The Ring and the Book, etc

Front matter

Qylcr6&?7s Qsd'rtnirrifrLa/ 48J5, 7 An^^m^- TVaismuif fsfTtlttU: 7a/7iM^. I.and'm.1'. ... I ,-jPJaco THE RING AND THE BOOK BY ROBERT BROWNING NEW EDITION WITH ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1898 [All rights reserved] Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &•> Co. At the Ballantyne Press CONTENTS PAGE I. The Ring and the Book . . . . i II. Half-Rome 32 III. The Other Half-Rome .... 66 IV. Tertium Quid 103 V. Count Guido Franceschini . . -139 VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi 183 VII. Pompilia 229 DOMINUS HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS . 270 VIII IX. Juris Doctor Johannes - Baptista Bottinius 3°9 X. The Pope 344 XI. Guido 39° XII. The Book and the Ring . . . . 442 v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Portrait of Robert Browning, 1875, after the painting by George Frederick Watts, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery . .

Frontispiece Reduced facsimile of Title-page of Report of the Trial of Guido Franceschini — the "Square old yellow Book". . . . To face page 1 Piazza San Lorenzo, Florence . . . . „ ,, 2 The Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome ,, ,, 32 The Scene of the Murders, January 2, 1698 ,, „ 100 )> General View of Castelnuoyo ....,,,, 127 Portrait of Count Guido Franceschini made on the Day of his Execution . . . ,, ,, 139 Facade of the Church of Santa Maria deli.a Pieve, Arezzo „ „ 204 San Clemente Gate, Arezzo ....,,,, 261 The "Square old yellow Book," showing a Portion of the Summary of Evidence for Guido . . . . . . . . ,. ,, 270 vu LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS VIII The " Square old yellow Book," showing Letter from Arcangeli written on the Day of Guido's Execution . . . To face sage 320 Portrait of Pope Innocent XII. . . „ ,, 354 The "Capella."

New Prisons, Rome . „ ,, 438 Piazza del Popolo, Rome .... „ ,, 444 *#* The Publishers desire to acknowledge the permission which has been granted to them to reproduce the portrait of Mr. Browning by Mr. Watts, R.A. For the rest of the illustrations, excepting the title-page of the Report of Guido's Trial, the portrait of Guido, and the view of the Piazza del Popolo, they are indebted to the kindness of Air. W. Hall Griffin. uJi tutta J a Ctzusa L rim in a/a Cirntro (^uiaol/ranco/cnini jlretlnO/ 6 juoi'ulca-ru JIatL -fasti mo r ire. in Roma f/ai sin.. "a fd&l" 1JJIJJ. CMfJnma con la aec.a//œ^/<?Jie gfaftri fly/aHre ai 7^0 rca. $ Oman a SsomicidiorurrL iu/sputatur an etguandœÆaritu/* 0cc'i^r£Vx<?rcm ~* v4dult£ra.m_ reduced facsimile of title-page of report of the trial of guido franceschini The " Square old yellow Book," the gist os Mr. Robert Browning to Balliol Colle__e, Oxford. 1868-9 THE RING AND THE BOOK Do you see this Ring ? 'Tis Rome-work, made to match (By Castellani's imitative craft) Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn, After a dropping April ; found alive 6 Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots That roof old tombs at Chiusi : soft, you see, Yet crisp as jewel-cutting.

Book I

Prime nature with an added artistry — No carat lost, and you have gained a ring. What of it ? 'Tis a figure, a symbol, say ; A thing's sign : now for the thing signified. 30 Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss I" the air, and catch again, and twirl about By the crumpled vellum covers, — pure crude fact Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard, And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since Examine it yourselves ! I found this book, Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just, (Mark the predestination !) when a Hand, Always above my shoulder, pushed me once, One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm, Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths, Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time, Toward Baccio's marble, — ay, the basement-ledge O' the pedestal where sits and menaces John of the Black Bands with the upright spear, 'Twixt palace and church, — Riccardi where they lived, His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.

This book, — precisely on that palace-step Which, meant for lounging knaves o' the Medici, Now serves re-venders to display their ware, — 'Mongst odds and ends of ravage, picture-frames White through the worn gilt, mirror-sconces chipped, Bronze angel-heads once knobs attached to chests, (Handled when ancient dames chose forth brocade) Modern chalk drawings, studies from the nude, Samples of stone, jet, breccia, porphyry Polished and rough, sundry amazing busts In baked earth, (broken, Providence be praised !) A wreck of tapestry, proudly-purposed web When reds and blues were indeed red and blue, Now offered as a mat to save bare feet 35 40 46 60 66 CO (Since carpets constitute a cruel cost) Treading the chill scagliola bedward : then A pile of brown-etched prints, two erazie each, Stopped by a conch a-top from fluttering forth — Sowing the Square with works of one and the same Master, the imaginative Sienese Great in the scenic backgrounds — (name and fame None of you know, nor does he fare the worse :) From these . . .

