John Leland

“ LELAND, JOHN (1691–1766) , English Nonconformist divine, was born at Wigan, Lancashire, and educated in Dublin, where he made such progress that in 1716, without having attended any college or hall, he was appointed first assistant and afterwards sole pastor of a congregation of Presbyterians in New Row. This office he continued to fill until his death on the 16th of January 1766. ”

“ Miss Leland devoted herself all day to a young Foreign Office clerk. She played tennis with him, talked with him, drank lemonade with him, had neither thoughts nor words for anyone else. John Sherman was quite happy. Tennis was always a bore, and now he was not called upon to play. It had not struck him there was occasion for jealousy.
As the guests were dispersing, his betrothed came to him. Her manner seemed strange.
‘Does anything ail you, Margaret?’ he asked, as they left the Square.
‘Everything,’ she answered, looking about her with ostentatious secrecy. ‘You are a most annoying person. ”

“ Leland’s call upon his mother, John Sherman, returning home after his not very lengthy day in the office, saw Margaret coming towards him. She had a lawn tennis racket under her arm, and was walking slowly on the shady side of the road. She was a pretty girl with quite irregular features, who though really not more than pretty, had so much manner, so much of an air, that every one called her a beauty: a trefoil with the fragrance of a rose. ”

“ Folk legend has a tendency to make heroes of even the vilest of villains, provided they are colorful enough, and no amount of fact ever quite smothers the romantic legend. Such mythical or semi-mythical characters as Robin Hood, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, John Dillinger, Captain Hamling Fox III, and Hilary Boone were all rascals to the core, but even today they have their practicing cults. But the cultus peculiar to Leland Hale seems to outshine them all, and for the singularly perverse reason that he was worse than all the rest rolled together. ”

“ John’s Wood, my dear illogical brother: and yet we women are the only people who are said to be wanting in the logical faculty.”
She leant back in her basket-chair, revelling in the rural atmosphere, and in that new sense of being in the bosom of her family. Tim leapt upon her lap and licked her face, in token of his acceptance of her into the home-circle. Nobody had ever called Miss Leland a beauty, nor had she ever received those disquieting attentions which follow the footsteps of exceptional loveliness. She was sometimes described as a girl who grew upon one ”

“ The picturesqueness of the place and people were only equalled by the stinks. It was like a modern realistic novel. We went a great deal to the opera, also to the Blue Grotto of Capri, and ascended Mount Vesuvius, and sought Baiæ, and made, in fact, all the excursions. As there were three, and sometimes p. 123half-a-dozen of our friends on these trips, we had, naturally, with us quite a cortége. Among these was an ill-favoured rascal called “John,” who always received a dollar a day. One evening some one raised the question as to what the devil it was that John did. ”

“ LELAND, THOMAS, D.D. (1722–1785) , historian, was born in Dublin in 1722, and after education at the school of Dr. Thomas Sheridan [q. v.] , entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1737. He graduated B.A. 1741, and was elected a fellow in 1746. In 1754, with Dr. John Stokes, he published a text and Latin translation with notes of ‘The Philippic Orations of Demosthenes.’ He was one of the men of letters who used to visit Lord Charlemont at Marino; he was very intimate with all the Caulfeild family, and a long letter from him to Charlemont is printed in ‘Historical Manuscripts Commission,’ 12th Rep. ”

“ Before this it had not occurred to him that Mary Carton had any stronger feeling for him than warm friendship.
He began again, speaking in the same mechanical way—“Miss Leland lives with her mother near us. She is very well educated and very well connected, though she has lived always among business people.” ”

“ Mrs. Sherman and her son had but a small round of acquaintances—a few rich people, clients of the house of Sherman and Saunders for the most part. Among these was a Miss Margaret Leland who lived with her mother, the widow of the late Henry Leland, ship-broker, on the eastern side of St. Peter’s Square. Their house was larger than the Shermans, and noticeable among its fellows by the newly-painted hall door. Within on every side were bronzes and china vases and heavy curtains. In all were displayed the curious and vagrant taste of Margaret Leland. ”

“ He stayed for a few moments looking up at the tops of the trees and bushes showing over the wall, and at the house a little way beyond. He stood considering his problem—her life, his life. His, at any rate, would have incident and change; hers would be the narrow existence of a woman who, failing to fulfil the only abiding wish she has ever formed, seeks to lose herself in routine—mournfulest of things on this old planet.
This had been revealed: he loved Mary Carton, she loved him. He remembered Margaret Leland, and murmured she did well to be jealous. ”

