 Section 27 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 Leonard Wilson. Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1, Section 27. Selected poems by Mark Aikinside. Mark Aikinside, 1721 to 1770. Mark Aikinside is of less importance in genuine poetic rank than in literary history. He was technically a real poet, but he had not a great spontaneous nor fertile poetical mind. Nevertheless, a writer who gave pleasure to a generation cannot be set aside. The fact that the mid-18th century ranked him among his foremost poets is interesting and still significant. It determines the poetic standard and product of that age, and the fact that, judged thus, Aikinside was fairly entitled to his fame. He was the son of a butcher born November 9th, 1721 in Newcastle on Tyne, whence Eldon and Stowell also sprang. He attracted great attention by an early poem, The Virtuoso. The citizens of that commercial town have always appreciated their great men and valued intellectual distinction, and its dissenters sent him at their own expense to Edinburgh to study for the Presbyterian Ministry. A year later he gave up theology for medicine, honourably repaying the money advanced for his divinity studies, if obviously out of someone else's pocket. After some struggle in provincial towns, his immense literary reputation, for at 24 he was a star of the first magnitude in Great Britain, and the generosity of a friend enabled him to acquire a fashionable London practice. He wrote medical treatises which, at the time, made him a leader in his profession, secured a rich clientage, and prospered greatly. In 1759 he was made physician to Christ's Hospital, where, however valued professionally, he is charged with being brutal and offensive to the poor, with indulging his fastidiousness, temper, and pomposity, and with forgetting that he owed anything to mere duty or humanity. Unfortunately, too, Akinside availed himself of that mixture of complacence and arrogance by which almost alone a man of no birth can rise in society graded by birth. He concealed his origin and was ashamed of his pedigree. But the blame for his fluggishism belongs perhaps less to him than to the insolent caste-feeling of society, which forced it on him as a measure of self-defense and of advancement. He wanted money, loved place, and selfish comfort, and his nature did not bulk at the means of getting them, including living on a friend when he did not need such help. To become physician to the Queen, he turned his coat from wig to tory, but no one familiar with the politics of the time will regard this as an unusual offense. It must also be remembered that Akinside possessed a delicate constitution, keen senses, and irritable nerves, and that he was a parvenu, lacking the power of self-control even among strangers. These traits explain, though they do not excuse, his bad temper to the unclean and disagreeable patients of the hospital, and they mitigate the fact that his industry was paralyzed by material prosperity and his self-culture interfered with by conceit. His early and sweeping success injured him, as many a greater man has been thus injured. Moreover, his temper was probably soured by secret bitternesses, his health, his nerves, and entire absence of the sense of humor, and his lack of repartee made him shun like Pope and horse Walpole, the bibulous and gluttonous element of eighteenth-century British society. For its brutal horseplay and uncivil practical joking which passed for wit, Akinside had no tolerance, yet he felt unwilling to go where he would be outshone by inferior men. His strutty arrogance of manner, like excessive prudery in a woman, may have been the fortification to a garrison too weak to fight in the open field. And it must be admitted that, as so often happens, Akinside's outward ensemble was eminently what the vulgar world terms guyable. He was not a little of a thop, he was plain featured, and yet assuming in manner. He hobbled in walking from lameness of tell-tale origin, a cleaver falling on his foot in childhood, compelling him to wear an artificial heel, and he was morbidly sensitive over it. His prim formality of manner, his sword and stiff-curled wig, his small and sickly face trying to maintain an expression impressively dignified, made him a ludicrous figure, which is contemporaries never tired of ridiculing and caricaturing. Henderson, the actor, said that Akinside, when he walked the streets for all the world, like one of his own Alexandrenes, set upright. Smollett even used him as a model for the pedantic doctor in Peregrine Pickle, who gives a dinner in the fashion of the ancients, and dresses each dish according to humorous literary recipes. But there were those who seemed to have known an inner and superior personality beneath the brusqueness, conceit, and policy, beyond the nerves and fears, and they valued it greatly, at least on the intellectual side. A wealthy and amiable young Londoner, Jeremiah Dyson, remained a friend so enduring and admiring as to give the poet a house in Bloomsbury Square, with three hundred pounds a year and a chariot, and personally to extend his medical practice. We cannot suppose this to be a case of patron and parasite. Other men of judgment showed like esteem. And in congenial society Akinside was his best, and therefore to his self. He was an easy and even brilliant talker, displaying learning and immense memory, taste, and philosophic reflection. And as a volunteer critic, he has the unique distinction of a man who had what books he liked given him by the publishers for the sake of his oral comments. The standard edition of Akinside's poems is that edited by Alexander Dice, London, 1835. Few of them require notice here. His early effort, the virtuoso, was merely an acknowledged and servile imitation of Spencer. The claim made by the poet's biographers that he preceded Thompson in reintroducing the Spensarian stanza is groundless. Pope preceded him, and Thompson renewed its popularity by being the first to use it in a poem of real merit, The Castle of Indolence. Mr. Goss calls the hymn to the niads beautiful, of transcendent merit, perhaps the most elegant of his productions. The epistle to Curio, however, must be held his best poem, doubtless because it is the only one which came from his heart, and even its merit is much more in rhetorical energy than in art or beauty. As to its allusion and object, the real and classic Curio of Roman social history was a protege of Cicero's, a rich young senator who began as a champion of liberty and then sold himself to Caesar to pay his debts. In Akeenside's poem, Curio represents William Poltny, Walpole's antagonist, the hope of that younger generation who hated Walpole's system of parliamentary corruption and official jobbing. This party had looked to Poltny for a clean and public-spirited administration. Their hero was carried to a brief triumph on the wave of their enthusiasm, but Poltny disappointed them bitterly. He took a peerage and subbed into utter and permanent political damnation, with no choice but Walpole's methods and tools, no policy save Walpole's to redeem the withdrawal of so much lofty promise, and no aims but personal advancement. From Akeenside's address to him, the famous Epistle to Curio, a citation is made below, Akeenside's fame, however, rests on the pleasures of the imagination. He began it at 17, though in the case of works begun in childhood, it is safer to accept the date of finishing as the year of the real composition. He published it six years later, in 1744, on the advice, and with the warm admiration of Pope, a man never wasteful of encomiums on the poetry of his contemporaries. It raised its author to immediate fame. It secures him a place among the accepted English classics still. Yet neither its thought nor its style makes the omission to read it any irreparable loss. It is cultivated rhetoric rather than true poetry. Its chief merit and highest usefulness are that it's suggested two far superior poems, Campbell's Pleasures of Hope and Rogers' Pleasures of Memory. It is the relationship to these that really keeps Akeensides alive. In scope, the poem consists of 2,000 lines of blank verse. It is distributed in three books. The first defines the sources, methods, and results of imagination. The second, its distinction from philosophy and its enchantment by the passions. The third sets forth the power of imagination to give pleasure and illustrates its mental operation. The author remodeled the poem in 1757, but it is generally agreed that he injured it. McCauley says he spoiled it, and another critic delightfully observes that he stuffed it with intellectual horsehair. The year of Akeensides' death, 1770, gave birth to Wordsworth. The freer and nobler natural school of poetry came to supplant the artificial one belonging to an epoch of wigs and false calves, and to open toward the far greater one of the Romanticism of Scott and Byron. From the Epistle to Curio. With this earlier and finer form of Akeensides' address to the unstable Pultney, see a biographical sketch above, must not be confused its later embodiment among his oads, of which it is nine, to Curio. Much of its thought and diction were transferred to the old named, but the latter by no means happily compares with the original Epistle. Both versions, however, are of the same year, 1744. Thrice has the spring beheld thy faded fame, and the fourth winter rises on thy shame, since I exulting, grasped the votive shell. In sounds of triumph all thy praise to tell, blessed could my skill through ages make thee shine, and proud to mix my memory with thine. But now the cause that wicked my song before, with praise, with triumph, crowns the toil no more. If to the glorious man whose faithful cares, nor quelled by malice nor relaxed by years, had odd ambitions, wild audacious hate, and dragged at length corruption to her fate, if every tongue its large applause is owed, and well earned laurels every muse bestowed, if public justice urged the high reward, and freedom smiled on the devoted bard. Say then, to him whose levity or lust laid all the people's generous hopes in dust, who taught ambition firmer heights of power and saved corruption at her hopeless hour, does not each tongue its execrations owe, shall not each muse a wreath of shame bestow, and public justice sanctify the award, and freedom's hand protect the impartial bard. There are who say they viewed without a maze the sad reverse of all thy former praise, that through the pageants of a patriot's name they pierced the foulness of thy secret aim, or deemed thy arm exalted but