 Breffis to Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in a public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Julie Van Wallaigam. Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1, Breffis. The plan of this work is simple, and yet it is novel. In its distinctive features it differs from any compilation that has yet been made. Its main purpose is to present to American households a mass of good reading, but it goes much beyond this. For in selecting this reading it draws upon all liturgies of all time and of every race, and thus becomes conspectors of the thought and intellectual evolution of man from the beginning. Another and scarcely less important purpose is the interpretation of this literature in essays by scholars and authors competent to speak with the authority. The title, A Library of the World's Best Literature, is strictly descriptive. It means that what is offered to the reader is taken from the best authors and is fairly representative of the best literature and of all liturgies. It may be important historically, or because at one time it expressed the thought and feeling of a nation, or because it has a character of universality, or because the readers of today will find it instructive, entertaining or amusing. The work aims to suit a great variety of tastes and thus to commend itself as a household companion for any mood and any hour. There is no intention of presenting merely a mass of historical material, however important it is in its place, which is commonly of the sort, that people recommend others to read and do not read themselves. It is not a library of reference only, but a library to be read. The selections do not represent the partialities and prejudices and cultivation of any one person or of a group of editors even. But under the necessary editorial supervision, the sober judgment of almost as many minds as have assisted in the preparation of these volumes, by this method, breadth of appreciation has been sought. The arrangement is not chronological but alphabetical, under the names of the authors, and in some cases, of liturgies and special subjects. Thus, in each volume, a certain variety is secured. The heaviness or sameness of a mass of antique classical or medieval material is avoided, and the reader obtains a sense of the varieties and contrasts of different periods. But the work is not an encyclopedia or merely a dictionary of authors. Comprehensive information, as all varieties of importance, may be included in a supplementary reference volume, but the attempt to quote from all would destroy the work for reading purposes and reduce it to a herbarium of specimens. In order to present a view of the entire literary field, and to make these volumes especially useful to persons who have not access to large libraries, as well as to treat certain liturgies or subjects when the names of writers are unknown or would have no significance to the reader, it has been found necessary to make groups of certain nationalities, periods and special topics. For instance, if the reader would like to know something of ancient and remote liturgies which cannot well be treated under the alphabetical list of authors, he will find special essays by competent scholars on the Akkadian Babylonian literature, on the Egyptian, the Hendo, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Icelandic, the Celtic and others, followed by selections many of which have been specially translated for this work. And these liturgies, names of a certain authors are given in the index. The invention of the essays is to acquaint the reader with the spirit, purpose and tendency of these writings in order that he may have a comparative view of the continuity of thought and the value of tradition in the world. Some subjects, like the Arthurian legends, the Nibelungenlied, the Holy Grail, Provencel poetry, the Chanson and Romances and the Gessa Romanorum, receive a similar treatment. Single poems upon which the author's title to fame mainly rests, familiar and dear hymns and occasional and modern verse of value, are also grouped together under an appropriate heading with reference in the index whenever the poet is known. It won't thus be evident to the reader that a library is fairly comprehensive and representative and that it has an educational value while offering constant and varied entertainment. This comprehensive feature, which gives the work distinction, is however supplemented by another of scarcely less importance, namely the critical interpretive and biographical comments upon the authors and their writings and their plays in literature, not by one mind or by a small editorial staff, but by a great number of writers and scholars, specialists and literary critics who are able to speak from knowledge and with authority. Thus, the library becomes in a way representative of the scholarship and wide judgment of our own time. But the essays have another value. They give information for the guidance of the reader. If he becomes interested in any selections here given and would like a fuller knowledge of the author's work, he can turn to the essay and find brief observations and characterisations which well assist him in making his choice of books from a library. The selections are made for household and general reading, in the belief that a best literature contains enough that it is pure and elevating and at the same time readable to satisfy any taste that should be encouraged. Of course, selection implies choice and exclusion. It is hoped that what is given will be generally approved, yet it may well happen that some readers will miss the names of authors whom they desire to read. By this work, like every other, has its necessary limits, and in a general compilation, the classic writings and those productions that a world has set its seal on as among the best must predominate over contemporary literature that is still on its trial. It should be said, however, that many writers of present note and popularity are omitted simply for lack of space. The editors are compelled to keep constantly in view the wider field. The general purpose is to give only literature, and where authors are cited, who are generally known as philosophers, theologians, publicists or scientists, it is because they have distinct literary quality, or because their influence upon literature itself has been so profound that the progress of the race could not be counted for without them. These volumes contain not only, or mainly, the literature of the past, but they aim to give, within the limits imposed by such a view, an idea of contemporary achievement and tendencies in all civilised countries. In this view of the modern world, the literary product of America and Great Britain occupies the largest space. It should be said that a plan of this work could not have been carried out without the assistance of specialists in many departments of learning and of writers of skill and insight, both in this country and in Europe. This assistance has been most cordially given with the full recognition of the value of the enterprise and of the aid that a library may give in encouraging and broadening literary tastes. Perhaps no better service could be rendered if the American public of this period than the offer of an opportunity for a comprehensive study of the order and the greater legislatures of other nations. By this comparison it can gain a just view of its own literature, and of its possible mission in the world of letters. Charles Dudley Warner Note of Acknowledgement Owing to the many changes in the assignment of topics and engaging of writers' incident to so extended a publication as a library of the world's best literature, the editor finds it impossible, before the completion of the work, and it could lead to recognise the very great aid which he has received from a large number of persons. A full list of contributors will be given in one of the concluding volumes. He will expressly acknowledge also his debt to those who have assisted him editorially, or in other special ways, in the preparation of these volumes. Both editor and publishers have endeavoured to give full credit to every author quoted, and to accompany every citation with ample notice of copyright ownership. At the close of the work it is of their purpose to express, in a more formal way, those sense of obligation to the many publishers who have so cautiously given permission for this use of their property, and to his rights of ownership it is intended thoroughly to protect. Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as if that's all was, his progeny they are. Nay, they do preserve, as in a vile, the purest efficacy and extraction of their living intellect that's bred them. I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as of those fabulous dragon's teeth, and being sewn up and down may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless rariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book, who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God's image, but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth, but a good book is a precious lifeblood of a master's spirit, and barmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. John Milton. End of Preface. Recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Martin Giesen. Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern. Volume 1. Section 1. Essay on Abelard by Thomas Davidson. Pierre, the eldest son of Béranger and Lucie Abelard, was born at Palais near Nantes and the frontier of Brittany in 1079. His nightly father, having in his youth been a student, was anxious to give his family and especially his favourite Pierre a liberal education. The boy was accordingly sent to school under a teacher who was at that time making his mark in the world, Rasellin, the reputed father of nominalism. As the whole import and tragedy of his life may be traced back to this man's teaching and the relation which it bore to the thought of the time, we must pause to consider these. In the early centuries of our era, the two fundamental articles of the Gentile Christian Creed, the Trinity and the Incarnation, neither of them Jewish, were formulated in terms of Platonic philosophy, of which the distinctive tenet is that the real and eternal is the universal, not the individual. On this assumption it was possible to say that the same real substance could exist in three or indeed in any number of persons. In the case of God, the dogma builders were careful to say, essence is one with existence and therefore in him the individuals are as real as the universal. Platonism, having lent the formula for the Trinity, became the favourite philosophy of many of the church fathers, and so introduced into Christian thought and life the Platonic dualism, that sharp distinction between the temporal and the eternal which belittles the practical life and glorifies the contemplative. This distinction, as aggravated by Neo-Platonism, further affected Eastern Christianity in the sixth century and Western Christianity in the ninths, chiefly through the writings of the pseudo Dionisius Ariopagita, and gave rise to Christian mysticism. It was then erected into a rule of conduct through the efforts of Pope Gregory VII, who strove to subject practical and civil life entirely to the control of ecclesiastics and monks, standing for contemplative supernatural life. The latter included all purely mental work, which more and more tended to concentrate itself upon religion and confine itself to the clergy. In this way it came to be considered an utter disgrace for any man engaged in mental work to take any part in the institutions of civil life, and particularly to marry. He might indeed enter into illicit relations and rear a family of nephews and nieces, without losing prestige, but to marry was to commit suicide. Such was the condition of things in the days of Abilar. But while Platonism, with its real universals, was celebrating its ascetic unearthly triumphs in the West, Aristotelianism, which maintains that the individual is the real, was making its way in the East, banished as heresy beyond the limits of the Catholic Church in the fifth and sixth centuries. In the persons of Nestorius and others it took refuge in Syria, where it flourished for many years in the schools of Edessa and Nisibis, the foremost of the time. From these it found its way among the Arabs, and even to the illiterate Muhammad, who gave it one theoretic theological expression in the 112th Surah of the Quran. He is one God, God the Eternal. He neither begets nor is begotten, and to him there is no peer, in which both the fundamental dogmas of Christianity are denied, and that too on the ground of revelation. Two, practical expression, by forbidding asceticism and monasticism, and encouraging a robust, though somewhat coarse, natural life. Islam indeed was an attempt to rehabilitate the human. In Abelach's time, Arab Aristotelianism, with its consequences for thought and life, was filtering into Europe and forcing Christian thinkers to defend the bases of their faith. Since these, so far as defensible at all, depended upon the platonic doctrine of universals, and this could be maintained only by dialectic, this science became extremely popular, indeed almost the rage. Little of the real Aristotle was at that time known in the West, but in Porphyry's introduction to Aristotle's logic was a famous passage in which all the difficulties with regard to universals were stated without being solved. Over this the intellectual battles of the first age of scholasticism were fought. The more clerical and mystic thinkers, like Anselm and Bernard, of course sided with Plato, but the more worldly robust thinkers inclined to accept Aristotle, not seeing that his doctrine is fatal to the Trinity. Prominent among these was a Breton, Rosselin, the early instructor of Abelach. From him the brilliant, fearless boy learnt two terrible lessons. One, that universals, instead of being real substances, external and superior to individual things, are mere names, hence nominalism, for common qualities of things as recognized by the human mind. Two, that since universals are the tools and criteria of thought, the human mind in which alone these exist is the judge of all truth. A lesson which leads directly to pure rationalism, and indeed to the rehabilitation of the human as against the superhuman. No wonder that Rosselin came into conflict with the church authorities, and had to flee to England. Abelach afterwards modified his nominalism, and behaved somewhat unhansomly to him, but never escaped from the influence of his teaching. Abelach was a rationalist and an asserter of the human. Accordingly, when definitely adopting the vocation of the scholar, he went to Paris to study dialectic under the then famous William of Champot, a declared Platonist, or Realist, as the designation then was, he gave his teacher infinite trouble by his subtle objections, and not seldom got the better of him. These victories, which made him disliked both by his teacher and his fellow pupils, went to increase his natural self-appreciation, and induced him, though a mere youth, to leave William and set up a rival school at Milan. Here his splendid personality, his confidence, and his brilliant powers of reasoning and statement drew to him a large number of admiring pupils, so that he was soon induced to move his school to Carbet, near Paris, where his impetuous dialectic found a wider field. Here he worked so hard that he fell ill, and was compelled to return home to his family. With them he remained for several years, devoting himself to study, not only of dialectic, but plainly also of theology. Returning to Paris, he went to study rhetoric under his old enemy, William of Champot, who had meanwhile to increase his prestige, taken holy orders, and had been made bishop of Chalon. The old feud was renewed, and Abelach, being now better armed than before, compelled his master openly to withdraw from his extreme realistic position with regard to universals, and assume one more nearly approaching that of Aristotle. The victory greatly diminished the fame of William, and increased that of Abelach, so that when the former left his chair and appointed a successor, the latter gave way to Abelach and became his pupil, 11-13. This was too much for William, who removed his successor, and so forced Abelach to retire again to Milan. Here he remained but a short time. For William, having on account of unpopularity, removed his school from Paris. Abelach returned thither, and opened a school outside the city on Mont Saint-Geneviève. William, hearing this, returned to Paris, and tried to put him down, but in vain. Abelach was completely victorious. After a time he returned once more to Palais, to see his mother, who was about to enter the cloister, as his father had done some time before. When this visit was over, instead of returning to Paris to lecture on dialectic, he went to Laon to study theology under the then famous Anselm. Here, convinced of the showy superficiality of Anselm, he once more got into difficulty by undertaking to expound a chapter of Ezekiel without having studied it under any teacher. Though at first derided by his fellow students, he succeeded so well as to draw a crowd of them to hear him, and so excited the envy of Anselm that the latter forbad him to teach in Laon. Abelach, accordingly, returned once more to Paris, convinced that he was fit to shine as a lecturer, not only on dialectic, but also on theology. And his audiences thought so also, for his lectures on Ezekiel were very popular and true crowds. He was now at the height of his fame, 1118. The results of all these triumphs over dialecticians and theologians was unfortunate. He not only felt himself the intellectual superior of any living man, which he probably was, but he also began to look down upon the current thought of his time as obsolete and unworthy, and to set at nought even current opinion. He was now on the verge of forty, and his life had so far been one of spotless purity. But now, under the influence of vanity, this too gave way. Having no further conquests to make in the intellectual world, he began to consider whether, with his great personal beauty, manly bearing and confident address, he might not make conquests in the social world, and arrived at the conclusion that no woman could reject him or refuse him her favour. It was just at this unfortunate juncture that he went to live in the house of a certain canon fulbert of the cathedral, whose brilliant niece, Eloise, had, at the age of seventeen, just returned from a convent at Argenteu, where she had been at school. Fulbert, who was proud of her talents and glad to get the price of Abilar's board, took the latter into his house and entrusted him with the full care of Eloise's further education, telling him even to chastise her if necessary. So complete was Fulbert's confidence in Abilar that no restriction was put upon the companionship of teacher and pupil. The result was that Abilar and Eloise, both equally inexperienced in matters of the heart, soon conceived for each other an overwhelming passion, comparable only to that of Faust and Gretchen. And the result in both cases was the same. Abilar, as a great scholar, could not think of marriage, and if he had, Eloise would have refused to ruin his career by marrying him. So it came to pass that when their secret, never very carefully guarded, became no longer a secret, and threatened the safety of Eloise, the only thing that her lover could do for her was to carry her off secretly to his home in Palais, and place her in charge of his sister. Here she remained until the birth of her child, which received the name of Astrolabius, Abilar meanwhile continuing his work in Paris, and here all the nobility of his character comes out. Though Fulbert and his friends were naturally enough furious at what they regarded as his utter treachery, and though they tried to murder him, he protected himself, and as soon as Eloise was fit to travel, hastened to Palais, and insisted upon removing her to Paris, and making her his lawful wife. Eloise used every argument which her fertile mind could suggest to dissuade him from a step which she felt must be his ruin. At the same time, expressing her entire willingness to stand in a less honoured relation to him. But Abilar was inexorable. Taking her to Paris, he procured the consent of her relatives to the marriage, which they agreed to keep secret, and even their presence at the ceremony, which was performed one morning before daybreak, after the two had spent a night of vigils in the church. After the marriage, they parted, and for some time saw little of each other. When Eloise's relatives divulged the secret, and she was taxed with being Abilar's lawful wife, she anathematised and swore that it was absolutely false. As the facts were too patent, however, Abilar removed her from Paris, and placed her in the convent at Arch-Chanteu, where she had been educated. Here she assumed the garb of a novice. Her relatives, thinking that he must have done this in order to rid himself of her ffioriously vowed vengeance, which they took in the meanest and most brutal form of personal violence. It was not a time of fine sensibilities, justice or mercy. But even the public of those days was horrified and gave expression to its horror. Abilar, overwhelmed with shame, despair and remorse, could now think of nothing better than to abandon the world. Without any vocation, as he well knew, he assumed the monkish habit and retired to