Sou'wester

“ I have met a great many very odd and strange characters in the Southwest. The peculiar life of the people developed their originality. They were not restrained by the laws and customs that control older and more established communities. Every man was a law unto himself. All that was unusual and peculiar in their natural characters grew in unrestrained luxuriance like the wild vines on their hill-sides and in their valleys. What any man or community might think of their actions or mode of life had the least possible influence in deciding what they should do or not do. ”

“ Suffice it, that it is to her I owe my present lodging, and, dear Somerset, the pleasure of your acquaintance. It appears she knew the house. You see dear fellow, I make no concealment: all that you can care to hear, I tell you openly.’
‘For God’s sake,’ cried the wretched Somerset, ‘hold your tongue! You cannot imagine how you torture me!’
A shade of serious discomposure crossed the open countenance of Zero.
‘There are times,’ he said, ‘when I begin to fancy that you do not like me. Why, why, dear Somerset, this lack of cordiality? I am depressed; the touchstone of my life draws near ”

“ The will, my dear fellow—’
‘Now, see here,’ interrupted Somerset. ‘You are ignorant of anything but science, which I can never regard as being truly knowledge; I, sir, have studied life; and allow me to inform you that I have but to raise my hand and voice—here in this street—and the mob—’
‘Good God in heaven, Somerset,’ cried Zero, turning deadly white and stopping in his walk, ‘great God in heaven, what words are these? ”

“ You pain, you wound me, Somerset.’
‘Give me a match!’ cried Somerset wildly. ‘Let me set fire to this incomparable monster! Let me perish with him in his fall!’
‘For God’s sake,’ cried Zero, clutching hold of the young man, ‘for God’s sake command yourself! We stand upon the brink; death yawns around us; a man—a stranger in this foreign land—one whom you have called your friend—’
‘Silence!’ cried Somerset, ‘you are no friend, no friend of mine. I look on you with loathing, like a toad: my flesh creeps with physical repulsion; my soul revolts against the sight of you.’
Zero burst into tears. ”

“ Godall solemnly, ‘the best paper in the world, the Standard.’
‘Good,’ resumed Somerset. ‘I now hold it in my hand, the voice of the world, a telephone repeating all men’s wants. I open it, and where my eye first falls—well, no, not Morrison’s Pills—but here, sure enough, and but a little above, I find the joint that I was seeking; here is the weak spot in the armour of society. ”

“ Somerset sought in vain to find some form of answer, but his discomfiture had been too recent and complete.
“Come,” returned the lady, “we must have no display of temper; that is for me the one disqualifying fault; and as I perceive we are drawing near our destination, I shall ask you to descend and offer me your arm.”
Indeed, at that very moment the carriage drew up before a stately and severe mansion in a spacious square; and Somerset, who was possessed of an excellent temper, with the best grace in the world assisted the lady to alight. ”

“ To think,’ he cried, ‘that a young man, guilty of no fault on earth but amiability, should find himself involved in such a damned imbroglio!’ And placing his knuckles in his eyes, Somerset rolled upon the sofa.
‘My God,’ said Zero, ‘is this possible? And I so filled with tenderness and interest! Can it be, dear Somerset, that you are under the empire of these out-worn scruples? or that you judge a patriot by the morality of the religious tract? I thought you were a good agnostic.’
‘Mr. Jones,’ said Somerset, ‘it is in vain to argue. ”

“ Switzerland never suited Stevenson. He disliked living among invalids, and with his love for exploring the nooks and corners of any spot he was in he felt like a prisoner when he found himself shut in a valley among continual snow with few walks possible for him to take. "The mountains are about me like a trap," he complained. "You can not foot it up a hillside and behold the sea on a great plain, but live in holes and corners and can change only one for the other." ”

“ For now, you may take the whole space between Weser and Vistula (north of the mountains) , as wild barbarian (Saxon or Goth) ; but, piercing the source of the Franks at Waldeck, you will find them gradually, but swiftly, filling all the space between Weser and the mouths of Rhine, passing from mountain foam into calmer diffusion over the Netherland, where their straying forest and pastoral life has at last to embank itself into muddy agriculture, and in bleak-flying sea mist, forget the sunshine on its basalt crags. ”

