The Clarion

“ And"—his eyes sought the door through which Hal Surtaine had passed—"I've got this much out of it, anyway: I've helped a boy make himself a Man."
Ten thousand extra copies sped from the new and wonder-working press of the "Clarion" that night, to be absorbed, swallowed, engulfed by a mazed populace. In all the city there was perhaps not a man, woman, or child who, by the following evening, had not read or heard of the "Clarion's" exposure of the epidemic—except one. ”

“ Harrington Surtaine to the staff of the Worthington "Clarion." Newspapers are reticent about their own affairs. In this case it is rather a pity, for the effort is said to have been an eminently successful one. Estimated by its effect, it certainly was, for it materialized with quite spiritistic suddenness, from out the murk of uncertainty and suspicion, the form and substance of a new esprit de corps, among the "Clarion" men, and established the system of Talk-it-Over Breakfasts which made a close-knit, jealously guarded corporation and club out of the staff. ”

“ Ellis checked his familiar growl, looked with growing suspicion from Esmé's flushed loveliness to Hal's self conscious confusion, leaped to his feet, gathered the pair into a sudden, violent, impartial embrace, and roared out:—
"Go ahead! Be young! You can only be it once in a lifetime."
XXXVIII
THE CONVERT
Old Home Week passed in a burst of glory and profit. True to its troublous type, the "Clarion" had interfered with the profit, in two brief, lively, and effective campaigns. ”

“ He consulted his watch.
"Eleven forty-five," he said. "Better give out the story to-night."
"Why not wait till to-morrow?" asked Dr. Surtaine.
"The longer you wait, the more it will look like suppressing it."
"But we want to suppress it."
"Certainly," agreed Ellis. "I'm telling you the best way. Fix the story up for the 'Clarion' and the other papers will follow our lead."
"If we can arrange a story that they'll believe—" began Hal.
"Oh, they won't believe it! Not the kind of story we want to print. They aren't fools. But that won't make any difference." ”

“ I thought of nothing else; the wedding party and the music ceased to exist, my curiosity was roused to the highest pitch, for my soul passed into the body of the clarionet player.
The fiddle and the flageolet were neither of them interesting; their faces were of the ordinary type among the blind—earnest, attentive, and grave. Not so the clarionet player; any artist or philosopher must have come to a stop at the sight of him. ”

“ The author has much to say on this subject, and he particularly warns against too continuous playing on the oboe, trumpet, horn, trombone, and serpent. As regards the clarionet, its practice, he says, is likely to be injurious on account of the quantity of air which it requires. The player is often compelled to take a deeper inspiration than is natural, and constantly to pay regard to being provided with a supply of air compressed in his lungs. ”

“ The clarina is a metal instrument with the conical bore and fingering of the oboe and the clarinet single-reed mouthpiece. The compass of the instrument is as shown, and it stands in the key of B♭. Like the clarinet, the clarina is a transposing instrument, for which the music must be written in a key a tone higher than that of the composition. The timbre resulting from the combination of conical bore and single-reed mouthpiece has in the lowest register affinities with the cor anglais, in the middle with the saxophone, and in the highest with the clarinet. ”

“ My firm belief is that Master Clarence’s bright-eyed goddess of adventure hasn’t lost her grip on her young victim yet. She’s got him hoodooed.”
“See here, you fellows,” remonstrated Clarence, “talk about something pleasant. What I want is a quiet life.” ”

“ Clare always felt himself cheated and empty of ideas when shut up within four walls. The Muse would not follow him to his fireside, but she would frolic with him the live-long day in the open air, filling him with buoyancy, kissing his lips, and smoothing out his wrinkles. Seated inside an old oak, whose heart had gradually passed into the atmosphere, Clare was wont to pour his soul in song, and so fruitful were the hints of his unseen companion that he soon had a great collection of new verses. ”