the monastery of Saint-Anis, while Eloise, by his order, took the veil at Arch-Chanteu. Her devotion and heroism on this occasion, Abilar has described in touching terms. Thus, supernaturalism had done its worst for these two strong, impetuous human souls. If Abilar had entered the cloister in the hope of finding peace, he soon discovered his mistake. The dissolute life of the monks utterly disgusted him, while the clergy stormed him with petitions to continue his lectures. Ylding to these, he was soon again surrounded by crowds of students. So great that the monks at Saint-Anis were glad to get rid of him. He accordingly retired to a lonely cell, to which he was followed by more admirers than could find shelter or food. As the schools of Paris were thereby emptied, his rivals did everything in their power to put a stop to his teaching, declaring that as a monk he ought not to teach profane science, nor as a layman in theology sacred science. In order to legitimise his claim to teach the latter, he now wrote a theological treatise regarding which he says, It so happened that I first endeavoured to illuminate the basis of our faith by similitudes drawn from human reason, and to compose for our students a treatise on the divine unity and trinity, because they kept asking for human and philosophic reasons and demanding rather what could be understood than what could be said, declaring that the mere utterance of words was useless unless followed by understanding, that nothing could be believed that was not first understood, and that it was ridiculous for anyone to preach what neither he nor those he taught could comprehend, God himself calling such people blind leaders of the blind. Here we have Abelach's central position, exactly the opposite to that of his realist contemporary Anselm of Canterbury, whose principle was credo ut intelligam. I believe that I may understand. We must not suppose, however, that Abelach, with his rationalism, dreamed of undermining Christian dogma very far from it. He believed it to be rational and thought he could prove it so. No wonder that the book gave offence in an age when faith and ecstasy were placed above reason. Indeed his rivals could have wished for nothing better than this book, which gave them a weapon to use against him. Led on by two old enemies, Albrych and Lotolf, they caused an ecclesiastical council to be called at Tswason to pass judgment upon the book. 1121 This judgment was a foregone conclusion, the trial being the nearest farce in which the pursuers were the judges the papal legat allowing his better reason to be overruled by their passion. Abelach was condemned to burn his book in public and to read the Athanasian creed as his confession of faith, which he did in tears and then to be confined permanently in the monastery of Samedar as a dangerous heretic. His enemies seemed to have triumphed and to have silenced him forever. Soon after however, the papal legat, ashamed of the part he had taken in the transaction, restored him to liberty and allowed him to return to his own monastery at Sandani. Here once more his rationalistic critical spirit brought him into trouble with the bigoted licentious monks. Having maintained on the authority of Bede that Dionysius, the patron saint of the monastery, was bishop of Corinth and not of Athens, he raised such a storm that he was forced to flee and took refuge on a neighbouring estate whose proprietor Count Teeble was friendly to him. Here he was cordially received by the monks of Trois and allowed to occupy a retreat belonging to them. After some time and with great difficulty he obtained leave from the Abbot of Sandani to live where he chose, on condition of not joining any other order. Being now practically a free man, he retired to a lonely spot near Nogent-sur-Seine on the banks of the Ardu-Saint. There, having received a gift of a piece of land, he established himself along with a friendly cleric, building a small oratory of clay and reeds to the Holy Trinity. No sooner however was his place of retreat known than he was followed into the wilderness by hosts of students of all ranks who lived in tents, slept on the ground and underwent every kind of hardship in order to listen to him. 1123 These supplied his wants and built a chapel which he dedicated to the Paraclete, a name at which his enemies, furious over his success, were greatly scandalised, but which ever after designated the whole establishment. So incessant and unrelenting were the persecutions he suffered from those enemies and so deep his indignation at their baseness that for some time he seriously thought of escaping beyond the bounds of Christendom and seeking refuge among the Muslim. But just then, 1125, he was offered an important position, the Abbotship of the Monastery of Saint-Judas-de-Rouich in Lower Brittany on the lonely inhospitable shore of the Atlantic. Eager for rest and a position promising influence Abilar accepted the offer and left the Paraclete not knowing what he was doing. His position at Saint-Judas was little less than slow martyrdom. The country was wild, the inhabitants were half barbarous speaking a language unintelligible to him. The monks were violent, unruly and disolute openly living with concubines. The lands of the monastery were subjected to intolerable burdens by the neighbouring Lord leaving the monks in poverty and discontent. Instead of finding a home of God-fearing men eager for enlightenment he found a nest of greed and corruption. His attempts to introduce discipline or even decency among his sons only stirred up rebellion and placed his life in danger. Many times he was menaced with the sword, many times with poison. In spite of all that he clung to his office and laboured to do his duty. Meanwhile the jealous Abbot of Saint-Denis succeeded in establishing a claim to the lands of the Convent at Arch-Chanteu of which Eloise long since famous not only for learning but also for saintliness was now the head and she and her nuns were violently evicted and cast on the world. Hearing of this with indignation Abelach at once offered the homeless sisters the deserted paraclit and all its belongings. The offer was thankfully accepted and Eloise with her family removed there to spend the remainder of her life. It does not appear that Abelach and Eloise ever saw each other at this time although he used every means in his power to provide for her safety and comfort. This was in 1129. Two years later the paraclit was confirmed to Eloise by a papal bull. It remained a convent and a famous one for over 600 years. After this Abelach paid several visits to the convent which he justly regarded as his foundation in order to arrange a rule of life for its inmates and to encourage them in their vocation. Although on these occasions he saw nothing of Eloise he did not escape the malignant suspicions of the world nor of his own flock which now became more unruly than ever. So much so that he was compelled to live outside the monastery. Excommunication was tried in vain and even the efforts of a papal legate failed to restore order. For Abelach there was nothing but fear within and conflict without. It was at this time about 1132 that he wrote his famous Historia Calamitatum from which most of the above account of his life has been taken. In 1134 after nine years of painful struggle he definitely left Saint Gildas without, however, resigning the Abbot ship. For the next two years he seems to have led a retired life revising his old works and composing new ones. Meanwhile by some chance his history of calamities fell into the hands of Eloise at the Paraclit was devoured with breathless interest and rekindled the flame that seems to have smoldered in her bosom for thirteen long years. Overcome with compassion for her husband for such he really was she at once wrote to him a letter which reveals the first healthy human heart beat that had found expression in Christendom for a thousand years. Thus began a correspondence which for genuine tragic pathos and human interest has no equal in the world's literature. In Abilach the scholarly monk has completely replaced the man. In Eloise the saintly nun is but a veil assumed in loving obedience to him to conceal the deep hearted faithful devoted flesh and blood woman and such a woman it may well be doubted if for all that constitutes genuine womanhood she ever had an equal. If there is salvation in love Eloise is in the heaven of heavens. She does not try to express her love in poems as Mrs Browning did but her simple straightforward expression of a love that would share Francesca's fate with her lover rather than go to heaven without him yields and has yielded matter for a hundred poems. She looks forward to no salvation for her chief love is for him. Domino specualiter sua singulariter as a member of the species woman I am the lords as Eloise I am yours nominalism with a vengeance but to return to Abilach permanent quiet in obscurity was plainly impossible for him and so in 1136 we find him back at Saint Geneviève lecturing to crowds of enthusiastic students he probably thought that during the long years of his exile the envy and hatred of his enemies had died out but he soon discovered that he was greatly mistaken he was too marked a character and the tendency of his thought too dangerous for that besides he emptied the schools of his rivals and adopted no conciliatory tone towards them the natural result followed in the year 1140 his enemies headed by Saint Bernard who had long regarded him with suspicion raised a cry of heresy against him as subjecting everything to reason Bernard, who was nothing if not a fanatic and who managed to give vent to all his passions by placing them in the service of his God at once denounced him to the Pope to cardinals and to bishops in passionate letters full of rhetoric demanding his condemnation as a perverter of the bases of the faith at that time a great ecclesiastical council was about to assemble at Saint and Abila, feeling certain that his writings contained nothing which he could not show to be strictly orthodox demanded that he should be allowed to explain and dialectically defend his position in open dispute before it but this was above all things what his enemies dreaded they felt that nothing was safe before his brilliant dialectic Bernard even refused to enter the lists with him and preferred to draw up a list of his heresies in the form of sentences sundered from their context in his works some of them indeed from works which he never wrote and to call upon the council to condemn them these theses may be found in dentsingers enchiridion symbolorum et definitionum pages 109 sequentes Abila clearly understanding the scheme feeling its unfairness and knowing the effect of Bernard's lacrimose pulpit rhetoric upon sympathetic