Kate Stephens

“ On one side of us large towns, in the lake many more, the canoe-covered lake itself, and before us the splendor of the great city of Mexico! Innumerable crowds!—and we—not even four hundred men!—and all remembering the warnings given by friendly tribes not to trust our lives to the treachery of a people who would kill us as soon as they had us in their town. In all the world what men have ever ventured so bold a deed as this! ”

“ To us of to-day Bernal Diaz del Castillo is not "vulgar." Profounder sentiments strengthen our vision. To our thinking Diaz' work is that of a writer of notable stature—of a spirit as sincere as his body was enduring, who, fifty years after he had had no mean part in one of the greatest expeditions known to mankind, himself wrote with astounding vizualizing power of what he and his comrades did and suffered. ”

“ Many of the snowy houses of old New England worship pierce their luminous ether with graceful spires. But this meeting-house lifts a square, central 169 bell-tower which now leans on one side as if weary with long standing. The old bell which summoned its people to their pews still hangs behind green blinds—a not unmusical town-crier. But use, life, good works have departed with those whom it exhorted to church duty, and in sympathy with all the human endeavor it once knew, but now fordone, in these days it never rings blithely, it can only be made to toll. ”

“ Cortes and all of us answered that we thanked him for this evidence of his very friendly feeling, whereupon Montezuma said, laughing, for he was always of a bright, merry manner, "I know very well, Malinche, what those close allies of yours, the Tlaxcalans, have told you about me, how I am a sort of god or teul and my houses are filled with gold, silver and precious stones. Reasonable men such as you of course put no faith in their talk and took it for nonsense, but now, Malinche, you see for yourself that my body is of flesh and bone like yours. ”

“ In the past we have often been told that the Conquest of Mexico was a most glorious exploit, due wholly to an absolutist, a poser of quasi omniscient intellect and callous emotion, a leader driving subordinated soldiers. The following pages show, rather, a human Cortes—able, untiringly active in mind and body, gently intimate and comrade-like of heart, subtle in speech, but ardent, imaginative and ambitious enough to grasp opportunities and mould them to his own advantage. ”

“ Those winters held genial hours. Nuts from the woods and cider from the orchard stood on the board near by. Home-grown wood blazed in the chimney; home-grown chestnuts, hidden in the ashes by busy children, popped to expectant hands; house-mothers sat with knitting and spinning, and the father and farm-men mended fittings 168 and burnished tools for the spring work. Outside the stars glittered through a clear sky and the soundless earth below lay muffled in sleep.
Over yonder across the road was the village post-office, and not far away were stores of merchant supplies. ”

“ A small figure standing by its side they said was his page, at any rate it held the idol's short lance and shield decorated with gold and jewels. Round the neck of Huitzilopochtli were figures of human faces made of gold, and hearts of silver set with many precious blue stones. In front of the image stood several incense pans in which the hearts of three Indians, who had that day been sacrificed, were burning with copal as a burnt-offering. The walls of the chapel and the whole floor were so encrusted with human blood that they were black, and the stench of the place was unendurable. ”

“ Scattered far and wide over the granitic soil of New England there have been the women unmarried. Through the seafaring life of the men, through the adventures of the pioneer enchanting the hot-blooded and daring; through the coaxing away of sturdy youthful muscle by the call of the limitless fat lands to the west; through the siren voice of the cities; and also through the loss of men in war—that untellable misery—these less fortunate women—the unmarried—have in all New England life been many. ”

“ But every day the Mexicans sounded their diabolical shell trumpets and yelled and howled, and every night fires lighted the platform of the great temple as they sacrificed our unfortunate comrades before their accursed idols. For ten successive days these indescribable barbarities went on—until all their prisoners were gone.
One morning many squadrons of warriors fell on us in endeavor to surround us on all sides, and in the midst of their fierce attack they were shouting such insults as these:—" You are a set of lying cowards!" "You are fit neither to build houses nor to plant maize!" ”

