The Project Gutenberg eBook of Rebels and Reformers by by Arthur & Dorothea Ponsonby.

This book is intended for young people who are beginning to take an interest in historical subjects, and it may also be acceptable to those who are too busy with their daily work to find much time or opportunity for continuing, as they would like a full course of study. Many people have not the leisure to read a three-volume biography, and so they miss knowing anything at all about some of the great figures in history.

We have tried here to tell quite simply the story of the lives of a dozen great men, some of whom may not be very familiar.

There are many books about men of action—soldiers, sailors, and explorers—but it is not so easy to find any simple account of men who have used their minds and their pens, rather than the sword, in the work for the betterment of their country to which they have devoted their lives.

We have chosen men who are not actually connected with one another in any way. But although they lived in different lands and in different centuries, they are linked by the same qualities; the same strain runs through them all of fearlessness, moral courage, and independence of character. Most of viii them were accounted rebels in their day, but the rebel of one century is often the hero of the next. Though there may be a strong resemblance in the aims of these men, their personalities are different. For instance, there could not be two men more unlike one another than Voltaire and Tolstoy, yet they both devoted their energy and their genius to fighting superstition and shams. Most of our heroes recognized no authority but that of their own conscience, and each of them helped in his way the advance of progress in his country and in the mind of humanity.

The twelve men chosen are not all perhaps the most famous, or what is commonly called the “greatest,” that might have been selected. But that is one of the reasons we have written about them. While every one knows the story of Galileo, but few may have read about Tycho Brahe; Luther is a familiar figure and Savonarola, perhaps, only a name; many lives have been written of President Lincoln, but some have never read of William Lloyd Garrison; Garibaldi is renowned, but Mazzini’s work for Italy has not often been described.

We have done no more than just mention the political, scientific, or literary accomplishments of these men or their philosophy and religious thoughts, because we have wanted only to tell the story of their lives. Struggles, difficulties, and dangers which have to be encountered, ideas, ambitions, and even personal habits and peculiarities, all make the true story of ix a man’s life inspiring and attractive. Ideas are the mainspring of action. The original thoughts of great minds and the unflinching resolve of courageous souls have done far more for the advancement of mankind than any deeds of physical prowess, violence, or force. Those of the younger generation to whom will fall the task of correcting some of the many faults and errors of their predecessors should remember in their work that they must rely on the wonderful power of thought, on knowledge of the lessons of the past, and on a clear vision of the future.

Maybe some of our readers will find these lives sufficiently interesting to induce them to read more of these men in the great books which have been written about them. If so, we shall feel that we have succeeded in our object.

ILLUSTRATIONS

I

SAVONAROLA

1452–1498

Should the whole army of my enemies be arrayed against me, my heart will not quake: for Thou art my refuge and wilt lead me to my latter end.

Most of us are very easily persuaded to do what every one else does, because it is so much less trouble. It is disagreeable to be sneered at or abused. Now and again we may do something because we know it to be right at the risk of causing displeasure, but it is very hard to keep on through a lifetime fighting against popular opinion or opposing those who are considered our superiors and whom all the world look up to as set in authority over us. The orders of those in command, those who govern, those who set the fashion, and those who have riches with all the laws and traditions behind them, are what is called authority. If you defy authority from stupidity, obstinacy, or perversity, it is merely foolish; but if you defy authority because you are convinced that what you think is right, it is a very difficult thing to do; and in doing it you are likely to make far more4 enemies than friends. It is much easier to accept things as they are, to think of your own enjoyment first and foremost, and let others do the wrangling while you look on. But the mere spectators in life are no help to any one, not even to themselves. Life is conflict. It is to the fighters who, with a clear vision of better things, have bravely fought the evil around them that we owe any changes for the better in the history of the world.

Savonarola, the Italian monk, was by no means a spectator; he was a fighter of the most strenuous type. Historians may differ in their accounts of his character and his work. But one thing is certain: few men have lived a life of such vigorous activity or one that was so filled with exciting incidents: few men have stood by their convictions with such courage and persistence or suffered more cruelly for their opinions. He spent the best part of his life fighting authority, upsetting public opinion, and defying his superiors. He was defeated in the end because those who were for the moment stronger than he killed him. But perhaps his death, as in other cases that may occur to you, was his greatest triumph. Men may kill the body of their victim, but they cannot kill the spirit he has roused by his influence and example. That lives on when all his persecutors are dead and forgotten.

Girolamo Savonarola was born in Ferrara, a town in Northern Italy, in the year 1452. He was the5 third of five brothers and he had two sisters. His grandfather was a physician and a man of learning, and his father was a courtier of no great importance. Girolamo was devoted to his mother, and he corresponded with her all through his eventful life. As a boy he seems to have been very serious and reserved—one of those boys whom other boys do not understand. He did not like playing with other children, but preferred going out for long rambles by himself. It was arranged by his family that he should be a doctor, like his grandfather; but as he grew up and began to think deeply about everything he saw around him, he became appalled at the cruelty and wickedness and frivolity of the society in which he lived, and his mind was filled with doubts and misgivings. Poets, players, fools, court flatterers, knights, pages, scholars, and fair ladies were entertained in the great red-brick castle of Ferrara, and below in the dark dungeons lay, confined and chained, prisoners who had incurred the Duke’s displeasure. It was in the precincts of this palace that young Girolamo gained his first experience of life.

When he was nineteen he fell in love with a girl of the Strozzi family, but he was rejected with disdain and told he was not sufficiently well born to aspire to one of such noble birth. This added to the bitterness of his heart, and his disgust for the world increased. For two years he struggled with himself, uncertain whether he should obey his parents or fol6low his own inclinations; and he prayed daily, “Lord, teach me the way my soul should walk.” At last, in despair, he abandoned his medical studies, left home, and fled secretly to a Dominican monastery at Bologna, where he became a monk. Villari the historian describes the touching scene on the very eve of his departure: “He was sitting with his lute and playing a sad melody; his mother, as if moved by a spirit of divination, turned suddenly round to him and exclaimed mournfully, ‘My son, this is a sign we are soon to part.’ He roused himself and continued, but with a trembling hand, to touch the strings of the lute without raising his eyes from the ground.” The next day he was gone. He wrote from Bologna to tell his father of his determination to renounce the world, where virtue was despised and vice held in honor. In the convent he began at once to wear himself to a shadow by acting as a servant and humbling himself by a life of the severest simplicity and discipline. In “The Ruin of the World,” a poem he wrote when he was twenty, he says, “The world is in confusion; all virtue is extinguished and all good manners. I find no living light abroad, nor one who blushes for his vices.”

It was not Savonarola’s young imagination that made him think the world so very wicked. He was particularly observant, and noted carefully all that was passing not only in Ferrara but in the rest of Italy, and specially in Rome. At that time, indeed,7 while there were many men of learning, great princes, great artists, and great ladies, the people as a whole despised religion and led frivolous lives, given up to every sort of dissipation. Vice, corruption, and robbery were common both in the Church and outside, and all classes were degraded by the low tone of morals.

After six quiet years in the convent, during which he wrote several poems showing his horror at the immorality of the world as he saw it, he was sent on a mission back to Ferrara. But he attracted no attention there, for “no man is a prophet in his own country.” Shortly afterwards he was recalled and sent to the Dominican Convent of San Marco in Florence. This building is still carefully preserved because of the beautifully designed frescoes which were painted on the walls of the refectory, sacristy, and chapter house, as well as in the cells on the upper floor, by the artist-monk Fra Angelico, who died in 1455, not many years before Fra Girolamo made San Marco his headquarters and home.

In appearance, Savonarola was a man of middle height, with gaunt features, heavy black brows, a large mouth, heavy jaw, and a protruding underlip. This may sound unattractive, but features alone do not make a face. It was his expression by which those who came in contact with him were fascinated. His rugged features were beautified by a look of gentle sympathy and benevolence mixed with firm de8termination, and his eyes flashed with the fire of a deep and passionate enthusiasm. The portrait given here is by Fra Bartolomeo, a friend who came under the influence of Savonarola and was deeply impressed by his life and death.

In his great humility he was not at first aware that he had any special power over other men. While traveling one day he found himself among a lot of rough boatmen and soldiers who were indulging in coarse language and blasphemous oaths. What could a young monk do in the midst of such a crew? Yet in half-an-hour Savonarola had eleven of them kneeling at his feet and imploring forgiveness. Such incidents as this must have revealed to him the extraordinary influence he could wield. Curiously enough, his first sermon in the great Church of San Lorenzo in Florence was an entire failure. With his awkward gestures and unimpressive manner he could not even hold his congregation, which gradually dwindled away and left the church.

For two years he continued to preach to a few listless people in the empty aisles of San Gemignano. All the time, no doubt, he was aware that the power was growing in him and he was awaiting his opportunity. Suddenly the moment came, and one day at Brescia he burst out and became as it were transformed. Awestruck crowds then flocked to hear him, and his wonderful oratory and penetrating eloquence developed quickly, and soon pierced into the very9 souls of his congregations. It often happened that men climbed walls and swarmed on the pillars to catch sight of his striking features and hear the deep tones of his thrilling voice. He practised no tricks of rhetoric, but his whole being was poured out in a vehement tempest of eloquence, at one moment melting his audience to tears, at another freezing them with terror. The scribe himself who wrote down many of the sermons breaks off at times with the words, “Here I was so overcome with weeping that I could not go on.”

The gift of oratory is a very powerful, but in some ways a very dangerous gift. The influence of the written word or the moral example is slow, but far more likely to be permanent. An orator or preacher witnesses the immediate effect of his words on his hearers, yet he often forgets that his influence may cease the moment his audience withdraws from his presence. But power such as was possessed by this strange Italian monk is very rare. Some people were almost mesmerized, and stories of supernatural events began to be told about him: a halo of light was seen round his head, and his face was said to shine so as to illuminate the whole church. In addition to his gifts as a passionate preacher, Savonarola’s pen was a considerable help to him, and he published a collection of his writings. “The Triumph of the Cross” was his principal work; but all he wrote was inspired by extreme piety and by his ardent desire to bring10 mankind nearer to God. He also showed wisdom and judgment in council in solving difficult theological problems.

Pico di Mirandola, a great scholar and a nobleman, was so much struck by his extraordinary qualities that he urged Lorenzo de Medici, who was at the time Lord of Florence, to invite him to come and stay in the Tuscan capital; this accordingly was done. But no one suspected that the humble monk who trudged on foot through the gateway of the city was one day to be the practical ruler of Florence. He was in his thirty-ninth year when he was elected Prior of San Marco.

Lorenzo, known as the Magnificent, was perhaps the most eminent of the Medici family, who for some years were practically rulers of Florence. Although he had a council who nominally conducted the affairs of State, he generally managed to have it filled by men who were favorable to his policy and his aims, and so he gradually became complete master of the city. He was cruel, unscrupulous, and ambitious, and under his rule the people were deprived of much of their liberty. But as an Italian historian says, “If Florence was to have a tyrant she could never have found a better or a more pleasant one.” While on the one hand he was oppressing the people and persecuting those whom he suspected to be his enemies, on the other hand he encouraged festivities and reveling, song and dance, and general merriment.

In the previous century a very great change had come over Europe. The period is known as the Renaissance, which means re-birth. The darkness of the Middle Ages had passed, and there was a great revival of learning, a reawakening of art and science, and new ideas about religion and philosophy began to be discussed. The art of printing, which had only lately been invented, made it possible for copies of the works of the great classical authors to be distributed and widely read, and in Italy some of the most eminent writers, painters, and sculptors had come to the front. Greek was taught at the universities, and professors traveled about lecturing to crowded classes on the great masterpieces of Greek literature and philosophy, which till then had been left neglected and forgotten. In the sixteenth century, therefore, the influence and results of the movement were very apparent.

By his wealth, by his splendor, and by his patronage of art and literature, Lorenzo de Medici did much to make Florence the center of the civilized world. He himself was the leading spirit among artists and men of letters who assembled around him. He spoke fluently about poetry, music, sculpture, and philosophy, and actually used to sing his own carnival songs in the streets to an admiring throng.

It was to this brilliant and powerful man, who was the chief authority in the State, that Savonarola from the first refused to show any respect whatsoever. He12 declared that his election as Prior was due to God, not to Lorenzo. He saw, moreover, that while Lorenzo was interested in art and learning, the people of Florence were badly governed and had no freedom or independence. Although the very Convent of San Marco, of which he was the head, had been enriched by the bounty of Lorenzo, the Prior declined to do homage to him, or even to visit him, and whenever Lorenzo walked in the gardens of the monastery he carefully avoided him, saying that his intercourse was with God, not with man. Lorenzo, however, was anxious to add this remarkable monk to the select society he had gathered about him, and to have him join the interesting discussions on art, letters, and philosophy which took place at his banquets and assemblies. But Savonarola regarded him as an enemy of the people and of true religion; and even when Lorenzo came to Mass at San Marco he paid no attention to him, and though he found a number of gold coins in the alms-chest, obviously the gift of Lorenzo, he would not take the money for the convent, but sent it away to be distributed among the poor. Savonarola did not believe in the Church being rich except in the spiritual sense; in fact, the greed of the Church for actual riches was what he constantly denounced.

Within the year, however, the Prince and the priest were destined to meet, for Lorenzo on his deathbed sent for the Prior of San Marco. One account tells13 how Savonarola came and, standing by the bedside, bade Lorenzo repent of his sins and give up his wealth, but refused him absolution because the dying man hesitated to restore their liberties to the people of Florence. While some thought that the wise and great prince was very prudent and lenient with the impossible, fanatical monk, others were inclined to suspect that he was more probably afraid of him.

Lorenzo’s son, Piero de Medici, succeeded his father, but he was too weak and incompetent a man to count, and Savonarola, who continued with increasing vehemence to denounce the guilt and corruption of mankind, strengthened his own influence and control over the people. Piero became alarmed and had him removed from Florence, so that for a time he was obliged to preach outside at Prato and Bologna. But soon he returned, journeying on foot over the Apennines, and he was welcomed back with rapture at San Marco. He at once set about reforming the convent, he opened schools, and he continued to preach and to prophesy. He began to see visions and to hear mysterious voices, hallucinations not unnatural to a man in a state of such intense spiritual exaltation or mental excitement. He was a believer in dreams and revelations, and the trances which followed his fasts were the cause of many of his prophetic utterances. At the same time he perceived with astonishing foresight the inevitable course of national events. He foretold the coming of “the Sword of God,” which14 he declared he saw bent toward the earth while the sky darkened, thunder pealed, lightning flashed, and the whole world was devastated by famine, bloodshed, and pestilence. Thus would the sons of guilty Italy be swept down and vanquished. Shortly afterwards, it so happened that Charles VIII, King of France, brought an army across the Alps, descended into Italy, and advanced on Florence.

This brought on a crisis in the city. The panic-stricken Piero de Medici, uncertain how to act, went out at last himself to meet the French King, fell prostrate before him, and accepted at once the hard terms he laid down. His cowardice was the signal for Florence to rise up in fury. Piero was deposed, and other ambassadors, of whom Savonarola was one, were commissioned to confer with Charles. The King was much impressed by the Dominican preacher, but nevertheless he entered the city and imperiously demanded the restoration of the Medici as rulers. The Florentines boldly refused. “What,” asked Charles, “if I sound my trumpets?” “Then,” answered Gino Capponi, one of the magistrates, “Florence must toll her bells.” The idea of a general insurrection startled the King, and after a further conference with Savonarola he left the city.

The Medici had fallen for the moment, Charles VIII had withdrawn, Florence was now free. It was not to the Medici family, to their magistrates, or to their nobles that the people turned in their good for15tune, but to the Prior of San Marco, who, they considered, was chiefly responsible for the favorable turn events had taken. After seventy years of subjection to the Medici the people had forgotten the art of self-government. Partly in gratitude, partly in confidence, and partly in awe, they chose Savonarola as their ruler, and he became the lawgiver of Florence. He began by exercising his power with discretion and justice. His first thought was for the poor, for whom collections were made. He proposed also to give more employment to the needy and lighten the taxation that weighed too heavily upon them. His whole scheme was inspired by his deep religious feeling. “Fear God,” was his first command to the people whom he summoned to meet him in the Cathedral. Then he exhorted them to prefer the republic to their own selfish interests. He promised a general amnesty to political offenders and the establishment of a General Council. He had studied the principles of government and desired to set up a democratic system, that is to say, to give the people the responsibility of governing themselves instead of submitting to the aristocratic rule of a prince and his nobles. With all his enthusiasm and apparent fanaticism, he showed himself in many ways to be a practical man of affairs. His preaching continued to be his chief method of exercising his influence. The maintenance of the constitution, he told the people, depended on God’s blessing: its head was Jesus Christ Himself. His aim16 was to establish there and then practical Christianity such as Christ taught, so that Florence might become the model city of the world. Men may scoff and say this was the impossible dream of a madman. But it is better to aim too high and fail than to accept, as many people do, a low standard because it is too difficult and too much trouble to fight against a vicious public opinion.

The immediate effect of Savonarola’s teaching was that the citizens of Florence began suddenly to lead lives of strict simplicity, renouncing frivolity, feasting, and gambling, and even dressing with austere plainness, discarding their jewels and ornaments. The carnival of 1497 was celebrated by “a bonfire of the vanities” in the great square of the town. Priceless manuscripts and precious folios were hurled from the windows into the street and collected in carts with other articles by troops of boys dressed in white. A huge pyramid twenty feet high was erected in the Piazza. At the bottom of it were stacked masks and dresses and wigs; on the step above, mirrors, puffs, curling-tongs, hair-pins, powder and paint. Still higher were lutes, mandolines, cards, chessmen, balls, dice; then came drawings and priceless pictures and statues in wood and colored wax of gods and heroes. Towering higher than anything else, on the top a figure of Satan was enthroned, a monstrous puppet, filled with gunpowder and sulphur, with goat’s legs and a hairy skin. At nightfall a great procession17 accompanied Savonarola to the spot. Four monks with torches set fire to the pyramid, and as it crackled and blazed the people danced and yelled and screamed round it, while drums and trumpets sounded and bells pealed from the church towers. This was the very crude method by which Savonarola sought to abolish the luxury and the vanity which he considered were degrading the lives of the people.

While Savonarola was at the height of his power and fame, filling the cathedral with dense crowds who flocked to hear him, his enemies were already engaged in plotting his downfall. He had succeeded in destroying the authority of the Medici in Florence itself, but there was another and a stronger authority outside with whom he had still to reckon, and this was the Pope.

It is difficult to believe now, when a venerable and respected ecclesiastic, living in quiet retirement at Rome, represents the head of the Roman Catholic Church, that at the end of the fifteenth century a series of men held that office who were Italian princes, many of whom had for their chief purpose the enrichment of themselves and their families by means of treachery and violence. It happened that the very worst of these, a member of the Borgia family, whose infamous career of crime is notorious in history, was Pope at this time under the name of Alexander VI. A conflict was inevitable between this unscrupulous prince and the high-minded priest who desired to18 free the Church from the corrupt state which money, intrigue, and worldliness had brought it.

Alexander VI tried first by bribery to silence the daring preacher. He offered him the red hat of a cardinal, but Savonarola replied, “No hat will I have but that of a martyr reddened with my own blood.” The Pope was joined by the Duke of Milan in attempting to deprive the Prior of his power. He invited Savonarola to Rome, at first courteously, but when a refusal came he repeated his commands peremptorily and at last accompanied by threats, but still Savonarola refused to obey. As he continued to preach both in Florence and in other towns, Alexander became alarmed lest the strength of his voice might shake even the power of Rome. An unsuccessful attempt was made on his life. The citizens of Florence were already beginning to grow weary of the austere regulations imposed upon them. The city became sharply divided into two political factions. The supporters of Savonarola are called the Piagnoni, his enemies the Arrabbiati. Even the children joined in and greeted each other with showers of pebbles. One day the Prior was insulted in the cathedral, where an ass’s skin was spread over the cushion of the pulpit and sharp nails were fixed in the board on which he would strike his hand.

Then at last, with great ceremonial, an order from the Pope was read excommunicating him, that is to say, expelling him from the Church. But still Savon19arola took no notice whatever, declaring that a man so laden with crime and infamy as Alexander was no true Pope. He continued to preach and even to celebrate Mass in the cathedral. At the next carnival, amidst extraordinary excitement and reveling, he ordered a second bonfire of vanities, in which many costly objects were again destroyed. His sermons contained hostile references to the Pope, whose life and career were openly described, and he went so far as to address letters to the great sovereigns of Europe, including Henry VII of England, bidding them call a council to depose Alexander VI. One of these letters was intercepted and sent to Rome by the Duke of Milan.

After a brief period of comparative quiet, during which Florence was visited by the plague, a conspiracy for the restoration of the Medici was discovered. Five leading citizens were found to be mixed up in the plot, one of them a much respected old man called Bernardo del Nero. All five were seized and put to death. It was said that had Savonarola raised his voice he might anyhow have obtained mercy for Bernardo. But he remained silent, and so increased the number of his enemies and the exasperation of Pope Alexander.

Meanwhile, in the city itself another dispute arose. A bitter feud had long existed between the Order of the Franciscan monks and the Order of the Dominicans. The Franciscans having heard that Savonarola20 would go through fire to prove the truth of his prophetic gifts, he was challenged from the pulpit of Santa Croce to put his miraculous powers to the test. He dismissed the proposal with contempt, but one of his over-zealous followers accepted, and a trial by fire was arranged. Savonarola no doubt saw the folly of the whole proceeding. He dared not refuse, but he hesitated, and was accused of showing cowardice. On April 7, 1498, two piles were erected in the Piazza. They were forty yards long and five feet high, and composed of faggots and broom that would easily blaze up. The stacks were separated by a narrow path of two feet, down which the two priests were to pass. Every window was full; even the roofs were packed; and it seemed as if the whole population of the city had crowded to the spot. The two factions were assembled in an arcade called the Loggia dei Lanzi. Disputes arose between them. The Dominicans insisted that their champion should carry the Host with him into the flames. This the Franciscans declared was sacrilege. The mob, who had come to witness the barbarous spectacle, some of them hoping to see a miracle, were impatient and disappointed, and when, after hours of waiting, a shower of rain came and finally put an end to the farce, they became infuriated.

You may think that people were very superstitious in those days, to believe that men could walk through fire or that a man could prophesy and that his face21 could shine with light. They were indeed very superstitious, especially about religious happenings. But I rather think many people still suffer from this weakness, although it may be in a different way. Superstition is the sign of a shallow and uneducated mind, or a mind that is unbalanced, and it will be a long time before there are no people of that sort in the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that these Florentines should have been aroused to fury by this ridiculous business. They probably thought they were being made fools of, and were ashamed, too, that they had taken the whole thing seriously. Anyhow, some one had to pay.

Savonarola and his followers hurried back to their convent and only just managed to escape. Although from the pulpit of the church the Prior attempted to give his explanation of the events, it was clear that from that moment his power was at an end. The fickle Florentines, ready for the next sensation and prepared to submit with light-hearted indifference to whatever faction was the most powerful at the moment, drew away from their prophet and lawgiver and deserted him. His enemies had gained the upper hand, and the Council, completely hostile to him, eventually decreed his banishment.

Meanwhile the mob collected outside St. Mark’s. They threw a volley of stones at the windows of the church, which was filled with people. There was a panic. The convent gates were closed and barred.22 Some of the monks had secretly brought in arms, helmets, halberts, crossbows, and a barrel of gunpowder.

Savonarola strongly disapproved of this, and as he passed through the cloisters with the Sacrament he bade them lay down their arms. Some of them obeyed him. By the evening the mob had set fire to the doors. They succeeded in scaling the walls and getting into the cloisters and chapel. Here Savonarola was found praying before the altar, and one of his friends, Fra Domenico, stood by him armed with an enormous candlestick to guard him from the blows of his assailants. In the midst of the turmoil and confusion, a traitorous monk declared that the shepherd should lay down his life for his flock. Immediately Savonarola gave himself up to the armed party which had been sent to arrest him. His two most faithful friends, Fra Domenico and Fra Silvestro, accompanied him. As he went he called out: “My brethren, remember never to doubt. The work of the Lord is ever progressive, and my death will only hasten it.”

As he came out into the street the mob greeted him with a shout of ferocious joy. It was night, and the faces of the threatening, yelling men in the torchlight must indeed have been terrifying. So great was their fury that the guards could with difficulty protect him as they led him and his companions to the great palace23 known as the Palazzo Vecchio, where they were cast into a dungeon.

The account of Savonarola’s torture is most tragic and terrible. He found that he simply could not bear the agony. While his limbs were stretched and twisted on the rack his courage and his senses forsook him, and he acknowledged himself guilty of any crime laid to his charge. The torture lasted for three days, and in the intervals he withdrew all he had said. “My God,” he cried, “I denied Thee for fear of pain.” Finally his judges, who were drawn from his bitterest enemies, condemned him to death. The Pope Alexander, who on hearing the news praised his well-beloved Florentines as true sons of the Church, wanted his enemy to be brought to Rome that he might see him suffer death before him. But the Arrabbiati were determined that his end should come in Florence itself. His two fellow-monks received the same treatment as he did. Fra Domenico showed great courage, and under the most cruel torture no syllable could be extracted from him which could hurt his master. Fra Silvestro, on the other hand, collapsed at the very sight of the rack, and acquiesced in every accusation brought against his master or himself.

On his last night in this world, though worn with weakness and racked by torture, nevertheless Savonarola slept a peaceful sleep with his two companions, and spoke a few touching words imploring the pardon24 of God for any sins he might have committed. The scaffold was erected on the Piazza and connected with the magistrates’ platform by a wooden bridge. As the three unfortunate Dominicans stepped over the planks, cruel boys thrust pointed sticks through the crevices to prick their bare feet. The first ceremony was to degrade them and deprive them of their robes. This was done by the papal nuncio. Then Savonarola, after witnessing the fate of his two friends, was taken himself and placed on the center beam of the huge cross, from the arms of which his disciples’ bodies were already dangling. A shudder of horror seemed to seize the multitude, and a voice was heard calling out, “Prophet, now is the time to perform a miracle.” There was a silence as he neared the place. He stood for a moment looking down on the crowd and his followers expected him to speak. But he said no word. The halter was fastened round his neck, light was set to the faggots, and in a few moments the great preacher, the lawgiver of Florence, was burned alive, amidst jests and taunts and curses, on the very spot where shortly before the vanities had blazed. The last words that passed his lips as the flames reached him were: “The Lord suffered as much for me.” His ashes were cast into the river Arno so that no trace of him might remain. Not many years after, with curious inconsistency, the Church wanted to canonize—that is, to make a saint25 of the man whom she had burned. This, however, was never done.

If we trust some of the accounts handed down to us, Savonarola can be accused of having shown weakness in the face of torture; he can be accused of having been too ambitious for political power and of having, in the fear of losing his authority, allowed without protest the execution of innocent men who were charged with conspiracy; he can be accused of having traded on the reputation of being a prophet who saw visions and to whom miraculous events occurred. He certainly placed too much confidence in the permanent effect of his eloquent preaching, and deluded himself in trusting in the loyalty of the people whom he had apparently moved. He may, no doubt, be called a fanatic—that is to say, a wild, odd man, who disregards every one and everything in his zeal to pursue the object he has in view. Such people are not frightened of making fools of themselves, and their peculiarities and their strange behavior can be very easily ridiculed. But apart from the contradictory accounts, and the incomplete records of history, we have Savonarola’s actual sermons and writings, without which he might indeed have been condemned as a charlatan. In them we can read in his own stirring language of his noble intentions and lofty aspirations, of his vigorous and single-minded pursuit of what he believed to be right, and of his un26compromising hatred of worldliness, wickedness, and crime. He was not immediately connected with the great movement known as the Reformation, in which Luther a few years later was the principal figure, when the Protestants broke off from the Roman Catholic Church. But Luther declared Savonarola to have been the precursor of his doctrine. And, indeed, his strong protest against the immorality and corruption of the Papacy and his fervent desire to increase the spiritual rather than the material authority of the Church—that is to say, its influence over men’s minds rather than its worldly power—helped to lay the foundations on which the great Reformers built. At the same time it must not be supposed that he himself had any desire to alter the creeds and traditions of the Roman Church.

A very fine description of Savonarola is introduced by one of our great novelists, George Eliot, in the story of “Romola.” Referring to his martyrdom, she says:

Power rose against him not because of his sins but because of his greatness, not because he sought to deceive the world but because he sought to make it noble. And through that greatness of his he endured double agony: not only the reviling and the torture and the death-throe, but the agony of sinking from the vision of glorious achievement into that deep shadow where he could only say, “I count as nothing: darkness encompasses me: yet the light I saw was the true light.”

II
WILLIAM THE SILENT
1533–1584

William of Orange of Nassau, or William the Silent as he is known, was an extraordinarily interesting man, if only from the fact that everything about him, from his titles and his circumstances to his character, was a contradiction. For one thing, the name “Silent” gives quite a wrong impression of him. It sounds as though he might have been taciturn, shy, or difficult to get on with, but he happened to be particularly easy and sympathetic, delightful as a companion, and eloquent in speech. How this misnomer came about will be related later.

William of Orange took his title from the smallest of his lands, a tiny province in France, near Avignon, of which he was the sovereign prince. He was a German count and a Flemish magnate; a Lutheran by birth, he was educated as a Catholic, but died a Calvinist. His character was just as varied and full of contrasts as his circumstances, so he interests28 and appeals to a great number of people, and we are agreed that he is one of the most lovable and heroic characters in history.

William was born in 1533 in the German castle of Dillenburg, the eldest of twelve children. His mother, Juliana of Stolberg, was a woman of great character—a wise woman and religious in the truest sense of the word. To the end of her life she was the adviser of her sons and a support and comfort to her many children. Several of them inherited her character, and principally William of Orange himself, and another, Louis. William’s father, also called William, was a good man who had gone through hard times, and who had finally, slowly but surely embraced the Protestant religion. He appears to us to be rather a washed-out edition of his remarkable son.

Orange spent the first eleven years of his life at Dillenburg. The great fortress rose from a rocky bend of a river, with towers and battlements and gateways such as one sees in mediæval pictures, and could hold a thousand people. Here all his mother’s children were born, and she managed her huge household in such a way as to become quite celebrated as the best mother and housewife in the country.

When William was eleven years old he inherited, through the death of a cousin, great lands in the Netherlands, and the little province of Orange. Thus he became, in spite of his tender years, a very important person, and through the wish of the Emperor 29Charles V, King of Spain and the Netherlands, who had a great regard for the Nassau family, he was sent to Brussels to be educated as a Catholic. Also at the Emperor’s request he became a page at his court, and by the time he was fifteen the Emperor had made an intimate friend of him, taking him into his complete confidence, and allowing him to be present at the gravest and most secret conclaves. He would ask William’s advice about important matters of State and go by his judgments. This might have been enough to turn the head of any one more than double the boy’s age, but it did not appear to spoil William. He seemed only to profit and to put to the best possible use all the knowledge he got of human nature and of public affairs by being, so to speak, behind the scenes in this very confidential and important position. Charles, who took pride in discovering great men, showed in the case of Orange a great deal of insight into character.

When he was eighteen the Emperor gave him a wife, a young girl of noble family, Anne of Egmont. She lived six years and they had two children. Judging by Orange’s letters to his wife he must have been a faithful and loving husband, but he could not have seen much of her, as he was nearly always away from home fighting for his master. Charles had made him, at the age of twenty-one, General-in-Chief of his army on the frontier of France, with which country Charles was at war.

It was on young William’s shoulder that the Emperor leant on the celebrated occasion of his abdication, when, worn out with illness, old before his time—for he was only fifty-five—sick of life and of his own schemes and wars, he gave up his crown and titles to his son, Philip, himself retiring into a monastery in the depths of Spain.

The superstition was still held at that period of history (and, in fact, up to more recent days) that a king is a king by divine right, and that he can therefore do no wrong. Charles’s record in crime is no mean one, though it does not perhaps equal that of his son Philip II. He was a despot, and a cruel despot, though he liked to regard himself, as many kings have before and since him, as merely fatherly. But he had behind his actions some sort of principle, while his son appeared to have none whatever. Charles had never let the system of Inquisition die down in the Netherlands, and on his accession he had immediately made efforts to bring the people to submission, visiting one of its principal towns with an army and taking away by force all its privileges, and imposing heavy fines upon its inhabitants. He passed edicts against the Protestantism of Luther, “to exterminate the root and ground of this pest,” and it is said burnt in his lifetime at the least fifty thousand people. How Charles could have been of service to the Netherlands it is difficult to see, for he only committed crimes against the people, crushing their in31dependence wherever he could, and using their great industry as revenue for his endless wars in other parts of the world. Yet, as some of his admiring biographers tell us, no man could have gone to church more regularly. He attended Mass constantly, and listened to a sermon every Sunday.

On this occasion of giving up his crown he stood before the people of the Netherlands, in the great hall of his palace at Brussels, clothed in black Imperial robes, with a pale face and tears streaming down his cheeks. He had a great sense of dramatic effect, and it was an impressive spectacle. He had persuaded himself that he had nothing on his conscience, and by so doing he persuaded his subjects too. He told them in a choking voice that he had been nothing but a benefactor, and that he had acted as he had done only for their good and because he cared for them. He told them how he regretted leaving the Netherlands and his reasons for going. A greater contrast could hardly be imagined than this worn-out man and the young and noble-looking being on whose shoulder he leant. But the Emperor, with a real regard for Orange, which was a bright spot in his character, passed him on with words of advice to Philip: for, believing as he did in young William’s great powers of statesmanship, he wished that his own son might defer to him and regard him as an adviser in time to come.

Philip at once set Orange to bring about peace32 between Spain and France, and this he accomplished with brilliant success, securing excellent terms for his master. Philip saw how great were Orange’s persuasive powers as a diplomatist, and realized how valuable he could be in his schemes.

Philip II was twenty-eight when he became king. He had not the pleasant manner of his father, and he was not nearly so cultivated or so diplomatic. Unlike Charles, he knew no language but Spanish. He was a small and wretched-looking creature in appearance, with thin legs and a narrow chest. His lower jaw protruded most horribly, and he had a heavy hanging lip and enormous mouth, inherited from his father. He was fair, with a yellow beard, and had a habit of always looking on the ground when he spoke, as if he had some crime to hide or as though he were suffering. This, it is said, came from pains in his stomach, the result of too great a love of pastry. It had been thought politic that he should marry Mary Tudor of England; and when Philip became king she had been his wife two years. They ought certainly to have been very happy together, having the same tastes—a hatred of Protestants and a delight in burning and massacring—but in spite of this they did not get on. Mary was older than Philip and very unattractive, so he neglected her completely and left her to herself in England, where she shortly afterwards died.

Philip’s ambition on his accession was to make33 peace with Europe in order to be able to devote himself to putting down what he called heresy. Orange was meanwhile chosen as a hostage by the King of France while the treaty between the two countries was being completed, and it was during his stay in France that Orange made the discovery which was to influence his whole life.

While he was hunting one day with the King of France (Henry II) in the Forest of Vincennes, he found himself alone with the King, who at once began to talk of all his plans and schemes, of which he was full to overflowing. The gist of the matter was a plot just formed between himself and the other Catholic sovereigns to put a final end to Protestantism or heresy. They had, Henry confided to Orange, solemnly bound themselves to kill all the converts to the New Religion in France and the Netherlands, and the Duke of Alva—a Spaniard and fellow-hostage of Orange—was to carry out their schemes. The King described exactly how they would set about ridding the world of “that accursed vermin,” how they were to be discovered and how massacred. In his excitement and enthusiasm the French King never observed how Orange was taking it. He believed him to be party to the whole arrangement. He failed to notice that Orange never opened his lips or spoke a word—for though absolutely horrified, the Prince managed to control his expression and to remain silent—and thus he earned his well-known but misleading title.34 But Orange, hearing all this, made up his mind. His purpose was fixed, and as soon as possible he got permission to visit the Netherlands, where he was determined to persuade the people to show opposition to the presence of the Spanish troops and to get them out of the country. They were put there by Philip for the one and only purpose of crushing independence and stamping on Protestantism. Orange found that an Inquisition had been decided upon, more terrible than anything that had gone before.

We have seen that already under Philip’s father the Netherlands had been treated with great cruelty, and the Papal Inquisition had been used to put a stop to Lutheranism. The spirit of the great Reformer had taken a firm hold in this country, and Luther’s work, combined with the work of Calvin in France, had made the country keenly Protestant and determined to resist any sort of Catholic domination. The Netherlands character itself was marked by one great quality which, in the words of the historian Motley, was “the love of liberty and the instinct of self-government.” The country was composed of brave and hardy races who for centuries had been fighting for their liberty against great odds. Divided as their country was into provinces, they had had no king of their own, but had been governed by feudal lords and treated as slaves and dependents, with no power or voice in their own government. From this wretched position they emerged by their35 own efforts. By their great industry and character they made themselves rich and powerful, and, forming themselves in the cities into trade guilds and leagues, they fought against, and in many cases turned out, the feudal lords, governing themselves by their own laws and choosing their own governors from among themselves. Seeing their great wealth and prosperity, neighboring countries were desirous of adding these riches to their own territories, and thus, through war and purchase, the Netherlands fell under the dominion of Burgundy with its powerful reigning dukes, and under Austria through further wars, and finally, by a marriage of a Prince of Burgundy with a Princess of Spain, they became subjects of the latter country.

Charles V was the first King of Spain and the Netherlands, and with his rule the worst of their trials began. Under the Burgundian dukes the people of the Netherlands had managed to retain self-government, firmly clinging to their liberties, and at no price would they consent to become a province of Spain. No two peoples could have been more opposite in character—Spain quite behind the age, bigoted, superstitious, violently Catholic, cruel and aristocratic; and the Netherlands, full of life and activity, the rival of Italy in art and learning, ready to go ahead and adopt all the advanced and enlightened thought of the Reformation. In trade they had no rivals, for they were the busiest manufacturers in the world.36 Their stuffs were celebrated everywhere, and their ships visited all the ports in the world. This happy, brave little people were to be crushed and persecuted for their valor. But they were to find a deliverer—a leader who was to be the source of their inspiration and courage in the awful days to come—one who was willing, though he could gain nothing by it, to throw in his lot with theirs, to suffer and endure the same as they.

Orange had not much sympathy with the Reformers. He was an aristocrat and a Catholic, and had never thought of being anything but completely loyal to kings—after all he was one of them: he had what is considered the privilege of addressing crowned heads as “cousin.” But his sense of justice was one of the strongest things in his character, and he was quite determined to protect the harmless multitudes in the Netherlands from the horrible punishments and deaths which were in store for them, and these people were all his inferiors by birth—what are termed “the masses.” Dyers, tanners, and trades-people were the only Protestants in those days, so it was a more tremendous thing than one thinks for an aristocrat to take up the cause of the people as Orange was about to do. It is generally some remarkable man among the people who fights for justice for his own class, and it was, as I have said, the more wonderful for William to have taken up the cause of the people as his sympathy did not come from his agreement37 with them on religion, but purely from his manly, just, and generous disposition.

At this time in his twenty-seventh year, William was very rich, prosperous, and powerful. Few perhaps realized that there lay within him the seeds of future greatness. But though he had a thoughtful and an intellectual nature, he also had a pleasure-loving, easygoing nature, and nothing could exceed the luxury and magnificence of the life he led in his great palace at Brussels. It was a life full of color, variety, and amusement, with masquerades, banquets, chases, and tourneys from morning till night. Twenty-four noblemen and eighteen pages of gentle birth served in his household. One day, in order to economize, Orange dismissed twenty-eight cooks! Princely houses in Germany sent their cooks to learn in his kitchen, so celebrated was the excellence of his dishes. He kept, as princes and noblemen did in those days, open house, but he did not keep his money. A contemporary historian—a Catholic and an opponent—describes him at this time:

Never did arrogant or indiscreet word issue from his mouth under the impulse of anger or other passion. If any of his servants committed a fault, he was satisfied to admonish them gently, without resorting to menace or to abusive language. He was master of a sweet and winning power of persuasion, by means of which he gave form to the great ideas within him, and thus he succeeded in bending to his will the other lords about the court as he chose, beloved and in high favour above all men with the 38 people by reason of a gracious manner that he had of saluting and addressing in a fascinating and familiar way all whom he met.

Orange had become a widower at twenty-five, but two years later he married again; his bride was Anne of Saxony, the daughter of a great German Lutheran magnate. The marriage met with great opposition from the Catholics, and this seemed to make Orange only more determined. There was nothing to recommend Anne except her wealth and lands. She was lame and had no charm, and became later an odious and impossible woman who made her husband very unhappy.