ecclesiastics who believed in his power to work miracles appeared before the council only to appeal from its authority to Rome the council though somewhat disconcerted by this proceeded to condemn the disputed theses and sent a notice of its action to the pope fearing that Abila who had friends in Rome might proceed thither and obtain a reversal of the verdict Bernard set every agency at work to obtain a confirmation of it before his victim could reach the eternal city and he succeeded the result was for a time kept secret from Abila who now over 60 years old set out on his painful journey stopping on his way at the famous hospitable Abbey of Cluny he was most kindly and attained by its noble abbot who well deserved the name of Peter the venerable here apparently he learned that he had been condemned and excommunicated for he went no further Peter offered the weary man an asylum in his house which was gladly accepted and Abila, at last convinced of the vanity of all worldly ambition settled down to a life of humiliation, meditation, study and prayer soon afterward Bernard made advances toward reconciliation which Abila accepted whereupon his excommunication was removed then the once proud Abila shattered in body and broken in spirit had nothing more to do but to prepare for another life and the end was not far off he died at Saint Marcel on the 21st of April 1142 at the age of 63 his generous host in a letter to Eloise gives a touching account of his closing days which were mostly spent in a retreat provided for him on the banks of the Saun there he read, wrote, dictated and prayed in the only quiet days which his life ever knew the body of Abila was placed in a monoleth coffin and buried in the chapel of the monastery of Saint Marcel but Peter the venerable 22 years afterward allowed it to be secretly removed and carried to the Paraclete where Abila had wished to lie when Eloise, world famous for learning virtue and saintliness passed away and her body was laid beside his he opened his arms and clasped her in close embrace so says the legend and who would not believe it the united remains of the immortal lovers after many vicissitudes found at last, let us hope in 1817 a permanent resting place in the Parisian cemetery of Père la Chers having been placed together in Abila's monoleth coffin in death they were not divided Abila's character may be summed up in a few words he was one of the most brilliant and variously gifted men that ever lived a sincere lover of truth and champion of freedom but unfortunately his extraordinary personal beauty and charm of manner made him the object of so much attention and adulation that he soon became unable to live without seeing himself mirrored in the admiration and love of others hence his restlessness, irritability, craving for publicity fondness for dialectic triumph and inability to live in fruitful obscurity hence to his intrigue with Eloise his continual struggles and disappointments his final humiliation and tragic end not having conquered the world he cannot claim the crown of the martyr Abila's works were collected by Cousin and published in three quarter volumes Paris 1836, 1849, 1859 they include besides the correspondence with Eloise and a number of sermons, hymns, answers to questions etc written for her the following one seeked known a collection of often contradictory statements of the fathers concerning the chief dogmas of religion two, dialectic three, on genera and species four, glosses to Porphyry's introduction Aristotle's categories and interpretation and Boethius's topics five, introduction to theology six, Christian theology seven, commentary on the epistle to the Romans nine, abstract of Christian theology ten, ethics or know thyself eleven, dialogue between a philosopher, a Jew and a Christian twelve, on the intellects thirteen, on the hexameron with a few short and unimportant fragments and tracks none of Abila's numerous poems in the vernacular in which he celebrated his love for Eloise which he sang ravishingly for he was a famous singer and which had once became widely popular seemed to have come down to us but we have a somewhat lengthy poem of considerable merit though of doubtful authenticity addressed to his son Astrolabius who grew to manhood became a cleric and died it seems as Abbott of Uttrive in Switzerland in 1162 of Abila's philosophy little need be added to what has been already said it is on the whole the philosophy of the middle age with this difference that he insists upon making theology rational and thus may truly be called the founder of modern rationalism and the initiator of the struggle against the tyrannic authority of blind faith to have been so is his crowning merit and is one that can hardly be overestimated at the same time it must be born in mind that he was a loyal son of the church and never dreamed of opposing or undermining her his greatest originality is in ethics in which by placing the essence of morality in the intent and not in the action he anticipated Kant and much modern speculation here he did admirable work Abila founded no school strictly speaking nevertheless he determined the method and aim of scholasticism and exercised a boundless influence which is not dead Descartes and Kant are his children among his immediate disciples were a pope 29 cardinals and more than 50 bishops his two greatest pupils were Peter the Lombard, Bishop of Paris and author of the Sentences the theological textbook of the schools for hundreds of years and Arnold of Brescia one of the noblest champions of human liberty though condemned and banished by the Second Council of the Lateran the best biography of Abila is that by Charles de Rémusat two volumes Octavo Paris 1845 see also in English White's Abilaad and Eloise New York 1853 end of section one Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey section two of library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume one 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 Martin Giesen library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume one section two selected works by Abilaad translated by Samuel W. Duffield Eloise to Abilaad a letter of yours sent to a friend best beloved to console him in affliction was lately almost by a chance put into my hands seeing the superscription guess how eagerly I seized it I had lost the reality I hoped to draw some comfort from this faint image of you but alas for I well remember every line was written with gall and wormwood how you retold our sorrowful history and dwelt on your incessant afflictions well did you fulfil that promise to your friend that in comparison with your own his misfortune should seem butters trifles you recalled the persecutions of your masters the cruelty of my uncle and the fierce hostility of your fellow pupils and the barbaricus of Rhath and Lothulfus of Lombardy how through their plottings that glorious book your theology was burned and you confined and disgraced you went on to the machinations of the abbot of Sandini and of your false brethren of the convent and the callonies of those wretches Norbert and Bernard who envy and hate you it was even you say imputed to you as an offence to have given the name of Paraclet contrary to the common practice to the oratory you had founded the persecutions of that cruel tyrant of Sanjildas and of those execrable monks monks out of greed only whom notwithstanding you call your children which still harrests you close the miserable history nobody could read or hear these things and not be moved to tears what then must they mean to me we all despair of your life and our trembling hearts dread to hear the tidings of your murder for Christ's sake who has thus far protected you right to us as to his handmaids and yours every circumstance of your present dangers I and my sisters alone remain of all who were your friends let us be sharers of your joys and sorrows sympathy brings some relief and a load laid on many shoulders is lighter and write them more surely if your letters may be messengers of joy whatever message they bring at least they will show that you remember us you can write to comfort your friend while you soothe his wounds you inflame mine heal I pray you those you yourself have made you who bustle about to cure those for which you are not responsible you cultivate a vineyard you did not plant which grows nothing give heed to what you owe your own you who spend so much on the obstinate consider what you owe the obedient you who lavish pains on your enemies reflect on what you owe your daughters and counting nothing else think how you are bound to me what you owe to all devoted women pay to her who is most devoted you know better than I how many treatises the holy fathers of the church have written for our instruction how they have laboured to inform, to advise and to console us is my ignorance to suggest knowledge to the learned Abelach long ago indeed your neglect astonished me neither religion nor love of me nor the example of the holy fathers moved you to try to fix my struggling soul never even when long grief had worn me down did you come to see me or send me one line of comfort me to whom you were bound by marriage and who clasp you about with a measureless love and for the sake of this love have I no right to even a thought of yours you well know dearest how much I lost in losing you and that the manner of it put me to double torture you only can comfort me by you I was wounded and by you I must be healed and it is only you on whom the debt rests I have obeyed the last tittle of your commands and if you obeyed me I would sacrifice my soul to please you my love gave up the only thing in the universe it valued the hope of your presence and that forever the instant I received your commands I quitted the habit of the world and denied all the wishes of my nature I meant to give up for your sake whatever I had once a right to call my own God knows it was always you and you only that I thought of I looked for no dowry no alliance of marriage and if the name of wife is holier and more exalted the name of friend always remained sweeter to me or if you would not be angry a meaner title since the more I gave up the less should I injure your present renown and the more deserve your love nor had you yourself forgotten this in that letter which I recall you are ready enough to set forth some of the reasons which I used to you to persuade you not to fetter your freedom but you pass over most of the pleas I made to withhold you from our ill-fated wedlock I call God to witness that if Augustus ruler of the world should think me worthy the honour of marriage and settle the whole globe on me to rule forever it would seem dearer and prouder to me to be called your mistress than his empress not because a man is rich or