 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Luck by Mark Twain. Note, this is not a fancy sketch. I got it from a clergyman who was an instructor at Woolwich forty years ago, and who vouched for its truth. Signed M.T. It was at a banquet in London, in honour of one of the two or three conspicuously illustrious English military names of this generation. For reasons which will presently appear, I will withhold his real name and titles, and call him Lieutenant General Lord Arthur Scornsby, V.C. K.C. B., etc., etc., etc. What a fascination there is, in a renowned name. There sat the man, in actual flesh, whom I had heard of so many thousands of times since that day, thirty years before, when his name shot suddenly to the zenith, from a Crimean battlefield, to remain forever celebrated. It was food and drink for me to look and look and look at that demigod, scanning, searching, noting, the quietness, the reserve, the noble gravity of his countenance, the simple honesty that expressed itself all over him, the sweet unconsciousness of his greatness, unconsciousness of the hundreds of admiring eyes fastened upon him, unconsciousness of the deep, loving, sincere worship welling out of the breasts of those people and flowing toward him. The clergyman at my left was an old acquaintance of mine, clergyman now, but had spent the first half of his life in the camp and field, and as an instructor in the military school at Woolwich. Just at the moment I have been talking about, a veiled and singular light glimmered in his eyes, and he leaned down and muttered confidentially to me, indicating the hero of the banquet with a gesture. Privately, his glory is an accident, just a product of incredible luck. The verdict was a great surprise to me. If its subject had been Napoleon or Socrates or Solomon, my astonishment could not have been greater. Some days later came the explanation of this strange remark, and this is what the Reverend told me. About forty years ago I was an instructor in the military academy at Woolwich. I was present in one of the sections when young Scorsby underwent his preliminary examination. I was touched to the quick with pity, for the rest of the class answered up brightly and handsomely, while he, why dear me, he didn't know anything so to speak. He was evidently good and sweet and lovable and guileless, and so it was exceedingly painful to see him stand there as serene as a graven image, and deliver himself of answers which were veritably miraculous for stupidity and ignorance. All the compassion in me was aroused in his behalf. I said to myself, when he comes to be examined again, he will be flung over, of course, so it will be simply a harmless act of charity to ease his fall as much as I can. I took him aside and found that he knew a little of Caesar's history, and as he didn't know anything else, I went to work and drilled him like a galley-slave on a certain line of stock questions concerning Caesar which I knew would be used. If you'll believe me, he went through with flying colours on examination day. He went through on that purely superficial cram, and got compliments too, while others, who knew a thousand times more than he, got plucked. By some strangely lucky accident, an accident not likely to happen twice in a century, he was asked no question outside of the narrow limits of his drill. It was stupefying. Well, all through his course I stood by him with something of the sentiment which a mother feels for a crippled child, and he always saved himself, just by miracle, apparently. Now, of course, the thing that would expose him and kill him at last was mathematics. I resolved to make his death as easy as I could, so I drilled him and crammed him and crammed him and drilled him just on the line of questions which the examiner would be most likely to use, and then launched him on his fate. Well, sir, try to conceive of the result. To my consternation he took the first prize, and with it he got a perfect ovation in the way of compliments. Sleep! There was no more sleep for me for a week! My conscience tortured me day and night. What I had done, I had done purely through charity, and only to ease the poor youth's fall. I never had dreamed of any such preposterous result as the thing that had happened. I felt as guilty and miserable as the creator of Frankenstein. Here was a wooden head whom I had put in the way of glittering promotions and prodigious responsibilities, and but one thing could happen. He and his responsibilities would all go to ruin together at the first opportunity. The Crimean War had just broken out. Of course, there had to be a war, I said to myself. We couldn't have peace and give this donkey a chance to die before he is found out. I waited for the earthquake. It came, and it made me real when it did come. He was actually gazetted to a captaincy in a marching regiment. Better men grow old and gray in the service before they climb to a sublimity like that, and who could ever have foreseen that they would go and put such a load of responsibility on such green and inadequate shoulders. I could just barely have stood it if they had made him a cornet, but a captain—think of it! I thought my hair would turn white. Consider what I did. I, who so loved repose and inaction, I said to myself, I am responsible to the country for this, and I must go along with him and protect the country against him as far as I can. So I took my poor little capital that I had saved up through years of work and grinding economy, and went with a sigh and bought a cornetcy in his regiment, and away we went to the field. And there, oh dear, it was awful. Blunders? Why, he never did anything but blunder. But, you see, nobody was in the fellow's secret. Everybody had him focused wrong, and necessarily misinterpreted his performance every time. Consequently, they took his idiotic blunders for inspirations of genius. They did, honestly. His mildest blunders were enough to make a man in his right mind cry. And they did make me cry, and rage and rave too, privately. And the thing that kept me always in a sweat of apprehension was the fact that every fresh blunder he made increased the luster of his reputation. I kept saying to myself, he'll get so high that when the discovery does finally come, he'll be like the sun falling out of the sky. He went right along up, from grade to grade, over the dead bodies of his superiors, until, at last, in the hottest moment of the battle of blank, down went our colonel, my heart jumped into my mouth, for Scorsby was next in rank. Now for it, said I, we'll all land in shield in ten minutes, sure. The battle was awfully hot. The Allies were steadily giving way all over the field. Our regiment occupied a position that was vital. A blunder now must be destruction. At this critical moment, what does this immortal fool do? But detach the regiment from its place, and order a charge over a neighboring hill where there wasn't a suggestion of an enemy. There you go, I said to myself. This is the end, at last. And away we did go, and were over the shoulder of the hill before the insane movement could be discovered and stopped. And what did we find? An entire and unsuspected Russian army in reserve. And what happened? Were we eaten up? That is necessarily what would have happened in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. But no. Those Russians argued that no single regiment would come browsing around there at such a time. It must be the entire English army. And that the sly Russian game was detected and blocked. So they turned tail, and away they went, and fell mel over the hill and down into the field in wild confusion, and we after them. They themselves broke the solid Russian center in the field, and tore through, and in no time there was the most tremendous rout you ever saw, and the defeat of the Allies was turned into a sweeping and splendid victory. Marshal Canrobert looked on, dizzy with astonishment, admiration, and delight, and sent right off for Scornsby, and hugged him, and decorated him on the field in presence of all the armies. And what was Scornsby's blunder that time? Merely the mistaking his right hand for his left. That was all. An order had come to him to fall back and support our right, and instead he fell forward and went over the hill to the left. But the name he won that day as a marvellous military genius filled the world with his glory, and that glory will never fade while history books last. He is just as good and sweet and lovable and unpretending as a man can be, but he doesn't know enough to come in when it rains. He has been pursued day by day and year by year by a most phenomenal and astonishing luckiness. He has been a shining soldier in all our wars for half a generation. He has littered his military life with blunders, and yet has never committed one that didn't make him a knight or a baronet or a lord or something. Look at his breast! Why, he is just clothed in domestic and foreign decorations. Well, sir, every one of them is a record of some shouting stupidity or other, and taken together they are proof that the very best thing in all this world that can be fall a man is to be born lucky. End of Luck by Mark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Mortal Immortal by Mary Shelley, 16th July 1833. This is a memorable anniversary for me. On it I complete my 323rd year. The wandering