With what interest did Segundo read the letters of Roberto Blanquez giving him news of his book. Roberto was a few years older than the Swan; the difference in their ages was not so great as to prevent their having been very good friends when they were at college together, though it was great enough to have given Blanquez so much more experience than the poet as to enable him to serve as his guide and mentor. Blanquez, too, had had his poetic epoch, when he had written Galician verses; he now devoted himself to the prose of a modest clerkship, and wrote official articles. Madrid was enlightening him, and, with the natural penetration of one in whose veins flowed Galician blood, he was gradually acquiring a knowledge of practical life. He entertained for Segundo a fanatic admiration and a sincere attachment, one of those college attachments which last a lifetime. Segundo wrote to him with entire confidence—some cousins of Blanquez were acquainted with the mother of Nieves Mendez, and through this channel Segundo occasionally received tidings of his lady-love. Blanquezwas not ignorant of the episodes of the summer. And in the beginning his news was very satisfactory: "Nieves lives in the greatest retirement—my cousins have given me news of her. She scarcely ever leaves the house except to go to mass. The child is not well. The physicians say it is the age. They are going to send her to a convent of the Sacred Heart to be educated. They say the mother looks superb, my boy. It seems they have been left very well off. The book will soon appear now. Yesterday I chose the paper for the edition and the linen paper for the hundred copiesde luxe. The type will be Elzevir, which is at present the most fashionable. The title-page—they make them beautiful now, in six colors—would you like it to represent something fanciful, something allegorical?" In this style were Roberto's letters, source of illusions for Segundo, sole food for his imagination through all that long and gloomy winter, in that out-of-the-way corner of the world, in the midst of his prosaic domestic surroundings, his mind filled with the recollections of his unhappy passion.
March had arrived, that uncertain month of sunshine and showers which heralds in the spring with affluence of violets and primroses, when the cold begins to lessen, and in the pale blue sky whiteclouds float like streamers, when Segundo received that most precious of all objects, that object the sight of which makes the heart palpitate with joy and longing, mingled with an undefinable fear resembling, somewhat, the feeling with which the new-made father regards his first-born—his first printed book. It seemed to him a dream that the book should be there, before his eyes, in his hands, with the satin-smooth white cover on which the artist had gracefully twined around a group of pine trees a few sprays of forget-me-nots; with its pea-green paper, that gave it an antique air, the compositions headed by three mysterious asterisks. Looking at his verses thus, free from blots, finished and correct, the thought standing out clearly in distinct black characters on the delicately tinted page, he almost felt as if they had issued from his brain just as they were, smoothly flowing and with perfect rhymes, without corrections or unmeaning syllables put in to fill out the meter.
Leocadia was even more moved by the sight of the book than its author had been. She shed tears of joy. The fame of the poet was, in a sense, her work! For two or three days she was happy, forgetting the bad news which Flores brought her every Sunday from Orense; from Orense, whereLeocadia did not dare to go herself, fearing to yield to the entreaties and melt before the prayers of the child, but where palpitated those fibers of her heart which still bled, and which Flores wrung with torture by her account of the sufferings of Minguitos, who declined visibly in health, and who always complained that they made sport of him in the shop and cast up his deformity to him.
Unsolvable mysteries of the human heart! Segundo, who despised his native place, who believed—nor was he mistaken—that there was not in Vilamorta a single person capable of judging of the merits of a poem, could not refrain from going one evening to Saturnino Agonde's and drawing carelessly the volume from his pocket, throwing it on the counter and saying with affected indifference:
"What do you think of that book, my boy?"
On the instant he repented of his weakness, so many were the nonsensical remarks and absurd jokes with which the beautiful volume inspired the irreverent assemblage. He wished he had never shown it. He had drawn all this upon himself. If the public did not treat him better than his fellow-townsmen! Man can never isolate himself completely from his surroundings—the circle in which he moves must always have an interest for him. Howeverlittle importance Segundo might attach to the opinions of the Vilamortans, and although their approbation would assuredly not have raised him in his own estimation, their stupid mockery wounded and embittered his soul. He went home hurt and pained. He spent a feverish night—one of those nights in which great projects are conceived and decisive resolutions adopted.
