many unjust laws and conditions even in his
own country, and who has the courage to say so.

Garrison, however, found now enough support to start what was known
as “The American Anti-slavery Society.” He called together a meeting
for the purpose at Philadelphia, when he made a striking declaration
of his beliefs. He spoke the most moving and inspiring words about
the state of the slaves and the rights of liberty. He announced what
their work would be: to organize anti-slavery societies everywhere,
to hold meetings unceasingly, to circulate literature, to spare no
efforts whatever to bring the nation, as he expressed it, “to a speedy
repentance.”

Now began what has been called “the martyr age” in America, and the
most active period of Garrison’s life. He and his followers held
meetings night and day, and mobs of rough and brutal men were sent by
their opponents to break them up. Anti-slavery people were in danger
of their lives; they were mobbed wherever they were known, and their
houses burnt or ruined. Halls where meetings were to be held were
destroyed. A young divinity student was flogged publicly for having
anti-slavery literature in his bag. Another lost his life defending a
friend against the ruffians who attacked him. In the South, men even
suspected of favoring the abolition of slaves were lynched, and judges
were all in favor of slavery, and treated the anti-slavery people as
vagabonds. Garrison on one occasion had his clothes torn off him and
was dragged through the streets with a rope round his body. He was
rescued from a raging crowd by the mayor of the town, who saw no way
of protecting him but by putting him in prison. On the wall of his
cell Garrison wrote: “William L. Garrison was put into this cell on
Wednesday afternoon, October 21, 1835, to save him from the violence
of a respectable and influential mob who sought to destroy him for
preaching the abominable and dangerous doctrine that all men are
created equal and that all oppression is odious in the sight of God.”
A merchant on one occasion spoke in public to the abolitionists. “It
is not a matter of principle with us,” he said; “it is a business
necessity; we cannot afford to let you succeed; we do not mean to allow
you to succeed; we mean to put you down by fair means if we can, by
foul means if we must.” Garrison said that Government and the heads
of commerce were the forces that really kept slavery going; it could
not, he felt, be the will of the people when they began to think and
to understand what the real nature of slavery was. It was the business
of his life to show them, and he devoted all his energies, all his
power of eloquence and persuasion, to move the people, to appeal to
their reason and sense of justice and compassion. He sought to abolish
slavery by moral means alone; he did not attempt political means, such
as asking Congress to use its power. He worked only in the Northern
States, for the South was practically united in its convictions. He
found strong opposition in the North, too, for there were many Northern
people who looked upon the Constitution as sacred, and because the
principle of slavery was incorporated in it, regarded all opposition to
slavery as disloyalty to the State.

Garrison was undoubtedly helped by the Fugitive Slave Law. It is often
the case that things get worse before they get better. This cruel law
was a case in point. It was this: that those slaves who had escaped
from the Southern States and were living in Canada or the North, some
of them well off, useful, and happy, were to be hunted down and brought
back to slavery; those who housed them and helped them in any way
to escape would also be fined or imprisoned. The result of this new
law was to rouse the people’s feeling for liberty and to touch their
hearts. When they saw the wretched fugitives driven along the streets
in chains great feeling was shown. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was inspired
by incidents resulting from the Fugitive Slave Law. Though written
in an old-fashioned way, with a good deal of religious talk, it is a
moving and sincere book, by a writer whose heart was full of pity and
indignation. It touched many hearts, including those of the clergy, and
stirred people to action. It had perhaps more influence than any book
with a purpose that has ever been written.

The people of the North suffered great humiliation at this period,
for nothing could save them from lending their troops and using all
their forces to help in slave catching, for it was the law of their
Constitution. John Brown also, in connection with this law, appeared
rather violently upon the scene. Most people have heard of him; many
have heard of him who do not know anything about W. L. Garrison. He
became a hero and a martyr by being hanged as a rebel, and the song
written about him, “John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave,
but his soul goes marching on,” became a sort of “Marseillaise” of
the North, and has undoubtedly helped to keep his memory alive. John
Brown had been for some time a keen anti-slavery agitator, and when the
Fugitive Slave Law was passed he carried out a scheme of his own for
helping to hide and establish fugitives in a stronghold he had built in
the mountains of Virginia. For an armed raid which he made into that
State with slaves, in which he captured an arsenal, he was brought up
on the charge of high treason and hanged.

Garrison thought John Brown courageous and disinterested, but he also
thought the raid wild and useless; but then Garrison’s views of war and
bloodshed were very different from John Brown’s. One thing he did see
was the wonderful change that thirty years of fighting against slavery
had brought about in the tremendous outburst of sympathy for Brown, for
great indignation was shown and felt at his fate.

Up to this time it would have been almost impossible for a President
to be chosen who was not loyal to slavery. But times had changed,
and Garrison, if he had not been entirely responsible, had been the
principal cause of the change in people’s views; the sympathies of
Lincoln, who was a candidate for the Presidency of the United States,
were known—he was against slavery, and he was elected by the North, for
the hearts of the people had been moved.

Garrison for the first time saw the results of his life’s work, and
it is more than some reformers have done. In the election of Lincoln
as President he could see, though still a long way off, an end to
his labors, to the long and weary battle he had fought. But much
suffering and anguish was to be gone through before anything could
be accomplished. Lincoln was elected by the Northern States, and the
South, furious, declared themselves independent of the Government and
the Union, and forming a Government of their own, called themselves
“The Confederate States of America.” Civil war started, and never
was a war more passionately felt on both sides. It was not a war of
Governments, or a war merely to decide whether the South should be
united to the North, but it involved a living question of right or
wrong between those who believed in slavery and those who did not. The
people knew what they were fighting about, which is more often the case
in civil war than in wars between nations planned by their Governments.
Garrison had been a man of peace. He hated war and preached against it,
yet he saw that the conflict could not be stopped. It had been taken
out of his hands. Slavery must be overthrown, and, hateful though it
was to him, blood, it seemed, must be spilt.

Every American knows the story of that struggle. The war began in 1861
and lasted four years, ending in a victory for the North, though the
South fought desperately and gained much sympathy by their bravery. As
the struggle went on the hatred of slavery grew, and before it ended
many slaves were set free. Various States were asked to free their
slaves, and those who did not were held to be in rebellion against
the State. The total abolition of slavery by an amendment of the
Constitution did not come about till the close of the war in 1865.

Garrison tells of visiting a camp of twelve hundred slaves just
liberated. He called upon them to give cheers for freedom, and to his
astonishment they were silent: the poor things did not know how to
cheer.

It may be asked how Garrison set the slaves free, for he had not the
power to do so. He had done so by preparing the ground, by educating
the people, rousing them from their selfishness and awakening in them
a moral sense. His efforts were rewarded by the election of Lincoln,
who as President had the power to complete and to crown the work that
Garrison had done.

To the truly great man it is the triumph of his cause, and not
personal success, that will make him glad and thankful. Garrison’s
contemporaries fully realized how he had been the chief cause in
bringing about the emancipation of the slaves. Those who have lived
since may have forgotten, and the great figure of Lincoln stands out as
the man who before all others brought an infamous system to an end.

Garrison’s work was done, and he retired into private life. He had
not been spoilt by publicity; he never really cared for a life of
excitement; he was extraordinarily modest and had no personal ambition
at all. Though most of his life he had been abused and slandered, it
had never made him bitter; he remained happy, serene, and good-tempered
in himself, and kept his warm affections to the end of his life. His
domestic life, too, was very happy, and he was devoted to his wife
and children. He died when he was seventy-three, at Boston, quite
peacefully, his wife having died three years before him.

Garrison had his faults, if faults they could be called. He was too
easily taken in—he had perhaps too open a mind, and at one time got
into the hands of some rather shady people, who led him to take up
spiritualism, quack medicines, phrenology, homeopathy, and so on. He
was always hoping that any one of these things might possibly help to
improve the conditions of mankind. But some of his fads, as they were
then called, have become the beliefs of a great many people in the
world. The supporters of _The Liberator_ were annoyed with Garrison for
preaching in his paper against capital punishment, against governments
and the Church, and in favor of votes for women and temperance. They
did not see why they should have to believe in these things because
they believed in the freeing of the negro. But Garrison’s beliefs were
the result of his experience and circumstances. He hated governments
because his Government had built up its Constitution on slavery; he
despised the Church because it upheld the crime of slavery; if it did
not give it active support, it gave it by silence as to its evils,
by tolerating slave-holding by its ministers and members, and by
preventing whenever it could meetings or discussions being held against
it. The Church, Garrison thought, should not be regarded as the Church
of Christ, but as the foe of freedom, humanity, and religion. He hated
Sunday because on that day no abolition meetings could be held—yet,
as we know, he had been a strict church-goer as a young man, and was
always to the end of his life a Christian, longing for men and women
and the Church to turn to true Christianity, apart from its forms and
dogmas.

Garrison had demanded for the negro full citizenship, but he did not
live to see how strong is the prejudice in many places against black
people. He had not to face this problem of race. It was a great step
in the history of civilization to abolish slavery, but it was not the
end of the negro question. Is the black man to have the same rights as
the white man, the same opportunities for education and improvement?
Is there a place for him in this world? Can he make himself useful and
indispensable? If we read the history of the negroes’ struggles to get
education against fearful difficulties and opposition, of how they
endeavored to learn with their clouded, unused minds, and of how they
succeeded in lifting themselves by their own efforts out of ignorance
and degradation, I think we must believe that there is a place for
them, that, given a share in the world’s work and its responsibilities,
they will show themselves worthy of the trust put in them. But the
white man himself must become more enlightened before an answer to
this problem can be found. In the words of a remarkable negro, Booker
Washington, who rose from being a slave to the position of a great
teacher: “You cannot hold a man down in a ditch without stopping down
there with him yourself.”

  D. P.



XI

HENRY THOREAU

1817–1862

  I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.


Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, July 12, 1817,
and lived most of his life in or near his native town. The world, if
you were to ask it who Thoreau was, would probably say “a crank,”
because he did not think and act in quite the same way as other people,
and because he practised what he preached. He never went to church
or voted at elections, or drank wine or smoked tobacco, and he went
to live alone in the woods. He was an author and a naturalist; and,
happily for us, he has been able to reveal through his writings what
sort of man he was.

But people trouble themselves nowadays very little about the quiet,
retiring souls, and so “Walden,” the book Thoreau wrote on his
Experiment—as he called his period of retirement in the woods, is not
so well known as it ought to be; for it seems to stand alone in its
beauty and originality; no other book is like it. As we hurry and
scurry through this mechanical century, we might do well to turn to its
quiet pages, and if we do we may wonder if Thoreau was not the wise one
and we the cranks after all.

Henry Thoreau’s childhood was a calm and happy one. He was brought
up under the best possible conditions for forming a steadfast and
unworldly character. Concord was a large, quiet village of plain white
houses and shady elm-trees—a specially good example of a New England
village community. There were no very rich people and no very poor: the
inhabitants managed all their little affairs for themselves, and were
perfectly capable of so doing. They were shrewd, honest, good people,
and friendly towards one another. They seemed to have few worldly
ambitions and were naturally inclined to be simple and democratic. They
had simple occupations and amusements and did not crave for excitement,
as we do now. Concord produced a very fine race of people and a few
remarkable individuals—Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau himself; there
were others less well known, but equally stalwart in character.
Emerson, the poet and philosopher, no doubt helped his neighbors to
become more cultivated and ideal: he brought them into touch with all
the enlightened thought of that day, for it was the period when Carlyle
and Wordsworth and Coleridge were living in England, and when the
civilized world was beginning to wake up to many problems it had never
thought about before, or had accepted as dispensations of Providence.

