{"1": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4116", "width": "2520", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0001.jp2"}, "2": {"fulltext": "fteserve St\u00c2\u00aer\\nCollection\\nQass.\\nBook\\nCOPYRIGHT DEPOSIT\\nI", "height": "4060", "width": "2596", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0002.jp2"}, "3": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4080", "width": "2592", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0003.jp2"}, "4": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4116", "width": "2580", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0004.jp2"}, "5": {"fulltext": "CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nBy N EAL BR WN\\nK|\\nTHE PHILOSOPHER PRESS\\nWAUSAU WISCONSIN\\nC", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0005.jp2"}, "6": {"fulltext": "J.\\nTWO COPIES RECEIVED,\\ntjbr -3%\\nOff\\nRegister of C\\nPNu\\nCOPYRIGHTED 1899\\nBy NEAL BROWN.\\nJWf -31900", "height": "4104", "width": "2604", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0006.jp2"}, "7": {"fulltext": "CONTENTS\\nPAGE\\nANDREW LANG, 1\\nHONORE DE BALZAC, 18\\nWILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 27\\nDEGENERATION, 69\\nJOHN SMITH, 116\\nA DEFERRED CRITICISM, 171\\nAMERICAN NOTES, 201\\nAMERICANISM IN LITERATURE, 223", "height": "4116", "width": "2500", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0007.jp2"}, "8": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4116", "width": "2608", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0008.jp2"}, "9": {"fulltext": "CRITICAL CONFESSIONS", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0009.jp2"}, "10": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4108", "width": "2608", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0010.jp2"}, "11": {"fulltext": "ANDREW LANG\\nIn pessimistic mood, one feels that\\nthe world of letters has squandered most\\nof its genius, and is traveling toward an\\nintellectual poorhouse. The great poets\\nhave certainly departed. Stevenson has\\ngone, and there are but two or three\\nstory-tellers left. Fiction has become\\nshort and choppy; a matter of frag-\\nments, without sustained flights. The\\nfew mountain peaks that are left are\\nnodding. The fruits of letters seem\\nover-ripe and ready to fall rotting to the\\nground. It is a transition time, and\\nperhaps the soil is being fertilized by the", "height": "4132", "width": "2492", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0011.jp2"}, "12": {"fulltext": "2 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nrank growths that spring up, for\\nsomething better to come.\\nWe are seduced from healthy\\nstandards by fin de siecle tendencies the\\ncolor of nature is gone, and we have\\ngreen carnations and unsubstantial, un-\\nreal things. Men are made to seem like\\nshadows walking. We are non-creative.\\nWe either imitate, or else we rebel\\nagainst imitation, and the pendulum\\nswings as far the other way. The result\\nis strange, uncouth, fancies in art and\\nliterature, and our romancists make\\nmonkeys of men, to borrow a phrase\\nfrom the vernacular. The commercial\\nautocrats of magazinedom, and certain\\nof the hack writers of newspaperdom\\nset the fashion. With the small\\narts of puffery they build up small\\nreputations that die in a day. How\\noften the announcement; a genius is\\ncoming, watch for him, he is here, he\\nhas written a great novel, a great", "height": "4132", "width": "2588", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0012.jp2"}, "13": {"fulltext": "ANDREW LANG 3\\npoem, or what not. We are put on\\nthe qui vive, and by and bye when the\\npoor little puffed out product struts\\nupon the stage we find that he belongs\\nto the ephemera. These strains are\\ncommon. We watch anxiously for the\\npool to move that we may be healed\\nof these grotesque vagaries of mental\\ndisease. We gaze longingly up the road\\nfor a rescuer and see but wind-piled\\ncolumns of choking dust.\\nWe comfort ourselves a little with\\nKipling; and Besant and Black are still\\nwith us, but we sigh to be healed\\nof Hardy s decadence, and of the\\ntastelessness of The Martian, poor\\nwithered fruit of DuMaurier s dotage.\\nWe cry out for something in\\nplace of this dry rot, this attenuated\\nintellectuality; this vain struggling after\\nstartling effects. Our sensibilities are\\nmangled and scarified day by day\\nby the rude contact of a crowd of", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0013.jp2"}, "14": {"fulltext": "4 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nweird, grotesque, figures who flit their\\nfantastic way across the stage.\\nWe are surrounded by writers of\\nqueer distorted verse, drunken with their\\nown turgid, muddy, rhetoric; dancing\\nfauns and satyrs holding revels over social\\nuncleanness like crows over carrion;\\ndreamers of meaningless visions, makers\\nof verse full of incomprehensible\\ngibberish. Are they of healthy human\\nkind who beat time in this rout? Is\\nthat young woman who writes tigerish\\nverses of a tigerish passion, all the\\nSappho we shall have? Must we call a\\nplain case of erotic mania, poetic\\nfervour? Is that jingler of little\\nverselets, that journeyman carver of\\nodd forms of speech, to be our\\nTennyson? Shall we force ourselves to\\nsee deathless harmony in a mere mush\\nof words, simply because it is labeled\\npoetry? Must we give Jude The\\nObscure and The Martian a place with", "height": "4132", "width": "2500", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0014.jp2"}, "15": {"fulltext": "ANDREW LANG 5\\nVanity Fair and David Copper field\\nWe have been tolled by holy bell to\\nchurch, have sat at good men s\\nfeasts, and we cannot forget those\\nfeasts. If there is nothing else, give us\\nsome good stories of bears and tigers, of\\njungles, of far-off lands where men are\\nbreathing free, and where there is good\\nwholesome blood-letting and killing.\\nThus the Pessimist.\\nBut we may be comforted in a\\nmeasure; we have our blessings and\\nmust not be unmindful of them. Into\\nthis world where everything is worn out\\nand steeped in the ditch-water of\\ndullness, comes an interrogation point\\nof a man, Andrew Lang. If needs\\nbe, he will smash every idol and question\\nevery fad r Let the fashions change as\\nthey will, here is a man who clings to the\\nverities of truth and mental good\\nhealth.\\nHe is cool-blooded and temperate", "height": "4164", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0015.jp2"}, "16": {"fulltext": "6 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nwhen others are furious. He retains\\nhis composure amidst the clamours\\nof little coteries of intellectual starvelings\\nfrantically admiring each other and\\nbound to coerce all others into a like\\nservice. Into this market-place of\\nsmall wares, Lang comes as the Sealer\\nof Weights and Measures. He hears\\nunmoved the dingdonging of the auction\\nbell, the selling of names. He cannot\\nbe hypnotized by the posturings and\\ncaperings of literary mountebanks.\\nOver the Kingdom of Fools, he is\\nthe upright and just judge, with plenary\\njurisdiction.\\nMany idols, some false and some\\ntrue, have been ranged before this\\njudgment seat. Along with other\\nstucco-work, is poor old Poet Bailey, the\\nsolace and comfort of our grandmothers.\\nLook in your Poets Argosy or Gems of\\nPoetry, and you will unearth among\\nother ancient treasures, O no, we never", "height": "4128", "width": "2584", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0016.jp2"}, "17": {"fulltext": "ANDREW LANG 7\\nmention her, and like lollipops and\\nsweet things from Bailey. I knew Bailey\\nfirst, through the melancholia of my\\nfriend Mr. Richard Swiveller, who\\nturned from the perfidious Sophy to\\nBailey s soothing charm. I learned\\nBailey better through Lang, who treated\\nhis reputation charitably, bestowing\\nonly a spanking, lightly laid on. In\\nfact Lang thinks that Bailey might\\nhave been something of a poet, he\\npleased so many simple folk. In this\\ngenial fashion does he judge all small\\nsinners.\\nBut when Lang reads the bead-roll\\nof genius, names that were before heard\\nand forgotten stick like burrs. They\\nstand for something. The dead heroes\\nwalk again in new-kindled light.\\nBunyan, and Montaigne, and Scott, and\\nall great and noble souls gain new\\nnobility and pass unscathed through\\nthat wise and kindly judgment. Lang", "height": "4168", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0017.jp2"}, "18": {"fulltext": "8 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nhas the grand hailing sign and password\\nof the kinship of genius. He recognizes\\nhis fellows for what they are across the\\ncenturies and the wide seas.\\nThus it is that he flashed recognition\\nover to Holmes and Lowell, of all\\nAmericans the most like himself. He\\ndiscovered Kipling in the wilderness of\\nIndia, and gave him a passport into the\\nWorld of Letters. And now Kipling\\nhas become the man of three continents,\\nwith fame enough to fill them all.\\nLang is best as a critic and\\nhero-worshipper. He and Nordau are\\nalmost the only ones left to police our\\nworld of literary nondescripts. Carlyle,\\nthat harsh block of Scottish granite is\\ngone, and humbug and cant may thrive\\napace. Thackeray, Keeper of a House\\nfor the Correction of Snobs, stalks his\\ngrim beat no more. Macaulay, who so\\ndeftly put Mr. Robert Montgomery in\\nthe pillory, is with the dust of the", "height": "4116", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0018.jp2"}, "19": {"fulltext": "ANDREW LANG g\\nearth. Dr. Holmes, vested with large\\njurisdiction over vulgar pretenders in\\nthese American Colonies, has no further\\njudgments to execute. There are no\\nmore. Gallant spirits, loyal to the\\ntruth, when shall we look upon your like\\nagain You yet have some security\\nthat your work will be carried on, for\\nLang is your living disciple. You may\\nbe sure that some frothy cant will be\\nsponged out; some humbugs will be\\ndosed heroically; some literary reputa-\\ntions will be put in the stocks where we\\nmay all have our fling at them. Who\\nshall say that these labors have been in\\nvain? The snobs did not run about at\\nease while Thackeray was at them.\\nSome of them were killed and some\\ncured.\\nWhere, for instance is the Fashion-\\nable Authoress, where is Lady Fanny\\nFlummery? She was done to death by\\nThackeray, and has left no heirs. I", "height": "4132", "width": "2460", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0019.jp2"}, "20": {"fulltext": "jo CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nbelieve that Lang claims he had a\\ncommission once to discover the habitat\\nof her successor, but was compelled to\\nmake return of the same unsatisfied. It\\nis true, Thackeray was not always so\\nsuccessful. He tried to suppress the poet\\nwho writes Odes to Dying Things, such\\nas Frogs, Brook Trout, or whatever it\\nmay be, but he could not do it.\\nShe, I use the feminine advisedly is\\nimmortal; suppress her in one generation\\nand she will break out in the next. She\\nstill lives to infest the watches of the\\nmoon, to write Odes and other nameless\\nthings. She was a Miss Bunion in\\nThackeray s time and averred that her\\nyouth resembled:\\nA violet shrinking meanly\\nWhen blows the March wind keenly;\\nA timid fawn on upland lawn,\\nWhere oak-boughs rustle greenly.\\nThese thrice-crazed ones scatter\\nsweet flowers about us still. Their", "height": "4156", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0020.jp2"}, "21": {"fulltext": "ANDREW LANG n\\ndainty ribbon-tied volumes strew our\\nlibraries like autumn leaves in Vallom-\\nbrosa. Yet after all, Thackeray s\\npunishment of Miss Bunion was not in\\nvain. His magisterial process is still out\\nagainst her successors. Nor was it a\\nvain labor for Mr. Yellowplush and the\\nSallybrated Mr. Smith, over a cold\\nhoyster in the Yellowplush pantry, to\\nhale Mr. Bulwer Lytton to the torture.\\nThat day was Fine Writing punctured\\nso that the sawdust padding ran out\\nof it.\\nUnlike Nordau, Lang is not a\\nTartar of savage severity toward his\\nconvicts. That Vidocq of continental\\nletters hangs his victims in chains, in\\nbarbaric style, for the sun and wind to\\nbleach. In this he is like Carlyle, who\\nhad a troglodyte nature and brained his\\nwith a stone axe. Lang has an English-\\nman s love of fair play. He gives\\nquarter and treats his victim with", "height": "4132", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0021.jp2"}, "22": {"fulltext": "12 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ncourtly grace during the necessary\\ntorture. Captain John Smith did not\\nbehead the three Turks before the walls\\nof Regall with more blandness or gentle\\naffability.\\nLang makes the desert places of\\nscholarship, fair and pleasant with\\nbeauty and verdure, Greek is dry and\\narid when taught by dusty-brained\\npedantic parrots, Lang transmutes it\\nuntil it lives again, bringing forth\\nboughs like a plant. In his interpreta-\\ntion its dreary tasks become pleasant\\npastimes. He would have the college\\ndry- as -dusts give way for one greater\\nthan they, the deathless singer, the\\nsightless poet who saw all things; who\\nfound the Soul of Song in far off mystic\\nIllium, in surging seas and on battle fields,\\non dreary ocean coasts and lonely lost\\nlands, in the tombs of the dead and in the\\ndarkness beyond, in the loves and hopes\\nof statesmen and warriors, of rustics and", "height": "4156", "width": "2488", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0022.jp2"}, "23": {"fulltext": "ANDREW LANG 13\\nploughmen round their hearth-fires, in\\nthe legends of a thousand years, in the\\nwanderings of the Grecian Chieftan and\\nhis return to the great hall where the\\nsuitors met; who could pluck his dearest\\nthought from the welcome home which\\nthe dumb and faithful Argus gave the\\nwanderer. Lang would have the ardent\\nstudent follow Ulysses in his wanderings\\nunbelittled by translators until by and\\nbye the splendour and power of that\\nwonderful melody would not let him\\nsleep. Soon a knowledge of Greek would\\ncome, but better than this would come\\na knowledge of Homer. The finest\\nthing in Lang is his worship of Homer.\\nHe seems to continually hunger and\\nthrist for him. He holds him close to\\nhis heart in half- boyish adoration and\\nfervour. He is a jealous lover and\\ncannot bear that Pope and Morris and\\nothers of the translator s mob should\\nput Homer into their rhyming strait-", "height": "4164", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0023.jp2"}, "24": {"fulltext": "i 4 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\njackets. He is savage upon their\\ntrespasses and punishes them with many\\nstinging scoffs and gibes. He has lived\\nso much with Homer, that at will the\\ncenturies roll back and he sees the world\\nthat Homer saw. He loves Homer s\\nlightest w T ord better than all of Pope s\\nstilted rhymes. He makes one mourn\\nfor his ignorance of Greek, for it means\\nthat he can never know Homer for all\\nthat he is.\\nLang has the advantage of being a\\nScotchman with English advantages.\\nHe is a later Socrates in a dress coat.\\nSome one has said that he is too finished\\na product to become popular with the\\nmass. I will admit that he is neither\\ndull and heavy nor light and vulgar.\\nAfter his title page there is not a dull\\nline, and even a title page with the name\\nof Andrew Lang on it will illuminate a\\nwhole library. When I find a library\\ntenanted by Andrew Lang, I confess to", "height": "4160", "width": "2556", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0024.jp2"}, "25": {"fulltext": "ANDREW LANG i 5\\nfeeling vastly increased respect for the\\nproprietor. Even the presence of She,\\nor of Mr. Barnes of New York, in that\\nlibrary, cannot entirely destroy this good\\nopinion. The scholar and man of letters\\nmay, by inadvertence, become the victim\\nof the brazen train-boy.\\nLang disdains fine writing, and yet\\nalways writes finely, with the virile\\npowerful touch of a master. He does\\nnot hold himself above the common\\nspeech of people if by ranging there he\\ncan find the apt word or the rightly\\nturned phrase. A scholar with the art\\nto conceal the mere repelling externals of\\nscholarship, Yale or Oxford could not\\ntake the fine temper out of such a soul\\nas his. He did not come forth from the\\npedagogic inquisition afflicted with in-\\ntellectual rickets. Whether the Univer-\\nsity Procrustes found him too long or\\ntoo short, cannot be discovered from\\nany tokens he bears. He comes into a", "height": "4164", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0025.jp2"}, "26": {"fulltext": "1 6 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nworld of much fustian scholarship, a\\ntrue scholar, a loyal perfect knight of\\nthe pen.\\nBut Lang is not all the critic, not\\nall the man of war, the knight whose\\nkeen and biting rapier plays like\\nlightning among the false and the foolish\\nThere is another Lang, a poet\\nand hero-worshipper, a lover of homely\\nthings, of homely human-kind; one who\\ntakes content in watching his peaches\\nripen on the wall and his grapes on their\\ntrellis; one who loves walks of peace and\\nquietness, and who can see the\\nsplendour in the grass, the glory in\\nthe flower; one who can look upon\\nlovers strolling together in the sweet\\nEnglish May-time with kindly eyes and\\nsoftened heart. He is no longer young,\\nbut he can remember the loves and hopes\\nof youth. With him,\\nManhood s noonday shadows hold\\nThe dews of boyhood s morning.", "height": "4132", "width": "2556", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0026.jp2"}, "27": {"fulltext": "ANDRE W LANG 17\\nIf this were not so he could not have\\nwritten such verses of baffling sweetness\\nas these;\\nWho wins his love shall lose her\\nWho loses her shall gain;\\nFor still the spirit wooes her,\\nA soul without a stain\\nAnd mem ry still pursues her,\\nWith longing-s not in vain.\\nIn dreams she grows not older,\\nThe land of dreams among-,\\nThough all the world wax colder\\nThough all the songs be sung;\\nIn dreams shall he behold her,\\nStill fair, and kind, and young.", "height": "4172", "width": "2436", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0027.jp2"}, "28": {"fulltext": "HONORE DE BALZAC\\nAs Balzac is favored with a minor\\nplace in Max Nordau s Gallery of\\nDegenerates, I am disposed to make a\\ndeprecatory bow to that eminent\\nvivisectionist.\\nSome characters should be described\\nby describing their opposites Mr. Gulli-\\nver said that he could better realize the\\nhuge dimensions of the Brobdingnag-\\ngians, because of his recent experiences\\nin Lilliput.\\nIf I shall take liberties of comparison\\nwith any of the idols in our home\\ntemple of fame, it is not to make them", "height": "4168", "width": "2636", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0028.jp2"}, "29": {"fulltext": "HON ORE DE BALZAC ig\\nseem more diminutive, but to give a\\nbetter perspective for Balzac. Few of\\nour countrymen have broken into his\\nprodigious storehouse. The charming\\ninsularity of the truly patriotic\\nAmerican, prejudices him against the\\nproducts of the effete despotisms. He\\nsays, we have our own shrines, why go\\nabroad to worship?\\nHence the elevation of Howells, who\\nnever says damn, and who never levels\\neven a small corner of his faithful kodac\\non any of the tabooed vulgarities. I\\nconfess I prefer a somewhat coarse\\nbluntness to this chaste veiling. I defy\\nany one, for instance, to tell just what\\nsins Howells intends to impute to\\nBartley Hubbard. If Balzac had dealt\\nwith him, he would have stripped his\\nsoul naked, even if it did take coarse and\\nvulgar words to do it.\\nAs we progress in social develop-\\nment, our society grows more clubbish.", "height": "4164", "width": "2492", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0029.jp2"}, "30": {"fulltext": "20 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nGentle woman organizes herself, and\\npursues and gluts herself on Culture,\\nwithout ceasing. We have Arnold\\nClubs and Browning Clubs, and what\\nnot, and the stones of Rome and the\\nnumber of bricks in St. Paul s must\\nbe counted in didactic essay. Culture\\ndoes not have much chance to escape\\nthese indefatigable pursuers. Yet those\\nwho grow weary of this child s game of\\nCulture, this fishing in a water-pail and\\ndrawing nothing up, can find easy relief\\nin the wisdom and strength of Balzac.\\nWhy watch continually the never-\\nmoving waters of smug literary\\nmediocrity, when you have only to climb\\nthe steeps a little way and look upon\\nthe mighty sea? This immortal genius\\ncan bide its time however. It may yet\\nbecome the fad of the Culture Clubs; a\\nreigning mode in literature.\\nThe Lily of The Valley, or\\nUrsula, of crystal purity, may yet fill", "height": "4160", "width": "2600", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0030.jp2"}, "31": {"fulltext": "HONORE DE BALZA C 21\\nthe place of the highly immoral Trilby.\\nPere Goriot, may supersede Howell s\\nBroomfield Corey, or that delightful old\\nphilistine, who gained ephemeral riches\\nin mineral paint.\\nWe assure those who have become\\naccustomed to the pure and elevated\\nmorality of Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and\\nThe Quick and the Dead, that they\\nwill find nothing to shock or disturb\\nthem in Balzac. The austere virgin,\\nPropriety, should also be warned that\\nshe will see nothing very offensive in\\nBalzac and that she had better not take\\nthe trouble to look for it. If she should\\nby any chance have breathed too long\\nthe mephitic sewer gas of the Erotic\\nSchool of American Fiction and Poetry,\\nshe may not at first have free respiration\\nin the higher altitudes of Balzac.\\nIt is true that he does not aim to\\nhave a moral, ticketed and labeled as\\nsuch, for every tale. He paints human", "height": "4168", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0031.jp2"}, "32": {"fulltext": "22 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nlife as he finds it, in its baseness and\\nglory, in its weakness and its strength.\\nHe does not announce the moral,\\nyet it is always present; in the\\npunishment and repentance of the\\nwicked, in the lives of the pure in heart,\\nand in the hells which evil souls build\\nfor themselves.\\nOur gentle E. P. Roe, who should\\nbe called Pencils- and -Pickles, he is so\\nmuch affected by young women towards\\nthe end of their bread-and-butter age,\\nalways builds his moral first, and then\\nfits his story to it afterwards. He\\ncarries his pulpit around on his back as\\na snail does its residence, or an organ-\\ngrinder his instrument of torture and if\\nhe gets half a chance he will set it up\\nand preach.\\nBalzac tells his story and lets the\\nmoral take care of itself. He has no\\npatent theological-seminary plan for\\nconverting sinners. Where is there a", "height": "4164", "width": "2640", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0032.jp2"}, "33": {"fulltext": "HONORE DE BALZA C 23\\nfiner sermon than the conversion of\\nDoctor Minoret, led to repentance by the\\nchild he loved.\\nCan it be that you believe in God? she\\ncried with artless joy, letting- fall the tears\\nthat gathered in her eyes.\\nMy God, he said in a trembling-\\nvoice; raising- his head, if any one can\\nobtain my pardon and lead me to Thee, surely\\nit is this spotless creature. Have mercy on\\nthe repentant old age that this poor child\\npresents to Thee.\\nBalzac has the carelessness and\\nabandon of conscious power. He plays\\nthe prodigal with his talents. The\\nsweepings of his attic would stock a\\ndozen common skulls with genius, and\\nmake a dozen latter-day reputations.\\nHe is not concerned with the petty fears\\nand alarms of small minds. One of their\\ngods is Brevity. Your writer of\\nmagazine novelettes; your mere parlour", "height": "4176", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0033.jp2"}, "34": {"fulltext": "24 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nentertainer, affects to abhor the\\nSuperfluous Word.\\nBalzac never bothers his head about\\nit. His words come in great torrents,\\nand the excess cannot hide his kingly\\nport. Always present is the dramatic\\nquality. You watch with terror for his\\nnext effect. Our colder Teutonic blood\\nhas too little of this fire, and so genius\\nbecomes atrophied and lifeless. Afraid\\nto give Nature speech, our strugglers\\nafter fame belittle the passions and\\nmake them tame and commonplace, or\\npaint them in strange bizarre colors and\\nin mangled grotesqueness. How differ-\\nent the mighty genius of Balzac When\\nDoctor Minoret weeps, Balzac says:\\nThe tears of old men are as terrible as\\nthose of children are natural.\\nThe sorrows of Pere Goriot have a\\nthousand eloquent tongues. What a\\nprofound and immeasurable baseness is\\nthat which robbed him of his peace.", "height": "4160", "width": "2576", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0034.jp2"}, "35": {"fulltext": "HON ORE DE BALZAC 25\\nThroned in the majesty of death his\\nwhispers are heartrending. Sometimes\\nhe babbles childish nonsense, and some-\\ntimes shrieks his last terrible resent-\\nments. He calls for his daughters\\nalternately in curses and words of\\nendearment. You can feel him groping\\nthrough the thick shadows for them, but\\nthey do not come. It is King Lear, with\\na difference. Finally, in the moment\\nof dissolution, God is merciful to this\\nshattered soul. He sees again his\\ndaughters as little children, and calls\\nthem by the childish names he once\\ngave them; and so he passes from this\\ninhuman world.\\nOne must walk with Balzac in fear\\nand dread. His are not always the\\npleasant tasks of an idle hour. He will\\nlead you through the hell of the living\\nwhere you will meet dreadful shades and\\nweeping, crucified, souls. He will also\\nshow you complacent Respectability", "height": "4176", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0035.jp2"}, "36": {"fulltext": "26 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nsitting in placid ease, storing yearly\\nlittle dues of wheat and wine and\\noil. He preaches a thousand sermons\\nof the erring majesty of human life, but\\nhe does not, like Zola, batten on\\ndunghills, and show you how much\\nmuck he can dig up.\\nAnd now, what is the main\\ndifference between him and the\\nLilliputians?\\nThey are mere photographers, tak-\\ning machine pictures with painful care.\\nIt is the difference between a kodac and\\nthe brush of a great master.\\nHe may be ever so careless and\\nslovenly, but he has the hand of power\\nand when he sweeps his brush across\\nthe canvass, that canvass becomes one\\nof the dear and priceless treasures of the\\nworld through all the centuries.", "height": "4164", "width": "2604", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0036.jp2"}, "37": {"fulltext": "WILLIAM MAKEPEACE\\nTHACKERAY\\nCaptious persons may insist that\\nthey be made acquainted with the au-\\nthority which prompts this further\\npresentation of Thackeray lore.\\nThis seems to be agreeable to the\\ndemand that the distant suburbs of\\nculture shall remain in eternal calm, ex-\\ncept for the harryings of the Chatauqua\\nCourse and the literary tea and toast of\\nthe culture clubs, Yet this message\\nwill be unpretending as becomes one\\nfrom a place so far distant from the\\nhabitat of learned and approved re-\\nviewers, The point of view at least", "height": "4180", "width": "2432", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0037.jp2"}, "38": {"fulltext": "28 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nshould not unduly prejudice the relation,\\nfor the ferment of London, Boston and\\nNew York is busy upon newer themes,\\nand the soil once worked to exhaustion\\nnow lies fallow.\\nNot consenting to the paramount\\njurisdiction of any reviewer whosoever,\\nthere is here presented some cumulative\\ntestimony on Thackeray, for it is the\\nduty of each generation to testify to all\\nthat has aforetime been done in letters\\nThus divers testimonies can be pre-\\nserved for the use of posterity when it\\nshall make up its final verdict. This\\nreview is offered by one who loves his\\ntask, a witness on minor points, merely\\nas a deposition in rei perpetua memo-\\nriam, for what even such an one has\\nthought of Thackeray may become a\\nmatter of curious and valuable interest\\nsome hundreds of years hence. The\\ntoiler and dreamer must look to that\\nfinal judgment, and not the applause", "height": "4160", "width": "2652", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0038.jp2"}, "39": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 29\\nof the easily satisfied, who may crown\\na favorite to-day and uncrown him\\nto-morrow.\\nNot in profane analogy to the final\\njudgment in the moral and spiritual\\nworld, but in the conceit of an idle hour,\\none can imagine a court of last resort\\nfor authors in which there shall be a\\nfinal decree on all fames and reputations;\\nwhere worth and not names shall\\ncontrol; where even some rejected manu-\\nscripts will give their testimony not\\ndisqualified by any past editorial\\nverdict; where some obscure poets shall\\nhave due commendation, and the swollen\\nreputations of some great men will\\nsuffer proper diminution. The poor\\nscholar who has escaped prosperity\\nshall there be crowned with the tardv\\nbays, and many darkened garrets of our\\nGrub Streets will become visibly glorious\\nin that effulgent justice. The magazine\\nmagnate who hears not the voice of", "height": "4172", "width": "2404", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0039.jp2"}, "40": {"fulltext": "jo CX/TfCAL CONFESSIONS\\ngenius until it be properly advertised,\\nand who has spent his life-time putting\\nits inspirations into strait -jackets; the\\nProfessional Organizer of Clacques for\\nSmall Performers; the Critics Banditti\\nwho hold up all travelers on the road to\\nfame, will, let us trust, on that last\\njudgment day find their deserved place\\namong the goats. But surely there are\\nsome fames that will grow brighter and\\nbrighter in that last winnowing. Unless\\nthe known standards of excellence shall\\nfail, in all the world of nineteenth\\ncentury authorship, Thackeray will be\\ngiven first place.\\nSometimes, owing to the failing\\nmemories of men, priceless things are lost\\nsight of for a time, yet assurance seems\\nnow so full that it cannot be so with\\nThackeray. With him, however, more\\nthan with any other author, the effect\\nhe produced on his readers forms a\\ncurious study. Some minds instinc-", "height": "4172", "width": "2580", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0040.jp2"}, "41": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY ji\\ntively dislike him and yet delight in\\nDickens and Bulwer Lytton. Such\\nsoils, however well sown with\\nThackerayism, blossom only into the\\nmeagerest appreciation. This trait is\\nlike unto the fabled inability of the\\nNorth Briton to comprehend a\\njoke. Is it because the satire of\\nThackeray is so sweeping and all-\\nembracing that even the most obtuse\\nreader imagines he is being mocked at\\nand that all of his own vanities and\\nfollies are being rudely caricatured\\nbefore his eyes? Happy is the man who\\ncan laugh at his own follies and jest at\\nhimself for the fool that he was on\\nyesterday. To him Thackeray is a\\nwell-spring of delight.