Chapter IV · (continued 3)

But why, some one may ask, must particulars be stated in making a confession? and what is your authority for the secrecy observed? To this we ask in turn, If a sin be stripped of its aggravating circumstances, will any man maintain that it is honestly confessed? and since God does not require us to confess our sins in public, should his faithful representative demand more of the penitent? Yet it is to these conditions that the bishop makes objection, and thus his “drastic medicine” is a talent in a napkin, a useless, dormant power not intended to be exercised. But what says the Church of England on this subject of confession? According to the bishop, she has left it “strictly voluntary”; but in her Visitation of the Sick we find this rubric: “Here shall the sick man be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort:

“‘Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to his church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences; and by his authority committed to me I absolve thee from thy sins.’” “Here shall the sick man be moved to make confession.” Is it left so “strictly voluntary” as the bishop has declared it? And why now to the sick man does the church propose confession, when in the time of health she never urged it on him? Is he now in a condition for this strange and stern requirement? But Bishop Atkinson would say: “It is only weighty matter he is called upon to tell.” Are not secret mortal sins the weights that now oppress him? And why is he exhorted to a special declaration? Is it not that death is near? But who is he that reckons the number of his days, and can certify unerringly how long he has to live? The thief in the night does not warn us of his coming. Behoves it not, therefore, that we live as dying men, lest, in an hour we think not, the Son of Man should come? If so, the rubric cited is appropriate to all. Thus, in his own communion, Bishop Atkinson will find that special confession to a priest is recommended, and that this confession has all that constitutes auricular, except the bond of secrecy which silences the priest. This is left to his honor or personal discretion, untrammelled by all vows. But the bishop further tells us he himself has heard confessions “which, if divulged, would not only have caused shame and anguish, but very probably have caused bloodshed—confessions,” he continues, “which I keep as sacredly as any Roman Catholic can those made to him.” This, in our humble judgment, seems to border on auricular.

We come now to the question of doctrinal development—a process, as the bishop thinks, for hatching any novelty that priestcraft may devise. To this system he attributes auricular confession, which, according to his reckoning, was first imposed upon the church by Innocent III.III. at the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215. “And that this,” says he, that it shall be often read publicly in the church, so that none may plead ignorant of the case.” In the Book of Common Prayer, at the baptismal office, appears the following rubric: “The minister of every parish shall often admonish the people that they defer not the baptism of their children,” etc. Here, instructed by Bishop Atkinson, we learn, to our amazement, that the baptism of infants at a very tender age was first known in England after the Reformation, when this rubric was inserted. By his own line of argument we are forced to this conclusion: Had it not been a novelty, what need of this injunction? But, returning to our subject, does Bishop Atkinson forget that there existed heresies before the thirteenth century, and that their watchword, like his own, was “Purity of Faith”? All remnants of these sects, of however ancient origin, are in unity with us upon this point of doctrine. To the Protestants alone belongs the honor of rejecting it, and hence they stand at variance, not only with the Pope, but with the rest of Christendom.

With regard to the new dogmas that have lately been defined, as Moehler well expresses it, our unity of doctrine is in substance, not in form. As the Infant in the manger and the Victim on the cross, identical in substance, were yet unlike in form, so also truth, in broader light, assumes more striking aspect. Calculus is but a form of primary arithmetic. As in the natural order, so in the order spiritual, development is but the pulse of vigor and vitality. Even in the life of heaven itself they go “from strength to strength.” The loftiest branches of the oak were once within the acorn; nor could they have developed save as they there existed.

Thus, to a grain of mustard-seed our Lord compared the church, and to the mite of leaven that leavened the whole lump. She is “the pillar and the ground of truth,” which if once shaken, truth itself must fall. To her alone is man responsible, since God commissioned her to teach the world and bring all men to knowledge of his truth. To her St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine bowed; to her St. Ambrose and St. Bernard yielded entire submission. Like Bossuet and Fénelon, the doctors of all ages—whatever their contentions and discussions, however wide their difference of opinion—have ever looked to Rome, and sought her final judgment as the decree of God.

Bishop Gibbons, in reply to the “Charge” of Bishop Atkinson, remarked the contradictory doctrines that prevail in the Anglican communion with regard to confession; some execrating it as a Romish innovation, while others, holding tenets identical with ours, preach and practise its observance as a sacrament of Christ. Bishop Atkinson professes to discover a parallel to this in the various opinions of the Catholic theologians with respect to the limits of the Pope’s infallibility. Let us see upon what grounds he establishes comparison, and how far the comparison is supported. Papal Infallibility is a dogma of the church, an article of faith, to be by all accepted under the last penalty of excommunication. With the Protestant the force of this dogma is experienced, not, indeed, as to the Pope, but with regard to Holy Scripture, which, as the word of God, he must hold to be infallible. Now, the general truth that the Bible is infallible the Catholic and Protestant both equally maintain. To doubt it would be heresy. But admitting, as we do, the general proposition, how many minor differences remain to be adjusted! The Catholic believes that the church alone is able to interpret Holy Scripture, and that without her guidance men may wrest God’s very word unto their own destruction; that the written Word requires some infallible interpreter before we can rely upon its meaning as infallible, since the Scriptures, though infallible, inspire not every reader with their own infallibility. But the common run of Protestants receive their Holy Bible as if it had been printed and handed down from heaven in the language, form, and binding with which they are familiar. They forget that, after all, it is a mere translation and as liable to corruption as any other text in the hands of a translator. The Pope they think presumptuous; the printer and translator infallible. But even here believers may hold diverse opinions with integrity of faith. “How far,” one may ask, “extends infallibility? Is it only in the spirit, or in the letter also? ‘Unless a man hate his father and his mother he cannot be my disciple.’ ‘If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.’ With what exact restriction are these words to be received? Can errors typographical, misrenderings, etc., affect in any way the truth of the infallible? Are all the dates and numbers, in their common acceptation, infallibly correct? Does inspiration equally pervade the whole Bible, the Old and New Testaments? How must we understand St. Paul’s teaching by command and teaching by permission? Was he in each infallible?” All these questions might arise among sincere believers holding the general truth that the Scriptures are infallible. As we have before observed, Papal Infallibility is an established dogma, an article of faith, and the questions now at issue among Catholic theologians are precisely of the nature of those among all Protestants with regard to Holy Scripture. When a definition of a dogma of faith has been promulgated to the universal church, it is acknowledged as infallible by all; but the Pope sometimes teaches in a less determined species, and then only can even the most lax theologians raise the question how far his teaching binds. Are disputes among the Anglicans analogous to these? Bishop Atkinson would stickle for his sacerdotal character; Bishop Whittle, of Virginia, would hoot the very notion. At Mount Calvary, in Baltimore, a child becomes regenerate in the sacrament of baptism; at St. Peter’s, five squares distant, no such change can be effected. At the former Mass is said and the Sacred Host is worshipped; at the latter the Host is bread, and to worship it is idolatry. For whether it be bread or the golden calf adored, such worship is idolatrous. And if the Host be Christ, not to worship is denial of our Blessed Lord’s Divinity.

Are the Quaker and the Mormon more at variance in faith? But Bishop Atkinson interrupts us. “I am not the church,” he says, “nor is Bishop Whittle, nor the pastors of the churches to which you have referred.” Be it granted; but we ask, then, What is your church’s teaching? Surely, one of you is latitude of doctrine. She has no power of utterance to define or to condemn. The wranglings of her children have silenced her for ever. The enormities of Darwin, if they threatened, could not rouse her; nor, roused, has she the unity to utter an anathema.

