Colvin steps in with vim

Sidney Colvin, as we know, acted as editor of Stevenson’s works while he was in the South Seas and then after his death. It is a curious human frailty to regard our own point-of-view as having a higher status than that of others, and Colvin was no less human in this respect than any of the rest of us. It is not often, however, that we have an example of his feeling of being right pursued to the extent illustrated below.

Talk and Talkers

In ‘Talk and Talkers’ (1882) Stevenson, in a kaleidoscopic sequence of similes, brilliantly characterizes (and imitates) the conversational style of his cousin Bob:

He doubles like the serpent, changes and flashes like the shaken kaleidoscope, transmigrates bodily into the views of others, and so, in the twinkling of an eye and with a heady rapture, turns questions inside out and flings them empty before you on the ground, like a triumphant conjuror. [...] I can fancy nothing to compare with the vim of these impersonations

After the essay was reprinted in Memories and Portraits in 1887, Colvin wrote to Stevenson, taking him to task for his Latin:

in another essay you have ‘with or by his vim‘, where equally of course it ought if anything to be vi, not objective but ablative. But the rule is that when you borrow a Latin word in an English sentence that way, you don’t decline it at all, but treat it like an English word, content yourself with the nominative for all cases alike, [...] vis.

To this RLS replied (L6, 86; 24 Dec 1887):

vim is a good Scottish at least – if not (as I am tempted to think) a good English word; never a thought of Latin was in my mind; I used a current and a very general and definite colloquialism. Thank you for your explanations.

Edinburgh Edition

Despite that dismissal (‘Thank you for your explanations…’), Colvin was clearly not happy about ‘vim’ and in preparing the essay for publication in the first volume of the Edinburgh Edition he felt this and a series of other things ought to be changed. He either sent proofs or a series of points to RLS , to which RLS replied in early November 1894, clearly irritated at the liberties Colvin was taking  (L8, 384). Interestingly, two passages of Stevenson’s comments about Colvin’s changes, amounting to over seventy words, have been actually cut out of the letter. (Who could have done this? One suspects of course that it was Colvin himself, erasing Stevenson’s objections from the record.) What remains includes the following:

always make a reference to me before correcting. I should say as to vim that it is a word always used in my family — and I suspect always used in Scotland — and is in consequence familiar and dear to my ears. Whether or not I shall be pleased with the substitution of vigour I cannot tell, not having the context before me.

Unfortunately, volume I of the Edinburgh Edition was published later that same month, undoubtedly before this letter could reach Colvin, so we don’t know if he would have made any changes as a result. The word printed in the essay there is ‘vigour’. (However, in the 1924 Tusitala edition it is once more ‘vim’; perhaps Colvin had a part in restoring it.)

vim

Incidentally, the OED (in a fascicule published in 1917) says the word is ‘originally US’ and takes the side of RLS as to its non-Latin origin: ‘Commonly regarded as from Latin vim, accusative singular of vis strength, energy; but the early adverbial use [...] suggests a purely imitative or interjectional origin.’

Citations start from the Yale Literary Review 1850 (where it seems to be presented as a Latin word), then two citations from Odd Leaves from the Life of a Louisiana “Swamp Doctor” (1850), and N.Y Herald (1875).

Google Advanced Book Search, however, reveals a use in 1876 in The Life of a Scottish Probationer by James Brown, Minister of St. James’s church, Paisley (the fiddler ‘whacked off’ a series of Irish dance tunes ‘with inconceivable vim and vigour’), the first UK use found so far, which suggests that the word may have been adopted early in Scotland — or even that it had an unrecorded history in Scotland before being taken across the Atlantic. (It is not in the online SND, however.) Indeed RLS’s comment (‘vim [...] is a word always used in my family [...] and is in consequence familiar and dear to my ears’) strongly suggests that he heard it in Edinburgh in the 1850s and 60s.

Charles Baxter returns home with Manuscripts from Vailima

The following post is from Gill Hughes, editor of the EdRLS volume of Weir of Hermiston, (with contributions from Glenda Norquay and Richard Dury)

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Charles Baxter travelled to take the first two volumes of the Edinburgh Edition to his old friend but arrived too late, on 31 January 1895. He then stayed a couple of months at Vailima going through Stevenson’s literary papers before travelling back via San Francisco. In Chicago he agreed to be interviewed by a local newspaper reporter; as this interview seemed to be of interest for the story of the publication of Weir of Hermiston and St. Ives, my daughter Rachel Sweet very kindly looked up the number in the Chicago Public Library and has sent me the transcription printed below.