to throw the public thunder on a private foe. But I, whose soul consented to thy cause, who felt thy genius stamp its own applause, who saw the spirits of each glorious age move in thy bosom and direct by rage, I scorned the ungenerous gloss of slavish minds, the owl-eyed race whom virtues luster blinds. Despite of the learned in the waves of vice, and all who prove that each man has his price, I still believe thy end was just and free, and yet, even yet, believe it, spite of thee. Even though thy mouth impure has dared disclaim, urged by the wretched impotence of shame, whatever filial cares thy zeal had paid to laws and firm, and liberty decayed, has begged ambition to forgive the show, has told corruption, thou art near her foe, has boasted in thy country's awful ear her gross delusion when she held thee dear, how tame she followed thy tempestuous call, and heard thy pompous tales, and trusted all. Rise from your sad abode ye cursed of old, for laws subverted, and for cities sold. Paint all the noblest trophies of your guilt, the oaths you perjured, and the blood you spilt. Yet must you one untempted vileness own, one dreadful palm reserved for him alone. With studied arts his country's praise to spurn, to beg the infamy he did not earn, to challenge hate when honor was his due, and plead his crimes where all his virtue knew. When they who vowed for liberty and laws in doubtful times had fought their country's cause, when now of conquest and dominion sure they sought alone to hold their fruits secure, when taught by these oppression hid the face to leave corruption stronger in her place, by silent spells to work the public fate, and taint the vitals of the passive state, till healing wisdom should avail no more, and freedom loath to tread the poison shore. Then like some guardian god that flies to save the weary pilgrims from an instant grave, whom sleeping and secure, the guileful snake steals nearer and nearer through the peaceful break. Then Curio rose to ward the public woe, to wake the heedless and incite the slow, against corruption, liberty to arm, and quell the enchantress by a mightier charm. Low the deciding hour at last appears, the hour of every free man's hopes and fears. See freedom mounting her eternal throne, the sword submitted, and the laws her own. See public power chastised beneath her stands, with eyes intent and uncorrupted hands. See private life by wisest arts reclaimed. See art at youth to noblest manners framed. See us acquire what air was sought by you, if Curio. Only Curio will be true. It was then, O shame, O trust, how ill repaid, O let him, oft by faithless sons, betrayed. It was then, what frenzy on thy reason stole, what spells unsinued thy determined soul. Yes this the man in freedom's cause approved, the man so great, so honoured, so beloved, this patient slave by tensile chains allured, this wretched suitor for a boon abjured, this Curio hated and despised by all, who fell himself to work his country's fall. O lost alike to action and repose, unknown, unpitted, and the worst of woes, with all that conscious, undissembled pride, sold to the insults of a foe defied, with all that habit of familiar fame, doomed to exhaust the dregs of life in shame, the soul-sad refuge of thy baffled art to act a statement's dull, exploded part. Renounce the praise no longer in thy power, display thy virtue, though without a dour, condemn the giddy crowd of vulgar wind, and shut thy eyes that others may be blind. O long revered and late resigned to shame, if this uncourtly page thy notice claim, when the loud cares of business are withdrawn, nor well-dressed beggars round thy footsteps fawn, and that still, thoughtful, solitary hour, when truth exerts her unresistant power, breaks the false optics tinged with fortune's glare, unlocks the breast, and lays the passion's bear. Then turn thy eyes on that important scene, and ask thyself, if all be well within. Where is the heartfelt worth and weight of soul, which labor could not stop, nor fear control? Where the known dignity, the stamp of awe, which half abashed, the proud and venal saw? Where the calm triumphs of an honest cause, where the delightful taste of just applause? Where the strong wheeze and the commanding tongue on which the Senate fired or trembling hound? All vanish, all are sold, and in their room, couched in thy bosom's steep, distracted gloom, see the pale form of barbarous grandeur dwell, like some grim idol in a sorcerer's cell. To her, in chains, thy dignity was led, at her polluted shrine thy honor bled, with blasted weeds thy awful brow she crowned, thy powerful tongue with poisoned filters bound. That baffled reason, straight, indignant flu, and fair persuasion from her seat withdrew, for now no longer truth supports thy cause, no longer glory prompts thee to applause, no longer virtue breathing in thy breast, with all her conscious majesty confessed. Still brighter and brighter wigs the almighty flame to rouse the feeble and the willful tame, and where she sees the catching glimpses roll, spreads the strong blaze, and all involves the soul. But cold restraints thy conscious fancy chill, and formal passions mock thy struggling will, or if thy genius air forget his chain, and reach impatient at a nobler's drain, soon the sad bodings of contemptuous smirth shoot through thy breast, and stab the generous berth, till blind with smart, from truth to frenzy tossed, till the tenor of thy reason lost. Perhaps thy anguished reigns a real tear, while some with pity, some with laughter here. Ye mighty foes of liberty and rest give way, do homage to a mightier guest, ye daring spirits of the Roman race, see Curio's toil your proudest claims efface. O'er at the name fierce apiests, rising bends, and hearty sinna from his throne attends. He comes, they cry, to whom the fates assigned, with sureer arts to work what we designed, from year to year the stubborn herd to sway, mouth all their wrongs, and all their rage obey, till own their guide, and trusted with their power, he mocked their hopes in one decisive hour. Then tired and yielding, led them to the chain, and quenched the spirit we provoked in vain. But thou supreme by whose eternal hands fair liberties heroic empire stands, whose thunders the rebellious deep control, and quell the triumphs of the traitor's soul. O'er turn this dreadful omen far away, on freedoms foes their own attempts repay. Reloom her sacred fires so near suppressed, and fix her shrine in every Roman breast. Though bold corruption boasts around the land, let virtue, if she can, might baits withstand. Though bolder now she urged the accursed claim, gay with her trophies, raised Ontario's shame. Yet some there are who scorn her impious mirth, who know what conscience, and a heart, are worth. Aspirations after the infinite, from pleasures of the imagination. Who that from alpine heights his laboring eye shoots round the wide horizon to survey Nylis, or Ganges rolling his bright wave through mountains, plains, through empires black with shade, and continents of sand, will turn his gaze to mark the windings of a scanty rill that murmurs at his feet. The high-born soul disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth and this diurnal scene, she springs aloft through fields of air, pursues the flying storm, rides on the volleyed lightning through the heavens, or yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast sweeps the long tract of day. Then high she soars the blue profound, and hovering round the sun, beholds him pouring the redundant stream of light, beholds his unrelenting sway in the reluctant planets to absolve the faded rounds of time. Thence, far effused, she darts her swiftness up the long career of devious comets through its burning signs, insulting measures the perennial wheel of nature, and looks back on all the stars whose blended light as with a milky zone invests the Orient. Now amazed she views the imperial waste where happy spirits hold beyond this concave heaven their calm abode, and fields of radiance whose unfading light has traveled the profound six thousand years, nor yet arrived in sight of mortal things. Even on the barriers of the world, untired, she meditates the eternal depth below, till half recoiling, down the headlong steep she plunges, soon or whelmed and swallowed up in that immense a being. There her hopes rest at the fated goal, for from the birth of mortal man the sovereign-maker said that not in humble nor in brief delight, nor in the fading echoes of renown, powers purple robes, nor pleasures flowery lap, the soul should find enjoyment. But from these turning to stainful to an equal good, through all the ascent of things enlarge her view, till every bound at length should disappear, and infinite perfection close the scene. On a sermon against glory, come then tell me, sage divine, is it an offence to own that our bosoms air incline toward immortal glories throne? For with me, nor pomp nor pleasure, bourbons might, bragances treasure, so can fancy's dream rejoice, so conciliate reason's choice, as one approving word of her impartial voice. If to spurn at noble praise be the passport to thy heaven, follow thou those gloomy ways. No such law to me was given, nor I trust shall I deplore me, faring like my friends before me, nor an holier place desire than Timolian's arms acquire, and Tully's cruel chair, and Milton's golden lyre. End of Section 27, recording by Leonard Wilson of Springfield, Ohio. Section 28 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. Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern Volume 1. Section 28. Selected works by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, 1833-1891. This novelist poet and politician was born at Guadix in Spain, near Granada, March 10, 1833, and received his early training in the seminary of his native city. His family destined him for the church, but he was averse to that profession, subsequently studied law and modern languages at the University of Granada, and took pains to cultivate his natural love for literature and poetry. In 1853 he established at Guadix the literary view of Echo del Occidente, Echo of the West. Greatly interested in politics, he joined a Democratic club with headquarters at Madrid. During the Revolution of 1854 he published El Átigo, The Whip, a pamphlet in which he satirized the government. The spirit of adventure being always strong in him, he joined the African campaign under O'Donnell in 1859. His next occupation was the editorship of the journals La Epoca and La Politica. Condemned to a brief period of exile as one of the signers of a protest of Unionist deputies, he passed this time in Paris. Shortly after his return he became involved in the Revolution of 1868, but without incurring personal disaster. After Alfonso XII came to the throne in 1875 he was appointed Counselor of State. It was in the domain of letters, however, and more especially as a novelist that he won his most enduring laurels. In 1855 he produced El Final de Norma, The End of Norma, which was his first romance of importance. Four years later he began to publish that series of notable novels which brought him fame, both at home and abroad. The list includes El Sombrero de Tres Picos, the three-cornered hat, a charming genre sketch famous for its pungent wit and humor, and its clever portraiture of provincial life in Spain at the beginning of this century, La Alpujarra, El Escándolo, The Scandal, a story which at once created a profound sensation because of its ultra-montane cast and opposition to prevalent scientific opinion. El Niño de la Bola, The Child of the Ball, thought by many to be his masterpiece, El Capitan Veneno, Captain Veneno, Novelas Cortas, Short Stories, Three Volumes, and La Pródiga, The Prodigal. Alarcón is also favorably known as a poet, dramatic critic, and an incisive and effective writer of general prose. His other publications comprise Diario de un Testigo de la Guerra de África, Journal of a Witness of the African War, a work which is said to have netted the publishers a profit of three million pesetas, $600,000, de Madrid a Napoles, from Madrid to Naples, poesías serias y humorísticas, serious and humorous poems, judicios literarios y artísticos, literary and artistic critiques, viajes por España, travels through Spain, el hijo pródigo, the prodigal son, a drama for children, and últimos escritos, last writings. Alarcón was elected a member of the Spanish Academy December 15, 1875. Many of his novels have been translated into English and French. He died July 20, 1891. A woman viewed from without, from the three-cornered hat. The last and perhaps the most powerful reason which the quality of the city, clergy as well as laymen, beginning with the bishop and the corregidor had for visiting the mill so often in the afternoon, was to admire there at leisure one of the most beautiful, graceful and admirable works that ever left the hands of the creator, called Seña Mrs. Frasquita. Let us begin by assuring you that Seña Frasquita was the lawful spouse of Uncle Luke and an honest woman, of which fact all the illustrious visitors of the mill were well aware. Indeed, none of them ever seemed to gaze on her with sinful eyes or doubtful purpose. They all admired her, indeed, and sometimes paid her compliments, the friars as well as the cavaliers, the prependeries as well as the magistrate, as a prelate used to say. She looks like an ancient Greek statue remarked a learned advocate who was an academician and a corresponding member on history. She is the very image of Eve broke forth the prior of the Franciscans. She is a fine woman exclaimed the Colonel of Militia. She is a serpent, a witch, a siren, an imp added the corregidor. But she is a good woman, an angel, a lovely creature, and as innocent as a child of four years old, all agreed insane on leaving the mill, crammed with grapes or nuts on their way to their dull and methodical homes. This four-year child, that is to say, Frasquita, was nearly thirty years old and almost six feet high, strongly built in proportion and even a little stouter than exactly corresponded to her majestic figure. She looked like a gigantic Naiobi, though she never had any children. She seemed like a female Hercules or like a Roman matron, the sort of whom there are still copies to be seen in the Rhione Trastivari. But the most striking feature was her mobility, her agility, her animation, and the grace of her rather large person. For resemblance to a statue to which the academician compared her, she lacked statuesque repose. She bent her body like a reed or spun around like a weather vane or danced like a top. Her features possessed even greater mobility and in consequence were even less statuesque. They were lighted up beautifully by five dimples, two on one cheek, one on the other, another very small one near the left side of her roguish lips, and the last, a very big one, in the cleft of her rounded chin. Add to these charms her sly or roguish glances, her pretty pouts, and the various attitudes of her head with which she emphasized her talk, and you will have some idea of that face full of vivacity and beauty and always radiant with health and happiness. Neither Uncle Luke nor Senia Fraschita was and illusion by birth. She came from Navarre and he up from Murcia. He went to the city of Blanc when he was but fifteen years old as a half page, half servant of the bishop, the predecessor of the present incumbent of that diocese. He was brought up for the church by his patron who, perhaps on that account, so that he might not lack competent maintenance, bequeathed him the mill in his will. But Uncle Luke, who had received only the lesser orders when the bishop died, cast off his ecclesiastical garb at once and enlisted as a soldier, for he felt more anxious to see the world and to lead a life of adventure than to say mass or grind corn. He went through the campaign of the western provinces in 1793 as the orderly of the brave General Ventura Caro. He was present at the siege of the castle of Pinon and remained a long time in the northern provinces when he finally quitted the service. In Estella he became acquainted with Senia Fraschita, who was then simply called Fraschita, made love to her, married her and carried her to Andalusia to take possession of the mill, where they were to live so peaceful and happy during the rest of their pilgrimage through this veil of tears. When Fraschita was taken from Navarre to that lonely place she had not yet acquired any Andalusian ways and was very different from the country women in that vicinity. She dressed with greater simplicity, greater freedom, grace and elegance than they did. She bathed herself oftener and allowed the sun and air to caress her bare arms and uncovered neck. To a certain extent she wore the style of dress worn by the gentle women of that period, like that of the women in Goya's pictures, and somewhat of the fashion worn by Queen Maria Luisa, if not exactly so scant, yet so short that it showed her small feet and the commencement of her superb limbs. Her bodice was low and round in the neck according to the style in Madrid where she spent two months with her Luke on their way from Navarre to Andalusia. She dressed her hair high on top of her head, displaying thus both the graceful curve of her snowy neck and the shape of her pretty head. She wore earrings in her small ears and the tapered fingers of her rough but clean hands were covered with rings. Lastly Fraschita's voice was as sweet as a flute and her laugh was so merry and so silvery it seemed like the ringing of bells on Saturday of Glory or Easter Eve. How the orphan Manuel gained his sober-que from the child of the ball. The unfortunate boy seemed to have turned to ice from the cruel and unexpected blows of fate. He contracted a death-like pallor which he never again lost. No one paid any attention to the unhappy child in the first moments of his anguish or noticed that he neither groaned, sighed, nor wept. When at last they went to him they found him convulsed and rigid, like a petrifaction of grief, although he walked about, heard and saw, and covered his wounded and dying father with kisses. But he shed not a single tear, either during the death agony of that beloved being when he kissed the cold face after it was dead or when he saw them carry the body away forever, nor when he left the house in which he had been born and found himself sheltered by charity in the house of a stranger. Some praised his courage, others criticized his callousness. Mothers pitied him profoundly, instinctively divining the cruel tragedy that was being enacted in the orphan's heart for want of some tender and compassionate being to make him weep by weeping with him. Nor did Manuel utter a single word from the moment he saw his beloved father brought in dying. He made no answer to the affectionate questions asked him by Don Trinidad after the latter had taken him home and the sound of his voice was never heard during the first three years which he spent in the Holy Company of the Priest. Everybody thought by this time that he would remain dumb forever when one day in the church of which his protector was the priest, the sacristan observed him standing before a beautiful image of the child of the ball and heard him saying in melancholy accents, Child Jesus, why do you not speak either? Manuel was saved. The drowning boy had raised his head above the engulfing waters of his grief. His life was no longer in danger. So at least it was believed in the parish. Towards strangers from whom, whenever they came in contact with him, he always received demonstrations of pity and kindness. The orphan continued to maintain the same glacial reserve as before. Rebuffing them with the phrase, stereotyped on his disdainful lips, let me alone now. Having said which, in tones of moving and treaty, he would go on his way, not without awakening superstitious feelings in the minds of the persons whom he thus shunned. Still less did he lay aside at this saving crisis the profound sadness and precocious austerity of his character or the obstinate persistence with which he clung to certain habits. These were limited thus far to accompanying the priest to the church, gathering flowers or aromatic herbs to adorn the image of the child of the ball, before which he would spend hour after hour plunged in a species of ecstasy and climbing the neighboring mountain in search of those herbs and flowers when, owing to the severity of the heat or cold, they were not to be found in the fields. This adoration, while in consonance with the religious principles instilled into him from the cradle by his father, greatly exceeded what is usual even in the most devout. It was a fraternal and submissive love, like that which he had entertained for his father. It was a confused mixture of familiarity, protection and idolatry, very similar to the feeling which the mothers of men of genius entertained for their illustrious sons. It was the respectful and protecting tenderness which the strong warrior bestows on the youthful prince. It was an identification of himself with the image. It was pride. It was elation as for a personal good. It seemed as if this image