“ She undoes the decree of old Pope Innocent III., to whom is ascribed the ordination of marriage as a function of his church and the claim of its sanctified indissolubility. In the light of her action marriage is truly and purely a civil contract, and devoid of that grace, resignation, forbearance, patience, tenderness, sweetness, and calm which make it truly religious.
She is strong, she is hopeful, she is ardent. She knows herself and her power—that it is of the flesh which aims at prettiness. The divine beauty of spirit in the countenance she does not know. ”

“ For a twelve days' sail we hovered near the coast, but afterwards we doubled Cape San Antonio and made for the open sea, steering toward the setting sun, wholly ignorant of the depth and currents of the water. We knew nothing, moreover, of what winds might prevail, until a terrible storm came down upon us and blew two days and nights. The sea lashed us boisterously, and every moment we expected shipwreck. But finally the wind ceased, and twenty-one days after we had left harbor in Cuba we came in sight of land. Every heart, filled with gratitude towards God, rejoiced greatly. ”

“ He values openly what the world in its heart knows is best, and like all idealists foreruns his time. The legend is always about him of how the men and women of the early fifties hitched their wagon to a star—and the stars in his infinity above are divinely luminous and clear. His meliorism—which would lead his fellows and then the whole world aright—is nothing if not magnificent. ”

“ Many of the canoes, large enough to hold forty or fifty Indians, were hollowed out of the trunks of trees like our kneading troughs.
As the canoes approached we made signs of friendship to the Indians, beckoning them to come on with our hands and waving our cloaks; for no one among us could speak the language of Yucatan. Without showing the least fear they did paddle alongside, and more than thirty clambered aboard our main ship. ”

“ When we reached the summit we saw a platform set about with large stones, on which they put those doomed for sacrifice, and near by was an image shaped like a dragon, and other abominable figures, and a quantity of fresh blood. Montezuma himself accompanied by two papas came out of a chapel in which his cursed idols were standing and received us with courtesy. "Ascending this great temple of ours, Malinche, must have fatigued you," he said; on which Cortes assured him that nothing ever tired him and his companions. ”

“ The cook-book is not a modern product. The Iliad is the hungriest book on earth, and it is the first of our cook-books aside from half-sacred, half-sanitary directions to the early Aryans and Jews. It is that acme of poetry, that most picturesque of pictures, that most historical of histories, that most musical and delicious verse, the Iliad, which was the first popularly to teach the cooking art—the art in its simplicity, and not a mere handmaid to sanitation, jurisprudence, or theology. ”

“ But envoys from the caciques of Cholula met and bade us welcome to their territory, and within a short distance of the town the caciques, papas and a number of Indians came out to meet us. When we made our entry the people crowded the streets and housetops to gaze on us. And who can wonder? Never had they seen men like ourselves, nor any horses. We marched to our quarters, in which we found plenty of room, and to which they at once brought us abundance of good food. The city lay in a plain, a land bearing maize and vegetables and the maguey from which the people ferment a wine. ”

“ But although he grubs up the wild rose and morning-glory, ploughing his mellow soil deep for settings of peach and grape, and supplants the beauty of the purple iris and prairie verbena with the practicalities of corn and wheat, he has 31 yet to learn the moral effect of time and aggregation—that a moon’s cycle is not a millennium, a June wind fragrant with the honey of his white clover not all of his fair climate, and that a political colossus cannot stand when it has no more substantial feet than the yellow clay which washes and swirls in the river that waters his great State. ”

“ The Mexicans had determined on the same action. They came in overwhelming numbers, fresh men every minute to the attack. Neither cannon nor musketry were to the purpose, nor killing from forty to fifty of their troop at a time. They fought on in close ranks, their courage seeming to increase with every loss. At times they would retreat, but that was merely a ruse to draw us from our quarters to where they could surround us, desperately assault us with stones and lances cast from housetops, and assail our ears with drums, trumpets and yells that we were scoundrels and cowards. ”

“ Not far from the church, up a swell of the land, lies the burying-ground—a sunny spot. Pines here and there, also hemlocks and trees which stand bare after the fall of leaves. But all is bright and open, not a hideous stone-quarry 170 such as in our day vanity or untaught taste makes of resting-places of our dead. Gay-colored mushrooms waste their luxurious gaudiness between the trees, and steadfast myrtle, with an added depth to its green from the air’s clarity, binds the narrow mounds with ever-lengthening cords. ”

