The Catholic World Volume I Part 79

"Ah, my lad," he said presently, "when you come to my age, you'll look back to your old college and your old friends as I do now. But what was I going to ask you? Oh, I remember. Have you seen any of the Fordes lately?"

I glanced round despairingly at the geologists, but they were lost to everything except blue lias and old red sandstone, and there was no hope of effecting a diversion in that quarter.

"Well, no--not very lately," I responded slowly, as though trying to recall the exact date when I last had that felicity. "To tell the truth, I don't go down into those parts so often as I ought to do."

"There's a family for you!" Sir Philip went on triumphantly; "how well they are doing. That young George Forde will distinguish himself one of these days, or I'm much mistaken; and Willie, too--do you know {541} whether he has pa.s.sed for Woolwich yet?"

I could not say that I did, but the good baronet's confidence in Forde genius was as satisfactory as certainty.

"He's sure to pa.s.s, quite sure; never knew such clever lads; and as for beauty--that little Katie"--But here the slumbering archdeacon came to my aid by waking up with a terrific start and a loud "Eh!-- what! time to join the ladies."

There was a general stir, and I contrived to make my escape to the drawing-room. If I could only have escaped altogether; but it was not yet half-past nine. The tall footmen and severe butler were lounging in the hall, and I felt convinced that if I pleaded illness, Sir Philip would lay violent hands on me, and insist on my spending the night there. After all, the worst was over, and in the crowded drawing-room, I might with slight dexterity avoid all shoals and quicksands. So I ensconced myself in a low chair, guarded by a big table on one side, and on the other by a comfortable motherly-looking woman in crimson satin, to whom I made myself agreeable. We got on very well together, and I breathed and chatted freely in the delightful persuasion that she at least knew no more of the Fordes than I did. But my malignant star was in the ascendant. I was in the midst of a glowing description of the charms of a reading-party at the lakes, when Sir Philip again a.s.sailed me: "Well, Mrs. Sullivan," he said, addressing my companion, "have you been asking after your little favorite?"

"My little favorite?" repeated Mrs. Sullivan inquiringly.

She did not know whom he meant, but I did; I knew quite well.

"Katie Forde, I mean; the little black-eyed girl who used to go into such ecstasies over your roses and ferns--you have not forgotten her yet, have you?"

No, unluckily for me, Mrs. Sullivan had not forgotten her. I was charged with a string of the fond, unmeaning messages which ladies love to exchange; and it was only by emphatically declaring that I should not be in Yorks.h.i.+re for many months, that I escaped being made the bearer of sundry curious roots and bulbs to the fair Katharine.

But Sir Philip soon interrupted us: "There's a cousin of yours in the next room, Mr. Olifant," he said, evidently thinking that he was making a most agreeable announcement: "she would like to see you, if you will let me take you to her."

I heard and trembled. A cousin. Oh, the Fordes were nothing to this!

Why did people have cousins; and why, oh why, should every imaginable evil befal me on this disastrous evening! Such were my agonized reflections while with unwilling steps I followed my host to execution. He led me to a young lady who was serenely examining some prints. "I have brought him to you, Miss Hunter; here's your cousin, Mr. Olifant."

She looked at me, but there was no recognition in her eyes. How could there be, indeed, when we had never met before! What would she do next? What she _did_ do was to hold out her hand with a good-humored smile, and at the same time Sir Philip observed complacently: "You don't know one another, you know." Not know one another; of course we didn't; but I could have hugged him for telling me so; and in the joy of my reprieve, I devoted myself readily to my supposed cousin, a bright, pleasant girl, happily as benighted regarding her real relatives as I was about my imaginary ones. The minutes slipped fast away, the hands of the clock pointed at ten, the guests were beginning to depart, and I was congratulating myself that the ordeal was safely pa.s.sed, when, happening to turn my head, I saw Sir Philip once more advancing upon me, holding in his hand a photograph book. My doom was sealed! My relentless persecutor was resolved to expose me, and with diabolical craft had planned the certain {542} means. Horrible visions of public disgrace, forcible ejection, nay, even of the pump itself, floated before my dizzy brain, while on he came nearer and ever nearer. "There!" he exclaimed, stopping just in front of me, and holding out the ill-omened book--"There! you can tell me who that is, can't you?"

