Chapter Fifteen.

Chapter Fifteen.Donn Piatt’s Reminiscence. Press Notices.In this chapter are given a reminiscence by Donn Piatt of Mayne Reid, and a few extracts from the numerous obituary notices which appeared in the press. Donn Piatt writes:“Mayne Reid wrote his first romance at my house, in this valley, where he spent a winter. He had come out of the Mexican war decorated with an ugly wound, and covered with glory as the bravest of the brave, in our little army under Scott.“When not making love to the fair girls of the Mac-o-chee, or dashing over the country on my mare, he was writing a romance, (‘The Rifle Rangers’) with the scene in Mexico and on our Mexican border.“He would read chapters to us of an evening (he was a fine reader), and if the commendation did not come up to his self-appreciation he would go to bed in a huff, and not touching pen to paper for days would make my mare suffer in his wild rides. I found that to save bay Jenny I must praise his work, and he came to regard me in time as Byron did Gifford. When told that ugly critic had pronounced ‘me lord’ the greatest of living poets, he said that he was ‘a damned discriminating fellow.’“That romance proved a great success. Again, like Byron, he put his well-worn gown, one morning, about one wakened to fame and fortune.“The first remittance took the restless soldier of fortune from us, never to return. He would not have been content to remain as long as he did, but for the fact that he was desperately in love with a fair inmate of our house. But in her big blue eyes the gallant Irishman did not find favour, and he at last gave up the pursuit.“From the station where he awaited his train he wrote us two letters. One of these I never saw. The other contained the following lines, which, without possessing any remarkable poetic merit, gracefully put on record his kind feelings on parting from the house he had made his home for nearly a year.”Mac-o-Chee Adieu.Fade from my sight the valley sweet,The brown, old, mossy mill,The willows, where the wild birds keepSong watch beside the rill;The cottage, with its rustic porch,Where the latest flower blooms,And autumn, with her flaming torch,The dying year illumes.Within mine ears the sad farewellIn music lingers yet,And casts upon my soul a spellThat bids it not forget;Forget, dear friends, I never may,While yet there lives a strain,A flower, a thought, a favoured layTo call you back again.When evening comes you fondly meetAbout the firelit hearth,And hours fly by on winged feet,In music and in mirth;Ah! give a thought to one whose fateOn thorny pathway lies,Who lingered fondly near the gateThat hid his paradise.I hear, along the ringing rails,My fate, that comes apace,A moment more and strife prevails,Where once were peace and rest;Unrest begins, my furlough ends,The world breaks on my view,Ah! peaceful scene; ah! loving friends,A sad and last adieu.“Between that parting and our next encounter some twenty years intervened. Mayne Reid had made his fame and fortune, throwing the last away upon a Mexican ranch in England, and I yet floating about on spars had just begun to use my pen as a means of support. He was grey, stout and rosy, living with his handsome little wife in rooms in Union Square. I told him that the old homestead upon the Mac-o-chee had fallen into decay, and of the little family circle he so fondly remembered I alone remained.“That made him so sad that I proposed a bottle of wine to alleviate our sorrow, and he led the way to a subterranean excavation in Broadway, where we had not only the bottle, but a dinner and several bottles.”The following are short extracts from some public notices of his life:InThe Times, October 24th, 1883—“Every schoolboy, and every one who has ever been a schoolboy, will learn with sorrow of the death of Captain Mayne Reid. Who has forgotten those glorious rides across the Mexican prairies, when we galloped, mounted upon a mustang—a horse would have been too flat and unromantic—on the war trail, and surprised our enemy. The very titles of the books are enough to stir the blood. What a vista they open out of wild adventure, of mystery, of savage heroism!”InThe Standard—“It is an odd incident in the life of Captain Mayne Reid, that its active part ended suddenly, just when he might be supposed to think that it was seriously beginning. In 1849 he came to London, and began to pour forth that wonderful stream of romance, which never quite failed through thirty-four years, to the day of his death. Captain Mayne Reid wrote for men and women, as well as boys; but there was not, we believe, a word in his books which a schoolboy could not read aloud to his mother and sisters.”InThe Daily News—“An active man of adventurous temperament, he imparted his own animal spirits and his passion for the marvellous into the products of his busy brain. He was born with a zest for travel, which he contrived to indulge at a very early age. He explored American backwoods, hunted with Indians up the Red River, and roamed the boundless prairie on his own account. On behalf of the United States, in whose army he received a commission, he fought against Mexico. When his sword was in its sheath, and his fingers held the pen, he wrote with vigour and impetuosity as if under fire. Captain Mayne Reid gave by his books a great deal of innocent pleasure, and they could always be admitted without scruple or inquiry into the best-regulated families.”And inThe Spectator, October 27th, 1883—“As our judgment on Mayne Reid’s novels is not that of our contemporaries, we are disinclined to allow his death to pass without a word of criticism. As an individual we knew nothing about him, except that in our judgment he missed his career, and would have made a first-class agent of the Geographical Society, to explore dangerous or excessively difficult regions, like Thibet, the Atlas Range, or the unknown hills and locked-up villages of Eastern Peru. He was a man of exceptional daring, having a positive liking for danger; he had the typographical eyes which should belong to a general; and he had a faculty of description, which he watered down for his novels till it was hardly apparent. During the only interview which this writer ever had with him, accident induced his interlocutor to ask about the Pintos—the particoloured race sprung from native Mexicans and the cross breed between Indians and Negroes—who are stated to exist in the State of Mexico. The writer disbelieved in them, and expressed his belief, but Captain Mayne Reid, who declared he had seen specimens of the race, held him quite fascinated for half-an-hour by a description which, if imaginary, was a triumph of art, but which left on the hearer’s mind an impression of absolute truth.”