\\nBoth the comedy and tragedy of life\\nhave a sameness from generation to gen-\\neration. It is a common place to say that\\nnames and social customs and forms of\\ngovernment change, but the nature of", "height": "4132", "width": "2388", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0041.jp2"}, "42": {"fulltext": "32 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nman remains as it was, and that the\\ncreations of Moli re and Shakespeare\\nwill always have living duplicates. Who\\nhas not known a Tartuffe? Even a\\nFalstaff is not difficult to find, and as\\nfor Nym, Pistol and Bardolph, they are\\nas common as sawdust saloons.\\nI have met the Old Campaigner,\\nbusy breeder of divorces that she is, and\\nBecky Sharp still lives and continues to\\nshoot young curates, and other impres-\\nsionable males, dead with her soft\\nglances.\\nOn the very threshold of Thack-\\neray s world one cannot help but linger\\na little over his endearing personal\\nqualities. Soon he will show us life s\\nbaseness and meanness, and it seems good\\nto pause over some happier things before\\nlaunching into the blacker and deeper\\ncurrents. He was one of the lovable men of\\nliterature. Count them up and you will\\nsee how few of these there are. Some of", "height": "4172", "width": "2656", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0042.jp2"}, "43": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY jj\\nthe greatest names stand for icebergs of\\npersonality, and you can feel the lower-\\ning temperature as you near them. Do\\nyou always love the man behind the\\nbook? It is rank treason to suggest it\\nbut can you feel affection for the man\\nDickens, for the man Tennyson, or for\\nBulwer Lytton? I confess that I can-\\nnot; they are only graven images and\\nmere makers of books, as remotely\\nfrigid as the north pole. There is some\\ncoldness in the blood accounting for this\\nthat cannot be explained or analyzed.\\nBut, what warmth and cheer and\\nglow of good fellowship and kindliness\\nradiates from Thackeray and Lamb and\\nHolmes. When you read their words they\\nbecome alive again, and when you think\\nof them as dead, it brings a sharp pang\\nof grief; a sense of personal loss. Time\\ncannot still their heart throbs, and life\\nand love are pulsing yet, despite the\\ntokens of mortality.", "height": "4152", "width": "2404", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0043.jp2"}, "44": {"fulltext": "34 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nIt may be that this repellant cool-\\nness in Tennyson and Dickens is due to\\nthe drop of Semitic blood ascribed to\\nthem by anthropoligical investigators.\\nI think it is Besant who says that\\nthis tincture of the elder race is necces-\\nsary to mental perfection, and that where\\nit comes it leavens with an added genius\\nthe tough stubborn fibre of the Teutonic\\nintellect. He adds that we all need a\\nlittle of it in order to properly ripen our\\ntalents.\\nIn the lesser memoirs of the great\\npoet we read that after he had written\\nThe Revenge and commited it to his\\npublisher s hands and before it had be-\\ncome public property, he invited a choice\\ncompany to hear it read. Probably no\\none but he could bring together such a\\ngroup of listeners within the four seas.\\nHis grave biographer describes his\\nreading generally as a mysterious\\nincantation exceedingly impressive, and", "height": "4172", "width": "2572", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0044.jp2"}, "45": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 35\\nas he read on towards the end every\\nheart was awed by the wonderful power\\nof the immortal poem.\\nHe finally came to the close with\\nsuch a strange mixture of genius and\\nthrift that his hearers were frozen\\nlifeless\\nAnd they mann d the Revenge with a\\nswarthier alien crew,\\nAnd away she sail d with her loss and\\nlong d for her own;\\nWhen a wind from the lands they had\\nruin d awoke from sleep\\nAnd the water began to heave and the\\nweather to moan,\\nAnd or ever that evening ended a great\\ngale blew,\\nAnd a wave like the wave that is raised\\nby an earthquake grew,\\nTill it smote on their hulls and their sails\\nand their masts and their flags,\\nAnd the whole sea plunged and fell on\\nthe shot-shatter d navy of Spain,", "height": "4132", "width": "2400", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0045.jp2"}, "46": {"fulltext": "j6 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nAnd the little Revenge herself went down\\nby the island crag-s\\nTo be lost evermore in the main,\\nand the beggars only gave me three\\nhundred pounds for it\\nQuoth my Lord Tennyson, not\\nmaking pause at all between the last\\nwords of the poem and his execrations\\non the hard-hearted publishers who had\\ndriven a close bargain with him. It is\\nhard to have the deathless minstrel\\nsweep one hand across his harp, while\\nwith the other he clinks and counts his\\nguineas. Doubtless not one of that\\nnoble assemblage ever forgot the scene,\\nor could ever look on Locksley Hall as\\nanything but a commercial pot-boiler, or\\non In Memoriam as other than a task to\\nbe paid for at so much a line.\\nBehind the scenes one sees dimly\\nthe publishers and the poet, driv-\\ning the bargains of an old clothes\\nshop.", "height": "4156", "width": "2660", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0046.jp2"}, "47": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 37\\nHow different this from Dante who\\nil could hold heart-break at bay for\\ntwenty years and not let himself die\\nuntil his task was done, or Lamb\\nwinning his way, with sad and patient\\nsoul, through evil and pain, and strange\\ncalamity. These two marshalled life s\\nforces through black shadows, the one\\nwith a warrior s stern, set, face, that\\nnever lightened and the other with\\npleasant jest, heedless of whether he won\\nor lost, so he but hid the heartache.\\nWho could turn from this real tragedy\\nto Byron s counterfeit, or feel affection\\nfor him in his theatrical sorrow as he\\ndisplayed in many postures his many\\ntimes broken heart to the public gaze?\\nIt is for him who is a man first and\\na genius afterwards, that we reserve our\\nbest affection. We accord this to\\nThackeray for he had the heart of a\\nchild that worldly wisdom could not\\nspoil.", "height": "4132", "width": "2400", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0047.jp2"}, "48": {"fulltext": "j8 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nIt Is a far leap from these thoughts\\nto Thackeray s land of snobs. He is\\nmarkedly eminent as the only great\\nspecialist on this subject. He has taken\\nthem apart and put them together, and\\nreduced them to their original elements.\\nPie has admired, dissected and played\\nwith them, and artfully drawn them out\\nand felinely leaped upon them from\\ncunning concealments. He has dug and\\nsearched for snobs in all social forma-\\ntions, and never without reward. He\\nhas made scientific research into all\\nkinds, qualities, conditions and degrees\\nof snobs, and classified, arranged,\\nnamed, numbered, indexed and cross-\\nreferenced them. He has grilled them,\\nsometimes savagely, and sometimes\\nlovingly, for he had a grotesque form of\\naffection for them such as Dickens said\\nthat he had for the pigs which he saw\\ndisporting themselves in the streets of\\nNew York. Given one scale of any", "height": "4160", "width": "2616", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0048.jp2"}, "49": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 39\\nspecies of snob, and Thackeray could\\nconstruct the complete animal. He takes\\na just pride in his cabinet of snobs where\\nthere are multitudes of them artistically\\narranged with pens stuck through\\ntheir snobbish thoraxes. Among these\\nremains are Clerical, Royal, Military,\\nRespectable, Great, City, Banking,\\nScholastic, Irish, Sporting, University,\\nTheatrical, Professional and Official\\nSnobs. Being pressed to define Literary\\nSnobs, the satirical rogue says:\\nThe fact is that in the literary profes-\\nsion there are no snobs. Look around\\nover the whole body of British men of\\nletters, and I defy you to point out a\\nsingle instance of vulgarity, or envy, or\\nassumption.\\nThis genial snob-hunter sometimes\\nbeats up his own thickets. He admits\\nthat he would rather walk down Pail\\nMall arm in arm with a Lord than with\\na commoner, and would feel a snobbish", "height": "4132", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0049.jp2"}, "50": {"fulltext": "4 o CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nelation if he could only be seen between\\ntwo dukes in Picadilly. In the divine\\nardour of the chase he is willing to\\njeeringly trice himself up. If at any\\ntime one feels a tendency to snobbish-\\nness, he can de-snobize himself by\\nconsulting Thackeray s probe and\\nscalpel. We arise from this feast of\\nsnobs to ask if there is any place free\\nfrom the Snob? Is there no wild of\\nEngland, Scotland or Ireland, or Thibet\\nor Crim-Tartary, or among the\\nAnthroppopphaghi, where a snob is\\nnot?\\nThackeray never gave but the most\\ncasual investigation to the fauna of this\\ncontinent. He had doubtless read our\\nhistory and knew that there were no\\nsnobs here, and that in this republic all\\nmen were created equal and recognized\\nneither rank nor social condition as\\nconferring any distinction. He must\\nhave found that snobs, like weeds, do", "height": "4156", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0050.jp2"}, "51": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 41\\nnot grow on new soils. No, we do not\\nlove a lord better than a commoner; we\\ndo not envy our neighbours; we do not\\nthink meanly of and inflict slights on\\nthose less fortunate than ourselves; we\\ndo not think better of any man because\\nof his wealth. No one here meanly\\nadmires mean things, which is his\\ndefinition of a snob. Our international\\nmarriages with foreign titles have been\\npossible only because of the singular\\nworth of the groom involved, and, also\\nby reason of the worth of the bride\\nWith us, kind hearts are more than\\ncoronets, and, thank heaven, we have a\\nproper contempt for the social sycophancy\\nof the degenerate Briton. Those fecund\\nIrish kings and noble families of the\\nthree islands have no noble descendants\\nhere who brag of their long descent, and\\nwe who know that our ancestry is\\nnoble, never mention it and do not\\nesteem ourselves for it.", "height": "4132", "width": "2416", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0051.jp2"}, "52": {"fulltext": "42 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nThere is one line of fiction in which\\nThackeray is not great. He portrayed\\nno murderers, no Napoleonic criminals\\nwho slept in the contriving of crime and\\nawoke to do it. He had no love for\\nslumming, and did not, like a respect-\\nable sort of scavenger, rake over the\\nrefuse of the London streets for lessons\\nand sermons and fine morals with which\\nto adorn his romance.\\nHe made the novel a public convey-\\nance where all sorts of people might find\\ncarriage; where Parson Honey man is\\nrudely jostled by Mr. Moss, and the\\ngentle Amelia and Captain Raff touch\\nelbows; where callow Pendennis hotly\\ncourts the ancient Fotheringay, chap-\\neroned by the redoubtable Costigan;\\nwhere Becky Sharp and her vis-a-vis, the\\nstately Semiramis Pinkerton, picked up\\nas the coach rolls by C his wick Mall, make\\nfaces at each other; where the Castle-\\nwoods cease not their genteel family", "height": "4160", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0052.jp2"}, "53": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 43\\nquarrels, and Lady Maria begins that\\nlittle Affair with the French dancing\\nmaster; where the Virginians arrange\\nfor the early morning meeting with their\\nlately esteemed friend, G. W. where\\nPhilip glowers hatred at his father, and\\nClive and Barnes Newcome fall to\\ncousinly insults and blows; while ever\\nwatchful in his corner sits a humorous\\nLiterary Gent, as the genial Harry\\nFoker calls him, taking notes and\\nchuckling now and then as the coach\\nspeeds away, and the ruts bring out the\\ntemper of the passengers.\\nThere are inns to be made, and new\\npassengers to be taken up, and old ones\\nto be put down, and country roads\\nstretching before, and narrow towns to\\npass, and by and by, the din and roar of\\nthe great Babylon. But the journey is\\nnever long and never weary for al-\\nways you are keeping close company\\nwith human life, and are looking", "height": "4160", "width": "2420", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0053.jp2"}, "54": {"fulltext": "44 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nbreathlessly into its meanness and\\nits majesty.\\nTake joy of this ferment and\\nturmoil of living and loving and hating,\\nand so that you may love it the more\\nheartily, turn and look upon the single-\\nseated equipages of romance that are\\ntrundled before us in this part of the\\nworld. The single nondescript passen-\\nger that you see is the author s fad in\\nmorals, religion or politics, or some\\nflotsam gleaned from the nine days talk\\nof the tea parties, or furbished out of\\nthe last labor strike, the newest phase\\nof the New Woman, the Chicago Fire,\\nthe Charleston Earthquake, or the last\\nvisitation of Cholera or Yellow Fever.\\nAny commonplace of this kind furnishes\\nplot and pabulum and all manner of\\nexcellencies to our story-writers of\\npauperized wits. Among them are the\\nObituary Novelists, who, like the\\nObituary Poets in the country news-", "height": "4156", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0054.jp2"}, "55": {"fulltext": "V\\nTHACKERAY 45\\npapers, go hand in hand with Death.\\nLet Death come to a city with generous\\nstroke, in Flood, Fire, Earthquake, or\\nPlague and the public can draw at\\nninety days on the Obituary Novelists\\nfor this mortuary aftermath of fiction.\\nThus comes our Dreary School of\\nRomance.\\nIts upbuilders select a supposed\\ndramatic situation or center and round\\nit range the puppet characters, who\\nchatter from page to page some text of\\ncommonplace and are as sentient and\\nalive as a lot of wooden Indians. Thus\\nwe have had; Bulwarks Burned\\nDown, The Earth Shook, Saved\\nby the Flood, Plague Stricken,\\netc., etc. The Washerwoman of\\nFinchley Common, would be of riotous\\ninterest as compared with some of\\nthese. Their admirers are one with the\\nExeter Hall enthusiast who declared that\\nhe would rather be the author of the", "height": "4164", "width": "2396", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0055.jp2"}, "56": {"fulltext": "46 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ntract named than of Paradise Lost.\\nBut come away to where we have\\nbetter metal. Thackeray deals with\\nrespectable wickedness in the main; a\\nwickedness of cushioned pews and pretty\\npulpits, and eminently virtuous drawing\\nrooms; of assemblies where highly\\nrespectable people such as you and I\\nknow, eat, drink and make merry; a\\nwickedness of pleasant family circles\\nwhere all hands quarrel in a perfectly\\ngenteel way; a wickedness which goes\\nhand in hand with Christian church-\\ngoing, with Christian alms-giving, with\\nloyal support of the State and all\\nestablished institutions; a wickedness\\nwhich dresses in the paint and tinsel of\\nconventional moralities, which sits in the\\nboxes in Vanity Fair, and looks down\\nwith stern scorn on the ungenteel low-\\ndown wickedness of the pit; in short a\\nphilistine, pharisaical, canting, time-\\nserving, toadying, sham -loving, holier-", "height": "4156", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0056.jp2"}, "57": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 47\\nthan-thou wickedness that cankers and\\nrots character like a leprosy. You will\\nsometimes turn your head away from\\nthis rout of respectable sinners for shame\\nof our common humanity.\\nYou do not need to pray to be\\nsaved from the crimes of the statute\\nbooks, but you may need to be saved\\nfrom the sins of the Old Campaigner, of\\nMrs. Bute Crawley, of Barnes Newcome,\\nof Old Osborne, of Lady Kew, and the\\nReverend Honey man, of the Pontos, the\\nBotibels, the Clutterbucks, and Lady\\nSusan Scraper, and many others.\\nThese were all of approved respectability\\nand some of them made a great figure\\nin Vanity Fair. They did not pick\\npockets or commit murder, but acted in\\nall things as a great many respectable\\npeople about you do, yet how you\\ndespise and loathe them. These are\\nThackeray s Helots, drunken with greed\\nand selfishness and all uncharitableness,", "height": "4132", "width": "2392", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0057.jp2"}, "58": {"fulltext": "48 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nshown as examples of what respectable\\nmen and women may do and still keep\\ntheir rags of respectability.\\nWe do not have to be warned\\nagainst the wickedness of Sykes, and\\nFagin, and Jonas Chuzzlewit, of Quilp\\nand Brass. Their depravity has no\\nenticement; it is vulgar and repellant.\\nThe warning in Thackeray s sermons is\\nfor the Respectable Wicked, and the\\nmost complacent sinner will wince under\\nthis lash. Thackeray loved a man, and\\nwould have nothing less. With him:\\nOne ruddy drop of manly blood\\nThe surging sea outweighs.\\nHe never spares himself. Here is\\none of his self -indictments.\\nI never could count how many causes\\nwent to produce any given effect in a\\nperson s life, and have been, for my own\\npart many a time quite misled in my own\\ncase, fancying some grand, some mag-\\nnanimous, some virtuous reason for an", "height": "4156", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0058.jp2"}, "59": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 49\\nact of which I was proud, when lo!\\nsome pert little satirical monitor springs\\nup inwardly, upsetting the fond humbug\\nwhich I was cherishing the peacock s\\ntail wherein my absurd vanity had clad\\nitself and says; Away with boasting;\\nI am the cause of your virtue my lad.\\nYou are pleased that yesterday at dinner\\nyou refrained from the dry champagne.\\nMy name is Worldly Prudence, not Self\\nDenial, and I caused you to refrain.\\nYou are pleased because you gave a\\nguinea to Diddler. I am Laziness, not\\nGenerosity which inspired you. You hug\\nyourself because you resisted other\\ntemptation? Coward, it was because you\\ndared not run the risk of the wrong!\\nOut with your peacock s plumage Walk\\noff in the feathers which Nature gave\\nyou, and thank Heaven they are not alto-\\ngether black.\\nYet the same hand wrote\\nthis of a woman looking back forty", "height": "4132", "width": "2392", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0059.jp2"}, "60": {"fulltext": "5 o CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nyears to the love of her youth:\\nOh, what tears have they shed, gentle\\neyes! Oh, what faith has it kept, tender\\nheart If love lives through all life, and\\nsurvives throug-h all sorrow; and remains\\nsteadfast with us through all changes;\\nand in all darkness of spirit burns bright-\\nly; and, if we die, deplores us forever,\\nand loves still equally; and exists with\\nthe very last gasp and throb of the faith-\\nful bosom\u00e2\u0080\u0094 whence it passes with the pure\\nsoul beyond death; sure it shall be im-\\nmortal.\\nAnd like it is what he said of the\\ngulf of time, and parting, and grief.\\nAnd the past and its dear histories,\\nand youth and its hopes and passions,\\nand tones and looks forever echoing in\\nthe heart, and present in the memory\\nthese no doubt, poor Clive saw and heard\\nas he looked across the great gulf of time,\\nand parting, and grief, and beheld the wo-\\nman he had loved for many years. There", "height": "4168", "width": "2568", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0060.jp2"}, "61": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 5/\\nshe sits; the same, but changed; as gone\\nfrom him as if she were dead; departed\\nindeed into another sphere, and into a\\nkind of death.\\nIf Thackeray dearly loved a man,\\nhe also loved a boy. He is the historian,\\nthe epic poet of boyhood. The boy is\\nan unknown quantity to the average\\nnovelist; he is elusive and protean and\\nevades description. Some great novel-\\nists, although undoubtedly once boys\\nthemselves, make merecaricatures of boys.\\nLittle Lord Fauntelroy was a charming\\ncreature but he was not a boy. D Israeli s\\nboys are all old men; they attain three-\\nscore before they are twenty. Witness\\nthe grand entrance of some of these un-\\nfeathered ones in the world of politics\\nand letters. They discourse of affairs\\nof state before they have achieved the\\nbig manly voice, If you should chance\\nto meet one of these very old young gen-\\ntlemen at Rodwell Regis or Dr. Birch s", "height": "4132", "width": "2504", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0061.jp2"}, "62": {"fulltext": "52 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nschool you would no more think of giv-\\ning him a tip to buy sweets with, than\\nyou would of tipping Mr. Gladstone.\\nThomas Bailey Aldrich and Mark Twain\\nhave told us of some real boys, and Wil-\\nliam Allen White is now engaged, as I\\nunderstand, in the restoration of the Boy,\\nto fiction.\\nIn behalf of these gentlemen and all\\nmen who have been boys I protest\\nagainst expurgated editions of boyhood.\\nLike Cromwell with the portrait painter,\\nI want to have the picture show all the\\nblemishes. You will have to make long\\nsearch in Dickens before you will find a\\nreal boy. He has some impossible crea-\\ntions that are called boys, but as a rule\\nthey are grotesque freaks, mere carica-\\ntures, made up by selecting and empha-\\nsizing some one boyish trait. This\\ngives a mere fragment of a boy. The\\nFat Boy for instance, simply eats\\nand sleeps, admittedly too meager", "height": "4132", "width": "2528", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0062.jp2"}, "63": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 53\\nan endowment of boyish talent.\\nThe Dickens Boy is given to the\\nmost impossible grown-up language.\\nHere is a sample from Mrs. Lirriper s\\nLodgings. The boy says, in a burst of\\nchildish confidence to the old lady who\\nhas adopted him.\\nAnd now dear Gran, let me kneel\\ndown here, where I have been used to say\\nmy prayers, and let me fold my face for\\njust a minute in your gown, and let me\\ncry, for you have been more than mother,\\nmore than father, more than sisters,\\nfriends to me.\\nThis is exactly the way the forty-\\nyear-old boy talks in a popular play.\\nBut no real ten-year-old ever talked like\\nthat. Oliver Twist was not much of a boy.\\nThe nearest he came to it, was when he\\nasked for more, and when he blacked\\nNoah Claypole s eye. But these events\\nseemed in the nature of accidents and not\\nindicative of any settled boyish habit.", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0063.jp2"}, "64": {"fulltext": "54 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nThackeray has no counterfeit boys.\\nHe never got over being a boy himself\\nand so he knew boys. He does not\\nhave them continually at stage business.\\nThey fight and fag each other and are\\nflogged religiously and unavailingly; they\\nfill up on hardbake and raspberry\\ntart, they run in debt for goodies, and\\ndote on hampers from home, and hate\\nbooks and love fun. Clive goes to Aunt\\nHoneyman s and she stuffs him with\\nsweets as is the manner of aunts the\\nworld over. Sad is the childhood that\\ndoes not have such an aunt. I vow I\\nwould rather have seen the fight between\\nChampion Major the First Cock of\\nDoctor Birch s School, and theTutbury\\nPet, or the one between Cuff and\\nDobbin, than the combat between the\\nlate Messrs Fitzsimmons and Corbett.\\nBut Thackeray is most happy with\\nhis boys in the salad time, between hay\\nand grass, when the childish treble", "height": "4160", "width": "2500", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0064.jp2"}, "65": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 55\\nchanges to a more virile note. Few\\nelders understand a boy at this time,\\nnor does he understand himself. If you\\nchoose to laugh at the many nebulous\\naspirations, hopes and ambitions that\\ncome to him, then you are laughing over\\nthe grave of your own youth where lies\\nall that was best in you. Make your\\nmirth kindly, for so you toiled, and\\nsorrowed and played up the slope of\\nmanhood. The silly hours, the follies in\\nlove, the wanton freaks and callow\\nvices, the fitful starts that mark the\\nchanging mind, are all pictures of your\\nown youth. You have turned them to\\nthe wall and forgotten them, or wish\\nyou could forget them. Thackeray\\nhas dealt kindly with this world of\\nhobbledehoyhood. He has peopled it with\\nArthur Pendennis, Phillip, Clive, the\\nVirginians and many more of unripe\\nwits. He is youth s kindliest, most\\ngenerous mentor. Tis sometimes one", "height": "4132", "width": "2492", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0065.jp2"}, "66": {"fulltext": "5 6 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nwhether this boy- man is laughing or\\ncrying over this dreamland of youth.\\nIt was as if he had the same opinion\\nof Dr. Busby, who was asked how he\\ncontrived to keep all his preferments, and\\nthe head-mastership of Westminister\\nSchool, through the turbulent times of\\nCharles I, Cromwell, and Charles II;\\nHe replied: The fathers govern the\\nnation; the mothers govern the fathers;\\nthe boys govern the mothers; and I\\ngovern the boys,\\nHe could live over again that many-\\nsided boyhood with its selfishness and\\ngenerosity, its cruelty and humanity, its\\njustice and injustice, its queer, strange,\\ncode of established laws and customs.\\nAlways a boy at heart, he could easily\\nturn back to the old days of smiles and\\ntears, of feasting and fighting, of loosely\\nmingled work and play, and feel again\\nthe thrill of those early griefs and joys,\\nand that first fond love for many", "height": "4132", "width": "2528", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0066.jp2"}, "67": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 5 y\\ncompanions whom the dust has long\\ncovered.\\nIt was in child-hearted mood that\\nhe wrote the poem where are these lines.\\nI d say we suffer and we strive\\nNot less or more as men than boys;\\nWith grizzled beards at forty-five,\\nAs erst at twelve in corduroys.\\nAnd if in time of sacred youth,\\nWe learned at home to love and pray,\\nPray heaven that early love and truth\\nMay never wholly pass away.\\nThe Thackeray Woman is a delicate\\nsubject a complex creature, and not to\\nbe roughly classified. Our author has\\nbeen widely accused of making his\\nwomen either fools or knaves, and of\\ndisparaging the sex to the point of\\nslander. This criticism is really based\\non supersensitive gallantry. In fact,\\nThackeray treated the sexes impartially,\\nand dealt out stripes and favor with an\\nequal hand.", "height": "4124", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0067.jp2"}, "68": {"fulltext": "58 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nHe did not create any lofty and\\nflawless women, but neither did he\\ncreate any men of this character.\\nBecky Sharpe, The Old Campaigner,\\nand the fair false Beatrix and many\\nother selfish, nagging, toadying, re-\\nspectable and semi-respectable women\\nthat he has painted are in his Rogues\\nGallery, side by side with George\\nOsborne, the brainless cad, the Marquis\\nof Steyne, and Barnes Newcome.\\nWe are not unmindful that Zenobia\\nPacker, who belongs to no one knows\\nhow many clubs, and is president of the\\nWoman s Emancipation League, and\\nwho aims a rapid fire of treatises and\\naddresses at the Tyrant, Man, and is\\nhigh chum with Lady Summersault, the\\nEnglish Head of the Movement for\\nPurity and Reform, thinks that Amelia\\nSedley was a little fool, and that all of\\nthe Thackeray women of gentle mould\\nwho prayed among their children, and", "height": "4132", "width": "2528", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0068.jp2"}, "69": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 59\\nclung fiercely to their household deities,\\nand never cared whether they had any\\nrights or not, were poor puling weak-\\nspirited creatures, who would be entirely\\nout of date now.\\nGo thy way, Zenobia, to thy clubs\\nand thy culture, and thy meat for the\\nstrong-minded; pace the platform with\\nmannish strides; harangue obdurate\\nMan until he cries for quarter, and\\nhunt the bubble Notoriety from conven-\\ntion to convention.\\nTyrant Man would return your\\ncompliments with interest if he dared.\\nAnd you, Hysterical One who spleen on\\nmarriage service lest it have occult\\npower to subjugate you, and who\\nanalyze and re-analyze all your emotions\\nand feelings before you use them, and\\nhold high prate and debate over\\ndeum and teum, follow your\\nlabyrinth and let petty Discontent\\ngnaw you, but leave healthy humanity", "height": "4128", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0069.jp2"}, "70": {"fulltext": "60 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nto its worship of old-fashioned idols.\\nIf to be gentle, and loving, and\\nkindly, and unselfish; to be ignorant of\\nmost of the wickedness of the world, to\\nbelieve in and trust and idealize a faulty,\\nhuman, son or brother or husband,\\nand to forgive him seventy times seven,\\nand to pour unmeasured love upon him\\nwithout pausing to see whether it is all\\nmeasured back or not; to be generous\\nand charitable to all erring souls, and to\\nhate all wickedness, stamps a woman as\\na poor weak-spirited creature, then may\\nheaven send us more of such women to\\nbless and cheer the world and make it\\nbetter. Amelia, it is true, loved a\\ncad, but evil tongues were hushed in her\\npresence. The Little Sister artlessly\\ndropped her h s, and said feller, and\\nwas not at all strong-minded, but in\\nsilence she let her own good name\\nsuffer a deadly wound in order that\\nshe might save the boy, not her", "height": "4152", "width": "2520", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0070.jp2"}, "71": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 61\\nown, from an inheritance of shame.\\nSome apology is due for approach-\\ning the everlasting parallel between\\nDickens and Thackeray; but this habit\\nof comparison has become a fixed and\\nineradicable trait in all of their admirers.\\nThe question of superiority between\\nthem is probably as unworthy of serious\\ncontention as are some of those favorites\\nof the Ethopian debating societies.