"I heard that a neighbor three miles off, had borrowed from a still more distant neighbor, a book of great interest. I started off, barefoot, in the snow, to obtain the treasure. There were spots of bare ground, upon which I would stop to warm my feet. And there were also, along the road, occasional lengths of log fence from which the snow had melted, and upon which it was a luxury to walk. The book was at home, and the good people consented, upon my promise that it should be neither torn nor soiled, to lend it to me. In returning with the prize, I was too happy to think of the snow on my naked feet."
This little incident, related by Thurlow Weed himself, is a sample of the means by which he gained that knowledge and power which made him not only the "Nestor of American Journalists," but rendered him famous in national affairs as the "American Warwick" or "The King Maker."
There were no long happy years of schooling for this child of the "common people," whose father was a struggling teamster and farmer; no prelude of careless, laughing childhood before the stern duties of life began.
Thurlow Weed was born at Catskill, Greene County, New York, in 1797, a period in the history of our republic when there were very few educational opportunities for the children of the poor. "I cannot ascertain," he says, "how much schooling I got at Catskill, probably less than a year, certainly not a year and a half, and this was when I was not more than five or six years old."
At an early age Thurlow learned to bend circumstances to his will and, ground by poverty, shut in by limitations as he was, even while contributing by his earning to the slender resources of the family, he gathered knowledge and pleasure where many would have found but thorns and bitterness.
How simply he tells his story, as though his hardships and struggles were of no account, and how clearly the narrative mirrors the brave little fellow of ten!
"My first employment," he says, "was in sugar making, an occupation to which I became much attached. I now look with great pleasure upon the days and nights passed in the sap-bush. The want of shoes (which, as the snow was deep, was no small privation) was the only drawback upon my happiness. I used, however, to tie pieces of an old rag carpet around my feet, and got along pretty well, chopping wood and gathering up sap."
During this period he traveled, barefoot, to borrow books, wherever they could be found among the neighboring farmers. With his body in the sugar house, and his head thrust out of doors, "where the fat pine was blazing," the young enthusiast devoured with breathless interest a "History of the French Revolution," and the few other well-worn volumes which had been loaned him.
Later, after he left the farm, we see the future journalist working successively as cabin boy and deck hand on a Hudson River steamboat, and cheerfully sending home the few dollars he earned. While employed in this capacity, he earned his first "quarter" in New York by carrying a trunk for one of the passengers from the boat to a hotel on Broad Street.
But his boyish ambition was to be a journalist, and, after a year of seafaring life, he found his niche in the office of a small weekly newspaper, the Lynx, published at Onondaga Hollow, New York.
So, at fourteen, owing to his indomitable will and perseverance, which conquered the most formidable obstacles, Thurlow Weed started on the career in which, despite the rugged road he still had to travel, he built up a noble character and won international fame.
It is February, 1492. A poor man, with gray hair, disheartened and dejected, is going out of the gate from the beautiful Alhambra, in Granada, on a mule. Ever since he was a boy, he has been haunted with the idea that the earth is round. He has believed that the pieces of carved wood, picked up four hundred miles at sea, and the bodies of two men, unlike any other human beings known, found on the shores of Portugal, have drifted from unknown lands in the west. But his last hope of obtaining aid for a voyage of discovery has failed. King John of Portugal, under pretense of helping him, has secretly sent out an expedition of his own. His friends have abandoned him; he has begged bread; has drawn maps to keep him from starving, and lost his wife; his friends have called him crazy, and have forsaken him. The council of wise men, called by Ferdinand and Isabella, ridicule his theory of reaching the east by sailing west. "But the sun and moon are round," replies Columbus, "why not the earth?" "If the earth is a ball, what holds it up?" the wise men ask. "What holds the sun and moon up?" Columbus replies.
A learned doctor asks, "How can men walk with their heads hanging down, and their feet up, like flies on a ceiling?" "How can trees grow with their roots in the air?" "The water would run out of the ponds, and we should fall off," says another. "The doctrine is contrary to the Bible, which says, 'The heavens are stretched out like a tent.'" "Of course it is flat; it is rank heresy to say it is round."
He has waited seven long years. He has had his last interview, hoping to get assistance from Ferdinand and Isabella after they drive the Moors out of Spain. Isabella was almost persuaded, but finally refused. He is now old, his last hope has fled; the ambition of his life has failed. He hears a voice calling him. He looks back and sees an old friend pursuing him on a horse, and beckoning him to come back. He saw Columbus turn away from the Alhambra, disheartened, and he hastens to the queen and tells her what a great thing it would be, at a trifling expense, if what the sailor believes should prove true. "It shall be done," Isabella replies. "I will pledge my jewels to raise the money; call him back." Columbus turns back, and with him turns the world.
