Lucy Snowe Awakes; Puppy Eats Microphone; Saints are Remembered

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, I've come on my morning walk and can you hear that? That's a missile thrush. And I I'm standing here thinking I don't recognise that sound. I'm just gonna be quiet, see if we can listen. There we are, Miss Silver. Somebody can see it. And it's a cold morning this morning. There we go, haven't we, Miss Fultrash? Beautiful. There we are It sort of bounces and then goes up, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Do do do do And although it's cold it's going to be thirty degrees by Saturday which is very well for England I'd say it's hot. I think for America it's I think it's just a average day, I suppose. I mean I I talk about America as it's one place and if you're American you must laugh. I think it's because we just always think of it as really hot because of the images we get from films, the whole California type thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

The puppies are now fighting, I'd better sort them out.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Now yesterday was the day of Madron or Maderne, monk of the sixth century, after whom the Cornish town Madron is called. Who he was is far from clear. Some identify him with Paternus, others with Medran, disciple of Kiran of Segir, others with Pyron, others with Matronus, disciple of Tudwal, who lived and died with him in Brittany. The well and chapel of Madron were a pig pilgrimage centre for miraculous cures both before and after the Reformation. Joseph Hall, Bishop of Exeter, examined in sixteen forty one the cure of a cripple who had walked on his hands for sixteen years, and who was suddenly so restored to his limbs, quote, that I saw him able to walk. I found here was no art nor collusion, the thing done, the author invisible. Francis Coventry gave further details. The cripples was twenty eight years old. He spent the night at the altar of the ruined church, and washed oh that's puppy, and washed in the stream which flowed from the well through the chapel. After sleeping on St. Madron's bed for an hour and a half, he felt pain in nerves and arteries, and walked better. After two more visits he was completely cured. He later enlisted in the Royalist Army, but was oh but was killed at Lyme in Dorset in sixteen forty four. Methodists and Anglicans still hold services in the chapel at Madron, feast seventeenth of May. I remember him from last year, do you? And today Elgiva or Elgifu, if you read Anya Seaton's book about the period of the tenth century she comes across as an evil witch character. An eleventh century calendar of Hyde testify to the cult of Elgiva at Shaftsbury, and Shaftsbury was where Edmund the Martyr was buried. Most probably she should be identified with the wife of Edmund, King of Wessex from nine hundred two one to four six. She was the mother of King Kings Edwin and Edgar and died in nine hundred forty four. William of Malmsbury called her the Foundress or the Second Foundress, after Alfred of the Shaftsbury Nunnery, and said that she died there. He praised her for generosity, wise counsel, and the gift of prophecy. She was also abbess of Wilt Wilton, the feast seventeenth of May. Maybe I'm muddling her up. Well it does say wife of Edmund, King of Wessex. No, um I'm thinking of the wife of King Edgar, who was a sort of evil person who was meant to have killed Edward the Martyr in Corf Castle. Sorry about that. I have to face it, a lot of them did have very similar names with the El Givers and Elfladers and all the rest of it. And now we continue with the history of the English Church by William Hunt. So Augustine has come to Canterbury and Ethelbert is is said, though the tradition is scarcely worth repeating, to have given up his palace at Canterbury to Augustine and to have built himself another at Reculva. Reculva is where I went to last year, if you remember. He certainly gave him a suitable dwelling for himself and future archbishops together with other possessions. I'm sitting on the bed here and puppy's just jumped on the bed, haven't you? I know, you just want to have fun all the time and I just sometimes sit here and do boring things. Do you want to say hello to this little microphone? She just wants to eat it. She opened her mouth and you almost went inside the mouth of a little golden puppy. I don't think that would have been a very nice sound for you to hear. Ethelbert certainly gave Augustine a suitable dwelling for himself and future archbishops, together with other possessions. He also helped him to restore an old church that had been built in Canterbury by Roman Christians. Augustine dedicated this church to Christ the Saviour, and made it the place of his metropolitan see. It remained with little material alteration until it was destroyed by the fire of ten sixty seven, and Aedma, the precentor, who