\\nDickens will undoubtedly always be\\nmore popular with the masses. His\\nhumor, his mannerisms, his bent for\\nfine writing, his long drawn pathos, his\\nunwearying play of sorrow and emotion\\nand his conventional sermonizing on the\\nmoralities, are more taking than the\\nquick, sweeping strokes of Thackeray.\\nThackeray disdained pretentious\\nwriting and all overdrawn, overworn\\nscenes. He has no Solitary Horsemen,\\nno prefatory tales of wind and storm, no\\nstale theatrical tricks or devices, or", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0071.jp2"}, "72": {"fulltext": "62 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ntawdry stage properties. He leaves all\\nthe gorgeous imagery of sky and storm\\nand landscape to other limners. Life s\\ngreat joys and sorrows are not made\\nwearying with long speech or ornate\\nfuneral rhetoric. Before a death bed,\\nhe is not like Dame Quickly or some\\ngarrulous caretaker of the chamber,\\nchattering and gossipping of the last\\nhour; he but reverently draws the\\ncurtain back for a momentary view and\\nthen closes it again. He does not\\nprologue his art and bid you prepare to\\nlaugh or weep before the occasion.\\nYet he excels Dickens, and, indeed,\\nmost others, as a masters of style. The\\npedant, the mere grammarian, or\\nlinguistic martinet, prunes and pares\\nour mother-tongue into bashful regular-\\nity, into ordered line and phrase. It\\nis then as the trees in the ground of\\nsome pervenue gardener, trimmed into\\ngrotesque architecture and deformity,", "height": "4132", "width": "2520", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0072.jp2"}, "73": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 63\\nshorn of their grace and beauty, and\\nmere caricatures of the great forests.\\nThackeray will have none of this; he\\ntouches the barren rock of dictionary\\nlore and the living words gush forth.\\nSome of the best examples of his\\nstyle are found in the introduction of\\nMajor Pendennis reading his morning\\nmail, in the perusal of which you get\\nseveral life histories; in the scene where\\nColonel Esmond discards the young\\npretender, and in Colonel Newcome s\\nlast hour. In these are shown the\\nmarvel and power of a few simple words.\\nLike music answering music is a\\nyounger author s affectionate tribute to\\nthe great master.\\nIn his Letters to Dead Authors,\\nLang says of Thackeray s style, using\\nfor his text Thackeray s own words,\\nForever echoing in the heart and\\npresent in the memory: n\\nWho has heard these tones, who does", "height": "4132", "width": "2504", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0073.jp2"}, "74": {"fulltext": "64 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nnot hear them as he turns over your\\nbooks that, for so many years have been\\ncompanions and comforters? We have\\nbeen young- and old, we have been sad\\nand merry with you, we have listened to\\nthe midnight chimes with Pen and\\nWarring-ton, have stood with you beside\\nthe death-bed, have mourned at that yet\\nmore awful funeral of lost love, and with\\nyou have prayed in the inmost chapel\\nsacred to our old and immortal affec-\\ntions, a leal souvenir! And whenever\\nyou speak for yourself, and speak in\\nearnest, how magical, how rare, how\\nlonely in our literature is the beauty of\\nyour sentences! I cannot express the\\ncharm of them, so you wrote of Georg-e\\nSand; so we may write of you. They\\nseem to me like the sound of country\\nbells, provoking- 1 don t know what vein\\nof music and meditation, and falling-\\nsweetly and sadly on the ear. Surely\\nthat style, so fresh, so rich, so full of", "height": "4132", "width": "2528", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0074.jp2"}, "75": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 65\\nsurprises that style which stamps as\\nclassical your fragments of slang-, and\\nperpetually astonishes and delights\\nwould alone give immortality to an\\nauthor, even had he little to say.\\nBut you with your whole wide world\\nof fops and fools, of good women and\\nbrave men, of honest absurdities and\\ncheery adventurers; you who created the\\nSteynes and Newcomes, the Beckys and\\nBlanches, Captain Costigan and F. B. and\\nthe Chevalier Strong all that host of\\nfriends imperishable you must survive\\nwith Shakespeare and Cervantes in the\\nmemory and affections of men.\\nWhen Thackeray grows weary of\\nsnobs and their ways, and of the\\nmeanness and baseness of life, he has\\nplaces of refuge, where no evil comes,\\nbut only charity and worth and manli-\\nness. These are his temples, and some\\ndeity of truth is worshipped in each.\\nYou can weep and pray with him here,", "height": "4120", "width": "2444", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0075.jp2"}, "76": {"fulltext": "66 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nand walk forth with new-opened heart.\\nI liken him to the Ancient Mariner,\\nhomeward bound after that voyage of\\nevil sights, who crosses the harbo nr\\nbar, and sees the light-house top, and\\nthe kirk and feels the familiar homely\\nflush of life in his own country once\\nmore. Straightway his spirit falls prone\\nand he learns the messages he is to take\\nto all, that he prayeth best, who loveth\\nbest, all things both great and small.\\nSo, when Thackeray comes to the lives\\nof good men and women, he casts off\\nhis hardihood and cynicism, and sees\\nonly the things that he loves best. If\\nhe created Becky Sharpe, and George\\nOsborne and Barnes Newcome, he also\\ngave us the Little Sister, and Amelia\\nSedley, and dear old Dobbin.\\nThe wickedness and baseness is\\novermatched by Colonel Newcome, and\\nwhere in all literature is there so\\nsimple, kindly, manly and chivalrous a", "height": "4156", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0076.jp2"}, "77": {"fulltext": "THACKERAY 67\\nsoul. Almost the first we see of him is in\\nthe coffee room when he arises from his\\nseat, trembling with indignation and\\nstalks out with little Clive, because one\\nof the bachanalians commences to sing\\na ribald song. His life is all one prayer\\nfor his boy. When the evil days came\\nand the lash of The Old Campaigner fell\\nupon him, he bowed his shoulders in\\ncharity and patience. In the real world\\nit might be hard to find men like\\nhim, but unquestionably there are\\nwomen like her. We last see him in\\nGray Friars, one of the Poor Brethren\\naccepting with blended pride and\\nhumility the dole of charity for a little\\ntime until death comes. With Clive, and\\nEthel, and Madame de Florae, whom he\\nhad loved and lost forty years before,\\nclinging to his hands, he heard the\\nevening bell strike as his summons\\ncame, and raising his head called\\nAdsum, the word he answered with", "height": "4132", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0077.jp2"}, "78": {"fulltext": "68 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nwhen names were called at school.\\nColonel Newcome alone redeems Thack-\\neray from the charge of thinking too\\nmeanly of human kind. His own careless\\nlines best close the page:\\nThe play is done; the curtain drops,\\nSlow falling to the prompter s bell;\\nA moment yet the actor stops,\\nAnd looks around to say farewell.\\nIt is an irksome work and task;\\nAnd when he s laughed and said his say,\\nHe shows, as he removes the mask\\nA face that s anything but gay.\\nCome wealth or want, come good or ill,\\nLet young and old accept their part,\\nAnd bow before the Awful Will,\\nAnd bear it with an honest heart.\\nWho misses, or who wins the prize?\\nGo, lose or conquer as you can;\\nBut if you fail, or if you rise,\\nBe each, pray God, a gentleman.", "height": "4132", "width": "2532", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0078.jp2"}, "79": {"fulltext": "DEGENERATION.\\nIn his Degeneration, Dr. Nordau\\ncomes crashing into literature like\\nthe traditionary bull into a china\\nshop. When that rude invasion oc-\\ncurred, according to some accounts, the\\nproprietor of the shop, after the intruder\\nhad been led away to the shambles, took\\nan inventory of the ruins. He found\\ngreat wreckage of silly gingerbread\\nware, of costly stucco, and antique\\nvases, priceless because they were old; he\\nfound broken specimens made famous\\nand notable because some mad fancier\\nhad started the fashion of doting on", "height": "4128", "width": "2448", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0079.jp2"}, "80": {"fulltext": "70 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nthem, and many other sheep-like mad-\\nmen had chased after their leaders.\\nSome of these fragments were ground\\ninto dust and past all patching; but\\nothers he noted he could stick together\\nand hide their wounds, or, better\\nstill, could parade them maimed and\\nbattered in proof of their great anti-\\nquity. To maintain my figure properly\\nI choose to believe that this shopkeeper\\nwas a collector, a connoisseur, a lover of\\nrare old pottery who paid fabulous prices\\nfor such as pleased his taste; one who\\nvalued many of the gems of his collec-\\ntion, not because they were artistic, but\\nbecause they were hideous, and other\\npieces because no one else had them, and\\nstill others because some Royal Society\\nhad set its approval on them. I shall\\nassume that he had some dingy lies\\npurporting to come from the palaces of\\nPompeii, or the tombs of Etrusca, that\\nreally hailed from the shed of some vile", "height": "4132", "width": "2516", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0080.jp2"}, "81": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 71\\nnineteenth century potter. The bull\\nmust have knocked some of the grimy\\ndeceiving glaze from these gauds and\\nshown them for what they were. Our\\nantiquarian could solace himself with the\\nthought that he could afford to lose\\nsome of his wares; could patch others\\nand deceive the public with the frag-\\nments, and that after all, his best\\ntreasures were on the higher shelves and\\nreceived no harm. In the case at bar, as\\nthe lawyers say, we who keep the literary\\nshop have walked about since Nordau\\ndarkened our doors, picking up the\\nruins and ruefully surveying the broken\\nidols.\\nWe find much dull clay gilded as\\nwedgewood and rare china; we find\\nantiquities that were made yesterday\\nwith no more lies to tell; we find that\\nsome things can be patched together;\\nand, thankfully, we find that some\\npriceless treasures were placed so high", "height": "4124", "width": "2440", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0081.jp2"}, "82": {"fulltext": "72 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nthat this raging iconoclast could not\\nharm them. Let us, then, rejoice over\\nour salvage. As for Nordau, he has\\nbeen led away to the critic s shambles,\\nthere to await the lethal strokes of ten\\nthousand daggers.\\nThe vendetta between him and his\\nvictims, and victim s victims has become\\ninternational. It is our happiness to sit\\naround in the pleasant amphitheatre and\\nwatch the killing, moved only by the\\nlove of truth. Under no circumstances\\nlet us turn up our thumbs for the king s\\nmercy. This charge of one man upon\\nan army will be one of the famous\\nbraveries in literature. He faced only\\nthe leaders at first, the prime in order\\nand in might, but behind these come\\nthe inferior orders, and then the ten\\nthousand thousand disciples of the\\nDegenerates. This rude shock did not\\neven spare the temple of France where\\nthe Forty Immortals are safely housed", "height": "4124", "width": "2548", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0082.jp2"}, "83": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 73\\nbeyond all necessity of struggling for\\nfame. It is vain however to suppose\\nthat the common business of establishing\\ncults will be lessened much. We will\\nstill continue to give to our newest\\nGenius assurance of fame by naming\\nclubs after him, and disciplining an army\\nto ring his perpetual eulogy. In club\\ncircles it will still be thought blasphemous\\nthat critics like Nordau should disturb\\npublic worship by their rude and fretful\\nspeech. We shall spend many a\\ndecade hereafter listening to the donkey\\nchorus, and watching the halo, which\\nDullness always delights to place around\\nDullness, grow and fade.\\nI have my own fee-grief however.\\nAfter reading Nordau, I bethought me\\nof those ancient library favorites those\\nstorehouses of polite letters The\\nPoets Argosy; Treasures of Verse;\\nand Sheaves Gleaned From the Great\\nOcean of Literature, I fear that I have", "height": "4124", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0083.jp2"}, "84": {"fulltext": "74 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nbeen harbouring Degenerates behind\\nthese wooden walls. I know that\\nthe gentle-souled compilers, always\\nthoughtful of the manners and morals\\nof their patrons, have already expurgated\\nmuch, yet I may have to follow them\\nwith the blue pencil. If I must, I shall\\neven tear out a forbidden leaf here and\\nthere. If an intimate friend of mine is\\narrested at my house charged with a\\nheinous crime, shall I go off to gaol and\\nbail him out, and provide for his\\ndefense, not caring for my own safety? Or\\nwill it be more prudent for me to\\ncome out boldly and honestly against\\nhim; frankly admit that he may be\\nguilty, and that I have observed\\nsuspicious things about him for a long\\ntime, as I frequently remarked to my\\nother friend, Smith, as Smith very well\\nknows? Is not this the best way to get\\naway from the ridicule and shame of the\\nmatter, especially as I remember trying", "height": "4128", "width": "2536", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0084.jp2"}, "85": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 75\\nto make many people believe that my\\nfriend in custody was a worthy honest\\nfellow? How can I clear myself of the\\nsuspicions arising from my intimacy\\nwith the criminal unless I repudiate\\nhim utterly? If I have had a\\nsneaking fondness for Swinburne and\\nMaeterlinck, now that Nordau has made\\nhis arrest, is it my best policy to attempt\\na rescue, or, shall I abandon them to\\ntheir fate; denounce them in an airy\\noff-handed way, and announce that I\\nnever approved of them and am glad of\\ntheir exposure?\\nIndeed, Nordau says that Degener-\\nates love a Degenerate, and thus I may\\nbecome classified as a Mattoid, an\\nEgomaniac, or a Graphomaniac, simply\\nbecause of the company I have\\nkept. These questions as to what faith\\nshall be maintained with old friends are\\nmatters of casuistry that the honorable\\nreader will settle for himself.", "height": "4128", "width": "2448", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0085.jp2"}, "86": {"fulltext": "76 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nFor my own part, I think that if an\\nauthor, after having deceived us these\\nmany years, now turns out under a new\\ndiagnosis to be a Mattoid or other\\nmonster, he is not entitled to much\\nconsideration, and we owe it to ourselves\\nto look out for ourselves. The dear\\nladies who have wept sentimentally over\\nIbsen s multifarious sweet follies; the\\nloveless ones who have scaped either\\nmatrimony or its happiness, and who\\nfind comfort in Tolstoi because he\\npreaches that marriage is not only a\\nfailure but a desecration; the ardent\\ndevotees of realism who have followed\\nin Zola s furrow as he subsoiled\\ndunghills; the many youths of kindling\\nminds who have been lured by the\\ngorgeous coloring of Swinburne and\\nRossetti, as the savage is lured by a red\\nblanket and glass beads; those who\\nlove the dictionary conglomerates of\\nMaeterlinck, Baudelaire and Nietzsche", "height": "4132", "width": "2520", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0086.jp2"}, "87": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 77\\nmust endure the shock of seeing\\ntheir deified good masters turned into\\nswine into Yahoos, whom none shall\\nreverence.\\nNordau has the scientist s rage for\\nclassifying the unclassifiable. To the\\nlayman the task seems as vain as that\\nof the phrenologists who subdivide the\\nhuman skull into compartments, stocking\\neach with its appropriate tenant. It is\\nurged that Nordau pleads his cause\\nagainst the Degenerates with too much\\nvehemence; but a juror need not assume\\nthat an advocate has a bad case, because\\nhe argues it with exaggeration and\\nenergy. This new science of Degeneration\\nhas begotten names and titles that\\nare appalling to the non-professional\\nreader. How are pupils in the lower\\nforms to know what Masochism, Megalo-\\nmania, Neo-Catholicism, Graphomania,\\nAnthropomorphism, Zoomorphism, Ec-\\nholalia and many other titles of strange", "height": "4132", "width": "2436", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0087.jp2"}, "88": {"fulltext": "7 8 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ndisease, are? The scholars must supply\\nliterature with a new index for its\\nmaladies, or else allow us to lump\\nthem off under the head of Nervous\\nProstration or General Debility.\\nTo a native of the upper Mississippi\\nValley, this baiting and harrying of the\\nDegenerates seems like a visitation of\\nrighteous wrath only too long delayed. In\\nplaces where literature has an established\\nservice and a common law of tradition\\nand custom, success seems generally\\nto follow persistent clacking and\\ntickling. You talk up my new poem\\nand I will talk up your new novel; thus\\npigmy calls to pigmy, and a great deal\\nof noise is made about nothing. If this\\npersistent reciprocal advertising be kept\\nup long enough the Public will soon\\ncome to think we are both great\\nmen. Would you know how great fame\\nis built up out of nothing, read Nordau s\\naccount of the making of Maeterlink.", "height": "4132", "width": "2520", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0088.jp2"}, "89": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION yg\\nThis pitiable mental cripple vegetated\\nfor years wholly unnoticed in his corner\\nof Ghent without the Belgian Symbolists,\\nwho outbid even the French, according\\nhim the slightest attention; as to the\\npublic at large, no one had a suspicion\\nof his existence. Then one fine day in\\n1890 his writings fell accidentally into the\\nhands of the French novelist, Octave\\nMirbeau. He read them, and whether\\nhe desired to make fun of his\\ncontemporaries in grand style, or whether\\nlie obeyed some morbid impulsion is not\\nknown; it is sufficient to say that he\\npublished in Le Figaro an article of\\nunheard of extravagance, in which he\\nrepresented Maeterlinck as the most\\nbrilliant, sublime, moving poet which\\nthe last three hundred years had\\nproduced, and assigned him a place\\nnear nay, above Shakespeare. And then\\nthe world witnessed one of the most\\nextraordinary, and most convincing", "height": "4132", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0089.jp2"}, "90": {"fulltext": "So CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nexamples of the force of suggestion. The\\nhundred thousand rich and cultivated\\nreaders to whom Figaro addresses itself\\nimmediately took up the views which\\nMirbeau had imperiously suggested to\\nthem. They at once saw Maeterlinck\\nwith Mirbeau s eyes. They found in\\nhim all the beauties which Mirbeau\\nasserted that he perceived in him.\\nAnderson s fairy tale of the invisible\\nclothes of the emperor repeated itself\\nline for line. They were not there, but\\nthe whole court saw them. Some imagined\\nthey really saw the absent state robes the\\nothers did not see them, but rubbed their\\neyes so long that they at least doubted\\nwhether they saw them or not; others\\nagain could not impose on themselves, but\\ndared not contradict the rest. Thus\\nMaeterlinck became at one stroke, by\\nMirbeau s favour, a great poet, and a\\npoet of the future, Mirbeau had also\\ngiven quotations which would have", "height": "4132", "width": "2528", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0090.jp2"}, "91": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 81\\ncompletely sufficed for a reader who was\\nnot hysterical, not given over irresistibly\\nto suggestion, to recognize Maeterlinck\\nfor what he is, namely, a mentally\\ndebilitated plagiarist; but these very\\nquotations wrung cries of admiration\\nfrom the Figaro public, for Mirbeau had\\npointed them out as beauties of the\\nhighest rank, and every one knows that\\na decided affirmation is sufficient to\\ncompel hypnotic patients to eat raw\\npotatoes as oranges and to believe\\nthemselves to be dogs or other\\nquadrupeds.\\nNordau gives out this as his text:\\nDegenerates are not always criminals,\\nprostitutes, anarchists, and pronounced\\nlunatics; they are often authors and\\nartists. These however manifest the\\nsame mental characteristics, and, for the\\nmost part, the same somatic features as\\nthe members of the above anthropological\\nfamily.", "height": "4132", "width": "2448", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0091.jp2"}, "92": {"fulltext": "82 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nThis is his indictment of the great\\ndonkey-like public:\\nBut grievous is the fate of him who\\nhas the audacity to characterize aesthetic\\nfashions as forms of mental decay. The\\nauthor or artist attacked never pardons a\\nman for recognizing in him the lunatic or\\ncharlatan; the subjectively garrulous\\ncritics are furious when it is pointed out\\nhow shallow and incompetent they are, or\\nhow cowardly when swimming with the\\nstream; and even the public is angered\\nwhen forced to see that it has been\\nrunning after fools, quack dentists, and\\nmountebanks as so many prophets.\\nSome among these degenerates in\\nliterature, music and painting have in\\nrecent years come into extraordinary\\nprominence, and are revered by numerous\\nadmirers as creators of a new art, and\\nheralds of the coming centuries.\\nHe defines Degeneration as a\\nmorbid deviation from an original", "height": "4132", "width": "2524", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0092.jp2"}, "93": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 83\\ntype. He says:\\nThe society which surrounds the\\ndegenerate always remains strange to\\nhim. The Englishman is conquered\\nby an absurdity accompanied by dia-\\ngrams. Ruskin is one of the most turbid\\nand fallacious minds, and one of the most\\npowerful masters of style of the present\\ncentury. The Pre-Raphaelites\\nwho got all their leading principles from\\nRuskin, went further. They misunder-\\nstood his misunderstandings. He had\\nsimply said that defectiveness in form\\ncan be counterbalanced by devotion and\\nnoble feeling in the artist. They, how-\\never raised it to the position of a\\nfundamental principle, that in order to\\nexpress devotion and noble feeling, the\\nartist must be defective in form.\\nIf any human activity is individualistic, it\\nis that of the artist. True talent is\\nalways personal. In its creations it\\nreproduces itself, its own views and", "height": "4132", "width": "2440", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0093.jp2"}, "94": {"fulltext": "84 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nfeeling s, and not the articles of faith\\nlearned from an aesthetic apostle. If\\nGoethe had never written a line of verse, he\\nwould all the same have remained a man\\nof the world, a man of good principles, a\\nfine art connoiseur, a judicious collector, a\\nkeen observer of nature. Lombroso, a\\nvery great authority, says of degenerates\\nIf they are painters, then their predomi-\\nnant attribute will be the color sense they\\nwill be decorative. If they are poets they\\nwill be rich in rhyme, brilliant in style, but\\nbarren of thought; sometimes they will\\nbe decadents.\\nIn this connection it may be said\\nthat the curious style of some artists of\\nthis generation, notably Monet and his\\nschool bears out the above statement.\\nNordau says of Monet:\\nThus originate the violet pictures of\\nMonet and his school which spring from\\nno actual observable aspect of nature, but\\nfrom the subjective view due to the", "height": "4132", "width": "2528", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0094.jp2"}, "95": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 85\\ncondition of the nerves. When the entire\\nsurface of walls in salons and art\\nexhibitions of the day appears veiled in\\nuniform half-mourning, this predilection\\nfor violet is simply an expression of the\\nnervous debility of the painter.\\nOf our own decadents only Walt.\\nWhitman is taken; perhaps the crop is\\ntoo small and too immature to merit\\nreaping. This belittlement of those\\nwho are spared may be deserved, and\\nyet if Nordau could have read our\\nTigerish Affection Poetry, our Poetry\\nof Cold Soggy Dreams, or our Small\\nPoetry for Big Magazines, he might\\nhave found a trace at least of the deadly\\nvirus of degeneration. We do not\\nworship overmuch our home- born\\ndegenerates. Some of our attempts at\\nliterature are puerile, imitative, and\\nvacuous enough, but it is the silly\\nmadness and unreason of childhood\\nrather than the rancid ripeness and", "height": "4132", "width": "2424", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0095.jp2"}, "96": {"fulltext": "86 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nputrescent maturity of old-world\\ndegeneration. You can readily dis-\\ntinguish between the childish prattle of\\nthe kindergarten, and the awful adult\\nbabble and clamor of the madhouse.\\nOur small-and-early literature is so\\ndessicated and unfattened in its life, that\\nit cannot spoil; there is nothing in it for\\ndecay to feed upon, and so it dies without\\nthe grosser tokens of mortality. The\\ndiseases of degeneration must draw\\nnutriment from something having life and\\npower, even though it be of a degraded\\nsort. We have no madmen with burning\\nbrains, like Tolstoi, crying in our\\nwilderness; they belong to an older\\ncivilization. Our erotic literature has a\\nbrief and transitory life; it is infected\\nwith a thin, washed-out, enfeebled and\\ninnocuous depravity that is impotent to\\ndo harm except among school children.\\nIts makers put it up in imitation of\\nZola, Rossetti and Swinburne, who are", "height": "4132", "width": "2528", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0096.jp2"}, "97": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 87\\nas eagles to these midges. The\\nnympho- maniacal young women who\\nwrite prose and verse for the patient\\nAmerican public deserve to be put in\\nstraight-jackets, only they are not worth\\na commission de lunatico. They try to\\nfly as eagles but cannot clear the stye\\nwhere they seem to live.\\nNordau digs up the early remains\\nof the Pre-Raphselites to point his\\nmoral. This Brotherhood is referred to\\nas an instance of how men of real talent\\ncan indulge in grotesque affectation.\\nDante Gabriel Rossetti, Holma,n Hunt\\nand Millais formed the Pre-Raphaelite\\nBrotherhood in 1848; Collinson and\\nStephens, two painters and Woolner, the\\nsculptor, joined later. For a time they\\nmarked all their work P. R. B. Nordau\\nsays of them:\\nIn course of time the Pre-Raphaslites\\nlaid aside many of their early extrav-\\nagances. Millais and Holman Hunt no", "height": "4124", "width": "2520", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0097.jp2"}, "98": {"fulltext": "88 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nlonger practice the affectation of wilfully\\nbad drawing- and of childish babbling- in\\nimitation of Giotto s language.\\nThey did not paint sober visions but\\nemotions. They therefore introduced\\ninto their pictures mysterous allusions\\nand obscure symbols which have nothing\\nto do with the visible reality.\\nNordau defines Pre-Raphaelitism\\nthus:\\nIt is true that the Pre-Raphaelites\\nwith both brush and pen betray a\\ncertain, though by no means exclusive\\npredilection for the Middle Ages but the\\nmediae valism of their poems and paintings\\nis not historical but mythical, and simply\\ndenotes something outside time and\\nspace a time of dreams and a place of\\ndreams, where all unreal figures and\\nactions may be conveniently bestowed.\\nThat they decorate their unearthly world\\nwith some features which may remotely\\nrecall mediaevalism; that it is peopled", "height": "4132", "width": "2536", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0098.jp2"}, "99": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 89\\nwith queens and knights, noble damozels\\nwith coronets on their golden hair, and\\npages with plumed caps these may-\\nbe accounted for by the prototypes\\nwhich, perhaps unconsciously, hover\\nbefore the eyes of the Pre-Raphaelites.\\nRossetti finally becomes a man of\\nletters, dominated possibly by his\\nname. William Morris finally joins the\\nPre-Raphaelites, and I am reluctantly\\ncompelled to say that he has, on one\\noccasion at least, stolen something\\nbesides inspiration from the mournful\\nTuscan s haunted rhyme. This practice\\nof conscripting a blessed damozel out of\\nthe Middle Ages to do duty in poetry is\\ncommon with Rossetti and his school.\\nTennyson a healthy poet, teaches us\\nthat a simple maiden in her flower, is\\nworth a hundred blessed damozels.\\nIn Rossetti s poem Troy Town,\\nthe refrain O Troy Town, and O\\nTroy s down, and Tall Troy s on", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0099.jp2"}, "100": {"fulltext": "go CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nfire, is tacked on as the alien and\\nunassisting tail- piece to each one of\\nfourteen strophes. Thus:\\nHelen knelt at Venus shrine,\\n[O Troy town!]\\nSaying-, A little gift is mine,\\nA little gift for a heart s desire,\\nHear me speak and make me a sign!\\n[O Troy s down,\\nTall Troy son fire!]\\nNordau says:\\nHe is ever muttering- as he\\ngoes, monotonously as in a litany, the\\nmysterious invocations to Troy, while he\\nis relating the visit to the temple of Venus\\nat Sparta.\\nSollier has the proposition that\\nA special characteristic found in\\nliterary mattoids, and also, as we have\\nseen, in the insane, is that of repeating\\nsome words or phrases hundreds of\\ntimes in the same page.\\nHis twin brother, Swinburne, is", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0100.jp2"}, "101": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION gi\\ncalled upon for his contribution to the\\npoetical crazy quilt.\\nWe were ten maidens in the green corn,\\nSmall red leaves in the mill-water;\\nFairer maidens never were born,\\nApples of gold for the King s daughter.\\nWe were ten maidens by a well-head,\\nSmall white birds in the mill-water\\nSweeter maidens never were wed,\\nRings of red for the King s daughter.\\nThis mill-water is a monotonous\\nreceptacle for almost everything from\\n4 small white birds, to a little\\nwind, and it bears its variegated\\nburdens through many verses to the\\nend; when the final grave is dug for the\\nstar daughter, it is still on duty. In\\nthe last verse running rain, is cast in\\naqueous tautology into the mill-water.