Oh, with a Lionard going cheap If it should prove, as promised, that Joconde Whereof a copy contents the Louvre ! — these I picked this book from. Five compeers in flank 05 70 PIAZZA SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE Where the " Book" was bought : showing " Baccio's marble." — Book I. lines 38-100. Stood left and right of it as tempting more — A dogseared Spicilegium, the fond tale O' the Frail dne of the Flower, by young Dumas, Vulgarized Horace for the use of schools, The Life, Death, Miracles of Saint Somebody, Saint Somebody Else, his Miracles, Death and Life, — With this, one glance at the lettered back of which, And " Stall !" cried I : a lira made it mine. BO Here it is, this I toss and take again ; Small-quarto size, part print part manuscript : A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard, And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since.

Give it me back ! The thing's restorative I' the touch and sight. 86 ao That memorable day, (June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square) I leaned a little and overlooked my prize By the low railing round the fountain-source Close to the statue, where a step descends : 95 While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and rose Thick-ankled girls who brimmed them, and made place For marketmen glad to pitch basket down, Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the wet, And whisk their faded fresh. And on I read 100 Presently, though my path grew perilous Between the outspread straw-work, piles of plait Soon to be flapping, each o'er two black eyes And swathe of Tuscan hair, on festas fine : Through fire-irons, tribes of tongs, shovels in sheaves, 105 Skeleton bedsteads, wardrobe-drawers agape, Rows of tall slim brass lamps with dangling gear, — And worse, cast clothes a-sweetening in the sun : None of them took my eye from off my prize.

Still read I on, from written title-page no To written index, on, through street and street, At the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge ; Till, by the time I stood at home again In Casa Guidi by Felice Church, Under the doorway where the black begins 116 With the first stone-slab of the staircase cold, I had mastered the contents, knew the whole truth Gathered together, bound up in this book, Print three-fifths, written supplement the rest. "Romana Homicidiorum " — nay, 120 Better translate—" A Roman murder-case :

BOOK I

125 130 136 140 146 150 166 100 ■> 165 " Position of the entire criminal cause " Of Guido Franceschini, nobleman, "With certain Four the cutthroats in his pay, "Tried, all five, and found guilty and put to death " By heading or hanging as befitted ranks, " At Rome on February Twenty Two, " Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight : " Wherein it is disputed if, and when, " Husbands may kill adulterous wives, yet 'scape " The customary forfeit." Word for word, So ran the title-page : murder, or else Legitimate punishment of the other crime, Accounted murder by mistake, — just that And no more, in a Latin cramp enough When the law had her eloquence to launch, But interfilleted with Italian streaks When testimony stooped to mother-tongue, — That, was this old square yellow book about. Now, as the ingot, ere the ring was forged, Lay gold, (beseech you, hold that figure fast !)

So, in this book lay absolutely truth, Fanciless fact, the documents indeed, Primary lawyer-pleadings for, against, The aforesaid Five ; real summed-up circumstance Adduced in proof of these on either side, Put forth and printed, as the practice was, At Rome, in the Apostolic Chamber's type, And so submitted to the eye o' the Court Presided over by His Reverence Rome's Governor and Criminal Judge, — the trial Itself, to all intents, being then as now Here in the book and nowise out of it ; Seeing, there properly was no judgment-bar, No bringing of accuser and accused, And whoso judged both parties, face to face Before some court, as we conceive of courts. There was a Hall of Justice ; that came last : For Justice had a chamber by the hall Where she took evidence first, summed up the same. Then sent accuser and accused alike, In person of the advocate of each, To weigh its worth, thereby arrange, array The battle. 'Twas the so-styled Fisc began, Pleaded (and since he only spoke in print The printed voice of him lives now as then) The public Prosecutor — " Murder's proved ; "With five . . . what we call qualities of bad, "Worse, worst, and yet worse still, and still worse yet ; 170 " Crest over crest crowning the cockatrice, "That beggar hell's regalia to enrich " Count Guido Franceschini : punish him !

" Thus was the paper put before the court In the next stage, (no noisy work at all,) 176 To study at ease. In due time like reply Came from the so-styled Patron of the Poor, Official mouthpiece of the five accused Too poor to fee a better, — Guido's luck Or else his fellows', — which, I hardly know, — iso An outbreak as of wonder at the world, A fury-fit of outraged innocence, A passion of betrayed simplicity : "Punish Count Guido? For what crime, what hint " O' the colour of a crime, inform us first ! 185 " Reward him rather ! Recognize, we say, "In the deed done, a righteous judgment dealt ! "All conscience and all courage, — there's our Count " Charactered in a word ; and, what's more strange, " He had companionship in privilege, 190 " Found four courageous conscientious friends : " Absolve, applaud all five, as props of law, " Sustainers of society ! — perchance "A trifle over-hasty with the hand " To hold her tottering ark, had tumbled else ; 195 " But that's a splendid fault whereat we wink, "Wishing your cold correctness sparkled so !"