Jew, certainly not, more than 18 centuries have passed over his head. In comparison with him, I am a very young immortal. Am I then immortal? This is a question which I have asked myself by day and night for now 303 years, and yet cannot answer it. I detected a grey hair amidst my brown locks this very day that surely signifies decay. Yet it may have remained concealed there for 300 years, for some persons have become entirely white-headed before twenty years of age. I will tell my story, and my reader shall judge for me. I will tell my story, and so contrived to pass some few hours of a long eternity become so wearisome to me. Forever. Can it be? To live forever? I have heard of enchantments in which the victims were plunged into a deep sleep to wake after a hundred years as fresh as ever. I have heard of the seven sleepers. Thus to be immortal would not be so burdensome, but, oh, the weight of never-ending time, the tedious passage of the still succeeding hours. How happy was the fabled Norge I had! But to my task, all the world has heard of Cornelius a gripper. His memory is as immortal as his arts have made me. All the world has also heard of his scholar, who, unawares, raised the foul fiend during his master's absence, and was destroyed by him. The report, true or false, of this accident, was attended with many inconveniences to the renowned philosopher. All his scholars had once deserted him. His servants disappeared. He had no one near him to put coals on his ever-burning fires while he slept, or to attend to the changeful colours of his medicines while he studied. Experiment after experiment failed, because one pair of hands was insufficient to complete them. The dark spirits laughed at him for not being able to retain a single mortal in his service. I was then very young, very poor, and very much in love. I had been for about a year the pupil of Cornelius, though I was absent when this accident took place. On my return my friends implored me not to return to the alchemists abode, I trembled as I listened to the dire tale they told. I required no second warning, and when Cornelius came and offered me a purse of gold if I would remain under his roof, I felt as if Satan himself tempted me. My teeth chattered, my hair stood on end. I ran off as fast as my trembling knees would permit. My failing steps were directed wither for two years they had every evening been attracted, a gently bubbling spring of pure living waters, beside which lingered a dark-haired girl, whose beaming eyes were fixed on the path I was accustomed each night to tread. I cannot remember the hour when I did not love Bertha. We had been neighbours and playmates from infancy. Her parents, like mine, were of humble life, yet respectable. Our attachment had been a source of pleasure to them. In an evil hour a malignant fever carried off both her father and mother, and Bertha became an orphan. She would have found a home beneath my paternal roof, but unfortunately the old lady of the near castle, rich, childless, and solitary, declared her intention to adopt her. Henceforth Bertha was clad in silk, inhabited a marble palace, and was looked on as being highly favoured by fortune. But in her new situation among her new associates Bertha remained true to the friend of her humbler days. She often visited the cottage of my father, and when forbidden to go thither, she would stray towards the neighbouring wood, and meet me beside its shady fountain. She often declared that she owed no duty to her new protectress, equal in sanctity to that which bound us. Yet still I was too poor to marry, and she grew weary of being tormented on my account. She had a haughty but an impatient spirit, and grew angry at the obstacles that prevented our union. We met now after an absence, and she had been sorely beset while I was away. She complained bitterly, and almost reproached me for being poor. I replied hastily, I am honest if I am poor, where I not I might soon become rich. This exclamation produced a thousand questions. I feared to shock her by owning the truth, but she drew it from me, and then, casting a look of disdain on me, she said, You pretend to love, and you fear to face the devil for my sake. I protested that I had only dreaded to offend her, while she dwelt on the magnitude of the reward that I should receive, thus encouraged, shamed by her, led on by love and hope, laughing at my late fears. With quick steps and a light heart, I returned to accept the offers of the alchemist, and was instantly installed in my office. A year passed away. I became possessed of no insignificant sum of money. Custom had banished my fears. In spite of the most painful vigilance, I had never detected the trace of a cloven foot, nor was the studious silence of our abode ever disturbed by demoniac howls. I still continued my stolen interviews with Bertha, and hope dawned on me, hope but not perfect joy, for Bertha fancied that love and security were enemies, and her pleasure was to divide them in my bosom. Though true of heart, she was somewhat of a coquette in manner, and I was jealous as a Turk. She slighted me in a thousand ways, yet would never acknowledge herself to be in the wrong. She would drive me mad with anger, and then force me to beg her pardon. Sometimes she fancied that I was not sufficiently submissive, and then she had some story of a rival favoured by her protectress. She was surrounded by silk-clad youths, the rich and gay. What chance had the sad-robed scholar of Cornelius compared with these? On one occasion the philosopher made such large demands upon my time that I was unable to meet her as I was won't. He was engaged in some mighty work, and I was forced to remain day and night feeding his furnaces and watching his chemical preparations. Bertha waited for me in vain at the fountain. Her haughty spirit fired at this neglect, and when at last I stole out during the few short minutes allotted to me for slumber, and hoped to be consoled by her, she received me with disdain, dismissed me in scorn, and vowed that any man should possess her hand rather than he who could not be in two places at once for her sake. She would be revenged, and truly she was. In my dingy retreat I heard that she had been hunting, attended by Albert Hoffer. Albert Hoffer was favoured by her protectress, and the three passed in cavalcade before my smoky window. I thought that they mentioned my name. It was followed by a laugh of derision as her dark eyes glanced contemptuously towards my abode. Jealousy, with all its venom and all its misery, entered my breast. Now I shed a torrent of tears to think that I should never call her mine, and anon I implicated a thousand curses on her inconstancy. Yet still I must stir the fires of the alchemist, and still attend on the changes of his unintelligible medicines. Cornelius had watched for three days and nights, nor closed his eyes. The progress of his alembics was slower than he expected. In spite of his anxiety, sleep weighed upon his eyelids. Again and again he threw off drowsiness with more than human energy. Again and again it stole away his senses. He eyed his crucibles wistfully. Not ready yet, he murmured, will another night pass before the work is accomplished? Winsy, you are vigilant. You are faithful. You have slept, my boy. You slept last night. Look at that glass vessel. The liquid it contains is of a soft rose colour. The moment it begins to change its hue, awaken me. Till then I may close my eyes. First it will turn white, and then emit golden flashes. But wait not till then, when the rose colour fades, rouse me. I scarcely heard the last words, muttered as they were, in sleep. Even then he did not quite yield to nature. Winsy, my boy, he again said, Do not touch the vessel. Do not put it to your lips. It is a filter, a filter to cure love. You would not cease to love your birther. Beware to drink. And he slept. His venerable head sunk on his breast, and I scarce heard his regular breathing. For a few minutes I watched the vessel, the rosy hue of the liquid remained unchanged. Then my thoughts wandered. They visited the fountain, and dwelt on a thousand charming scenes, never to be renewed. Never. Serpents and adders were in my heart, as the word never half formed itself on my lips. False girl, false and cruel. Never more would she smile on me that evening she smiled on Albert. Worthless, detested woman. I would not remain unrevenged. She should see Albert expire at her feet. She should die beneath my vengeance. She had smiled in disdain and triumph. She knew my wretchedness and her power. Yet what power had she? The power of exciting my hate, utter scorn, my all but indifference. Could I attain that? Could I regard her with careless eyes, transferring my rejected love to one fairer and more true? That were indeed a victory. A bright flash darted before my eyes. I had forgotten the medicine of the adept. I gazed on it with wonder, flashes of admirable beauty, more bright than those which the diamond emits when the sun's rays are on it, glanced from the surface of the liquid. An odour, the most fragrant and grateful, stole over my sense. The vessel seemed one globe of living radiance, lovely to the eye, and most inviting to the taste. The first thought, instinctively inspired by the grosser sense, was, I will, I must drink. I raised the vessel to my lips. It will cure me of love, of