\\nThis practice of putting a tether on\\nFancy skyward flying, and bringing\\nher back with a jerk to the same point", "height": "4132", "width": "2448", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0101.jp2"}, "102": {"fulltext": "g 2 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nafter every flight, seems unneccessarily\\ncruel and inharmonious.\\nThe Belgian poet, Maurice Maeter-\\nlinck, furnishes rare sport for this hunter\\nof Degenerates. From the Serres\\nchaudes of Maeterlinck this sample is\\ngiven:\\nO hot-house in the middle of the\\nwoods. And your doors ever closed And\\nall that is under your dome And under\\nmy soul in your analogies The thoughts\\nof a princess who is hungry; the tedium\\nof a sailor in the desert; a brass-band\\nunder the windows of incurables. Go into\\nthe warm moist corners I One might say\\ntis a woman fainting on harvest-day. In\\nthe courtyard of the infirmary are\\npostilions in the distance an elk-hunter\\npasses by, who now tends the sick.\\nExamine in the moonlight [O, nothing\\nthere is in its place One might say, a\\nmadwoman before judges, a battle ship in\\nfull sail on a canal, night-birds on", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0102.jp2"}, "103": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 93\\nlilies, a death-knell towards noon [down\\nthere under those bells], a halting-- place for\\nthe sick in the meadows, a smell of ether\\non a sunny day. My God My God when\\nshall we have rain and snow and wind in\\nthe hot-house?\\nTo show how easy this is, Nordau\\nwrites a parody of it in this fashion:\\nO Flowers And we groan so heavily\\nunder the very old taxes An hour-glass,\\nat which the dog- barks in May; and the\\nstrang-e envelope of the negro who has\\nnot slept. A grandmother who would\\neat oranges and could not write Sailors\\nin a ballroom, but blue blue On the\\nbridge this crocodile and the policeman\\nwith the swollen cheek beckons silently\\nO two soldiers in the cowhouse, and the\\nrazor is notched! But the chief prize\\nthey have not drawn. And on the lamp\\nare ink spots\\nNordau despairingly asks: Why\\nparody Maeterlinck? His style bears no", "height": "4124", "width": "2528", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0103.jp2"}, "104": {"fulltext": "94 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nparody, for it has already reached the\\nextreme limits of idiocy. Nor is it quite\\nworthy of a mentally sound man to\\nmake fun of a poor devil of an idiot.\\nZola and his school do not escape\\npunishment.\\nM. Zola boasts of his method of\\nwork; all his books emanate from\\nobservation. The truth is that he\\nhas never observed; that he has\\nnever, following- Goethe plunged into\\nthe full tide of human life, but has\\nalways remained shut up in a world of\\npaper, and has drawn all his subjects out\\nof his own brain, all his realistic details\\nfrom newspapers and books read\\nuncritically. His eyes are\\nnever directed towards nature or\\nhumanity, but only to his own Ego. In\\norder that the borrowed detail should\\nremain faithful to reality, it must\\npreserve its right relation to the whole\\nphenomenon, and this is what never", "height": "4132", "width": "2528", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0104.jp2"}, "105": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 95\\nhappens with M. Zola. To quote only\\ntwo examples. In Pot-Bouille, among- the\\ninhabitants of a single house in the Rue\\nde Choiseul, he brings to pass in the\\nspace of a few months all the infamous\\nthings he has learnt in the course\\nof thirty years, by reports from\\nacquaintances, by cases in courts of\\nlaw, and various facts from newspapers\\nabout apparently honourable bourgeois\\nfamilies; in La Terre, all the vices\\nimputed to the French peasantry or\\nrustic people in general, he crams into\\nthe character and conduct of a few\\ninhabitants of a small village in Beauce he\\nmay in these cases have supported every\\ndetail by cuttings from newspapers, or\\njottings, but the whole is not the less\\nmonstrously and ridiculously untrue. I\\nallowed myself for thirteen years to be\\nled astray by his swagger, and credulously\\naccepted his novels as sociological\\ncontributions to the knowledge of French", "height": "4116", "width": "2472", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0105.jp2"}, "106": {"fulltext": "g6 critical confessions\\nlife. The family whose history Zola\\npresents to us in twenty mighty volumes\\nis entirely outside normal daily life, and\\nhas no neccessary connection whatever\\nwith France and the Second Empire. It\\nmight just as well have lived in Patagonia\\nand at the time of the Thirty Years War.\\nNordau says that the history of one\\nfamily of criminals in France has supplied\\nM. Zola with material for all of his\\nnovels. It is comforting to know that\\nthe human beasts described in works like\\nLa Terre are selected cases. Thinking\\nthat they were samples of the French\\npeople, I have felt like giving voice to\\nByron s adjuration, slightly paraphrased\\nArise ye Teutons and glut your ire.\\nA land peopled with Zola s char-\\nacters would be a carcass that even\\nvultures would disdain.\\nNordau says of Friedrich Nietzsche:\\nAs in Ibsen ego-mania has found its\\npoet, so in Nietzsche it has found its", "height": "4116", "width": "2540", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0106.jp2"}, "107": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 97\\nphilosopher. The deification of filth by\\nthe Parnassians with ink, paint and\\nclay; the censing among- the diabolists\\nand decadents of licentiousness, disease\\nand corruption; the glorification, by\\nIbsen of the person who wills, is free\\nand wholly himself of all this Nietzsche\\nsupplies the theory, or, something which\\nproclaims itself as such, From\\nthe first to the last page of Nietzsche s\\nwritings the careful reader seems to hear\\na madman, with flashing eyes, wild\\ngestures, and foaming mouth, spouting\\nforth deafening bombast and through it\\nall, now breaking out into frenzied\\nlaughter, now sputtering expressions of\\nfilthy abuse, and invective, now skipping\\nabout in a giddily agile dance, and\\nnow bursting upon the auditors with\\nthreatening mien and clenched fists.\\nNietzsche evidently had the habit of\\nthrowing on paper with feverish haste all\\nthat passed through his head, and when he", "height": "4100", "width": "2464", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0107.jp2"}, "108": {"fulltext": "9 8 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nhad collected a heap of these snippings, he\\nsent them to the printer and there was a\\nbook. It remains a disgrace to\\nthe German intellectual life of the present\\nage, that in Germany a pronounced\\nmaniac should have been regarded as a\\nphilosopher and have founded a school. In\\nproof of the correctness of the foregoing\\ncriticism I take a passage from\\nZarathustra.\\nThe world is deep and deeper than\\nthe day thinks it. Forbear forbear I\\nam too pure for thee. Disturb me\\nnot Has not my world become exactly\\nperfect? My flesh is too pure for thy\\nhands. Forbear, thou dull, doltish and\\nobtuse day! Is not the midnight\\nclearer? The purest are to be lords of\\nthe earth, the most unknown, the\\nstrongest, the souls of midnight who are\\nclearer and deeper than each day.\\nMy sorrow, my happiness are deep thou\\nstrange day but yet I am not God, no", "height": "4112", "width": "2552", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0108.jp2"}, "109": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION gg\\nHell of God; deep is their woe. God s\\nwoe is deeper, thou strange World Grasp\\nat God s woe, not at me! What am\\nI? A drunken sweet lyre a lyre of\\nmidnight, a singing frog understood by\\nnone, but who must speak before the\\ndeaf, O higher men! For ye understand\\nme not! Hence! Hence! O Youth! etc.\\nIt would make too lengthy a review\\nto do more than refer to what Nordau\\nsays of the other French degenerates.\\nAmong them, is Yerlaine, who was in\\nprison for two years for a hideous\\ncrime; with this preparation he comes\\nforth and establishes a school or cult in\\nliterature. Stephane Mallarme admired\\nas a great poet in certain circles in\\nFrance, but who affected silence, with\\nthe pretension that it was indelicate and\\nvulgar to expose his naked soul in\\nprint. From the top of the pedestal\\nwhere his worshippers placed him he\\nstimulates their adoration by speechless", "height": "4100", "width": "2504", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0109.jp2"}, "110": {"fulltext": "ioo CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nposturing, leaving them to read without\\nthe aid of the ink-well the great thoughts\\nwhich they credulously attribute to\\nhim. With these comes Moreas, another\\nleader of the Symbolists. Leaving\\nFrance, we fly at higher game in\\nTolstoi. Nordau says of him:\\nHe has become in the last few years\\none of the best known, and apparently,\\nalso, one of the most widely read authors\\nin the world. Every one of his words\\nawakens an echo among all the civilized\\nnations on the globe. His strong influence\\nover his contemporaries is unmistakable.\\nThe universal success of Tolstoi s\\nwritings is undoubtedly due in part to\\nhis high literary gifts. Tolstoi\\nwould have remained unnoticed like any\\nKnudson of the seventeenth century, if\\nhis extravagances as a degenerate mystic\\nhad not found his contemporaries\\nprepared for their reception. The\\nwide-spread hysteria from exhaustion", "height": "4128", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0110.jp2"}, "111": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 101\\nwas the requisite soil in which alone\\nTolstoi could nourish, In England it\\nwas Tolstoi s sexual morality that excited\\nthe greatest interest, for in that country\\neconomic reasons condemn a formidable\\nnumber of girls, particularly of the\\neducated classes, to forego marriage; and\\nfrom a theory which honored chastity as\\nthe highest dignity and noblest human\\ndestiny, and branded marriage with\\ngloomy wrath as abominable depravity,\\nthese poor creatures would naturally\\nderive rich consolation for their lonely,\\nempty lives and their cruel exclusion\\nfrom the possibility of fulfilling their\\nnatural calling. The Kreutzer Sonata\\nhas, therefore, become the book of\\ndevotion of all the spinsters of England.\\nLombroso instances a certain\\nKnudson, a madman, who lived in Schles-\\nwig about 1680, and asserted that there\\nwas neither a God nor a hell; that\\npriests and judges were useless and", "height": "4108", "width": "2516", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0111.jp2"}, "112": {"fulltext": "102 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\npernicious, and marriage an immorality;\\nthat men ceased to exist after death that\\nevery one must be guided by his own\\ninward insight, etc. Here we have the\\nprincipal features of Tolstoi s cosmology\\nand moral philosophy. Kundson has,\\nhowever, so little pointed out leading the\\nway to those coming after, that he still\\nonly exists as an instructive case of\\nmental abberation in books on diseases\\nof the mind.\\nNordau s work would be incomplete\\nwithout an exposition of Ibsenism. He\\nsays of Ibsen:\\nThat Henrik Ibsen is a poet of great\\nverve and power is not for a moment\\nto be denied. He is extraordinarily\\nemotive, and has the gift of depicting in\\nan exceptionally life-like and impressive\\nmanner that which has excited his\\nfeelings. Similarly it must be\\nacknowledged that Ibsen has created\\nsome characters possessing a truth to", "height": "4128", "width": "2532", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0112.jp2"}, "113": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION ioj\\nlife and a completeness such as are not\\nto be met with in any poet since\\nShakespeare. Gina, in The Wild Duck,\\nis one of the most profound creations of\\nworld-literature almost as great as\\nSancho Panza, who inspired it. Ibsen\\nhas had the daring to create a female\\nSancho, and in his temerity has come very\\nnear to Cervantes, whom no one has\\nequaled. If Gina is not quite so\\noverpowering as Sancho, it is because\\nthere is wanting- in her his contrast to\\nDon Quixote.\\nThrough many pages of Nordau,\\nIbsen is dissected and examined. Ibsen s\\nchildish ignorance of the simplest facts\\ntaught by modern science; his silly\\nexpositions and illustrations of the effect\\nof heredity; his habit of mounting little\\nhobbyhorses that have already been\\nridden to death by the authors of the\\nSunday-school literature of a generation\\nback; the artless discussions carried on", "height": "4116", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0113.jp2"}, "114": {"fulltext": "104 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nby his characters, of delicate and complex\\nsocial problems, are all given by Nordau\\nas signs of Degeneration.\\nI should rather say that these things\\nwere proofs that Ibsen was a mere\\ndreamer, lacking accuracy; one who was\\nbut a shallow student of facts and social\\nproblems, and who has had but slight\\ntraining as a man of the world and of\\naffairs. He has but a dry and tedious\\ncloset-wisdom, yet it is sugar-coated at\\ntimes with his rare poetic and dramatic\\ngifts. It would be a far deduction to\\nsay that these faults denoted Degenera-\\ntion. They rather strongly prove\\nthe vaguely nebulous condition of\\nthought, incident to one in his\\nnon-age. His ideas of sacrifice, of\\nexpiation for sin; his doctrine that\\nmen and women must live out their\\nlives, which he explains to mean that\\nthey should follow their own sensual or\\nselfish impulses no matter at what", "height": "4124", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0114.jp2"}, "115": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 105\\ncost or shame to others; his open\\nabandonment of all these theories and\\nthe advocacy of their opposites from\\ntime to time as fits his mood, are\\ncertainly marks of mental and moral\\nperversion. If he have a sound lesson on\\nthe necessity of right living, to-day, he is\\nsure to contradict it on some other\\nday with guileless and shameless\\ninconsistency. His career is like that of\\nthe Libyan who wished to become a\\ngod. With this purpose he caged\\na large number of parrots and\\ntaught them to say Apsethus, the\\nLibyan is a god. Then he set them\\nloose and they spread all over\\nLybia, and repeated in every wood\\nwhat he had taught them. The Libyans\\nnot knowing of his trick were astounded\\nand finally came to regard him as a\\ngod. Nordau uses this story as\\nillustrative of Ibsen, and adds:\\nIn. imitation of the ingenious", "height": "4100", "width": "2528", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0115.jp2"}, "116": {"fulltext": "106 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nApsethus, Ibsen has taught a few\\ncomprehensives, Brandes, Eberhards,\\nJaegers, etc. the words Ibsen is a\\nmodern, Ibsen is a poet of the future,\\nand the parrots have spread over all the\\nlands and are chattering- with deafening\\ndin in books and papers, Ibsen is\\ngreat! Ibsen is a modern spirit! and\\nimbeciles among the public murmur the\\ncry after them, because they hear it\\nfrequently repeated, and because on such\\nas they, every word uttered with emphasis\\nand assurance makes an impression.\\nNo enthronement however high is\\nsafe from Nordau; he invades temples\\nthat a humbler critic may not enter even\\non tiptoe. He confronts the mighty\\nWagner in his pride of place and shows\\nthe plague-spots in his character. I copy\\nonly a fragment from this arraignment:\\nThe shamless sensuality which\\nprevails in his dramatic poems has\\nimpressed all his critics. Hanslick", "height": "4132", "width": "2520", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0116.jp2"}, "117": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 107\\nspeaks of the bestial sensuality in\\nRheingold, and says of Siegfried: The\\nfeverish accents so much beloved by\\nWagner, of an insatiable sensuality,\\nblazing to the uttermost limits this\\nardent moaning, sighing, crying, sinking\\nto the ground, move us with repugnance.\\nThe text of these love-scenes becomes\\nsometimes in its exuberance, sheer\\nnonsense. Compare in the first act of\\nthe Walkure, in the scene between\\nSiegmund and Sieglinde, the following\\nstage direction: Hotly interrupting;\\nembraces her with fiery passion; in\\ngentle ecstacy; she hangs enraptured\\nupon his neck; close to his\\neyes; beside himself; in the\\nhighest intoxication, etc. At the\\nconclusion, it is said the curtain falls\\nquickly, and frivolous critics have\\nnot failed to perpetrate the cheap\\nwitticism, very necessary, too. The\\namorous whinings, whimperings and", "height": "4108", "width": "2520", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0117.jp2"}, "118": {"fulltext": "io8 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nravings of Tristan and Isolde, the entire\\nsecond act of Parsifal, in the scene\\nbetween the hero and the flower-girls, and\\nthen between him and Kundry in\\nKlingsor s magic garden, are worthy to\\nrank with the above passages. It\\ncertainly redounds to the high honour of\\nGerman public morality, that Wagner s\\noperas could have been publicly performed\\nwithout arousing the greatest scandal.\\nHow unperverted must wives and maidens\\nbe when they are in a state of mind to\\nwitness these pieces without blushing\\ncrimson and sinking into the earth for\\nshame! How innocent must even\\nhusbands and fathers be who allow their\\nwomankind to go to these representations\\nof lupanar incidents! Evidently the\\nGerman audiences entertain no misgivings\\nconcerning the actions and attitudes of\\nWagnerian personages; they seem to\\nhave no suspicion of the emotions by\\nwhich they are excited, and what", "height": "4132", "width": "2516", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0118.jp2"}, "119": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 109\\nintention their words, gestures and acts\\ndenote; and this explains the peaceful\\nartlessness with which these audiences\\nfollow theatrical scenes during- which,\\namong- a less childlike public, no one\\nwould dare to lift his eyes to his neig-hbour\\nor endure his glance.\\nThis new science of Degeneration\\nhas enriched our vocabulary with odd\\ngrotesque forms of speech, but lately\\nsprung up in the madhouses, dissecting\\nrooms and hospitals; the doctors have\\nbeen plagiarized and their livery stolen\\nfor the service of literature. So dressed\\nforth, Nordau s clinic becomes too\\nphysiological for the Critics Corner in\\na ladies magazine, even if in that locality\\nwe could endure so strong an antidote\\nto the gentle adjacent gush. The critics\\nwho hover as vultures alike over the\\nmountain peaks of genius and the dead\\nplains of mediocrity will have rare\\nfeasting on what Nordau has left; he", "height": "4116", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0119.jp2"}, "120": {"fulltext": "no CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nhas certainly run the game to earth for\\nthem.\\nThe art of criticism has always\\nowed much to the earlier classics. They\\nfurnished it inspiration, names, titles,\\nfigures, and illustrations. One hundred\\nand fifty years ago no critical discourse\\nwould have been thought worthy a place\\nin letters if it did not contain industrious\\ngleanings from mythology critics hunted\\nfrom Rome back to Troy for whips with\\nwhich to scourge offenders against their\\nlaws. Homer was the most constant\\nsource of supply; now his verses, (if I\\nmay use a bit of jesting vernacular, have\\nbecome back-numbers. I detest Smith s\\nabsurd book of essays; if I reviewed it in\\nthe style of the last century, I would call\\nhim a modern Theresites, or compare\\nhim to some other equally unvalued\\nancient; or I would suggest that he had\\nfound some bog-hole and drank from it\\nunder the mistake that it was the", "height": "4124", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0120.jp2"}, "121": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION in\\nPierian Spring. All this is old style,\\nand was very well in its day.\\nWith the aid of this new science, I\\ncall Smith, a Literary Mattoid, an\\nEgomaniac, a Phraseo maniac, or some\\nother of the hospital-coined titles and\\nepithets. It will be so much more\\npuzzling and painful for Smith, when he\\nshall find that his essays are not damned\\nby the dictionary, and that in order to\\nknow what it is that I have called him, he\\nmust consult his medical man. A more\\nserious thought that may well give us\\npause, is, what effect do these new\\ndiscoveries have on the law of libel and\\nslander? Is the term Mattoid, when\\napplied to an author, actionable? What\\nshould be the rule of damages for an\\nauthor who has been called on Egomaniac\\nIs the term Nymphomaniac calculated\\nto excite an assault and breach of the\\npeace, and therefore indictible? Some\\nof these questions will unhappily find an", "height": "4124", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0121.jp2"}, "122": {"fulltext": "ii2 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nanswer in court, and I will not prejudice\\nthe final judgment by any hasty\\nopinion.\\nThis excursion into Darkest Litera-\\nture, has all the fascinations attending\\nnew discoveries in lands of strange beasts\\nand birds and men,\\nwhatever title please thine ear\\nWhether thou choose Cerventes serious air\\nOr laugh and shake in Rabelais easy chair.\\nQuoting Pope is a reminder that\\nDegeneration has not yet been called\\nthe nineteenth century Dunciad an\\nomission which is, I fancy, entitled to\\nsome comendation. Yet prompted\\nnow, so strong is the habit of fashioning\\nthe divine parallel, we recur to that\\nearlier Dunciad in search of all marks of\\nlikeness or difference. Pope, probably a\\ndegenerate himself, hunted his enemies\\nlike a ferret out of the ratholes of Grub\\nStreet; yet he distils his poison in courtly\\nnumbers, and fair-sounding verse. He", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0122.jp2"}, "123": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION iij\\nruns the Dunciad in heroic mould, and\\nputs Theresites mockingly into the\\nshining armour of Achilles. He compels\\nthe mogrel mob in his Kingdom of\\nDullness to walk in god-like struts before\\nhe jeeringly dispatches them to the\\nshades. A dunce is more of a dunce\\ndressed in the rhetorical frippery of old\\ngods and kings, just as the ass in the\\nfable who puts on the lion s hide, thereby\\nbecomes more of an ass. Pope s heroic\\nrhyme is like a parade of gloriously\\nequipped warriors sent out apparently\\nto honourable battle, only finally to be\\nemployed as catchpoles for curbstone\\ncriminals. The rhyming garniture of\\nthe Dunciad with its myriad harmonies\\nhas some obscurities that somewhat dim\\nthe wit after so long a time. There is a\\nspecies of wit indigenous to time and\\nplace; it will not bear transplanting, and\\nwithers a little in a strange environment.\\nAfter nearly two centuries have passed,", "height": "4124", "width": "2516", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0123.jp2"}, "124": {"fulltext": "ii 4 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nwe lose the point of much of this\\nvenom- dripping rhyme; the near-by\\naudience laughed it to the echo. We\\ncannot bring back that fretting, fuming\\nBohemia where Pope was king. One\\nmust have seen the fribbling rout of\\nvulgar pretenders whom Pope left\\nhowling, in order to take full pleasure\\nin their correction. We should go back\\nto Will s, and hear the daily gossip that\\nranged from the street to the chambers\\nof great noblemen, to make us apt in the\\nstudy of this devilish delicate wit. Who\\ncan interpret it now, or pluck the full\\nmeaning of these neshless jests from\\ntheir graveyard? No more can we tell\\nall that Rabelais and Swift meant by\\ntheir stupendous satires.\\nAs Hamlet in sad derision picked\\nup the skull of poor Yorick, so do we\\ntake up the Dunciad. It was a thing of\\ninfinite jest once; but now, where be its\\ngibes? its gambols? its flashes of", "height": "4128", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0124.jp2"}, "125": {"fulltext": "DEGENERA TION 115\\nmerriment that were wont to set the\\ntable on a roar? All are gone and we\\nare sitting gazing at a stage-full of mere\\nskeletons of jests whose appearance once\\nshook the galleries.\\nNordau on the other hand has\\nconstructed for us a scientific treatise a\\ntext book; a cold phlegmatic analysis\\nthat will be understood in distant\\ntimes, and without the aid of local\\nhistory. He does not adorn his labour\\nwith the coloring of divine fancy as\\nthe ancients decked victims for the\\nsacrifice. He does not waste strength\\non glowing verse and cunningly turned\\nphrases; he has no place for these in his\\nmateria medica. He assumes a sterner\\ntask, and stands, knife in hand, coolly\\ndissecting and expounding the genius\\nof the lecture-room.", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0125.jp2"}, "126": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH.\\nI find from my daily that the Smith\\nfamily is to hold a reunion near Altoona\\non August 19. It is needless to say\\nthat this reunion will be largely\\nattended. Those in charge of the affair\\nhave issued a large number of invitations\\nto members of the family in all parts of\\nthe world. On these invitations appears\\na sort of a family tree, being a statement\\nof the fecundity and antiquity of the\\nSmiths. It states that the name\\nantedates the building of King Solomon s\\nTemple by forty years, and the Christian\\nera by 1855 years. There will doubtless", "height": "4132", "width": "2564", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0126.jp2"}, "127": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 117\\nbe presented at this reunion, a book of\\nChronicles of the Smith Family, compiled\\nby some enthusiastic Smith, with\\nveracious accounts of how knightly de\\nSmiths won honour in many great battles\\nfrom Leuctra to Agincourt. Letters\\nare to be read at this gathering from\\nfamous absent Smiths and addresses\\nmade by famous attendant Smiths.\\n1 Invitations, so my account runs, have\\nbeen sent to the Italian Smithis, the\\nSpanish Smithos, the German Schmidts,\\nthe French Smeets, the Russian\\nSmithtowskis, the Greek Smikons, and\\nthe Turkish Seef s. I cannot find from\\nthis legend whether the invitations were\\nsent to the Smythes, and the Smithes, but\\nthese aristocrats may have been omitted\\nfrom this felicitation, by the plain\\nSmiths, who constitute the majority of\\nthe clan. Caste is a dreadful thing, but\\nit seems to have crept like an alphabetical\\nserpent into the Smith family in the", "height": "4132", "width": "2520", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0127.jp2"}, "128": {"fulltext": "n8 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nform of the interpolated y or e. To those\\nafflicted with this aristocratic addition, I\\nwould say that the greatest member of\\nthe Smith family was plain Smith, with\\nhis name-plainess still further accentuated\\nby the Christian name of John. Not to\\nwear this matter out; I mean Captain\\nJohn Smith, who fought robbers in\\nEngland and France, and pirates on the\\nMediterranean, who did great deeds\\nagainst the Turk, cutting off the heads\\nof three Turkish champions before the\\nwalls of Regall; who bore Turkish\\nand Indian captivity with undaunted\\nsoul, and found in the thick darkness of\\nthat captivity a glowing romance of\\nlove; who was saved from death by an\\nIndian girl, and who performed so many\\nprodigies of valour as to pale what\\nresounds in fable or romance of Uther s\\nson begirt with British and Armoric\\nknights. The Knights of the Table\\nRound with all their fabled prowess", "height": "4132", "width": "2576", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0128.jp2"}, "129": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH ug\\ntaken for true, could not show his\\nfellow. He was the peer of them all, the\\ncourtliest, the bravest and the greatest\\nof soul of all the brave gentlemen\\nadventurers that England sent into far\\ncountries three hundred years ago. All\\nthat was said of the peerless Launcelot\\ncould be said of our captain\\nThou were head of all Christian\\nknights; and thou were the courtiest\\nknight that ever bare shield; and thou\\nwere the truest friend to thy lover that\\never bestrode horse; and thou were the\\ntruest lover of a sinful man that ever\\nloved woman; and thou were the kindest\\nman that ever strake with sword; and\\nthou were the goodliest person ever came\\namong press of knights and thou were\\nthe meekest man and the gentlest that\\never ate in hall among ladies; and thou\\nwere the sternest knight to thy mortal\\nfoe that ever put spear in rest.\\nHero worship may run an unchecked", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0129.jp2"}, "130": {"fulltext": "120 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ncourse with this great-hearted man, for\\nall about him seems to have been fine\\nand worthy. The chance which selects\\nparents for great men gave him those by\\nthe name of Smith as if in derision of\\nthe paltry birthright of a name. His\\nparents followed this commonplace, in\\nan age when there were plenty of Mor-\\ntimers and Percys by giving their eaglet\\nthe name of John. It was later Smiths\\nwho have been tempted from the\\npathway of plain and unromatic orthoepy\\nto insert the extra vowel. But our\\nSmith could afford to wear his name\\nplain, as a prince can afford to wear\\nplain clothes.