Thus paper second followed paper first, Thus did the two join issue — nay, the four, Each pleader having an adjunct. "True, he killed 200 " — So to speak — in a certain sort — his wife, " But laudably, since thus it happed ! " quoth one : Whereat, more witness and the case postponed. " Thus it happed not, since thus he did the deed, " And proved himself thereby portentousest 205 " Of cutthroats and a prodigy of crime, " As the woman that he slaughtered was a saint, " Martyr and miracle ! " quoth the other to match : Again, more witness, and the case postponed. " A miracle, ay — of lust and impudence ; 210 " Hear my new reasons !" interposed the first : " — Coupled with more of mine !" pursued his peer. " Beside, the precedents, the authorities !" From both at once a cry with an echo, that !

That was a firebrand at each fox's tail Unleashed in a cornfield : soon spread flare enough, As hurtled thither and there heaped themselves From earth's four corners, all authority And precedent for putting wives to death, Or letting wives live, sinful as they seem. How legislated, now, in this respect, Solon and his Athenians ? Quote the code Of Romulus and Rome ! Justinian speak ! Nor modern Baldo, Bartolo be dumb ! The Roman voice was potent, plentiful ; Cornelia de Sicariis hurried to help Pompeia de Parricidiis ; Julia de Something-or-other jostled Lex this-and-that ; King Solomon confirmed Apostle Paul : That nice decision of Dolabella, eh ? That pregnant instance of Theodoric, oh ! Down to that choice example Ælian gives (An instance I find much insisted on) Of the elephant who, brute-beast though he were, Yet understood and punished on the spot His master's naughty spouse and faithless friend ; A true tale which has edified each child, Much more shall flourish favoured by our court !

Pages of proof this way, and that way proof, And always — once again the case postponed. 220 225 230 235 240 Thus wrangled, brangled, jangled they a month, — Only on paper, pleadings all in print, Nor ever was, except i' the brains of men, More noise by word of mouth than you hear now — ■ Till the court cut all short with " Judged, your cause. " Receive our sentence ! Praise God ! We pronounce " Count Guido devilish and damnable : " His wife Pompilia in thought, word and deed, " Was perfect pure, he murdered her for that : " As for the Four who helped the One, all Five — " Why, let employer and hirelings share alike '' In guilt and guilt's reward, the death their due !" 245 260 So was the trial at end, do you suppose ? " Guilty you find him, death you doom him to ? " Ay, were not Guido, more than needs, a priest, " Priest and to spare !" — this was a shot reserved; I learn this from epistles which begin Here where the print ends, — see the pen and ink Of the advocate, the ready at a pinch ! — " My client boasts the clerkly privilege, " Has taken minor orders many enough, 366 '/

BOOK I

"Shows still sufficient chrism upon his pate "To neutralize a blood-stain : presbyter, " Primes tonsurœ, subdiaconus, " Sacerdos, so he slips from underneath " Your power, the temporal, slides inside the robe " Of mother Church : to her we make appeal "By the Pope, the Church's head !" 266 A parlous plea, Put in with noticeable effect, it seems ; " Since straight," — resumes the zealous orator, Making a friend acquainted with the facts, — " Once the word ' clericality ' let fall, " Procedure stopped and freer breath was drawn " By all considerate and responsible Rome." Quality took the decent part, of course ; Held by the husband, who was noble too : Or, for the matter of that, a churl would side With too-refined susceptibility, And honour which, tender in the extreme, Stung to the quick, must roughly right itself At all risks, not sit still and whine for law As a Jew would, if you squeezed him to the wall, Brisk-trotting through the Ghetto.

Nay, it seems, Even the Emperor's Envoy had his say To say on the subject ; might not see, unmoved, Civility menaced throughout Christendom By too harsh measure dealt her champion here. Lastly, what made all safe, the Pope was kind, From his youth up, reluctant to take life, If mercy might be just and yet show grace ; Much more unlikely then, in extreme age, To take a life the general sense bade spare. 'Twas plain that Guido would go scatheless yet. 270 275 280 236 2'JO But human promise, oh, how short of shine ! How topple down the piles of hope we rear ! How history proves . . . nay, read Herodotus ! Suddenly starting from a nap, as it were, A dog-sleep with one shut, one open orb, Cried the Pope's great self, — Innocent by name And nature too, and eighty-six years old, Antonio Pignatelli of Naples, Pope Who had trod many lands, known many deeds, Probed many hearts, beginning with his own, And now was far in readiness for God, — 'Twas he who first bade leave those souls in peace, Those Jansenists, re-nicknamed Molinists, 295 30U 3')5 ('Gainst whom the cry went, like a frowsy tune, Tickling men's ears — the sect for a quarter of an hour I' the teeth of the world which, clown-like, loves to chew Be it but a straw 'twixt work and whistling-while, 311 Taste some vituperation, bite away, Whether at marjoram-sprig or garlic-clove, Aught it may sport with, spoil, and then spit forth) " Leave them alone," bade he, " those Molinists ! 315 "Who may have other light than we perceive, " Or why is it the whole world hates them thus ?"