Having noticed many points on which we differ from Bishop Atkinson, in conclusion we remark one on which we quite agree. This is when, speaking of St. Bernard, he styles him “the great saint.” But the question upon which he appeals to this great father is hardly one on which we hoped to find the bishop laudatory. Having chosen him, however, to plead his cause against us, we needs must think that he supports his advocate, and holds him orthodox, at least, upon the point at issue—the Immaculate Conception. Let us hear what St. Bernard has to offer on this point. “Thou art that chosen Lady,” says he, “in whom our Lord found repose, and in whom he has deposited all his treasures without measure. Hence the whole world, O my most holy Lady! honors thy chaste womb as the temple of God, in which the salvation of the world began. Thou, O great Mother of God! art the enclosed garden into which the hand of a sinner never entered to gather its flowers. Thou art the paradise of God; from thee issued forth the fountain of living water that irrigates the whole world. The day on which thou camest into the world can indeed be called a day of salvation, a day of grace. Thou art fair as the moon; the moon illumines the night with the light it receives from the sun, and thou enlightenest our darkness with the splendor of thy virtues. But thou art fairer than the moon; for in thee there is neither spot nor shadow. Thou art bright as the sun—I mean as that Sun which created the world. He was chosen amongst all men, and thou wast chosen amongst all women. O sweet, O great, O all-amiable Mary! no tongue can pronounce thy name but thou inflamest it with love.”

A DAY AMONG THE KIOWAS AND COMANCHES.

It was rather cold and frosty in the early January morning as we rode eastward from Otter Creek to the Kiowa and Comanche reservation, in the Indian Territory. Toward noon, however, the sun came out, brilliant and warm. The effect on the transparent covering of the trees and shrubs was dazzlingly beautiful. Some were encased in a bright armor, cunningly linked in chains of crescents. I detached a perfect “ice-plant,” with every curve of the stem, every nerve of the leaves, taken in ice. The humblest weeds on the prairie sparkled with frosty diamonds. But as the sun grew warmer they began to bend under their gorgeous burdens, as if wearied by their splendor, like tired beauties after a ball.

In the afternoon the weather was as clear and balmy as on a day in June. Our way lay through the most beautiful part of the Indian Territory. We skirted the southern slopes of the Wichita Mountains. These, as if in honor of our coming, exhibited all their jewelry in its brightest lustre. Down their dark slopes ran shining streams, like chains of silver adorning their broad breasts. Stones of gray and yellow and green and purple were moss and mould as green as you could see upon Irish ruins. What a joy was the spectacle of so lovely a region to our eyes, that had been starved for months on sand-hills and treeless deserts!

We passed hundreds of lovely sites for cottages, in pleasant nooks, sheltered from all cold winds by wooded slopes that opened towards the south and bounded semi-circular vales of marvellous fertility. Indeed, in beauty of scenery and in richness of soil I think this portion of the Indian Territory may be considered the garden of the western world.

But, alas! nothing earthly is perfect. The brightest prospect has its shadow. Over this seeming paradise, where you can see in a day’s journey the loveliest characteristics of the most favored climes, malaria spreads its black and baleful wings.

I visited the reservation of the Kiowas and Comanches soon after it was entered by one of the expeditions that operated against the hostile bands of these Indians and of the Cheyennes in the winter of 187-. This force had driven in a number of Kiowas and Comanches. It was a close race between the troops and the Indians. But the latter, having the great advantage of the start, throwing away all impedimenta, leaving their line of flight marked by abandoned lodges, lodge-poles, ponies, cooking utensils, etc., had won the race by a few hours only, and surrendered not a moment too soon. I wanted to see all I could see of Indians while opportunity offered. I visited the commanding officer of the adjoining military post, and made known to him my wishes. He received me with great courtesy and kindness, placed a vehicle at my disposal, tepies in the timbered bottoms along the streams for several miles around the fort.

The interpreter was an “old Indian man.” I found him intelligent and polite. He had evidently been well brought up and fairly educated. His language was generally good; and when he indulged, occasionally, in a graphic, frontier mode of expression, it was easy to see that this was an after-graft, though not the less apt and piquant on that account. The Indians on the reservation were divided into two great classes, those under civil and those under military control. The former were under charge of the agent; the latter under that of the commander of the fort. These were again subdivided into the incarcerated, the enrolled, and the paroled (pronounced by the employees of the post and reservation, pay-rolled).

The imprisoned were again subdivided into two classes: the more guilty and dangerous, who were placed in irons and confined under strict surveillance in the post guard-house; and the Indians of less note and guilt, who were in confinement, but not in irons. Of the first the principal was White Horse, a Kiowa chief, a murderer, ravisher, and as great a general scoundrel as could be found in any tribe. These really “bad Indians” did not number more than half a dozen. The Comanches and Kiowas belonging to the second subdivision were confined within the walls of an extensive but unfinished stone building, intended for an ice-house, one hundred and fifty feet by forty. They numbered about a hundred and twenty.

I told the interpreter I should like to begin by a visit to White Horse.

“Then,” said he, “we shall have to see the officer of the day; for the sergeant of the guard has orders to let no one visit White Horse without special instructions.”

Two old squaws, evidently in great distress, now came up to the interpreter, and, having shaken hands with him, began to talk to him with great eagerness.

“You’re in luck,” said the interpreter to me. “These are two of his mothers who want permission to see him.”

“Two of his mothers!” I exclaimed. “How many mothers has he, for heaven’s sake?”

“Only one regular one,” he replied, laughing. “The other is his aunt; but among these Indians the aunts also call themselves mothers.”

Accompanied by the two squaws, we went to seek the officer of the day. We soon found him. He was a tall, fine-looking, genial, impulsive Kentuckian, a cavalry officer. He went with us to the guard-house. He first took the interpreter and myself into the prison-room where White Horse’s five companions were confined. They looked greatly dispirited. They all shook hands with us with great warmth. I noticed the eagerness of the last hand-shaker, who seemed to fear that we might leave the cell before he had gone through the ceremony with each of us. Poor wretches! I presume they thought their hour was nearly come, and, like drowning men, they grasped even at the semblance of straws. They evidently had some rough idea of “making interest” with the victor “pale-faces” in a forlorn hope for pardon. They were effusive

The officer then conducted us to a private room, into which he ordered White Horse to be brought. A clanking of chains was heard along the corridor, and White Horse, doubly ironed, stood in the door-way. He entered, not without a certain untutored majesty of gait, maugre his irons. He put out his manacled hands, and energetically went through the ceremony of hand-shaking, beginning with the officer of the day, and giving him an extra shake at the end.

White Horse was a large, powerful Indian. He wore a dark-colored blanket which covered his entire person. I could discern no indications of ferocity in his countenance. His face, on the contrary, had rather what I should call a Chadband cast. His flesh seemed soft, oily, and “puffy.”

White Horse’s mother and aunt were now permitted to enter. The mother rushed to her son, threw her arms around him, kissed him on both cheeks, while the tears rolled down her face; but she uttered not a word. The aunt kissed him in like manner. White Horse submitted to their embraces, but made no motion of responding affection. He seemed a little nervous under their caresses, and probably under our observation. The mother took hold of his chain, looked at it for a moment, and then came another paroxysm of silent grief, revealing itself in tears alone. They sat on a rough wooden bench, White Horse in the centre, his mother on his right, his aunt on the left, each holding one of his hands in both of hers. White Horse uttered no sound; no gesture betrayed any emotion, yet I thought I could detect a moistening of the eye. This made me feel that I had no business there, gazing on his grief and that of the poor Indian women. I suppose I ought to be ashamed to say it; but the truth must be told, and I must confess that, villain as he was, I could not help feeling for him. Of course it was a weakness, but I am miserably weak in such matters. I believe I should have pleaded for mercy towards him, though he showed little mercy to others. There are few human beings who do not, at some time in their lives, need mercy shown them; and when they themselves cry out for it, it must be a great consolation to them to reflect, as they look back, that they, in their time, have not been deaf to the cries of others.