saw it in his boyhood, has left us a description of it. It was basilican in form and was built in imitation of St. Peter's at Rome, that is, of the basilica said to have been founded by Constantine. The ordinary characteristics of a basilican church are a wide nave with one or sometimes two aisles on either side, in some cases with a kind of transept, and with an altar at one end raised above the level of the nave, and having above it a wide arch, behind it an apse, in front of it an enclosed space for the choir on the level of the nave, and beneath it a crypt or confesio, as the Romans called it. Augustine's church was oblong with an aisle on either side, and instead of a single apse it had one on both the east and the west ends. The eastern apse was occupied by the presbytery, which was on a higher level than the floor of the church, and extended westwards beyond the apse. Beneath the presbytery was a crypt or confessio, the floor of which was lower than the level of the nave. The entrance to the crypt was in the middle, below the presbytery, and on either side of the entrance, a flight of steps led up to the presbytery. I think Canterbury Cathedral have got steps on either side leading down to the crypt. An altar seems to have stood against the wall of this eastern apse, and another altar some way in front of it, on the cord of the apse below a wide arch. The altar against the wall probably took the place of that in front of it as the high altar in the tenth century. Below in front of the presbytery was the enclosed choir stretching westward. The western apse, which was reached by a few steps, contained the Archbishop's cathedral or throne, which stood against the wall in the centre of the curve. That's interesting, so the throne, as I think we largely call it now, it was right on the west side, so I guess he was able to then look down through the nave and towards the east. In front of it was an altar, and this altar was probably the primitive high altar of the church. The celebrant at this altar, as he looked eastward, that's what Gretel just said, would face the congregation. That the sanctity should have been in the west is not surprising, for though Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, says that it was more usual for churches to be built to the east than the west, he did not himself, in one case, follow the custom, and in St. Peter's and at least forty other Roman churches, either ancient or rebuilt with the same orientation as their ancient predecessors, the high altar stands in the west end, other ancient Roman churches having their high altars in the east. In other cases it's sorry, in either case, according to primitive usage, the celebrant faced eastward. About halfway down the north and south sides of Augustine's church and projecting beyond the aisles were two towers. They loved their two towers, the Romans, didn't they? The southern forming a porch or side chapel, the northern, at least in later times, forming the completion of the cloister. Okay, right, yeah, so then the cloister would be on the north. Sorry, I'm mulling, I can't that's not very nice for you just to hear me mulling, is it? It has been conjectured with much probability that the church of the Roman period on which Augustine worked consisted of a short basilica with a western apse and an eastern portico flanked by two towers, and that while restoring it he extended it eastward so as to provide an altar for the use of his monks. Yeah, so that's what happened, I think. The East became more and more in use and more and more sacred because it was used as a separate space for the monks and a convenient choir, and the monks would sing. So yeah, so the the monks would sing and celebrate mass in the East, and so bit by bit that became the most looked after, the most sort of painted and cared for, the most beautiful. But and because that's the direction that everyone in the nave would be looking, it would also be seen as the more sacred. So I think that's all very interesting. Some notice of the architecture of the other churches will be found in a later chapter, but it may be well to say here that there seems good ground for believing that all the churches built by the Roman missionaries and their early followers showed, as might be expected, Roman influence, that they were more or less basilican in character and were absidal. Rectangular instead of absidal east ends seemed to bespeak another influence, that exercised by the Scottish mission. This is fascinating. And I'll just finish on that, I think it the next sentence starts with Ethelbert desired Augustine to take any old British churches he liked, and again render them fit for Christian worship. Antony Trollop's Barchester Towers Chapter fourteen The New Champion We'd finished before with the rubbish cart. Do you remember that was a very sad chapter? The archdeacon did not return to the parsonage till