powerful is he better riches and power may come from luck constancy is from virtue I hold that woman base who weds a rich man rather than a poor one and takes a husband for her own gain whoever marries with such a motive why she will follow his prosperity rather than the man and be willing to sell herself to a richer suitor that happiness which others imagine best beloved I experienced other women might think their husbands perfect and be happy in the idea but I knew that you were so and the universe knew the same what philosopher what king could rival your fame what village city kingdom was not on fire to see you when you appeared in public who did not run to behold you wives and maidens alike recognised your beauty and grace queens envied Eloise her abilar two gifts you had to lead captive the proudest soul your voice that made all your teaching a delight and your singing which was like no other do you forget those tender songs you wrote for me which all the world caught up and sang but not like you those songs that kept your name forever floating in the air and made me known through many lands the envy and the scorn of women what gifts of mind what gifts of person glorified you oh my loss who would change places with me now and you know abilar that though I am the great course of your misfortunes I am most innocent for a consequence is no part of a crime justice weighs not the thing done but the intention and how pure was my intention towards you you alone can judge judge me I will submit but how happens it tell me that since my profession of the life which you alone determined I have been so neglected and so forgotten that you will neither see me nor write to me make me understand it if you can or I must tell you what everybody says that it was not a pure love like mine that held your heart and that your course of feeling vanished with absence and ill report would that to me alone this seemed so best beloved and not to all the world would that I could hear others excuse you or devise excuses myself the things I ask ought to seem very small and easy to you while I starve for you do now and then by words bring back your presence to me how can you be generous in deeds if you are so avaricious in words I have done everything for your sake it was not religion that dragged me a young girl so fond of life so ardent to the harshness of the convent but only your command if I deserve nothing from you how vain is my labour God will not recompense me for whose love I have done nothing when you resolved to take the vows I followed rather I ran before you had the image of lots wife before your eyes you feared I might look back and therefore you deeded me to God by the sacred vestments and irrevocable vows before you took them yourself for this I own I grieved bitterly ashamed that I could depend on you so little when I would lead or follow you straight to perdition for my soul is always with you and no longer mine own and if it is not with you in these last wretched years it is nowhere do receive it kindly oh if only you had returned favour for favour even a little for much words for things would be love it that your affection would not take my tenderness and obedience always for granted that it might be more anxious but just because I have poured out all I have and am you give me nothing remember oh remember how much you owe there was a time when people doubted whether I had given you all my heart asking nothing but the end shows how I began I have denied myself a life which promised at least peace and work in the world only to obey your heart exactions I have kept back nothing for myself except the comfort of pleasing you how hard and cruel are you then when I ask so little and that little is so easy for you to give in the name of God to whom you are dedicate send me some lines of consolation help me to learn obedience when you wooed me because earthly love was beautiful you sent me letter after letter with your divine singing every street and house echoed my name how much more ought you now to persuade to God her whom then you turned from him heed what I ask think what you owe I have written a long letter but the ending shall be short farewell darling Abelars answer to Eloise to Eloise his best beloved sister in Christ Abelars her brother in him if since we resigned the world I have not written to you it was because of the high opinion I have ever entertained of your wisdom and prudence how could I think that she stood in need of help on whom heaven had shard its best gifts you were able I knew by example as by word to instruct the ignorant to comfort the timid to kindle the lukewarm when prioris of our shantay you practiced all these duties and if you give the same attention to your daughters that you then gave to your sisters it is enough all my exhortations would be needless but if in your humility you think otherwise and if my words can avail you anything tell me on what subjects you would have me right and as God shall direct me I will instruct you I thank God that the constant dangers to which I am exposed rouse your sympathies thus I may hope under the divine protection of your prayers to see Satan bruised under my feet therefore I hasten to send you the form of prayer you beseach of me you my sister once dear to me in the world but now far dearer in Christ offer to God a constant sacrifice of prayer urge him to pardon our great and manifold sins and to avert the dangers which threaten me we know how powerful before God and his saints are the prayers of the faithful but chiefly of faithful women for their friends and of wives for their husbands the apostle admonishes us to pray without ceasing but I will not insist on the supplications of your sisterhood day and night devoted to the service of their maker to you only do I turn I well know how powerful your intercession may be I pray you exert it in this my need in your prayers then ever remember him who in a special sense is yours urge your entreaties for it is just that you should be heard an equitable judge cannot refuse it in former days you remember best beloved how fervently you recommended me to the care of Providence often in the day you uttered a special petition removed now from the paraclete and surrounded by perils how much greater my need convince me of the sincerity of your regard I entreat I implore you the prayer O God who by thy servant didst hear assemble thy handmaids in thy holy name grant we beseach thee that he be protected from all adversity and be restored safe to us thy handmaids if heaven permit my enemies to destroy me or if I perish by accident see that my body is conveyed to the paraclete there my daughters or rather my sisters in Christ seeing my tomb will not cease to implore heaven for me no resting place is so safe for the grieving soul forsaken in the wilderness of its sins none so full of hope as that which is dedicated to the paraclete that is the comforter where could a Christian find a more peaceful grave than in the society of holy women consecrated by God they as the gospel tells us would not leave their divine master they embarked his body with precious spices they followed him to the tomb and there they held their vigil in return it was to them that the angel of the resurrection appeared for their consolation finally let me entreat you that the solicitude you now too strongly feel for my life you will extend to the repose of my soul carry into my grave the love you showed me when alive that is never forget to pray heaven for me long life farewell long life farewell to your sisters also remember me but let it be in Christ the Vesper hymn of Abelach oh what shall be oh when shall be that holy Sabbath day which heavenly care shall ever keep and celebrate all the way when rest is found for weary limbs when labour hath reward when everything forever more is joyful in the Lord the true Jerusalem above the holy town is there whose duties are so full of joy whose joy is so free from care where disappointment cometh not to check the longing heart and where the heart in ecstasy hath gained her better part oh glorious king oh happy state oh palace of the blessed oh sacred place and holy joy and perfect heavenly rest to thee aspire thy citizens in glory's bright array and what they feel and what they know they strive in vain to say for while we wait and long for home it shall be ours to raise our songs and chants and vows and prayers in that dear country's praise and from these Babylonian streams to lift our weary eyes and view the city that we love descending from the skies there there secure from every ill in freedom we shall sing the songs of Zion hindered here by days of suffering and unto thee our gracious Lord our praises shall confess that all our sorrow has been good and thou by pain canst bless there Sabbath day to Sabbath day sheds on a ceaseless light eternal pleasure of the saints who keep that Sabbath bright nor shall the chant ineffable decline nor ever cease which we with all the angels sing in that sweet realm of peace End of Section 2 Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey Section 3 of Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern Volume 1 This is a Librebox recording. All Librebox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librebox.org Recording by Mario Pineda Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern Volume 1, Section 3 Selections from The King of the Mountains by Edmund About Translated by J. E. Teltun Edmund About, 1828, 1885 Early in the Rind of Louis Napoleon, a serial story called Tolia, a vivid study of social life in Rome, delighted the readers of the Review de Dumond When published the book form in 1855, it drew a storm of a problem upon its John Arthur, who was accused of offering as his own creation and translation of the Italian work Bittoria Saborelli. This charge, undoubtedly unjust, he indignantly refuted. It served at least to make his name well known. Another book, La Cuestione Romaine, a brilliant if somewhat superficial argument against the temporal power of Pope and priests, was a philosophic employment of the same material. Appearing in 1860 about the epoch of the French invasion of Austria and Italy, its tone agreed with popular sentiment and it was favorably received. Edmund François Valentin About had a freakish, a basic, many-sided personality, a nature drawn in too many directions to achieve in any one of these the success his talents warranted. He was born in Jerusalem and like most French boys of literary ambition, soon found his way into Paris where he studied at the Lise Charlemagne. Here he won the Honour Prize and in 1851 was sent to Athens to study archaeology at the École Française. He loved change and out of the way experiences and two studies resulting from his trip, La Grèce Contemporaine, a book