In this chapter are given a reminiscence by Donn Piatt of Mayne Reid, and a few extracts from the numerous obituary notices which appeared in the press. Donn Piatt writes:

“Mayne Reid wrote his first romance at my house, in this valley, where he spent a winter. He had come out of the Mexican war decorated with an ugly wound, and covered with glory as the bravest of the brave, in our little army under Scott.

“When not making love to the fair girls of the Mac-o-chee, or dashing over the country on my mare, he was writing a romance, (‘The Rifle Rangers’) with the scene in Mexico and on our Mexican border.

“He would read chapters to us of an evening (he was a fine reader), and if the commendation did not come up to his self-appreciation he would go to bed in a huff, and not touching pen to paper for days would make my mare suffer in his wild rides. I found that to save bay Jenny I must praise his work, and he came to regard me in time as Byron did Gifford. When told that ugly critic had pronounced ‘me lord’ the greatest of living poets, he said that he was ‘a damned discriminating fellow.’

“That romance proved a great success. Again, like Byron, he put his well-worn gown, one morning, about one wakened to fame and fortune.

“The first remittance took the restless soldier of fortune from us, never to return. He would not have been content to remain as long as he did, but for the fact that he was desperately in love with a fair inmate of our house. But in her big blue eyes the gallant Irishman did not find favour, and he at last gave up the pursuit.

“From the station where he awaited his train he wrote us two letters. One of these I never saw. The other contained the following lines, which, without possessing any remarkable poetic merit, gracefully put on record his kind feelings on parting from the house he had made his home for nearly a year.”

Mac-o-Chee Adieu.Fade from my sight the valley sweet,The brown, old, mossy mill,The willows, where the wild birds keepSong watch beside the rill;The cottage, with its rustic porch,Where the latest flower blooms,And autumn, with her flaming torch,The dying year illumes.Within mine ears the sad farewellIn music lingers yet,And casts upon my soul a spellThat bids it not forget;Forget, dear friends, I never may,While yet there lives a strain,A flower, a thought, a favoured layTo call you back again.When evening comes you fondly meetAbout the firelit hearth,And hours fly by on winged feet,In music and in mirth;Ah! give a thought to one whose fateOn thorny pathway lies,Who lingered fondly near the gateThat hid his paradise.I hear, along the ringing rails,My fate, that comes apace,A moment more and strife prevails,Where once were peace and rest;Unrest begins, my furlough ends,The world breaks on my view,Ah! peaceful scene; ah! loving friends,A sad and last adieu.