I signified a wish to withdraw, and left, accompanied by the officer and the interpreter. Before we were permitted to depart, however, we had to shake hands with White Horse and the two squaws. The women looked at us with an appealing expression, as if, in their poor, simple minds, they thought it possible that, in some way or other, we might have an influence on the fate of the son.

We next visited the unfinished building in which the one hundred and twenty lesser Indian criminals were confined. They were bestowed in a sufficiently comfortable manner. Common tents were ranged along the walls, and there were fires burning at proper distances down the centre of the building. The occupants

He shook his head and replied: “No.”

“Mejicano?” I asked.

“Si,” he replied with a broad grin.

The other Indians crowded around us, laughing and nodding their heads, ejaculating: “Mejicano! How! how!” and turning towards each other with gestures of wonder or admiration (exactly as I have seen the chorus do at the Italian opera). This was no doubt done with a rude idea of flattering me on my perspicacity. There are worse judges of human nature than the untutored Indian. I suppose there is very little doubt that, had I any power over their fate, the compliment would not have been thrown away on me, or on most men for that matter.

Of course they wanted tobacco, and we gave them what we had about us. They had a good deal to say to the interpreter. Every one had some little grievance to complain of or want to be satisfied. At length, after some more hand-shaking, we escaped from them.

On leaving the prison-house we learned that we should not find the principal Indians in their camps until later in the day, as they were then collecting in the commanding officer’s office to talk about sending a party to find some of the Cheyennes, who, having been driven from the brakes of the Staked Plains, were supposed to have gone to southern New Mexico. The interpreter said I should have a good opportunity to see the “head men” there; we could visit the camps afterwards. To the office we went, and found there about fifteen or twenty chiefs, among them Little Crow and Kicking Bird, the head chief of the Kiowas. If ever there were a good Indian—and there are many very honest people west of the Mississippi who think that no live Indian can be good—I think Kicking Bird was a good Indian. During the recent troubles he never left his reservation, was constant in using his influence in favor of the whites, and never wavered in his fidelity to the government.

He was a fine-looking Indian, and had as winning a countenance as I have looked upon anywhere. The expression of his eyes was remarkably soft and pleasing. There was a quiet, natural dignity in his manners, tempered by great natural grace. I was taken by his appearance from the first, and shook hands with him with pleasure and sincerity, which was not the case on every occasion of hand-shaking that morning. Kicking Bird, as nearly as one can judge an Indian’s age (an Indian is generally as great a chronological difficulty

After the “talk” was over and the arrangements for sending out the party agreed upon, every chief except Kicking Bird had some private “axe to grind”—something to ask for. As the presentation of these “private bills” was likely to take much time, we withdrew, mounted our wagon, and drove to the Kiowa camp.

The camps of the three tribes, Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches, were pitched in the fringe of timber that borders Medicine Bluff Creek and the Main Cache. The day was bright and warm for the season. The scarlet and white blankets of the Indians, seen here and there among the trees, gave life and color to the landscape. Crowds of children gambolled and shouted, and seemed to enjoy themselves intensely. They had no idea they were the children of a doomed and dying race. There was no trace among them of the stoicism of the Indian of maturer years. No crowd of French urchins playing around the Tour Saint Jacques in the grounds of the Palais Royal, or the gardens of the Tuileries, was ever more full of gayety and espièglerie than these little savages. They threw their arms about and “kicked loose legs” as naturally and with as much abandon as any white children could have done. Some, more industriously inclined, built little tepies, or lodges; others made tiny camp-fires, playing “war-party”; others, with miniature bows and arrows, skipped along, shooting at the small birds that crossed their path. Now an urchin, more bold than the rest, would hop alongside our wagon and return our “how, how” with compound interest. Emboldened by his example, others would follow, until we had a crowd of little red-skins of both sexes about us, hopping, laughing, and “how-how”-ing. Occasionally they indulged in a general shout of good-natured merriment, which may very probably have been caused by some more than usually good joke at our expense.

Our first visit was to Kicking Bird’s lodge. It was quite roomy, being a tepie of twenty-four poles. In rear of the lodge, and carefully covered by a paulin, like the carriage of any civilized gentleman, stood our friend Kicking Bird’s “buggy.”

Kicking Bird had not yet returned from the talk at the post. His wife, a buxom young squaw, profusely beaded, brightly blanketed, vermilion-cheeked, but not over-washed, did the honors. She had a child about ten months old—a lively, stout little red rascal, whose flesh was as firm as vulcanized rubber. The little wretch was just beginning to walk. He was in puris, of course. He took wonderfully to us. He would try to walk across the lodge to each of us in turn, falling at every other step, and getting up again with a loud crow of determination. Then he would toddle from one to the other, holding by our boot-tops as we stood in a circle around him, and being jumped as high as arms would admit of by each in turn, to his intense delight and the great enjoyment of his mother.

We walked through the camp and watched the squaws tanning buffalo-hides and preparing antelope-skins. I was very anxious to get a papoose-board, as a telegram from a medical friend had just informed

A gaudily-dressed Indian, whose cheeks were streaked with paint of all the colors of the rainbow, approached us. In my civilized simplicity I supposed that this glaring individual was some very big chief indeed. I asked the interpreter what great chief he was.

“Some Indian plug,” responded that gentleman; “no chief at all.”

“How comes he to be so extravagantly adorned?”

“They can wear anything they can beg, buy, or steal.”

My mistake reminds me of a similar one made by Indians with regard to some white visitors. Col. —— visited an Indian camp, accompanied by some officers and a cavalry escort. The colonel and the officers were dressed in fatigue uniform, with merely gold enough about them to indicate their rank to a close observer on close inspection. The observed of all the Indian observers, however, was a “fancy” Dutch bugler, with his double yellow stripe and his bars of yellow braid across his breast. To him the most respectful homage and the greatest consideration were paid.

As we passed one of the Kiowa lodges, a young man, seemingly about twenty-five or twenty-eight years old, came out to meet us with outstretched arms. With the exception of Kicking Bird, he was the most pleasing Indian I met. He was very fair-skinned for an Indian, bright, intelligent-looking, with a frankness of manner rare among Indians. He was presented to me as Big Tree, a paroled Indian.

The interpreter told me that, up to the time Big Tree was taken with Satanta, the former was an Indian of no note. He was innocent of crime, and achieved a reputation merely by his accidental associations with Satanta.

Notwithstanding the lesson I had received, when we met some gaudily-bedizened Indian I could not refrain from asking who he was.

The interpreter’s answer was invariably: “Only some Indian plug.”

We drove to the Comanche camp, and visited the lodge of Quirz-Quip, or “Antelope-Chewer.” I had met him at the “talk” in the morning. He recognized me and shook hands in a very friendly manner. Quirz-Quip’s countenance was not an attractive one. It was at its best then, however, for he was in high glee at his good fortune in reaching the reservation, even with the loss of almost everything he had, and the troops close at his heels. He only got in a few hours ahead of them, and they had been gaining on him hourly. As his dinner was ready, Antelope-Chewer invited us in to join him in the repast, and I accepted the invitation eagerly.

The lodge was a large and comfortable one. No doubt it had been kept standing on the reservation for the use of the squaws and children while Antelope-Chewer was on the war-path, and for a pleasant and safe resting-place for that gentleman when the troops tepie. The fire was in the centre, in a hole eighteen inches or two feet deep. The lodge was pleasantly warmed, and there was not the least smoke. Two young bucks occupied about four yards of the lodge. They lay stretched at full length on their backs. Each had a bow and arrow, with which he amused himself by toying. The arrow was in its place, ready to be sped. Ever and anon they would draw the arrows back to the head, and then relax the strings again. I felt that the rascals would have sent the barbs through us with pleasure, if they could only do so with safety. We were unarmed, it is true; but there were thirteen companies of cavalry and five of infantry within a mile and a half, and the chances of ultimate escape were more than doubtful. I should not wish to meet even my worthy friend Quirz-Quip off the reservation, if I were unarmed and no help near.