One thing that puzzles me is that, from letters I saw at the Beinecke, Fanny and Lloyd seem to have been offended by something Baxter had said to newspapers in Chicago but I can’t see anything in this to offend them (though Andrew Lang certainly would not have been too happy about it, had he seen it).

Has anybody any ideas? Is it simply that Baxter is putting himself prominently as the person to get Stevenson’s work published and an Edinburgh memorial arranged, rather than the widow and step-son perhaps?

Belle’s sketch of RLS giving Austin a history lesson

Another point of interest is the ‘series of history letters written to his small friend, Austen [Austin] Strong’, which Baxter expects will be published by the Youth’s Companion (though someone in England claims some right to publish them—if that is the meaning of ‘England, selfish as usual, wants it badly’; possibly ‘England’ is less amenable to the auctioning of Stevenson’s works, a practice which Baxter favoured — at the same time perhaps Baxter was trying with this comment to encourage the Youth’s Companion to offer a good price).

At least one of the history lessons exists, probably the first of the series, in the Huntington Library (HM 2393; it starts “The study of history is to learn how the world has moved and changed in former ages—how men have come together and separated and wandered”).

The Youth’s Companion was published by N. Willis of Boston between 1871 and 1929. There must be some chance that Baxter did indeed place the MSS with this periodical. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to locate a library with a collection that covers a likely period (say, 1895-97). There is an Index to the Youth’s Companion, 1871-1929, 2 vols (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1972), but I haven’t been able to locate that either.

Does any reader of this blog happen to know of a library that has either the magazines or the index?

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[From Chicago Evening Post, 25 April 1895]

LEFT BY STEVENSON.

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Charles Baxter Here with Several Valuable Manuscripts.

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SOME UNFINISHED STORIES.

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The Writer’s Literary Executor Talks of Other English Poets—First Editions of Lang.

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Charles Baxter, W. S. of Edinburgh and London, has arrived in Chicago from San Francisco.

“I am, or, I am sorry to say, was, the life-long friend and legal and literary agent of Robert Louis Stevenson,” said Mr. Baxter today to a reporter for THE EVENING POST. “On Dec. 7, in fulfillment of an old promise, I left London to pay him a visit at Brindisi. [should be '...visit. At Brindisi...'] I received a letter full of joyous anticipation of our meeting. At Port Said three cablegrams told me that he was dead. From what I now know I believe the terrible blank to me has been felt as a terrible blank by the civilized world. The French literary men especially have mourned his loss. I remained two months at his home in Samoa. As his executor, appointed along with Henry James, Jr., the novelist, who felt unable to act, I have been able to arrange his affairs. His family was kindness personified. I am now on my way back to his, and my, old country.

“Yes, I am taking with me several unpublished works, the first of which will be “The Vailima Letters,” being a species of diary sent monthly to his best friend, Sidney Colvin, keeper of the prints in the British Museum. Mr. Colvin introduced Stevenson to the world of letters and has ever since been his warmest admirer, severest critic and truest friend. Great competition has taken place for this book. It will appear in book form only, in England and America.

Two Uncompleted Works.

“Then I have “St. Ives,” which wants two chapters of completion. These explain the plot, but we shall leave the explanation, which is known only to one living person, as an exercise for the ingenuity of future readers. A splendid fragment (about 50,000 words), complete in itself, will be published as the first episode of what was to be his masterpiece, “Weir of Hermiston.” “The Great North Road” is a minor tale, of romantic interest, comprising about 15,000 words. A small volume of “Fables,” long ago contracted for, goes to the Longmans of London. And a charming little series of history letters written to his small friend, Austen Strong, suitable for children, will, I expect, be published by the Youth’s Companion. That is, if we arrange terms. England, selfish as usual, wants it badly.

“Stevenson’s biography will be written by Sidney Colvin, and I know he will approve of my saying that any letters of interest written to persons in the United States will be thankfully received and acknowledged by him and carefully returned. Certified type-written copies will do equally well.”

“Now, Mr. Baxter, as to your own future movements?”

“I go to-night to New York, and thence straight to Washington.”

“What about Samoan politics?”

“I decline to discuss politics.”

Mr. Stevenson’s Successors.