[Illustration: H. D. THOREAU, 1861]

In this safe and peaceful atmosphere of good-will and honest endeavor
the Thoreaus lived. They were poor and had no worldly advantages; but
they had what was far better, the position which comes from having
qualities of independence and courage, and they were respected and
looked up to by their neighbors. Henry Thoreau’s father made lead
pencils for a living, and Henry learnt to make them too—very skilfully,
it is said. He had two sisters and a brother, but even as a child Henry
Thoreau showed the most marked character of the lot. He was always
determined to go his own way, and was quite sure of what he liked and
disliked. But he was also very like other children, for when he was
told that he would one day go to heaven, he said he did not want to,
because he would not be allowed to take his sled with him. He had heard
that only very grand things were allowed in heaven, and his sled was
quite common and had been made at home.

Thoreau went to college—to Harvard—like any other young man, and did
nothing very brilliant while he was there; when he left, he took to
teaching and to writing, which was his great talent. He had always
written from quite early days, keeping a diary about all the things he
observed in nature—the tints of morning and evening skies, the songs
of birds, the habits of animals, and the flowering and growth of
plants and trees. He had extraordinary powers of observation and was
a very remarkable naturalist; his understanding of animals was almost
uncanny—they seemed to realize how akin he was to them. Hunted foxes
would come to him for protection, and wild squirrels would nestle in
his coat; he could thrust his hand into a pool and pull out a fish,
which seemed to trust him and show no objection! Thoreau was absolutely
at home in the open air; he could skate and swim and row and sail. He
thought that every boy between the ages of ten and fourteen should
shoulder a gun, but that it should only be wild shooting, limitless,
and not enclosed like the shooting of English noblemen. Fishermen
and hunters, he observed, seemed to get into peculiar touch with
nature in the intervals of their sport. But Thoreau himself gave up
shooting entirely as he grew older, and studied the habits of birds
with a spy-glass; he learnt to remain absolutely motionless, as still
as the wall or ground he rested on. From earliest childhood he made
collections of Indian relics and of turtles and fishes. He liked to
take immense journeys in search of interesting new plants and animals;
once he went three hundred and twenty-five miles in a canoe with an
Indian. He would camp out and be exposed to all weathers; often he was
cold and hungry. A friend describes with a shiver how he slept out with
Thoreau on the bare rocks of a mountain without enough blankets; but
Thoreau, if he loved a thing, could not do it moderately, and, though
he was so hardy, he ended by hurting himself and destroying his health.

From living so much with nature and animals, Thoreau got to look rather
like a “wise wild beast”; this was how his friends described him. His
face was ruddy and weather-beaten and very honest-looking; his nose
was large and somewhat like a beak; his brows overhanging—but every
one agreed that his eyes were the most attractive part of his face.
They were sometimes blue and sometimes gray, and full of kindness and
thought. He hated fine clothes and dressing up, so he always wore
strong things, like corduroy (which no gentleman at that period would
think of wearing), in order that he could make his way through the wood
and climb rocks without tearing anything. His sisters and relations
said he was simply delightful at home. He was a sort of household
treasure, because he was always kind and useful and obliging. He would
grow melons and plant the orchard, act as a mechanic—in fact, he was
clever at any odd job with his hands—and he would attend to the animals
and flowers. He was happy with children, and invented all sorts of
games to amuse them and himself. He had no false pride, and was not
ashamed to be seen in an old coat whitewashing the house or mending the
gates. He was a great traveler in a small circle, but he never until
the year before he died saw Niagara, or ever crossed the ocean. “I have
a real genius for staying at home,” he said.

When he was twenty-five, Thoreau went to live with Emerson and a circle
of friends on a farm near his own village of Concord. Emerson being
older than Thoreau, was regarded by him as his teacher. There is no
doubt that Emerson had a good deal of influence over the younger man
and they thought alike about many things; but they were very different
in temperament. Emerson was perhaps the more human, and he certainly
had more personal charm, but Thoreau was the more original of the two.
Emerson persuaded his young friend to join a sect of people formed
with the object of improving the outlook of mankind; they wished to
simplify living and to combine leisure for study with manual labor.
Every member of the community had to do his or her share of the work
to keep the house and farm going. They would plow, milk, make hay,
cultivate the garden, and the women would wash up the dishes in the
intervals of discussing how best to equalize the lots of rich and
poor, how to simplify education so that every one might be educated,
and how to destroy class differences. They were more like anarchists
than socialists, because they did not believe in governments and had
nothing to do with politics. Hawthorne, one of the members of this
Brook Farm society, wrote a novel about them which gives a very vivid
picture of their lives. They were not, except for a few members,
particularly brilliant people, and their society cannot be called very
successful if it is judged by renown, or by the amount of attention
it got from fashionable people. This may have been because it avoided
eccentricities and had very few rules—no sect could have had less—and
indeed they were particularly keen on not interfering with a person’s
liberty or private life. Idealism and Economy were the two principal
articles of their faith. They were kind, simple, hopeful people, and
were known as the Transcendentalists.

Thoreau lived with them for three years. The digging and outdoor work
were easy congenial tasks to him, but Emerson, on the contrary, found
that digging interfered with his writing, and after he left the sect he
never again attempted to combine the two.

Thoreau was twenty-eight when he decided to go away and live by
himself. It was not a sudden wish, for he had been thinking of it for
some years. It was not because he was a hater of men that he wanted to
get away, but he wished to find the answer to certain questions which
had been bothering him. He was anxious to find out what real life could
teach him, stripped of all its stupid complications and conventions. He
wished also to study and to satisfy himself that he could be an author,
and he went, too, because he hoped to draw strength and purpose from
his experiment.

At this period he possessed only twenty-five dollars of his own, and
one day in March he borrowed an axe and went into the woods which lay
all around his village, and there, on the side of a thickly wooded
hill, he found the perfect spot on which to build his house. At once
he began to cut down the tall, straight pines with which the hill was
covered to make a clearing, and with the purpose of using the pines as
timber for his hut. He chose the spot specially for the view it had
of the pond or lake beneath. Thoreau says a lake is a most beautiful
and expressive feature in a landscape, and he likens it to the earth’s
eye. It was called Walden, and from all the descriptions we read of
it, it was a particularly beautiful pond, remarkable for its depth
and its clearness, like a deep green well. Many people thought it was
bottomless, and it was more than a mile long, the hills encircling it
and rising steeply out of it on all sides. These days in which Thoreau
worked, cutting and hewing wood, were pleasant spring days, and we can
imagine how happy he was at his labors in the open air. He felt, he
said, like a bird building its nest, and wondered if men, were they
always to build their own homes, would become more poetical and sing as
they worked.

By July his house was ready to live in, though he had not yet built
his chimney—he liked in summer-time to do his cooking out of doors. He
left till later also the plastering of his hut, so that the cool air
blew through the chinks between the logs, which was very delicious in
summer-time. From the door of his hut a little pathway ran straight
down to the pond, and behind it he had made a clearing of some acres
where he might grow his corn and vegetables. In his book “Walden”
Thoreau describes how he spent his day during that first year. He would
rise very early in the morning in summer-time and take his bath in the
pond, and before the sun was high and the dew lay on everything he
would attend to the bean-field he loved so much and hoe between the
long green rows. After this he would do his housework, which he called
a pleasant pastime. He had only a bed, a table, a desk, three chairs,
a looking-glass (three inches across), a pair of tongs and andirons, a
kettle, a frying-pan, a wash-bowl, one or two jugs, one cup, and a lamp.

When his floor was dirty, he merely set all his furniture out of doors
on the grass, dashed water on the floor of his hut and sprinkled it
with white sand, and then with a broom swept it clean. By the time
other people were just getting up his house was dry again and his work
finished.

The first year at Walden he worked a great deal in his garden. Then he
had his cooking to do, and he studied very carefully the art of making
bread, baking it at first out of doors on the end of a stick of timber
over an open fire. He made experiments and discoveries with foods,
cooking odd wild plants and weeds. He proved that a man in that land
could support himself on what he grew. He could, for instance, grow his
own rye and Indian corn and grind them in a hand-mill, and sugar he
could extract from beet and pumpkins or from maples, which abound in
that country. You could avoid, he said, going to any shops at all, and
he was sure that to maintain yourself on the earth simply and wisely
was not a hardship at all, but a pleasure.

Sometimes during this first year Thoreau did nothing at all but sit
in his doorway dreaming, quite undisturbed and in silence, except for
the flittering and twittering of birds. He would not realize how the
time had flown until he saw the sunlight lighting up his west window,
or heard the sound of some horse and wagon in the distance going home
to rest. He did not feel this to be a waste of time, for he seemed, he
said, to grow under these conditions like the corn in the night.

Not very far from where he lived was a railway line, and a train would
pass at certain intervals. In spite of his love of solitude Thoreau
liked the sound of it, and the whistle of the engine he likened to
the cry of a hawk. He would listen to the passage of the moving train
with the same feeling he had about the rising sun. It was so punctual
and regular, and when the train had passed with its clang and clatter
Thoreau felt more alone than ever, for it had made him feel the
peacefulness and contrast of his own solitary yet not lonely life. On
Sundays he would listen to the bells of distant towns, when the wind
was in the right direction—the sounds would come floating faint and
sweet over the trees, as if it were the music of the woods: so Thoreau
describes it.

In the warm summer evenings he would spend a good deal of time in his
boat, playing the flute and watching the fish. He would make echoes
by smacking the water with his paddle till every corner of the wooded
hills cried and answered him. Sometimes he would fish at midnight to
get something for his next day’s dinner, and he would listen to the
owls he loved so much, and to the foxes crying, or to the call of some
mysterious night-birds; and the fish he describes as dimpling the
moonlit surface of the water with their tails.

His days passed probably very quickly—if you are contented and happy
the day is all too short. Thoreau said he hadn’t got to look for
amusement anywhere, as his life had become his amusement, it was so
real and full of interest. But he did not cut himself off from people
altogether. Sometimes he would go to the village to hear some talk.
He usually went in the evening, and he liked to stay very late there,
especially when it was dark and stormy, because it was so pleasant to
leave some bright, warm village room and to go out into the black night
to find his harbor in the woods. He did not mind how wild the weather
was—in fact, he preferred it wild and often faced severe storms. Those
who have never been in the woods by night have no idea how dark they
can be. They would frighten and bewilder most people, but not Thoreau.
He would feel his way with his feet on the faint track he had worn, or
he would steer with his hands, feeling particular trees and passing
between two pines, perhaps not more than eighteen inches apart; or he
might sometimes guess his whereabouts by seeing a piece of light above
him—a glimpse of the sky through a well-remembered break in the trees.
One can understand the satisfactory and joyful feeling of reaching at
last the little hut, always unlocked and open to any traveler who cared
to enter. When Thoreau went away for a time he left it thus, hoping
that some wayfarer might care to enter, to sit in his chair and read
the few books which lay on his table.

In October, Thoreau collected his stores for the winter. He would go
a-graping, but this, he says, more for the beauty of the grapes than
for any nourishment they gave him, and he would get wild apples and
store them, and principally he would make expeditions to the chestnut
woods, to get chestnuts, which are a good substitute for bread. He
would have a sack on his back and a stick in his hand with which to
open the prickly burrs, and as he gathered them up the squirrels and
jays called angrily to him for taking any of their food. Thoreau also
discovered, while digging the ground near, a sort of potato used by
the first peoples who lived in America; it had a sweetish taste like a
frostbitten potato.

