 Section 42 of Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michael Wolfe. Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1. Section 42. Selected Works by Alfred the Great. Alfred the Great. 849–901. In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford may be seen an antique jewel consisting of an enameled figure in red, blue and green, and shined in a golden frame and bearing the legend Alfred make hecht jürgen. Alfred ordered me maid. This was discovered in 1693 in Newton Park near Avilne, and through it one is enabled to touch the faraway life of a thousand years ago. But greater and more imperishable than this archaic gem is the gift that the noble king left the English nation, a gift that affects the entire race of English-speaking people, for it was Alfred who laid the foundations for a national literature. Alfred, the youngest son of Ether Wolfe, King of the West Saxons, and Osberga, daughter of his cup-bearer, was born in the palace at Wontage in the year 849. He grew up at his father's court, a migratory one that moved from Kent to Devonshire and from Wales to the Isle of Wight where never events, raids, or the Wheaton or parliament demanded. At an early age Alfred was sent to pay homage to the Pope and Rome, taking such gifts as rich vessels of gold and silver, silks and hangings would show that Saxons lacked nothing in treasure. In 855 Ether Wolfe visited Rome with his young son, bearing more costly presence as well as munificent sums for the shrine of St. Peter's, and returning by way of France, they stopped at the court of Charles the Bold. Once again in his home, young Alfred applied himself to his education. He became a marvel of courage at the chase, proficient in the use of arms, excelled in athletic sports, was zealous in his religious duties, and a thirst for knowledge. His accomplishments were many. And when the guests assembled in the great hall to make the walls ring with their laughter over cups of mead and ale, he could take his turn with the harpers and minstrels to improvise one of those sturdy, bold ballads that stir the blood to-day with their stately rhythms and noble themes. Ether Wolfe died in 858, and eight years later, only two sons, Ether Red and Alfred, were left to cope with the Danish invaders. They won victory after victory upon which the old chroniclers loved to dwell, pausing to describe wild frays among the chalk hills and dense forests which afforded convenient places to hide men and to bury spoils. Ether Red died in 871, and the throne descended to Alfred. His kingdom was in a terrible condition, for Wessex, Kent, Mercia, Sussex and Surrey lay at the mercy of the marauding enemy. The land, says an old writer, was as the garden of Eden before them and behind them a desolate wilderness. London was in ruins, the Danish standard with its black raven fluttered everywhere, and the forests were filled with outposts and spies of the Pagan army. There was nothing for the king to do, but gather his men and dash into the fray to let the hard steel ring upon the high helmet. Time after time the Danes are overthrown, but like the heads of the fabled Hydra they grow and flourish after each attack. They have one advantage. They know how to command the sea, and numerous as the waves at their vessels ride so proudly and well, the invaders arrive and quickly land to plunder and slay. Alfred, although about twenty-five, sees the need for a navy, and in 875 gathers a small fleet to meet the ships of the enemy, wins one prize and puts the rest to flight. The chroniclers now relate that he fell into disaster and became a fugitive in Selwood Forest, while Gudrum and his host were left free to ravage. From this period date the legends of the king's visit in disguise to the hut of the neat herd, and his burning the bread he was set to watch, his penetrating into the camp of the Danes and entertaining Gudrum by his minstrelsy while discovering his plans and force, the vision of St. Cuthbert, and the fable of his calling five hundred men by the winding of his horn. Not long after he was enabled to emerge from the trials of exile in Adonim, and according to Assar, in the seventh week after Easter he rode to Egbert's stone in the eastern part of Selwood, or the Greatwood, called in the old British language Khoitmar. Here he was met by all the neighbouring folk of Somersetcher, Wilcher and Hampshire, who had not for fear of the pagans fled beyond the sea, and when they saw the king alive after such great tribulation they received him as he deserved with joy and acclamations and all encamped there for the night. Soon afterward he made a treaty with the Danes, and became king of the whole of England south of the Thames. It was now Alfred's work to reorganise his kingdom, to strengthen the coast defences, to rebuild London, to arrange for a standing army, and to make wise laws for the preservation of order and peace. And when all this was accomplished he turned his attention to the establishment of monasteries and colleges. In the meantime says old Assar, the king, during the frequent wars and other trammels of this present life, the invasions of the pagans and his own daily infirmities of body, continued to carry on the government, and to exercise hunting in all its branches, to teach his workers in gold and artifices of all kinds, his falconers, hawkers and dog-keepers, to build houses majestic and good beyond all the precedents of his ancestors by his new mechanical inventions, to recite the Saxon books, and more especially to learn by heart the Saxon poems, and to make others learn them also. For he alone never desisted from studying most diligently to the best of his ability. He attended the mass and other daily services of religion. He was frequent in psalm singing and prayer, at the proper hours both of the night and of the day. He also went to the churches, as we have already said, in the night time, to pray secretly and unknown to his courtiers. He bestowed arms and largesses both on his own people and on foreigners of all countries. He was affable and pleasant to all, and curious to investigate things unknown. As regards Alfred's personal contribution to literature, it may be said that over and above all disputed matters and certain lost works, they represent a most valuable and voluminous assortment due directly to his own royal and scholarly pen. History, secular and churchly, laws and didactic literature were his field, and though it would seem that his actual period of composition did not much exceed ten years, he had accomplished a vast deal for any man, especially any busy sovereign and soldier. An ancient writer, other words, says that he translated many books from Latin into Saxon, and William of Marmsbury go so far as to say that he translated into Anglo-Saxon almost all the literature of Rome. Undoubtedly the general condition of education was deplorable, and Alfred felt this deeply. Formerly, he writes, men came hither from foreign lands to seek instruction, and now when we desire it, we can only obtain it from abroad. Like Charlemagne, he drew to his court famous scholars, and set many of them to work right in chronicles and translating important Latin books into Anglo-Saxon. Among these was the pastoral care of Pope Gregory, to which he wrote the preface. But with his own hand he translated the consolations of philosophy by Boethius, two manuscripts of which still exist. In this he frequently stops to introduce observations and comments of his own. Of greater value was his translation of the history of the world by Erosius, which he abridged, and to which he added new chapters, giving the record of coasting voyagers in the north of Europe. This is preserved in the cotton manuscripts in the British Museum. His fourth translation was the ecclesiastical history of the English nation by Bede. To this last may be added the blossom gatherings from St Augustine, and many minor compositions in prose and verse, translations from the Latin fables and poems, and his own notebook in which he jots, with what may be termed a journalistic instinct, scenes that he had witnessed, such as Alt Helm, standing on the bridge instructing the people on Sunday afternoons, bits of philosophy, and such reflections as the following which remind one of Marcus Aurelius. Desire is thou power, but thou shalt never obtain it without sorrows. Sorrows from strange folk, and yet keener sorrows from thine own kindred. And hardship and sorrow, not a king but would wish to be without these if he could, as I know that he cannot. Alfred's value to literature is this. He placed by the side of Anglo-Saxon poetry, consisting of two great poems, Cadman's great song of the creation and Cunowolf's nativity and life of Christ, and the unwritten ballads passed from lip to lip. Four immense translations from Latin into Anglo-Saxon prose which raised English from a mere spoken dialect to a true language. From his reign date also the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Anglo-Saxon Gospels, and a few scholars are tempted to class the magnificent bear-wolf among the works of this period. At any rate the great literary movement that he inaugurated lasted until the Norman conquest. In 893 the Danes once more disturbed King Alfred, but he foiled them at all points, and they left in 897 to Harry England no more for several generations. In 901 he died, having reigned for thirty years in the honour and affection of his subjects. Freeman in his Norman conquest says that no other man on record has ever so thoroughly united all the virtues both of the ruler and of the private man. Bishop Asser, his contemporary, has left a half-mythical eulogy, and William of Marmsbury, Roger of Wendover, Matthew of Westminster, and John Brompton talk of him fully and freely. Sir John Spellman published a quaint biography in Oxford in 1678, followed by Powell's in 1634, and Bicknell's in 1777. The modern lives are by Giles, Pauli, and Hughes. King Alfred on Kingcraft. Comment in his translation of Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy. The mind then answered, and thus said, O reason, indeed thou knowest that covetousness and the greatness of this earthly power never well pleased me, nor did I altogether very much yearn after this earthly authority. But nevertheless I was desirous of materials for the work which I was commanded to perform. That was, that I might honourably and fitly guide and exercise the power which was committed to me. Moreover, thou knowest that no man can show any skill nor exercise or control any power without tools and materials. There are of every craft the materials without which man cannot exercise the craft, these then, are a king's materials and his tools to reign with, that he have his land well peopled, he must have prayer-men and soldiers and work-men. And thou knowest that without these tools no king can show his craft. This is also his materials