His resolutions and his plans he summed up in the letter he wrote to Blanquez. The latter did not answer by return of mail; days passed, and Segundo went every morning to the post-office, always meeting with the same laconic answer. At last one day he received a voluminous registered letter.
As he opened it, several newspapers fell out, containing notices marked by a cross of the volume of poems just published, entitled "Songs of Absence," this being the name chosen by Segundo for his volume of rhymes.
These were accompanied by a letter of four pages from Roberto. What it might contain was of such vital importance to Segundo, so great the influence it might exercise over his future, that he laid it aside fearing, he knew not why, to read it, wishing to defer what he so eagerly desired. The letter lay open before him and certain names, certain words frequently repeated, caught his eye. The name of the widowed Señora de Comba was often mentioned in it. To calm his agitation, which was purely nervous, he took up the newspapers, resolving to read first the marked paragraphs. He traversed thevia crucis, in the fullest signification of the words.
El Imperialgave a noisy boom to Galicia and, as a proof that the country produced poets in the same abundance as it produced exquisite peaches andbeautiful flowers mentioned, without naming him, the author of "Songs of Absence," a beautiful volume just published. And not a line more, not a word of criticism, nothing to indicate that anybody in the office of the popular daily had taken the trouble even to cut the leaves of the book.El Liberal, better informed, declared, in three lines, that "Songs of Absence" gave evidence of the author's great facility in versification.La Epoca, in the most obscure corner of its department, "New Books," eulogized the typographical elegance of the book; disapproved of the romantic savor of the title and of the title-page, and deplored in trenchant phrases that the poet should have sought inspiration in the barren theme of absence when there were so many wholesome, cheerful and fruitful subjects on which to write.El Dia——
Ah, as forEl Dia, it gave Segundo a castigation in style: not one of those angry, predetermined, energetic castigations, in which the lash is taken up with both hands to crush a powerful and dangerous adversary, but a contemptuous cut of the whip, a flick with the nail, as it were, as one might brush away a troublesome insect; one of those summary criticisms in which the critic does not take the trouble to adduce proof or argument in support of his criticisms,whose justice he deems so evident as not to require demonstration; an execution by a few jests, but jests of a kind that extinguish a new author, crush him, relegate him forever to the limbo of obscurity. The critic said that now when verses of supreme merit lacked readers it was greatly to be deplored that the press should be made to groan with rhymes of an inferior quality; that now when Becquer had been placed in the pantheon of the immortals it was a crime to treat him with the disrespect of stupidly imitating him, mutilating and counterfeiting his best thoughts; and finally, that it was to be regretted that estimable young men, endowed, perhaps, with admirable capabilities for trade, or for the career of an apothecary or a notary, should spend their parents' money in costly editions of verses which no one would either buy or read.
Underneath this philippic Roberto Blanquez had written: "Pay no attention to this ass. Read my article."
And indeed in an obscure, insignificant sheet, one of those innumerable periodicals that see the light in Madrid without Madrid ever seeing them, Blanquez poured forth the gall of his wounded friendship and patriotism—taking the critic to task, eulogizing Segundo's book and declaring him the worthy compeerof Becquer, with the difference that the former was a little sweeter, a little more dreamy, a little more melancholy, as being the son of a land as beautiful as it was unfortunate, and which was fairer than Andalusia, than Switzerland, or than any other country on the face of the globe; ending by saying that if Becquer had been born in Galicia he would feel, think, and write likeThe Swan of Vilamorta.
Segundo seized the bundle of newspapers and, after looking at them for a moment fixedly and with a gloomy brow, tore them into pieces, large at first, then small, then smaller still, which he threw out of the window to hover for a moment in the air like butterflies or like the silvery petals of the flower of illusion, and then fall into the nearest pool. Segundo smiled bitterly. "There goes fame," he said to himself. "Now I think I am calmer. Let us see what the letter says."