When visitors called on Thoreau, which they did sometimes, he
describes the manner in which, if he were out, they would leave their
cards—either a bunch of flowers, a wreath of evergreen, or a name in
pencil on a yellow leaf or chip. If he had friends in summer days he
took them into his best room, or drawing-room, which was the pine wood
behind his house. Travelers did sometimes come out of their way to see
Thoreau, having heard of the strange man living in the woods, and they
were curious to see him and the inside of his hut. They would make an
excuse for calling by asking for a glass of water, and Thoreau would
direct them to the pond, where he always drank himself, and hand them a
cup. It interested him to observe the effect the woods and solitude had
on people. Girls and boys and young women, he said, seemed very happy
to be there, but men, even farmers, thought only of the loneliness and
how far it was from somewhere, adding that of course they enjoyed a
ramble in the woods.

In November of the first year he was at Walden, Thoreau built his
chimney, having studied masonry, and he lingered about the fire-place
of his house, as being, he says, the most important part of a house.
Then he plastered the hut in freezing weather, fetching the sand for
the purpose from the shore below. Then, he says, “I began to use it for
warmth as well as shelter.” When he had finished this work the pond
was frozen and snow covered the ground. Thoreau, happy and serene,
retired still further into his shell, keeping a bright fire in his
house and within his breast. All this time he wrote a good deal, and
his employment out of doors was to collect dead wood and to drag it
into his shed. He loved his woodpile, and would build it where he could
see it in front of his window. For many weeks in the snow Thoreau would
spend cheerful evenings by his fireside, and no visitors would come to
the woods—only woodmen came occasionally to cut and take wood on sleds
back to the village. But no weather interfered with Thoreau’s walks. He
managed to make a little pathway by always treading on the same track,
and he would go thus in deepest snow to keep, as he expressed it, an
appointment with an old beech-tree or a birch, or an old friend among
the pines. His descriptions of winter in the woods are perhaps more
fascinating and romantic than any other part of his “Walden,” and he
tells of the wonders of the coming spring, the gradual melting of the
ice, the longer days, the note of some arriving bird.

His second year at Walden was, he said, the same as the first, and when
he left it in September he had lived there rather over two years. He
left, he said, for as good a reason as he entered it. He does not tell
the reason, but it was an unselfish one. His father had died, and his
relations needed some one to work for them and to make a little money;
so, much as he hated it, as we know he must have done, he returned to
the world to make pencils and to write and to lecture till the end of
his life.

When Thoreau emerged from his seclusion, you can imagine the questions
he was asked by curious people who wanted to know all about it. Why
did he do it; wasn’t he lonely; what did he do with himself; what did
he eat? So he decided to publish an account of his experiment, filling
out the diary he had written daily at Walden, and giving his reasons
for his retirement and the conclusions he had formed about life and
the world through his experiment. He learned, he tells us, that if you
have a dream or some sort of idea of what a perfect life should be, or
anyhow the life that appears to you to be the most lovely, the most
useful, or the most satisfactory, you should advance quite confidently
in that direction—that is to say, in the direction of your dreams; and
that if you do this you will meet with a great deal of success. Also,
that in proportion as you simplify your life the world will appear
less complicated, you will be less poor and less lonely; the simple
natural things will never fail to interest you, your requirements will
be few, and your life full of enjoyment. Instead of three meals a day,
eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce everything
in proportion. Life, says Thoreau, is simply frittered away by detail.
And about clothes—Thoreau describes how he asked his acquaintances if
they would appear with a neat patch on their trousers, and most of them
thought they would be disgraced for life. Apparently, Thoreau says,
they would rather have a broken leg than a trouser with a rent in it.
It is certain that a man’s clothes are more important to some people
than the man himself, and all these things, to one who lives a natural
life, appear almost too absurd to be tolerated; and Thoreau, I think,
did a useful work in drawing attention to these fallacies, which we are
all inclined to take as a matter of course.

But Thoreau, because he went into the woods to live alone, did not
wish every one to do so; indeed, he thought there should be as many
different kinds of people in the world as possible. What he wanted
people to do was to find out for themselves the best thing for
themselves, and not necessarily to follow in the footsteps of their
fathers and mothers and friends, to be Republicans because these were
Republicans or Democrats because they were Democrats, to think as they
did and to live as they did without giving any thought at all to it.
He wanted people to have the courage to experiment and to take risks.
But he did not wish to make rules for strong, courageous natures, nor
did he wish to alter the way of living of those who found encouragement
and happiness in their present manner of life. He did not speak at all
to those who were well employed, but he did want to help people who
complained, who were discontented and saw life as a desert, dull and
joyless and without hope. He had in his head chiefly what he calls
“that seemingly wealthy but most terribly impoverished class of all,”
the people who have accumulated money and property and so have forged
their own gold and silver fetters. He was tremendously scornful about
the rich, and perhaps not pitiful enough. On the other hand, everything
he has said against the possession of money and the futility of luxury
is so perfectly reasonable and true and without any exaggeration, that
no arguments can really be found to meet him. A good many of us admit
that riches do not bring happiness, and that they undoubtedly increase
our responsibilities and make us less free, but we all fail to act up
to our beliefs, and continue to wish for more money in order to have a
larger house, more servants, more clothes—and thus, as Thoreau says,
we become “the tools of our tools” and the slaves of our own helpers
and servants; in fact, these things are a hindrance to our development.
“Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required
to buy one necessary of the soul.” This is one of Thoreau’s maxims.
It was certainly easier for Thoreau than for some to live a perfectly
natural life in the woods. He had not been brought up in luxury.
What he named luxuries we most of us call comforts. He was frugal by
training as well as by inclination. Therefore in criticizing as he
did the life that is led by most people in the world he was not very
generous, because he had never felt their temptations. He was, some
have thought, hardly human. In fact, he had very few weaknesses,
and to be almost perfect is not a very attractive quality. We like
to find imperfections in people and faults like our own. Thoreau was
very little troubled by indecisions or doubts as to whether a thing
was right or wrong for himself. He was quite sure of what he wanted;
he went to look for it, and he found it. He was determined to improve
himself, to be good and to be happy, and he succeeded. Even when he was
dying of consumption he said in a letter he was enjoying existence as
much as ever. When he believed in things he believed in them wholly,
and principally he believed in the invigorating power of nature.
He loved books; he loved writing and wood-cutting and walks in the
country. He has written a delightful essay on walking, and has told us
that he wrote in proportion to his rambles—if he was shut up indoors
he could not write at all. He liked, too, association with simple,
genuine people who were spending their lives in the open—fishermen,
woodmen, and sometimes farmers—so that it cannot be said that he was
a misanthropist—one who hates his fellow-creatures; if they were real
and natural he enjoyed them and cared for them, but he had not got
to depend on human beings for his entertainment. His interests and
resources lay within himself, and he could always fall back on nature.
“You may,” he says, “have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours even
in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the
almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode. The snow melts
before its door as early in the spring.”

Thoreau’s enjoyment was calm and level. From his writings we do not
gather that he was ever desperately unhappy, unless it was perhaps in
a crowded street or in a luxurious drawing-room. He did mind very much
the struggle and bustle, the ugliness of city life and all it stands
for. It had a bad, cramping effect upon him, and he shunned it. Once
back again in his woods and fields, his whole nature expanded. On
cheerless, bleak days, when he was out of doors and the villagers would
be thinking of their inn, he would, he says, come to himself and feel
himself to be part of it all. “This cold and solitude are friends of
mine.” In the country and alone he would see things as they are, “grand
and beautiful,” and forget “all trivial men and things.” The stillness
and solitude inspired him. His brain and mind worked and his nerves
were steadied.

To some, Thoreau appeared to have a cold personality. One man said of
him he would as soon think of taking his arm as taking the arm of an
elm-tree. “You could not,” said Carlyle, “nestle up to him.” There are
others who put a man down as a coward if he runs away from the world as
it is, and does not face it and make the best of it. On this question
there must always be a good deal of dispute, but it is really rather an
absurd thing to argue about, because we are all made so differently.
What is one man’s meat is another man’s poison. One person may not
physically be able to stand a certain climate, but finds another to
suit him, and so, as regards a man’s nature, he must discover how he
may make the best of himself in order to develop his character and
disposition. Thoreau’s argument was that if you cannot put a great
proportion of your powers and enthusiasm into what you are doing, it
is not of much use to yourself or mankind. He valued a man’s work in
proportion to how much it enlarged and improved his soul.

To those who remain to fight in the hurly-burly while saying they
dislike it, it probably has some bracing quality of which they are
conscious, but Thoreau, as we have seen, felt himself in the streets
to be “cheap and mean.” So he helped in his own way. To have forced
him to sit on an office stool or to have a regular profession would
have been a crime. If he had been more conventional and less peculiar,
“Walden” would never have been written. Besides, he saw for what futile
and ignoble reasons men chose their professions; sometimes not even
because they had to make a living or to keep a wife and children, but
for the sake of having expensive cigars and wines, a man-servant or a
large house; and for these things, he observed, people will toil and
make others toil at some stupid or sordid work, leaving themselves no
time for thought, for true friendship, or for the enjoyment of books or
nature or any real things. “There is no more fatal blunderer,” says
Thoreau, “than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his
living.” He calculated for himself that six weeks’ work would bring
him in all the money he required to live. So that the whole of his
winter and most of his summer would be free for study and enjoyment of
country life. But it must not be thought that Thoreau was lazy or had
never worked himself. In early days he had perfected himself in the
craft of pencil-making and surveying. He had also worked very hard at
his writing. He had learned industry, and in everything that he did he
showed a peculiar thoroughness and skill.

If we want to find fault with Thoreau, it must be that he was perhaps
too bent on improving himself. Thoreau and Emerson both believed very
strongly in the importance of making oneself more interesting. Thoreau
had a corresponding horror of consciously _doing good_ to people, and
of philanthropy generally. “Philanthropy,” he says, “is almost the
only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind”; and again,
“If you give money spend yourself with it. Do not merely abandon it to
them” (the poor).

There are those who accuse Thoreau of being odd on purpose, and speak
of his writing as paradoxical. It is much more likely that we who are
doing and thinking exactly like our neighbors, without thinking if it
is a good thing in itself, are the odd ones, or rather the lazy ones,
because we cannot be bothered to disagree, to incur the disapproval
of our friends, or to have them laughing at us. Emerson said that in
life you must choose between Truth and Repose. By repose he means that
you swallow your convictions for the sake of a quiet life—that you act
always with the majority, or largest number of people, and shout with
the biggest crowd. It is very comfortable to have people agreeing with
you, and to live at ease and in accord with your neighbors, but to do
this you must make up your mind to think very little and never to have
a cause too much at heart, or you will be sure to offend somebody.
You must shut your eyes to the horrors of war, of poverty, of hungry
children, and say it is no use bothering or criticizing, as these
things cannot be remedied. The man who says they can be remedied is
often looked upon with suspicion or contempt, and even anger. All the
greatest men and women have given their allegiance to truth, as we know
by reading history. Thoreau was one of these. He lived at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, when people were no longer sent to the
stake for holding independent views, but they were made, as they still
are now, to suffer all the same. Thoreau, like Garrison and Tolstoy
and others of our heroes, thought that conscience should be above the
State, and that men should be men first and subjects afterwards. But he
was much more consistent than most people. He put himself to a great
deal of trouble to carry out his principles. It was not enough for him
to preach against the things he disapproved of—he lived and acted his
disapproval. He pleaded in public for John Brown when he was condemned
to death, and went to prison for a night for refusing to pay a tax in
support of what he considered an unjust war. He did not enjoy this; it
was a trouble and a bother, but Thoreau did what he thought right.