\\nHe was born of good family in\\nWilloughy, Lincolnshire, in 1579. Lord\\nBacon, then a young man of nineteen,\\nwas studying law at one of the Inns of\\nCourt. One Sir Thomas Coke was in a\\nlarge practice before the courts at\\nWestminster; Queen Elizabeth was in", "height": "4132", "width": "2572", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0130.jp2"}, "131": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 121\\nthe midst of her long and glorious\\nreign; and there was much fighting and\\nblood-letting going on all over the\\nglobe. Spain was wasting the\\nNetherlands with fire and sword. The\\nTurks were in continual war with the\\nnations of southern and western\\nEurope. Eight years before Smith s\\nbirth the great battle of Lepanto was\\nfought between the Turks and the\\nSpanish, Italians, and Venetians under\\nDuke John of Austria. Cervantes served\\nas a common soldier in this battle under\\nthe banner of Spain. It shattered the\\nsea-power of the Turks, but on land\\nthey continued to terrorize Europe until\\nJohn Sobeski turned them back before\\nthe walls of Vienna one hundred years\\nlater. It was in this same year of\\n1579 that Sir Walter Raleigh and his\\nhalf-brother, Sir Humphrey, sailed for\\nAmerica on a voyage of discovery under\\na patent from the queen, giving them", "height": "4116", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0131.jp2"}, "132": {"fulltext": "122 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nthe right to discover and take\\npossession of such remote, heathen, and\\nbarbarous lands as were not actually\\npossessed by any Christians, or inhabited\\nby any Christian people. Rome was\\nat open war with England, and Pope\\nGregory issued his famous bull against\\nthe heretic nation. As for Spain and\\nFrance, war was chronic between them\\nand England. Spain was then a mighty\\npower. She held sway over a portion of\\nItaly and over the Low Countries. Her\\ngenerals were able and ruthless. She\\nhad plundered the New World of\\ncountless treasure in gold and silver, and\\nscores of her galleons were engaged in\\nbringing the spoil home. A papal\\ndecree gave the New World to Spain, but\\nEnglishmen were hurrying to dispute\\nthis claim. It was in 1580 that\\nDrake dropped anchor in Plymouth\\nharbour, having completed the circuit of\\nthe globe, bringing back with him half a", "height": "4132", "width": "2564", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0132.jp2"}, "133": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 123\\nmillion of Spanish treasure. Queen\\nElizabeth honoured the great freebooter\\nwith knighthood, and wore some of the\\njewels he had taken from the Spaniard\\nin her crown. This was one of the\\ncauses that led Phillip to send the great\\nArmada against England, a few years\\nlater. By the queen s command Drake\\nagain despoiled the Spanish cities in the\\nNew World. In these stirring times\\nyoung Smith grew up. The tales of\\nDrake s adventures, and of the struggle\\nin the Netherlands, and of the Armada\\nwith its wreck of ships strewn along the\\nScottish coast, must have inflamed his\\nyouthful imagination, for at the age of\\nthirteen, he sold his books and satchel and\\nstarted to run away to sea. His father s\\ndeath, however, kept him at home for a\\ntime, and his guardians, solid business\\nmen, would have none of youthful folly\\nand so apprenticed him to a merchant\\nat Lynn. This merchant tyrannically", "height": "4128", "width": "2532", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0133.jp2"}, "134": {"fulltext": "i2 4 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nrefused to allow his apprentice to go to\\nsea, and so Smith went without leave to\\nFrance with a son of Lord Willoughby.\\nFrom there he went to the Netherlands\\nwhere there was good fighting and\\nengaged with the Spaniards for three\\nor four years, under an Englishman, one\\nCaptain Druxbury, who was in the\\nservice of Prince Maurice. He finally\\nsailed for Scotland, was shipwrecked\\non the voyage, but escaped without\\nharm, and came again to Willoughby, but\\nnot to engage in the arts of peace. He\\nturned hermit. To use his narrative:\\nWhere, within a short time, being\\nglutted with too much company, wherein\\nhe took small delight; he retired himself e\\ninto a little woodie pasture, a good way\\nfrom any towne, environed with many\\nhundred Acres of other woods. Here by\\na faire brook he built a Pavillion of\\nboughes, where only in his cloaths he\\nlay. His studie was Machiavill s Art of", "height": "4132", "width": "2588", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0134.jp2"}, "135": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 125\\nWarre, and Marcus Aurelius; his food\\nwas thought to be more of venison than\\nanything- else; what he wanted his man\\nbrought him. The countrey wondering\\nat such an Hermite Long these\\npleasures could not content him, but he\\nreturned againe to the Low-Countreyes.\\nThis effort not to commit himself\\ndirectly to the venison, seems to have\\nbeen out of delicate respect for the\\ngame laws which were then hanging\\nmatter. Hence the expression His\\nfood was thought to be more of\\nvenison, as if he was simply giving\\nthe neighbourhood rumour, rather than\\nadmitting a fact against himself. In\\ngoing into the Low Countries, his plan\\nwas to hunt up the Turks and fight\\nwith them as soon as possible. He\\nthought himself fitted for this warfare\\nfor he says of his acquirements:\\nThus when France and the Nether-\\nlands had taught him to ride a Horse and", "height": "4120", "width": "2500", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0135.jp2"}, "136": {"fulltext": "126 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nuse his Armes, with such rudiments of\\nwarre as his tender yeeres in those\\nmartial Schooles could attaine unto; he\\nwas desirous to see more of the world, and\\ntrie his fortune against the Turkes; both\\nlamenting- and repenting- to have seen\\nso many Christians slaughter one an-\\nother.\\nVarious side adventures caused\\nhim to deviate from his purpose to\\nimmediately fight the Turks. He was\\nnineteen years of age when he arrived in\\nFrance. On the voyage over, four\\nrobbers stole his baggage, and he had\\nto sell his cloak to pay his passage. He\\nlanded in Picardy and went in pursuit\\nof the robbers. He was in great\\npoverty, and, as he says:\\nBut wandring from Port to Port to\\nfinde some man-of-war, spent that he\\nhad; and in a Forest, neere dead with\\ngriefe and cold, a rich Farmer found him\\nby a faire Fountaine under a tree. This", "height": "4132", "width": "2564", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0136.jp2"}, "137": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 127\\nkind Pesant releeved him againe to his\\ncontent, to follow his intent.\\nSoon after he found Cursell, one of\\nhis robbers, and, to follow his narrative:\\nHis piercing- injuries had so small\\npatience, as without any word they both\\ndrew, and in a short time Cursell fell to\\nthe ground, when, from an ruinated\\nTower, the inhabitants seeing them\\nwere satisfied, when they heard Cursell\\nconfesse what had formerly passed.\\nHe next came to the chateaux of a\\nnoble earl in Brittainy, whom he had\\nknown in England, and was hospitably\\ntreated there, and from there he\\njourneyed over France for a time, sur-\\nveying fortresses and other notable\\nobjects. At Marseilles he took a ship\\nfor Rome. His voyage was not a happy\\none and he describes the ship s company\\nthus:\\nHere the inhuman Provincialls, with\\na rabble of Pilgrims of divers Nations", "height": "4132", "width": "2528", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0137.jp2"}, "138": {"fulltext": "128 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ngoing- to Rome, hourely cursing him, not\\nonly for a Hugenoit, but his Nation they\\nswore were all Pyrats, and so vildly\\nrailed on his dread Soveraigne Queene\\nElizabeth, and that they never should\\nhave faire weather so long as hee was\\naboard them; their disputations grew\\nto that passion, that they threw him\\noverboard yet God brought him to that\\nlittle Isle, where was no inhabitants, but\\na few kine and goats.\\nHe did not allow this indignity\\nhowever, without breaking a good many\\nheads. The next day a French ship, the\\nBritaine bound for Alexandria took him\\noff, and he grew into great favour\\nwith the captain. This was always\\nhis way; he always landed on his\\nfeet. Fortune was continually reducing\\nhim to a last gasp and then suddenly\\nrestoring him to comfort and safety.\\nSoon after, the Britaine fell in with a\\nlarge Venetian ship with a rich", "height": "4120", "width": "2524", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0138.jp2"}, "139": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH i2 9\\ncargo. There did not seem to be any\\nparticular occasion for a battle, but of\\ncourse there had to be one, and it arose\\nover a little discourtesy on the part of\\nthe Venetian. The Britaine hailed her\\nand she replied with a shot that killed a\\nsailor on the Britaine. A terrific battle\\nensued, out of which the Britaine came\\noff victor. The Venetian ship had lost\\ntwenty men and was ready to sink, and\\nso part of the cargo was transferred to\\nthe Britaine. Smith was no deadhead\\nin this fight, but bore his part, and\\nwhen it was over, he received for his\\nshare of the spoil five hundred\\nchicqueenes, and a little box God sent him\\nworth neere as much more. In those\\ndays piety of the approved sort always\\nhad Divine assistance. The spoil must\\nhave been great, for Smith says:\\nThe Silkes, Velvets, Cloth of gold\\nand Tissue, Pyasters, Chicqueenes and\\nSultanies, which is gold and silver, they", "height": "4104", "width": "2464", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0139.jp2"}, "140": {"fulltext": "ijo CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nunloaded in four and twentie houres, was\\nwonderf ull; whereof having- sufficient, and\\ntired with toile, they cast her off with her\\ncompany, with as much good merchandise\\nas would have fraughted another\\nBritaine, that was but two hundred\\nTunnes, she foure or five hundred.\\nHe landed at Piedmont and thence\\ntraveled through Italy, into Dalroatia\\nand Albania. At Rome he said it was\\nhis chance to cee Pope Clement\\nthe eight, with many Cardinalls, Creepe\\nup the holy Stayres, which they say\\nare those our Saviour Christ went\\nup to Pontius Pilate. He was\\nstill eager to fight the Turks, and\\nfinally came to the court of Archduke\\nFerdinand of Austria, where he\\nmet an English man and an Irish\\nJesuite; who acquainted him with\\nmany brave Gentlemen of a good\\nqualitie. Soon after he joined the\\narmy, the Turks beseiged Olympcha.", "height": "4124", "width": "2580", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0140.jp2"}, "141": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 131\\nSmith suggested to Baron Kissell, one\\nof his superior officers, that he could\\ndevise a system of telegraphic fires and\\ncommunicate with the beseiged. To\\nquote from Smith s narrative:\\nKisell inflamed with this strange\\ninvention; Smith made it so plain, that\\nforthwith hee gave him guides, who in\\nthe darke night brought him to a\\nmountaine, where he showed three\\ntorches equidistant from each other\\nwhich plainly appearing to the\\nTowne; the Governour presently-\\napprehended, and answered againe with\\nthree other fires in like manner; each\\nknowing the others being and intent;\\nSmith, thought distant seven miles, signi-\\nfied to him these words; On Thursday\\nat night I will charge on the East, at the\\nAlarum, salley you. Ebersbaught,\\ncommander of the city, answered that\\nhe would, and thus it was done.\\nSmith has preserved for us the", "height": "4116", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0141.jp2"}, "142": {"fulltext": "i 32 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nalphabet and signals that he used. By\\nmeans of this plan the Duke s army and\\nthe beseiged acted in concert and the\\nTurks were defeated with great slaughter\\nand compelled to raise the seige. In this\\nsame battle Smith contrived a plan to\\ndeceive the Turks as to the point of\\nattack, by arranging on a line two or\\nthree thousand pieces of match, which\\nwere fired all at once, that it might\\nappear that there was the Duke s force\\nwith its matchlocks. Barely twenty-one\\nyears of age, after this battle, Smith\\nwas given command of a company of two\\nhundred and fifty men. At the seige of\\nStowlle-Wesenburg in 1601, Smith s\\ninventive genius was again called into\\nplay. He prepared some bombs by\\nfilling earthern pots with various\\nexplosive and inflammable substances,\\ntogether with musket balls. These were\\nthrown among the Turks from slings. He\\ndescribes the effect:", "height": "4132", "width": "2596", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0142.jp2"}, "143": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH ijj\\nAt midnight upon the Alarum, it was\\na fearful sight to see the short naming\\ncourse of their flight in the aire; but\\npresently after their fall, the lamentable\\nnoise of the miserable slaughtered Turks\\nwas most wonderf ull to heare.\\nSmith, with most excellent naivete,\\nentitles these devices thus: An ex-\\ncellent stratagem by Smith Another,\\nnot much worse. In this siege the\\nChristians took the town by storm, with\\nsuch merciless execution, as was most\\npittiful to behold. At the battle of\\nGirke, soon after, the Turks were again\\ndefeated, but Smith lost half his\\nregiment. Appealing to his narrative\\nagain:\\nCaptain Smith had his horse slaine\\nunder him, and himselfe sore wounded;\\nbut he was not long unmounted for there\\nwas choice enough of horses that wanted\\nmasters.\\nSoon after the Christian army", "height": "4112", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0143.jp2"}, "144": {"fulltext": "i 3 4 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nbeseiged Regall in the Transylvania, a\\nplace supposed to be almost impregnable.\\nNow Smith gives us one of the most\\ndramatic incidents of war:\\nthey spent neere a month in\\nentrenching- themselves and raising their\\nmounts to plant their batteries. Which\\nslow proceedings the Turkes often\\nderided, that the Ordnance were at\\npawne, and how they grew fat for want\\nof exercise and fearing lest they should\\ndepart ere they could assault their\\ncitie, sent this Challenge to any Captaine\\nin the Armie. That to delight the\\nladies, who did long to see some court-like\\npastime, the Lord Turbashaw did dene\\nany Captaine, that had command of a\\nCompany, who durst combat with him\\nfor his head. The matter being\\ndiscussed, it was accepted; but so many\\nquestions grew for the undertaking, it\\nwas decided by lots; which fell upon\\nCaptaine Smith, before spoken of.", "height": "4132", "width": "2580", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0144.jp2"}, "145": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH i 35\\nWith this luck to favour him, Smith\\nrode before the armies and met My Lord\\nTurbashaw in mortal combat, unhorsed\\nhim and cut off his head. The head\\nhee presented to the Lord Moses, the\\nGenerall, who kindly accepted it; and\\nwith joy to the whole armie he was\\ngenerally welcomed. He tells us also\\nthat the Rampiers were all beset with\\nfaire Dames, and men in Armes. The\\nennui of the Turks not being\\nsufficiently dissipated, they sent another\\nchallenge to Smith to meet one\\nGrualgo, a friend of Turbashaw. The\\ndauntless Smith took his head, and sent\\nhis body and rich apparel back to his\\nfriends. No more challenges coming\\nfrom the Turkish camp, Smith took\\nthe initiative. to\\ndelude time, Smith with so many\\nuncontradictable perswading reasons,\\nobtained leave that the Ladies might\\nknow he was not so much enamoured", "height": "4116", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0145.jp2"}, "146": {"fulltext": "ij6 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nof their servants heads, but if any Turke\\nof their ranke would come to the place\\nof combate to redeeme them, should\\nhave his also upon like conditions, if he\\ncould winne it. Bonny Mulgro, a\\nTurkish Lord, accepted this challenge\\nand the combatants met with great fury\\nbefore the armies. The first advantage\\nwas with the Turk, and Smith lost his\\nbattle axe.\\nThe Turk prosecuted his advatage to\\nthe uttermost of his power; yet the\\nother, what by the readiness of his\\nhorse, and his judgment and dexterity in\\nsuch a businesse, beyond all mens ex-\\npectation, by God s assistance, not only\\navoided the Turke s violence, but having\\ndrawne his Faulchion, pierced the Turke\\nso under the Culets thorow backe and\\nbody, that although he alighted from his\\nhorse, he stood not long ere hee lost his\\nhead, as the rest had done.\\nSmith goes on to say:", "height": "4132", "width": "2596", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0146.jp2"}, "147": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 137\\nThis good success gave such great\\nencouragement to the whole Armie, that\\nwith a guard of six thousand, three spare\\nhorses before each, a Turke s head\\nupon a Lance, he was conducted to the\\nGeneral! s Pavillion with his Presents.\\nMoyses received both him and them\\nwith as much respect as the occasion\\ndeserved, embracing him in his armes,\\ngave him a faire Horse richly furnished, a\\nSemitere and belt worth three hundred\\nducats and Meldritch made him Sergeant\\nof his regiment.\\nThese valourous performances of\\nSmith before the walls of Regall are\\nworthy to be told of Saladin or Richard\\nthe Lion-hearted, or of an earlier\\nchivalry. I cannot find that there were\\nany Christian ladies watching these\\ncombats, but there must have been, for\\nSmith never lacked all the accessories of\\nvalour. With the Turkish ladies\\nwatching from the Rampieres, it", "height": "4120", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0147.jp2"}, "148": {"fulltext": "ij8 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nwould have been cruel in Fortune, ever\\nso kindly to Smith, not to have supplied\\nthe scene with tearful Christian ladies to\\nwelcome him back from the fearful\\nfield, to bind his bruises and refresh him\\nwith words of praise, and to rejoice over\\nthe downfall of the cruel Turk, the\\nenemy of all women, Turkish or\\nChristian. After a desperate struggle\\nthe Christian army took Regall by\\nstorm and all Turks that could bear\\narms were put to death. To kill Turks\\nin those days was considered a work of\\ngreat merit. The superfluous youth of\\nevery European country, thronged to do\\nbattle with the hated Turk. England\\nsent her share of these, and Smith gives\\nthe roster of the English dead in the\\nnext great battle that was fought with\\nthe Turks Rotenton in which the\\nChristian army was cut to pieces. We\\ntake up Smith s narrative:\\nAnd thus in this bloudy field, neere", "height": "4116", "width": "2588", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0148.jp2"}, "149": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH ijg\\n30,000 lay; some headlesse, armlesse, and\\nleglesse, all cut and mangled; where\\nbreathing- their last, they gaue this\\nknowledge to the world that for the Hues\\nof so few, the Crym-Tartar neuer paid\\ndearer. Give mee leave to remember the\\nnames of our owne Country-men with\\nhim in those exploits, that as resolutely\\nas the best in the defence of Christ\\nand his Gospell ended their dayes,\\nas Baskerfield, Hardwick, Thomas\\nMilmer, Robert Mullineaux, Thomas\\nBishop, Francis Compton, George\\nDavison, Nicholas Williams, and one\\nJohn, a Scot, did what men could doe, and\\nwhen they could doe no more, left there\\ntheir bodies in testimonie of their\\nmindes; only ensign Carleton, and\\nSergeant Robinson escaped. But Smith,\\namong the slaughtered dead bodies, and\\nmany a gasping soule with toile and\\nwounds, lay groaning among the rest, till\\nbeing found by the Pillagers, hee was", "height": "4124", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0149.jp2"}, "150": {"fulltext": "1 4 o CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nable to live and perceiving- by his armor\\nand habit his ransome might be better to\\nthem than his death, they led him prisoner\\nwith many others.\\nSmith was sold into slavery at\\nAxapolis, and purchased by one Bashaw\\nBogall, who sent him as a present to his\\nmistress in Constantinople, assuring her\\nthat the slave was a great Bohemian\\nLord whom he had overcome. This\\nNoble gentlewoman, as Smith calls\\nher, took a more than friendly interest\\nin her sale. She could talk Italian and\\nfeigned herself sick that she might make\\noccasion to talk with him. She was\\nbound to know whether Bogall really\\ntook him prisoner, or whether this was\\na boast. Smith told her that he was an\\nEnglish-man, onely by his adventures\\nmade a Captaine in those Countreyes.\\nHe won her like another Othello, for he\\ncould say:\\nShe loved me for the dang-ers I had pass d,", "height": "4116", "width": "2596", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0150.jp2"}, "151": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 141\\nAnd I loved her that she did pity them.\\nHe says:\\nShe tooke muche compassion on\\nhim but having 1 no use for him, lest her\\nmother should sell him, she sent him to\\nher brother, the Tymor Bashaw of\\nNalbritz in the Countrey of Gambia, a\\nprovince of Tartaria. To her\\nunkinde brother, this kinde Ladie writ so\\nmuch for his good usage, that he halfe\\nsuspected as much as she intended; for\\nshee told him, he should there but\\nsojourne to learne the language, and\\nwhat it was to be a Turk, till time made\\nher Master of her selfe.\\nThe brother was very wroth that\\nhis sister should entertain an affection\\nfor a Christian dog, and so he treated\\nSmith with great cruelty, put him in\\nirons and made him a slave of other\\nslaves. He was no more regarded than\\na beast. Smith says of this period:\\nAll the hope he ever had to be", "height": "4112", "width": "2492", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0151.jp2"}, "152": {"fulltext": "142 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ndelivered from this thraldome was only\\nthe love of Tragbig-zanda, who surely\\nwas ignorant of his bad usage.\\nThis is his last reference to his\\nTurkish mistress. Smith did not forget\\nher, however, for fourteen years later\\nwhen he was surveying the coast of New\\nEngland, he named what is now\\nCape Ann, Cape Tragbigzanda, after\\nher. Prince Charles, with no respect\\nfor sentiment, changed this name to\\nCape Ann. Otherwise this sand dune\\nwould have been to this day a\\ngeographical monument to the gallant\\nCaptain s earliest romance. How this\\nbit of Turkish color on the map would\\nhave lighted up the horn-books. Smith\\nfinally killed his master, the Bashaw, with\\na threshing bat and made his way into\\nthe wilderness. After days of wandering\\nand much suffering, he came to a Russian\\noutpost on the river Don, and thence\\nfound his way into Transylvania, where", "height": "4124", "width": "2572", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0152.jp2"}, "153": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 143\\nhe was received as one arisen from the\\ndead, with great rejoicing. He says\\nhe was glutted with content, and neere\\ndrowned with joy. He came to\\nthe camp of his commander, Duke\\nSigismund. The Duke gave him a sum\\nequal to five hundred pounds sterling\\nof English money and a patent of\\narms. This patent is dated December\\n9th, 1603, and Smith had it recorded in\\nthe Herald s Office at London, August\\n19th, 1625. I give some of its quaint\\nrecitals\\nwe have given leave and\\nlicense to John Smith, an English\\nGentleman, Captain of 250 Soldiers, etc.\\nWherefore out of our love and\\nfavour according to the law of Armes, We\\nhave ordained and given him in his shield\\nof Armes, the figure and description of\\nthree Turks heads, which with his\\nsword, before the towne of Regall, he did\\novercome, kill, and cut off in the Province", "height": "4132", "width": "2504", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0153.jp2"}, "154": {"fulltext": "144 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nof Transilvania. But fortune, as she is\\nvery variable, so it chanced and happened\\nto him in the Province of Wallachia in the\\nyeare of our Lord 1602, the 18th day of\\nNovember, when he with many others, as\\nwell Noble men, as also divers other\\nSouldiers, were taken prisoners by the\\nLord Bashaw of Cambia, a Country of\\nTartaria; whose cruelty brought him\\nsuch good fortune, by the helpe and\\npower of Almighty God, that hee delivered\\nhimselfe, and returned againe to his\\ncompany and fellow souldiers; of whom\\nWe doe discharge him, and this he hath\\nin witnesse thereof, being much more\\nworthy of a better reward; and now j\u00c2\u00a7\\nintends to return to his owne sweet\\nCountry.\\nSmith says of this:\\nWith great honour hee gave him three\\nTurkes heads in a Shield for his Armes, by\\nPatent, under his hand and Seale, with an\\nOath ever to weare them in his V", "height": "4132", "width": "2580", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0154.jp2"}, "155": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 145\\nColours, his Picture, [i. e., Sigismund s\\nportrait] ib. Gould and three hundred\\nDucats, yearely for a pension.\\nWhat would not some of our tuft\\nhunters, who buy coats of arms and\\ndisport them in gaudy and meretricious\\nstate, give for the right to bear such a\\ntitle of nobility as this? With all our\\nspleen against titles, the most ardent\\nrepublican might yield to temptation, if\\nhe could claim such a token of noble\\nrank as this. But for one fact, I would\\nnot answer for the virtue of the most\\nambitious of the republican Smiths; no\\nSmith can claim to be the lineal\\ndescendant of tliis coat of arms, for he\\nwho earned it with his valour, died a\\nbachelor. Unless, indeed, he should\\nhave the undiscriminating pride of race\\nof a certain worthy lady I once knew, who\\nclaimed to be a lineal descendant of\\nQueen Elizabeth.\\nAfter parting with Duke Sigismund,", "height": "4120", "width": "2532", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0155.jp2"}, "156": {"fulltext": "146 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nSmith traveled through Germany France\\nand Spain, and finally determined to go\\nand fight in the civil wars in Morocco. He\\nsailed in a French ship for Africa, but\\nchanged his purpose, and brave as he\\nwas does not hesitate to record\\nthat this was\\nBy reason of the uncertaintie, and\\nthe perfidious, treacherous, bloudy\\nmurthers rather thanwarre, among those\\nperfidious, barbarous Moores.\\nHe did not lack occasion for his\\ncourage, however, for presently the\\nFrench ship fell in with two Spanish\\nmen-of-war, and they had a brave sea\\nfight lasting for two days. The\\nFrenchman finally beat off the Spaniards\\nwith the loss of an hundred men. This\\nends Smith s adventures on the\\ncontinent. He returned to England\\nin 1604.\\nFitting out expeditions for the New\\nWorld had by this time become a", "height": "4124", "width": "2588", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0156.jp2"}, "157": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 147\\ngentleman s adventure, and many men\\nof high degree joined in these\\nexpeditions. After the voyages of the\\nCabots under English authority in\\n1598, England remained inactive in the\\nNew World for about one hundred\\nyears. The Cabots had sailed from\\nLabrador to Florida, touching here and\\nthere along the coast. Yet upon this\\nslender scintilla of discovery England\\nbefore a hundred years had passed,\\nclaimed sovereignty over the continent\\nfrom sea to sea. She was always equal\\nto such claims. She calmly took seisin\\nof a continent by the simple act of going\\nashore for wood, water or the casual\\ncircumstances of a trade of glass beads\\nwith some Indians. The other European\\nnations spent a century or two trying to\\nget used to this British habit of claiming\\nthe most of the earth. The impact of\\nthe beef-eaters was too much for\\nthem. By right of the discovery of", "height": "4124", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0157.jp2"}, "158": {"fulltext": "148 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nCabot, who was the first white man to\\nsee the continent of North America,\\nEngland wrested the Hudson from the\\nDutch and absorbed the Swedish\\nsettlements on the Delaware, and fought\\nwith France over territory for about a\\nhundred years, and finally compelled her\\nancient enemy to yield up every foot of\\nland east of the Mississippi. In like\\nmanner she at a later date reached\\nfor India, seized Australia and New\\nZealand, and innumerable islands, and\\nwill soon have Africa in her grasp. It\\nis comforting to put the responsibility\\nfor this outreaching on Destiny.\\nWhen she parted company with her\\nchildren on this side of the Atlantic, she\\nbequeathed to them a generous portion\\nof Destiny. Americans took Texas\\nfrom the weaker Mexicans, and then\\nCalifornia. Spain yielded up Florida\\nbecause she must have known we were\\nbound to have it anyway. Napoleon", "height": "4124", "width": "2588", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0158.jp2"}, "159": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 149\\nprobably had the same fear when he sold\\nus Louisiana, for our western pioneers,\\nfor years before he sold it had been\\nthreatening to break through the\\nFrench barrier at the mouth of the\\nMississippi. We had an attack of\\nDestiny lately and annexed Haiwai. Next\\ncomes Porto Rico, and the Philippines,\\nand by and by, Cuba. Between spells\\nwe have dispossessed the Indians of\\nnearly all the lands they once held. In\\nview of our record it seems a huge jest to\\nsee our pharisees and devotees of the\\ngospel of cant, grow tender-hearted over\\nEngland s greed for territory. How we\\ndo pity the poor Boer, and the enslaved\\nHindoo. When a few missionaries sons\\nstole Haiwai from the simple natives, we\\nblandly received this acquisition and\\nthanked God we are not as Englishmen\\nare. At a time when we owned millions\\nof slaves we were holding mass meetings\\nto denounce the oppression of Ireland.", "height": "4132", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0159.jp2"}, "160": {"fulltext": "ISO CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nThus securely enthroned upon her\\nvirtuous pedestal Columbia has made\\ngreat discoveries of motes in her\\nneighbours eyes. Occasionally she will\\nvacate her coign of vantage long enough\\nto grab a few principalities that may\\nhappen to be lying around loose. But\\nher eyes are always rolled heavenward in\\nholy contemplation of the beatitudes of\\nequal rights/ and of government by\\nthe consent of the governed. All\\nwould be well and we should at least\\nescape the charge of hypocrisy, if we\\nwould drop Cant, and boldly avow that\\nEngland or America, or any other\\ncivilized nation has the right to seize and\\nhold and police the lands of blood and\\nbarbarism, and make them a safe\\nabiding place for native and stranger\\nalike.\\nAfter having exhausted the pleasures\\nof European warfare, Smith came to\\nEngland, and threw himself with ardour", "height": "4124", "width": "2588", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0160.jp2"}, "161": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 151\\ninto the colonization of the New\\nWorld. He sailed with an expedition\\nfor the American continent in 1606. On\\nthe way out he was accused of conspiracy\\nand imprisoned, but on reaching\\nAmerica, he established his innocence\\nand was liberated and admitted to The\\nCouncil. The lives of all the men who\\nplotted against him were afterwards at\\nhis mercy, but he spared them. Once\\nagain his life was attempted by secret\\nplotters in his own force, but he\\nescaped, although at this time he was\\nbadly injured by a gunpowder explosion.