Ursus

“ Such plentitude as is accumulated drop on drop, sorrow on sorrow, through a long existence, is not to be poured out in a moment. Ursus wept alone.
The first tear is a letting out of waters. He wept for Gwynplaine, for Dea, for himself, Ursus, for Homo. He wept like a child. He wept like an old man. He wept for everything at which he had ever laughed. He paid off arrears. Man is never nonsuited when he pleads his right to tears.
The corpse they had just buried was Hardquanonne's; but Ursus could not know that. ”

“ Ursus drew his head out of the chimney, and, smiling in a manner almost friendly, said,—“God give thee a good day, lord, and good health; but I am a free man, not a slave.”
On Vinicius who wished to question Ursus touching Lygia’s birthplace, these words produced a certain pleasant impression; for discourse with a free though a common man was less disagreeable to his Roman and patrician pride, than with a slave, in whom neither law nor custom recognized human nature.
“Then thou dost not belong to Aulus?” ”

“ Ursus belonged to no gang. Ursus lived with Ursus, a tête-à-tête, into which the wolf gently thrust his nose. If Ursus could have had his way, he would have been a Caribbee; that being impossible, he preferred to be alone. The solitary man is a modified savage, accepted by civilization. He who wanders most is most alone ”

“ In the margin, opposite the last name (that of Linnæus, Lord Clancharlie) , there was a note in the handwriting of Ursus: Rebel; in exile; houses, lands, and chattels sequestrated. It is well.
IV.
Ursus admired Homo. One admires one's like. It is a law. To be always raging inwardly and grumbling outwardly was the normal condition of Ursus. He was the malcontent of creation. By nature he was a man ever in opposition. He took the world unkindly; he gave his satisfecit to no one and to nothing. ”

“ Ursus sits with his head on his arms, which are resting on Dea's coverlet. There is a faint shrill of sighing wind, with the voices of the sailors rising beneath it, and the ascending sun commences to throw red bars across the water. ”

“ The woman believed him without reserve and in her husband’s absence agreed to betroth the girl to him. He went back to the king and brought an order to the judge of the place [BQ] commanding him to marry this girl, saying: “I paid the earnest money at the betrothal.” But Ursus denied it saying: “I do not know who you are and I have none of your property.” When the quarrel continued and grew hotter Andarchius had Ursus summoned to the presence of the king. ”

“ Then he received the order and returned to Clermont and showed the judge the king’s order. Ursus retired into the territory of [Pg 99] Velay. And when his property was turned over to Andarchius he also went to Velay, and going into one of Ursus’ houses he bade them prepare supper for him and heat water for bathing. And when the slaves of the household did not obey their new master, he beat some with clubs, others with switches, and struck some on the head, drawing blood. The whole household was in confusion but the supper was prepared ”

“ To tell the truth, Ursus, by his passion for pharmacy and his love of plants, laid himself open to suspicion, seeing that he often went to gather herbs in rough thickets where grew Lucifer's salads, and where, as has been proved by the Counsellor De l'Ancre, there is a risk of meeting in the evening mist a man who comes out of the earth, "blind of the right eye, barefooted, without a cloak, and a sword by his side." ”

“ He will come; he will bear her out of the litter as he bore her out of the triclinium, and they will go into the world. No one could resist Ursus, not even that terrible athlete who wrestled at the feast yesterday. But as Vinicius might send a great number of slaves, Ursus would go at once to Bishop Linus for aid and counsel. The bishop will take compassion on her, will not leave her in the hands of Vinicius; he will command Christians to go with Ursus to rescue her. They will seize her and bear her away; then Ursus can take her out of the city and hide her from the power of Rome. ”

“ The one proves the other. He who does not believe a little in the devil, does not believe much in God. He who believes in the sun must believe in the shadow. The devil is the night of God. What is night? The proof of day."
Ursus here extemporized a fathomless combination of philosophy and religion. Minos remained pensive, and relapsed into silence.
Ursus breathed afresh.
A sharp onslaught now took place. Æacus, the medical delegate, who had disdainfully protected Ursus against the theologian, now turned suddenly from auxiliary into assailant. ”