The young men merely nodded to us as we entered, without changing their positions or intermitting their bow-play. They gave us a half-careless, half-supercilious smile, and glanced at each other, as if they should say:

“Buffalo-Heart, my boy! what does the governor mean by bringing these fellows here?”

They seemed to look upon us as a pair of young scions of the old French noblesse might have looked upon a republican guard detail entering their private apartments in their ancestral château.

We shook hands and exchanged grunts with the squaws and children. The interpreter joked Quirz-Quip about his race with the troops. The Indian laughed, indulged in several “how-hows” and buenos (the Comanches use a good many Spanish words), and shook hands with me again with great seeming cordiality. He was evidently very much elated by his good fortune in getting to a place of safety, and showed it by repeated chuckles.

Dinner being ready, we drew closer to the festive fire-hole in which the viands were cooking. As a not very comely old squaw put forth a not very clean hand and arm to serve the first course, a young gentleman who had joined our party made a precipitate retreat. The young fellow was troubled with a delicate stomach. Another gentleman, having tasted of the first course, said he found the tepie rather close and withdrew. There remained of our party, then, only the interpreter and my unworthy self to do honor to Antelope-Chewer’s hospitality.

The party assembled around the hospitable stew-pan consisted of the old squaw who did the honors of the camp-kettle; a younger squaw, plump and dirty, evidently the latest favorite; Antelope-Chewer and several little Chewers, ranging from six months to twelve years old; the aristocratic young bucks (whose food was handed to them by the old squaw), the interpreter, and the writer. The repast consisted of stewed buffalo meat served in the vessel in which it was cooked. Each convive takes his clasp-knife in his right hand, seizes one end of the piece of meat with the thumb and forefinger of his left, and cuts off a piece of the required size. It is “bad medicine,” as well as mauvais goût, to take

There was no bread. The Indians on the reservation had received no flour for weeks. We had the Indian substitute for bread—the fat of the meat cut off in strips, pressed, and served separately, cold. There are worse substitutes. A cup of coffee (without milk, of course) concluded the repast. It was by no means bad. It was hot and strong, though not quite sweet enough, as the ration of sugar issued to the Indians was insufficient. I enjoyed it, however. It is only justice to say that Quirz-Quip’s coffee was much better than some I have tasted in railroad eating-houses and “end of the track” towns.

Dinner being over, we left the lodge to walk through the camp, and especially to visit and view a bridge made by the Indians themselves across the Medicine Bluff. It was a structure of mud and logs quite creditable to Indian ingenuity and industry. It showed that the lessons of their teacher—the beaver—had not been thrown away upon them.

We invited Antelope-Chewer to come with us to the fort bakery, and we would make him a present of a dozen loaves of bread. He consented, but said he wanted his squaw to go too.

“He wants her to carry back the bread,” said the interpreter.

We agreed, and got into the wagon. Quirz-Quip desired that the plump and dirty squaw should ride inside with us. To this we would not submit, and insisted that she should take the seat beside the driver. Indeed, I felt already an itching sensation all over me—no doubt the effect of imagination; for the interpreter assured me there was no danger of anything of the kind, unless I should spend a night in a lodge. I assured him that such a thing was not at all probable. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding two or three baths, it was some days before my epidermis regained its accustomed tranquillity.

We drove to the Apache camp for our young friends who had fled from Quirz-Quip’s hospitality, and returned by the Comanche chief’s lodge to pick up the plump and dirty squaw. She had become tired of waiting, and had gone away, much to her lord’s disgust and our satisfaction.

We drove to the bakery and bought a dozen loaves of bread for Quirz-Quip. He wished us to drive him back to his camp with the bread. The interpreter told him we could not do it. Then the modest Comanche asked us to lend him the wagon to take the bread. The interpreter shook his head, and assured him that it was impossible.

“Then,” said Quirz-Quip, “how am I to get the bread to camp?”

“If you are too lazy to pack it,” said the interpreter, “you can leave, and be confounded.”

As we drove away, we saw him, with a rueful countenance, spreading out his blanket on the floor to receive the coveted bread but hated load.

On our return from the camps we passed by the agency. I asked what kind of a man the agent was. I was answered that he was “a

“He is a Quaker, I suppose.”

“A kind of a made-up Quaker, like a good many of ‘em.”

We stopped at the agency door, and I was introduced to the agent. He was a gentleman in his manners, and looked to me like an honest man. There was to be an issue of blankets on the following day. The agent kindly said he would be glad to have me present, and if I would come he would send a wagon for me. I accepted at once.

The Indian agent was as good as his word. He sent a carriage for us about half-past eight next morning. The issue was to take place about half-past nine. It was nearly half-past eleven, however, before the Indians began to arrive. Your Indian is invariably unpunctual. You may set what hour you please, but you cannot make him come until he is quite ready. By half-past twelve they began coming in considerable numbers and the issue commenced. The women and children were out in great force, and were in high good-humor, chatting and laughing in the gayest manner possible. Each family ranges itself in a semi-circle; the chief, or male head thereof, stood about the centre of the chord. Each chief, after receiving the number of blankets to which he was entitled, tore in two a double blanket of each color; there were only black and white blankets to be issued that day, no scarlet ones, greatly to the disappointment of the squaws and children. Beginning at one end of the semi-circle, the chief threw a piece of each color at the head of the person for whom it was intended. It was caught with a shout of glee and many remarks, evidently of a humorous nature, judging by the laughter with which they were hailed. Sometimes the dignified chief, with as near an approach to a smile as his dignity would allow, threw a joke with the blanket at the head of a dependant. His jokes, like those of all persons in power, were always greeted with applause. When the blanket was so thrown as to strike the recipient full in the face, the merriment was uproarious. Our friend Quirz-Quip was present, of course. He was very busy, getting all he could, and dividing what he got among his interesting family. He was harder to please than if he had always been a good Indian and had never left the reservation to go on the war-path.

The blankets were of very good quality. They were marked with the letters U. S. I. D. It was found necessary to stamp the blankets to prevent the Indians from gambling or trading them away to Mexicans in the summer.

Here and there some wretched squaws stood apart from the general throng, as if they were Pariahs among their sisters. They seemed utterly forlorn and miserable. They took no interest in the busy scene before them. Their faces wore an expression of blank hopelessness. The world had nothing for them in the present, nothing in the future. They came to the issue as mere drudges, to carry back the blankets to the camps. They had each an angular piece cut out of the nostril. This is the Scarlet Letter of the Comanches.

When the issue was over I visited the Indian hospital and had quite an interesting chat with the doctor. The Indians were then suffering a good deal from colds, influenza, etc., brought on by exposure at night, i.e., performing incantations. As we went from the hospital to the carpenter’s shop, I met young Satanta, a paroled prisoner, son of the notorious Satanta who was delivered by the War Department to the civil authorities in Texas to be tried for murders and robberies committed by him within the boundaries of that State. Satanta, Jr., was a bright-eyed young man of twenty. He wore a long, straight red feather in his hat, and carried in his hand a bow, from which ever and anon he discharged an arrow as he went, and picked it up again.

An Indian, who evidently thought he was suffering under a very great grievance, now met us and talked very earnestly and excitedly to the interpreter.

“That Indian is smarting under the sense of some great wrong, real or fancied,” I said.

“Yes,” said the interpreter, smiling; “he has trouble with another Indian about a greyhound pup. I promised this fellow and another a pup each (I have the finest greyhounds in the Territory). The other fellow, while I was away, took both the pups, and won’t give this fellow his. They are just like children in many things.”

There was little doing in the carpenter’s shop. I was shown some work done by a young Indian which was fair, for an Indian. There were no Indians at work, but I was told that Kicking Bird’s son was to begin his apprenticeship the following week.