King Philip meanwhile continued to shower honors upon Orange. He made him a Councilor of State and Stadtholder or Governor of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht, and head of the troops in those provinces. If Orange had been content to do as he was told, his prosperous, pleasant life might have continued. Fortune from his birth had smiled upon him, and everything that the heart of man could desire seemed to lie within the hollow of his hand. But at the risk of losing everything—his high honors and worldly position—he was to speak and to act as his heart and conscience told him to, which was in direct opposition to the King and to his own material welfare. From this time onwards Orange, in a quiet, determined way, resisted Philip and his commands. His resistance was so far guarded, as he could not as39 yet defy him openly. His first step by way of protecting the Netherlanders was to use his position to persuade some powerful members of the States General (a form of Parliament,) to refuse supplies unless the Spanish troops were removed. Philip had given Orange the names of “several excellent persons” suspected of the New Religion and commanded Orange to put them to death. Orange not only did not do this, but gave them warning so that they might escape. Philip now issued an edict that no one should read or copy any of the writings of Luther or Calvin, or discuss any doubtful matters in the Scriptures, or break images, on pain of death by fire, or by being beheaded or buried alive if a woman. The troops were to be there to enforce the edicts. He made more bishoprics in the Netherlands in order that the ruffian bishops might spy and pry and assist in finding heretics. The principal ruffian was one Granvelle, on whom the Pope conferred the title of cardinal.

Philip himself left the Netherlands for Spain, and made his half-sister, Margaret of Parma, Regent. She was thirty-seven and an ardent Catholic. Her recommendation to Philip was that she felt greater horror for heretics than for any other form of evil-doer. She was not particularly clever, but she had learnt to dissimulate—in other words, to tell stories—and never to give a direct answer to a question. She looked mannish, having a mustache, and she suffered from gout. This gave the impression that she40 was masterful and like a man, which she was not at all.

It was not long before Philip discovered that Orange was not seeing eye to eye with him. He found out that, as commander of the Spanish troops, he was using his position to check persecution. Philip therefore ceased to admit him and Count Egmont, another suspect, to the inner councils. But he was not willing to get rid of Orange or to drive him into rebellion. He knew his power, and the service he could still render, and he realized the great anger it would cause in the Netherlands were William to be dismissed. When the persecution under Granvelle and the enormities committed by the Spanish troops on innocent people became too much for Orange to bear without open protest, Philip, fearing a general revolt, undertook to do what Orange asked him. He dismissed the troops temporarily, and the Cardinal retired into Spain to hatch more horrible plots, especially against Orange, whom he hated more than any one in the world. Orange had threatened to resign if he remained. In doing this he was not in a temper; that was not his way, for he scarcely ever lost his head. When he addressed himself to Philip with these requests, he faced the consequences. He knew that he would almost certainly incur the everlasting anger of the King.

The country having a moment’s respite from Granvelle, Orange now set himself to obtain three things:

2. The organization of a real, single, and efficient Council of State that should be the supreme source of government.

He worked ceaselessly amongst the nobles trying to get their powerful aid on the side of the people and the Protestant Revolution, persuading Count Egmont, one of the foremost and most powerful of the Flemish noblemen, to go on a mission to Philip in Spain to beg him to relax his persecutions.

William of Orange’s younger brother, Louis, had also taken up the cause of the Reformers in a whole-hearted and enthusiastic spirit. He had the advantage over his brother of being an avowed anti-Catholic, and being perfectly free and fearless, he was able to do the most useful work in the way of propaganda and in inspiring resistance to the Catholics. He gathered together several violent and reckless young men, young aristocrats of spirit but of bad reputation, and he gave these young wastrels something to think about, something to work and to live for. Under his leadership they held meetings, and formed themselves into a League of Protest against the Inquisition, drawing up, as a result of their meetings, a petition to the Regent, Margaret of Parma, entitled The Request. But the writing of it was in such violent language—though perfectly justifiable in the cir42cumstances—that Orange, who was more of a statesman than his brother, could not advise the Regent to accept it. He believed it would do more harm than good. But finally it was put into humbler and more polite language, and being signed by two hundred nobles and burghers in Holland, it was presented to the Regent. She was upset, and tried to get out of giving them any answer to their requests. She assured them she would ask the King. One of her court turned to her saying, “Is Your Highness to be terrorized by these beggars?” and hereafter the Leaguers took upon themselves this title, and went about in beggars’ garb of loose grey frieze, a terror to the Catholics and a great force, as their numbers increased, in the coming Revolution.

The position of Orange at this time, trying as he was to keep loyal to the King and yet to protect the people against him, was becoming more and more difficult to himself. At thirty, Orange was a very different man from what he had been at twenty-six. He had much changed, and was no longer the prosperous and brilliant grandee of those times, but worn and thin and sad. He could not sleep. His position was an impossible one. He could not yet be quite openly against the Catholics; he saw no prospect at present of throwing off the Spanish yoke, and he was not yet prepared for rebellion. He hated what we call propaganda, and the narrowness of the Calvinists. He was charged with treason on one side—the Span43ish rulers regarded him as a rebel—and on the other he was looked upon by the Beggars as a lukewarm friend. He was between the devil and the deep sea, desperate and puzzled and seeing no way out. But this state of things did not last long. The excesses of the Spaniards were fast exasperating the Netherlanders. There were constant small outbreaks of rebellion, and finally a great riot of image-breaking in Antwerp. The troops were all recalled, and Orange was commanded to put down the rebels, to quell and to destroy them by the most extreme methods. Tumult, confusion, and outrage were everywhere, and as Orange refused to punish in the way he was requested, his command was brought to an end.

The Regent, through the advice of her brother, challenged him to take the oath “to serve His Majesty, and to act toward and against all and every as shall be ordered on his behalf, without limitation or restriction.” The Prince refused. He might, he said, be asked to kill his own wife. The Regent, still recognizing Orange’s power and qualities, and always hoping to get him on her side, begged him to remain with her and retain his offices. She pressed him to meet Egmont and other influential Flemish magnates to discuss the situation. Orange consented to this, and, seeing Egmont, begged him not to wait and become a party to the frightful holocaust of blood which was about to swamp the Netherlands. Egmont refused, partly out of loyalty to the sovereign and44 partly out of weakness. Orange, in taking farewell of him, embraced him and was convinced he would never see him again. He never did, for Egmont was, a little later, taken and put to death by the Catholics as a traitor.

This must have been the moment when Orange ceased to have any sympathy with the Catholic Church. But he so far had not joined any other sect, and had apparently no sympathy with the Calvinism which he was afterwards to embrace. He retired now to his palace at Brussels and gave up all his offices. Philip wrote him sham letters of regret while, secretly, he advised Alva to seize Orange and bring him to punishment. They had made their plans, and Orange was then formally outlawed as a rebel, and his eldest son, who was at the University, seized and taken to Spain—his father never saw him again. Orange left Brussels as an outlaw, retiring to his brother’s castle of Dillenburg, where he lived with his mother. Alva then arrived in Brussels at the head of a Spanish army, one of the most splendid ever seen—healthy, well-trained, and courageous. The outbursts of revolt had filled Philip and Granvelle with a perfect fury of vengeance; there in the depths of Spain they had been planning and hatching horrible plots together, and now they set to and worked the Inquisition for all it was worth. The head Inquisitor, Piter Titelman, with his underlings, would scour the country, rushing into people’s houses, dragging45 out so-called heretics, accusing them, and hanging or burning them without any evidence whatever.

What was the result? The more these fine people of the Netherlands were trampled on, the stronger their spirit of resistance grew. Orange set himself to raise and organize troops to protect them from Alva. He got together some French Huguenots and Flemish refugees, but he was doomed for the present to failure. He had not realized the strength of Alva as a general and of his magnificently organized troops. Only the valiant Louis, his brother, managed by extreme dash and courage to win one victory. Orange struggled on, in spite of reverses. “With God’s help,” he writes to his brother, “I am determined to go on”; but through lack of funds he had to disband his mercenaries, or paid soldiers, and retire again to Dillenburg. This was perhaps the most unhappy period of Orange’s life. He was outlawed and almost a beggar, for he had sold all he possessed—his jewels, his plate, and his lands; his wife was showing signs of losing her mind, and instead of being a comfort to her husband, she hurled abuse and cruel and unjust accusations at him, blaming him for all their misfortunes and giving him no comfort whatever. Only his wonderful mother stood by him and showed her strength and understanding until she died.

Still Orange, with his fortunes at their lowest ebb, did not lose heart or hope. He was lonely and abandoned, indeed, by most people; his resources seem to46 have come to an end; still he continued to make plans for saving his country. Every nerve he strained to get support for his cause. Day and night he worked—sending messengers to France and England to beg support and money for troops. He was finally supplied with eighteen vessels, and, looking back on the course of the struggle, this seems to have been the turning-point in the future of the Netherlands. They were to suffer still untold misfortunes, but from the moment that the struggle was carried on by sea, so, in proportion, the Spaniards ceased to tell. “The Beggars of the Sea,” as they now termed themselves, were an adventurous and fearless band. They had several successes, and seized the town of Brill and some smaller places. The revolt, gaining courage, spread like fire through Holland and Zeeland, Utrecht and Friesland; all the principal towns of these provinces hailed Orange as their leader and submitted themselves to his authority. Louis of Nassau dashed into France and seized Valenciennes and Mons. Orange himself was nearly taken by the Spaniards in a surprise night attack. They came to his camp when he was asleep with all his clothes on, as his habit was then, his arms beside him, and his horse saddled; but he was awakened by his favorite lapdog, which lay on his couch. So, in the statues of the Prince in Delft and The Hague, the little dog lies at his feet in bronze.

A terrible event now crushed Orange and tempo47rarily set back the cause of Protestantism and freedom. This was the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in Paris, when Coligny, the leader of the Huguenots—the French Protestants—who had promised to come to the assistance of Orange, was murdered by the Catholics.

Orange went to live in Delft, which became his home. He had made up his mind to cast his lot for good and all with the Hollanders and Zeelanders in their struggle for freedom. There in their midst he continued to inspire their spirit of resistance and independence. His was the moving spirit which helped the Dutch gradually by their extraordinary endurance to wear down the Spanish armies. It was his spirit, too, that kept the Spanish at bay at the celebrated siege of Haarlem, when for seven months the inhabitants endured terrible sufferings—the women fighting for their lives as well as the men—until they were starved out. The relief of Leyden was effected by Orange’s own personal exertions, though ill with fever.

In 1573 Orange became a Calvinist, so as to identify himself more completely with the cause he had at heart. But he was not a bigoted Calvinist any more than he had been a devoted Catholic. He had always been ready to respect the good side of every religion. He never could understand why people should not live happily together, praying in their own way. The spirit of Religion appealed to him,48 not the letter or the doctrine. He would have been content to remain a Catholic, had it not been for the Church’s persecutions.

Now, his wife, Anne of Saxony, having left him and become insane, Orange married again for the third time—Charlotte of Bourbon, who had been a nun. This gave further offense to the Catholics.

The years 1576–78 were almost the most crowded, the most desperate, and yet the most triumphant of William’s life. He was, he writes to his brother, overwhelmed with work and grief and care. The terrible Spanish army, storming the cities of the Netherlands and butchering their inhabitants, seemed to have got the best of it. Many towns fell to them, and Orange at one moment felt at the end of his tether, when the fortunate occurrence of a mutiny for pay in the Spanish army and the death of its Grand Commander gave Orange his opportunity. While Philip hesitated, Orange acted. This brought about the union of Holland and Zeeland, which is known as the Union of Delft, a crucial act and the foundation of a great Power to come. Orange was given supreme authority as ruler. He was to support the Reformed Religion, but no inquisition was to be allowed into any man’s faith or conscience. For not only had Orange to fight the Catholics, but he had to hold back the Calvinists, who, immediately their power and numbers increased, revenged themselves most horribly on those of different creeds. The horrors of the Spanish Fury con49tinued to increase. William called a conference of the States General and drew up the Pacification of Ghent. By this treaty all the seventeen provinces bound themselves into a solemn league to expel the Spaniards, and made it law that the ultimate settlement of all questions was to rest with the States General.

William’s appeals to the people of the Netherlands were masterpieces of eloquence and reason. He put it that disunion had been their ruin—union would save them. A stick is, he said, easily broken; a faggot of sticks bound together resists. He appealed not only to Protestants but to Catholics, asking them not to be taken in by the superstitious idea that loyalty means absolutely cringing to the every wish of a king, who is probably of all the people the most ignorant as to all that is being done in his name. The States were stirred by his appeals, and the Pacification was hailed with shouts of joy and relief. Orange at this moment reached the height of his career, and he was persuaded by his people to make a public entry into Brussels as their acknowledged leader. He received a tremendously enthusiastic and brilliant welcome. A little later, however, he had to suffer disappointment in the breaking away of the Southern from the Northern Netherlands. The persecution in the South had done its work and Philip gained the allegiance of Belgium. Henceforward they had separate histories and are known as Holland and Bel50gium. In his further struggles against Philip, Orange felt scarcely strong enough to hold his United Provinces without assistance from another country. He turned to France, offering to make the Duc d’Anjou, brother of the French King, sovereign of the United Provinces. His offer was accepted. The Duke proved to be a weak and treacherous man; he was a complete failure, and, making himself odious and impossible to his subjects, his rule was brought to an end.

The awful Granvelle had meanwhile whispered to Philip that they might assassinate Orange (1580), and they finally drew up together a ban putting a price upon the Prince’s head. They declared him a traitor and as such banished him “perpetually from our realms.”

Orange, living quietly with his wife at Delft, took it very calmly. He showed no fear; the Lord, he said, would dispose as He thought fit. But he wrote and published his famous Apology, a very lengthy document which is interesting as a history of his life. In it he answers the accusations brought against him in the ban—that he is a foreigner, a heretic, an enemy, a rebel, and so on.

The ban soon began to bear fruit, and several attempts were made on the Prince’s life; one, a year later, was very nearly successful. A youth offered him a petition, and as Orange took it he discharged a pistol at the Prince’s head. The bullet went through his51 neck and through the roof of his mouth, carrying away some teeth. The Prince was blinded and stunned. When he came to his senses he called out, “Don’t kill him! I forgive him my death.” Every one thought he had been mortally wounded, and crowds went to the churches to offer up prayers for his recovery; and he did recover, but his poor wife Charlotte, who had nursed him devotedly, died of the shock. This had been a perfect marriage, lasting seven years, and Charlotte had had six daughters, all of whom had afterwards interesting and eventful histories. A year later William married Louise de Coligny, the daughter of the famous French general. She was one of the noblest and most attractive women of her day, and gave her husband one son, a remarkable person and the first of many illustrious Stadtholders.

In Delft, William with his wife, surrounded by his many children, ranging in age from two to nearly thirty years, lived a very happy, simple life. Their large plain house was in a pleasant street planted with lime-trees, so that in June the surface of the canal they looked upon was covered with their fallen blossoms. There in the street William of Orange would sometimes be seen looking like any ordinary burgher, very plainly dressed in a loose coat of gray frieze over a tawny leather doublet, a high ruff round his neck and a wide-brimmed hat of dark felt with a cord round it. In appearance, Orange was rather52 tall, well-made and strong, but thin. His hair and complexion were brown, and his eyes were brown, too, and very bright and large. His head was small and well-shaped, but the brow was broad, and now, late in life, very much wrinkled and furrowed with thought and care. His mouth was firmly closed and rather melancholy. His whole appearance was that of a man of great strength of character and of self-control. At this time, though weary after many strenuous years of toil, he was never more cheerful, amusing, and sympathetic. He was busy still as the practical ruler of his devoted people—“Father of the Country,” as they called him; but when the States begged him to become their sovereign he refused. He had quite enough reward and consolation, he said, in the devotion of Holland and Zeeland, and he wanted rest in his advanced age. He was only fifty-one, but no doubt felt old, for he was old in experience and sorrow, and so he asked to be excused more cares and responsibilities.

In the summer of 1584, the Prince was one day with his wife going to his dining-room for dinner, when a man presented himself at the door of the dining-room and demanded a passport. The Princess was so much alarmed at the man’s looks that she asked her husband about him. The Prince said he was only a man who wanted a passport, and ordered his secretary to prepare one. He then ate his meal53 quite calmly and happily, and at the end of it walked out of the room leading the way to his own apartments up some stairs. He had just begun to ascend them when a figure emerged from a dark archway near the staircase and shot a pistol straight at the Prince’s heart. One bullet went right through him, and he, feeling his wound, cried out, “Oh, my God, have mercy upon my soul! Oh, my God, have mercy upon this poor people!” and then he died.

The murderer’s name was Balthazar Gerard. He had pretended to be a Calvinist, and in this manner had approached Orange with all sorts of pathetic stories to arouse his sympathy, and had got to know all Orange’s habits and movements. Now he was seized by the Prince’s devoted people and, in the barbarous custom of that day, tortured in a most hideous fashion until he died, all of which he bore with great bravery. He was an absolute fanatic, and believed he was doing a very fine thing in ridding the world of Orange. Being dead, he could not receive himself the reward promised by Philip, but his parents were enriched and ennobled for their son’s act.

The Great Leader was no more, and it is easy to picture the indignation and misery among his people. How were they to get on without his kind, commanding figure, without his tact, his patience and resolution? His death was indeed a calamity which put back the fortunes of the Netherlands for many years, for his second son Maurice, who became Governor,54 was only seventeen years old, and it was hard work to continue the struggle. But Orange’s labors had not been in vain. He was the real founder of the Dutch Republic, and he knew before he died that the cause he had suffered for would at last succeed, that the Hollanders were now in a position to offer successful resistance to Philip. And his blood ran, too, in the veins of many noble descendants—his children, and later his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who were to carry on his work. Some inherited his extraordinary powers of statesmanship and others became great soldiers.

William of Orange, like all great men of character, had his enemies and critics. He was accused of being governed by ambition and the desire to see himself in high positions. He has been called insincere, and even accused of cowardice on the field of battle. If we study his life carefully it seems to be a complete refutation of these accusations. If he had only cared for high posts and honors, how easily he might have retained them! He need not have taken the line he did against Philip. He might, as he was a Catholic, have overcome the feeling he had that persecution was an intolerable thing and agreed to the general system of Inquisition. In the beginning he owed everything to Charles V, so it was not natural or possible to throw over his son immediately. Besides, he was a statesman—one of the greatest of55 that age: he wanted to do the best for his country. Like many open-minded persons, he was able to see two sides to a question and to see it in its widest sense. He was tolerant and ahead of his times. To be all this in an age of bigotry and intolerance was to be insincere.

By circumstance William the Silent was placed in an extremely difficult position, and all must admit that he came out of it with the greatest glory. His troubles came upon him only because he was too honest. It is a difficult thing to understand, but a man’s sufferings and troubles are often a result of his own finest qualities, and so it was with Orange. As to his lack of physical bravery, his life was also a living contradiction of this criticism, as witness his indifference to the ban put upon him. It did not make him in the least nervous, and he took no precautions for protecting himself against assassins. For years, too, his life was spent on the field of battle, meeting with great reverses and hairbreadth escapes, yet he never shirked it, but endured and faced it. It is true that, unlike his brother Louis, he had no actual joy in battle. His blood was not stirred by the clash of arms, for he was not naturally a soldier, any more than he was a rebel; circumstances and his own fair-mindedness had made him so; while rebelling against an utterly unfair and unlawful condition of things, he used all his powers to moderate people’s passions,56 and to make them live peacefully together. The end part of his life was spent in drawing up laws to that purpose.

In thinking over the character of Orange, the fact that strikes one most is that his character deepened and strengthened as he grew older and in proportion to his sufferings. If he had not been tried to the very limit by misfortunes, and if he had always been rich and prosperous, the finest things in his character might have remained untried and unknown to us. We should not have realized that beside his charming qualities, his great understanding of men, his gentleness and generosity, there lay heroic qualities of endurance, devotion, and courage. That he should not by nature have been an ascetic, despising amusements, good food, and fine clothes, and the lighter side of existence, but an aristocrat, easygoing, enjoying possessions and the beauty of life, and with some human weaknesses, only draws us more closely to him, for it makes us understand the struggles and difficulties he had to overcome in himself in order to do what he did. He gave away everything he had, and at one time possessed hardly the common necessaries of life, so that he was almost a beggar as well as an outlaw. In the darkest hours of his life he tried to smile and to appear cheerful for the sake of his people, and to encourage them, which made his enemies say he was flippant and heartless. But he was a truly religious man, inheriting from his mother57 the religious spirit—reverence and belief in good and trust in God.

In the words of Motley, “He went through life bearing the load of a people’s sorrow upon his shoulders with a smiling face, and when he died the little children cried in the streets.”

III

TYCHO BRAHE

1546–1601

There is a small island called Hveen which lies in the Sound half-way between the coasts of Denmark and Sweden and about ten miles north of Copenhagen. It looks now a rather desolate and abandoned place. But if you had been alive about the year 1580 and had gone there, you would have been very much surprised at what you found. On landing you would have seen right above you in the middle of the island, rising up out of the trees, a wonderful castle with galleries and turrets and gilded spires, just like a palace in a fairy tale. Let us imagine it was summer, and you were very bold and wended your way up the rocks through a grove of fruit trees into a lovely garden with avenues and terraces and fountains and gorgeous flower-beds. An attendant is standing in the porch, and you ask him to show you round, as you are naturally curious to see what the inside of such a place is like. The inside is even more surprising.60 As you pass through the hall and along the stone corridors lit by stained-glass windows, the song of caged birds, the splash of fountains, and the distant sound of music greet your ear. You notice Latin inscriptions painted over the doors and rich decoration on all sides.

Through the windows of the spacious rooms filled with carved furniture and decorated with pictures and tapestries you catch a glimpse of a glorious view of the Swedish and Danish coast, with the towers of Copenhagen in the far distance. In the great library there are cabinets of rare and beautiful objects: the walls are lined with books: the tables are piled with papers all covered with numbers and geometrical figures: curious-looking instruments stand on the shelves: an enormous brass globe occupies one corner of the room and a complicated-looking clock, all wheels and works, stands in another. Down in the basement you find a vast apartment where masses of bottles and crucibles and retorts and glasses filled with strange-colored mixtures are ranged on shelves and tables. Who on earth lives in such a place as this? you ask the attendant. It is the Castle of Uraniborg, he tells you, the home of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe—the greatest astronomer of the age—who is known as “the noblest of the learned and the most learned of the nobles,” and he whispers under his breath that he is a magician.

Laughter and the sound of animated voices reach 61you as you pass the door of the banqueting hall. Your informant explains that there are guests in the castle—a prince and his suite have spent the day there, and some learned men from foreign lands form part of the company. The evening is closing in, and attendants come hurrying from all quarters carrying books and instruments; a student from one of the observatories in the towers goes into the hall to inform his master that the night is clear. Through the open doorway you catch sight of the great man himself, sitting at the end of his dining-table, discoursing vivaciously to his guests. He is a broad-shouldered, burly-looking man, with short, bright red hair and a thick mustache curling over an auburn beard. But what an odd nose he has got! it seems to shine like metal. It is metal, the attendant tells you: for once, as a student, he fought a duel with another student, and his adversary got the best of it and slashed Tycho’s nose right off with his sword. He made himself a new nose out of a mixture of gold and silver, which he stuck on and wore for the rest of his life. Crouching at the foot of his chair you observe a funny little dwarf, his jester, who from time to time takes morsels of food from his hand and interrupts the conversation with some ridiculous joke.

Soon the banquet is over, the procession passes out, and you notice how grandly the astronomer is dressed, with doublet and white ruff, a sword at his side, a chain of gold round his neck. The prince and his62 courtiers do not appear more magnificent. Is it out of compliment to his guests? No, you are told; when he goes to watch the stars, even alone, he always dresses like this, as if he were some great ambassador accredited by the earth to the heavens.

The guests walk across the castle yard, down a flight of steps to a domed subterranean building not far off called Stjerneborg—the castle of the stars—which is entirely given up to astronomical requirements, the only decoration on the walls being portraits of astronomers, including one of Tycho himself. There, when the prince has left the island and the other guests have retired to rest, the astronomer will remain rapt in contemplation of the mysteries of the universe.

Our remotest ancestors were struck with awe and interest when they looked at the heavens. They believed them to be the residence of God, and at the same time they were their clock and calendar. Astronomy is a very ancient science. It was practised by the Egyptians, the Chinese, and the Babylonians in the remotest ages of history, as well as by the Arabs and Greeks. The most marvelous discoveries have been made with regard to the number and motion of the stars since the days when primæval man looked on the heavens as a great blue vault “fretted with golden fire.” It may have been thought once that the63 stars could be numbered. The telescope and photography have shown this to be impossible, and have taught us the overwhelming fact that our universe contains, at the very least, one hundred millions of suns, and that the light from some of the most distant stars has taken over 18,000 years to reach us! This seems very bewildering, though not more so than to know that there are animals so minute that if a thousand of them were ranged abreast they would easily swim, without being thrown out of line, through the eye of the finest needle. We live in the midst of incomprehensible marvels, infinitely great and infinitely small, between the limitless future and the limitless past.

What wonderful patience and toil it must have required for the astronomers of all nations, working together and comparing notes, to store up the vast amount of knowledge of the heavens which we now possess. It is amazing, too, to think how three or four hundred years ago they were able to make so many discoveries and calculations without the aid of a telescope. For before 1600 the telescope was practically unknown. So when you see standing in a modern observatory gigantic instruments, thirty or forty feet long, of marvelous ingenuity and highly complicated mechanism, which in spite of their size and weight are capable of being moved by a hair’s breadth and adjusted to the hundredth part of an64 inch: their object-glasses alone perhaps over thirty inches in diameter, costing thousands of dollars; and then you think of these early astronomers gazing through a hole in a vaulted roof at the tiny specks of light with their naked eye, the work they accomplished appears still more astounding. It is true that their discoveries were at first casual and haphazard. But at last it occurred to one of them that the progress of astronomy depended on continuous observation and the most scrupulously accurate calculations, carefully planned and carried on over a number of years. It was Tycho Brahe who first did this.

You have heard of Copernicus, the Pole, who was really the founder of modern astronomy, because he discovered that the earth went round the sun and was not the center of the universe, as every one had supposed. He died three years before Tycho Brahe was born. Galileo, the famous Italian, was born in 1564 and lived till he was seventy-eight. He made further discoveries about the stars and used a telescope of a very primitive kind. He supported Copernicus’s theory with regard to the relative movement of the earth and the sun, and this brought upon him the serious displeasure of the Church. The notion that the earth was not the center of the universe was considered wicked and blasphemous. The Pope commanded him to come to Rome, and after a long trial he was made, under the threat of torture, to retract what he had said. The story is that as he turned65 away at the end of his trial he stamped his foot on the ground and muttered: “E pur si muove!” (And yet it does move!)

Kepler is another well-known astronomer, of whom we shall hear again. These three are all more eminent men than Tycho Brahe, whose fame does not depend on any startling discovery, but on the fact that he devised wonderful instruments, and by unceasing energy and industry collected a mass of material which was of untold value to his successors. But perhaps most of all it is his romantic life and his strong character which make him stand out in history.

Tycho was born in 1546 and was the eldest of ten children. His father, Otto Brahe, was lord of Knudstrup in Scaane, which now forms part of Sweden. At an early age he was adopted by his uncle, Jorgen Brahe, who treated him as if he were his son, had him educated at Copenhagen, but by spoiling him a good deal was no doubt responsible for the somewhat conceited and domineering manner he developed in later years. At the age of fourteen Tycho received what might be termed his “call” from the heavens. It came in the form of an eclipse of the sun, which roused the boy’s interest to such an extent that from that moment he made up his mind to turn his attention to astronomy. It is a curious fact that ten years later, when chemistry had so absorbed him that he had almost abandoned his astronomical studies, he again received a sign from the heavens. This time66 it was the appearance of a new star which he observed one night while walking from his laboratory, and which caused him to take up again the beloved pursuit of which he never wearied to his dying day. He discovered the new star, and it may be equally truly said that the star discovered him. But at first the idea of his devoting his time to astronomy was not at all favored or encouraged. After he had spent three years in the Copenhagen University his uncle sent him to Leipzig, where it was intended he should study law. His tutor, who accompanied him, conscientiously tried to make Tycho devote all his attention and time to his legal studies, but his task was almost hopeless. It is impossible to force any one to take an interest in something he does not like. These obstacles only served to strengthen Tycho’s resolve. He devoured every book he could find on astronomy, and at night, unknown to his tutor, he would creep out and begin his first intercourse with the stars. A copy of Ptolemy’s great work on astronomy, copiously annotated and marked by the schoolboy, is preserved as one of the chief treasures in the library of the University at Prague.

While he was thus engaged a fatal accident befell his uncle. Jorgen Brahe was riding in attendance on the King of Denmark when a bridge collapsed under them. He plunged into the water and attempted to save the King’s life. In consequence of this he contracted a chill, which soon afterwards caused his67 death. Tycho hurried home to Copenhagen, but he did not stay long. He returned to Germany and continued his studies at Wittenberg, the home of the great Reformer Luther, who had been dead only about twenty years. He seems to have had no desire to go home, for he settled down at Rostock and then at Augsburg, where he was fortunate enough to find many scientific men with whom he could associate and exchange ideas. Here it was that he invented and constructed some remarkable astronomical instruments, one of which was that enormous globe you saw in his library. It was four feet in diameter, and covered with a coating of brass on which was engraved a representation of the heavens founded on his own observations.

Otto Brahe, who was governor of Helsingborg Castle, died in 1570, and Tycho returned to Denmark to arrange his father’s affairs. Another uncle placed his house at the disposal of his remarkable young nephew, and soon Tycho was eagerly watching his new star, about which he wrote a book in Latin. There was some difficulty about publishing the book, because it was supposed to be beneath the dignity of a nobleman to demean himself by writing books. However, by the assistance of friends, it was published and added very much to his reputation. This was an age when nobles and aristocrats had great power and dominated the country. Like nobles in all ages, physical work in time of peace or mental work of any68 kind was beneath their dignity: they occupied most of their time in pleasure and amusement. They considered themselves the elect, who were born to be served. Although he belonged by birth to this class, Tycho detested the frivolous, aimless lives they led. In a letter in which he expresses his intention of leaving Denmark, he says:

Neither my country nor my friends keep me back; one who has courage finds a home in every place and lives a happy life every where. Friends, too, one can find in all countries. There will always be time enough to return to the cold North to follow the general example, and, like the rest, in pride and luxury to play for the rest of one’s years with wine, dogs, and horses (for if these were lacking how could the nobles be happy?). May God, as I trust He will, accord me a better lot.

He traveled about in Germany, Austria, and Italy, and he made great friends with the Landgrave of Hesse, who was very much interested in mathematics and astronomy and had a fine observatory of his own. While Tycho was staying with him at Cassel a serious fire broke out in the palace. But such was the astronomer’s power of concentration and absorption in his work that, regardless of the general alarm, he could not be persuaded to leave his study until he had finished the particular piece of work with which he was occupied at the moment.

The fame of the great astronomer was now spreading, and the King of Denmark, Frederick II, who69 heard his praises sung by the Landgrave of Hesse, was determined to show his appreciation of the remarkable talents of his subject in a practical way. He therefore presented Tycho Brahe with the island of Hveen, in the Baltic, as his own personal property, with sufficient money to erect on it whatever buildings he might desire. The foundation of the great castle was laid on August 30, 1576. A party of scientific friends had assembled, and the time had been chosen so that the heavenly bodies were auspiciously placed. Libations of costly wines were poured forth and the stone was laid with due solemnity. Here at Uraniborg, the castle you visited, he lived for about twenty years, keeping a diary not only of astronomical observations but of all events that passed on the island.

The peasants on the island, whom he doctored and to whom he gave medicines for nothing, regarded him of course as a wizard, and a number of strange legends were circulated about the magician and his wonderful castle. Many visitors came to visit him at Uraniborg from all parts of the world—distinguished astronomers, mathematicians, philosophers, divines, princes and kings. Queen Sophie of Denmark came on several occasions and brought her father, Duke Ulrich of Mecklenburg. In 1590 James VI of Scotland, who thirteen years later became James I of England, came over to marry Princess Anne of Denmark. She had intended to go to the home of her betrothed, but owing to stormy weather had been wrecked off the coast70 of Norway. James therefore, who rather feared that Queen Elizabeth might interfere and upset his plans of marriage, sailed forth himself to fetch his bride. The marriage was celebrated at Oslo, on the coast of Norway, and the royal couple came subsequently on a visit to Copenhagen. James took the opportunity to visit Uraniborg, and was very much interested in Tycho Brahe’s work. On leaving the island he asked what he should give the astronomer in return for his hospitality. Tycho, like a true courtier, replied: “Some of your Majesty’s own verses.” The King was delighted and readily acquiesced. Tycho’s opinion of the literary efforts of the poet King is not recorded. Queen Elizabeth’s Minister at the Court of Denmark also visited the island, and Duncan Liddel, the Scottish astronomer.

Tycho was a great talker; he had a somewhat overbearing and arrogant manner, and was intolerant and contemptuous with those whom he considered to be his inferiors intellectually. But although he was conceited he was thoroughly genuine, and despised the shams and artificialities of life. His motto was Esse potius quam haberi (To be rather than to seem to be). That is to say, he did not value reputation and fame unless it was accompanied by real accomplishment. He preferred working hard for the pure satisfaction of doing good work, even if it were not recognized, and he despised people who got credit and fame without really deserving it. He was quite right. And71 it is worth remembering that many people who are doing valuable work in the world remain absolutely unknown: while many of the names which appear most frequently before the public are those of men who have become famous by chance and not by merit.

In addition to being an astronomer, Tycho was a skilled mechanic, mathematician, and architect: he wrote verses which were much admired and was a great lover of music. It was only natural in such an age that a man who devoted himself to astronomy and chemistry should believe in astrology and alchemy; and it is not to be wondered at that Tycho Brahe should have attempted to find some connection between the movements of the stars and the course of events in the lives of men. When the King of Denmark asked him to cast the horoscope of some of the young princes, that is to say, foretell their future by the position of the stars at the time of their birth, he did it very elaborately, but with a caution that too much reliance should not be placed on such prophecies. His first attempt at prophesying was anything but successful. He said the eclipse of the moon in 1566 meant that the Turkish Sultan would die. Presently the news arrived of the Sultan’s death, but it appeared that it had taken place before the eclipse—a fact which caused people to laugh at Tycho’s expense. But he certainly made one very singular prediction from the appearance of the comet of 1577. It announced, he declared, that in the north, in Finland,72 there would be born a prince who would lay waste Germany and vanish in 1632. Now, Gustavus Adolphus, the King of Sweden, was born in Finland, overran Germany, and died in 1632.

Tycho, indeed, was superstitious by nature. If he met an old woman or a hare on going out, he took it as a bad omen and would return home; and he often listened attentively to the sayings and prophecies of Jeppe, his dwarf jester.

It is not surprising that such a man as this did not marry one of his own class. A lady of the nobility would have been too frightened to lead such an adventurous life and an educated woman would have refused to submit to so domineering and tyrannical a nature in a husband. When he was twenty-seven he married a poor peasant girl by whose beauty he had been struck, and she seems to have been more of a servant than a companion to him.

The glories of the Castle of Uraniborg were not destined to last for long, and no one was to blame for this but Tycho himself, though he certainly had enemies who were jealous of him, and who were only too ready to take advantage of the decline in his fortunes. A series of unpleasant incidents, combined with his somewhat restless and discontented spirit, forced him at last to abandon his magnificent home and to leave his native land for good. He had neglected his duties, squandered his money, and displeased people by his views. The peasants on the73 island complained of ill-treatment. A disagreeable lawsuit with regard to his daughter’s marriage worried him, and many of his influential friends at court had died or retired. He addressed a letter to the King of Denmark, Christian IV, the son of his original patron, Frederick II, hoping to be restored to favor, but he was sternly rebuked and his pension was withdrawn. A poem lamenting over the ingratitude of Denmark shows with what keen regret he left the country. It must have been a tragic moment when all his instruments and treasures were packed up and the castle and observatory left deserted. There is hardly any trace even of the ruins on the island to-day. The truth is that a man engaged in intellectual work is only hampered by such lavish patronage. Tycho’s head was turned, and indeed he would have required to have a very strong character to remain unaffected in such peculiar conditions.

Undismayed, however, by temporary bad fortune, the astronomer, after a year or so of travel, during which he never ceased from his work, turned from one royal patron to another. He was received at Prague in 1599 by the Emperor Rudolph the Second, who pensioned him and gave him the castle of Benatke, near by, where he established himself and his family and set up at once an observatory. Comfortable as he was, still he yearned for his fatherland and never forgot the great generosity of his munificent friend, King Frederick II.

Among the disciples and assistants who gathered round him here was Johann Kepler, whom we mentioned before. He was then twenty-eight years old, and lived to become an even greater astronomer than Tycho Brahe himself. He owed a great deal to the profound and extensive observations of his master on the subject of fixed stars, and with the aid of all the careful information which Tycho had gathered together and bequeathed to his favorite pupil on his death, he made important discoveries with regard to the movements of the planets, and elaborated a much more advanced idea of the universe. Curiously enough, Tycho Brahe, with all his astonishing industry, never completely accepted the system of Copernicus. His idea was that the earth was the center of the universe and the sun formed the center for the orbits of the planets, but the sun itself, together with the planets, moved round the earth.

By his diligent observation of a thousand fixed stars, he gave to the world a catalogue of accurate positions of these bodies which took the place of the old catalogue of Ptolemy of Alexandria, who lived in the second century. This catalogue of observations held its own for more than a hundred years, until telescopes and clocks of precision came into use. It was the mighty impulse that Tycho Brahe gave to practical astronomy that caused that science to be taken up at universities, among which those of Copenhagen and Leyden were the first to found observatories.

In 1601, at the age of fifty-five, Tycho Brahe died after a short illness. He was accorded by the Emperor’s orders a funeral of great pomp, and buried in the Teyn Church at Prague. In the funeral oration pronounced over his grave he was well described thus:

In his words were truth and brevity, in his demeanor and countenance sincerity, in his counsel wisdom, in his deeds success. In him was nothing artificial or hypocritical, but he spoke his mind straight out, and to this no doubt is due the hatred with which many regarded him. He coveted nothing but time, and his endeavor was to be of service to all and hurtful to none.

The tomb, with the effigy of the great Danish astronomer and the epitaph composed by Kepler, was restored and put in order in 1901, on the celebration of the three-hundredth anniversary of his death.

By his wonderful industry Tycho Brahe laid the foundations on which others were able to build up great inventions and great discoveries. A discoverer or inventor may only put the finishing touch to the labor of others who have gone before him, preparing the way. Their names may not be known, their work may be forgotten, while he gets all the praise and renown for the famous achievement, which, however, without the help of his predecessors he could never have accomplished. You may see a man trying to pull a stiff cork out of a bottle. He fails. Another76 man tries. He too fails. A third man tries and out it comes. “Ah,” every one says, “he has done what the others could not do.” But the truth is that he succeeded because the first two men loosened the cork before him. Much of the great preparatory toil of the world’s work has been done by men and women whose names do not appear in any record. Tycho, however, did leave his mark, for it was not usual for a man of noble birth to devote his time to arduous study.

By far the greater number of men who are famous in history, especially those who have achieved renown in science and the arts, have been men of humble origin who have had to work for their living and even struggle against the adversity which poverty brings. It is this very struggle and continuous effort that is the making of them. Those who are born in more fortunate circumstances, and are surrounded by luxury and comfort which tempt them to lead lives of ease and idleness rarely succeed in accomplishing notable achievements. Alexander Humboldt, who lived at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, is another notable instance of a man of high position (and in his case, too, considerable means) giving up his life to an untiring pursuit of knowledge and to amassing a remarkable amount of valuable scientific information.

To work when you need not work, to prevent your time being wasted in pleasure and amusements and77 your efforts being relaxed by comforts and luxuries, is perhaps even more difficult than the struggle against necessity and poverty. Only a few great men brought up in such circumstances have succeeded. Tycho Brahe was one of them, and it is very greatly to his credit that by strength of will and character he overcame to the extent he did these formidable obstacles.

IV

CERVANTES

1547–1616

Leisure, an agreeable residence, pleasant fields, serene skies, murmuring streams, and tranquillity of mind—by these the most barren muse may become fruitful and produce that which will delight and astonish the world.

It is not often that great men are recognized in their lifetime. They may have a few admirers, but their work is probably the subject of dispute and disagreement, and not till years have passed, and the smaller men who attracted momentary attention have been forgotten, are they valued at last at their true worth. Thus it may happen that men who are talked about a great deal, and rather noisily praised by their contemporaries, disappear almost entirely from the memory of man in succeeding generations, while men who in their day have despaired of success, have been neglected, and have sometimes felt the humiliation of failure, live on in their work long after their death and exercise an influence more far-reaching than they themselves ever dreamed of.

Of course you have heard of Don Quixote, and you80 have probably read some of his amusing adventures—how he went about with his funny little squire, Sancho Panza, and gave proof of his heroism in many diverting ways. But the book in which his adventures are written is not only an entertaining story—it is a wonderfully accurate picture of Spanish life in the sixteenth century, and is a record of many interesting events that took place outside Spain as well. When it was published in 1605, the book was very popular in Spain, but nobody thought it was going to become one of the world’s greatest books, no one guessed that it would be translated into more foreign languages than any other book in the world except the Bible and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.” No one, therefore, paid much attention to the author, and his very birthplace was not even remembered after he died. But when the Spaniards found that Cervantes had become famous throughout the world, then they took the trouble to unearth something about his history, and it was found that he had a claim to fame as a man, apart from his renown as an author.

