The Contributors' Club

I HAVE been denied through life the satisfaction of some of my reasonable wishes for things I should greatly have enjoyed, could I have had them. I count among my smaller solaces for these deprivations the pleasure I have always taken in the companionship of my dogs. The best individuals of this species give proof of so much of what, if we were speaking of persons, we should call “ heart ” and “ character ” that I find it hard not to believe in a future and higher existence for the dear beasts. I feel sure that their intelligence is capable of more development than most people suppose. I do not care for the two-penny " tricks ” that dogs are so often taught to perform, and have never tried to draw out my dogs’ latent talents in this direction ; but I have noticed with regard to my own and other persons’ dogs that their general intelligence is educated or not according to the manner in which they are treated. Behave habitually toward a dog as though you expected him to conduct himself as a sensible creature, of goodbreeding and discretion, and ten to one he will arrive at an understanding of your mind about him, and endeavor to meet your expectations. Treat him, on the other hand, as a mere helpless lady’s pet, and he becomes a toy, a canine nonentity. Tease him, or bully him, and he turns a cringing coward. I have a fancy that dogs sometimes come to partake of the dispositions of the people they live with. One instance, at least, occurs to me immediately of a dog whose traits are noticeably similar to those of his owners. Many persons profess a fondness for dogs whose actions toward them prove to me that they do not really know what it is to care for the animals in the way of a genuine dog-lover. I shall not forget how grateful I found the sympathy of an elderly lady, a friend of our family, who on the occasion of the tragic death of our beautiful shepherd dog wrote us a letter of heartfelt condolence. She knew what the loss meant to us.

I heard a true story, not long ago, of a lady, fond of dogs and accustomed to them, who went to visit a friend, the owner of a splendid but most formidable animal, — a mastiff, if I remember rightly. The visitor did not happen to meet with the dog till she suddenly came upon him in a doorway she was about to pass through. It chanced somehow that she did not see him, and, stepping hastily, she unfortunately trod upon his foot or his tail. The huge fellow instantly laid hold of her ; but before the dog’s master, a short distance off, could hasten to the rescue the lady had looked down, exclaiming quick as thought, “ Oh, I beg your pardon ! ” whereupon the mastiff as quickly let go his grasp. It is plain that this lady had a proper respect for the feelings of dogs in general, prompting to an habitual kindly treatment of them, and instinct led her to apologize at once for the inadvertent injury, as she would have done to a person.

I confess that it is difficult for me to think really well of those who are averse or even indifferent to dogs; there is something lacking in the moral constitution of such persons, I am convinced. When I think of the way in which my dog lives with me ; of the value he sets upon my society, so that liberty to range abroad with his canine acquaintance counts for nothing in comparison with the pleasure of a short walk with me ; of the confidence he has in me, and the impulse to tell me in his fashion all he can of his inner sentiments, troubles, and satisfactions, I find in this something that not only pleases but touches me very much.

Scott, we know, considered the companionship of his dogs indispensable to his comfort; Dr. John Brown has given us life-like descriptions of his own pets, as well as of fine old Rab ; and Blackmore, the novelist, shows the right genuine appreciation of these dear dumb friends. There is a dog in Christowell of which he says, " No lady in the land has eyes more lucid, loving, eloquent; and even if she had, they would be as nothing without the tan spots over them.”

The before-mentioned shepherd dog we once owned had eyes large, soft, and brown, containing such a depth of pathetic expression as made us believers in the doctrine of the preëxistence and transmigration of souls.

— I once saw an absent-minded countryman get into his wagon, gather up the reins, and urge his team forward, no progressive movement resulting. He was about to lay on the whip, when he made the discovery that his horses were still tied. Looking rather foolish, he dismounted, and removed the difficulty caused by haste and carelessness. This circumstance might have passed without my giving it a second thought, had it not happened that just then I was prepared to furnish from my own experience a parallel passage. That very morning I had determined to spend a day of unusual industry, and so dispatch a certain piece of work which for some time had weighed upon my Conscience, and which I was very impatient to see concluded. Like the absent-minded traveler, I set out, drawing a taut rein (resolution) and cracking a hard-braided whip (necessity), bent only upon getting over a good stretch of ground before the day ended. Fatuous driver ! how soon, and deservedly, I came up short! I had neglected to loose my fine steeds : fancy, feeling, humor, and relish of work were still ridiculously tethered, and I every moment growing more wroth at the delay. On reflecting, it became clear to me that no work is superlatively well done without the mind and heart consentient, in free play and mettlesome good health. Your begrudged task, like those persons who receive unwilling charity, commonly turns and rends you. You may be persuaded that you have only to " put duty before pleasure” in your consideration, and all will go well. But this invidious discrimination, it is reported, is not sanctioned by the council of graces and virtues, who announce that, duty and pleasure being of equal rank, to give the one or the other preference can only be offensive to the court; hence they should be suffered to walk side by side in our regard. The judicious heed some such rule as the following: Do in life what you like to do ; or, if this he impossible, take care to like what you have to do. If you would know the good music there is in this unpromising score, mind the expression mark. The wrinkles we have gathered, this surprise of unlovely age come upon us, — may they not be due quite as much to the chill disaffection and half-heartedness with which we have gone about our affairs as to the actual toil or disaster which fell to our lot ?

