CHAPTER I: IN THE LIBRARY

It was an ideal library for literary browsers; Out of the noise and bustle of the city and yet within easy reach. The books were all in one vast room with high ceilings and great windows that let in a flood of sunshine. The place was undisturbed save for some ten or twelve habitual readers, who each sought out their his favorite nook on some leathern lounge or great arm-chair, out of sight between tall rows of books. Occasionally any unwary stranger would inadvertently enter and disturb the silence by his resounding footsteps, but soon he would withdraw awed by the stillness and emptiness of the vast room. Sometimes the strains of Chopin’s funeral march would reach the ears of the quiet readers, as a military band, accompanying some local celebrity, on his last journey, passed down the street.

One day as the last long sad notes of the march died on the air, a young girl who had been listening intently, threw down her book with an impatient gesture, and dropped her face on the arm of the leathern couch. She was screened from all view by the heavy book-cases in front of her, so Tthere she sat in the full-glare of the noon-day sun, her book at her side, motionless. Finally with a resigned shrug she picked up her book, once more curled herself on her sofa and tried to catch the broken thread go on reading of narrative. It was useless, a wild impatience possessed her. She was a dark-skinned girl in the full sensuous development of budding woman-hood. Her whole passionate nature had been deeply stirred by those few melancholy strains and with the sun-light heating her blood, she could not endure to rest longer. “Books, books” she muttered, “is there no end to it. Nothing but myself to feed my own eager nature. Nothing given me but musty books.” She paused, her eyes glowing, and her fists nervously clenched. She was not an impotent child, but a strong vigorous girl, with a full nature and a fertile brain that must be occupied, or burst its bounds. At

At last she rose and left the library where most of her young life had been passed. As she passed out of the quiet retreat, the east wind struck her, and increased the tumult in her soul. “I will walk it down” she said aloud. “I must escape from myself.” She started up over the hills at a quick pace, but even that did not satisfy her, faster and faster she went, panting as she climbed the steep hills, but utterly oblivious of her bodily strain, anxious only to escape from self. At last she reachedthe top-most hill climbed it and there paused for breath she stopped? Below her lay the blue ocean; the fresh breeze blew on her. She took off her hat and stood there bathed in sunshine, drinking in great gulps breaths of ocean air, and muttering her satisfaction to herself. At last she turned and now more slowly retraced her steps down the long hills until she reached her home.—

Circumstances had forced Hortense Sänger to live much alone. For many years this had suited her completely. With her intense and imaginative temperament, books and her own visions had been sufficient company. She had been early inured to heavy responsibilities, and had handled them firmly, though a dreamer by nature she had a strong practical sense. She had now come to a period of her life, when she could no longer content herself with her own nature. She fairly lived in her favorite library. She was for being motherless she was and so at liberty to come and go at her own pleasure., but now Now the time had come when her old well-beloved companions began to pall. One could not live on books, she felt that she must have some human sympathy. Her passionate yearnings made her fear for the endurance of her own reason. Vague fears began to crowd on her. Her longings and desires had become morbid. She felt that she must have an outlet Some change must come into her life, or she would no longer be able to struggle with the wild moods that now so often possessed her.

Just at this critical time her father died and thus the only tie that bound her to her old home was snapped. Not long after she accepted the invitation of some relatives and left her old haunts and, she hoped her old fears, to lead an entirely new life in a large family circle.

***

I would like to have rewritten the whole theme but the German opera threw me back in my work. G.S.

He was a melancholy looking porter but strongly built He seemed more intelligent than most of the men in his class. One day he told us a story of negro life in the south that impressed us deeply. He had been a porter on a Southern train and it had been the custom to pay for the parlor-car chairs to the porter instead of to the conductor. As usual about an hour after the start the porter went to collect his fares. A roystering, Southern gentleman seeing the negro coming down the car determined to resist such an indignity. “I don’t pay money to niggers” he said haughtily. “Sorry sir but it is the rule of the road.” “Rule be damned ,” was the insolent reply, “don’t you dare to ask a Southern gentleman for money you—” The porter persisted quietly, and again demanded his money. He was assailed with more oaths and foul words and now he seized his opponent by the collar and forcibly put him off the car. When the train came back over the road, it was rumored that a large body of men were lying in wait for the courageous porter. The conductor hid him in a dressing-room and there he heard the angry crowd hunt through the train swear vengeance on his devoted head. He escaped that time but had to leave the road and never more return to his native state.

Fischer’s impersonation of Hagan reminds me much more strongly of the study given here of the Niebelungenlied, the embodiment of the old German “treue,” than that of the wicked Hagen that Wagner created.