symbolized for him his tragic fate, his noble origin, his early orphanhood, his poverty, his cares, the injustice of men, his solitary state in the world, and, perhaps too, some presentiment of his future sufferings. Probably nothing of all this was clear at the time to the mind of the hapless boy, but something resembling it must have been the tumult of confused thoughts that palpitated in the depths of that childlike, unwavering, absolute and exclusive devotion. For him there was neither God nor the Virgin, neither saints nor angels. There was only the child of the ball, not with relation to any profound mystery but in himself, in his present form, with his artistic figure, his dress of gold tissue, his crown of false stones, his blonde head, his charming countenance and the blue painted globe which he held in his hand and which was surmounted by a little silver guilt cross in sign of the redemption of the world. And this was the cause and reason why the acolytes of Santa Maria della Cabeza first, all the boys of the town afterward, and finally the more respectable and sedate persons bestowed on Manuel the extraordinary name of the child of the ball. We know not whether by way of applause of such vehement idolatry and to commit him as it were to the protection of the Christ child himself or as a sarcastic antiphysis, seeing that this appellation is sometimes used in the place as a term of comparison for the happiness of the very fortunate, or as a prophecy of the valor for which the Son of Venegas was to be one day celebrated and the terror he was to inspire since the most hyperbolic expression that can be employed in that district to extol the bravery and power of anyone is to say that she does not fear even the child of the ball. End of section 28 Section 29 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 Bologna Times Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1, Section 29 Selected Palms by Alcius Alcius, 6th century B.C. Alcius, a contemporary of the more famous poet whom he addressed as violet-crowned, pure, sweetly smiling Sappho, was a native of Mitalene in Lesbos. His period of work fell probably between 610 and 580 B.C. At this time his native town was disturbed by an unceasing contention for power between the aristocracy and the people. And Alcius, through the vehemence of his zeal and his ambition, was among the leaders of the warring faction. By the accidents of birth and education he was an aristocrat, and in politics he was what is now called a high Tory. His brothers, Cicis and Antimendedus, two influential young nobles as arrogant and haughty as himself, he resented and opposed the slightest concession to democracy. He was a stout soldier, but he threw away his arms at Ligitum when he saw that his side was beaten. And afterward wrote a poem on this performance, apparently not in the least mortified by the recollection. Horace speaks of the matter, and laughingly confesses his own like misadventure. When the kindly Pitychus was chosen dictator, he was compelled to banish the swashbuckling brothers for their abuse of him. But when Alcius, chance to be taken prisoner, Pitychus set him free, remarking that forgiveness is better than revenge. The irreconcilable poet spent his exile in Egypt, and there he may have seen the Greek oligarch who lent his sword to Nebuchadnezzar, and whom he graded in a poem, a surviving fragment of which is thus paraphrased by John Addington Simmons. From the ends of the earth thou art come, back to thy home, the ivory hilt of thy blade, with gold is embossed and inlaid, since for Babylon's host a great deed thou didst work in their need, slaying a warrior, an athlete of might, a royal whose height lacked of five cubits one span, a terrible man. Alcius is reputed to have been in love with Sappho, the glorious, but only a line or two survives to confirm the tale. Most of his lyrics, like those of his fellow poets, seem to have been drinking songs, combined, says Simmons, with reflections upon life and appropriate descriptions of the different seasons. No time was amiss for drinking, to his mind. The heat of summer, the cold of winter, the blazing dog-star and the driving tempest, twilight with its cheerful gleam of lamps, midday with its sunshine, all suggest reasons for indulging in the cup. Not that we are justified in fancying Alcius a mere vulgar toper, he retained Aeolian sumptuousness in his pleasures, and raised the art of drinking to an aesthetic attitude. Alcius composed in the Aeolic dialect for this reason it is said that it was more familiar to his hearers. After his death his poems were collected and divided into ten books. Burke has included the fragments, and one of his compositions has come down to us entire, his Potei Lyritzi Grazi. His love of political strife and military glory led him to the composition of a class of poems which the ancients called Stasiotica, Songs of Sedition. To this class belong his descriptions of the furnishings of his palace and many of the fragments preserved to us. Besides those martial poems he composed hymns to the gods and love and convivial songs. His verses are subjective and impassioned. They are outbursts of the poet's unfeeling, his own peculiar expression toward the world in which he lived, and it is this quality that gave them their strength and their celebrity. His meters were lively, and the care which he expended upon his stroves has led to the naming of one meter, the alchaic. Horus testifies, odes two, thirteen, two, twenty-six, etc., to the power of his master. The first selection following is a fragment of his Stasiotica. It is a description of the splendor of his palace before the work of war began, the palace. From roof to roof the spacious palace halls glitter with war's array, with burnished metal clad the lofty walls beam like the bright noonday. Their white plumbed helmets hang from many a nail, above in threatening row still garnished tunics and broad coats of mail spread o'er the space below. Chalcedian blades inow and belts are here, graves and emblazoned shields, well-tried protectors from the hostile spear on other battlefields. With these good helps our work of war has begun, with these our victory must be won. Translation of Colonel Muir, a banquet song. The rain of Zeus descends, and from high heaven a storm is driven, and on the running water brooks the cold, liss icy hold. Then up, beat down the winter, make the fire, blaze high and higher, mix wine as sweet as honey of the bee, abundantly, then drink with comfortable wool around your temple's bound. We must not yield our hearts to woe or wear with wasting care. For grief will profit us no wit, my friend, nor nothing mend, but this is our best medicine with wine fraught to cast out thought. Translation of J. A. Simmons. An Invitation. Why wait we for the torch's lights? Now let us drink, while day invites, in mighty flackens hither bring the deep red blood of many a vine, that we may largely quaff and sing, the praises of the god of wine, the son of Jove and Semelie, who gave the jokun grape to be. A sweet oblivion to our woes. Fill, fill the goblet, one and two, let every brimmer as it flows, in sport of chase the last pursue. Translation of Sir William Jones. The Storm. Now here, now there, the wild wave sweep, whilst we betwixt them or the deep, in shattered tempest-beaten bark, with laboring ropes are onward driven, the billows dashing are our dark, upheave deck and tatters ribbon, our sails, whose yawning rents between, the raging sea and sky are seen. Loose from their hold our anchors burst, and then the third, the fatal wave, comes rolling onward like the first, and doubles all our toil to save. Translation of Sir William Jones. The Poor Fisherman. The fishered diatomus had, at sea, ensured the same abode of poverty, his trusty boat, and when his days were spent, there and self-road to ruthless diss he went, for that, which did, through life, his woes beguile, supplied the old man with a funeral pile. Translation of Sir William Jones. The State. What constitutes a State? Not high-raised battlement, or laboured mound, thick wall or moted gate, not city's fair, with spires and turrets crowned. No, men, high-minded men, with powers as far above, dull brutes and dude. In forests break or den, as beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude. Men who their duties know, but know their rights and knowing dare maintain, prevent the long-aimed blow, and crush the tyrant while they rend the chain. Translation of Sir William Jones. Poverty. The worst of ills and hardest to endure, past hope, past cure, impenery, who, with her sister-mate, disorder, soon brings down the loftiest State, and makes it desolate. This truth, the sage Asparta told. Aristodemus old. Wealth makes the man. On him that's poor. Proud worth looks down, and honour shuts the door. Translation of Sir William Jones. End of Section 29. Section 30 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 30. Selected poems by Balthazar de Alcazar. Balthazar de Alcazar. 