— In the year 1000 the continent of America was discovered by the Norsemen, who gave to it the name of Vinland the Good. The narrative of the different voyages thither is preserved in two separate versions : one emanating from the north of Iceland, the other from the west. Both accounts correspond in essential points, but are different in many of their details; and each has apparently been derived, independently of the other, from oral tradition, which, for several centuries before they were written down, was the means of transmitting them from generation to generation. The northern version is preserved in the Flatey-book, a manuscript written between 1387 and 1395, a century before the discovery of America by Columbus. The western version is contained in two manuscripts, which are even older : the Huaks-book, written in the first half of the fourteenth century, and a manuscript of about the game age, Number 557 in the University Library at Copenhagen. The western version is in every way the better ; in detail it is particularly rich, and introduces episodes entirely lacking in the ruder version of the north. Among these incidental narratives one is especially interesting, both from its subject and from the vividness with which its principal character is drawn : it is the story of Thorhall, the earliest American poet.

The first discoverer of America according to the western version of the Saga, and the real discoverer according to both, was Leif, the son of Eirik the Red. Eirik was a Norwegian, who went to Iceland with his father when the latter had been banished for homicide. In the year 982, having, in his turn, been exiled for three-years for the same offense, Eirik went from Iceland to Greenland, where he remained during the period of his banishment. When this had expired he returned to Iceland, but, having induced others to join him, he again went to Greenland, where he settled at a place called Brattahlid. From Greenland Leif, in 998, made a voyage to Norway. The date is distinctly given in the Flatey-book, which says, “ When sixteen winters had passed from the time that Eirik the Red went to Greenland, then went Leif, the son of Eirik, out from Greenland to Norway.” Upon his arrival in Norway, Leif went immediately to the court of the Norwegian king, Olaf Tryggvason, and met with a cordial reception, He returned that same year to Greenland, but the following year he went again and remained during the winter. In the spring of 1000, after consenting, in accordance with the desire of the king, to undertake the introduction of Christianity into Greenland, he set sail from Norway, He met, however, with extremely rough weather, and for a long time was driven before the wind and lost his bearings. He finally found himself in sight of a coast which he did not recognize. Wheat was growing wild; there were grape-vines in plenty, and maple-trees. He brought away with him specimens of these ; among them pieces of maple wood so large that they were afterward used in house-building. Leif reached Greenland in safety, and spread abroad the news of his discovery. A year or two later an expedition was organized to rediscover the country found by Leif. It consisted of one ship, with a crew of twenty men, commanded by Tliorsteinn, the brother of Leif ; but stormy weather was encountered, and, after drifting here and there, they were glad to put back to Greenland, without having accomplished their object. Several years went by before another attempt was made. In the autumn of 1006 two trading ships came from Iceland, each with a crew of forty men : the one commanded by Karlsefni and Snorri, and the other by two brothers, Bjarni and Thorhall, all Icelanders. Eirik the Red entertained the crews of both ships during the winter, and in the succeeding spring it was decided to undertake again an expedition to Vinland. In addition to the two Icelandic vessels a third, commanded by Thorvald, a son-in-law of Eirik, was fitted out, and, with one hundred and sixty men all told, they set sail together in the summer. Many of the men were accompanied by their wives, and that it was their intention to form a permanent settlement is seen from the fact that cattle were also taken. Two days out from Bjarney (an unknown island to the west of Greenland), with a north wind, they found a coast covered with large flat stones. To this land, evidently some part of the Labrador coast, the Norsemen gave the name of Helluland, the Land of Flat Stones. Again they put to sea, and again, after two days with, a north wind, they found land, this time covered with forest. To it they gave the name Markland, or Woodland, and an island off the coast, where they found a bear, they called Bear Isle. Two days from Markland they once more saw land, and doubling a cape, with the land on the starboard, they sailed along the coast, which they found a succession of barren stretches of sand. To this coast they gave the name of the Marvel Strands. It is, perhaps, to be identified with Nova Scotia. Beyond the strands the land was cut up by bays, and, anchoring in one of them, a Scotch man and woman, whom Karlsefni had on board as thralls, were sent to the south, with instructions to return at the end of three days and report what they had seen. At the end of the appointed time the messengers came back with bunches of grapes and ears of wheat, which they had found growing wild. They again set sail toward the south, and ran up into a fiord, at the mouth of which was an island, which they called Stream Isle, from the currents which swept around it. Upon the island so many birds nested that one could scarcely step without crushing the eggs. On the shores of the fiord, called by them Stream Fiord, they decided to settle, and unloaded their ships. “ There were mountains there,” says the Saga, “ and it was fair round about to see.” Where Stream Fiord really was is scarcely to be determined from the meagre details furnished by the Saga. It may have been on the coast of Maine or of Massachusetts.