“Between that parting and our next encounter some twenty years intervened. Mayne Reid had made his fame and fortune, throwing the last away upon a Mexican ranch in England, and I yet floating about on spars had just begun to use my pen as a means of support. He was grey, stout and rosy, living with his handsome little wife in rooms in Union Square. I told him that the old homestead upon the Mac-o-chee had fallen into decay, and of the little family circle he so fondly remembered I alone remained.

“That made him so sad that I proposed a bottle of wine to alleviate our sorrow, and he led the way to a subterranean excavation in Broadway, where we had not only the bottle, but a dinner and several bottles.”

The following are short extracts from some public notices of his life:

InThe Times, October 24th, 1883—“Every schoolboy, and every one who has ever been a schoolboy, will learn with sorrow of the death of Captain Mayne Reid. Who has forgotten those glorious rides across the Mexican prairies, when we galloped, mounted upon a mustang—a horse would have been too flat and unromantic—on the war trail, and surprised our enemy. The very titles of the books are enough to stir the blood. What a vista they open out of wild adventure, of mystery, of savage heroism!”

InThe Standard—“It is an odd incident in the life of Captain Mayne Reid, that its active part ended suddenly, just when he might be supposed to think that it was seriously beginning. In 1849 he came to London, and began to pour forth that wonderful stream of romance, which never quite failed through thirty-four years, to the day of his death. Captain Mayne Reid wrote for men and women, as well as boys; but there was not, we believe, a word in his books which a schoolboy could not read aloud to his mother and sisters.”

InThe Daily News—“An active man of adventurous temperament, he imparted his own animal spirits and his passion for the marvellous into the products of his busy brain. He was born with a zest for travel, which he contrived to indulge at a very early age. He explored American backwoods, hunted with Indians up the Red River, and roamed the boundless prairie on his own account. On behalf of the United States, in whose army he received a commission, he fought against Mexico. When his sword was in its sheath, and his fingers held the pen, he wrote with vigour and impetuosity as if under fire. Captain Mayne Reid gave by his books a great deal of innocent pleasure, and they could always be admitted without scruple or inquiry into the best-regulated families.”

And inThe Spectator, October 27th, 1883—“As our judgment on Mayne Reid’s novels is not that of our contemporaries, we are disinclined to allow his death to pass without a word of criticism. As an individual we knew nothing about him, except that in our judgment he missed his career, and would have made a first-class agent of the Geographical Society, to explore dangerous or excessively difficult regions, like Thibet, the Atlas Range, or the unknown hills and locked-up villages of Eastern Peru. He was a man of exceptional daring, having a positive liking for danger; he had the typographical eyes which should belong to a general; and he had a faculty of description, which he watered down for his novels till it was hardly apparent. During the only interview which this writer ever had with him, accident induced his interlocutor to ask about the Pintos—the particoloured race sprung from native Mexicans and the cross breed between Indians and Negroes—who are stated to exist in the State of Mexico. The writer disbelieved in them, and expressed his belief, but Captain Mayne Reid, who declared he had seen specimens of the race, held him quite fascinated for half-an-hour by a description which, if imaginary, was a triumph of art, but which left on the hearer’s mind an impression of absolute truth.”