“ Clarence was profoundly impressed by what he saw in the chapel. The boys—full, in ordinary, of mischief and life—were going about their devotions in earnest.
Clarence was seated next to John Rieler. That youth, when he was not singing lustily with the others, had his face buried in his prayer-book. Religion, Clarence perceived, entered intimately into the lives of nearly all these boys.
He was escorted by Rieler to breakfast, where he inspired much respect among the boys of the particular table at which he sat by his workmanlike way of getting through with the dishes served him. ”

“ In the summer of 1821, not long after the meteoric appearance at Helpstone of a minor poet, who presented Clare with a sonnet and a one-pound note in a glorious burst of bounty and condescension, Mr. John Taylor passed a few hours in the little Northamptonshire village. Under the guidance of Clare he reviewed many of the spots which the poet had celebrated in song, and, in some cases, he was amazed to find how Clare had compelled dull localities to yield strains both abundant and beautiful. But to gather roses in a desert is child’s play for a genius. ”

“ To influences other than those of the countryside, Clare remained unimpressionable. To be in London was to long for Helpstone, the commons and pools of which were more precious to the poet than all the glories of Westminster Abbey, and the expanses of the artificial lakes. While he sojourned in the Metropolis the right spark would not fall from heaven, but as soon as he wandered once more among the scenes so long familiar to him, the Muse was his unfailing companion. ”

“ Clarens! sweet Clarens! birthplace of deep Love! Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought; Thy trees take root in love; the snows above The very glaciers have his colours caught, And sunset into rose-hues sees them wrought By rays which sleep there lovingly: the rocks, The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who sought In them a refuge from the worldly shocks, Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, then mocks.
C.
Clarens! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod,— Undying Love's, who here ascends a throne To which the steps are mountains ”

“ But too well does poor Clare's history illustrate that interpretation of the myth which pictures Great Pan secretly busy among the reeds and fashioning, with sinister thought, the fatal pipe which shall "make a poet out of a man." And yet it may be doubted whether, on the whole, Clare's lot in life, and that of the wife and family who were dependent upon him, was aggravated by the poetic genius which we are thus trying to make the scapegoat for his misfortunes. ”

“ My arteries throbbed with such violence that I felt them hiss through my temples, and the sweat poured from my forehead in streams, as though I had lifted a mighty slab of marble. There, indeed, lay Clarimonde, even as I had seen her at the church on the day of my ordination. She was not less charming than then. With her, death seemed but a last coquetry. The pallor of her cheeks, the less brilliant carnation of her lips, her long eyelashes lowered and relieving their dark fringe against that white skin, lent her an unspeakably seductive aspect of melancholy chastity and mental suffering ”

“ Yet to Clarence, with his pantheistic reliance and joyous sympathy with nature, the change was filled with exhilarating pleasure. The vast seas of tossing wild oats, the hillside still variegated with strange flowers, the virgin freshness of untrodden woods and leafy aisles, whose floors of moss or bark were undisturbed by human footprint, were a keen delight and novelty. More than this, his quick eye, trained perceptions, and frontier knowledge now stood him in good stead. ”

“ The curtains again parted, and I beheld Clarimonde, not as on the former occasion, pale in her pale winding-sheet, with the violets of death upon her cheeks, but gay, sprightly, jaunty, in a superb travelling-dress of green velvet, trimmed with gold lace, and looped up on either side to allow a glimpse of satin petticoat. Her blond hair escaped in thick ringlets from beneath a broad black felt hat, decorated with white feathers whimsically twisted into various shapes. ”

“ We who have heard those wondrous aërial echoes of Killarney, when the breath has left the bugle and its cadences are silent, take up the broken links of the lost melody with an answer far away, sad and celestial, real, yet unreal, the fleeting yet lingering spirit of music, that is past and over, have something in memory by which we can illustrate the effect of these true voices of the thoughts and affections that have perished, returning for a few charmed moments regretfully and sweetly from the sea of eternal silence. ”

“ There now lies, under the shade of a sycamore-tree, with nothing above but the green grass and the eternal vault of heaven, all that earth has to keep of John Clare, one of the sweetest singers of nature ever born within the fair realm of dear old England—of dear old England, so proud of its galaxy of noble poets, and so wasteful of their lives. ”