Three frail vessels, little larger than fishing boats, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, set sail from Palos, August 3, 1492, for an unknown land, upon untried seas; the sailors would not volunteer, but were forced to go by the king. Friends ridiculed them for following a crazy man to certain destruction, for they believed the sea beyond the Canaries was boiling hot. "What if the earth is round?" they said, "and you sail down the other side, how can you get back again? Can ships sail up hill?"
Only three days out, the Pinto's signal of distress is flying; she has broken her rudder. September 8 they discover a broken mast covered with seaweed floating in the sea. Terror seizes the sailors, but Columbus calms their fears with pictures of gold and precious stones of India. September 13, two hundred miles west of the Canaries, Columbus is horrified to find that the compass, his only guide, is failing him, and no longer points to the north star. No one had yet dreamed that the earth turns on its axis. The sailors are ready for mutiny, but Columbus tells them the north star is not exactly in the north. October 1 they are two thousand three hundred miles from land, though Columbus tells the sailors one thousand seven hundred. Columbus discovers a bush in the sea, with berries on it, and soon they see birds and a piece of carved wood. At sunset, the crew kneel upon the deck and chant the vesper hymn. It is sixty-seven days since they left Palos, and they have sailed nearly three thousand miles, only changing their course once. At ten o'clock at night they see a light ahead, but it vanishes. Two o'clock in the morning, October 12, Roderigo de Friana, on watch at the masthead of the Pinta, shouts, "Land! land! land!" The sailors are wild with joy, and throw themselves on their knees before Columbus, and ask forgiveness. They reach the shore, and the hero of the world's greatest expedition unfolds the flag of Spain and takes possession of the new world. Perhaps no greater honor was ever paid man than Columbus received on his return to Ferdinand and Isabella. Yet, after his second visit to the land he discovered, he was taken back to Spain in chains, and finally died in poverty and neglect; while a pickle dealer of Seville, who had never risen above second mate, on a fishing vessel, Amerigo Vespucci, gave his name to the new world. Amerigo's name was put on an old chart or sketch to indicate the point of land where he landed, five years after Columbus discovered the country, and this crept into print by accident.
Opposite the entrance to the Sevres Museum in the old town of Sevres, in France, stands a handsome bronze statue of Bernard Palissy, the potter. Within the museum are some exquisite pieces of pottery known as "Palissy ware." They are specimens of the art of Palissy, who spent the best years of his life toiling to discover the mode of making white enamel.
The story of his trials and sufferings in seeking to learn the secret, and of his final triumph over all difficulties, is an inspiring one.
Born in the south of France, as far back as the year 1509, Bernard Palissy did not differ much from an intelligent, high-spirited American boy of the twentieth century. His parents were poor, and he had few of the advantages within the reach of the humblest child in the United States to-day. In spite of poverty, he was cheerful, light hearted, and happy in his great love for nature, which distinguished him all through life. The forest was his playground, his companions the birds, insects, and other living things that made their home there.
From the first, Nature was his chief teacher. It was from her, and her alone, he learned the lessons that in after years made him famous both as a potter and a scientist. The habit of observation seemed natural to him, for without suggestions from books or older heads, his eyes and ears noticed all that the nature student of our day is drilled into observing.
The free, outdoor life of the forest helped to give the boy the strength of mind and body which afterward enabled him, in spite of the most discouraging conditions, to pursue his ideal. He was taught how to read and write, and from his father learned how to paint on glass. From him he also learned the names and some of the properties of the minerals employed in painting glass. All the knowledge that in after years made him an artist, a scientist, and a writer, was the result of his unaided study of nature. To books he was indebted for only the smallest part of what he knew.
Happy and hopeful, sunshiny of face and disposition, Bernard grew from childhood to youth. Then, when he was about eighteen, there came into his heart a longing to try his fortune in the great world which lay beyond his forest home. Like most country-bred boys of his age, he felt that he had grown too large for the parent nest and must try his wings elsewhere. In his case there was, indeed, little to induce an ambitious boy to stay at home. The trade of glass painting, which in previous years had been a profitable one, had at that time fallen somewhat out of favor, and there was not enough work to keep father and son busy.
When he shouldered his scanty wallet and bade farewell to father and mother, and the few friends and neighbors he knew in the straggling forest hamlet, Bernard Palissy closed the first chapter of his life. The second was a long period of travel and self-education.