His was a pure and courageous spirit; he never said a thing for the
sake of pleasing, and he saw with a clear, unprejudiced eye the
futility, the stupidity, the waste of energy, and the sadness of much
we have come to look upon as part of existence itself. But Thoreau was
always, to the end of his rather short life, full of hope and trust. He
would set about improving things by improving himself. His greatness
lay in his originality and independence of character. He thrashed out
questions for himself, and threw a fresh and illuminating light on
them. He was a rebel in his quiet way, as Garibaldi or Cromwell were
rebels on the field of battle.



XII

TOLSTOY

1828–1910

  The true life is the common life of all—not the life of the one. All
  must labor for the life of others.


Tolstoy, one of the greatest novelists and the greatest thinkers of the
nineteenth century, was a Russian.

His father, Count Nicholas Tolstoy, and his mother, Princess Marie
Volkonsky, were both aristocrats, whose ancestors had been well known
and important people for some generations.

Yasnaya Polyana (which means “Bright Glade”), where Leo Tolstoy was
born, belonged to his mother. It was a very pretty place, and consisted
of a large wooden house surrounded by woods and avenues of lime-trees,
and with a river and four lakes and a lot of property belonging to it.

Tolstoy’s mother died when he was a year and a half old, so he could
not remember her; but all he heard about her made him love her memory.
He tells us that she appeared to him as “a creature so elevated,
fine, and spiritual,” that often, during his struggles to be good and
overcome temptation, he prayed to her soul to help him, and that such
prayer always did. She seems to have been a gifted and delightful
woman, speaking five languages and playing the piano exceptionally
well. She had a gift for telling stories too. At balls, it is said, her
young girl-friends would leave the dance and gather together in a dark
room to hear her tell a story, for the Princess had to have the room
darkened or she felt shy.

Tolstoy’s mother was hot-tempered, yet self-controlled. She was
generous and hardly ever condemned anybody, and she was very truthful.
Her son Leo inherited many of her qualities.

Tolstoy lost his father when he was nine years old, but he remembered
him quite well, and writes of him as a good, conscientious man, who
spent his life looking after his estate, not very cleverly, but who
was especially humane and kind for those days, as he never beat his
serfs and was considered lacking in firmness. He was, however, an
independent-minded man, who refused to bow down before the will of
the Russian Government: indeed, he refused always to serve under it.
Tolstoy had a great love and admiration for his father, but nothing
like the feeling he had for the memory of his mother.

[Illustration: TOLSTOY IN 1906

From Aylmer Maude’s “Life of Tolstoy”]

Tolstoy and his three brothers and a sister were brought up at Yasnaya
Polyana by a distant relative, whom they called Aunt Tatiana. She was
rather a remarkable character, and Leo was devoted to her. He tells
us she greatly helped to form his character. Writing about her,
he says: “Aunt Tatiana had the greatest influence on my life. From
earliest childhood she taught me the spiritual delight of love. She
taught me this joy not by words, but by her whole being she filled me
with love. I saw, _I felt_ how she enjoyed loving, and I understood
the joy of love. This was the first thing. Secondly, she taught me the
delights of an unhurried, quiet life.”

His aunt used to welcome all sorts of pilgrims to Yasnaya, beggars and
monks and nuns, people despised by the rest of the world, so that Leo
was brought up in a strange, almost mediæval atmosphere—an atmosphere
that was religious, poetical, simple, and very far from worldly. We
find Tolstoy after a long life of varied experiences returning again
to the habits and beliefs of his youth, and to a life of humility and
simple living.

Tolstoy had the greatest admiration for his eldest brother Nicholas,
who, he always said, was a much greater man than himself; but Nicholas
died before he had time to show what he was capable of. This brother
invented a game called “Ant Brothers.” He told Leo and his two
brothers of six and seven that he possessed a secret and, when it was
known, all men would become happy; there would be no more disease, no
trouble, and no one would be angry with any one else; all would love
one another and become “ant brothers.” The game consisted of sitting
under chairs surrounded by boxes, screening themselves from view with
handkerchiefs, and cuddling against one another in the dark. Tolstoy
says: “The ‘ant brotherhood’ was revealed to us, but not the chief
secret: the way for all men to cease suffering any misfortune, to leave
off quarreling and being angry, and become continuously happy: this
secret Nicholas said he had written on a green stick and buried by the
road at the edge of a certain ravine, at which spot (since my body must
be buried somewhere) I have asked to be buried in memory of Nicholas.”

Writing when he was over seventy, Tolstoy says: “The ideal of ant
brothers lovingly clinging to one another, though not under two
armchairs curtained by handkerchiefs, but of all mankind under the wide
dome of heaven, has remained the same for me. As I then believed that
there existed a little green stick, whereon was written the message
which could destroy all evil in men and give them universal welfare, so
I now believe that such truth exists, and will be revealed to men and
will give them all it promises.”

Tolstoy’s early childhood was on the whole very happy, in spite of
his far-seeing, sensitive, and rather morbid nature. At times he was
certainly very miserable, but, on the other hand, he had an immense
power of enjoyment, and loved games and horses and dogs and the country
itself, and his affections were very strong.

One of the things that worried him as a child was his own looks; he
thought himself so plain. He says in his autobiographical novel
“Childhood”: “I imagined there could be no happiness on earth for a
man with so broad a nose, such thick lips, and such small gray eyes as
mine. I asked God to perform a miracle and change me into a handsome
boy....” He tried to improve his appearance by clipping his eyebrows,
with most disastrous results, as of course he was uglier and unhappier
than ever.

Tolstoy showed no particular talent for anything as a child, though he
was very original, and quite determined not to do things like other
people. When he came into the drawing-room, for instance, he insisted
upon bowing to people backwards, bending his head the wrong way, and
saluting each person thus in turn. He was not good at his lessons,
and mentions somewhere that a student who came to teach him and his
brothers said about them: “Serge both wishes and can, Dmitry wishes
but can’t (This was not true), and Leo neither wishes nor can (This I
think was perfectly true).” This was characteristic of Tolstoy, who
was always hard on himself. But if the tutor lived to see what Tolstoy
became, he must have been rather ashamed of his lack of perception.

Before Tolstoy was sixteen he entered a university with his brothers.
There was no doubt that, like many other young people, he hated study,
though he worked hard and passed well in languages. In history and
geography he failed, and being asked to name the French seaports,
he could not remember a single one. He left the university rather
disgusted with himself and despising intellectual things. His
companions had not really understood him, for he was a strange mixture.
Sometimes he was very proud and aristocratic, yet with advanced Liberal
views; and he was moody, at one moment wildly gay, at another sunk in
gloom. He always looked upon the worst side of himself, and wrote in
his diary that he was awkward, uncleanly, irritable, a bore to others,
ignorant, intolerant, and shamefaced as a child: there was no end to
the names he called himself. He admits that he is honest and that he
loves goodness, but on the whole he is very unfair to himself, for the
reason that he had set up such a high ideal to live up to.

Now he intended, though only nineteen, to devote himself to his
peasants. He went back to his property with great zeal for reform. He
knew of the sufferings of the serfs, the famines and revolts. For a
time he worked among them and learned to know all about their lives.
But he was too young, and lacked patience at present to do much good.
After six months, rather discouraged and disappointed, he was off on
a different experience. He made his home now at St. Petersburg, where
he was most frivolous and idle. He understood quite well what a stupid
life he was leading, and in a religious book he wrote in after years,
called “My Confession,” he says that though he honestly desired to
be good, he stood alone in his search after goodness. Every time he
expressed the longings of his heart for a virtuous life, he met with
contempt and mocking laughter, but every time he was frivolous or
wicked, he was praised and encouraged.

Yet on the whole this gay life at St. Petersburg was not altogether
useless. It taught him something, and he was not really spoilt by it.
He was big enough and intelligent enough to see the utter futility
and uselessness of such a life. It gave him, he says, a scorn for
aristocracy and the life of rich people generally, whose whole
existence was “a mania of selfishness.”

Tolstoy’s favorite brother Nicholas, who was serving in the Russian
army, saw what an unsatisfactory state his brother was in, and so
persuaded Leo to become a soldier and join him in the Caucasus. This
Leo was only too glad to do. He says in a letter at that time, “God
willing, I will amend and become a steady man at last.”

Now, the open-air, primitive life in this part of Russia quite restored
Tolstoy to himself, and he began to write. His first book, “Childhood,”
was written and published while he was there. This novel, though not
strictly speaking a history of his own childhood, is mostly about his
own youthful life; the incidents that occur in it are many of them
true, and the characters are taken from friends and relatives. It is
a very wonderful book, as showing how vividly Tolstoy remembered his
own feelings as a child, how intensely he must have felt and suffered,
and what his powers of thought and observation must have been. He
continued this book, and brought out later other volumes entitled
“Boyhood” and “Youth.” They are all three full of beautiful things.
Tolstoy also wrote about the Caucasus, a novel called “The Cossacks,”
a romantic story of the strange, wild people who inhabit this part of
Russia.

At the time of the Crimean War, Tolstoy experienced as a soldier the
horrors of battle. He was at the siege of Sebastopol, and wrote the
book of that name. It made a great sensation when it came out, soon
after the war was over. Its profound understanding of the feelings of
men who were constantly facing death and danger, and of those who were
dying, made a deep impression on people.

Tolstoy, from seeing war, formed his very strong opinions against it.
He became from that time one of the most passionate apostles of peace.
He saw how much that is splendid is sometimes brought out in people who
face the terrors of war, but, on the other hand, he saw its fearful
uselessness, the waste of noble human beings, the suffering it causes
everywhere, and the destruction, in some, of all human feeling. “It is
not suffering and death that are terrible,” says Tolstoy, “but that
which allows people to inflict suffering and death.”

Tolstoy after Sebastopol left the army and went back to St. Petersburg,
this time to live in a literary circle, where he was welcomed by
distinguished authors as the most promising writer of the day.
Nobody, after reading “Childhood” or “Sebastopol,” could fail to see
Tolstoy’s marvelous genius for seeing things as they are, and his
gift of expression. But he grew impatient in this circle, for his
views were too advanced and his love of truth too strong. He could not
agree with people, and he could not pretend to agree with them. So he
was thought quarrelsome and conceited, and his opinions absurd. He
was always questioning things, such as the meaning of existence, and
whether he himself was of any use; he would take nothing as a matter
of course. Already, before he was twenty-seven, he had conceived the
great idea of devoting his life to founding a new Religion—the Religion
of Christianity, in fact, but cleansed of all its dogmas, which have
nothing to do with Christianity: a practical religion, giving happiness
on earth, not merely the promise of future happiness.

And another great question absorbed him, the question of emancipating
the serfs. Peasants who worked on the land in Russia were held much
as slaves, and were the absolute property of their masters, forced to
work for them so many days a week before they might do any work for
themselves. Tolstoy violently took the side of the peasants in all that
concerned them, and his purpose in life was more or less fixed from
this time onward. Like our other great man of noble birth, William of
Orange, who worked on the side of the people, he was determined to
leave no stone unturned until the conditions of the poor had been
improved and justice done them.

Now, in order to learn more of the habits and customs of other
countries, and principally their systems of education, Tolstoy went
abroad and visited France, Germany, and England. Then, returning to his
home, he settled down as a land-owner and managed his own estates.

In 1861 the serfs were liberated by the Czar Alexander II.