“ In Germany nature has got to behave herself, and not set a bad example to the children. A German poet, noticing waters coming down as Southey describes, somewhat inexactly, the waters coming down at Lodore, would be too shocked to stop and write alliterative verse about them. He would hurry away, and at once report them to the police. Then their foaming and their shrieking would be of short duration.
“Now then, now then, what’s all this about?” the voice of German authority would say severely to the waters. “We can’t have this sort of thing, you know. Come down quietly, can’t you? ”

“ Tacitus makes the “Suebi,” or “Suevi,” inhabit the greater part of Germany as far as the frontier of the Slavs [Pg 109] (Sarmatians) and Finns on the east (and north ?) . The name, which possibly means the “hovering” people and is due to their roving existence, is perhaps rather to be regarded as a common designation for various Germanic tribes. After them he called the sea on the eastern coast of Germany, i.e., the Baltic, the Suebian Sea (“Suebicum mare”) . ”

“ Somerset,” said he, “and have you since last night adopted any fresh political principle?”
“The lady, sir,” said Somerset, with another blush.
“You have seen her, I believe?” returned Mr. Godall; and on Somerset’s replying in the affirmative: “You will excuse me, my dear sir,” he resumed, “if I offer you a hint. I think it not improbable this lady may desire entirely to forget the past. From one gentleman to another, no more words are necessary.”
A moment after, he had received Mrs. Desborough with that grave and touching urbanity that so well became him. ”

“ In any civilized land, birds, trees, flowers, animals, places, human contributors to life out of the past, all are richer and more significant because of representations through literature and art. No literate person can listen to a skylark over an English meadow without hearing in its notes the melodies of Chaucer and Shelley. As the Southwest advances in maturity of mind and civilization, the features of the land take on accretions from varied interpreters. ”

“ That is arranged; and in the meanwhile, I observe my breakfast growing cold. Do, dear Mr. Somerset, since you find yourself condemned, for a week at least, to the society of a very interesting character, display some of that open favour, some of that interest in life’s obscurer sides, which stamp the character of the true artist. Hang me, if you will, to-morrow; but to-day show yourself divested of the scruples of the burgess, and sit down pleasantly to share my meal.’
‘Man!’ cried Somerset, ‘do you understand my sentiments?’
‘Certainly,’ replied Zero; ‘and I respect them! ”

“ He communicated to me a new variation of the old tradition of the immigration of the Swedes into Switzerland, and which strengthened it. The suggestion was interesting,—that they entered the country at eleven o'clock in the day, and that in memory thereof, it was ordained that every day, when the clock struck eleven, the people should pray a Pater Noster and three Aves,—a custom which is still held in reverence by the people of Schwytz. The high-born couple conducted themselves towards us politely, but with coldness. Not a breath of hospitality refreshed the visit. ”

“ He was the only one who could speak German, and he was able to find Germans everywhere thus far. But on our second night’s lodging in a primitive little log cabin, and they were scarce, he found good people that he could not talk with, as we had struck the Norwegian settlement, but they understood our wants all right. They were a white-haired but a warm-hearted people—those Norsk. Waking up in the morning, we found snow covering the ground, and made our first footprints in snow in America, November 1, 1854. ”

“ The settlers having been driven away from Fort Nassau, on the Delaware, by the Indians, some Dutch merchants soon sent Swedes to form a colony on the spot where [145] Wil ́ming-ton now stands. The country around there was therefore called New Sweden. But the newcomers could not live in peace with the Dutch; so Governor Stuyvesant attacked them, seventeen years later, and took possession of their town, so that New Sweden ceased to exist.
Stuyvesant wanted the People to resist. ”

“ You will not take a touch of spirits? no? I find you very abstemious. Well,’ he added, ‘if you have really no curiosity to await the event—’
‘I!’ cried Somerset. ‘My blood boils to get away.’
‘Well, then,’ said Zero, ‘I am ready; I would I could say, willing; but thus to leave the scene of my sublime endeavours—’
Without further parley, Somerset seized him by the arm, and dragged him downstairs; the hall-door shut with a clang on the deserted mansion; and still towing his laggardly companion, the young man sped across the square in the Oxford Street direction. ”

