Second Book of Tales Part 16

"I care not where he be," she cried. "My heart stands still until I look into his eyes again."

"Surely he hath not gone to Normandy," outspake Hubert. "This very eventide I saw him enter his abode."

They hastened thither--a vast company. His chamber door was barred.

"Harold, Harold, come forth!" they cried, as they beat upon the door, but no answer came to their calls and knockings. Afeared, they battered down the door, and when it fell they saw that Harold lay upon his bed.

"He sleeps," said one. "See, he holds a portrait in his hand--and it is her portrait. How fair he is and how tranquilly he sleeps."

But no, Harold was not asleep. His face was calm and beautiful, as if he dreamed of his beloved, but his raiment was red with the blood that streamed from a wound in his breast--a gaping, ghastly spear wound just above his heart.

From "Culture's Garland"

A MARVELLOUS INVENTION

It is narrated, that, once upon a time, there lived a youth who required so much money for the gratification of his dissolute desires, that he was compelled to sell his library in order to secure funds.

Thereupon, he despatched a letter to his venerable father, saying, "Rejoice with me, O father! for already am I beginning to live upon the profits of my books."

Professor Andrew J. Thorpe has invented an ingenious machine which will be likely to redound to the physical comfort and the intellectual benefit of our fellow-citizens. We are disposed to treat of this invention at length, for two reasons: first, because it is a Chicago invention; and, second, because it seems particularly calculated to answer an important demand that has existed in Chicago for a long time.

Professor Thorpe's machine is nothing less than a combination parlor, library, and folding bedstead, adapted to the drawing-room, the study, the dining-room, and the sleeping apartment--a producer capable of giving to the world thousands upon thousands of tomes annually, and these, too, in a shape most attractive to our public.

Professor Thorpe himself is of New-England birth and education; and, until became West, he was called "Uncle Andy Thorpe." For many years he lived in New Britain, Connecticut; and there he pursued the vocation of a manufacturer of sofas, settees, settles, and bed-lounges. He came to Chicago three years ago; and not long thereafter, he discovered that the most imperative demand of this community was for a bed which combined, "at one and the same time" (as he says, for he is no rhetorician), the advantages of a bed and the advantages of a library.

In a word, Chicago was a literary centre; and it required, even in the matter of its sleeping apparata, machines which, when not in use for bed-purposes, could be utilized to the n.o.bler ends of literary display.

In this emergency the fertile Yankee wit of the immigrant came to his a.s.sistance; and about a year ago he put upon the market the ingenious and valuable combination which has commanded the admiration and patronage of our best literary circles, and which at this moment we are pleased to discourse of.

It has been our good fortune to inspect the superb line of folding library-bedsteads which Professor Thorpe offers to the public at startlingly low figures, and we are surprised at the ingenuity and the learning apparent in these contrivances. The Essay bedstead is a particularly handsome piece of furniture, being made of polished mahogany, elaborately carved, and intricately embellished throughout.

When closed, this bedstead presents the verisimilitude of a large book-case filled with the essays of Emerson, Carlyle, Bacon, Montaigne, Hume, Macaulay, Addison, Steele, Johnson, Budgell, Hughes, and others.

These volumes are made in one piece, of the best seasoned oak, and are hollow within throughout; so that each shelf const.i.tutes in reality a chest or drawer which may be utilized for divers domestic purposes. In these drawers a husband may keep his s.h.i.+rts or neckties; or in them a wife may stow away her furs or flannel underwear in summer, and her white piques and muslins in winter.

These drawers (each of which extends to the height of twelve inches) are faced in superb tree-calf, and afford a perfect representation of rows of books, the t.i.tle and number of each volume being printed in ma.s.sive gold characters. The weight of the six drawers in this Essay bedstead does not exceed twelve pounds; but the machine is so stoutly built as to admit of the drawers containing a weight equivalent to six hundred pounds without interfering with the ease and nicety of the machine's operation. Upon touching a gold-mounted k.n.o.b, the book-case divides, the front part of it descends; and, presto! you have as beautiful a couch as ever Sancho could have envied.

This Essay bedstead is sold for four hundred and fifty dollars.

Another design, with the case and bed in black walnut, the books in papier mache, and none but English essayists in the Collection, can be had for a hundred dollars.