Of this letter we need cite here only certain passages, supplementing them with the comments made on them in his mind by the reader.
"According to your request I went to the house of Señora de Comba to deliver to her the copy, so carefully wrapped up and sealed, which you sent me for that purpose."—Of course. It contained an inscription which I did not want her to think that youmight have read.—"She has a beautiful house, hangings and natural flowers everywhere."—Everything pertaining to her is like that, beautiful and refined.—"But I was obliged to return several times before she would receive me, the moment was always inopportune."—She does not receive indiscriminately all who may chance to present themselves.—"At last she received me, after innumerable ceremonies and formalities. She is very beautiful close by, more beautiful, even, than at a distance, and it seems impossible that she should have a daughter twelve years old; she looks at most twenty-four or twenty-five."—What news Roberto has to tell me.—"The moment I told her I had come on your part"—Let us hear—"she became—what shall I say?"—red—"displeased and annoyed, my boy, and in addition so serious, that I was quite taken aback, and did not know what to do."—Infamous! Infamous!—"She was afraid that I"—Let us hear; let us finish, let us finish.—"She refused to receive the book, in spite of my urgent entreaties"—but this is inconceivable. Ah, what a woman!—"because she says it would remind her too forcibly of that place and of the death of her husband, whom God keep in his glory; and consequently she begs you to excuse her"—wretch!—"from opening the package and readingyour verse, for which she thanks you."—Ha! ha! ha!—Bravo! What an actress!
"Notwithstanding all this, as you had charged me explicitly to deliver it to her, I determined not to take the book back with me and, taking up my hat and saluting her, I laid your package on a table. On the following morning, however, it came back to me unopened, with all its seals intact."—And I did not throw her into the Avieiro that day when our lips—the more fool I! Well, let us finish.
"In view of the little widow's conduct I imagine that you must have invented all that about the window and the precipice; you must have told it to me to fool me or, as you are so imaginative, you dreamed that it happened and you took the dream for reality."—He does well to mock me.—"At all events, my boy, if you were interested in the widow, think no more about her. I know to a certainty, through my cousins, who have it for a fact from their father, that at the expiration of the period of her mourning she is to marry a certain Marquis de Cameros who represented at one time a district in Lugo."—Yes, yes, I understand.—"The thing is serious, for, according to what my cousins say, the house linen is being embroidered already with the coronet of a marchioness."
The letter was torn still more slowly and into still smaller pieces than the newspapers. With the fragments Segundo made a ball which he threw far into the middle of the pool. "Such is love," he said to himself, laughing bitterly.
He began to walk up and down the room, at first with a certain monotonous regularity, then restlessly and with fury. Clara, the eldest of his sisters, half opened the door of the room, saying:
"Aunt Gáspara says you are to come."
"What for?"
"Dinner is ready."
Segundo took his hat and rushing into the street walked toward the river, filled with that species of fury which one who has just received some mental shock, some bitter disappointment, is apt to feel at being called on to take part in any of the ordinary concerns of life.
What a walk was his along the marshy borders of the Avieiro! At times he hurried on without any motive for accelerating his steps, and again, equally without motive, stood still, his gaze riveted on some object but in reality seeing nothing. One regret, a gnawing grief, pierced his soul when he recalled the past. As in a shipwreck there is for each of the passengers some one particular object whose loss he deplores more bitterly than that of all his other possessions, so Segundo, of all his past life, regretted one instant above every other, an instant which he would have given all he possessed to live over again—that during which he had stood with Nieves on the edge of the precipice, when he might have obtained a worthy and glorious death, carrying with him into the abyss the precious treasure of his illusions, and the form of the woman who for that one unforgettable instant only, had truly loved him.