torture. Already I had coiffed half of the most delicious liquor ever tasted by the pallet of man when the philosopher stirred. I started. I dropped the glass. The liquid flamed and glanced along the floor. While I felt Cornelius' gripe at my throat as he shrieked aloud, Wretch, you have destroyed the labour of my life! The philosopher was totally unaware that I had drunk any portion of his drug. His idea was, and I gave a tacit assent to it, that I had raised the vessel from curiosity, and that frightened at its brightness and the flashes of intense light it gave forth, I had let it fall. I never un-deceived him. The fire of the medicine was quenched. The fragrance died away. He grew calm as a philosopher should under the heaviest trials, and dismissed me to rest. I will not attempt to describe the sleep of glory and bliss which bathed my soul in paradise during the remaining hours of that memorable night. Words would be faint and shallow types of my enjoyment, or of the gladness that possessed my bosom when I woke. I trod air. My thoughts were in heaven, earth appeared heaven, and my inheritance upon it was to be one trance of delight. This it is to be cured of love, I thought. I will see Bertha this day and she will find her lover cold and regardless too happy to be disdainful yet how utterly indifferent to her. The hours danced away. The philosopher, secure that he had once succeeded and believing that he might again began to concoct the same medicine once more. He was shot up with his books and drugs and I had a holiday. I dressed myself with care. I looked in an old but polished shield which served me for a mirror. I thought my good looks had wonderfully improved. I hurried beyond the precincts of the town, joy in my soul, beauty of heaven and earth around me. I turned my steps toward the castle. I could look on its lofty turrets with lightness of heart for I was cured of love. My Bertha saw me afar off as I came up the avenue. I know not what sudden impulse animated her bosom but at the sight she sprang with a light fawn-like bound down the marble steps and was hastening towards me. But I had been perceived by another person, the old high-born hag who called herself her protectress and was her tyrant had seen me also. She hobbled panting up the terrace. A page, as ugly as herself, held up her train and fanned her as she hurried along and stopped my fair girl with a how now my bold mistress, with her so fast, back to your cage, hawks are abroad. Bertha clasped her hands. Her eyes were still bent on my approaching figure. I saw the contest. How I abhorred the old crone who checked the kind impulses of my Bertha's softening heart. Hitherto, respect for her rank calls me to avoid the lady of the castle. Now I disdain such trivial considerations. I was cured of love and lifted above all human fears. I hastened forwards and soon reached the terrace. How lovely Bertha looked! Her eyes flashing fire, her cheeks glowing with impatience and anger. A thousand times more graceful and charming than ever. I no longer loved. Oh no, I adored, worshipped, idolised her. She had that morning been persecuted with more than usual vehemence to consent to an immediate marriage with my rival. She was reproached with the encouragement that she had shown him. She was threatened with being turned out of doors with disgrace and shame. Her proud spirit rose in arms at the threat, but when she remembered the scorn that she'd heaped upon me and how perhaps she had thus lost one whom she now regarded as her only friend, she wept with remorse and rage. At that moment I appeared. As she exclaimed, Take me to your mother's cot, swiftly let me leave the detested luxuries and wretchedness of this noble dwelling, take me to poverty and happiness. I clasped her in my arms with transport. The old lady was speechless with fury and broke forth into invective only when we were far on our road to my natal cottage. My mother received the fair fugitive, escaped from a guilt cage to nature and liberty with tenderness and joy. My father, who loved her, welcomed her heartily. It was a day of rejoicing, which did not need the addition of the celestial potion of the alchemist to steep me in delight. Soon after this eventful day I became the husband of Bertha. I ceased to be the scholar of Cornelius, but I continued to be his friend. I always felt grateful to him for having, unawares, procured me that delicious draft of a divine elixir, which instead of curing me of love, sad cure, solitary and joyless remedy for evils which seemed blessings to the memory, had inspired me with courage and resolution, thus winning for me an inestimable treasure in my Bertha. I often called to mind that period of trance-like inebriation with wonder. The drink of Cornelius had not fulfilled the task for which he affirmed that it had been prepared, but its effects were more potent and blissful than words could express. They had faded by degrees, yet they lingered long and painted life in hues of splendour. Bertha often wandered at my lightness of heart and unaccustomed gaiety, for before I had been rather serious or even sad in my disposition. She loved me the better for my cheerful temper and our days were winged by joy. Five years afterwards I was suddenly summoned to the bedside of the dying Cornelius. He had sent for me in haste, conjuring my instant presence. I found him stretched on his pallet enfeebled even to death. All of life that yet remained animated his piercing eyes, and they were fixed on a glass vessel full of a rosate liquid. Behold, he said, in a broken and inward voice, the vanity of human wishes. A second time my hopes are about to be crowned, a second time they are destroyed. Look at that liquor. You remember five years ago I had prepared the same, with the same success. Then as now my thirsting lips expected to taste the immortal elixir, you dashed it from me, and at present it is too late. He spoke with difficulty and fell back on his pillow. I could not help saying, How, revered master, can a cure for love restore you to life? A faint smile gleamed across his face as I listened earnestly to his scarcely intelligible answer. A cure for love and for all things, the elixir of immortality. Ah, if now I might drink, I should live for ever. As he spoke, a golden flash gleamed from the liquid, a well-remembered fragrance stole over the air. He raised himself, all weak as he was. Strength seemed miraculously to re-enter his frame. He stretched forth his hand. A loud explosion startled me. A ray of fire shot up from the elixir and the glass vessel which contained it was shivered to atoms. I turned my eyes towards the philosopher. He had fallen back. His eyes were glassy. His features rigid. He was dead. But I lived and was to live for ever. So said the unfortunate alchemist, and for a few days I believed his words. I remembered the glorious drunkenness that had followed my soul and draft. I reflected on the change I had felt in my frame, in my soul, the abounding elasticity of the one, the buoyant lightness of the other. I surveyed myself in a mirror and could perceive no change in my features during the space of the five years which had elapsed. I remembered the radiant hues and grateful scent of that delicious beverage, worthy the gift it was capable of bestowing. I was then immortal. A few days after, I laughed at my credulity. The old proverb that a prophet is least regarded in his own country was true with respect to me and my defunct master. I loved him as a man. I respected him as a sage. But I derided the notion that he could command the powers of darkness and laughed at the superstitious fears with which he was regarded by the vulgar. He was a wise philosopher, but had no acquaintance with any spirits but those clad in flesh and blood. His science was simply human. And human science, I soon persuaded myself, could never conquer nature's laws so far as to imprison the soul forever in its carnal habitation. Cornelius had brewed a soul-refreshing drink, more inebriating than wine, sweeter and more fragrant than any fruit. It possessed probably strong medicinal powers, imparting gladness to the heart and vigor to the limbs, but its effects would wear out. Already were they diminished in my frame. I was a lucky fellow to have quaffed health and joyous spirits and perhaps long life at my master's hands, but my good fortune ended there. Longevity was far different from immortality. I continued to entertain this belief for many years. Sometimes a thought stole across me. Was the alchemist indeed deceived? But my habitual credence was that I should meet the fate of all the children of Adam at my appointed time, a little late but still at a natural age. Yet it was certain that I retained a wonderfully youthful look. I was laughed at for my vanity in consulting the mirror so often, but I consulted it in vain. My brow was untrenched, my cheeks, my eyes, and my whole person continued as untarnished as in my twentieth year. I was troubled. I looked at the faded beauty of Bertha. I seemed more like her son. By degrees our neighbours began to make similar observations, and I found at last that I went by the name of The Scholar Bewitched. Bertha herself grew uneasy. She became jealous and peevish, and at length she began to question me. We had no children. We were all in all to each other, and though as she grew older her