Cervantes was a soldier. It is not usual for a soldier to write imaginative books. But he was not a soldier in a regular army, drilling every day in a barrack square, but a soldier who went out and fought, endured fearful hardships, and had the most terrible adventures. He gained in this way a very wide knowledge of the world, which, combined with his powerful 81imagination, made him into one of the world’s great geniuses.

Let us try and follow him through the main events of his crowded life. Miguel de Cervantes was born in 1547. Alcala de Henares in New Castille was his birthplace, but very little is known of his childhood. As a boy he used to watch the strolling players in the town, and he relates details of his recollection of them which remained stamped on his memory. They would come round and give performances in the market square. Their properties consisted of a sack which held four white sheepskin dresses trimmed with gilt leather, four beards, wigs, and crooks. The decoration of the theater was an old blanket hung on two ropes. One can well imagine that their performances and the verses of the comedies remained with him vividly when he was grown up. His education was supposed to have been neglected because he never went to a university. But if he made mistakes in his writings which a man who had passed examinations would have avoided, he managed to obtain a knowledge of men and life—a more important knowledge, which many a ripe scholar might envy. At an early age he tried his hand at writing, and at twenty-one his poems, on the death of the Queen of Spain, were especially praised by his tutor.

Years were destined to pass before Cervantes settled down to any literary work. I expect he knew82 he had the talent, but there was very little chance for him to test it. He liked adventure and wanted to be up and doing, so he seized the first opportunity he could of gaining some experience of the world outside his own country. He went to Rome and became a page in the household of an envoy of the Pope whose acquaintance he had made in Madrid. But this did not suit him, because the life of a page or chamberlain was intolerably slow and uneventful. Bowing and scraping, entertaining and intriguing, was not in his line at all. He resigned his post and enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish regiment in Italy. Pope Pius V was organizing at that time a Holy League against the Turks, whose great conquests were alarming the States of Europe. But there was some difficulty in getting European nations to agree to any plan for attacking Turkey. They were jealous of one another and would not all act together. At last, after a long delay, which was spent by Cervantes in Naples, the League, consisting of the Pope, Venice, and Spain, was organized under the command of the famous Don John of Austria, a brilliant general, who was half-brother of King Philip II of Spain. The fleet of these three States was the largest that had ever sailed under a Christian flag. It consisted of galleys rowed by a large number of oarsmen, who were all criminals under sentence. In the Turkish fleet the oarsmen were Christian slaves. The object of the allies was to recover Cyprus from the Turks. But before they83 could reach so far a great naval engagement took place in the Gulf of Lepanto, at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth. After some hard fighting the allied fleets were victorious.

Miguel de Cervantes, though he was acting only as a common soldier, behaved with conspicuous heroism. Weak with fever which he had caught at Naples, he insisted, in spite of protests, on obtaining the command of a dozen men, and stood with them in a position exposed to the hottest fire of the enemy. From his ship he boarded one of the Turkish galleys and received three gunshot wounds—two in the breast and one shattering his left hand, which was maimed for the rest of his life. His conduct won for him the applause of all his comrades, and he always looked back on this episode as the most glorious in his career.

Twenty thousand Turks perished, and a hundred and seventy of their galleys were captured in this memorable fight at Lepanto, which, if it did not destroy, anyhow arrested the power of Turkey. A great storm followed the victory, and Don John sailed away to Messina with his wounded men, whom he landed there. Cervantes, whose wounds were very severe, was among them. He received a special grant of money for his distinguished service. But so eager was he to be at the front again that it was not long before he had joined Don John in his second attempt to overcome the Turkish fleet, which, however, was unsuccessful.

A campaign in Africa followed and Tunis was captured, soon, however, to be recaptured by the Turks, whose power remained unbroken. These expeditions occupied nearly four years, and Cervantes went through the experience of the hardships of war, the joy of victory, and the despair of defeat. He was now a sick and maimed soldier who had witnessed deeds of knightly valor, but had also known the wearisome delays, the failures, and the disappointments of a soldier’s life.

Having been away for six years, he asked leave to return to his native land. This was granted, and he left Naples in a galley called El Sol with letters from Don John to the King, in which he was strongly recommended as “a man of valor, of merit, and of many signal services.” But on the voyage a terrible calamity befell him, which was to be the greatest of all his adventures and the severest of all his trials. Just as he was rejoicing at the sight of the Spanish coast, a squadron of corsairs, or pirates, under a redoubtable captain who was the terror of the Mediterranean, bore down on El Sol. A desperate fight followed, but the pirate galleys were too strong. A number of Spaniards were captured, and Cervantes found himself carried off to Africa and placed at the mercy of a savage Greek who was noted for his wild ferocity. As letters were found on him from Don John of Austria, he was considered a prize of considerable value, for whom a large ransom might be demanded. Ac85cordingly he was sent to Algiers heavily chained, and was treated there with the greatest severity.

During his captivity, which lasted as long as five years, Cervantes showed the most splendid courage; adversity, indeed, brought out the finest qualities in his character. He persistently organized plans of escape, the failure of one never deterring him from preparing another. On the first occasion his project was defeated by a Moor, who was engaged as a guide but deserted at the last moment, and the party of fugitives were obliged to return to Algiers, where Cervantes was severely punished. The next year a sum of money was sent over by his parents, but was not sufficient for his ransom. His brother Rodrigo, who was one of the prisoners, was, however, set free, and went home to Spain with a request that a war vessel should be despatched to Algiers to rescue the others. Cervantes in the meantime made all the necessary arrangements for escape. He concealed about fifty of the Spanish fugitives in a cave outside the town, and actually managed to have them supplied with food for six months. It was a long time to wait, but at last the day came when the ship was expected, and he and his comrades were in readiness. But, as bad luck would have it, a traitor betrayed them at the critical moment and their secret got out. A force of armed Turks discovered and captured them. Cervantes immediately took upon himself the whole blame and declared that he alone was responsible. Though86 threatened with torture and even death, he refused to implicate any one of his companions in the scheme of flight. The cruel Turkish Governor, Hassan Pasha, before whom he was brought did not as a rule hesitate to hang, impale, or mutilate his prisoners. But in this case he appears to have been overawed by the astounding fearlessness of the remarkable Spaniard who was brought before him.

While in captivity Cervantes addressed a rhymed letter to the King’s secretary describing the sufferings of himself and his companions and appealing for help from Spain. Although nothing came of this, the undaunted hero set about devising a new plan of escape, which yet again was destined to be frustrated. This time his messenger was caught and ordered to be impaled, while he himself was condemned to receive two thousand blows with a stick; this latter sentence, fortunately, was never carried out. Notwithstanding repeated failure and the dangerous risks he ran, Cervantes on the first opportunity hatched another plot.

Two merchants agreed to provide an armed vessel in which sixty of the principal captives were to embark. A Spanish monk called Blanco de Paz, who seems for some unknown motive to have conceived a deadly hatred for Cervantes, revealed the scheme before it could be carried out. In spite of this, however, the adventurous captive might easily have escaped from the terrible life to which he was doomed had he consented to the proposal of the merchants87 to go away alone. But he firmly refused to abandon his companions in their distress, and in order that none of his friends might suffer, he came forward once more and gave himself up to the Governor. He was bound and led with a rope round his neck before Hassan. As usual, he displayed no fear, although this time he fully expected that he would be hanged or impaled, or at least have his nose and ears cut off by the Governor’s orders. But for some mysterious reason—probably the hope that a very high price would be offered for so remarkable a man—nothing worse than five months’ close confinement in chains was meted out to him. Hassan declared that so long as he had the maimed Spaniard in safe keeping his Christians, ships, and city were secure.

Meanwhile, in Spain more active steps were taken to collect sufficient money for his ransom. His father had died, but his mother and sister managed to raise a considerable sum, and money came in from other sources. Messengers were despatched to Africa, and after a long dispute over the bargain with the Turkish Pasha, Cervantes, who had actually embarked on a ship bound for Constantinople, was at last set at liberty.

It is not from the boasting of Cervantes himself that we have the particulars of his behavior during these five years of captivity. Blanco de Paz circulated malicious reports about him, and this led to an investigation. It is, therefore, on the authority of his88 fellow-captives that the story comes down to us. They witnessed to his good-temper and cheerfulness, for he had an overpowering sense of humor which must have saved his companions from depression and despair; they tell of his courage in danger, his resolution under suffering, his patience in trouble, and his daring and cleverness in action.

Had he lived in the days of newspapers, the fame of his exploits would have been proclaimed to all the world. He would have been petted and spoilt as a hero, and all the empty flattery and cheap advertisement which is heaped on any one in our day who appeals for the moment to the popular imagination would have been loaded upon him without stint. As it was, he arrived to find his family impoverished and in trouble, his patron, Don John of Austria, dead, and no one to say a good word for him in high quarters. He had been away ten years and was now only thirty-three.

In 1580, the year of Cervantes’ return to his native land, Spain was at the very height of her power. Philip II ruled not only over Spain but over Portugal and the Netherlands: more than half Italy belonged to him, as well as Oran and a considerable territory on the African shore of the Mediterranean, and in addition all that was European in Southern Asia. In the New World, from Chile to Florida, three-quarters of the known continent came under his rule.

By sea and by land Spain was predominant and was the envy and admiration of her neighbors. But with all this greatness, which was only the greatness of size, decay was present in the heart of the Empire. Under Philip, the rot spread further.

Lust for gold, which poured into the country from her rich colonies, and rage for dominion absorbed every wholesome passion in Spain, and gradually she fell away from her position of domination. It is one of the many instances which show how Imperial ambition and the worship of force can bring about a country’s ruin. Men begin to boast about the number of square miles and the number of million souls that come under their flag. Their minds become occupied with material ends: the Government pursues a policy of aggression and aggrandizement: and the urgent needs of improvement in the social and economic condition of the common people are neglected. To wring as much as possible from the people at home and to acquire as much secret influence as possible in the affairs of other nations was the rule of Philip’s conduct and the object of his life.

There were wars without number, and Cervantes seems to have found a fresh opportunity of serving his country as a soldier in Portugal, but the evidence for this is doubtful. But, what is more important, he now became more active with his pen, and wrote a number of poems and plays. The most famous of these was “Galatea,” a poetical romance which90 brought him to the front. Nevertheless, he found he could not get enough money by writing to keep his home—in fact, to the end, his life was a perpetual struggle with poverty.

At the age of thirty-seven he married a lady who rejoiced in the high-sounding name of Doña Catalina de Palacios Salazan y Vezmediano. Hardly anything is known of her, except the dowry which she brought with her, which consisted amongst other things of plantations of vines, household furniture, two linen sheets, three of cotton, a cushion stuffed with wool, one good blanket and one worn, garments, four beehives, forty-live hens and pullets and one cock. Her neighbors considered that so rich a young woman was throwing herself away on the obscure maimed soldier who was many years her senior. She survived her husband by ten years.

Cervantes began now to work at his writing very seriously, but he was quite unable to compete with the principal Spanish dramatist of the time, Lope de Vega, who was a great popular favorite, and, though the younger of the two, outstripped his rival easily in his powers of production, which were prodigious. But he was known as “the universal envier” of the applause given to others. In his lifetime Lope is said to have written one thousand eight hundred plays, not to mention innumerable poems and stories. He was a dissolute character, with great energy, boundless invention, and considerable wit. But few91 of his plays have survived, and outside Spain the name of Lope de Vega is but little known to-day. The Spanish drama of this period was the model copied by other countries. The bustling farce originated in Spain, and Elizabethan and Jacobean writers took many of the plots for their plays from Spanish dramatists.

But Cervantes could not make a living out of writing; unlike Lope, he had no powerful and influential friends. He had therefore to look for other employment. The Invincible Armada was just then being fitted up, and he got a post as agent for collecting provisions, and afterwards he was appointed to the very humble position of tax-collector—an occupation he must have hated, as he got into trouble more than once, having to pay the debts of people whom he had trusted too much. He applied for a higher post in the Government service, but his petition was dismissed and he was forced to continue the distasteful work at a reduced salary, falling into such extreme poverty at one time that he actually was in need of common cloth to cover his nakedness. His unbusinesslike habits made people suspect his honesty. He drifted lower and lower, until at last he was imprisoned in Seville for mistakes in his accounts. From the court he could expect nothing. Philip was not likely to be sympathetic to a struggling writer or even grateful to an old soldier, and prayers from Cervantes were set aside unanswered. Nor when Philip’s92 son, Philip III, succeeded to the throne did any crumb of royal favor fall his way.

In the face of all these disadvantages and troubles the great work of his genius was being conceived and written, and in 1605 the first part of “Don Quixote” appeared. Although it was an immediate success with the people, the Church of course expressed strong disapproval, and literary men criticized it, Lope de Vega wrote: “No poet is as bad as Cervantes nor so foolish as to praise ‘Don Quixote.’”

The books people read most of all in those days were romances of chivalry, recording absurd adventures of wonderful knights-errant who wandered about capturing princesses from castles and performing great deeds of prowess—all written quite seriously. Cervantes wanted to ridicule this sort of literature and show up its absurdity. But so fertile was his imagination and so varied had been his own experiences that at the same time, as I have already said, he succeeded in giving a wonderfully graphic picture of Spanish life, bringing in all classes of society and also recording many of his own adventures as a soldier.

Don Quixote himself, though a ridiculous figure in a way, is depicted as a delightful gentleman filled with generous and high-minded sentiments, courteous and kindly, a champion of the downtrodden, and a protector of the weak. The word “quixotic,” which is93 used in every language in the civilized world, conveys precisely the knight’s character. It means a man with impossibly extravagant romantic and chivalrous notions, but a man with high ambitions who is a champion and reformer at heart. The book was not the work of a learned scholar or professor; it was the outcome of natural genius which appealed directly to all classes and all ages. The saying at the time was that “Children turn its leaves, young people read it, grown men understand it, old folks praise it.” The English were among the first to appreciate the wonderful book of adventures and it was translated in 1612.

About the second part of “Don Quixote” there is a curious story. While Cervantes was at work at it, some one who called himself Avellaneda (some think it was his old enemy, Blanco de Paz) wrote and published a second part, which was a sort of imitation rather cleverly done, but, of course, without any of the merits of the original. It contains an ill-natured prologue referring to the author of the first part as a cripple, a backbiter, a malefactor, and a jailbird, and reproaching him for having more tongue than hands (a reference to his maimed left hand). Cervantes was naturally indignant at this attempt to spoil his book. He hastened to issue his own second part, and thus completed his great work, which, throughout, is of the same high quality. It94 is possible that had it not been for the intrusion of this impertinent interloper the second part of “Don Quixote” might never have been finished.

The whole book was written at a time when the poor unfortunate author was struggling sometimes actually for bread. But nowhere in it can be found any trace of malice or bitterness. The second part was finished as he was approaching the seventieth year of a life of toil, privation, and disappointment. But his unfailing cheerfulness and good-humor never left him. This is very remarkable, because so many authors who have written satire have been unable to resist spiteful digs at other people.

It is a great pity there is no proper portrait of Cervantes. Velasquez, the greatest Spanish painter, lived just a little too late, but his master and father-in-law, Pacheco, painted a picture representing the release of captives from Algiers, and a boatman in that picture is supposed to represent Cervantes. There is also a doubtful portrait by a painter called Jaurequi. But many portraits came out, one of which is reproduced here, which were made up from his own description of himself:

He whom you see here of aquiline features with chestnut hair, a smooth, unruffled forehead, with sparkling eyes and a nose arched though well proportioned—a beard of silver which not twenty years since was of gold—great mustaches, a small mouth, the teeth of no account, for 95 he has but six of them, and they in bad condition and worse arranged, for they do not hold correspondence with one another; the body between two extremes, neither great nor little; the complexion bright, rather white than brown; somewhat heavy in the shoulders—this, I say, is the aspect of the author of “Don Quixote de la Mancha.”

The Archbishop of Toledo, who was one of the few people who befriended him, was once questioned by some French visitors about him. “I found myself compelled to say,” he confesses, “that he was an old man, a soldier, a gentleman, and poor.” “If it is necessity that compels him to write,” replied one of the strangers, “may God send he may never have abundance, so that, poor himself, he may make the whole world rich.”

Cervantes lived for some years in a very poor part of Valladolid. The family, consisting of his wife, his daughter, his sister, a niece, and a cousin, were more or less dependent on him, though the women by their needlework helped to keep the household going. The sidelights cast by scraps of evidence which have been collected about members of his family do not give at all an attractive impression of his domestic life. It was altogether rather squalid and wretched: he lived cooped up in hugger-mugger fashion, doing odds and ends of work for business men into whose characters96 he could not afford to pry too curiously. But Cervantes’ mind was in no way poisoned by his surroundings.

Even if “Don Quixote” had never been written, the stories called “Novelas Examplares” would have entitled Cervantes to the foremost place among Spanish novelists.

Sir Walter Scott admired them greatly, and declared that they had first inspired him with the ambition of excelling in fiction. Cervantes went on writing to the very end of his life. An anecdote he tells in one of his last writings shows the sort of cheerful way in which he looked upon failing health, old age, and death. He relates how a student overtook him as a companion on the road one day, and hearing the name of Miguel de Cervantes, at once alighted from his ass and (to put it in his own words)—

made for me and hastily seized me by the left hand, cried “Yes, yes; it is he of the crippled hand, sure enough, the all-famous, the merry writer, and indeed the joy of the Muses!” To me, who in these brief terms saw of my praises the grand compass, it seemed to be discourteous not to respond to them, so, embracing him round the neck, whereby I made entire havoc of his collar, I said: “This is a mistake in which many friends from ignorance have fallen. I, sir, am Cervantes; but not the joy of the Muses, nor any of the fine things your worship has said. Regain your ass and mount, and let us travel together in pleasant talk for the rest of our short journey.” The polite student did so, we reduced our speed a little, and at a leisurely pace 97 pursued our journey, in the course of which my infirmity was touched upon. The good student checked my mirth in a moment: “This malady is the dropsy, which not all the water of the ocean, let it be ever so sweet drinking, can cure. Let your worship set bounds to your drink, not forgetting to eat, for so without other medicine you will do well.” “That many have told me,” answered I. “but I can no more give up drinking for pleasure than I had been born for nothing else. My life is slipping away, and by the diary my pulse is keeping, which at the latest will end its reckoning this coming Sunday, I have to close my life’s account. Your worship has come to know me in a rude moment, since there is no time for me to show my gratitude for the good-will you have shown me.”

Good-by, humors; good-by, pleasant fancies; good-by, merry friends; for I perceive I am dying, in the wish to see you happy in the other life.

Cervantes died on April 19, 1616, at Madrid, and was buried without any ceremony. No stone or inscription even marked his grave. When, thirty years later, Lope de Vega died, grandees bore his coffin and bishops officiated at the funeral ceremonies, which lasted nine days.

Look out for people about whom a tremendous fuss is made, and remember that loud applause is not necessarily the accompaniment of real merit.

No wise man expects to get immediate credit for his achievements. He does not work for personal re98nown, but for the love of his art or the attainment of his ideals. Fame is cheaply won by many who little deserve it. But to leave so rich a legacy to mankind as Cervantes did, and a name so highly honored for all time, is the privilege of very few.

V

GIORDANO BRUNO

1548–1600

I have fought: that is much—victory is in the hands of fate. Be that as it may with me, this at least future ages will not deny of me, be the victor who may—that I did not fear to die, yielded to none of my fellows in constancy, and preferred a spirited death to a cowardly life.

As the world grows older knowledge increases. From time to time men have to correct and alter their opinions and beliefs. What at one period is accepted as true may be proved at a later period to be false. But we do not like abandoning our favorite beliefs, and we are apt to get rather annoyed with a reformer, a discoverer, or an inventor who comes along with new notions and upsets our ideas. Even to-day such a man is often laughed at or abused. In mediæval times he was made to suffer as an outcast and even sometimes as a criminal.

You will read many books about heroes who have displayed courage and endurance in battle, exploration, and adventure. But men who have had to overcome prejudices and to stand by their opinions in spite of almost universal opposition have also played100 an important part in the world’s history, though you may hear less about them. Moral courage is more rare than physical courage. To display physical courage may make a man a popular hero. If he fails he is stamped as a coward. To display moral courage more often than not makes a man unpopular. There is no audience to applaud and it is quite easy to be a moral coward without any one, even intimate friends, finding it out. It is far simpler to say “Yes” when every one else is saying “Yes.” He who rows against the stream cannot hope to carry many with him, and his progress must be slow.

Nothing can have upset men’s calculations more than the first great discoveries of astronomy. No doubt people scoffed when Pythagoras told them the earth was round and not flat, as they supposed. But it was a still more disturbing idea to be told that the earth was not the center of the universe, with the sun and moon and stars revolving round it. Most men firmly believed this to be the case up to the fifteenth century. And when Copernicus first elaborated in a book, between 1506 and 1512, the heliocentric theory, that is to say the theory that the sun was the center round which the earth and the other planets revolved, it was a long time before any one would treat such an idea seriously. We may laugh at the ignorance of our forefathers, and we may declare glibly that of course the earth goes round the sun, but there are not many of us who would be ready to 101explain scientifically why we know this to be a fact. We, too, have to accept a great deal on other people’s authority because we are told it is true, and not because we know it is true. And to us again the new idea often appears unwelcome and disturbs our most cherished beliefs.

But, anyhow, we know now that a man’s deeds and his loyalty to his own convictions are far more important than any declaration he may make of his beliefs, especially when such a declaration is forced from him or made to please others. Some people find it very difficult to believe things of which they cannot see the clear explanation. Other people, with very little effort, can believe almost anything they are told. They are like the White Queen in “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” who, when Alice said she could not believe impossible things, replied, “I dare say you haven’t had much practice. When I was your age I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

In the sixteenth century doubt and disbelief in any of the hard-and-fast rules and dogmas of the Church was not tolerated. Any one who was bold enough to refuse to say he believed what he conscientiously knew he could not believe was liable to be punished with the utmost severity.

In the Campo dei Fiori, the largest open space in102 Rome, a vast concourse of people assembled on February 17th in the year 1600. In the center of the place stood a huge pile of faggots: from the midst of its logs and branches there rose a stake. On many of the eager and expectant faces which crowded round might have been seen an expression of malignant triumph. The Church was taking revenge on a heretic who had refused to accept all the doctrines laid down by its authority, a heretic who actually taught that the earth moved round the sun.

Soldiers clear the way for the procession which advances solemnly to the spot. A small, thin man with a black beard, clothed in the garb of a condemned victim of the Inquisition—a sulphur-colored cloak painted with flames and devils—is led up to the pile. The priests even now, at the last moment, argue with him and attempt to make him acknowledge his error. With a look of melancholy but unconquerable determination he refuses to listen to them or to receive any consolation from them. A jeer rises from the multitude. He is taken and chained to the stake. Will he not at the last moment recant? Will he not utter the words that will save him from such cruel torture? Will he not pray for mercy? They wait a moment, but he remains silent, calm, and obdurate. The faggots are lit, the branches crackle; flames leap up; the victim writhes, but not a single cry escapes him. Amid frantic shouts from the crowd the smoke envelops him. In a few moments all that remains is103 a pile of ashes, which are scattered to the winds.... This was the end of Giordano Bruno, the Italian philosopher and poet, who refused to consent to what he thought was false and refused to deny what he thought was true.

It has been said that men resemble the earth which bears them. The volcanic slope of Mount Vesuvius was the birthplace of this fiery and unconquerable fighter. He was born in 1548 at Nola, and was the son of a soldier. Not only does he seem in his early youth to have had a great love of learning, but he was able to get the very best tuition in Naples, where he lodged with an uncle who was a weaver of velvet. His knowledge of science, mathematics, and the classics, as well as of poetry and music, was astonishing even when he was quite young. Besides Italian, he spoke Latin and Spanish fluently and knew something of Greek. In spite of his ardent nature, his first step was to shut himself up as a Dominican monk at the age of fourteen. He remained for thirteen years in monastic seclusion, and was duly promoted to holy orders and to the priesthood. He pursued his studies all this time with the greatest diligence. He laid in stores of learning which were the foundation of his independent views and writings in after-life. But it was impossible that a man of such fire and energy should tamely settle down to a quiet life of prayer and contemplation. The Church104 was in a pitiable state of ignorance and corruption. Young Giordano’s keen intelligence, strengthened by study and roused by his restless energy, soon drove him into conflict with his superiors. This was the first of a series of conflicts in which he combated the forces of authority wherever he went all his life through. He was accused of impiety because of the broad views he expressed about some of the principal doctrines of the Church. His position became intolerable, so he cast off his monkish robe and fled to Genoese territory, where he remained a few months supporting himself by teaching grammar to boys and occupying his leisure in reading astronomy. In this latter science he at once accepted the views of Copernicus. “The earth,” he said, “moves; it turns on its own axis and moves round the sun.” But what is now taught to every school child was thought then a dangerous doctrine, contrary to the teaching of Aristotle, which the Church supported. He also went further than any of his predecessors in suggesting that there were other worlds which were inhabited. The revival of learning which had been going on during the previous hundred years, while it had encouraged the more educated and cultured few to pursue their studies and think out new ideas, had also had the effect of making the many who mistrusted reform and were frightened of change much more particular and severe about the opinions and beliefs which men should be allowed to hold. The new ideas ultimately105 prevailed, but only after a desperate struggle. Had the school of thought which Bruno represented been allowed to develop without hindrance, the advance of enlightenment in Europe would have been far more rapid than was actually the case.

Giordano Bruno wandered over Europe alone like a knight-errant of truth. Persecuted in one country, he fled to another, everywhere stirring up dispute and controversy, urging men to think, and denouncing the fanatical and pretended beliefs which were making them thoughtless and cruel. Geneva, Lyons, Paris, London, Oxford, Wittenberg, Helmstedt, and Venice—these were some of the places he visited, the centers of the world’s active thought, where he could meet the leading men of the day.

Now, we cannot enter into the very difficult question of religious belief as it was understood in those days. Nor, indeed, would such a study be very profitable to any one. The wrangling of theologians has very little to do with true religion. Bruno knew this. While he was opposed to the Roman Catholic Church, of which he had been accepted as a member in his youth, he hated just as much at the other extreme the narrow intolerance of the followers of Calvin, the French Reformers, who also treated those who disagreed with them with great harshness and cruelty. Besides, there was almost as much stupid wrangling and brutal intolerance between Calvinists and Lutherans as there was between Catholics and Protestants.106 Bruno therefore did not stay long in Geneva, which was the headquarters of the Calvinists. Even in Wittenberg, where he was very well received, while admiring the attitude of the great Reformer Luther, who a few years before had been the foremost figure in the great struggle with the Roman Catholic Church, known as the Reformation, he by no means sympathized with the teaching of Protestantism. On the contrary, he referred to the German Reformers, when he was before the Inquisition in Venice, in the following way: “I regard them as more ignorant than I am; I despise them and their doctrine. They do not deserve the name of theologians but of pedants.”

Before we follow the wandering philosopher on his travels, let us try to understand a little of what he thought himself. He was not, as he was accused of being, just a blasphemous atheist who went about offending the religious feelings of all with whom he came in contact. He was not a rude, untutored sceptic or disbeliever who shocked people by laughing at their beliefs. He did not merely indulge in abuse and spiteful criticism. Though this is the view which was spread about him by many of his contemporaries and taught about him for many years after his death, nothing could be further from the truth. Giordano Bruno was extremely spiritual-minded. So far was he from being an atheist (which would have been just as narrow and dogmatic a point of view as that of any of the other extremes), he saw God everywhere107 and in everything, and his vision extended to the whole universe. He saw the essence of Divine perfection in man, but deplored the many causes which prevented it from showing itself. He wanted the mind of man to be free, and not fettered by all sorts of elaborate creeds and regulations. This freedom he demanded for himself, and he insisted that all questions should be considered as open. What he detested most were the disputes about religion of the various sects, the bitter and angry spirit they produced, and the ruthless persecutions carried on by religious bodies on all sides. Through freedom and enlightenment alone he saw that mankind could progress, and not through submission and ignorance. But all this was quite unintelligible to the vast majority, who took the narrow and bigoted views on religion which were common in those days. He was not a mere student of books, nor was he content with thoughts alone on the great problems of religion and philosophy: he taught, he wrote, he lectured, he spoke with such lively eloquence and striking persuasiveness, and sometimes with such violence of language, that it was impossible to ignore him. His views were fascinating by their novelty and boldness, but he entirely lacked caution and prudence. In these circumstances it is not surprising that he was excommunicated from the Church, expelled from universities, and driven out of the towns he visited.

For sixteen years he wandered about Europe at a108 time when to travel meant spending eight days on the road from Paris to Calais: he had to put up in inns with very rough fare and sometimes only a bed of straw. Books were now printed, but they still circulated very slowly, and the fame of a professor was made more by “disputation,” that is to say, lecture and debate, than by the publication of his writings. Nevertheless, the wandering Italian published several books in every town he visited. With the exception of a few that have been lost, most of his philosophical writings and poems have been collected together and preserved.

Bruno found France torn by internal quarrels between the Protestant Huguenots and the Roman Catholics, which had been going on for some years in the shape of a destructive civil war. Only eight years before, in 1572, there had been a wholesale massacre of Protestants in Paris on St. Bartholomew’s Eve, when Charles IX was king. All this served to show Bruno to what excesses men could be driven in religious strife. After a visit to Toulouse, where he taught astronomy and philosophy, he proceeded to Paris. Here, although he refused to attend Mass, he managed to become a professor, chiefly by the favor of King Henry III, who, however, required to be satisfied first of all that Bruno’s wonderful memory came “by knowledge and not by magic arts.” In gratitude for these favors the philosopher referred to the King in his writings with exaggerated praise. It was in109deed one of the charges against him, when he came to his trial in Venice, that he had praised the heretic prince, the news of whose assassination in 1589 was received in Rome with a salute of cannon.

Bruno’s method of lecturing must have been very startling to those who were accustomed to the grave airs of the learned professors. He was enthusiastic and eloquent, and so eager that his hearers should grasp his meaning that he would adopt every sort of different manner of addressing them. Sometimes grave and prophet-like, at other times lively and gay: sometimes fierce and combative, and then, again, indulging in gross buffoonery. He was bent on attracting attention and rousing the indifference of his audiences. In his writings, too, he showed varying moods. The wit, the scoffer, the poet, the mystic, and the prophet all appear. Great as his learning was, he depended more on his intuitions; that is to say, the imaginative poet in him was stronger than the scientific scholar. But some of the wisest philosophers in after-years owed a great deal to his wonderfully far-reaching thoughts and ideas.

In 1583 he went to London with letters furnished by the King of France to his Ambassador. He found Queen Elizabeth very sympathetic. A friendly welcome was extended by her court to all foreigners, and she herself spoke Italian fluently. He was also fortunate in having a cultured and liberal-minded patron in the Ambassador, M. Castelnau de Mauvissière, who110 was endeavoring to negotiate a marriage between Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou. Bruno, who was excused from attending Mass in the Embassy chapel, was no doubt grateful for the considerate way in which he was treated, for several books produced by him during his stay in England were dedicated to the Ambassador. He also alludes to the Ambassador’s wife with respectful praise, and remarks enthusiastically about his little daughter: “Her perfected goodness makes one marvel whether she be flown from heaven or be a creature of this common earth.”

London had only a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants in those days, and was not such an important place as Paris or even Lisbon. Foreign visitors were not well received as a rule by the people, and English students seldom traveled abroad. Though the Queen prided herself on her learning, very little education and no freedom of discussion were allowed among her humbler subjects. Printers were only licensed in London, Oxford, and Cambridge, and every publication was rigorously examined. Without his introduction to the court, Bruno would probably have been silenced after a very short time. As it was, in England no more than elsewhere could the philosopher take things quietly, though he very much appreciated the comparative liberty of thought and speech he was allowed. He had no sooner arrived in London than he sent to Oxford University a challenge which111 he appropriately called “The Awakener.” With a loud flourish of trumpets, he described himself as:

a doctor in perfected theology; a professor of pure and blameless wisdom; a philosopher known, approved, and honorifically acknowledged by the foremost academies of Europe; to none a stranger except to the barbarians and the vulgar; a waker of slumbering souls; a breaker of presumptuous and stubborn ignorance.

Both to the Sorbonne in Paris and the Wittenberg University he addressed himself in much more dignified and modest language. He evidently did not take Oxford very seriously, and indeed there was very little intellectual life in that University, which was under the rule of the Queen’s favorite, Lord Leicester. The professors were court nominees, and Bruno describes them as “men arrayed in long robes of velvet, with hands most precious for the multitude of costly rings on their fingers, golden chains about their necks, and with manners as void of courtesy as cowherds.” He also thought they knew a good deal more of beer than of Greek. The students were very young, ignorant, and boorish, occupied in drinking, dueling, and toasting in ale-houses and country inns. However, he had a very high opinion of the University as a whole, and consented to deliver a series of lectures and also held a public disputation before the Chancellor and an illustrious foreign visitor. He appears to have aroused the pedagogues to fury, and, by his112 own account, fifteen times he worsted his chief adversary, who could only reply by abuse. He stood up in the assembly a small man, “rough hewn,” with disheveled hair, wearing an old coat with several buttons wanting, while the Oxford doctors, whose opposition he describes as based on “ignorance, presumption, and rustic rudeness,” wore “twelve rings on two fingers and two chains of shining gold.” While they were attempting to defend the old teaching of Aristotle from the attacks of a man they regarded as an eccentric charlatan, he explained his new ideas, which were to them startling and highly objectionable.

Small wonder that after three months his public lectures were brought to an end and he returned to London. Here he made several friends, among them Sir Philip Sidney, the poet-soldier, of whom he had already heard in Italy, for Sidney had studied at Padua. Fulk Greville, who described himself on his epitaph as “Servant to Queen Elizabeth, Councilor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney,” also became intimate with him, and at his house Bruno held a second disputation, at which he again seems to have aggravated his hearers. He had a sincere admiration for Sidney and dedicated a book of sonnets to him. The protection given to him by Queen Elizabeth he repaid by referring to her in his poems in terms of the highest flattery, which no doubt she appreciated. But this praise of a Protestant Queen, who herself was excommunicated, was eventually113 brought against him by his judges. He was greatly impressed by the beauty and bearing of English women and by “the Briton’s terrible energy, who, regardless of the stormy deep and the towering mountains, goes down to the sea in ships mightily exceeding Argonautic art.” After two years in England he returned to Paris with the French Ambassador, who, he says, “saved him from the Oxford pedants and from hunger.” But he did not stay long in Paris, “because of the tumults,” and proceeded on his wanderings into Germany.

At Marburg, the rector of the University refused Bruno permission to hold public disputations on philosophy, at which, the rector himself says, “he fell into a passion of anger and he insulted me in my house.” No doubt he made it very unpleasant for any one who attempted to thwart him, for he was headstrong and impetuous. At Wittenberg he was permitted to enter his name on the lists of the University, and also to give private lectures. The professors of Toulouse, Paris, and Oxford, he declared, received him “with grimaces, upturned noses, puffed cheeks, and with loud blows on the desk,” but the learned men of Wittenberg showed him courtesy and left him in peace. In fact, he was able to remain there working for two years, until, owing to the feud between the Lutherans and the Calvinists, in which the latter got the upper hand, he found himself compelled to quit the city. On his departure he pro114nounced a great oration in praise of wisdom, which malicious public opinion described as a speech in favor of the devil.

His next halt was at Prague, where he was received by the Emperor Rudolph II, the patron of Tycho Brahe and Kepler, and a student of philosophy and astronomy as well as of magic and astrology. The Italian philosopher addressed a small work to His Majesty, in which he repeats that his mission is to free the souls of men and to triumph over ignorance: he laments the hateful quarreling of different creeds, and proclaims charity and love to be the only true religion. As he did not meet with sympathy or support in Prague, he passed on to Helmstedt, where the Duke of Brunswick charged him with the education of his son. But here again he got at cross-purposes with the authorities, and this brought down on him a sentence of excommunication. He justified himself, and wrote a scathing attack on the pastor and rector of the University, who were his chief enemies. But it was not possible for him to remain, so he turned his steps toward Frankfort. This town was the center of the German book trade: fairs were held at Easter and Michaelmas, and people came from other countries to try and exchange books, which were still very rare. Bruno published several books here, and one might think he would have been left to pursue his studies without interference. But the burgomaster, or mayor, sternly refused to allow him to lodge with115 his printer. A convent of Carmelites therefore gave him shelter, and there he is said to have been “busied with writing for the most part all day long, or in going to and fro indulging in subtle inquiries, wrapt in thought and filled with fantastic meditations upon new things.”

It is very curious that Giordano Bruno should ever have been persuaded to return to Italy. But he seems not to have thought it impossible that he could become reconciled to the Church while retaining for himself a certain freedom of thought. No doubt he was also tempted to return by his love of his native land. Yet he must have had a foreboding of the danger he was running when he wrote, on leaving Frankfort: “The wise man fears not death; nay, even there are times when he sets forth to meet it bravely.”

Bruno now made the acquaintance of the traitor by whose falseness he was eventually to be handed over to a cruel fate. Giovanni Mocenigo was a member of one of the foremost Venetian families. But the wisdom of his ancestors, seven of whom had been Doges—that is, chief magistrates—of Venice, had degenerated in him into cunning. He came across Bruno’s books, and out of curiosity, believing that there was something occult and supernatural about Bruno’s teaching, he invited him to come and stay with him in Venice. The philosopher innocently accepted the invitation. His reputation as a man of lively conversation preceded him, and he found himself cordially received116 in Venetian literary society. But very soon Mocenigo began to grow discontented with his master. He was quite unable to understand his teaching or to profit in the smallest degree by the Art of Memory, which was one of Bruno’s favorite principles of instruction. In fact, the two were completely out of sympathy, and the patron began to insist that he got no return for his generous hospitality. Bruno at first tried to reason with him, but finding him hopelessly dense and narrow-minded, became exasperated and begged he might be set at liberty to return to Frankfort. Mocenigo then determined to betray him because of his religious opinions. He consulted his confessor, and then denounced his unfortunate guest to the Father Inquisitor at Venice as a wicked and irreligious man. Accompanied by his servant and five or six gondoliers, he burst in upon Bruno while he was in bed and dragged him to a garret, where he locked him up. The trial took place in 1592. The charges brought against Giordano Bruno were that he had criticized the methods of the Church, desired and foretold its reform, disputed its doctrines, consorted with heretics, and taught principles which were repugnant to Catholics. The culprit gave a complete account of his life; he said he was sorry if he had done what was wrong or taught what was false, and was ready to atone for any scandal he had given in the past, but he did not retract a single one of his convictions.

It may be well here just to say a word about the117 Inquisition, which has been so often mentioned and figures so prominently in the history of these times.

The Holy Office, as it was first called, was instituted early in the thirteenth century. Its practical founder was a Spanish monk, Domenigo de Guzman, who afterwards was known as St. Dominic. The Popes at first regarded the institution with disapproval, as it was set up as a quite independent body, and bishops even were not allowed to interfere with its proceedings. Towards the end of the fifteenth century it was re-established on a far more active basis under the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada, who organized the most fiendish cruelties for which any human being has ever been responsible. The object of the Inquisition was to suppress heresy, that is to say, either force people into the Romish Church or, should they refuse, kill them or make their lives intolerable. The mildest form of punishment was called public penitence, which meant being made an outcast in society, closely watched by the ecclesiastical authorities, and heavily fined. Tortures of indescribable kinds were used; people were imprisoned for life or burned alive, though sometimes as a favor they might be strangled before they were burned. The burning of a heretic was a great public function which attracted crowds of spectators. In order to make the pageant more ghastly, grotesque dolls and corpses which had been dug up out of their graves were carried in the procession and made to dance round the flames.

In Spain the Inquisition directed its attention chiefly to Jews and Moors. But it became established in other parts of Europe, notably in the Netherlands and in Italy. Torquemada was Grand Inquisitor for eighteen years. During that time he had 10,220 people burned alive and 97,000 condemned to public penitence or perpetual imprisonment. The Inquisition was far more active and severe in Spain than in Italy, where it dealt chiefly with Protestants. But a resident at Rome in 1568, which is just about the time we are dealing with, wrote: “Some are daily burned, hanged, or beheaded; the prisons and places of confinement are filled, and they are obliged to build new ones.” The independence, the secrecy, and the far-extended power of the Inquisition made it formidable and terrifying while it lasted. The hideous cruelty and savage barbarity of its methods render the story of the Inquisition one of the blackest pages of the history of the world.

From such a body as this there was very little chance that a man with Bruno’s views would receive justice or mercy.

Venice was at this time an independent republic, and was a city of refuge for many who were expelled from other parts of Italy. Rome was jealous of the independent attitude of Venice, and the Pope demanded that all spiritual offenders should be delivered up to him. The Venetian authorities protested in this case, but were obliged to yield. A lawyer who119 was consulted during the dispute, while acknowledging that Bruno’s errors in heresy were very grave, declared that he possessed “a most excellent rare mind, with exquisite learning and wisdom.”

