FIFTH STUDY

What spell or what charm(For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next should I urgeTo sustain him where song had restored him?...Then fancies grew rifeWhich had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheepFed in silence—above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep;And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and the sky:And I laughed—"Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks,Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks,Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the showOf mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know!Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains,And the prudence that keeps what men strive for."And now those old trainsOf vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the stringOf my harp made response to my spirit....So the imagination of the young shepherd boy had not only disregarded the limits of his actual environment and escaped in fancy to the great world beyond, but so vividly had he realized that worldthrough his imaginationthat his sympathies had been made broad to comprehend a monarch's need and his song potent to meet it. Experience alone gives comprehension. We are prone to think that experience is limited by our actual horizon. We need to know that experience has no limit save that which is set by the limit of our imaginative insight. No door of life is closed to the imaginative mind and heart. The world is its playground to wander in at will. Experience, and thorough experience, comprehension of life is at the command ofimagination.Life can be intelligently apprehended on the material plane through trained senses. Life can be vividly realized on the spirit's plane only through a trained imagination. It is only vivid realization of life at every point which makes it worth living. You may see the lark long after he is lost to myduller eye in our common sky, you may hear the song when my less keen ear no longer catches a faintest thread of melody; but unless the eye and ear of your imagination match mine you shall notvividly realizeflight or song, and so I shall follow both long after they are lost to you. Your skylark will pass with the moment of his rapturous song-flight, while mine shall remain forever a spirit of joy to be recalled at will for my spirit's refreshing.Looking then upon imagination as a key to that comprehension of life which clarifies and constitutes its worth, let us eagerly enter upon the cultivation of such power. We have left this question of imaginative development as a definite exercise to a fifth place in our interpretative study, not because it is less vital to effective expression than the first four subjects we have considered, but becausebalanced expressionis our aim, and imagination once given free play may easily impair that harmonious development of all our faculties which makes for balance in expression. Of course there is nophase of the study of interpretation which, when rightly conducted, does not indirectly or directly involve the training of the imagination. On the other hand, training of the imagination wisely conducted may comprehend and carry on development along all other lines of evolution in expression. A sensitive imagination trained and controlled to its highest power of apprehension must make for sympathy and intelligence in thought and feeling, keep humor sane, and give direction to purpose. But imaginative vigor set free to the uses of thought and emotionalreadydisciplined, toconsciouspurpose and togoodhumor, becomes a safe master of expressive living.The material through which we are to exercise the imagination and develop imaginative vigor is the narrative form of discourse. Narration is successful when it records or has the effect of recording actual experience. A story (according to the authority we so often invoke,—Mr. Gardiner), "whether it be as simple as those of the Book of Genesis or as complex as Mr. Jamesor Mr. Meredith, must carry the effect of the concreteness, and, as it were, the solidity of life." The plot, the characters, the setting of a storywhich is to live, must have the vividness of real experience. This does not mean that the creator of the story must have actually experienced the plot, the people, and the pictures which together make up his tale—they may be the product of actual experience or of imagination—but it does mean that while he is putting these elements together and creating his narrative he must realizeas though it were actual experiencethe incident of his plot with the characters and in the atmosphere of his creation. Such realization can only come through vivid imagination.Exactly the same demand is made upon the imagination of the interpreter. When you retell the tale of a master creator of stories your interpretation will be convincing, exactly as was his creation,—through the lucid play of a vivid imagination. You must make me feel that I am in the presence of incidents, characters, pictures which youyourself have experienced. Nay, more, you must make me feel that I myself am actually meeting these people, seeing these pictures, taking part in these incidents, as you relive for mein imaginationat the moment of your interpretation the tale you are retelling to me.SUGGESTIVE ANALYSISWe shall use for suggestive analysis in this study not a complete specimen of narration, but several examples illustrating two of the three elements necessary to the personnel of a good story. These three recognized elements are the setting or situation which the pictures compose, the atmosphere which the characters create, and the plot or the action in which the characters engage. We shall leave the question of the plot to class work upon the selections from epic poetry to be considered later in this study.Suppose we test our imaginations in the analysis of a situation or setting before we attempt a character study. Remember the situation is to be realized through imagination as though it were actual experience. It is to berecreated. Give your imagination full play in this opening chapter of George Eliot'sMill on the Floss. Let us read the first sentence:A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace.Can you see and feel the elements of this picture! You have never experienced a tide river? Never mind! There is enough in the picture whichisfamiliar to your actual senses through experience to brace your imagination for a grasp of the unfamiliar elements. The wide plain, the river hurrying between green banks—no apperceptive background fails thus far in the picture. What do we mean by apperceptive background? Let us investigate for a moment the psychology involved in the art of "making pictures." Let us get back of this word-picture. Rather let us stay this side of it. Look at the page before you not with the inner eye of your imagination, but withthe outer eye—the eye which is merely the organ of the sense of sight. Use your eye as a physical sense only. What does your eye carry to your mind when you look at this page? "Black letters grouped into words on a white surface." Did you get all these qualities at once? Yes, because you have seen other printed pages. Can you wipe out of your mind your knowledge of paper, print, and words? Can you imagine looking on such a page as this for the first time—perceivingit for the first time? If you can do this you will arrive at an understanding of apperceptive background through its elimination. You will realize, that all that is in the back of your mind, stored there by its previous acquaintance with other printed pages, makes up the apperceptive background by which you get a conception of this page. That conception comes first through your physical sense of sight. You may perceive also through touch, through feeling, for instance, the quality of paper. But all that you perceive in this initial process,—the stimulus which comes through the physical senses,yields little to the complete conception as compared with the yield of your so-calledmental senses. It is when you have fully apperceived the object that your conception is complete. It is when you have brought to bear upon this page (still looked upon, remember, merely as a printed page regardless of the matter behind the print) all your previous knowledge,—it is when you have observed that the paper is of good quality, that the page is closely set, that the print is excellent, that the margin is wide,—it is when you have compared it in memory with other pages in other books,—it is when you have not only perceived butapperceived it that you have really gained a conception of it. Of course, if you are a type-setter, or a proof-reader, or a printer, or an editor, or one connected with book-making in any least or last capacity, you will see a printed page quite lost to me, because your apperceptive background will outmatch mine as to paper, print, margin, and type. Good! I yield to you from type-setter to editor! But I challenge you to another contest over thesame page. Match with me now conceptions gained from another view of this same printed matter. Forget now type, paper, margins, and words—yes, forget the words as printed words—look back of them with me. What do you see now on the page? Still words? Look behind them at the pictures! Now, what do you see? "A wide plain, a river, green banks, the sea!" Yes, but I see more than that! And you do, too? "The river flows between green banks?" You have missed a point. How does she flow? Ah, yes, "She hurries on." Where? "To the sea!" Yes! And what meets her? "The tide!" Yes, the loving tide meets her! But how? "Rushing, he checks her passage in an impetuous embrace!" "Youseeall this!" you say. Yes, but do you hear it, smell it, taste it, feel it? Are you, too, caught up in that impetuous embrace? No? Ah, then your imagination is only half awake. No, it is not a question of background or actual experience now. There are enough familiar elements, as I have said before, to rouse your senses tovividly realizethe picture as awhole if you will not shut the door to such realization—that door is your imagination. Open it! Open it! Now I shall close the book and ask the class to do likewise, while you read once moreto usthese first sentences, paint for us this picture. Yes, now you are using your imagination to stimulate my senses and awake my imagination, but you must take heed. You must let me enjoy this picture as a whole. You must let me see, feel, taste, smell, all "in the same breath." Remember it is a picture. Don't disregard its perspective. Let all the elements rest in proper relation one to another and to the whole—as George Eliot placed them when she made the setting. The atmosphere is on the whole full of peace. The river "hurries,"butthe "plain is wide"; the tide "rushes," but it is a "lovingtide," even though its embrace be "impetuous." Try it once more! Is there not the joy of creation in such interpretation? Let us read on! You read to us still.On this mighty tide the black ships—laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with roundedsacks of oil-bearing seed, or with dark glitter of coal—are borne along to the town of St. Ogg's, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures and the patches of dark earth, made ready for the seed of broad-leaved, green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of the last year's golden clusters of beehive ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees: the distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark, changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is dear and loving. I remember these large, dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge.And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at—perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above.The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. They are like a grand curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered wagon coming home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will not touch it till he has fed his horses—the strong, submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that awful manner, as if they needed that hint! See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near home! Look at their grand shaggy feet, that seem to grasp the firm earth, at the patient strength oftheir neck, bowed under the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their struggling haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their hardly earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at a swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at the turning behind the trees.Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watch the unresting wheel sending out its diamond jets of water. That little girl is watching it too: she has been standing on just the same spot at the edge of the water ever since I paused on the bridge. And that queer white cur with the brown ear seems to be leaping and barking in ineffectual remonstrance with the wheel; perhaps he is jealous, because his playfellow in the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. It is time the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very bright fire to tempt her: the red light shines out under the deepening gray of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arms on the cold stone of this bridge.Ah, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the arms of my chair and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years ago. Before I dozed off, I was going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver were talking about as they satby the bright fire in the left-hand parlor on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of.If, in your interpretation of this passage, a sensitive imagination free, but controlled by vital thought and intelligent feeling, has found in trained instruments a lucid channel for expression, then, at the close of your reading,we, your auditors, shall find our arms really benumbed from pressing our elbows on the arms of our chairs as we dream with you that we are standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill—the Mill on the Floss, which we find on awakening is but the title and setting of a great author's great story.We turn now to the second element of Narration—thecharacters. The setting we have just analyzed has introduced us to the main characters of a great story. Our interest is already awake to the little girl who has been watching with us the unresting wheel of the mill. Why not take Maggie Tulliver for our character study? To follow Maggie but a little way is to find Tom. This is well for us, because we need to studyboth types. Let us read from the chapter called "Tom Comes Home" in the life of the boy and girl.TOM COMES HOMETom was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late enough for the sound of the gig-wheels to be expected; for if Mrs. Tulliver had a strong feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound came—that quick light bowling of the gig-wheels—and in spite of the wind, which was blowing the clouds about, and was not likely to respect Mrs. Tulliver's curls and cap-strings, she came outside the door, and even held her hand on Maggie's offending head, forgetting all the griefs of the morning."There he is, my sweet lad! But Lord ha' mercy! he's got never a collar on; it's been lost on the road, I'll be bound, and spoiled the set."Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg and then on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said, with masculine reticence as to the tender emotions, "Hallo! Yap—what! are you there?"Nevertheless, he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray eyes wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thingto-morrow morning. He was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England and at twelve or thirteen years of age look as much alike as goslings—a lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips, indeterminate nose and eyebrows—a physiognomy in which it seems impossible to discern anything but the generic character of boyhood; as different as possible from poor Maggie's phiz, which Nature seemed to have molded and colored with the most decided intention. But that same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features."Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner as soon as his mother was gone out to examine his box, and the warm parlor had taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, "you don't know what I've got inmypockets," nodding his head up and down as a means of rousing her sense of mystery."No," said Maggie. "How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marls (marbles) or cobnuts?"Maggie's heart sank a little, because Tom always said it was "no good" playing withherat those games—she played so badly."Marls! no; I've swopped all my marls with the little fellows, and cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts are green. But see here!" He drew something half out of his right-hand pocket."What is it?" said Maggie, in a whisper. "I can see nothing but a bit of yellow.""Why, it's ... a ... new ... guess, Maggie.""Oh, Ican'tguess, Tom," said Maggie, impatiently."Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrusting his hand back into his pocket and looking determined."No, Tom," said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that was held stiffly in the pocket. "I'm not cross, Tom; it was only because I can't bear guessing.Pleasebe good to me."Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, "Well, then, it's a new fish-line—two new uns—one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I wouldn't go halves in the toffee and ginger-bread on purpose to save the money; Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn't. And here's hooks—see here! I say,won'twe go and fish to-morrow down by Round Pool? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie, and put the worms on, and everything—won't it be fun?"Maggie's answer was to throw her arms around Tom's neck and hug him, and hold hercheek against his without speaking, while he slowly unwound some line, saying, after a pause:"Wasn't I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? You know, I needn't have bought it if I hadn't liked.""Yes, very, very good. Idolove you, Tom."Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks one by one, before he spoke again."And the fellows fought me because I wouldn't give in about the toffee.""Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it hurt you?""Hurt me? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added:"I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know—that's what he got by wanting to leatherme; I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me.""Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him—wouldn't you, Tom?""How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions only in the shows.""No; but if we were in the lion countries—I mean, in Africa, where it's very hot—the lions eat people there. I can show it to you in the book where I read it.""Well, I should get a gun and shoot him.""But if you hadn't got a gun—we might have gone out, you know, not thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run toward us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What should you do, Tom?"Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying: "But the lionisn'tcoming. What's the use of talking?""But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him. "Just think what you would do, Tom?""Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly—I shall go and see my rabbits."Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once his sorrow and anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all things—it was quite a different anger from her own."Tom," she said, timidly, when they were out-of-doors, "how much money did you give for your rabbits?""Two half-crowns and a sixpence," said Tom, promptly."I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse up-stairs. I'll ask mother to give it you.""What for?" said Tom. "I don't wantyourmoney, you silly thing. I've got a great deal more money than you, because I'm a boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sovereigns formy Christmas boxes, because I shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you're only a girl.""Well, but, Tom—if mother would let me give you two half-crowns and a sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket to spend, you know, and buy some more rabbits with it?""More rabbits? I don't want any more.""Oh, but, Tom, they're all dead."Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round toward Maggie. "You forgot to feed 'em, then, and Harry forgot?" he said, his color heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. "I'll pitch into Harry—I'll have him turned away. And I don't love you, Maggie. You sha'n't go fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits every day." He walked on again."Yes. But I forgot—and I couldn't help it, indeed, Tom. I'm so very sorry," said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast."You're a naughty girl," said Tom, severely, "and I'm sorry I bought you the fish-line. I don't love you.""Oh, Tom, it's very cruel," sobbed Maggie. "I'd forgive you ifyouforgot anything—I wouldn't mind what you did—I'd forgive you and love you.""Yes, you're a silly; but I neverdoforget things—Idon't.""Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break," said Maggie, shaking with sobs, clingingto Tom's arm, and laying her wet cheek on his shoulder.Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremptory tone: "Now, Maggie, you just listen. Aren't I a good brother to you?""Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling convulsively."Didn't I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and mean to buy it, and saved my money o' purpose, and wouldn't go halves in the toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn't?""Ye-ye-es ... and I ... lo-lo-love you so, Tom.""But you're a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge-box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my fish-line down when I set you to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite, all for nothing.""But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it.""Yes, you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing. And you're a naughty girl, and you sha'n't go fishing with me to-morrow."With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain to him of Harry.Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a minute or two; then she turned round and ran into the house, and up to her attic, where she sat on the floor, and laid her head againstthe worm-eaten shelf, with a crushing sense of misery. Tom was come home, and she had thought how happy she should be—and now he was cruel to her. What use was anything, if Tom didn't love her? Oh, he was very cruel! Hadn't she wanted to give him the money, and said how very sorry she was? She knew she was naughty to her mother, but she had never been naughty to Tom—had nevermeantto be naughty to him."Oh, he is cruel!" Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched pleasure in the hollow resonance that came through the long empty space of the attic. She never thought of beating or grinding her Fetish; she was too miserable to be angry.These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.This text furnishes an easier exercise in interpretation, does it not? It does not require a great stretch of imagination to slip back five, ten, a dozen years to play with these children. But I cannot let youplaywith them. We want to meet and know them. The task for your imagination is not so simple as you think. It is called upon toengage in character interpretation. You cannot be allowed to merely watch Maggie and Tom play, or even to play with them. You must use your imagination to get inside the minds, hearts, souls of this boy and girl and reveal them to us. You must relive this scene for us, becoming first Maggie and then Tom. This exercise of your imagination belongs in its final and complete stage to the next and last of our studies, and to work on the drama; so we shall not demand too much of you along this line here, and I shall confine my suggestive analysis of the text to the following questions:Define the relation existing between this brother and sister indicated by this scene.Is this scene typical of their relation?Is it a relation likely to obtain throughout their lives? Why?Define the dispositions of these two children by applying to each three adjectives.Will Maggie or Tom make the sacrifices inevitable to such a relation?Characterize as to inflection and tone-color Maggie's voice and Tom's. (If your use of this book has been intelligently directed you have already made a study of these two elements of a vocal vocabulary—inflectionandtone-color.)Answer these questions and re-read the scene.SELECTIONS FOR INTERPRETATIONThe following selections were chosen for this study with a double concern in the choice,—concern for the development of imaginative vigor in vocal interpretation; concern for the development of a sense of plot in narrative composition. The demand upon the interpreter of any of these poems, for sensitive progressive play of imagination, in carrying an auditor through a series of events up to a critical issue, cannot fail to develop, with imaginative vigor, a new sensitiveness of creative instinct to the third element in narrative,—action.Your imagination given free play can no more carry the "good news" from Ghent to Aix on this wild ride, and in the feat fail to outgrow all its former dimensions, than could the heart of Roland's master remain untouched in actually performing the feat itself.HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX[9]II sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,And into the midnight we galloped abreast.IINot a word to each other; we kept the great paceNeck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit,Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.III'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew nearLokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;At Duffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be;And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half chime,So Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"IVAt Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,And against him the cattle stood black every one,To stare through the mist at us galloping past;And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,With resolute shoulders, each butting awayThe haze, as some bluff river headland its spray;VAnd his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent backFor my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;And one eye's black intelligence,—ever that glanceO'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anonHis fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.VIBy Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,We'll remember at Aix"—for one heard the quick wheezeOf her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.VIISo we were left galloping, Joris and I,Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!VIIIHow they'll greet us!"