of charming philosophic description, and the delightful story La Roix de Montagne, The King of the Mountains. This tale of the long-lived German student, enveloped in the smoke from his porcelain pipe as he recounts a series of impossible adventures, those of himself and two English women captured from ransom by Haji Stabros, begun keying in the Grecian Mountains, is especially characteristic of About in the humorous atmosphere of every situation. About wrote stories so easily and well that his early desertion of fiction is surprising. His mocking spirit has often suggested comparison with Boutaire whom he studied and admired. He too is a skeptic and an idle breaker, but his is a kindler irony, a less incisive philosophy. Perhaps, however, this influence led to lack of faith in his own work to his loss of an ideal, which Sola thinks is the real secret of his sudden change from novelist to journalist. Boutaire taught him to scoff and disbelief, to demand a co-aborn, and that took the heart out of him. He was rather fond of exposing abuses, a habit that appears in those video letters to the Galois, which in 1878 obliged him to suspend that journal. His was a positive mind interested in political affairs, and with something always ready to say upon them. In 1872 he founded a radical newspaper, Le Diz Novième Cicl, the 19th century, in association with another aggressive spirit that of Francisc Cersei. For many years he proved his ability as editor, businessman and game polemist. He tried drama too, inevitably ambition of young French authors, but after the failure of Gullery at the Tatre Française and Gatana at the Audion, renounced the theatre. Indeed, his power is in odd conceptions, in the covered loft and humorous suggestion of the phrasing rather than in plot or characterization. He will always be best known for the tales and novels in that terribly French style, clear, concise and witty, which in 1878 elected him president of the Société Gen de Letres and in 1884 won him a seat in the academy. Bout wrote a number of novels, most of them as well known in translation to English and American readers as to his French audience. The bright stories originally published in the monitor after war collected with the title Les Marriage de Paris had a conspicuous success and were followed by a companion volume Les Marriage des Provinces, Leum et l'Oréal, Casay, the man with the broken ear. The story of a mummy resuscitated to a world of new conditions after many years of apparent death shows his freakish delight in oddity. So, those, Lénu de Notaire, the Notary's Nose, a gruesome tale of the tribulations of a handsome society man whose nose is struck off in a duel by a revengeful Turk. The victim buys a bit of living skin from a poor water carrier and obtains a new nose by successful grafting. But he can never more get rid of the unconginial Aquarius who exercises occult influence over the skin which he has parted. When he drinks too much, the Notary's Nose is red. When he starves, it dwindles away. When he loses the arm from which the graft was made, the important feature drops off altogether and the sufferer most needs by a silver one. About Slater's Label, Léa Romain di un barabraam, the story of an ominous man, isn't quite a norbain, a charming picture of a bourgeois virtue in revolutionary days. Madeleine and Leville Roche, the old school, are also popular. French critics have not found much to say of this non-evolutionist of letters who is neither pure realist nor pure romanticist and who has no new theory of art. Some indeed might have scorned him for the wise taste which refuses to tread the debatable ground common to French function. But the reading public has received him with less conscious analysis and has delighted in him. If he sees only what any clever man might see and is no profound psychologist, yet he tells what he sees and what he imagines with the lifeful spirit and the lifeful wit and tinges the fabric of his fancy with the ever-changing colors of his own versatile personality, fanciful suggestions, humbly realism and bright antithesis. Above all, he has the great gift of the storyteller. The capture. I raise my eyes. Two thickets of mastic trees and arbutus enclose the road on the right and left. From each tuft of trees protruded three or four musket barrels. A voice cried out in Greek. Sit yourselves on the ground. This operation was the more easy to me as my legs gave way under me. But I consoled myself by thinking that Ajax, Agamennon and Iferia Achilles, if they had found themselves in the same situation, would not have refused to sit that was offered. The musket barrels were leveled upon us. It seemed to me that they stretched out immeasurably and that their muscles were about to join above our heads. It was not that fear disturbed my vision but I had never remarked so sensibly the desperate length of the Greek muskets. The whole arsenal soon dweudged into the road and every barrel showed its stock and its master. The only difference which exists between devils and brigans is that devils are less black than they are said to be, and brigans more dirty than people's bows. The eight bullies who packed themselves in a circle around us were so filthy in appearance that I should have wished to give them my money with a pair of tongues. You might guess with a little effort that their caps had been red but Lya Warsh itself could not have restored the original color of their clothes. All the rocks of the kingdom had a standard cotton shirts and their best spreser of the sample of the different soils on which they had reposed. Their hands, their faces and even their moustaches were of a reddish gray, like a soil which supports them. Every animal is colored according to its abode and its habits. The foxes of Greenland are of the color of snow, lions of the desert, partridges of the furrow, brigans of the highway. The chief of the little troop which had made us prisoners was distinguished by no outward work, perhaps however his face, his hands and his clothes were richer in dust than those of his comrades. He leaned towards us from the height of his tall figure and examined us so closely that I felt the grazing of his moustaches. You will have pronounced him a tiger who smells of his prey before tasting it. When his curiosity was satisfied he said to Dimitri, empty your pockets. Dimitri did not give him cause to repeat the order. He threw them before him a knife, a tobacco poach and three Mexican dollars, which composes some of our sixteen francs. Is that all that might in the brigand? Yes, brother, you are the servant. Yes, brother, take back one dollar. You must not return to the city without money. Dimitri haggled. You could well allow me too, said he. I have two horses below. They are higher from the riding school. I shall have to pay for the day. You will explain to Zimmerman that we have taken your money from you and he wishes to be paid notwithstanding. Answer that he is lucky enough to see his horses again. He knows very well that you do not take horses. What would you do with them in the mountains? Enough! What is this big robot animal next to you? I answer for myself, an honest German whose spoils will not enrich you. You speak Greek well, empty your pockets. I deposited on the road a score of francs, my tobacco, my pipe and my handkerchief. What is that? asked the grindingquisitor, a handkerchief. For what purpose? To wipe my nose. Why did you tell me that you were poor? It is only my lores who wipe their noses with handkerchiefs. Take off the box in which you have behind your back. Good, open it. My box contains some plants, a book, a knife, a little package of arsenic, a gird nearly empty, and the remnants of my breakfast, which kindled a lot of covetedness in the eyes of Mr Simmons. I had the assurance to offer them to her before my baggage changed masters. She accepted greedily and began to debour the bread and meat. To my great astonishment, this act of gluttony is scandalized or robbers who were mislead. It is only my lores who wipe their noses with handkerchiefs. Take off the box in which you have behind your back. Good, open it. My box contains some plants, a book, a knife, a little package of arsenic, and a little package of arsenic. To my great astonishment, this act of gluttony is scandalized or robbers who were mislead among themselves the word schismastic. The monk made half a dozen signs of the cross, according to the right of the Greek church. You must have a watch, said the brigand. Put it with the rest. I gave up my silver watch, a head-reditari toy at the weight of four ounces. The billings passed it from hand to hand and taught it very beautiful. I was in hopes that admiration, which makes men better, would dispose them to restore me something. And I begged their chief to let me have my tin box. He imposed silence upon me roughly. At least, said I, giving back two crumbs for my return to the city. He answered with a sardonic smile. You will not have need of them. The turn of Mr Simmons had come. Before putting her hand in her pocket, she warned our conquerors in the language of her fathers. The English is one of those rare idioms which one can speak with a mouthful. Reflect well on what you are going to do, says she in a menacing tone. I am an English woman and English subjects are inviolable in all the countries of the world. What you will take from me will serve you a little dear. England will avenge me and you will all be hanged to say the least. Now, when you wish my money, you have only to speak, but it will burn your fingers. It is English money. What does she say as the Spokesman of the Braggans? Dmitry answered. She says that she is English. So much to better. All the English are rich. Tell her to do as you have done. The poor lady emptied on the sand of pores which contained 12 sorens. As her watch was not in sight she had a bucket handkerchief. Marianne threw down her watch with a whole bunch of charms against the evil eye. She cast before her by a movement full of mute grace, a chagrin bag which she carried in her belt. They began to open it with the eagerness of a custom house officer. He drew from it a little English dressing case, a bile of English salts, a box of pastils of English mint and a hundred and some of Frank's in English money. Now, saying the patient beauty, you can let us go. We have nothing more for you. Just your decision was not ended. The chief of the band squatter down before our spoils called the good old man, counted the money in his presence and delivered to him the sum of 45 Franks. Mr Simons nudged me on the elbow. You see, says she, the monk and Dmitry have betrayed us. He is dividing the spoils with them. No madam replied that immediately. Dmitry has received mid parents from that, which they had stolen