It was a baby--a baby of a year old, sitting on a cus.h.i.+on, with a rattle in its hand, and it was of course unlike any creature I had ever beheld. "Hm, haw," murmured I, contemplating it in utter desperation; "children are so much alike that really--but"--as a brilliant idea suddenly flashed on me: "surely it must be a Forde!"

"Of course it is," and Sir Philip clapped me on the back in a transport of delight. "I thought you would recognize it. Capital!

isn't it? The little thing must be exactly like its mother; and I fancy I see a look of Willie in it too."

I could endure no more. Another such victory would be almost worse than a defeat; and while "my cousin" was rhapsodizing over the infantine charms so touchingly portrayed, I started up, took an abrupt farewell of my host, and despite his vehement remonstrances, went off in search of Lady Hetherton, and beat a successful retreat. As I stepped out into the portico, the pony-trap which I had ordered drove up to the door, and jumping in, I rattled away toward Linbeach, exhausted in body and mind, yet relieved to feel that each succeeding moment found me further and further from the precincts of Grantham.

Not till I was snugly seated in the arm-chair in Mrs. Plumb's parlor, watching the blue smoke-wreaths wafted up from my best beloved pipe --not till then could I believe that I was thoroughly safe, and begin to review calmly the events of the evening. And now arose the very embarra.s.sing inquiry: What was next to be done? Sir Philip's parting words had been an energetic exhortation to come over and shoot, the next day, or, in fact, whenever I pleased. "We can't give you the grouse of your native moors," he said as a final thrust, "but we can find you some partridges, I hope;" and I had agreed with a hypocritical smile, while internally resolving that no mortal power should take me to Grantham again. Of one thing there could be no doubt--an explanation was due to the kind-hearted baronet, and it must be given. Of course I might have stolen off from Linbeach still undiscovered, but I dismissed the notion instantly. I had gone far enough already--too far, Sir Philip might not unnaturally think. No; I must write to him, and it had best be done at once. "Heigh-ho," I sighed, as I rummaged out ink and paper, and sat down to the great work; "so ends my solitary friends.h.i.+p at Linbeach." It took me a long time to concoct the epistle, but it was accomplished at last. In terms which I would fain hope were melting and persuasive, I described my birth and parentage, related how I had only discovered my mistaken ident.i.ty after my arrival at Grantham, and made a full apology for having then, in my embarra.s.sment, perpetuated the delusion. I wound up by the following eloquent and dignified words: "Of course, I can have no claim whatever to continue an acquaintance so formed, and I can only tender my grateful thanks for the warm hospitality of which I have accidentally been the recipient." The letter was sealed and sent, and I was left to speculate how it might be received. Would Sir Philip vouchsafe a reply, or would he treat me with silent contempt? I could fancy him capable of a very tolerable degree of anger, in spite of his _bonhomie_, and I blushed up to my brows when I pictured quiet Lady Hetherton recalling my remarks about Miss Katie Forde. The second day's post came in and brought me nothing; and now I began to be seized with a nervous dread of encountering any of the Grantham Park party by chance, and this dread grew so {543} unpleasant that I determined to cut short my visit, and return to town at once. My resolution was no sooner made than acted on. I packed my portmanteau, settled accounts with Mrs. Plumb, and went off to take my place by the next morning's coach. Coming hastily out of the booking-office in the dusk, I almost ran against somebody standing by the door. It was Sir Philip, and I stepped hastily back; but he recognized me at once, and held out his hand with a hearty laugh. "Ah, Mr. Olifant, is it you? I was on my way to your lodgings, so we'll walk together;" and not noticing my confusion, he linked his arm in mine, and continued: "I got your letter last evening, when I came in from a long day's shooting, and very much amazed I was, that I must own. I did not answer it at once, for I was half-dead with walking, and, beside, I always like talking better than writing, So now I have come to tell you that I think you've behaved like an honest man and a gentleman in writing that letter; and I'm very glad to have made your acquaintance, though you are not Harry Olifant's son. As for the mistake, why, 'twas my own fault for taking it for granted you must be the man I fancied you. My lady is just the least bit vexed that we should have made such geese of ourselves; but come over and shoot to-morrow, and we'll give you a quiet dinner and a bed in your own proper person; and she will be very glad to see you. Mind I expect you."