"A coward then, and a coward now!" thought the poet, calling all his resolution to his aid but finding himself unable to summon the necessary courageto throw himself at once into the cold and muddy waters of the river. What moments of anguish! Giddy with suffering he seated himself on a stone on the river bank and watched with idiotic vacancy of expression the circles formed on the bosom of the river by the drops of rain that fell slantingly from the gray sky, as they expanded and were lost in other circles that pressed upon them on all sides, while new circles took their place, to be lost in their turn in yet other circles, covering the surface of the water with a wavy design resembling the silver work calledguilloché. The poet did not even notice that these same rain-drops that fell thick and fast on the surface of the Avieiro fell also on his hat and shoulders, ran down his forehead and, making their way between his collar and his skin, trickled down his neck. He noticed it only when the chill they produced made him shiver and he rose and walked slowly home, where dinner was already over and no one thought of offering him even so much as a cup of broth.
Two or three days later a fever declared itself, which was at first slight, but soon grew serious. Tropiezo called it a gastric and catarrhal fever, and truth compels us to say that he administered remedies not altogether inappropriate; gastricand catarrhal fevers are, for physicians whose knowledge is derived chiefly from experience, a perfect boon from Heaven, a glorious field in which they may count every battle a victory; a beaten path in which they run no risk of going astray. It will not lead them to the unknown pole of science, but at least it will betray them into no abyss.
As Tropiezo was leaving García's house one evening, after his customary visit to Segundo, muffled up to the ears in his comforter, he saw, standing beside the lawyer's door in the shadow cast by the contiguous wall, a woman clad in an old morning gown and with her head bare. The night was bright and Don Fermin was able to distinguish her features, but it was not without some difficulty that he recognized her to be Leocadia, so altered and aged did the poor schoolmistress look. Her countenance betrayed the keenest anxiety as she asked the doctor:
"And what news, Don Fermin? How is Segundo getting on?"
"Ah, good evening, Leocadia. Do you know that at first I did not recognize you?—Well, very well; there is no cause for uneasiness. To-day I ordered him some of thepucheroand some soup. It was nothing—a cold caught by getting a wetting. Butthe boy seems a little preoccupied, and he was for a time so sad and dejected that I thought he was never going to get back his appetite. At this season it is necessary to go warmly clad; we have a fine day, and then, when you least expect it, back come the rain and the cold again. And you—how are you getting on? They tell me that you have not been well, either. You must take care of yourself."
"There is nothing the matter with me, Don Fermin."
"So much the better. Any news of the boy?"
"He is in Orense, poor child. He can't get used to it."
"He will get used to it by and by. Of course—accustomed to be petted. Well, Leocadia, good-night. Go home, my dear woman, go home."
Don Fermin proceeded on his way, drawing his comforter up closer around his ears. That woman was mad; she had not taken the disease lightly, it seemed. And how altered she was! How old she had grown in these last few months! Old women were worse than young girls when they fell in love. He had done wisely, very wisely in telling her nothing about Segundo's new plans. She was capable of tearing down the house if he had told her. No,silence, silence. A shut mouth catches no flies. Let her find it out through someone else besides him. And with these sensible ideas and worthy intentions Tropiezo reached Agonde's, and before a quarter of an hour had elapsed unbosomed himself of his news: Segundo García was going to America to seek his fortune—as soon as he should be entirely well, of course. He would take the steamer at Corunna.