“ I am endangered by listening to such words.”
“What—what—what is Ursus saying?” asked Messalinus, who caught a word or two. “He is beside the Augusta—what did he say—and in a low tone also. No treason hatching at the table of our Divine Lord, I trust.”12
“Here come the jesters and the mimes,” said Ursus, “and may the god of Laughter provide such matter for mirth as will satisfy Catullus Messalinus.”
“Then it must be a tragedy,” said another guest, “for to our blind friend here, naught is jocose unless to some other it be painful.”
“We have all our gifts,” said Messalinus, smirking. ”

“ Dea lies extended upon a low couch, beside the chair of Ursus. In the dim light her form possesses the eternal majesty of sculpture. From afar the voices of sailors chanting some sad litany of the sea. Ursus leans back in his chair, looking up into the face of departing night. Gwymplane paces in and out, anguished with unrest.]
Ursus [to Gwymplane, who hardly heeds him]
Nothing follows us. It never occurred to them that a man should want to escape good fortune. They never think to bolt the door when they have gilded the walls. ”

“ Do souls require mortal eyes to see each other?"
Ursus was a good fellow at times. Gwynplaine, sometimes madly in love with Dea, became melancholy, and made use of the presence of Ursus as a guard on himself. One day Ursus said to him,—
"Bah! do not put yourself out. When in love, the cock shows himself."
"But the eagle conceals himself," replied Gwynplaine.
At other times Ursus would say to himself, apart,—
"It is wise to put spokes in the wheels of the Cytherean car. They love each other too much. This may have its disadvantages. Let us avoid a fire. Let us moderate these hearts." ”

“ There was something fatuous, doubtless, in this certificate which Ursus gave to Ursus; but let those who have not thoroughly sifted chromatics, osmosy, and chymosy cast the first stone at him.
Fortunately Ursus had never gone into the Low Countries; there they would certainly have weighed him, to ascertain whether he was of the normal weight, above or below which a man is a sorcerer. In Holland this weight was sagely fixed by law. Nothing was simpler or more ingenious. It was a clear test. They put you in a scale, and the evidence was conclusive if you broke the equilibrium. ”

“ But for the matter of that, Ursus, although eccentric in manner and disposition, was too good a fellow to invoke or disperse hail, to make faces appear, to kill a man with the torment of excessive dancing, to suggest dreams fair or foul and full of terror, and to cause the birth of cocks with four wings. He had no such mischievous tricks. ”

“ Ursus felt a cold sensation, such as is produced by a reptile crawling over the skin. It was Barkilphedro who had just spoken.
The last gleam was extinguished. No more doubt now. Gwynplaine was dead. A person in authority must know. This one looked ill-favoured enough to do so.
Ursus bowed to him.
Master Nicless was a good-hearted man enough, but a dreadful coward. Once terrified, he became a brute. The greatest cruelty is that inspired by fear. ”

“ Ursus
My Dea!
Dea
Tell me, Ursus, Gwymplane is so wonderful. He—he attracts everyone so. Does he never notice any especial person in the audience? Some one whom he attracts?
Ursus
No, Dea, and you need never worry about that. Gwymplane will never love or be beloved save by you.
Dea
Ah, how good it is to hear that! How [Pg 31] beautiful tonight is! I would like to sit forever like this, very near to you and talking of Gwymplane.
[A sudden voice almost at their elbow. Enter Phedro.] ”

“ Ursus had communicated to Homo a portion of his talents: such as to stand upright, to restrain his rage into sulkiness, to growl instead of howling, etc.; and on his part, the wolf had taught the man what he knew—to do without a roof, without bread and fire, to prefer hunger in the woods to slavery in a palace. ”

“ As a beast of burden, Ursus preferred Homo to a donkey. He would have felt repugnance to having his hut drawn by an ass; he thought too highly of the ass for that. Moreover he had observed that the ass, a four-legged thinker little understood by men, has a habit of cocking his ears uneasily when philosophers talk nonsense. In life the ass is a third person between our thoughts and ourselves, and acts as a restraint. As a friend, Ursus preferred Homo to a dog, considering that the love of a wolf is more rare. ”

