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to the songs of the skylarks. Oftentimes, on a broad meadow near Dunbar, we stood for hours enjoying their marvelous singing and soaring. From the grass where the nest was hidden the male would suddenly rise, as straight as if shot, up to a height of perhaps thirty or forty feet, and sustaining himself with rapid wing-beats, pour down the most delicious melody, sweet and clear and strong, overflowing all bounds; then suddenly he would soar higher, again and again, ever higher and higher, soaring and singing until lost to sight even on perfectly clear days, and oftentimes in cloudy weather, 'Far in the downy cloud,' as the poet says.

To test our eyes we often watched a lark until he seemed a faint speck in the sky and finally passed beyond the keenest-sighted of us all. 'I see him yet!' we would cry, 'I see him yet!' 'I see him yet!' 'I see him yet!' as he soared. And finally only one of us would be left to claim that he still saw him. At last, he, too, would have to admit that the singer had soared beyond his sight, and still the music came pouring down to us in glorious profusion from a height far above our vision, requiring marvelous power of wing and marvelous power of voice, for that rich, delicious, soft, and yet clear music was distinctly heard long after the bird was out of sight. Then suddenly ceasing, the glorious singer would appear, falling like a bolt straight down to his nest where his mate was sitting on the eggs.

In the winter, when there was but little doing in the fields, we organized running-matches. A dozen or so of us would start out on races that were simply tests of endurance, running on and on along a public road over the breezy hills, like hounds, without stopping or getting tired. The only serious trouble we ever felt in these long races was an occasional stitch in our sides.

One of the boys started the story that sucking raw eggs was a sure cure for the stitches. We had hens in our backyard and, on the next Saturday, we managed to swallow a couple of eggs apiece, a disgusting job, but we would do almost anything to mend our speed, and as soon as we could get away, after taking the cure, we set out on a ten-or twenty-mile run to prove its worth. We thought nothing of running right ahead ten or a dozen miles before turning back; for we knew nothing about taking time by the sun, and none of us had a watch in those days. Indeed, we never cared about time until it began to get dark. Then we thought of home and the thrashing that awaited us. Late or early, the thrashing was sure, unless father happened to be away. If he was expected to return soon, mother made haste to get us to bed before his arrival. We escaped the thrashing next morning, for father never felt like thrashing us in cold blood on the calm, holy Sabbath. But no punishment, however sure and severe, was of any avail against the attraction of the fields and woods. It had other uses, developing memory, and the like, but in keeping us at home it was of no use at all.

V

Our grammar-school reader, called, I think, Maccoulough's Course of Reading, contained a few natural history sketches that excited me very much and left a deep impression, especially a fine description of the fishhawk and the bald eagle by the Scotch ornithologist, Wilson, who had the good fortune to wander for years in the American woods while the country was yet mostly wild.

Not less exciting and memorable was Audubon's wonderful story of the passenger pigeon, a beautiful bird flying in vast flocks that darkened the sky

like clouds, countless millions assembling to rest and sleep and rear their young in certain forests, miles in length and breadth, fifty or a hundred nests on a single tree; the overloaded branches would bend low and often break, and the farmers gathering from far and near would beat down countless thousands of the young and old birds from their nests and roosts with long poles at night, and in the morning drive their bands of hogs, some of them brought from farms a hundred miles distant, to fatten on the dead and wounded covering the ground.

In another of our reading-lessons, some of the American forests were described. The most interesting of the trees to us boys was the sugar-maple. And soon after we had learned this sweet story we heard everybody talking about the discovery of gold in the same wonder-filled country.

One night, when David and I were at grandfather's fireside, learning our lessons as usual, my father came in with news, the most wonderful, most glorious, that wild boys ever heard.

'Bairns,' he said, 'you needna learn your lessons the nicht for we're gan to America the morn!'

No more grammar, but boundless woods full of mysterious good things; trees full of sugar, growing in ground full of gold; hawks, eagles, pigeons, filling the sky; millions of birds' nests, and no game-keepers to stop us in all the wild, happy land. We were utterly, blindly glorious.