vivacious spirit became a little allied to ill temper, and her beauty sadly diminished, I cherished her in my heart as the mistress I had idolised, the wife I had sought and won with such perfect love. At last our situation became intolerable. Bertha was fifty, I twenty years of age. I had, in very shame, in some measure adopted the habits of a more advanced age. I no longer mingled in the dance among the young and gay, but my heart bounded along with them while I restrained my feet, and a sorry figure I cut among the nesters of our village. But before the time I mentioned things were altered. We were universally shunned. We were, at least I was, reported to have kept up an iniquitous acquaintance with some of my former master's supposed friends. Poor Bertha was pitted, but deserted. I was regarded with horror, and detestation. What was to be done? We sat by our winter fire. Poverty had made itself felt, for none would buy the produce of my farm, and often I had been forced to journey twenty miles to some place where I was not known to dispose of our property. It is true we had saved something for an evil day. That day was come. We sat by our lone fireside, the old-hearted youth and his antiquated wife. Again Bertha insisted on knowing the truth. She recapitulated all she had ever heard said about me, and added her own observations. She conjured me to cast off the spell. She described how much more commonly gray hairs were than my chestnut locks. She descanted on the reverence and respect due to age, how preferable to the slight regard paid to mere children. Could I imagine that the despicable gifts of youth and good looks outweighed disgrace, hatred, and scorn? Nay, in the end I should be burnt as a dealer in the black art, while she, to whom I had not deigned to communicate any portion of my good fortune, might be stoned as my accomplice. At length she insinuated that I must share my secret with her, and bestow on her like benefits to those I myself enjoyed, or she would denounce me. And then she burst into tears. Thus beset I thought it was the best way to tell the truth. I revealed it as tenderly as I could, and spoke only of a very long life, not of immortality, which representation, indeed, coincided best with my own ideas. When I ended I rose and said and now, my birther, will you denounce the lover of your youth? Not, I know. But it is too hard, my poor wife, that you should suffer from my ill luck and the accursed arts of Cornelius. I will leave you. You have wealth enough, and friends will return in my absence. I will go. Young as I seem, and strong as I am, I can work and gain my bread among strangers, unsuspected alone. I loved you in youth. God is my witness that I would not desert you in age, but that your safety and happiness require it. I took my cap, and moved towards the door. In a moment, birther's arms were round my neck, and her lips were pressed to mine. No, my husband, my winzy, she said. You shall not go alone. You will remove from this place, and as you say, among strangers, we shall be unsuspected and safe. I am not so very old as quite to shame you, my winzy, and I dare say the charm will soon wear off, and with the blessing of God you will become more elderly looking as is fitting. You shall not leave me. I returned the good soul's embrace heartily. But for your sake I had not thought of such a thing. I will be your true, faithful husband while you are spared to me, and do my duty by you to the last. The next day we prepared secretly for our emigration. We were obliged to make great pecuniary sacrifices. It could not be helped. We realized to some sufficient police to maintain us while Bertha lived, and without saying a due to anyone, quitted our native country to take refuge in a remote part of western France. It was a cruel thing to transport poor Bertha from her native village and the friends of her youth to a new country, new language, new customs. The strange secret of my destiny rendered this removal immaterial to me, but I compassionate her deeply and was glad to perceive that she found compensation for her misfortunes in a variety of little ridiculous circumstances. Away from all tell-tale chroniclers she sought to decrease the apparent disparity of our ages by a thousand feminine arts, rouge, youthful dress, and assumed juvenility of manner. I could not be angry. Do not I myself wear a mask? Why quarrel with hers because it was less successful? I grieved deeply when I remembered that this was my Bertha whom I had loved so fondly and won with such transport. The dark-eyed, dark-haired girl with smiles of enchanting arch-ness and a step like a fawn, this mincing, simpering, jealous old woman. I should have revered her grey locks and withered cheeks, but thus it was my work I knew but I did not the less deplore this type of human weakness. Her jealousy never slept. Her chief occupation was to discover that in spite of outward appearances I was myself growing old. I verily believe that the poor soul loved me truly in her heart but never had women so tormenting a mode of displaying fondness. She would discern wrinkles in my face and decrepitude in my walk while I bounded along in youthful vigor the youngest looking of twenty youths. I never dared address another woman. On one occasion fancying that the bell of the village regarded me with favouring eyes she bought me a grey wig. Her constant discourse among her acquaintances was that though I looked so young there was ruin at work within my frame and she affirmed that the worst symptom about me was my apparent health. My youth was a disease she said and I altered all times to prepare if not for a sudden and awful death at least to wake some morning white-haired and bowed down with all the marks of advanced years. I let her talk. I often joined in her conjectures. Her warnings chimed in with my never-ceasing speculations concerning my state and I took an earnest though painful interest in listening to all that her quick wit and excited imagination could say on the subject. Why dwell on these minute circumstances? We lived on for many long years. Bertha became bedridden and paralytic. I nursed her as a mother-mighter child. She grew peevish and still harped upon one string of how long I should survive her. It has ever been a source of consolation to me that I performed my duty scrupulously towards her. She had been mine in youth. She was mine in age and at last when I heaped the sod over her corpse I wept to feel that I had lost all that really bound me to humanity. Since then how many have been my cares and woes, how few and empty my enjoyment. I pause here in my history. I will pursue it no further. A sailor without rudder or compass, tossed on a stormy sea. A traveller lost on a widespread heath without landmark or stone to guide him. Such have I been. More lost, more hopeless than either. A nearing ship, a gleam from some far cot, may save them. But I have no beacon except the hope of death. Death, mysterious, ill-visaged friend of weak humanity. Why alone of all mortals have you cast me from your sheltering fold? O, for the peace of the grave, the deep silence of the iron-bound tomb that thought would cease to work in my brain and my heart beat no more with emotions varied only by new forms of sadness. Am I immortal? I return to my first question. In the first place is it not more probable that the beverage of the alchemist was fraught rather with longevity than eternal life? Such is my hope. And then, be it remembered that I only drank half of the potion prepared by him, was not the whole necessary to complete the charm? To have drained half the elixir of immortality is but to be half immortal. My forever is thus truncated and null. But again is it not more probable that the alchemist but again who shall number the years of the half of eternity? I often try to imagine by what rule the infinite may be divided. Sometimes I fancy age advancing upon me. One grey hair I have found full. Do I lament? Yes, the fear of age and death often creeps boldly upon my heart. And the more I live the more I dread death even while I abhor life. Such an enigma is man born to perish when he wars as I do against the established laws of his nature. But for this anomaly of feeling surely I might die. The medicine of the alchemist would not be proof against fire, sword and the strangling waters. I have gazed upon the blue depths of many a placid lake and the tumultuous rushing of many a mighty river and have said peace in habits those waters. Yet I have turned my steps away to live yet another day. I have asked myself whether suicide would be a crime in one to whom thus only the portals of the other world could be opened. I have done all except presenting myself as a soldier or dualist an object of destruction to my no not my fellow mortals and therefore I have shrunk away. They are not my fellows the extinguishable power of life in my frame and their ephemeral existence place as wide as the poles asunder. I could not raise a hand against the meanest or the most powerful among them. Thus I have lived on for many a year alone and weary of myself desirous of death yet never dying immortal immortal. Neither ambition nor avarice can enter my mind and the ardent love that gnaws at my heart never to be returned never to find an equal on which to expend itself lives there only to torment me. This very day I conceived