Nor was there anything doing at the school. There were hopes of opening it the following month, with twenty Apaches, twenty Kiowas, and the same number of Comanches.

The trader at the military post was also the trader for the Indians. The store was thronged from morning to sunset by Indians of both sexes. Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches, hung around in groups, standing in the doorways, blocking up the windows, when they were closed, with their faces against the panes, or their heads and the upper part of their bodies thrust in when they were open. The majority of the trader’s store-idlers are women, young girls, and children. They are by no means backward in begging. The clerks told me it was not wise to leave anything on the counter even for a moment when the red brethren and sisters were in the store; they had to be watched as narrowly as fashionable white kleptomaniacs.

I was rather pleased with the appearance of the Indian agent. He seemed honest and frank. Of his ignorance or knowledge of Indians and their ways I can say nothing. “Old Indian men” are apt to think that, in the way of knowledge of Indians, they have pulled the ladder up after them.

I thanked the agent for his politeness, and said that, if he did not think it impertinent, I should like to ask a question or two for my own information and satisfaction. He replied that he would be very happy to give me any information in his power.

“Well,” said I, “not to mince matters, you know they say a great many hard things about Indian agents.”

“Of course I do. When I received this appointment, one of my most intimate friends wrote to me not to accept it, warning me that, were I as pure as snow, I should be denounced by everybody as a swindler and a thief before six months.”

“It is said that for several weeks

“It is. The freight contractors have failed to deliver the flour. I cannot issue what I have not. To make up for the lack of flour, I issue four pounds of beef to each Indian daily.”

“It is charged that the beef is poor. Is this charge true?”

“It is. What can I do? Like a quartermaster or commissary, I can only issue what I have on hand. If I had not this beef, the Indians would have nothing to eat. I cannot throw it back on the contractor’s hands, and wait for a better quality of meat; for while I was waiting the Indians would starve or leave the reservation to find subsistence where they could.”

“What is the allowance of coffee and sugar?”

“Four pounds of the former and eight of the latter to one hundred rations.”

I now took a friendly farewell of the Indian agent, and went away with a vague impression that it is not the poor, subordinate official who makes most money out of the Indians, but freighters and “big contractors,” and perhaps more especially their financial “backers,” the speculators of the great Eastern cities.

On our way back to the post we met Kicking Bird returning to his camp. He was mounted on a large cream-colored mule. We stopped, shook hands with him, and chatted a little. The interpreter joked him about riding a mule. Kicking Bird laughed, and said that as he was going to live hereafter like a white man, like a white man he should ride a mule.

It was the last time I saw Kicking Bird. Shortly afterwards he delivered up to the military authorities a number of the revolted Indians. Among them was a brother of one of his squaws. In revenge she poisoned the faithful chief.

Poor Kicking Bird! He had given his gorgeous war-bonnet to a veteran officer of the army as a token that he had left the war-path for ever. He proposed to teach his children the white man’s language and the white man’s peaceful arts. He fell a martyr to his fidelity to the government.

DE VERE’S “THOMAS À BECKET.”[210]

It is doubtful whether two years ago even the admirers of Aubrey de Vere looked for anything strikingly new or startling from his pen. His measure seemed filled. He was known and read as a poet whose melodious verse was the expression of thoughts lofty as well as tender, of profound meditations and large aspirations, of purity without fleck, yet cold almost as it was chaste. This were an enviable fame at any time, infinitely more so just now, when the ambition of our poets seems to be that of the prodigal, to waste their divine birthright on worthless objects, to live riotously, and finally, when all else is gone, to feed themselves and their readers on the husks of swine. Suddenly Alexander the Great appeared, and in the author we beheld a new man. At once his fame took wings, while he, with the unconscious ease of one who took his place by right, strode beyond the men of to-day, and entered into that narrower circle of larger minds whose names are written in brass, whose works live after them and become part and parcel of the English tongue. One sign of Mr. de Vere’s undisputed Alexander the Great was hailed by critics of every class and kind of thought to be a return to the palmy days of English drama, and a welcome addition to English literature.

Two years have passed, and a new drama is presented to us by the same author. From Alexander the Great to Thomas à Becket is a long stride and a trying one. It is a passage from the height of paganism to the height of Christianity. The hero of the one is the personification of the pride and the pomp, the glory and shame, the greatness and essential littleness, of paganism. The hero of the other is one of those men who throughout the Christian era, even up to our own times, have been found to stand up in the face of the princes of this world, and, if need be, pour out their hearts’ blood in confessing Christ and upholding his kingdom on earth.

We may as well say at once that in the new drama we miss many things which in Alexander the Great won our admiration. We miss the sustained magic of those lines, almost every one of which is poetry of the highest order, yet so skilfully adapted that whosoever speaks them speaks naturally and in keeping with his character. In no place in Alexander the Great could one say, “Here speaks the poet,” “Here the rhetorician,” “Here the dramatist.” This much, indeed, is true of Thomas à Becket. We miss, too, the brilliant epigrams, the proverbial wisdom of the brief sayings thrown so liberally into the mouths of this character and that. We miss the sharp contact and contrast of character so perfectly worked out among the different types of Greeks. There is no place in the later drama for such a conception as Alexander himself, the slow growth and development under our eyes of his many-sided character, with his strong resolve, his dreams, his daring hopes, his insane ambition, his thorough, practical manner of dealing with things as they pass, his slow-coming doubts, his wonder at the world, at his own mission in it, and at the unseen power that rules them both from somewhere. Indeed, we cannot call to mind a like conception to this in any drama.

The reason for the absence of such features as these is plain. In the one case the poet was freer to follow the workings of his own imagination; in the other he is more closely bound down to history, to facts, to the very words often spoken by his characters. And how thoroughly he has studied his subject may be seen in the preface to the drama, which is an admirable, St. Thomas and Henry II. But in compensation for what we miss we find a robustness, an off-hand freedom betokening real strength, a truth and naturalness of coloring, a noble manner of dealing with noble things, a straightforward honesty that winks at no faults, on whichever side they lie, a boldness and vigor that never flag from the first line to the last. There is less art than in the other, but much more of nature’s happy freedom. Moreover, the interest of the drama is none the less really of to-day because it represents men who lived and events which occurred seven centuries ago. Has this century seen no Henries or his like? Who shall say that we have no Beckets? Are there no men to-day ready to stand up in the face of princes calling themselves Christian, to risk land and life and all they have in the cause of Christ, at the same time that they obey their princes, be they Catholic or non-Catholic, “saving their order” and “saving God’s honor”?

The whole world makes sad reply. And though in these scientific days it is not the fashion to dash the brains of God’s priests out in the sanctuary, a method equally effectual is adopted to quench, if possible, the spirit within them. They are drained of such means as belong to their offices by fine upon fine; every effort is made to compel them, as was the case with St. Thomas, to betray their trust, to recognize rebellious, apostate, and recreant priests. And at length, when there is not a penny left, they are either driven into exile, as was St. Thomas, or cast into prisons where their martyrdom consists of a thousand petty insults and deprivations, and where, to take up recent examples, they are regaled on soup which is scientifically bad. After all, does there not seem something more magnanimous in the fierce brutality of the Plantagenet and his men?