On his arrival in Rome he was at once cast into a dungeon, as the Pope hoped to break his spirit by prolonged imprisonment. For six whole years (1593 to 1599) nothing was heard of him. What his sufferings were in the dark dungeons of the Inquisition no one can tell. Whatever methods may have been used to overcome his obstinate determination, they were unsuccessful. For when at last he was visited in 1599 he said that “he ought not to recant and he would not recant; that he had nothing to recant, nor any reason to recant, nor knew he what he should recant.” Had he not written, too: “There are men in whom the working of the will of God is so powerful that neither threats nor contumely can cause them to waver. He who fears the body has never felt himself to be one with God. He alone is truly wise and virtuous who fears no pain, and he is happy who regards things with the eye of reason.”

At last sentence of death was passed on him. “Perhaps you pronounce your sentence with greater fear than that with which I receive it,” was his only reply to his inhuman judges. From the presence of the great assemblage of cardinals and theologians who sat in judgment over him, the man whom suffering could not move and for whom the condemnation of120 such a tribunal was no degradation was led from the judgment hall and handed over to the governor of the city. A day or two more in a solitary cell and the end came.

There was a multitude of pilgrims in Rome at the time. Some fifty cardinals were assembled to celebrate the jubilee of the Pope. The Church was mustered in all its glory. The last agony of the philosopher no doubt served to enhance these triumphant celebrations, although the burning of a heretic was such a common occurrence that it probably caused very little stir. The concluding scene has already been described.

Nearly three hundred years later, in 1889, a statue of Giordano Bruno, a picture of which is reproduced here, was erected on the very spot in the Campo dei Fiori at Rome where he was burned. The world is learning slowly to respect liberty of conscience, to admire sincerity, to detest intolerance, and to stamp out the spirit of persecution. We are beginning to understand that a really religious nature may exist apart from any profession of faith in any particular set of doctrines. And no sensible man now would condemn as wicked and irreligious a courageous thinker who fought throughout his career for freedom and independence of thought, and refused to alter his convictions to please others or even to save his own life.

VI

GROTIUS

1583–1645

I shall never cease to use my utmost endeavors for establishing peace among Christians; and if I should not succeed it will be honorable to die in such an enterprise.

When we read history, what a lot we have to learn about wars! Invasions and conquests and sieges and battles seem to cover more pages than anything else. I think there is hardly a country in Europe that England has not fought against at one time or another, and not only in Europe, but in Asia, Africa, and America. And although nations are supposed to be getting more civilized, it does not seem to make any difference—they go on fighting one another just the same. If we took the wars from the Roman invasion of Britain down to 1914, it would be a very long list. We might be able to give the dates and name the chief battles, but I doubt if we could always say what was the cause of the war. The causes of war are generally most difficult to discover, and historians become rather confused and obscure when they deal with that part of the subject. The truth is that causes122 are very difficult to disentangle. Generally there is an occasion as well as a cause. The cause is the general state of feeling that exists between two countries, which again has to be traced back to a number of different incidents and accidents: the occasion may be some quite trifling event, which is just enough to set the fire blazing. Without the occasion the state of feeling might in time improve, and the same trifling event, or a more serious event which concerned two countries who were on friendly terms, might never lead to war at all.

In the more barbarous ages men fought one another because one race hated another race, or wanted to capture its goods and its property. Men walked about ready and eager to fight, and no one wanted to stop them. We pretend we are much more civilized now, and that we do not have these feelings, and yet without these excuses we have constant wars. It does not say much for what we are pleased to call our civilization. Because, after all, killing a large number of people, devastating countries, and destroying homes is not an occupation that any one approves.

Then a period came when kings and great conquerors wanted to win power and renown by leading their armies out to battle and subduing their neighbors. The motive was very much the same as that of the barbarous man, but it was less natural and spontaneous, because the people themselves were less inclined to fight. They were, however, prepared 123and drilled, and taught that their country’s greatness depended on its power of conquest and the size of its territory.

Then, too, a large number of wars were religious wars. Men feel very deeply about their own religion, and in the Middle Ages they were always ready to fight others who did not share their particular belief. The Crusades were by way of being religious wars, but they were more an opportunity for great fighters to go out and distinguish themselves on the battlefield. Civilized people do not fight about religion now, but there is no subject that makes them quarrel and dispute more violently.

When kings were no longer able to drive their people to fight just to satisfy their personal ambition, and when people became more tolerant about religious differences, other causes for wars arose. Governments became ambitious and wanted their countries to expand and acquire great colonial possessions, and acute rivalry grew up between nations. This was encouraged by the richer classes, who could profit by extended trade, and as the means of communication and of conveyance suddenly became much easier because of steamships, trains, and telegraphy, the desire as well as the possibility of building great Empires was very much increased. The governing classes and those who were rich and idle were not very much concerned about the pressing need for social reform which the vast mass of the people were longing for. They were124 interested in wars, and they could easily make them popular by means of the newspapers which they had at their command. Meanwhile, the people became gradually more peace-loving. But this made no difference, because they had no say in controlling the relations of their country with other nations; they were very easily misled because of their ignorance of foreign policy and foreign countries, and they could always be roused to fight by being told that their country was in danger.

A disbelief in force was, however, slowly growing up, and people were no longer impressed by the glory of war. In their relations with one another individual men left off fighting, because they found that quarrels were better settled by reason, and they knew that the man who happened to be the strongest physically or the most skillful with arms was not necessarily in the right, though he might kill or maim his opponent.

But while many nations within their own borders were able to establish peaceful relations between their citizens by means of law and order, the relationship between the nations themselves could not be regulated in the same way. In their infancy the nations recognized no law, no regulations for warfare, and no binding sense of obligation. There was no supreme authority who could insist on obedience, and the only way of settling differences was to fight it out. Agreements between one ruler and another were of little value; terrible barbarities and wholesale massacre125 were resorted to without protest; no sort of code of honor or humanity was recognized, and justification for hideous cruelty was often found by the Church in the pages of the Bible.

At a period when Europe was one broad battlefield, when wars were raging between races, between nations, and between religious sects, and hatred, misery, cruelty, and torture were filling the world with horror, and in a country that was suffering more than any other from these fearful evils, was born a man who, in spite of the darkness around him and in spite of the overwhelming forces which seemed to be subduing mankind, set to work to save civilization from ruin and to establish law and reason in the relations of nations. This man was Huig de Groot, known afterwards to the world as Hugo Grotius, who was born at Delft, in Holland, on Easter Day of 1583. He will be recognized for all time as the founder of international law, and as the first man who awakened the conscience of governments to a higher moral sense, to more humanitarian feelings, and to the recognition of the fact that there was such a thing as international duty. “I saw,” he said, “in the whole Christian world a license of fighting at which even barbarous nations might blush. Wars were begun on trifling pretexts or none at all, and carried on without any reverence of law, Divine or human. A declaration of war seemed to let loose every crime.”

The foundation of his idea was that the Law of126 Nations, that is to say, the agreements made between governments, should be brought into harmony with the principles of natural morality and the commands of justice written, as he said, by God on the hearts and minds of men. This he called the Law of Nature, which man could discover by right reason. He wanted, in fact, the same ideas of right and wrong which people were taught to adopt in their dealings with one another to be applied to the dealings of one nation with another. Instead of saying that justice, honor, generosity, and friendship meant one thing between man and man and quite another thing between nation and nation, he tried to combine the two and bring the lower one up to the level of the higher. Out of this union between the two sorts of law he hoped to create an international law which would put an end to the unreasonable, uncivilized, and perpetually dangerous relationship which existed between nations.

The great book he wrote was called “De Jure Belli ac Pacis” (Concerning the Law of War and Peace). He collected together in it quotations from a number of great men, and elaborated his argument with wonderful clearness and great learning. He condemned the atrocities of warfare, and more especially he pointed to a way in which war might be avoided. He examined various methods by which international questions might be settled without war, and proposed the idea of conferences and international arbitration.127 In fact, it may be said that the seed of arbitration was first sown when Grotius wrote the words: “But specially are Christian kings and States bound to try this way of avoiding war.” The book, indeed, in the hands of those who followed him, became a mighty weapon against the follies of rulers and the cruelties of war. It could not have been written by a mere scholar; it was not just a collection of quotations and clever theories; it was the work of a man whose nobility of heart and mind and whose earnestness and unselfishness made his voice echo through the nations and through the ages.

But you, who have known a war compared to which the wars of the past seem as little battles, may well ask whether the ideas of Grotius have really spread and become of any permanent good. Well, I will try to answer that question. The tremendous scale of the great European war of the twentieth century is not a measure of the wicked disposition of the nations concerned, but is due more especially to the easy methods of transport and communication, to the rapid manner in which munitions can be manufactured, and to the diabolical nature of modern inventions and engines of destruction. That war could not be prevented is not due to the frantic desire of the peoples to fight, but to the policy of governments and ministers, to the faulty methods of intercourse between nations, which is called diplomacy, and to the inability of the people to control their governments. So far from this catas128trophe showing nations are more evilly disposed towards one another than formerly, it is undoubtedly true that mutual knowledge was beginning to produce a new sympathy and understanding, and though it has been checked, that movement will revive and continue, perhaps with greater vigor.

Although there may be much to alter and much to mend in ways that Grotius never dreamed of, the prospect of the cessation of war is decidedly nearer, in spite of this great failure. Such a prospect may still be very remote—we cannot say—but it is as inevitable as the rising of the sun, and we can either help or hinder its coming. Therefore, in considering the fact that the mind of man has been slowly preparing for the abolition of the rule of force and the establishment of the reign of reason, and that moral law has been slowly but surely gaining ground over belief in violence, we should ever turn with gratitude to the man who took the first and most difficult step, and who had sufficient foresight and courage, when things seemed most hopeless, to look into the future.

The publication of such a book naturally caused a great stir. It came out in 1625, and was immediately placed by the Pope upon the Index—that is, the list of books which Catholics were forbidden to read. It was not a popular book in the sense that it could be read by every one. The appeal was to thinking men. Its influence therefore was very gradual. But slowly the ideas set forth by Grotius found their way into129 laws and into treaties, and eminent lawyers in European universities took the great work as a starting-point of the further development of principles of international law. There are two interesting instances of how the influence of the book was immediately felt. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who was the greatest general of the time, made a careful study of “De Jure Belli ac Pacis”: he kept it by his bedside, and it was found in his tent after his death on the field of Lützen. Gustavus constantly stood for mercy, and began on a large scale the better conduct of modern war. He made speeches to his soldiers dissuading them from cruelty or rebuking them for it.

The other instance was in the case of the capture of La Rochelle by Cardinal Richelieu, who governed France in the name of Louis XIII. La Rochelle was the stronghold of French Protestantism. All Europe expected that the inhabitants would be massacred, in accordance with the spirit of cruel intolerance which was usual at that time, and which would certainly be expected from the merciless Cardinal. But to the amazement of the world there were no massacre, no destruction, and no plunder, and the Huguenots were treated with mercy and even respect. At a later period, indeed, Cardinal Richelieu freed the writings of Grotius from the French censorship, and declared him one of the three great scholars of his time.

The Treaty of Westphalia, which closed the Thirty130 Years War in 1648, may be added as another instance of how Grotius had brought in a new epoch in international affairs, for it contained principles which he had been the first to bring into the thought of the world. Nevertheless, the immediate influence of Grotius’ book was not so great as the lasting service he rendered in laying the foundation of a new science of International Law, on which succeeding generations slowly built up and strengthened the sense of morality between nations. There is still very much to be added; and new problems and new conditions require new plans and new designs. But the foundation was well laid and can never be shifted.

The book was criticized by some who declared that it was just a shapeless collection of quotations, and that the argument was lost under the mass of extracts from other authorities. It is true that its arrangement and style were rather heavy and clumsy, and there is much in the book that may appear to us, three hundred years afterwards, as rather crude, but attack has come for the most part from those who are quite unable to understand the high ideal toward which Grotius was reaching out. A prominent English international jurist, Sir James Mackintosh, has declared that this great work “is perhaps the most complete that the world has yet owed, at so early a stage in the progress of any science, to the genius and learning of one man.”

Now, I must give you some account of the life of131 the writer of this famous book. As you may imagine, a man of such decided character, who had the courage to express new and original views, was not allowed to live in peace and quiet.

His father, John de Groot, was four times burgomaster of Delft and one of the curators of the University of Leyden. He was a great scholar, and acted as tutor to his son Hugo. At a very early age the boy showed the most extraordinary powers. At ten, his Latin verses were praised by learned men; at eleven, poets declared that he would be a second Erasmus; at twelve, he was admitted to the University of Leyden. He was, in fact, very precocious. It very often happens with precocious children that they are made to show off, and are so spoilt by their parents that they become conceited, and when they grow up they disappoint the expectations formed about them when they were young. But his parents were sensible, and he himself was naturally humble and modest, and so he continued his studies and enriched his mind without any harm being done to his character. He produced immense learned books on many different subjects, and at the age of fifteen held public disputes in mathematics, philosophy, and law.

In 1598 he was appointed to accompany a special Embassy which was being sent by the Netherlands to the King of France, Henry IV. His reputation had gone before him. The men of the day crowded to see him, and the King received him and with his132 own hand hung his portrait round the youth’s neck. So much flattery might easily have turned his head, but he already showed a calm judgment and the wisdom of a man of long experience. He did not loiter in this pleasant atmosphere, but returned to his work in Holland. But there was another danger before him. He might have buried himself in his studies, and, like other learned men of his time, and, indeed, of all times, accumulated a lot of useless knowledge. So many great scholars have become experts in some particular subject, and have shut themselves off from contact with their fellow-men. Their mind becomes their idol, and they fail to see that mere brain-power is of little service if it is not used for some great purpose, and if it is not inspired by moral and humane sentiments. Grotius avoided this course; he was anxious for active life, and wanted to join in and help his country and humanity in some practical way. He had avoided becoming a prig, a prodigy, or a bookworm, and when he took up the career of a lawyer he also avoided using his rapid promotion for the purpose of money-making and personal success. His extraordinary talents were like the spreading sails of a ship. They might have capsized him if he had not had plenty of ballast.

How little he thought of fame and applause, and how he worked for true knowledge and in order to prepare himself for the future, is shown by the dis133covery at The Hague, two hundred years later, of a manuscript of a big book written by him when he was twenty-two, but never published. One of the chapters of this book he issued as a treatise under the title of “Mare Liberum.” It was an argument against the claim made by some nations, specially Portugal at this time, that the seas could be owned by a nation, and that no other nation could fish in them or navigate them without her permission. Grotius maintained the freedom of the seas was necessary to enable nations to communicate with one another, and it could not be taken away by any power whatever. James I very much disapproved of this book, as he thought it interfered with the rights of Great Britain. He ordered his Ambassador in Holland to take measures against the author. But as nothing could be done, the King instructed the great English lawyer, John Selden, to write a reply, which he did in a learned book called “Mare Clausum.” But Grotius really had the best of the argument, and his view was eventually adopted.

Grotius, who had now gained an international reputation, was given various high appointments, such as Public Historiographer, Attorney-General for the province of Holland, and councilor of Rotterdam. He went to England and was received by the King with the greatest cordiality, in spite of the recent dispute. He made many friends in England, notably with the134 celebrated scholar, Isaac Casaubon, who expressed the highest opinion of the great Dutchman in a letter written in April, 1613. He says:

I cannot say how happy I esteem myself in having seen so much of one so truly great as Grotius. A wonderful man! This I knew him to be before I had seen him; but the rare excellence of that divine genius no one can sufficiently feel who does not see his face and hear him speak. Probity is stamped on his features; his conversation savors of true piety and profound learning. It is not only upon me that he has made this impression; all the pious and learned to whom he has been introduced here have felt the same towards him; the King especially so.

Grotius returned to his country, where serious trouble awaited him. The cause of it all was, to begin with, a religious squabble between two sects, the one followers of Arminius, who believed in free-will, the other followers of Gomarus, who believed in predestination. This senseless dispute on a question which can never be settled—that is to say, whether man is free to shape his own destiny or whether his acts are all fated beforehand by God—was only an excuse for a quarrel between the more bigoted and intolerant religious sects who sided with Gomarus and the freer and more broadminded who followed Arminius. The whole country was convulsed by the controversy. The Arminians drew up a Remonstrance, which was answered by a Counter Remonstrance, and the Parliament issued an Edict of Pacification, urg135ing tolerance and forbearance, which was largely due to the influence of Grotius.

Advantage was taken of this disturbance by Prince Maurice of Orange, the second son of William the Silent. He was an accomplished soldier, but a weak and untrustworthy statesman, and thought it a good opportunity to assert himself and satisfy his personal ambition to become a monarch. He undertook what he was pleased to call a pacific campaign, and seeing that the Gomarists were more popular than their opponents, many of whom favored a republic rather than a monarchy, he practically took their side.

Olden Barneveld, the Grand Pensionary, who now led the opposition to the Prince, is one of the notable figures in the history of the Netherlands. He was an old and experienced minister, a true patriot, a humane and broadminded man, who had rendered the most distinguished service to his country. The Gomarists sided with the Prince, the Arminians with the Grand Pensionary. Grotius unhesitatingly followed Olden Barneveld, and struggled with all his great powers for peace and toleration. He had conferences with Prince Maurice, headed a deputation, made eloquent appeals, but all in vain. The Prince continued his campaign, the civic guards were disarmed and disbanded wherever they resisted him. Barneveld and Grotius, and also Hoogerbertz of Leyden, who had joined them, were arrested and taken to the castle at The Hague. Barneveld, now an old136 man of over seventy, was subjected to twenty-three examinations, during which he was neither allowed to take down questions in writing, to make memoranda of his answers, nor to refer to notes. In spite of his reputation, his services, and his advanced age, he was condemned to death and executed. From the scaffold he cried to the spectators: “My friends, believe not that I am a traitor. I have lived a good patriot, and such I die.” Grotius was condemned to imprisonment for life and his property was confiscated. Their followers were seized, imprisoned, or banished to neighboring countries, just as the Puritans were driven from England and the Huguenots from France.

It was in June, 1619, that Grotius was shut up in the fortress of Louvenstein; he was only thirty-six, and he had no prospect now before him but that of lifelong captivity. Eleven years before he had married Marie Reigersberg, a lady of great intelligence and high character. She now stepped in, showed wonderful ingenuity, and played a very courageous part in her husband’s fortunes.

Pressure had been brought to bear on her after the execution of Barneveld. The scaffold on which he had been executed was left standing for fifteen days, so as to frighten the other prisoners. Grotius’ wife was specially urged to get an acknowledgment of guilt from her husband and solicit a pardon for him, and promises were held out to her of a favorable hearing137 on the part of the Prince of Orange. But she stoutly refused to cast this dishonor on her husband, and with fierce resolution declared: “I will not do it—if he has deserved it, let them strike off his head.”

In the prison of Louvenstein Grotius found consolation in his studies. He never yielded to despair, but occupied his whole time reading, composing, and translating. His devoted wife, after several petitions, at last received permission to share his captivity, on the condition that if she came out she would not be allowed to return. She made friends with the jailer’s wife and others who might be of use, and after nearly two years she thought out a method of escape. The prisoner was allowed books. These were sent in a large chest, and those he had done with were sent back, together with his washing, to Gorcum. After a time Marie Grotius noticed that the warders let the chest pass without opening it. One day she persuaded her husband, after much entreaty, to get into the chest, in which she had had some holes bored. She locked it up and asked the soldiers to come in and carry it out as usual. It was a great risk, for she must have known that, had her plot been discovered, she and her husband would suffer heavy penalties. She must have exercised great self-control to prevent herself showing any sign of agitation or excitement. The soldiers complained that the chest was unusually heavy. “There must be an Arminian in it,” said one of them jestingly. Madame Grotius replied calmly,138 “There are indeed Arminian books in it.” There was a river to be crossed, and the chest was put in a boat. The soldiers declared it ought to be opened, but a maid and a valet who were in the plot managed to prevent this. The precious load was to be taken to the house of one of Grotius’ friends in Gorcum. But if it was to be heaved about like ordinary luggage, what would happen to the unfortunate captive inside, who was terribly cramped as it was? The maid had great presence of mind, and told the people on the shore that the chest was full of glass, and must be moved with particular care. So they got a horse-chair and shifted it very carefully to the appointed place. Grotius’ friend received the chest, and after he had sent all his servants out on various errands, opened it and greeted the escaped prisoner with open arms.

Grotius declared he was none the worse for the adventure, although he had naturally felt anxious lest he might be discovered. There was no time to be lost; he disguised himself as a mason, carrying a rule, hod, and trowel, and went out of the back door, accompanied by the maid, who did not leave him until he had reached safety. Then she returned to his wife and told her how successfully the plot had worked. Marie Grotius immediately informed the governor of the prison that her husband had escaped. She was placed in close confinement, but after a few days, by order of the States General, she was released and139 joined her husband, who had gone to Paris after spending a day or two at Antwerp.

On arriving in France, Louis XIII gave Grotius a cordial welcome, and a high pension was conferred on him. French pensions were easily granted, all the more so as they were rarely paid. It was in France, at the château of Balagni, which had been lent to him, that Grotius gave final shape to the great work of his life, the book on war and peace which I have already mentioned. A man treated as he had been might have been tempted to indulge in an attack on the authorities; he might have occupied his time satirizing his enemies and scoffing at the many signs of human folly he saw around him. But he did nothing of the sort. After writing an apology defending himself against the charges brought against him, he worked day and night to reconstruct, reform, and improve the foundations of human society. The book brought him in no profit whatever in the way of money, but it brought him reputation so widely spread and of such a lasting nature as no other legal work has ever enjoyed. He did not contemplate immediate success, but even so, he said, “ought we not to sow the seed which may be useful for posterity.”

But Grotius and his wife were very badly off, as the pension was paid irregularly. Cardinal Richelieu wanted to make use of his talents, but the terms he demanded, which would have deprived Grotius from having any freedom, prevented any such arrangement140 being possible. Accordingly, the Cardinal made things uncomfortable for him, and Grotius decided once more to attempt to live in his native land. But his reception in Holland was anything but cordial. His enemies were active, and the States General offered a high reward to any one who would deliver him up to them. So again he became an exile, and took refuge this time in Hamburg. He hoped his countrymen might return to reason, and so refused flattering offers made to him by the King of Denmark, by Spain, and even by Wallenstein, who was practically dictator of Germany.

At last he gave up all hope and entered the service of Sweden as Ambassador in Paris. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden had died, and his only child Christina became Queen. During her childhood the Chancellor Oxenstiern acted as Regent. Grotius received his appointment from him in 1635. His mission was important and somewhat delicate. He had to keep up an active alliance between France and Sweden. Cardinal Richelieu was not easy to deal with, but the Ambassador showed his usual qualities of moderation and firmness, and succeeded towards the close of his embassy in renewing the treaty between Sweden and France on terms which were considered to do great honor to his diplomatic talents. He was troubled a good deal by the etiquette and ceremonial of diplomacy, and became involved in foolish disputes about rank and ceremonial questions,141 to which diplomatists have always attributed an exaggerated amount of importance. We can imagine that Grotius, with his clear mind and disregard of trivialities, may have offended his colleagues. It must have irritated them to associate with a man who, instead of chattering nonsense while waiting in the ante-rooms at court, would sit apart studying his Greek Testament.

He remained in the Swedish service for about ten years, but the life became irksome to him; the Swedish Government were inclined to think that a man who devoted so much of his time to writing could not give sufficient attention to diplomatic work, and at last Grotius applied for his recall. This was granted by Queen Christina, who had a very high opinion of the Ambassador, and received him in Stockholm on his return with every mark of favor. On quitting France, he passed on his way to Sweden through Amsterdam and Rotterdam, where he was more kindly received. The Queen of Sweden did her best to persuade Grotius to remain in her service as a Councilor of State, but he was bent on returning to Holland. Accordingly, on August 12, 1645, having received presents of money and plate from the Queen, he embarked for Lübeck. A violent storm drove the vessel on to the Pomeranian coast. Grotius, after a journey in an open wagon through wind and rain, arrived very ill at Rostock. Here he died in the presence of a Lutheran pastor, John Quistorp, who has left an ac142count of his last moments. Quistorp, at his bedside, read him the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, ending with the words, “God be merciful to me, a sinner,” and the dying scholar and statesman answered, “I am that Publican.” After repeating a prayer with the pastor, Grotius sank exhausted and breathed his last. He was buried first of all at Rostock, but as his wish was to rest in his native soil, his body was taken after a time to the Netherlands. It is difficult to believe, were it not historically true, that as the coffin was borne through the city of Rotterdam stones were thrown at it by the bigoted mob. It was laid finally in a crypt beneath the great church of Delft, his birthplace. The remains of two great champions of liberty and justice lie beneath the same roof, for close by the grave of Grotius is the sculptured tomb of William the Silent. His wife died shortly afterwards at The Hague. She had stood by him in the hour of need, encouraged him, consoled him, and helped him, and the story of his life will never be read without praise being given to the noble part she played in it.

I have said very little about the writings of Grotius, because it is impossible to describe fully all the learned books he brought out. Just as in the field of politics he worked for pacification, so in the world of religion he endeavored to the utmost of his ability to produce universal peace. He tried to find a simple statement of belief to which all contending parties143 would agree, and published a book called “The Road to Religious Peace.” “Perhaps,” he said, “by writing to reconcile such as entertain very opposite sentiments, I shall offend both parties: but if that should so happen I shall comfort myself with the example of him who said, ‘If I please men I am not the servant of Christ.’” He did offend both parties. No mere form of words can reconcile deep-seated differences in religious sentiment. Others before Grotius, and many too since, have made the same attempt to bring the different sections of religious thought together, but none have succeeded. The only advance that has been made has been an increase in the spirit of tolerance, which tends to prevent any outrageous persecution of one sect by another.

It seems curious that Christians, who people the nations which are by way of being the most civilized, should be more torn with religious discord, and should be more responsible for the world’s wars, than the peoples of other religions who inhabit the globe. They pretend to be followers of the Prince of Peace and to believe in the brotherhood of mankind, while the Church of Christ has become split into an ever-increasing number of warring sects, and the jealousy and enmity of nations are allowed to break into ever more ferocious armed conflict and mutual massacre.

The hope of improvement in these fundamental human relationships, national and religious, depends to a large extent on the number of men who are wise144 or farsighted enough to turn the mind of man away from the differences that lead to division and to strengthen the forces that lead to unity—in fact, to substitute harmony for discord. But the work will always progress slowly, because there are still so many natures which prefer fighting just from the love of quarreling, and they turn their anger against a conciliator even more violently than against those with whom they bitterly disagree.

Grotius himself saw no apparent result of his great work, and time alone has proved in his case that the originator of great ideals and the worker for truth leaves to the world a gift for which countless generations that succeed him are grateful, though he may only receive scoffs and rebuke from men of his own time.

Unlike Giordano Bruno and Voltaire, he did not turn his talents into weapons of attack and destruction. He respected other people’s opinions, and was able to judge with impartiality his worst enemies. This is an extremely rare quality in one who is engaged in controversy. For instance, in his history of the Netherlands, he commented without a trace of ill-will on the policy and even praised the services as commander and patriot of Maurice of Orange—the man who had unjustly deprived him of his home, his property, and his freedom. No personal petty spite could disturb his judgment. With deep penetration he recognized that the spirit of the age was145 clouded by want of reason, and nations and individuals were forced unnecessarily into strife from want of proper guidance. His high-minded character, his well-balanced judgment, and his disinterested motive gave Grotius a reserve of strength and a noble resolution which few have possessed in the same degree or used with equal effect.

VII

VOLTAIRE

1694–1778

Of the twelve men written of in this book, with the exception of Tolstoy, who died recently, Voltaire will probably be the best known by name. He is rather different from most of the others, because he preferred to try and reach men’s minds by argument rather than their hearts by religious appeal. He was a great disturber of smug, self-satisfied opinion; he knew how utterly fatal were laziness of mind and stagnation of ideas. He wanted to disturb, to annoy, to provoke, and, more even than any of the others, he succeeded in his object.

In his long life he wrote an astonishing number of letters, poems, plays, and pamphlets, and he wrote very beautifully. But his fame does not rest on his literary genius. Had his works all been romances and plays, and were he to be judged on his merits as a writer, genius though he was, there are many greater geniuses than he. It was his striking personality,148 his startling opinions, and his daring and original arguments which gained for him his reputation and his extraordinary influence. In fact, the middle of the eighteenth century in France is known as “the age of Voltaire.” Of course, he made many bitter enemies, and to this day his opinions are warmly disputed. His method was often unnecessarily provocative. He was stingingly satirical; he scoffed, he jeered, he ridiculed his opponents, and by the brilliant thrusts of his pointed wit cut them to the quick. On the whole, his object was more to destroy than to construct, and he left no new scheme or systems of belief, of thought or policy for others to follow when his personal influence had passed away. Although there is a good deal that is far from admirable in his career, the force of his personality was so great that he could not be ignored, and all he wrote and all he said was eagerly read and listened to by every one. He loathed shams and superstitions, and he fought most vehemently in his later life against injustice and oppression. In fact, he was a strange mixture. One can hardly believe that the sly, fawning courtier can be the same man as the bold and courageous champion of liberty and justice, or that the mischievous joker and the great dramatist are one and the same person. In his long life he went through different phases, but taking him as a whole, he stands out as the principal figure of the eighteenth century in Europe.

Voltaire’s real name was François Marie Arouet. 149He was the youngest of the five children of a well-to-do solicitor, and was born in Paris on November 21, 1694. He had to be hurriedly baptized, as no one expected that the puny little infant would live. His first teacher was his godfather, a rather disreputable priest, called Châteauneuf, and he was taught at an early age that religion, as it existed in France at that time, was mere superstition and pretense. His mother died when he was seven, and at the age of ten he was sent off to a large Jesuit college, where, as he afterwards tells us, he learned “Latin and nonsense.” His quick wits, however, made him absorb an immense quantity of information; and instead of playing with the other boys, he would walk and talk with the masters. One of them said at the time, “That boy wants to weigh the great questions of Europe in his little scales.” The verses he wrote brought him into prominence, and his godfather introduced him to Ninon de l’Enclos, a famous old lady of nearly eighty, who was still the center of the most brilliant society in Paris. When she died, a few months later, she left him two thousand francs with which to buy books.

Acting at school encouraged in him a love of drama, and he soon began to try his hand at writing plays. He was only twelve when he wrote a petition in verse to the King, asking for a pension for an old soldier. Louis XIV read it, and the old soldier got his pension. His father wanted him to be a lawyer, and150 laughed at the idea of his becoming an author; but although he was made to study law, the boy stood up to the rough old man and refused to give in. He soon got into a very gay but very frivolous society, which he amused by his audacity and wit. Sometimes he would return home very late from his orgies, and father Arouet would lock him out so that he had to walk the streets all night. In fact, the peppery old father and the mad young scapegrace were perpetually quarreling. The boy was irrepressible, and it was useless his father trying to subject him to discipline. He was given a post as attaché to the Ambassador to the Netherlands, but this did not last. He occupied himself in a purely frivolous way, had a love affair with a young lady at The Hague, and was sent home again. On his return he was invited to a castle at Fontainebleau where there was a magnificent library. Here this surprising young gentleman began working very seriously at some of the greatest of the books he produced in after-life.

In an age when any free expression of ideas was liable to be severely punished it was fairly probable that such a young man as this would get into trouble. Curiously enough, young Arouet’s first experience of prison came about in consequence of the publication of a poem which he had not written. The poem was a satire on the Regent Orleans who ruled over France while Louis XV was still a child. Suspicion fell on him, and he was locked up in the Bastille, the fortress151 into which many innocent men were cast and often forgotten. He was not allowed pen and ink for some time, but his active brain and wonderful memory allowed him to conceive and invent many things which he afterwards produced in writing. His imprisonment lasted a year, and he came out with his name changed to Voltaire, supposed to be an anagram on Arouet, L. J. (le jeune).

His father was enraged at his imprisonment. “I told you so! I knew his idleness would lead to disgrace,” he said. But the boy did not feel at all disgraced. When he came home he set to work, and before the end of the year he brought out his first play, Œdipe, which was the real beginning of his brilliant career.

It was an immediate success, and attracted a great deal of attention. Even the Regent and his family came to one of the performances. In consequence of this, Voltaire was asked to grand houses and was the guest of great people, whom he amused and entertained in his original way. He received a pension from the Court, and when his father died more money came to him. He invested his capital very judiciously, and, unlike most geniuses, he thoroughly understood his bank-book, so that he never fell into need or poverty.

His next production was The Henriade, an epic poem on Henry of Navarre. The chief event in it was the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and this gave him152 an opportunity of expressing his hatred of fanaticism and superstition. It was censored, but he managed secretly to get two thousand copies into Paris, and the very fact of its being forbidden fruit ensured its success. As time went on, he came into close contact with the Court, and was patronized by Marie Leczinska, daughter of the ex-King of Poland, who was to be married to Louis XV. She read his poems and plays with pleasure and amusement, and for three months he was the idol of the royal circle. Anxious, however, as he had been to go to Court, he was more than glad to get away.

Voltaire never enjoyed good health. Hardly a week passed without his suffering, and when he became a victim to smallpox his case was serious. In this connection as much as in any other, Voltaire’s pluck and indomitable will-power showed itself. He fought ill-health all his life through, and triumphed. His great secret was work. Others might make an excuse of illness to take a holiday. That was not his way. He dictated, he wrote, he read, to prevent physical weakness getting the mastery over him. Another of his finer characteristics was his undefeated persistence. He never would give in. For instance, when a play of his was a failure, he was disappointed, but took it back and rewrote it. Even at the age of eighty-three he did this with a play that did not please him. All attempts to silence, suppress, insult, or ignore such a man were bound to fail. There are two instances of153 his being twice badly insulted. A spy named Beauregard, whom he offended, waylaid him in the street and beat him. And again later, the Chevalier de Rohan, an arrogant nobleman, fell out with him, and had him thrashed by his servants. Voltaire took lessons in fencing, and after three months challenged Rohan, who accepted the challenge. But on the morning appointed for the duel Voltaire was arrested, and sent a second time to the Bastille. He was kept in confinement for a fortnight, and then, at his own request, packed off to England.

George II was King of England. He was no lover of “boetry,” but Queen Caroline was, and was pleased to welcome him. Voltaire’s chief friend in England was Bolingbroke, and he soon became acquainted with the leading people of the day. There were Swift and Addison, whose writings he greatly admired; Pope, Congreve, Gay, the Walpoles, and Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Newton died during his visit; he attended the funeral at Westminster Abbey, and was much impressed by the tribute paid by the nation to a man of science. He diligently mastered the English language, and wrote not only letters but plays and poems in it. He expresses in his writings the greatest appreciation of British liberty, freedom of speech, and absence of intolerance. The Quakers specially interested him. He liked the simplicity of their religion, and the absence of formulas, dogmas, creeds, and ritual. He quotes one of them as saying in reply154 to his question, “You have no priests, then?” “No, friend, and we get on very well without them.”

Moreover, as an inveterate hater of war, he revered a sect so far removed from the brutality of military government as to hold peace for a first principle of the Christian faith. His affection for England and the English spirit can be summed up in the words he used with regard to Swift’s writings, “How I love people who say what they think! We only half live if we dare only half think.” Through him a more intimate knowledge of England was spread, not only in France but in other parts of the Continent.

In 1729, when he was thirty-five, he obtained a license to return to France, which he had only been able to visit secretly, now and then, during his stay in England. He devoted the next four years to great literary activity. Whatever he wrote always produced a certain sensation, and often brought him into trouble. Among the best of his productions were Zaïre, the most successful of all his plays, and The Temple of Taste, a brilliant burlesque, in which he satirized the overrated celebrities of the day. Owing to the death of one of his patrons with whom he had been staying, he was obliged to go into uncomfortable lodgings in a poor quarter of Paris. But whether he was in a castle or a garret, his genius for hard work never left him. The censor kept his eye on this man, who seemed bent on startling and shocking the authorities, so that Voltaire was often obliged to get his155 writings privately printed and secretly distributed, and even on some occasions to deny the authorship of the offending works. Things came to a head when his English Letters appeared. They were by way of being criticism and praise of England, but at the same time they were a vehement attack on everything established in Church and State in France. The printer was thrown into the Bastille. The book was denounced and publicly burnt by the hangman as “scandalous, contrary to religion, to morals, and respect for authority.” His lodgings were searched, but when the officer came to arrest him the author was found to have escaped.

France, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, more than any other country at any other time, produced a number of women who occupied a very leading position, not only in the high society of Paris, but in the intellectual and political life of the nation. They collected in their houses all the eminent men of letters and science and politics, who not only came to meet one another, but were attracted by the charm, the beauty, the wit, and the intelligence of their hostesses. Attempts have been made at other times and in other countries to imitate these French salons, but without anything like the same success. The names of some of these women have become historical—Madame de Sévigné, Madame de Staël, Ninon de l’Enclos, Madame du Châtelet, Madame du Deffand, Mademoiselle de l’Espinasse—to mention only a few of156 them. Voltaire was a favorite with those of his time, more especially with Madame du Châtelet, who went so far as to place her castle at Cirey at his disposal. She was a very clever woman, wrote books on philosophy, and at the same time she was extremely frivolous—just the sort of combination Voltaire loved. At Cirey he interested himself in refurnishing the house and in gardening. He set up a laboratory and experimented in physics; he busied himself with iron-founding; he studied astronomy and philosophy with his hostess, made love to her, quarreled with her over trifles, for she had a very hot temper; and all the while kept on producing an almost incredible amount of writings. Cirey became his home and headquarters till Madame du Châtelet died in 1749. During this period he came again into Court favor, wrote a play which was performed before the King, and was made Historiographer and Gentleman of the Chamber.

One of the most curious and interesting incidents in Voltaire’s life was his friendship with Frederick the Great of Prussia. After the exchange of many enthusiastic and ridiculously complimentary letters, they met first in 1740, and subsequently Voltaire went over to Berlin on a diplomatic mission. But it was not till 1751 that he went and stayed for any length of time with his royal friend. Half the world watched the meetings of the two most prominent men of the day. They were very different, and this made their intimacy all the more surprising. The very slender157 link that united them was little more than flattery. The worst qualities of both soon came to the front, and led finally to their separation. Frederick was an arrogant disciplinarian, combining with his genius as a soldier an artistic sense and some literary talent. He welcomed Voltaire because he liked to gather round him celebrated men of every description, and he hoped to gain advantage from the advice and amusement from the company of the greatest writer and wit of his age. Voltaire, on his side, loved appreciation, especially from great people. The pomp and display of Courts attracted him; he was taken in by the honors and praise that were lavishly showered on him. He was content to correct Frederick’s writings, and to be in close contact with the great man. But, like a spoilt child, he became mischievous, and the harmony between the two men, which was only on the surface, became a hideous discord.

Voltaire was given apartments in the palace; he was made a royal chamberlain, decorated with an order, and granted a pension. Royal servants attended on him; he supped with the King, and took part in an endless round of feasts and entertainments. But foolishly delighted as he was with all these honors, he noticed that the King was apt to give a sly scratch with one hand while patting and stroking with the other. Voltaire used to refer to him by the nickname “Luc,” after an ape which had a knack of biting. “The supper parties are delicious,” he wrote; 158 “the King is the life of the company. I have operas and comedies, reviews and concerts, my studies and books: Berlin is fine, the princesses charming, the maids of honor handsome, but ... !”

The magnificence of his style of living gradually began to fall off, and Frederick cut down his allowance of sugar, coffee and chocolate, and the philosopher stooped to pocketing candle-ends from the royal apartments. Voltaire began quarreling with others at the Court. Plots and intrigues, petty jealousies and rivalries began to make his life intolerable. He was mixed up in a discreditable affair connected with money matters which came out in a sordid dispute between him and a Jew named Hirsch. In fact, all the glamour was fading; the glitter was proving to be very far from gold. He never took the trouble to learn German, as French was the language of the Court and good German books were rare. Lessing, the founder of modern German literature, was still quite a young man. The two men met and made friends, but the inevitable quarrel soon separated them.

At last Voltaire became bored to death with correcting Frederick’s verses: “See,” he exclaimed when a batch was sent to him, “what a quantity of dirty linen the King has sent me to wash.” The remark reached the royal ear, while on the other hand Voltaire was told that Frederick when speaking of him had said something about “sucking an orange and throwing away the rind.” The finishing touch to the 159 growing estrangement was put by Voltaire’s wittiest and most pitiless personal satire on Maupertuis, the president of the Berlin Academy, a vain but worthy individual. Frederick could not help laughing at it, but he forbade its publication. Voltaire pretended to agree, but in a few days the Diatribe of Doctor Akakia appeared. It was received with great applause and merriment, but Frederick was furious. He ordered the pamphlet to be burned by the hangman and insisted on an apology from Voltaire, who in his turn sent back his order and chamberlain’s key. This was the last straw, and Voltaire left Berlin. But he carried off with him a volume of Frederick’s verses, probably as a curiosity. He was arrested at Frankfurt and treated with uncalled-for brutality by order of the King.