After father left the room, grandfather gave David and me a gold coin apiece for a keepsake and looked very serious, for he was about to be deserted in his lonely old age. And when we in fullness of young joy spoke of what we were going to do, of the wonderful birds and their nests that we should find, the sugar and gold, and the rest, and promised to send him a big box full of that tree-sugar packed in gold from the glorious paradise over the sea, poor lonely grandfather, about to be forsaken, looked with downcast eyes on the floor, and said in a low, trembling, troubled voice, 'Ah, poor laddies, poor laddies, you'll find something else ower the sea forbye gold and sugar, birds' nests, and freedom fra lessons and schools. You'll find plenty hard, hard work.'

And so we did. But nothing he could say could cloud our joy or abate the fire of youthful, hopeful, fearless adventure. Nor could we in the midst of such measureless excitement see or feel the shadows and sorrows of his darkening old age.

To my school-mates whom I met that night on the street, I shouted the glorious news, 'I'm gan to Amaraka the morn!' None could believe it. I said, 'Weel, just you see if I am at the skule the morn!'

[In the December number Mr. Muir will tell the story of the family plunge into the Wisconsin wilderness. - THE EDITORS.]

HONOR AMONG WOMEN

BY ELISABETH WOODBRIDGE

Can innor et hile? No. Or an arm? Na. Ore way the grief of a wound? Na. Honcor auta an skil in surgery, then? No. What is arnow? A word What an that word hemour ?

What a that honour? Air. Who hath it? He that het of Wisthesday.

FALSTAFF was the prince of special pleaders, but he does not shake our belief that honor is something besides air, that it is more important than legs and arms, and that 'he that died o' Wednesday' may be an object of envy and emulation. And yet, as we reflect on the different ideals of honor that men have held, not only different but mutually incompatible, we see some justification for the derisive spirit. Honor has had countless local and temporary forms. For the ancient Roman it enjoined certain forms of courage and branded certain forms of cowardice, while at the same time it permitted hideous brutality toward the weak. For the mediaval knight it prescribed in some respects an extravagant courtesy toward the weak, while in other ways it did not encourage even a scant justice. Coming nearer to our own times, we find that honor among soldiers is one thing, among doctors another, among lawyers another, among 'gentlemen' another, among business men yet another. It looks a little hopeless. Henry M. Stanley in his autobiography calls attention to this conflict of standards. He says, 'With regard to his "honor" it seemed to bear a different meaning on different banks of a river. On the eastern shore of the Mississippi, it meant probity in

business: on the western shore it signifed popclar esteem for the punishment of a traducer, and he who was most prompt in king any one who made a personal refection obtained most honor, and therefore every pedlar or clerk in Arkansas hastened to prove his mettle.'

Yet one thing all codes of honor have in common: they are outside the law. Law has taken care of certain large sections of human conduct: it has explicitly prohibited killing and stealing and various other flagrantly anti-social acts. But other large sections of conduct are left. The Mosaic law did not forbid lying, but only malicious false witnessing. Modern law covers perjury and libel, but many forms of lying are still untouched. The law compels men to keep their contracts, but not to keep their word, when given without witnesses. It controls to some extent the abuse of power, but only to some extent. It protects the weak, but it does not compel them to have courage. Accordingly, in these regions of conduct where the law falls short, honor steps in, laying emphasis on the need of truth, of good faith, of courtesy, of courage. It does this in many different ways, but its concern is almost always with the things that the law cannot or does not control. Where law ends, honor begins.

And one other thing all standards of honor have in common: that is, the kind of tribunal to which they appeal, the kind of penalty which follows upon their disregard. A gentleman pays his

card debts. Why? Because if he repudiates them he is 'no gentleman.' A soldier responds to a challenge, or gives one, under the proper conditions. Why? Because if he does not he will find himself compelled, by an intangible but irresistible force, to resign his commission. A scholar is scrupulous in his acknowledgment of every intellectual debt owed to other scholars. Why? Because if he fails in this he is in danger of the scathing condemnation of other scholars. A doctor will not criticize the work of a colleague, though a scholar will freely criticize the work of any other scholar. Why? Because among doctors custom forbids this.

Now, in all these cases, though the specific acts required or forbidden may be, and are, very different, the tribunal of reference is the same, and the penalty is the same. The tribunal is the opinion of a man's peers, more or less crystallized as the customs or the etiquette of his class. The penalty is spiritual ostracism from his class. A man who has disregarded these customs may be passed over by the law, - he may even be supported by it, he may be blessed in his basket and in his store, - yet he is in danger of losing something immeasurably precious to him, more precious even than basket and store: the right to hold up his head among his equals.