“ See, my daughter, that you give yourself no concern about the words you may hear, in going through the street, nor pay any regard to them, let those who come and go say what they will. Take care that you neither answer nor speak, but act as if you neither heard nor understood. See, likewise, my daughter, that you never paint your face, nor stain it, nor your lips, with colors in order to appear well. Paints and colorings are things which bad women use—the immodest, who have lost shame and even sense, who are like fools and drunkards. ”

“ Until honor is stronger among human beings—that is, until the business world is something other than a maelstrom of hell—it is unmanly and unwomanly to gibe at the “unauthoritative” young woman writing at so much a mile. She may be bearing heavy burdens of debt incurred by another. She may be supporting a decrepit father or an idle brother. She is bread-earning. Oftenest she is gentle, and, like the strapped dog which licks the hand that lays bare his brain, she does not strike back. ”

“ Here our captain gave orders for the ships to come to anchor, and after we had lowered boats many of us soldiers went aland, for we had seen smoke as we neared the shore. We found two strongly built stone houses, each with steps leading up to an altar, and on these altars idols of horrible shapes. Bodies of five natives still lay where the night before the papas had sacrificed them—their chests cut open, their arms and legs off, while the walls about were besmeared with blood. At all this we stood in utter amazement, and gave the island the name of Isla de Sacrificios. ”

“ I exclaimed—or if not just that then its German equivalent—thinking of the perfectly kept homes from the rocks and pines of Maine to the California surf; “you German women with your little haushaltungen, heating your rooms with porcelain stoves, and your frequent reversion in meals to the simplicity of wurst and beer, have no conception of the size and complexity of American households and the executive capabilities necessary to keep them in orderly work. Yours is mere doll’s housekeeping—no furnaces, no hot water, no electricity, no elevators, no telephone, and no elaborate menus.” ”

“ The atmosphere at last became so pestiferous that Guatemoc asked Cortes to permit all the inhabitants and the remainder of the Mexican forces to leave the city. Our captain promptly urged them to go, and for three days and nights an unending stream of men, women and children, so emaciated, dirty and death-like that it was pitiful to see them, crowded the causeways. As soon as they had got away Cortes set out to examine the city. We found houses full of dead bodies, and a few poor creatures still having life but too weak to stand. ”

“ To this should be added another gift of the gods which this woman ever bore in mind with calmness—a secluded ground, shaded by hemlocks or willows, where should stand the headstone marking her dust, over which violets should blossom to freshening winds, and robin call to mate in the resurrection time of 130 spring, and in the dim corners of which ghostly Indian pipes should rise from velvet mould to meet the summer’s fervency. ”

“ In the mouths of many who use it to excess—those mainly at fault are innocently imitative, unthinking, or pretentious women—it sounds ungracious, if not vulgar, and distinctly untrue to those who made the country for us and desirable for us to live in; and untrue also to the best social feeling of to-day. It is still for a genuine American rather hard to imagine a person such as the word “servant” connotes—a lackey, a receiver of tips of any sort—with an election ballot in hand and voting thinkingly, knowingly, intelligently for the guidance of our great government. ”

“ Consider how already he has declared war of extermination against us, just as if we were a troop of Moors.
"Up to this moment," continued Cortes, "we have fought to defend our lives, but now we have to fight for our lives and our honor, for our enemies have nothing less in mind than to capture us and rob us of all we have gained. If Narvaez and his men conquer us, which God forbid, all the services we have rendered the Almighty and our king will be turned to crimes. ”

“ It is therefore not to be wondered at that these young people come to their University with little of the glamour nourished by delicate environment and the graces of life. Their earliest years have been spent upon the bed-rock of nature wrestling with the hardest facts and barest realities. They have suffered the deprivations and the unutterable trials of patience and faith which the world over are the lot of pioneers; and they have had the returns 48 of their courage. ”