which he must have besides the tools. Provisions for the three classes. This is then their provision, land to inhabit, and gifts and weapons, and meat and ale and clothes, and whatsoever is necessary for the three classes. He cannot without these preserve the tools, nor without the tools accomplish any of those things which he is commanded to perform. Therefore, I was desirous of materials wherewith to exercise the power that my talents and power should not be forgotten and concealed. For every craft and every power soon becomes old and is passed over in silence if it be without wisdom, for no man can accomplish any craft without wisdom. Because whatsoever is done through folly, no one can ever reckon for craft. This is now especially to be said that I wished to live honourably whilst I lived, and after my life, to leave to the men who were after me my memory in good works. Alfred's prefaced the version of Pope Gregory's pastoral care. King Alfred bids greet Bishop Warfairth with his words lovingly and with friendship. And I let it be known to thee that it has very often come into my mind what wise men there formerly were throughout England, both of sacred and secular orders, and what happy times there were then throughout England, and how the kings who had power of the nation in those days obeyed God and his ministers. And they preserved peace, morality, and order at home, and at the same time enlarged the territory abroad, and how they prospered both with war and with wisdom. And also the sacred orders, how zealous they were both in teaching and learning, and in all the services they owed to God. And how foreigners came to this land in search of wisdom and instruction, and how we should now have to get them from abroad if we would have them. So general was its decay in England that there were very few on this side of the Humber who could understand their rituals in English, or translate a letter from Latin into English. And I believe there were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few that I cannot remember a single one south of the Thames when I came to the throne. Thanks be to God Almighty that we have any teachers among us now. And therefore I command thee to do as I believe thou art willing, to disengage thyself from worldly matters as often as thou canst, that thou mayest apply the wisdom which God has given thee wherever thou canst. Consider what punishments would come upon us on account of this world. If we neither loved it, wisdom, ourselves, nor suffered other men to obtain it. We should love the name only of Christian and very few of the virtues. When I considered all this, I remembered also how I saw, before it had been all ravaged and burnt, how the churches throughout the whole of England stood filled with treasures and books, and there was also a great multitude of gone servants. But they had very little knowledge of the books, for they could not understand anything of them, because they were not written in their own language. As if they had said, Our forefathers, who formerly held these places, loved wisdom, and through it they obtained wealth and bequeathed it to us. In this we can still see their tracks, but we cannot follow them, and therefore we have lost both the wealth and the wisdom, because we would not incline our hearts after their example. When I remembered all this, I wondered extremely that the good and wise men who were formerly all over England, and had perfectly learnt all the books, did not wish to translate them into their own language. But again I soon answered myself and said, They did not think that men would ever be so careless, and that learning would so decay. Therefore they abstained from translating, and they trusted that the wisdom in this land might increase with our knowledge of languages. Then I remember how the law was first known in Hebrew, and again when the Greeks had learnt it, they translated the whole of it into their own language, and all other books besides. And again the Romans, when they had learnt it, they translated the whole of it through learned interpreters into their own language. And also all other Christian nations translated a part of them into their own language. Therefore it seems better to me, if you think so, for us also to translate some books which are most needful for all men to know, into the language which we can all understand. Then for you to do, as we very easily can, if we have tranquility enough, that is, that all the youth now in England of free men, who are rich enough to be able to devote themselves to it, be said to learn as long as they are not fit for any other occupation, until that they are well able to read English writing, and let those be afterward taught more in the Latin language, who are to continue learning and be promoted to a higher rank. And now remember how the knowledge of Latin had formally decayed throughout England, and yet many could read English writing, I began among other various and manifold troubles of his kingdom, to translate into English the book which is called in Latin Posteralis, and in English Shepard's book. Sometimes word by word, and sometimes according to the sense, as I had learnt it from Plamond, my archbishop, and Assa, my bishop, and Grimbold, my mass priest, and John, my mass priest. And when I had learnt it, as I could best understand it, and as I could most clearly interpret it, I translated it into English, and I will send a copy to every bishopric in my kingdom, and on each there is a clasp worth fifty mancus. And I command in God's name that no man take the clasp from the book or the book from the minister. It is uncertain how long there may be such learned bishops as now, thanks be to God, there are nearly everywhere. Therefore I wish them always to remain in their place, unless the bishop wishes to take them with him, or they be lent out anywhere, or any one make a copy from them. Blossom gatherings from St. Augustine. In every tree I saw something there which I needed at home. Therefore I advise every one who is able, and has many veins, that he trade to the same wood for I cut the stud shafts, and there fetch more for himself, and load his wane with fair ronds, that he may wind many a neat wall, and set many a comely house, and build many a fair town of them, and thereby I may dwell merrily and softly, and so as I now yet have not done. But he who taught me to whom the wood was agreeable, he may make me to dwell more softly in this temporary cottage, the while that I am in this world, and also in the everlasting home which he has promised us, through St. Augustine and St. Gregory and St. Jerome, and through other holy fathers. As I believe also that for the merits of all these, he will make the way more convenient than it was before, and especially the carrying and the building. But every man wishes, after he has built a cottage and his lords lease by his help, that he may sometimes rest him therein and hunt, and fowl, and fish, and use it every way under the lease both on water and on land, until the time that he earn book-land and everlasting heritage through his lords mercy. So do enlighten the eyes of my mind, so that I may search out the right way to the everlasting home, and the everlasting glory, and the everlasting rest which has promised us through those holy fathers. May it be so. It is no wonder, though men swing in timber-working, and in the wealthy giver who wields both these temporary cottages and eternal homes. May he who shaped both, and wields both, grant me that I may be meet for each, both here to be profitable, and thither to come. Where to find true joy? From Boethius. Oh! it is a fault of weight! Let him think it out who will, and a danger passing great which can thus allure to ill, care-worn men from the right way, swiftly ever let astray. Will he seek within the wood, red-gold, on the green-trees tall? None thy waters wise had occurred, for it grows not there at all. Neither in wine-garden's green seek they gems of glittering sheen. Would ye on some hill-top set, when ye list to catch a trout, or a carp your fishing-net? Men me-things have long found out that it would be foolish-fair, for they know they are not there. In the salt-sea can ye find, when ye list to start and hunt, with the orhounds the heart or hind? It will sooner be or won't in the woods to look I-what than in seas where they are not. Is it wonderful to know that for crystals red or white one must to the sea-beach go, or for other colours bright-seeking by the riverside, or the shore at ebb of tide? Likewise men are well aware where to look for river-fish, and all other-worldly where, where to seek them when they wish? Wisely careful men will know, year by year, to find them so. But of all things, it is most sad, that they foolish are so blind, so besotted and so mad, that they cannot surely find, where the ever good is nigh, and through pleasures hidden lie. Therefore never is there strife after those true joys to spur, in this lean and little life they half-witted deeply err, seeking here their blister-game that is God himself in vain. I know not, in my thought, how enough to blame their sin, none so clearly as I ought, can I show their fault within? For more bad and vain are they, and more sad than I can say. All their hope is to acquire worship-goods and worldly-wheel, when they have their mind's desire, than such witless joy they feel, that in folly they believe, those true joys they then receive. A sorrowful fit from Boethius. Low I sting cheerily in my bright days, but now, all wearily, chant I my lays. Sorrowing tearfully saddest of men, can I sing cheerfully as I could then? Many a verity in those glad times of my prosperity, taught I in rhymes. Now from forgetfulness, wonders my tongue, wasting in fretfulness, meeters unsung. Worldliness brought me here foolishly blind, riches have wrought me here, sadness of mind. When I rely on them, lo they depart, bitterly fire on them, rend they my heart. Why did your songs to me, world-loving men, say joy belongs to me ever as then? Why did ye lyingly think such a thing, seeing how, flyingly, wealth may take wing? End of section 42. Section 43 of the Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Linda Dodge. Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1. Section 43, Selected Works by Charles Grant Allen. Charles Grant Allen, 1848 to 1899. The Irish-Canadian naturalist, Charles Grant Blair Fendi Allen, who turns his industrious hand with equal facility to scientific writing, to essays, short stories, botanical treatises, biography, and novels, is known to literature as Grant Allen, as are Boothnott Wilson and a Cecil Power. His work may be divided into two classes, fiction and popular essays. The first shows the author to be familiar with varied scenes and types and exhibits much feeling for dramatic situations. His list of novels is long and includes, among others, strange stories, Babylon, this mortal coil, the tents of shim, the great taboo, recalled to life, the woman who did, and the British barbarians. In many of these books, he has woven his plots around the psychological theme, a proof that science interests him more than invention. His essays are written for unscientific readers and carefully avoid all technicalities and tedious discussions. Most persons, he said, would much rather learn why birds have feathers than why they have a keeled sternum, and they think that the origin of bright flowers far more attractive than the origin of monocotalidinous seeds or esergenia stems. Grant Allen was born in Kingston, Canada, February 24, 1848. After graduation at Merton College, Oxford, he occupied for four years the chair of logic and philosophy at Queen's College, Spanish Town, Jamaica, which he designed to settle in England, where he now resides. Early in his career, he became an enthusiastic follower of Darwin and Herbert Spencer and published the attractive books entitled Science in Arcady, Vignettes from Nature, The Evolutionist at Large, and Colin Clout's Calendar. In his preface to Vignettes from Nature, he says that the essays are written from an easygoing, half-scientific, half-aesthetic standpoint. In this spirit he rambles in the woods in the meadows, at the seaside, or upon the heather carpeted moor, finding in such expeditions material and suggestions for his lightly moving essays, which expound the problems of nature according to the theories of his acknowledged masters. A fallow deer grazing in a forest, a wayside berry, a gilder rose, a sport of butterfly, a bed of nettles, a falling leaf, a mountain tarn, the hole of a hedgehog, a darting hummingbird, a ripening plum, a clover blossom, a spray of sweetbriar, a handful of wild thyme, or a blaze of scarlet geranium before a cottage door, furnish him with a text for the discussion of those biological and cosmical doctrines which have revolutionized the thought of the 19th century, as he says in substance. Somewhat more scientific are psychological aesthetics, the color sense, the color of flowers, flowers and their pedigrees, and still deeper is Force and Energy, 1888, a theory of dynamics in which he expresses original views. In psychological aesthetics, 1877, he first seeks to explain such simple pleasures in bright color, sweet sound, or rude pictorial imitation as delight the child in the savage, proceeding from these elementary principles to the more and more complex gratifications of natural scenery, painting and poetry. In the color sense, he defines all that we do not owe to the color sense, for example the rainbow, the sunset, the sky, the green or purple sea, the rocks, the foliage of trees and shrubs, hues of autumn, effects of iridescent light, or tents of minerals and precious stones, and all that we do owe, namely the beautiful flowers of the meadow and the garden roses, lilies, cow slips and daisies, the exquisite pink of the apple, the peach, the mango and the cherry, with all the diverse artistic wealth of oranges, strawberries, plums, melons, rambelberries and pomegranates, the yellow, blue and melting green of tropical butterflies, the magnificent plumage of the toucan, the macaw and the cardinal bird, the lorry and the honeysucker, the red breast of our homely robin, the silver or ruddy fur of the ermine, the Wolverine, the fox, the squirrel and the chinchilla, the rosy cheeks and pink clips of the English maiden, the whole catalogue of dais, paints and pigments, and last of all the colors of art in every age and nation, from the red cloth of the South Seas, the lively frescoes of the Egyptian, and the subdued tones of Hellenic painters, to the stained windows of Poetiers and the Madonna of the Sistine Chapel. Besides these books, Mr. Allen has written for the series called English Worthies, A Sympathetic Life of Charles Darwin, 1885, The Coloration of Flowers, From the Colors of Flowers. The different hues assumed by the petals are all thus, as it were, laid up beforehand in the tissues of the plant, ready to be brought out at a moment's notice. And all flowers, as we know, easily sport a little in color. But the question is, do their changes tend to follow any regular and definite order? Is there any reason to believe that the modification runs from any one color toward any other? Apparently there is. The general conclusion to be set forth in this work is the statement of such a tendency. All flowers, it would seem, were in their earliest form yellow. Then some of them became white. After that, a few of them grew to be red or purple. And finally, a comparatively small number acquired various shades of lilac, mauve, violet, or blue, so that if this principle be true, such a flower as the hair veil will represent one of the most highly developed lines of descent. And its ancestors will have passed successively through all the intermediate stages. Let us see what grounds can be given for such a belief. Some hints of a progressive law in the direction of a color change, from yellow to blue, are sometimes afforded to us even by the successive stages of a single flower. For example, one of our common little English forget-me-nots, myosotis versicolor, is pale yellow when it first opens. But as it grows older, it becomes faintly pinkish and ends by being blue like the others of its race. Now this sort of color change is by no means uncommon. And in almost all known cases, it is always in the same direction, from yellow or white through pink, orange, or red to purple or blue. For example, one of the wall flowers, cheeranthus cimolio, has at first a whitish flower, then a citronello, and finally emerges into red or violet. The petals of stytidium fructicosum are pale yellow to begin with and afterward become light rose colored. An evening primrose, oinothera tetroptera, has white flowers in its first stage and red ones at a later period of development. Cobias candens goes from white to violet, hibiscus mutabilis from white through flesh colored to red. The common virginia stalk of our gardens, malchomia, often opens of a pale yellow screen and then becomes faintly pink and afterwards deepens into bright red and fades away at the last into mauve or blue. Pritzmuller's lanthana is yellow on the first day, orange on its second, and purple on the third. The whole family of voragenesia begin by being pink and end with being blue. The garden convolvulus opens a blushing white and passes into full purple. In all these and many other cases, the general direction of the changes is the same. They are usually set down as due to varying degrees of oxidation in the pigmentary matter. If this be so, there is a good reason why bees should be especially fond of blue and why blue flowers should be especially adapted for fertilization by their aid. For Mr. A. R. Wallace has shown that color is most apt to appear or vary in those parts of plants or animals which have undergone the highest amount of modification. The markings of the peacock and the argous pheasant come out upon their immensely developed secondary tail feathers or wing plumes. The metallic hues of sunbirds or hummingbirds show themselves upon their highly specialized crests, gorgats, or lapets. It is the same with the hackles of fowls, the head ornaments of fruit pigeons, and the bills of toucans. The most exquisite colors in the insect world are those which are developed on the greatly expanded and delicately feathered wings of butterflies, and the eye spots which adorn a few species are usually found on their very highly modified swallowtail appendages. So too with flowers, those which have undergone most modification, have their colors most profoundly altered. In this way, we may put it down as a general rule to be tested hereafter, that the least developed flowers are usually yellow or white, those which have undergone a little more modification are usually pink or red, and those which have been most highly specialized of any are usually purple, lilac, or blue. Absolute deep ultramarine probably marks the highest level of awe. On the other hand, Mr. Wallace's principle also explains why the bees and butterflies should prefer these specialized colors to all others, and should therefore select those flowers which display them by preference over any less developed types. For bees and butterflies are the most highly adapted of all insects to honey-seeking and flower-feeding. They have themselves on their side, undergone the largest amount of specialization for that particular function. And if the more specialized and modified flowers, which gradually fitted their forms and the position of their honey glands to the forms of the bees or butterflies, showed a natural tendency to pass from yellow through pink and red to purple and blue. It would follow that the insects which were being evolved side by side with them and which were aiding at the same time in their evolution would grow to recognize these developed colors as the visible symbols of those flowers from which they could obtain the largest amount of honey with the least possible trouble. Thus it would finally result that the ordinary unspecialized flowers, which depended on the small insect riff-raff, would be mostly left yellow or white. Those which appealed to the rather higher insects would become pink or red, and those which laid themselves out for bees or butterflies, the aristocrats of the arthropodous world, would grow for the most part to be purple or blue. Now this is very much which we actually find to be the case in nature. The simplest and earliest flowers are those with regular symmetrical open cups, like the ranunculus genus, the potentillas and the alcine or chickweeds, which can be visited by any insects whatsoever, and these are in large part yellow or white. A little higher are flowers like the campions or solenoia and the stocks matheola, with more or less closed cups whose honey can only be reached by more specialized insects, and these are often are pink or reddish. More profoundly modified are those irregular one-sided flowers like the violets, peas and orchids, which have assumed special shapes to accommodate bees and other specific honey seekers, and these are often purple and not unfrequently blue. Highly specialized in another way are the flowers like the hairbills, campanulacchia, scabious, dipsacoya, and the heaths. Hericocoya, whose petals have all coalesced into a tubular corolla, and these might almost be said to be usually purple or blue. And finally, highest of all are the flowers like labiates, rosemary, salvia, etc., and speedwells, Veronica, whose tubular corolla has been turned to one side, thus combining the united petals with the irregular shape, and these are almost invariably purple or blue. Among the heather, from the evolutionist at large, I suppose even that apocryphal person, the general reader, would be insulted at being told at this hour