Tolstoy, with characteristic energy and enthusiasm, flung himself into
the work of dividing out lands between nobles and peasants. He acted as
a judge in his own district, and annoyed his aristocratic neighbors by
being fair to the poor: he had seen too often how they had been cheated
out of their rights.

It was difficult, rather discouraging work, because years of oppression
had made the peasants suspicious and grasping, and Tolstoy’s task was
to try to remove this distrust. He became more and more socialistic,
and his literary friends were very much disappointed in him, for he
seemed to be giving up his writing. One wrote: “Tolstoy has grown a
long beard, leaves his hair to fall in curls over his ears, holds
newspapers in detestation, and has no soul for anything but his
property.”

Tolstoy had also started on another enterprise. This was a school after
his own theories at Yasnaya and a monthly magazine which he printed and
edited, all about his views on education. He saw how most learning
is mechanical, and how a child does not learn because he wants to,
but in order not to be punished, or to earn a prize, or to be better
than others, but very seldom from a real desire to know. This Tolstoy
considered was because the child was so drilled and made to behave
unnaturally, and to have a different manner in school than he had out.
He was not free, and only when a child was free and natural and lively,
and allowed to ask questions and to laugh and talk, could he learn
with pleasure and therefore thoroughly. In Tolstoy’s school there was
no order as we know it: children sat on the floor or bunches of them
in an arm-chair; they did just as they pleased, and ran about from
place to place. They answered questions, not in turn but all together,
interrupting one another or helping one another to remember. If one
child left out a bit of story that he had to tell, another jumped up
and put it in.

Tolstoy encouraged the children not to repeat literally what they
had heard, but to tell “out of your own head.” As there were very
few reading books for young children, Tolstoy wrote stories for them
himself, which, as they have been translated into English, we are able
to read ourselves and to judge how they must have delighted his small
pupils. He also read to them and explained to them Bible stories, of
which he was very fond.

There was no doubt that Tolstoy had a gift for teaching and interested
the children as no ordinary teacher could. His methods are not for
every one.

Tolstoy’s classes came to an end after two years, because he was
interfered with by the Government; but he revived them at intervals
during his life, and there is no doubt that his views on education
helped to make teaching in Russia more reasonable and natural, and put
fresh ideas about it into people’s heads.

Tolstoy’s only companion at this time was his aunt Tatiana, but in
1862, when he was thirty-four, he married Miss Sophia Behrs, who was
only eighteen. He had known her as a little girl.

Tolstoy now settled down to a very happy life—the life, indeed, which
had been his ideal, and which he had described as such in a letter to
his aunt, when quite a young man. He pictures himself living with his
wife at Yasnaya—

  A gentle creature, kind and affectionate, she has the same love for
  you as I have; you live upstairs in the big house, in what used to be
  Grandmamma’s room; the whole house is as it was in Papa’s time....
  I take Papa’s place, though I despair of ever deserving it. My wife
  that of Mamma; the children take ours. If they made me Emperor of
  Russia or gave me Peru—in a word, if a fairy came with her wand
  asking me what I wished for, I should reply that I only wished that
  this dream may become reality.

And all this actually came to pass. Aunt Tatiana, when Tolstoy married,
continued to live with him. He had many children, managed his estates,
taught the peasants, and wrote books, and though he was not living
in the same house in which he was born, for the large wooden house
had been removed and sold to pay his father’s debts, he lived on the
same spot in the stone one erected in its place. His wife helped
in everything, in spite of her large family, for they had thirteen
children. She found time to copy out all her husband’s manuscripts,
which to most people would have been as impossible a task as looking
for a needle in a haystack, they were so extraordinarily badly written,
and scratched out and rewritten. His first great novel, “War and
Peace,” one of the longest novels in existence, is said to have been
copied out by Countess Tolstoy seven times.

Tolstoy always lived with his children, and did not banish them to
nurseries and schoolrooms, as some people do. Up to the age of ten
they were taught by their father and mother; their mother taught
them Russian and music, and their father arithmetic and French. Most
entertaining French it was, which consisted of reading amusing stories
out of illustrated volumes of Jules Verne. If there happened to be a
volume without pictures, Tolstoy made the pictures himself. He drew
very badly, yet his pictures were so amusing that the children liked
them much better than the ordinary ones.

He would discuss and explain interesting things with his children, and
they were always eager to be with him, to go walks with him, and be on
his side in any game he taught them. Clearing the snow off the ponds
in winter under their father’s direction was even more amusing than
the skating itself. They rode and hunted with their father, for in the
earlier part of his life Tolstoy was an enthusiastic sportsman. He was
brave, daring, and an excellent shot, and he enjoyed more than anything
being out in the open air.

In the early morning, before breakfast, Tolstoy would usually go for a
long walk, or ride down to bathe in the river. At morning coffee, or
what we call breakfast, the family all met together, and Tolstoy was
always very merry. He would be up to all sorts of jokes, till he got up
with the words, “One must get to work,” and off he went to his study
to write books, and he would work for many hours on end, though in
summer he would often come out and play with the children. This always
delighted them, as he brought such spirit and interest into their
games, and he would invent new ones himself—which were better than any.
If they had secrets, he always guessed them, so that they regarded him
as a sort of magician. His son writes of him: “My father hardly ever
made us do anything, but it always somehow came about that of our own
initiative we did exactly what he wanted us to. My mother often scolded
us and punished us, but when my father wanted us to do anything, he
merely looked us hard in the eyes, and we understood—the look was far
more effective than any command. It was impossible to hide anything
from him, as impossible as to hide it from your own conscience. He knew
everything, and to deceive him was nearly impossible and quite useless.”

This same son, Ilya, Tolstoy’s second boy, tells many amusing stories
of the Tolstoy family life, and of the great part his father played
in it. One story is as follows: Ilya, when a little boy, was given a
big china cup and saucer by his mother at Christmas-time. He was so
excited that he ran very fast to show it to the others, and as he ran
from one room to another, he caught his foot on the step in the doorway
and fell down and broke his cup to smithereens. When accused by his
mother of being careless, he howled and said it was not his fault, but
the fault of the beastly architect who had gone and put a step in the
doorway. Tolstoy, overhearing him, was much amused, and said, “It is
the architect’s fault, it is the architect’s fault!” This phrase became
a saying in the family, and Tolstoy was always using it when any one
threw the blame on any one else. When one of the children fell off his
horse because he stumbled, or when he did his lessons badly because his
tutor had not explained them properly, and so on, “Of course, I know,”
Tolstoy would say; “it is the architect’s fault.”

Tolstoy had some excellent inventions for making his children
cheerful. When they would all be sitting rather cross and bored after
the departure of some dull visitors, he would suddenly jump up from his
seat, and, lifting one arm in the air with its hand hanging loose from
the wrist, run at full speed round the table at a hopping gallop. Every
one rose and flew after him, hopping and waving their hands. They went
round the room several times, and then sat down again in their chairs,
panting, and quite gay and lively once more. This game, which was known
as “Numidian Cavalry,” had an excellent effect, and many a time the
children’s tears were dried by it and quarrels forgotten.

Tolstoy, amongst other things, enjoyed music, and was fond of playing
duets on the piano. After dinner he would settle down to this, usually
with his wife’s sister. When he was in difficulties he would say things
to make her laugh, so that she had to play slower, and sometimes, if
this did not succeed, he would stop and take off one of his boots,
saying, “Now it will go all right.”

Tolstoy was as young as anybody in his love of fun and games, the more
nonsensical the better; and his laughter was most infectious, beginning
on a high note, and his whole body would shake.

People ought to know about this amusing side of Tolstoy’s character,
in order to get out of their heads that he was a painfully serious man
without a sense of humor, who asked impossibilities of people. He had
many sides to his character, as we shall see, and that is what makes
him so intensely interesting.

Tolstoy was a deeply affectionate man, loving above all things his
home, his wife, and his children. If ever he had to leave them for a
time, even if it were only on a hunting expedition, he would always as
he approached his home say, “If only all is well at home!” Whatever
he did, he did with his whole heart and soul. He was an enthusiastic
schoolmaster, a keen sportsman and farmer, and an excellent gardener
and beekeeper. He looked into everything on his estate and insisted
upon having all his pigs washed, and there were as many as three
hundred!

So Tolstoy’s life was as full as it possibly could be. For the first
ten years of his married life he was so much occupied with the cares of
family life, and the life of a country gentleman, that he had less time
for thought and did not worry himself quite so much about the reasons
of life. He was also absorbed in his writing, and being a perfect
giant for work, was able during this period—in spite of his numberless
activities—to write two very great novels, besides many shorter stories
and primers for children.

“War and Peace,” an historical novel of the time of Napoleon, and
requiring an immense amount of research, and “Anna Karenina” are as
great as any novels that have been written in any country. Tolstoy’s
extraordinary powers of observation and his acute, almost uncanny,
understanding of human nature, make his characters so living and human
that, having read about them, they become as people you have known, and
you can never forget them.

Also, Tolstoy’s experience of life was wide and varied, and everything
he wrote about he had himself known and seen. War in the Crimea,
fashionable life in St. Petersburg, life with gipsies in the Caucasus,
with peasants in the country, the joys and sorrows of intimate family
life with children and animals—nothing escaped his notice, and his
books are simply life seen through the medium of his wonderful and
penetrating mind; there is nothing like them.

So there he was, the most brilliant and successful writer of the day,
with a happy domestic life, money, a delightful property, and devoted
servants and tenants. If any one ought to have been contented, it might
be said it was Tolstoy. And yet he became dissatisfied and began again,
as he had in earlier days, to find fault with himself and with his own
life. He was fifty when the change in him began to take place; and yet
it was no change really, he had always been the same; and the people
who amuse themselves by finding inconsistencies in his character are
wrong when they accuse him of being changeable: he merely returned now
to his earliest ideals, which had been there all the time, though his
intense enjoyment of life and his many occupations had prevented his
thinking quite so much of working out his theories. It will be seen
that Tolstoy had an extraordinary tenacity of purpose, and during his
life carried through nearly all he had dreamed of doing. About the big
and important things of life he remained always the same, though at
times his high spirits made it appear as though he had forgotten about
the problems that had worried him. But now, once more the question
of how to lead the best life, and what is meant by religion, became
uppermost in his mind, and a great disgust seized him of the life he
and his family were leading. Everything he had enjoyed he now despised.
He hated the luxury of his life, the fact of having servants to wait
on him, his daughters in muslin dresses drinking tea: “The life of
our circle of society,” he said, “not only repelled me, but lost all
meaning.”

Yet there was nothing grossly luxurious or selfish about the life
led by the Tolstoy family: according to most aristocratic ideas of
luxury their life was simple. Nothing could be plainer than the house
at Yasnaya, solidly built as it was, with double windows to keep out
the cold and large Dutch stoves. The rooms were very bare and the
floors mostly uncarpeted, the furniture faded and old-fashioned. But
the family fed well, and kept a great many servants, which seemed
necessary, as the Tolstoys, like many Russians, had hosts of poor
relations living with them, besides tutors, governesses, and old
servants; they were also a very large family in themselves.

But now life appeared to Tolstoy as dust and ashes. His wife and
children, the praise of men, art—he turned from it all. His family at
first could not understand why he should be in such despair; it was
difficult to feel sympathy with his sufferings. To them he appeared to
possess everything that most people considered good and desirable, and
the life he was leading excellent and blameless. So they could not help
him, and he had to suffer alone.

Tolstoy’s second son, who has written his recollections of his father,
says he began to notice a change in his habits about this time. He left
off hunting and shooting and riding, and took instead long walks on
the road, where he could meet pilgrims and beggars and have talks with
them. At dinner he would tell his family about them. He became gloomy
and irritable, and quarreled with his wife over trifles. He no longer
played with his children. When they were enjoying themselves acting or
playing croquet he would walk in and spoil it all by a word or even a
look.