1530 to 1606. Although little may be realized now of Alcazar's shadowy personality, there is no doubt that in his own century he was widely read. Born of a very respectable family in Seville, either in 1530 or 1531, he first appears as entering the Spanish Navy and participating in several battles on the war galleys of the Marquis de Santa Cruz. It is known that for about twenty years he was Alcalde, or Mayor, at Molaris on the outskirts of Eutrera, an important local functionary, a practical man interested in public affairs. But on the whole his seems to have been a strongly artistic nature, for he was a musician of repute, skillful too at painting, and above all a poet. As master and model in metrical composition, he chose Marshall, and in his epigrammatic turn he is akin to the great Latin poet. He was fond of experimenting in Latin lyrical forms and wrote many madrigals and sonnets. They are full of vigorous thought and bright satire of playful malice and Epicurean joy in life and have always won the admiration of his fellow poets. As has been said, they show a fine taste, quite in advance of the age. Cervantes, his greater contemporary, acknowledged his power with cordial praise in the canto di Calliope. The witty and elucian did not write voluminously. Some of his poems still remain in manuscript only. Of the rest comprised in one small volume, perhaps the best known are the jovial supper, the echo, and the council to a widow. Sleep. Sleep is no servant of the will, it has caprices of its own. When most pursued his swiftly gone, when quart at least it lingers still. With its vagaries long perplexed, I turned and turned my restless sconce till one bright night. I thought at one side master it, so hear my text. When sleep will tarry, I begin my long and my accustomed prayer. And in a twinkling sleep is there, through my bed curtains peeping in. When sleep hangs heavy on my eyes, I think of debts I feign would pay, and then, as flies night's shame from day, sleep from my heavy eyelids flies. And thus controlled the winged one bends even his fantastic will to me. And strange yet true, both I and he are friends, the very best of friends. We are a happy wedded pair, and I, the Lord, and she, the dame. Our bed, our board, our hours the same, and we're united everywhere. I'll tell you where I learnt to school this wayward sleep. I whispered word from a church-going hag, I heard, and tried it, for I was no fool. So from that very hour I knew that having ready prayers to pray, and having many debts to pay, will serve for sleep and waking, too. The Jovial Supper In ye'en where I reside lives Don López de Sosa, and I will tell the Isabel a thing the most daring that thou hast heard of him. This gentleman had a Portuguese serving man. However, if it appears well to you, Isabel, this takes supper. We have the table ready laid, as we have to sup together. The wine cups at their stations are only wanting to begin the feast. Let us commence with new light wine and cast upon it benediction. I consider it a matter of devotion to sign with cross that which I drink. Be it or not a modern invention, by the living God I do not know, but most exquisite was the invention of the tavern. Because I arrive thirsty there, I ask for new-made wine. They mix it, give it to me, I drink, I pay for it, and depart contented. That, Isabel, is praise of itself. It is not necessary to laud it. I have only one fault to find with it. That is, it is finished with too much haste. But say, does thou not adore and prize the illustrious and rich black pudding? How the robe tickles, it must contain spices. How it is stuffed with pine nuts. But listen to a subtle hint. You did not put a lamp there? How is it that I appear to see too? But these are foolish questions. Already know I what it must be. It is by this black draft that the number of lamps accumulates. The several courses are ended and the jovial diner resolves to finish his story. And now, Isabel, as we have sucked so well when with so much enjoyment, it appears to be but right to return to the promised tale. But thou must know, sister Isabel, that the Portuguese fell sick. Eleven o'clock strikes. I go to sleep. Wait for the morrow. End of Section 30. Recording by Linda Dodge. Section 31 of Library of the World's Best Literature and Shen Han 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 Elisheva Isis. Library of the World's Best Literature and Shen Han Modern Volume 1. Section 31. Selected Epistles by Al Kifom. Al Kifom. Second Century A.D. by Harry Thurston Beck. In the history of Greek prose fiction, the possibilities of the pistolary form were first developed by the Athenian teacher of rhetoric Al Kifom, of whose life and personality nothing is known instead that he lived in the second century A.D., a contemporary of the great satirical genius Lucian. Of his writings, we now possess only a collection of imaginary letters, and 18 in number, arranged in three books. Their value depends partly upon the curious and interesting pictures given in them of the life of the post-Alexandrian period, especially of the love life and partly upon the fact that they are the first successful athletes at character drawing to be found in the history of Greek prose fiction. They form a connected link between the novel of Pure Incident, an adventure, and the more fully developed and the study of motive. The use of the pistolary form in fictitious composition did not to be sure or legitimate without Kifom, for we find earlier instances in the imaginary love letters composed in verse by the Roman poet Ovid. Under the names of famous women of early legend, such as those of Enoni to Paris, we suggested a beautiful poem of Tennyson's, media to Jason, and many others. In this one finds Kate inside a many characters together with much that is exquisite in fancy and tendering expression. But it is to Al Kifom that we owe the adaptation of this form of composition to prose fiction and its employment in a far wider range of psychological and social observation. The life whose details are given as by Al Kifom is the life of contemporary Athens in the person of its easygoing population. The writers whose letters we are supposed to read in reading Al Kifom presents fisherman, parasite, men about them and cough the sands. The language of the letters is need, pointed and appropriate to the person who in each case is supposed to be the writer and the details are managed with considerable art. Al Kifom is faced all impression of his own personality and is lost in the characters who for the time being occupy his pages. One reads the letters as he will read a genuine correspondence. In the Athens of the third century before Christ that we are strolling in its streets visiting its shops, its courts and its temples and that we are getting a whiff of the AGM mingled with the less savoury odours of the markets and of the wine shops. We saw about the city ergoing our way through the throne of boldness, merchants and hasters. Here, Al Herbert stands outside his shop and saw this costume. There, an old usurred with simply face sits spending over his account in the middle of his. At the corner of the street a cloud encircles some cheap jack who is showing off his jealous cheeks at a small three-legged table making his seashore Spanish out of sight and then taking them from his mouth. Drunken soldiers pass and repass talking boisterously of their bodes and brawls of their drills and punishment and the latest news of their barracks and forming a striking contrast to the philosopher who in coarse robes of the reputation of this thought in silence amid the crowd that jazzles him. The scene is vivid, striking, realistic. Many of the letters are from women and in this, especially, Al Kiffler reveals the daily life of the Athenians. We see to the Mimond at their toilet with their mirrors, their powders, their enamours and rouge pots, their brushes and pincers and all the thousand-and-one accessories. A quintess is coming to make a morning call and we hear their chatter and Megra and Bacchus Hermione and Mira their nibble cake drink sweet wine gossip about their respected lovers and the latest songs and enjoy themselves with perfect abandon. Again, we sit at their evening rendezvous at the vanquished war philosopher's poet Sophie Peters, artist of every sort. In fact, the whole bohemian of Athens gathered from them. We get hints of all the stages of the rebel from the sparking with and the jolly good fellowship to the sudden disgust that comes with daybreak when the lamps are poison in the fetid air and the remnants of the fist are stale. We are not to look upon the letters of Al Kiffler as embody a literary unity. He did not attend to write one single symmetrical epistolar romance but the individual letters are usually slight sketches of character carelessly gathered together and deriving their greatest charm from their apparent spontaneity of them are to be shared and decently cynical and depict the basic side of human nature. Others in their real estate are essentially commonplace but some are very prettily expressed and show a brighter side to the picture of contemporary life. Those especially which are supposed to pass between men under the famous comic poet are his mistress Lysera from a blessing contrast to the grid and cynicism of match that confines in the first book painted by the slightest suggestion of the mercenary spirit or the bell-courtness that makes so many of the others a bliss and rhythm. All letters, first, sixth, is interesting as containing the first allusion found in a chapter to the familiar story of freedom before the judgeage which is more fully told in Atheneus. The imaginary letter was destined to play an important part in the subsequent history of the chapter. Al Kiffler was copied by Aristanitus and the letters have been often imitated in modern times and by Theophilactus who lived in the 7th century. In modern English fiction the pistolary form has been most successful employed by Richardson, Fanny Burry and in another genre by Wilkie Collins. The standard editions of Al Kiffler are those of Sailor, Lysic, 1856 and of Hersher, Paris, 1873. The letter containing the Greek text the reader may refer to the chapter of Al Kiffler in the recently published work of Salber, the woman that slathered Ancien. The novel in ancient Greece, Paris, 1893. The following translations are translated by the present writer from a mercenary girl, Petra Tussimali. Well, if a girl could live on tears what a wealthy girl I should be for two are generous enough with Zen anyhow. Unfortunately, however, I must have jewels, clothes, servants and all that sort of thing. Nobody has left me a fortune I should let you to know or any mining stock and so I am obliged to depend on the little presents that gentlemen happen to make me. Now that I've known you a year how much better of an eye for it I should like to ask. My head looks like a fright because I haven't had anything to rig it out with all that time to be seen with my friends and yet you imagine that I can go on in this way without having any other means of living. Oh yes, of course, you cry but you will stop presently. I'm really surprised at the number of your tears but really, unless somebody gives me something pretty soon I shall die of a starvation. Of course, you pretend you are just crazy for me and that you can live without me. Hasn't your mother any jury that you can get hold of? Hasn't your father any valuables? All the girls are luckier than I am for I have a mourner rather than a lover. He sends me crowds and he says me garlands and roses as if I were dead and buried before my time and he says that he cries all night. Now, if you can manage to scrape up something for me you can come here without having to cry your eyes out for me. From the pistol at first thirty-six the pleasures of Athens Elsidicus to Epifanio by all the gods and demons I beg you dear mother to lift your rocks and fields in the country and before you die discover what beautiful things there are in town. Just think what you are losing the Havon Festival and the Apathurian Festival and the Grace Festival of Bagus before it is daylight you will be able to