The occasion was a favorable one for the company to lament once more in concert the death of Don Victoriano Andres de la Comba, protector and father of all the Vilamortans in want of situations, a useful representative and an untiring worker for the district. If he were alive now most assuredly a young man of so much ability—a poet—that night the party all agreed that Segundo had ability and was a poet—would not be obliged to go across the raging seas in quest of a decent situation. But since they had lost Don Victoriano, Vilamorta was without a voice in the regions of influence and favor, for Señorito de Romero, the present representative of the district, belonged to the class of docile representatives who give no trouble to the Government, who vote when their votes are wanted, and who hold themselves cheap, valuing themselves at no more than a few tobacco shops, and half a dozen or so of officialappointments. Agonde took his revenge that night, expatiating on his favorite theme, and abusing the pernicious Eufrasian influence which was responsible for the decadence of Vilamorta, on account of which its youth were obliged to emigrate to the New World. The apothecary expounded his theories—he liked the representative of a district to show himself in it occasionally. Otherwise of what use was he? In his eyes the ideal representative was that famous politician from whom the barber of the town he represented had asked a place, basing his request on the fact that, owing to the distribution of appointments among the persons of his station in the town, there were no customers left for him to shave and he was starving. The Alcalde here interposed, saying that he had it on very good authority that Señorito de Romero intended to interest himself in earnest for Vilamorta; the confectioner and some others of those present confirmed this statement, and then arose a discussion in which it was proved beyond a doubt that a dead representative has no friends and that the new representative of the district had already, in the very stronghold of the former Combista radicals, friends and adherents.
The Swan has left his native lake, or rather, his pool; he has crossed the Atlantic on the wings of steam. Will he ever return? Will he come back with a sallow countenance, a disordered liver, and some thousands of dollars, in bills of exchange, in his pocketbook, to end his life where it began, as the ship disabled by storms receives its last repairs in the dockyard in which it was built? Will the black vomit, that terrible malady of the Antilles, the scourge of the Iberians who seek to emulate Columbus conquering a new world, attack him on his arrival on the young continent? Will he remain in the tropics, riding in his carriage, united in the bonds of matrimony to some Creole? Will he preside one day over one of those diminutive republics, in which the doctors are generals and the generals doctors? Will his melancholy be cured by the salty kiss of the ocean breeze, by the contact of virgin soil, the sharp spur of necessity, that, pushing him into the conflict, will say to him, "Work"?
History may perhaps at some future day relatethe story of the metamorphosis of the Swan, of his wanderings and his vicissitudes; but years must first elapse, for it was only yesterday, as one might say, that Segundo García quitted Vilamorta, leaving the schoolmistress behind him dissolved in tears. And the story of the schoolmistress is the only episode in the chronicle of the Swan which we can at present bring to an end.
Leocadia was the theme of much gossip in Vilamorta. She was seriously ill, according to some, according to others, ruined, and according to many, touched in her mind. She had been seen haunting the neighborhood of Segundo's house on various nights during the poet's illness; it was affirmed that she had sold her land and that her house was mortgaged to Clodio Genday; but the strangest thing of all, that which was most bitterly censured, was her neglect of her son after having cared for him and watched over him from his infancy, never going to Orense to see him, while old Flores went there constantly, bringing back worse and worse news of the child every time she went—that he was wasting away, that he spit blood, that he was dying of grief, that he would not last a month. Leocadia, as she listened, would let her chin fall upon her breast, and at times her shoulders would move convulsively, as if she were weeping.Otherwise she appeared calm, although she was very silent and had lost her former activity. She helped Flores in the kitchen, attended to the children of the school, swept and dusted—all like an automaton, while Flores, who pitilessly spied out every occasion to find fault with her, took pleasure in crying:
"Woman, you have left this side of the pan dirty—woman, you haven't mended your skirt—woman, what are you thinking about? I am going to Orense to-day and you will have to take care of thepuchero."
At the end of the summer Clodio demanded the interest on his loan and Leocadia was unable to pay it; she was notified accordingly that, after the necessary legal proceedings, the creditor would avail himself of his legal right to take possession of the house. This was a terrible blow for Leocadia.
It will sometimes happen that a prisoner, a distinguished personage, a king, it may be, shut up through an adverse fate within the walls of a dungeon, stripped of his grandeur, deprived of all that once constituted his happiness, will bear his ills for years with resignation, calm in appearance although dejected, but if some day, by the cruel tyranny of his jailors, this prisoner is deprived of some bauble, some trifling object for which he had conceived an affection, the grief pent up within his bosom willburst its bounds, and the wildest manifestations of grief will follow. Something like this happened to Leocadia when she learned that she must abandon forever the beloved little house where she had spent in Segundo's company hours unique in her existence; the little house in which she was mistress, which had been rebuilt with her savings, the little house lately so neat and so attractive, of which she was so proud.