\\nEvery schoolboy knows his adven-\\ntures in Virginia. He was great-hearted,\\ndevoted, and untiring, the life and soul\\nof the infant colonies, and proved that\\nhe was born for counsel as well as for\\nwar. He had the craft of Ulysses in his\\ndealings with the Indians, and though\\nhe was severe towards their treacheries, he\\nwas humane. His treaties with them, his", "height": "4132", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0161.jp2"}, "162": {"fulltext": "i 5 2 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nmany hairbreadth escapes, his battles\\nwith them, his capture and rescue from\\ndeath by the Indian maiden, Poca-\\nhontas, are familiar tales. They cannot\\nbe recounted within the bounds of\\nthis sketch. Posterity has made\\nhim the central figure of one heroic\\nincident, forgetting his many-sidedness,\\nand the many other scenes, in which\\nhe faced death. As a man of letters he\\nis well-nigh forgotten, although he\\nwrote many histories, and a partial\\nautobiography, wherein, with the\\nmodesty of a great soldier he told in\\nvivid language of his perils and\\nadventures. He was so modest in his\\nfirst book, The True Relation, that\\nhe did not mention the Pocahontas\\nincident, and one dry-as-dust antiquarian\\nhas seen fit from this omission to throw\\ndoubt on the story. Smith was so\\nfamiliar with death that he might well\\nomit to mention all his chance meetings", "height": "4124", "width": "2596", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0162.jp2"}, "163": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 153\\nwith it. To him this was only a casual\\ncircumstance, a mere informal passing\\nthe time of day with Death, and\\nno more worthy of a chronicle than any\\nof the other thrilling encounters with the\\ngreat destroyer. No one doubted the\\nstory in his life time, and many of\\nhis contemporaries have testified to\\nit. Seemingly fearful that he might be\\ncharged with ingratitude, for making no\\nrecord of it, in June, 1616, he addressed\\na letter to The Most High, and\\nVertuous Princesses, Queene Anne of\\nGreat Brittanie, as follows\\nThe loue I beare my God, my King\\nand Countrie, hath so oft emboldened\\nmee in the worst of extreme dangers, that\\nnow honestie doth constraine mee to\\npresume thus farre beyond my selfe, to\\npresent your Maiestie this short\\ndiscourse; if ingratitude be a deadly\\npoyson to all honest vertues, I must bee\\nguiltie of that crime if I should omit any", "height": "4120", "width": "2532", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0163.jp2"}, "164": {"fulltext": "154 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nmeanes to be thankfull. So it is, that\\nsome ten yeeres agoe, being* in Virginia,\\nand taken prisoner by the power of\\nPowhatten their chiefe King, I receiued\\nfrom this great Saluage exceeding great\\ncourtesie, especially from his sonne\\nNantaquas, the most manliest, comeliest,\\nboldest spirit, Ieuer saw in a Saluage, and\\nhis sister, Pocahontas, the King s most\\ndeare and wel-beloued daughter, being\\nbut a childe of twelue or thirteene yeeres\\nof age, whose compassionate pitifull\\nheart, of my desperate estate, gaue me\\nmuch cause to respect her. I being the\\nfirst Christian, this proud King and his\\ngrim attendants euer I saw; and thus\\nenthralled in their barbarous power, I\\ncannot say I felt the least occasion of want\\nthat was in the power of those my\\nmortall foes to preuent, notwithstanding\\nall their threats. After some six weeks\\nfatting among those Saluage Courtiers, at\\nthe minute of my execution, she hazarded", "height": "4132", "width": "2592", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0164.jp2"}, "165": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH i 55\\nthe beating out of her owne brains to saue\\nmine; and not only that, but so preuailed\\nwith her father that I was safely conducted\\nto lames towne; where I found about\\neight and thirtie miserable poore and sicke\\ncreatures to keepe possession of all those\\nlarge territories of Virginia; such was the\\nweakness of this poore Commonwealth, as\\nhad the Saluages not fed vs, we directly\\nhad starued. And this reliefe, most\\ngracious Queene, was commonly brought\\nvs by this Lady Pocahontas.\\nThe Indian Princess fed the colonists\\nand warned them of plots against\\nthem. Finally she came at a later day\\nafter Smith had gone to Europe, and\\nthey told her he was dead. She then\\nmarried an English gentleman by the\\nname of Rolf. Smith met her after her\\nmarriage and at first she was cool and\\nwould not speak. As he tells of this\\nmeeting\\nBut not long- after she began to", "height": "4132", "width": "2500", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0165.jp2"}, "166": {"fulltext": "i 5 6 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ntalke, and remembered mee well what\\ncourtesies shee had done, saying, You\\ndid promise Powhatan what was yours\\nshould bee his and hee the like to you you\\ncalled him father being- in his land a\\nstranger, and by the same reason so\\nmust I doe you; which though I would\\nhave excused, I durst not allow of that\\ntitle, because she was a King s daughter;\\nwith a well set countenance she said, Were\\nyou not afraid to come into my father s\\nCountrie, and caused feare in him and all\\nhis people [but mee] and feare you here I\\nshould call you father I tell you then I\\nwill, and you shall call mee childe, and so\\nI will bee for euer and euer your\\nCountrieman. They did tell vs alwaies\\nyou were dead, and I knew no other until\\nI came to Plimoth.\\nFrom this it would seem that but\\nfor a chance estrangement, Smith\\nwould not have lived and died a\\nbachelor. Although the dust has", "height": "4124", "width": "2612", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0166.jp2"}, "167": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH i 57\\ngathered upon his fame, he was not\\nunhonoured in his own day. His\\ncompanions in peril and his friends in\\nEngland, have given him unstinted\\npraise. Some of them marred eulogy, by\\nputting his praises into verse, and we\\nare compelled to say that none of them\\nwere poets. They entered into a poetical\\nconspiracy of great magnitude against\\nthe beloved one. This is probably a\\nsure certificate of fame, for no man can\\ntruly be called great until admiring\\nworshippers have written poetry about\\nhim. It is true that many men of small\\nfigure come to this favour, but they make\\nfine verse only a grotesque pleasantry\\na tinsel sword and crown. But mere\\ndoggerel gains a dignity when it is spent\\nin eulogy of real greatness, as the\\nmanhood of Ulysses shone through his\\nrags and dignified them when he\\nreturned to his own hall. Bad as they\\nare, I consider these loving eulogists", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0167.jp2"}, "168": {"fulltext": "158 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nworthy of some mention. R. Braithwait\\nindites his verse, To my worthy\\nfriend, Captain Iohn Smith. In this\\nhe alludes to:\\nTragabigzanda, Callamata s love,\\nDeare Pocahontas, Madam Shanoi s too.\\nI take the liberty of suggesting that\\nfor Callamata s love, we read\\nCalamity s love, believing that this is\\nonly another form of naming the\\nTurkish Princess, and does not mean\\nanother love, and that this line lost its\\nreal meaning in the transcription. But\\nwhat shall be said of Madam Shanoi s\\ntoo? and was she another love, and\\nwas Smith a soldier of many loves? This\\nbeing the only record of Madam\\nShanoi, she will have to be dismissed as\\nan unimportant personage, and a mere\\ncasual intrusion into history. It is quite\\nevident that we are warranted\\nin maintaining that Smith s real\\nloves like those of kings, made history,", "height": "4132", "width": "2592", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0168.jp2"}, "169": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 1 59\\nand when they did not do this\\nthey were the merest ephemera of\\nthe affections. Braithwait concludes\\nwith:\\nAnd I could wish [such wishes would\\ndoe well,]\\nMany such Smiths in this our Israel.\\nAnthony Fereby, begins his verse:\\n1 To my noble brother and friend. He\\nsays:\\nfor what deservedly\\nWith thy lifes danger, valour, pollicy,\\nQuaint warlike stratagems, abillity\\nAnd Judgement, thou has got, fame sets\\nso high\\nDetraction cannot reach thy worth shall\\nstand\\nA patterne to succeeding ages.\\nTuissimus Ed. Jorden, addresses\\nhis verse To his valiant and deserving\\nfriend. His eulogy closes thus:\\nGood men will yeeld thee praise; then\\nsleight the rest;", "height": "4132", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0169.jp2"}, "170": {"fulltext": "160 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nTis best praise-worthy to have pleased\\nthe best.\\nRichard James, speaks of his:\\nDeare noble Captaine, who by Sea and\\nLand,\\nTo act the earnest of thy name hast hand\\nAnd heart\\nMa. Hawkins achieves the worst\\npoetry, opening with the thrilling line:\\nThou that hast had a spirit to flie like\\nthunder.\\nRichard Meade inquires in a burst\\nof poetical emotion:\\nWill not thy Country yet reward thy\\nmerit,\\nNor in thy acts and writings take delight?\\nIn his closing line Edward Ingham\\navers that:\\nReader tis true; I am not brib d to\\nnatter,\\nas if his poetry were not evidence enough\\non this point.\\nM. Cartner says:", "height": "4128", "width": "2584", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0170.jp2"}, "171": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 161\\nBut verse thou need st not to expresse thy\\nworth.\\nHe compares Smith to the famed\\nIthacan, and so also do I. C, and\\nC. P., two unnamed eulogists who take\\na strong classical vein. Brian O Rourke\\nwith true Hibernian splendour of diction\\nbegins with this line:\\nTo see bright honour sparkled all in gore.\\nSalo. Tanner says:\\nLet Mars and Nepture both with\\npregnant wit,\\nExtoll thy due deserts, He pray for it.\\nSmith offered to lead the Pilgrim\\nFathers to America in 1619, but the\\nmission was denied him because he was\\nnot a Puritan. He died in 1631, having\\nspent the last years of his life in\\nauthorship. His accounts of his life and\\nexplorations on this continent are filled\\nwith historical facts of real value. He was\\nnot too much of an historian to disdain\\nsmall things, and even gives the names", "height": "4128", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0171.jp2"}, "172": {"fulltext": "1 62 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nof bis comrades and fellow colonists. This\\nmethod of writing history puts the thrill\\nof human life into what he relates. One\\ncannot help but feel a friendly interest in\\nthe Wests, the Russells, the Burtons, the\\nBradleys, and the Walkers, and many\\nothers of familiar sound, for these are\\nthe names of people all about you. You\\nfind yourself wondering whether Burton,\\nyour shoemaker, is a descendant of\\nthe early adventurer, and whether\\nRussell, your surgeon, derived any of his\\nskill by inheritance from a soldier\\nancestor, who went out with Smith, and\\ndid his carving with the sword. As old\\nFuller quaintly says in like case, taking\\nas his text, the discovery of a Hastings\\namong the peasantry on the Earl of\\nHuntingdon s estate:\\nAnd I have reason to believe, that\\nsome who justly own the surnames\\nand blood of Bohuns, Mortimers and\\nPlantaganets [though ignorant of their", "height": "4132", "width": "2620", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0172.jp2"}, "173": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 163\\nown extractions,] are hid in the heap of\\ncommon people, where they find that\\nunder a thatched cottage which some of\\ntheir ancestors could not enjoy in a\\nleaded castle contentment, with quiet\\nand security.\\nThe painted walking sticks who\\nbecome cabinet ministers, the accidents\\nof birth who become kings and the\\naccidents of politics who become\\npresidents, who infest the pages of\\nhistory with a dessicated and puerile\\nimmortality, cut but a sorry figure when\\naligned with a manhood like this great\\ncaptain s. The Genius of Platitude and\\nPalaver has tried in vain to make them\\ngreat; he is great because he has done\\nthe things, and no man ever spoke\\nbetter of his deeds than the truth would\\nbear. An English scholar, who has\\ncompiled his work, says of him:\\nOne cannot read the following- Works\\nwithout seeing that John Smith was", "height": "4132", "width": "2500", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0173.jp2"}, "174": {"fulltext": "1 64 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nsomething more than a brave and\\nexperienced soldier. Not only in his\\nmodesty and self restraint, his moderation\\nand magnanimity, his loyalty to the\\nKing, affection for the Church, and love\\nfor his Country, did he represent the best\\ntype of the English Gentleman of his\\nday; but he was also a man of singular\\nand varied ability. It is not\\ntoo much to say that had not Captain\\nSmith of Willoughby, strove, fought and\\nendured as he did, the present United\\nStates of America might never have come\\ninto existence.\\nA pleasing eulogy to read is that of\\ntwo of the survivors of the starving\\ntime, of the Virginia colony, as it was\\ncalled. They thus testified to his\\nworth:\\nthat in all his proceedings\\nmade justice his first guide and\\nexperience his second; ever hating\\nbaseness, sloth, pride and indignity, more", "height": "4132", "width": "2572", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0174.jp2"}, "175": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 165\\nthan any dangers; that never allowed\\nmore for himself than for his soldiers\\nwith him; that upon no danger would\\nsend them where he would not lead them\\nhimself; that would never see us want\\nwhat he either had, or could by any\\nmeans get us; that would rather want\\nthan borrow, or starve than not pay; that\\nloved actions more than words, and hated\\nfalsehood and cozenage more than\\ndeath; whose adventures were our lives\\nand whose loss our deaths,\\nBut the best key to his character\\nis found in his written works. There\\nin simple words that can charm\\nlittle children, this faithful heart is\\nrecorded. In one burst of retrospect, he\\nsays:\\nHaving been a slave to the Turks,\\nprisoner amongst the most barbarous\\nSalvages, after my deliverance commonly\\ndiscovering and ranging those large\\nrivers and unknowne Nations with such", "height": "4132", "width": "2492", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0175.jp2"}, "176": {"fulltext": "166 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\na handf ull of ignorant companions that the\\nwiser sort often gave mee up for\\nlost, alwayes in mutinies, wants and\\nmiseries, blowne up with gunpowder; a\\nlong time prisoner among the French\\nPyrats, from whom escaping in a little\\nboat by my selfe, and adrift all such a\\nstormy winter night when their ships\\nwere split, more than a hundred thousand\\npounds lost, they had taken at sea, and\\nmost of them drowned on the He of\\nRee, not farr from whence I was driven\\nashore in my little boat, c. And many\\na score of the worst of winter moneths\\nlived in the fields; yet to have lived neere\\n37 yeares in the midst of wars, pestilence\\nand famine, by which many hundred\\nthousand have died about mee, and scarce\\nfive living of them that went first with\\nmee to Virginia; and yet to see the fruits\\nof my labours thus well begin to\\nprosper; though I have but my labour\\nfor my pains, have I not much reason both", "height": "4132", "width": "2536", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0176.jp2"}, "177": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH 167\\nprivately and publikely to acknowledge it\\nand give God thankes, whose omnipotent\\npower onely delivered me, to doe the\\nutmost of my best to make his name\\nknowne in those remote parts of the\\nworld, and his loving mercy to such a\\nmiserable sinner.\\nAgain he says\\nWho can desire more content that\\nhath small meanes; or but only his merit\\nto aduance his fortune, then to tread and\\nplant that ground hee hath purchased\\nby the hazzard of his life? If he haue\\nbut the taste of virtue and magnanimitie,\\nwhat to such a minde can bee more\\npleasant, than planting and building a\\nfoundation for his Posteritie, gotte\\nfrom the rude earth by God s blessing\\nand his owne industrie, without prejudice\\nto any? If hee haue any graine of faith or\\nzeale in Religion, what can hee doe lesse\\nhurtfull to any, or more agreeable to\\nGod; then to seeke to conuert those", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0177.jp2"}, "178": {"fulltext": "1 68 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\npoore Saluages to know Christ and\\nhumanitie, whose labours with discretion\\nwill triple requite thy charge and\\npaines? What so truely suites with\\nhonour and honestie, as the discouering\\nthing s unknowne? erecting- Townes,\\npeopling Countries, informing the\\nignorant, reforming things vniust,\\nteaching virtue and gaine to our Native\\nmother-countrie a kingdom to attend\\nher finde imployment for those that are\\nidle, because they know not what to\\ndoe so f arre from wronging any, as to\\ncause Posteritie to remember thee and\\nremembering thee euer honour that\\nremembrance with praise? Then\\nseeing we are not borne for our\\nselues, but each to helpe other, and\\nour abilities are much alike at the houre\\nof our birth and the minute of -our\\ndeath; Seeing our good deedes, or our\\nbadde, by faith in Christ s merit s, is all\\nwe haue to carrie our soules to heauen, or", "height": "4132", "width": "2520", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0178.jp2"}, "179": {"fulltext": "JOHN SMITH i6g\\nhell; Seeing honour is our liues\\nambition; and our ambition after death\\nto haue an honourable memorie of our\\nlife; and seeing by noe meanes wee would\\nbee abated of the dignities and glories of\\nour predecessors; let vs imitate their\\nvertues, to bee worthily their successors.\\nSleep great Captain in your humble\\ngrave you who were thrice worthy\\nto be laid beside great kings at\\nWestminister. No grave of England s\\ndead holds more kingly dust than\\nyours. We have read your story as you\\nand your companions in arms have set it\\ndown. It is a tale of many lands and\\nmany peoples, of life eloquent and\\nglorious. It brings us close to you and\\nmakes three hundred years seem but as\\na day. We have walked beside you as\\nwith satchel and shining morning face\\nyou crept, like snail, unwillingly to\\nschool. We have seen your hermitage\\nin the woods of Lincolnshire where you", "height": "4124", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0179.jp2"}, "180": {"fulltext": "i yo CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ntook the queen s deer, and communed\\nwith Marcus Aurelius, dreaming of\\ngreatness like his. Dear to us is every\\npassing fancy and every careless grace of\\nthat noble non-age. Dear and friendly\\nare you as you lead us among the\\nbattle-fields of Europe, and through the\\nperils that beset you. We have fearfully\\nwatched you careering down the lists at\\nReg all to meet the flower of Turkish\\nchivalry. We have felt }^our heart-throbs\\nwhen the Turkish maiden made you a\\ndouble captive, and we thought no ill of\\nyou that you honoured her love with your\\ngratitude, and cherished her memory\\nafter many years had gone when you\\ncame to name the New World. Whether\\nin school-boy cap and gown, or\\nclad in mail, or naked in slavery, or\\nbound before Powhattan awaiting his\\ndreadful judgment, or watching and\\nguarding Western Civilization in its very\\ncradle- time, you were a man.", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0180.jp2"}, "181": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM\\nTO A POETESS OF PASSION\\nYou in the Bohemia of newspaper\\ndom, must be constantly reminded, as\\nI am in other places, that the age of\\nchivalry is not yet past. The pencil of\\nthe wandering hack-writer still does as\\nmuch for the succor of distressed\\ndamsels seeking fame as did the\\nlance of the ancient knight for his lady\\nfair.\\nThe lady lawyer, I use this term\\nunadvisedly, argues her first case, and\\nthis becomes an event worthy of an\\nadmiring chronicle. The charms of\\ntoilet, the grace of manner, and the", "height": "4104", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0181.jp2"}, "182": {"fulltext": "iy 2 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nerudition of the fair Portia, are set\\nforth with glowing eulogy. Young\\nBriefless might argue twenty cases and\\nnot awaken half this interest. Perhaps\\nif Portia would analyze the flattery\\noffered her she might come to doubt\\nwhether it was entirely complimentary,\\nand might feel that it carried with it a\\ncertain astonishment that a mere woman\\nshould do so well, instead of assuming\\nthis as a matter of course. But flattery\\nis as immune from analysis on the part\\nof the greedy, as sugar- plums. The\\nnew ways of the sex bring multiform\\nembarrassments, and your critic has not\\nthe least of these. The aged professor\\nand the young medico at the clinic and\\nin the dissecting room hardly know how\\nto harmonize their new relations towards\\nthe brave intruder upon their ways.\\nPortia in the court room is apt to\\ndemand all things as belonging to her\\nof hereditary right, and to concede as", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0182.jp2"}, "183": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM 173\\nfew obligations on her own part, as\\npossible. The seasoned practitioner\\nhardly knows how much satire or brute\\nstrength he may use to check her, or\\nhow much deference he should show her\\nwhen he finds her tempted into trickery\\nor pettifogging. So he shuffles and\\ntemporizes and evades responsibility, and\\nsaves his thunderbolts for the next bout\\nwith his learned brother.\\nOne cannot object to the emancipa-\\ntion of sex, but can fairly object to the\\nself conscious way in which the\\nemancipation goes on. The demands\\nupon our attention by women who are\\nadmitted to the bar, or who write\\nbooks, or turn politicians, or practice\\nmedicine, or do the other things that\\nseem novelties to them, has become a\\nbore. It is not necessary that these\\npioneers should be eternally calling\\nattention to the fact that they are\\nwomen. Men do all of these things,", "height": "4116", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0183.jp2"}, "184": {"fulltext": "174 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nand, heaven knows, are vain enough\\nabout it, but they do them without the\\nair of saying You see, I am only a man,\\nand yet I can do this. May we not be\\nallowed to yet look on women as a part\\nof the great human family and not as a\\ndistinct species\\nAlthough literature is not a new\\nfield for women, yet the consciousness of\\nsex follows them there, and becomes the\\nworst of hypertrophied mental tissue. I\\ncannot find that violet- weaving, pure,\\nsweet-smiling Sappho, was thus\\nafflicted, and it is now nearly three\\nthousand years since she sang of\\nlove. So we must now be in a time\\nof retrogression. These prefatory\\nobservations concluded, I am presump-\\ntious enough to think that I can, without\\nviolating the proper canons of gallantry\\nsuggest some reasons which may cause\\nyou to refrain from further poetical\\nactivity along certain lines.", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0184.jp2"}, "185": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM i 75\\nSome trespass on gallantry should\\nbe pardoned, for gallantry in our sex\\nhas been the bane of your life. It has\\nspoiled any promise you may have shown\\nin earlier years. I remember when you\\nwere first putting forth your maiden\\nefforts in verse. They were good\\nenough rhymes to be published in the\\ncross-roads weekly free of charge. It is\\ntrue, as even you must admit, that if\\nyou thought them poetry you were more\\nself-flattered than Mercutio. They were\\njust plain rhymes; little jingles, and\\nsometimes little jangles. I have tried to\\ngive them no dull-eared search, yet I\\ncannot find a single line in them that is\\nreally yours that rings with music and\\npower. However, if your verse had\\nbeen simply of woods, and hills, and\\nstreams, and summer days, and\\nblossoming flowers, you would have\\nlived unknown to the great world,\\nalthough you might have been the", "height": "4112", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0185.jp2"}, "186": {"fulltext": "176 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nqueen of letters at the cross-roads. But\\nyour constituency would have been\\nlimited by the subscription list of the\\ncross-roads weekly. Whether by accident\\nor design you struck other than bucolic\\nthemes and opened a vein of most\\namatory verse, and this advertised you\\nbecause it was excessively amatory. You\\nalso met a lot of good fellows, both\\nyoung and old in the newspaper\\nworld. They are always lion hunters,\\neager to make new finds, and gallant\\nand quick to extend help to the latest\\nfemale immigrant into Bohemia. They\\ngave you the freedom of the kingdom\\nin two-column laudation. They bade\\nFlattery play you silvery airs and agreed\\nthat you should be heralded as a poet.\\nThey puffed your poems, and, gross and\\npalpable though it was, you sickened\\nnot, but under this inspiration only\\nground out more. They announced\\nyour goings and your comings, and", "height": "4128", "width": "2584", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0186.jp2"}, "187": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM iyy\\nvaried the monotony of their efforts to\\ngive you fame by occasionally announcing\\nthat you were about to be married to a\\ndistinguished gentleman, to whom, with\\ntheir light and playful fancy, they\\nattached great place in wealth or\\nposition. When a mere man journeys\\nfrom place to place, the gleaners for the\\npress do not always attend upon\\nhim, unless, indeed, he should happen\\nto be a murderer or some other person\\nof equal importance. But if you should\\nhappen to make a metropolitan visit,\\nGenial Jenkins would be rapping at\\nyour boudoir door within half an hour\\nafter your arrival. Then as surely\\nfollows this interview which I take from\\nnext morning s Daily Bangle:\\nThe reporter for the Bangle met with\\na pleasant reception last evening- from\\nthe beautiful Poetess of Passion in her\\ncharming Boudoir at the Auditorium. She\\nwore a pale green tea-gown which showed", "height": "4116", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0187.jp2"}, "188": {"fulltext": "178 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nto decided advantage her petite and\\nsymetritical figure. Your reporter\\ncaught the merest tantalizing glimpse of\\na white satin slipper, together with its\\ncontents, peeping from the wondrous\\ntea-gown. The softly shaded electric\\nlight shed a langorous glamour over the\\nsparkling eyes and dimpled cheeks of the\\npoetess.\\nMay I ask what literary work you\\nare now engaged on? I said, after I\\nhad been cordially greeted.\\nO, I have concluded to write a novel\\nof the Present, which will also be a novel\\nof the Future, said the poetess. It\\nwill be in the highest form fin de Steele.\\nI shall give a realistic picture of the\\nyoung man of the present day with all\\nhis vices. It has been said so often by\\nthe critics in this country and Europe\\nthat I could only excel in verse and\\nespecially in the poetry of the passions,\\nthat I shall now produce something", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0188.jp2"}, "189": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM iy 9\\nworthy in prose, for I have really achieved\\nall the fame I care for in poetry.\\nOf course this is quoted from\\nmemory and I cannot give the literal\\nrendering of the blank form used for\\nthese many interviews. But you have a\\nsurer authority; turn to your scrap-book\\nof newspaper clippings about yourself\\nand you will find this interview\\nthere, tea-gown, slippers and all. They\\nare ancient stage properties of yours,\\nalthough, of late years they have had a\\ndiminishing use. But puffing counts in\\nthe long run; it makes prime ministers\\nas well as poets. You had some\\ncommendation that was honest enough\\neven though it was shallow. Some of\\nthe people whose good opinion you\\nshould have valued and respected, refused\\nto read your poetry; others read it with\\nindignation, and others refused to\\nconsider it seriously either for good or\\nbad, but treated it with broad humor", "height": "4124", "width": "2516", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0189.jp2"}, "190": {"fulltext": "180 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nand blunt wit, and your muse as of the\\nopera bouffe order.\\nSlowly the deference of the press for\\nyou has become rather third class with a\\ntinge of good-natured contempt in\\nit. The newspaper brethren like fine\\ntitles and second names for every public\\ncharacter. They do not permit any\\nMavericks on their range, and like to\\nput their own brand on the herds they\\nround up from far and near. When\\nyou have been in their eye long enough\\nin one capacity they fix a name on\\nyou. So they created the Sweet Singer\\nof Michigan, and the Poet of the\\nSierras. To you they gave the name of\\nPoetess of Passion, and joyed in its\\neuphony. You have been one of their\\nCherry Sisters, and they have accorded\\nyou a mock deference, thinly disguised\\nas real. It must be difficult some of the\\ntime to determine whether the flowers\\nthey throw at you are cabbages or", "height": "4132", "width": "2576", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0190.jp2"}, "191": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM 181\\nroses; superficially, they might be\\neither. You can hardly get much of a\\nreview now, no matter how burns the\\nlava tide of your verse. You have become\\na stock figure as much as The Grand\\nOld Man, or The Langtry Lily, and you\\ndo not need description or explanatory\\nnotes, or an introduction. Your\\nepitomization is embodied in Poetess\\nof Passion. But these are horizon\\nfancies, and I want to look into the\\nnear-by heavens.\\nI have a copy of your Red\\nBook, called Poems of Passion. A\\nwilder fancy than mine would suggest\\nthat the blushing cover was stirred by\\nwhat it covered. The preface alone is\\nworth all the labour of reading the\\nbook; it is a delicious bit of egotism that\\ncannot be duplicated anywhere. In its\\nopening sentence you say:\\nAmong- the twelve hundred poerns\\nthat have emanated from my too-prolific", "height": "4108", "width": "2500", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0191.jp2"}, "192": {"fulltext": "182 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\npen, there are some forty or fifty which\\ntreat entirely of that emotion which\\nhas been denominated the grand\\npassion, love. A few of these are of an\\nextremely fiery character.\\nThen you proceed to state that you\\nhad issued a prior book of verse from\\nwhich you had omitted these fiery\\nsonnets. Now you describe how you\\nwere called to account for this most\\nlaudable expurgation, thus:\\nBut no sooner was the book published\\nthan letters of regret came to me from all\\nparts of the globe, asking why this or\\nthat love-poem was omitted. These\\nregrets were repeated to me by so many\\npeople, that I decided to collect and issue\\nthese poems in a small volume to be called\\nPoems of Passion.