Appendix.“The Land of Innisfail,” by Mayne Reid.And I must leave thee, Erin! ’tis my fate—And I must wander over many a land!And other climes and other homes awaitThe ‘Scholar,’ wasted - worn - but may this handThat writes thy praises now, cold on the sandUnburied lie for ever - may no hearthShelter me, vagrant on a foreign strandThe cursed and homeless outcast of the earth,When I forget thou art the country of my birth.Erin, I love thee! though thy sunken cheekIs pale with weeping, and thy hollow eye,With many a stifled groan, and rending shriek,Reveals dark tales of bitter agony;That I have pitied thy sad miseryI’ve proved through every change of land and sea;I’ve wafted o’er the ocean many a sigh,And many an earnest prayer that thou shouldst be,As are thy children’s souls - unshackled, happy, free!I love thee, though I could not live with thee!The trampler of thy fields, red with thy gore,Had made my home a hell - I would not beThe fawning minion at a great man’s door—I would not beg upon thy wintry moorTo starve neglected; and soon as I knewThat there were other lands, the broad seas o’er,With hands to welcome, and with hearts as true—I dropped one tear, and bid my native land adieu!A Southern Sunset, from “La Cubana,” by Mayne Reid.How gorgeously the golden sun decliningGilds the soft sea whose tranquil waters spanFair Cuba’s Isle, the broad blue billow liningWith such bright tints as painter’s pencil canProject upon the naked canvas never!In mellower beam his parting glances quiver,Blending the hues of gold and red and azure,And pouring on the wave his richest treasure.From terraced roof above the noisy town,The Spanish maiden watches him go down;And mischief glistens in her dark brown eye:For sunset brings the masking hour nigh.Through loophole barred in yonder battlement,Where grimly frowns El Moros castled wallThere’s many an eye in weary watching bent,And many a sigh - alas! too idly spent—By pinioned captive pining in his thrall.The brilliant sheen upon the distant seaPerchance may to his memory recallSome happy thought of days when he was free;Draw from his haggard eye the scalding tear—The first that he has shed for many a year;He breathes! he moves! alas, the clanking chain,Soon checks the thought - he’s in his cell again!The sentry pacing on the ’brazured wall,Lets to his feet the burnished carbine fall,And looking down upon the busy bay,Hums to himself some Andalusian lay;Or, gazing on the banner floating gay,Drawls out the loyal words, “Viva el rey!”Along the shores that skirt this southern town,A thousand dark eyes beam from faces brown—’Tis they that joy to see the sun go down.The muleteer, mounting, homeward turns his face,And goads his laden mule to quicker pace;The weary slave from out the field of cane,A moment glances at the far free main,And sighs as he bethinks him of his chain.Short-lived and silent is his thought of pain,For, stopping in his task while it is on,He reads relief in yonder setting sun,For, ’tis the herald of his labour done!The poorBozal, who knows not yet to pray,Thinks of his wife and children far away,In some rude kräal by Biafra’s bay.But where are they, that mild and gentle race,Who worshipped him with prostrate form and face?Where is the palm-screened hut of the cacique,That once rose over yon barranca’s brow?Where are they all? Son of the island, speak!Where thebohiostood, domes, turrets nowAlone along the hill-sides proudly gleam!Ha! thou art sad and silent on the theme;But in thy silence I can read their doom—Name, nation, all, have passed into the tomb.The tomb? No - no; they have not even oneTo tell that they were once, and now are gone!