Flores heard her on several nights sobbing loudly, but when on one or two occasions, moved by an involuntary feeling of pity, the old woman went into her room to ask her what ailed her, if she could do anything for her, Leocadia, covering her face with the bedclothes, had answered in a dull voice: "There is nothing the matter with me, woman; let me sleep. You will not even let me sleep!"
During those days her moods varied constantly and she formed a thousand different plans. She talked of going to live in Orense, of giving up the school and taking sewing to do in the house; she talked, too, of accepting the proposal of Clodio Genday, who, having dismissed his young servant, for what reason no one knew, offered to take Leocadia as his housekeeper, by which arrangement she would remain in her house, Flores, of course, being dismissed. None of these plans lasted for more thana very short time, but were all in turn rejected to give place to others no less ephemeral; and while the schoolmistress was thus engaged in forming and rejecting plans the time was fast approaching when she should find herself without a shelter.
One market day Leocadia went to purchase various articles urgently needed by Flores, among others a sieve and a new chocolate-pot, the old one being no longer fit for use. The movement of the crowd, the jostling of the hucksters, and the glare of the autumnal sun made her head, weak from want of sleep, from fasting, and from suffering—slightly dizzy. She stopped before a stall where sieves were sold, a sort of variety booth, where innumerable indispensable trifles were for sale—chocolate-beaters, frying-pans, saucepans, kerosene lamps. In a corner were two articles of merchandise in great request in the place—consisting of pink paper, soft, like brown paper, and some whitish powder, resembling spoiled flour. Leocadia's glance fell on these, and the vender, thinking she wished to buy some, began to extol their properties, explaining that the pink sheets moistened and placed on a plate, would not leave a fly alive in the neighborhood, and that the white powder wasseneca, for killing mice, the manner of using it being to mix it well with cheese and placethe mixture, made into little balls, in their haunts. Leocadia asked the price and told the vender to give her a small quantity, and the woman, to appear generous, took up a good portion on the spatula, wrapped it up in paper, and gave it to her for a trifling sum. The drug indeed was of little value, being very common in that part of the country, where native arsenic abounds in the calcareous spar forming one of the banks of the Avieiro, and arsenic, acid—rat-poison—is sold openly in the fairs, rather than in drug shops. The schoolmistress put away the powder, bought, through complaisance, half a dozen of the pink slips of paper, and on her return home punctually delivered to Flores the articles she had been commissioned to purchase.
Flores noticed that after dinner Leocadia shut herself up in her bedroom, where the old woman could hear her talking aloud as if she were praying. Accustomed to her eccentricities the servant thought nothing about the matter. When she had ended her prayer, the schoolmistress stepped out on the balcony, where she stood gazing for a long time at the flower-pots; she then went into the parlor and looked for a good while also at the sofa, the chairs, the little table, the spots which reminded her of the past. Then she went into the kitchen. Floresdeclared afterward—but in such cases who is there that does not lay claim to a prophetic instinct—that Leocadia's manner on entering had attracted her attention.
"Have you any fresh water?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Give me a glass of it."
Flores affirmed that, as she took the glass, the hand of the schoolmistress trembled, as if she had a chill, and the strangest part of the matter was that, although there was no sugar in the water, Leocadia asked for a spoon, which she put into the glass. An hour, or perhaps an hour and a half passed, when Flores heard Leocadia groan. She hurried to her room and saw her lying on the bed, her face frightfully pale, making desperate and fruitless efforts to vomit. Then a cold perspiration broke out on the forehead of the sick woman, and she remained motionless and speechless. Flores, terrified, ran for Don Fermin, urging him to hurry, saying this was no jesting matter. When Don Fermin arrived out of breath, he asked:
"What is this, Leocadia? What is the matter with you; my dear woman, what is the matter with you?"