\\nThis picture of friends and\\nstrangers in all parts of the\\nglobe, crying out for their loved ones\\namong your love-poems, is more affecting", "height": "4132", "width": "2572", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0192.jp2"}, "193": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM 183\\nthan authentic. It is impossible for the\\nhealthy mind to even imagine their\\ngrief. One would like to see these\\ndevotees of passion; they would doubtless\\npresent some curious, if not instructive\\nanthropological studies. Did these bitter\\ndisappointments well up in Thibetan\\nPolyandry, or by the Bosphorus, or on\\nthe shore of Great Salt Lake, or where\\nthat other community of Passion\\nWorshippers taints the air of the Empire\\nState? One cannot locate elsewhere, any\\nlarge collection of those who are ruled by\\nHer of the Hydra Head. You confess\\nwith strange pride to the authorship of\\ntwelve hundred poems. The magnitude\\nof your score has tempted me to\\ninvestigate other poets to see if they\\nmake up your sum. Keats wrote fifty\\npoems, Hood seventy-six, Burns six\\nhundred and fifty, and Tom Moore\\nabout the same; Bryant, fifty, Tennyson\\nabout three hundred and fifty, Pope, one", "height": "4116", "width": "2520", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0193.jp2"}, "194": {"fulltext": "iS.4 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nhundred and sixty, Wordsworth about\\neight hundred, and Mrs. Hemans two\\nhundred and fifty. Surely these figures\\nwill still further serve to increase the\\nappreciation your admirers have for your\\npoems. One may be allowed to guess\\nthat those admirers are found pretty\\nexclusively among men who have dealt\\nin lumber or pork with but little time\\nfor literature. This sort of a business\\nman is apt to imagine that if a poem is\\nnot positively bad in all ways, and if the\\nmere externals of poetry have been\\nattended to, it is real poetry and not a\\nclever counterfeit. In the fruitfulness of\\nyour muse you excel all the great names\\nof English literature. It may possibly\\nbe said that these figures are compiled\\nfrom merely published poems and that\\nthere are others not published. If you\\ncould have considerately refrained in like\\nmanner we should not now have twelve\\nhundred publicly announced poems. You", "height": "4132", "width": "2592", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0194.jp2"}, "195": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM 185\\nhave evidently lisped in numbers\\nfor the numbers came, although your\\nnumbers, unlike most of Pope s are of\\na mathmatical-amorous sort. This\\nstandard compels us to measure poetical\\ngreatness as certain loyal Americans do\\nnational greatness as if it were a matter\\nof barrels of pork and bushels of\\nwheat. Thus our Western Muse scorns\\nher barren European sister. You\\nconsider it necessary to explain some of\\nthe poems in this book and to show why\\nthey were written, and in doing this you\\nhint, not too obscurely, that they were\\ninspired by some experiences that have\\ncome under your own observation. You\\nalso explain that the most amorous of\\nthese verses have not so bad a meaning\\nas the superficial reader might impute to\\nthem. Now this explanation only\\naccentuates the prevelant suspicion that\\nthese poems are irretrievably bad. With\\ndelicate naivete you say of one of them:", "height": "4112", "width": "2536", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0195.jp2"}, "196": {"fulltext": "1 86 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nDelilah was written and first\\npublished in 1877. I had been reading\\nhistory and became stirred by the power\\nof such women as Aspasia and Cleopatra\\nover such grand men as Anthony, Socrates\\nand Pericles. Under the influence of\\nthis feeling- 1 dashed off Delilah, which I\\nmeant to be an expression of the powerful\\nfascination of such a woman upon the\\nmemory of a man, even as he neared\\nthe hour of death. If the poem is\\nimmoral, then the history which inspired\\nit is immoral. I consider it my finest\\neffort.\\nNow if this poem is a good poem\\npeople don t care how you came to write\\nit. Your fame is too new and garish to\\nwarrant any excessive curiosity on that\\nscore. Nor did the public need to be\\ntold that you dashed off Delilah. It\\nis characteristic of the young poet to\\ndash off his poems (in prefaces). It\\ngives one an air of verve and fire, and", "height": "4120", "width": "2524", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0196.jp2"}, "197": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM 187\\ncareless excess of power to dash off these\\nrough patterns, and makes one s muse\\nlike swift Camilla scour the plain. You\\nsay that if the poem is immoral, the\\nhistory that inspired it is i m moral The\\nhistory that inspired it, aye, there s\\nthe rub; that history is immoral. Aspasia\\nand Cleopatra are not characters out of\\na Sunday-school book. Socrates was a\\nloose fish, and Pericles was no better\\nthan he should be, and we must\\nnot confound Mark Anthony with\\nSaint Anthony. It may be of no\\nsignificance, but I find no poem in my\\nRed Book speaking forth the woes\\nof the wife in these ancient marital\\ndifficulties. If Zanthippe could have her\\nepic, it might show how it was that she\\nlost her temper and became the jest of\\nthe centuries on account of trouble\\nover that woman Aspasia. As for\\nMrs. Pericles, she was probably a poor\\nlittle mouse of a woman, living a decent", "height": "4112", "width": "2524", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0197.jp2"}, "198": {"fulltext": "1 88 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nhumble life, and not worth comparing\\nwith that grand creature, Aspasia\\ncertainly not worth a nineteenth century\\npoem of passion. I think that\\nMrs. Caesar and Mrs. Anthony,\\ncould tell us some things if\\nthey had a fit chronicler, either\\nin prose or verse, that would demoralize\\nthe halo which poetesses of passion\\nhave placed round the heads of those\\ngrand characters. You complete\\nyour confession as to this poem by\\nstating that you consider it your finest\\neffort. This practice of battering\\nyourself with boquets has something so\\ncolossally egotistical about it, that the\\ncritic, supposed to be used to the worst\\ncases, gasps for breath. Returning to\\nour text, I quote the finest lines of this\\nfinest effort of yours:\\nShe smiles and in mad tiger fashion,\\nAs a she-tiger fondles her own,\\nI clasp her with fierceness and passion,", "height": "4128", "width": "2576", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0198.jp2"}, "199": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM i8g\\nAnd kiss her with shudder and groan.\\nAnd here is some more from Ad\\nFinem, which you say is another of\\nthe poems which have been condemned\\nso much:\\nI know in the way that sins are reckoned,\\nThis thought is a sin of the deepest\\ndye;\\nBut I know too, that if an ang-el beckoned,\\nStanding- close to the throne on Hig-h,\\nAnd you, adown by the g-ates infernal,\\nShould open your loving- arms and smile,\\nI would turn my back on thing-s supernal,\\nTo lie on your breast a little while.\\nTo know for an hour you were mine\\ncompletely\\nMine in body and soul, my own\\nI would bear unending- tortures sweetly,\\nWith not a murmur and not a moan.\\nAnother of the Great Condemned\\nis Communism and in this you\\nexpress yourself thus:", "height": "4124", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0199.jp2"}, "200": {"fulltext": "i go CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nAnd on nights like this when my blood\\nruns riot\\nWith the fever of youth and its mad\\ndesires,\\nWhen my brain in vain bids my heart\\nbe quiet,\\nWhen my breast seems the center of\\nlava-fires,\\nOh, then is the time when most I miss you,\\nAnd I swear by the stars, and my soul,\\nand say,\\nThat I would have you and hold you, and\\nkiss you,\\nThough the whole world stands in the\\nway.\\nAnd like Communists, mad and disloyal,\\nMy fierce emotions roam out of their lair;\\nThey hate King- Reason for being loyal\\nThey would fire his castle, and burn\\nhim there.\\nO love, they would clasp you, and crush\\nyou, and kill you,", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0200.jp2"}, "201": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM igi\\nIn the insurrection of uncontrol,\\nAcross the miles, does this wild war\\nthrill you\\nThat is raging- in my soul.\\nAs for your Conversion it is so\\nSwinburnish, or Whitmanisli that I\\ndesire not to give it, having what you\\nhave not, a fear of the repressive rules of\\nthe United States postal department\\nagainst aiding in the dissemination of a\\ncertain kind of literature. In the title to\\nthis poem you have stolen the very altar\\ncloth and dyed it scarlet. Of what avail\\nis this lawless, wanton, verse? It bears\\nthe stigmata of mental debauchery and\\nhysteria and does not teach one valuable\\nlesson. To the psychopathist it may\\npossess a curious scientific interest; but\\nto laymen this demented verse is as\\nabhorrent as the maunderings of a\\nmaniac. If it does express the language\\nof a human heart is it not better\\nthat that language should remain", "height": "4132", "width": "2500", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0201.jp2"}, "202": {"fulltext": "i 9 2 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nuntranslated, or at least that it should\\nhave no such brutal translation? Even\\npoets who have compelled us to print\\nexpurgated editions of their poetry do\\nnot vapour in such trite eroticism as\\nthis. In some instances Burns wrote for\\nthe ale-house, evidently to win the\\napplause of his pot-companions; it is\\nvulgar enough too, but little redeemed\\nby his splendid genius. But you nowhere\\nfind him afflicted with hysteria. Plain\\ncommon vulgarity and coarseness carries\\nits own antidote against harm. But\\nBurns held the sacred things sacred from\\npoetical defilement. There is no taint\\nin these lines:\\nThou ling ring star with less ning ray,\\nThat lov st to greet the early morn,\\nAgain thou ush rest in the day\\nMy Mary from my soul was torn.\\nThe golden hours on angel wings\\nFlew o er me and my dearie.", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0202.jp2"}, "203": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM igs\\nMy love is like the red, red rose\\nJust newly sprung- in June.\\nHad we never loved sae blindly,\\nHad we never loved sae kindly,\\nNever met, or never parted,\\nWe had n er been broken-hearted.\\nFare thee wee 1 thou first and fairest,\\nFare thee wee 1 thou best and dearest.\\nDo you find in the great Scottish\\npoet of the affections any trace of that\\ntigerish affection, that howls for its\\ntiger mate, through your poems?\\nCivilized love is not a beast raging\\nrampantly abroad seeking whom it may\\ndevour. It is not a vampire or a vulture\\nthat claws and tears and drinks warm\\nblood on occasion. It is decent and fair\\nto look upon, and does not say to\\nflaming youth Let virtue be as wax\\nand melt in her own fire. It goes with\\nthe bride in her happy innocence to the", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0203.jp2"}, "204": {"fulltext": "i 9 4 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\naltar; it guards and purifies the mother s\\nheart as she watches over her children; it\\nmakes the dullest and homeliest life, noble\\nand kindly; it follows to the end, and\\nthrough life s last and greatest affliction\\nit clings in dearest remembrance to the\\ndeparted spirit beyond the confines of\\nthe grave. It has no affinity for that\\nraging fever which you grow eloquent\\nover. The great alienists would find\\nsomething familiar in your verse. For\\nsuch manifestations they have a\\nname Sadism. Here are some specimens\\nof this poetic abandon from the German\\nphilosopher, Nietzsche.\\nThe splendid beast raging in its lust\\nafter prey and victory. Do your pleasure\\nye wantons; roar for very lust and\\nwickedness. The path to one s own\\nheaven ever leads through the voluptous-\\nness of one s own hell. How comes it\\nthat I have yet met no one who\\nknew morality as a problem, and this", "height": "4132", "width": "2584", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0204.jp2"}, "205": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM 195\\nproblem as his personal distress, torment,\\nvoluptousness, passion?\\nYou have few noble words to relieve\\nthese darker passages in fact your\\nother verse seems but a setting for\\nthem. Whittier said of Burns:\\nAnd if at times an evil strain,\\nTo lawless love appealing,\\nBroke in upon the clear refrain\\nOf pure and healthful feeling,\\nIt died upon the eye and ear\\nNo inward answer gaining;\\nNo heart had I to see or hear\\nThe discord and the staining.\\nThis loving eulogist tells what every\\nheart must feel. The Burns of the\\nale-house was also the Burns of Bonnie\\nDoon and Aft on Water, of the Cotter s\\nHearth, and Highland Mary. The vulgar\\nline which comes now and then is but a\\npassing shadow cast lightly on this\\nshining gold of love and honour and", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0205.jp2"}, "206": {"fulltext": "i 9 6 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nplighted troth, and all the hearthstone\\ndeities. Your poems of peaceful refuge\\nare too small and too few to give us safe\\nescape from the surging riot that fills\\nyour Red Book. When you aim at a\\nrestful poem you are bound to make it a\\nthing of silly gush and affectation, as\\nlike real emotion as that depicted by the\\npainted, shrill voiced belle of the music-\\nhall stage. Lovers named Guilo, Lippo,\\nBeppo, and Romney, and one by the\\nChristian name of Paul, are the subjects\\nof the lighter and less gustatory strokes\\nof your prolific pen. Thus does your\\nmuse make eyes at the audience through\\nthe paint and tinsel:\\nYes, yes, I love thee, Guilo thee alone,\\nWhy dost thou sigh and wear that face of\\nsorrow?\\nSo Iloved Romney?Hush thou foolish one\\nI should forget him wholly, wouldst thou\\nlet me;", "height": "4132", "width": "2516", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0206.jp2"}, "207": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM i 97\\nOr but remember that his day was done\\nFrom that most supreme hour when first\\nI met thee.\\nAnd Paul? Well, what of Paul? Paul\\nhad blue eyes,\\nAnd Romney gray, and thine are darkly\\ntender.\\nOne finds fresh feelings under change of\\nskies\\nA new horizon brings a newer splendour.\\nYou play this tune with variations;\\nhere is another form\\nWhy art thou sad my Beppo? But last eve,\\nHere at my feet, thy dear head on my\\nbreast,\\nI heard thee say thy heart would no more\\ngrieve,\\nOr feel the old ennui and unrest.\\nWhat troubles thee? Am I not all thine\\nown\\nI, so long sought, so sighed for and so\\ndear?", "height": "4128", "width": "2464", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0207.jp2"}, "208": {"fulltext": "igS CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nAnd do I not live but for thee alone?\\nThou has seen Beppo, whom I loved last\\nyear.\\nThou art not first? Nay, and he who\\nwould be\\nDefeats his own heart s dearest purpose\\nthen.\\nNo surer truth was ever told to thee,\\nWho has loved most, the best can love\\nIf Lippo, [and not he alone] has taught\\nThe arts that please thee, wherefore art\\nthou sad\\nSince all my vast love-lore to thee is\\nbrought?\\nLook up and smile my Beppo, and be glad.\\nThis apish verse, coined in the\\ncheap and vulger similitude of Italian\\nlove-making, soft and langorous, breath-\\ning of orange groves and summer\\nnights, with its thees and thous put in", "height": "4132", "width": "2524", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0208.jp2"}, "209": {"fulltext": "A DEFERRED CRITICISM i 99\\nto hide its verbal poverty, must have\\nbeen thought poetry by you or it would\\nnot be in the Red Book. According- to\\nthis, life in order to be at its happiest\\nmust consist of a quick succession of\\ncasual, yet tigerish love affairs, the\\nmore the merrier and the more the\\nbetter. This gospel may do for the\\nman-about-town, and for his compatriots\\nin the half-world, but it will hardly do to\\nbring up a family on. This verse looks\\neasy and tempting; it fires your critic\\ninto parodistic emulation. Here are\\nsome verses which suffer in the same\\nway, tossed off, of course:\\nMy Beppo why dost thou complain,\\nThou hast my this year s kisses;\\nLippo was my last year s swain,\\nHe took those last year s blisses.\\nWhy task me for a thing forgot,\\nWhen this year I am all thine own,\\nThat happy past remember not,\\nWhen me its bliss long since has flown.", "height": "4124", "width": "2460", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0209.jp2"}, "210": {"fulltext": "200 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nThe ragbag s of the past disclose\\nOne tangled web of silken skein\\nWhich other hands than thine have wove,\\nBut which thy own must weave again.\\nLet loves be new and ever range,\\nScorning dull-ey d Satiety,\\nHunting content in change on change,\\nAnd pleasure in variety.\\nAnd so we take leave of the Red\\nBook a book which contains no reason\\nfor having been written.", "height": "4128", "width": "2524", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0210.jp2"}, "211": {"fulltext": "AMERICAN NOTES\\nIt was many and many a year\\nago for so the account should run with\\nus who have seen fast history-making,\\nthat Dickens came over the sea to look\\nat England s First-born. The brat\\nwas lusty, raw and ungainly, full of\\nstrange oaths, bumptious, arrogant and\\na braggart. These qualities made its\\nparentage easily recognizable, and yet\\ngave great offense to its kinsman. Being\\nof the same blood, perhaps he should\\nhave treated the faults of extreme\\nyouth more kindly, yet time softens\\nresentments, and we can now afford to", "height": "4132", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0211.jp2"}, "212": {"fulltext": "202 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nlaugh over the follies of our whelp- age. He\\nhurt our feelings terribly in Martin\\nChuzzlewit and American Notes, yet\\ndespite the pain of wounded vanity we\\ntook him into favour again. Those who\\nloved him tried to condone his guilt by\\nattributing it to British bull-headedness\\nand ignorance.\\nThere is a strong suspicion now\\nextant that there were Americans a few\\ndecades since, who were as narrow, insular\\nand provincial as the John Bulls\\nthemselves. Our average is better\\nnow, and still we have something to\\nmend. General Choke and Jefferson\\nBrick are no longer with us, but we\\nhave their modifications in the more\\nrefined, self-styled Intense American. He\\nhas established the Thirty-second\\nDegree of Americanism, infested by his\\nclass alone. Still, his vagaries are mild\\nand innocuous. Sometimes they are\\nmanifested in a desire to run the", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0212.jp2"}, "213": {"fulltext": "AMERICAN NO TES 203\\nAmerican Flag up in all parts of the\\nlandscape, and I have expected that he\\nwould eventually adorn every corn-crib\\nand smoke-house in the land with it. He\\nhas a theory that the daily and\\nhourly use of the Flag increases\\npatriotism. Jacob with his device of\\nthe peeled twigs for increasing the\\nnumber of his flocks, was not more\\ncunning than our Professional Patriot\\nwith his devices for increasing the\\nnumber of Patriots in this country. To\\nthe American who carries his patriotism\\nin his heart and not on his sleeve, his\\ncountry s flag tells more eloquently\\nthan printed page or martial song, of\\nAmerican valour of brave men and\\nbrave deeds. If it be a standard scarred\\nand torn in battle, the whole earth holds\\nno inspiration like it. But he does not\\nneed the aid of artificial excitants to\\nmake him love his country and her flag.\\nRecently an ex- president has come", "height": "4156", "width": "2460", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0213.jp2"}, "214": {"fulltext": "204 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nforward with some new renditions of\\nFlag-Service. This fresh pattern of\\npatriotism is announced by the fortunate\\nmagazine that secured it at great\\nexpense thus\\nIt was idea that the stars\\nand stripes should float over every school\\nhouse in America. Now in a stirring\\narticle he carries the idea further and\\nshows why the flag should find a place\\nover every fireplace in our country; what\\nit would mean to future generations, and\\nwhy the flag should appeal to every\\nwoman.\\nWe are further informed that the\\narticle will rank with the author s most\\neloquent public utterances. As much\\nas we respect ex-presidents, we cannot\\navoid suspicion that this promised mine\\nof rich eloquence has been salted in\\nthe advertisement. Commonplace at a\\ndollar a line is too dear, even when it is\\nthe commonplace of an ex-president.", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0214.jp2"}, "215": {"fulltext": "AMERICAN NOTES 203\\nThere are living American women who\\nhave been taught patriotism in a sterner\\nschool than the Great American\\nKindergarten for Women. They cannot\\ngain new inspiration from pedagogical\\nand dilletant patriotism, addressed to a\\nmagazine constituency assumed to be in\\nits milk teeth. The Firesides are not\\nclamouring to be fed new rations of\\nspoon-vicutals by Eminent Hands. This\\nnursery employment does not suggest a\\nfit answer to the common, vacuous\\nquery, what shall we do with our\\nex-presidents? Let us rather continue\\nto employ them for periodical deliverances\\nof other platitudes whose prosperity lies\\nin our acutely adoring ears.\\nWith all the decadence among the\\nfollowers of General Choke and Jefferson\\nBrick they still have a stifled sneer for\\nthe migratory American, acknowledging\\nancestral fealty to the great mother-land\\nof nations, if he shall buy a pair of", "height": "4132", "width": "2452", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0215.jp2"}, "216": {"fulltext": "206 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ntrousers in London. One of the minor\\nregulations of the Intense American is\\nthat you must not travel in foreign\\nlands, or at least only do so under\\napology, before you have seen all there\\nis to see in your own country. You\\nmust inspect the colorless waste between\\nSaco and Waco as a condition precedent\\nto foreign travel. Our Intense American\\nmay be said to be in his richest vein\\nwhen he detects the harmless and\\nnecessary immigrant to these shores\\nbringing out the flag of his native land\\non some fete day. Only a call for troops\\nwill suffice for this treason. I do not\\nforget that I first learned from Jefferson\\nBrick of the Curse of British Gold, and\\nhow it was being used to corrupt the\\nfree American electorate. Originally it\\nwas the hideous Cobden Club that was\\ndistributing this gold, and thereafter\\nand more recently the Money Kings of\\nLombard Street. From this same well", "height": "4156", "width": "2520", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0216.jp2"}, "217": {"fulltext": "AMERICAN NOTES 2o 7\\nof patriotism I learned that before we\\nadopt national policies we ought to find\\nout what England wants us to do, and\\nthen not do it. Upon these activities\\nthe bunting trust thrives, and the voice\\nof our hustings becomes a mere hysterical\\necho of the patriot cannon at Bunker Hill.\\nSince Dickens was with us in 1841\\nmany things have come to pass that the\\nMuse of History with her large disdain\\nfor trifles has made no note of. She\\nonly records the big events in her\\ntiresome folios and never descends to\\nchronicling small beer. The real life of\\nhuman kind has been left to gossips like\\nPepys, who have saved for us the tattle\\nof the tea parties and the coffee\\nhouses. While the Gibbons have been\\ntelling in sonorous phrase of camps and\\ncourts, these humble chatterers have\\nremained unemulous, telling trifling\\ntales. They cared not a button about\\nthe dress parades of kings, nor were they", "height": "4152", "width": "2452", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0217.jp2"}, "218": {"fulltext": "208 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nfearsome of posterity. They thought it\\nimportant to set down what they ate and\\ndrank, what they wore, what physic\\nthey took and how they dressed\\nthemselves or quarreled with their\\nneighbours, or amused themselves on\\nyesterday. The trial of the Seven\\nBishops will not lack a historian, but we\\nmust look to these gleaners of little\\nsheaves, if we wish to know what Hodge\\nwas doing, or how Arry and Arriet\\nspent their holidays in the English\\nmeadows in the year 16 There is a\\nsuggestion in this for modest chroniclers\\nof our own time, who are willing to wait\\ntwo hundred years for fame. As topics\\nfor these little histories I would suggest\\nin passing:\\nThe Rise and Fall of the Crazy\\nQuilt.\\nThe Age of Plush.\\nThe Influence of Pie on National\\nCharacter.", "height": "4132", "width": "2584", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0218.jp2"}, "219": {"fulltext": "AMERICAN NO TBS 200\\nThe Moral Aspect of Tidies.\\nThe Strange Career of the Pillow\\nSham.\\nDisquisitions on these subjects,\\nsagely written would in time become as\\nvaluable as those of the older Tattlers\\nand Spectators. I consider that My\\nLady Lizzard s Tucker, and the gentle\\nfollies of Clarinda and Bubalina, as\\nworthy of a memoir as the stilted\\nperformances of a fat-witted prime\\nminister.\\nDickens saw us before we had\\nstolen Texas or the Empire of the\\nGolden Gate from poor Mexico. It was\\nbefore the Argonauts of 49 had\\ncommenced to thread the buffalo trails\\nover the plains and to hunt the passes\\nof the Sierras. Our line of expansion\\nwas into the fever-and-ague belt of the\\nMississippi Valley. The City of Eden\\nin Martin Chuzzlewitt was undoubtedly\\na much exaggerated caricature of the", "height": "4156", "width": "2444", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0219.jp2"}, "220": {"fulltext": "210 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nreality, just as Bumble the beadle, the\\nParish Workhouse, or Doctor Squeers\\nSchool were exaggerations. But in none\\nof these would you have the least trouble\\nin finding the original. Jefferson Brick\\nand General Choke and the New York\\nDaily Sewer and the Rowdy Journal,\\nwere not all a myth. The criticism of\\nDickens touched us where we were most\\nsensitive. We always had an inner\\nfeeling that slavery was an abomination.\\nWe dimly saw that in its atrocities, the\\nfifth century lived again and mocked\\nat number nineteen the great pharisee\\nof the centuries. Dickens came from a\\nnation whose war-ships had patrolled\\nthe African coast in crushing the\\nslave trade, when this century was\\nyoung. Through our assertiveness and\\nFourth of July declamation, we must\\nhave felt that our nation was yet unripe\\nand that our morals might be\\nbettered. Hence our anger when the", "height": "4160", "width": "2524", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0220.jp2"}, "221": {"fulltext": "AMERICAN NO TES 211\\nexposed nerve was touched by our\\nkinsman.\\nOur jingoes were offensive and\\ntruculent and they could smell the blood\\nof an Englishman at a considerable\\ndistance, and long for it. They wreaked\\na ruder and more brutal vengeance on\\nthe Lion, than now, and the spleen and\\nhatred engendered by two wars was\\ninvigorated by the presence of the\\ncrippled veterans of the Revolution who\\nwere disposed on all Fourth of July\\nplatforms. So buoyant and joyous and\\nobtuse was our national conceit that we\\nsaw no incongruity in prating of liberty\\nand freedom, while we were holding\\nmillions of human beings in slavery. We\\nfurnished rare sport for a satirist like\\nDickens, who had never spared his own\\ncountry a deserved gibe.\\nThe genius which described the\\nCircumlocution Office, the abuses of the\\ncourts, and the Parish Workhouses and", "height": "4156", "width": "2444", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0221.jp2"}, "222": {"fulltext": "212 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nCharity Schools of England would\\nnaturally riot in the wealth of raw\\nmaterial found here. Tis a vain\\ntask to balance all the gains and losses\\nof fifty years. It must be admitted that\\nwhen Dickens first saw us we were\\nsomewhat imperfect in the use of the\\nfork, and we ate our meals with such\\ndispatch that one who sat at meat more\\nthan ten minutes was looked on as a\\nperson of sedentary habits. We frescoed\\nthe floors in public places with\\ntobacco, and the hotel towel was the\\nsubject of frequent and acrimonious\\nremark. Pie was still our national\\ndish and dominated all more effete\\nrefections from Passamaquaddy to\\nCarondelet.\\nLife in 1841 had some advantages\\nhowever. The Fifth Empire of the\\nDistended Hoop was still in the womb of\\nFashion. Women did not adorn their\\nbacks and heads with the monstrous", "height": "4152", "width": "2572", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0222.jp2"}, "223": {"fulltext": "AMERICAN NO TES 213\\npads of a later time. The Age of Plush\\nhad not yet arrived. The Japanese\\ngewgaws, and Chinese decorative\\nmisfits, the hand-painted china and\\nceramic fads, the hideous tidies and\\ninflammable strawstack lamp chimneys,\\nand above all, the crazy quilt, were\\nunknown. Woman partook of literature\\nin those golden days by the simple\\nmethod of sitting down and reading a\\nbook. She did not pursue Culture with\\na Club, bristling with constitutions\\nand by-laws and presidents and\\nvice-presidents and boards of directors\\nand committees and a general hurrah\\nand whirl of parliamentary practices. She\\ndid not chastise the Tyrant, Man, with\\nthe vigor recently shown. She did\\ntatting, chrocheting and fancy work, and\\nmade samplers and penwipers and woolly\\ndogs. If she was literary she wrote nice\\nstories for whatever magazine was the\\nembryonic Ladies Home Journal of", "height": "4164", "width": "2436", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0223.jp2"}, "224": {"fulltext": "214 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nthe time. She did not wallow in\\nconventions and congresses then as\\nnow. It was a day when the sepulchral\\nBest Room was the good housewife s\\nshrine, and the what-not and the\\nfair, round center-table, were her\\nhousehold gods.\\nIf a reincarnated Dickens should\\nreturn here, he might still find some food\\nfor satire. We should probably accept\\nhis corrective offices more kindly now in\\nthese days of close fraternization between\\nthe Lion and the Eagle. On the way\\nover he would be sure to meet a young\\nlady one of Cook s, from Cherry\\nValley, 111., who would pester him for\\nhis autograph. He would have to\\ntriple- plate himself in dogged British\\nreticence to withstand the assaults of\\nour indefatigable reporters. The Lotus\\nClub or some other club would feast\\nhim, and smooth lawyers and well-fed\\nbrokers of a literary turn, would smother", "height": "4156", "width": "2564", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0224.jp2"}, "225": {"fulltext": "AMERICAN NO TES 215\\nhim with after-dinner adulation.