He wandered through the forest of Ardennes, making observations and collecting specimens of minerals, plants, reptiles, and insects. He spent some years in the upper Pyrenees, at Tarbes. From Antwerp in the east he bent his steps to Brest, in the most westerly part of Brittany, and from Montpellier to Nismes he traveled across France. During his wanderings he supported himself by painting on glass, portrait painting (which he practiced after a fashion), surveying, and planning sites for houses and gardens. In copying or inventing patterns for painted windows, he had acquired a knowledge of geometry and considerable skill in the use of a rule and compass. His love of knowledge for its own sake made him follow up the study of geometry, as far as he could pursue it, and hence his skill as a surveyor.
At this time young Palissy had no other object in life than to learn. His eager, inquiring mind was ever on the alert. Wherever his travels led him, he sought information of men and nature, always finding the latter his chief instructor. He painted and planned that he might live to probe her secrets. But the time was fast approaching when a new interest should come into his life and overshadow all others.
After ten or twelve years of travel, he married and settled in Saintes where he pursued, as his services were required, the work of glass painter and surveyor. Before long he grew dissatisfied with the dull routine of his daily life. He felt that he ought to do more than make a living for his wife and children. There were two babies now to be cared for as well as his wife, and he could not shoulder his wallet, as in the careless days of his boyhood, and wander away in search of knowledge or fortune.
About this time an event happened which changed his whole life. He was shown a beautiful cup of Italian manufacture. I give in his own words a description of the cup, and the effect the sight of it had on him. "An earthen cup," he says, "turned and enameled with so much beauty, that from that time I entered into controversy with my own thoughts, recalling to mind several suggestions that some people had made to me in fun, when I was painting portraits. Then, seeing that these were falling out of request in the country where I dwelt, and that glass painting was also little patronized, I began to think that if I should discover how to make enamels, I could make earthen vessels and other things very prettily, because God has gifted me with some knowledge of drawing."
His ambition was fired at once. A definite purpose formed itself in his mind. He knew nothing whatever of pottery. No man in France knew the secret of enameling, which made the Italian cup so beautiful, and Palissy had not the means to go to Italy, where he probably could have learned it. He resolved to study the nature and properties of clays, and not to rest until he had discovered the secret of the white enamel. Delightful visions filled his imagination. He thought within himself that he would become the prince of potters, and would provide his wife and children with all the luxuries that money could buy. "Thereafter," he wrote, "regardless of the fact that I had no knowledge of clays, I began to seek for the enamels as a man gropes in the dark."
Palissy was a young man when he began his search for the enamel; he was past middle life when his labors were finally rewarded. Groping like a man in the dark, as he himself said, he experimented for years with clays and chemicals, but with small success. He built with his own hands a furnace at the back of his little cottage in which to carry on his experiments. At first his enthusiasm inspired his wife and neighbors with the belief that he would succeed in his efforts. But time went on, and as one experiment after another failed or was only partially successful, one and all lost faith in him. He had no friend or helper to buoy him up under his many disappointments. Even his wife reproached him for neglecting his regular work and reducing herself and her children to poverty and want, while he wasted his time and strength in chasing a dream. His neighbors jeered at him as a madman, one who put his plain duty aside for the gratification of what seemed to their dull minds merely a whim. His poor wife could hardly be blamed for reproaching him. She could neither understand nor sympathize with his hopes and fears, while she knew that if he followed his trade, he could at least save his family from want. It was a trying time for both of them. But who ever heard tell of an artist, inventor, discoverer, or genius of any kind being deterred by poverty, abuse, ridicule, or obstacles of any kind from the pursuit of an ideal!
After many painful efforts, the poor glass painter had succeeded in producing a substance which he believed to be white enamel. He spread it on a number of earthenware pots which he had made, and placed them in his furnace. The extremities to which he was reduced to supply heat to the furnace are set forth in his own words: "Having," he says, "covered the new pieces with the said enamel, I put them into the furnace, still keeping the fire at its height; but thereupon occurred to me a new misfortune which caused great mortification, namely, that the wood having failed me, I was forced to burn the palings which maintained the boundaries of my garden; which being burnt also, I was forced to burn the tables and the flooring of my house, to cause the melting of the second composition. I suffered an anguish that I cannot speak, for I was quite exhausted and dried up by the heat of the furnace. Further, to console me, I was the object of mockery; and even those from whom solace was due ran crying through the town that I was burning my floors, and in this way my credit was taken from me, and I was regarded as a madman.