The whole drama of Thomas à Becket turns on the struggle between the archbishop and the king, and there is no hesitation on the author’s part in deciding which side to take in the contest. Mr. de Vere has certainly the courage of his convictions, and he is bold in their expression in days when St. Thomas is still regarded by the great majority of English readers as a mischievous and meddlesome prelate who courted, if he did not richly deserve, his fate. Let us, with Mr. de Vere’s permission, picture to ourselves a moment his lost opportunity of making himself infamously famous. Had he, with his great gifts and acknowledged place in the ranks of literati, only taken the other side; had he painted St. Thomas according to the orthodox Protestant reading, how his book would have been devoured, and what reviews written of it down all the line of the anti-Catholic army of writers! What comfort Mr. Gladstone would have found in such a convert in his next tilt with the Rock! Were it not a thing simply natural in any honorable man to adhere to the side of truth, and, more, to satisfy himself of the truth where doubts were raised, we should call it noble in Mr. de Vere thus to spurn the example of so many gifted writers of his time whose great ambition seems to be to pander to the vices around them. Indeed, not the least interest attached to this drama lies in the treatment, by a calm, poetic, yet deeply philosophic mind, of the

The drama is in five acts. The first opens at Westminster with the election of Thomas to the primacy, embraces his resignation of the chancellorship and first rupture with the king, and ends beautifully and solemnly with his consecration as Archbishop of Canterbury. This act is very interesting. It plunges at once in medias res. Not a line is wasted, and so natural is the coloring that one lives and moves among the men of long ago as completely as in Shakspere. Becket’s friends and foes come and go, and have their say about the new prelate and his appointment to the “Rome of the North.” Naturally, the appointment to such a see still filled men’s minds while the memory of Anselm lived,

“Stretching from exile a lean, threatening arm”

against the first Henry. It is plain from the start that Becket’s mitre is not to be wreathed with roses. Even were the king a tamer soul, the new archbishop leaves enemies behind him—time-serving prelates who hate an honest man, others who envy him his place, nobles, knights, and rascals who have felt his strong hand while chancellor. The scene shifts to Normandy and shows us Henry’s court at Rouen, presided over by his perfidious and vicious queen, Eleanor, whose bitter tongue ever fans the flames that threaten Becket, whom she hates. Here we see Henry at his best, when, as he thinks, all is going well with his scheme.

Here we have, too, a thrilling picture of his wrath when this pleasant scheme is at once knocked to pieces by Becket’s resignation of the chancellorship. And now the fight begins.

In the second act come up the memorable scenes at Northampton with the question of the “Royal Customs.” In these trying scenes, where king and prelate enter the lists against each other, the dramatist has exhibited a power worthy the occasion, and, to our thinking, they are the finest in the drama. We can only glance at them and pass on. The forces are marshalled: on the one side the power of the king with the bandit nobles—for most of them were little else—and the craven prelates; on the other Becket, his oath, and his conscience. The scene between Becket and the bishops, where they strive to break down his resolution, is admirable, as showing the inner character of the man, the steadfast churchman, military half, who has not yet quite lost that outspoken scorn he used so freely while still in and of the world. His brief replies are full of negative meaning, and, when he does break forth, the scorn of the king is puny beside his words.

And never were there nobler words than these:

And surely Becket might have spoken this:

But we could quote all this magnificent scene.

In the third act Becket escapes to France, visits the exiled pontiff at Sens, and finally takes refuge at Pontigny. The calm of this holy and peaceful abode seems to permeate this portion of the drama, offering a happy relief after the late fierce storms. There he abides, “musing on war with heart at peace,” and his spirit, without slackening in its strong purpose, grows insensibly calmer, milder, and more humble. From this dwelling he is driven forth by order of the king, only, as the king himself bitterly says, to “stand stronger than before.” The persecution is turning against the persecutor, who confesses in words Shakspere might have written:

But he is a man as full of device as resolution, and at his back are men still fuller of device. The plot thickens, and at last even Rome seems to fall from the archbishop, and give him over to the power of his enemies. Something of the old fierce spirit leaps up, and Rome itself is not spared, until he is reminded by John of Salisbury, his tried and faithful friend, of the Pope that

Whereupon Becket breaks out into a speech full of beauty and of truth, which we regret our limited space forbids us to quote. At the end of it the two cardinals enter to endeavor to find a way for patching up a peace between the archbishop and the king. It must be borne in mind that in those days the church was in sore straits: the pope in exile at Sens; an anti-pope backed by all the power of the German emperor. As Cardinal Otho truly says:

And here was Becket, the champion of the church, doing, in the eyes of many, what best he could to drive England also into the enemy’s camp. All these circumstances render the intellectual and spiritual duel between the archbishop and the cardinals one of intense interest, which again confirms what we noted in Alexander the Great, that Mr. de Vere has the true dramatic instinct of bringing together at the right place and right time opposing elements. It is the clash of contraries that imparts greatest interest to a drama, and the right working of the conflict that shows the dramatist’s skill. The contrast between the plausible, keen, politic, Italian nature, as it would be called by some, of Cardinal William, and the straight, unbending, single-minded nature of Becket, who is so rooted

The fourth act opens with a beautiful scene between the nun Idonea and the aged Empress Matilda, whose character, small part as it plays in the drama, seems to us one of the most finished of all. Henry is back in England, only to find

On the other hand, Becket, with half-prophetic eye, seems to see the beginning of the end. After each new struggle, each new humiliation, he rises greater because humbler, leaving the dross behind him. Here is his own estimate of himself:

(After a pause.)

How true is this we all know. It only required a Luther to make of Henry II. a Henry VIII., and he had not stood so long in doubt as did the latter. The plot deepens. What an admirable touch it is that shows him, when the gravest news arrives from England, falling back a moment on his happier days at hearing of a smart retort given by his old pupil, the youthful prince! At last the king and Becket are brought together, and again in this long, historic meeting Mr. de Vere rises fully and easily to the level of the event. The inner vein of deceit for which he was marked shows through the monarch’s speech, and once a lurid burst of passion flashes forth like lightning and as quickly disappears. This prolonged scene, at the end of which the mask is almost openly thrown off by the king, ends the act, and is a fitting preparation for the consummation which is to follow.

The fifth act opens with preparations for the return of the archbishop to England. His heart and those of his friends are filled with the gloomiest forebodings. Ill-rumors thicken around them. Becket himself, in a speech of wonderful beauty and pathos, describes the “sinking strange” at his heart as, standing still on the French coast, he looks towards England. It is the flesh asserting itself and gaining a momentary victory over the spirit. He sails at length, and history tells us how he was received. It was a matter of life or death to his foes. There was only one end to a contest with a man of his stamp—either submission on their part or death to him. The drama

The short scene in which the barbed words of the queen draw a contrast between Becket’s triumph and the king’s humiliation is one of the many dramatic gems set in this drama. So graphic is the scene as she rises on the throne, cup in hand, and cries:

that we scarcely need Leicester to tell us:

At last falls that memorable feast of St. Stephen, and the end comes.

The saint is already looking beyond this world. Standing at the window, as we are told he stood, he looks out and beholds the ground robed in snow. Here is how his poet makes him speak of it:

What other poet in these days could give us so pure and perfect an image as that—a flower plucked, surely, from the paradise of poets? The sweetness is sent up. It rises from the martyr’s blood.

Such is an outline of this drama. The character, of course, on which the attention fastens chiefly is that of Thomas à Becket, and we think that in the portrayal of this great character Mr. de Vere is as happy as in his Alexander. Becket is a very easy man to write about, but a most difficult one to set living and real before us. In him for a long time the layman and the clerk struggled for mastery. There is no possible doubt that up to the time of his elevation to the primacy he was a man who lived in, and to a very great extent of, the world. He rejoiced in pomp and pride, in large retinues, in splendid appointments, in ostentatious display. He was not at all averse to showing that the arm of the cleric could tilt a lance with the bravest knight. Yet through all the temptations of such a life as his he undoubtedly retained his purity of heart, a right sense of his true vocation, and an honesty of purpose that never swerved. Certain it is that, in procuring his appointment as primate, Henry thought he had, if not exactly a tool, a devoted friend and a sensible man, who would not forget the favors his monarch had showered on him, and would be troubled by no such nice scruples as vexed his predecessor, Anselm. Becket had shown himself to be a keen-eyed, resolute, active, honest minister, with no sordid touch in his nature, with an intense sense of duty to his king and country. Indeed, had he not been a Catholic cleric, in days when clerics lawfully assumed many a civil office, there can be little doubt that he would have been pronounced, even by Protestant historians, to be one of the best and truest English chancellors that ever held the seals.