close upon the hour of dinner, and there was therefore no time to discuss matters before that important ceremony. He seemed to be in a special good humour, and welcomed his father in law with a sort of jovial earnestness that was usual with him when things on which he was intent were going on as he would have them. It's all settled, my dear, said he to his wife, as he washed his hands in the dressing room, while she, according to her wont, sat listening in the bedroom. Arabin has agreed to accept the living. He'll be here next week. And the archdeacon scrubbed his hands and rubbed his face with a violent alacrity, which showed that Arabin's coming was a great point gained. Will he come here to Plumstead? said the wife. He has promised to stay a month with us, said the Archdeacon, so that he may see what his parish is like. You'll like Arabin very much. He's a gentleman in every respect, and full of humour. He's very queer, isn't he? asked the lady. Well, he is a little odd in some of his fancies, but there's nothing about him you won't like. He is as staunch a churchman as there is at Oxford. I really don't know what we should do without Arabin. It's a great thing for me to have him so near, and if anything can put slope down, Arabin will do it. The Reverend Francis Arabin was a fellow of Lazarus, the favoured disciple of the great doctor Gwynne, a high churchman at all points, so high indeed, that at one period of his career he had all but toppled over into the cesspool of Rome, a poet and also a polemical writer, a great pet in the common rooms at Oxford, an eloquent clergyman, a droll, odd, humorous, energetic, conscientious man, and as the archdeacon had boasted of him, a thorough gentleman. As he will hereafter be brought more closely to our notice, it is now only necessary to add that he had just been presented to the Vicarage of St. Ewold, probably probably Ewold by Dr. Grantly, in whose gift as Archdeacon the Living lay. St. Ewold is a parish lying just without the city of Barchester. The suburbs of the new town indeed are partly within its precincts, and the pretty church and parsonage are not much above a mile distant from the city gate. St. Ewold is not a rich piece of preferment, it is worth some three or four hundred a year at most, and has generally been held by a clergyman attached to the cathedral choir. The archdeacon, however, felt that when the living on this occasion became vacant, that it imperatively behoved him to aid the force of his party with some tower of strength, if any such tower could be got to occupy St. Ewald's. He had discussed the matter with his brethren in Barchester, not in any weak spirit as the holder of patronage to be used for his own or his family's benefit, but as one to whom was committed a trust on the due administration of which much of the church's welfare might depend. He had submitted to them the name of Mr Arabin, as though the choice had rested with them all in conclave, and they had unanimously admitted that if Mr Arabin would accept St. Ewald's, no better choice could possibly be made. If Mr Arabin would accept St. Ewold's, there lay the difficulty. Mr Arabin was a man standing somewhat prominently before the world, that is, before the Church of England world. He was not a rich man, it is true, for he held no preferment but his fellowship, but he was a man not over anxious for riches, not married, of course, and one whose time was greatly taken up in discussing both in print and on platforms the privileges and practices of the church to which he belonged. As the archdeacon had done battle for its temporalities, so did Mr Arabin do battle for its spiritualities, and both had done so conscientiously. That is, not so much each for his own benefit as for that of others. Holding such a position as Mr Arabin did, there was much reason to doubt whether he would consent to become the parson of St. Ewald's, and Dr. Grantly had taken the trouble to go himself to Oxford on the matter. Dr Gwynne and Dr Grantly together had succeeded in persuading this eminent divine that duty required him to go to Barchester. There were wheels within wheels in this affair. For some time past Mr Arabin had been engaged in a tremendous controversy with no less a person than Mr Slope, respecting the apostolic succession. These two gentlemen had never seen each other, but they had been extremely bitter in print. Mr Slope had endeavoured to strengthen his cause by calling Mr Arabin an owl and Mr Arabin had retaliated by hinting that Mr Slope was an infidel. This battle had been commenced in the columns of the Daily Jupiter, a powerful newspaper, the manager of which was very friendly to Mr Slope's view of the case. The matter, however, had become too tedious for the readers of the Jupiter, and a little note had therefore been appended to one of Mr Slope's most telling rejoinders in which it had been stated that no further