“ The nearer I look upon things, the worse I like them. I believe the confederacy will soon break to pieces, and our factions at home increase. The ministry is upon a very narrow bottom, and stand like an isthmus, between the whigs on one side, and violent tories on the other. They are able seamen, but the tempest is too great, the ship too rotten, and the crew all against them. Lord Somers has been twice in the queen's closet, once very lately; and the duchess of Somerset, who now has the key, is a most insinuating woman ”

“ All these, and a great deal more, make the Southwest a wonderland without a parallel, There are ruins as striking as the storied ones along the Rhine, and far more remarkable, There are peoples as picturesque as any in the Orient, and as romantic as the Aztecs and the Incas of whom we have learned such gilded fables, and there are natural wonders which have no peers whatever. ”

“ You might, perhaps, expect us to attack the Queen, the sinister Gladstone, the rigid Derby, or the dexterous Granville; but there you would be in error. Our appeal is to the body of the people; it is these that we would touch and interest. Now, sir, have you observed the English housemaid?’
‘I should think I had,’ cried Somerset.
‘From a man of taste and a votary of art, I had expected it,’ returned the conspirator politely. ‘A type apart; a very charming figure; and thoroughly adapted to our ends. The neat cap, the clean print, the comely person, the engaging manner ”

“ But Somerset had fallen below the reach of this material comfort.
‘Let me be,’ he said. ‘I am lost; you have caught me in the toils. Up to this moment, I have lived all my life in the most reckless manner, and done exactly what I pleased, with the most perfect innocence. And now—what am I? Are you so blind and wooden that you do not see the loathing you inspire me with? Is it possible you can suppose me willing to continue to exist upon such terms? ”

“ As it was too late for each family to dig itself a habitation in the hillside as the Norwegian settlers had done, several families combined to build a house out of slabs bought from a rude and primitive sawmill on Turkey river. Uncle had bought a yoke of oxen and an old wagon to haul the slabs and get the baggage left at the river's landing. He built a stable of split rails and old dead grass for hay, but winter was too severe for that kind of quarters, and the oxen froze, or half froze and half starved. ”

“ SUEBI, or Suevi, a collective term applied to a number of peoples in central Germany, the chief of whom appear to have been the Marcomanni, Quadi, Hermunduri, Semnones and Langobardi. From the earliest times these tribes inhabited the basin of the Elbe. The Langobardic territories seem to have lain about the lower reaches of the river, while the Semnones lay south. ”

“ The name of Soutar has twice escaped my pen, and I feel I owe him a vignette. Soutar first attracted notice as mate of a praam at the Bell Rock, and rose gradually to be captain of the Regent. He was active, admirably skilled in his trade, and a man incapable of fear. Once, in London, he fell among a gang of confidence-men, naturally deceived by his rusticity and his prodigious accent. They plied him with drink—a hopeless enterprise, for Soutar could not be made drunk; they proposed cards, and Soutar would not play. ”

“ Schwefel, masculine, ‘brimstone, sulphur,’ from the equivalent Middle High German swëvel, swëbel, Old High German swëval, swëbal, masculine; the f of the Modern High German form can only be explained by the influence of Low German, as is shown by the double forms in Middle High German and Old High German. A common Teutonic word; compare Dutch zwavel, Anglo-Saxon swefl, Swedish swafvel, Gothic swibls, ‘sulphur.’ Latin sulpur (for *suplur?) is probably not allied. ”

“ If nothing in written form pertaining to the Southwest existed at all, it would be more profitable for an inhabitant to go out and listen to coyotes singing at night in the prickly pear than to tolerate the Increase Mather kind of thing. It is very profitable to listen to coyotes anyhow. I rebelled years ago at having the tradition, the spirit, the meaning of the soil to which I belong utterly disregarded by interpreters of literature and at the same time having the Increase Mather kind of stuff taught as if it were important to our part of America. ”

“ Yesterday, at Holland House, I was introduced to Southey,—the best-looking bard I have seen for some time. To have that poet's head and shoulders, I would almost have written his 'Sapphics.' He is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that—and—there is his eulogy. ”