“Is there any successor to Stevenson as a stylist in English letters?”

“In prose—no. In verse, in which he was conscious he took but a secondary place, I will name three—Gosse, Andrew Lang, LL.D., and William Ernest Henley, LL.D., [this doctorate is a mistake of the journalist's] all intimate friends of Stevenson. Dr. Henley is masculine and vigorous, full of new thought and invention in rhythm. He introduced the lighter French forms of verse into our country about eighteen years ago. He has had many imitators—few successful. He is my intimate friend. I reckon Poet Henley will live fifty years.

“Gosse is refined, cultivated, tuneful and sings a sweet note; but sometimes he recalls the voice of a past or present songster. He will live twenty-five years. Dr. Lang is the most curious problem of all. Industrious to a miracle, he envelops the world of broadsheets in that which looks like thought, but, as far as I can make out, is simply the result of an incredible memory. Not dull, not smart, far from a dolt, equally far from a genius, he, like a once famous rivulet, goes on forever. It was but last night I heard it complained that the English-written journal was being assimilated by Dr. Lang, and this, mind you, all over the world. His ‘first editions’ are innumerable. But now I am tired so I must really go to my friends, so you will excuse me. Before I go, however, let me give you one little sketch from real life.

“About six months ago I was travelling in the evening by a suburban train in the near neighborhood of London. A little vulgar man, with a large head and a sad eye, sat opposite. The carriage was what we call in England third-class. I was reading the first number of the ‘New Review,’ in which I held some very valuable 7 per cent preferred shares credited by my friend, W. E. Henley: I recommend them as an investment to some of your capitalists.

“ ‘You are literary, sir?’ said he, with a gasp. ‘I can read and write, but not spell,’ said I, severely. ‘Like first editions?’ said he. ‘That depends,’ said I, to cut him short. ‘Will you look at some of mine?’ he urged. ‘All right,’ I replied. The train stopped, and, seizing my arm, he rushed me down a dim village street, through a small grocer’s shop, into a back parlor, lined with shelves, each one of which was crowded with books. ‘Well, my man, what’s all this?’ I asked, really somewhat taken aback. ‘Every one of ‘em Andrew Lang’s first editions,’ he whispered, gazing at me with wide-pupiled eyes.

Andrew Lang’s First Editions.

“Then I realised the sorrow and the haunted look of my little grocer, but presence of mind came. ‘How much?’ said I ina low tone. ‘Two and sixpence per volume, taken by the load; dirt cheap,eh?’ says he anxiously. ‘Yes,’ I replied emphatically, ‘a magnificent investment. Take good heart. In five years they will be worth only one shilling and sixpence. Do not despair! Tie them up for 100 years. Your great-great-grand-children will then be lord mayors, marquises or earls and these will be priceless, because unique, the only known examples of Poet Andrew Lang.’

“Thank God, sir; thank God. Tell the wife that! She’ll be kinder, I think! What may I offer you to—’ ‘Nothing, man! In the name of heaven.” and I fled through the little shop, up the terrace, under the great railway bridge, and at last, alone, I sat me down and sighed beside the great moaning river and mused for hours on the futility of human aspiration.”

Mr. Baxter, with a cheery nod, remarking he was getting thirsty once more, left.

“By the way,” he shouted merrily as he passed up the pretty staircase of the Victoria. “I am just cabling Major Pound, in New York, to arrange a meeting of a few Scotsmen and women to hear me read Stevenson’s Scots poems in the vernacular, several addressed to me. Proceeds to put up a memorial in Edinburgh. I think it a good idea. What do you say? Good-by.”

Stevenson’s Fables MS: change of mind over a name

The following post is contributed by Bill Gray, editor of the EdRLS volume including Stevenson’s Fables.

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The name of the young man in ‘The Yellow Paint’

In Stevenson’s fable of the infinitely postponed benefits of the miraculous yellow paint, the young man on whose sad history the fable focuses has no name. However, in the BL MS he is named on four occasions, though each time the name is subsequently deleted. On two occasions (in paragraphs 2 and 3) the name looks definitely like ‘Ben Israel’:

[d]Ben Israel[/d] [i]the young man was carried[/i] on a stretcher

[d]cried Ben Israel[/d] [i]he cried, as soon as[/]

On two earlier occasions (in paragraph 1) it could be ‘Ben Israel’, a second choice after what looks like ‘Brown’:

[i]the same city[/i] a young man [d]of the name of Brown{?} [i]Ben Israel{?}[/i][/d]

shook [d]Brown[/d] [i][d]Benisrael{?}[/d] the other to the soul[/i];

Clearly RLS first thought of Brown, a common name suitable for an anecdote or fable, then in paragraph two (for some reason) decided to use Ben Israel and made necessary changes in the first paragraph. However, by the time he got to paragraph four he had decided on ‘the young man’ and went back to change the earlier references.