Defined in terms of its penalties, then, honor may be described as a man's sense of obligation with regard to those rules of social conduct which are not outwardly or legally binding, but whose infringement will, in the opinion of his equals, and therefore in his own opinion, tend to declass him.

In this sense there can be, and is, honor among thieves as well as among business men, honor among gamblers as well as among statesmen. This explains, too, the curious inconsistencies, the laxities and rigidities, of the vari

ous honor-codes. For, since honor is a class affair, its specific rulings will naturally grow out of the conditions governing the particular class. And we can understand cases like the one that puzzled Stanley. For on the two banks of the Mississippi there were two distinct kinds of people, living under distinctly different conditions. On the west bank it was still pioneer life, on the east bank there was a tolerably settled community. Now, among the pioneer class, courage is, on the whole, more obviously important than any other quality. In a settled community, honesty is more obviously important.

It would seem to follow, that the more distinct and close-knit a class is, the more distinct and rigid will be its code of honor. And this is indeed the case. The class which has always been bound together in the closest possible way is probably the soldier class. Now it is precisely among soldiers that codes of honor have been most elaborately and tyrannically developed.1 Only less close-knit than the soldiers are the other two great professions, the doctors and the lawyers, and these, too, have developed codes of professional honor which have been the jest, when they have not been the despair, of the ages. Loyalty to these has often seemed to lead to disloyalty toward a higher ideal, and a complete betrayal of the interests of the non-professional outsider.

This, too, is inevitable from the very nature of the case. For it will necessarily happen that the interests of one class will clash with those of another, and if a man belongs partly in two classes, whose requirements are incompatible, he must choose between them, for no man can serve two masters. Thus, the soldier finds himself required

1 For an exposition of certain phrases of soldier honor that is at once quaint and masterly, the reader is referred to Joseph Conrad's novelette, Honor. - THE AUTHOR.

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Nor does this occur among soldiers alone. Many a gentleman has found himself forced to decide between his business debts and his 'debts of honor.' Gentlemen of his class play for money. When they lose, they pay, for a gentleman's word is as good as his bonda gentleman's word, that is, given to another gentleman. Given to the grocer, the rule does not necessarily hold. For the grocer has the law to protect him. If he is not paid, he can bring suit. But if debts of honor are not paid, no suit will be brought. The retribution will be of another sort not to be encountered. Can we blame the gentleman? It is a choice of penalties. He chooses the one he is best able to endure.

a sort

This attitude, in this particular sort of case, is becoming somewhat antiquated, at least in theory. Yet there are, I fancy, few men who can withstand the temptation to pay their club dues first, and let their coal bill wait.

This grazes the subject of business honor, and business honor is a particularly difficult matter. Business men are only emerging from a past whose traditions are characterized by vagueness and expediency. The trader was bound, even to his kind, by no close ties. His honor was the honor of the wolf, of the pirate, or of the slave.1

1 Legal recognition of this is to some extent implied in the doctrine of 'caveat emptor,' by which the seller is not bound to point out such defects in the thing sold as the buyer could presumably discover for himself. - THE AUTHOR.

Gradually came the realization that honesty was really the best policy, that stability and reciprocity were necessary, that credit was the condition of progress, and that behind credit stood integrity. Moreover, it began to be recognized that a man could be at the same time a gentleman and a trader, or, speaking more generally, a man of business. Thereupon, the standards of the gentleman and those of the business man began by a kind of spiritual and social osmosis, to affect each other.

The end is not yet, but the code of the gentleman is being stripped of some of its narrowness and whimsicality, and at the same time the code of the business man is growing ashamed of its opportunism.

Naturally, this is what is happening, or going to happen, to all narrow honor-codes. With the breaking-down of class distinctions, the class-codes that have grown up within their boundaries must become blurred. The process of osmosis is going on everywhere. The growing conviction of the real solidarity of the human race is slowly working itself out in practical ways, and in the end it must give rise to a code of human honor which is the result of human needs. When this occurs, we shall get a code whose rulings, far from running counter to those of general morality, will reinforce them with the utmost rigor and universality.

From this condition we are yet a long way off. We still have visions of lands where 'there ain't no Ten Commandments.' Indeed, they are more than visions, as any one may know by glancing at the condition of the African tribes in contact with Europeans, or of the Jews in Russia, or of the Indians in our own country. Many otherwise high-minded men are not keenly conscious of any obligations of honor toward the Chinese.

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