He did not want to spoil their fun, but for all that he did. He had
often not said anything, but he had thought it. “We all knew what he
had thought, and that was what made us so uncomfortable,” his son says.

It was trying for the children to lose their jolly, delightful
companion, who had brought such zest into their games and whose gaiety
had been so infectious. Now they rather dreaded the appearance of this
stern man who disapproved of them.

He did nothing but blame the useless lives led by ladies and gentlemen,
their laziness, greed, and the way they made other people work for them.

This is the sort of thing he said:

  Here we sit in our well-heated rooms, and this very day a man was
  found frozen to death on the high-road. He was frozen to death
  because no one would give him a night’s lodging.

  We stuff ourselves with cutlets and pastry while people are dying by
  thousands from famine.

The children understood what he said, but it spoiled all their childish
amusements and broke up their happy life.

Tolstoy was very unhappy for a period of four or five years and could
see no meaning in existence. But at last he discovered a purpose in
life and a religion to help him. It was really Christianity, and
Christ’s Sermon on the Mount became his gospel. The life of a Russian
peasant he was convinced was the example of how to live. Man, he
thought, should be simple, hardworking, and kind; he should give more
than he received and he should rejoice in serving others. Tolstoy saw
it was no good preaching without practising, and so he tried to live
like a Russian peasant. He ate very little and lived principally upon
vegetables. He dressed like a peasant too, in summer in a smock and in
the winter in a sheepskin coat and cap and high boots. He refused to
have any one to wait on him, and did his own room. This was not easy
to him, as, though he had always hated luxury, as an aristocrat he had
taken certain things for granted, such as the fact that his clothes
would always be folded and brushed and put away by a servant. By nature
he was very untidy, and it was really an effort to him to pick up his
things and keep them in order. In earlier days, when he had dressed
and undressed, he let all his clothes tumble on to the floor, and
there they would lie in different parts of the room until they were
picked up. To see him pack his portmanteau for a journey was said to
be an unforgettable sight, the confusion and disorder was something so
hopeless. But now he tried to turn over a new leaf so as not to give
people trouble.

Tolstoy saw the utter uselessness of preaching what you never intend to
practise. He was quite determined to carry out all he asked others to
do. After all it is more by the life you lead and example rather than
by words that you persuade people, and Tolstoy tells a true story in
this connection. It is as follows:

The Tolstoy family took into their house a dirty, homeless little boy,
to teach him and to benefit him generally. “What,” asks Tolstoy, “did
the boy see and learn?”

He saw Tolstoy’s own children, older than himself and of his own
age, dirtying and spoiling things, breaking and spilling things, and
throwing food to the dogs which seemed to the boy delicacies, expecting
other people to wait on them and never doing any work themselves.
Tolstoy understood then, he says, how absurd it was to take poor people
into your house and educate them, when you were yourselves leading such
idle, useless lives.

Tolstoy says his one desire was to hide their life from the boy;
everything that he told him or tried to teach him he felt was destroyed
by the example they were all setting him.

So Tolstoy tried hard to live according to his ideals, and became
something like a monk but without a monk’s narrow views and
superstitious beliefs. He dropped his title quite naturally, and when
a peasant called him “Your Excellency,” Tolstoy replied, “I am called
simply Leo Nikolayevitch,” and went on to speak of the matter in hand.
Manual labor, which had always been a pleasure to him, now became a
sort of religion. Every day he worked for hours at hay-making, plowing,
reaping or wood-cutting as the case might be. Nothing absorbed him like
mowing, and he would stand among the peasants in his smock listening
with perfect happiness to the sound of scythes. Country life, labor,
healthy appetite and sound sleep was his idea of a happy life.

In the winter evenings Tolstoy learned to make boots. He engaged a
black-bearded shoemaker to come and teach him, and side by side they
sat on two stools in a little room near Tolstoy’s study.

Tolstoy was never satisfied until he had done the job exactly as the
shoemaker did it. Groaning with the effort of threading a waxed thread,
he would refuse the assistance of the bearded man. “I’ll do it!—No,
no—I’ll do it myself, it’s the only way to learn,” he would say.

As to the boots which Tolstoy made, a man to whom he had given a pair
and who had worn them, was asked whether they were well made. “Couldn’t
be worse,” was his reply.

Now for a time the whole Tolstoy family and their friends were filled
with this enthusiasm for outdoor work. They rose early, and in company
with the peasants the Tolstoy children and their mother, in a Russian
dress, uncles, aunts, and even grandmothers, mowed the grass and strove
to outdo the other. They had no theories about it, but simply found it
a change and a pleasant satisfactory way of taking exercise.

All sorts of people now made pilgrimages to Yasnaya, to learn how to
live, for Tolstoy’s fame as a teacher had begun to go about the land.
Rich aristocrats wanted to throw away their gold and do the housework,
and a governess of the Tolstoys, who has written rather malicious
though amusing accounts of Tolstoy’s life at this time, describes
enthusiastic ladies who came to Yasnaya and manured the fields in white
dressing jackets! Tolstoy suffered from the silliness of some of his
followers, and once sadly said he supposed he should be known through
them and their eccentricities. There is a good deal of truth in the
saying that a man’s admirers are sometimes his worst enemies.

Tolstoy gave up writing novels, and wrote only one more,
“Resurrection,” quite at the end of his life. This was written with a
great moral purpose, and is a serious and terrible book. His earlier
novels he now referred to as “wordy rubbish”; he hated them, as he felt
they were frivolous and could only be interesting to the upper classes.
He wrote, however, a great many books on life, conduct, and religion,
and children’s stories. They were printed very cheaply and taken round
by pedlars. The peasants read and loved these books, and they seemed to
penetrate right into the heart of Russia. They were written simply, and
the peasants understood them. Tolstoy was very happy that he had been
able to help and please the poor people.

Now, preaching as Tolstoy did against property and the extraordinarily
unfair system which allows one man to have a thousand acres and another
not even a foot, he could not satisfy himself until he had got rid
of his own property; so difficulties arose with his family. His wife
would not have felt so strongly about it, no doubt, if she had had only
herself to think of; but it is difficult for a mother to believe that
her children will be happier and better without money and possessions;
she did not want to see her children impoverished. Tolstoy thought a
mother’s love was selfish, and often writes about it in this sense.

Countess Tolstoy had been upset when her husband gave up writing
novels, for they brought in a lot of money; and now, with their largely
increased family, their income, instead of becoming more, became less.
Tolstoy, in a letter to his wife on this subject, says:

  ... but I cannot help repeating that our happiness or unhappiness
  cannot in the least depend on whether we lose or acquire something,
  but only what we ourselves are. Now if we left Kostenka (one of their
  children) a million, would he be happier?... What our life together
  is, with our joys and sorrows, will appear to our children real life,
  but neither languages, nor diplomas, nor society, and still less
  money, make our happiness or unhappiness, and therefore the question
  how much our income shrinks cannot occupy me.

Tolstoy finally satisfied himself by giving up his estates to his
family. The house itself he left to the youngest, Ivan. This was a
tradition in the family, Tolstoy, as his mother’s youngest son, having
inherited Yasnaya Polyana.

This little boy, who was born when Tolstoy was quite old, promised
to be very remarkable, and his father took more interest in him than
any of his other children. The child Ivan understood things just as
his father did. When one day his mother said to him, “Ivan, Yasnaya
is yours,” he was very angry and stamped his foot passionately,
crying “Don’t say that Yasnaya Polyana is mine! everything is everyone
else’s.” The child died when he was seven, and it was a most bitter
grief to Tolstoy. But Masha, his second daughter, was a comfort to him;
she took her father’s side when she was only fifteen, and though she
was very delicate, she used all the strength she had in working for the
poor, looking after the peasants’ wives and doing their work for them
when they were ill, minding the children and cleaning and cooking.

Many people blame Countess Tolstoy for not seeing eye to eye with her
husband, but I think it would have been a very great deal to expect of
any woman, that she should discard all the habits of a lifetime and
renounce everything she had been accustomed to, to change her way of
living and of bringing up her children. She describes her feelings very
well in a letter to her sister, saying that her husband is a leader,
one who goes ahead of the crowd pointing the way men should go. “But
I am the crowd,” she says; “I live in its current, and see the light
of the lamp which every leader, and Leo of course, carries, and I
acknowledge it to be the light. But I cannot go faster; I am held by
the crowd and by my surroundings and habits.”

Countess Tolstoy also felt that her husband was wasting himself; he had
a genius for writing novels, and he deliberately gave up writing them
and occupied himself instead with log-splitting, reaping, and making
boots which anybody could do, and do better. It was tiresome of him to
play at being “Robinson Crusoe,” as Countess Tolstoy expressed it.

No doubt he was provoking, but though Tolstoy and his wife sometimes
quarreled, they were devoted to one another all the same, as may be
seen by the very delightful quotation out of a letter of Countess
Tolstoy’s to her husband.

  All at once I pictured you vividly to myself, and a sudden flood
  of tenderness rose in me. There is something in you so wise, kind,
  naïve, and obstinate, and it is all lit up by that tender interest
  for every one natural to you alone, and by your look that reaches to
  people’s souls.

Sometimes Tolstoy had to accompany his family to Moscow. This became
the regular arrangement in the winter, when his daughter Tanya grew up
and began to go to balls and parties. Countess Tolstoy was always very
energetic, arranging their flat and calling upon people who would ask
her daughter to parties.

Tolstoy, after living in the country, found the artificiality of town
life almost unbearable, and the luxury of the circle they lived in
was to him torture. He had to occupy himself in order to bear it. One
winter he spent his time taking a census of people in the poorest part
of Moscow.

He was so horrified at the appalling misery he came across that he
wanted to run away. He knew poverty in the country, but he had never
seen anything like the poverty he came across in the town. Writing
about it, he says:

  I could not look at our own or anybody else’s drawing-room, or a
  clean, well-spread dining-table, or a carriage with well-fed coachman
  and horses, or shops or theaters without a feeling of profound
  irritation.

It was because he had seen the other side of the picture. And
unfortunately there always is another side to the picture.

He saw this side by side with the wretched lodging-houses he had been
visiting, filled with cold, hungry, dreadful people, and one he felt
was the result of the other.

His son says the look of suffering on his father’s face at that time he
shall never forget.

He was simply overcome with pity and with shame and indignation
that our civilization can permit such things. So he went back to
Yasnaya alone, and feeling ill with despair; he took things to heart
in an extraordinary way. But gradually the peace and loneliness of
the country comforted him, and he set to work on a book about his
experiences with the poor in Moscow, and called it “What Then Must We
Do?” He simply wrote down what he had seen and heard, and asked what
we were to do to destroy what is in truth slavery—starving people
struggling to live and driven to crime by their miserable conditions,
while others have riches and luxury, even throwing their superfluous
food to the dogs and enjoying the fruit of other people’s labor.

It was impossible for Tolstoy to have any respect for civilization
as such, unless it really helped men. He judged it fairly by what it
did and found it wanting. He longed to see real progress, not merely
mechanical progress. He did not call progress making battleships,
inventing flying machines, or electricity, or explosives if people’s
hearts remained hard. He wanted to see a spiritual progress, people
being kind and helpful to one another.

The root of all the evil lay in man’s selfishness, he thought, and the
corruption of Governments: these he considered existed only for the
benefit of the rich. We must remember that the Russian Government at
that time was one of the most backward of so-called civilized Powers,
and what we call representative government did not exist at all, but a
government by a few for the few.