of the day that all bright colored flowers are fertilized by the visits of insects, whose attentions they are especially designed to solicit. Everybody has heard over and over again that roses, orchids, and columbines have acquired their honey to allure the friendly bee, their gaudy petals to advertise the honey, and their diverse shapes to ensure the proper fertilization by the correct type of insect. But everybody does not know how specifically certain blossoms have laid themselves out for a particular species of fly, beetle, or tiny moth. Here on the higher downs, for instance, most flowers are exceptionally large and brilliant, while all alpine climbers must have noticed that the most gorgeous masses of bloom in Switzerland occur just below the snowline. The reason is that such blossoms must be fertilized by butterflies alone. Bees, they're great rivals in honey-sucking, frequent only the lower meadows and slopes, where flowers are many and small. They seldom venture far from the hive, or the nest. Among the high peaks and chilly nooks where we find those great patches of blue ginshin, or purple anemone, which hang like monstrous brits of tapestry upon the mountain sides. This heather here, now fully opening in the warmer sun of the southern counties, is still but in the bud among the Scotch Hills. I doubt not. Especially lays itself out for the honey bee, and its masses form almost his highest pasture grounds. But the butterflies, insect vagrants as they are, have no fixed home. They therefore stray far above the level at which bee blossoms altogether cease to grow. Now the butterfly differs greatly from the bee in his mode of honey hunting. He does not bustle about in a business-like manner from one buttercup or dead nettle to its nearest fellow. But he flits joyously like a sauntering straggler that he is, from a great patch of color here to another great patch at a distance, whose gleam happens to strike his roving eye by its size and brilliancy. Hence, as that indefagable observer, Dr. Herman Mueller has noticed, all alpine or hilltop flowers have very large and conspicuous blossoms, generally grouped together in big clusters, so as to catch a passing glance of the butterfly's eye. As soon as the insect spies such a cluster, the color seems to act as a stimulant to his broad wings, just as the candlelight does to those of his cousin, the moth. Off he sails at once, as if by automatic action towards the distant patch, and there both robs the plant of its honey, and at the same time carries to it on his legs and head, fertilizing pollen from the last of its cogeners, which he favored with a call. For, of course, both bees and butterflies stick on the hole to a single species at a time, or else the flowers would only get uselessly hybridized, instead of being impregnated with pollen from other plants of their own kind. For this purpose, it is that most plants lay themselves out to secure the attention of only two or three varieties among their insect allies, while they make their nectaries either too deep or too shallow for the convenience of all other kinds. Insects, however, differ much from one another in their aesthetic taste, and flowers are adapted accordingly to the varying fancies of the different kinds. Here, for example, is a spray of common white gallium, which attracts and is fertilized by small flies, who generally frequent white blossoms. But here again, not far off, I find a luxuriant mass of the yellow species, known by the quaint name of Lady's Bed Straw, a legacy from the old legend which represents it as having formed our Lady's Bed in the major at Bethlehem. Now, why has this kind of gallium yellow flowers, while its near kinsmen yonder, has them snowy white? The reason is that Lady's Bed Straw is fertilized by small beetles, and beetles are known to be one of the most color-loving races of insects. You may often find one of their number, the lovely bronze and golden-mailed rose chaper, buried deeply in the very center of a red garden rose, and reeling about when touched as if drunk with pollen and honey. Almost all the flowers which beetles frequent are consequently brightly decked in scarlet or yellow. On the other hand, the whole family of the umbilits, those tall plants with level bunches of tiny blossoms, like the fool's parsley, have all but universally white petals, and Mueller, the most statistical of naturalists, took the trouble to count the number of insects which paid them a visit. He found that only 14 percent were bees, while the remainder consists of many miscellaneous small flies and other arthropodous riffraff, whereas in the brilliant class of composites, including the asters, sunflowers, daisies, dandelions, and thistles, nearly 75 percent of the visitors were steady, industrious bees. Certain dingy blossoms which lay themselves out to attract wasps are obviously adapted, as Mueller quaintly remarks, to the less aesthetically cultivated circle of visitors. But the most brilliant among all insect fertilized flowers are those which especially affect the society of butterflies, and they are only surpassed in this respect throughout all nature by the still larger and more magnificent tropical species which owe their fertilization to hummingbirds and brush-tongued lorries. Is it not a curious, yet a comprehensible circumstance, that the taste which thus show themselves in the development by natural selection of lovely flowers should also show themselves in the market preference for beautiful maids? Poised on yonder sprig of hairbell stands a little purple-winged butterfly, one of the most exquisite among our British kinds. That little butterfly owes its own rich and delicately shaded tints to the long selective action of a million generations among its ancestors. So we find throughout that the most beautifully colored birds and insects are always those which have had the most to do with the production of bright colored fruits and flowers. The butterflies and rose beetles are the most gorgeous among insects. The hummingbirds and parrots are the most gorgeous among birds. Nay, more exactly like effects have been produced in two hemispheres on different tribes by the same causes. The plain brown swifts of the north have developed among tropical west Indian and South American orchids, the metallic gorgettes and crimson crests of the hummingbird, while a totally unlike group of Asiatic birds have developed among the rich flora of India and the Malay archipelago, the exactly similar plumage of the exquisite sunbirds. Just as bees depend upon flowers and flowers upon bees, so the color sense of animals has created the bright petals of blossoms and the bright petals have reacted upon the taste of the animals themselves and through their taste upon their own appearance. The herons haunt from vignettes from nature. Most of the fields on the countryside are now laid up for hay or down in the tall homing corn and so I am driven from my accustomed botanizing grounds on the open and compelled to take refuge in the wild bosky moorland back of whole common. Here on the edge of the coaps the river widens to a considerable pool and coming upon it softly through the wood from behind the boggy moss cover ground masking and muffling my footfall. I have surprised a great graceful ash and white heron standing all unconscious on the shallow bottom in the very act of angling for minnows. The heron is a somewhat rare bird among the more cultivated parts of England but just hear abouts we get a sight of one not infrequently for they still breed in a few tall ash trees at Chilcum Park where the lords of the manor and medieval times long preserved a regular heronry to provide sport for their hawking. There is no English bird not even the swan so perfectly and absolutely graceful as the heron. I am leaning now breathless and noiseless against the gate taking a good look at him as he stands half knee deep on the oozy bottom with his long neck arched over the water and his keen purple eye fixed eagerly upon the fish below though I am still 20 yards from where he poses lightly on his stilted legs I can see distinctly his long pendant snow white breast feathers his crest of waving black plumes falling loosely backward over the ash gray neck and even the bright red skin of his bare legs just below the feathered thighs I dare hardly move nearer to get a closer view of his beautiful plumage and still I will try I push very quietly through the gate but not quite quietly enough for the heron one moment he raises his curved neck and poises his head a little on one side to listen for the direction of the rustling then he catches a glimpse of me as I try to draw back silently behind a clump of flags and nettles and in a moment his long legs gives him a good spring from the bottom his big wings spread with a sudden flap skywards and almost before I can note what is happening he is off in a way to leeward making a beeline for the high trees that fringe the artificial water in chill cum hollow all these wading birds the herons the cranes the bitterns the snipes and the plovers are almost necessarily by the very nature of their typical conformation beautiful and graceful in form their tall slender legs which they require for waiting their comparatively light and well poised bodies their long curved quickly darting necks and sharp beaks which they need in order to secure their rapidly swimming prey all these things make the waiters almost in spite of themselves handsome and shapely birds their feet it is true are generally rather large and sprawling with long widespread toes so as to distribute their weight on the snowshoe principle and prevent them from sinking in the deep soft mud upon which they tread but then we seldom see the feet because the birds when we catch a close view of them at all are almost always either on stilts in the water or flying with their legs tucked behind them after their pretty rudder like fashion i have often wondered whether it is this general beauty of form in the waiters which has turned their aesthetic taste apparently into such a sculpturous climb certainly it is very noteworthy that whenever among this particular order of birds we get clear evidence of ornamental devices such as mr. Darwin sets down too long exerted selective preferences in choice of mates the ornaments are almost always those of form rather than those of color the waiters i sometimes fancy only care for beauty of shape not for beauty of tent as i stood looking at the hair in here just now the same old idea seemed to force itself more clearly than ever upon my mind the decorative adjuncts the curving tufted crest on the head the pendant silvery gorget on the neck the long ornamental quills of the pinions all look exactly as if they were deliberately intended to emphasize and heighten the natural gracefulness of the heron's form may it not be i ask myself that these birds seeing one another