take part in the affair with the other Athenian women. Do come and don't put it off if you have any regard for my happiness and my brothers for it's an awful thing to die without having any knowledge of the city that's the life of an ox and one that is altogether unreasonable. Please excuse me mother for speaking so freely for your own good after all one ought to speak plainly with everybody and especially with those who don't want to die. Please excuse me mother for speaking so freely for your own good after thirty nine from an anxious mother Phyllis II Thessalonians if you only could put up with the country and be sensible and do as the rest of us too my dear Thessalonians you will offer Ivy and Laurel and myrtle and flowers to the gods at the proper time and to ask your parents you will give wheat and white onion or a Malian soldier don't keep on in this way my son but come back to us and take up this peaceful life of ours again for farming is perfectly safe and free from any danger and doesn't require bands of soldiers and strategy and squadrons and be the state of our old age preferring a safe life to a risky one from the pistolhead third system from a curious youth Phyllis II Thessalonians since I have never yet been to town and really don't know at all how to call a city I am awfully anxious to see this strange sight men living all in one place and to learn about the other points in which a city differs from the country consequently if you have any reason for going to town do come and take me with you as a matter of fact I am sure there are thoughts or things I ought to know now that my beer is beginning to sprout and who is so able to show me the city as yourself who are all the time going back from a professional dinner out got no friendest to Aris Tomacus I should like to ask my evil genius who drew me by lot as his own particular church why he is so malignant and so cruel as to keep me in everlasting poverty for if no one happens to invite me to dinner I have to live on greens and to eat acorns and to fill my stomach with water from the high dam now as long as my body was able to put up with this sort of thing and my time of life was just made it proper for me to bury it I could get along with them fairly well but now that my hair is growing grey and the only outlook I have is in the direction of old age what on earth am I going to do I shall really have to get a rope and hang myself and less my life changes however even if fortune remains as it is I shall not stream myself up before I have that little old square meal for before very long the wedding of Caritas and Leogridis which is going to be a famous affair will come off to which there is a doubt that I shall be invited either to the wedding itself or to the banquet afterward it's lucky that weddings need the jokes of Bricksfellows like myself and that without a stake would be a stout as cadence of pigs rather than of human beings from the pistol at 3rd 49th and lucky luck Citrolytes to battle Locarum perhaps you would like to know why I am complaining so and why I am going around with my clothes in tatters the fact is I swept the board at gambling but I wish I had them for what's the sense in a feeble fellow like me running up against a lot of stout down men you see after I scooped in all the money they put up and they had an ascent left they all jumped on my neck and some of them punched me and some of them stoned me and some of them tore my clothes off my back they were as high cool because I would rather die than give up anything of theirs I had got hauled off and so I held out briefly for quite a while not giving in when they struck me or even when they bent my fingers back in fact I was like Song Sparta who lets himself be wept as a test of his endurance but unfortunately it wasn't at Sparta that I was doing this thing but at Athens and with the toughest sort of defense around me they went through my pockets and after they had taken everything they could find they skipped after all I've come to the conclusion that it's better to live without money than to die with a pocket full of it from the epistle of the 54 end of session 31 recording by Elisheva Isis January 2010 section 32 of library of the world's best literature 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 Nicholas James Bridgewater library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 1 section 32 selected poem by Alkman Alkman 7th century BC according to legend the ancient Lyric poet was born in Lydia and taken to Sparta as a slave when very young but emancipated by his master on the discovery of his poetic genius he flourished probably between 670 and 630 during the peace following the second Messinian war it was that remarkable period in which the Spartans were gathering poets and musicians from the outer world to educate their children for the Dorians thought it beneath the dignity of a Dorian citizen to practice these things themselves his poetic remains indicate a social freedom at this period hardly in keeping with the Spartan rigor alleged to have been practised without break from the ancient time of Lysurgis perhaps this communal asceticism was really a later growth when the camp of militant slaveholders saw their fibre weakening under the art and luxury they had introduced he boasts of his Epicurean appetite with evident truthfulness as a considerable number of his extant fragments are descriptions of dishes he would have echoed Sidney Smith's fate cannot harm me I have dined today in a poem descriptive of spring he laments that the season affords but a scanty stock of his favourite vians the Alexandrian grammarians put Alcumon at the head of the Lyric canon perhaps partly because they thought him the most ancient but he was certainly much esteemed in classic times Eilien says his songs were sung at the first performance of the Gimnopedia at Sparta in 665 BC and often afterward much of his poetry was erotic but he wrote also hymns to the gods and ethical and philosophic pieces his parthenia which form a distinct division of his writings were songs sung at public festivals by and in honour of the performing chorus of virgins the subjects were either religious or erotic his proverbial wisdom and the forms of verse which he often chose are reputed to have been like himself that he sang like the birds that is was self-taught he wrote in the broad Spartan dialect with a mixture of the Iolic and in various metres one form of hexameter which he invented was called alchamanic after him his poems were comprehended in six books the scanty fragments which have survived are included in Berks 1878 the longest was found in 1855 by M. Mariette in a tomb near the second pyramid it is a papyrus fragment of three pages containing a part of his hymn to the Dioscuri much mutilated and difficult to decipher his descriptive passages are believed to have been his best the best known and most admired of his fragments is his beautiful description of night often imitated and paraphrased night over the drowsy earth still night prevails calm sleep the mountain tops and shady veils the rugged cliffs and hollow glens the cattle on the hill deep in the sea the countless finny race and monster brood tranquil repose even the busy bee the calm of insect rings and all the feathered tribes by gentle sleep subdued roost in the glade and hang their drooping wings translation by Colonel Muir end of section 32 recording by Nicholas James Bridgewater recorded in London, England section 33 of Library of the World's Best Literature ancient and modern volume 1 section 33 selected works by Louisa May Alcott Louisa May Alcott 1832 to 1888 Louisa May Alcott daughter of Amos Bronson and Abigail May Alcott and the second of the four sisters whom she was afterward to make famous in literature and literature and literature and literature whom she was afterward to make famous in Little Women was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania November 29, 1832 her father's 33rd birthday on his side she was descended from good Connecticut stock and on her mother's from the Mays and Quinces of Massachusetts and from Judge Samuel Sewell who was left in his diary as graphic a picture of the New England home life of 200 years ago at the time of Louisa Alcott's birth her father had charged of a school in Germantown but within two years he moved to Boston with his family and put into practice methods of teaching so far in advance of his time that they were unsuccessful from 1840 the home of the Alcott family was in Concord, Massachusetts with the exception of a short time spent in a community on a farm in a neighboring town in Boston at 17, Louisa's struggles with life began she wrote a play contributed sensational stories to weekly papers tried teaching sewing even going out to service and would have become an actress but for an accident what she wrote of her mother is as true of herself she always did what came to her in the way of duty or charity and let pride, taste and comfort a collection of fairy tales which she had written at 16 for the children of Ralph Waldo Emerson some other little friends and her younger sisters was printed in 1855 and was well received from this time until 1863 she wrote many stories but few that she afterward thought worthy of being reprinted her best work from 1860 to 1863 is in the Atlantic Monthly indexed under her name Thoreau's Flute appeared in that magazine in September 1863 after six weeks experience in the winter of 1862 to 63 as a hospital nurse in Washington she wrote for the Commonwealth a Boston weekly paper a series of letters which soon appeared in a book form as hospital sketches Miss Alcott says of them the sketches never made much money but showed me my style in 1864 she published a novel in 1866 after a year abroad as companion to an invalid she became editor of Mary's Museum a magazine for children her little women founded on her own family life was written in 1867 to 68 in answer to a request from the publishing house of Roberts Brothers for a story for girls and its success was so great that she soon finished a second part the two volumes were translated to Mary's Museum she had written the first part of the old fashioned girl as a serial for the magazine after the success of little women she carried the old fashioned girl and her friends forward several years and ended the story with two happy marriages in 1870 she went abroad a second time and from her return the next year until her death in Boston from overwork on March 6 1888 the day of her father's funeral she published 20 volumes the other work largely a record of her own