Ben Johnson

“ The minx stood by, no longer frightened, but delighted in her vanity at the sight of our struggling over her.
At first Ben had burst out laughing, defending himself from my frantic rage but, little by little, under the sting of my blows, he too lost his head. We rolled over and over, clawing at each other frantically, striking out blindly. I was no match for him then in strength, and at the end I found myself on my back, my arms pinned under his knees, looking up into his bruised face.
Suddenly he bent down and cried angrily:
“You little fool! Is that the sort of wife you want to bring home!” ”

“ I always thought of Ben as some robber baron of the Middle Ages. I’d sort of expect him to rig up a gallows and see justice done in good old mousquetaire fashion.”
“Really?”
“Yes; I say, David, why the devil do we feel his leadership the way we do? We can think all around him. We’ve gone fifty years ahead of him.”
“Funny. I’ve been puzzling over that, myself.”
“Suppose men of action aren’t necessarily thinkers. We turn around an idea, see the complexities; a decision with us is a mental process of elimination. With him, it is instantaneous—an instinct; the primitive. ”

“ What Ben has said to Letty I do not know. He seldom speaks, but a certain grimness settles over him as he paces up and down. I’m afraid that it has cost him more than he thought to tear himself away from her. To-night everything seems confused and out of joint,—Anne, Bernoline, the Governor, Ben, Letty; myself most of all. Again, the close of another chapter—the wrench of old associations—new hazards, and what beyond? ”

“ If he did not always commend the compositions of others, it was not ill-nature (which was not in his temper) , but strict justice would not let him call a few flowers set in ranks, a glib measure, and so many couplets, by the name of poetry: he was of Ben Jonson's opinion, who could not admire.
——Verses as smooth and soft as cream,
In which there was neither depth nor stream.
And therefore, though his want of complaisance for some men's overbearing vanity made him enemies, yet the better part of mankind were obliged by the freedom of his reflections. ”

“ The next instants seemed leaden. The car drove up. I looked at Ben, steadily, controlling my glance. Fortunately, he was nearest to me.
“Hello, there, old fellow!”
“Hello, Ben,” I said, in my heart a great thankfulness.
“Bon jour, Monsieur, my brother-in-law; you have not forgotten me?”
I looked. I had to look. Letty’s shadowy eyes—calm, even a trifle amused—were on me, and no more trace of emotion than was in her voice.
“The idea! But I did not expect to meet you again like this,” I heard myself saying, with all the banality of an accomplished society fop. ”

“ At any other time I should resent this, but now—frankly—I am glad, as I want to be able to transfer into the American service as soon as we declare war, and to be in Paris is to be where friends and influence can expedite matters. Ben goes into the Morgan-Harjes ambulance for six months, and leaves at the end of the week. He is more taciturn than ever, but the feeling of being in a great current, a man among men, is, I know, a great release to him. We have never discussed Letty since the day of our departure, when he gave me to understand that the separation was definite. ”

“ Johnson and his Writings to the Publick. After this they were profess'd Friends; tho' I don't know whether the other ever made him an equal return of Gentleness and Sincerity. Ben was naturally Proud and Insolent, and in the Days of his Reputation did so far take upon him the Supremacy in Wit, that he could not but look with an evil Eye upon any one that seem'd to stand in Competition with him. And if at times he has affected to commend him, it has always been with some Reserve, insinuating his Uncorrectness, a careless manner of Writing, and want of Judgment ”

“ It is strange how little we can say to each other. I have not the slightest inkling to the ways of his mind. Sometimes I think him totally devoid of imagination. Perhaps I am wrong and in his inner shell his thoughts are active and relentless. His code is a strange one—very Anglo-Saxon—and I think he is still ashamed that once or twice I saw him in the raw. I of course never refer to Letty, though her presence is always between us. The nearest approach to intimacy is a dialogue like this:
“How are you to-day, Ben?” ”

“ Letty is in Paris. I shall have to see her.
I wonder if Ben left a letter behind him and if that letter will tell me what I dread to know at the last.
It is hard to write. I can only jot down a few incoherent notes. Actuality dominates and oppresses me. I have again the old feeling of having surrendered my imagination and of moving like an automaton.
293
August
No letter from Bernoline in ages. Others come—from Anne and Molly, but a blank door of silence is between us. I think I shall write no more in this chronicle. I have a weariness and a distaste for life outside. ”

“ And among the great men of history there is scarcely one who, of the successes he achieved, owed more to himself and less to the favor of circumstances.
He was born in Boston in 1706. His father was a soap boiler and tallow chandler, respectable, but rich only in the number of his children, of whom there were seventeen. Little Ben got very scanty schooling, was apprenticed to his brother as a printer, sold ballads on the streets composed by himself, wrote newspaper essays anonymously, quarreled with his brother and ran off to Philadelphia to seek his fortune when seventeen years old. ”

“ BEN JONSON. As 'rare Ben' chiefly shone as a dramatist, we need not recount at length the events of his life. He was born in 1574; his father, who had been a clergyman in Westminster, and was sprung from a Scotch family in Annandale, having died before his birth. His mother marrying a bricklayer, Ben was brought up to the same employment. Disliking this, he enlisted in the army, and served with credit in the Low Countries. When he came home, he entered St John's College, Cambridge ”

“ Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. ”

“ Ben gave an inward sigh at the prospect before him, for an hour’s captivity to an active lad is hard to bear, and he really did want to behave well. So he folded his arms and sat like a statue, with nothing moving but his eyes. They rolled to and fro, up and down, from the high red pulpit to the worn hymn-books in the rack, recognizing two little faces under blue-ribboned hats in a distant pew, and finding it impossible to restrain a momentary twinkle in return for the solemn wink Billy Barton bestowed upon him across the aisle. ”

