Part 11

A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad one tires in a mile-a!

He that made the world made man to take delight in it; even as thou saw’st me joyful with the shepherds—ay, with godly Mr. Richard Hooker, “he being then tending his small allotment of sheep in a common field,” as I recount in a brief life of a good man. As to what awaits me on the other side of that River, I do expect it with a peaceful heart, and in humble hope that a man may reach the City with a cheerful countenance, no less than through groans and sighs and fears. For we have not a tyrant over us, but a Father, that loveth a cheerful liver no less than a cheerful giver. Nevertheless, I thank thee for thy kind thought of one that is not of thy company, nor no Nonconformist, but a peaceful Protestant. And, lest thou be troubled with apparitions of hobgoblins and evil spirits, read that comfortable sermon of Mr. Hooker’s to weak believers, on the Certainty of Adherence, though they want the inward testimony of it.

But now falls there a sweet shower, “a singing shower” saith old George Chapman, and methinks I shall have sport; for I do note that the mayfly is up; and, seeing all these beautiful creatures playing in the air and water, I feel my own heart play within me; and I must out and dape under yonder sycamore tree. Wherefore, prithee, pardon me a longer discourse as at this time.—Thy friend,

PISCATOR.

XIV.

From Truthful James to Mr. Bret Harte.

WILLIAM NYE’S EXPERIMENT.

Angel’s.

DEAR BRET HARTE, I’m in tears, And the camp’s in the dust, For with anguish it hears As poor William may bust, And the last of the Nyes is in danger of sleeping the sleep of the just.

No revolver it was Interfered with his health, The convivial glass Did not harm him by stealth; It was nary! He fell by a scheme which he thought would accumulate wealth!

For a Moqui came round To the camp—Injun Joe; And the dollars was found In his pockets to flow; For he played off some tricks with live snakes, as was reckoned a competent show.

They was rattlers; a pair In his teeth he would hold, And another he’d wear Like a scarf to enfold His neck, with them dangerous critters as safe as the saint was of old.

Sez William, “That same Is as easy as wink. I am fly to his game; For them rattlers, I think, Has had all their incisors extracted. They’re harmless as suthin’ to drink.”

So he betted his pile He could handle them snakes; And he tried, with a smile, And a rattler he takes, Feeling safe as they’d somehow been doctored; but bless you, that sarpent awakes!

Waken snakes! and they did And they rattled like mad; For it was not a “kid,” But some medicine he had, Injun Joe, for persuadin’ the critters but William’s bit powerful bad.

So they’ve put him outside Of a bottle of Rye, And they’ve set him to ride A mustang as kin shy, To keep up his poor circulation; and that’s the last chance for Bill Nye.

But a near thing it is, And the camp’s in the dust. He’s a pard as we’d miss If poor Bill was to bust— If the last of the Nyes were a-sleepin the peaceable sleep of the just.

XV.

From Professor Forth to the Rev. Mr. Casaubon.

The delicacy of the domestic matters with which the following correspondence deals cannot be exaggerated. It seems that Belinda (whose Memoirs we owe to Miss Rhoda Broughton) was at Oxford while Mr. and Mrs. Casaubon were also resident near that pleasant city, so famed for its Bodleian Library. Professor Forth and Mr. Casaubon were friends, as may be guessed; their congenial characters, their kindred studies, Etruscology and Mythology, combined to ally them. Their wives were not wholly absorbed in their learned pursuits, and if Mr. Ladislaw was dangling after Mrs. Casaubon, we know that Mr. Rivers used to haunt with Mrs. Forth the walks of Magdalen. The regret and disapproval which Mrs. Casaubon expresses, and her desire to do good to Mrs. Forth, are, it is believed, not alien to her devoted and exemplary character.

Bradmore-road, Oxford, May 29.

DEAR MR. CASAUBON,—In the course of an investigation which my researches into the character of the Etruscan “Involuti” have necessitated, I frequently encounter the root Kâd, k2âd, or Qâd. Schnitzler’s recent and epoch-making discovery that d in Etruscan = b2, has led me to consider it a plausible hypothesis that we may convert Kâd or Qâd into Kab2, in which case it is by no means beyond the range of a cautious conjecture that the Involuti are identical with the Cab-iri (Cabiri). Though you will pardon me for confessing, what you already know, that I am not in all points an adherent to your ideas concerning a “Key to All Mythologies” (at least, as briefly set forth by you in Kuhn’s Zeitung), yet I am deeply impressed with this apparent opportunity of bridging the seemingly impassable gulf between Etrurian Religion and the comparatively clear and comprehensible systems of the Pelasgo-Phoenician peoples. That Kâd or Kâb can refer either (as in Quatuor) to a four-footed animal (quadruped, “quad”) or to a four-wheeled vehicle (esseda, Celtic cab) I cannot for a moment believe, though I understand that this theory has the support of Schrader, Penka, and Baunder. {125} Any information which your learning can procure, and your kind courtesy can supply, will be warmly welcomed and duly acknowledged.—Believe me, faithfully yours,

JAMES FORTH.

P.S.—I open this note, which was written from my dictation by my secretary, Mrs. Forth, to assure myself that her inexperience has been guilty of no error in matters of so much delicacy and importance. I have detected no mistake of moment, and begin to hope that the important step of matrimony to which I was guided by your example may not have been a rash experiment.

* * * * *

From the Rev. Mr. Casaubon to James Forth, Esq., Professor of Etruscan, Oxford.

DEAR MR. FORTH,—Your letter throws considerable light on a topic which has long engaged my earnest attention. To my thinking, the Cab in Cabiri = CAV, “hollow,” as in cavus, and refers to the Ark of Noah, which, of course, before the entrance of every living thing according to his kind, must have been the largest artificial hollow or empty space known to our Adamite ancestors. Thus the Cabiri would answer, naturally, to the Patæci, which, as Herodotus tells us, were usually figured on the prows of ships. The Cabiri or Patæci, as children of Noah and men of the “great vessel,” or Cave-men (a wonderful anticipation of modern science), would perpetuate the memory of Arkite circumstances, and would be selected, as the sacred tradition faded from men’s minds, as the guides of navigation. I am sorry to seem out of harmony with your ideas; but it is only a matter of seeming, for I have no doubt that the Etruscan Involuti are also Arkite, and that they do not, as Max Müller may be expected to intimate, represent the veiled or cloudy Dawns, but rather the Arkite Patriarchs. We thus, from different starting-places, arrive at the same goal, the Arkite solution of Bryant. I am aware that I am old-fashioned—like Eumæus, “I dwell here among the swine, and go not often to the city.” Your letters with little numerals (as k2) may represent the exactness of modern philology; but more closely remind me of the formulæ of algebra, a study in which I at no time excelled.

It is my purpose to visit Cambridge on June 3, to listen to a most valuable address by Professor Tösch, of Bonn, on Hittite and Aztec affinities. If you can meet me there and accept the hospitality of my college, the encounter may prove a turning point in Mythological and Philological Science.—Very faithfully yours,