After all my resolutions, I did go to Grantham on the following day; and my dinner by mistake was the precursor of a most pleasant acquaintance, which became in time a warm and lasting friends.h.i.+p.

From All the Year Round.

NOAH'S ARKS.

In Kew Gardens is a seldom-visited collection of all the kinds of wood which we have ever heard of, accompanied by specimens of various articles customarily made of those woods in the countries of their growth. Tools, implements, small articles of furniture, musical instruments, sabots and wooden-shoes, boot-trees and shoe-lasts, bows and arrows, planes, saw-handles--all are here, and thousands of other things which it would take a very long summer day indeed even to glance at. The fine display of colonial woods, which were built up into fanciful trophies at the International Exhibition of eighteen hundred and sixty-two, has been transferred to one of these museums; and a n.o.ble collection it makes.

We know comparatively little in England of the minor uses of wood. We use wood enough in building houses and railway structures; our carriage-builders and wheelwrights cut up and fas.h.i.+on a great deal more; and our cabinet-makers know how to stock our rooms with furniture, from three-legged stools up to costly cabinets; but implements and minor articles are less extensively made of wood in England than in foreign countries--partly because our forests are becoming thinned, and partly because iron and iron-work are so abundant and cheap. In America, matters are very different. There are thousands of square miles of forest which belong to no one in particular, and the wood of which may be claimed by those who are at the trouble of felling the trees. {544} Nay, a backwoodsman would be very glad to effect a clearing on such terms as these, seeing that the trees enc.u.mber the ground on which he wishes to grow corn crops.

The wood, when the trees have been felled and converted into boards and planks, is applied to almost countless purposes of use. Of use, we say; for the Americans are too bustling a people to devote much time to the fabricating of ornaments; they prefer to buy these ready made from Britishers and other Europeans. Pails, bowls, was.h.i.+ng-machines, wringing-machines, knife-cleaning boards, neat light vehicles, neat light furniture, dairy vessels, kitchen utensils, all are made by the Americans of clean, tidy-looking wood, and are sold at very low prices. Machinery is used to a large extent in this turnery and wood-ware: the manufacturers not having the fear of strikes before their eyes, use machines just where they think this kind of aid is likely to be most serviceable. The way in which they get a little bowl out of a big bowl, and this out of a bigger, and this out of a bigger still, is a notable example of economy in workmans.h.i.+p. On the continent of Europe the wood-workers are mostly handicraftsmen, who niggle away at their little bits of wood without much aid from machinery. Witness the briar-root pipes of St. Claude. Smart young fellows who sport this kind of smoking-bowl in England, neither know nor care for the fact that it comes from a secluded spot in the Jura mountains. Men and women, boys and girls, earn from threepence to four s.h.i.+llings a day in various little bits of carved and turned work; but the crack wages are paid to the briar-root pipe-makers. England imports many more than she smokes, and sends off the rest to America.

M. Audiganne says that "in those monster armies which have sprung up so suddenly on the soil of the great republic, there is scarcely a soldier but has his St. Claude briar-root pipe in his pocket." The truth is, that, unlike cutties and meerschaums, and other clay and earthen pipes, these briar-root productions are very strong, and will bear a great deal of knocking about. The same French writer says that when his countrymen came here to see our International Exhibition, some of them bought and carried home specimens of these pipes as English curiosities: not aware that the little French town of St.

Claude was the place of their production.