The whole visit reflects no credit whatever on either of the parties. Voltaire’s foolish vanity and hot temper seem to have obscured an intellect shrewd enough to have known that such a life as he lived in the Prussian capital was empty, profitless, and utterly vain. For Frederick there was more excuse, because monarchs at all times have claimed service and homage in return for a passing smile of friendship; Court attendance they have considered a sufficiently rich reward for any devotion; and thrones have ever been surrounded by the refuse of orange-rinds out of which the juice has been sucked.

Voltaire, now over sixty, entered upon the last160 phase of his life, which was the calmest and certainly the noblest. After wandering from place to place, he settled down at last in a house just outside Geneva, which he called Les Délices. Here he entertained many visitors and had a private theater in which his own plays were performed, he himself always taking a part and stage managing. He kept up a voluminous correspondence and continued to exchange letters with Frederick, quarreling as usual but finally making it up. He wrote at this time one of his most famous works, “Candide,” which was inspired by an earthquake at Lisbon, and in it he ridiculed the idea that everything was for the best in the best possible of all worlds. The book was burned by order of the Council of Geneva. But Voltaire was now accustomed to his writings being treated in this way.

In appearance he must have been a very peculiar figure. He was very thin, he had a long nose and protruding chin, and his face always wore an amused but rather mischievous smile. His sparkling eyes, peering from under his heavy wig, showed he was very much alive. His health always troubled him, and nobody spoke about dying so much or thought so little about death. From Les Délices he would drive into Geneva in an extraordinary old-fashioned carriage painted blue with gold stars and drawn by four horses. On one occasion a crowd assembled to see him alight. “What do you want to see, boobies?” he cried. “A161 skeleton? Well, here is one!” And he threw off his cloak.

A few years later he bought another property near by, called Ferney, and erected a château, where he spent the remainder of his days. Here he developed into a complete country gentleman, and came to be known all over Europe as the Squire of Ferney. He took great pride in all the details of the arrangements in the house. He had a bath-room made, which in those days was an almost unknown luxury, but he was very particular in matters of cleanliness and was very neat and tidy. His niece, Madame Denis, however, who kept house for him, was slovenly and a bad manager. She was an ugly and tiresome woman, without humor or even common sense. She actually wrote a comedy, which the players, out of respect for Voltaire, declined to act. She was responsible for a good deal of extravagance in the household, as well as neglect in keeping the house clean. Her uncle, who could not bear the sight of a cobweb, took advantage of her absence in Paris at one time to have the whole house cleaned from top to bottom. There were a large number of servants, and two of them once robbed their master. The police having got wind of the matter, Voltaire sent a message to the culprits to fly directly, or else he would not be able to save them from hanging. He even sent them money for the journey. So touched were they by his generosity162 that, having got away successfully, they settled down to live honest lives. Gardens, park, farms, nurseries, bees and silkworms, all received personal attention from this wonderful little old philosopher. An immense number of visitors, many of them celebrated people, were entertained, and after theatricals, sometimes as many as eighty people sat down to supper. Indeed, he became a little weary of being what he called “an hotel-keeper.” Some visitors stayed with him for a considerable time, and the grand-niece of the poet Corneille he adopted as a daughter.

Though now an old man, his life at Ferney, like his life at Cirey, was one of ceaseless activity. Never can any one have written so many letters. Seven thousand have been printed, but there are many more: and his correspondents ranged from kings and empresses to the humblest and most undistinguished people. With all his faults, and he had many, Voltaire never fell a prey to two of the worst failings of which a human being can be guilty—indifference and indolence.

Let us try and picture a day at Ferney. Voltaire did not appear till eleven o’clock. He remained in his room, where he had five desks all very carefully and neatly arranged with the notes and papers for the various works on which he was engaged. The rest of the morning he spent in garden or farm superintending and giving orders. He dined with the house-party, eating very little himself, his only form of in163dulgence being coffee. After some conversation with his guests in the early afternoon, he retired to his study and refused to be interrupted by anybody till supper-time. Then he came out in very lively spirits, led the conversation, provoked discussion, and amused every one with his jokes and repartees. In the evening there was probably a theatrical entertainment in his little theater, or he would read out some of his poems, or play chess, the only game he ever indulged in. When he went to bed he started work afresh, and as he slept very little, this would go on sometimes far into the night, especially if he had a play on hand. Madame Denis looked after the guests, some of whom, to their great annoyance, saw very little of their host.

It was in the last twenty years of his life that Voltaire played such a noble part in championing the cause of men who were subjected to gross and cruel persecution. The most famous case is that of Callas. He was a Protestant shopkeeper in Toulouse, a kind and benevolent old man. The monstrous accusation brought against him was that of murdering his son, who, as a matter of fact, committed suicide in a fit of melancholy. The motive of the murder was supposed to be that the son wanted to become a Roman Catholic, and his father, rather than allow it, killed him. Callas was tried and condemned without a shred of evidence against him. He was tortured with hideous cruelty, broken on the wheel, and finally strangled. This was in 1762. Some of the family fled to Switzer164land, and Voltaire heard of the case. He soon saw that behind it lay the thing he hated most in the world, namely, religious intolerance. He set to work with an energy and perseverance which were quite extraordinary. He left off his usual literary work; he examined evidence, drew up reports, wrote statements and narratives, collected a fund, composed pamphlets, wrote to influential people, and devoted his whole time and thoughts and much money to the cause he had undertaken. He succeeded in getting a new trial, and at last, three years after the savage sentence had been passed on Callas, a unanimous verdict of complete innocence was recorded by a council of forty judges. The whole of Europe had heard of the case, because it was Voltaire who had taken up the cause of the poor and honest man who had been the victim of a vile plot. Nothing in his life gave him more satisfaction than his success in this affair. Thirteen years later an old woman in Paris, in reply to some one who asked who the little old man was whom crowds surrounded, said, “It is the saviour of Callas.” No honor that ever came to Voltaire gave him so much pleasure as that simple answer.

Nor was the case of Callas the only one in which he took an active interest. A man called Sirven was persecuted in much the same way, and would have suffered a similar fate had he not escaped. It took nine years for justice to be done this time, and Voltaire was seventy-seven when the case was retried and165 the accused declared innocent. Further, there was the case of Espinasse, who was sentenced to the galleys for giving supper and a bed to a Protestant minister; of Montbailli, who was falsely accused of murdering his mother; of La Barre; and several others, who for one reason or another were victims of persecution. Voltaire’s hatred of injustice had always been strong. He showed it when he was a much younger man. One occasion was the death of Adrienne Lecouvreur, the great actress, who had performed in several of his plays. Because she was an actress she was refused Christian burial. His fury knew no bounds, more especially as he had seen an actress buried in London with every mark of respect and sympathy. He wrote a poem which showed the depths of his indignation at this senseless intolerance.

Voltaire’s finest qualities, in fact, came to the front in his character of champion of the persecuted. The cynical satirist was merged into the generous and courageous upholder of justice. The oppressed and needy may get sympathy from others who are in like condition, but it is much more rare for one who is neither poor nor downtrodden to give them not only sympathy, but practical and useful support.

Voltaire, as already said, detested intolerance. He expressed this in a well-known phrase, which he repeated both in his writings and in his conversation, “Écrasez l’infâme” (Crush the infamous). His enemies declared that he meant God, Christ, Christianity,166 and religion. But this was very far from true. By l’infâme he meant intolerance, bigotry, superstition, persecution, and all the hideous evils that blighted the true spirit of religion. It was l’infâme that enforced the doctrines of religion by fire, torture, and imprisonment, it was l’infâme that encouraged oppression and tyranny; it was l’infâme that was the barrier to liberty, progress, and enlightenment; and l’infâme was Voltaire’s lifelong enemy. He did as much as any one to combat this evil spirit. But it requires more than a man, it requires a people, to succeed completely; and no people have even yet got the power in any land. Voltaire was certainly not a sentimentalist, and it is interesting to note that he was the first influential writer who was struck more by the futility than the cruelty of war. He regarded both war and the intrigues of diplomacy which create it as being absolutely contrary to the best interests of nations.

It is a pity Voltaire ever left Ferney. However, he very naturally wanted to revisit Paris, which he had not seen for twenty-eight years. Also he wanted to superintend the production of a new tragedy he had just written. Madame Denis, who was bored with Ferney, seems to have encouraged him to go. Instead, therefore, of dying quietly in his home, he passed the last few weeks of his life in a perfect orgy of entertainment and excitement, and there is something pathetic in the vain little old man, masquerad167ing for the benefit of Paris crowds. And yet his last visit to Paris, which amounted to an event of public importance, was very characteristic of the man’s whole life. He received all sorts of distinguished visitors; society flocked to see him; the French Academy, by whom in old days he had been rejected, paid him every compliment possible; actors welcomed him with enthusiasm; the middle-class turned out in crowds to see him; the Protestants worshiped the man who had fought against persecution; the mob filled the streets in awe of a man who could stand up so boldly against the powers of government; the Court and the Church avoided him because they feared him, while the preachers denounced him from their pulpits.

One of his oldest friends was greeted by him on his arrival with the words, “I have left off dying to come and see you.” The Academy’s reception was a great function. A gorgeous coach was sent for him, and as the crowd waited he appeared in the doorway, a very lean figure, with his old-fashioned gray wig surmounted by a little square cap. He wore a red coat lined with ermine, white silk stockings on his shrunken legs, large silver buckles on his shoes, a little cane in his hand with a crow’s beak for a handle, and over all this wonderful dress, a sable cloak which had been given to him by Catherine, Empress of Russia. At the Louvre two thousand people assembled, and greeted him with shouts of “Long live Voltaire!” Afterwards, at the theater, he appeared in a box, and168 the whole audience rose and received him with frantic applause. An actor came forward and crowned him with a wreath of laurels, while the people stormed and shouted. It certainly was a triumph, a remarkable triumph, not only for the man, but for his opinions. There was no discordant voice. As one who was present said, “Envy, hatred, fanaticism, and intolerance dared not murmur.”

But all these entertainments were too much for the old man. He grew more feeble and ill, and died at last on May 30, 1778, at the age of eighty-three. Shortly before his death Voltaire signed a declaration which summed up his belief: “I die worshiping God, loving my friends, and not hating my enemies, but detesting superstition.” His body, dressed up as though he were alive, was taken out of Paris in a carriage and buried at Scellières, about a hundred miles away. The bishops of the diocese sent an order to forbid the burial, but it was too late. No newspaper was allowed to mention his death or anything about him, and the Academy was forbidden to hold the service which was customary on the death of a member. In the twentieth century just the same orders were issued by the Russian Government when Tolstoy died. Nothing is feared more by Church and State than the influence of a great reformer.

On the eve of the French Revolution the National169 Assembly of France made Louis XVI sign a decree ordering Voltaire’s remains to be transferred to Paris. This was done with great pomp and ceremony. A long procession with banners and music passed through the city. An immense sarcophagus, forty feet high, surmounted by a full-length figure of Voltaire and a winged figure of Immortality, was drawn along by twelve white horses. On it was written, “He avenged Callas, La Barre, Sirven, and Montbailli. Poet, philosopher, historian, he gave a great impulse to the human mind; he prepared us to become free.” A hundred thousand people walked in the procession through crowds of hundreds of thousands more. The body was buried in the Panthéon. But this was not its last resting-place. In 1814, on the restoration of the Bourbon Kings, his bones were removed and thrown into a waste place outside the city. This was discovered in 1864, when his heart, which had been in the possession of the Villette family, was placed inside the empty tomb.

It has been impossible to enumerate even Voltaire’s principal writings, but mention must be made of one of the most remarkable of his works, which was his “Philosophical Dictionary.” It contained brief articles on an enormous variety of subjects, each one brimful of interest, whether they were treated with serious thought and profound learning or with sarcasm and biting irony. He kept on adding to it until it reached eight volumes, and, needless to say, it170 shocked and infuriated as well as delighted those who read it. He also assisted with many contributions to the great encyclopædia which Diderot and d’Alembert helped to compile, and which created a great stir and exercised a considerable influence on the contemporary thought of France.

Madame du Deffand, one of the many brilliant women of eighteenth-century France, who knew Voltaire well and corresponded with him for many years, said of him that “he was good to read and bad to know.” His faults were certainly very marked, and to some extent spoilt his virtues. His vanity was almost ridiculous; he was quite unscrupulous in making money, in attacking his enemies, and in defending himself; he scoffed with cruel and bitter words, but he never mocked at any men who lived good lives. Mischief prompted him more than malice. He could not help laughing at people who pulled long faces and were incapable of laughing at themselves.

He certainly disbelieved in the creeds of the Church; but by partaking, on one occasion, of the Communion, building a church, and joining a religious order, it looked as if he were insincere, though he is not the only person who has conformed to religious observances in which he did not really believe. But Voltaire scandalized people by doing it all with his tongue in his cheek; in fact, he was altogether irreverent by nature, and reverence is a quality which the strongest opponent of any creed ought always to display. Grant171ing all these defects, however, Voltaire’s influence in opening men’s minds, showing up what was false, sham, and hypocritical, was quite immeasurable. He had, too, the great virtue of humanity. This is not just sentimental kindness and empty sympathy, but, as John Morley expresses it, “Humanity armed, aggressive, and alert; never slumbering and never wearying; moving like an ancient hero, over the land to slay monsters, is the rarest of virtues, and Voltaire is one of its master types.”

A great upheaval was not far off, and gradually the way was being prepared for a better day in France and in Europe. Another man was at work, Jean Jacques Rousseau, whom Voltaire knew, but did not like. While Voltaire was appealing to the minds of the thoughtful, Rousseau was reading the hearts of the people and stirring their imagination. The age was one of extreme corruption, frivolity, and luxury on one side, and poverty, degradation, and misery on the other: an age of bad laws, stale traditions, and reckless cruelty. Voltaire and his friends were sowing the seeds of revolt. The people, only half-conscious, were being driven, as they so easily can be in any country where they are kept ignorant, partly by circumstances, partly by weak men, and partly by an atrocious social system, into the precipice of disaster.

The crash came in the great French Revolution, the greatest convulsion through which any country has172 ever passed. With all its bloodshed and violent excesses, and in spite of the reaction which quickly followed it in the rise of Napoleon, the Revolution finally destroyed a disastrous method of government, and freed the people from the worst forms of oppression which had grown up in the long reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV. Voltaire did not live to see this tremendous change; he would have deplored its violence, but his responsibility for the growth of the ideas which made such a thing possible was by no means small.

VIII

HANS ANDERSEN

1805–1875

It matters not to have been born in a duck-yard, if one has been hatched from a swan’s egg.

This is the story of Hans Andersen, the son of a poor cobbler and his wife a washerwoman. Nearly every child in the world has read his Fairy Stories, and the romance of his own life is almost as marvelous as one of these—more marvelous, perhaps, because it is really true. All the things he dreamt of—all the things he longed to happen, came true, so that when he was fifty he wrote it down and called it “The Story of My Life.”

Hans Andersen was born rather more than a hundred years ago in the ancient city of Odense, in Denmark. His parents were very poor, so poor that they had only one room under a steep gabled roof. In this room, which was kitchen, workshop, parlor, and bedroom, Hans Andersen opened his eyes, to the sound of his father hammering shoes. He was born in a great bed with curtains—which had been made by his father out of a nobleman’s coffin; there were bits174 of ragged crape still hanging about the woodwork of the bed. The little room which was Hans’ home was to him exciting and delightful beyond measure. It was full of all sorts of things—the walls were covered with pictures, and the tables and chests had shiny cups and glasses and jugs upon them. The room was always decorated with fresh birch and beech boughs, and bunches of sweet herbs hung from the rafters. In the lattice window grew pots of mint. Close to the window was the cobbler’s workshop and a shelf of books. The door was painted with rough landscapes, and when the little boy was in bed he would gaze at these and make up stories about them. His father and mother, before they came to bed, would say to one another in low voices how nice and quiet Hans was, believing him to be asleep—when he was really wide awake enjoying his own thoughts and fancies about the pictures. Between the Andersens’ cottage and their neighbor’s there stood a box of earth, which Andersen’s mother planted with chives and parsley. This was their garden, and you can read about it in the “Snow Queen.” As Hans grew up he thought there was nothing so nice in the world as his own little home, and he loved to beautify it with garlands of flowers and wild plants, which he would put about in glasses. He was very fond of his mother, who was not, it seems, a particularly attractive woman. She was good-natured, but silly and thriftless, never thinking of the morrow so long as they had a roof 175over their heads that day. She was careless, too, about Hans as an infant, and was in the truest sense of the word uneducated. Hans got his love of reading and his imagination from his unsuccessful, unhappy father. The cobbler was a far more educated person than his wife, and he was better born. But owing to his family’s misfortunes—for they had come down in the world—he was obliged, much against his will, to take up shoemaking; this work he settled down to with a sad and bitter heart. All his spare time he gave to reading. Books became his one comfort. He was never seen to smile except when he was reading. Sometimes he would read aloud in the evenings and his wife would gaze at him completely puzzled—not understanding, but admiring him all the same.

As Hans grew older, he and his father became great friends, and they went long walks together; and while his father sat and thought or read, Hans ran about picking wild strawberries and making pretty garlands of flowers. The cobbler certainly rather neglected his shoemaking, and as he was different from his neighbors, they shunned him and thought all sorts of evil things about him. The cobbler’s one wish was to get away from the city and to live in the country. On hearing one day that the squire of a large village required a shoemaker about the place, he offered himself as such. Then he would have a cottage and a little garden and perhaps a cow. The squire’s wife sent him a piece of silk to make a specimen of dancing176 shoes. For the next few days the family could talk of nothing else but these shoes and of their hopes for the future. Hans prayed to God to fulfil his father’s wishes. At last the shoes were finished and were gazed upon with admiration by Hans and his mother. Off went the cobbler with the shoes wrapped up in his apron—while his little family waited in impatience and anxiety at home. When the cobbler returned his face was quite pale and they saw something dreadful had happened. He told them the squire’s wife had not even tried on the shoes. She had just looked at them, and said the silk was spoiled and that she would not require him as shoemaker. The cobbler then and there took out his knife and cut the poor shoes in pieces. So all their hopes were dashed to the ground; their rosy hopes of a life in the country with a cow and a garden faded like a dream, and they wept.

Hans Andersen as a child had no boy friends, and he hardly did any lessons, but he was very far from being bored, because he had such a lively imagination and could always invent games and stories for himself. His father would make him toys, pictures that changed their shapes when pulled with a string, and a mill which made the miller dance when it went round, and peep-shows of funny rag dolls. What he liked best was making dolls’ clothes. In the little garden he would sit for hours near the one gooseberry-bush. This, with the help of a broomstick and his177 mother’s apron, he made into a little tent, and there he would sit in all weathers, fancying things and inventing stories. Very occasionally he went to a school, and at one school he made friends with a little girl and would tell her stories. They were mostly about himself—how he was of noble birth only the fairies had changed him in his cradle, and all sorts of other inventions. One day he heard the little girl say, “He is a fool like his grandpapa,” and poor Hans trembled and never spoke to her about these things again. He had a mad old grandfather at the lunatic asylum, where he sometimes went. His grandmother, the mother of his father, was a dear old lady who looked after the garden of the asylum, and brought flowers to the Andersens every Sunday. She would recount to Hans stories of her youth—of her mother’s mother, who had been quite a grand lady, and of her own happy childhood in more prosperous circumstances. Strange sights Hans would see in the court at the asylum, sights that would haunt him for days and even years, so that he would beg his parents to put him in their big bed and draw the curtains that he might feel safe. He grew up religious in a sort of superstitious way, and this was his mother’s influence. He was shocked at his father, as his mother and the neighbors were—“there is no other devil than that which is in our own hearts,” said his father one day, and Andersen’s mother burst into tears and178 prayed to God to forgive his father. The cobbler died when Hans was only eleven years old, and he was left alone with his mother.

He continued to play with his toy theater and peep-shows and made dolls’ clothes. But he also read all he could lay hands on, and a great deal of Shakespeare, which made a deep impression on him. He liked best the plays where there are ghosts and witches—he felt he must go on the stage. He jotted down at this time the titles of twenty-five plays; the spelling of the titles being most peculiar!

Naturally young Hans Andersen was the laughing-stock of the neighborhood. Nobody understood him, and Hans singing in the lanes and sewing and reading at home was simply regarded as a lunatic. By the time he was fourteen he had not a single friend of his own age. Boys teased him, and screamed at him, “There goes the play scribbler,” so that Hans shrank from them and would hide himself at home from their mocking eyes and voices. He longed, like the ugly duckling of his story, for the companionship of people cleverer and nobler than himself.

He was indeed very funny to look at, quite comically ugly with his large nose and feet and very small Japanese eyes, and he was so tall and gawky that his clothes were always too small for him, which made him look still odder. He became persuaded that his voice was going to make his fortune, and an old woman who washed clothes in the river told Andersen that178 the Empire of China lay under the water there. Hans quite believed her. He thought to himself that perhaps one moonlight night, when he would be singing by the water’s edge, a Chinese Prince might push his way through the earth on hearing his song, and would take him down into his country and there make him rich and noble. Then he might let him visit Odense again, where he would live and build a castle, the envied and admired of everybody. Long after—Andersen says in his autobiography—when he was reading his poems and stories aloud in Copenhagen, he hoped for such a Prince to appear in the audience who would sympathize and help him.

But the gentry, though much amused by the cobbler’s peculiar son, were sorry for him. He seemed to them a strange and freakish being, who, though he could recite plays from memory and make poetry, was yet so ignorant that he knew no grammar, or even how to spell. They laughed at Hans’ absurdly ambitious and childish ideas, that he was at once going to be a great writer, or singer, or actor, without any education at all. One family tried their best to get him into the local school, or to enter some trade, but he would not hear of it. He was, however, sent to the ragged school for a time to learn scripture, writing, and arithmetic. They found he could hardly write a line correctly, and he was dreadfully bored by this sort of learning. He must have been an annoying pupil, for he was always dreamy and absent-minded,180 and never looked at his lessons except on his way to and from school. He tried to please the master by bringing him bunches of wild flowers. He left the school as ignorant as he had entered it. At about the age of fourteen he was confirmed, and wore for the first time a pair of boots—of these he was so tremendously proud that when he walked up the aisle of the church he drew his trousers right up so that every one might see the boots, and he rejoiced that they squeaked so loudly that every one’s attention might be drawn to them—at the same time he felt he ought not to be thinking so much of his boots and so little of his Maker. The story of the Red Shoes was inspired by them. Naturally his relations began to get a little anxious about this time as to his future. He was fourteen and he had not yet done anything sensible, and was what ordinary people would call a dunce. He had, it is true, shown extraordinary skill with his needle, and this pointed to his being a tailor. While his relations talked and worried over Hans together and came to no conclusion the boy continued his desultory life. But he had great schemes in his head, and was making up his mind to take his fate into his own hands. He would, like the heroes he had read about, set out by himself to seek his fortune. This meant that he would go to Copenhagen and there find work at the Theater. This idea had come to him when the actors from the Royal Theater there had come to Odense.

Andersen had one day got permission to appear on the stage as a shepherd. His enthusiasm and funny childish ways amused and interested the actors, and Hans at once thought he was a born actor and that his fortune was made. He heard these same actors speak about a thing called a Ballet, which seemed to be finer than anything in the world, and of a wonderful lady who danced in the Ballet, and Hans pictured her as a sort of fairy queen who would help him and make him famous. His mother was rather alarmed at these plans, but Hans said in answer to her objections, “You go through a frightful lot of hardships, and then you become famous.” So the mother consulted a wise woman, who, examining the coffee grouts, said that Hans Christian Andersen would become a great man, and that one day Odense would be illuminated in his honor. Hans’ mother was then quite satisfied. The boy packed up his little bundle to take him to the ship, and so to Copenhagen. He had about nine dollars in his pocket, and was fourteen years old. Most people would say what a mad expedition and how absurd, but Hans had no fear, he was happy, for he had his wish, and was quite sure that he would make his fortune.

When he arrived at Copenhagen he rushed off to see the Fairy Queen, the dancer he had heard about, and told her how he wished to go on the stage. To show her what he could do, he took off his boots and made a drum out of his hat, and so began to dance182 and sing. As he had such a very odd appearance, his heavy elephantine gambols simply terrified the poor lady, she took him for an escaped lunatic, and of course showed him the door.

But Hans Andersen, still hopeful, went off to the Director of the Theater, and there met with another rebuff. He was told that only educated people were engaged for the stage. This was hard to bear, and after various adventures and disappointments Hans found he had only fifty cents left—so either he must return to Odense by the first coasting ship, or stop at Copenhagen and learn a trade. He chose a trade, and apprenticed himself to a joiner, but there the roughness and coarse talk of his fellow-joiners upset him so much that he left the same day. So there he was, friendless and with nothing to do but to wander the streets. In his wanderings, he suddenly remembered the name of a man he had heard the Odense people talk about, a musician, the Director of the Conservatoire. So off he went to this man’s house, with the purpose of asking him to take him as a pupil. When he arrived he found the musician was having a dinner-party, but Andersen was allowed in, and telling them of his object he was taken to the piano, and there played and recited. When he had finished, he burst into tears, but the company applauded and raised a small collection of money for him. The kind musician arranged that he should 183 have lessons in singing, and Hans, full of joy, wrote to his mother that his fortune was in sight.

For the next nine months he was supported by these “noble-minded men,” as he called them, but when he lost his voice about the age of fifteen, they advised him to return to his native town and learn a handicraft, but rather than do this the poor boy was ready to endure every hardship. He lived now in a garret in the lowest quarter of Copenhagen, and had nothing to eat but a cup of coffee in the morning and a roll eaten on a bench later in the day. He was very proud and sensitive, so he would pretend that he had had plenty to eat and that he had been dining out with friends, also that he was quite warm, when his clothes were absolutely threadbare and patched, and his wretched boots let in all the wet, so that his feet were sometimes not dry for weeks. When he lay down to sleep in his attic, he tells us, after saying his prayers, he was helped by his trust in God that everything would turn out right in the end; and indeed it was almost miraculous the way something or somebody always turned up to help.

Kind-hearted people taught him German and Danish, and sent him to the dancing school to learn dancing, but they did not give him money, because they had no idea how poor he was, as he said nothing about it. The courage and determination he showed at this time were really remarkable in so young a boy, 184 and in spite of being very nearly starved he continued to write poems and plays. One play he sent to the Royal Theater without giving his name, and never doubted in his childish ignorance that it would be accepted. It was sent back to him with a curt note saying that the play showed such a lack of education that it was absurd. But the only effect this had on Andersen was to make him write another, and he sent that to the manager of the theater; but this time those who read it said it showed unmistakable signs of talent, and advised that Andersen’s friends should ask the King to help with money to support and educate the boy. Frederick VI of Denmark was like the kind kings in Andersen’s stories. He arranged at once that Hans should be sent to the Latin School at Slagelse for three years, to be properly educated and cared for. This was arranged and Hans went off to school, but his time there was not at all happy.

The adventurous, free life he led in Copenhagen, though he had been hungry and cold, had been much more to his liking. In the story of his life he writes about this period with the greatest bitterness. He had been so happy at the prospect of learning, and when he got to school, he felt like a wild bird shut up in a cage. “I behaved,” he said, “like one who is thrown into the water without being able to swim. It was a matter of life and death to me to make progress, but there came one billow after another—one called Mathematics, another called Grammar, another 185 called Geography—and I began to fear I should never swim through them all.” He was terribly frightened of failing, and began to think he was a dunce, for he was seventeen and had to be put with the smallest boys in the school, which was very discouraging, but it was greatly the master’s fault. He treated Hans as he would ninety-nine boys out of a hundred. He never ceased laughing at him, and seldom, if ever, encouraged him; so damping was he that Andersen really began to feel he was not worth all the trouble and money that were being spent upon him. Andersen, with his sensitive, imaginative nature, was apt to make mountains out of molehills. His imagination, indeed, was quite extraordinary, extravagant, and out of proportion to his other faculties. He needed a kind, understanding person to guide him, but he was left to himself and had few, if any, friends. The ordinary dull routine of school life made him suffer. He describes it all in his book as a sort of “Dotheboys Hall,” when it was really just an ordinary school like any other at that date. His anxiety to get on may be guessed at when we read that he nearly worried himself to death, because he got “Very good” in a report for conduct, instead of “Remarkably good.” “I am a strange being,” he once wrote. “If the wind blows a wee bit sharply the water always comes into my eyes, though I know very well that life cannot be a perpetual May day.”

When he was twenty his master moved to Elsinore, 186 and Andersen went with him. He was pleased and excited at the change; the beautiful country round Elsinore filled him with joy; but, alas! he got on still less well with his master, who treated him, Andersen says, as a perfectly stupid, brutish boy. At that period it was considered the right thing for schoolmasters, and even parents, never to praise a child or encourage him for fear of spoiling him. Yet all the time this master was scolding and laughing at Hans, he was writing to the boy’s friends, praising his nature, his warm heart and imagination, and his diligence in work. He recommended him as worthy of any support in the way of money or education that might be given him. One day Andersen brought his master a poem he had written, and the man scoffed and said it was mere idle trash, and only fit for the rubbish-heap. This quite finished Hans; he was found by another master in deep distress. The same master told Andersen’s friends of the boy’s unhappiness and advised his removal. He was taken away. So ended what Andersen describes as the “darkest and bitterest period of my life.” He had been at school a little more than three years.

Andersen now became a student at Copenhagen. He worked hard and conscientiously, but was always stupid at examinations, and at Latin and Greek. In his spare time he wrote poems, plays, and sketches, and published his first considerable book called “A Journey on Foot from Holmen’s Canal to the East 187 Point of Amager.” This strange volume is such a confused jumble of things that it is rather like a dream. But even in the jumble you can see Andersen’s gift, in the little fairy-like touches and the beautiful descriptions of nature and of seasons. The Danes liked the book, for rather childish and fantastic things amuse them. Most of Andersen’s work, however, was pronounced to be wishy-washy and silly by the critics, and Andersen failed and failed again; yet he never gave up trying and never apparently lost belief in his own talent. Still he got very cast down and unhappy, and felt that he must get away and have a complete change. The same kind King who had helped him with his education, then allowed him money for foreign travel, and Andersen went off for a long spell abroad—to Italy, to France, and to Germany.

Away from his own country he got great inspiration, he says, and started by writing a novel which he was certain would take the world by storm. It was a most bitter blow that when the book was published every one laughed at it, and the reviews which reached him abroad pronounced it to be dull, sentimental, and unreal. But Andersen had made up his mind that he would be either a great novelist or a great dramatist; so on he went, writing with his usual persistence and courage. He did at last succeed in bringing out a successful novel.

So immediate was its success that the author’s 188 reputation seemed made. This type of novel, which is very romantic and very impossible, would not be appreciated nowadays; but again its charm lay in its descriptions of scenery and places. Andersen was delighted, and at once made up his mind that he was to be one of the greatest novelists the world had ever seen. But this was not to be, for except for one or two rather beautiful books of travel, his serious books were not great, and were not to make him famous.

Now Andersen had a talent which he did not take seriously himself, and if it had not been for his friends, perhaps the world would never have known of it.

When Hans Andersen was in a good humor and wanted to keep children quiet and amused—nicely behaved and nice-looking children they had to be—he used to tell them fairy tales. Odense, his birthplace, was a home of legends, and folk stories he had heard as a child stuck in his memory. These he wove into stories in the most wonderful manner. He had a peculiar way of telling these stories which simply delighted children. He never in telling them troubled about grammar; he would use childish words and baby language. Then he would act and jump about and make the most comic faces. Nobody who had not heard him could guess how lively and amusing these stories were; but it never seemed to strike Andersen that he might write them down: he did not think them worth it. When some one suggested that he might write them down and print them, so that 189 they should be known by other people, not only his own small circle of friends, Andersen laughed at the idea, but decided to do it just for fun. He would write them down as he told them. Now this is easier said than done, for when you begin to put pen to paper your inclination is to write a thing like an essay and not as if you were talking to somebody. Yet what you feel when you read Hans Andersen’s stories is just this, that they are told and not written. He printed first a tiny volume, and called it “Fairy Tales as Told to Children”; it cost ten cents. In this volume were “The Tinder Box,” “Little Claus and Big Claus,” and “Little Ida’s Flowers,” and this was followed by a second part with “Thumbeline” and “The Traveling Companion,” and then a third number appeared containing “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and “The Little Mermaid.” The three parts made the first volume of his tales.

Andersen still refused to take these “small things,” as he called them, seriously. He was certainly not encouraged by the critics, for they were too stupid and conventional to see the point of these tales. Some were too grand even to look at them, and some were shocked. One wrote that no child should be allowed to read “The Tinder Box,” for it wasn’t at all nice that a Princess should ride on a dog’s back, and be kissed by a soldier. Hans Andersen was advised by these dense people not to waste any more time on such things. There was also much scolding about the con190versational style of the writing. It was quite unlike the heavy, pompous stuff people were accustomed to at that date. “This is not the way people write,” it was said, “this is not grammar.” But there were people who saw at once the beauty of these stories, who declared that they would make Andersen immortal.

Andersen himself did not trouble much about it one way or the other; he still thought about the success of his novel, and made plans for writing another with Napoleon as his hero. He would compel people to see what a great dramatist and novelist he was. He wrote and translated many operettas and plays. One was produced at the Royal Theater with great success. It was a poor play but well acted, and containing some noble sentiments; it pleased the honest Danes. But the Fairy Tales went on appearing at intervals, and found their way into most Danish homes. In fact, they were building up Hans Andersen’s reputation for him all over the world. Andersen soon found that he had great admirers among children, and there were very few nurseries where they didn’t know the stories by heart. Perhaps his own country had not been quite so eager about them as some others—Germany and Sweden, and even England, which is supposed to be slow and conservative about new things, were very enthusiastic. When Andersen visited England at the age of forty-three, he found he was quite a lion. Great ladies would re191peat his stories from memory, and he was asked out to breakfasts, teas, and dinners, to meet other important people of the day. He was delighted, because he loved to be appreciated. Dickens was specially kind to him and asked Andersen to stay with him. Andersen wrote about England to his friends in Denmark: “Here I am regarded as a Danish Walter Scott, while in Denmark I am supposed to be a sort of third-class author.” He fumed and fretted in quite a childish way that the Danish papers did not pay more attention to his reception in England; it made him feel quite ill, he says.

So after writing an immense poem and another novel, which both failed, he devoted himself to the Fairy Tales.

Andersen in his own “Life” says about his Fairy Tales, that he would willingly have given up writing them, but that they forced themselves upon him. He knew that the critics would object to the style of the writing, and that was why, at the beginning, he had called the stories “Fairy Tales for Children,” but he had meant them as much for the grown-ups. He found that people of different ages were equally amused by them—the older ones by the deeper meaning, and children by the fancies, so like their own, and the amusing, lively style of the writing. Indeed, Andersen’s great gift is that he appeals to so many different sorts of people, that he himself has so many sides. He is tender, sad, and wistful, but also absurd,192 fantastic, and amusing. At one moment he makes us cry, the next instant we laugh. Andersen had been able to keep the imagination of a child of five or six, though he was a grown-up man of over thirty when he began to publish his stories. He saw through a child’s eyes, and never felt any difficulty in imagining all the playthings coming alive. He does not, for one thing, distinguish between things and persons. He makes inanimate things human, and he does it without any effort or apparent stretching of the imagination. It seems quite the most ordinary thing in the world, when Andersen tells us about it, that an inkpot should talk with a pen, and that flowers, dolls, earwigs, beetles, clouds, and the necks of bottles should all converse with one another, and have their special personalities. He could write about anything, and the telling of utterly improbable things quite simply and naturally, is one of his great gifts. “Tell us a story about a darning-needle,” said the Danish sculptor Thorwaldsen, who was never tired of hearing him; and that was how the story came to be written. “I am not a fellow, I am a young lady,” said the darning-needle, and how could a darning-needle be anything else?

Many incidents of Andersen’s curious childhood inspired his stories as well as folk-lore. Beautifully as he has adapted legends—such as the “Wild Swans” and the “Swineherd”—his own inventions are, I think, the best of all. What more lovely and193 touching story can be imagined than the “Little Mermaid,” or more charming than “Thumbeline”? In the “Little Mermaid,” and that thrilling “Story of the Traveling Companion,” we seem to see the author’s great belief in good, in love, and self-sacrifice; yet he never points a moral or annoys by preaching. That was the last thing he could be; he was much too aware of his own failings to think of lecturing other people about theirs, even in a story. Some of his heroes play the most shocking pranks, such as the soldier in “The Tinder Box,” who kills an old woman; and Little Claus’ behavior is rather odd; yet they never seem to meet with any retribution. On the contrary, they thrive exceedingly.

Andersen had a great gift of satire, which in some cases may be rather bitter and unkind, but in Andersen’s it could not possibly offend people. He laughs at the world, and at people’s foibles in such an amused, kindly spirit, though he does show up most clearly the absurdity and emptiness of such things as riches and power, which believe that everything is within their grasp. “The Little Nightingale” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” are examples of this sort of story.

In the world that Andersen writes about—a world of children, birds, flowers, supernatural beings, and friendly kings—ugly, sordid, unsatisfactory things have no place. Andersen himself could never really face the ugly and cruel, he could not even write or194 talk about them; so that this delicate talent of his was not the one to make him write good books about real life, for in the world there are both good and bad. His plays and novels were not true to life; they were sentimental and boring, and only when Andersen has been able to describe nature in his novels does his poetic talent shine through.

Plants were Andersen’s favorite things, as anyone can see who reads “The Fir Tree,” “Little Ida’s Flowers,” or “The Snow Queen.” “Flowers know that I love them,” he said. He likened them to sleeping children, for he loved simplicity and unconsciousness. Only in the vegetable world he felt was there complete peace and harmony, without any jarring element. When he saw a fallen tree he felt he must weep, and when the buds began to swell in the spring, he would laugh aloud for joy. After flowers, Andersen loved birds better than four-footed animals, and then children. I suppose some people might be shocked at this. He didn’t love children in the mass; there are, after all, nice and nasty children; but he had great friends among them.

When he was old, his admirers in Denmark put up a statue to him in Copenhagen, showing him as an old man with uplifted finger and a smiling face, surrounded by a host of children. It sounds all right to those who didn’t know Andersen. Well, he was quite cross about it, and said he didn’t feel like that at all. It was annoying to have himself represented195 as “a venerable, toothless old man, with a pack of children crowding round,” as he expressed it.

Andersen, by the time he was middle-aged, was celebrated over a great part of the world. He was fashionable in his own town of Copenhagen, and people would nudge one another in the street as he passed, saying, “There goes the Poet.” Actresses recited his stories, and he himself read them aloud at parties, which would be considered very great occasions. In some ways it sounds rather trying. He had a way of reading his favorites over and over again, and demanding absolute attention; the ladies must stop knitting, the gentlemen must cease to smoke. In spite of these rules and regulations his extraordinary way of reading, his charming voice, his faces and antics, astonished and interested his audience so much that they put up with anything, and would have been willing to stand on their heads, if he had asked them to.

Andersen was made very happy by success, and he says in his “Life,” that it made up to him for all the hard words the critics had spoken. “There came within me,” he says, “a sense of rest, a feeling that all, even the bitter in my life, had been needful for my development and fortune.”

It was a constant source of wonder and delight to him to find himself where he was. He, the son of a poor cobbler and a washerwoman, who had run about as a child in wooden shoes, now to be treated by the most important people as their equal, and to enjoy196 the best that the world can give. He was friends with princes, and kings were as fathers to him. On his travels, which were like fairy tale travels, he found himself welcomed in every drawing-room of every capital in Europe. He met Dumas and Victor Hugo in France; in Germany, Heine, the brothers Grimm, and Mendelssohn and Schumann; and Dickens, as we know, in England. And he didn’t meet these people in a stiff, formal way, but in their dressing-gowns, so to speak. His childlike nature drew people to him, and he was friendly and intimate with them at once. All these things appeared to him more marvelous even than the most fantastic incidents of his own fairy tales. He would often, when enjoying some quite ordinary luxury, which most people take as a matter of course, such as lying on a sofa in a new dressing-gown surrounded by books, think of his childhood and wonder.

That Andersen should have been impressed by grandeur, by kings and princes in their castles, and the trappings of wealth, is quite natural. He was pleased and amazed, as a child and as a peasant are pleased and amazed. It appealed to his romantic imagination, and the marvel of the contrast with his own childhood and early manhood never ceased to delight him, and to make him thankful. He was not a snob, for a snob is one who despises the less fortunate, but he had a real democratic feeling and never forgot that he was a peasant to start with. He knew that poor people197 have just as much nobility of soul as the better off, and he shows this in his stories. He is always pointing out the beauty of simple, humble things; of the things that people pass by without noticing. In a lovely but little-known story, “The Conceited Apple Blossom,” though it is only about flowers, you can think of them as people, and it becomes really an allegory on rich and poor. Andersen said about poor people that they were as defenseless as children, and therefore he felt specially tender toward them. When at his literary jubilee, celebrated at Copenhagen, he received gold snuffboxes from kings, and letters from ladies declaring their love from all over the world, he treasured most, four-leaved clovers sent him by peasants, and a waistcoat made for love by an admiring tailor.