"Others said that I was laboring to make false money, which was a scandal under which I pined away, and slipped with bowed head through the streets like a man put to shame. No one gave me consolation, but, on the contrary, men jested at me, saying, 'It was right for him to die of hunger, seeing that he had left off following his trade!' All these things assailed my ears when I passed through the street; but for all that, there still remained some hope which encouraged and sustained me, inasmuch as the last trials had turned out tolerably well; and thereafter I thought that I knew enough to get my own living, although I was far enough from that (as you shall hear afterward)."
This latest experiment filled him with joy, for he had at last discovered the secret of the enamel. But there was yet much to be learned, and several years more of extreme poverty and suffering had to be endured before his labors were rewarded with complete success. But it came at last in overflowing measure, as it almost invariably does to those who are willing to work and suffer privation and persevere to the end.
His work as a potter brought Palissy fame and riches. At the invitation of Catherine de' Medici, wife of King Henry II of France, he removed to Paris. He established a workshop in the vicinity of the royal Palace of the Tuileries, and was thereafter known as "Bernard of the Tuileries." He was employed by the king and queen and some of the greatest nobles of France to embellish their palaces and gardens with the products of his beautiful art.
Notwithstanding his lack of schooling, Bernard Palissy was one of the most learned men of his day. He founded a Museum of Natural History, wrote valuable books on natural science, and for several years delivered lectures on the same subject. His lectures were attended by the most advanced scholars of Paris, who were astonished at the extent and accuracy of his knowledge of nature. But he was as modest as he was wise and good, and when people wondered at his learning, he would reply with the most unaffected simplicity, "I have had no other book than the sky and the earth, known to all."
No more touching story of success, in spite of great difficulties, than Bernard Palissy's has been written. It is bad to think that after the terrible trials which he endured for the sake of his art, his last years also should have been clouded by misfortune. During the civil war which raged in France between the Huguenots and the Catholics, he was, on account of his religious views, imprisoned in the Bastile, where he died in 1589, at the age of eighty.
"The loss of an hour," says the philosopher, Leibnitz, "is the loss of a part of life." This is a truth that has been appreciated by most men who have risen to distinction,—who have been world benefactors. The lives of those great moral heroes put to shame the laggard youth of to-day, who so often grumbles: "I have no time. If I didn't have to work all day, I could accomplish something. I could read and educate myself. But if a fellow has to grub away ten or twelve hours out of the twenty-four, what time is left to do anything for one's self?"
How much spare time had Elihu Burritt, "the youngest of many brethren," as he himself quaintly puts it, born in a humble home in New Britain, Connecticut, reared amid toil and poverty? Yet, during his father's long illness, and after his death, when Elihu was but a lad in his teens, with the family partially dependent upon the work of his hands, he found time,—if only a few moments,—at the end of a fourteen-hour day of labor, for his books.
While working at his trade as a blacksmith, he solved problems in arithmetic and algebra while his irons were heating. Over the forge also appeared a Latin grammar and a Greek lexicon; and, while with sturdy blows the ambitious youth of sixteen shaped the iron on the anvil, he fixed in his mind conjugations and declensions.
How did this man, born nearly a century ago, possessing none of the advantages within reach of the poorest and humblest boy of to-day, become one of the brightest ornaments in the world of letters, a leader in the reform movements of his generation?
Apparently no more talented than his nine brothers and sisters, by improving every opportunity he could wring from a youth of unremitting toil, his love for knowledge grew with what it fed upon, and carried him to undreamed-of heights. In palaces and council halls, the words of the "Learned Blacksmith" were listened to with the closest attention and deference.
Read the life of Elihu Burritt, and you will be ashamed to grumble that you have no time—no chance for self-improvement.
"Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again! I hold to you the hands you first beheld, to show they still are free. Methinks I hear a spirit in your echoes answer me, and bid your tenant welcome to his home again! O sacred forms, how proud you look! how high you lift your heads into the sky! how huge you are, how mighty, and how free! Ye are the things that tower, that shine; whose smile makes glad—whose frown is terrible; whose forms, robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear of awe divine. Ye guards of liberty, I'm with you once again! I call to you with all my voice! I hold my hands to you to show they still are free. I rush to you as though I could embrace you!"
What schoolboy or schoolgirl is not familiar with those stirring lines from "William Tell's Address to His Native Mountains," by J. M. Knowles? And the story of William Tell,—is it not dear to every heart that loves liberty? Though modern history declares it to be purely mythical, its popularity remains unaffected. It will live forever in the traditions of Switzerland, dear to the hearts of her people as their native mountains, and even more full of interest to the stranger than authentic history.