In Germany the wood-work, so far as English importers know anything of it, is mostly in the form of small trinkets and toys for children. The production of these is immense. In the Tyrol, and near the Thuringian Forest, in the middle states of the ill-organized confederacy, and wherever forests abound, there the peasants spend much of their time in making toys. In the Tyrol, for example, there is a valley called the Grodnerthal, about twenty miles long, in which the rough climate and barren soil will not suffice to grow corn for the inhabitants, who are rather numerous. Shut out from the agricultural labor customary in other districts, the people earn their bread chiefly by wood carving.

They make toys of numberless kinds (in which Noah's Ark animals are very predominant) of the soft wood of the Siberian pine--known to the Germans as ziebelnusskiefer. The tree is of slow growth, found on the higher slopes of the valley, but now becoming scarce, owing to the improvidence of the peasants in cutting down the forests without saving or planting others to succeed them. For a hundred years and more the peasants have been carvers. Nearly every cottage is a workshop. All the occupants, male and female, down to very young children, seat themselves round a table, and fas.h.i.+on their little bits of wood. They use twenty or thirty different kinds of tools, under the magic of which the wood is transformed into a dog, a lion, a man, or what not. Agents represent these carvers in various cities of Europe, to dispose of the wares; but they nearly all find their way back again {545} to their native valleys, to spend their earnings in peace.

Many of the specimens shown at the Kew museums are more elaborate than those which could be produced wholly by hand. A turning-lathe of some power must have been needed. Indeed, the manner in which these zoological productions are fabricated is exceedingly curious, and is little likely to be antic.i.p.ated by ordinary observers. Who, for instance, would imagine for a moment that a wooden horse, elephant, or tiger, or any other member of the Noah's Ark family, could be turned in a lathe, like a ball, bowl, or bedpost? How could the turner's cutting tool, while the piece of wood is rotating in the lathe, make the head stick out in the front, and the ears at the top, and the tail in the rear, and the legs underneath? And how could the animal be made longer than he is high, and higher than he is broad? And how could all the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the swellings and sinkings, be produced by a manipulation which only seems* suitable for circular objects? These questions are all fair ones, and deserve a fair answer.

The articles, then, are not fully made in the lathe; they are brought to the state of flat pieces, the outline or contour of which bears an approximate resemblance to the profile of an animal. These flat pieces are in themselves a puzzle; for it is difficult to see how the lathe can have had anything to do with their production. The truth is, the wood is first turned into _rings_. Say that a horse three inches long is to be fabricated. A block of soft pine wood is prepared, and cut into a slab three inches thick, by perhaps fifteen inches in diameter; the grain running in the direction of the thickness. Out of this circular slab a circular piece is cut from the center, possibly six inches in diameter, leaving the slab in the form of a ring, like an extra thick india-rubber elastic band. While this ring is in the lathe, the turner applies his chisels and gouges to it in every part, on the outer edge, on the inner edge, and on both sides. All sorts of curves are made, now deep, now shallow; now convex, now concave; now with single curvature, now with double. A looker-on could hardly by any possibility guess what these curvings and twistings have to do with each other, for the ring is still a ring, and nothing else; but the cunning workman has got it all in his mind's eye. When the turning is finished, the ring is bisected or cut across, not into two slices, but into two segments or semicircular pieces. Looking at either end of either piece, lo! there is the profile of a horse--without a tail, certainly, but a respectably good horse in other respects. The secret is now divulged. The turner, while the ring or annulus is in the lathe--a Saturn's ring without a Saturn--turns the outer edge into the profile of the top of the head and the back of a horse, the one flat surface into the profile of the chest and the fore legs, and the other flat surface into the profile of the hind quarters and hind legs, and the inner edge of the ring into the profile of the belly, and the deep recess between the fore and hind legs. The curvatures are really very well done, for the workmen have good models to copy from, and long practice gives them accuracy of hand and eye.