“ In Rome fires happened frequently enough; during these fires, as frequently, deeds of violence and robbery were committed, especially in the parts occupied by a needy and half-barbarous population. What might happen, therefore, in a place like the Trans-Tiber, which was the retreat of a rabble collected from all parts of the earth? Here the thought of Ursus with his preterhuman power flashed into Vinicius’s head; but what could be done by a man, even were he a Titan, against the destructive force of fire? ”

“ Philosophers, as they produce sophists, produce their own scourge. Of the dung of the thrush is born the mistletoe, with which is made birdlime, with which the thrush is captured. Turdus sibi malum cacat."
We do not represent Ursus as a refined man. He was imprudent enough to use words which expressed his thoughts. He had no more taste than Voltaire.
When Ursus returned to the Green Box, he told Master Nicless that he had been delayed by following a pretty woman, and let not a word escape him concerning his adventure. ”

“ To harangue space is an outlet. To speak out aloud when alone is as it were to have a dialogue with the divinity which is within. It was, as is well known, a custom of Socrates; he declaimed to himself. Luther did the same. Ursus took after those great men. He had the hermaphrodite faculty of being his own audience. He questioned himself, answered himself, praised himself, blamed himself. You heard him in the street soliloquizing in his van. The passers-by, who have their own way of appreciating clever people, used to say: He is an idiot. ”

“ Minos, the president, the representative of theology, made him a sign to sit down on the form.
Ursus made a proper bow,—that is to say, bowed to the ground; and knowing that bears are charmed by honey and doctors by Latin, he said, keeping his body still bent respectfully: "Tres faciunt capitulum!" Then, with head still inclined (for modesty disarms) , he sat down on the form.
Each of the three doctors had before him a bundle of papers, of which he was turning the leaves. Minos began:—
"You speak in public?"
"Yes," replied Ursus.
"By what right?"
"I am a philosopher." ”

“ But the programme claimed something more: that this Ursus was John Hampstead.
Mitchell gaped and then rocked uneasily. The thing was unbelievable. If the man would only speak, perhaps some tone of voice—but the man did not speak, not even move. He stood half in the background, far up the center of the stage, while the talk and action of the piece went on beneath his lofty brow, like some mountain tow ering above a lakelet in which ripples sparkle and fish are leaping. At length, however, stage attention does center on Ursus, when the man enacting St. ”

“ The wolf had been trained by the man, or had trained himself unassisted, to divers wolfish arts, which swelled the receipts. "Above all things, do not degenerate into a man," his friend would say to him.
Never did the wolf bite: the man did now and then. At least, to bite was the intent of Ursus. He was a misanthrope, and to italicize his misanthropy he had made himself a juggler. To live, also; for the stomach has to be consulted. ”

“ The Bears have a tolerably wide distribution, although they are entirely absent from the Australian and Ethiopian, and almost so from the Neotropical region, one species only being found in the Andes of Peru and Chili. They comprise the following groups, some of which are doubtfully ranked as genera.
Thalassarctos, the polar bear (1 species) inhabiting the Arctic regions; Ursus, the true bears (12 species) , which range over all the Nearctic and Palæarctic regions as far as the Atlas Mountains, the Indo-Chinese sub-region in the mountains, and to Hainan and Formosa ”

“ By Pollux! find her quickly, or that of thee which fire has not turned into ashes will become an Egyptian sphinx, which, enamored, as ‘tis said, of pale Isis, grew deaf and indifferent to all things, waiting only for night, so as to gaze with stony eyes at the loved one.
“Run disguised through the city in the evening, even honor Christian houses of prayer in thy philosopher’s company. Whatever excites hope and kills time is praiseworthy. But for my friendship’s sake do this one thing: Ursus, Lygia’s slave, is a man of uncommon strength very likely; hire Croton, and go out three together ”