“ It would be unjust to hold the Sun, the Dog, the Triple Tun, or the Old Devil with its Apollo club-room, where Ben’s supremacy must by this time have become established, responsible for this result; taverns were the clubs of that day, and a man of letters is not considered lost in our own because he haunts a smoking-room in Pall Mall. Disease had weakened the poet’s strength, and the burning of his library, as his Execration upon Vulcan sufficiently shows, must have been no mere transitory trouble to a poor poet and scholar. ”

“ Benning, major in the Border Horse, strove indeed to liven the breakfast with liberal libations and jests, neither of which were particularly encouraged by Sir John. As for Colonel Guy Johnson, he brooded in his dish, a strange, dark, silent man who had never, to my knowledge, shown a single human impulse for either good or evil. He was a faultless executor of duty intrusted, obeying to the letter, yet never offering suggestions; a scrupulously clean man in speech and habit; a blameless husband, and an inoffensive neighbour. ”

“ The famous men whose names may most naturally and most rationally be coupled with the more illustrious name of Ben Jonson came short of the triumph which might have been theirs in consequence of their worst faults or defects—of the weaker and baser elements in their moral nature ”

“ As Ben rode down town in the horse-cars, he [Pg 202] thought of the six years which he had spent as a New York street boy; and he could not help feeling that the time had been wasted, so far as any progress or improvement was concerned. Of books he knew less than when he first came to the city. He knew more of life, indeed, but not the best side of life. He had formed some bad habits, from which he would probably have been saved if he had remained at home. Ben realized all at once how much he had lost by his hasty action in leaving home. ”

“ Ben Jonson was a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others, given rather to lose a friend than a jest, jealous of every word and action of those about him, especially after drink, which is one of the elements in which he lived; a dissembler of the parts which reigned in him, a bragger of some good that he wanted, thinketh nothing well done but what either he himself or some of his friends have said or done. He is passionately kind or angry, careless either to gain or keep ”

“ He goes up and tries to engage him in conversation, but the lad can't hear any more than he can see. Ben's efforts, however, finally start him to muttering something. He says it over and over to himself and at last we make out what it is. He is saying: "I'd like to buy a little drink for the party m'self."
"The poor creature is delirious," says Jake Berger.
But Ben slaps him on the back and tells him he's a good sport and he'll give him a couple of these rails to take to his old New York home; he says they can be crossed over the mantel and will look very quaint. ”

“ Life is full of very pleasant things if you know where to look. Ben’s dead and done for, and Swithin ’ud do better to get back to his work instead of standing blubbering and cursing over a carcass. Every dog has his day, and Ben ended his nobly, though I daresay the sheep ’ud have come off all right if he’d left her alone. It was Jagger’s fault—I beg pardon, I mean Robin’s. He had his fun out of her, and what does it matter to him if he drove her crazy so long as he saved his own skin? Did you see how he crept away? All the same I suppose he’ll get Ben’s job. ”

“ Here's Ben Crider's last letter. You'll like Ben. Listen to this and see if it doesn't make you hopeful." He opened the scrawled sheet and read:
"'Dear Kid, I thought it about time to write you a few lines. If you seen the lake now you would want to of been here. Life and nature seems very complete here. I heard Chet Lynch shot Elmer Watts. I been building a haystacker for Pierce. Plenty deer sign around the lick. Lee Jennings was killed by a bucker falling back on him. I can sell your saddle for twenty-two dollars to Ben Lefferts. ”

“ There was an eager expression on Ben's face, however, and after greeting Dick, he asked:
“Are you really going to join the Continental army, Dick, you and Tom!”
“Yes, Ben,” was the reply.
“Well, say, I'm going to go with you,” declared Ben.
“Oh, Ben!” exclaimed Elsie. “What will father say?”
“Father's all right, sis. He is a king's man, everybody knows that, but he is reasonable, and lets other people think as they like. He knows that I'm a patriot, and he won't object.” ”

“ When Ben was ten years old his widowed mother died leaving him to the tender care of his uncle, with a legacy of twenty thousand dollars. By means of this inheritance he had obtained liberal educational advantages,—attaining his majority shortly after graduating (without any honors) at Yale. (Bostonians take honors at Harvard.) After leaving college he diligently applied himself to the problem of life. He had determined upon making his mark in the world. Nearly all young men do so determine. ”

“ Though Ben Jonson never altogether recognized the truth of the maxim that the dramatic art has properly speaking no didactic purpose, his long and laborious life was not wasted upon a barren endeavour. In tragedy he added two works of uncommon merit to our dramatic literature. In comedy his aim was higher, his effort more sustained, and his success more solid than were those of any of his fellows. In the subsidiary and hybrid species of the masque, he helped to open a new and attractive though undoubtedly devious path in the field of dramatic literature. ”

“ Ben's father, it's weel ken't, was a Johnston o' Annandale in Dumfriesshire, a bauld guid family there to this day. He is alloo't to hae been a gentleman, even by the English biographers o' his son; and, dootless, sae he was, sin' he was an Annandale Johnston. He had gane up to London, about the time o' Queen Mary, and was amang them that suffered under that sour uphalder o' popery. Ben, puir chiel', had the misfortune first to see the light somewhere aboot Charing Cross, instead o' the bonnie leas o' Ecclefechan, where his poetic soul wad hae been on far better feedin' grund, I reckon. ”

“ In politics, he is a staunch supporter of the powers that be; on such occasions as the king’s birth-day, and the coronation, Ben is sure to be seen with a bunch of blue riband to his coat, while at an election, to display his loyalty, he is dusted with power-blue from the crown of his head to the skirts. He has, however, no objection to aid “the Jacobin corporation,” as far as in him lies; and, according to his own account, he is particularly intimate with the mayor for the time being, whom he allows to be the first man in the town—himself being second. ”