letters from the Reverend Gentleman could be inserted except as advertisements. Other methods of publication were, however, found less expensive than advertisements in the Jupiter, and the war went on merrily. Mr Slope declared that the main part of the consecration of a clergyman was the self devotion of the inner man to the duties of the ministry. Mr Arabin contended that a man was not consecrated at all, and had indeed no single attribute of a clergyman unless he became so through the imposition of some bishop's hands, who had become a bishop through the imposition of other hands and so on in a direct line to one of the apostles. Each had repeatedly hung the other on the horns of a dilemma, but neither seemed to be a whit the worse for the hanging, and so the war went on merrily. Whether or no the near neighbourhood of the foe may have acted in any way as an inducement to Mr Arabin to accept the living at St. Ewald, we will not pretend to say, but it had at any rate been settled in Dr. Gwynne's library at Lazarus that he would accept it, and that he would lend his assistance towards driving the enemy out of Barchester, or at any rate silencing him while he remained there. Mr Arabin intended to keep his rooms at Oxford and to have the assistance of a curate at St. Eold, but he promised to give as much time as possible to the neighbourhood of Barchester, and from so great a man Dr. Grantly was quite satisfied with such a promise. It was no small part of the satisfaction derivable from such an arrangement that Bishop Proudie would be forced to institute into a living immediately under his own nose, the enemy of his favourite chaplain. All through dinner the archdeacon's good humour shone brightly in his face. He ate of the good things heartily, he drank wine with his wife and daughter, he talked pleasantly of his doings at Oxford, told his father in law that he ought to visit doctor Gwynne at Lazarus, and launched out again in praise of Mr Arabin. Is Mr Arabin married, papa? asked Grislda. No, my dear, the fellow of a college is never married. Is he a young man, papa? About forty, I believe, said the Archdeacon. Oh, said Grislda. Had the father said eighty, Mr Arabin would not have appeared to her very much older. When the two gentlemen were left alone over their wine, Mr Harding told his tale of woe, but even this, sad as it was, did not much diminish the Archdeacon's good humour, though it greatly added to his pugnacity. He can't do it, said Dr. Grantly, over and over again, as his father in law explained to him the terms on which the new warden of the hospital was to be appointed. He can't do it. What he says is not worth the trouble of listening to. He can't alter the duties of the place. Who can't? said the ex warden. children, neither the bishop nor the chaplain, nor yet the bishop's wife, who, I take it, has really more to say to such matters than either of the other two. The whole body corporate of the palace, together, have no power to turn the warden of the hospital into a Sunday schoolmaster. But the bishop has the power to appoint whom he pleases, and I don't know that. I rather think he'll find he has no such power. Let him try it and see what the press will say. For once we shall have the popular cry on our side, but Proudie, ass as he is, knows the world too well to get such a hornet's nest about his ears. Mr Harding winced at the idea of the press. He had had enough of that sort of publicity, and was unwilling to be shown up a second time, either as a monster or as a martyr. He gently remarked that he hoped the newspapers would not get a hold of his name again, and then suggested that perhaps it would be better that he should abandon his object. I'm getting old, said he, and after all I doubt whether I am fit to undertake new duties. New duties, said the Archdeacon, don't I tell you there shall be no new duties? Or perhaps old duties either, said Mr Harding. I think I shall remain content as I am. The picture of Mr Slope carting away the rubbish was still present to his mind. The archdeacon drank off his glass of claret and prepared himself to be energetic. I do hope, said he, that you are not going to be so weak as to allow such a man as Mr Slope to deter you from doing what you know is your duty to do. You know it is your duty to resume your place at the hospital now that Parliament has so settled the stipend at the stipend as to remove those difficulties which induced you to resign it. You cannot deny this, and should your timidity now prevent you from doing so, your conscience will hereafter never forgive you and as he finished this clause of his speech he pushed over the bottle to his companion. Your conscience will never forgive you, he continued. You resigned the place from conscientious scruples, scruples which I greatly respected, though I did not share them. All your friends respected them and you left your old house