If, Yes and Perhaps Part 8

"--Why, it completes the song. Between them they bring the two worlds together."

"He bows the heavens, and comes down," said the boy of the olive-harp, trying to hum David's air.

"Let us ask them--"

And just then there rang along the valley the sound of a distant conch-sh.e.l.l. The soldiers groaned, roused up, and each looked for his own side-arms and his own skin.

But the poets talked on unheeding.

The old chief knocked down a stack of lances; but the crash did not rouse them. He was obliged himself to interrupt their eager converse.

"I am sorry to break in; but the night-horn has sounded to rest, and the guard will be round to inspect the posts. I am sorry to hurry you away, sir," he said to David.

David thanked him courteously.

"Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest," said Homer, with a smile.

"We will all meet to-morrow. And may to-night's dreams be good omens!"

"If we dream at all," said Homer again:--

"Without a sign his sword the brave man draws, And asks no omen but his country's cause."

They were all standing together, as he made this careless reply to the captain; and one of the young men drew him aside, and whispered that David was in arms against his country.

Homer was troubled that he had spoken as he did. But the young Jew looked little as if he needed sympathy. He saw the doubt and regret which hung over their kindly faces; told them not to fear for him; singing, as he bade them good night, and with one of the Carmel-men walked home to his own outpost:--

"The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion, The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me."

And he smiled to think how his Carmelite companion would start, if he knew when first he used those words.

So they parted, as men who should meet on the morrow.

But G.o.d disposes.

David had left to-morrow's dangers for to-morrow to care for. It seemed to promise him that he must be in arms against Saul. But, unlike us in our eagerness to antic.i.p.ate our conflicts of duty, David _waited_.

And the Lord delivered him. While they were singing by the brookside, the proud n.o.blemen of the Philistine army had forced an interview with their king; and, in true native Philistine arrogance, insisted that "this Hebrew" and his men should be sent away.

With the light of morning the king sent for the minstrel, and courteously dismissed him, because "the princes of the Philistines have said, 'He shall not go up with us to the battle.'"

So David marched his men to Ziklag.

And David and Homer never met on earth again.

NOTE.--This will be a proper place to print the following note, which I was obliged to write to a second cousin of Miss Dryasdust after she had read the MS. of the article above:--

"DEAR MADAM:--I thank you for your kind suggestion, in returning my paper, that it involves a piece of impossible history. You inform me, that, 'according to the nomenclatured formulas and h.o.m.ophonic a.n.a.logies of Professor Gouraud, of never-to-be-forgotten memory, "A NEEDLE is less useful for curing a DEAF HEAD, than for putting ear-rings into a _Miss's lily-ears_"; and that this shows that the second king of Judah, named David (or Deaf-head) began to reign in 1055 B.C., and died 1040 B.C.'; and further, that, according to the same authority, '_Homer flourished_ when the Greeks were fond of his POETRY'; which, being interpreted, signifies that he flourished in 914 B.C., and, consequently, could have had no more to do with David than to plant ivy over his grave, in some of his voyages to Phoenicia.

"I thank you for the suggestion. I knew the unforgetting professor; and I do not doubt that he remembered David and Homer as his near friends. But, of course, to such a memory, a century or two might easily slip aside.

"Now, did you look up Clement? And did you not forget the Arundelian Marbles? For, if you will take the long estimates, you will find that some folks think Homer lived as long ago as the year 1150, and some that it was as 'short ago' as 850. And some set David as long ago as 1170, and some bring him down to a hundred and fifty years later. These are the long measures and the short measures. So the long and short of it is, that you can keep the two poets 320 years apart, while I have rather more than a century which I can select any night of, for a bivouac scene, in which to bring them together. Believe me, my dear Miss D., always yours, &c.

"Confess that you forgot the Arundelian Marbles!"

FOOTNOTES:

[1] After Chapman.

[2] After Cowper and Pope. Long after!

[3] Iliad, vi.

[4] Iliad, vi.--POPE.

[5] Iliad, xii., after Sotheby.

THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR

[I am tempted to include this little burlesque in this collection simply in memory of the Boston Miscellany, the magazine in which it was published, which won for itself a brilliant reputation in its short career. There was not a large staff of writers for the Miscellany, but many of the names then unknown have since won distinction. To quote them in the accidental order in which I find them in the table of contents, where they are arranged by the alphabetical order of the several papers, the Miscellany contributors were Edward Everett, George Lunt, Nathan Hale, Jr., Nathaniel Hawthorne, N. P. Willis, W. W. Story, J. R. Lowell, C. N.

Emerson, Alexander H. Everett, Sarah P. Hale, W. A. Jones, Cornelius Matthews, Mrs. Kirkland, J. W. Ingraham, H. T. Tuckerman, Evart A. Duyckinck, Francis A. Durivage, Mrs. J. Webb, Charles F.

Powell, Charles W. Storey, Lucretia P. Hale, Charles F. Briggs, William E. Channing, Charles Lanman, G. H. Hastings, and Elizabeth B. Barrett, now Mrs. Browning, some of whose earliest poems were published in this magazine. These are all the contributors whose names appear, excepting the writers of a few verses. They furnished nine tenths of the contents of the magazine. The two Everetts, Lowell, William Story, and my brother, who was the editor, were the princ.i.p.al contributors. And I am tempted to say that I think they all put some of their best work upon this magazine.

The misfortune of the Miscellany, I suppose, was that its publishers had no capital. They had to resort to the claptraps of fashion-plates and other engravings, in the hope of forcing an immediate sale upon persons who, caring for fashion-plates, did not care for the literary character of the enterprise. It gave a very happy escape-pipe, however, for the high spirits of some of us who had just left college, and, through my brother's kindness, I was sometimes permitted to contribute to the journal. In memory of those early days of authorship, I select "The South American Editor" to publish here. For the benefit of the New York Observer, I will state that the story is not true. And lest any should complain that it advocates elopements, I beg to observe, in the seriousness of mature life, that the proposed elopement did not succeed, and that the parties who proposed it are represented as having no guardians or keepers but themselves. The article was first published in 1842.]

It is now more than six years since I received the following letter from an old cla.s.smate of mine, Harry Barry, who had been studying divinity, and was then a settled minister. It was an answer to a communication I had sent him the week before.

"TOPSHAM, R. I., January 22, 1836.

"To say the truth, my dear George, your letter startled me a little. To think that I, scarcely six months settled in the profession, should be admitted so far into the romance of it as to unite forever two young runaways like yourself and Miss Julia What's-her-name is at least curious. But, to give you your due, you have made a strong case of it, and as Miss ---- (what is her name, I have not yours at hand) is not under any real guardianship, I do not see but I am perfectly justified in complying with your rather odd request. You see I make a conscientious matter of it.

"Write me word when it shall be, and I will be sure to be ready.

Jane is of course in my counsels, and she will make your little wife feel as much at home as in her father's parlor. Trust us for secrecy.

"I met her last week--"

But the rest of the letter has nothing to do with the story.