—and all in a moment his roanRolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;And there was my Roland to bear the whole weightOf the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.IXThen I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall,Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.XAnd all I remember is, friends flocking roundAs I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.—Browning.LOCHINVAROh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west,Through all the wide border his steed was the best;And save his good broadsword he weapon had none,He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.He stayed not for brake and he stopped not for stone,He swam the Esk river where ford there was none;But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,The bride had consented, the gallant came late:For a laggard in love and a dastard in warWas to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,'Mong bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all;Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,—"Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?""I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied;Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide;And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by farThat would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."The bride kissed the goblet, the knight took it up;He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup;She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,With a smile on her lip, and a tear in her eye.He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,—"Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.So stately his form, and so lovely her face,That never a hall such a galliard did grace;While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume,And the bride-maidens whispered, "'Twere better by farTo have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar!"One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,When they reached the hall door, where the charger stood near;So light to the croup the fair lady he swung,So light to the saddle before her he sprung!"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;They'll have fleet steeds that follow!" quoth young Lochinvar.There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan:—Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lea,—But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?—Walter Scott.KING VOLMER AND ELSIEAfter the Danish of Christian WinterWhere, over heathen doom-rings and gray stones of the Horg,In its little Christian city stands the church of Vordingborg,In merry mood King Volmer sat, forgetful of his power,As idle as the Goose of Gold that brooded on his tower.Out spake the king to Henrik, his young and faithful squire:"Dar'st trust thy little Elsie, the maid of thy desire?""Of all the men in Denmark she loveth only me:As true to me is Elsie as thy Lily is to thee."Loud laughed the king: "To-morrow shall bring another day,When I myself will test her; she will not say me nay."Thereat the lords and gallants, that round about him stood,Wagged all their heads in concert and smiled as courtiers should.The gray lark sings o'er Vordingborg, and on the ancient townFrom the tall tower of Valdemar the Golden Goose looks down:The yellow grain is waving in the pleasant wind of morn,The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare of hunter's horn.In the garden of her father little Elsie sits and spins,And, singing with the early birds, her daily task begins.Gay tulips bloom and sweet mint curls around her garden-bower,But she is sweeter than the mint and fairer than the flower.About her form her kirtle blue clings lovingly, and, whiteAs snow, her loose sleeves only leave her small, round wrists in sight;Below the modest petticoat can only half concealThe motion of the lightest foot that ever turned a wheel.The cat sits purring at her side, bees hum in sunshine warm;But, look! she starts, she lifts her face, she shades it with her arm.And, hark! a train of horsemen, with sound of dog and horn,Come leaping o'er the ditches, come trampling down the corn!Merrily rang the bridle-reins, and scarf and plume streamed gay,As fast beside her father's gate the riders held their way;And one was brave in scarlet cloak, with golden spur on heel,And, as he checked his foaming steed, the maiden checked her wheel."All hail among thy roses, the fairest rose to me!For weary months in secret my heart has longed for thee!"What noble knight was this? What words for modest maiden's ear?She dropped a lowly courtesy of bashfulness and fear.She lifted up her spinning-wheel; she fain would seek the door,Trembling in every limb, her cheek with blushes crimsoned o'er."Nay, fear me not," the rider said, "I offer heart and hand,Bear witness these good Danish knights who round about me stand.I grant you time to think of this, to answer as you may,For to-morrow, little Elsie, shall bring another day."He spake the old phrase slyly as, glancing round his train,He saw his merry followers seek to hide their smiles in vain."The snow of pearls I'll scatter in your curls of golden hair,I'll line with furs the velvet of the kirtle that you wear;All precious gems shall twine your neck; and in a chariot gayYou shall ride, my little Elsie, behind four steeds of gray.And harps shall sound, and flutes shall play, and brazen lamps shall glow;On marble floors your feet shall weave the dances to and fro;At frosty eventide for us the blazing hearth shall shine,While, at our ease, we play at draughts, and drink the blood-red wine."Then Elsie raised her head and met her wooer face to face;A roguish smile shone in her eye and on her lip found place.Back from her low white forehead the curls of gold she threw,And lifted up her eyes to his, steady and clear and blue."I am a lowly peasant, and you a gallant knight;I will not trust a love that soon may cool and turn to slight.If you would wed me henceforth be a peasant, not a lord;I bid you hang upon the wall your tried and trusty sword.""To please you, Elsie, I will lay keen Dynadel away,And in its place will swing the scythe and mow your father's hay.""Nay, but your gallant scarlet cloak my eyes can never bear;A Vadmal coat, so plain and gray, is all that you must wear.""Well, Vadmal will I wear for you," the rider gaily spoke,"And on the Lord's high altar I'll lay my scarlet cloak.""But mark," she said, "no stately horse my peasant love must ride,A yoke of steers before the plow is all that he must guide."The knight looked down upon his steed: "Well, let him wander free,—No other man must ride the horse that has been backed by me.Henceforth I'll tread the furrow and to my oxen talk,If only little Elsie beside my plow will walk.""You must take from out your cellar cask of wine and flask and can;The homely mead I brew you may serve a peasant-man.""Most willingly, fair Elsie, I'll drink that mead of thine,And leave my minstrel's thirsty throat to drain my generous wine.""Now break your shield asunder, and shatter sign and boss,Unmeet for peasant-wedded arms, your knightly knee across.And pull me down your castle from top to basement wall,And let your plow trace furrows in the ruins of your hall!"Then smiled he with a lofty pride: right well at last he knewThe maiden of the spinning-wheel was to her troth-plight true."Ah, roguish little Elsie! you act your part full well:You know that I must bear my shield and in my castle dwell!The lions ramping on that shield between the hearts aflameKeep watch o'er Denmark's honor, and guard her ancient name.For know that I am Volmer; I dwell in yonder towers,Who plows them plows up Denmark, this goodly home of ours!I tempt no more, fair Elsie! your heart I know is true;Would God that all our maidens were good and pure as you!Well have you pleased your monarch, and he shall well repay:God's peace! Farewell! To-morrow will bring another day!"He lifted up his bridle hand, he spurred his good steed then,And like a whirl-blast swept away with all his gallant men.The steel hoofs beat the rocky path; again on winds of mornThe wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare of hunter's horn."Thou true and ever faithful!" the listening Henrik cried:And, leaping o'er the green hedge, he stood by Elsie's side.None saw the fond embracing, save, shining from afar,The Golden Goose that watched them from the tower of Valdemar.O darling girls of Denmark! of all the flowers that throngHer vales of spring the fairest, I sing for you my song.No praise as yours so bravely rewards the singer's skill;Thank God! of maids like Elsie the land has plenty still!—Whittier.HERVÉ RIEL[10]IOn the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,Did the English fight the French—woe to France!And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue,Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,With the English fleet in view.II'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase;First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville:Close on him fled, great and small,Twenty-two good ships in all;And they signaled to the place,'Help the winners of a race!Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick—or, quicker still,Here's the English can and will!'IIIThen the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board;'Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?' laughed they:'Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,Shall theFormidablehere with her twelve and eighty gunsThink to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,And with flow at full beside?Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide.Reach the mooring? Rather say,While rock stands or water runs,Not a ship will leave the bay!IVThen was called a council straight.Brief and bitter the debate:'Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in towAll that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,For a prize to Plymouth Sound?Better run the ships aground!'(Ended Damfreville his speech).Not a minute more to wait!'Let the captains all and eachShove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!France must undergo her fate.VGive the word!' But no such wordWas ever spoke or heard;For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these—A captain? A lieutenant? A mate—first, second, third?No such man of mark, and meetWith his betters to compete!But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for the fleet,A poor coasting-pilot he, Hervé Riel the Croisickese.VIAnd, 'What mockery or malice have we here?' cries Hervé Riel:'Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues?Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tellOn my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell'Twixt the offing here and Grève, where the river disembogues?Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for?Morn and eve, night and day,Have I piloted your bay,Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues!Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's a way!Only let me lead the line,Have the biggest ship to steer,Get thisFormidableclear,Make the others follow mine,And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well,Right to Solidor past Grève,And there lay them safe and sound;And if one ship misbehave,Keel so much as grate the ground,Why, I've nothing but my life—here's my head!' cries Hervé Riel.VIINot a minute more to wait.'Steer us in, then, small and great!Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!' cried its chief.Captains, give the sailor place!He is Admiral in brief.Still the north wind, by God's grace!See the noble fellow's faceAs the big ship, with a bound,Clears the entry like a hound,Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's profound!See, safe thro' shoal and rock,How they follow in a flock,Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground,Not a spar that comes to grief!The peril, see, is past,All are harbored, to the last,And just as Hervé Riel hollas 'Anchor!'—sure as fateUp the English come, too late!VIIISo, the storm subsides to calm:They see the green trees waveOn the heights o'erlooking Grève.Hearts that bled are stanched with balm,'Just our rapture to enhance,Let the English rake the bay,Gnash their teeth and glare askanceAs they cannonade away!'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!'How hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance!Out burst all with one accord,'This is Paradise for Hell!Let France, let France's King,Thank the man that did the thing!'What a shout, and all one word,'Hervé Riel!'As he stepped in front once more,Not a symptom of surpriseIn the frank blue Breton eyes,Just the same man as before.IXThen said Damfreville, 'My friend,I must speak out at the end,Though I find the speaking hard.Praise is deeper than the lips;You have saved the King his ships,You must name your own reward.Faith our sun was near eclipse!Demand whate'er you will,France remains your debtor still.Ask to heart's content and have! or my name's not Damfreville.'XThen a beam of fun outbrokeOn the bearded mouth that spoke,As the honest heart laughed throughThose frank eyes of Breton blue:'Since I needs must say my say,Since on board the duty's done,And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but a run?—Since 'tis ask and have, I may—Since the others go ashore—Come! A good whole holiday!Leave to go, and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!'That he asked and that he got—nothing more.XIName and deed alike are lost:Not a pillar nor a postIn his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell;Not a head in white and blackOn a single fishing smack,In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrackAll that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell.Go to Paris: rank on rankSearch the heroes flung pell-mellOn the Louvre, face and flank!You shall look long enough ere you come to Hervé Riel.So, for better and for worse,Hervé Riel, accept my verse!In my verse, Hervé Riel, do thou once moreSave the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the Bell Aurore!Your imagination can no more follow the flight of theFormidable, steered by Hervé Riel, with the French fleet close following her guidance and "the English at her heels"past the rocks and shoals of Grève to safe harbor at Solidor, and remain creatively unsensitive to the pulse of progressive action, than could the actual rescue of his country's squadron leave unmoved toward the "man who did the deed" the heart of her Captain Damfreville.And when your imagination has not only carried you through such adventure, but stimulatedmyimagination to like activity, there is no limit to be set to the development which may result for us both.Suggestive analysis can be of little help at this point, the work must be done in the class-room under direction.To such stimulating exercise in the vocal interpretation of these poems of action, I leave you and your imagination. I shall hope to find difficulty in recognizing either of you at our next meeting. Like Mr. Rhoades's[11]pupil when he emerged from the Ninth book ofParadise Lost, you ought to have "outgrown all your present intellectual clothes" in the study of these stories in verse.As further material for this study there is no better choice to be made than Tennyson's great quasi-epic,The Idylls of the King, from which but for lack of space we should have printed selections. The following suggestions for work in composition at this point are based on theIdylls.Describe in your own words Camelot.Write an imaginary scene between Gareth and his mother.Tell the story of Elaine.Make the Holy Grail into the form of a miracle play.FIFTH STUDYTO DEVELOP DRAMATIC INSTINCTOur final study in interpretation has for its concern the development of dramatic instinct. The work just finished should have left no doubt in your mind as to the nature or value of this final step in the training, since it has anticipated both. Development of imaginative vigor should arouse a latent dramatic instinct and release histrionic power. The choice of place in these studies for this phase of the training was made to insure cumulative evolution resulting in balanced expression. As imagination needs to safeguard her freedom with sympathetic thought and intelligent emotion, so dramatic instinct needs the guidance of a vigorous but trained imagination. Dramatic instinct so directed should achieve skill ininterpreting drama and lead to distinction in the art of acting. The immediate evolution should be a clarified vision of life. Your final attainment from this theory should be distinction in the art of living.With dramatic instinct capable of such achievement, let us proceed to exercise it in the material chosen for this study,—dramatic literature. The natural transition from story to play, from narrative to drama, is by way of the monologue. Some discussion with suggestive analysis of this form is necessary in order to impress upon you the difference between suggestive impersonation and actual impersonation or characterization, leading to a clear understanding of the difference between reading a play and acting in one; but the final evolution of interpretative power must come through acted drama,—through taking part in a play.The dictionary in defining the monologue authorizes three forms: (1) when the actor tells a continuous story in which he is the chief character, referring to the others as absent; (2) when he assumes the voice ormanner of several characters successively; (3) more recently, when he implies that the others are present, leading the audience to imagine what they say by his replies. Browning created this more recent form, which is the most vital of the three. I have chosen for your study of the monologue examples from Browning alone. To interpret effectively any one of the Browning monologues will call into play every element of power in voice and expression which you have gained in your study of previous forms. You must think vividly, feel intelligently, realize and suggest an atmosphere, sustain a situation, and keep the beauty of the poetic form. And you must do all thisin the person of another. The new demand which the monologue makes is impersonation. Let us see just what we mean by impersonation. It is the art of identifying one's self with the character to be portrayed. It is the art of losing one's self in the character and the situation the dramatist has created. This means that the spirit of the character must take possession of the impersonator, and inform his every thought and feeling, and so his every motion and tone. Remember, it is thespiritof the character that must determine the nature of the tone and gesture. The great danger in entering upon the study of impersonation lies in emphasizing the outward manifestation instead of the inward spirit of the character to be portrayed. If you really sense the soul, mind, heart quality of the character you are to present, and have made your voice and body free agents for the manifestation of those qualities, your impersonation will be convincing. If the spirit of thePatriotorAndrea del SartoorFra Lippo LippiorPompiliaorCaponsacchiorGuidoobsesses you, the outward manifestation will take care of itself—always provided your instruments are responsive. Don't begin with the outward manifestation. Don't say I think this man would frown a great deal, or fold his arms over his breast, or use an eyeglass, or strut, or stoop, or do any one of a hundred things which, if repeated a half-dozen times during an impersonation, may become a mannerism and get betweenthe audience and the spirit of the character. When you are studying a character for the purpose of impersonation determine first to what type it belongs. Then study that type, wherever you are. Daily life becomes your teacher and studio. When you enter upon this art there are no longer dull moments in railroad stations or trains, in shops or in the social whirl. Everywhere and always you are the student seeking to know and understand types of people better, that you may use your knowledge in presenting to an audience an individual. When you have caught the spirit of the individual you must realize the situation out of which this particular individual speaks.Let us make a special study of theTale(Browning's epilogue toThe Two Poets of Croisic). It is perhaps the most exquisite of the poet's creations in this field. The situation reveals a young girl recalling to her poet lover an old Greek tale he had once told her. There is a suggestion from some critics that Browning has drawn his wife in this portrait, and through it pays his tribute to her.This immediately affords us a clue to the type of character to which the speaker belongs. We cannot hope (nor do we wish) to impersonate Mrs. Browning, but a knowledge of Mrs. Browning and her relation to her poet lover, gained through a study of herLetters and Sonnets, will lead us more quickly to a comprehension of the speaker and situation in theTale.Obsessed by the spirit of the character and fully realizing the situation, our next step is,in imagination, to set the stage. This is an important point in presenting a monologue. The impersonator must have a clear idea of his position on his imaginary stage relative to his imaginary interlocutor. But he must remember thatimaginarystage-setting admits of only delicately suggestive use. This is true of the handling of a monologue at every point. It must be suggestive. The actor carries to completion the action which the monologuist suggests. The art of interpreting a monologue depends upon the discrimination of the impersonator in drawing his line between suggestion and actualizationin gesture. The business of the monologuist is to make an appeal to the imagination of the audience so vivid that the imagination of the audience can actualize the suggestion. And the illusion is complete. What are the relative positions of the girl and her lover in theTale? There is nothing in the lines to make our choice arbitrary. It is only important that we determine a relation and keep it consistently throughout the reading. Here is a possible "setting." They are in the poet's study; he is working at his desk; she is sitting in a great chair before the fire, a book in her hand, which she does not read; she is gazing into the flames. She begins dreamily, more to herself than to him—"What a pretty tale you told me." At what point does her tone lose its reflective quality and become more personal? Where does she turn to him? How do we know that he leaves his chair and comes over to sit on the arm of her chair? What calls him to her? What two qualities of feeling run through her mood and determine the color of her tone and the character of her movements. If your study of Mrs. Browning has been intelligent, this interplay of the whimsical and serious in her nature cannot have escaped you, and it will illumine now your impersonation of this girl. It is the secret of the peculiar charm of this creation. The story she tells is an old and well-known one. It is the manner of the telling through which we come in touch with an exquisite woman's soul that holds us spellbound. Unless the interpreter catches this secret and reveals it to his audience, he will miss the distinctive feature of the monologue and reduce it to a narrative poem.