statues shape from generation to generation have that shape hereditarily implanted upon the nervous system of the species in connection with all their ideas of mating and of love just as the human form is hereditarily associated with all our deepest emotions so that Miranda falling in love at first sight with fernand is not a mere poetical fiction but the true illustration of a psychological fact and as on each of our minds and brains the picture of the beautiful human figure is as it were antecedently engraved may not the ancestral type be similarly engraved on the minds and brains of the waiting birds if so would it not be natural to conclude that these birds having thus a very graceful form as their generic standard of taste a graceful form with little richness of coloring would naturally choose as the loveliest among their mates not those which showed any tendency to more bright huge plumage which indeed might be fatal to their safety by betraying them to their enemies the falcons and the eagles but those which most fully embodied and carried furthest the ideal specific gracefulness of the waiting type forestine flower feeders and fruit eaters especially in the tropics are almost always brightly colored their chromatic taste seems to get quickened in their daily search for food among the beautiful blossoms and brilliant fruits of the southern woodlands thus the hummingbirds the sunbirds and the brush tongue lorries three very dissimilar groups of birds as far as descent is concerned all alike feed upon the honey and the insects which they extract from the large tubular bells of tropical flowers and all alike are noticeable for their intense metallic luster or pure tones of color again the parrots the toucans the birds of paradise and many other of the more beautiful exotic species are fruit eaters and reflect their inherited taste in their own gaudy plumage but the waiters have no such special reasons for acquiring a love of bright hues hence their aesthetic feeling seems to rather have taken a turn toward the further development of their own graceful forms even the plainest waiting birds have a certain natural elegance of shape which supplies a primitive basis for aesthetic selection to work on end of section 43 recording by linda dodge section 44 of library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume one this is a liberal box recording all liberal box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liberal box dot org recording by kamna library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume one section 44 selection from summer in arcady by james lane allen james lane allen 1850 to 1925 the literary work of james lane allen was begun with matured powers and wider culture than most writers exhibit in their first publications his mastery of english was acquired with difficulty and his knowledge of natin he obtained through years of instruction as well as of study the wholesome open air atmosphere which pervades his stories their pastoral character and love of nature come from the taste bequeathed to him by three generations of paternal ancestors easygoing gentlemen farmers of the blue grass region of kentucky on a farm near texington in this beautiful country of stately homes fine herds and great flocks the author was born and there he spent his childhood and youth about 1885 he came to new york to devote himself to literature for though he had contributed poems essays and criticisms to leading periodicals his first important work was a series of articles descriptive of the blue grass region published in harper's magazine the field was new the work was fresh and the author's ability was at once recognized inevitably he chose kentucky for the scene of his stories knowing and loving as he did her characteristics and her history while preparing his articles on the blue grass region he had studied the trappist monastery and the convent of loretto as well as the records of the catholic church in kentucky and his first stories the white cowl and sister the lorasa which appeared in the century magazine were the first fruits of his labor of controversy arose as to the fairness of these porterities but however opinions may differ as to his characterization there can be no question of the truthfulness of the exposition of the medieval spirit of those retreats this tendency to use a historic background marks most of mr allen's stories in the choir invisible a tale of the last century pioneer kentucky once more exists the old cloggy man of sleut and violin lived and died in lexington and had been long forgotten when his story touched the vanishing halo of a hard and saintly life the old negro preacher with text embroiderers on his court tales was another figure of reality unnoticed until he became one of the two gentlemen of kentucky in lexington lived and died king solomon who had almost faded from memory when his historian found the record of the poor vagabonds heroism during the plague and made it memorable in a story that touches the heart and fills the eyes a kentucky cardinal with aftermath its second part is full of history and historic personages summer and arcady a tale of nature the latest of mr allen's stories is no less based on local history and no less full of local color than his other tales notwithstanding its general unlikeliness this book sounds a deeper note than the earlier tales although the truth which mr allen sees is not mere fidelity to local types but the essential truth of human nature his realism has always been a poetic aspect quiet reserved out of the common his books deal with moods rather than with actions their problems are spiritual rather than physical their thought tends towards the higher and more difficult way of life a courtship from summer and arcady the sunlight grew pale the following morning a shadow crept rapidly over the blue bolts darted about the skies like maddened red birds the thunder plowing its way down the dome as the long zigzag cracks in the stony streets fill the caverns of the horizon with reverberations that shook the earth and the rain was whirl across the landscape in long white wavering sheets then all day quiet in silence throughout nature except for the drops tapping high and low the twinkling leaves except for the new melody of woodland and meadowbrooks late silvery and with the voice only for their pebbles and moss and mint but now yellow and bowling and leaping back into the grassy channels that were their old time beds except for the indoor music of dripping eyes and rushing cutters and overflowing rain barrels and when at last in the gold of the cool west the sun broke from the edge of the gray over what a green soaked friggin world he read the arc of nature's peace not a little blade of corn in the fields but holds in an emerald waist its treasures of white gems the hemp stalks bent so low under the weight of their plumes that were a westpaw sparrow to a light on one for his evening hymn it would go with him to the ground the leaning barley and rye and wheat flash in the last rays their jeweled boyards under the old apple trees golden brown mushrooms are already pushing upward through the leaf loam rank with many and autumn's dropping about the yards the peonies fall with faces earthward in the stable dots the larded pokers with bristles as green as frost and flesh of pinky whiteness are hunting with nervous nostrils for the lush porcelain the fowls are driving their bills up and down their west breasts and the farmers who have been shelling corn for the mill come out of their barns with their coats over their shoulders on the way to supper look about for the plow horses and glance at the western sky from which the last drops are falling but soon only a more passionate heat shoots from the sun into the planet the plumes of the hemp are so dry again that by the pollen shaken from their tops you can trace the young rabbits making their way out to the dusty parts the shadows of white clouds sail over purple stretches of bluegrass hiding the sun from the steady eye of the turkey whose brood is spread out before her like a fan on the earth at early morning the reigning of the stallions has heard around the horizon at noon the bull makes the deep hot pastures echo with his majestic summons out in the blazing meadows the butterfly strike the afternoon air with more impatient wings under the moon or night the play of ducks and rakes goes on along the margins of the ponds young people are running away and marrying middle-aged farmers surprise their wives by looking in on them at their butter making in the sweet berries and nature is lashing everything grass fruit insects cattle human creatures more fiercely onward to the fulfillment of her ends she is a great heartless haymaker wasting not a ray of sunshine on a cloud but caring not for the light that beats upon a throne and holding man and woman with their longing for mortality and their capacities for joy and pain as of no more account than a couple of fertilizing nasturtiums the storm kept Daphne at home on the next day the earth was yellow with sunlight but there were puddles along the path and a branch rushing swollen across the green valley in the fields on the third her mother took the children fitted with hats and shoes and Daphne also to be freshened up with various moderate ornaments in view of a prokratric meeting soon to begin on the fourth some ladies dropped in to spend the day bearing in mind the episode dinner and having grown curious to watch events accordingly on the fifth her father carried out the idea of cutting down some cellar trees in the front yard for friends posts and whenever he was working at about the house he kept her near to wait on him in unnecessary ways on the sixth he rode away with two hands and an empty wagon bed for some work on the farm her mother drove off to another dinner dinners never season Kentucky and the wife of an elder is not free to decline invitations and at last she was left alone on the front porch her face turned a burning eagerness towards the fields in a little while she had slipped away all these days Hillary had been eager to see her he was carrying a good many girls in his mind that summer none in his heart but his plans concerning these latter were of the time forgotten he hung about that part of his form from which he could have described her in the distance eat for noon and afternoon at the usual hour of her going to the uncles he rode over and watched for her other people passed to and fro children and servants but not Daphne and repeated disappointments fan his desire to see her when she came into sight at last he was soon walking beside her leading his horse by the reins I have been waiting to see you Daphne he said with a smile but general air of seriousness I have been waiting a long time for a chance to talk to you and I have wanted to see you said Daphne her face turned away and her voice