Hans Andersen was very vain, and sometimes very silly. He thirsted for praise and encouragement, all the more so, that for so many years he had met with nothing but contempt. Praise was to him, he says, as necessary as sunshine and water to flowers, and without it he perished. Praise made him feel nice, humble, and grateful, but disagreeable criticism made him bitter and proud. He made no effort to conceal his vanity. If he had been praised he wanted everybody to know about it. Once he shouted to a friend on the other side of the street, “Well, what do you think? I am read in Spain now. Good-by!”

But Hans Andersen’s character was full of con198tradictions. Though acutely sensitive and easily dejected, yet he was dogged, and sometimes almost pushing in his desire to be thought a great writer. From earliest days he had been full of enterprise and energy—the energy of the spirit, for his health had never been good, and had been made worse by privations. At thirty he said he felt sixty, but at sixty he felt younger.

The great Danish writer, Brandes, has written a splendid Essay on Andersen, in which he says in reference to him, “He who possesses talent should also possess courage.” And Hans Andersen did possess these, the happiest perhaps of all combinations of qualities.

We may be glad to know that Hans Andersen was not vain of his looks; indeed, he thought himself very ugly. But he fancied that he looked distinguished. He had his hair curled every day, and he wore very high starched collars to hide his long neck, and very baggy trousers to hide his legs. But in spite of this he was always extremely odd to look at—immensely tall and shambling, with huge feet like boats, a great Roman nose, and almost invisible eyes. But this did not prevent his being simply idolized by the ladies of Denmark, several of whom wrote and asked him to marry them!

The end of Andersen’s life was certainly the happiest period. For fifteen years at least, he had enjoyed the fact that of all Danish writers he was the199 most famous in the world. He was a genius, for what he wrote was absolutely original, and peculiar to himself. His fairy stories are beautiful inspirations with nothing to do with education or learning.

Andersen was fortunate in being appreciated, and his works were at the height of their popularity during his lifetime. It is rather pathetic that this being so, there should still have lingered in his mind wistful regrets for his serious works, the unsuccessful novels and plays. “Do you not think,” he said when he was quite old, to a well-known English critic, “that the people will come back to my ‘Two Baronesses’?” (a very bad novel he wrote). Fortunately his critic had not read the book.

No human being is entirely satisfied, nor should he be, for he would then become complacent and conceited, though in Andersen’s case, as we know, nearly every dream of his youth came true.

Hans Andersen was seventy when he died. His last days were spent happily and peacefully with some friends in a house called “Rolighed,” which means peace or quietude, outside Copenhagen. It overlooked the Sound, that sheltered and beautiful bit of coast which lies between the town of Copenhagen and the turbulent Kattegat. From his window Andersen could watch the ships going by like “a flock of wild swans,” as he described it, and he could see in the distance Tycho Brahe’s island sparkling in the sun.

Even when he was ill, he was able to get about the200 garden to look at the wild flowers he had planted there, and to make his own original nosegays which he had loved to do as a child.

Surrounded by the kindest and most loving friends, he was spared all suffering and discomfort at the end, for he had an illness which gradually weakened him and he simply went to sleep never to wake again. When he was dying he said very often, “How beautiful the world is! How happy I am!”

It was this spirit of Andersen’s, which to the end found beauty and joy in life, that makes his stories so fresh and eternal. For though Hans Andersen died a long time ago, he still lives in his writings. In nearly all countries they are known and read. For the truly great works of men are a gift to the whole world, and belong to all countries and to all time. I think these stories of Hans Andersen’s will probably live for ever, long after we are gone—perhaps so long as this world shall last.

IX

MAZZINI

1805–1872

The supreme virtue is sacrifice—to think, work, fight, suffer, where our lot lies, not for ourselves but others, for the victory of good over evil.

After the fall of Napoleon in 1815 there was a determination among the sovereigns of Europe to strengthen their position and prevent any progressive movements which might lead to a breach between the peoples and their rulers. This was due to a fear and dislike of the ideas which had brought about the great Revolution in France. The Austrian Minister Metternich was very powerful, and exercised a great influence far beyond his own country. He was more than conservative: he was reactionary, and did all in his power to repress any signs of revolution. For a time he was successful, and all opponents of established government were treated with the greatest severity. But he did not succeed in dispelling the restlessness and discontent. He only drove it beneath the surface and increased its force, so that when it broke out it carried all before it. Ideas with202 regard to liberty, human rights, and nationality spread rapidly, and by 1830 there were in half the countries of Europe bodies of exasperated men who were ready to sacrifice their lives to fight against the injustices of autocratic rule. The consequence of this was that two waves of revolution spread over Europe: the first about 1830, the second in 1848, when Metternich, finding his policy utterly defeated, fled into exile.

We are here concerned only with the case of Italy. What we know now as the kingdom of Italy was formerly divided up into many separate States. In the north the provinces of Lombardy and Venice belonged to Austria; Piedmont and the island of Sardinia formed the kingdom of Sardinia; there were Grand Dukes of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany; the Pope ruled over the Papal States, which stretched across the middle of Italy; and the lower part of the boot and the island of Sicily formed the kingdom of Naples and the two Sicilies. These States quarreled with one another, and in many of them the people suffered from bad government. Gradually the idea grew that the Austrians must be driven out and a united Italy established—one country ruled by one Government. But it took more than forty years to accomplish this.

It requires three sorts of minds to bring about a great change of this sort. The people must be educated, and when educated their indignation must be controlled, so that its full force may be felt at the right moment. Those who cling to the old order of 203things must be overthrown, and the new order must be firmly established so as to be lasting. In fact, you want a man of ideas, a man of action, and a statesman, not necessarily acting together, but keeping the same object in view.

Italy was singularly fortunate in this respect. There emerged at the critical period, among the many who were ready to serve the cause, three outstanding figures: Mazzini, the man of ideas; Garibaldi, the man of action; and Cavour, the statesman. The man of action and the statesman are likely to get the most credit when the great decisive actions in the final stages of a successful revolution take place. But the work of the reformer, who in the earlier and more difficult times sees a spark of light in the darkness and proceeds patiently, with the whole weight of public opinion against him, to preach, educate, and prepare the ground, is certainly more difficult and in some ways perhaps even more admirable.

Giuseppe Mazzini was born in Genoa in 1805. His father was a doctor who devoted much of his time to unpaid service of the poor, and his mother was a woman of strong character who took a close interest in the great political movements of the time. Giuseppe was a studious and thoughtful boy, but delicate in health. He noticed how his parents treated with equal courtesy people from all ranks of life; he listened to reminiscences of the French Republican wars and read the praises of the democratic form of gov204ernment in the pages of Greek and Roman history. There was no question of conversion with him. His sympathies grew naturally in favor of popular government as against the rule of despotic princes. When he was sixteen the collapse of a rising in Piedmont made such a deep impression on him that he neglected his lessons and insisted on dressing in black, a habit he kept up to the end of his life.

To his father’s disappointment he showed himself quite unfit to become a doctor; the very sight of an operation made him faint. He was allowed, therefore, to study law, and at the same time foreign literature, history, and poetry occupied a great part of his time. He was also very fond of music. Except on rare occasions when he went to the theater, he spent his evenings at home with his mother after going, during the day, for long solitary walks. While doing useful work as the poor man’s lawyer, he began to write reviews and essays for the newspapers. But his articles became so advanced in tone that two of the newspapers to which he contributed were suppressed.

As a consequence of the rapid growth of discontent against the misgovernment of the petty Sovereigns of the States of Italy, a secret revolutionary body had been formed, which was known as the Carbonari (the word means “charcoal burners,” of which there were many in the mountains of Calabria). It was a sort of Freemasons’ Society. Mazzini disapproved of the mysteries and theatrical forms in which the205 members indulged, but as it was the only revolutionary organization in the country, he became a member and swore the usual oath of initiation over a bared dagger. He worked for them zealously, but his intention was to form a far more vigorous association. The Government had their eye on the Carbonari, and Mazzini was arrested and sent to prison. In his prison room at Savona he had much time for reflection. He gazed upon the sky and sea and read the only three books permitted to him, the Bible, Byron, and Tacitus. Here it was that he thought out the organization of a new society, the aim of which was to be the liberation of Italy from tyranny and its unification under a republican form of government. This society was “Young Italy,” which became famous throughout Europe; its motto was “God and the people.” A further unsuccessful insurrection of the Carbonari convinced Mazzini of the necessity of his new scheme. When, however, he was set free, so many restrictions were placed on his liberty that he decided to live at Marseilles. Here, with a few others, in one single room, he worked for two years with the most astonishing industry.

His famous letter to Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, was written from Marseilles. In it he urged the King to take the lead in the impending struggle for Italian independence. All over Italy a great sensation was produced by this letter, but the Sardinian Government was deeply offended, and his arrest was206 ordered should he cross the frontier. He also issued the manifesto of Young Italy, and in response to it, members joined from all parts of Italy. But a complaint was made to the French Government, and Mazzini was obliged to retire from Marseilles and take refuge in Switzerland.

A great blow came to him which affected both his health and his mind. His greatest friend, Jacopo Ruffini, was one of the leaders in an unsuccessful rising in Genoa. He was captured with several others and executed. For a time Mazzini was dismayed, but his unflagging energy kept him at work, and from Geneva he organized a band of exiles which included Germans and Poles as well as Italians, and the invasion of Savoy was planned. Mazzini accompanied the expedition himself, but the attack broke down without a single shot being fired.

Time after time the efforts of this irrepressible enthusiast were destined to fail. He had to work in secret, and little by little he acquired the habit of plotting and scheming and adopted the methods of a conspirator. But he never lost sight of his great ideal, and in spite of severe trials and cruel disappointments he was able to retain in his deeply religious nature a lofty and high-minded purpose. Mazzini was a most striking man in appearance. Of medium height and slightly built, his outward air of quiet melancholy concealed an inward burning passion, which only shone out through the fire in his eyes. He had a dark207 olive complexion, with black hair and beard. He always wore a black, tight-fitting frock-coat, with a black silk handkerchief round his neck in place of a collar. Except for his mother, women played a very small part in Mazzini’s life. One woman, who was a widow called Giudetta Sidoli, kept up an affectionate correspondence with him for a time, but there was never any question of their marrying. His work, his poverty, and his restless wandering made it impossible for him to settle down as a married man.

After forming a “Young Europe” association of men who believed in liberty, equality, and fraternity for all mankind, and after issuing a newspaper called Young Switzerland he was forced by the authorities to leave Switzerland, and he took refuge in England. As a lover of the beauties of nature, he complained at first at having to go to what he called “the sunless and musicless island.” “We have lost,” he wrote from London, “even the sky which the veriest wretch on the Continent can look at.” In time, however, he came to regard with great affection the country which has been a home and refuge to many disconsolate wanderers and outcasts from foreign lands.

Mazzini came to England in 1837, and was obliged to live at first in great poverty. But he had not come to rest. It was always a hard struggle for him. After a heated correspondence with his father, he ceased to receive any money from home, and he got into such low water that he actually had to pawn his rings,208 his watch, his books, and even on one occasion his boots and waistcoat, in order to get money for food. His generosity to others who were still worse off than himself made things more difficult. In the winter he risked his health by giving away his only overcoat. At last he had to go to moneylenders. It was indeed a desolate and miserable period for him, and had it not been for the great spirit within him, he might have broken down completely in despair. But he battled on, learned the English language, wrote articles for English newspapers, and began to make English friends. His sympathies were always on the side of the destitute and the downtrodden; he taught in an evening school for poor Italian children, and worked to prevent small boys of poverty-stricken parents in Southern Italy being brought to England by scoundrels who made them grind organs.

His first close English friendship was with the great writer, Thomas Carlyle, and his wife. “They love me as a brother,” he wrote, “and would like to do me more good than it is in their power to do.” He liked Carlyle’s open nature and broad views, but they often had heated arguments. “He may preach the merit of holding one’s tongue,” said the Italian, “but the merit of silence is not his.” Mrs. Carlyle was at first very sympathetic and interested in his political views, but after a while she, like her husband, expressed disapproval of his revolutionary ideas. However, he continued to be a frequent caller, coming in209 all weathers, “his doeskin boots oozing out water upon the carpets in a manner frightful to behold.”

Two or three years later, the breach between the two men widened, and they saw no more of one another. But Carlyle retained his respect for the strange Italian exile, who he declared was the most pious man he had ever met.

In many other English families Mazzini was received with warm cordiality. He wrote a great deal and completed the greater part of the finest of all his works, “The Duties of Man.” But Italy was always in his thoughts; he kept in constant communication with the Italian leaders, for he dreaded dying with his work undone. It was during this period that the British Home Secretary, Sir John Graham, ordered Mazzini’s letters to be opened as they passed through the British Post Office, and communicated their contents to the Neapolitan Government. A great stir was caused by this. There were debates in Parliament, a Committee of Inquiry was appointed, and Mazzini’s character was successfully vindicated. This episode, which was very discreditable to the British Government, brought him many new friends.

In 1848 the good news came of the rising in North Italy and the expulsion of the Austrians from Venice and Lombardy. A flood of patriotism spread over Italy, and volunteers poured to the front from all parts. Mazzini immediately hurried to Milan, where he was received in triumph as the prophet who had210 been cast out, but who had preached and suffered while others fell away and doubted. Fighting continued, but the King, Charles Albert, was a timid man, quite incapable of dealing in a masterful way with the situation that had arisen. He was willing to consult Mazzini, but the enthusiastic reformer would have no dealings with him. He refused for a moment to set aside his hatred of monarchy, which he described as “a hereditary lie.” This was not the only instance in which his zeal for the republican form of government prevented him from co-operating with others who were just as eager as he was for a united Italy.

The war continued. The Austrians gained victories and Milan was occupied. Mazzini shouldered a rifle and served in a small force under Garibaldi. Meanwhile, in Central Italy, the Pope had fled and Rome was declared a republic. Three men were appointed to take over the government with supreme powers. Of this triumvirate Mazzini was a member. The opportunity had come for him to display his powers as a ruler, and to put into practical form the theories about which he had written and preached so much; but it proved to be short. Nevertheless, he managed to deal with a difficult situation with the utmost skill, showing wisdom and moderation, erring, if anything, on the side of leniency toward his enemies. He adopted none of the pomp and ceremony of a ruler, but lived with austere simplicity, unguarded, and ac211cessible to all who wished to approach him. By this mild authority he maintained order in the city, and he might have succeeded in setting up good government in a permanent form, had it not been for the intervention of France. The attack on the Romans by Louis Napoleon has been described as one of the meanest political crimes, and indeed there was no excuse for it. The siege lasted nearly a month, and the city fell. The victors entered Rome. Garibaldi with three thousand followers refused to surrender and retreated. Mazzini fled the country. So ended his brief experience as a ruler.

He could not remain in Switzerland; he therefore returned to London. The death of his mother in 1852 came as a great blow to him. He had seen her in Milan and had always kept in close correspondence with her. “I have now no mother on earth except my country,” he wrote, “and I shall be true to her as my mother has been true to me.” She left him a small annuity, so that although he was poor, he was not in the desperate state of want he had been in formerly. He had to live very simply, however, his cigars being his only luxury. His most constant companions were his tame linnets and canaries, which perched about on his head and shoulders and hopped about among his papers in the thick, smoky atmosphere of his one room. He was very much appreciated and respected by many prominent men of the time, 212 and his endeavor to enlist English sympathy for his political schemes was not unsuccessful.

It was perhaps a pity that Mazzini did not devote the remainder of his days to literary work, for as a writer he would certainly have made a great mark. His work as an agitator ceased to be useful or even helpful. The course of events showed that if Italian Unity was to be won it must be under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel, who had succeeded Charles Albert as King of Piedmont and Sardinia, and was prepared to come forward as the leader of the movement. Gallant little Piedmont continued to be the leading spirit of the States of Italy. Cavour, the statesman, a man of very different stamp from Mazzini, worked slowly and patiently in the one direction in which he saw success was possible. He despised Mazzini and his doctrines, and probably regarded him as a nuisance. The practical, capable, hard-headed man of affairs found no use for the enthusiast and the agitator, and did not even recognize the great services which the idealist had rendered in preparing and educating the mind of the people. Mazzini, on the other hand, suspected Cavour and mistrusted him, and doggedly refused to abandon his hope of a republican form of government. He thought a united Italy would succeed best if monarchy were abolished; and in this belief perhaps he may only have been rather in advance of his times. All the time he 213 overestimated the strength of his own following and ignored the true state of affairs. This was partly due to his enforced exile, which kept him out of contact with the movements in Italy. With Garibaldi, the great man of action, his relations were also strained. They never saw eye to eye, and constantly differed as to the best course to take. Garibaldi believed in the King. Mazzini could never get over his engrained prejudice against monarchy. Garibaldi was irritated with Mazzini and called him “the great doctrinaire.” But although they so often found it impossible to act together, they became reconciled in the end, and each recognized the other’s great talents and services.

Mazzini was accused of encouraging political assassination. Many charges were brought against him which were absolutely false, and he was wrongly suspected of being at the back of various plots which were discovered for the assassination of Victor Emmanuel and Louis Napoleon. He had indeed said that exceptional moments might arise when the killing of a tyrant might be the only means of putting an end to the intolerable oppression. In his early days, too, a young man came to him with a plan for the assassination of the King, Charles Albert. Mazzini, having failed to dissuade him, helped him on his journey and sent him a dagger. But in late life he not only vigorously discouraged plots of this sort, but actually stopped them. It is true, however, that his attempts to justify violence on certain occasions, and the argu214ments he used, came sadly below the noble ideas he held as to the sacredness of human life.

Napoleon III he hated as much as he did the Austrians. For a moment he was hopeful, after the French victory of Solferino in 1859, and thought the Austrian domination of Italy was at an end. But when the peace of Villafranca came, by which Venetia was abandoned to the enemy, and Cavour resigned, he voiced the feeling of his country when he denounced the betrayal and treachery of the French Emperor. He hurried out to Florence, but the people dreaded any repetition of his unsuccessful risings, and he found he was powerless. Cavour became chief minister again, and Garibaldi began to lay his plans for the action which was to be eventually the determining factor in the liberation of Italy. Mazzini welcomed Garibaldi’s leadership, and was ready to keep himself in the background. But his suspicion of Cavour, his want of proper information, and his occasional untimely interference made him useless at this period of the struggle. He kept on dividing opinion at a time when united action was the one obvious means of achieving success. “Even against your wish you divide us,” said one of Garibaldi’s followers to him at Naples, where he was trying to make the people insist on an Italian National Assembly drawing up a new Constitution under the King. At last, worn out in mind and body, he left Naples after having a friendly interview with Garibaldi. It was not his215 jealousy of successful rivals that made Mazzini so difficult to work with in these critical times. It was his fear that others could not carry out the great object in view unless they worked on his lines and shared his distrust of the rule of kings and the intrigues of statesmen. He refused to see that the royalists were as seriously bent on unity as he was himself. He became a broken and disappointed man, believing he had failed, and despondent as to the future.

Unity was not yet complete: Rome and Venetia were still to be won. On his return to England in 1860, Mazzini was content to suspend any open republican agitation, but he kept up a good deal of secret correspondence. His health began to break down, but his will-power was still very strong. “It is absurd to be ill,” he said, “while nations are struggling for liberty.” Victor Emmanuel had some private communications with him, for, curiously enough, the two men had a certain fascination for each other. The King shared the great agitator’s hatred of Austria and his impatient desire to see the nationalities of Eastern Europe set free. But nothing came of this. Victor Emmanuel, who was now the figurehead of the whole movement, was a rough, good-natured, rather stupid man, who by his qualities as a soldier won the loyalty and devotion of his people. He was essentially a man of action, and military fame attracted him more than anything else. When Garibaldi visited England he had an enthusiastic reception from the public.216 Mazzini conferred with him, collected money for him, and went as far as Lugano with the intention of supporting him when the volunteers crossed from Sicily for the march on Rome. But he went no further.

There was fighting again in 1866. The Italians were defeated, and Napoleon III concluded a peace by which the Austrians ceded Venetia to him, and he handed it over to Italy. This was rather a humiliating conclusion of this part of the struggle, and Mazzini resented it. In spite of the failure of so many of his efforts, he appeared to many of his fellow-countrymen as a distant and rather wonderful figure, surrounded by an atmosphere of mystery, with the one thought of his beloved country ever in his mind. Their confidence and respect for him were shown by the fact that forty thousand people signed the petition for his amnesty—that is to say, his return to Italy; but when at last it was granted he refused to take his seat as a deputy in Parliament, for although he had been duly elected by Messina he would not take the oath of allegiance to the monarchy.

The republic now came to be a more important object to him than unity. He plotted and schemed, and went so far as to intrigue with Bismarck in order to get the help of Germany in what would have been a civil war. He admired Bismarck’s tremendous determination, and he believed in German unity, but he added, “I abhor the Empire and the supremacy it arrogates over Europe.”

Here is a description of the Italian political idealist by one of the secret committee of Genoa, where each man came to the meeting armed with a revolver: “A low knock was heard at the door, and there he was in body and soul, the great Magician, who struck the fancy of the people like a mythical hero. Our hearts leaped, and we went reverently to meet that great soul. He advanced with a child’s frank courtesy and a divine smile, shaking hands like an Englishman and addressing each one of us by name, as if our names were written on our foreheads. He was not disguised; he wore cloth shoes and a capote, and with his middle, upright stature he looked like a philosopher straight from his study, who never dreamed of troubling any police in the world.”

All his plots broke down, and again he was imprisoned at Palermo. Here he read a great deal, smoked incessantly bad cigars, and laid the schemes of fresh books. When Rome was captured he was released. Italian unity was accomplished, but because Italy was not republican, Mazzini felt his dream was spoilt.

For the remainder of his days he lived at Pisa. Daily, people saw the white-haired stranger taking his walks and stopping frequently to talk to children: and here he died in March, 1872. He was buried by his mother’s side in Genoa. By a unanimous vote the Italian Parliament expressed the national sorrow, and the president pronounced a eulogy on the departed218 patriot, who had devoted his life to his country’s freedom.

Mazzini was one of those curious independent men, of passionate sincerity and tremendous energy, who make things very uncomfortable, and who will always be detested by those easygoing people who prefer to accept things as they are so long as their own ease and comfort are not disturbed. His astonishing talents and qualities were balanced by great faults, but they were more faults of judgment than of character. He was very far from perfect. But the perfect man has yet to appear, and if he does appear he will probably be quite intolerable, because there is always something in people’s faults which endears them to us. Mazzini was a lonely figure, courageous, humble, and without personal ambition. But he could not work successfully with others, for he would never compromise. He seems to have had peculiar difficulty in translating his thoughts and ideas into action. In fact, running through his whole career, there is a strange contradiction between his lofty ideals, his deep religious beliefs, his noble ambitions, on the one hand, and his petty intrigues, his futile plots, and his false estimate of men, on the other hand. Judged by his writings, he would appear to be a great hero whose moral purpose was an inspiration to the whole world, but whose talents had never been fully developed, because they were neglected for other forms of activity. Judged by his actions, he appears a determined but219 perpetually misguided agitator, obstinate, impulsive, and adopting the methods of a conspirator.

He knew the religious spirit must be the foundation of any great moral movement. But his religion was broad and simple: he thought the orthodox Christian doctrine had much in it which prevented it having the power and influence it ought. He had a firm belief in democracy—that is to say, in the rule of the people as opposed to the absolute rule of kings and ministers. But he saw that advance in this direction could only be brought about through education, and that was why he devoted so much of his time to educating poor people and writing books for them.

The whole idea of nationality was, in Mazzini’s opinion, based on the will of the people. It must be remembered that in his day Europe was divided up, to a large extent, into territories formed by the interests and ambitions of royal dynasties, or in the name of the absurd principle known as “the balance of power,” which means the grouping of two sets of nations in opposition to one another—a policy which has been the cause of many wars. Nationality, Mazzini maintained, was not just a question of people of the same race, or people who spoke the same language, or even people who lived in the same country, having the right to make themselves into a separate nation. In the case of Italy, as in the case of Great Britain, the geographical area is so well defined by220 Nature, with its seas and mountains, that the problem presented is quite easy. But there are other territories where neither geographical formation, nor language, nor race, shows very accurately what the frontiers of the nation should be. History and tradition may form some guide, but the needs and wishes of the people concerned should always be taken into account. “Nationalities,” said Mazzini, “can be founded only for, and upon, and by the people.”

It was the fundamental truth which he always sought for. He was a patriot in the best sense of the word. But he hated sentimental bragging and showy patriotism. A man must not borrow luster from his country, but give luster to it by service and devotion. Patriotism to him was an intense regard for his country’s moral greatness. “The honor of a country,” he declared, “depends much more on removing its faults than on boasting of its qualities.”

His service to his country is difficult to measure. Although his practical part in the actual accomplishment of Italian unity cannot be compared with that of Cavour and Garibaldi, it was his bold vision which first saw that the object was attained: it was he that gave others the faith to pursue it: without him the great achievement might have been long delayed. It was Mazzini who supplied the fuel for the furnace, the impulse for the blow, and the unselfish motive which alone could stir his fellow-countrymen to noble deeds.

The services of such a man are seldom recognized at the time. But when the fight is over and the general survey is made of all the stages which led ultimately to success, people come to understand the great value and the enormous influence of the noble ideas which first set the movement going.

X

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

1805–1879

William Lloyd Garrison was the man who more than any one else helped to abolish slavery. He was what we call a Pioneer—or one who leads the way—because, though some people had hoped for the gradual freedom of the negroes, and a few had worked for it, Garrison was the first to ask for their immediate freedom and to set to work to make this question the most living and important one of the day. For he believed that if a thing is wrong in itself it should not exist another hour. Garrison was born at Newburyport, Mass., December 10, 1805. Like Thoreau and Hans Andersen, he was of humble birth and had a very hard childhood. His mother had been deserted by his father, and he was obliged to earn money to help her keep the home together. So as quite a small boy he went about peddling apples, and later worked at shoemaking and cabinet-making and other trades; he hated them all, and on one occasion ran away to sea.224 There was no time for learning from books, and he had practically no schooling. But when he was thirteen he became apprenticed to the printers’ business in the office of the Newburyport Herald, and to this work he took like a duck to water. He showed peculiar skill at printing, and also a great gift for writing. He wrote and sent articles to different papers and he read a great deal. He liked romantic books, the novels of Sir Walter Scott and the poems of Byron particularly. He wrote poetry himself which is considered good. His mother had always warned her son against being an author, as she believed the lot of all literary men was to die of starvation in a garret. Nevertheless, Garrison seemed cut out for an editor or writer. He was left alone in the world when he was eighteen, for his mother died and his only brother, a bad lot, had disappeared. His apprenticeship with the printer ended when he was twenty-one. At this time he was a very taking and charming young man, with a refined, sensitive, clean-shaven face, and always well dressed; pleasant, mildly ambitious, and social, enjoying parties and going to church regularly, he conformed outwardly to what the world thinks is the right and proper thing. But there was more in William Lloyd Garrison than met the eye. His friends, who had complete trust in him, now lent him money to start a newspaper of his own. He called it the Newburyport Free Press, and became the editor and proprietor of it, and wrote, too, most of the arti225cles. But the views in them were much too independent to please the ordinary person, and it failed.

Garrison had always had a strong tendency to question authority—he was not going to take anybody’s word for a thing without thinking it all out for himself—as a boy he had taken up the cause of liberty wherever it had arisen and had been greatly moved by the struggles of the Greeks to throw off Turkish tyranny. But now again he was a printer in search of work, and after hard times he became the editor of a temperance paper, The National Philanthropist, in Boston, and then again the proprietor of a newspaper called The Journal of the Times. Once more he showed himself to be very much ahead of people in moral matters. In a number of this paper he wrote a forcible article on a law which had been passed in one of the States of America against teaching the blacks to read and write. He said how pitiable it was to seal up the mind and intellect of man to brutal incapacity.

“This state of things,” he declared with vehemence, “must come to an end.” The article drew the attention to him of a much older man—Benjamin Lundy—an excellent Quaker who had for some years past been agitating against slavery, and he now got into touch with Garrison. Garrison was deeply moved by Lundy’s preaching, and equally disgusted with the attitude of the clergy, to whom Lundy appealed in vain.

It was almost impossible to get a church or a school for an anti-slavery meeting, and when they did succeed, on one occasion, the meeting was broken up by a clergyman who denounced the agitation against slavery as dangerous. “The moral cowardice, the chilling apathy, the criminal unbelief and cruel skepticism that were revealed,” says Garrison on that occasion, “filled me with rage,” and from that time he ceased to go to church.

Garrison was asked now by Lundy to become editor with him of a paper called The Genius of Universal Emancipation, whose object was to suppress drink and to free the negro. Garrison joined him. He wrote most of the articles and Lundy did the lecturing. The articles were very clear and forcible. “For ourselves,” the paper declared, “we are resolved to agitate this subject to the utmost; nothing but death shall prevent us from denouncing a crime which has no parallel in human depravity.” Garrison worked hard: he got subscribers to the paper and managed to start a petition against slavery, which was signed by over two thousand people, and was presented to Congress. The answer came back that agitation would make the slaves restless and difficult to manage, and would put ideas into their heads when they might be comparatively happy and contented.

You can imagine the scorn Garrison felt for his Government. What else could he feel about a Government which boasted of itself as a democratic Gov227ernment, which desired all people to have equal opportunities, rich or poor, and which, while sitting in the Capitol could see every day the manacled slave driven past the door to market? Custom, as it so often does, had blunted the sensibilities of these Senators: they remained untouched and unmoved. It needed a young, fresh, open mind like that of Garrison to show them the way. He was only twenty-six, but he saw clearly what much older men did not see, that in the long run the moral point of view is the only point of view, that right or justice is the only thing to work for, and all other issues are of no account at all. But it does not, perhaps, seem to us now a very wonderful thing that Garrison should have been so shocked and horrified at what he saw and heard about slavery. What strikes us as incredible now is that there were many thousands of people, and quite humane, kind people too, who defended it. It was the custom of the country and part of the Constitution. Many people didn’t trouble to reason about it; indeed, they believed that were slavery abolished the country would be ruined—they would have no cotton, no corn, no tobacco, because there would be no laborers to till the soil or to harvest the crops. The black men and women did the work for nothing. But so short-sighted and stupid were commercial people generally, that they could not see that slavery, besides being a moral wrong, was also a mistake economically. In the long run it was more expensive, because the work228 was less well done; an intelligent person who takes some interest in his work will do it very much better than one hardly removed from the animals.

One Sunday in Baltimore, Garrison was visited by a slave who had just been whipped with a cowhide, and whose back was bleeding from twenty-seven gashes, while his head was terribly bruised. He had not loaded a wagon to his master’s liking, and this was his punishment. Garrison could hear as he passed down the street the sound of whips and cries of agony. There seemed no mercy or justice anywhere, and his country’s barbarity made Garrison’s cheeks burn with shame.

How did such a state of things arise, one may ask; how did these black men and women come to be living in such numbers on American soil? It happened in this way: the English in the past, having conquered lands in different parts of the world, needed men to work and develop these lands. They were mostly wild and uncultivated. The British, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese were chiefly responsible for the slave trade. Prince Henry the Navigator, a Portuguese, had been the first to bring negroes into Europe in the fifteenth century, capturing them on his exploring expeditions round the coast of Africa. Sir John Hawkins was the first Englishman to engage in the traffic, and in the seventeenth century the slave trade was mostly in English hands. England made a very good business of supplying slaves to the Spanish set229tlements, and imported also a huge cargo of negroes to Virginia for tobacco planting, and this was the beginning of slavery in America.

This hunting of human beings to make them slaves was more barbarous than anything the negroes themselves could have imagined. These wretched black men, having been captured, their huts destroyed and whole villages burnt, were placed on ships which brought them to our colonies, to the West Indies and Jamaica; so packed and overloaded were these ships and the poor negroes were so ill-treated that many died on the way; out of a hundred only fifty would be any good for work. This was one of the prices paid for what is called expansion and having colonies. When the English came to know the real nature of this dreadful business, all the best opinion was against it; but the Quakers were the first to take any practical action against the slave trade, which they did as early as the seventeenth century, both in America and England, by turning out of their society all who should be engaged in it. Gradually the British did away with slavery in their colonies, and it was finally abolished in 1833, when Lord Grey was Prime Minister; but the honor of being the first to abolish it lies not with England but with Denmark, who forbade it in its possessions at the end of the eighteenth century. Several countries followed the example of England after she had put down slavery so far as it concerned herself, but the United States was the last to fall in.

Garrison in his campaign against slavery was not going to tolerate any half-measures; if a thing was a sin, then it should not exist another day: it was real anguish to have to think of the sufferings of these poor people, and he could not rest or be happy for a moment so long as injustice and such a barbarous state of things existed. Therefore, the immediate freedom of the negro was the only thing to strive and live for. Here he and Lundy disagreed—not as to the evil of slavery, but on the question of the best way to put an end to it. Lundy was not so extreme as Garrison. His view was that the negro should gradually be set free and sent to colonize in another country. Garrison asked for his immediate freedom on American soil. His attitude made the slave-owners very angry, and also filled them with alarm: they had heard a good deal of talk about freeing the negro in the future, but never had the demand been made for his immediate release. So Garrison now broke his partnership with Lundy and started on his campaign alone. For a so-called libel on a slave trader he was sent to prison, and being unable to pay the fine, he was forty-nine days in jail, until he was released by Arthur Tappan, of New York, a famous Quaker philanthropist and abolitionist, who paid his fine for him. Garrison was no martyr, but his anger was aroused against the slave-owners and he felt more desperately keen about his cause than ever. Once more he looked to the churches to support him, and231 again they failed him. In Boston they closed their doors against him, and it was a society of free-thinkers who finally gave Garrison a hall to lecture in, and some who heard him there were moved to join him and assist in his campaign.

Never did a man have more uphill work in trying to move these people out of their sloth and indifference. He visited all the principal people in Boston and urged them to think; he implored the clergy to turn to Christianity and bring it into practice. Coldheartedness and utter contempt of the negro he met with everywhere. He was disheartened but undefeated; his hatred of injustice, his loathing of cruelty, his pity, all these feelings carried him on.

In order to further his views he set up a paper of his own in Boston. He had no money nor a single subscriber, but he found a sympathetic partner, and these two printed their own paper, their only helper being a negro boy. It was called The Liberator, and its motto was “My country is the world; my countrymen are all mankind.” By this he meant that he worked for the good of the whole world, not only for that portion of it to which he himself belonged, for only by treating men of other countries as your friends and brothers will you have progress, peace, and true prosperity at home.

In the first number of The Liberator, Garrison had a manifesto, or address, to the public, the words of which became the whole spirit of his life. He de232clared that he would work for and think of nothing else but the freedom of the slave, and ended up with the words, “I am in earnest: I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.” This address was signed by twelve men, all poor, but after they had met together one evening for the purpose of signing the address they stepped out into the starry night with glad hearts and an object to live for. This address of Garrison’s lost him many subscribers, because it went too far and was thought too extreme, but gradually it gained him influence and power. It was the seed of many anti-slavery societies, and it started other newspapers working with the same objects. The Liberator was destined to contain President Lincoln’s declaration of emancipation.

An anti-slavery society had been started in England, supported by the great and courageous clergyman Wilberforce, who had been for years working against slavery and had helped to bring it to an end in the British possessions. Garrison was asked to go over and speak to the English society, which he did, and was received with great enthusiasm. The English were very much impressed by Garrison’s sincerity and the burning enthusiasm that lay under his quiet and modest manner. He was not the sort of man they imagined an American agitator to be. He was, of course, very greatly encouraged, but on his return to America hard times awaited him, because233 he had stated in England that the United States was a sham so long as it allowed the present state of things to exist. A meeting in New York to start an anti-slavery league was broken up and the hall emptied by a furious mob. Another mob also besieged and tried to destroy the offices of The Liberator at Boston. There was great excitement everywhere: Garrison’s work had begun to tell. Disagreeable though violent opposition is, it is often the first step toward being heard. Now, Garrison undoubtedly criticized his country; he found fault with it, and used very strong language about the slave-owners. The commonly held view is that any criticism of one’s country is treacherous, mischievous, and unpatriotic, but Garrison said:

I speak the truth, painful, humiliating, and terrible as it is, and because I am bold and faithful to do so, am I to be branded as the calumniator and enemy of my country? If to suffer sin upon my brother be to hate him in my heart, then to suffer sin upon my country would be an evidence not of my love but hatred of her; it is because my affection for her is intense and paramount to all selfish considerations that I do not parley with her crime. I know that she can neither be truly happy nor prosperous while she continues to manacle every sixth child born on her soil.

Who, then, one may ask, is the true patriot? He who has before his eyes a high ideal for his country, who wishes it to be the best, the most civilized and 234 the most prosperous, its people educated, far-seeing, and humane; who does not shut his eyes to his country’s faults and to the mistakes of its governments, but who strives to help as he would help a friend to remedy his faults—to show people how things might be better and how to set about improving them? Or is the patriot the man who in the face of monstrous evils cries “It is God’s will,” or “My country, right or wrong”? Where should we be now were it not for the men who obeyed their own consciences rather than the commands of the State? When we think that burning people at the stake for their religious beliefs, hanging them for sheep-stealing, putting women to death for petty thefts, or working small children in mines were considered right, when we remember that these inhuman laws were regarded by the patriot of the time as the will of God, and the people who wished to see them altered as disloyal to their rulers, we may be a little less bitter against the reformer of the present day: the man who sees that there are still many unjust laws and conditions even in his own country, and who has the courage to say so.

Garrison, however, found now enough support to start what was known as “The American Anti-slavery Society.” He called together a meeting for the purpose at Philadelphia, when he made a striking declaration of his beliefs. He spoke the most moving and inspiring words about the state of the slaves and the rights of liberty. He announced what their work 235 would be: to organize anti-slavery societies everywhere, to hold meetings unceasingly, to circulate literature, to spare no efforts whatever to bring the nation, as he expressed it, “to a speedy repentance.”

Now began what has been called “the martyr age” in America, and the most active period of Garrison’s life. He and his followers held meetings night and day, and mobs of rough and brutal men were sent by their opponents to break them up. Anti-slavery people were in danger of their lives; they were mobbed wherever they were known, and their houses burnt or ruined. Halls where meetings were to be held were destroyed. A young divinity student was flogged publicly for having anti-slavery literature in his bag. Another lost his life defending a friend against the ruffians who attacked him. In the South, men even suspected of favoring the abolition of slaves were lynched, and judges were all in favor of slavery, and treated the anti-slavery people as vagabonds. Garrison on one occasion had his clothes torn off him and was dragged through the streets with a rope round his body. He was rescued from a raging crowd by the mayor of the town, who saw no way of protecting him but by putting him in prison. On the wall of his cell Garrison wrote: “William L. Garrison was put into this cell on Wednesday afternoon, October 21, 1835, to save him from the violence of a respectable and influential mob who sought to destroy him for preaching the abominable and dangerous doctrine that all men are236 created equal and that all oppression is odious in the sight of God.” A merchant on one occasion spoke in public to the abolitionists. “It is not a matter of principle with us,” he said; “it is a business necessity; we cannot afford to let you succeed; we do not mean to allow you to succeed; we mean to put you down by fair means if we can, by foul means if we must.” Garrison said that Government and the heads of commerce were the forces that really kept slavery going; it could not, he felt, be the will of the people when they began to think and to understand what the real nature of slavery was. It was the business of his life to show them, and he devoted all his energies, all his power of eloquence and persuasion, to move the people, to appeal to their reason and sense of justice and compassion. He sought to abolish slavery by moral means alone; he did not attempt political means, such as asking Congress to use its power. He worked only in the Northern States, for the South was practically united in its convictions. He found strong opposition in the North, too, for there were many Northern people who looked upon the Constitution as sacred, and because the principle of slavery was incorporated in it, regarded all opposition to slavery as disloyalty to the State.

Garrison was undoubtedly helped by the Fugitive Slave Law. It is often the case that things get worse before they get better. This cruel law was a case in point. It was this: that those slaves who had escaped237 from the Southern States and were living in Canada or the North, some of them well off, useful, and happy, were to be hunted down and brought back to slavery; those who housed them and helped them in any way to escape would also be fined or imprisoned. The result of this new law was to rouse the people’s feeling for liberty and to touch their hearts. When they saw the wretched fugitives driven along the streets in chains great feeling was shown. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was inspired by incidents resulting from the Fugitive Slave Law. Though written in an old-fashioned way, with a good deal of religious talk, it is a moving and sincere book, by a writer whose heart was full of pity and indignation. It touched many hearts, including those of the clergy, and stirred people to action. It had perhaps more influence than any book with a purpose that has ever been written.

The people of the North suffered great humiliation at this period, for nothing could save them from lending their troops and using all their forces to help in slave catching, for it was the law of their Constitution. John Brown also, in connection with this law, appeared rather violently upon the scene. Most people have heard of him; many have heard of him who do not know anything about W. L. Garrison. He became a hero and a martyr by being hanged as a rebel, and the song written about him, “John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on,” became a sort of “Marseillaise” of the North,238 and has undoubtedly helped to keep his memory alive. John Brown had been for some time a keen anti-slavery agitator, and when the Fugitive Slave Law was passed he carried out a scheme of his own for helping to hide and establish fugitives in a stronghold he had built in the mountains of Virginia. For an armed raid which he made into that State with slaves, in which he captured an arsenal, he was brought up on the charge of high treason and hanged.