What spell or what charm(For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next should I urgeTo sustain him where song had restored him?...Then fancies grew rifeWhich had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheepFed in silence—above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep;And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and the sky:And I laughed—"Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks,Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks,Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the showOf mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know!Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains,And the prudence that keeps what men strive for."And now those old trainsOf vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the stringOf my harp made response to my spirit....

What spell or what charm(For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next should I urgeTo sustain him where song had restored him?...Then fancies grew rifeWhich had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheepFed in silence—above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep;And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and the sky:And I laughed—"Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks,Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks,Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the showOf mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know!Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains,And the prudence that keeps what men strive for."And now those old trainsOf vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the stringOf my harp made response to my spirit....

So the imagination of the young shepherd boy had not only disregarded the limits of his actual environment and escaped in fancy to the great world beyond, but so vividly had he realized that worldthrough his imaginationthat his sympathies had been made broad to comprehend a monarch's need and his song potent to meet it. Experience alone gives comprehension. We are prone to think that experience is limited by our actual horizon. We need to know that experience has no limit save that which is set by the limit of our imaginative insight. No door of life is closed to the imaginative mind and heart. The world is its playground to wander in at will. Experience, and thorough experience, comprehension of life is at the command ofimagination.

Life can be intelligently apprehended on the material plane through trained senses. Life can be vividly realized on the spirit's plane only through a trained imagination. It is only vivid realization of life at every point which makes it worth living. You may see the lark long after he is lost to myduller eye in our common sky, you may hear the song when my less keen ear no longer catches a faintest thread of melody; but unless the eye and ear of your imagination match mine you shall notvividly realizeflight or song, and so I shall follow both long after they are lost to you. Your skylark will pass with the moment of his rapturous song-flight, while mine shall remain forever a spirit of joy to be recalled at will for my spirit's refreshing.