“ Next morning, after we had commended ourselves to God in prayer, we set out with each company marching in close order, our horsemen particularly guardful that the foe should not break our ranks and divide our company. And as we marched two armies of warriors, about six thousand men, came up with terrific din of trumpets, drums and yells, flying arrows at us, hurling their darts, and conducting themselves with every show of valor. Cortes now ordered us to halt and he sent forward three prisoners of the day before to say that we came to them as brothers and wished them to stay hostilities. ”

“ This woman has therefore in her hands no feeling of the real relation and friendship that grow between mistress and maid who live the joys and sorrows of years together. By the less fortunate themselves, as well as by her own shallow skimming, her sympathies with the less fortunate are dwarfed. She looks upon her domestic as a serving sub-human animal, infinitely below herself, tolerated because of its menial performance, and barely possessed of the soul which her ecclesiastical tradition says is in every human form. ”

“ If the Almighty had not lent us strength, we must have perished; without God's aid we should never have reached our quarters. Miserable we were, every one of us wounded, and the distress we were in was more terrible from our uncertainty as to what had happened to Cortes' and Sandoval's divisions. The cry of the Mexicans when they threw before us the five heads tied together by the hair and beards still rang in our ears. ”

“ In such a life as this first arose the subjective characteristics of the New England woman at which so many gibes have been written, so many flings spoken; at which so many burly sides 134 have shaken with laughter ἄσβεστος. Like almost every dwarfed or distorted thing in the active practical world, “New England subjectivity” is a result of the shortsightedness of men, the assumption of authority of the strong over the weak, and the wrongs they have to advance self done one another. ”

“ On we marched through plantations and hamlets, the Mexicans always in pursuit and striving to lock us in some narrow place and slay us. One night we quartered ourselves in some houses and supped off a horse they had killed. The next morning as we advanced, our scouts brought word that countless Mexican warriors filled the fields ahead. Here, however, our courage did not flag, and when our horsemen dashed over the level ground in full gallop on the enemy, our foot soldiers seemed to put double strength and spirit in their sword thrusts. It was a terrific battle. And to see Cortes! ”

“ What irony of history if on New England soil!! Possibly, the custom that now pertains of paying women less than men for the same work, the habit in all businesses of giving women the drudging details,—necessary work, indeed, but that to which no reputation is affixed,—and giving to men the broader tasks in which there is contact with the world and the result of contact, growth, may ultimately react, just as out of injustice and brutalities centuries ago arose a chivalrous ideal and a knightly redresser. ”

“ But we still had to struggle with a greater evil—want of fresh water—for although we had filled our leaky barrels and casks, because of the furious attack of the natives and our haste to get on board, we had not been able to bring them off. Our thirst was intense. The only way we could in some measure refresh our parched tongues was to hold the edge of our axes between our lips. Oh, what a fearful undertaking it is to venture out on the discovery of new countries! Those alone can form idea of it who have gone through its hard school. ”

“ And in this country, where Aladdin-fortunes spring into being by the rubbing of a lamp—where families of, for example, many centuries of the downtrodden life of European peasant jump from direst poverty to untold wealth—environment 268 has often no opportunity to form the folk of gentle breeding. Many instances are not lacking where those who wait are more gently bred than those who are waited upon.
In their larger discourse, then, up-to-date household books stand for the very essence of democracy and human-heartedness—which is also the very essence of aristocracy. ”

“ Our captain now said to Montezuma, "I can not imagine how such a wise man and powerful monarch as you should not have discovered that these idols of yours are evil spirits. That it may be proved to you, and that your papas may see it clearly, permit me to set a cross here at the top of this temple, and in the place where Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca stand give me space to put up an image of Our Lady. Then you will see by the fear that will seize these idols that they have been deceiving you." ”

“ The voice is an unconscious index of one’s spiritual tone; hers is metallic. At times it is deep, with a masculine note and force. The gift of flexible English speech, belonging to her by the right of inheritance of every American—she is at times of the old American stock, but more often of foreign-born parents,—she is apt to wrap in stereotyped phrases or newspaper slang. In her bustling life, formed, stamped, and endowed in spirit by an iron-grooved, commercial world, she gives little consideration to use of the greatest of all instruments and the mightiest of all arts. ”