A British Poets' folding-bed can be had for three hundred dollars.

This is an imitation of the blue-and-gold edition published in Boston some years ago. Busts of Shakespeare and of Wordsworth appear at the front upper corners of the book-case, and these serve as pedestals to the machine when it is unfolded into a bedstead. This style, we are told by Professor Thorpe, has been officially indorsed by the poetry committee of the Chicago Literary Club. A second design, in royal octavo white pine, and omitting the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, and Herrick, is quoted at a hundred and fifty dollars.

The Historical folding-bed contains complete sets of Hume, Gibbon, Guizot, Prescott, Macaulay, Bancroft, Lingard, Buckle, etc., together with Haines's "History of Lake-County Indians" and Peck's "Gazetteer of Illinois," bound in half calf, and having a storage s.p.a.ce of three feet by fourteen inches to each row, there being six rows of these books.

You can get this folding-bed for two hundred dollars, or there is a second set in cloth that can be had for a hundred dollars.

The Dramatists' folding-bed (No. 1) costs three hundred dollars, bound in tree-calf hard maple, the case being in polished cherry, elaborately carved. The works included in this library are Shakespeare's, Schiller's, Moliere's, Goethe's, Jonson's, Bartley Campbell's, and many others. Style No. 2 of this folding-bed has not yet been issued, owing to some difficulty which Professor Thorpe has had with eastern publishers; but when the matter of copyright has been adjusted, the works of Plautus, Euripides, Thucydides, and other cla.s.sic dramatists will be brought out for the delectation of appreciative Chicagoans.

The Novelists' bed can be had in numerous styles. One contains the novels of Mackenzie, Fielding, Smollett, Walpole, d.i.c.kens, Thackeray, and Scott, and is bound in tree-calf: another, better adapted to the serious-minded (especially to young women), is made up of the novels of Maria Edgeworth, Miss Jane Porter, Miss Burney, and the Rev. E. P. Roe.

This style can be had for fifty dollars. But the Novelists'

folding-bed is manufactured in a dozen different styles, and one should consult the catalogue before ordering.

THE STORY OF XANTHIPPE

CHICAGO, ILL.

TO THE EDITOR: I am in a great dilemma, and I come to you for counsel.

I love and wish to marry a young carpenter who has been waiting on me for two years. My father wants me to marry a literary man fifteen years older than myself,--a very smart man I will admit, but I fancy he is _too_ smart for me. I much prefer the young carpenter, yet father says a marriage with the literary man would give me the social position he fancies I would enjoy. Now, what am I to do? What would _you_ do, if you were I?

Yours in trouble, PRISCILLA.

Listen, gentle maiden, and ye others of her s.e.x, to the story of Xanthippe, the Athenian woman.

Very, very many years ago there dwelt in Athens a fruit-dealer of the name of Kimon, who was possessed of two daughters,--the one named Helen and the other Xanthippe. At the age of twenty, Helen was wed to Aristagoras the tinker, and went with him to abide in his humble dwelling in the suburbs of Athens, about one parasang's distance from the Acropolis.

Xanthippe, the younger sister, gave promise of singular beauty; and at an early age she developed a wit that was the marvel and the joy of her father's household, and of the society that was to be met with there.

Prosperous in a worldly way, Kimon was enabled to give this favorite daughter the best educational advantages; and he was justly proud when at the age of nineteen Xanthippe was graduated from the Minerva Female College with all the highest honors of her cla.s.s. There was but one thing that cast a shadow upon the old gentleman's happiness, and that was his pain at observing that among all Xanthippe's a.s.sociates there was one upon whom she bestowed her sweetest smiles; namely, Gatippus, the son of Heliopharnes the plasterer.

"My daughter," said Kimon, "you are now of an age when it becomes a maiden to contemplate marriage as a serious and solemn probability: therefore I beseech you to practise the severest discrimination in the choice of your male a.s.sociates, and I enjoin upon you to have naught to say or to do with any youth that might not be considered an eligible husband; for, by the dog! it is my wish to see you wed to one of good station."