hardly to be heard I have been waiting for a chance to talk to you the change in her was so great so unexpected it contained an appeal to him so touching that he glanced quickly at her then he stopped short and looked searching re around the meadow the thorn tree is often the only one that can survive on these pasture lands it spikes even when it is no higher than the grass keep off the mouths of grazing stock as it grows higher birds see it standing solitary in the distance and fly to it as the resting place and passing some autumn day a seed of the wild grape is thus dropped near its root and entire thorn tree and the grape wine come to thrive together as Hilary now looked for some shade to which they could retreat from the binding burning sunlight he saw one of these standing off at a distance of a few hundred yards he slipped the bridal reins to the head stall and giving his mere soft slap on the shoulder turned her loose to grace come over here and sit down out of the sun he said starting off in his authoritative way I want to talk to you Daphne followed in his wake through the deep grass when they reached the tree they sat down on the railess pose some sheep lying there ran around to the other side and stood watching them with a frightened look in their clear peaceful eyes what's the matter he said fanning his face and tugging with his forefinger to loosen his shirt collar from the moist snakes he had the manner of a powerful comrade whose means to sucker a weaker one nothing said Daphne like a true woman yes but there is he insisted I got you into trouble I didn't think of that when I asked you to dance you had nothing to do with it retorted Daphne with the flash I danced for spite he threw back his head with the peel of laughter all at once this was broken off he sat up with his eyes fixed on the lower edge of the meadow here comes your father he said gravely Daphne turned her father was riding slowly through the bars a wagon bed loaded with rails crept slowly after him in an instant the things that had cost her so much toil and so many tears to arrange her explanations her justifications and her parting all the reserve and the coldness that she had laid up in her heart as one fills high a little ice house with fear of fire of summer heat all were quite gone melted away and everything that he had planned to tell her was forgotten also at the site of that stone figure on horseback bearing unconsciously down upon them if I had only kept my mouth shut about his old fences he said to himself confound my bull and he looked anxiously at Daphne who sat with her eyes riveted on her father the next moment she had turned and they were laughing in each other's faces what shall I do she cried leading over unburring her face in her hands and lifting it against call it with excitement don't do anything he said calmly but hillary if he sees us we are lost if he sees us we are found but he mustn't see me here she cried with something like real teller I believe I lie down on the grass maybe he think I'm a friend of yours my friends all sit up in the grass said lily but Daphne are already hidden many a time in a little girl she had amused herself by screaming like a hawk at the young guineas and seeing them cuddle hidden visible under small tufts and weights out in the stable earth where the grass was gray so close that the geese could barely lip it she would sometimes get one of them negro men to scare the little pigs for the delight of seeing them squat as though hidden when they was no more hidden than if they were spread themselves upon so many dinner dishes all of us revealed traces of this primitive instinct upon occasion Daphne was doing her best to hide now when hillary realized it he moved in front of her screening her as well as possible hadn't you better lie down too she asked no he replied quickly but if he sees you he might take a notion to ride over this way then you'll have to ride but hillary suppose he were to find me lying down here beside you hiding then you'll have to find you you get me into trouble and then you won't help me out exclaimed Daphne with considerable heat it might not make matters any better for me to hide he answered quietly but if he comes over here and tries to get us into trouble I'll see then what I can do Daphne lay silent for a moment thinking then she nestled more closely down and said with a ghee unconscious arkness I am not hiding because I'm afraid of him I'm doing it just because I want to she did not know that the fresh happiness flushing heard that moment came from the fact of having Hillary between herself and her father as a protector that she was drinking in the delight woman feels in getting playfully behind the man she loves in the face of danger but her action bound her to him and brought her more under his influence his words showed that he also felt his position the position of the male who stalks forth from the herd and stands a silent challenger he was young and rain of his manhood in the usual innocent way that led him to carry the chip on his shoulder for the world to knock off and he placed himself before Daphne with the understanding that if they were discovered they would be in trouble her father was a violent man and the circumstances were not such that any Kentucky father would overlook them but with his inward seriousness his face wore its usual look of reckless unconcern is he coming this way I was Daphne after an interval of impatient waiting straight ahead are you hit I can't see whether I'm hit or not where is he now right on us does he see you yes do you yes do you think he sees me I'm sure of it then I might as well get up said Daphne with the courage of despair and up she got her father was riding along the path in front of them but not looking she was down again like a patridge how could you fool me Hillary suppose he had been looking I wonder what he thinks I'm doing sitting over here on the grass like a stump said Hillary if he takes me for one he must think I've got an awful lot of roots tell me when it's time to get up I will he turns softly toward her she was lying on her side with her burning cheek in one hand the other hand rested high on the curve of her hip her braids had fallen forward and lay in a heavy hoop about her lovely shoulders her eyes were closed her scarlet lips parted in a smile the edges of a snow white petticoats showed beneath her blue dress and beyond these one of her feet and ankles nothing more fragrant with innocence ever lay on the grass is it time to get up now not yet and he sat bending over her now not yet he replayed more softly now then not for a long time his voice thrilled her and she glanced up at him his laughing eyes were glowing up down upon her under his heavy matter of hair she sat up and looked towards the wagon crawling away in the distance her father was no longer in sight one of the ews dissatisfied with the back view stamped her forefoot impatiently and ran around in front and out into the sun her lamps followed and three raiding themselves abreast stared at daphne with the look of helpless inquiry she cried throwing up her hands at them irritated go away she turned they turned and ran the others followed and the whole number falling into line took a path meekly homeward they left a greater sense of privacy under the tree several rods off was a small stockpond around the edge of this the water stood hot and green in the tracks of the cat and the sheep and about these pools the yellow butterflies were thick alighting day and day on the promontaries of the mud or rising two by two to the dazzling atmosphere and columns of enamoured light daphne lead over to the blue grass where it's sweet and broken in the breeze and drew out of their socket several stalks of it bearing on their tops the purplish seed vessels with them she began to braid a ring about one of her fingers in the old simple fashion of the country as they talked he lay propped up on his elbow watching her fingers the soft flow movements of which little by little were the spell over his eyes and once again the power of her beauty began to draw him beyond control he felt a desire to seize her hands to crush them in his his eyes passed upward up along her tapering wrists the skin of which was like mother of pearl upward along the arm to the shoulder to her neck to her deeply crimson cheeks to the purity of her bro to the purity of her eyes the downcast lashes of which hit them like conscious fringes an awkward silence began to fall between them daphne fell at that time had come for her to speak but powerless to begin she feigned to busy herself all the more devotedly with braiding the deep green circlet suddenly he drew himself with the grass to her side let me know she cried lifting her arm above his reach and looking at him with a gray thread you don't know how i do know how he sat with his white teeth on his red under lip and his eyes sparkling and reaching upward he let his hand in the hollow of her elbow and pulled her arm down no no she cried again putting her hands behind her back you will spoil it i will not spoil it he said moving so close to her that his breath was on her face and reaching around to unclasp her hands no no no she cried bending away from him i don't want any ring and she tore it from her finger and threw it out on the grass then she got up and brushing the grass seed off her lap put on her hat he sat cross layered on the grass before her he had put on his hat and the brim hid his eyes and you are not going to stay and talk to me he said in a tone of reproachfulness without looking up she was excited and weak and trembling and so she put out her hand and took hold of the strong loop of grapevine hanging from a branch of the thorn and laid her cheek against her hand and looked away from him i thought you were better than the others he continued with bitter wisdom of 20 years but you women are all alike when a man gets into trouble you desert him you hurry him on to the devil i have been turned out of the church and now you are down on me oh well but you know how much i have always liked you daphne it was not the first time he had acted this character it had been a favorite role but daphne had never seen the like she was overwhelmed with happiness that he cared so much for her and to have him reproach her for indifference and see him suffering with the idea that she had turned her against him that instantly changed the whole situation he had not heard then what had taken place at the dinner under the circumstances feeling certain that the secret of her love had not been discovered she grew emboldened to risk a little more so she turned toward him smiling and swayed gently as she clung to the wine yes i have my orders not to even speak to you never again she said with the air of tantalizing then stay with me a while now he said and lifted slowly to her his appealing face she sat down and