“ She is rich as girls go nowadays; and one woman has one fault, another another: one’s untidy, one fights with her servants, one fights with her friends, another has a crabbed tongue when she talks of them.”
Sherman became again silent, finding no fragment of romance in such discourse.
In the next week or two he saw much of Miss Leland. He met her almost every evening on his return from the office, walking slowly, her racket under her arm. They played tennis much and talked more. Sherman began to play tennis in his dreams. Miss Leland told him all about herself, her friends, her inmost feelings ”

“ At first there came an angry look, and when that look did get,
He larft a wild and hollow larf, and said, “I take the debt.
“The brave deserve the lovely—every woman may be won;
What men have fixed before us may by other men be done.
You will lose your thousand dollars. For the first time in my life
I have gazed upon a woman whom I wish to make my wife.”
Like a terrier at a rabbit, with his hat upon his eyes
Mr. Dale, the awful masher, went head-longing at the prize,
Looking rather like a party simply bent to break the peace,
Mr. Gale, with smiles, expected just a yell for the police. ”

“ When I married Mr. Leland people said he was not worthy of me, and that I was throwing myself away—and he in business, too! But Margaret is so romantic. There was Mr. Walters, the gentleman farmer, and Simpson who had a jeweller’s shop—I never approved of him!—and Mr. Samuelson, and the Hon. William Scott. She tired of them all except the Hon. William Scott, who tired of her because some one told him she put belladonna in her eyes—and it is not true; and now there is Mr. Sims!” She then cried a little, and allowed herself to be consoled by Mrs. Sherman. ”

“ Pleading with that quiet, gentle spirit, he felt would melt, would affect the hearts as with the very emotion of tears.
Unless you catch the idea, there is no describing it, reader. Leland was a Christian. All that day he thought upon the whole matter. That night in the privacy of his office he knelt and repeated the whole matter before God. For his boy's sake, for his wife's sake, for his own sake, for his usefulness' sake at the bar, he implored steady aid to overcome the deadly, besetting sin. ”

“ From that moment, in losing the greatest patron for the greatest work, Leland appears to have felt the staff which he had used to turn at pleasure for his stay, break in his hands.
He had new patrons to court, while engaged in labours for which a single life had been too short. The melancholy that cherishes genius may also destroy it. Leland, brooding over his voluminous labours, seemed to love and to dread them; sometimes to pursue them with rapture, and sometimes to shrink from them with despair. His generous temper had once shot forwards to posterity ”

“ A contemptuous smile broke the rigid line of Leland's set lips.
"Your theatrical ranting won't get you anywhere with me, Shandon. It is the thing to be expected. I am the master of my own house and it is quite enough when I say that your presence is not wanted here. If you want more you can supply it yourself. Idler, spendthrift, gambler, brawler, I have until now tolerated you. But there are some things that no man can tolerate. ”

“ If id isn't dat pully young Ritter,
De hell-drivin Steinli von Slang.
"De vorldt nefer had any such man,
He vights like a sturm in its wrath:
You may call me a recular Dutchman,
If he arn't like Goliath of Gath.
He ish big ash de shiant O'Brady,
More ash sefen feet high on a string,
Boot he can't vin de hearts of my lady,
De lofely Plectruda von Sling."
De lady make welcome her gast in,
Ash he shtep to de dop of de shtair,
She look like an angel got lost in
A forest of audumn-prown hair.
Und a bower-maiden said ash she tarried:
"I wish I may bust mit a bang! ”

“ Willie felt it, and was restrained by it every drop of his merry blood; the household felt it, as a ship does an even wind; and sailed on over smooth seas constrained by it. You saw the change in the man's very gait and bearing and conversation. Judge and jury felt it. It was the ceasing of a fever in the frame of a strong man; and Leland went about easily, naturally, the strong man he was. The old, uneasy, self-harassing feeling was forgotten, and an ease and grace of tone and manner succeeded. ”