\\nIn his purblind British way he\\nwould seek to find out something about\\nNew York politics. He wotild see Piatt\\nand Croker in their busy whirls and\\nwould never be able to tell which was\\nwhich. Among other reflections, he\\nwould conclude that this was the Age of\\nWoman, and that this gentle metal was\\nto take its place in the social formation\\nwith stone, and gold and iron. We\\nhave Womens magazines and news-\\npapers, and womens corners, and\\nwomens supplements to great dailies, and\\nwomens clubs and conventions and\\ncongresses, and a woman s revision of\\nthe Bible, and a religious cult established\\nby a woman, principally for women. The\\nPilgrim Mothers having been non-\\nprogressive in their day, a movement has\\nbeen organized to rescue them from\\nobscurity, and to compel equal mention\\nfor them with the Pilgrim Fathers. We", "height": "4172", "width": "2464", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0225.jp2"}, "226": {"fulltext": "2i 6 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nhave women doctors, and lawyers, and\\ndrummers and undertakers. We are\\nindustrously building up a separate\\nliterature for women, strictly antiseptic\\nand free from coarse rude things. Letters\\nare becoming Bokized male and female\\ncreated He them. Perhaps the time\\nwill come when we have sufficiently\\nsegregated woman from the great\\nhuman family, that it will be considered\\nas improper for men and women to read\\neach other s literature, as it is now for\\nthem to wear each other s clothes. The\\nExpurgated Novel has appeared,\\nevidently censored by the Order of\\nDecayed Clergymen. Ladies magazines\\nare edited with the camera, and the\\nkodac is mightier than the pen. The\\nGenius of Tatting is at the helm. With\\nall this favour to The Young Person, the\\nnewspaper still brings its daily muck of\\ncrime into our homes; although but lately\\nDickens novels were excluded from", "height": "4156", "width": "2492", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0226.jp2"}, "227": {"fulltext": "AMERICAN NO TES 217\\na New England public library as\\nimmoral. Having once reaped so well in\\nour field of folly, Dickens, if he could\\nreturn would get good gleanings from\\nthe aftermath of that field.\\nBut perhaps Dickens would be\\nbest charmed with Chicago behemoth,\\nbiggest born of cities, the chief shrine in\\nthe Gospel of Bigness. Here, as in all\\nother places where the soul of his unblest\\nBritish feet should seek rest, he would\\nbe compelled to see the town. This\\nrite of American hospitality would not\\nbe omitted, either in Chicago, or\\nOshkosh, Kalamazoo or Topeka. No\\nmatter what the town was, or how little\\nthere was to see, he would have to\\nundergo this supreme ordeal. He would\\nhave to go and gaze admiringly at\\nfactories and shops and other monuments\\nto civic pride. Seeing the town in\\nChicago would certainly embrace the\\nstockyards, where as the prideful native", "height": "4132", "width": "2464", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0227.jp2"}, "228": {"fulltext": "2i8 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ninforms all strangers, they kill a hog a\\nsecond, the year round. The reporters\\nwould give out that he was very much\\nimpressed with Chicago. That is the\\nway in Chicago; the traveler from\\nMars, the New Zealander, the man from\\npoor old London, and from poorer old\\nNew York, is always very much\\nimpressed, when he reaches Chicago.\\nIf the wayfaring stranger is not\\napparently impressed offhand and at\\nfirst blush, the priests of the Gospel\\nof Bigness have this formula of\\nattack. First inform him that Chicago\\nhas two millions of people, and that fifty\\nyears ago it was a village of log\\ncabins. This ought to fetch him, but if\\nit fail, then refer to the Chicago Fire, and\\nto the New Chicago springing\\nPhoenix-like from its ashes. If he be\\nstill stubborn-kneed, bring on the Stock\\nYards with its toll of death, or the\\ntunnel under the lake that wonder of", "height": "4156", "width": "2524", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0228.jp2"}, "229": {"fulltext": "AMERICAN NO TES 219\\nthe world twenty-five years ago. If he\\nremain obdurate, the new thirty million\\ndollar sewer may fetch him If every t hing\\nelse fails, he must succumb to the\\nWorld s Fair. This is Chicago s\\nchef-d oeuvre. On this subject look out\\nfor the inquisitors, for if you have not\\nseen this wonder, you will have meted to\\nyou supreme pity and contempt. You\\nwill be made to wish that the Fair had\\nbeen swallowed up before you heard of\\nit. However, this will not ease your\\npain, for ever after it would be spoken\\nof as the greatest swallowing-up in\\nhistory. Dickens would find the Great\\nFire still celebrated with rejoicings, and\\nlurid woodcut flames in the newspapers.\\nThe Fire has really lost all the advantages\\nit once had as a Public Calamity, but\\nits fame for Bigness will endure\\nforever. From the Chicago point of\\nview, pity and contempt for New York\\nrises to the sublime; the island city is", "height": "4128", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0229.jp2"}, "230": {"fulltext": "220 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\na mere wart on the face of the earth.\\nIt is a trait of municipal callowness to\\nbrag. London and Paris never yell their\\nbrags at one another. Their secure\\nposition does not need to be continually\\nasserted. Let a journalistic wag in New\\nYork fling a grotesque gibe at Chicago\\nand she arises in majesty and pours\\nvitriol on her decrepit rival. I quote\\nfrom memory a waggish leader on\\nChicago that appeared in a New York\\npaper:\\nAs you approach Chicago, she\\nbecomes foully manifest by a dull, livid\\ncloud that obscures the sky. You burst\\ninto this mephitic drapery, feeling as\\nthough you had tumbled into a sewer.\\nIt is a common thing to see her\\nmerchant princes in their shirt sleeves\\nsitting on the front porches of their\\npalatial homes enjoying an evening\\nsmoke. The knife-swallowing\\nact can still be seen at the hotels. The", "height": "4132", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0230.jp2"}, "231": {"fulltext": "AMERICAN NOTES 221\\nGent flourishes in Chicago it is his\\nnatural home. Few Chicago families\\nhave grandparents they cannot afford to.\\nThe Home Guards in Chicago\\ntook this waggery seriously. They\\nasserted that Chicago was as good as\\nanybody, and that her pedigree, sanita-\\ntion and manners were A. 1.\\nThese are the reflections of new\\nreadings of American Notes. If Dickens\\ncould come again, he would find a\\nnation mellowed and ripened with the\\nyears. He would find that the old order\\nhad given way to the new. He would\\nfind cities provincial and rustic\\nthen, cosmopolitan now. He would find\\na national life and ambition broad and\\ncatholic, not narrow and jealous. He\\nwould find a nation that remembers\\nslavery as a horrible dream is remembered\\nin the clear light of mid-noon, a\\nnation purified by war, and the\\nlong, smouldering embers of that", "height": "4132", "width": "2452", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0231.jp2"}, "232": {"fulltext": "222 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nwar, dead and lifeless. He would find us\\nable to laugh at the follies and vices he\\nmocked. He would find the great\\nrepublic of the west living in happy\\namity with its mother land, the old\\nhatreds and bickerings gone forever.", "height": "4132", "width": "2524", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0232.jp2"}, "233": {"fulltext": "AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE\\nThe critic who ventures discussion\\nof American literature, risks an encounter\\nwith the Intense American. The\\njurisdiction of this national policeman is\\nto see that the patriotism of his\\ncountrymen suffers no diminution or\\nabatement. Of late he has paid some\\nattention to the literary part of his\\nauthority. He insists on running the\\nAmerican Flag up in the library, as a\\nlightning rod to protect American\\nauthors from any chance thunderbolts\\nof criticism. The British critic is", "height": "4120", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0233.jp2"}, "234": {"fulltext": "224 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nespecially warned to keep off the green\\ngrowth of American letters. Our\\nwatchman s oath of allegiance to\\nAmerican authors, excludes loyalty to\\nall others, and so he becomes an\\nuncomfortable and uncompromising\\nperson. I have long wanted to criticise\\nLongfellow for the didactic character of\\nsome of his poems, and the ticketed\\nand labeled moral that is so often\\nintruded. A good tale is often spoiled\\nby the intrusive moral. If it were not\\nrank treason I would like to say that\\nHiawatha as a poem is partly spoiled\\nbecause of its form as a long monotonous\\nchant in which the refrain of the\\nun variant lines is early worn out, and\\nthenceforth becomes a weariness. We\\nlearn from the Intense American that\\nsome of our authors have Intense\\nAmericanism, that Bryant was a\\nthorough American, and that a\\nspirit of True Americanism breathes", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0234.jp2"}, "235": {"fulltext": "AMERICANISM 225\\nin Longfellow. These awe-inspiring\\nterms not being defined, we may take\\nthem to be simply an exercise in phrase-\\nmongering.\\nPerhaps after all, this True, this\\nThorough, this Intense Americanism, is\\nsimply a State of Mind, in which\\nPatriotism uplifts itself into a seventh\\nheaven by simply tugging at its\\nboot-straps. The vocabulary of uncritical\\nadulation in Europe does not seem to\\nhave an equivalent term. He would be\\na daring idolator indeed who should in-\\nsist that Dickens, or Thackeray, or Reade\\nwere gifted with Intense Britishism, for\\nthey committed many treasons by\\nattacking every British institution from\\nthe House of Lords down to the dinners\\nof snobs. It is difficult to discover that\\nCervantes had True Castileanism, or\\nPlato True Greceianism, or Dante True\\nItalianism. Our own Brander Mathews\\nhas set us some lessons in literary", "height": "4112", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0235.jp2"}, "236": {"fulltext": "226 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\npatriotism, the humor of which seems\\nunconscious on his part. Thus does he\\nwarn youngest readers against the\\ndeadly snare of British literature:\\nIt cannot be said too often or too\\nemphatically that the British are foreign-\\ners, and that their ideals in life, in\\nliterature, in politics, in taste, in art, are\\nnot our ideals.\\nFrom this author we also learn that\\nit is:\\nIn consequence of the wholesome\\nAmericanism imparted in the school\\nroom, that American boys and girls have\\nincreased their demand for American\\nbooks.\\nFoolish Americans have always had\\nthe same weakness for foreign authors,\\nthat they have for foreign goods, and\\nthis unnatural appetite must be checked\\nby authority. The sad admission must\\nbe made that it is too late to put a tariff\\non British brains the serpent has", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0236.jp2"}, "237": {"fulltext": "AMERICANISM 227\\nhas already crept in. The dogberrys of\\nour literary police will call out in the\\nstreet, but despite their warnings,\\nvagrom Englishmen will to some extent\\nstill commit breaches of our peace in\\nprose and verse. I refuse to thrill over\\nthe spectacle of the American Youth\\nbecoming so infected with True\\nAmericanism of the Bander Mathews\\nkind that he rapidly turns to American\\nauthors. If there is any one primal and\\nunchanging element in the character of\\nthe American Youth, it is his disregard\\nof the authors who write his books. Nor\\ndoes he care very much about the exact\\nlocus in quo of his fiction. Robinson\\nCrusoe, The Swiss Family Robinson,\\nand Tom Brown, mean just as much to\\nan American boy as to an English boy.\\nSuch books have no nationality; they\\nare written for the universal boy. For\\nlike reasons the Eton boy could gloat\\nover Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry", "height": "4120", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0237.jp2"}, "238": {"fulltext": "228 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nFinn, without disloyalty to the Crown.\\nSo many of us Yankees are Jacobites\\nat heart, drinking secretly to the king\\nover the water; we find creative genius\\nwhere we can, undeterred by the True\\nAmerican. Our nation drones through\\none generation in deadly peace, hearing\\nno sound but that of mill and loom, and\\nthe pleasant tinkle of little verses. No\\nminstrel of our own breaks the silence, but\\nfrom across the seas comes a strain of\\ndaring music from England s new\\nsinger. The majestic Recessional has\\nset her heart afire and made us wish that\\nheaven would send us such a poet. This\\npoem would have an equal appeal for the\\nPharaohs, for Moses and Aaron, for the\\nnations of later times, that grow drunken\\nwith power. It has the measured\\nmajesty of the speech of the prophets\\nwhen they foretold the doom of\\nnations. It is a lost fragment from\\nJeremiah or Isaiah. It has a Scriptural", "height": "4132", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0238.jp2"}, "239": {"fulltext": "AMERICANISM 229\\neloquence, sonorous, uplifting, called\\nfrom the clearer hill-tops to the valleys\\nbelow. It is a battle hymn and also a\\nhymn of peace for the time when battles\\nare over. It seems to close the century\\nwith the sound we have been listening\\nfor. This singer surely does not belong\\nto the puddering rout of birth-day\\node-makers who periodically sing lullabys\\nto the English people. Perhaps he stole\\nhis fire from strange lands where he\\nwandered, loving every spot where there\\nwas a man alive. Was there some\\nalchemy in the branding Indian sun that\\nmade his soul great so that he could\\nstand stern-browed at England s jubilee\\nand tell her in Homeric verse that all her\\npomp was one with Nineveh and\\nTyre? This psalm is his title deed to\\nWestminster. None but he could smite\\nthe chords with might, as there was but\\none in that heroic test of long ago, who\\ncould bend the great bow of Ulysses and", "height": "4124", "width": "2420", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0239.jp2"}, "240": {"fulltext": "2 3 o CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nmake the string sound sweetly as the\\nswallow s song. The lines of Coleridge\\nseem meant for this music:\\nAnd now twas like all instruments,\\nNow like a lonely flute\\nAnd now it is an angel s song\\nThat makes the heavens be mute.\\nWe would like to feel that he owed\\nsome debt to New England, where he\\ntarried awhile, but it is plain that he is\\nEnglish to the core, a child of the\\nThames, and not of the Ganges or the\\nMerrimac. A little later when our\\nambition was leaping ocean barriers he\\nsobered us by telling how basely or how\\nnobly we might bear The White Man s\\nBurden.\\nShall we shut any part of this\\ninspiration from our ears because it did\\nnot come from the banks of the Hudson\\nor the Mississippi? Could our army of\\nflag- wavers with their artificial devices\\nfor manufacturing artificial patriotism, so", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0240.jp2"}, "241": {"fulltext": "AMERICANISM 231\\nmove a great race? Meanwhile Brander\\nMathews and his constabulary will\\ncontinue to pick their flints and fight\\nBunker Hill over again against the\\nBritish invader.\\nThe even- blooded American who\\ndoes not care whether an author has the\\ningredient of True Americanism in his\\ninkwell or not, will still claim free trade\\nrights with British literature. Perhaps\\nthis weakness of Intense Americanism is\\nresponsible for the belief, current in\\ncertain quarters that A Man Without\\na Country, is a great romance. This\\npatriotic sermon this high class Fourth\\nof July oration has been given the title\\nof the Great American Story. It is\\nreally quite interesting and instructive\\nfor fifteen-year-olds. It is the history of\\na youth, who in a moment of silly\\npique, being nagged by his captors, said\\nthat he wished he might never hear of\\nthe United States again. This was only", "height": "4116", "width": "2436", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0241.jp2"}, "242": {"fulltext": "232 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nthe bitter froth of his real sin, for he had\\nintrigued with Aaron Burr against his\\ncountry, and that fascinating traitor\\nhad woven him tight in his web. The\\nPowers-That-Be could forgive the real\\ntreason, and let the head traitor go\\nfree, but they could not forgive the boy s\\npetulant lack of lip service. So they\\nsent him on the high seas, where he\\nwandered for many weary years a\\nremorseful derelict, and by great\\ncommand he was never to hear his\\ncountry spoken of. They adopted\\ntowards him an Americanized version of\\nthe punishment of the Wandering Jew\\nand of Tantalus, until old age came and\\ndeath relieved him of his pain. This is\\na pretty story with a moral as obvious\\nas a mountain. Later editions of it are\\nspoiled somewhat by the egotism of\\nauthorship, which impels Mr. Hale to\\nexplain that it is a myth, and his reasons\\nfor writing it and all about the lesson", "height": "4116", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0242.jp2"}, "243": {"fulltext": "AMERICANISM 233\\nthat it teaches. But the moral\\nsomewhat loses its flavour with the\\ncallowest youth, when he sees around\\nhim many patriots who wave the Old\\nFlag with one hand while they reach for\\na fat appropriation or a swindling\\ngovernment contract with the other.\\nAaron Burr at least did not buy\\nlegislatures and boards of aldermen.\\nThe moral seems to be, superficially,\\nthat to be immune, you need only shape\\nyour schemes for the destruction of the\\ninstitutions of your country to the\\nprevailing fashion. You can then\\nfound an orphan asylum or a great\\nuniversity, and the hats will fly off as\\nyou go by.\\nAll this may be thought a by-path\\nfrom books, but human life is stretched\\nalong the by-ways as well as along the\\nmain traveled roads. This preface\\nbrings to mind some Americans who\\nhave not made a strutting parade of", "height": "4104", "width": "2436", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0243.jp2"}, "244": {"fulltext": "2 3 4 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ntheir patriotism. In example of this we\\nhave such Americans as Lowell, whose\\npatriotism and love of country had no\\ndross upon it; whose scholarship was as\\nbroad and generous as the seas that\\nwash our shores; who never penned\\nprovincial and rustic cant about True\\nAmericanism; who loved books as a man\\nand not as an American, and who could\\nlove a book neither more nor less because\\nof the nationality of the author; who\\nheld close fellowship with the great of\\nevery land without a thought that it\\nmade him any the less an American.\\nWith him the world of letters had no\\nnarrowing partition lines that could\\nseparate Shakespeare, Cervantes, and\\nMoliere from Hawthorne and Poe and\\nEmerson and make one less than\\nthe other. The dead who sleep\\nat Westminster were his blood\\nbrothers. With him we can safely place\\nIrving, Hawthorne, Poe and Holmes. The", "height": "4132", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0244.jp2"}, "245": {"fulltext": "AMERICANISM 235\\nfame of these rests on their genius and\\nnot on the accident of nationality. The\\nmany influences that may have somewhat\\ndwarfed American scholarship, have not\\nmodified Lowell s genius. He would\\nhave honoured any land. As a poet and\\nessayist he had a ripened wit and\\nlearning that places him as the first of\\nAmerican scholars. He had a broader\\nand more varied scholarship than either\\nHolmes or Emerson. He entered into\\nthe death grapple with slavery w T ith a\\nstern and knightly courage and ardour\\nthat never swerved or turned aside. His\\nwords were battles for freedom, when\\nfreedom most needed defenders. He\\nwas the peer of England s greatest\\nscholars, and his fame will brighten with\\nthe years.\\nNew soils do not always fatten\\ngenius. In a new land the activities of\\nthe people are expended in subduing the\\nwilderness, in building great cities, and", "height": "4116", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0245.jp2"}, "246": {"fulltext": "2 3 6 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nin developing material resources. With\\nthis justification it should be no blemish\\non our patriotism that we esteem\\nTennyson as greater than Longfellow,\\nand Scott than Cooper. It should not\\nshame us that we find a richer, deeper\\ntone in Caledonia and Bannockburn, and\\nthat they crowd so closely in our\\naffections the songs of our own\\nlands. We have much didactic verse\\nand dainty verse and here and there an\\nanthem full of power, but few of our\\npoets have put such inspirations into\\nverse as Scott, and Tennyson, Burns, and\\nKipling. It may be that Columbia\\nlingers too long in the market place\\nlistening to the music of the ticker and\\nthe song of the stockjobber, forgetting\\nthe dreams and inspirations that can\\nalone make her children great.\\nIs it not a question whether our\\nbattle hymn has yet been written?\\nYankee Doodle is a silly jingle; The", "height": "4116", "width": "2500", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0246.jp2"}, "247": {"fulltext": "AMERICANISM 237\\nStar Spangled Banner is of limited\\ncompass, Marching Through Georgia,\\nand some other war songs are a mere\\nmatter of music without fit words, and\\nbesides they cannot be as well sung in\\nGeorgia as in Wisconsin. Few of our\\npatriotic songs will be long remembered\\nalthough they are dressed in stirring\\nmusic for the mob. They have but a\\nspark of that immortal fire that blazes in\\nKipling s latest verse, of in Tennyson s\\nepic, the battle of the one against the\\nfifty-three. Our Spanish War has no\\npoet, although it has inflicted upon us\\nany amount of doggerel and raphsodical\\nmusic. There was no residium of verse\\nafter our war of 1812, and the\\nMexican war was not provocative of\\npoetry. Perhaps the American Muse\\nwas ashamed of that conquest and\\nremained silent even over the glories of\\nChapultepec and Monterey. I had\\nalmost forgotten a song however, with", "height": "4112", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0247.jp2"}, "248": {"fulltext": "2j8 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nsome fine lines in it written by one\\nHoffman:\\nWe were not many, we who pressed\\nBeside the brave who fell that day\\nBut who of us has not confessed\\nHe d rather share their warrior rest\\nThan not have been at Monterey.\\nThis seems to be the solitary poet\\nof the Mexican War. Who hath\\nremembrance of him now? In our first\\nstruggle for freedom, no Koernor turned\\nthe soldier s barracks into temples where\\nliberty was deified in song. The battle\\nagainst slavery called out some stormy\\nverse, yet how little we now remember of\\nthe scathing passion, the tender, burning\\nwords, that Whittier and Longfellow\\nbreathed over the wrongs of our\\nbondmen. Some of our jewels it is true\\nare covered with later rubbish. Like a\\ndimly remembered song heard in remote\\nchildhood is that eloquent fragment of\\nEmerson s, commencing:", "height": "4112", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0248.jp2"}, "249": {"fulltext": "AMERICANISM 230\\nBy the rude bridge that arched the flood.\\nJoaquin Miller s Song of Peace\\nis not half so well known as the\\nRecessional. We seem to miss the\\nnearer music and remember best the\\nrival lines of Scott and Burns and\\nKipling.\\nUpon what meat do these islanders\\nfeed that they have such power to charm\\nus with their songs, and make us forget\\nold wrongs, old feuds and old\\nbattles? It may be their ocean empire\\nwith its outposts on every main. The\\ndeclamations of our schoolboys bind the\\nrace together and annul the bitterness\\nsown by politicians. When we turn\\nfrom the American poet to his English\\nlikeness we are apt to find an enlarged\\nedition.\\nWhittier s poetry is a crystal\\nwinding brook, reflecting summer days\\nand moonlit nights, and the leaf and\\nflower of forest and meadow. But", "height": "4116", "width": "2444", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0249.jp2"}, "250": {"fulltext": "240 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nTennyson s verse is a river running in\\nstormier measure, and mirroring a larger\\nlife. Nature has dealt kindly with us; she\\nhas given us sunnier days and mightier\\nlakes and rivers, but in partial mood she\\nhas added an Attic savour to the wind\\nthat blows across the island kingdom\\nthat our more arid breezes have not. The\\nMississippi Valley lacks several things to\\nmake it a place of poetic inspiration. Its\\nmountain fringes lie a thousand miles\\napart with a flat between. It has no\\nruins, no traditions, no history except\\nthe new and yeasty product begun since\\nour possession of it. Very early, no\\ndoubt the human family sent out some\\nmeager outposts to this continent. A\\nthousand generations have since flitted\\nthrough its forests, yet they have died\\nlike the cave bear and made no\\nsign. Their literary remains consist\\nin a few attenuated traditions. Even\\nCooper s book, or artificial, Indian", "height": "4100", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0250.jp2"}, "251": {"fulltext": "AMERICANISM 241\\ncould furnish no theme for the\\npoet. Longfellow tried to fuse this\\nstubborn personality of the Red Brother\\ninto song, with something of a success\\nconsidering the material, but the form of\\nhis verse is a long, oft-repeated\\nchant, with the monotonous rythm of\\nthe prayer-drums at a Chippewa corn\\ndance. At such a festival, the\\nprayer- drums booming through the\\nwilderness, typify the Indian character.\\nIt is an unchanging, ceaseless roll that\\ncarries with it the somber unchanging\\nhistory of the race. It has no vital,\\nliving music in it. It belongs to and is\\na part of the unchanging forests and\\nprairies, and the endless flow of lonely\\nstreams where nature broods alone over\\nher own and all things remain as in the\\nfirst day. Centuries of silence and\\nshadow have passed over this race, and\\nyet its history can be read in a few\\nscattered arrow heads. Such a people", "height": "4100", "width": "2444", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0251.jp2"}, "252": {"fulltext": "242 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\ncould not fatten a soil with legend and\\nstory.\\nI fancy Scott and Burns would\\nhave sung no songs had they been born\\non Bark River Flats, their only\\nindigenous inspirations and occasional\\nflint spear point, or an ancient Indian\\ntrail blazed through the forest. They\\nowed all to the mountains of Scotland,\\nher heathery hills and moors, her tarns\\nand brooks peopled with the legends of\\nmen outworn. For them a thousand\\nrude singers from the cave-man down\\nhad been building a rich alluvium of\\nromance and story. In such a soil poets\\ngrow spontaneously and involuntarily.\\nPoetry is an exotic in a flat country and\\nnot of natural growth. Mountains\\nhave always been a great boon to\\nletters; thegods dwelt on a mountain, and\\nthe muses on a high hill. The level\\nplains and flat surfaces of earth have\\nalways been the abode of cattle herders", "height": "4116", "width": "2500", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0252.jp2"}, "253": {"fulltext": "AMERICANISM 243\\nand uninspired men. Burns was not a\\nsudden creation; his poetry was in the\\nnature of inherited wealth. He was the\\nheir of many singers, and all the cur-\\nrents of Scottish poetry from the earliest\\ntimes converged in him. Whittier says:\\nI saw the same blithe day return,\\nThe same sweet fall of even,\\nThat rose on Wooded Cragie-burn,\\nAnd sank on Crystal Devon.\\nI matched with Scotland s heathery hills\\nThe sweetbriar and the clover,\\nWith Ayr and Doon my native rills\\nTheir wood-hymns chanting over.\\nGive lettered pomp to teeth of Time.\\nSo Bonny Doon but tarry,\\nBlot out the epic s stately rhyme,\\nBut spare his Highland Mary.\\nWhittier wrote some of the sweetest\\nminor poetry in our language, but he\\ncould not transplant to the banks of", "height": "4108", "width": "2492", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0253.jp2"}, "254": {"fulltext": "244 CRITICAL CONFESSIONS\\nthe S us quell arm ah, or the Connecticut,\\nthe ruined castle of Scotland with its\\nthousand-year-old volume of human\\nlife, or the myriad legends that throng\\nthe banks of the Doon and the\\nAyr. His song to Burns is a tribute\\nto the richer life, to the deeper power\\nand passion of Scotland s poet. It is\\nthe generous tribute of a poet who\\nstands in a new land barren of\\ntradition, to the land hoary with age\\nand recorded legend.\\nIn our first half-century we had\\ngreat soldiers and orators and\\nstatesmen, but the crop of letters was\\nscanty. There must have been many\\nunsung Odysseys in the lives of those\\nhardy adventurers who came with\\nRaleigh and Smith, and whose descend-\\nants later drifted down the Ohio and\\nthe Mississippi and over the plains,\\ndriving the Indian and the buffalo\\nbefore them. But we had no Homers", "height": "4132", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0254.jp2"}, "255": {"fulltext": "AMERICANISM 245\\nto put this pioneer wonder-land into\\nverse. Life was too stern and exacting\\nand pitched in too intense a key, so we\\nbuilt literature slowly in our pioneer\\nage. This early poverty had its effect\\non the really great builders like\\nLongfellow and Cooper, who came later.", "height": "4100", "width": "2492", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0255.jp2"}, "256": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4092", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0256.jp2"}, "257": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4100", "width": "2492", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0257.jp2"}, "258": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4092", "width": "2496", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0258.jp2"}, "259": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4104", "width": "2492", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0259.jp2"}, "260": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4108", "width": "2508", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0260.jp2"}, "261": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4068", "width": "2428", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0261.jp2"}, "262": {"fulltext": "nM\\nfi Mi 7\u00c2\u00ab\u00c2\u00ab\u00c2\u00a3 npA", "height": "188", "width": "2500", "jp2-path": "criticalconfessi00brow_0_0262.jp2"}}