Garrison thought John Brown courageous and disinterested, but he also thought the raid wild and useless; but then Garrison’s views of war and bloodshed were very different from John Brown’s. One thing he did see was the wonderful change that thirty years of fighting against slavery had brought about in the tremendous outburst of sympathy for Brown, for great indignation was shown and felt at his fate.

Up to this time it would have been almost impossible for a President to be chosen who was not loyal to slavery. But times had changed, and Garrison, if he had not been entirely responsible, had been the principal cause of the change in people’s views; the sympathies of Lincoln, who was a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, were known—he was against slavery, and he was elected by the North, for the hearts of the people had been moved.

Garrison for the first time saw the results of his life’s work, and it is more than some reformers have done. In the election of Lincoln as President he could239 see, though still a long way off, an end to his labors, to the long and weary battle he had fought. But much suffering and anguish was to be gone through before anything could be accomplished. Lincoln was elected by the Northern States, and the South, furious, declared themselves independent of the Government and the Union, and forming a Government of their own, called themselves “The Confederate States of America.” Civil war started, and never was a war more passionately felt on both sides. It was not a war of Governments, or a war merely to decide whether the South should be united to the North, but it involved a living question of right or wrong between those who believed in slavery and those who did not. The people knew what they were fighting about, which is more often the case in civil war than in wars between nations planned by their Governments. Garrison had been a man of peace. He hated war and preached against it, yet he saw that the conflict could not be stopped. It had been taken out of his hands. Slavery must be overthrown, and, hateful though it was to him, blood, it seemed, must be spilt.

Every American knows the story of that struggle. The war began in 1861 and lasted four years, ending in a victory for the North, though the South fought desperately and gained much sympathy by their bravery. As the struggle went on the hatred of slavery grew, and before it ended many slaves were set free. Various States were asked to free their slaves, and240 those who did not were held to be in rebellion against the State. The total abolition of slavery by an amendment of the Constitution did not come about till the close of the war in 1865.

Garrison tells of visiting a camp of twelve hundred slaves just liberated. He called upon them to give cheers for freedom, and to his astonishment they were silent: the poor things did not know how to cheer.

It may be asked how Garrison set the slaves free, for he had not the power to do so. He had done so by preparing the ground, by educating the people, rousing them from their selfishness and awakening in them a moral sense. His efforts were rewarded by the election of Lincoln, who as President had the power to complete and to crown the work that Garrison had done.

To the truly great man it is the triumph of his cause, and not personal success, that will make him glad and thankful. Garrison’s contemporaries fully realized how he had been the chief cause in bringing about the emancipation of the slaves. Those who have lived since may have forgotten, and the great figure of Lincoln stands out as the man who before all others brought an infamous system to an end.

Garrison’s work was done, and he retired into private life. He had not been spoilt by publicity; he never really cared for a life of excitement; he was extraordinarily modest and had no personal ambition at all. Though most of his life he had been abused241 and slandered, it had never made him bitter; he remained happy, serene, and good-tempered in himself, and kept his warm affections to the end of his life. His domestic life, too, was very happy, and he was devoted to his wife and children. He died when he was seventy-three, at Boston, quite peacefully, his wife having died three years before him.

Garrison had his faults, if faults they could be called. He was too easily taken in—he had perhaps too open a mind, and at one time got into the hands of some rather shady people, who led him to take up spiritualism, quack medicines, phrenology, homeopathy, and so on. He was always hoping that any one of these things might possibly help to improve the conditions of mankind. But some of his fads, as they were then called, have become the beliefs of a great many people in the world. The supporters of The Liberator were annoyed with Garrison for preaching in his paper against capital punishment, against governments and the Church, and in favor of votes for women and temperance. They did not see why they should have to believe in these things because they believed in the freeing of the negro. But Garrison’s beliefs were the result of his experience and circumstances. He hated governments because his Government had built up its Constitution on slavery; he despised the Church because it upheld the crime of slavery; if it did not give it active support, it gave it by silence as to its evils, by tolerating slave-holding242 by its ministers and members, and by preventing whenever it could meetings or discussions being held against it. The Church, Garrison thought, should not be regarded as the Church of Christ, but as the foe of freedom, humanity, and religion. He hated Sunday because on that day no abolition meetings could be held—yet, as we know, he had been a strict church-goer as a young man, and was always to the end of his life a Christian, longing for men and women and the Church to turn to true Christianity, apart from its forms and dogmas.

Garrison had demanded for the negro full citizenship, but he did not live to see how strong is the prejudice in many places against black people. He had not to face this problem of race. It was a great step in the history of civilization to abolish slavery, but it was not the end of the negro question. Is the black man to have the same rights as the white man, the same opportunities for education and improvement? Is there a place for him in this world? Can he make himself useful and indispensable? If we read the history of the negroes’ struggles to get education against fearful difficulties and opposition, of how they endeavored to learn with their clouded, unused minds, and of how they succeeded in lifting themselves by their own efforts out of ignorance and degradation, I think we must believe that there is a place for them, that, given a share in the world’s work and its responsibilities, they will show themselves243 worthy of the trust put in them. But the white man himself must become more enlightened before an answer to this problem can be found. In the words of a remarkable negro, Booker Washington, who rose from being a slave to the position of a great teacher: “You cannot hold a man down in a ditch without stopping down there with him yourself.”

XI

HENRY THOREAU

1817–1862

Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, July 12, 1817, and lived most of his life in or near his native town. The world, if you were to ask it who Thoreau was, would probably say “a crank,” because he did not think and act in quite the same way as other people, and because he practised what he preached. He never went to church or voted at elections, or drank wine or smoked tobacco, and he went to live alone in the woods. He was an author and a naturalist; and, happily for us, he has been able to reveal through his writings what sort of man he was.

But people trouble themselves nowadays very little about the quiet, retiring souls, and so “Walden,” the book Thoreau wrote on his Experiment—as he called his period of retirement in the woods, is not so well known as it ought to be; for it seems to stand alone in its beauty and originality; no other book is246 like it. As we hurry and scurry through this mechanical century, we might do well to turn to its quiet pages, and if we do we may wonder if Thoreau was not the wise one and we the cranks after all.

Henry Thoreau’s childhood was a calm and happy one. He was brought up under the best possible conditions for forming a steadfast and unworldly character. Concord was a large, quiet village of plain white houses and shady elm-trees—a specially good example of a New England village community. There were no very rich people and no very poor: the inhabitants managed all their little affairs for themselves, and were perfectly capable of so doing. They were shrewd, honest, good people, and friendly towards one another. They seemed to have few worldly ambitions and were naturally inclined to be simple and democratic. They had simple occupations and amusements and did not crave for excitement, as we do now. Concord produced a very fine race of people and a few remarkable individuals—Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau himself; there were others less well known, but equally stalwart in character. Emerson, the poet and philosopher, no doubt helped his neighbors to become more cultivated and ideal: he brought them into touch with all the enlightened thought of that day, for it was the period when Carlyle and Wordsworth and Coleridge were living in England, and when the civilized world was beginning to wake up to many problems it had never 247thought about before, or had accepted as dispensations of Providence.

In this safe and peaceful atmosphere of good-will and honest endeavor the Thoreaus lived. They were poor and had no worldly advantages; but they had what was far better, the position which comes from having qualities of independence and courage, and they were respected and looked up to by their neighbors. Henry Thoreau’s father made lead pencils for a living, and Henry learnt to make them too—very skilfully, it is said. He had two sisters and a brother, but even as a child Henry Thoreau showed the most marked character of the lot. He was always determined to go his own way, and was quite sure of what he liked and disliked. But he was also very like other children, for when he was told that he would one day go to heaven, he said he did not want to, because he would not be allowed to take his sled with him. He had heard that only very grand things were allowed in heaven, and his sled was quite common and had been made at home.

Thoreau went to college—to Harvard—like any other young man, and did nothing very brilliant while he was there; when he left, he took to teaching and to writing, which was his great talent. He had always written from quite early days, keeping a diary about all the things he observed in nature—the tints of morning and evening skies, the songs of birds, the habits of animals, and the flowering and growth of248 plants and trees. He had extraordinary powers of observation and was a very remarkable naturalist; his understanding of animals was almost uncanny—they seemed to realize how akin he was to them. Hunted foxes would come to him for protection, and wild squirrels would nestle in his coat; he could thrust his hand into a pool and pull out a fish, which seemed to trust him and show no objection! Thoreau was absolutely at home in the open air; he could skate and swim and row and sail. He thought that every boy between the ages of ten and fourteen should shoulder a gun, but that it should only be wild shooting, limitless, and not enclosed like the shooting of English noblemen. Fishermen and hunters, he observed, seemed to get into peculiar touch with nature in the intervals of their sport. But Thoreau himself gave up shooting entirely as he grew older, and studied the habits of birds with a spy-glass; he learnt to remain absolutely motionless, as still as the wall or ground he rested on. From earliest childhood he made collections of Indian relics and of turtles and fishes. He liked to take immense journeys in search of interesting new plants and animals; once he went three hundred and twenty-five miles in a canoe with an Indian. He would camp out and be exposed to all weathers; often he was cold and hungry. A friend describes with a shiver how he slept out with Thoreau on the bare rocks of a mountain without enough blankets; but Thoreau, if he loved a thing, could not do it249 moderately, and, though he was so hardy, he ended by hurting himself and destroying his health.

From living so much with nature and animals, Thoreau got to look rather like a “wise wild beast”; this was how his friends described him. His face was ruddy and weather-beaten and very honest-looking; his nose was large and somewhat like a beak; his brows overhanging—but every one agreed that his eyes were the most attractive part of his face. They were sometimes blue and sometimes gray, and full of kindness and thought. He hated fine clothes and dressing up, so he always wore strong things, like corduroy (which no gentleman at that period would think of wearing), in order that he could make his way through the wood and climb rocks without tearing anything. His sisters and relations said he was simply delightful at home. He was a sort of household treasure, because he was always kind and useful and obliging. He would grow melons and plant the orchard, act as a mechanic—in fact, he was clever at any odd job with his hands—and he would attend to the animals and flowers. He was happy with children, and invented all sorts of games to amuse them and himself. He had no false pride, and was not ashamed to be seen in an old coat whitewashing the house or mending the gates. He was a great traveler in a small circle, but he never until the year before he died saw Niagara, or ever crossed the ocean. “I have a real genius for staying at home,” he said.

When he was twenty-five, Thoreau went to live with Emerson and a circle of friends on a farm near his own village of Concord. Emerson being older than Thoreau, was regarded by him as his teacher. There is no doubt that Emerson had a good deal of influence over the younger man and they thought alike about many things; but they were very different in temperament. Emerson was perhaps the more human, and he certainly had more personal charm, but Thoreau was the more original of the two. Emerson persuaded his young friend to join a sect of people formed with the object of improving the outlook of mankind; they wished to simplify living and to combine leisure for study with manual labor. Every member of the community had to do his or her share of the work to keep the house and farm going. They would plow, milk, make hay, cultivate the garden, and the women would wash up the dishes in the intervals of discussing how best to equalize the lots of rich and poor, how to simplify education so that every one might be educated, and how to destroy class differences. They were more like anarchists than socialists, because they did not believe in governments and had nothing to do with politics. Hawthorne, one of the members of this Brook Farm society, wrote a novel about them which gives a very vivid picture of their lives. They were not, except for a few members, particularly brilliant people, and their society cannot be called very successful if it is judged by renown, or251 by the amount of attention it got from fashionable people. This may have been because it avoided eccentricities and had very few rules—no sect could have had less—and indeed they were particularly keen on not interfering with a person’s liberty or private life. Idealism and Economy were the two principal articles of their faith. They were kind, simple, hopeful people, and were known as the Transcendentalists.

Thoreau lived with them for three years. The digging and outdoor work were easy congenial tasks to him, but Emerson, on the contrary, found that digging interfered with his writing, and after he left the sect he never again attempted to combine the two.

Thoreau was twenty-eight when he decided to go away and live by himself. It was not a sudden wish, for he had been thinking of it for some years. It was not because he was a hater of men that he wanted to get away, but he wished to find the answer to certain questions which had been bothering him. He was anxious to find out what real life could teach him, stripped of all its stupid complications and conventions. He wished also to study and to satisfy himself that he could be an author, and he went, too, because he hoped to draw strength and purpose from his experiment.

At this period he possessed only twenty-five dollars of his own, and one day in March he borrowed an axe and went into the woods which lay all around his village, and there, on the side of a thickly wooded252 hill, he found the perfect spot on which to build his house. At once he began to cut down the tall, straight pines with which the hill was covered to make a clearing, and with the purpose of using the pines as timber for his hut. He chose the spot specially for the view it had of the pond or lake beneath. Thoreau says a lake is a most beautiful and expressive feature in a landscape, and he likens it to the earth’s eye. It was called Walden, and from all the descriptions we read of it, it was a particularly beautiful pond, remarkable for its depth and its clearness, like a deep green well. Many people thought it was bottomless, and it was more than a mile long, the hills encircling it and rising steeply out of it on all sides. These days in which Thoreau worked, cutting and hewing wood, were pleasant spring days, and we can imagine how happy he was at his labors in the open air. He felt, he said, like a bird building its nest, and wondered if men, were they always to build their own homes, would become more poetical and sing as they worked.

By July his house was ready to live in, though he had not yet built his chimney—he liked in summer-time to do his cooking out of doors. He left till later also the plastering of his hut, so that the cool air blew through the chinks between the logs, which was very delicious in summer-time. From the door of his hut a little pathway ran straight down to the pond, and behind it he had made a clearing of some acres253 where he might grow his corn and vegetables. In his book “Walden” Thoreau describes how he spent his day during that first year. He would rise very early in the morning in summer-time and take his bath in the pond, and before the sun was high and the dew lay on everything he would attend to the bean-field he loved so much and hoe between the long green rows. After this he would do his housework, which he called a pleasant pastime. He had only a bed, a table, a desk, three chairs, a looking-glass (three inches across), a pair of tongs and andirons, a kettle, a frying-pan, a wash-bowl, one or two jugs, one cup, and a lamp.

When his floor was dirty, he merely set all his furniture out of doors on the grass, dashed water on the floor of his hut and sprinkled it with white sand, and then with a broom swept it clean. By the time other people were just getting up his house was dry again and his work finished.

The first year at Walden he worked a great deal in his garden. Then he had his cooking to do, and he studied very carefully the art of making bread, baking it at first out of doors on the end of a stick of timber over an open fire. He made experiments and discoveries with foods, cooking odd wild plants and weeds. He proved that a man in that land could support himself on what he grew. He could, for instance, grow his own rye and Indian corn and grind254 them in a hand-mill, and sugar he could extract from beet and pumpkins or from maples, which abound in that country. You could avoid, he said, going to any shops at all, and he was sure that to maintain yourself on the earth simply and wisely was not a hardship at all, but a pleasure.

Sometimes during this first year Thoreau did nothing at all but sit in his doorway dreaming, quite undisturbed and in silence, except for the flittering and twittering of birds. He would not realize how the time had flown until he saw the sunlight lighting up his west window, or heard the sound of some horse and wagon in the distance going home to rest. He did not feel this to be a waste of time, for he seemed, he said, to grow under these conditions like the corn in the night.

Not very far from where he lived was a railway line, and a train would pass at certain intervals. In spite of his love of solitude Thoreau liked the sound of it, and the whistle of the engine he likened to the cry of a hawk. He would listen to the passage of the moving train with the same feeling he had about the rising sun. It was so punctual and regular, and when the train had passed with its clang and clatter Thoreau felt more alone than ever, for it had made him feel the peacefulness and contrast of his own solitary yet not lonely life. On Sundays he would listen to the bells of distant towns, when the wind was255 in the right direction—the sounds would come floating faint and sweet over the trees, as if it were the music of the woods: so Thoreau describes it.

In the warm summer evenings he would spend a good deal of time in his boat, playing the flute and watching the fish. He would make echoes by smacking the water with his paddle till every corner of the wooded hills cried and answered him. Sometimes he would fish at midnight to get something for his next day’s dinner, and he would listen to the owls he loved so much, and to the foxes crying, or to the call of some mysterious night-birds; and the fish he describes as dimpling the moonlit surface of the water with their tails.

His days passed probably very quickly—if you are contented and happy the day is all too short. Thoreau said he hadn’t got to look for amusement anywhere, as his life had become his amusement, it was so real and full of interest. But he did not cut himself off from people altogether. Sometimes he would go to the village to hear some talk. He usually went in the evening, and he liked to stay very late there, especially when it was dark and stormy, because it was so pleasant to leave some bright, warm village room and to go out into the black night to find his harbor in the woods. He did not mind how wild the weather was—in fact, he preferred it wild and often faced severe storms. Those who have never been in the woods by night have no idea how dark 256 they can be. They would frighten and bewilder most people, but not Thoreau. He would feel his way with his feet on the faint track he had worn, or he would steer with his hands, feeling particular trees and passing between two pines, perhaps not more than eighteen inches apart; or he might sometimes guess his whereabouts by seeing a piece of light above him—a glimpse of the sky through a well-remembered break in the trees. One can understand the satisfactory and joyful feeling of reaching at last the little hut, always unlocked and open to any traveler who cared to enter. When Thoreau went away for a time he left it thus, hoping that some wayfarer might care to enter, to sit in his chair and read the few books which lay on his table.

In October, Thoreau collected his stores for the winter. He would go a-graping, but this, he says, more for the beauty of the grapes than for any nourishment they gave him, and he would get wild apples and store them, and principally he would make expeditions to the chestnut woods, to get chestnuts, which are a good substitute for bread. He would have a sack on his back and a stick in his hand with which to open the prickly burrs, and as he gathered them up the squirrels and jays called angrily to him for taking any of their food. Thoreau also discovered, while digging the ground near, a sort of potato used by the first peoples who lived in America; it had a sweetish taste like a frostbitten potato.

When visitors called on Thoreau, which they did sometimes, he describes the manner in which, if he were out, they would leave their cards—either a bunch of flowers, a wreath of evergreen, or a name in pencil on a yellow leaf or chip. If he had friends in summer days he took them into his best room, or drawing-room, which was the pine wood behind his house. Travelers did sometimes come out of their way to see Thoreau, having heard of the strange man living in the woods, and they were curious to see him and the inside of his hut. They would make an excuse for calling by asking for a glass of water, and Thoreau would direct them to the pond, where he always drank himself, and hand them a cup. It interested him to observe the effect the woods and solitude had on people. Girls and boys and young women, he said, seemed very happy to be there, but men, even farmers, thought only of the loneliness and how far it was from somewhere, adding that of course they enjoyed a ramble in the woods.

In November of the first year he was at Walden, Thoreau built his chimney, having studied masonry, and he lingered about the fire-place of his house, as being, he says, the most important part of a house. Then he plastered the hut in freezing weather, fetching the sand for the purpose from the shore below. Then, he says, “I began to use it for warmth as well as shelter.” When he had finished this work the pond was frozen and snow covered the ground.258 Thoreau, happy and serene, retired still further into his shell, keeping a bright fire in his house and within his breast. All this time he wrote a good deal, and his employment out of doors was to collect dead wood and to drag it into his shed. He loved his woodpile, and would build it where he could see it in front of his window. For many weeks in the snow Thoreau would spend cheerful evenings by his fireside, and no visitors would come to the woods—only woodmen came occasionally to cut and take wood on sleds back to the village. But no weather interfered with Thoreau’s walks. He managed to make a little pathway by always treading on the same track, and he would go thus in deepest snow to keep, as he expressed it, an appointment with an old beech-tree or a birch, or an old friend among the pines. His descriptions of winter in the woods are perhaps more fascinating and romantic than any other part of his “Walden,” and he tells of the wonders of the coming spring, the gradual melting of the ice, the longer days, the note of some arriving bird.

His second year at Walden was, he said, the same as the first, and when he left it in September he had lived there rather over two years. He left, he said, for as good a reason as he entered it. He does not tell the reason, but it was an unselfish one. His father had died, and his relations needed some one to work for them and to make a little money; so, much as he hated it, as we know he must have done, he returned259 to the world to make pencils and to write and to lecture till the end of his life.

When Thoreau emerged from his seclusion, you can imagine the questions he was asked by curious people who wanted to know all about it. Why did he do it; wasn’t he lonely; what did he do with himself; what did he eat? So he decided to publish an account of his experiment, filling out the diary he had written daily at Walden, and giving his reasons for his retirement and the conclusions he had formed about life and the world through his experiment. He learned, he tells us, that if you have a dream or some sort of idea of what a perfect life should be, or anyhow the life that appears to you to be the most lovely, the most useful, or the most satisfactory, you should advance quite confidently in that direction—that is to say, in the direction of your dreams; and that if you do this you will meet with a great deal of success. Also, that in proportion as you simplify your life the world will appear less complicated, you will be less poor and less lonely; the simple natural things will never fail to interest you, your requirements will be few, and your life full of enjoyment. Instead of three meals a day, eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce everything in proportion. Life, says Thoreau, is simply frittered away by detail. And about clothes—Thoreau describes how he asked his acquaintances if they would appear with a neat patch on their trousers, and most of them thought they would be dis260graced for life. Apparently, Thoreau says, they would rather have a broken leg than a trouser with a rent in it. It is certain that a man’s clothes are more important to some people than the man himself, and all these things, to one who lives a natural life, appear almost too absurd to be tolerated; and Thoreau, I think, did a useful work in drawing attention to these fallacies, which we are all inclined to take as a matter of course.

But Thoreau, because he went into the woods to live alone, did not wish every one to do so; indeed, he thought there should be as many different kinds of people in the world as possible. What he wanted people to do was to find out for themselves the best thing for themselves, and not necessarily to follow in the footsteps of their fathers and mothers and friends, to be Republicans because these were Republicans or Democrats because they were Democrats, to think as they did and to live as they did without giving any thought at all to it. He wanted people to have the courage to experiment and to take risks. But he did not wish to make rules for strong, courageous natures, nor did he wish to alter the way of living of those who found encouragement and happiness in their present manner of life. He did not speak at all to those who were well employed, but he did want to help people who complained, who were discontented and saw life as a desert, dull and joyless and without hope. He had in his head chiefly what he261 calls “that seemingly wealthy but most terribly impoverished class of all,” the people who have accumulated money and property and so have forged their own gold and silver fetters. He was tremendously scornful about the rich, and perhaps not pitiful enough. On the other hand, everything he has said against the possession of money and the futility of luxury is so perfectly reasonable and true and without any exaggeration, that no arguments can really be found to meet him. A good many of us admit that riches do not bring happiness, and that they undoubtedly increase our responsibilities and make us less free, but we all fail to act up to our beliefs, and continue to wish for more money in order to have a larger house, more servants, more clothes—and thus, as Thoreau says, we become “the tools of our tools” and the slaves of our own helpers and servants; in fact, these things are a hindrance to our development. “Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.” This is one of Thoreau’s maxims. It was certainly easier for Thoreau than for some to live a perfectly natural life in the woods. He had not been brought up in luxury. What he named luxuries we most of us call comforts. He was frugal by training as well as by inclination. Therefore in criticizing as he did the life that is led by most people in the world he was not very generous, because he had never felt their temptations. He was, some have thought, hardly262 human. In fact, he had very few weaknesses, and to be almost perfect is not a very attractive quality. We like to find imperfections in people and faults like our own. Thoreau was very little troubled by indecisions or doubts as to whether a thing was right or wrong for himself. He was quite sure of what he wanted; he went to look for it, and he found it. He was determined to improve himself, to be good and to be happy, and he succeeded. Even when he was dying of consumption he said in a letter he was enjoying existence as much as ever. When he believed in things he believed in them wholly, and principally he believed in the invigorating power of nature. He loved books; he loved writing and wood-cutting and walks in the country. He has written a delightful essay on walking, and has told us that he wrote in proportion to his rambles—if he was shut up indoors he could not write at all. He liked, too, association with simple, genuine people who were spending their lives in the open—fishermen, woodmen, and sometimes farmers—so that it cannot be said that he was a misanthropist—one who hates his fellow-creatures; if they were real and natural he enjoyed them and cared for them, but he had not got to depend on human beings for his entertainment. His interests and resources lay within himself, and he could always fall back on nature. “You may,” he says, “have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as263 brightly as from the rich man’s abode. The snow melts before its door as early in the spring.”

Thoreau’s enjoyment was calm and level. From his writings we do not gather that he was ever desperately unhappy, unless it was perhaps in a crowded street or in a luxurious drawing-room. He did mind very much the struggle and bustle, the ugliness of city life and all it stands for. It had a bad, cramping effect upon him, and he shunned it. Once back again in his woods and fields, his whole nature expanded. On cheerless, bleak days, when he was out of doors and the villagers would be thinking of their inn, he would, he says, come to himself and feel himself to be part of it all. “This cold and solitude are friends of mine.” In the country and alone he would see things as they are, “grand and beautiful,” and forget “all trivial men and things.” The stillness and solitude inspired him. His brain and mind worked and his nerves were steadied.

To some, Thoreau appeared to have a cold personality. One man said of him he would as soon think of taking his arm as taking the arm of an elm-tree. “You could not,” said Carlyle, “nestle up to him.” There are others who put a man down as a coward if he runs away from the world as it is, and does not face it and make the best of it. On this question there must always be a good deal of dispute, but it is really rather an absurd thing to argue about, because we are all made so differently. What is one man’s264 meat is another man’s poison. One person may not physically be able to stand a certain climate, but finds another to suit him, and so, as regards a man’s nature, he must discover how he may make the best of himself in order to develop his character and disposition. Thoreau’s argument was that if you cannot put a great proportion of your powers and enthusiasm into what you are doing, it is not of much use to yourself or mankind. He valued a man’s work in proportion to how much it enlarged and improved his soul.

To those who remain to fight in the hurly-burly while saying they dislike it, it probably has some bracing quality of which they are conscious, but Thoreau, as we have seen, felt himself in the streets to be “cheap and mean.” So he helped in his own way. To have forced him to sit on an office stool or to have a regular profession would have been a crime. If he had been more conventional and less peculiar, “Walden” would never have been written. Besides, he saw for what futile and ignoble reasons men chose their professions; sometimes not even because they had to make a living or to keep a wife and children, but for the sake of having expensive cigars and wines, a man-servant or a large house; and for these things, he observed, people will toil and make others toil at some stupid or sordid work, leaving themselves no time for thought, for true friendship, or for the enjoyment of books or nature or any real things. “There is265 no more fatal blunderer,” says Thoreau, “than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.” He calculated for himself that six weeks’ work would bring him in all the money he required to live. So that the whole of his winter and most of his summer would be free for study and enjoyment of country life. But it must not be thought that Thoreau was lazy or had never worked himself. In early days he had perfected himself in the craft of pencil-making and surveying. He had also worked very hard at his writing. He had learned industry, and in everything that he did he showed a peculiar thoroughness and skill.

If we want to find fault with Thoreau, it must be that he was perhaps too bent on improving himself. Thoreau and Emerson both believed very strongly in the importance of making oneself more interesting. Thoreau had a corresponding horror of consciously doing good to people, and of philanthropy generally. “Philanthropy,” he says, “is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind”; and again, “If you give money spend yourself with it. Do not merely abandon it to them” (the poor).

There are those who accuse Thoreau of being odd on purpose, and speak of his writing as paradoxical. It is much more likely that we who are doing and thinking exactly like our neighbors, without thinking if it is a good thing in itself, are the odd ones, or rather the lazy ones, because we cannot be bothered266 to disagree, to incur the disapproval of our friends, or to have them laughing at us. Emerson said that in life you must choose between Truth and Repose. By repose he means that you swallow your convictions for the sake of a quiet life—that you act always with the majority, or largest number of people, and shout with the biggest crowd. It is very comfortable to have people agreeing with you, and to live at ease and in accord with your neighbors, but to do this you must make up your mind to think very little and never to have a cause too much at heart, or you will be sure to offend somebody. You must shut your eyes to the horrors of war, of poverty, of hungry children, and say it is no use bothering or criticizing, as these things cannot be remedied. The man who says they can be remedied is often looked upon with suspicion or contempt, and even anger. All the greatest men and women have given their allegiance to truth, as we know by reading history. Thoreau was one of these. He lived at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when people were no longer sent to the stake for holding independent views, but they were made, as they still are now, to suffer all the same. Thoreau, like Garrison and Tolstoy and others of our heroes, thought that conscience should be above the State, and that men should be men first and subjects afterwards. But he was much more consistent than most people. He put himself to a great deal of trouble to carry out his principles. It was not enough for him to preach267 against the things he disapproved of—he lived and acted his disapproval. He pleaded in public for John Brown when he was condemned to death, and went to prison for a night for refusing to pay a tax in support of what he considered an unjust war. He did not enjoy this; it was a trouble and a bother, but Thoreau did what he thought right.

His was a pure and courageous spirit; he never said a thing for the sake of pleasing, and he saw with a clear, unprejudiced eye the futility, the stupidity, the waste of energy, and the sadness of much we have come to look upon as part of existence itself. But Thoreau was always, to the end of his rather short life, full of hope and trust. He would set about improving things by improving himself. His greatness lay in his originality and independence of character. He thrashed out questions for himself, and threw a fresh and illuminating light on them. He was a rebel in his quiet way, as Garibaldi or Cromwell were rebels on the field of battle.

XII

TOLSTOY

1828–1910

The true life is the common life of all—not the life of the one. All must labor for the life of others.

Tolstoy, one of the greatest novelists and the greatest thinkers of the nineteenth century, was a Russian.

His father, Count Nicholas Tolstoy, and his mother, Princess Marie Volkonsky, were both aristocrats, whose ancestors had been well known and important people for some generations.

Yasnaya Polyana (which means “Bright Glade”), where Leo Tolstoy was born, belonged to his mother. It was a very pretty place, and consisted of a large wooden house surrounded by woods and avenues of lime-trees, and with a river and four lakes and a lot of property belonging to it.

Tolstoy’s mother died when he was a year and a half old, so he could not remember her; but all he heard about her made him love her memory. He tells us that she appeared to him as “a creature so elevated, fine, and spiritual,” that often, during his struggles to be good and overcome temptation, he prayed270 to her soul to help him, and that such prayer always did. She seems to have been a gifted and delightful woman, speaking five languages and playing the piano exceptionally well. She had a gift for telling stories too. At balls, it is said, her young girl-friends would leave the dance and gather together in a dark room to hear her tell a story, for the Princess had to have the room darkened or she felt shy.

Tolstoy’s mother was hot-tempered, yet self-controlled. She was generous and hardly ever condemned anybody, and she was very truthful. Her son Leo inherited many of her qualities.

Tolstoy lost his father when he was nine years old, but he remembered him quite well, and writes of him as a good, conscientious man, who spent his life looking after his estate, not very cleverly, but who was especially humane and kind for those days, as he never beat his serfs and was considered lacking in firmness. He was, however, an independent-minded man, who refused to bow down before the will of the Russian Government: indeed, he refused always to serve under it. Tolstoy had a great love and admiration for his father, but nothing like the feeling he had for the memory of his mother.

Tolstoy and his three brothers and a sister were brought up at Yasnaya Polyana by a distant relative, whom they called Aunt Tatiana. She was rather a remarkable character, and Leo was devoted to her. He tells us she greatly helped to form his character. 271Writing about her, he says: “Aunt Tatiana had the greatest influence on my life. From earliest childhood she taught me the spiritual delight of love. She taught me this joy not by words, but by her whole being she filled me with love. I saw, I felt how she enjoyed loving, and I understood the joy of love. This was the first thing. Secondly, she taught me the delights of an unhurried, quiet life.”

His aunt used to welcome all sorts of pilgrims to Yasnaya, beggars and monks and nuns, people despised by the rest of the world, so that Leo was brought up in a strange, almost mediæval atmosphere—an atmosphere that was religious, poetical, simple, and very far from worldly. We find Tolstoy after a long life of varied experiences returning again to the habits and beliefs of his youth, and to a life of humility and simple living.

Tolstoy had the greatest admiration for his eldest brother Nicholas, who, he always said, was a much greater man than himself; but Nicholas died before he had time to show what he was capable of. This brother invented a game called “Ant Brothers.” He told Leo and his two brothers of six and seven that he possessed a secret and, when it was known, all men would become happy; there would be no more disease, no trouble, and no one would be angry with any one else; all would love one another and become “ant brothers.” The game consisted of sitting under chairs surrounded by boxes, screening themselves272 from view with handkerchiefs, and cuddling against one another in the dark. Tolstoy says: “The ‘ant brotherhood’ was revealed to us, but not the chief secret: the way for all men to cease suffering any misfortune, to leave off quarreling and being angry, and become continuously happy: this secret Nicholas said he had written on a green stick and buried by the road at the edge of a certain ravine, at which spot (since my body must be buried somewhere) I have asked to be buried in memory of Nicholas.”

Writing when he was over seventy, Tolstoy says: “The ideal of ant brothers lovingly clinging to one another, though not under two armchairs curtained by handkerchiefs, but of all mankind under the wide dome of heaven, has remained the same for me. As I then believed that there existed a little green stick, whereon was written the message which could destroy all evil in men and give them universal welfare, so I now believe that such truth exists, and will be revealed to men and will give them all it promises.”

Tolstoy’s early childhood was on the whole very happy, in spite of his far-seeing, sensitive, and rather morbid nature. At times he was certainly very miserable, but, on the other hand, he had an immense power of enjoyment, and loved games and horses and dogs and the country itself, and his affections were very strong.

One of the things that worried him as a child was his own looks; he thought himself so plain. He says273 in his autobiographical novel “Childhood”: “I imagined there could be no happiness on earth for a man with so broad a nose, such thick lips, and such small gray eyes as mine. I asked God to perform a miracle and change me into a handsome boy....” He tried to improve his appearance by clipping his eyebrows, with most disastrous results, as of course he was uglier and unhappier than ever.

Tolstoy showed no particular talent for anything as a child, though he was very original, and quite determined not to do things like other people. When he came into the drawing-room, for instance, he insisted upon bowing to people backwards, bending his head the wrong way, and saluting each person thus in turn. He was not good at his lessons, and mentions somewhere that a student who came to teach him and his brothers said about them: “Serge both wishes and can, Dmitry wishes but can’t (This was not true), and Leo neither wishes nor can (This I think was perfectly true).” This was characteristic of Tolstoy, who was always hard on himself. But if the tutor lived to see what Tolstoy became, he must have been rather ashamed of his lack of perception.

Before Tolstoy was sixteen he entered a university with his brothers. There was no doubt that, like many other young people, he hated study, though he worked hard and passed well in languages. In history and geography he failed, and being asked to name the French seaports, he could not remember a single one.274 He left the university rather disgusted with himself and despising intellectual things. His companions had not really understood him, for he was a strange mixture. Sometimes he was very proud and aristocratic, yet with advanced Liberal views; and he was moody, at one moment wildly gay, at another sunk in gloom. He always looked upon the worst side of himself, and wrote in his diary that he was awkward, uncleanly, irritable, a bore to others, ignorant, intolerant, and shamefaced as a child: there was no end to the names he called himself. He admits that he is honest and that he loves goodness, but on the whole he is very unfair to himself, for the reason that he had set up such a high ideal to live up to.

Now he intended, though only nineteen, to devote himself to his peasants. He went back to his property with great zeal for reform. He knew of the sufferings of the serfs, the famines and revolts. For a time he worked among them and learned to know all about their lives. But he was too young, and lacked patience at present to do much good. After six months, rather discouraged and disappointed, he was off on a different experience. He made his home now at St. Petersburg, where he was most frivolous and idle. He understood quite well what a stupid life he was leading, and in a religious book he wrote in after years, called “My Confession,” he says that though he honestly desired to be good, he stood alone in his search after goodness. Every time he expressed the longings275 of his heart for a virtuous life, he met with contempt and mocking laughter, but every time he was frivolous or wicked, he was praised and encouraged.

Yet on the whole this gay life at St. Petersburg was not altogether useless. It taught him something, and he was not really spoilt by it. He was big enough and intelligent enough to see the utter futility and uselessness of such a life. It gave him, he says, a scorn for aristocracy and the life of rich people generally, whose whole existence was “a mania of selfishness.”

Tolstoy’s favorite brother Nicholas, who was serving in the Russian army, saw what an unsatisfactory state his brother was in, and so persuaded Leo to become a soldier and join him in the Caucasus. This Leo was only too glad to do. He says in a letter at that time, “God willing, I will amend and become a steady man at last.”

Now, the open-air, primitive life in this part of Russia quite restored Tolstoy to himself, and he began to write. His first book, “Childhood,” was written and published while he was there. This novel, though not strictly speaking a history of his own childhood, is mostly about his own youthful life; the incidents that occur in it are many of them true, and the characters are taken from friends and relatives. It is a very wonderful book, as showing how vividly Tolstoy remembered his own feelings as a child, how intensely he must have felt and suffered, and what276 his powers of thought and observation must have been. He continued this book, and brought out later other volumes entitled “Boyhood” and “Youth.” They are all three full of beautiful things. Tolstoy also wrote about the Caucasus, a novel called “The Cossacks,” a romantic story of the strange, wild people who inhabit this part of Russia.

At the time of the Crimean War, Tolstoy experienced as a soldier the horrors of battle. He was at the siege of Sebastopol, and wrote the book of that name. It made a great sensation when it came out, soon after the war was over. Its profound understanding of the feelings of men who were constantly facing death and danger, and of those who were dying, made a deep impression on people.

Tolstoy, from seeing war, formed his very strong opinions against it. He became from that time one of the most passionate apostles of peace. He saw how much that is splendid is sometimes brought out in people who face the terrors of war, but, on the other hand, he saw its fearful uselessness, the waste of noble human beings, the suffering it causes everywhere, and the destruction, in some, of all human feeling. “It is not suffering and death that are terrible,” says Tolstoy, “but that which allows people to inflict suffering and death.”

Tolstoy after Sebastopol left the army and went back to St. Petersburg, this time to live in a literary circle, where he was welcomed by distinguished au277thors as the most promising writer of the day. Nobody, after reading “Childhood” or “Sebastopol,” could fail to see Tolstoy’s marvelous genius for seeing things as they are, and his gift of expression. But he grew impatient in this circle, for his views were too advanced and his love of truth too strong. He could not agree with people, and he could not pretend to agree with them. So he was thought quarrelsome and conceited, and his opinions absurd. He was always questioning things, such as the meaning of existence, and whether he himself was of any use; he would take nothing as a matter of course. Already, before he was twenty-seven, he had conceived the great idea of devoting his life to founding a new Religion—the Religion of Christianity, in fact, but cleansed of all its dogmas, which have nothing to do with Christianity: a practical religion, giving happiness on earth, not merely the promise of future happiness.

And another great question absorbed him, the question of emancipating the serfs. Peasants who worked on the land in Russia were held much as slaves, and were the absolute property of their masters, forced to work for them so many days a week before they might do any work for themselves. Tolstoy violently took the side of the peasants in all that concerned them, and his purpose in life was more or less fixed from this time onward. Like our other great man of noble birth, William of Orange, who worked on the side of the people, he was determined to leave278 no stone unturned until the conditions of the poor had been improved and justice done them.

Now, in order to learn more of the habits and customs of other countries, and principally their systems of education, Tolstoy went abroad and visited France, Germany, and England. Then, returning to his home, he settled down as a land-owner and managed his own estates.

Tolstoy, with characteristic energy and enthusiasm, flung himself into the work of dividing out lands between nobles and peasants. He acted as a judge in his own district, and annoyed his aristocratic neighbors by being fair to the poor: he had seen too often how they had been cheated out of their rights.

It was difficult, rather discouraging work, because years of oppression had made the peasants suspicious and grasping, and Tolstoy’s task was to try to remove this distrust. He became more and more socialistic, and his literary friends were very much disappointed in him, for he seemed to be giving up his writing. One wrote: “Tolstoy has grown a long beard, leaves his hair to fall in curls over his ears, holds newspapers in detestation, and has no soul for anything but his property.”

Tolstoy had also started on another enterprise. This was a school after his own theories at Yasnaya and a monthly magazine which he printed and edited,279 all about his views on education. He saw how most learning is mechanical, and how a child does not learn because he wants to, but in order not to be punished, or to earn a prize, or to be better than others, but very seldom from a real desire to know. This Tolstoy considered was because the child was so drilled and made to behave unnaturally, and to have a different manner in school than he had out. He was not free, and only when a child was free and natural and lively, and allowed to ask questions and to laugh and talk, could he learn with pleasure and therefore thoroughly. In Tolstoy’s school there was no order as we know it: children sat on the floor or bunches of them in an arm-chair; they did just as they pleased, and ran about from place to place. They answered questions, not in turn but all together, interrupting one another or helping one another to remember. If one child left out a bit of story that he had to tell, another jumped up and put it in.

Tolstoy encouraged the children not to repeat literally what they had heard, but to tell “out of your own head.” As there were very few reading books for young children, Tolstoy wrote stories for them himself, which, as they have been translated into English, we are able to read ourselves and to judge how they must have delighted his small pupils. He also read to them and explained to them Bible stories, of which he was very fond.