Looking then upon imagination as a key to that comprehension of life which clarifies and constitutes its worth, let us eagerly enter upon the cultivation of such power. We have left this question of imaginative development as a definite exercise to a fifth place in our interpretative study, not because it is less vital to effective expression than the first four subjects we have considered, but becausebalanced expressionis our aim, and imagination once given free play may easily impair that harmonious development of all our faculties which makes for balance in expression. Of course there is nophase of the study of interpretation which, when rightly conducted, does not indirectly or directly involve the training of the imagination. On the other hand, training of the imagination wisely conducted may comprehend and carry on development along all other lines of evolution in expression. A sensitive imagination trained and controlled to its highest power of apprehension must make for sympathy and intelligence in thought and feeling, keep humor sane, and give direction to purpose. But imaginative vigor set free to the uses of thought and emotionalreadydisciplined, toconsciouspurpose and togoodhumor, becomes a safe master of expressive living.

The material through which we are to exercise the imagination and develop imaginative vigor is the narrative form of discourse. Narration is successful when it records or has the effect of recording actual experience. A story (according to the authority we so often invoke,—Mr. Gardiner), "whether it be as simple as those of the Book of Genesis or as complex as Mr. Jamesor Mr. Meredith, must carry the effect of the concreteness, and, as it were, the solidity of life." The plot, the characters, the setting of a storywhich is to live, must have the vividness of real experience. This does not mean that the creator of the story must have actually experienced the plot, the people, and the pictures which together make up his tale—they may be the product of actual experience or of imagination—but it does mean that while he is putting these elements together and creating his narrative he must realizeas though it were actual experiencethe incident of his plot with the characters and in the atmosphere of his creation. Such realization can only come through vivid imagination.

Exactly the same demand is made upon the imagination of the interpreter. When you retell the tale of a master creator of stories your interpretation will be convincing, exactly as was his creation,—through the lucid play of a vivid imagination. You must make me feel that I am in the presence of incidents, characters, pictures which youyourself have experienced. Nay, more, you must make me feel that I myself am actually meeting these people, seeing these pictures, taking part in these incidents, as you relive for mein imaginationat the moment of your interpretation the tale you are retelling to me.

We shall use for suggestive analysis in this study not a complete specimen of narration, but several examples illustrating two of the three elements necessary to the personnel of a good story. These three recognized elements are the setting or situation which the pictures compose, the atmosphere which the characters create, and the plot or the action in which the characters engage. We shall leave the question of the plot to class work upon the selections from epic poetry to be considered later in this study.

Suppose we test our imaginations in the analysis of a situation or setting before we attempt a character study. Remember the situation is to be realized through imagination as though it were actual experience. It is to berecreated. Give your imagination full play in this opening chapter of George Eliot'sMill on the Floss. Let us read the first sentence:

A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace.

A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace.

Can you see and feel the elements of this picture! You have never experienced a tide river? Never mind! There is enough in the picture whichisfamiliar to your actual senses through experience to brace your imagination for a grasp of the unfamiliar elements. The wide plain, the river hurrying between green banks—no apperceptive background fails thus far in the picture. What do we mean by apperceptive background? Let us investigate for a moment the psychology involved in the art of "making pictures." Let us get back of this word-picture. Rather let us stay this side of it. Look at the page before you not with the inner eye of your imagination, but withthe outer eye—the eye which is merely the organ of the sense of sight. Use your eye as a physical sense only. What does your eye carry to your mind when you look at this page? "Black letters grouped into words on a white surface." Did you get all these qualities at once? Yes, because you have seen other printed pages. Can you wipe out of your mind your knowledge of paper, print, and words? Can you imagine looking on such a page as this for the first time—perceivingit for the first time? If you can do this you will arrive at an understanding of apperceptive background through its elimination. You will realize, that all that is in the back of your mind, stored there by its previous acquaintance with other printed pages, makes up the apperceptive background by which you get a conception of this page. That conception comes first through your physical sense of sight. You may perceive also through touch, through feeling, for instance, the quality of paper. But all that you perceive in this initial process,—the stimulus which comes through the physical senses,yields little to the complete conception as compared with the yield of your so-calledmental senses. It is when you have fully apperceived the object that your conception is complete. It is when you have brought to bear upon this page (still looked upon, remember, merely as a printed page regardless of the matter behind the print) all your previous knowledge,—it is when you have observed that the paper is of good quality, that the page is closely set, that the print is excellent, that the margin is wide,—it is when you have compared it in memory with other pages in other books,—it is when you have not only perceived butapperceived it that you have really gained a conception of it. Of course, if you are a type-setter, or a proof-reader, or a printer, or an editor, or one connected with book-making in any least or last capacity, you will see a printed page quite lost to me, because your apperceptive background will outmatch mine as to paper, print, margin, and type. Good! I yield to you from type-setter to editor! But I challenge you to another contest over thesame page. Match with me now conceptions gained from another view of this same printed matter. Forget now type, paper, margins, and words—yes, forget the words as printed words—look back of them with me. What do you see now on the page? Still words? Look behind them at the pictures! Now, what do you see? "A wide plain, a river, green banks, the sea!" Yes, but I see more than that! And you do, too? "The river flows between green banks?" You have missed a point. How does she flow? Ah, yes, "She hurries on." Where? "To the sea!" Yes! And what meets her? "The tide!" Yes, the loving tide meets her! But how? "Rushing, he checks her passage in an impetuous embrace!" "Youseeall this!" you say. Yes, but do you hear it, smell it, taste it, feel it? Are you, too, caught up in that impetuous embrace? No? Ah, then your imagination is only half awake. No, it is not a question of background or actual experience now. There are enough familiar elements, as I have said before, to rouse your senses tovividly realizethe picture as awhole if you will not shut the door to such realization—that door is your imagination. Open it! Open it! Now I shall close the book and ask the class to do likewise, while you read once moreto usthese first sentences, paint for us this picture. Yes, now you are using your imagination to stimulate my senses and awake my imagination, but you must take heed. You must let me enjoy this picture as a whole. You must let me see, feel, taste, smell, all "in the same breath." Remember it is a picture. Don't disregard its perspective. Let all the elements rest in proper relation one to another and to the whole—as George Eliot placed them when she made the setting. The atmosphere is on the whole full of peace. The river "hurries,"butthe "plain is wide"; the tide "rushes," but it is a "lovingtide," even though its embrace be "impetuous." Try it once more! Is there not the joy of creation in such interpretation? Let us read on! You read to us still.

On this mighty tide the black ships—laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with roundedsacks of oil-bearing seed, or with dark glitter of coal—are borne along to the town of St. Ogg's, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures and the patches of dark earth, made ready for the seed of broad-leaved, green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of the last year's golden clusters of beehive ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees: the distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark, changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is dear and loving. I remember these large, dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge.And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at—perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above.The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. They are like a grand curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered wagon coming home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will not touch it till he has fed his horses—the strong, submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that awful manner, as if they needed that hint! See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near home! Look at their grand shaggy feet, that seem to grasp the firm earth, at the patient strength oftheir neck, bowed under the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their struggling haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their hardly earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at a swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at the turning behind the trees.Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watch the unresting wheel sending out its diamond jets of water. That little girl is watching it too: she has been standing on just the same spot at the edge of the water ever since I paused on the bridge. And that queer white cur with the brown ear seems to be leaping and barking in ineffectual remonstrance with the wheel; perhaps he is jealous, because his playfellow in the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. It is time the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very bright fire to tempt her: the red light shines out under the deepening gray of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arms on the cold stone of this bridge.Ah, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the arms of my chair and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years ago. Before I dozed off, I was going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver were talking about as they satby the bright fire in the left-hand parlor on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of.

On this mighty tide the black ships—laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with roundedsacks of oil-bearing seed, or with dark glitter of coal—are borne along to the town of St. Ogg's, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures and the patches of dark earth, made ready for the seed of broad-leaved, green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of the last year's golden clusters of beehive ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees: the distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark, changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is dear and loving. I remember these large, dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge.

And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at—perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above.

The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. They are like a grand curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered wagon coming home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will not touch it till he has fed his horses—the strong, submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that awful manner, as if they needed that hint! See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near home! Look at their grand shaggy feet, that seem to grasp the firm earth, at the patient strength oftheir neck, bowed under the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their struggling haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their hardly earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at a swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at the turning behind the trees.

Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watch the unresting wheel sending out its diamond jets of water. That little girl is watching it too: she has been standing on just the same spot at the edge of the water ever since I paused on the bridge. And that queer white cur with the brown ear seems to be leaping and barking in ineffectual remonstrance with the wheel; perhaps he is jealous, because his playfellow in the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. It is time the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very bright fire to tempt her: the red light shines out under the deepening gray of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arms on the cold stone of this bridge.

Ah, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the arms of my chair and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years ago. Before I dozed off, I was going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver were talking about as they satby the bright fire in the left-hand parlor on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of.

If, in your interpretation of this passage, a sensitive imagination free, but controlled by vital thought and intelligent feeling, has found in trained instruments a lucid channel for expression, then, at the close of your reading,we, your auditors, shall find our arms really benumbed from pressing our elbows on the arms of our chairs as we dream with you that we are standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill—the Mill on the Floss, which we find on awakening is but the title and setting of a great author's great story.

We turn now to the second element of Narration—thecharacters. The setting we have just analyzed has introduced us to the main characters of a great story. Our interest is already awake to the little girl who has been watching with us the unresting wheel of the mill. Why not take Maggie Tulliver for our character study? To follow Maggie but a little way is to find Tom. This is well for us, because we need to studyboth types. Let us read from the chapter called "Tom Comes Home" in the life of the boy and girl.

TOM COMES HOMETom was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late enough for the sound of the gig-wheels to be expected; for if Mrs. Tulliver had a strong feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound came—that quick light bowling of the gig-wheels—and in spite of the wind, which was blowing the clouds about, and was not likely to respect Mrs. Tulliver's curls and cap-strings, she came outside the door, and even held her hand on Maggie's offending head, forgetting all the griefs of the morning."There he is, my sweet lad! But Lord ha' mercy! he's got never a collar on; it's been lost on the road, I'll be bound, and spoiled the set."Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg and then on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said, with masculine reticence as to the tender emotions, "Hallo! Yap—what! are you there?"Nevertheless, he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray eyes wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thingto-morrow morning. He was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England and at twelve or thirteen years of age look as much alike as goslings—a lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips, indeterminate nose and eyebrows—a physiognomy in which it seems impossible to discern anything but the generic character of boyhood; as different as possible from poor Maggie's phiz, which Nature seemed to have molded and colored with the most decided intention. But that same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features."Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner as soon as his mother was gone out to examine his box, and the warm parlor had taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, "you don't know what I've got inmypockets," nodding his head up and down as a means of rousing her sense of mystery."No," said Maggie. "How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marls (marbles) or cobnuts?"Maggie's heart sank a little, because Tom always said it was "no good" playing withherat those games—she played so badly."Marls! no; I've swopped all my marls with the little fellows, and cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts are green. But see here!" He drew something half out of his right-hand pocket."What is it?" said Maggie, in a whisper. "I can see nothing but a bit of yellow.""Why, it's ... a ... new ... guess, Maggie.""Oh, Ican'tguess, Tom," said Maggie, impatiently."Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrusting his hand back into his pocket and looking determined."No, Tom," said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that was held stiffly in the pocket. "I'm not cross, Tom; it was only because I can't bear guessing.Pleasebe good to me."Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, "Well, then, it's a new fish-line—two new uns—one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I wouldn't go halves in the toffee and ginger-bread on purpose to save the money; Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn't. And here's hooks—see here! I say,won'twe go and fish to-morrow down by Round Pool? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie, and put the worms on, and everything—won't it be fun?"Maggie's answer was to throw her arms around Tom's neck and hug him, and hold hercheek against his without speaking, while he slowly unwound some line, saying, after a pause:"Wasn't I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? You know, I needn't have bought it if I hadn't liked.""Yes, very, very good. Idolove you, Tom."Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks one by one, before he spoke again."And the fellows fought me because I wouldn't give in about the toffee.""Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it hurt you?""Hurt me? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added:"I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know—that's what he got by wanting to leatherme; I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me.""Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him—wouldn't you, Tom?""How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions only in the shows.""No; but if we were in the lion countries—I mean, in Africa, where it's very hot—the lions eat people there. I can show it to you in the book where I read it.""Well, I should get a gun and shoot him.""But if you hadn't got a gun—we might have gone out, you know, not thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run toward us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What should you do, Tom?"Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying: "But the lionisn'tcoming. What's the use of talking?""But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him. "Just think what you would do, Tom?""Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly—I shall go and see my rabbits."Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once his sorrow and anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all things—it was quite a different anger from her own."Tom," she said, timidly, when they were out-of-doors, "how much money did you give for your rabbits?""Two half-crowns and a sixpence," said Tom, promptly."I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse up-stairs. I'll ask mother to give it you.""What for?" said Tom. "I don't wantyourmoney, you silly thing. I've got a great deal more money than you, because I'm a boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sovereigns formy Christmas boxes, because I shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you're only a girl.""Well, but, Tom—if mother would let me give you two half-crowns and a sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket to spend, you know, and buy some more rabbits with it?""More rabbits? I don't want any more.""Oh, but, Tom, they're all dead."Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round toward Maggie. "You forgot to feed 'em, then, and Harry forgot?" he said, his color heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. "I'll pitch into Harry—I'll have him turned away. And I don't love you, Maggie. You sha'n't go fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits every day." He walked on again."Yes. But I forgot—and I couldn't help it, indeed, Tom. I'm so very sorry," said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast."You're a naughty girl," said Tom, severely, "and I'm sorry I bought you the fish-line. I don't love you.""Oh, Tom, it's very cruel," sobbed Maggie. "I'd forgive you ifyouforgot anything—I wouldn't mind what you did—I'd forgive you and love you.""Yes, you're a silly; but I neverdoforget things—Idon't.""Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break," said Maggie, shaking with sobs, clingingto Tom's arm, and laying her wet cheek on his shoulder.Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremptory tone: "Now, Maggie, you just listen. Aren't I a good brother to you?""Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling convulsively."Didn't I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and mean to buy it, and saved my money o' purpose, and wouldn't go halves in the toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn't?""Ye-ye-es ... and I ... lo-lo-love you so, Tom.""But you're a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge-box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my fish-line down when I set you to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite, all for nothing.""But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it.""Yes, you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing. And you're a naughty girl, and you sha'n't go fishing with me to-morrow."With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain to him of Harry.Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a minute or two; then she turned round and ran into the house, and up to her attic, where she sat on the floor, and laid her head againstthe worm-eaten shelf, with a crushing sense of misery. Tom was come home, and she had thought how happy she should be—and now he was cruel to her. What use was anything, if Tom didn't love her? Oh, he was very cruel! Hadn't she wanted to give him the money, and said how very sorry she was? She knew she was naughty to her mother, but she had never been naughty to Tom—had nevermeantto be naughty to him."Oh, he is cruel!" Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched pleasure in the hollow resonance that came through the long empty space of the attic. She never thought of beating or grinding her Fetish; she was too miserable to be angry.These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.