"His image [Tell's]," says Lamartine, "with those of his wife and children, are inseparably connected with the majestic, rural, and smiling landscapes of Helvetia, the modern Arcadia of Europe. As often as the traveler visits these peculiar regions; as often as the unconquered summits of Mont Blanc, St. Gothard, and the Rigi, present themselves to his eyes in the vast firmament as the ever-enduring symbols of liberty; whenever the lake of the Four Cantons presents a vessel wavering on the blue surface of its waters; whenever the cascade bursts in thunder from the heights of the Splugen, and shivers itself upon the rocks like tyranny against free hearts; whenever the ruins of an Austrian fortress darken with the remains of frowning walls the round eminences of Uri or Claris; and whenever a calm sunbeam gilds on the declivity of a village the green velvet of the meadows where the herds are feeding to the tinkling of bells and the echo of the Ranz des Vaches—so often the imagination traces in all these varied scenes the hat on the summit of the pole—the archer condemned to aim at the apple placed on the head of his own child—the mark hurled to the ground, transfixed by the unerring arrow—the father chained to the bottom of the boat, subduing night, the storm, and his own indignation, to save his executioner—and finally, the outraged husband, threatened with the loss of all he holds most dear, yielding to the impulse of nature, and in his turn striking the murderer with a deathblow."
The story which tradition hands down as the origin of the freedom of Switzerland dates back to the beginning of the fourteenth century. At that time Switzerland was under the sovereignty of the emperor of Germany, who ruled over Central Europe. Count Rudolph of Hapsburg, a Swiss by birth, who had been elected to the imperial throne in 1273, made some efforts to save his countrymen from the oppression of a foreign yoke. His son, Albert, Archduke of Austria, who succeeded him in 1298, inherited none of his sympathies for Switzerland. On his accession to the throne Albert resolved to curtail the liberties still enjoyed by the inhabitants of some of the cantons, and to bend the whole of the Swiss people to his will.
The mountaineers of the cantons of Schwytz, Uri, and Unterwalden recognized no authority but that of the emperor; while the peasants of the neighboring valleys were at the mercy of local tyrants—the great nobles and their allies.
In order to carry out his project of subjecting all to the same yoke, Albert of Austria appointed governors to rule over the semi-free provinces or cantons. These governors, who bore the official title of Bailiffs of the Emperor, exercised absolute authority over the people. Men, women, and children were at their mercy, and were treated as mere chattels—the property of their rulers. Insult and outrage were heaped upon them until their lives became almost unendurable.
An instance of the manner in which these petty tyrants used their authority is related of the bailiff Landenberg, who ruled over Unterwalden.
For some trumped-up offense of which a young peasant, named Arnold of Melcthal, was accused, his oxen were confiscated by Landenberg. The deputy sent to seize the animals, which Landenberg really coveted for his own, said sneeringly to Arnold, "If peasants wish for bread, they must draw the plow themselves." Roused to fury by this taunt, Arnold attempted to resist the seizure of his property, and in so doing broke an arm of one of the deputy's men. He then fled to the mountains; but he could not hide himself from the vengeance of Landenberg. The peasant's aged father was arrested by order of the bailiff, and his eyes put out in punishment for his son's offense. "That puncture," says an old chronicler, "went so deep into many a heart that numbers resolved to die rather than leave it unrequited."
But the crudest and most vindictive of the Austrian or German bailiffs, as they were interchangeably called, was one Hermann Gessler. He had built himself a fortress, which he called "Uri's Restraint," and there he felt secure from all attacks.
This man was the terror of the whole district. His name was a synonym for all that was base, brutal, and tyrannical. Neither the property, the lives, nor the honor of the people were respected by him. His hatred and contempt for the peasants were so great that the least semblance of prosperity among them aroused his ire.
One day while riding with an armed escort through the canton of Schwytz, he noticed a comfortable-looking dwelling which was being built by one Werner Stauffacher. Turning to his followers, he cried, "Is it not shameful that miserable serfs like these should be permitted to build such houses when huts would be too good for them?" "Let this be finished," said his chief attendant; "we shall then sculpture over the gate the arms of the emperor, and a little time will show whether the builder has the audacity to dispute possession with us." The answer pleased Gessler, who replied, "Thou art right," and, planning future vengeance, he passed on with his escort.