There was no doubt that Tolstoy had a gift for 280 teaching and interested the children as no ordinary teacher could. His methods are not for every one.

Tolstoy’s classes came to an end after two years, because he was interfered with by the Government; but he revived them at intervals during his life, and there is no doubt that his views on education helped to make teaching in Russia more reasonable and natural, and put fresh ideas about it into people’s heads.

Tolstoy’s only companion at this time was his aunt Tatiana, but in 1862, when he was thirty-four, he married Miss Sophia Behrs, who was only eighteen. He had known her as a little girl.

Tolstoy now settled down to a very happy life—the life, indeed, which had been his ideal, and which he had described as such in a letter to his aunt, when quite a young man. He pictures himself living with his wife at Yasnaya—

A gentle creature, kind and affectionate, she has the same love for you as I have; you live upstairs in the big house, in what used to be Grandmamma’s room; the whole house is as it was in Papa’s time.... I take Papa’s place, though I despair of ever deserving it. My wife that of Mamma; the children take ours. If they made me Emperor of Russia or gave me Peru—in a word, if a fairy came with her wand asking me what I wished for, I should reply that I only wished that this dream may become reality.

And all this actually came to pass. Aunt Tatiana, when Tolstoy married, continued to live with him. 281 He had many children, managed his estates, taught the peasants, and wrote books, and though he was not living in the same house in which he was born, for the large wooden house had been removed and sold to pay his father’s debts, he lived on the same spot in the stone one erected in its place. His wife helped in everything, in spite of her large family, for they had thirteen children. She found time to copy out all her husband’s manuscripts, which to most people would have been as impossible a task as looking for a needle in a haystack, they were so extraordinarily badly written, and scratched out and rewritten. His first great novel, “War and Peace,” one of the longest novels in existence, is said to have been copied out by Countess Tolstoy seven times.

Tolstoy always lived with his children, and did not banish them to nurseries and schoolrooms, as some people do. Up to the age of ten they were taught by their father and mother; their mother taught them Russian and music, and their father arithmetic and French. Most entertaining French it was, which consisted of reading amusing stories out of illustrated volumes of Jules Verne. If there happened to be a volume without pictures, Tolstoy made the pictures himself. He drew very badly, yet his pictures were so amusing that the children liked them much better than the ordinary ones.

He would discuss and explain interesting things with his children, and they were always eager to be282 with him, to go walks with him, and be on his side in any game he taught them. Clearing the snow off the ponds in winter under their father’s direction was even more amusing than the skating itself. They rode and hunted with their father, for in the earlier part of his life Tolstoy was an enthusiastic sportsman. He was brave, daring, and an excellent shot, and he enjoyed more than anything being out in the open air.

In the early morning, before breakfast, Tolstoy would usually go for a long walk, or ride down to bathe in the river. At morning coffee, or what we call breakfast, the family all met together, and Tolstoy was always very merry. He would be up to all sorts of jokes, till he got up with the words, “One must get to work,” and off he went to his study to write books, and he would work for many hours on end, though in summer he would often come out and play with the children. This always delighted them, as he brought such spirit and interest into their games, and he would invent new ones himself—which were better than any. If they had secrets, he always guessed them, so that they regarded him as a sort of magician. His son writes of him: “My father hardly ever made us do anything, but it always somehow came about that of our own initiative we did exactly what he wanted us to. My mother often scolded us and punished us, but when my father wanted us to do anything, he merely looked us hard283 in the eyes, and we understood—the look was far more effective than any command. It was impossible to hide anything from him, as impossible as to hide it from your own conscience. He knew everything, and to deceive him was nearly impossible and quite useless.”

This same son, Ilya, Tolstoy’s second boy, tells many amusing stories of the Tolstoy family life, and of the great part his father played in it. One story is as follows: Ilya, when a little boy, was given a big china cup and saucer by his mother at Christmas-time. He was so excited that he ran very fast to show it to the others, and as he ran from one room to another, he caught his foot on the step in the doorway and fell down and broke his cup to smithereens. When accused by his mother of being careless, he howled and said it was not his fault, but the fault of the beastly architect who had gone and put a step in the doorway. Tolstoy, overhearing him, was much amused, and said, “It is the architect’s fault, it is the architect’s fault!” This phrase became a saying in the family, and Tolstoy was always using it when any one threw the blame on any one else. When one of the children fell off his horse because he stumbled, or when he did his lessons badly because his tutor had not explained them properly, and so on, “Of course, I know,” Tolstoy would say; “it is the architect’s fault.”

Tolstoy had some excellent inventions for making284 his children cheerful. When they would all be sitting rather cross and bored after the departure of some dull visitors, he would suddenly jump up from his seat, and, lifting one arm in the air with its hand hanging loose from the wrist, run at full speed round the table at a hopping gallop. Every one rose and flew after him, hopping and waving their hands. They went round the room several times, and then sat down again in their chairs, panting, and quite gay and lively once more. This game, which was known as “Numidian Cavalry,” had an excellent effect, and many a time the children’s tears were dried by it and quarrels forgotten.

Tolstoy, amongst other things, enjoyed music, and was fond of playing duets on the piano. After dinner he would settle down to this, usually with his wife’s sister. When he was in difficulties he would say things to make her laugh, so that she had to play slower, and sometimes, if this did not succeed, he would stop and take off one of his boots, saying, “Now it will go all right.”

Tolstoy was as young as anybody in his love of fun and games, the more nonsensical the better; and his laughter was most infectious, beginning on a high note, and his whole body would shake.

People ought to know about this amusing side of Tolstoy’s character, in order to get out of their heads that he was a painfully serious man without a sense of humor, who asked impossibilities of people. He285 had many sides to his character, as we shall see, and that is what makes him so intensely interesting.

Tolstoy was a deeply affectionate man, loving above all things his home, his wife, and his children. If ever he had to leave them for a time, even if it were only on a hunting expedition, he would always as he approached his home say, “If only all is well at home!” Whatever he did, he did with his whole heart and soul. He was an enthusiastic schoolmaster, a keen sportsman and farmer, and an excellent gardener and beekeeper. He looked into everything on his estate and insisted upon having all his pigs washed, and there were as many as three hundred!

So Tolstoy’s life was as full as it possibly could be. For the first ten years of his married life he was so much occupied with the cares of family life, and the life of a country gentleman, that he had less time for thought and did not worry himself quite so much about the reasons of life. He was also absorbed in his writing, and being a perfect giant for work, was able during this period—in spite of his numberless activities—to write two very great novels, besides many shorter stories and primers for children.

“War and Peace,” an historical novel of the time of Napoleon, and requiring an immense amount of research, and “Anna Karenina” are as great as any novels that have been written in any country. Tolstoy’s extraordinary powers of observation and his acute, almost uncanny, understanding of human na286ture, make his characters so living and human that, having read about them, they become as people you have known, and you can never forget them.

Also, Tolstoy’s experience of life was wide and varied, and everything he wrote about he had himself known and seen. War in the Crimea, fashionable life in St. Petersburg, life with gipsies in the Caucasus, with peasants in the country, the joys and sorrows of intimate family life with children and animals—nothing escaped his notice, and his books are simply life seen through the medium of his wonderful and penetrating mind; there is nothing like them.

So there he was, the most brilliant and successful writer of the day, with a happy domestic life, money, a delightful property, and devoted servants and tenants. If any one ought to have been contented, it might be said it was Tolstoy. And yet he became dissatisfied and began again, as he had in earlier days, to find fault with himself and with his own life. He was fifty when the change in him began to take place; and yet it was no change really, he had always been the same; and the people who amuse themselves by finding inconsistencies in his character are wrong when they accuse him of being changeable: he merely returned now to his earliest ideals, which had been there all the time, though his intense enjoyment of life and his many occupations had prevented his thinking quite so much of working out his theories. It will be seen that Tolstoy had an extraordinary tenacity of287 purpose, and during his life carried through nearly all he had dreamed of doing. About the big and important things of life he remained always the same, though at times his high spirits made it appear as though he had forgotten about the problems that had worried him. But now, once more the question of how to lead the best life, and what is meant by religion, became uppermost in his mind, and a great disgust seized him of the life he and his family were leading. Everything he had enjoyed he now despised. He hated the luxury of his life, the fact of having servants to wait on him, his daughters in muslin dresses drinking tea: “The life of our circle of society,” he said, “not only repelled me, but lost all meaning.”

Yet there was nothing grossly luxurious or selfish about the life led by the Tolstoy family: according to most aristocratic ideas of luxury their life was simple. Nothing could be plainer than the house at Yasnaya, solidly built as it was, with double windows to keep out the cold and large Dutch stoves. The rooms were very bare and the floors mostly uncarpeted, the furniture faded and old-fashioned. But the family fed well, and kept a great many servants, which seemed necessary, as the Tolstoys, like many Russians, had hosts of poor relations living with them, besides tutors, governesses, and old servants; they were also a very large family in themselves.

But now life appeared to Tolstoy as dust and ashes.288 His wife and children, the praise of men, art—he turned from it all. His family at first could not understand why he should be in such despair; it was difficult to feel sympathy with his sufferings. To them he appeared to possess everything that most people considered good and desirable, and the life he was leading excellent and blameless. So they could not help him, and he had to suffer alone.

Tolstoy’s second son, who has written his recollections of his father, says he began to notice a change in his habits about this time. He left off hunting and shooting and riding, and took instead long walks on the road, where he could meet pilgrims and beggars and have talks with them. At dinner he would tell his family about them. He became gloomy and irritable, and quarreled with his wife over trifles. He no longer played with his children. When they were enjoying themselves acting or playing croquet he would walk in and spoil it all by a word or even a look.

He did not want to spoil their fun, but for all that he did. He had often not said anything, but he had thought it. “We all knew what he had thought, and that was what made us so uncomfortable,” his son says.

It was trying for the children to lose their jolly, delightful companion, who had brought such zest into their games and whose gaiety had been so infectious.289 Now they rather dreaded the appearance of this stern man who disapproved of them.

He did nothing but blame the useless lives led by ladies and gentlemen, their laziness, greed, and the way they made other people work for them.

Here we sit in our well-heated rooms, and this very day a man was found frozen to death on the high-road. He was frozen to death because no one would give him a night’s lodging.

We stuff ourselves with cutlets and pastry while people are dying by thousands from famine.

The children understood what he said, but it spoiled all their childish amusements and broke up their happy life.

Tolstoy was very unhappy for a period of four or five years and could see no meaning in existence. But at last he discovered a purpose in life and a religion to help him. It was really Christianity, and Christ’s Sermon on the Mount became his gospel. The life of a Russian peasant he was convinced was the example of how to live. Man, he thought, should be simple, hardworking, and kind; he should give more than he received and he should rejoice in serving others. Tolstoy saw it was no good preaching without practising, and so he tried to live like a Russian peasant. He ate very little and lived principally290 upon vegetables. He dressed like a peasant too, in summer in a smock and in the winter in a sheepskin coat and cap and high boots. He refused to have any one to wait on him, and did his own room. This was not easy to him, as, though he had always hated luxury, as an aristocrat he had taken certain things for granted, such as the fact that his clothes would always be folded and brushed and put away by a servant. By nature he was very untidy, and it was really an effort to him to pick up his things and keep them in order. In earlier days, when he had dressed and undressed, he let all his clothes tumble on to the floor, and there they would lie in different parts of the room until they were picked up. To see him pack his portmanteau for a journey was said to be an unforgettable sight, the confusion and disorder was something so hopeless. But now he tried to turn over a new leaf so as not to give people trouble.

Tolstoy saw the utter uselessness of preaching what you never intend to practise. He was quite determined to carry out all he asked others to do. After all it is more by the life you lead and example rather than by words that you persuade people, and Tolstoy tells a true story in this connection. It is as follows:

The Tolstoy family took into their house a dirty, homeless little boy, to teach him and to benefit him generally. “What,” asks Tolstoy, “did the boy see and learn?”

He saw Tolstoy’s own children, older than himself291 and of his own age, dirtying and spoiling things, breaking and spilling things, and throwing food to the dogs which seemed to the boy delicacies, expecting other people to wait on them and never doing any work themselves. Tolstoy understood then, he says, how absurd it was to take poor people into your house and educate them, when you were yourselves leading such idle, useless lives.

Tolstoy says his one desire was to hide their life from the boy; everything that he told him or tried to teach him he felt was destroyed by the example they were all setting him.

So Tolstoy tried hard to live according to his ideals, and became something like a monk but without a monk’s narrow views and superstitious beliefs. He dropped his title quite naturally, and when a peasant called him “Your Excellency,” Tolstoy replied, “I am called simply Leo Nikolayevitch,” and went on to speak of the matter in hand. Manual labor, which had always been a pleasure to him, now became a sort of religion. Every day he worked for hours at hay-making, plowing, reaping or wood-cutting as the case might be. Nothing absorbed him like mowing, and he would stand among the peasants in his smock listening with perfect happiness to the sound of scythes. Country life, labor, healthy appetite and sound sleep was his idea of a happy life.

In the winter evenings Tolstoy learned to make boots. He engaged a black-bearded shoemaker to come292 and teach him, and side by side they sat on two stools in a little room near Tolstoy’s study.

Tolstoy was never satisfied until he had done the job exactly as the shoemaker did it. Groaning with the effort of threading a waxed thread, he would refuse the assistance of the bearded man. “I’ll do it!—No, no—I’ll do it myself, it’s the only way to learn,” he would say.

As to the boots which Tolstoy made, a man to whom he had given a pair and who had worn them, was asked whether they were well made. “Couldn’t be worse,” was his reply.

Now for a time the whole Tolstoy family and their friends were filled with this enthusiasm for outdoor work. They rose early, and in company with the peasants the Tolstoy children and their mother, in a Russian dress, uncles, aunts, and even grandmothers, mowed the grass and strove to outdo the other. They had no theories about it, but simply found it a change and a pleasant satisfactory way of taking exercise.

All sorts of people now made pilgrimages to Yasnaya, to learn how to live, for Tolstoy’s fame as a teacher had begun to go about the land. Rich aristocrats wanted to throw away their gold and do the housework, and a governess of the Tolstoys, who has written rather malicious though amusing accounts of Tolstoy’s life at this time, describes enthusiastic ladies who came to Yasnaya and manured the fields in white dressing jackets!293 Tolstoy suffered from the silliness of some of his followers, and once sadly said he supposed he should be known through them and their eccentricities. There is a good deal of truth in the saying that a man’s admirers are sometimes his worst enemies.

Tolstoy gave up writing novels, and wrote only one more, “Resurrection,” quite at the end of his life. This was written with a great moral purpose, and is a serious and terrible book. His earlier novels he now referred to as “wordy rubbish”; he hated them, as he felt they were frivolous and could only be interesting to the upper classes. He wrote, however, a great many books on life, conduct, and religion, and children’s stories. They were printed very cheaply and taken round by pedlars. The peasants read and loved these books, and they seemed to penetrate right into the heart of Russia. They were written simply, and the peasants understood them. Tolstoy was very happy that he had been able to help and please the poor people.

Now, preaching as Tolstoy did against property and the extraordinarily unfair system which allows one man to have a thousand acres and another not even a foot, he could not satisfy himself until he had got rid of his own property; so difficulties arose with his family. His wife would not have felt so strongly about it, no doubt, if she had had only herself to think of; but it is difficult for a mother to believe that her children will be happier and better without money294 and possessions; she did not want to see her children impoverished. Tolstoy thought a mother’s love was selfish, and often writes about it in this sense.

Countess Tolstoy had been upset when her husband gave up writing novels, for they brought in a lot of money; and now, with their largely increased family, their income, instead of becoming more, became less. Tolstoy, in a letter to his wife on this subject, says:

... but I cannot help repeating that our happiness or unhappiness cannot in the least depend on whether we lose or acquire something, but only what we ourselves are. Now if we left Kostenka (one of their children) a million, would he be happier?... What our life together is, with our joys and sorrows, will appear to our children real life, but neither languages, nor diplomas, nor society, and still less money, make our happiness or unhappiness, and therefore the question how much our income shrinks cannot occupy me.

Tolstoy finally satisfied himself by giving up his estates to his family. The house itself he left to the youngest, Ivan. This was a tradition in the family, Tolstoy, as his mother’s youngest son, having inherited Yasnaya Polyana.

This little boy, who was born when Tolstoy was quite old, promised to be very remarkable, and his father took more interest in him than any of his other children. The child Ivan understood things just as his father did. When one day his mother said to him, “Ivan, Yasnaya is yours,” he was very angry and295 stamped his foot passionately, crying “Don’t say that Yasnaya Polyana is mine! everything is everyone else’s.” The child died when he was seven, and it was a most bitter grief to Tolstoy. But Masha, his second daughter, was a comfort to him; she took her father’s side when she was only fifteen, and though she was very delicate, she used all the strength she had in working for the poor, looking after the peasants’ wives and doing their work for them when they were ill, minding the children and cleaning and cooking.

Many people blame Countess Tolstoy for not seeing eye to eye with her husband, but I think it would have been a very great deal to expect of any woman, that she should discard all the habits of a lifetime and renounce everything she had been accustomed to, to change her way of living and of bringing up her children. She describes her feelings very well in a letter to her sister, saying that her husband is a leader, one who goes ahead of the crowd pointing the way men should go. “But I am the crowd,” she says; “I live in its current, and see the light of the lamp which every leader, and Leo of course, carries, and I acknowledge it to be the light. But I cannot go faster; I am held by the crowd and by my surroundings and habits.”

Countess Tolstoy also felt that her husband was wasting himself; he had a genius for writing novels, and he deliberately gave up writing them and occu296pied himself instead with log-splitting, reaping, and making boots which anybody could do, and do better. It was tiresome of him to play at being “Robinson Crusoe,” as Countess Tolstoy expressed it.

No doubt he was provoking, but though Tolstoy and his wife sometimes quarreled, they were devoted to one another all the same, as may be seen by the very delightful quotation out of a letter of Countess Tolstoy’s to her husband.

All at once I pictured you vividly to myself, and a sudden flood of tenderness rose in me. There is something in you so wise, kind, naïve, and obstinate, and it is all lit up by that tender interest for every one natural to you alone, and by your look that reaches to people’s souls.

Sometimes Tolstoy had to accompany his family to Moscow. This became the regular arrangement in the winter, when his daughter Tanya grew up and began to go to balls and parties. Countess Tolstoy was always very energetic, arranging their flat and calling upon people who would ask her daughter to parties.

Tolstoy, after living in the country, found the artificiality of town life almost unbearable, and the luxury of the circle they lived in was to him torture. He had to occupy himself in order to bear it. One winter he spent his time taking a census of people in the poorest part of Moscow.

He was so horrified at the appalling misery he came297 across that he wanted to run away. He knew poverty in the country, but he had never seen anything like the poverty he came across in the town. Writing about it, he says:

I could not look at our own or anybody else’s drawing-room, or a clean, well-spread dining-table, or a carriage with well-fed coachman and horses, or shops or theaters without a feeling of profound irritation.

It was because he had seen the other side of the picture. And unfortunately there always is another side to the picture.

He saw this side by side with the wretched lodging-houses he had been visiting, filled with cold, hungry, dreadful people, and one he felt was the result of the other.

His son says the look of suffering on his father’s face at that time he shall never forget.

He was simply overcome with pity and with shame and indignation that our civilization can permit such things. So he went back to Yasnaya alone, and feeling ill with despair; he took things to heart in an extraordinary way. But gradually the peace and loneliness of the country comforted him, and he set to work on a book about his experiences with the poor in Moscow, and called it “What Then Must We Do?” He simply wrote down what he had seen and heard, and asked what we were to do to destroy what is in truth slavery—starving people struggling to live and298 driven to crime by their miserable conditions, while others have riches and luxury, even throwing their superfluous food to the dogs and enjoying the fruit of other people’s labor.

It was impossible for Tolstoy to have any respect for civilization as such, unless it really helped men. He judged it fairly by what it did and found it wanting. He longed to see real progress, not merely mechanical progress. He did not call progress making battleships, inventing flying machines, or electricity, or explosives if people’s hearts remained hard. He wanted to see a spiritual progress, people being kind and helpful to one another.

The root of all the evil lay in man’s selfishness, he thought, and the corruption of Governments: these he considered existed only for the benefit of the rich. We must remember that the Russian Government at that time was one of the most backward of so-called civilized Powers, and what we call representative government did not exist at all, but a government by a few for the few.

Tolstoy also set himself to the great work he had dreamt of doing as a young man, that of separating the true from the false in the teachings of the Church. The Greek or the Russian Church does not differ fundamentally in its doctrines from the Roman Catholic or Protestant churches.

Tolstoy saw that man needed some religion or chart to guide him through life, and being himself pro299foundly religious by nature, he did not, like Voltaire, merely scoff and destroy, but tried also to build up and to construct something really tangible and helpful to human beings.

The truth he believed lay in the teaching of Christ. “If you wish to understand the truth,” Tolstoy said, “read the Gospels”; and the book he wrote on the Gospels is an explanation of Christ’s teaching. He asked himself, were the things that children and ignorant people taught true? and if they were not they should be exposed publicly. Every honest man should speak out. But people he saw were so confused in their minds about religion that they thought it must be supernatural, senseless, and incomprehensible, or it wasn’t religion.

Tolstoy wanted to make it a real and living force. He told the peasants in his books that God was not the cruel, revengeful, punishing Person they had been taught to believe Him; that He did not go about hardening people’s hearts and directing them to murder, and that they would not go to Hell for being unbaptized. On the contrary, he told them that God was good and that every human being, as the son of God, was good too, and could increase, by loving goodness, the divine in himself, by loving others as himself and by acting toward everybody as you would they should act toward you. But to kill another or abuse him, or to profit at the expense of any man, this was what made misery in the world. Tolstoy300 preached that all men are equal, as Christ had, and that nothing can be done by force or by violence, but only by love.

The Church in Russia was able to exercise a sort of inquisition, employing people to spy on suspected free-thinkers all over the country. There existed at the time, about a hundred miles from Moscow, a Bastille, or fortress, where persons objected to or suspected by the Russian Church, were shut up. In its dark and damp dungeons innocent people would be left for many years, sometimes forgotten altogether. Tolstoy would most certainly have been arrested and probably sent there, if he had not been an aristocrat with an aunt at court who pleaded for him with the Czar. As it was, he was excommunicated by the Holy Synod, the head of the Russian Church.

Tolstoy was proving dangerous, his influence was beginning to be felt; he was undermining the power of the Church and State by showing the poor people that they have a right to live and that all men are equal; that Christ had said so, and that the Church has no right to misrepresent His words.

Tolstoy’s books were no longer allowed in libraries; newspapers were forbidden to mention any meetings held in his favor. Telegraph offices actually refused to take messages of sympathy sent him, though abusive telegrams arrived quite punctually.

During a terrible famine in Russia, when Tolstoy and his family worked night and day and gave all301 they possessed to the starving peasants, the priests tried to frighten them and preached against Tolstoy, saying he was Antichrist and they should not eat his food.

But the excommunication of Tolstoy had really quite the opposite effect to what was intended. It shocked the whole world, and Tolstoy’s name was received with more and more sympathy.

The views he expressed and the books he wrote had greater influence than ever before. The Russian people themselves seemed to realize that they possessed one of the greatest moral teachers in the world. But as the people of Russia became freer in their views and less subservient to authority, so in proportion the Government became harder and tightened its hold upon them. Tolstoy had not hitherto written on political life, but the cruel repression of all forms of liberty by violence roused him at the end of his life to write against the Government of his country a tragic letter which he published in the European papers, entitled: “I can keep silent no longer.” He said his life was made unendurable by the suffering of his people, and he begs all to cease from hatred and revenge.

Mr. Aylmer Maude, Tolstoy’s English biographer, visited the great man at Yasnaya Polyana towards the end of his life. He says what struck him most then about Tolstoy was his sympathy and kindness more than his intellect. He had mellowed with age, and302 from having been impatient, violent in argument, and often obstinate and unjust, he had become patient and gentle, though he was still intensely alive and caring as ardently for things as most people of twenty-five.

The atmosphere he created round him in his old age was peculiarly peaceful, and yet a lively and intelligent interest was taken by every one in everything. The influence of Tolstoy seemed to make all who came into contact with him kind and simple. There were no shams anywhere. Tolstoy had not forced his views on his children, as he was afraid they might follow him insincerely. He wanted them to be completely free and sincere.

When he was eighty-two Tolstoy left his home. His reasons for doing so are not quite clear, and we must form our own conclusions about it. A letter written to his wife some years before, to be opened after his death, explains a good deal.

Tolstoy wanted to devote his last days entirely to God. He wanted complete solitude and peace, in order to avoid at the end any sort of discord between his life and his beliefs. If he had talked about this plan, and told his family, there would have been discussions and perhaps quarrels, and he could not bear that. So he decided to slip away quietly without any one knowing. In the letter he explained that it would not mean that he was angry with his wife or any one else: indeed, he could not bear the idea of giving her303 pain. He said he should lovingly remember what his wife had been to him. But when the time came he was very weak and had been near death several times. He confided his secret plan to his youngest daughter Alexandra, for she, since his favorite daughter Masha had died a few years before, had been his companion and confidante. So one snowy night at the end of October she helped him to depart. He went with a doctor friend of his who had been living in the house for some time past.

His first wish was to visit his old sister and to take farewell of her. She was living in a convent, and seeing her ending her days so happily and peacefully, he wished he might have been able to enter a monastery, if only it had not been necessary to believe in the Church. On his journey by train—he had not yet made up his mind where he would settle down—he caught cold and had to stop at a little wayside station. There, in the station-master’s house, the cold developed into pneumonia, and as he was very weak there was little hope of his recovery. After a week of suffering he passed peacefully away, surrounded by his family and friends.

Before the end came, a telegram arrived from a high dignitary of the Church urging Tolstoy to return to the bosom of the Church. But it was not shown to him, for a similar message had been sent some years before when Tolstoy was very ill, and he had said, “How is it they do not understand that even304 when one is face to face with death, two and two still make four?”

Hundreds of people had flocked to the little country station when it was known that Tolstoy lay ill there. It was an extraordinary scene. Peasants who loved him jostled newspaper men who wanted the latest news. Photographers and police officers, literary people and aristocrats were there, and messages and telegrams arrived from all over the world. Multitudes of his poor peasants came to his funeral, and many wept aloud.

“Our great Leo is dead,” cried one. “Long live our great Leo’s spirit.”

Tolstoy’s body was laid where he had wished to lie, on the spot where his brother Nicholas had buried the green stick on which was written the great secret it was Tolstoy’s purpose in life to discover.

Every one who came near him seemed to feel it, and most of those who read his books. It is true that there still exists a certain number of people who recognize him only as a novelist. These are generally among the upper classes and among literary people who are impatient with him for having neglected his art. If it had not been for his novels it is probable that his influence would not have been nearly so far-reaching. It is doubtful whether fashionable people would have taken any notice of his serious books at all. But the fact that he had written “Anna Kare305nina” and had made a great name, roused their curiosity and they read his indictments against society, governments, and the Church with some interest, and many have gradually come under his spell.

It was Tolstoy’s profound sincerity and his warm heart that made people love him. They saw how passionate was his wish to make the world a better place, how he hated small, mean things, and worshiped goodness and truth. He had immense courage, and fame or the praise of men by the time he was middle-aged meant nothing to him. But he confesses that in his younger days he looked for and enjoyed success. His art had been a temptation to him, and that was one of the reasons why he would have nothing more to do with it.

Tolstoy was above all things a human being: indeed, it was his special characteristic. Being so, he was sometimes inconsistent and swayed by his moods and his likes and dislikes, which makes his critics say he did not practise his doctrine of love. He asked people to turn the other cheek and love their enemies, while he himself found it almost impossible to be agreeable to disagreeable people or to stupid people, and he never succeeded in tolerating those whom he considered responsible for the evils of our social system, rulers, politicians, and policemen.

When absorbed in thought he was forgetful and inconsiderate; he did not mean to be selfish, but his306 wife’s sufferings and what people who lived with him had to put up with did not strike him. He was impetuous, especially in his younger days, and he was always making resolutions which he failed very often to carry out. But all great idealists must suffer from this; it is infinitely better than having no ideals at all and making no mistakes. If a man with Tolstoy’s ideals could carry them all out, he would be the perfect man, and Tolstoy was far from being that. But no one could be more humble or more ready to blame himself, and as he grew older he more and more succeeded in practising in his life what he preached to others.

Tolstoy believed in God, and in the spiritual element that is in all men and women and which all, he insisted, must cherish and try to increase.

He believed that all men are equal as Christ did, and that all are brothers, so there should be no such thing as rivalry among nations, and no wars. If a man is not bent on money-making, on stealing and grasping for himself and taking away from others, if he only desires to treat them as he wishes they would treat himself, then will force become unnecessary. This idea may also be applied to States, for wars arise out of their jealousies and rivalry, in the search after power and wealth.

Tolstoy saw that much wickedness and misery came out of poverty, and a great deal through riches: one is often the cause of the other, and the unequal dis307tribution of wealth is one of the greatest problems of our civilization.

But Tolstoy says, could the meaning of renunciation, of giving up to others, be really understood, the battle would be won, and the need of force would not exist. The only crime is for man to act inhumanly to man. A change of heart is what Tolstoy pleads for, and every man and woman, he says, can do something to help, by example and having a purpose in life. “For life,” he says in a letter to his son, “is a place of service, and in that service one has to suffer at times a great deal that is hard to bear, but more often to experience a great deal of joy. But that joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal affairs.”

On seeing the terrible sight of capital punishment in France, Tolstoy wrote these striking words:

When I saw the head separate from the body and how they both jumped into the box at the same moment, I understood not with my mind but with my whole being, that no theory of the reasonableness of our present progress can justify this deed, and that though everybody from the creation of the world, on whatever theory had held it to be necessary, I know it to be unnecessary and bad, and therefore the arbiter of what is good and evil is not what people say and do and is not progress, but is my heart and I.

Who is to be the judge of what is right or wrong? asks Tolstoy, and answers, “A man’s own soul.” A308 man, he says, must not fear to stand alone. Now the fear of standing alone is not always cowardice; often a man has too little confidence in himself. In answer to the promptings of his heart or conscience he will say, “Perhaps I am wrong: after all, the majority think differently from what I do; they are probably right, for what am I?” But it is very seldom that a man’s conscience will lead him astray, and if he feels that a thing is bad or cruel, he should not stifle or ignore the instinct, but, on the contrary, trust and believe in it, for it is a divine thing created in man for his own safeguarding to direct and help him through the difficult ways of life.

Tolstoy had much in common with W. L. Garrison, whom he greatly admired, and wrote a preface to a Life of him written by a Russian. For both recognized no authority but a man’s own heart and conscience, both set themselves to the task of rousing people to a better understanding by moral persuasion, both detested force.

It is easy to say that Tolstoy was vague, unpractical, and even absurd in the things he taught. Some people think he was quite mistaken; those who honestly believe in force and government by a few privileged people must naturally think so. Tolstoy was very extreme, but what he did was to give people a higher, more spiritual ideal, to show them that life may be a noble thing.

Tolstoy realized as he grew older that we cannot309 be perfect all at once. Therefore he says, if you cannot love another as yourself, go as far as you can in that direction; if you cannot live in complete simplicity, live rather more simply, and so on.

By degrees we may be able to get somewhere nearer Tolstoy’s ideals, especially if we believe that we are naturally good, and not, as many of us have been taught, “by nature born in sin and the children of wrath.”

Since this was written a great change has come about in Russia, which may affect the whole of civilized Europe.

The People of Russia—the Workers—have risen against their rulers, and deposed the Czar and his advisers.

It is early days yet to say what the final outcome of the Revolution will be; but the upheaval is a step toward freedom, and behind it the spirit of Tolstoy moves. He, above all others, helped to sow the seed of the Russian Revolution, and maybe of other revolutions yet to come. What joy and thankfulness would have filled his great heart could he have seen the germination of this seed—the downfall of Czarism and the dawning of freedom for the People of Russia!

STANDARD CYCLOPÆDIAS FOR YOUNG OR OLD
CHAMPLIN’S
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By JOHN D. CHAMPLIN
Late Associate Editor of the American Cyclopædia

Bound in substantial red buckram. Each volume complete in itself and sold separately. 12mo, $3.00 per volume, net.

“A book which will be of permanent value to any boy or girl to whom it may be given, and which fills a place in the juvenile library, never, so far as I know, supplied before.”—Susan Coolidge.

“We know copies of the work to which their young owners turn instantly for information upon every theme about which they have questions to ask. More than this, we know that some of these copies are read daily, as well as consulted; that their owners turn the leaves as they might those of a fairy book, reading intently articles of which they had not thought before seeing them, and treating the book simply as one capable of furnishing the rarest entertainment in exhaustless quantities.”—N. Y. Evening Post.

“Few poems, plays, novels, pictures, statues, or fictitious characters that children—or most of their parents—of our day are likely to inquire about will be missed here. Mr. Champlin’s judgment seems unusually sound.”—The Nation.

GAMES AND SPORTS
By John D. Champlin and Arthur Bostwick
Revised Edition, 784 pp. 900 Illustrations

“Should form a part of every juvenile library, whether public or private.”—The Independent.

NATURAL HISTORY
By John D. Champlin, assisted by Frederick A. Lucas 725 pp. Over 800 Illustrations

“Here, in compact and attractive form, is valuable and reliable information on every phase of natural history, on every item of interest to the student. Invaluable to the teacher and school, and should be on every teacher’s desk for ready reference, and the children should be taught to go to this volume for information useful and interesting.”—Journal of Education.

By Captain Marryat. Illustrated in color and line by E. Boyd Smith. Special library binding. $1.35 net.

By James Fenimore Cooper. Illustrated in color and line by E. Boyd Smith. Special library binding. $1.35 net.

In every detail of illustration and manufacture these editions are made as if these books were being published for the first time for young folks. This attempt to put the juvenile classics in a form which on its looks will attract children, is meeting with widespread support from the public and librarians.

Mr. Smith’s pictures need no commendation, but he seems to have treated these stories with unusual skill and sympathy.

Of Ulysses and the Men of Old. By various authors, including Nathaniel Hawthorne. Illustrated. Special library binding. $1.35 net.

The Greek and Roman mythological heroes whose stories are here collected are not covered in any other one volume. The arrangement gives the interest of connected narrative to the account of the fall of Troy, the Æneas stories, and the Adventures of Ulysses.

MAGIC PICTURES OF THE LONG AGO
By Anna Curtis Chandler
With some forty illustrations. $1.30 net

These stories grew out of Miss Chandler’s popular Story Hours for Children at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Each recounts the youth and something of the later life of some striking character in art, history, or literature, and is made very vivid by reproductions of famous pictures, etc.

THE DOGS OF BOYTOWN
By Walter A. Dyer
Author of “Pierrot, Dog of Belgium,” etc.
Illustrated. $1.50 net

New York Sun: “It takes the cake—in this case, of course, a dog biscuit.... It is the most unusual book of its kind.... Dyer enters a new field for boys ... all boys will want to know about Dogs—their ways and habits, their histories and origins.... Threaded through this wonderful textbook on dogs is the story of adventures of two boys ... shows the reader where to find out about everything from bench shows and the care of puppies to fleas ... illustrated with photographs and excellent pen sketches....”

BLUE HERON COVE
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Illustrated. $1.35 net

Tells how Blue Heron Island and its seafaring folks change “a little German countess in white satin” into “a real, authentic American girl.”

A book about guns for boys of all ages. The history is accurate; boys will remember the anecdotes; and the technical parts are sensibly adapted to show “just how it works.”

A story of adventure. The principal characters, a boy and a trapper, are in the Revolutionary army from the defeat at Brooklyn to the victory at Yorktown.

“The most important events of the Revolution and much general historical information are woven into this interesting and very well constructed story of Tom and a trapper, who serve their country bravely and well. Historical details are correctly given.”—American Library Association Booklet.

Tom Strong and a sturdy old trapper take part in such stirring events following the Revolution as the Indian raid with Crawford and a flat-boat voyage from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, etc.

The story of the son of Tom Strong in the young United States. Tom sees the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr; is in Washington during the presidency of Jefferson; is on board of the “Clermont” on its first trip, and serves in the United States Navy during the War of 1812.

Tom Strong, Junior’s son helps his father build the first railroad in the United States and then goes with Kit Carson on the Lewis and Clarke Expedition.

“A first-rate juvenile ... a real story for the live human boy—any boy will read it eagerly to the end ... quite thrilling adventures.”—Chicago Record-Herald.

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The “Bob’s Hill” band spend a vacation in Illinois, where they play at being Indians, hear thrilling tales of real Indians, and learn much frontier history. A history of especial interest to “Boy Scouts.”

“Merry youngsters. Capital. Thrilling tales of the red men and explorers. These healthy red-blooded, New England boys.”—Philadelphia Press.

The “Bob’s Hill” band organizes a Boy Scouts band and have many adventures. Mr. Burton brings in tales told around a camp-fire of La Salle, Joliet, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Northwestern Reservation.

The account of a camping trip of the Raven Patrol of the Boy Scouts to the Massachusetts coast, with much real boy fun and wholesome adventure.

THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE FOR YOUNG FOLKS
Compiled by Burton E. Stevenson, Editor of “The Home Book of Verse.”
With cover, and illustrations in color and black and white by WILLY POGANY. Over 500 pages, large 12mo. $2.25 net.

Not a rambling, haphazard collection but a vade-mecum for youth from the ages of six or seven to sixteen or seventeen. It opens with Nursery Rhymes and lullabies, progresses through child rhymes and jingles to more mature nonsense verse; then come fairy verses and Christmas poems; then nature verse and favorite rhymed stories; then through the trumpet and drum period (where an attempt is made to teach true patriotism) to the final appeal of “Life Lessons” and “A Garland of Gold” (the great poems for all ages).

This arrangement secures sequence of sentiment and a sort of cumulative appeal. Nearly all the children’s classics are included, and along with them a body of verse not so well known but almost equally deserving. There are many real “finds,” most of which have never before appeared in any anthology.

Mr. Stevenson has banished doleful and pessimistic verse, and has dwelt on hope, courage, cheerfulness and helpfulness. The book should serve, too, as an introduction to the greater poems, informing taste for them and appreciation of them, against the time when the boy or girl, grown into youth and maiden, is ready to swim out into the full current of English poetry.

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CHAPTER	PAGE
	Introduction	vii
I.	Savonarola (1452–1498)	3
II.	William the Silent (1533–1584)	27
III.	Tycho Brahe (1546–1601)	59
IV.	Cervantes (1547–1616)	79
V.	Giordano Bruno (1548–1600)	99
VI.	Grotius (1583–1645)	121
VII.	Voltaire (1694–1778)	147
VIII.	Hans Andersen (1805–1875)	173
IX.	Mazzini (1805–1872)	201
X.	William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879)	223
XI.	Thoreau (1817–1862)	245
XII.	Tolstoy (1828–1910)	269
	Bibliography	311

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Rebels and Reformers: Biographies for Young People

REBELS AND
REFORMERS

INTRODUCTION

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

I

SAVONAROLA

1452–1498

II
WILLIAM THE SILENT
1533–1584

III

TYCHO BRAHE

1546–1601

IV

CERVANTES

1547–1616

V

GIORDANO BRUNO

1548–1600

VI

GROTIUS

1583–1645

VII

VOLTAIRE

1694–1778

VIII

HANS ANDERSEN

1805–1875

IX

MAZZINI

1805–1872

X

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

1805–1879

XI

HENRY THOREAU

1817–1862

XII

TOLSTOY

1828–1910

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

Savonarola By Fra Bartolomeo	Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
William the Silent	28
Tycho Brahe	60
Cervantes	80
Giordano Bruno	99
Grotius	122
Voltaire	148
Hans Christian Andersen	174
Mazzini From portrait by Felix Moscheles	202
William Lloyd Garrison	224
Thoreau	246
Tolstoy From Aylmer Maude’s “Life of Tolstoy.” Constable, London	270

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Rebels and Reformers: Biographies for Young People

REBELS AND REFORMERS

INTRODUCTION

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

I SAVONAROLA 1452–1498

II WILLIAM THE SILENT 1533–1584

III TYCHO BRAHE 1546–1601

IV CERVANTES 1547–1616

V GIORDANO BRUNO 1548–1600

VI GROTIUS 1583–1645

VII VOLTAIRE 1694–1778

VIII HANS ANDERSEN 1805–1875

IX MAZZINI 1805–1872

X WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 1805–1879

XI HENRY THOREAU 1817–1862

XII TOLSTOY 1828–1910

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

REBELS AND
REFORMERS

I

SAVONAROLA

1452–1498

II
WILLIAM THE SILENT
1533–1584

III

TYCHO BRAHE

1546–1601

IV

CERVANTES

1547–1616

V

GIORDANO BRUNO

1548–1600

VI

GROTIUS

1583–1645

VII

VOLTAIRE

1694–1778

VIII

HANS ANDERSEN

1805–1875

IX

MAZZINI

1805–1872

X

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

1805–1879

XI

HENRY THOREAU

1817–1862

XII

TOLSTOY

1828–1910