Kimon thereupon proceeded to tell his daughter that his dearest ambition had been a desire to unite her in marriage with a literary man. He saw that the tendency of the times was in the direction of literature; schools of philosophy were springing up on every side, logic and poetry were prated in every household. Why should not the beautiful and accomplished daughter of Kimon the fruiterer become one of that group of geniuses who were contributing at that particular time to the glory of Athens as the literary centre of the world? The truth was that, having prospered in his trade, Kimon pined for social recognition; it grieved him that one of his daughters had wed a tinker, and he had registered a vow with Pallas that his other daughter should be given into the arms of a worthier man.

Xanthippe was a dutiful daughter; she had been taught to obey her parents; and although her heart inclined to Gatippus, the son of Heliopharnes the plasterer, she smothered all rebellious emotions, and said she would try to do her father's will. Accordingly, therefore, Kimon introduced into his home one evening a certain young Athenian philosopher,--a typical literary Bohemian of that time,--one Socrates, a creature of wondrous wisdom and ready wit.

The appearance of this suitor, presumptive if not apparent, did not particularly please Xanthippe. Socrates was an ill-favored young man.

He was tall, raw-boned, and gangling. When he walked, he slouched; and when he sat down, he sprawled like a crab upon its back. His coa.r.s.e hair rebelled upon his head and chin; and he had a broad, flat nose, that had been broken in two places by the kick of an a.s.syrian mule.

Withal, Socrates talked delightfully; and it is not hard to imagine that Xanthippe's pretty face, plump figure, and vivacious manners served as an inspiration to the young philosopher's wit. So it was not long ere Xanthippe found herself entertaining a profound respect for Socrates.

At all events, Xanthippe, the Athenian beauty, was wed to Socrates the philosopher. Putting all thought of Gatippus, the son of Heliopharnes the plasterer, out of her mind, Xanthippe went to the temple of Aphrodite, and was wed to Socrates. Historians differ as to the details of the affair; but it seems generally agreed that Socrates was late at the ceremony, having been delayed on his way to the temple by one Diogenes, who asked to converse with him on the immortality of the soul. Socrates stopped to talk, and would perhaps have been stopping there still had not Kimon hunted him up, and fetched him to the wedding.

A great wedding it was. A complete report of it was written by one of Socrates' friends, another literary man, named Xenophon. The literary guild, including philosophers by the score, were there in full feather, and Xenophon put himself to the trouble of giving a complete list of these distinguished persons; and to the report, as it was penned for the "Athens Weekly Papyrus," he appended a fine puff of Socrates, which has led posterity to surmise that Socrates conferred a great compliment on Xanthippe in marrying her. Yet, what else could we expect of this man Xenophon? The only other thing he ever did was to conduct a retreat from a Persian battle-field.

And now began the trials of Xanthippe, the wife of the literary man.

Ay, it was not long ere the young wife discovered that, of all husbands in the world, the literary husband was the hardest to get along with.

Always late at his meals, always absorbed in his work, always indifferent to the comforts of home--what a trial this man Socrates must have been! Why, half the time, poor Xanthippe did n't know where the next month's rent was coming from; and as for the grocer's and butcher's bills--well, between this creditor and that creditor the tormented little wife's life fast became a burden to her. Had it not been for her father's convenient fruit-stall, Xanthippe must have starved; and, at best, fruit as a regular diet is hardly preferable to starvation. And while she scrimped and saved, and made her own gowns, and patched up the children's kilts as best she might, Socrates stood around the streets talking about the immortality of the soul and the vanity of human life!

Many times Xanthippe pined for the amus.e.m.e.nts and seductive gayeties of social life, but she got none. The only society she knew was the prosy men-folk whom Socrates used to fetch home with him occasionally.

Xanthippe grew to hate them, and we don't blame her. Just imagine that dirty old Diogenes lolling around on the furniture, and expressing his preference for a tub; picking his teeth with his jack-knife, and smoking his wretched cob-pipe in the parlor!

"Socrates, dear," Xanthippe would say at times, "please take me to the theatre to-night; I do so want to see that new tragedy by Euclydides."

But Socrates would swear by Hercules, or by the dog, or by some other cla.s.sic object, that he had an engagement with the rhetoricians, or with the sophists, or with Alcibiades, or with Crito, or with some of the rest of the boys--he called them philosophers, but we know what he meant by that.

So it was toil and disappointment, disappointment and toil, from one month's end to another's; and so the years went by.