TOM COMES HOME

Tom was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late enough for the sound of the gig-wheels to be expected; for if Mrs. Tulliver had a strong feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound came—that quick light bowling of the gig-wheels—and in spite of the wind, which was blowing the clouds about, and was not likely to respect Mrs. Tulliver's curls and cap-strings, she came outside the door, and even held her hand on Maggie's offending head, forgetting all the griefs of the morning.

"There he is, my sweet lad! But Lord ha' mercy! he's got never a collar on; it's been lost on the road, I'll be bound, and spoiled the set."

Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg and then on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said, with masculine reticence as to the tender emotions, "Hallo! Yap—what! are you there?"

Nevertheless, he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray eyes wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thingto-morrow morning. He was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England and at twelve or thirteen years of age look as much alike as goslings—a lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips, indeterminate nose and eyebrows—a physiognomy in which it seems impossible to discern anything but the generic character of boyhood; as different as possible from poor Maggie's phiz, which Nature seemed to have molded and colored with the most decided intention. But that same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features.

"Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner as soon as his mother was gone out to examine his box, and the warm parlor had taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, "you don't know what I've got inmypockets," nodding his head up and down as a means of rousing her sense of mystery.

"No," said Maggie. "How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marls (marbles) or cobnuts?"Maggie's heart sank a little, because Tom always said it was "no good" playing withherat those games—she played so badly.

"Marls! no; I've swopped all my marls with the little fellows, and cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts are green. But see here!" He drew something half out of his right-hand pocket.

"What is it?" said Maggie, in a whisper. "I can see nothing but a bit of yellow."

"Why, it's ... a ... new ... guess, Maggie."

"Oh, Ican'tguess, Tom," said Maggie, impatiently.

"Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrusting his hand back into his pocket and looking determined.

"No, Tom," said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that was held stiffly in the pocket. "I'm not cross, Tom; it was only because I can't bear guessing.Pleasebe good to me."

Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, "Well, then, it's a new fish-line—two new uns—one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I wouldn't go halves in the toffee and ginger-bread on purpose to save the money; Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn't. And here's hooks—see here! I say,won'twe go and fish to-morrow down by Round Pool? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie, and put the worms on, and everything—won't it be fun?"

Maggie's answer was to throw her arms around Tom's neck and hug him, and hold hercheek against his without speaking, while he slowly unwound some line, saying, after a pause:

"Wasn't I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? You know, I needn't have bought it if I hadn't liked."

"Yes, very, very good. Idolove you, Tom."

Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks one by one, before he spoke again.

"And the fellows fought me because I wouldn't give in about the toffee."

"Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it hurt you?"

"Hurt me? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added:

"I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know—that's what he got by wanting to leatherme; I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me."

"Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him—wouldn't you, Tom?"

"How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions only in the shows."

"No; but if we were in the lion countries—I mean, in Africa, where it's very hot—the lions eat people there. I can show it to you in the book where I read it."

"Well, I should get a gun and shoot him."

"But if you hadn't got a gun—we might have gone out, you know, not thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run toward us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What should you do, Tom?"

Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying: "But the lionisn'tcoming. What's the use of talking?"

"But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him. "Just think what you would do, Tom?"

"Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly—I shall go and see my rabbits."

Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once his sorrow and anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all things—it was quite a different anger from her own.

"Tom," she said, timidly, when they were out-of-doors, "how much money did you give for your rabbits?"

"Two half-crowns and a sixpence," said Tom, promptly.

"I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse up-stairs. I'll ask mother to give it you."

"What for?" said Tom. "I don't wantyourmoney, you silly thing. I've got a great deal more money than you, because I'm a boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sovereigns formy Christmas boxes, because I shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you're only a girl."

"Well, but, Tom—if mother would let me give you two half-crowns and a sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket to spend, you know, and buy some more rabbits with it?"

"More rabbits? I don't want any more."

"Oh, but, Tom, they're all dead."

Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round toward Maggie. "You forgot to feed 'em, then, and Harry forgot?" he said, his color heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. "I'll pitch into Harry—I'll have him turned away. And I don't love you, Maggie. You sha'n't go fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits every day." He walked on again.

"Yes. But I forgot—and I couldn't help it, indeed, Tom. I'm so very sorry," said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast.

"You're a naughty girl," said Tom, severely, "and I'm sorry I bought you the fish-line. I don't love you."

"Oh, Tom, it's very cruel," sobbed Maggie. "I'd forgive you ifyouforgot anything—I wouldn't mind what you did—I'd forgive you and love you."

"Yes, you're a silly; but I neverdoforget things—Idon't."

"Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break," said Maggie, shaking with sobs, clingingto Tom's arm, and laying her wet cheek on his shoulder.

Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremptory tone: "Now, Maggie, you just listen. Aren't I a good brother to you?"

"Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling convulsively.

"Didn't I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and mean to buy it, and saved my money o' purpose, and wouldn't go halves in the toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn't?"

"Ye-ye-es ... and I ... lo-lo-love you so, Tom."

"But you're a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge-box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my fish-line down when I set you to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite, all for nothing."

"But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it."

"Yes, you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing. And you're a naughty girl, and you sha'n't go fishing with me to-morrow."

With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain to him of Harry.

Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a minute or two; then she turned round and ran into the house, and up to her attic, where she sat on the floor, and laid her head againstthe worm-eaten shelf, with a crushing sense of misery. Tom was come home, and she had thought how happy she should be—and now he was cruel to her. What use was anything, if Tom didn't love her? Oh, he was very cruel! Hadn't she wanted to give him the money, and said how very sorry she was? She knew she was naughty to her mother, but she had never been naughty to Tom—had nevermeantto be naughty to him.

"Oh, he is cruel!" Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched pleasure in the hollow resonance that came through the long empty space of the attic. She never thought of beating or grinding her Fetish; she was too miserable to be angry.

These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.

This text furnishes an easier exercise in interpretation, does it not? It does not require a great stretch of imagination to slip back five, ten, a dozen years to play with these children. But I cannot let youplaywith them. We want to meet and know them. The task for your imagination is not so simple as you think. It is called upon toengage in character interpretation. You cannot be allowed to merely watch Maggie and Tom play, or even to play with them. You must use your imagination to get inside the minds, hearts, souls of this boy and girl and reveal them to us. You must relive this scene for us, becoming first Maggie and then Tom. This exercise of your imagination belongs in its final and complete stage to the next and last of our studies, and to work on the drama; so we shall not demand too much of you along this line here, and I shall confine my suggestive analysis of the text to the following questions:

Define the relation existing between this brother and sister indicated by this scene.

Is this scene typical of their relation?

Is it a relation likely to obtain throughout their lives? Why?

Define the dispositions of these two children by applying to each three adjectives.

Will Maggie or Tom make the sacrifices inevitable to such a relation?

Characterize as to inflection and tone-color Maggie's voice and Tom's. (If your use of this book has been intelligently directed you have already made a study of these two elements of a vocal vocabulary—inflectionandtone-color.)

Answer these questions and re-read the scene.

The following selections were chosen for this study with a double concern in the choice,—concern for the development of imaginative vigor in vocal interpretation; concern for the development of a sense of plot in narrative composition. The demand upon the interpreter of any of these poems, for sensitive progressive play of imagination, in carrying an auditor through a series of events up to a critical issue, cannot fail to develop, with imaginative vigor, a new sensitiveness of creative instinct to the third element in narrative,—action.

Your imagination given free play can no more carry the "good news" from Ghent to Aix on this wild ride, and in the feat fail to outgrow all its former dimensions, than could the heart of Roland's master remain untouched in actually performing the feat itself.

HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX[9]II sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,And into the midnight we galloped abreast.IINot a word to each other; we kept the great paceNeck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit,Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.III'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew nearLokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;At Duffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be;And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half chime,So Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"IVAt Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,And against him the cattle stood black every one,To stare through the mist at us galloping past;And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,With resolute shoulders, each butting awayThe haze, as some bluff river headland its spray;VAnd his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent backFor my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;And one eye's black intelligence,—ever that glanceO'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anonHis fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.VIBy Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,We'll remember at Aix"—for one heard the quick wheezeOf her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.VIISo we were left galloping, Joris and I,Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!VIIIHow they'll greet us!"—and all in a moment his roanRolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;And there was my Roland to bear the whole weightOf the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.IXThen I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall,Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.XAnd all I remember is, friends flocking roundAs I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.—Browning.LOCHINVAROh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west,Through all the wide border his steed was the best;And save his good broadsword he weapon had none,He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.He stayed not for brake and he stopped not for stone,He swam the Esk river where ford there was none;But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,The bride had consented, the gallant came late:For a laggard in love and a dastard in warWas to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,'Mong bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all;Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,—"Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?""I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied;Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide;And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by farThat would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."The bride kissed the goblet, the knight took it up;He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup;She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,With a smile on her lip, and a tear in her eye.He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,—"Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.So stately his form, and so lovely her face,That never a hall such a galliard did grace;While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume,And the bride-maidens whispered, "'Twere better by farTo have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar!"One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,When they reached the hall door, where the charger stood near;So light to the croup the fair lady he swung,So light to the saddle before her he sprung!"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;They'll have fleet steeds that follow!" quoth young Lochinvar.There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan:—Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lea,—But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?—Walter Scott.KING VOLMER AND ELSIEAfter the Danish of Christian WinterWhere, over heathen doom-rings and gray stones of the Horg,In its little Christian city stands the church of Vordingborg,In merry mood King Volmer sat, forgetful of his power,As idle as the Goose of Gold that brooded on his tower.Out spake the king to Henrik, his young and faithful squire:"Dar'st trust thy little Elsie, the maid of thy desire?""Of all the men in Denmark she loveth only me:As true to me is Elsie as thy Lily is to thee."Loud laughed the king: "To-morrow shall bring another day,When I myself will test her; she will not say me nay."Thereat the lords and gallants, that round about him stood,Wagged all their heads in concert and smiled as courtiers should.The gray lark sings o'er Vordingborg, and on the ancient townFrom the tall tower of Valdemar the Golden Goose looks down:The yellow grain is waving in the pleasant wind of morn,The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare of hunter's horn.In the garden of her father little Elsie sits and spins,And, singing with the early birds, her daily task begins.Gay tulips bloom and sweet mint curls around her garden-bower,But she is sweeter than the mint and fairer than the flower.About her form her kirtle blue clings lovingly, and, whiteAs snow, her loose sleeves only leave her small, round wrists in sight;Below the modest petticoat can only half concealThe motion of the lightest foot that ever turned a wheel.The cat sits purring at her side, bees hum in sunshine warm;But, look! she starts, she lifts her face, she shades it with her arm.And, hark! a train of horsemen, with sound of dog and horn,Come leaping o'er the ditches, come trampling down the corn!Merrily rang the bridle-reins, and scarf and plume streamed gay,As fast beside her father's gate the riders held their way;And one was brave in scarlet cloak, with golden spur on heel,And, as he checked his foaming steed, the maiden checked her wheel."All hail among thy roses, the fairest rose to me!For weary months in secret my heart has longed for thee!"What noble knight was this? What words for modest maiden's ear?She dropped a lowly courtesy of bashfulness and fear.She lifted up her spinning-wheel; she fain would seek the door,Trembling in every limb, her cheek with blushes crimsoned o'er."Nay, fear me not," the rider said, "I offer heart and hand,Bear witness these good Danish knights who round about me stand.I grant you time to think of this, to answer as you may,For to-morrow, little Elsie, shall bring another day."He spake the old phrase slyly as, glancing round his train,He saw his merry followers seek to hide their smiles in vain."The snow of pearls I'll scatter in your curls of golden hair,I'll line with furs the velvet of the kirtle that you wear;All precious gems shall twine your neck; and in a chariot gayYou shall ride, my little Elsie, behind four steeds of gray.And harps shall sound, and flutes shall play, and brazen lamps shall glow;On marble floors your feet shall weave the dances to and fro;At frosty eventide for us the blazing hearth shall shine,While, at our ease, we play at draughts, and drink the blood-red wine."Then Elsie raised her head and met her wooer face to face;A roguish smile shone in her eye and on her lip found place.Back from her low white forehead the curls of gold she threw,And lifted up her eyes to his, steady and clear and blue."I am a lowly peasant, and you a gallant knight;I will not trust a love that soon may cool and turn to slight.If you would wed me henceforth be a peasant, not a lord;I bid you hang upon the wall your tried and trusty sword.""To please you, Elsie, I will lay keen Dynadel away,And in its place will swing the scythe and mow your father's hay.""Nay, but your gallant scarlet cloak my eyes can never bear;A Vadmal coat, so plain and gray, is all that you must wear.""Well, Vadmal will I wear for you," the rider gaily spoke,"And on the Lord's high altar I'll lay my scarlet cloak.""But mark," she said, "no stately horse my peasant love must ride,A yoke of steers before the plow is all that he must guide."The knight looked down upon his steed: "Well, let him wander free,—No other man must ride the horse that has been backed by me.Henceforth I'll tread the furrow and to my oxen talk,If only little Elsie beside my plow will walk.""You must take from out your cellar cask of wine and flask and can;The homely mead I brew you may serve a peasant-man.""Most willingly, fair Elsie, I'll drink that mead of thine,And leave my minstrel's thirsty throat to drain my generous wine.""Now break your shield asunder, and shatter sign and boss,Unmeet for peasant-wedded arms, your knightly knee across.And pull me down your castle from top to basement wall,And let your plow trace furrows in the ruins of your hall!"Then smiled he with a lofty pride: right well at last he knewThe maiden of the spinning-wheel was to her troth-plight true."Ah, roguish little Elsie! you act your part full well:You know that I must bear my shield and in my castle dwell!The lions ramping on that shield between the hearts aflameKeep watch o'er Denmark's honor, and guard her ancient name.For know that I am Volmer; I dwell in yonder towers,Who plows them plows up Denmark, this goodly home of ours!I tempt no more, fair Elsie! your heart I know is true;Would God that all our maidens were good and pure as you!Well have you pleased your monarch, and he shall well repay:God's peace! Farewell! To-morrow will bring another day!"He lifted up his bridle hand, he spurred his good steed then,And like a whirl-blast swept away with all his gallant men.The steel hoofs beat the rocky path; again on winds of mornThe wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare of hunter's horn."Thou true and ever faithful!" the listening Henrik cried:And, leaping o'er the green hedge, he stood by Elsie's side.None saw the fond embracing, save, shining from afar,The Golden Goose that watched them from the tower of Valdemar.O darling girls of Denmark! of all the flowers that throngHer vales of spring the fairest, I sing for you my song.No praise as yours so bravely rewards the singer's skill;Thank God! of maids like Elsie the land has plenty still!—Whittier.HERVÉ RIEL[10]IOn the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,Did the English fight the French—woe to France!And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue,Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,With the English fleet in view.II'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase;First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville:Close on him fled, great and small,Twenty-two good ships in all;And they signaled to the place,'Help the winners of a race!Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick—or, quicker still,Here's the English can and will!'IIIThen the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board;'Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?' laughed they:'Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,Shall theFormidablehere with her twelve and eighty gunsThink to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,And with flow at full beside?Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide.Reach the mooring? Rather say,While rock stands or water runs,Not a ship will leave the bay!IVThen was called a council straight.Brief and bitter the debate:'Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in towAll that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,For a prize to Plymouth Sound?Better run the ships aground!'(Ended Damfreville his speech).Not a minute more to wait!'Let the captains all and eachShove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!France must undergo her fate.VGive the word!' But no such wordWas ever spoke or heard;For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these—A captain? A lieutenant? A mate—first, second, third?No such man of mark, and meetWith his betters to compete!But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for the fleet,A poor coasting-pilot he, Hervé Riel the Croisickese.VIAnd, 'What mockery or malice have we here?' cries Hervé Riel:'Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues?Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tellOn my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell'Twixt the offing here and Grève, where the river disembogues?Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for?Morn and eve, night and day,Have I piloted your bay,Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues!Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's a way!Only let me lead the line,Have the biggest ship to steer,Get thisFormidableclear,Make the others follow mine,And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well,Right to Solidor past Grève,And there lay them safe and sound;And if one ship misbehave,Keel so much as grate the ground,Why, I've nothing but my life—here's my head!' cries Hervé Riel.VIINot a minute more to wait.'Steer us in, then, small and great!Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!' cried its chief.Captains, give the sailor place!He is Admiral in brief.Still the north wind, by God's grace!See the noble fellow's faceAs the big ship, with a bound,Clears the entry like a hound,Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's profound!See, safe thro' shoal and rock,How they follow in a flock,Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground,Not a spar that comes to grief!The peril, see, is past,All are harbored, to the last,And just as Hervé Riel hollas 'Anchor!'—sure as fateUp the English come, too late!VIIISo, the storm subsides to calm:They see the green trees waveOn the heights o'erlooking Grève.Hearts that bled are stanched with balm,'Just our rapture to enhance,Let the English rake the bay,Gnash their teeth and glare askanceAs they cannonade away!'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!'How hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance!Out burst all with one accord,'This is Paradise for Hell!Let France, let France's King,Thank the man that did the thing!'What a shout, and all one word,'Hervé Riel!'As he stepped in front once more,Not a symptom of surpriseIn the frank blue Breton eyes,Just the same man as before.IXThen said Damfreville, 'My friend,I must speak out at the end,Though I find the speaking hard.Praise is deeper than the lips;You have saved the King his ships,You must name your own reward.Faith our sun was near eclipse!Demand whate'er you will,France remains your debtor still.Ask to heart's content and have! or my name's not Damfreville.'XThen a beam of fun outbrokeOn the bearded mouth that spoke,As the honest heart laughed throughThose frank eyes of Breton blue:'Since I needs must say my say,Since on board the duty's done,And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but a run?—Since 'tis ask and have, I may—Since the others go ashore—Come! A good whole holiday!Leave to go, and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!'That he asked and that he got—nothing more.XIName and deed alike are lost:Not a pillar nor a postIn his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell;Not a head in white and blackOn a single fishing smack,In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrackAll that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell.Go to Paris: rank on rankSearch the heroes flung pell-mellOn the Louvre, face and flank!You shall look long enough ere you come to Hervé Riel.So, for better and for worse,Hervé Riel, accept my verse!In my verse, Hervé Riel, do thou once moreSave the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the Bell Aurore!

HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX[9]

II sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,And into the midnight we galloped abreast.IINot a word to each other; we kept the great paceNeck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit,Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.III'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew nearLokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;At Duffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be;And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half chime,So Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"IVAt Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,And against him the cattle stood black every one,To stare through the mist at us galloping past;And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,With resolute shoulders, each butting awayThe haze, as some bluff river headland its spray;VAnd his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent backFor my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;And one eye's black intelligence,—ever that glanceO'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anonHis fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.VIBy Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,We'll remember at Aix"—for one heard the quick wheezeOf her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.VIISo we were left galloping, Joris and I,Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!VIIIHow they'll greet us!"—and all in a moment his roanRolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;And there was my Roland to bear the whole weightOf the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.IXThen I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall,Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.XAnd all I remember is, friends flocking roundAs I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.—Browning.

I

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

II

Not a word to each other; we kept the great paceNeck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit,Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

III

'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew nearLokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;At Duffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be;And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half chime,So Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"

IV

At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,And against him the cattle stood black every one,To stare through the mist at us galloping past;And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,With resolute shoulders, each butting awayThe haze, as some bluff river headland its spray;

V

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent backFor my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;And one eye's black intelligence,—ever that glanceO'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anonHis fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.

VI

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,We'll remember at Aix"—for one heard the quick wheezeOf her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

VII

So we were left galloping, Joris and I,Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!

VIII

How they'll greet us!"—and all in a moment his roanRolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;And there was my Roland to bear the whole weightOf the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.

IX

Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall,Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

X

And all I remember is, friends flocking roundAs I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.

—Browning.

—Browning.

LOCHINVAROh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west,Through all the wide border his steed was the best;And save his good broadsword he weapon had none,He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.He stayed not for brake and he stopped not for stone,He swam the Esk river where ford there was none;But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,The bride had consented, the gallant came late:For a laggard in love and a dastard in warWas to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,'Mong bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all;Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,—"Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?""I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied;Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide;And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by farThat would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."The bride kissed the goblet, the knight took it up;He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup;She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,With a smile on her lip, and a tear in her eye.He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,—"Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.So stately his form, and so lovely her face,That never a hall such a galliard did grace;While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume,And the bride-maidens whispered, "'Twere better by farTo have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar!"One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,When they reached the hall door, where the charger stood near;So light to the croup the fair lady he swung,So light to the saddle before her he sprung!"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;They'll have fleet steeds that follow!" quoth young Lochinvar.There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan:—Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lea,—But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?—Walter Scott.

LOCHINVAR

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west,Through all the wide border his steed was the best;And save his good broadsword he weapon had none,He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

He stayed not for brake and he stopped not for stone,He swam the Esk river where ford there was none;But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,The bride had consented, the gallant came late:For a laggard in love and a dastard in warWas to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,'Mong bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all;Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,—"Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"

"I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied;Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide;And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by farThat would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."

The bride kissed the goblet, the knight took it up;He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup;She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,With a smile on her lip, and a tear in her eye.He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,—"Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.

So stately his form, and so lovely her face,That never a hall such a galliard did grace;While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume,And the bride-maidens whispered, "'Twere better by farTo have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar!"

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,When they reached the hall door, where the charger stood near;So light to the croup the fair lady he swung,So light to the saddle before her he sprung!"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;They'll have fleet steeds that follow!" quoth young Lochinvar.

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan:—Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lea,—But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?

—Walter Scott.

—Walter Scott.

