The Project Gutenberg Children of the Market Place, by Edgar Lee Masters potx

CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI... C

The Project

Gutenberg eBook, Children of the Market Place, by Edgar Lee Masters

This eBook is for the use of anyone

anywhere at no cost and with

almost no restrictions whatsoever You may copy it, give it away or

re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

with this eBook or online at

www.gutenberg.net

Title: Children of the Market Place

Author: Edgar Lee Masters

Release Date: April 4, 2005 [eBook

#15534]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OFTHE MARKET PLACE***

E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg

Online Distributed Proofreading Team

CHILDREN OF THE MARKET

PLACE

by

EDGAR LEE MASTERS

1922

TO GEORGE P BRETT

CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXV CHAPTER XXVI CHAPTER XXVII CHAPTER XXVIII CHAPTER XXIX CHAPTER XXX CHAPTER XXXI CHAPTER XXXII CHAPTER XXXIII CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV CHAPTER XXXVI CHAPTER XXXVII CHAPTER XXXVIII CHAPTER XXXIX CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER XLI CHAPTER XLII CHAPTER XLIII CHAPTER XLIV CHAPTER XLV CHAPTER XLVI CHAPTER XLVII CHAPTER XLVIII CHAPTER XLIX CHAPTER L

CHAPTER LI

CHAPTER LII

CHAPTER LIII CHAPTER LIV CHAPTER LV CHAPTER LVI CHAPTER LVII CHAPTER LVIII CHAPTER LIX CHAPTER LX CHAPTER LXI CHAPTER LXII CONCLUSION

CHAPTER I

I was born in London on the eighteenth ofJune, 1815 The battle of Waterloo wasbeing fought as I entered this world.Thousands were giving up their lives atthe moment that life was being bestowedupon me My father was in that greatbattle Would he ever return? My motherwas but eighteen years of age Anxiety forhis safety, the exhaustion of giving me lifeprostrated her delicate constitution Shedied as I was being born

I have always kept her picture beside me

I have always been bound to her by atender and mystical love During all the

years of my life my feeling for her couldnot have been more intense and personal if

I had had the experience of dailyassociation with her through boyhood andyouth

What girlish wistfulness and sadness thereare in her eyes! What a gentle smile isupon her lips, as if she would deny thedeep foreboding of a spirit that peeredinto a perilous future! Her dark hair falls

in rich strands over her forehead in anelfin and elegant disorder Her slenderthroat rises gracefully from an unloosenedcollar This picture was made from adrawing done by a friend of my father'sfour months before I was born My oldnurse told me that he was invalided fromthe war; that my father had asked him to

make the drawing upon his return toLondon Perhaps my father had ominousdreams of her ordeal soon to be.

They pronounced me a fine boy I wasround faced, round bodied, wellnourished The nurse read my horoscope

in coffee grounds I was to become anotable figure in the world My mother'speople took me in charge, glad to give me

a place in their household Here I waswhen my father returned from the war, sixmonths later He had been wounded in thebattle of Waterloo He was still weak andill I was told these things by mygrandmother in the succeeding years

When I was four years old my fatheremigrated to America I seem to rememberhim I have asked my grandmother if he

did not sing "Annie Laurie"; if he did notdance and fling me toward the ceiling in ariot of playfulness; if he did not snuggle

me under my tender chin and tickle mewith his mustaches She confirmed theseseemingly recollected episodes But of hisface I have no memory There is nopicture of him They told me that he wastall and strong, and ruddy of face; that mybeak nose is like his, my square forehead,

my firm chin After he reached America hewrote to me I have the letters yet, written

in a large open hand, characteristic of anadventurous nature Though he was myfather, he was only a person in the worldafter all I was surrounded by my mother'speople They spoke of him infrequently.What had he done? Did they disapprovehis leaving England? Had he been kind to

my mother? But all the while I had mymother's picture beside me And mygrandmother spoke to me almost daily ofher gentleness, her high-mindedness, herbeauty, and her charm.