experience she rewrote moves and changed the sad ending of the first version to a more cheerful one followed the fortunes of her little women and their children in little men and Joe's boys and published ten volumes of short stories many of them reprinted pieces she also wrote eight cousins its sequel, Rosenbloom under the lilacs and Jack and Jill the charm of her books lies of boys and girls she says of herself I was born with a boy's spirit under my bib and tucker and she never lost it her style is often careless never elegant for she wrote hurriedly and never revised or even read over her manuscript yet her books are full of humor and pathos and preach the gospel of work and simple wholesome living she has been a help to support herself and her family without losing cast or self respect her stories of the comradeship of new england boys and girls in school or play have made her a popular author in countries where even brothers and sisters see little of each other the haste and lack of care in her books are the result of writing under pressure for money to support the family to whom she gave the best years of her life as a little girl once said of her in a school essay she said of herself the reader is referred to Louisa May Alcott her life, letters and journals edited by Edna D. Cheney published in 1889 the night ward from hospital sketches being fond of the night side of nature I was soon promoted to the post of night nurse with every facility for indulging in my favorite pastime of my colleague a black eyed widow relieved me at dawn like regular nurses turn and turn about I usually found my boys in the jolliest state of mind their condition allowed for it was a known fact that nurse periwinkle objected to blue devils and entertained a belief that he who laughed most was surest of recovery at the beginning of my reign dumps and dismal prevailed the nurses looked anxious and tired the men gloomy or sad and a general hark from the tombs and things which caused one coming from a merry social new england town to feel as if she had got into an exhausted receiver and the instinct of self preservation to say nothing of a philanthropic desire to serve the race caused a speedy change in ward number one more flattering than the most gracefully turned compliment more grateful than the most admiring glance was the sight of those rows of faces all strange to me a little while ago now lighting up with smiles of welcome as I came among them with a friendly pride in their regard a motherly affection for them all the evenings were spent in reading aloud writing letters waiting on and amusing the men going the rounds with dr. p as he made his second daily survey dressing my dozen moons of fresh giving last doses and making them cozy for the long hours to come till the nine o'clock bell rang the gas was turned down the day nurses went off duty the night watch came on and my nocturnal adventures began I was now divided into three rooms and under favor of the matron I had managed to sort out the patients in such a way that I had what I called my duty room, my pleasure room and my pathetic room and worked for each in a different way one I visited armed with a dressing tray full of rollers, plasters and pins another with books, flowers, games and gossip a third with teapots, lullabies, consolation and sometimes a shroud wherever the sickest or most helpless man chance to be in such, often visiting the other rooms to see that the general watchman of the war did his duty by the fires and the wounds the latter needing constant wedding not only on this account did I meander but also to get fresher air than the close rooms afforded for owing to the stupidity of that mysterious somebody who does all the damage in the world the windows had been carefully nailed down above and the lower sashes could only be raised in the mildest weather for the men lay just below the chains here and there when frequent appeals to the headquarters had proved unavailing and daily orders to lazy attendants had come to nothing no one seconded the motion however and the nails were far beyond my reach for though belonging to the sisterhood of ministering angels I had no wings and might as well have asked for a suspension bridge as a pair of steps in that charitable chaos one of the harmless ghosts who bore me company during the war for though so much together I never fairly saw his face and but for his legs should never have recognized him as we seldom met by day these legs were remarkable as was his whole figure for his body was short rotund and done up in a big jacket and muffler his beard hid the lower part of his face his hat brimmed the upper and all I ever discovered was a pair of sleepy eyes and a very mild voice but the legs very long looking like gray sausages in their tight coverings and finished off with a pair of expansive green cloth shoes very like Chinese yonks with the sails down this figure gliding noiselessly about the dimly lighted rooms was strongly suggestive of the spirit of a beer barrel mounted on corkscrews haunting the old hotel in search of its lost mates emptied and staved in long ago another goblin who frequently appeared to me was often up to 10 to 2 or 3 men weak and wandering as babies after the fever had gone the amiable creature beguiled the watches of the night by brewing jorams of a fearful beverage which he called coffee and insisted on sharing with me coming in with a great bowl of something like mud soup scalding hot guiltless of cream rich in an all pervading flavor of molasses scorch and tin pot even my constitutionals in the chilly halls possessed a certain charm sentinels tramped around it all night long their muskets glittering in the wintry moonlight as they walked or stood before the doors straight and silent as figures of stone causing one to conjure up romantic visions of guarded forts sudden surprises and daring deeds for in these war times the humdrum life of Yankee Dome had vanished and the most prosaic feel some thrill of that excitement which stirs the nation's heart and makes its capital a camp of hospitals when I hopped down these lower halls I often heard cries from above steps hurrying to and fro saw surgeons passing up or men coming down carrying a stretcher where lay a long white figure whose face was shrouded and whose fight was done sometimes I stalked to watch the passers in the street the moonlight shining on the spire opposite or the gleam of some vessel floating like a white winged seagull down the broad Potomac whose fullest flow can never wash away the land Amy's valley of humiliation from little women that boy is a perfect cyclops isn't he said Amy one day as Lori clattered by on horseback with a flourish of his whip as he passed how dare you say so when he's got both his eyes and very handsome ones they are too cried Joe who resented any sliding remarks about her friend I didn't say anything about his eyes and I don't see why you need to fire up when I'm admiring his riding tour and she called him a cyclops exclaimed Joe with a burst of laughter you needn't be so rude it's only a lapse of Lingi as Mr. Davis says retorted Amy finishing Joe with her Latin I just wish I had a little of the money Lori spends on that horse she added as if to herself yet hoping her sisters would hear why asked Meg kindly for Joe had gone off in another laugh at Amy's second blunder I needed so much I'm dreadfully in debt and it won't be my turn to have the rag money for a month in debt Amy what do you mean and Meg looked sober why I owe at least a dozen pickled limes and I can't pay them you know till I have money for Marmy forbids my having anything charged at the shop tell me all about it are limes the fashion now it used to be pricking bits of rubber to make balls and Meg tried to keep her countenance Amy looked so grave and important I guess you want to be thought mean you must do it too it's nothing but limes now for everyone is sucking them in their desks at school time and trading them off for pencils, bead rings, paper dolls or something else at recess if one girl likes another she gives her a lime if she's mad with her she eats one before her face and don't offer even a suck they treat by turns and I've had ever so many but I haven't returned them and I ought for their debts of honor you know a quarter would have more than do it and leave a few cents over for a treat for you don't you like limes not much you may have my share here's the money make it last as long as you can for it isn't very plenty you know oh thank you it must be so nice to have pocket money I'll have a grand feast for I haven't tasted a lime this week I felt delicate about taking any as I couldn't return them and I'm actually suffering for one presentation of displaying with pardonable pride a moist brown paper parcel before she consigned it to the inmost recesses of her desk during the next few minutes the rumor that Amy March had got 24 delicious limes she ate one on the way and was going to treat circulated through her set and the attentions of her friends became quite overwhelming Katie Brown invited her to her next party on the spot Mary Kingsley insisted on lending to Amy but Amy had not forgotten Miss Snow's cutting remarks about some persons whose noses were not too flat to smell other people's limes and stuck up people who were not too proud to ask for them and she instantly crushed that snow girl's hopes by the withering telegram you needn't be so polite all of a sudden for you won't get any a distinguished personage of Amy a distinguished personage happened to visit the school that morning and Amy's beautifully drawn maps received praise which honor to her foe rankled in the soul of Miss Snow and caused Miss March to assume the heirs of a studious young peacock but alas alas pride goes before a fall and the revengeful snow turned the tables with disastrous success no sooner had the guest paid the usual stale compliments and bowed himself out and informed Mr. Davis the teacher that Amy March had pickled limes in her desk now Mr. Davis had declared limes a contraband article and solemnly vowed to publicly feral the first person who was found breaking the law this much enduring man had succeeded in banishing gum after a long and stormy war had made a bonfire of the confiscated novels and newspapers had suppressed a private post office had forbidden distortions of the face nicknames and caricatures and done all that one man could do to keep half a hundred rebellious girls in order boys are trying enough to human patients goodness knows but girls are infinitely more so especially to nervous gentlemen with tyrannical