The wife of Stauffacher, who had been standing near the new building, but concealed from Gessler and his men, heard the conversation, and reported it to her husband. The latter, filled with indignation, without uttering a word, arose and started for the home of his father-in-law, Walter Furst, in the village of Attinghaussen.
On his arrival Staffaucher was cordially welcomed by his father-in-law, who placed refreshments before him, and waited for him to explain the object of his visit. Pushing aside the food, he said, "I have made a vow never again to taste wine or swallow meat until we cease to be slaves." Stauffacher then related what had happened. Furst's anger was kindled by the recital. Both men were roused to such a pitch that they resolved, then and there, to free themselves and their countrymen from the chains which bound them, or die in the attempt. They conversed far into the night, making plans for the gaining of national independence. Then they sought out in his hiding-place Arnold of Melchthal, the young peasant whom Landenberg had so cruelly persecuted. In him they found, as they expected, an ardent supporter of their plans.
The three conspirators, Stauffacher, Furst, and Melchthal, represented different cantons; one belonging to Schwytz, another to Uri, and the third to Unterwalden. They hoped to form a league and unite the three cantons against the power of Austria. In pursuance of their plans, each pledged himself to select from among the most persecuted and the most daring in their respective cantons ten others to join them in the cause of liberty.
On the night of November 7, or 17 (the date is variously given), in the year 1307, the confederates met together in a secluded mountain spot called Rutli. There they bound themselves by an oath, the terms of which embodied their purpose: "We swear in the presence of God, before whom kings and people are equal, to live or die for our fellow-countrymen; to undertake and sustain all in common; neither to suffer injustice nor to commit injury; to respect the rights and property of the Count of Hapsburg; to do no violence to the imperial bailiffs, but to put an end to their tyranny." They fixed upon January 1, 1308, as the day for a general uprising.
Events were gradually shaping themselves for the appearance of William Tell on the scene. Up to this time his name does not appear in the annals of his country. The bold peasant of Uri was so little prominent among his countrymen that, according to some versions of the legend, although a son-in-law of Walter Furst, he had not been chosen among the thirty conspirators summoned to the meeting at Rutli. This, however, is contradicted by another, which asserts that he was "one of the oath-bound men of Rutli."
The various divergences in the different versions of the legend do not affect its main features, on which all the chroniclers are agreed. It was the crowning insult to his country which indisputably brought Tell into prominence and made his name forever famous.
Gessler's hatred of the people daily increased, and was constantly showing itself in every form of petty tyranny that a mean and wicked nature could devise. He noticed the growing discontent among the peasantry, but instead of trying to allay it, he determined to humiliate them still more. For this purpose he had a pole, surmounted by the ducal cap of Austria, erected in the market square of the village of Altdorf, and issued a command that all who passed it should bow before the symbol of imperial rule. Guards were placed by the pole with orders to make prisoners of all who refused to pay homage to the ducal cap.
William Tell, a bold hunter and skillful boatman of Uri, passing by one day, with his little son, Walter, refused to bend his knee before the symbol of foreign oppression. He was seized at once by the guards and carried before the bailiff.
There is considerable contradiction at this point as to whether Tell was at once carried before the bailiff or bound to the pole, where he remained, guarded by the soldiers, until the bailiff, returning the same day from a hunting expedition, appeared upon the scene. Schiller, in his drama of "William Tell," adopts the latter version of the story.
According to the drama, Tell is represented as being bound to the pole. In a short time he is surrounded by friends and neighbors. Among them are his father-in-law, Walter Furst, Werner Stauffacher, and Arnold of Melchthal. They advance to rescue the prisoner. The guards cry in a loud voice: "Revolt! Rebellion! Treason! Sedition! Help! Protect the agents of the law!"
Gessler and his party hear the cries, and rush to the support of the guards. Gessler cries in a loud authoritative voice: "Wherefore is this assembly of people? Who called for help? What does all this mean? I demand to know the cause of this!"
Then, addressing himself particularly to one of the guards and pointing to Tell, he says: "Stand forward! Who art thou, and why dost thou hold that man a prisoner?"
"Most mighty lord," replies the guard, "I am one of your soldiers placed here as a sentinel over that hat. I seized this man in the act of disobedience, for refusing to salute it. I was about to carry him to prison in compliance with your orders, and the populace were preparing to rescue him by force."
After questioning Tell, whose answers are not satisfactory, the bailiff pronounces sentence upon him. The sentence is that he shall shoot at an apple placed on the head of his little son, Walter, and if he fails to hit the mark he shall die.