*****The fading light grows purple on the deep,In gorgeous robes the god hath sunk to sleep;So sets the sun o’er Cuba, with a smile—The sweetest that he sheds upon this southern isle!Mayne Reid did not admire a classical education. He wrote the following in May, 1881, and intended to publish it:“The old adage ‘knowledge is power’ is more trite than true. Like many other proverbs long unquestioned in these modern days it often meets contradiction—indeed oftener than otherwise—ignorant men in every walk of life wielding an influence denied to the most learned. Substitute the word ‘wealth’ for knowledge, or even craft of the lowest kind, and the proverb, alas! holds good.“Nevertheless is there still some truth in it in its original form, dependent on the kind of knowledge, whether it be useful or merely ornamental. To the latter belong most of that taught at our universities and public schools—especially what are called the ‘dead languages’—all but useless as regards the needs and realities of after life, and but of little value even for its adornments. Lore more valueless, and time worse spent than in acquiring it, are scarce possible to be conceived. It barely finds its parallel in the Chinese mnemonics. When one reflects on the hours spent on this study, days—with nights as well—weeks, months, and years, and then in after life looks back how little good he has got from it—unless, indeed, he be himself a school teacher or college professor to perpetuate the folly—his reflections cannot be of a satisfactory kind. What might he have done—what could he not have done—had he been instructed in science, instead of his mind made a storehouse of lumber, the cast-off clothing of nations who were never properly clad, with coffins containing their language dead as themselves?“‘But,’ say the advocates of so-called classical education, ‘what better way is there of training the youthful mind—giving it shape, scope, and direction—what other?’ It seems hardly worth while to answer such a question; the wonder is that any one should ask it. Training the mind by the declination of ‘hic haec hoc,’ or that most absurd of all absurd excessing, scansion, is the veriest mockery of mental discipline. Science even in its humblest branches does infinitely better, and along with the lesson gives something as valuable as the training itself, or more so.“‘Ah! that may be true,’ admit the admirers of defunct tongues, ‘but then think of the soldiers, the statesmen, the poets, the heroes and notables of every speciality, who have lived, and whose deeds are alone recorded in the languages called dead. Think of their customs and ways of life, their virtues and their vices, their gods and their devils, and how are you to get knowledge of them without acquaintance with their language?’ Possibly better if we had never got knowledge of them, since their ways of life were not always such as they ought to be, while their vices and devils had a far more powerful influence over them than their virtues and gods.“But admitting the knowledge worth attaining, it is the sheerest nonsense to say that it is not attainable without the study of their languages. The best classical scholar—and this in its truest sense—the writer ever came in contact with was a man who knew not even the letters of either Latin or Greek alphabet. There are no arcana there. Everything has been translated worth translating, and for the acquisition of classical knowledge a year spent in reading these translations is worth ten in the slow uncertain process of extracting it from the originals. To say that in translations the literature of the ancients is not obtainable in its purity, is, like many other sayings, either a falsehood or misconception. And often more, since all the translations are an actual improvement on the original.”The End.