“ Und trinked mit Spraker all dey had;
Dey shpend 'nuf money to last deir life,
And each vas tantzin mit anoder man's wife.
Dey all cot poonish difers vays,
Some vent to jug for dirty tays;
Und de von dat kilt de demperance man
Vas kit from de Alderman repriman.
Und dus it ran:-"A warnin dake,
For you mighdt hafe mate soom pig mishdake;
Now how vouldt you hafe feeled, py shing!
If dat man hat peen in de whiskey ring?
"Since you votes mine dicket, of course you know,
I'm pound to led you shlide und go.
Boot nefer on whiskey trink your fill,
For you Dootchmen don't know who to kill." ”

“ There, no more a man of glory, Moses Adams dropped his load,
And when resting from his labour and refreshing from his jug,
Having known a town called Julesberg, called his shanty Splendourbug.
On the following morn as usual in due time arose the sun,
And the Gloryvillins followed his example one by one;
While he smiled upon the city, as on other things beneath,
’Twas observed one snag was wanting in the double row of teeth.
Little said the Left-behinders, but they seemed to take the hint,
And each man surveyed his neighbour with a shrewd and genial squint ”

“ Und dough no von vill gife any gredit
To dis part of mine dale, shdill id's drue,
He drafelled ash if he vould dead it,
Dis liddle oldt man to pursue.
Und loudly he after him hollers,
Till de vales mit de cliffers loud rang:
"You hafe gifed me nine-ten too moosh dollars,
Hold Hard!" cried der Ritter von Slang.
De oldt man ope his eyes like a casement,
Und laid a cold hand on his prow,
Denn mutter in ootmosdt amazement,
"Vot manner of mordal art dou?
I hafe lifed in dis world a yar tausend,
Und nefer yed met soosh a ding! ”

“ He burned oop four biano-fords and a harp to roast a ham; Vhen he found de rouge und email de Paris, which de laties hafe hid in a shpot, He whited his horse all ofer - und denn pinked his ears, bei Gott!
"Vhen he found dat a blace was ploonder-fool, he alvays tell dem, sure: 'Men, sack und pack! ”

“ I had another friend who was newly come from Connecticut. His uncle kept a hotel and often gave him Havanna cigars. We often took long walks together out of town and smoked them. He taught me the song—
“On Springfield mountains there did dwell,”
with much more quaint rural New England lore.
About this time my grandfather Leland died. I wept sadly on hearing it. My father, who went to Holliston to attend the funeral, brought me back a fine collection of p. 72Indian stone relics and old American silver coins, for he had been in his way an antiquarian. Bon sang ne peut mentir. ”

“ De liddle oldt veller hat fanished,
In a harp-like, melotious twang;
Und mit him all sorrow vas panished
Afay from der Steinli von Slang.
III. Id vas morn, und de vorldt hat assempled
Mid panners und lances und dust,
Boot de heart of de Paroness trempled,
Und ofden her folly she cussed.
For she found dat der Ritter vould do it,
Und "die or get into de Ring,"
Und denn she'd pe cerdain to rue it,
Aldough she vas Lady von Sling.
For no man in Deutschland stood higher
Dan he mit de Minnesing crew,
He vas friendet to Heini von Steier,
Und Wolfram von Eschenbach too. ”

“ Vonce filled mit gold-red wine!"
Dat fetched him - he shtood all shpell pound;
She pooled his coat-tails down,
She drawed him oonder der wasser,
De maiden mit nodings on.
A BALLAD APOUT DE ROWDIES. De moon shines ofer de cloudlens,
Und de cloudts plow ofer de sea,
Und I vent to Coney Island,
Und I took mein Schatz mit me.
Mein Schatz, Katrina Bauer,
I gife her mein heart und vortdt;
Boot ve tidn't know vot beoples
De Dampfsschiff hafe cot on poard.
De preeze plowed cool und bleasant,
We looket at de town
Mit sonn-light on de shdeebles,
Und wetter fanes doornin' round. ”

“ It was in the Indian summer-time, when life is tender brown,
And people in the country talk of going into town,
When the nights are crisp and cooling, though the sun is warm by day,
In the home-like town of Glasgow, in the State of Iowa;
It was in the railroad deepô of that greatly-favoured zone,
That a young man met a stranger, who was still not all unknown,
For they had run-countered casual in riding in the car,
And the latter to the previous had offered a cigar.
Now as the primal gentleman was nominated Gale,
It follows that the secondary man was Mr. Dale ”