screened herself with a little feminine transparency i can't stay long it's going to rain he cast a wicked lance at the sky from under his hat there were a few clouds on the horizon and so you're never going to speak to me again he said mournfully never how delicious her laughter was i'll put a ring on your finger to remember me why he lay over in the grass and pulled several stalks then he lifted his eyes besiegingly to hers will you let me daphne hid her hands he drew himself to her side and took one of them forcibly from her lap with a slow caressing moment he began to braid the grass ring around her finger in and out around and around his fingers laced with her fingers his palm lying close upon her palm his blood tingling through her skin upon her blood he made the braiding go wrong and took it off and begin over again two or three times she drew a deep breath and stole a bewildered look at his face which was so close to hers that his hair brushed it so close that she heard the quiver of his own breath then all at once he folded his hands about her with a quick fierce tenderness and looked up at her she turned her face aside and tried to draw her hand away his glass time tinned she snatched it away and got up with a nervous laugh look at the butterflies aren't they pretty he sprang up and tried to seize her hand again you shan't go home yet he said in an undertone shantai said she backing away from him who's going to keep me i am he said laughing excitedly and following her closely my father's coming she cried out as a warning he turned and looked there was no one inside he is coming sooner or later she called she had retreated several yards off into the sunlight of the meadow the remembrance of the risk that he was causing her to run checked him he went over to her when can i see you again soon he had never spoken so seriously to her before he had never been before so serious but within the last hour nature had been doing her work and its effect was immediate his sincerity instantly conquered her her eyes fell no one has any right to keep us from seeing each other he insisted we must settle that for ourselves Daphne made no reply but we can't meet here anymore with people passing backward and forward he continued rapidly and decisively what has happened today mustn't happen again no she replied in a voice barely to be heard it must never happen again we can't meet here they were walking side by side now toward the meadow path as they reached it he paused come to the back of the pasture tomorrow at four o'clock he said tentatively recklessly Daphne did not answer as she moved away from him along the path homeward will you come he called out to her she turned and shook her head whatever her own new plans may have become she was once more happy and laughing come Daphne she walked several paces further and turned and shook her head again come he pleaded she laughed at him he wheeled round to his mare grazing near as he put his foot into the stirrup he looked again she was standing in the same place laughing still you go she cried waving him goodbye there not be a soul to disturb you tomorrow at four o'clock will you be there he said will you she answered i'll be there tomorrow he said an every other day till you come end of section 24 recording by Kamna section 45 of library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume one this is a liber box recording all liber rocks recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liberbox.org library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume one section 45 selection from flute and violin by james lane allen old king solemn's coronation from flute and violin and other kentucky tales and romances 1891 he stood on the top most of the courthouse steps and for a moment looked down on the crowd with the usual air of official severity gentleman he cried out sharply by an odor of the court i now offer this man at public sale to the highest bidder he is able-bodied but lazy without visible property or means of support and of dissolute habits he is therefore a judge guilty of high misdemeanors and is to be sold into labor for a 12 month how much then am i offered for the vagrant how much am i offered for old king solemn nothing was offered for old king solemn the spectators formed themselves into a ring around the big vagrant and settled down to enjoy the performance stop him somebody somebody started to laugh which rippled around the circle the sheriff looked on with an expression of unrelaxed severity but catching the eye of an acquaintance on the outskirts he exchanged a lightning wink of secret appreciation then he lifted off his tight beaver hat wiped out of his eyes a little shower of perspiration which rolled suddenly down from above and warmed a degree to his theme come gentlemen he said more suesively it's too hot to stand here all day make me an offer and you know old king solemn don't wait to be introduced how much then to start him say fifty dollars 25 15 10 my gentleman not 10 dollars remember this is the bluegrass region of kentucky the land of boon and kinton the home of henry clay he added in an oratorical crescendo he ain't with his victuals said an oily tavern keeper folding his arms restfully over his own stomach and cocking up one pigish eye onto his neighbor's face he ain't with his tatas by him foe his rags cried a young law student with a black stone under his arm to the town rag picker opposite who was unconsciously ogling the vagrant's apparel i'm hot by him foe his scalp draw the farmer who had taken part in all kinds of scalp contests and was now known to be busily engaged in collecting crow scalps for a match soon to come off between two rival counties i think i'll buy him foe a hat sign said a manufacturer of ten dollar caster and rorum hats this sally drew merry attention to the vagrant's hat and the merchant felt rewarded you'd better say the town ought to buy him and put him up on top of the coat house as a scarecrow for the cholera said someone else what news of the cholera did the stagecoach bring this moan and quickly inquired his neighbor in his ear and the two immediately fell into low grave talk forgot the auction and turned away stop gentlemen stop cried the sheriff who had watched the rising tide of good humor and now saw his chance to float in on it with spreading sails you're running the price in the wrong direction down not up the law requires that he be sold to the highest bidder not the lowest as loyal citizens uphold the constitution of the commonwealth of kentucky and make me an offer the man is really a great bargain in the first place he would cost his own a little or nothing because as you can see he keeps himself in cigars in clothes then his main article of diet is whiskey a supply of which he always has on hand he don't even need a bed for you know he sleeps just as well on any dough step know what chair for he prefers to sit round on the curb stones remember two gentlemen that old king sauman is a virginian from the same neighborhood as mr clay remember that he is well educated that he is an awful wig and that he has smoked more of the stumps of mr clay's cigars than any other man in existence if you don't believe me gentlemen yonder goes mr clay now call him over and ask him for yourselves he paused and pointed with his right forefinger towards main street along which the spectators with the sudden craning of necks beheld the familiar figure of the passing statesman but you don't need anybody to tell you these facts gentlemen you merely need to be reminded that old king sauman is no ordinary man moreover he has a kind heart he never spoke a rough word to anybody in this world and he is as proud as to come sir of his good name and character and gentlemen he added bridling with an air of mock gallantry and laying a hand on his heart if anything further is required in the way of a perfect encomium we all know that there isn't another man among us who cuts his widest walk among the ladies therefore if you have any appreciation of virtue any magnanimity of heart if you set a proper valuation upon the descendants of virginia that mother of presidents if you believe in the pure laws of kentucky as the pioneer bride of the union if you love america and love the world make me a generous high-toned offer for old king sauman he ended his peroration amid a shout of laughter and applause and feeling satisfied that it was a good time for returning to a more practical treatment of his subject proceeded in a sincere tone he can easily earn from one to two dollars a day and from three to six hundred a year there's not another white man in town capable of doing as much work there's not a nigga born in the hemp factories with such muscles in such a chest look at him and if you don't believe me step forward and feel him how much then is bid for him one dollar said the owner of a hemp factory who had walked forward and felt the vagrants arm laughing but coloring up also as the eyes of all were quickly turned upon him in those days it was not an unheard of thing for the muscles of a human being to be thus examined when being sold into servitude to a new master thank you cried the sheriff cheerly one precinct heard from one dollar i am offered one dollar for old king sauman one dollar for the king make it a half one dollar and a half make it a half one dollar dollar two medical students returning from lectures at the old medical hall now join the group and the sheriff explained one dollar is bid for the vagrant old king sauman who is to be sold into labor for a 12 month is there any other bid are you all done one dollar once dollar and a half said one of the students and remark half justingly under his breath to his companion i'll buy him on the chance of his dying will dissect him would you own his body if he should die if he dies while bound to me i'll arrange that one dollar and a half for zoom the sheriff and falling into a tone of a facile auctioneer he rattled on one dollar and a half for old king sauman sol sol sol do re mi fa sol do re mi fa sol my gentleman you can sit the king to music all this time the vagrant had stood in the center of that close ring of juring and humorous bystanders a baffling text from which to have preached a sermon on the infirmities of our imperfect humanity some years before perhaps as a master stroke of derision there had been given to him that title which could but heighten the contrast of his personality and estate with every suggestion of the ancient sacred magnificence and never had the mockery seemed so fine as at this moment when he was led forth into the streets to receive the lowest sentence of the law upon his poverty and disillusioned idleness he was apparently in the very prime of life a striking figure for nature at least had truly done some royal work on him over six feet in height erect with limbs well shaped and sinewy with chest and neck full of