I was raised in the English church I wastaught to adore Wellington, to hateNapoleon as an enemy of liberty, ausurper, a false emperor, a monster, amurderer I was sent to Eton and toOxford I was indoctrinated with the ideathat there is a moral governance in theworld, that God rules over the affairs ofmen I was taught these things, but Iresisted them I did not rebel so much as

my mind naturally proved impervious to

these ideas I read the Iliad and the Odyssey with passionate interest They

gave me a panoramic idea of life, men,races, civilizations They gave meunderstanding of Napoleon What if he hadsold the Louisiana territory to rebelAmerica, and in order to furnish thatfaithless nation with power to overcomeEngland in some future crisis? Perhapsthis very moral governance that I wastaught to believe in wished this to happen.But if the World Spirit be nothing but theconcurrent thinking of many peoples, as Igrew to think, the World Spirit mightirresistibly wish this American supremacy

to be

And now at eighteen I am absorbed indreams and studies at Oxford I have manyfriends My life is a delight I arise fromsleep with a song, and a bound We play,

we talk, we study, we discuss questions ofall sorts infinitely I take nothing forgranted I question everything, of course inthe privacy of my room or the room of myfriends I do not care to be expelled And

in the midst of this charming life bad newscomes to me My father is dead He hasleft a large estate in Illinois I must gothere At least my grandmother thinks it isbest And so my school days end Yet I amonly eighteen!

CHAPTER II

I am eighteen and the year is 1833 All ofEurope is in a ferment, is bubbling over inplaces Napoleon has been hearsed fortwelve years in St Helena But theprinciples of the French Revolution areworking Charles is king of France, but bythe will of the nation first and by the grace

of God afterward There is no republicthere; but the sovereignty of the people,the prime principle of the FrenchRevolution, has founded the right ofCharles to rule And what of England?Fox had rejoiced at the fall of the Bastille.Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey hadsung of liberty, exulting in the

emancipation of peoples from tyranny.Then they had changed Liberalism hadcome under the heel again Revolutionwas feared and denounced Liberalprinciples were crushed But not forlong We students read Shelley and Byron.They were now gone from earth, elevenand nine years respectively They had notaltered their faith, dying in the heyday ofyouthful power Would they have changed

at any age to which they might have lived?

We believed they would not have done so.But what of England? It is 1833 and thereform bill is a year old The rottenboroughs are abolished There is asemblance of democratic representation inParliament The Duke of Wellington hassuffered a decline in popularity Italy isrising, for Mazzini has come upon the

scene Germany is fighting the influence ofMetternich We students are flapping ouryoung wings A great day is dawning forthe world And I am off to America!

What is stirring there? I am bound for theMiddle West of that great land What is itlike? Shall I ever return? What will mylife be? These are my reflections as Iprepare to sail

I take passage on the Columbia and Caledonia She is built of wood and is

200 feet long from taffrail to fore edge ofstem Her beam is 34-1/2 feet She has agross tonnage of 520 tons She can sail infavorable weather at a speed of 12 knots

an hour I laughed at all this when,something more than twenty years after, I

crossed on the Persia, 376 feet long, of

3500 tonnage, and making a speed ofnearly 14 knots an hour, with her 4000-horse-power engines.

It is April The sea is rough We are nosooner under way than the heavy swell ofthe waves tosses the boat like a chip Theprow dips down into great valleys ofglassy water The stern tips high in the airagainst an angry sky The shoulders of thesea bump under the poop of the boat, andshe trembles like a frightened horse underits rider I have books to read Mygrandmother has provided me with manythings for my comfort and delight But Icannot eat, not until during the end of thevoyage I lie in a little stateroom, which Ishare with an American He persists intalking to me, even at night when I am

trying to sleep He tells me of America.His home is New York City He has been

as far west as Buffalo He gives me longdescriptions of the Hudson River, and theboats on it that run to Albany He talks ofAmerica in terms of extravagant eulogy.The country is free It has no king Thepeople rule I have read a little and heardsomething of America At Oxford westudents had wondered at the anomaly of arepublic maintaining the institution ofslavery I asked him about this He saidthat it did not involve any contradiction;that the United States was founded bywhite men for white men; that negroeswere a lower order of beings; that theirservitude was justified by the Bible; that amajority of the clergy and the churches ofthe country approved of the institution; that

the slaves were well treated, much betterhoused and fed than the workers ofEurope; better than the free laborers even

in America His thesis was that thebusiness of life was the obtaining of themeans of life; that all the uprisings inEurope, the French Revolution included,were inspired by hunger; that the strugglefor existence was bound to produceoppression; that the strong would use andcontrol the weak, make them work, keepthem in a state where they could beworked All this for trade He topped offthis analysis with the remark that negroslavery was a benign institution, exactly inline with the processes of the business oflife; that it had been lied about by agrowing fanaticism in the States; NewYork had always been in sympathy, for the

most part with the Southern States, whereslavery was a necessary institution to theclimate and the cotton industry He went

on to tell me that about a year before amaniacal cobbler named William LloydGarrison had started a little paper called

The Liberator in which he advocated

slave insurrections and the overthrow ofthe laws sustaining slavery; and that amovement was now on foot in NewEngland to found the American Anti-Slavery Society And that John QuincyAdams, once President, but now a senileintermeddler, had been presentingpetitions in Congress from variousconstituencies for the abolition of slavery

in the District of Columbia This would befinally squelched, he thought NewEngland had always demanded a tariff in

order to foster her industries, and thatpolicy trenched on the rights of the statesnot needing and not wanting a tariff Whileslavery did not in any way harm NewEngland, she intermeddled in a mood ofmoral fanaticism.