And I must leave thee, Erin! ’tis my fate—And I must wander over many a land!And other climes and other homes awaitThe ‘Scholar,’ wasted - worn - but may this handThat writes thy praises now, cold on the sandUnburied lie for ever - may no hearthShelter me, vagrant on a foreign strandThe cursed and homeless outcast of the earth,When I forget thou art the country of my birth.Erin, I love thee! though thy sunken cheekIs pale with weeping, and thy hollow eye,With many a stifled groan, and rending shriek,Reveals dark tales of bitter agony;That I have pitied thy sad miseryI’ve proved through every change of land and sea;I’ve wafted o’er the ocean many a sigh,And many an earnest prayer that thou shouldst be,As are thy children’s souls - unshackled, happy, free!I love thee, though I could not live with thee!The trampler of thy fields, red with thy gore,Had made my home a hell - I would not beThe fawning minion at a great man’s door—I would not beg upon thy wintry moorTo starve neglected; and soon as I knewThat there were other lands, the broad seas o’er,With hands to welcome, and with hearts as true—I dropped one tear, and bid my native land adieu!

How gorgeously the golden sun decliningGilds the soft sea whose tranquil waters spanFair Cuba’s Isle, the broad blue billow liningWith such bright tints as painter’s pencil canProject upon the naked canvas never!In mellower beam his parting glances quiver,Blending the hues of gold and red and azure,And pouring on the wave his richest treasure.From terraced roof above the noisy town,The Spanish maiden watches him go down;And mischief glistens in her dark brown eye:For sunset brings the masking hour nigh.Through loophole barred in yonder battlement,Where grimly frowns El Moros castled wallThere’s many an eye in weary watching bent,And many a sigh - alas! too idly spent—By pinioned captive pining in his thrall.The brilliant sheen upon the distant seaPerchance may to his memory recallSome happy thought of days when he was free;Draw from his haggard eye the scalding tear—The first that he has shed for many a year;He breathes! he moves! alas, the clanking chain,Soon checks the thought - he’s in his cell again!The sentry pacing on the ’brazured wall,Lets to his feet the burnished carbine fall,And looking down upon the busy bay,Hums to himself some Andalusian lay;Or, gazing on the banner floating gay,Drawls out the loyal words, “Viva el rey!”Along the shores that skirt this southern town,A thousand dark eyes beam from faces brown—’Tis they that joy to see the sun go down.The muleteer, mounting, homeward turns his face,And goads his laden mule to quicker pace;The weary slave from out the field of cane,A moment glances at the far free main,And sighs as he bethinks him of his chain.Short-lived and silent is his thought of pain,For, stopping in his task while it is on,He reads relief in yonder setting sun,For, ’tis the herald of his labour done!The poorBozal, who knows not yet to pray,Thinks of his wife and children far away,In some rude kräal by Biafra’s bay.But where are they, that mild and gentle race,Who worshipped him with prostrate form and face?Where is the palm-screened hut of the cacique,That once rose over yon barranca’s brow?Where are they all? Son of the island, speak!Where thebohiostood, domes, turrets nowAlone along the hill-sides proudly gleam!Ha! thou art sad and silent on the theme;But in thy silence I can read their doom—Name, nation, all, have passed into the tomb.The tomb? No - no; they have not even oneTo tell that they were once, and now are gone!*****The fading light grows purple on the deep,In gorgeous robes the god hath sunk to sleep;So sets the sun o’er Cuba, with a smile—The sweetest that he sheds upon this southern isle!

Mayne Reid did not admire a classical education. He wrote the following in May, 1881, and intended to publish it:

“The old adage ‘knowledge is power’ is more trite than true. Like many other proverbs long unquestioned in these modern days it often meets contradiction—indeed oftener than otherwise—ignorant men in every walk of life wielding an influence denied to the most learned. Substitute the word ‘wealth’ for knowledge, or even craft of the lowest kind, and the proverb, alas! holds good.

“Nevertheless is there still some truth in it in its original form, dependent on the kind of knowledge, whether it be useful or merely ornamental. To the latter belong most of that taught at our universities and public schools—especially what are called the ‘dead languages’—all but useless as regards the needs and realities of after life, and but of little value even for its adornments. Lore more valueless, and time worse spent than in acquiring it, are scarce possible to be conceived. It barely finds its parallel in the Chinese mnemonics. When one reflects on the hours spent on this study, days—with nights as well—weeks, months, and years, and then in after life looks back how little good he has got from it—unless, indeed, he be himself a school teacher or college professor to perpetuate the folly—his reflections cannot be of a satisfactory kind. What might he have done—what could he not have done—had he been instructed in science, instead of his mind made a storehouse of lumber, the cast-off clothing of nations who were never properly clad, with coffins containing their language dead as themselves?

“‘But,’ say the advocates of so-called classical education, ‘what better way is there of training the youthful mind—giving it shape, scope, and direction—what other?’ It seems hardly worth while to answer such a question; the wonder is that any one should ask it. Training the mind by the declination of ‘hic haec hoc,’ or that most absurd of all absurd excessing, scansion, is the veriest mockery of mental discipline. Science even in its humblest branches does infinitely better, and along with the lesson gives something as valuable as the training itself, or more so.

“‘Ah! that may be true,’ admit the admirers of defunct tongues, ‘but then think of the soldiers, the statesmen, the poets, the heroes and notables of every speciality, who have lived, and whose deeds are alone recorded in the languages called dead. Think of their customs and ways of life, their virtues and their vices, their gods and their devils, and how are you to get knowledge of them without acquaintance with their language?’ Possibly better if we had never got knowledge of them, since their ways of life were not always such as they ought to be, while their vices and devils had a far more powerful influence over them than their virtues and gods.

“But admitting the knowledge worth attaining, it is the sheerest nonsense to say that it is not attainable without the study of their languages. The best classical scholar—and this in its truest sense—the writer ever came in contact with was a man who knew not even the letters of either Latin or Greek alphabet. There are no arcana there. Everything has been translated worth translating, and for the acquisition of classical knowledge a year spent in reading these translations is worth ten in the slow uncertain process of extracting it from the originals. To say that in translations the literature of the ancients is not obtainable in its purity, is, like many other sayings, either a falsehood or misconception. And often more, since all the translations are an actual improvement on the original.”

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