Tolstoy also set himself to the great work he had dreamt of doing as a
young man, that of separating the true from the false in the teachings
of the Church. The Greek or the Russian Church does not differ
fundamentally in its doctrines from the Roman Catholic or Protestant
churches.

Tolstoy saw that man needed some religion or chart to guide him through
life, and being himself profoundly religious by nature, he did not,
like Voltaire, merely scoff and destroy, but tried also to build up and
to construct something really tangible and helpful to human beings.

The truth he believed lay in the teaching of Christ. “If you wish to
understand the truth,” Tolstoy said, “read the Gospels”; and the book
he wrote on the Gospels is an explanation of Christ’s teaching. He
asked himself, were the things that children and ignorant people taught
true? and if they were not they should be exposed publicly. Every
honest man should speak out. But people he saw were so confused in
their minds about religion that they thought it must be supernatural,
senseless, and incomprehensible, or it wasn’t religion.

Tolstoy wanted to make it a real and living force. He told the peasants
in his books that God was not the cruel, revengeful, punishing Person
they had been taught to believe Him; that He did not go about hardening
people’s hearts and directing them to murder, and that they would not
go to Hell for being unbaptized. On the contrary, he told them that
God was good and that every human being, as the son of God, was good
too, and could increase, by loving goodness, the divine in himself, by
loving others as himself and by acting toward everybody as you would
they should act toward you. But to kill another or abuse him, or to
profit at the expense of any man, this was what made misery in the
world. Tolstoy preached that all men are equal, as Christ had, and
that nothing can be done by force or by violence, but only by love.

The Church in Russia was able to exercise a sort of inquisition,
employing people to spy on suspected free-thinkers all over the
country. There existed at the time, about a hundred miles from Moscow,
a Bastille, or fortress, where persons objected to or suspected by the
Russian Church, were shut up. In its dark and damp dungeons innocent
people would be left for many years, sometimes forgotten altogether.
Tolstoy would most certainly have been arrested and probably sent
there, if he had not been an aristocrat with an aunt at court who
pleaded for him with the Czar. As it was, he was excommunicated by the
Holy Synod, the head of the Russian Church.

Tolstoy was proving dangerous, his influence was beginning to be
felt; he was undermining the power of the Church and State by showing
the poor people that they have a right to live and that all men are
equal; that Christ had said so, and that the Church has no right to
misrepresent His words.

Tolstoy’s books were no longer allowed in libraries; newspapers were
forbidden to mention any meetings held in his favor. Telegraph offices
actually refused to take messages of sympathy sent him, though abusive
telegrams arrived quite punctually.

During a terrible famine in Russia, when Tolstoy and his family worked
night and day and gave all they possessed to the starving peasants,
the priests tried to frighten them and preached against Tolstoy, saying
he was Antichrist and they should not eat his food.

But the excommunication of Tolstoy had really quite the opposite effect
to what was intended. It shocked the whole world, and Tolstoy’s name
was received with more and more sympathy.

The views he expressed and the books he wrote had greater influence
than ever before. The Russian people themselves seemed to realize
that they possessed one of the greatest moral teachers in the world.
But as the people of Russia became freer in their views and less
subservient to authority, so in proportion the Government became harder
and tightened its hold upon them. Tolstoy had not hitherto written
on political life, but the cruel repression of all forms of liberty
by violence roused him at the end of his life to write against the
Government of his country a tragic letter which he published in the
European papers, entitled: “I can keep silent no longer.” He said his
life was made unendurable by the suffering of his people, and he begs
all to cease from hatred and revenge.

Mr. Aylmer Maude, Tolstoy’s English biographer, visited the great man
at Yasnaya Polyana towards the end of his life. He says what struck him
most then about Tolstoy was his sympathy and kindness more than his
intellect. He had mellowed with age, and from having been impatient,
violent in argument, and often obstinate and unjust, he had become
patient and gentle, though he was still intensely alive and caring as
ardently for things as most people of twenty-five.

The atmosphere he created round him in his old age was peculiarly
peaceful, and yet a lively and intelligent interest was taken by every
one in everything. The influence of Tolstoy seemed to make all who came
into contact with him kind and simple. There were no shams anywhere.
Tolstoy had not forced his views on his children, as he was afraid they
might follow him insincerely. He wanted them to be completely free and
sincere.

When he was eighty-two Tolstoy left his home. His reasons for doing so
are not quite clear, and we must form our own conclusions about it. A
letter written to his wife some years before, to be opened after his
death, explains a good deal.

Tolstoy wanted to devote his last days entirely to God. He wanted
complete solitude and peace, in order to avoid at the end any sort
of discord between his life and his beliefs. If he had talked about
this plan, and told his family, there would have been discussions and
perhaps quarrels, and he could not bear that. So he decided to slip
away quietly without any one knowing. In the letter he explained that
it would not mean that he was angry with his wife or any one else:
indeed, he could not bear the idea of giving her pain. He said he
should lovingly remember what his wife had been to him. But when the
time came he was very weak and had been near death several times. He
confided his secret plan to his youngest daughter Alexandra, for she,
since his favorite daughter Masha had died a few years before, had been
his companion and confidante. So one snowy night at the end of October
she helped him to depart. He went with a doctor friend of his who had
been living in the house for some time past.

His first wish was to visit his old sister and to take farewell of her.
She was living in a convent, and seeing her ending her days so happily
and peacefully, he wished he might have been able to enter a monastery,
if only it had not been necessary to believe in the Church. On his
journey by train—he had not yet made up his mind where he would settle
down—he caught cold and had to stop at a little wayside station. There,
in the station-master’s house, the cold developed into pneumonia, and
as he was very weak there was little hope of his recovery. After a week
of suffering he passed peacefully away, surrounded by his family and
friends.

Before the end came, a telegram arrived from a high dignitary of the
Church urging Tolstoy to return to the bosom of the Church. But it was
not shown to him, for a similar message had been sent some years before
when Tolstoy was very ill, and he had said, “How is it they do not
understand that even when one is face to face with death, two and two
still make four?”

Hundreds of people had flocked to the little country station when
it was known that Tolstoy lay ill there. It was an extraordinary
scene. Peasants who loved him jostled newspaper men who wanted the
latest news. Photographers and police officers, literary people and
aristocrats were there, and messages and telegrams arrived from all
over the world. Multitudes of his poor peasants came to his funeral,
and many wept aloud.

“Our great Leo is dead,” cried one. “Long live our great Leo’s spirit.”

Tolstoy’s body was laid where he had wished to lie, on the spot where
his brother Nicholas had buried the green stick on which was written
the great secret it was Tolstoy’s purpose in life to discover.

What was the secret of Tolstoy’s power?

Every one who came near him seemed to feel it, and most of those who
read his books. It is true that there still exists a certain number of
people who recognize him only as a novelist. These are generally among
the upper classes and among literary people who are impatient with him
for having neglected his art. If it had not been for his novels it is
probable that his influence would not have been nearly so far-reaching.
It is doubtful whether fashionable people would have taken any notice
of his serious books at all. But the fact that he had written “Anna
Karenina” and had made a great name, roused their curiosity and they
read his indictments against society, governments, and the Church with
some interest, and many have gradually come under his spell.

It was Tolstoy’s profound sincerity and his warm heart that made people
love him. They saw how passionate was his wish to make the world a
better place, how he hated small, mean things, and worshiped goodness
and truth. He had immense courage, and fame or the praise of men by the
time he was middle-aged meant nothing to him. But he confesses that in
his younger days he looked for and enjoyed success. His art had been a
temptation to him, and that was one of the reasons why he would have
nothing more to do with it.

Tolstoy was above all things a human being: indeed, it was his special
characteristic. Being so, he was sometimes inconsistent and swayed
by his moods and his likes and dislikes, which makes his critics say
he did not practise his doctrine of love. He asked people to turn
the other cheek and love their enemies, while he himself found it
almost impossible to be agreeable to disagreeable people or to stupid
people, and he never succeeded in tolerating those whom he considered
responsible for the evils of our social system, rulers, politicians,
and policemen.

When absorbed in thought he was forgetful and inconsiderate; he did
not mean to be selfish, but his wife’s sufferings and what people who
lived with him had to put up with did not strike him. He was impetuous,
especially in his younger days, and he was always making resolutions
which he failed very often to carry out. But all great idealists must
suffer from this; it is infinitely better than having no ideals at all
and making no mistakes. If a man with Tolstoy’s ideals could carry them
all out, he would be the perfect man, and Tolstoy was far from being
that. But no one could be more humble or more ready to blame himself,
and as he grew older he more and more succeeded in practising in his
life what he preached to others.

Tolstoy believed in God, and in the spiritual element that is in all
men and women and which all, he insisted, must cherish and try to
increase.

He believed that all men are equal as Christ did, and that all are
brothers, so there should be no such thing as rivalry among nations,
and no wars. If a man is not bent on money-making, on stealing and
grasping for himself and taking away from others, if he only desires
to treat them as he wishes they would treat himself, then will force
become unnecessary. This idea may also be applied to States, for wars
arise out of their jealousies and rivalry, in the search after power
and wealth.

Tolstoy saw that much wickedness and misery came out of poverty, and a
great deal through riches: one is often the cause of the other, and the
unequal distribution of wealth is one of the greatest problems of our
civilization.

But Tolstoy says, could the meaning of renunciation, of giving up to
others, be really understood, the battle would be won, and the need
of force would not exist. The only crime is for man to act inhumanly
to man. A change of heart is what Tolstoy pleads for, and every man
and woman, he says, can do something to help, by example and having
a purpose in life. “For life,” he says in a letter to his son, “is a
place of service, and in that service one has to suffer at times a
great deal that is hard to bear, but more often to experience a great
deal of joy. But that joy can only be real if people look upon their
life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves
and their personal affairs.”

On seeing the terrible sight of capital punishment in France, Tolstoy
wrote these striking words:

  When I saw the head separate from the body and how they both jumped
  into the box at the same moment, I understood not with my mind but
  with my whole being, that no theory of the reasonableness of our
  present progress can justify this deed, and that though everybody
  from the creation of the world, on whatever theory had held it to be
  necessary, I know it to be unnecessary and bad, and therefore the
  arbiter of what is good and evil is not what people say and do and is
  not progress, but is my heart and I.

Who is to be the judge of what is right or wrong? asks Tolstoy, and
answers, “A man’s own soul.” A man, he says, must not fear to stand
alone. Now the fear of standing alone is not always cowardice; often a
man has too little confidence in himself. In answer to the promptings
of his heart or conscience he will say, “Perhaps I am wrong: after all,
the majority think differently from what I do; they are probably right,
for what am I?” But it is very seldom that a man’s conscience will lead
him astray, and if he feels that a thing is bad or cruel, he should not
stifle or ignore the instinct, but, on the contrary, trust and believe
in it, for it is a divine thing created in man for his own safeguarding
to direct and help him through the difficult ways of life.

Tolstoy had much in common with W. L. Garrison, whom he greatly
admired, and wrote a preface to a Life of him written by a Russian. For
both recognized no authority but a man’s own heart and conscience, both
set themselves to the task of rousing people to a better understanding
by moral persuasion, both detested force.

It is easy to say that Tolstoy was vague, unpractical, and even absurd
in the things he taught. Some people think he was quite mistaken; those
who honestly believe in force and government by a few privileged people
must naturally think so. Tolstoy was very extreme, but what he did was
to give people a higher, more spiritual ideal, to show them that life
may be a noble thing.