tempers and no more talent for teaching than Dr. Blimber Mr. Davis knew any quantity of Greek, Latin, Algebra andologies of all sorts so he was called a fine teacher of particular importance it was a most unfortunate moment for denouncing Amy and Jenny knew it Mr. Davis had evidently taken his coffee too strong that morning there was an east wind which always affected his neuralgia and his pupils had not done him the credit which he felt he deserved therefore to use the expressive if not elegant language of a school girl he was nervous as a witch and as cross as a bear the word limes was like fire to powder his yellow face flushed with the energy which made Jenny skip to her seat with unusual rapidity young ladies attention if you please at the stern order the buzz ceased and fifty pairs of blue, black, grey and brown eyes were obediently fixed upon his awful countenance Miss March come to the desk Amy rose to comply with outward composure but a secret fear pressed her for the limes weighed upon her conscience bring with you the limes you have in your desk was the unexpected command before she got out of her seat don't take all whispered her neighbor a young lady of great presence of mind Amy hastily shook out half a dozen and laid the rest down before Mr. Davis feeling that any man possessing a human heart would relent when that delicious perfume had met his nose unfortunately Mr. Davis particularly detested the odor of the fashionable pickle and disgust added to his wrath is that all? not quite Amy, bring the rest immediately with a despairing glance at her set she obeyed you are sure there are no more? I never lie sir so I see now take these disgusting things two by two and throw them out the window there was a simultaneous sigh which created quite a little gust as the last hope fled and the treat was ravished from their longing lips scarlet with shame and anger Amy went to and fro twelve mortal times and as each doomed couple looking oh so plump and juicy fell from her reluctant hands a shout from the street completed the anguish of the girls for it told them that their feast was being exalted over by little irish children who were their sworn foes this, this was too much all flashed indignant or appealing glances at the inexorable Davis and one passionate lime lover burst into tears as Amy returned from her last trip Mr. Davis gave a portentous hum and said in his most impressive manner young ladies you remember what I said to you a week ago I am sorry this has happened but I never allow my rules to be infringed and I never break my word Miss March hold out your hand Amy started and put both hands behind her turning on him an imploring look which pleaded for her better than the words of her daughter she was rather a favorite with old Davis as of course he was called and it's my private belief that he would have broken his word if the indignation of one irrepressibly young lady had not found vent in a hiss that hiss, faint as it was irritated the irascible gentleman and sealed the culprit's fate your hand Miss March was the only answer her mute appeal received and too proud to cry or beseech Amy set her teeth threw back her head defiantly several tingling blows on her little palm they were neither many nor heavy but that made no difference to her for the first time in her life she had been struck and the disgrace in her eyes was as deep as if he had knocked her down you will now stand on the platform till recess said Mr. Davis resolved to do the thing thoroughly since he had begun that was dreadful it would have been bad enough to go to her seat with her enemies but to face the whole school with that shame fresh upon her seemed impossible and for a second she felt as if she could only drop down where she stood and break her heart with crying a bitter sense of wrong and the thought of Jenny Snow helped her to bear it and taking the ignominious place she fixed her eyes on the stove panel above what now seemed a sea of faces and stood there so motionless and white that the girls found it very hard to study with that little pathetic figure before them during the fifteen minutes that followed the proud and sensitive little girl suffered a shame and pain which she never forgot to others it might seem a ludicrous or trivial affair but to her it was a hard experience for during the twelve years of her life she had been governed by love alone and a blow of that sort had never touched her before the smart of her hand and the ache of her heart were forgotten in the sting of the thought of her home and they will be so disappointed in me the fifteen minutes seemed an hour but they came to an end at last and the word recess had never seemed so welcome to her before you can go Miss March said Mr. Davis looking as he felt uncomfortable he did not soon forget the reproachful look Amy gave him as she went without a word to anyone straight into the ante room snatched her things to herself she was in a sad state when she had home and when the older girls arrived sometime later an indignation meeting was held at once Mrs. March did not say much but looked disturbed and comforted her afflicted little daughter in her tenderest manner Meg bathed the insulted hand with glycerin and tears Beth felt that even her beloved kittens would fail as a bond for griefs like this and Joe wrathfully proposed that Mr. Davis be arrested without delay and pounded potatoes for dinner as if she had him under her petal no notice was taken of Amy's flight except by her mates but the sharp eyed demoiselles discovered that Mr. Davis was quite benignant in the afternoon and also unusually nervous just before school closed Joe appeared wearing a grim expression as she stalked up to the desk and delivered a letter from her mother then collected Amy's property and departed as if she shook the dust of the place off her feet yes you can have a vacation from school but I want you to study a little every day with Beth said Mrs. March that evening I don't approve of corporal punishment especially for girls I dislike Mr. Davis's manner of teaching and I don't think the girls you associate with are doing you any good so I shall ask your father's advice before I send you anywhere else that's good I wish all the girls would leave their home martyr I am not sorry you lost them for you broke the rules and deserved some punishment for disobedience was the severe reply which rather disappointed the young lady who expected nothing but sympathy do you mean you are glad I was disgraced before the whole school I should not have chosen that way amending a fault replied her mother but I'm not sure that it won't do you more good than a milder method you were getting to be all together too conceited and important my dear you have a good many little gifts and virtues but there is no need of parading them for conceit spoils the finest genius there is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked for long even if it is the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one and the great charm of all power is modesty so it is cried Laurie who was playing chess in a corner with Joe I knew a girl once who had a really remarkable talent for music and she didn't know it I would have guessed what sweet little things she composed when she was alone and wouldn't have believed it if anyone had told her I wish I'd known that nice girl maybe she would have helped me I'm so stupid said Beth who stood beside him listening eagerly you do know her and she helps you better than anyone else could answered Laurie looking at her with such a mischievous meaning in his merry eyes that Beth suddenly turned very red and hit her face in the sofa cushion quite overcome by such an unexpected discovery to pay for that praise of her Beth who could not be prevailed upon to play for them after her compliment so Laurie did his best and sung delightfully being in a particularly lively humor for to the marches he seldom showed the moody side of his character when he was gone Amy who had been pensive all the evening said suddenly as if busy over some new idea is Laurie an accomplished boy yes he has had an excellent education and has much talent he will make a fine man if not spoiled by petting replied her mother and he isn't conceited is he asked Amy not in the least that is why he is so charming and we all like him so much I see it's nice to have accomplishments and be elegant but not to show off or get perked up said Amy thoughtfully these things are always seen and felt in a person's manner and conversation any more than it's proper to wear all your bonnets and gowns and ribbons at once that folks may know you've got them added Joe and the lecture ended in a laugh Thoreau's flute from the Atlantic Monthly September 1863 we sighing said our pan is dead his pipe hangs mute beside the river around it wistful sunbeams quiver but music's airy voice is fled untimely frost the bluebird chants a requiem the willow blossom waits for him the genius of the wood is lost then from the flute untouched by his hands there came a low harmonious breath for such as he there is no death his life the eternal life commands above man's aims his nature rose the wisdom of a just consent made one small spot a continent and turned to poetry life's prose haunting the hills the stream the wild swallow and aster lake and pine to him grew human or divine fit mates for this large hearted child such homage nature ne'er forgets and yearly on the cover lid neath which her darling lieth hid will write his name in violets to him no vain regrets belong whose soul that finer instrument gave to the world no poor lament but wood notes ever sweet and strong oh lonely friend he still will be a potent presence though unseen steadfast, sagacious and serene seek not for him he is with thee a song from the suds from little women queen of my tub I merrily sing while the white foam rises high and sturdily wash and rinse and ring and fasten the clothes to dry then out in the free fresh air they swing under the sunny sky I wish we could wash from our hearts and souls the stains of the week away and let water and air by their magic make ourselves as pure as they then on the earth there would be indeed a glorious washing day along the path of useful life will hearts ease ever bloom the busy mind has no time to think of sorrow or care or gloom and anxious thoughts may be swept away as we busily wheel the broom I am glad a task to me is given to labor at day by day for it brings me health and strength and hope and I cheerfully learn to say head you may think heart you may feel but hand you shall work all way end of section 33