An endless ring of tailless horses has been produced, doubtless the most important part of the affair; but there is much ingenuity yet to be shown in developing from this abstract ring a certain number of single, concrete, individual, proper Noah's Ark horses, with proper Noah's Ark tails. The ring is chopped or sawn up into a great many pieces. Each piece is thicker at one end than the other, because the outer diameter of the ring was necessarily greater than the inner; but with this allowance each piece may be considered flat. The thick end is the head of the horse, the thin end the hind quarter; one projecting piece represents the position and profile of the fore legs, but they are not separated; and similarly of the hind {546} legs. Now is the time for the carver to set to work. He takes the piece of wood in hand, equalizes the thickness where needful, and pares off the sharp edges. He separates into two ears the little projecting piece which juts out from the head, separates into two pairs of legs the two projecting pieces which jut out from the body, and makes a respectable pair of eyes, with nostrils and mouth of proper thorough-bred character; he jags the back of the neck in the proper way to form a mane, and makes, not a tail, but a little recess to which a tail may comfortably be glued. The tail is a separate affair. An endless ring of horses' tails is first turned in a lathe. A much smaller slab, smaller in diameter and in thickness than the other, is cut into an annulus or ring; and this ring is turned by tools on both edges and both sides. When bisected, each end of each half of the ring exhibits the profile of a horse's tail; and when cut up into small bits, each bit has the wherewithal in it for fas.h.i.+oning one tail. After the carver has done his work, each horse receives its proper tail; and they are all proper long tails too, such as nature may be supposed to have made, and not the clipped and cropped affairs which farriers and grooms produce.

This continuous ring system is carried faithfully through the whole Noah's Ark family. One big slab is for an endless ring of elephants; another of appropriate size for camels; others for lions, leopards, wolves, foxes, dogs, donkeys, ducks, and all the rest. Sometimes the ears are so shaped as not very conveniently to be produced in the same ring as the other part of the animal; in this case an endless ring of ears is made, and chopped up into twice as many ears as there are animals. Elephant's trunks stick out in a way that would perplex the turner somewhat; he therefore makes an endless ring of trunks, chops it up, and hands over the pieces to the carver to be fas.h.i.+oned into as many trunks as there are elephants. In some instances, where the animal is rather a bullet-headed sort of an individual, the head is turned in a lathe separately, and glued on to the headless body. If a carnivorous animal has a tail very much like that of one of the graminivorous sort, the carver says nothing about it, but makes the same endless ring of tails serve both; or they may belong to the same order but different families--as, for instance, the camel and the cow, which are presented by these Noah's Ark people with tails cut from the same endless ring. Other toys are made in the same way. Those eternal soldiers which German boys are always supposed to love so much, as if there were no end of Schleswig-Holsteins for them to conquer, are--if made of wood (for tin soldiers are also immensely in request)--turned separately in a lathe, so far as their martial frames admit of this mode of shaping; but the muskets and some other portions are made on the endless ring system. All this may be seen very well at Kew; for there are the blocks of soft pine, the slabs cut from them (with the grain of the wood in the direction of the thickness), the rings turned from the slabs, the turnings and curvatures of the rings, the profile of an animal seen at each end, the slices cut from each ring, the animal fas.h.i.+oned from each slice, the ring of tails, the separate tails for each ring, the animal properly tailed in all its glory, and a painted specimen or two to show the finished form in which the loving couples go into the ark--pigs not so much smaller than elephants as they ought to be, but piggishly shaped nevertheless.

All the English toy-makers agree, with one accord, that we cannot for an instant compete with the Germans and Tyrolese in the fabrication of such articles, price for price. We have not made it a large and important branch of handicraft; and our workmen have not studied natural history with sufficient a.s.siduity to give the proper distinctive forms to the animals. {547} The more elaborate productions--such as the baby-dolls which can say "mamma," and make their chests heave like any sentimental damsels--are of French, rather than German manufacture, and are not so much wooden productions as combinations of many different materials. Papier-mache, moulded into form, is becoming very useful in the doll and animal trade; while india-rubber and gutta-percha are doing wonders. The real Noah's Ark work, however, is thoroughly German, and is specially connected with wood-working. Some of the more delicate and elaborate specimens of carving--such as the groups for chimney-piece ornaments, honored by the protection of gla.s.s shades--are made of lime-tree or linden-wood, by the peasants of Oberammergau, in the mountain parts of Bavaria.