a design by which I may end all without self-slaughter without making another man a cane an expedition which mortal frame can never survive even endued with the youth and strength that inhabits mine thus I shall put my immortality to the test and rest forever or return the wonder and benefactor of the human species. Before I go a miserable vanity has caused me to pen these pages. I would not die and leave no name behind. Three centuries have passed since I coffed the fatal beverage another year shall not elapse before encountering gigantic dangers warring with the powers of frost in their home beset by famine toil and tempest I yield this body too tenacious a cage for a soul which thirsts for freedom to the destructive elements of air and water or if I survive my name shall be recorded as one of the most famous among the sons of men and my task achieved I shall adopt more resolute means and by scattering and annihilating the atoms that compose my frame set at liberty the life imprisoned within and so cruelly prevented from soaring from this dim earth to a sphere more congenial to its immortal essence end of The Mortal Immortal by Mary Shelley Read for LibriVox.org by David Barnes This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to find out how you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org On Love by Percy Bish Shelley by Ethan Gordon What is love? Ask him who lives, what is life? Ask him who adores what is God? I know not the internal constitution of other men nor even thine whom I now address. I see that in some external attributes they resemble me but when misled by that appearance I have thought to appeal to something in common and unburden my inmost soul to them I have found my language misunderstood like one in a distant and savage land. The more opportunities they have afforded me for experience the wider has appeared the interval between us and to a greater distance have the points of sympathy been withdrawn. With a spirit ill-fitted to sustain such proof trembling and feeble though its tenderness I have everywhere sought sympathy and have found only repulse and disappointment. Thou demandest what is love? It is that powerful attraction towards all that we conceive or fear or hope beyond ourselves when we find within our own thoughts the chasm of an insufficient void and seek to awaken in all things that are a community with what we experience within ourselves. If we reason we would be understood if we imagine we would that the airy children of our brain were born anew within another's if we feel we would that another's nerves should vibrate to our own that the beams of their eyes should kindle at once and mix and melt into our own that lips of motionless eyes should not reply to lips quivering and burning with the heart's best blood this is love. This is the bond and the sanction which connects not only man with man but with everything which exists we are born into the world and there is something within us which from the instant that we live there are thirsts after its likeness it is probably in correspondence with this law that the infant drains milk from the bosom of its mother this propensity develops itself with the development of our nature we dimly see within our intellectual nature a miniature as it were of our entire self yet deprived of all that we condemn or despise the ideal prototype of everything excellent or lovely that we are capable of conceiving belonging to the nature of man not only the portrait of our external being but an assemblage of the minutest particles of which our nature is composed a mirror whose surface reflects only the forms of purity and brightness a soul within our soul that describes a circle around its proper paradise which pain and sorrow and evil dare not overleap to this we eagerly refer all sensations bursting that they should resemble or correspond with it the discovery of its antitype the meeting with an understanding capable of clearly estimating our own an imagination which should enter into and seize upon the subtle and delicate peculiarities which we have delighted to cherish and unfold in secret with a frame whose nerves like the cords of two exquisite liars strung to the accompaniment of one delightful voice of our own and of a combination of all these in such proportions as the type within demands this is the invisible and unattainable point to which love tends and to attain which it urges forth the powers of man to arrest the faintest shadows of that without the possession of which there is no rest nor respite to the heart over which it rules hence in solitude or in that deserted state by human beings and yet they sympathize not with us we love the flowers the grass and the waters and the sky in the motion of the very leaves of spring in the blue air there is then found a secret correspondence with our heart there is eloquence in the tongueless wind and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of the reeds beside them which by their inconceivable relation to something within the soul awaken the spirits to a dance of breathless rapture and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes like the enthusiasm of patriotic success or the voice of one beloved singing to you alone stern says that if he were in a desert he would love some cypress so soon as this want or power is dead he becomes the living sepulcher of himself and what yet survives is the mere husk of what once he was end of On Love by Percy Bish Shelley a young lieutenant was passed by a private who failed to salute the lieutenant called him back and said sternly you did not salute me for this you will immediately salute 200 times at this moment the general came up what's all this he exclaimed seeing the poor private about to begin the lieutenant explained this ignoramus failed to salute me and as a punishment I am making him salute 200 times quite right replied the general smiling but do not forget sir that upon each occasion you are to salute in return end of The Point of Honor from Best Short Stories collected by Thomas L. Masson this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this reading by Tamara Schwartz The School Master's Progress by Carolyn M. S. Kirkland Master William Horner came to our village to school when he was about 18 years old tall, lank, straight sided and straight haired with a mouth of the most puckered and solemn kind his figure and movements were those of a puppet cut out of shingle and jerked by a string and his address corresponded very well with his appearance never did that prim mouth give way before a laugh a faint and misty smile was the widest departure from its propriety and this unaccustomed disturbance made wrinkles in the flat skinny cheeks like those in the surface of a lake after the intrusion of a stone Master Horner knew well what belonged to the pedagogical character and that facial solemnity stood high on the list of indispensable qualifications he had made up his mind before he left his father's house how he would look during the term he had not planned any smiles knowing that he must board round and it was not for ordinary occurrences to alter his arrangements so that when he was betrayed into a relaxation of the muscles it was in such a sort as if he was putting his bread and butter in jeopardy truly he had a grave time that first winter the rod of power was new to him and he felt his duty to use it more frequently than might have been thought necessary by those upon whose sense the privilege had pawled tears and sulky faces and impotent fists doubled fiercely when his back was turned to words of his conscientiousness and the boys and girls too were glad when working time came round again and the Master went home to help his father on the farm but with the autumn came Master Horner again dropping among us as quietly as the faded leaves and awakening at least as much serious reflection would he be as self-sacrificing as before postponing his own ease like good or would he have become more sedentary and less fond of circumambulating the school room with a switch over his shoulder many were feigned to hope he might have learned to smoke during the summer and accomplishment which would probably have moderated his energy not a little and disposed him rather to reverie than to action but here he was and all the broader chested and stouter armed for his labors in the field let it not be supposed that Master Horner was of a cruel and ogre nature a baby-eater, a hered one who delighted in torturing the helpless such souls there may be among those endowed with the awful control of the feral but they are rare in the fresh and natural regions we describe it is we believe where young gentlemen are to be crammed for college that the process of hardening together goes on most vigorously yet among the uneducated there is so high a respect for bodily strength that it is necessary for the school master to show, first of all that he possesses this inadmissible requisite for his place the rest is more readily taken for granted brains he may have a strong arm he must have so he proves the more important claim first we must therefore make all due allowance for Master Horner who could not be expected to overtop his position so far as to discern at once the philosophy of teaching he was sadly brow-beaten during his first term of service by a great broad-shouldered lout of some