Tolstoy realized as he grew older that we cannot be perfect all at
once. Therefore he says, if you cannot love another as yourself, go
as far as you can in that direction; if you cannot live in complete
simplicity, live rather more simply, and so on.

By degrees we may be able to get somewhere nearer Tolstoy’s ideals,
especially if we believe that we are naturally good, and not, as many
of us have been taught, “by nature born in sin and the children of
wrath.”
                                                                D. P.

Since this was written a great change has come about in Russia, which
may affect the whole of civilized Europe.

The People of Russia—the Workers—have risen against their rulers, and
deposed the Czar and his advisers.

It is early days yet to say what the final outcome of the Revolution
will be; but the upheaval is a step toward freedom, and behind it the
spirit of Tolstoy moves. He, above all others, helped to sow the seed
of the Russian Revolution, and maybe of other revolutions yet to come.
What joy and thankfulness would have filled his great heart could he
have seen the germination of this seed—the downfall of Czarism and the
dawning of freedom for the People of Russia!


BOOKS TO READ

The Life and Martyrdom of Girolamo Savonarola, by R. R. Madden.

Savonarola and His Times, by Villari.

Romola, by George Eliot.

William the Silent, by F. Harrison.

The Rise of the Dutch Republic, by Motley.

Life of Tycho Brahe, by J. L. E. Dreyer.

Life of Tycho Brahe, by F. R. Friis.

Cervantes, by J. Fitzmaurice Kelly.

Life of Giordano Bruno, by J. Lewis McIntyre.

Life of Giordano Bruno, the Nolan, by Miss J. Frith.

Life of Hugo Grotius, by Charles Butler.

Seven Great Statesmen (Grotius), by A. D. White.

Voltaire, by John Morley.

Life of Voltaire, by S. G. Tallantyre.

Essay on Frederick the Great, by Macaulay.

Mazzini, by Bolton King.

The Story of My Life, by Hans Andersen.

Life of W. L. Garrison, by W. P. and F. J. Garrison.

The Moral Crusader, a biographical essay on Garrison, by Goldwin Smith.

H. D. Thoreau, by F. B. Sanborn.

Life of Thoreau, by H. Salt.

Walden, by Thoreau.

The Life of Tolstoy, by Aylmer Maude.

Reminiscences of Tolstoy, by Count Ilya Tolstoy.

Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth, by Tolstoy.


STANDARD CYCLOPÆDIAS FOR YOUNG OR OLD￣￣
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
￣
CHAMPLIN’S￣

YOUNG FOLKS’ CYCLOPÆDIAS

By JOHN D. CHAMPLIN

_Late Associate Editor of the American Cyclopædia_

Bound in substantial red buckram. Each volume complete in itself and
sold separately. 12mo, $3.00 per volume, net.


COMMON THINGS

New, Enlarged Edition, 850 pp. Profusely Illustrated

“A book which will be of permanent value to any boy or girl to whom it
may be given, and which fills a place in the juvenile library, never,
so far as I know, supplied before.”—_Susan Coolidge._


PERSONS AND PLACES

New, Up-to-Date Edition, 985 pp. Over 375 Illustrations

“We know copies of the work to which their young owners turn instantly
for information upon every theme about which they have questions to
ask. More than this, we know that some of these copies are read daily,
as well as consulted; that their owners turn the leaves as they might
those of a fairy book, reading intently articles of which they had not
thought before seeing them, and treating the book simply as one capable
of furnishing the rarest entertainment in exhaustless quantities.”—_N.
Y. Evening Post._


LITERATURE AND ART

604 pp. 270 Illustrations

“Few poems, plays, novels, pictures, statues, or fictitious characters
that children—or most of their parents—of our day are likely to
inquire about will be missed here. Mr. Champlin’s judgment seems
unusually sound.”—_The Nation._


GAMES AND SPORTS

By JOHN D. CHAMPLIN and ARTHUR BOSTWICK

Revised Edition, 784 pp. 900 Illustrations

“Should form a part of every juvenile library, whether public or
private.”—_The Independent._


NATURAL HISTORY

By JOHN D. CHAMPLIN, assisted by FREDERICK A. LUCAS

725 pp. Over 800 Illustrations

“Here, in compact and attractive form, is valuable and reliable
information on every phase of natural history, on every item of
interest to the student. Invaluable to the teacher and school, and
should be on every teacher’s desk for ready reference, and the children
should be taught to go to this volume for information useful and
interesting.”—_Journal of Education._

  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
  NEW YORK       CHICAGO


THE CHILDREN OF THE NEW FOREST

  By CAPTAIN MARRYAT. Illustrated in color and line by E. BOYD SMITH.
  Special library binding. $1.35 net.


THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

  By JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. Illustrated in color and line by E. BOYD
  SMITH. Special library binding. $1.35 net.

In every detail of illustration and manufacture these editions are made
as if these books were being published for the first time for young
folks. This attempt to put the juvenile classics in a form which on its
looks will attract children, is meeting with widespread support from
the public and librarians.

The text is not abridged.

Mr. Smith’s pictures need no commendation, but he seems to have treated
these stories with unusual skill and sympathy.


HALF A HUNDRED HERO TALES

  Of Ulysses and the Men of Old. By various authors, including
  NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. Illustrated. Special library binding. $1.35 net.

The Greek and Roman mythological heroes whose stories are here
collected are not covered in any other one volume. The arrangement
gives the interest of connected narrative to the account of the fall of
Troy, the Æneas stories, and the Adventures of Ulysses.

  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
  NEW YORK       CHICAGO


_BOOKS FOR YOUNG FOLKS_


MAGIC PICTURES OF THE LONG AGO

By ANNA CURTIS CHANDLER

_With some forty illustrations. $1.30 net_

These stories grew out of Miss Chandler’s popular Story Hours for
Children at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Each recounts the
youth and something of the later life of some striking character in
art, history, or literature, and is made very vivid by reproductions of
famous pictures, etc.


THE DOGS OF BOYTOWN

By WALTER A. DYER

_Author of “Pierrot, Dog of Belgium,” etc._

_Illustrated. $1.50 net_

_New York Sun_: “It takes the cake—in this case, of course, a dog
biscuit.... It is the most unusual book of its kind.... Dyer enters a
new field for boys ... all boys will want to know about Dogs—their
ways and habits, their histories and origins.... Threaded through this
wonderful textbook on dogs is the story of adventures of two boys ...
shows the reader where to find out about everything from bench shows
and the care of puppies to fleas ... illustrated with photographs and
excellent pen sketches....”


BLUE HERON COVE

By FANNIE LEE MCKINNEY

_Author of “Nora-Square-Accounts.”_

_Illustrated. $1.35 net_

Tells how Blue Heron Island and its seafaring folks change “a little
German countess in white satin” into “a real, authentic American girl.”


THE GUN BOOK

By THOMAS H. MCKEE

_Profusely illustrated. $1.60 net_

A book about guns for boys of all ages. The history is accurate; boys
will remember the anecdotes; and the technical parts are sensibly
adapted to show “just how it works.”

  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
  NEW YORK       CHICAGO


_BY ALFRED BISHOP MASON_


TOM STRONG, WASHINGTON’S SCOUT

Illustrated. $1.30 net.

A story of adventure. The principal characters, a boy and a trapper,
are in the Revolutionary army from the defeat at Brooklyn to the
victory at Yorktown.

  “The most important events of the Revolution and much general
  historical information are woven into this interesting and very well
  constructed story of Tom and a trapper, who serve their country
  bravely and well. Historical details are correctly given.”—_American
  Library Association Booklet._


TOM STRONG, BOY-CAPTAIN

Illustrated. $1.30 net.

Tom Strong and a sturdy old trapper take part in such stirring events
following the Revolution as the Indian raid with Crawford and a
flat-boat voyage from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, etc.


TOM STRONG, JUNIOR

Illustrated. $1.30 net.

The story of the son of Tom Strong in the young United States. Tom sees
the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr; is in Washington
during the presidency of Jefferson; is on board of the “Clermont” on
its first trip, and serves in the United States Navy during the War of
1812.


TOM STRONG, THIRD

Illustrated. $1.30 net.

Tom Strong, Junior’s son helps his father build the first railroad in
the United States and then goes with Kit Carson on the Lewis and Clarke
Expedition.

  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
  NEW YORK       CHICAGO


COMPANION STORIES OF COUNTRY LIFE
FOR BOYS _By CHARLES P. BURTON_


THE BOYS OF BOB’S HILL

Illustrated by GEORGE A. WILLIAMS. 12mo. $1.35 net.

A lively story of a party of boys in a small New England town.

  “A first-rate juvenile ... a real story for the live human
  boy—any boy will read it eagerly to the end ... quite thrilling
  adventures.”—_Chicago Record-Herald._


THE BOB’S CAVE BOYS

Illustrated by VICTOR PERARD. $1.35 net.

“It would be hard to find anything better in the literature of New
England boy life. Healthy, red-blooded, human boys, full of fun,
into trouble and out again, but frank, honest, and clean.”—_The
Congregationalist._


THE BOB’S HILL BRAVES

Illustrated by H. S. DELAY. 12mo. $1.35 net.

The “Bob’s Hill” band spend a vacation in Illinois, where they play at
being Indians, hear thrilling tales of real Indians, and learn much
frontier history. A history of especial interest to “Boy Scouts.”

  “Merry youngsters. Capital. Thrilling tales of the red
  men and explorers. These healthy red-blooded, New England
  boys.”—_Philadelphia Press._


THE BOY SCOUTS OF BOB’S HILL

Illustrated by GORDON GRANT. 12mo. $1.35 net.

The “Bob’s Hill” band organizes a Boy Scouts band and have many
adventures. Mr. Burton brings in tales told around a camp-fire of La
Salle, Joliet, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Northwestern Reservation.


CAMP BOB’S HILL

Illustrated by GORDON GRANT. $1.35 net.

A tale of Boy Scouts on their summer vacation.


THE RAVEN PATROL OF BOB’S HILL

Illustrated by GORDON GRANT. $1.35 net.

The account of a camping trip of the Raven Patrol of the Boy Scouts to
the Massachusetts coast, with much real boy fun and wholesome adventure.

  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
  PUBLISHERS    NEW YORK

THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE FOR YOUNG FOLKS

_Compiled by_ BURTON E. STEVENSON, _Editor of “The Home Book of
Verse.”_

_With cover, and illustrations in color and black and white by WILLY
POGANY. Over 500 pages, large 12mo. $2.25 net._


Not a rambling, haphazard collection but a vade-mecum for youth from
the ages of six or seven to sixteen or seventeen. It opens with Nursery
Rhymes and lullabies, progresses through child rhymes and jingles to
more mature nonsense verse; then come fairy verses and Christmas poems;
then nature verse and favorite rhymed stories; then through the trumpet
and drum period (where an attempt is made to teach true patriotism) to
the final appeal of “Life Lessons” and “A Garland of Gold” (the great
poems for all ages).

This arrangement secures sequence of sentiment and a sort of cumulative
appeal. Nearly all the children’s classics are included, and along with
them a body of verse not so well known but almost equally deserving.
There are many real “finds,” most of which have never before appeared
in any anthology.

Mr. Stevenson has banished doleful and pessimistic verse, and has dwelt
on hope, courage, cheerfulness and helpfulness. The book should serve,
too, as an introduction to the greater poems, informing taste for them
and appreciation of them, against the time when the boy or girl, grown
into youth and maiden, is ready to swim out into the full current of
English poetry.


  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
  PUBLISHERS    NEW YORK



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