as rich in reputation as you were ruined in fortune. It is now expected that you will return. Dr Gwynne was only saying the other day Dr Gwynne does not reflect how much older a man I am now than when he last saw me Old nonsense, said the Archdeacon you never thought yourself old till you listened to the impudent trash of that coxcomb at the palace. I shall be sixty five if I live till November, said Mr Harding and seventy five if you live till November ten years, said the Archdeacon, and you bid fair to be as efficient then as you were ten years ago. But for heaven's sake, let us have no pretence in this matter your plea of old age is only a pretence but you're not drinking your wine It is only a pretence the fact is you are half afraid of this slope and would rather subject yourself to comparative poverty and discomfort than come to blows with a man who will trample on you if you let him I certainly don't like coming to blows if I can help it nor I neither but sometimes we can't help it. This man's object is to induce you to refuse the hospital that he might put some creature of his own into it, that he may show his power and insult us all by insulting you, whose cause and character are so intimately bound up with that of the chapter. You owe it to us all to resist him in this, even if you have no solicitude for yourself. But surely for your own sake you will not be so lily livered as to fall into this trap which he has baited for you and let him take the very bread out of your mouth without a struggle. Mr Harding did not like being called lily livered, and was rather inclined to resent it. I doubt there is any true courage, said he, in squabbling for money. If honest men did not squabble for money in this wicked world of ours, the dishonest men would get it all, and I do not see that the cause of virtue would be much improved. No we must use the means which we have if we were to carry your argument home we might give away every shilling of revenue which the church has, and I presume you are not prepared to say that the church would be strengthened by such a sacrifice. The archdeacon filled his glass and then emptied it, drinking with much reverence a silent toast to the well being and permanent security of those temporalities which were so dear to his soul. I think all quarrels being a clergyman and his bishop should be avoided, said Mr Harding. I think so too, but it is quite as much the duty of the bishop to look to that as his inferior I tell you what, my friend, I'll see the bishop in this matter, that is, if you will allow me, and you may be sure I will not compromise you. My opinion is that all this trash about Sunday schools and the sermons has originated wholly with Slope and Mrs Proudie, and that the bishop knows nothing about it. The Bishop can't very well refuse to see me and I'll come upon him when he is neither his wife nor his chaplain by him. I think you'll find that it'll end in his sending you to the appointment without any condition whatever, and as to the seats in the cathedral, we may safely leave that to Mr Dean I believe the fool positively thinks that the bishop could walk away with the cathedral if he pleased. And so the matter was arranged between them. Mr Harding had come expressly for advice and therefore felt himself bound to take the advice given him. He had known moreover beforehand that the archdeacon would not hear of him giving the matter up and accordingly though he had in perfect good faith put forward his own views he was prepared to yield. They therefore went into the drawing room in good humour with each other and the evening passed pleasantly in prophetic discussion on the future wars of Arabin and Slope. The frogs and the mice would be nothing to them nor the angers of Agamenmon and Achilles, how the archdeacon rubbed his hands and plumed himself on the success of his last move. He could not himself descend into the arena with Slope, but Arabin would have no such scruples Arabin was exactly the man for such work and the only man whom he knew that was fit for it. It's like the Tudor court, isn't it? The archdeacon's good humour and high buoyancy continued till when reclining on his pillow, Mrs Grantly commenced to give him her view of the state of affairs at Barchester, and then certainly he was startled. The last words he said that night were as follows If she does, by heaven I'll never speak to her again. She dragged me into the mire once, but I'll not pollute myself with such filth as that and the archdeacon gave a shudder which shook the whole room so violently was he convulsed with the thought which then agitated his mind. Now in this matter the widow Bold was scandalously ill treated by her relatives she had spoken to the man three or four times and had expressed her willingness to teach in a Sunday school such was the full extent of her sins in the matter of Mr Slope poor Eleanor but time will