I was much interested in these revelations

by Mr Yarnell, for such was his name One morning we began to sense land Wehad been about three weeks on the water

We were nearing the harbor of New York

CHAPTER III

Yarnell was a man of about thirty Heseemed very mature to me In fact he wasquite a man of the world I had told him

my destination, and asked him how best toreach it He had given me someinformation, but it was not wholly clear

He advised me to ask for direction at theFranklin House, which he recommended

to me as a comfortable hotel

As we came into the harbor we stood onthe deck together while he pointed out theplaces of interest I was thrilled with itsbeauty and its extent The day was mild Afresh breeze was blowing May clouds

floated swiftly in the clear sky I felt myblood course electrically in expectation ofthe wonders of New York It was nowlying before me in all its color andmystery Boats of all kinds passed us.There was a tangled thicket of masts at thepiers I discerned gay awnings over awalk around a building near the water.Yarnell said this was Castle Garden,where many diners came for theexcellence of the food and the view of theharbor I could begin to see up the streets

of the city beyond the Battery But therewas a riot of stir and activity, inexpectation of our boat

I disembarked and hired a hack I wastraveling with a huge valise This thehackman took for me Yarnell came up to

bid me adieu, promising to call upon me atthe Franklin House The fare was twenty-five cents a mile The hotel was at 197Broadway Was it more than a mile? I didnot know I was charged fifty cents for thetrip I was not stinted for money, and it didnot matter I paid the amount demanded,and walked into the hotel.

How simple things are at the end of ajourney and a daily restlessness to arrive!

My valise was taken to my room I wentwith the negro porter I looked from mywindow out upon Broadway The porterdeparted The door was closed Myjourney to New York was over I wasalone I began to wish for Yarnell, wish to

be back upon the boat Above all I began

to sense the distance that separated me

from England and those I loved Here wasthe afternoon on my hands Should I notsee something of the city? When should Istart west? I took from my pocket the letterwritten from Illinois by the lawyer, whohad advised this journey and my presence

at Jacksonville, for that was the townwhere my father's estate was to be settled.For the first time I was conscious of thefact that difficulties probably stood in myway The letter read: "Claims are likely to

be made against the estate that requireyour personal attention." What could itmean? Why had my grandmother saidnothing to me of this? She had seen theletter I began to wonder But to fightdown my growing loneliness I started out

to see the city

As I passed up the street I bought

Valentine's Manual and glanced at it as I

walked How far up did the city extend?The manual said more than thirteen miles

I could not make that distance before dark

A passerby said that there was a horserailway running as far as Murray Hill But

I strode on, arriving in a little while atWashington Square Beyond this I couldsee that the city did not present theappearance of being greatly built On myway I passed the gas works, the City Hall,many banks, several circulating libraries,saw the signs of almost innumerableinsurance companies But the people!They were all strange to me So manynegroes My manual said there were over14,000 negroes in the city, which, added

to the white population, made an aggregate

of more than 200,000 souls I sat for awhile in the Park and then retraced mysteps.

On my way back I stopped at Niblo'sGarden at Broadway and Prince Street Itwas a gay place People were feastingupon oysters, drinking, laughing, talkingover the affairs of the day Here I partook

of oysters for the first time in my life Iwalked through the grounds, looking at theflowers I stared about at the splendor ofthe paintings and the mirrors in the rooms.Then like a ghost I resumed my way to myhotel Why? There was nothing there tocall me back Yet it was the only home Ihad, and the evening was coming on

Instead of stopping at the hotel, I went on

to Castle Garden I decided to dine there I

could look over the harbor and the ships.