Opening her dilated eyes, she murmured:
"Nothing, Don Fermin, nothing."
Standing on the table at the head of the bed was the glass; it contained no water, but the bottom and the sides of the vessel were coated with a white powder which had remained undissolved and which the schoolmistress, not wishing to leave it there, had scraped off in places with the spoon. It is proper to say, on this occasion also, that the illustrious Tropiezo made no mistake in the treatment of so simple a case. Tropiezo had already fought some battles with this common toxic substance and knew its tricks; he had recourse, without a moment's delay, to the use of powerful emetics and of oil. Only the poison, having gained the start of him, had already entered into the circulation and ran through the veins of the schoolmistress, chilling her blood. When the nausea and the vomiting ceased several little red spots—an eruption similar to that of scarlet-fever—made their appearance on Leocadia's pallid face. This symptom lasted until death came to set her sad spirit free and release it from its sufferings, which was toward daybreak. Shortly before her death, during an interval of freedom from pain, Leocadia, making a sign to Flores to come nearer, whispered in her ear: "Promise me—that the child shall not know it—by the soul of your mother—don'ttell him—don't tell him the manner of my death."
A few days later Tropiezo was defending himself to the party at Agonde's who, for the pleasure of making him angry, were accusing him of being responsible for the death of the schoolmistress.
"For one thing, they called me too late, much too late," he said; "when the woman was almost in her death agony. For another, she had taken a quantity of arsenic which was not large enough to produce vomiting, but which was too small to cause merely a colic and be done with it. Where I made the mistake was in waiting so long before sending for the priest. I did it with the best intentions, so as not to frighten her and hoping we might yet pull her through. When extreme unction was administered she had no senses left to know what was going on."
"So that," said Agonde maliciously, "where you are called in, either the soul or the body is sure to meet with a trip."
The company applauded the joke, and there followed funereal jests mingled with expressions of pity. Clodio Genday, the creditor of the deceased, moved about uneasily in his chair. What stupidconversation,canario! Let them talk of more cheerful subjects!
And they talked of very cheerful and satisfactory subjects indeed. Señorito de Romero had promised to put a telegraph-office in Vilamorta; and the newspapers were saying that, owing to the increasing importance of the viticultural interests of the Border, a branch railroad was needed for which the engineers were soon coming to survey the ground.
THE END.
THE ANGLOMANIACS.
A Story of New York Society To-day.
By MRS. BURTON HARRISON.
A Volume, 12mo, on Extra Fine Laid Paper, Dainty Binding, $1.00. Also in "Cassell's Sunshine Series," paper, 50c.
This is the story that has attracted such wide attention while running through theCentury Magazine. There has been no such picture of New York social life painted within the memory of the present generation. The satire is as keen as a rapier point, while the story itself has its marked pathetic side. Never has the subject of Anglomania been so cleverly treated as in these pages, and it is not to be wondered at that society is deeply agitated as to the authorship of a story which touches it in its most vulnerable part.
"This delicious satire from the pungent pen of an anonymous writer must be read to be appreciated. From the introduction on board the Etruria to the final, when the heroine waves adieu to her English Lord, it is life, real, true American life, and we blush at the truth of the picture. There is no line not replete with scathing sarcasm, no character which we have not seen and known.... Read this book and see human nature; ponder upon what is there written, and while it may not make you wise, it certainly will make you think upon what is a great and growing social evil."—Norristown Daily Herald."The heroine is the daughter of an honest money-making old father and an ignorant but ambitious mother, whose money has enabled the mother and daughter to make their way into the circle of the 'Four Hundred.'"—N. Y. Herald.
"This delicious satire from the pungent pen of an anonymous writer must be read to be appreciated. From the introduction on board the Etruria to the final, when the heroine waves adieu to her English Lord, it is life, real, true American life, and we blush at the truth of the picture. There is no line not replete with scathing sarcasm, no character which we have not seen and known.... Read this book and see human nature; ponder upon what is there written, and while it may not make you wise, it certainly will make you think upon what is a great and growing social evil."—Norristown Daily Herald.