show the next morning Mr Harding returned to Barchester, no further word having been spoken in his hearing respecting Mr Slope's acquaintance with the younger daughter, but he observed that the archdeacon at breakfast was less cordial than he had been on the preceding evening Chapter fifteen is next The Widow's suitors and it started Mr Slope lost no time in availing himself of the Bishop's permission to see Mr Quiverful And now my dear friends we turn to sixteen sixty four and we turn to London where Mr Samuel Peeps the intelligent, kind, busy though, slightly hectic but good diligent man begins his diary on the first of January went to bed between four and five in the morning with my mind in good temper of satisfaction and slept till about eight, that many people came to speak with me, and then being to dine at my uncle White's, I went to the coffee house, sending my wife by will, and there stayed talking an hour with Colonel Middleton and others, and among other things about a very rich widow, young and handsome of one Sir Nicholas Goldsmith, a merchant lately fallen, and of great courtiers that already look after her. Her husband, not dead a week yet, she is reckoned worth eight hundred thousand pounds, thence to my uncle White's where doctor Burnett, among others dined, and his wife a seeming proud, conceited woman, I know not what to make of her, but the doctor's discourse did please me very well about the disease of the stone, above all things extolling turpentine, which he told me how it may be taken in pills with great ease. There was brought to table a hot pie made of swan I sent them yesterday, given me by Mr Howe, but we did not eat any of it, but my wife and I rise from table pretending business, and went to the Duke's house, the first play I have been at these six months, according to my last vow, and here saw the so much cried up play of Henry VIII, which, though I went with resolution to like it, is so simple a thing made up of a great many patches, that besides the show and processions in it, there is nothing in the world good or well done, thence mightily dissatisfied back at night to my uncle White's and supped with them, but against my stomach, out of the offence the sight of my aunt's hands gives me oh dear, yes, apparently she's got very ugly hands, and ending my supper with a mighty laugh, the greatest I have had these many months, and my uncle's being out in his grace after meat, we rise and break up and my wife and I home and to bed, being sleepy since last night Second of January I do find that I am not able to conquer myself as to going to place till I do come to some new vow concerning it, and that I am now come, that is to say that I will not see above one in a month at any of the public theatres, till the sum of fifty shillings be spent, and then none before New Year's Day's day next, unless that I do become worth a thousand pounds sooner than then, and then I am free to come to some other terms. And so I took my wife to the king's house I'm having to make a vow as well because I I must stop spending on travelling so much because it's setting me back too much and I don't think it's fair to expect my husband just to keep funding it so yeah I I'm I will obviously keep up all the visiting as much as possible but I've just got to be careful about zipping off to Edinburgh and so on until I can find some sort of wealthy benefactor maybe Sir Richard Eyre, what do you think? I have actually written to him at the theatre and to thank him for giving up his time and actually to ask if he's available for a longer longer interview. I mean I can't imagine he'll reply but I just have to keep trying these things because you never know. And so I took my wife to the king's house and there met with Mr Nicholson my old colleague and saw the usurper, which is no good play, though better than what I saw yesterday. However we are so unsatisfied and took the coach home and I to the office late, writing letters, and so home to supper and to bed I don't know if you can hear but my asthma is quite bad at the moment I'm a bit out of breath. Now we're going to finish on Sunday the third because it's my birthday and then we're going to read the next chapter a villette before we end for the evening Lord's Day third of january sixteen sixty four lay long in bed and then rose and with a fire in my chamber stayed within all day, looking over and settling my accounts in good order, by examining all my books and the kitchen books, and I find that though the proper profit of my last year was but three hundred and five pounds, yet I did by other gain make it up four hundred and forty four pounds, which in every part of it was unforeseen of me, and therefore it was strange it was a strange oversight for lack of examining my expenses that I should spend six hundred and ninety pounds this year, but for the time to come I have so distinctly settled all