"My lord," cries the agonized parent; "what horrible command is this you lay upon me? What! aim at a mark placed on the head of my dear child? No, no, it is impossible that such a thought could enter your imagination. In the name of the God of mercy, you cannot seriously impose that trial on a father."
"Thou shalt aim at an apple placed on the head of thy son. I will and I command it," repeats the tyrant.
"I! William Tell! aim with my own crossbow at the head of my own offspring! I would rather die a thousand deaths."
"Thou shall shoot, or assuredly thou diest with thy son!"
"Become the murderer of my child! My lord, you have no son—you cannot have the feelings of a father's heart!"
Gessler's friends interfere in behalf of the unhappy father, and plead for mercy. But all appeal is in vain. The tyrant is determined on carrying out his sentence.
The father and son are placed at a distance of eighty paces apart. An apple is placed on the boy's head, and the father is commanded to hit the mark. He hesitates and trembles.
"Why dost thou hesitate?" questions his persecutor. "Thou hast deserved death, and I could compel thee to undergo the punishment; but in my clemency I place thy fate in thy own skillful hands. He who is the master of his destiny cannot complain that his sentence is a severe one. Thou art proud of thy steady eye and unerring aim; now, hunter, is the moment to prove thy skill. The object is worthy of thee—the prize is worth contending for. To strike the center of a target is an ordinary achievement; but the true master of his art is he who is always certain, and whose heart, hand, and eye are firm and steady under every trial."
At length Tell nerves himself for the ordeal, raises his bow, and takes aim at the target on his son's head. Before firing, however, he concealed a second arrow under his vest. His movement did not escape Gessler's notice.
The marksman fires. The apple falls from his boy's head, cleft in twain by the arrow.
Even Gessler is loud in his admiration of Tell's skill. "By heaven," he cries, "he has clove the apple exactly in the center. Let us do justice; it is indeed a masterpiece of skill."
Tell's friends congratulate him. He is about to set out for his home with the child who has been saved to him from the very jaws of death as it were. But Gessler stays him.
"Thou hast concealed a second arrow in thy bosom," he says, sternly addressing Tell. "What didst thou intend to do with it?" Tell replies that such is the custom of all hunters.
Gessler is not satisfied and urges him to confess his real motive. "Speak truly and frankly," he says; "say what thou wilt, I promise thee thy life. To what purpose didst thou destine the second arrow?"
Tell can no longer restrain his indignation, and, fixing his eyes steadily on Gessler, he answers "Well then, my lord, since you assure my life, I will speak the truth without reserve. If I had struck my beloved child, with the second arrow I would have transpierced thy heart. Assuredly that time I should not have missed my mark."
"Villain!" exclaims Gessler, "I have promised thee life upon my knightly word; I will keep my pledge. But since I know thee now, and thy rebellious heart, I will remove thee to a place where thou shalt never more behold the light of sun or moon. Thus only shall I be sheltered from thy arrows."
He orders the guards to seize and bind Tell, saying, "I will myself at once conduct him to Kussnacht."
The fortress of Kussnacht was situated on the summit of Mount Rigi between Lake Lucerne, or the Lake of the Four Cantons as it is sometimes called, and Lake Zug. It was reached by crossing Lake Lucerne.
The prisoner was placed bound in the bottom of a boat, and with his guards, the rowers, an inexperienced pilot, and Gessler in command, the boat was headed for Kussnacht.
When about halfway across the lake a sudden and violent storm overwhelmed the party. They were in peril of their lives. The rowers and pilot were panic-stricken, and powerless in face of the danger that threatened them.
Tell's fame as a boatman was as widespread as that of his skill as an archer. The rowers cried aloud in their terror that he was the only man in Switzerland that could save them from death. Gessler immediately commanded him to be released from his bonds and given the helm.
Tell succeeded in guiding the vessel to the shore. Then seizing his bow and arrows, which his captors had thrown beside him, he sprang ashore at a point known as "Tell's Leap." The boat, rebounding, after he leaped from it was again driven out on the lake before any of the remainder of its occupants could effect a landing. After a time, however, the fury of the storm abated, and they reached the shore in safety.
In the meantime Tell had concealed himself in a defile in the mountain through which Gessler would have to pass on his way to Kussnacht. There he lay in wait for his persecutor who followed in hot pursuit.
Vowing vengeance as he went, Gessler declared that if the fugitive did not give himself up to justice, every day that passed by should cost him the life of his wife or one of his children. While the tyrant was yet speaking, an arrow shot by an unerring hand pierced his heart. Tell had taken vengeance into his own hands.