It was a way to put myself in touch withEngland, to travel back over the way I hadcome I found a table and ordered a meal

I became conscious of the fact that the

captain of the Columbia and Caledonia

was at a near table with a gay party Theyhad wine, and there was much merriment.This abandonment was in contrast to theserious, almost dark spirit of a party atanother table This was composed of menentirely I had never seen such facesbefore Their hair was long They woregoatees They were strangely dressed.They talked with a broad accent.Excitement and anger rose in their voices.They were denouncing President Jackson.The matter seemed to be a force bill, the

tariff imposed by New England'senterprise, the duty of the Southern States

to resist it They were insisting that therewas no warrant to pass a tariff law, that itwas clearly a breach of the Constitution,and that it should be resisted to the death.There was bitter cursing of Yankees, ofthe greed of New England, of its disregard

of the rights of the South But out uponthe harbor the sea gulls were drifting Icould hear the slapping of the wavesagainst the rocks And in the midst of thisthe orchestra began to play "AnnieLaurie." The tears came to my eyes Iarose and left the place My mind turned

to a theater as a means of relief to thesepressing thoughts I consulted my manual,and started for the American theater Itwas described as an example of Doric

architecture, modeled after the temple ofMinerva at Athens I found it on theBowery and Elizabeth Street, bought aticket for seventy-five cents and entered.

The play was Othello, and I had never

seen it before

I could not help but overhear and followthe conversation of the people who satnext to me They were wondering whatmoved Shakespeare to depict the story of

a black man married to a white woman.Could such a theme be dramatized now?How could a woman, fair and high-bred,become the wife of a sooty creature likeOthello? Was it real? If not real, what wasShakespeare trying to do? And much more

to the same effect, together with remarksabout negroes and that slavery should be

let alone by New England, and byeveryone else.

The play was dreary to me, playedlistlessly where it was not ranted and torn

to tatters I sat it through and then wentback to my hotel The loneliness of thatroom as I entered it has never left mymemory For long hours I did not sleep.The city had 600 night watch, so themanual said, and I could hear some ofthem going their rounds At last I awokeand it was morning I awoke with a sense

of delight in the strength and vitality whichsleep had restored to me I went below

to breakfast and to find the way to travel

to Illinois

CHAPTER IV

The clerk of the hotel told me that the bestroute was by way of Albany, the canal, theGreat Lakes to Chicago; that when I gotthere I would likely find a boat or stageservice to Jacksonville I could leave atnoon for Albany if I wished Accordingly,

I made ready to do so

I was entranced with the river boat It was

longer than the Columbia and Caledonia.

And it was propelled by steam It had themost enormous wheels And no soonerwere we under way than I found that wewere gliding along at the rate of twentymiles an hour The swiftly passing hills

and palisades of the Hudson served tomark our speed There were great saloons,lovely awnings under which to read orlounge, promenade decks And there was

a gay and well-behaved crowd ofpassengers At dinner we were seated atlong tables, and served with every luxury.And the whole journey cost me less thanseven shillings

On arriving at Albany that night at aboutnine o'clock I found myself in the best ofluck I could get passage on a canal boatthe next morning for Buffalo; rather I waspermitted to sleep on board I got on andretired I awoke just as the boat wasbeginning to start I had never seenanything like this before The boat wasnarrow, sharp, gayly painted It was

drawn by three horses, each ridden by aboy who urged the horses forward Wetraveled at the great speed of five miles anhour.

But it was delightful We were more thanthree days going from Albany to Buffalo.The time was well spent The scenery wasvaried and beautiful All the while wewere climbing, for Lake Erie, to which wehad to be lifted, was much above us Wewent through lovely valleys; we ranbeside glistening streams and rivers; wewound around hills The farms were largeand prosperous The villages were new,fresh with white paint and green blinds,hidden among flowers and shrubbery.You see, I am eighteen and these externalobjects realize my dreams and stimulate

them I do not know these people Theyare frank, talkative, often vulgar andpresuming But they are friendly There ismuch merriment on board, for we have tododge down frequently to save our headsfrom the bridges which the farmers buildright across the canal The ladies have to

be warned and assisted There are narrowescapes and shouts of laughter And whenthe dinner bell is rung by a comical negroevery one rushes for the dining room I amintroduced again to the American oyster,raw, fried, and stewed It is the mostdelicious of discoveries among the newviands Then we have wonderful roastturkey, chicken, and the greatest variety ofvegetables and sweets I am keeping adaily record of events and impressions tomail to my dear grandmother when I shall

arrive at Buffalo

Sometimes I get tired of the boat Then I

go on land and run along the path behindthe horses A young woman on her way toMichigan to teach school joins me in thesereliefs from the tedium of the boat Weexchange a few words But I see that I amnot old enough for her I have alreadyobserved her in confiding conversationwith a man about the age of Yarnell Andsoon they go together to trot along thepath, to stray off a little into the meadows,

or at the base of the picturesque hills I

am interested in the talk of the passengers,and cannot choose but follow it at times

One man has been reading the New Yorker, printed by H Greeley and

Company I learn that Horace Greeley is