my accounts in writing and the particulars of all my several layings out, that I do hope I shall hereafter make a better judgment of my spendings than ever. I dined with my wife in her chamber, she in bed, and then down again until eleven at night, and broke up and to bed with great content, but could not make an end of writing over my vows as I purposed, but I am agreed in everything how to order myself for the year to come, which I trust in God will be much for my good so up to prayers and to bed. This noon Sir William Penn came to invite me and my wife against next Wednesday being twelfth day to his usual feast, his wedding day and the next entry starts and who likes this Brendan likes this and also Headley likes this. He starts on the fourth up betimes So let's finish with dear Charlotte Bronte's Villette So we had got to the end of volume one and we're now on chapter sixteen Old Lang Zine. Hello puppy he's brought he's bought his monkey she's bought her monkey it's a bit crackly but I think it'll be alright 'cause I've got a microphone. How are you, monkey? I think that monk her ears are too big for her head. She's got long floppy golden ears. Haven't you? And a very thin little head are you gonna grow into them? Are you having a nice time existing with us? You're gonna go to Cormore next week. We're gonna take you to Cormore and you're gonna swim in the sea no matter what you say. I know you you're scared of it, but I think by the end of our little trip you'll be swimming in the sea like all good labradors, although I suppose we have to really take care because you're still little and we don't want you to get swept away where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Ah yes, so she fell unconscious poorly didn't she? Whatever she saw or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night, she kept her own secret I'm so sorry to interrupt here but overnight the puppy has managed to eat eat the last of my microphones and so well not actually swallow it but destroy it so I'm going to have to order another one. So in the meantime this is a pe a poor sound probably but it's all I've got for the moment and I think it's better to get this chapter done so I hope it's okay. So let's start again Old Lang Zine where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night, she kept her own secret, never never whispering a word to memory and baffling imagination by an indissoluble silence. She may have gone upwards and come in sight of her eternal home, hoping for leave to rest now, and deeming that her painful union with matter was at last dissolved while she so deemed an angel may have worned her away from heaven's threshold, and guiding her weeping down, have bound her once more, all shuddering and unwilling to that poor frame cold and wasted, of whose companionship she was grown more than weary I know she reentered her prison with pain, with reluctance, with a moan and with a long shiver. The divorced mate's spirit and substance were hard to reunite. They greeted each other not in an embrace but a racking sort of struggle the returning sense of sight came upon me, red as if it swam in blood, suspended hearing rushed back loud like thunder, consciousness revived in fear I sat up appalled, wondering into what region amongst what strange beings I was waking. At first I knew nothing I looked on a wall was not a wall a lamp was not a lamp I should have understood what we call a ghost as well as I did the commonest object, which is another way of intimating that all my eye rested on struck it as spectral, but the faculties soon settled each in its place. The life machine presently resumed its wanted and regular working still I knew not where I was only in time I saw I had been removed from the spot where I fell. I lay on no portico step night and tempest were excluded by walls, windows and ceiling into some house I had been carried, but what house I could only think of the pension in the roof or set. Still half dreaming, I tried hard to discover in what room they had put me, whether the great dormitory or one of the little dormitories I was puzzled because I could not make the glimpses of furniture I saw accord with my knowledge of any of these apartments. The empty white beds were wanting and the long line of large windows surely, thought I, it is not to Madame Beck's own chamber they have carried me and here my eye fell on an easy chair covered with blue damask. Other seats cushioned to match dawned on me by degrees, and at last I took in the complete fact of a pleasant parlour with a wood fire on a clear shining hearth, a carpet where arabesques of bright blue relieved a ground of shaded fawn, pale walls over which a slight but endless garland of azure forget me not ran mazed and bewildered amongst myriad gold leaves and tendrils. A gilded mirror filled up the space between two windows curtained amply with blue damask. In this mirror