KING VOLMER AND ELSIEAfter the Danish of Christian WinterWhere, over heathen doom-rings and gray stones of the Horg,In its little Christian city stands the church of Vordingborg,In merry mood King Volmer sat, forgetful of his power,As idle as the Goose of Gold that brooded on his tower.Out spake the king to Henrik, his young and faithful squire:"Dar'st trust thy little Elsie, the maid of thy desire?""Of all the men in Denmark she loveth only me:As true to me is Elsie as thy Lily is to thee."Loud laughed the king: "To-morrow shall bring another day,When I myself will test her; she will not say me nay."Thereat the lords and gallants, that round about him stood,Wagged all their heads in concert and smiled as courtiers should.The gray lark sings o'er Vordingborg, and on the ancient townFrom the tall tower of Valdemar the Golden Goose looks down:The yellow grain is waving in the pleasant wind of morn,The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare of hunter's horn.In the garden of her father little Elsie sits and spins,And, singing with the early birds, her daily task begins.Gay tulips bloom and sweet mint curls around her garden-bower,But she is sweeter than the mint and fairer than the flower.About her form her kirtle blue clings lovingly, and, whiteAs snow, her loose sleeves only leave her small, round wrists in sight;Below the modest petticoat can only half concealThe motion of the lightest foot that ever turned a wheel.The cat sits purring at her side, bees hum in sunshine warm;But, look! she starts, she lifts her face, she shades it with her arm.And, hark! a train of horsemen, with sound of dog and horn,Come leaping o'er the ditches, come trampling down the corn!Merrily rang the bridle-reins, and scarf and plume streamed gay,As fast beside her father's gate the riders held their way;And one was brave in scarlet cloak, with golden spur on heel,And, as he checked his foaming steed, the maiden checked her wheel."All hail among thy roses, the fairest rose to me!For weary months in secret my heart has longed for thee!"What noble knight was this? What words for modest maiden's ear?She dropped a lowly courtesy of bashfulness and fear.She lifted up her spinning-wheel; she fain would seek the door,Trembling in every limb, her cheek with blushes crimsoned o'er."Nay, fear me not," the rider said, "I offer heart and hand,Bear witness these good Danish knights who round about me stand.I grant you time to think of this, to answer as you may,For to-morrow, little Elsie, shall bring another day."He spake the old phrase slyly as, glancing round his train,He saw his merry followers seek to hide their smiles in vain."The snow of pearls I'll scatter in your curls of golden hair,I'll line with furs the velvet of the kirtle that you wear;All precious gems shall twine your neck; and in a chariot gayYou shall ride, my little Elsie, behind four steeds of gray.And harps shall sound, and flutes shall play, and brazen lamps shall glow;On marble floors your feet shall weave the dances to and fro;At frosty eventide for us the blazing hearth shall shine,While, at our ease, we play at draughts, and drink the blood-red wine."Then Elsie raised her head and met her wooer face to face;A roguish smile shone in her eye and on her lip found place.Back from her low white forehead the curls of gold she threw,And lifted up her eyes to his, steady and clear and blue."I am a lowly peasant, and you a gallant knight;I will not trust a love that soon may cool and turn to slight.If you would wed me henceforth be a peasant, not a lord;I bid you hang upon the wall your tried and trusty sword.""To please you, Elsie, I will lay keen Dynadel away,And in its place will swing the scythe and mow your father's hay.""Nay, but your gallant scarlet cloak my eyes can never bear;A Vadmal coat, so plain and gray, is all that you must wear.""Well, Vadmal will I wear for you," the rider gaily spoke,"And on the Lord's high altar I'll lay my scarlet cloak.""But mark," she said, "no stately horse my peasant love must ride,A yoke of steers before the plow is all that he must guide."The knight looked down upon his steed: "Well, let him wander free,—No other man must ride the horse that has been backed by me.Henceforth I'll tread the furrow and to my oxen talk,If only little Elsie beside my plow will walk.""You must take from out your cellar cask of wine and flask and can;The homely mead I brew you may serve a peasant-man.""Most willingly, fair Elsie, I'll drink that mead of thine,And leave my minstrel's thirsty throat to drain my generous wine.""Now break your shield asunder, and shatter sign and boss,Unmeet for peasant-wedded arms, your knightly knee across.And pull me down your castle from top to basement wall,And let your plow trace furrows in the ruins of your hall!"Then smiled he with a lofty pride: right well at last he knewThe maiden of the spinning-wheel was to her troth-plight true."Ah, roguish little Elsie! you act your part full well:You know that I must bear my shield and in my castle dwell!The lions ramping on that shield between the hearts aflameKeep watch o'er Denmark's honor, and guard her ancient name.For know that I am Volmer; I dwell in yonder towers,Who plows them plows up Denmark, this goodly home of ours!I tempt no more, fair Elsie! your heart I know is true;Would God that all our maidens were good and pure as you!Well have you pleased your monarch, and he shall well repay:God's peace! Farewell! To-morrow will bring another day!"He lifted up his bridle hand, he spurred his good steed then,And like a whirl-blast swept away with all his gallant men.The steel hoofs beat the rocky path; again on winds of mornThe wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare of hunter's horn."Thou true and ever faithful!" the listening Henrik cried:And, leaping o'er the green hedge, he stood by Elsie's side.None saw the fond embracing, save, shining from afar,The Golden Goose that watched them from the tower of Valdemar.O darling girls of Denmark! of all the flowers that throngHer vales of spring the fairest, I sing for you my song.No praise as yours so bravely rewards the singer's skill;Thank God! of maids like Elsie the land has plenty still!—Whittier.

KING VOLMER AND ELSIE

After the Danish of Christian Winter

Where, over heathen doom-rings and gray stones of the Horg,In its little Christian city stands the church of Vordingborg,In merry mood King Volmer sat, forgetful of his power,As idle as the Goose of Gold that brooded on his tower.

Out spake the king to Henrik, his young and faithful squire:"Dar'st trust thy little Elsie, the maid of thy desire?""Of all the men in Denmark she loveth only me:As true to me is Elsie as thy Lily is to thee."

Loud laughed the king: "To-morrow shall bring another day,When I myself will test her; she will not say me nay."Thereat the lords and gallants, that round about him stood,Wagged all their heads in concert and smiled as courtiers should.

The gray lark sings o'er Vordingborg, and on the ancient townFrom the tall tower of Valdemar the Golden Goose looks down:The yellow grain is waving in the pleasant wind of morn,The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare of hunter's horn.

In the garden of her father little Elsie sits and spins,And, singing with the early birds, her daily task begins.Gay tulips bloom and sweet mint curls around her garden-bower,But she is sweeter than the mint and fairer than the flower.

About her form her kirtle blue clings lovingly, and, whiteAs snow, her loose sleeves only leave her small, round wrists in sight;Below the modest petticoat can only half concealThe motion of the lightest foot that ever turned a wheel.

The cat sits purring at her side, bees hum in sunshine warm;But, look! she starts, she lifts her face, she shades it with her arm.And, hark! a train of horsemen, with sound of dog and horn,Come leaping o'er the ditches, come trampling down the corn!

Merrily rang the bridle-reins, and scarf and plume streamed gay,As fast beside her father's gate the riders held their way;And one was brave in scarlet cloak, with golden spur on heel,And, as he checked his foaming steed, the maiden checked her wheel.

"All hail among thy roses, the fairest rose to me!For weary months in secret my heart has longed for thee!"What noble knight was this? What words for modest maiden's ear?She dropped a lowly courtesy of bashfulness and fear.

She lifted up her spinning-wheel; she fain would seek the door,Trembling in every limb, her cheek with blushes crimsoned o'er."Nay, fear me not," the rider said, "I offer heart and hand,Bear witness these good Danish knights who round about me stand.

I grant you time to think of this, to answer as you may,For to-morrow, little Elsie, shall bring another day."He spake the old phrase slyly as, glancing round his train,He saw his merry followers seek to hide their smiles in vain.

"The snow of pearls I'll scatter in your curls of golden hair,I'll line with furs the velvet of the kirtle that you wear;All precious gems shall twine your neck; and in a chariot gayYou shall ride, my little Elsie, behind four steeds of gray.

And harps shall sound, and flutes shall play, and brazen lamps shall glow;On marble floors your feet shall weave the dances to and fro;At frosty eventide for us the blazing hearth shall shine,While, at our ease, we play at draughts, and drink the blood-red wine."

Then Elsie raised her head and met her wooer face to face;A roguish smile shone in her eye and on her lip found place.Back from her low white forehead the curls of gold she threw,And lifted up her eyes to his, steady and clear and blue.

"I am a lowly peasant, and you a gallant knight;I will not trust a love that soon may cool and turn to slight.If you would wed me henceforth be a peasant, not a lord;I bid you hang upon the wall your tried and trusty sword."

"To please you, Elsie, I will lay keen Dynadel away,And in its place will swing the scythe and mow your father's hay.""Nay, but your gallant scarlet cloak my eyes can never bear;A Vadmal coat, so plain and gray, is all that you must wear."

"Well, Vadmal will I wear for you," the rider gaily spoke,"And on the Lord's high altar I'll lay my scarlet cloak.""But mark," she said, "no stately horse my peasant love must ride,A yoke of steers before the plow is all that he must guide."

The knight looked down upon his steed: "Well, let him wander free,—No other man must ride the horse that has been backed by me.Henceforth I'll tread the furrow and to my oxen talk,If only little Elsie beside my plow will walk."

"You must take from out your cellar cask of wine and flask and can;The homely mead I brew you may serve a peasant-man.""Most willingly, fair Elsie, I'll drink that mead of thine,And leave my minstrel's thirsty throat to drain my generous wine."

"Now break your shield asunder, and shatter sign and boss,Unmeet for peasant-wedded arms, your knightly knee across.And pull me down your castle from top to basement wall,And let your plow trace furrows in the ruins of your hall!"

Then smiled he with a lofty pride: right well at last he knewThe maiden of the spinning-wheel was to her troth-plight true."Ah, roguish little Elsie! you act your part full well:You know that I must bear my shield and in my castle dwell!

The lions ramping on that shield between the hearts aflameKeep watch o'er Denmark's honor, and guard her ancient name.For know that I am Volmer; I dwell in yonder towers,Who plows them plows up Denmark, this goodly home of ours!

I tempt no more, fair Elsie! your heart I know is true;Would God that all our maidens were good and pure as you!Well have you pleased your monarch, and he shall well repay:God's peace! Farewell! To-morrow will bring another day!"

He lifted up his bridle hand, he spurred his good steed then,And like a whirl-blast swept away with all his gallant men.The steel hoofs beat the rocky path; again on winds of mornThe wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare of hunter's horn.

"Thou true and ever faithful!" the listening Henrik cried:And, leaping o'er the green hedge, he stood by Elsie's side.None saw the fond embracing, save, shining from afar,The Golden Goose that watched them from the tower of Valdemar.

O darling girls of Denmark! of all the flowers that throngHer vales of spring the fairest, I sing for you my song.No praise as yours so bravely rewards the singer's skill;Thank God! of maids like Elsie the land has plenty still!

—Whittier.

—Whittier.

HERVÉ RIEL[10]IOn the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,Did the English fight the French—woe to France!And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue,Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,With the English fleet in view.II'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase;First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville:Close on him fled, great and small,Twenty-two good ships in all;And they signaled to the place,'Help the winners of a race!Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick—or, quicker still,Here's the English can and will!'IIIThen the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board;'Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?' laughed they:'Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,Shall theFormidablehere with her twelve and eighty gunsThink to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,And with flow at full beside?Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide.Reach the mooring? Rather say,While rock stands or water runs,Not a ship will leave the bay!IVThen was called a council straight.Brief and bitter the debate:'Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in towAll that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,For a prize to Plymouth Sound?Better run the ships aground!'(Ended Damfreville his speech).Not a minute more to wait!'Let the captains all and eachShove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!France must undergo her fate.VGive the word!' But no such wordWas ever spoke or heard;For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these—A captain? A lieutenant? A mate—first, second, third?No such man of mark, and meetWith his betters to compete!But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for the fleet,A poor coasting-pilot he, Hervé Riel the Croisickese.VIAnd, 'What mockery or malice have we here?' cries Hervé Riel:'Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues?Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tellOn my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell'Twixt the offing here and Grève, where the river disembogues?Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for?Morn and eve, night and day,Have I piloted your bay,Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues!Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's a way!Only let me lead the line,Have the biggest ship to steer,Get thisFormidableclear,Make the others follow mine,And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well,Right to Solidor past Grève,And there lay them safe and sound;And if one ship misbehave,Keel so much as grate the ground,Why, I've nothing but my life—here's my head!' cries Hervé Riel.VIINot a minute more to wait.'Steer us in, then, small and great!Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!' cried its chief.Captains, give the sailor place!He is Admiral in brief.Still the north wind, by God's grace!See the noble fellow's faceAs the big ship, with a bound,Clears the entry like a hound,Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's profound!See, safe thro' shoal and rock,How they follow in a flock,Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground,Not a spar that comes to grief!The peril, see, is past,All are harbored, to the last,And just as Hervé Riel hollas 'Anchor!'—sure as fateUp the English come, too late!VIIISo, the storm subsides to calm:They see the green trees waveOn the heights o'erlooking Grève.Hearts that bled are stanched with balm,'Just our rapture to enhance,Let the English rake the bay,Gnash their teeth and glare askanceAs they cannonade away!'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!'How hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance!Out burst all with one accord,'This is Paradise for Hell!Let France, let France's King,Thank the man that did the thing!'What a shout, and all one word,'Hervé Riel!'As he stepped in front once more,Not a symptom of surpriseIn the frank blue Breton eyes,Just the same man as before.IXThen said Damfreville, 'My friend,I must speak out at the end,Though I find the speaking hard.Praise is deeper than the lips;You have saved the King his ships,You must name your own reward.Faith our sun was near eclipse!Demand whate'er you will,France remains your debtor still.Ask to heart's content and have! or my name's not Damfreville.'XThen a beam of fun outbrokeOn the bearded mouth that spoke,As the honest heart laughed throughThose frank eyes of Breton blue:'Since I needs must say my say,Since on board the duty's done,And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but a run?—Since 'tis ask and have, I may—Since the others go ashore—Come! A good whole holiday!Leave to go, and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!'That he asked and that he got—nothing more.XIName and deed alike are lost:Not a pillar nor a postIn his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell;Not a head in white and blackOn a single fishing smack,In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrackAll that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell.Go to Paris: rank on rankSearch the heroes flung pell-mellOn the Louvre, face and flank!You shall look long enough ere you come to Hervé Riel.So, for better and for worse,Hervé Riel, accept my verse!In my verse, Hervé Riel, do thou once moreSave the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the Bell Aurore!