At a day’s notice this man, by the express command and desire of the king, is sent back to his real that the spirit of a saint and martyr has flown to heaven.

The conception of Henry is almost equally good. The following picture of him will be remembered:

Excellent foils to Becket and to each other are Becket’s two fast friends, John of Salisbury and Herbert of Bosham. The contrast between the two is well drawn by themselves:

A mightier hand than Mr. de Vere’s might own so graphic a picture as this:

And the “reptile press” had not yet come into being!

There is not a weak line in this drama. It will be welcomed by all Catholics as a glorious illumination Alexander the Great, bear reading and rereading, disclosing each time new beauties of thought and expression. Many of the speeches set one’s veins a-tingling, so vivid and real are they. The pictures of churchmen are a study. There is the prelate courtier, the prelate politician, the false ascetic, the blasphemous apostate, the timid prelate, who trembles between his conscience and his king. In striking contrast to these stand out Becket and his true men, while to and fro among the cleric gowns stalk the stalwart nobles, half-bandits, most of them, sick in turn of prelate and king. Mr. de Vere makes masterly use of these many opposite elements, groups, parts, and rearranges them with the highest dramatic effect.

The general tendency of English poetry in these days is downwards. It has gained nothing; it has lost much. It is least strong in its highest, the dramatic form. Without pretending to be at all dogmatic in mere literary criticism, we take this last statement to be indisputable. The failure, however, is not from lack of effort. There is surely some strange fascination about the drama. It would not be at all hazardous to say that nine out of every ten men with any literary pretensions, if they have not actually written dramas, have at least had the ambition and intention at some time or another to write them. What may be the precise reason for this general tendency towards that peculiar form of literature, unless it is that so very few succeed in it, we do not know, and do not care to inquire just now. The unattainable, however, always possesses a strong fascination for aspiring minds; and as the dramatic literature of all countries is that which, though the least in quantity, has fastened itself most upon the hearts of the people, it is at least a worthy ambition which aims at this royal road to fame. The discovery of the North-west Passage has not been a more fatal lure to mariners than the drama to literary adventurers. Even men of approved position in other branches of literature, poets of fame, novelists whose names were household words, statesmen and philosophers, have failed at this last fortress that fame seems to hold only for her most favored sons. Here no art can win an entrance; the sweetest strains cannot charm the locks asunder, the profoundest thoughts cannot melt them. Nature and nature only holds the key.

A glance at a few of the writers of the century will reveal how true is this. Even Byron with his passionate soul, his strangely mixed nature, his bitterness and sweetness, his loftiness of thought and expression combined, his marvellous power over words, has written dramas which as poems are splendid, but as dramas wretched. Shelley was the only poet of his day who produced a really dramatic work, but its revolting subject unhappily removes it from clean hands. The lesser lights of our own day have each in turn attempted a like flight only to meet with disaster. Who thinks of Browning’s Strafford now? Who has cast a second glance at Swinburne’s Chastelard or Bothwell? Notwithstanding the “gush” with which it was at first hailed by some English critics, Tennyson’s Mary Tudor has fallen flat, Spanish Student, the only drama he ever published, happens to be about the worst of his productions. Mr. Disraeli even, in his wild youth, perpetrated a drama which was presented some years since at a second or third class London theatre, and, we believe, almost ruined the management. At all events it failed. And Bulwer Lytton’s best known drama is not one-fiftieth part as good as his poorest novel.

Bold then is the man who would tread this royal road which is strewn with so many a brave wreck. Rash the man who, with name and fame established, with the well-won laurels of a lifetime on his brow, would add a final and a crowning leaf plucked from this garden of death. Happy the man who, in face of the thousand dangers that beset his path, goes on his way boldly, grasps and holds the prize that a thousand of his fellows have missed. Mr. de Vere has won this prize. His dramas are dramas and nothing else. They are not verses stitched together without a purpose and a plan. They are not mere description; they are instinct with act. We hope and believe that one who has accomplished so much and so well in so short a time may, as we do not doubt he can, do much more. The prizes to be won in this, to Mr. de Vere, new field are as many as the aspirants; but the winners are few. As Catholics we are proud of such a poet. As readers and observers we rejoice in these degenerate days at seeing so resolute a return to loftier thoughts and purer, to great conceptions, to real English, which is free at once from the affectation of the archaic and from the flimsy jingle that tries honest ears, to a right depicting of scenes and events that have stirred the world.

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.

It has been the lot of more than one disreputable character to be glorified by great poets. From Spenser to Tennyson have the praises of “Gloriana” been sung, to the no small detriment of truth, and of far worthier personages than she who, although in some respects a great queen, was guilty of ferocities almost beyond the capabilities of man, and of prolonged and calculating cruelties contrary to the very nature bestowed by God on woman. Again, Satan himself is portrayed in Milton’s stately poem as a being more magnificent than malignant. He “hates well” certainly, but his own utter hatefulness, and the base ingratitude to his Creator of which he is the first example, is sufficiently veiled to incline one to feel something akin to admiration or pity for the arch-rebel against God, the crafty seducer and pitiless destroyer of the souls of men.

Passing over other instances of false renown, and undazzled by the halo of romance cast around the “Prisoner of Chillon” by Lord Byron’s melodious lines (it would be more plain-spoken than polite to write this word, as here it ought to be written, i.e., without the n), let us [211] Still more, however, does Bonivard owe his celebrity to Lord Byron, who apparently knew nothing of the “Prisoner” whose imaginary sufferings he sang, beyond his name, his Protestantism, and the fact of his imprisonment. The poem opens with a string of fictions, among which it is amusing to read that Bonivard was loaded with chains for the religion of his father, and that the said father had died on the rack, a martyr to a creed he refused to abjure, etc.

But imagination has had the upper hand long enough. Certain of our contemporaries abroad having recently referred to the “Prisoner of Chillon” as a martyr for liberty of conscience, it is time to bring down from his pedestal this Calvinist apostate, pointed to by Protestants as one of their models of virtue, and who, we readily allow, turns out to be a fitting companion to similar “models” even more famous in their annals.

The Bonivards were an old bourgeois family of Chambéry, who from the thirteenth century had possessed a certain extent of feudal property. Thus they were subjects of the princes of Savoy, whose worst enemies were then the Genevese and Swiss. Now, it was under the protection of these latter that Bonivard, himself a Savoyard, came, in the vain hope of preserving the rich revenues of his priory of Saint Victor, to plant his batteries against his native country. At Geneva, he took his place among the first promoters of the freedom of the future republic, but no sooner did the Reformation become a movement of importance, from the standing of some of its leaders, than Bonivard disappears from the front, and falls into a lower rank; since, although a writer of some power and possessed of real talents, he was utterly lacking in energy and dignity of character, as also in firmness and consistency of purpose. In proof of this, it is enough to observe the continual applications for money with which he harassed the council of Geneva, while he was at the same time playing fast and loose between Savoy and Geneva, in the first place, and afterwards between Geneva and Berne, according to the advancement of his own interests, self being apparently the sole object of his worship. This “vain and versatile beggar”[212] was called Stultus M. de Sans-Saint-Victor.”

Dr. Chapponnière, a Protestant, says that “Bonivard, exalted by some as a hero and a martyr for liberty, and by others charged with every vice, merited neither the excess of honor he received on the one hand, nor of condemnation on the other.” With regard, however, to this verdict, which would represent Bonivard as a man of simple mediocrity, we put the following questions: Was not François de Bonivard a traitor to his religion, which he abandoned? to his ecclesiastical character, which he violated? to his country, which he injured to the utmost of his power? to history, which he falsified? and lastly, to his wives, whom he deceived, and one of whom he abandoned to torture?