As he sits there with with his spear and shield keeping watch and ward in the gathering gloom the wonderful scene in the Lied comes back to the listener. One remembers then only the brothers-in-arms keeping watch together on that fearful night, guarding the doomed heroes and sc filling the treacherous enemy with fear and awe as the grim warriors sit silently in the gloomy hall. “Hagen, grimmige Hagen” the man of wile but also of dauntless valor, unswerving crestan-cry [?] and heroic endurance.

A cloudy summer night when the air is damp and moist is even more fearful than the blackness of a wintry storm. In that pitiful half light the budding bushes assume the shapes of strange , weird , shadowy monsters whose swaying arms intin seem ready to suck in and strangle all humans in the quest of the night. The villons in the marshes groan and creak one against the other and between their branches one catches glimpses of seemingly endless dreary wastes. On the dank pond in their midst the gleam of a light flickers and dies away in ghostly fashion. All nature seems portentuous and now suddenly arising we know not whence a tremendous last gust of some expiring March wind comes tearing threw the trees., passes and leaves us awed and affrighted at its

In a lonely corner of Jarvis, behind a dismal brick wall is a solitary heap of snow, the last mournful remnant of winter’s dazzling glory. Heaped together, stained and spiled, it is was a melancholy grave, a sad token of the weakness of the great nature powers.

Even here the hoary tyrant has not found peace. Dancing sun-beams are coming ever nearer and nearer, threatening to dislodge him from his last stronghold and to leave but a sorry mud-puddle to witness the end of that tyrannic power, before the shaking of whose ice-bound spear, we have so long shivered.

Bright little blue eyes is going to see a procession. She has been dreaming and longing for it for a week. Every few minutes she cries “ooh! mamma! percession!” At last the family party are in the carriage little blue eyes on the front seat, ecstatic, the eyes growing bigger and bigger. There comes the procession at last, as it draws near the band begins to play and suddenly the big base drum gives one tremendous boom.

The little eyes dose suddenly, the rosy lips begin to tremble, “P papa, ” they timidly say, “I think I could hear better on the back seat.”

It was a jolly high-school picnic, blooming girls and awkward boys, off for a good time, one bright spring day. The most awkward of all a shy youth of sixteen did not enjoy it very much and soon wandered off by himself. As he was standing gazing dreamily at the brook running at his feet, he suddenly heard his name called.

On the opposite bank a little above him was beautiful young girl in delicate blue. Her hat was off, the wind was playing in her fair hair, her eyes dancing and her lips parted in a charming smile. “Won’t you help me down” she said beaming on the startled youth. He looked and looked but could not move. “Give me your hand, I can’t get down,” she continued enjoying his confusion. Automatically he obeyed. With his help she jumped across the bubbling stream. She was beside The boy at her touch felt strangely dizzy. She was beside him, this mysterious creature who dazed his brain. Suddenly he dropped her hand, turned and ran into the woods. Surprised, she looked after him and then shrugging her pretty shoulders, “what a stupid boy he is,” she said.

His life is gentle and the elements

So mix’d in him, that Nature might stand up

And say to all the world, “this is a man.”

Is life worth living? Yes, a thousand times yes when the world still holds such spirits as Prof. James. He is truly a man among men; A a scientist of force and originality embodying all that is strongest and worthiest in the scientific spirit; A a metaphysician skilled in abstract thought, clear and vigorous and yet too great to worship logic as his God, and narrow himself to a belief merely in the reason of man.

A man he is who has lived sympathetically not alone all thought but all life. He stands firmly, nobly for the dignity of man. His faith is not that of a cringing coward before an all-powerful master, but of a strong man willing to fight, to suffer and endure. He has not accepted faith because it is easy and pleasing. He has thought and lived many years and at last says with a voice of authority, if life does not mean this, I don’t know what it means.

What can one say more? He is a strong sane noble personality reacting truly on all experience that life has given him. He is a man take him for all in all.

“A new boarder is coming,” said our landlady the other day at the table. “A new boarder we don’t want any new boarders” we the family decided in a private meeting called to get opinions on this important question. We had nothing to say, however, and the new boarder has come.

The first night she swept in with a royal air and we were all awe-struck. She condescendingly bowed to us poor plebians and then majestically seated herself. Miss Harriet who used to do all the talking is was suddenly strangely silent. At last she picksed up her courage and venturs ed a remark. The new boarder condescends ed to answer her. We breathed more freely and admired Miss Harriet and wished we could do it too.

Then the new boarder begins an to talk. She talks all the time now and we are all crushed to earth never to rise again. Whenever we venture an opinion she rises in her majesty, tells us of some great man who believes as she does and has told her so and we meekly retire.

She seems to have known all the great people since the time of Adam and they have all given her their private views on all subjects. Our landlady looks at her, drinking her in with open mouth, eyes and ears. She gives her a finger-bowl at dinner too and we poor plebe look on in envy and can only hope that some day we too will know some great man.