I saw myself laid not in a bed but on a sofa I looked spectral, my eyes larger and more hollow, my hair darker than was natural by contrast With my thin and ashen face. It was obvious not only from the furniture, but from the position of the windows, doors, and fireplace, that this was an unknown room in an unknown house. Hardly less plain was it that my brain was not yet settled, for as I gazed at the blue armchair, it appeared to grow familiar, so did a certain scroll couch, and not less so the round centre table with a blue covering, bordered with autumn tinted foliage, and above all two little footstools with worked covers, and a small ebony framed chair, of which the seat and back were also worked with groups of brilliant flowers on a dark round. Struck with these things I explored further. Strange to say, old acquaintances were all about me, and old Langzein smiled out of every nook. There were two oval miniatures over the mantelpiece, of which I knew by heart the pearls about the high and powdered heads, the velvet circling the white throats, the swell of the full muslin kerchiefs, the pattern of the lace sleeve ruffles. Upon the mantel shelf there were two china vases, some relics of a diminutive tea service as smooth as a navel enamel and as thin as eggshell, and a white centre ornament, a classic group in alabaster, preserved under glass. Of all these things I could have told the peculiarities, numbered the flaws or cracks, like any clairvoyant. Above all there was a pair of hand screens with elaborate pencil drawings, finished like line engravings. These my very eyes ached at beholding again, recalling hours when they had followed stroke by stroke, and touch by touch, a tedious, feeble, finical schoolgirl pencil held in these fingers, now so skeleton like. Where was I? Not only in what spot of the world, but in what year of our Lord, for all these objects were of past days, and of a distant country. Ten years ago I bade them goodbye, since my fourteenth year they and I had never met. I gasped audibly Where am I? A shape hitherto unnoticed stirred, rose, came forward, a shape inharmonious with the environment, serving only to complicate the riddle further. This was no more than a sort of native bon in a commonplace bon's cap and print dress. She spoke neither French nor English, and I could get no intelligence from her, not understanding her phrases of dialect dialect, but she bathed my temples and forehead with some cool and perfumed water, and then she lightened the cushion on which I reclined, made signs that I was not to speak, and resumed her post at the foot of the sofa. She was busy knitting, her eyes thus drawn from me, I could gaze on her without interruption. I did mightily wonder how she came there or what she could have to do among the scenes, or with days of my girlhood. Still more I marvelled what those scenes and days could now have to do with me. Too weak to scrutinize thoroughly the mystery, I tried to settle it by saying it was a mistake, a dream, a fever fit, and yet I knew there could be no mistake, and that I was not sleeping, and I believed I was sane. I wish the room had not been so well lighted, that I might not see so clearly the little pictures, the ornaments, the screens, the worked chair, all these objects, as well as the blue damask furniture, were in fact precisely the same in every minutest detail with those I so well remember remembered, and with which I had been so thoroughly intimate in the drawing room of my godmother's house at Braton. Me thought the part the apartment only was changed, being of different proportions and dimensions. I thought of Bedridden Hassan, transported in his sleep from Cairo to the gates of Damascus. Had a genius stooped his dark wing down the storm to whose stress I had succumbed, and gathering me from the church steps and rising high into the air, as the eastern tale said, had he borne me over land and ocean and laid me quietly down beside a hearth of old England, but no, I knew the fire of that hearth burned before its lairs no more. It went out long ago, and the household gods had been carried elsewhere. The bon turned again to survey me, and seeing my eyes wide open, and I suppose deeming their expression, perturbed and excited, she put down her knitting. I saw her busied for a moment at a little stand. She poured out water and measured drops from a file. Glass in hand she approached me. What dark tinged draught might she now be offering? What genii alexia or magi distillation? It was too late to inquire. I had swallowed it passively and at once. A tide of quiet thought now came gently caressing my brain. Softer and softer rose the flow, with tepid undulations, smoother than balm. The pain of weakness left my limbs, my muscles slept. I lost power to move, but losing at the same time wish, it was no privation. That kind of bond placed a screen between me and the lamp.