popes and cardinals as if they were ordinary fallible people, and made a testament-thief of Walter Pieterse.
To be sure, Glorioso was not to blame for this last, certainly not. One ought to be ashamed to be a hero, or a genius, or even a robber, if on this account one is to be held responsible for all the crimes that may be committed years afterwards in the effort to get possession of one's history.
I myself object to any accusation of complicity in those evil deeds that are committed after my death in quenching the thirst for knowledge of my fate. Indeed, I shall never be deterred from a famous career merely by the thought that some one may sell the New Testament to get hold of the "Life and Deeds of Multatuli."
"You rascal, what are you loitering around here for? If you want anything, come in; if you don't, make yourself scarce."
And now Walter had to go in, or else abandon his cherished Glorioso. But the man who bent over the counter and twisted himself like a crane to open the
referred manlystrength and vivacity even though accompanied by a shade of bluntness.But Sibyl always received Graham Marr with one of her bright smiles,and she would listen to his poetry hour after hour; for Graham wroteverses, and liked nothing better than reclining in an easy chair andreading them aloud.
"What Sibyl can see in Gra-a-m'ma, I cannot imagine," Bessie wouldsometimes say; "he is a lazy white-headed egotist; a good judge oflace and ribbons, but mortally afraid of a dog, and as to powder, thevery sight of a gun makes him faint."
But Aunt Faith had heard of the fortune which would come to GrahamMarr at the death of an uncle, and she could not but fear that Sibylhad heard of it also. The grandfather, displeased with his sons, hadleft a mill tying up his estate for the grandchildren, who were not toreceive it until all of the first generation were dead. Only one sonnow remained, an infirm old man of seventy, and at his death thehoarded treasure would be divided among the heirs, tw
anner, is much less in France than in England. The French have probably more relish for true wit than any other people; but their perception of humour is certainly not nearly so strong as that of our countrymen. Their ridicule is seldom excited by the awkward attempts of a stranger to speak their language, and as seldom by the inconsistencies which appear to us ludicrous in the dress and behaviour of their countrymen.
These causes, operating gradually for a length of time, have probably produced that remarkable politeness of manners which is so pleasing to a stranger, in a number of the lower orders in France, and which appears so singular at the present time, as revolutionary ideas, military habits, and the example of a military court, have given a degree of roughness, and even ferocity, to the manners of many of the higher orders of Frenchmen, with which it forms a curious contrast. It is, however, in its relation to Englishmen at least, a fawning, cringing, interested politeness; less truly respecta
ou're saying, Jason?" asked his father sharply as he brought the little oil lamp from the sitting room into the kitchen. Mrs. Wilkins followed. This was a detestable job, the sorting of the donation debris, and was best gotten through with, at once. Jason, shading the candle light from his eyes, with one slender hand, looked at his father belligerently.
"I was saying," he said, "that it was too bad you don't have to wear some of the old rags sometimes, then you'd know how mother and I feel about donation parties."
There was absolute silence for a moment in the little kitchen. A late October cricket chirped somewhere.
Then, "O Jason!" gasped his mother.
The boy was only twelve, but he had been bred in a difficult school and was old for his years. He looked again at the heaps of cast-off clothing on the floor and his gorge rose within him.
"I tell you," he cried, before his father could speak, "that I'll never wear another donation party pair of pants. No, nor a shirt-tail shi
on. On this principle it is worth while to meet the problem of a disease like syphilis with an open countenance and straightforward honesty of expression. It puts firm ground under our feet to talk about it in the impersonal way in which we talk about colds and pneumonia and bunions and rheumatism, as unfortunate, but not necessarily indecent, facts in human experience. Nothing in the past has done so much for the campaign against consumption as the unloosing of tongues. There is only one way to understand syphilis, and that is to give it impartial, discriminating discussion as an issue which concerns the general health. To color it up and hang it in a gallery of horrors, or to befog it with verbal turnings and twistings, are equally serious mistakes. The simple facts of syphilis can appeal to intelligent men and women as worthy of their most serious attention, without either stunning or disgusting them. It is in the unpretentious spirit of talking about a spade as a spade, and not as "an agricultural impleme
to take in the fortunes of the Macaulays. He,likewise, during the famous tour in the Hebrides, came across thepath of Boswell, who mentions him in an exquisitely absurdparagraph, the first of those in which is described the visit toInverary Castle. ["Monday, Oct. 25.--My acquaintance, the Rev.Mr. John M'Aulay, one of the ministers of Inverary, and brotherto our good friend at Calder, came to us this morning, andaccompanied us to the castle, where I presented Dr. Johnson tothe Duke of Argyll. We were shown through the house; and I nevershall forget the impression made upon my fancy by some of theladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. Afterseeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner,and gay inciting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thoughtfor a moment I could have been a knight-errant for them."] Mr.Macaulay afterwards passed the evening with the travellers attheir inn, and provoked Johnson into what Boswell calls warmth,and anyone else would call brutal
nder cover
that wanted light--
pears wadded in cloth,
protected from the frost,
melons, almost ripe,
smothered in straw?
Why not let the pears cling
to the empty branch?
All your coaxing will only make
a bitter fruit--
let them cling, ripen of themselves,
test their own worth,
nipped, shrivelled by the frost,
to fall at last but fair
with a russet coat.
Or the melon--
let it bleach yellow
in the winter light,
even tart to the taste--
it is better to taste of frost--
the exquisite frost--
than of wadding and of dead grass.
For this beauty,
beauty without strength,
chokes out life.
I want wind to break,
scatter these pink-stalks,
snap off their spiced heads,
fling them about with dead leaves--
spread the paths with twigs,
limbs broken off,
trail great pine branches,
hurled from some far wood
right across the melon-patch,
break pear and quince--
leave half-trees, to
popes and cardinals as if they were ordinary fallible people, and made a testament-thief of Walter Pieterse.