the lines of great power a large head thickly covered with long reddish hair eyes blue face beardless complexion fair but discolored by low passions and excesses such was old king sauman he wore a stiff high black castor hat of the period with the crown smashed in and the torn rim hanging down over one year a black cloth coat in the old style ragged and buttonless a white cotton shirt with a broad collar crumbled wide open at the neck and down his sunburnt bosom blue jean pantaloons patched at the seat and the knees and ragged cotton socks that fell down over the tops of his dusty shoes which were open at the heels in one corner of his sensual mouth rested the stump of a cigar once during the proceedings he had produced another lighted it and continued quietly smoking if he took to himself any shame as the central figure of this ignoble performance no one knew it there was something almost royal in his unconcern the humor the bad nidge the open contempt of which he was the public target felt they can fast upon him as would balls of pith upon a coat of mail in truth there was that in his great lazy gentle good-humored bulk and bearing which made the jibes seem all but despicable he shuffled from one foot to the other as though he founded a trial to stand up so long but all the while looking at the spectators full in the eyes without the least impatience he suffered the man of the factory to walk around him and push and pinch his muscles as calmly as though he had been the show bull at a country fair once only when the sheriff had pointed across the street at the figure of mr clay he had looked quickly in that direction with a kindling light in his eye and a passing flush on his face for the rest he seemed like a man who has drained his cup of human life and has nothing left him but to fill again and drink without the least surprise or eagerness the bidding between the man of the factory and the student had gone slowly on the price had reached ten dollars the heat was intense the sheriff tired then something occurred to revivify the scene across the marketplace and toward the steps of the courthouse there suddenly came trembling along in breathless haste a huge old negris carrying on one arm a large shallow basket containing apple crab lanterns and fresh ginger bed with a series of half articulate grunts and snorts she approached the edge of the crowd and tried to force her way through she coaxed she begged she elbowed and pushed and scolded now laughing and now with the passion of tears in her thick excited voice all at once catching sight of the sheriff she lifted one ponderous brown arm make it to the elbow and waved her hand to him above the heads of those in front hold on monster hold on she cried in a tone of humorous entreaty don't knock him off till I come give me a bid at him the sheriff paused and smiled the crowd made way tumultuously with broad laughter and comment stand aside there and let Aunt Charlotte in now you'll see bidden get out of the way for Aunt Charlotte up my free nigga her awful Kentucky a moment more and she stood inside the ring of spectators her basket on the pavement at her feet her hands plumped a Kimbo into her fathomless sides her head up and her soft motherly eyes turned eagerly upon the sheriff of the crowd she seemed unconscious and on the vagrant before her she had not cast a single glance she was dressed with perfect neatness a red and yellow madras kerchief was bound around her head in a high coil and another over the bosom of her stiffly starched and smoothly ironed blue cut and a dress rivulets of perspiration ran down over her nose her temples and around her ears and disappeared mysteriously in the creases of her brown neck a single drop accidentally hung glistening like a diamond on the circlet of one of her large brass earrings the sheriff looked at her a moment smiling but a little disconcerted the spectacle was unprecedented what do you want here and charlotte he asked kindly you can't sell your pies and gingerbread here i don't want sell no pies and gingerbread she replied contemptuously i want bid on him and she nodded sideways at the vagrant white folks all are selling niggas to work for them i went to buy a white man to work for me and he went to get a mighty hard mistress you hear me the eyes of the sheriff twinkled with delight ten dollars is offered for old king salomon is there any other bid are you all done leban she said two young ragamuffins crawled among the legs of the crowd up to her basket and filched pies and cake beneath her very nose 12 cried the student laughing 13 she laughed too but her eyes flashed you have bitten against the nigger whispered the student's companion in his ear so i am let's be off answered the other with a hot flush on his proud face thus the sale was ended and the court variously dispersed in a distant corner of the courtyard the ragged urchins were devouring their unexpected booty the old niggas drew a red hinker chief out of her bosom untied a knot in a corner of it and counted out the money to the sheriff only she and the vagrant were now left on the spot you have bought me what do you want me to do yes quietly load honey she answered in a low tone of affectionate chatting i don't want you to do nothing i wasn't going to allow them white folks to buy you data worked you till you drop dead you go long and do as you please she gave a cunning chuckle of triumph and thus setting at naught the ends of justice and in a voice rich in musical with affection she said as she gave him a little push you better be getting out of this blazing sun gone home i'll be long by and by he turned and moved slowly away in the direction of water street where she lived and she taking up her basket shuffled across the marketplace toward the cheap side muttering to herself the while i come mighty night getting dark too late fooling along with these pies selling him because he don't work oomph if all the men in this town that don't work was to be took up and sold there wouldn't be enough money into town to buy them don't i see him setting around these taverns will moan until that nature soon smiles upon her own ravages and strews our graves with flowers not as memories but for other flowers when the spring returns it was one cool brilliant morning late in that autumn the air blew fresh and invigorating as though on earth there were no corruption no death far southward had flown the plague a spectator in the open court square might have seen many signs of life returning to the town students hurried along talking eagerly merchants met for the first time and spoke of the winter trade an old negris gaily and neatly dressed came into the marketplace and sitting down on the sidewalk displayed her yellow and red apples and fragrant gingerbread she hummed to herself an old cradle song and in her soft motherly black eyes shown a mild happy radiance a group of young ragamuffins eyed her longingly from a distance court was to open for the first time since the spring the hour was early and one by one the lawyers passed slowly in on the steps of the courthouse three men were standing thomas brown the sheriff old peter luba who had just walked over from his music store on main street and lived monsieur giron the french confectioner each wore mourning on his hat and their voices were low and grave gentlemen the sheriff was saying it was on this various spot the day before the collar broke out that i sold him as a vagrant and i did the meanest thing a man can ever do i held him up to public ridicule for his weakness and made sport of his infirmities i laughed at his poverty and his old clothes i delivered on him as complete an oration of sarcastic detraction as i could prepare on the spot out of my own nearness and with the vulgar sympathies of the crowd gentlemen if i only had that crowd here now and old king salman standing in the midst of it i might ask him to accept a humble public apology offered from the heart of one who feels himself unworthy to shake his hand but gentlemen that crowd will never reassemble nearly every man of them is dead and old king salman buried them he buried my friend eddolph zoppie said france was your own touching his eyes with his handkerchief there's a case of my best jamaican room for him whenever he comes for it said old luba clearing his throat but gentlemen we are speaking of old king salman we ought not to forget who it is that has supported him yonder she sits on the sidewalk sailing her apples and gingerbread the three men looked in the direction indicated here comes old king salman now explained the sheriff across the open square the vagrant was seen walking slowly along with his habitual air of quiet unobtrusive preoccupation a minute more and he had come over and passed into the courthouse by a side door is mr clay to be in court today he is expected i think then let's go in there will be a crowd i don't know so many are dead they turned and entered and found seats as quietly as possible for a strange and sorrowful hush brooded over the courtroom until the bar assembled it had not been realized how many were gone the silence was that of a common overwhelming disaster no one spoke with his neighbor no one observed the vagrant as he entered and made his way to a seat on one of the meanest benches a little apart from the others he had not sat there since the day of his indictment for vagrancy the judge took his seat and making a great effort to control himself passing his eyes slowly over the courtroom all at once he caught sight of old king salman sitting against the wall in an obscure corner and before anyone could know what he was doing he had hurried down and walked up to the vagrant and grasped his hand he tried to speak but could not old king salman had buried his wife and daughter buried them one clouded midnight with no one present but himself then the oldest member of the bar started up and followed the example and then the other members rising by a common impulse filed slowly back and one by one rung that hard and powerful hand after them came the other persons in the courtroom the vagrant the grave digger had risen and stood against the wall at first with a white face and a dazed expression not knowing what it meant afterwards when he understood it his head dropped suddenly forward and his tears felt thick and hot not a man in the long file but paid his tribute of emotion as he stepped forward to honor that image of sadly eclipsed but still effulgent humanity it was not grief it was not gratitude nor any sense of making reparation for the past it was the softening influence of an act of heroism which makes every man feel himself a brother hand in hand with every other such power has a single act of moral greatness to reverse the relations of men lifting up one and bringing all others to do imp homage it was the coronation scene in the life of old king Solomon of Kentucky end of section 45