HERVÉ RIEL[10]

I

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,Did the English fight the French—woe to France!And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue,Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,With the English fleet in view.

II

'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase;First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville:Close on him fled, great and small,Twenty-two good ships in all;And they signaled to the place,'Help the winners of a race!Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick—or, quicker still,Here's the English can and will!'

III

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board;'Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?' laughed they:'Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,Shall theFormidablehere with her twelve and eighty gunsThink to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,And with flow at full beside?Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide.Reach the mooring? Rather say,While rock stands or water runs,Not a ship will leave the bay!

IV

Then was called a council straight.Brief and bitter the debate:'Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in towAll that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,For a prize to Plymouth Sound?Better run the ships aground!'(Ended Damfreville his speech).Not a minute more to wait!'Let the captains all and eachShove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!France must undergo her fate.

V

Give the word!' But no such wordWas ever spoke or heard;For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these—A captain? A lieutenant? A mate—first, second, third?No such man of mark, and meetWith his betters to compete!But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for the fleet,A poor coasting-pilot he, Hervé Riel the Croisickese.

VI

And, 'What mockery or malice have we here?' cries Hervé Riel:'Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues?Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tellOn my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell'Twixt the offing here and Grève, where the river disembogues?Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for?Morn and eve, night and day,Have I piloted your bay,Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues!Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's a way!Only let me lead the line,Have the biggest ship to steer,Get thisFormidableclear,Make the others follow mine,And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well,Right to Solidor past Grève,And there lay them safe and sound;And if one ship misbehave,Keel so much as grate the ground,Why, I've nothing but my life—here's my head!' cries Hervé Riel.

VII

Not a minute more to wait.'Steer us in, then, small and great!Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!' cried its chief.Captains, give the sailor place!He is Admiral in brief.Still the north wind, by God's grace!See the noble fellow's faceAs the big ship, with a bound,Clears the entry like a hound,Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's profound!See, safe thro' shoal and rock,How they follow in a flock,Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground,Not a spar that comes to grief!The peril, see, is past,All are harbored, to the last,And just as Hervé Riel hollas 'Anchor!'—sure as fateUp the English come, too late!

VIII

So, the storm subsides to calm:They see the green trees waveOn the heights o'erlooking Grève.Hearts that bled are stanched with balm,'Just our rapture to enhance,Let the English rake the bay,Gnash their teeth and glare askanceAs they cannonade away!'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!'How hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance!Out burst all with one accord,'This is Paradise for Hell!Let France, let France's King,Thank the man that did the thing!'What a shout, and all one word,'Hervé Riel!'As he stepped in front once more,Not a symptom of surpriseIn the frank blue Breton eyes,Just the same man as before.

IX

Then said Damfreville, 'My friend,I must speak out at the end,Though I find the speaking hard.Praise is deeper than the lips;You have saved the King his ships,You must name your own reward.Faith our sun was near eclipse!Demand whate'er you will,France remains your debtor still.Ask to heart's content and have! or my name's not Damfreville.'

X

Then a beam of fun outbrokeOn the bearded mouth that spoke,As the honest heart laughed throughThose frank eyes of Breton blue:'Since I needs must say my say,Since on board the duty's done,And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but a run?—Since 'tis ask and have, I may—Since the others go ashore—Come! A good whole holiday!Leave to go, and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!'That he asked and that he got—nothing more.

XI

Name and deed alike are lost:Not a pillar nor a postIn his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell;Not a head in white and blackOn a single fishing smack,In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrackAll that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell.Go to Paris: rank on rankSearch the heroes flung pell-mellOn the Louvre, face and flank!You shall look long enough ere you come to Hervé Riel.So, for better and for worse,Hervé Riel, accept my verse!In my verse, Hervé Riel, do thou once moreSave the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the Bell Aurore!

Your imagination can no more follow the flight of theFormidable, steered by Hervé Riel, with the French fleet close following her guidance and "the English at her heels"past the rocks and shoals of Grève to safe harbor at Solidor, and remain creatively unsensitive to the pulse of progressive action, than could the actual rescue of his country's squadron leave unmoved toward the "man who did the deed" the heart of her Captain Damfreville.

And when your imagination has not only carried you through such adventure, but stimulatedmyimagination to like activity, there is no limit to be set to the development which may result for us both.

Suggestive analysis can be of little help at this point, the work must be done in the class-room under direction.

To such stimulating exercise in the vocal interpretation of these poems of action, I leave you and your imagination. I shall hope to find difficulty in recognizing either of you at our next meeting. Like Mr. Rhoades's[11]pupil when he emerged from the Ninth book ofParadise Lost, you ought to have "outgrown all your present intellectual clothes" in the study of these stories in verse.

As further material for this study there is no better choice to be made than Tennyson's great quasi-epic,The Idylls of the King, from which but for lack of space we should have printed selections. The following suggestions for work in composition at this point are based on theIdylls.

Describe in your own words Camelot.

Write an imaginary scene between Gareth and his mother.

Tell the story of Elaine.

Make the Holy Grail into the form of a miracle play.

Our final study in interpretation has for its concern the development of dramatic instinct. The work just finished should have left no doubt in your mind as to the nature or value of this final step in the training, since it has anticipated both. Development of imaginative vigor should arouse a latent dramatic instinct and release histrionic power. The choice of place in these studies for this phase of the training was made to insure cumulative evolution resulting in balanced expression. As imagination needs to safeguard her freedom with sympathetic thought and intelligent emotion, so dramatic instinct needs the guidance of a vigorous but trained imagination. Dramatic instinct so directed should achieve skill ininterpreting drama and lead to distinction in the art of acting. The immediate evolution should be a clarified vision of life. Your final attainment from this theory should be distinction in the art of living.

With dramatic instinct capable of such achievement, let us proceed to exercise it in the material chosen for this study,—dramatic literature. The natural transition from story to play, from narrative to drama, is by way of the monologue. Some discussion with suggestive analysis of this form is necessary in order to impress upon you the difference between suggestive impersonation and actual impersonation or characterization, leading to a clear understanding of the difference between reading a play and acting in one; but the final evolution of interpretative power must come through acted drama,—through taking part in a play.

The dictionary in defining the monologue authorizes three forms: (1) when the actor tells a continuous story in which he is the chief character, referring to the others as absent; (2) when he assumes the voice ormanner of several characters successively; (3) more recently, when he implies that the others are present, leading the audience to imagine what they say by his replies. Browning created this more recent form, which is the most vital of the three. I have chosen for your study of the monologue examples from Browning alone. To interpret effectively any one of the Browning monologues will call into play every element of power in voice and expression which you have gained in your study of previous forms. You must think vividly, feel intelligently, realize and suggest an atmosphere, sustain a situation, and keep the beauty of the poetic form. And you must do all thisin the person of another. The new demand which the monologue makes is impersonation. Let us see just what we mean by impersonation. It is the art of identifying one's self with the character to be portrayed. It is the art of losing one's self in the character and the situation the dramatist has created. This means that the spirit of the character must take possession of the impersonator, and inform his every thought and feeling, and so his every motion and tone. Remember, it is thespiritof the character that must determine the nature of the tone and gesture. The great danger in entering upon the study of impersonation lies in emphasizing the outward manifestation instead of the inward spirit of the character to be portrayed. If you really sense the soul, mind, heart quality of the character you are to present, and have made your voice and body free agents for the manifestation of those qualities, your impersonation will be convincing. If the spirit of thePatriotorAndrea del SartoorFra Lippo LippiorPompiliaorCaponsacchiorGuidoobsesses you, the outward manifestation will take care of itself—always provided your instruments are responsive. Don't begin with the outward manifestation. Don't say I think this man would frown a great deal, or fold his arms over his breast, or use an eyeglass, or strut, or stoop, or do any one of a hundred things which, if repeated a half-dozen times during an impersonation, may become a mannerism and get betweenthe audience and the spirit of the character. When you are studying a character for the purpose of impersonation determine first to what type it belongs. Then study that type, wherever you are. Daily life becomes your teacher and studio. When you enter upon this art there are no longer dull moments in railroad stations or trains, in shops or in the social whirl. Everywhere and always you are the student seeking to know and understand types of people better, that you may use your knowledge in presenting to an audience an individual. When you have caught the spirit of the individual you must realize the situation out of which this particular individual speaks.

Let us make a special study of theTale(Browning's epilogue toThe Two Poets of Croisic). It is perhaps the most exquisite of the poet's creations in this field. The situation reveals a young girl recalling to her poet lover an old Greek tale he had once told her. There is a suggestion from some critics that Browning has drawn his wife in this portrait, and through it pays his tribute to her.This immediately affords us a clue to the type of character to which the speaker belongs. We cannot hope (nor do we wish) to impersonate Mrs. Browning, but a knowledge of Mrs. Browning and her relation to her poet lover, gained through a study of herLetters and Sonnets, will lead us more quickly to a comprehension of the speaker and situation in theTale.

Obsessed by the spirit of the character and fully realizing the situation, our next step is,in imagination, to set the stage. This is an important point in presenting a monologue. The impersonator must have a clear idea of his position on his imaginary stage relative to his imaginary interlocutor. But he must remember thatimaginarystage-setting admits of only delicately suggestive use. This is true of the handling of a monologue at every point. It must be suggestive. The actor carries to completion the action which the monologuist suggests. The art of interpreting a monologue depends upon the discrimination of the impersonator in drawing his line between suggestion and actualizationin gesture. The business of the monologuist is to make an appeal to the imagination of the audience so vivid that the imagination of the audience can actualize the suggestion. And the illusion is complete. What are the relative positions of the girl and her lover in theTale? There is nothing in the lines to make our choice arbitrary. It is only important that we determine a relation and keep it consistently throughout the reading. Here is a possible "setting." They are in the poet's study; he is working at his desk; she is sitting in a great chair before the fire, a book in her hand, which she does not read; she is gazing into the flames. She begins dreamily, more to herself than to him—"What a pretty tale you told me." At what point does her tone lose its reflective quality and become more personal? Where does she turn to him? How do we know that he leaves his chair and comes over to sit on the arm of her chair? What calls him to her? What two qualities of feeling run through her mood and determine the color of her tone and the character of her movements. If your study of Mrs. Browning has been intelligent, this interplay of the whimsical and serious in her nature cannot have escaped you, and it will illumine now your impersonation of this girl. It is the secret of the peculiar charm of this creation. The story she tells is an old and well-known one. It is the manner of the telling through which we come in touch with an exquisite woman's soul that holds us spellbound. Unless the interpreter catches this secret and reveals it to his audience, he will miss the distinctive feature of the monologue and reduce it to a narrative poem.

Back to IndexNext