"The heroine is the daughter of an honest money-making old father and an ignorant but ambitious mother, whose money has enabled the mother and daughter to make their way into the circle of the 'Four Hundred.'"—N. Y. Herald.
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY,
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LORD HOUGHTON'SLIFE AND LETTERS.THE LIFE, LETTERS, AND FRIENDSHIPS OFRICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, FIRST LORDHOUGHTON. BY T. WEMYSS REID. INTRODUCTIONBY RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
LORD HOUGHTON'SLIFE AND LETTERS.THE LIFE, LETTERS, AND FRIENDSHIPS OFRICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, FIRST LORDHOUGHTON. BY T. WEMYSS REID. INTRODUCTIONBY RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
In two vols., with portraits. Price, $5.00.
"A perfect storehouse of interesting things, grave and gay, political, philosophical, literary, social, witty."—London Times.
"The book of the season, and an enduring literary masterpiece."—The Star, London.
"In this biography, not his acquaintances only, but his friends, are counted by hundreds, and they are found in every country."—The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, in The Speaker.
"A charming book, on almost every page of which there is something to arrest the attention of the intelligent reader."—The Western Daily Press.
"These charming volumes are more interesting than most novels, and fuller of good stories than any jest-book. Every page is full of meat—sweetbread be it understood, and not meat from the joint."—The Spectator, London.
"We can only strongly recommend the reader to get the 'Life and Letters' as soon as he can, and he will thank Mr. Wemyss Reid for having furnished him with the means of passing as many agreeable evenings as it will take him to read through the book."—The New York Herald.
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Transcriber Notes:Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is. Possible misspellings in dialogues are not corrected if there is a chance that the misspellings were deliberate.Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.On page 22, "aquiring" was replaced with "acquiring".On page 23, "induge" was replaced with "indulge".On page 72, "recived" was replaced with "received".On page 84, "decribed" was replaced with "described".On page 99, "Dona" was replaced with "Doña".On page 106, "countrary" was replaced with "contrary".On page 121, "Nunez" was replaced with "Nuñez".On page 127, "outbrust" was replaced with "outburst".On page 129, "volputuous" was replaced with "voluptuous".On page 130, "Gesticulatng" was replaced with "Gesticulating".On page 169, "Vila morta" was replaced with "Vilamorta".On page 181, "aproaching" was replaced with "approaching".On page 187, "tolerate him" was replaced with "to tolerate him".On page 193, "expreses" was replaced with "expresses".On page 200, an extra single quotation mark was deleted.On page 238, "consiousness" was replaced with "consciousness".On page 240, "thought ful" was replaced with "thoughtful".On page 277, "passsages" was replaced with "passages".
Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is. Possible misspellings in dialogues are not corrected if there is a chance that the misspellings were deliberate.
Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.
On page 22, "aquiring" was replaced with "acquiring".
On page 23, "induge" was replaced with "indulge".
On page 72, "recived" was replaced with "received".
On page 84, "decribed" was replaced with "described".
On page 99, "Dona" was replaced with "Doña".
On page 106, "countrary" was replaced with "contrary".
On page 121, "Nunez" was replaced with "Nuñez".
On page 127, "outbrust" was replaced with "outburst".
On page 129, "volputuous" was replaced with "voluptuous".
On page 130, "Gesticulatng" was replaced with "Gesticulating".
On page 169, "Vila morta" was replaced with "Vilamorta".
On page 181, "aproaching" was replaced with "approaching".
On page 187, "tolerate him" was replaced with "to tolerate him".
On page 193, "expreses" was replaced with "expresses".
On page 200, an extra single quotation mark was deleted.
On page 238, "consiousness" was replaced with "consciousness".
On page 240, "thought ful" was replaced with "thoughtful".
On page 277, "passsages" was replaced with "passages".