eighteen years or so who thought he needed a little more schooling but at the same time felt quite competent to direct the manner and measure his attempts you'd ought to begin with a large hand, Joshua said Master Horner to this youth what should I want a coarse hand for said the disciple with great contempt coarse hand won't never do me no good I want a fine hand copy the master looked at the infant giant and did as he wished but we say not with what secret but with what resolution at another time Master Horner having had a hint from someone more knowing than himself proposed to his elder scholars to write after dictation expatiating at the same time quite floridly the ideas having been supplied by the knowing friend upon the advantages likely to arise from this practice and saying among other things it will help you to spell the words good poo said Joshua spelling ain't nothing let them that finds the mistakes correct them I'm for everyone's having a way of their own how dared you be so sassy to the master asked one of the little boys after school because I could lick him easy said the hopeful Joshua who knew very well the master did not undertake him on the spot can we wonder that master Horner determined to make his empire good as far as it went a new examination was required on the entrance into a second term and with whatever secret trepidation the master was obliged to submit our law prescribes examinations but forgets to provide for the competency of the examiners do better farces offer than the course of question and answer on these occasions we know not precisely what were master Horner's trials but we have heard of a sharp dispute between the inspectors whether A N G E L spelled angle or angel angle had it and the school maintained that pronunciation ever after master Horner passed he was requested to drive the certificate for the inspectors to sign as one had left his spectacles at home and the other had a bad cold so that it was not convenient for either to write more than his name master Horner's exhibition of learning on this occasion did not reach us but we know that it must have been considerable since he stood the ordeal what is orthography said an inspector once in our presence the candidate writhed a good deal studied the beams overhead and the chickens out of the window and then replied it is so long since I learnt the first part of the spelling book that I can't justly answer that question but if I could just look it over I guess I could our school master entered upon his second term with new courage and invigorated authority twice certified who should dare doubt his competency even Joshua was civil and lesser louts of course obsequious though the girls took more liberties for they feel even at that early age that influence is stronger than strength could a young school master think of feraling a girl with her hair and ringlets and a gold ring on her finger impossible and the immunity to all the little sisters and cousins and there were enough large girls to protect all the feminine part of the school with the boys master Horners still had many a battle and whether with a view to this or as an economical ruse he never wore his coat in school saying it was too warm perhaps it was an astute attention to the prejudices of his employers who loved no man that does not earn his living by the sweat of his brow the shirt sleeves gave the idea of a manual labor school in one sense at least it was evident that the master worked and that afforded a probability that the scholars worked too master Horners success was most triumphant that winter a year's growth had improved his outward man exceedingly filling out the limbs that they did not remind you so forcibly of a young colts and supplying the cheeks with the flesh and blood so necessary where mustaches were not worn experience had given him a degree of confidence and confidence gave him power in short people said the master had waked up and so he had he actually said about reading for improvement and although at the end of the term he could not quite make out from his historical studies which side Hannibal was on yet this is readily explained by the fact that he boarded round and was obliged to read generally by firelight surrounded by ungoverned children after this master Horner made his own bargain when school time came round with the following autumn and the teacher presented himself for a third examination such a test was pronounced no longer necessary and the district consented to engage him at the astounding rate of 16 dollars a month understanding that he was to have a fixed home provided he was willing to allow a dollar a week for it master Horner be thought him of the successive killing times and consequent donuts of the twenty families in which he had sojourned the years before and consented to the exact action behold our friend now as high as district teacher can ever hope to be his scholarship established stationary and not revolving and the good behavior of the community insured by the fact that he being of age now had a farm to retire upon in case of any disgust master Horner was at once the preeminent bow of the neighborhood spite of the prejudice against learning he brushed his hair straight up in front and wore a sky blue ribbon for a guard to his silver watch and walked as if the tall heels of his blunt boots were egg shells and not leather yet he was far from neglecting the duties of his place he was bow only on Sundays and holidays very school master the rest of the time it was at a spelling school that master Horner first met the educated eyes of Miss Harriet Bengal a young lady visiting the Engleharts in our neighborhood she was from one of the towns in western New York and had brought with her a variety of city heirs and graces somewhat caricatured set off with year old French fashions much travesty whether she had been sent out to the new country to try somewhat late a rustic chance for an establishment or whether her company had been found rather trying at home we cannot say the view which she was at some pains to make understood was that her friends had contrived this method seeing her out of the way of a desperate lover whose addresses were not acceptable to them if it should seem surprising that so high bread a visitor should be so journeying in the wild woods it must be remembered that more than one celebrated Englishmen and not a few distinguished Americans have farmer brothers in the western country no wit less rustic in their exterior and manner of life than the plainest of their neighbors when these are visited by the refined kinsfolk we of the woods catch glimpses of the gay world or think we do that great medicine hath with its tinct gilded many a vulgarism to the satisfaction of wiser heads than ours Miss Bangles Manor bespoke for her that high consideration which she felt to be her due yet she con descended to be amused by the rustics and attempts at gaiety and elegance and to say truth few of the village Marymakings escaped her though she wore always the air of great superiority the spelling school is one of the ordinary winter amusements in the country it occurs once in a fortnight or so and has power to draw out all the young people from miles round a raid in their best clothes and their holiday behavior when all is ready umpires are elected and after these have taken the distinguished place usually occupied by the teacher the young people of the school choose the two best scholars to head the opposing classes these leaders choose their followers from the mass each calling a name in turn until all the spellers are ranked on one side or the other lining the sides of the room and all standing the school master standing too takes his spelling book and gives a placid yet awe inspiring look along the ranks remarking that he intends to be very impartial and he shall give out nothing that is not in the spelling book for the first half hour or so he chooses common and easy words that the spirit of the evening may not be damped by the too early thinning of the classes when a word is missed the blunderer has to sit down spectator only for the rest of the evening at certain intervals some of the best speakers mount the platform and speak a piece which is generally as declamatory as possible the excitement of this scene is equal to that afforded by any city spectacle whatever and towards the close of the evening when difficult and unusual words are chosen to confound the small number who still keep the floor less than painful when perhaps only one or two remain to be puzzled the master weary at last of his task though a favorite one tries by tricks to put down those whom he cannot overcome in fair fight if among all the curious useless unheard of words which may be picked out of the spelling book he cannot find one which the scholars have not noticed he gets the last head down by some quip which may perhaps be the sound one scholar spells it B E Y another B A Y while the master all the time means B A which comes within the rule being in the spelling book it was on one of these occasions as we have said that miss bangle having come to the spelling school to get materials for a letter to a female friend first shown upon mr. she was excessively amused by his solemn air and puckered mouth and set him down at once as fair game yet she could not help becoming somewhat interested in the