Why ‘Ben Israel’?

‘Ben’ and ‘Israel’ are names RLS uses in Treasure Island; but the name ‘Ben Israel’ would be well-known to Stevenson as the name of the rabbi Nathan Ben Israel in ch. 35 of Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (1820),  as a rabbi in part VIII of Longfellow’s The Golden Legend (1851), and as a historical figure, seventeenth-century scholar and printer Menasseh Ben Israel in one or all of his roles as  teacher of Spinoza, correspondent to Oliver Cromwell, and Biblical commentator.

The name has also been found (via Google Advance Book Search and archive.org) in various other works: a ‘Jewish Prince’ in seventeenth-century London in a play by Edward William Tullidge Ben Israel: Or, From Under the Curse (Salt Lake City, 1887); a rabbi in Jospeph Holt Ingraham’s The Prince of the House of David (New York, 1881); a rich philanthropist in Blanchard Jerrold’s The Christian Vagabond (London, 1873); even in a list of typical annoying charity projects in a humorous article in Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine for 1847 (p. 29): ‘righteous raffles, to raise sisterly aid for the Reverend Israel Ben Israel’.

It is curious that in all these cases we are dealing with a rabbi, a rich man or a prince. Can any reader explain this association of the name with such roles? Would then RLS’s original choice of name have had a mischievous aim of confusingly associating the feckless ‘young man’ with a name associated with dignity and learning? (As if, for example, he had been called David Hume…) How would this have changed the fable?

Bill Gray

Stevenson and painting / 2

We saw in an earlier post that RLS was so struck by a painting by Manet that he probably contemplated spending all the money he had in order to buy it. We know that he was very impressed by Millet’s Realist Homme à la houe when he saw it in an etching (L4: 62, 72). Another and very different painter that interested him (or who at least he defended) was James Tissot.

James Tissot criticized by Colvin

Sidney Colvin’s review of paintings at ‘The Grosvenor Gallery’ was published in the Fortnightly Review  21 No. 126 (June 1877), pp. 820-33. In this (p. 830) he criticized two recent paintings by Tissot:

Returning to foreign contributors, we have in M. Tissot another craftsman of astonishing industry and cleverness, and a realist who, instead of adding a grace to nature, takes a grace away. In pictures like the group of cricketers and ladies beside the water under a horse-chestnut ['Holiday'], and the naval lieutenant  and ladies on the gallery of a ship of war [‘The Gallery of H.M.S. Calcutta’], the rendering of material facts, is simply masterly; the types and sentiment simply debased and odious. To this mean view of human nature, M. Tissot adds in some of his pictures a trick of Alma-Tadema’s, of crotchety and sensational composition, of showing the world from unnecessary slits and corners.

Here are the two paintings referred to:

Colvin was not alone in disliking Tissot’s apparent lack of seriousness. In 1878 W.H. Mallock refers to his ‘tours de force with a brush and a paint pot’ and adds

I think Tissot is the worst and most meaningless of all. I suppose his is what Ruskin would call contemplative art. And what are the highest things of which M. Tissot is contemplative? A girl’s ankles, the high heels of her shoes, the frills of a fashionable petticoat, and the amount of back that she can show through muslin, between her stays and her neckline’ (‘A Familiar Colloquy’, Nineteenth Century 4:18 (Aug. 1878), p. 291).

Yet this was an artist influenced by japonisme, befriended by Degas, Manet and Whistler and invited by Degas to take part in the first Impressionist exhibition (an invitation he didn’t accept). For Katherine Lochnan, author of Seductive Surfaces: The Art of Tissot (Yale UP, 1999) Tissot is a problematic painter:

Deliberately stamping his work with the appearance and taste of ‘vulgar society’, Tissot created paintings and prints that were both aesthetically and socially subversive. He focused on the dichotomy between appearance and reality — while his surfaces are superficially charming, upon closer examination they can be seen as veneers concealing troubling psychological or social dramas. (Back-cover presentation.)