The “Prisoner of Chillon” had earned his detention in that fortress by fifteen years of open revolt against his lawful sovereign; and if, by reason of his six years of imprisonment he is to be accounted a great man, it is but just to allow his fourth wife, Catherine de Courtaronel, to share his greatness. Like him, she apostatized; like him, she quitted her convent and broke all her vows; like him, she was driven out of Geneva because of her evil life; like him, she was allowed to return thither on promising amendment; with him she lived, for some time unmarried, until the two were compelled by the Genevese authorities to submit to a marriage ceremony; like him, she was accused of adultery, and, more unfortunate than he, was made, by the application of frightful tortures, to avow herself guilty of the crime (which, however, has not been proved), her husband making no attempt whatever to save her from the torture. In consequence of the confessions thus extorted, she was condemned to be drowned; the sentence being duly executed.

We have here a terrible pendant to the six years of prison, and one which, this time, can neither be imputed (to quote M. Fazg) to “an infamous duke of Savoy,” nor yet (to quote Bonivard himself) to “a rascally pope.”

This brief sketch, notwithstanding its incompleteness as to details, which would, however, only darkly shade the outline here given, is sufficient to portray the real Bonivard, the avaricious and time-serving apostate, stripped of the interesting fiction which envelopes the Prisoner of Chillon, and to prove his worthiness of a niche by the side of Cranmer, Luther, Calvin, Beza, John of Leyden, and the rest of the reforming race.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Sancta Sophia, or Directions for the Prayer of Contemplation, etc. Extracted out of more than Forty Treatises written by the late Ven. Father F. Augustin Baker, a monk of the English Congregation of the Holy Order of S. Benedict; and methodically digested by the R. F. Serenus Cressy, of the same Order and Congregation. Now edited by the Very Rev. Dom Norbert Sweeny, D.D., of the same Order and Congregation. London: Burns & Oates. 1876. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Next in importance to the choice of a spiritual director comes, no doubt, the selection of the kind and quality of spiritual reading proper for individual souls. Ordinarily they go together, and, granting the first choice to have been well made, the second should be left to be determined by it. One advantage, however, a suitable book presents even when compared with a suitable director. It is always accessible, a consideration of some importance, when one remembers how urgently spiritual writers seek to persuade the soul that in case wise direction can be had at no less cost, she should travel “a thousand German miles” to find it. It is true that with certain classes of religious reading, and especially with that class to which the Sancta Sophia belongs, there is danger that indiscreet readers may mistake their own needs, and nourish pride on what is proper food for humility only. Another peculiarity belonging to them is one which we hardly know whether to class as an advantage or a disadvantage. Put into the hands of mature readers for whom they have been esteemed suitable on account of some natural tendency to introversion, and possibly of converts, to which class, by the way, the author of the Sancta Sophia himself belonged, we have observed these charts of the more interior ways of spiritual life to create a temporary difficulty almost as serious as those they were intended to remove. The clearness and certainty with which the road is pointed out, and the obstacles to be surmounted described, fill the mind at first with such a sense of security as one feels who places himself in charge of an experienced guide to travel to regions by report well known but as yet unvisited. The objects of faith assume a new vividness, and the soul, beholding its own struggles and its own weariness reflected in the page before it, takes up its line of march with new vigor and readiness to endure what its predecessors also have endured. But it will be strange if its enemy do not avail himself of the very weapons used against him to raise the contrary difficulty, and to suggest that the very accuracy with which the internal conflict is described shows that nothing has been really achieved by the spiritual writers except the dissection of the soul itself, and that, considered as evidence for the existence of anything beyond its own struggles, their works are simply worthless. However, to “well-minded souls,” as Father Baker would say, such temptations against faith are not in reality more dangerous than any other, and may, with the help of prayer and prudent counsel, be fled from even while their immediate occasion is retained and put to its uses. For such souls, once firmly grounded in Catholic faith and with a natural predisposition for “the internal ways of the Spirit,” we know no better guide than the Sancta Sophia, now so happily reprinted. No doubt it is not adapted to general reading; the caution of the Benedictine father, Leander à St. Martino, is as necessary to-day as when it was prefixed to the earliest editions of the work. These instructions, he said, “are written precisely, and only for such souls as by God’s holy grace do effectually and constantly dedicate themselves to as pure an abstraction from creatures as may with discretion be practised; … consequently, for such as abstain from all manner of levity, loss of time, notable and known defects, vain talk, needless familiarity, and in a word do take as much care as they can to avoid all venial sins and occasions of them, and all things which they shall perceive or be warned of, to be impediments to the divine union of their souls with God.”

Let us hope that even the strict application of this rule would not too greatly narrow the circle of readers likely to be profited by the reissue of a volume which those well qualified to judge rate as the most solid and valuable work on prayer ever written in the English tongue. A more effectual barrier, perhaps, against indiscriminate readers, is raised by the style of the work itself than by cautions such as these. For while the quaint, sweet sobriety of its manner most happily matches the gravity of its matter, it is marked by an utter absence of all things likely to gratify curiosity simply, and makes no effort to do more than guide souls called to contemplative prayer along the secure road of abnegation and self-denial. Certain blemishes which pertained to the work in its original Sancta Sophia is undoubtedly better fitted than before both to the needs of the contemplative orders for whom it was originally written, and to those of devout souls living in the world.

Mitchell’s Geographical Text-Books. Philadelphia: Published by J. H. Butler & Co.

One of the best proofs of the excellence of these text-books is the continual popularity which they have enjoyed, in spite of the publication of so many competing works by other authors. Of course they have been kept up to the times by additions, and improvements corresponding to the increase of geographical knowledge.

The series consists of eight books, two being occupied with ancient geography, and is progressive, so as to suit every age and capacity. For Catholic schools it is, so far as we can see, not open to any objection, and as good as any set of books not expressly written for them can be.

We are particularly pleased with Prof. Brocklesby’s Physical Geography, which forms part of the series. It is full of information for grown persons as well as for the young, is profusely and finely illustrated, as is the rest of the series, and will be found to be a most readable and instructive book.

The maps and charts are throughout the series executed with that clearness and beauty which have always characterized Mitchell’s atlases.

The Life, Letters, and Table-Talk of Benjamin Robert Haydon.

Men and Manners in America One Hundred Years Ago. New York. Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1876.

These two volumes are the first instalments of the “Sans-Souci Series,” intended as a companion to the “Bric-à-Brac Series.” The life of Haydon the artist is full of painful interest. The present volume is a condensation by Mr. R. H. Stoddard of the larger Engglish life.

Men and Manners in America One Hundred Years Ago, edited by H. G. Scudder, tells pleasantly enough how men and women lived and moved and had their being in this country a century ago.

Transcriber’s Note:

Obvious printing errors, such as upside down or backwards letters and accent marks, mismatched open and closed quote marks, duplicate words, and incorrect spacing between words, were corrected. Unprinted letters and final stops were added. Alternate and obsolete spellings were left unchanged. Duplicate page number 765 was renumbered as 766.

Footnotes in the text were numbered in order and moved to the end of the article in which the anchor occurs. Footnote anchors in tables were changed to letters. Many table footnotes have multiple anchors, hence no links were made from those footnotes to the related anchors. Added missing anchor to footnote [190].

Noted, but left unchanged: Some listings in the Contents are not in alphabetical order.

Spaces were used instead of decimal points to separate dollars from cents and pounds from shillings in “Labor in Europe and America.”

Hyphens were occasionally used inconsistently, e.g. text contains both churchyard and church-yard. ‘Home Rule’ when used as a noun has no hyphen; otherwise, it appears as Home-Rule or Home-Ruler.