spelling school and after it was over found she had not stored up half as many of the school masters points as she intended for the benefit of her correspondent in the evenings contest a young girl from some few miles distance Ellen Kingsbury the only child substantial farmer had been the very last to sit down after a prolonged effort on the part of mr. Horner to puzzle her for the credit of his own school she blushed and smiled and blushed again but spelled on until mr. Horner's cheeks were crimson with excitement and some touch of shame that he should be baffled at his own weapons at length either by accident or design Ellen missed a word as she was looking into her seat was numbered with the slain in the laugh and talk which followed for with the conclusion of the spelling all form of a public assembly vanishes our school master said so many gallant things to his fair enemy and appeared so much animated by the excitement of the contest that miss bangle began to look upon him with rather more respect and to feel somewhat indignant that a little rustic like Ellen should absorb the entire attention of the only bow she put on therefore her most gracious aspect and mingled in the circle causing the school master to be presented to her and did her best to fascinate him by certain heirs and graces which she had found successful elsewhere what game is too small for the close woven net of a coquette mr. Horner quitted not the fair Ellen until he had handed her into her father's sleigh and he then when did his way homeward never thinking that he ought to have escorted miss bangle to her uncle though she certainly waited a little while for his return we must not follow into particulars the subsequent intercourse of our school master with the civilized young lady all that concerns us is the result of miss bangles benevolent designs upon his heart she tried most sincerely to find its vulnerable spot meaning no doubt to put mr. Horner on his guard for the future and she was unfaithfully surprised to discover that her best efforts were of no avail she concluded he must have taken a counter poison and she was not slow in guessing its source she had observed the peculiar fire which lighted up his eyes in the presence of Ellen Kingsbury and she thought herself of a plan which would ensure her some amusement at the expense of these impertinent rustics though in a manner different somewhat from her original more natural idea of simple coquetry a letter was written to master Horner purporting to come from Ellen Kingsbury worded so artfully that the school master understood at once that it was intended to be a secret communication though its ostensible object was an inquiry about some ordinary affair this was laid in mr. Horner's desk before he came to school with an intimation that he might leave an answer in a certain spot on the following morning the bait took at once for mr. Horner honest and true himself and much smitten with the fair Ellen was too happy to be circumspect the answer was duly placed and as duly carried to miss bangle by her accomplice Joe Engelhardt an unlucky pickle who was always for ill never for good and to found no difficulty in obtaining the letter unwatched since the master was obliged to be in school at nine and Joe could always linger a few minutes later this answer being opened and laughed at miss bangle had only to contrive a rejoinder which being rather more particular in its tone than the original communication let on yet again the happy school master who branched out into sentiment tough it up phrases so can terms precise talked of hills and dales and rivulets and the pleasures of friendship and concluded by entreating a continuance of the correspondence another letter and another every one more flattering and encouraging than the last almost turned the sober head of our poor master and warmed up his heart so effectually that he could scarcely attend to his business the spelling schools were remembered however and Ellen Kingsbury made one of the merry company but the latest letter had not forgotten to caution Mr. Horner not to betray the intimacy so that he was an honor bound to restrict himself to the language of the eyes hard as it was to forbear the single whisper for which he would have given his very dictionary so their meeting passed off without the explanation which miss bangle began to fear would cut short her benevolent amusement the correspondence was resumed with renewed spirit and carried on until miss bangle though not overburdened with sensitiveness began to be a little alarmed for the consequences of her malicious pleasantry she perceived that she herself had turned school mistress and that master Horner instead of being merely her dupe had become her pupil too for the style of his replies had been constantly improving and the earnest and manly tone was assumed promised anything but the quiet sheepish pocketing of injury and insult upon which she had counted in truth there was something deeper than vanity in the feelings with which he regarded Ellen Kingsbury the encouragement which he supposed himself to have received through down the barrier which his extreme bashfulness would have interposed between himself and any one who possessed charms enough to attract him and we must excuse him if in this case he did not criticize the mode of encouragement but rather grasped eagerly the proffered good without a scruple or one which he would own to himself as to the propriety with which it was tendered he was as much in love as a man can be and the seriousness of real attachment gave both grace and dignity to his once awkward diction the evident determination of Mr. Horner to come to the point when Papa brought Miss Bangle to a very awkward pass she had expected to return home before matters had proceeded so far but being obliged to remain some time longer she was equally afraid to go on and to leave off a denouement being almost certain to ensue in either case things stood thus when it was time to prepare for the grand exhibition which was to close the winter's term this is an affair of too much magnitude to be fully described in the small space yet remaining in which to bring out our voracious history it must be slobberdor in haste its important preliminaries left to the cold imagination of the reader its fine spirit perhaps evaporating for want of being embodied in words we can only say that our master whose school life was to close with the term labored as man never before labored in such a cause resolute to trail a cloud of glory after him when he left us not a candlestick nor a curtain that was attainable either by coaxing or bribery was left in the village even the only piano that frail treasure was wild away and placed in one corner of the rickety stage the most splendid of all the pieces in the columbian orator the american spectator the but we must not enumerate in a word the most astounding and pathetic specimens of eloquence within ken of either teacher or scholars had been selected for the occasion and several young ladies and gentlemen whose academical course had been happily concluded at an earlier period either at our own institution or at some other had consented to lend themselves to the parts and their choices decorations for the properties of the dramatic portion of the entertainment among these last was pretty ellen kingsbury who had agreed to personate the queen of scots in the garden seen from shillers tragedy of mary stewart and this circumstance accidentally afforded master horner the opportunity he had so long desired of seeing his fascinating correspondent without the presence of peering eyes a dress rehearsal occupied the afternoon before the day of days and the pathetic expostulations of the lovely mary mine all don't hang my life my destiny upon my words the force of tears aided by the long bail and the emotion which sympathy brought into ellen's countenance proved too much for the enforced prudence of master horner when the rehearsal was over and the heroes and heroines were to return home it was found that by a stroke of witty invention not new in the country the harness of mr. kingsbury's horses had been cut in several places his whip hidden his buffalo skin spread on the ground and the sleigh turned bottom upwards on them this afforded an excuse for the masters borrowing a horse and sleigh of somebody and claiming the privilege of taking miss ellen home while her father returned with only ant sally and a great bag of brand from the mill and the menions about equally interesting here then was the golden opportunity so long wished for here was the power of ascertaining at once what is never quite certain until we have heard it from warm living lips whose testimony is strengthened by glances in which the whole soul speaks or seems to speak the time was short for the slaying was but too fine and father kingsbury having dried up his harness and collected his scattered equipment was driving so close behind that there was no possibility of lingering for a moment yet many moments were lost before mr. horner very much an earnest and all unhackneyed in manners of this sort could find a word in which to clothe his newfound feelings the horse seemed to fly the distance was half past and at length in absolute despair of anything better he put it out at once what he had determined to avoid a direct reference to the correspondence