from him. It is a thing which is done everywhere. On the banks of the Rhine, when a trouble is ruined that relate, he has received the 10th part of the booty in virtue of a memorial custom. The not reproach him but rather be thankful to him for having wished to save us when his comberment was interested in our capture. The discussion was interrupted by the firewalls of Dmitry. They had just set him at liberty. Wait for me, said I to him. We will return together. He shook his head sadly and answered me in English so as to be understood by the ladies. You are prisoners for some days and you will not see Athens again before paying a ransom. Do you have these ladies in the message to give me for him? Tell him, cried Mr Simmons, to run to the embassy, to go then to the PRL and find the admiral to complain at the foreign office to write the Lord Palmerstone. They shall take us away from here by force of arms or by public authority, but I do not intend that they shall disperse a penny for my liberty. As for me replied I without so much passion, I beg you to tell my friends in what hands you have left me. If some hundreds of drachyms and naturalists, they will find them without trouble. This gentleman off the highway cannot rate me very high. I have a mind while you are still here to ask them what I am worth at the lowest price. It would be useless, my dear Mr Hemman. It is not they who fixed the figures of the ransom and who then, their chief, Haji Stabras? Haji Stabras. The Camp of King was a plateau covering the surface of seven or eight hundred meters. I looked in vain for the tens of our conquerors. I slipped under the open sky on the thirtieth of April. I saw neither spoils heaped up nor treasures displayed, nor any of those things which one expects to find at the headquarters of a band of robbers. Haji Stabras makes it its business to have the booty sold. Every man receives his pay and money and employs it as he chooses. Some make investments in commerce, others take mortgages on houses in Athens, others buy land in the villages, no one squanders the products of robbery. Our arrival interrupted the breakfast of their bread and cheese. The chief supports his soldiers. There is distributed to them every day one ration of bread, oil, wine, cheese, caviar, allspice, bitter olives and meat when their religion permits it. The epicures who wish to eat marnows or other herbs are a liberty to gather delicacies in the mountains. The office of the king was as much like an office as the camp of the robbers was like a camp. Neither tables nor chairs nor moveables of any sort were to be seen there. The office of the king was seated cross-legged on a square carpet in the shade of a fair tree. Four secretaries and two servants were grouped around them. A boy of 16 or 18 was occupied incessantly in filling, lighting and cleaning the cheebook of his master. He carried in his belt a tobacco pooch embroidered with gold and fine mortar of pearl and a pair of silver printers intended for taking up calls. Another servant passed the day in preparing cups of coffee, glasses of water and sweetmeats to friends made of reeds. Each of them had a hand of long copper books containing reeds, penknife and incarn. Some tin cylinders like those in which our soldiers roll up their discharges served as a depository for the archives. The paper was not of a native manufacturer and for a good reason. Every leaf bore the war bath in capital letters. The king was a fine old man, marbleously well preserved, straight, slim, supple as a spring, with two marble stalactites. The rest of his face was carefully shaped, the skull bare even to the oxyboot, where a long tree of white hair was rolled up under his hand. The expression of his features appeared to him calm and thoughtful. A pair of small clear blue eyes and a square chin announced an indomitable will. His face was long and the position of the wrinkles lengthened it still more. All the creases of the forehead were broken in the middle and seemed to drag themselves out of the leaps, as if the weight of the moustaches hurt drone in the muscles of the face. I have seen a good many septuaginarians. I have even dissected one who have reached a hundred years. A teenager of Osnabrug had not passed over his body, but I do not remember to have observed more green and robust old age than that of Hadgeus Tabras. He wore the dress of Tino and all of the islands of the Archipelago. His red cap formed a large crease on a black silk. In men's blue pantalons, which contain more than 20 meters of cotton cloth and great boots of Russia leather, elastic and stout. The only rich thing in his costume was a scarf embroider with gold and precious stones, which might be worth two or two thousand francs. It enclosed in its folds an embroidered cashmere purse at Damascus in a silver sheet, a long pistol mounted in gold and rubies and the appropriate baton. Quietly seated in the midst of his room, he sat down to dictate his correspondence. The fingers to count the beats in his chaplet. It was one of those beautiful chaplets of milky amber, which should not serve to number of prayers, but to amuse the solemn idleness of the Turk. His racing's head at our approach guessed at the glance the occurrence which had brought us there and said to us with a gravity which had in it nothing ironical. I am occupied. He understood on the Greek and Mr Simmons knew only English, but the physiognomy of the king was so speaking that the good lady comprehended easily without the aid of an interpreter. End of section three. Section four 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. This is liberalbox.org. Recording by Mario Pineda. Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern, volume one, section four. Selections from the man with a broken ear by Edmund about translated by Henry Holt. The victim. Leon took his bunch of keys and opened the long outbox on which he had been seated. The lid being raised, they saw a great leading casket which includes a magnificent crown. The others brought their lamps and candles near and the column of the 23rd of the line appeared as if he were in a chapel illuminated for his lying in state. One would have said that the man was sleep. The perfect preservation of the body attested the paternal care of the murderer. It was truly remarkable preparation and would have born comparison with the proud and manly expression. If any old friend of the colonel had been at the opening of the third box, he would have recognized him at first sight. Undoubtedly, the point of the nose was a little sharper, the nostrils less expanded and thinner and the bridge a little more marked than in the year 1813. The eyelids were thinned, the lips pinched, the corners of the mouth drawn down, the cheekbones too prominent and one could have expected. The mouth was not at all distorted like the mouth of a corpse. The skin was slightly wrinkled, but had not changed color. It had only become a little more transparent, showing after a fashion the color of the tendons, the fat and the muscles, wherever we rested directly upon them. It also had a rosy tint, which is not ordinarily seen in embalm corpses. Dr. Martud explained this to the skin, where they still preserved their proper color and could be seen more easily than otherwise on account of the semi-transparency of the skin. The uniform had become much too large, as might be readily understood, though it did not seem at a casual glance that the members had become deformed. The hands were dry and angular, but the nails, although a little bent inward toward the root, had preserved older parts of the body, so that they would have indicated the place of the liver. At top of the finger on the various parts of the body produced a sound like that from dry leather. What Leon was pointing out these details to his audience and doing the honors of his mummy, he outwardly broke off the lower part of the right ear and a little piece of the column remaining his hand. Leon, on the other hand, ran after salts. She was as pale as death and seemed on the point of fainting. She soon recovered, however, and reassured them all by a charming smile. Pardon me, she said, for such a ridiculous exhibition of terror, but what Mizzio Leon was saying to us and then that figure of which seemed slipping, it appeared to me that the poor man was going to open his mouth and cry out when he was overcome by a fresh axis of emotion and melted into tears. The engineer threw himself for her feet, poured forward excuses and tender phrases and did all he could to console her an explicable grief. Clement Hill dried her eyes, looked prettier than ever and sighed feet to break her heart without knowing why. Biz that I am, mother Leon, tearing his hair, on the day when I see her again after three years of substance, I will have the confounded colonel. No, cry Clement Hill would redobbled energy and emotion. Do not curse him, Mizzio Leon. He has suffered so much. Poor, poor, unfortunate man. Mademoiselle Sambukov felt a little ashamed. She made excuses for her niece and declared that never since her tenderness childhood has she manifested such extreme sensitiveness. Clement Hill was not sensitive plant. She was not even a romantic school girl. Her youth had not been allowed through the house very tranquilly at 10 o'clock at night without a candle. When her mother died some months before Leon's departure, she did not wish to have anyone share with her the sad satisfaction of watching them praying in the death chamber. This will teach us, said the aunt, what staying up after 10 o'clock does. What? It is midnight within a quarter of an hour. Come, my child, you will recover fast enough after you get to bed. Clementine arose to see the mummy of the colonel again. Her aunt is called in in vain. In spite of the remarks of Mademoiselle Sambukov and all the others present, she reopened the walnut box, knelt down beside the mummy and kissed it on the forehead. Poor man, says she rising, how cold he is. Miss Leon promised me that if he is dead you will have him laid in consecrated ground. As you please Mademoiselle, I intended to send him to the anthropological museum with my fighter's permission of Henry Holt and Company. The man without a country. For with, the colonel marched and opened the windows with the precipitation which upset the gazers among the crowd. People, said he, I have knocked down a hundred beggarly partners who respect neither sex nor infirmity. For the benefit of those who are not satisfied, I will state that I call myself colonel fugaz on the 23rd year's answer to the unprecedented location. Leon Reinald hastened out to make apologies to all to whom they were due. He invited a few friends to die in the same evening with the terrible colonel and of course he did not forget to