The death of Gessler was the signal for a general uprising. The oath-bound men of Rutli saw that this was their great opportunity. They called to their countrymen to follow them to freedom or death.
Gessler's crowning act of tyranny—his inhuman punishment of Tell—had roused the spirit of rebellion in the hearts of even the meekest and most submissive of the peasants. Gladly, then, did they respond to the call of the leaders of the insurrection.
The legend says that on New Year's Eve, 1308, Stauffacher, with a chosen band of followers, climbed the mountain which led to Landenberg's fortress castle of Rotzberg. There they were assisted by an inmate of the castle, a young girl whose lover was among the rebels. She threw a rope out of one of the windows of the castle, and by it her countrymen climbed one after another into the castle. They seized the bailiff, Landenberg, and confined him in one of the dungeons of his own castle. Next day the conspirators were reinforced by another party who gained entrance to the castle by means of a clever ruse. Landenberg and his men were given their freedom by the peasants on condition that they would quit Switzerland forever.
The castle of Uri was attacked and taken possession of by Walter Furst and William Tell, while other strongholds were captured by Arnold of Melchthal and his associates.
Bonfires blazed all over the country. The dawn of Switzerland's freedom had appeared. The reign of tyranny was doomed. William Tell was the hero of the hour, and ever since his name has been enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen as the watchword of their liberties. Even to this day, as history tells us, the Swiss peasant cherishes the belief that "Tell and the three men of Rutli are asleep in the mountains, but will awake to the rescue of their land should tyranny ever again enchain it."
Lamartine, to whose story of William Tell the writer is indebted, commenting on the legend says: "The artlessness of this history resembles a poem; it is a pastoral song in which a single drop of blood is mingled with the dew upon a leaf or a tuft of grass. Providence seems thus to delight in providing for every free community, as the founder of their independence, a fabulous or actual hero, conformable to the local situation, manners, and character of each particular race. To a rustic, pastoral people, like the Swiss, is given for their liberator a noble peasant; to a proud, aspiring race, such as the Americans, an honest soldier. Two distinct symbols, standing erect by the cradles of the two modern liberties of the world to personify their opposite natures: on the one hand Tell, with his arrow and the apple; on the other, Washington, with his sword and the law."
When the current serves, the unseen monitor that directs our affairs bids us step aboard our craft, and, with hand firmly grasping the helm, steer boldly for the distant goal.
Philip D. Armour, the open-handed, large-hearted merchant prince, who has left a standing memorial to his benevolence in the Armour Institute at Chicago, heard the call to put to sea when in his teens.
It came during the gold fever, which raged with such intensity from 1849 to 1851, when the wildest stories were afloat of the treasures that were daily being dug out of the earth in California. The brain of the sturdy youth, whose Scotch and Puritan blood tingled for some broader field than the village store and his father's farm in Stockbridge, New York, was haunted by the tales of adventure and fortune wafted across the continent from the new El Dorado. "I brooded over the difference," he says, "between tossing hay in the hot sun and digging gold by handfuls, until, one day, I threw down the pitchfork, went to the house, and told mother that I had quit that kind of work."
Armour was nineteen years old when he determined to seek his fortune in California. His determination once formed, he lost no time in carrying it out. As much of the journey across the plains was to be made on foot, he first provided himself with a pair of stout boots. Then he packed his extra clothing in an old carpetbag, and with a light heart bade his family good-by.
He had induced a young friend, Calvin Gilbert, to accompany him in his search for fortune. The two youths joined the motley crowd of adventurers who were flocking from all quarters to the Land of Promise, and set out on their journey.
Tramping over the plains, crossing rivers in tow-boats and ferryboats, and riding in trains and on wagons when they could, the adventurers, after many weary months, reached their destination. During the journey young Armour became sick, but was tenderly nursed back to health by his companion.
"I had scarcely any money when I arrived at the gold fields," said Armour, "but I struck right out and found a place where I could dig, and in a little time I struck pay dirt."
He entered into partnership with a Mr. Croarkin, and, with characteristic energy, kept digging and taking his turn at the rude housekeeping in the shanty which he and his partner shared. "Croarkin would cook one week," he says, "and I the next, and we would have a clean-up Sunday morning We baked our own bread, and kept a few hens, too, which supplied us with fresh eggs."
The young gold hunter, however, did not find nuggets as "plentiful as blackberries," but he found within himself that which led him to a bonanza far exceeding his wildest dreams of "finds" in the gold fields.
He discovered his business ability; he learned how to economize, how to rely upon himself, even to the extent of baking his own bread.