a game at cross purposes ensued exclamations and explanations and denials and apologies filled up the time which was to have made master horner so blessed the light from mr. kingsbury's windows shown upon the path and the whole result of this conference so longed for was a burst of tears from the perplexed and mortified ellen after mr. horner's attempts to detain her rushed into the house without vouchsaving him a word of adieu and left him standing no bad personification of orpheus after the last hopeless fitting of his euridice won't you like master said mr. kingsbury yes no thank you good evening stammered poor master horner so stupefied that even at sally called him a dummy the horse took the sleigh against the fence going home and throughout the master who scarcely recollected the accident while to ellen the issue of this unfortunate drive was a sleepless night and so high a fever in the morning that our village doctor was called to mr. kingsbury's before breakfast poor master horner's distress may hardly be imagined disappointed bewildered yet as much in love as ever he could only in bitter silence turn over in his thoughts the issue of his cherished dream now persuading himself that ellen's denial was the effect of a sudden bashfulness now invading against the fickleness of the sex as all men do when they are angry with any one woman in particular but his exhibition must go on in spite of wretchedness and he went about mechanically talking of curtains and candles and music and attitudes and pauses and emphasis looking like a somnambulist whose eyes are open but their senses shut and often surprising those concerned by the utter unfitness of his answers it was almost evening when mr. kingsbury having discovered through the intervention of the doctor and dant sally the cause of ellen's distress made his appearance before the unhappy eyes of master horner angry, solemn, and determined taking the schoolmaster apart and requiring an explanation of his treatment of his daughter in vain did the perplexed lover ask for time to clear himself to clear his respect for miss ellen and his willingness to give every explanation which she might require the father was not to be put off and though excessively reluctant mr. horner had no recourse but to show the letters which alone could account for his strange discourse to ellen he unlocked his desk slowly and unwillingly while the old man's impatience was such that he could scarcely forbear thrusting in his own hand to snatch at the papers which were to explain this vexatious mystery what could equal the utter confusion of master horner and the contemptuous anger of the father when no letters were to be found mr. kingsbury was too passionate to listen to reason or to reflect for one moment upon the irreproachable good name of the schoolmaster he went away in inexorable wrath threatening every practicable visitation of public and private justice upon the head of the offender whom he accused of having attempted to trick his daughter into an entanglement which should result in his favor a doleful exhibition was this last one of our thrice approved and most worthy teacher stern necessity and the power of habit enabled him to go through with most of his part but where was the proud fire which had lighted up his eye on similar occasions before he set as one of three judges before whom the unfortunate robert emet was dragged in his shirt sleeves by two fierce looking officials but the chief judge looked far more like a criminal than did the proper representative he ought to have personated othello but was obliged to excuse himself from raving for the handkerchief the handkerchief on the rather anomalous plea of a bad cold mary stewart being is a bond was anxiously expected by the impatient crowd and it was with distress amounting to agony that the master was obliged to announce in person the necessity of omitting that part of the representation on account of the illness of one of the young ladies scarcely had the words been uttered and the speaker hidden his burning face behind the curtain when Mr. Kingsbury started up in his place amid the throng to give a public recital of his grievance no uncommon resort in the new country he dashed it once to the point and before some friends who saw the utter impropriety of his proceeding could persuade him to defer his vengeance he had laid before the assembly some 300 people perhaps his own statement of the case he was got out at last half coaxed half hustled and the gentle public only half understanding what had been set forth thus unexpectedly made quite a pretty row of it some clamored loudly for the conclusion of the exercises others gave utterances in no particularly choice terms to a variety of opinions as to the school master's proceedings varying the note occasionally by shouting the letters, the letters why don't you bring out the letters at length by means of much rapping on the desk by the president of the evening who was fortunately a popular character order was partially restored and the favorite scene from Ms. Moore's dialogue of David and Goliath was announced the closing piece the sight of little David in a white tunic edged with red tape with a calico script and a very primitive looking sling and a huge Goliath decorated with a militia belt and sword and a spear like a weaver's beam indeed enchained everybody's attention even the Peckens school master and his pretended letters were forgotten while the sapient Goliath every time he raised the spear in the energy of his declamation to thump upon the stage picked away fragments of the low ceiling which fell conspicuously on his great shock of black hair at last with the crowning threat up went the spear for an astounding thump and down came a large piece of the ceiling and with it a shower of letters the confusion that ensued beggars all description a general scramble took place and in another moment twenty pairs of eyes at least were feasting on the choice phrases lavished upon Mr. Horner Miss Bangle had set through the whole previous scene trembling for herself although she had as she supposed guarded cunningly against exposure she had needed no profit to tell her what must be the result of a titatit between Mr. Horner and Ellen the moment she saw them drive off together she induced her imp to seize the opportunity of abstracting the whole parcel of letters from Mr. Horner's desk which he did by means of a sort of skill which comes by nature to such goblins picking the lock by the aid of a crooked nail as neatly as if he had been born within the shadow of the tombs but magician sometimes suffers severely from the malice with which they have themselves inspired their familiars Joe Englehart having been a convenient tool thus far thought it quite time to torment Miss Bangle a little so having stolen the letters at her bidding he hid them on his own account and no persuasions of hers could induce him to reveal this important secret which he chose to reserve as a ride in case she refused him some intercession with his father or some other accommodation rendered necessary by his mischievous habits he had concealed the precious parcels in the unfloored loft above the school room a place accessible only by means of a small trapped door without staircase or ladder and here he meant to have kept them while it suited his purpose but for the untimely intrusion of the weavers beam Miss Bangle had set through all as we have said thinking the letters safe yet vowing vengeance against her confederate for not allowing her to secure them by a satisfactory decision it was not until she heard her own name whispered through the crowd that she was awakened to her true situation the sagacity of the low creatures whom she had despised showed them at once that the letters must be hers since her character had been pretty shrewdly guessed and the handwriting wore a more practiced air than is usual among females in the country this was first taken for granted and then spoken of as an acknowledged fact the assembly moved like the heavings of a troubled sea everybody felt that this was everybody's business put her out was heard from more than one rough voice near the door and this was responded to by loud and angry murmurs from within Mr. Angleheart not waiting to inquire into the merits of the case in this scene of confusion hastened to get his family out as quietly as possible but groans and hisses followed his niece as she hung half fainting on his arm quailing completely beneath the instinctive indignation of the rustic public as she passed out a yell resounded among the rude boys about the door and she was lifted into a sleigh insensible from terror she disappeared from that evening and no one knew the time of her final departure for the east Mr. Kingsbury who is a just man when he is not in a passion made all the reparation in his power for his harsh and ill-considered attack upon the master and we believe that functionary did not show any traits of implacability of character at least he was seen, not many days after, sitting peaceably at tea with Mr. Kingsbury, Aunt Sally and Miss Ellen and he has since gone home to build his farm and people do say that after a few months more Ellen will not need Miss Bangle's intervention if she should see fit to correspond with the school master the end of the school master's progress by Carolyn M. S. Kirkland