“ I scorn thee from my waking sight—
Away! away
Obedient to that gesture of command.
From her proud, glorious presence, with no word,
No sigh, and no farewell, young Clarence turned.
The souls once blent in seeming perfectness
Were riven apart forever—evermore!
Earth—earth! thy mystery—thy agony! ”

“ The clarinet man looked as if he wanted to cry, and he had to twitter his eyelids all the time to keep the sweat from blinding him, and every once in a while, his soggy reed would let go of a squawk that sounded like a scared chicken. But the organ groaned on unrelentingly, and the tune didn't matter so much as the rhythm which was kept up as regular as a clock, whack! ”

“ Clare's swan-song, we fervently hope, will live as long as the English language.
For the last ten or twelve years of his existence the poet suffered much from physical infirmities. Previously he was allowed to go almost daily into the town of Northampton, where he used to sit raider the portico of All Saints' Church, watching the gambols of the children around him, and the fleeting clouds high up in the sky. When these excursions came to be forbidden, he retired to his window-recess in the asylum, reading little and speaking little; dreaming unutterable dreams of another world. ”

“ I will!! Oh, father! father!! Clarine! Clarine!! Where are you? Where is Manassa? He is lost—lost! Come listen, Clarine—come! Five days, Clarine, five long days and nights! Dear God, one long night—one hundred and twenty hours of darkness; no food, no drink, and naught but the cold stones to lie upon.
“I see him now, with his eyes turned towards that merciless door; watching, praying for the ray of light that never comes; waiting for the sound of the voice that promised to save him; listening for the step he can never hear.
“Oh, I shall go mad! Mad!! Vandemar! Vandemar!! It is I, Vivienne. ”

“ The first time Clarence had observed the young artist, he had taken a deep interest in his appearance. Pale, thin, undersized, and slightly deformed, the sanctifying mind still shed over the humble frame a spell more powerful than beauty. ”

“ The clarinet screeches, wails, moans and whistles. The clarinet flings an obbligato high over the heads of the dancers on the cabaret floor. It makes shrill sounds. It raves like a fireless Ophelia. It plays the clown, the tragedian, the acrobat.
A whimsical insanity lurks in the music of the clarinet. It stutters ecstasies. ”

“ In the summer of 1835 this beautiful collection of rustic reeds was put forward as a candidate for the affection of those professing a love for music and wholesomeness in verse. The reception accorded to the book proved conclusively what important parts fashion and hypocrisy play in the concerns of the lyre. Clare was out of vogue; he was a stale lion; the parasites upon genius could no longer hope to gain a temporary notoriety by displaying his peculiarities in their saloons. ”

“ Hence, when Clarian came to college, he knew very little of life indeed,—and, moreover, he cherished not a few ascetic notions, deeming this world "all a fleeting show," from whose vain illusions it was one's chief duty to shield one's self. He had never read a novel, save "some of Scott's,"—nor ever seen or read a play, not even of Shakspeare's. ”

“ Having discovered that the noble lord was in the habit of occasionally visiting some outlying farms, the shrewd clerk waylaid his lordship, and, together with his young friend, burst upon him like an apparition. Breaking out into glowing praise of John Clare, which made the latter blush like a maiden, the parish-clerk finished by pulling from his pocket a bit of antique pottery, unearthed somewhere in the grounds between Helpston Heath and Castor. ”

“ Not a sound from above; she rose and walked to the foot of the stairs.
Why was he so still? Had he found Clarence? Had anything gone wrong? Had Clarence become suddenly rabid and attacked him. Cats can't annihilate big, strong young men. But where was he? Had he, pursuing his quest, emerged through the scuttle on to the roof--and--and--fallen off?
Scarcely knowing what she did she mounted on tiptoe to the second floor, listening. The silence troubled her; she went from room to room, opening doors and clothespresses. Then she mounted to the third floor, searching more quickly. ”