There were specimens of these kinds of work at our two exhibitions which could not have been produced in England at thrice the price; our good carvers are few, and their services are in request at good wages for mediaeval church-work. We should be curious to know what an English carver would require to be paid for a half-guinea Bavarian group now before us--a Tyrolese mountaineer seated on a rock, his rifle resting on his arm, the studded nails in his climbing shoes, a dead chamois at his feet, his wife leaning her hand lightly on his shoulder, his thumb pointing over his shoulder to denote the quarter where he had shot the chamois, his wooden bowl of porridge held on his left knee, the easy fit and flow of the garments of both man and woman-- all artistically grouped and nicely cut, and looking clean and white in linden-wood. No English carver would dream of such a thing at such a price. However, these are not the most important of the productions of the peasant carvers, commercially speaking; like as our Mintons and Copelands make more money by everyday crockery than by beautiful Parian statuettes, so do the German toy-makers look to the Noah's Ark cla.s.s of productions as their main stay in the market, rather than to more elegant and artistic works.

{548}

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

BY CARDINAL WISEMAN.

[In the autumn of last year a communication was made to his eminence the late Cardinal Wiseman by H. Bence Jones, Esq., M.D., as Secretary of the Royal Inst.i.tution of Great Britain, requesting him to deliver a lecture before that society. The cardinal, with the prompt kindness usual to him, at once a.s.sented. The Shakespeare Tercentenary seemed to prescribe the subject, which his eminence therefore selected.

The following pages were dictated by him in the last weeks of his life. The latter part was taken down in the beginning of January; the earlier part was dictated on Sat.u.r.day the fourteenth of that month. It was his last intellectual exertion, and it overtaxed his failing strength.

The Rev. Dr. Clifford, chaplain to the Hospital of St. John and St.

Elizabeth, who acted as his amanuensis, states, from the lips of his eminence, that the matter contained in these pages is the beginning and the ending of what he intended to deliver. We have, therefore, only a fragment of a whole which was never completed except in the author's mind.]

I.

There have been some men in the world's history--and they are necessarily few--who by their deaths have deprived mankind of the power to do justice to their merits, in those particular spheres of excellence in which they had been pre-eminent. When the "immortal"

Raphael for the last time laid down his palette, still moist with the brilliant colors which he had spread upon his unfinished masterpiece, destined to be exposed to admiration above his bier, he left none behind him who could worthily depict and transmit to us his beautiful lineaments: so that posterity has had to seek in his own paintings, among the guards at a sepulchre, or among the youthful disciples in an ancient school, some figure which may be considered as representing himself.

When his mighty rival, Michelangelo, cast down that ma.s.sive chisel which no one after him was worthy or able to wield, none survived him who could venture to repeat in marble the rugged grandeur of his countenance; but we imagine that we can trace in the head of some unfinished satyr, or in the sublime countenance of his Moses, the natural or the idealized type from which he drew his stern and n.o.ble inspirations.

And, to turn to another great art, when Mozart closed his last uncompleted score, and laid him down to pa.s.s from the regions of earthly to those of heavenly music, which none had so closely approached as he, the science over which he ruled could find no strains in which worthily to mourn him except his own, and was compelled to sing for the first time his own marvelous requiem at his funeral. [Footnote 101]

[Footnote 101: The same may be said of the celebrated Cimarosa.]

No less can it be said that when the pen dropped from Shakespeare's hand, when his last mortal illness mastered the strength of even his genius, the world was left powerless to describe in writing his n.o.ble and unrivalled characteristics. Hence we turn back upon himself, and endeavor to draw from his own works the only true records of his genius and his mind. [Footnote 102]

[Footnote 102: Even in his lifetime this seems to have been foreseen. In 1664, in an epigram addressed to "Master William Shakespeare," and first published by Mr. Halliwell, occurred the following lines: "Besides in places thy wit windes like Maeander.

When (_whence_) needy new composers borrow more Thence (_than_) Terence doth from Plautus or Menander, But to praise thee aright I want thy store. Then let thine owne words thine owne worth upraise And help t' adorne thee with deserved baies." _Halliwell's Life of Shakespeare_, p. 160.]