send a special messenger to Clementine. Fugaz, after speaking to the people returned to his hosts swinging himself along with his swaggering air, set himself a strider chair, took all of him and, moreover, while well in for dinner, I'll try a glass of your schnick. Madame Reinald went out, gave an order and returned in an instant. But tell me then, where am I, resumed the colonel? By this paraphernalia of work, I recognized the disciple of Urania, possibly a friend of Munch and Bertholed. But the courial friendliness impressed on your continences proved to me that you are not natives of this land of course, we have satisfied me that you are French. What accidents have brought you so far from rowing native soil, children of my country, what tempest has thrown you upon this hospitable shore? My dear colonel replied Miss Unibor, if you want to become very wise, you will not ask so many questions at once. Allow us the pleasure of instructing you quietly and in order for you have a great many things to learn. The colonel flushed with anger and answered in front of his thoughts. Hold on, said he, am I bleeding? That will amount to nothing. Circulation is re-established and your broken ear he quickly carried his hand to his ear and said, it's certainly so, but that will take me if I recollect this accident. I'll make you a little dressing and in a couple of days there will be no trace of it left. Don't get yourself the trouble, my dear Hippocrates. A pinch of powder is a sovereign cure. Miss Unibor said to work to dress the ear in a little less colour than the one you are repairing the harm I did. Found duration, cried for God, escaping from the hands of Miss Unibor so as to see Leon by the colour, was it you, you rascal that hurt my ear? Leon was very good nature, but his patients failed him. He put his man roughly aside. Yes sir, it was I who thought your ear, impulling it and if that little misfortune had not happened to me, it is certain that you would have been today six feet underground. It is past three days and two nights in cramming charcoal under your boiler. It is my father who gave you the clothes you now have on. You are in our house. Drink the little glass of brandy gotta and just brought you. But for God's sake, give up the habit of calling me rascal, of calling my mother a good mother and of flinging more friends into the street and calling them beggarly pandurs. The colonel, all done funded, hallowed his hand to Leon, Missy Reynolds and the doctor. God only kissed the hand of Madame Reynolds, swallowed at a gulp a cleric glass and the cup of wine. The doctor said, I was an excellent friend, forget the bagaries of unimpulsive but generous all. To subdue my passions shall her after be my love. After conquering all the nations in the universe, it is well to conquer one's self. This said, he submitted his ear to Missy Unibor who finished dressing it. But said he summoned up his recollections, they did not shoot me then? No. Leen perrw, then there is not a moment to lose. How many lees is it too then sick? It is very far. What do you call this chicken coop of town? Fontaine bleu? Fontaine bleu? Yn Ffrans? Perfecture of sign at Marne. We are going to introduce to you the soap perfect whom you just pitched into the street. What the devil are your soap perfects to me? I have a message from the emperor to General Rapp and I must start this birthday for Dansyck, God knows whether I'll be there in time. My poor colonel, you would arrive too late. Danzig is giving up. That's impossible. Since when? About 46 years ago. Thunder, I did not understand that you were mocking me. Miss Unibor placed in his hand a calendar and said, See for yourself. It is now the 17th of August 1859. You went to sleep in the tower of Liebenfield on the 11th of November 1813. There have been then 46 years within three months during which the world has moved on without you. 24 and 46? But then I will be seven years old according to your statement. Your vitality clearly shows that you are still 24. He shrugged his shoulders, tore up the calendar and said, meeting the floor with his foot, your almanac is a humbug. Miss Urinal ran under his library, took up half a dozen books at Habhazard and made him read at the foot of the title pages, the dates 1826, 1833, 1847 and 1858. Pardon me, said Fugaz, barang his head in his hands. What has happened to me is so new. I do not think that an ordinary human being was ever subjected to such a trial. I am 70 years old. Good Madame Urinal went and got a looking glass from the bathroom and gave it to him, saying, Look, he took the glass in both hands and was silently occupied and resumed in acquaintance with himself. When a hand organ came into the curtain, began playing partan poul des iri. Fugaz threw the mirror to the ground and cried out. What is that you are telling me? I hear the little song of Queen Hortense. Miss Urinal patiently explained to him while picking up the pieces of the mirror that the pretty little song of Queen Hortense had become a national air and even an official one since the regiment bands had substituted the gentle melody for the first miles of years and that our soldiers, estranged to say, had not fought any of the wars for it. But the colonel had already opened the window and was crying out to this sub-yard with the organ. Hey, friend, a Napoleon for you if you will tell me in what year I am drawing the breath of life. The argys began dancing as lightly as possible playing on his musical instrument. Advance to the order, cried the colonel, and keep that devilish machine still. A little penny, my good monsieur? It is not a penny that I'll give you, but a Napoleon if you will tell what year it is. Oh, but that's funny. Hi, hi, hi. And if you don't tell me quicker than this amounts to, I'll cut your ears off. The sub-yard ran away, but he came back pretty soon, having meditated during his flight on the maximum. Nothing risk, nothing gain. Monsieur said he and a wittling boys, this is the year 1859. Good, cried for gas, he felt in his pockets for money and found nothing there. Leon saw his predicament and flung 20 francs into the court. Before shutting the window, he pointed out to the right, the facade of the pretty little new building where the colonel could distinctly read, Audrey Architect, 1859. A perfectly satisfactory piece of evidence and one which should not cost 20 francs. Fougas, a little confused, pressed Leon's hand and said to him, My friend, I do not forget that confidence is the first duty from Gadotu to our beneficence, but tell me of our country. I tread the sacred soil where I receive my being and I am ignorant of the career of my native land. France is still the queen of the world, you should not? Certainly, said Leon. How is the emperor? Well, and the empress? Very well. And the king of Rome, the prince imperial, he is a very fine child. How? A fine child? And you have the face to say that this is 1859? Miss Unibor took up the conversation and explained in a few words that the reign and sovereign of France was not Napoleon I, but Napoleon III. But then, cried Fougas, my emperor is dead. Yes. Imposible, tell me anything you will but that, my emperor is immortal. Miss Unibor and the Reynolds, who were not quite professional historians, were obliged to give him a summary of the history of our century. Someone went after a big book written by Miss Eudy Norbyn and illustrated with fine engravings by Raphael. He only believed in the presence of truth when he could touch her with his hand and still cried out almost every moment. That's impossible. This is not history that you're reading to me. It is a romance written to make soldiers weep. This young man must indeed have a strong and well-tempered soul. For he learned in 40 minutes all the woeful events which fortune had scattered through 18 years from the first abdication up to the death of the king of Rome. Less happy than his old companions in arms, he had no interval of repose between this terrible and repeated shocks, all between upon his heart at the same time. One could have feared that the blow might prove mortal and poor Fougas died in the first hour of his recovered life. But the imp of a fellow jilded and recovered himself in quick succession like a spring. He cried out with admiration of hearing of the five battles of the campaign in France. He reddened with grief at the far walls of Fontainebleau. The return from the Isle of Elba transfigured his handsome and noble countenance. At Waterloo, his heart rushed in with the last army of the empire and there shuddered itself. Then he clenched his fists and said between his teeth, If I had been there at the head of the 23rd, Bloodshire and Wellington would have seen another fate. The invasion, the truce, the murder of Saint Helena, the ghastly terror of Europe, the murder of Murat, the idol of the Calvary, the deaths of Ney, Bruno, Mouton de Bernay and so many other whole soul men whom he had known, admired and loved, threw him into a series of parxisms of rage. But nothing crushed him. In curing of the death of Napoleon, he swore that he would eat the heart of England. The slow agony of the pale and interesting hire of the empire inspired him with the passion to tear the vitals out of Austria. When the drama was over and the curtain fell on Shrombrun, he dashed away his tears and said, It is well. I have lived in a moment a man's entire life. Now, show me the map of France. Leon began to turn over the lips of an atlas while Miserinal attempted to continue narrating to the colonel the history of the restoration and of the monarchy of 1830. But Fougas's interest was in other things. What do I care, he said, if a couple of hundred babblers of the evidence put one king in place of another. Kings, I haven't seen enough of them in the dirt. If the empire had lasted ten years longer, I could have had a king for a bullpluck. When the atlas was placed before him, he at once cried out with profound disdain. That's France. But soon two years of pitting affection, escaping from his eyes, swelled the ribbers Ardech and Girond. He kissed the map and said, with an emotion which communicated itself to nearly all those who were present. Forgive me, poor our love for insulting German fortunes. Those scoundrels whom we always whipped have profited by my slip to pare down your frontiers. But little or great, rich or poor, you are my motor, and I love you as a faithful son. Here is Corsica, where the giant of our age was born. Here is Toulouse, where I first saw the light. Here is Nancy, where I felt my heart awakened. Where perhaps she whom I called my equaling waits for me still. France, do has the temple in my soul. This arm is time that we shall find me ever ready to shed my blood to the last drop in defending our avenging deed. End of section 4.