In the account of the setting out of the expedition the only one of the party whose personality is described at all in detail is one Thorhall, who bore the additional title of “ the huntsman.” Thorhall had been for a long time in the service of Eirik as huntsman and housesteward. “ He was a man,” says the Saga, " of great stature, dark and uncanny. He was rather old, morose in disposition, melancholy, usually taciturn, double-dealing, foul-speaking, and ready to take the wrong side. He had associated himself little with the true faith since it came to Greenland. Thorhall was not very popular, although Eirik had long taken his advice. He was upon the ship with Thorvald, because he was well acquainted with the uninhabited parts of Greenland.” Thorhall has evidently fared worse at the hands of the Saga-teller than he deserves, and the reason is doubtless that he had refused to accept Christianity with the rest. That he was trustworthy is shown by the confidence reposed in him by Eirik, and by the fact that he was afterward entrusted with the command of a ship to go on an exploring expedition. In the description of him here given there is little to conform to one’s ideal of a poet.

After the Norsemen had settled for the winter at Stream Fiord, they did nothing but explore the land. They found plenty of grass for their cattle, but a hard winter came on, for which they had made no provision, and food became scarce, and both hunting and fishing failed. Hoping to better their condition, they went over to the island opposite the fiord, with the expectation of there finding food of some kind; but they met with little success, although the cattle fared well. “ Afterward,” continues the Saga, “ they called upon God to send them something for food; but the answer came not so quickly as they wished.” At this juncture Thorhall suddenly disappeared, and men were out three days looking for him. On the fourth day Karlsefni and Bjarni found him on a crag. He. was gazing up into the air; eyes and mouth and nostrils were stretched wide open ; he scratched and pinched himself, and recited something whose purport they could not catch. When they asked him why he was there, he replied, curtly, that it was no concern of theirs ; that they need not be astonished, and that he had lived so long that there was no necessity for them to give him advice. They, however, induced him to return with them. A short time after, a whale of an unknown species drifted ashore, and the men cut it up and cooked it for food ; but all except Thorhall were made ill by it. He evidently considered the whale a gift of the gods, for he exclaimed, “ Is it not so that the Red-Bearded is mightier than your Christ ? This I now have for the poem which I made about my patron, Thor. Seldom has he failed me.” When his comrades heard this, however, they cast the whale meat away in horror, and, in the quaint words of the Saga, " turned for help to God’s mercy.” Their prayer seems to have been answered, for there was henceforth no lack of food until spring. On all sides they obtained plenty to eat: on the mainland by hunting, and on the sea by fishing.

After the winter was ended it was decided to continue their journey. Thorhall was to go north, and endeavor in that way to find Vinland, which, it seems, they considered not yet to have been discovered. Karlsefni, on the contrary, was to go further south, as it was thought that the further they went in that direction the more land they would find. Thorhall, accordingly, prepared to set out with a crew of nine men. One day when he was engaged in carrying water from the land to the ship, he stopped to drink, and recited this verse, which he doubtless composed on the spot:—

They afterward put to sea, but before they hoisted the sail Thorhall again recited a verse : —

They then separated from Karlsefni, and sailed along the Marvel Strands ; but a storm carried them out into the Atlantic toward Ireland, where Thorhall lost his life.

Thorhall’s two verses are the first recorded poetry composed on American soil. Though they were not written down for several centuries after they were spoken, there is no reason to doubt their genuineness, or the fidelity of the tradition which transmitted them. They are curiosities of literature rather than valuable elements, but both for their age and their connection deservedly lay claim to recognition.

— It was a curious and delicate piece of work, exquisitely moulded and finished : the material was neither satin nor velvet, but some unpriced luxurious stuff, suitable for a goddess’ wear ; its color was a rosy pink, perhaps of the same tint that glowed in the cheek of its owner ; it had ribbon-like lace strings, and a grotesque ornament representing the large head and bulging eyes of a beetle. How this dainty slipper, or moccasin (some say slipper, some moccasin), came there by the path in the dark, cool woods was the first question of the saunterer to whom luck gave the prize. The slipper may have been either a “ right ” or a “ left ; ” it had no mate, — at least none was to be seen in that place; it was not lying on the ground, like something worn out and carelessly flung away, but was rather coquettishly perched on the top of a slender green wand, which now and then swayed slightly, as though to attract attention to so much beauty. Possibly the divinity to whom this elegant foot-gear belonged would soon be passing and would reclaim her own. Close examination discovered a hole in the toe, and still closer prying revealed the probable mischief-worker, a small bee or fly, leisurely wandering about the white - lined interior. Doubtless a drop of ambrosia, which he might have for the finding, was hidden somewhere in the depth of this slipper, — lady’s slipper, moccasin-flower, Cypripedium !