Stevenson’s reply to Colvin

Stevenson disagreed with Colvin and wrote in a letter:

I read your “Grosvenor” [...] it seemed to me very nice in tone, and I think all the fellows should be pleased, except perhaps poor Tissot. I can’t think anything “debased and odious” that has such nice light and air about it, as anything of his I ever saw; that seems to me an ideal after a fashion. I want very much to deliver my soul on the subject of this sort of ideal and the sort of sentiment which stands on the same footing. [...] It’s a difficult but delightful point. (L2: 211; June 1877)

The ‘light and air’ probably refers to ‘The Gallery of H.M.S. Calcutta’, painted without bright highlights or dark shadow, so showing an interesting focus on technical experimentation. Tissot’s extreme ability in finish is not a reason for automatic rejection by RLS—indeed, he does not mention finish or technique at all, but says that the successful representation of ‘light and air’ is a ‘sort of ideal’, though what he means by this is not easy to say. (Knowing Stevenson’s interest in patterning, he may well have also been attracted by such qualities as rhythm of lines and contrasts of forms, colours and tones.)

In ‘A Note on Realism’, RLS places ‘ideal’ and ‘abstract’ in the same area of meaning (and associated with concision in expression and the use of details ‘of the conventional order’), and opposed to ‘realism’. However, he says ‘All representative art, which can be said to live, is both realistic and ideal’. So in his reply to Colvin we might say that he is identifying, in Tissot’s realism, a ‘sort of idealism’—which I personally would see as something like ‘interest in artistic form for its own sake’.

In the same ‘Note on Realism’ he does not oppose a Platonic ‘essence’ and a less interesting outer form, but sees this outer form as the whole work of art (apart from the initial but incommunicable concept). He does not condemn ‘facturing’ unless it is merely an excuse for the display of technical skill—but in the case of Tissot and Manet he accepts it as contributing to ‘ideal’ aspects of the work of art. And in his reply to Colvin he is not opposed to a highly-finished technique for reproducing ‘light and air’ since this is also an ‘ideal’, i.e. not merely realistic, but an abstract and ideal-driven project.

However, we await a full study of ‘the aesthetics of Robert Louis Stevenson’ in order to understand these matters better.

Identifying an architectural logo

Can any reader of this blog help identify the building represented in the following embossed symbol on a sheet of paper used by RLS:

The paper was used for pencil draft versions of five short fables, including ‘The Carthorse and the Saddle Horse’ which we can date to after November 1890 when the horses referred to arrived at Vailima. The embossed ‘logo’ is in the top left-hand corner of the unlined paper, which from the photographic image (the measurements have not yet been taken) appears to be foolscap, not writing paper—so working paper from an office rather than letter paper from a hotel or club. The architecture (the slim dome on a drum, the suggestion of a portico and the symmetrical side buildings with gabled roofs) also suggests an institutional building.

Does any reader of this blog recognise the form from their knowledge of Victorian architecture (perhaps now destroyed) of Sydney, or Honolulu (but were there any domed buildings there?) or perhaps even San Francisco? Or has any researcher come across paper with the same embossed symbol?

Poem dated

John Russell’s impressive work on RLS’s music can be seen on his Music of Robert Louis Stevenson site.

A recent addition is the page on a hymn written by RLS, ‘Tempest Tossed’ (‘Tempest tossed and sore afflicted, sin defiled and care oppressed, / Come to me, all ye that labour; come, and I will give ye rest….’), which he set to the music of Beethoven’s Sechs Leichte Variationen, WoO 77. Here the identification of the musical setting has enabled an accurate dating of the poem.

Yale, Beinecke GM 664-43-962 (B 6962)

The text was first published by George Hellman’s in Poems Hitherto Unpublished (Boston: Bibliophile Society, 1916), as one of the poems of uncertain date. Hellman says that Stevenson wrote four titles at the top of the manuscript: Starry Evening, Adieu, Du Bist and Ständchen and claims these are poems by Heine. (This clearly refers to another MS than the one illustrated above: probably to B 6961, a second MS of ‘Tempest Tossed’ listed in McKay.)