To be sure, Glorioso was not to blame for this last, certainly not. One ought to be ashamed to be a hero, or a genius, or even a robber, if on this account one is to be held responsible for all the crimes that may be committed years afterwards in the effort to get possession of one's history.
I myself object to any accusation of complicity in those evil deeds that are committed after my death in quenching the thirst for knowledge of my fate. Indeed, I shall never be deterred from a famous career merely by the thought that some one may sell the New Testament to get hold of the "Life and Deeds of Multatuli."
"You rascal, what are you loitering around here for? If you want anything, come in; if you don't, make yourself scarce."
And now Walter had to go in, or else abandon his cherished Glorioso. But the man who bent over the counter and twisted himself like a crane to open the
referred manlystrength and vivacity even though accompanied by a shade of bluntness.But Sibyl always received Graham Marr with one of her bright smiles,and she would listen to his poetry hour after hour; for Graham wroteverses, and liked nothing better than reclining in an easy chair andreading them aloud.
"What Sibyl can see in Gra-a-m'ma, I cannot imagine," Bessie wouldsometimes say; "he is a lazy white-headed egotist; a good judge oflace and ribbons, but mortally afraid of a dog, and as to powder, thevery sight of a gun makes him faint."
But Aunt Faith had heard of the fortune which would come to GrahamMarr at the death of an uncle, and she could not but fear that Sibylhad heard of it also. The grandfather, displeased with his sons, hadleft a mill tying up his estate for the grandchildren, who were not toreceive it until all of the first generation were dead. Only one sonnow remained, an infirm old man of seventy, and at his death thehoarded treasure would be divided among the heirs, tw
anner, is much less in France than in England. The French have probably more relish for true wit than any other people; but their perception of humour is certainly not nearly so strong as that of our countrymen. Their ridicule is seldom excited by the awkward attempts of a stranger to speak their language, and as seldom by the inconsistencies which appear to us ludicrous in the dress and behaviour of their countrymen.
These causes, operating gradually for a length of time, have probably produced that remarkable politeness of manners which is so pleasing to a stranger, in a number of the lower orders in France, and which appears so singular at the present time, as revolutionary ideas, military habits, and the example of a military court, have given a degree of roughness, and even ferocity, to the manners of many of the higher orders of Frenchmen, with which it forms a curious contrast. It is, however, in its relation to Englishmen at least, a fawning, cringing, interested politeness; less truly respecta
ou're saying, Jason?" asked his father sharply as he brought the little oil lamp from the sitting room into the kitchen. Mrs. Wilkins followed. This was a detestable job, the sorting of the donation debris, and was best gotten through with, at once. Jason, shading the candle light from his eyes, with one slender hand, looked at his father belligerently.
"I was saying," he said, "that it was too bad you don't have to wear some of the old rags sometimes, then you'd know how mother and I feel about donation parties."
There was absolute silence for a moment in the little kitchen. A late October cricket chirped somewhere.
Then, "O Jason!" gasped his mother.
The boy was only twelve, but he had been bred in a difficult school and was old for his years. He looked again at the heaps of cast-off clothing on the floor and his gorge rose within him.
"I tell you," he cried, before his father could speak, "that I'll never wear another donation party pair of pants. No, nor a shirt-tail shi
on. On this principle it is worth while to meet the problem of a disease like syphilis with an open countenance and straightforward honesty of expression. It puts firm ground under our feet to talk about it in the impersonal way in which we talk about colds and pneumonia and bunions and rheumatism, as unfortunate, but not necessarily indecent, facts in human experience. Nothing in the past has done so much for the campaign against consumption as the unloosing of tongues. There is only one way to understand syphilis, and that is to give it impartial, discriminating discussion as an issue which concerns the general health. To color it up and hang it in a gallery of horrors, or to befog it with verbal turnings and twistings, are equally serious mistakes. The simple facts of syphilis can appeal to intelligent men and women as worthy of their most serious attention, without either stunning or disgusting them. It is in the unpretentious spirit of talking about a spade as a spade, and not as "an agricultural impleme
to take in the fortunes of the Macaulays. He,likewise, during the famous tour in the Hebrides, came across thepath of Boswell, who mentions him in an exquisitely absurdparagraph, the first of those in which is described the visit toInverary Castle. ["Monday, Oct. 25.--My acquaintance, the Rev.Mr. John M'Aulay, one of the ministers of Inverary, and brotherto our good friend at Calder, came to us this morning, andaccompanied us to the castle, where I presented Dr. Johnson tothe Duke of Argyll. We were shown through the house; and I nevershall forget the impression made upon my fancy by some of theladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. Afterseeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner,and gay inciting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thoughtfor a moment I could have been a knight-errant for them."] Mr.Macaulay afterwards passed the evening with the travellers attheir inn, and provoked Johnson into what Boswell calls warmth,and anyone else would call brutal
nder cover
that wanted light--
pears wadded in cloth,
protected from the frost,
melons, almost ripe,
smothered in straw?
Why not let the pears cling
to the empty branch?
All your coaxing will only make
a bitter fruit--
let them cling, ripen of themselves,
test their own worth,
nipped, shrivelled by the frost,
to fall at last but fair
with a russet coat.
Or the melon--
let it bleach yellow
in the winter light,
even tart to the taste--
it is better to taste of frost--
the exquisite frost--
than of wadding and of dead grass.
For this beauty,
beauty without strength,
chokes out life.
I want wind to break,
scatter these pink-stalks,
snap off their spiced heads,
fling them about with dead leaves--
spread the paths with twigs,
limbs broken off,
trail great pine branches,
hurled from some far wood
right across the melon-patch,
break pear and quince--
leave half-trees, to