John Russell writes:

Stevenson wrote down the four titles not because they were poems by Heine, but because they are all music by one of Stevenson’s favorite composers, Schubert. (‘Starry Evening’ is probably ‘Nachthelle’, op. 134 and uses a poem by Seidl. ‘Adieu’ is probably ‘Abschied’ from Schwanengesang, with lyrics by Rellstab, although there is also a melody attributed to Schubert called ‘Adieu’. ‘Du Bist die Ruh’ is Schubert’s op. 59, no. 3, on a poem by Rückert, and the famous ‘Ständchen’ is also from Schwanengesang, with lyrics by Rellstab. Stevenson arranged ‘Du Bist die Ruh’ for flageolet and also arranged two other songs from Schwanengesang not on Hellman’s list, ‘Ihr Bild’ and ‘Liebesbotschaft’.)

Hellman implies that ‘Tempest Tossed’ was written in the 1870’s, but in a letter of 6 December 1887  (L6, 76) Stevenson first asks Henley to send him Beethoven’s variations that he has chosen to set words to, but then decides he can send out for them himself from Saranac. Then on 18 December (L6, 84) he writes that he likes putting words to music and that “my last attempt is the divine theme of Beethoven’s Six Variations Faciles.” So apparently Stevenson had finished the poem and the musical setting between December 6^th and December 18th, 1887.

In From Saranac to the Marquesas and Beyond, Stevenson’s mother Margaret writes in her entry covering the period from  19 November 1887 through 13 January  1888 that Lou “was busy all last Sunday afternoon arranging the words ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour’, etc. to an air of Beethoven’s.” “Come to me, all ye that labour” is part of the second line of ‘Tempest Tossed’ and comes from Matthew 11:28-29.

Between December 6^th and the 18^th there is only one Sunday, the 11^th. So the major work on the poem must have been done on Sunday, 11 December, 1887 and was certainly finished by the 18^th.  Margaret’s statement that RLS “was busy all last Sunday afternoon” suggests a solution to another problem. On 6 December, Stevenson didn’t have the music but by 11 December he did. It seems unlikely that he would have been able to write to New York for the music and get it back in five days, although the train depot in Saranac was opened on 5 December. More probably Stevenson went to church on the morning of Sunday the 11^th, got the music from the organist, and started work on it that afternoon.

Margaret confides in the same entry that the song said nothing to her (she wasn’t very musical), but that Louis was anxious to have it played in church. Certainly if it had been sung on December 18^th he would have mentioned it in his letter to Ida and Una, but he doesn’t. The next Sunday after the 18^th would of course have been Christmas, so he may have intended all along to have it performed at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Saranac on Christmas day.

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The letter of 6 December has a nice formulation of work that both requires attention and is relaxing—it reminds me of some of the meticulous work required in textual editing:

I find this setting words a delightful operose task, which passes time like none other, in a kind of passionate occupied idleness. The difficulty of the job is most entrancing.

Fables MS – still searching for clues

The British Library MS of the Fables consists of 49 sheets on five different types of paper. Thanks to the wonderful help with the last blog posting, we can now say that paper type 1 (34-line foolscap, 320 mm high) was probably used in late 1887 or early 1888 to write or copy the table of contents and seven fables (The Persons of the Tale, The Sinking Ship, The Two Matches, The Sickman and the Fireman, The Reader, The Distinguished Stranger, and Faith, Half-Faith and No Faith at All).

This was doubtless all in preparation of presenting a proposal for publication that led to the signing of a contract with Longman on 31 May 1888.

The back of this paper type-1 was not only used for a list of musical scores to buy, but also (the back of the table of contents) for a piece of blank verse, a narrative apparently with a woodland medieval setting. Can any of our readers decypher the uncertain readings, or suggest some project on which Stevenson may have been working in 1887-88 of which this may have been part. What could be the name of the man ‘filled with the desire of fame’?

He ^Who^ was the cattle keeper to the king
And widely entrusted with the pasture{? postern?} fields.

She weathered{? wreathed} his antlers with{?}
And combed{?} the deer and in spring water washed
He bore the hand
Walked free {?pure} in ^the^ wood and at the accustomed bourne{?}
Turned, and though late at night, himself came{? cam?} home—
Him{?} wandering{?} far, the coming{?} of the dogs
Began to press, when by a xxxx{?} fortunate chance,

Julers{? Julien? but no dot for ‘i’ and last letter is ‘s’} then, filled with the desire of fame
then to the ham{?} bow set the slender dart;
Nor was the