Also he peeled off that last scandal-rag Of Nepotism ; and so observed the poor That men would merrily say, " Halt, deaf and blind, 320 "Who feed on fat things, leave the master's self " To gather up the fragments of his feast, " These be the nephews of Pope Innocent ! — " His own meal costs but five carlines a day, " Poor-priest's allowance, for he claims no more." 325 — He cried of a sudden, this great good old Pope, When they appealed in last resort to him, " I have mastered the whole matter : I nothing doubt. "Though Guido stood forth priest from head to heel, " Instead of, as alleged, a piece of one, — 330 "And further, were he, from the tonsured scalp " To the sandaled sole of him, my son and Christ's, " Instead of touching us by finger-tip "As you assert, and pressing up so close " Only to set a blood-smutch on our robe, — 335 " I and Christ would renounce all right in him.

"Am I not Pope, and presently to die, "And busied how to render my account, " And shall I wait a day ere I decide " On doing or not doing justice here ? 310 "Cut off his head to-morrow by this time, " Hang up his four mates, two on either hand, " And end one business more ! " So said, so done— Rather so writ, for the old Pope bade this, I find, with his particular chirograph, His own no such infirm hand, Friday night ; And next day, February Twenty Two, Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight, — Not at the proper head-and-hanging-place On bridge-foot close by Castle Angelo, Where custom somewhat staled the spectacle, ('Twas not so well i' the way of Rome, beside, The noble Rome, the Rome of Guido's rank) 346

BOOK I THE RING AND THE BOOK

9 But at the city's newer gayer end, — The cavalcading promenading place Beside the gate and opposite the church Under the Pincian gardens green with Spring, 'Neath the obelisk 'twixt the fountains in the Square, Did Guido and his fellows find their fate, All Rome for witness, and — my writer adds — Remonstrant in its universal grief, Since Guido had the suffrage of all Rome. 366 360 This is the bookful ; thus far take the truth, The untempered gold, the fact untampered with, The mere ring-metal ere the ring be made ! And what has hitherto come of it? Who preserves The memory of this Guido, and his wife Pompilia, more than Ademollo's name, The etcher of those prints, two crazie each, Saved by a stone from snowing broad the Square With scenic backgrounds? Was this truth of force? Able to take its own part as truth should, Sufficient, self-sustaining?

Why, if so — Yonde^s a fire, into it goes my book, As who shall say me nay, and what the loss ? You know the tale already : I may ask, Rather than think to tell you, more thereof, — Ask you not merely who were he and she, Husband and wife, what manner of mankind, But how you hold concerning this and that Other yet-unnamed actor in the piece. The young frank handsome courtly Canon, now, The priest, declared the lover of the wife, He who, no question, did elope with her, For certain bring the tragedy about, Giuseppe Caponsacchi ; — his strange course I' the matter, was it right or wrong or both? Then the old couple, slaughtered with the wife By the husband as accomplices in crime, Those Comparini, Pietro and his spouse, — What say you to the right or wrong of that, When, at a known name whispered through the door Of a lone villa on a Christmas night, It opened that the joyous hearts inside Might welcome as it were an angel-guest Come in Christ's name to knock and enter, sup And satisfy the loving ones he saved ; And so did welcome devils and their death ? 365 370 375 380 3S5 300 396 I have been silent on that circumstance Although the couple passed for close of kin To wife and husband, were by some accounts Pompilia's very parents : you know best.

Also that infant the great joy was for. That Gaetano, the wife's two-weeks' babe, The husband's first-born child, his son and heir, Whose birth and being turned his night to day — Why must the father kill the mother thus Because she bore his son and saved himself? 406 Well, British Public, ye who like me not, 410 (God love you !) and will have your proper laugh At the dark question, laugh it ! I laugh first. Truth must prevail, the proverb vows ; and truth — Here is it all i' the book at last, as first There it was all i' the heads and hearts of Rome 415 Gentle and simple, never to fall nor fade Nor be forgotten. Yet, a little while, The passage of a century or so, Decads thrice five, and here's time paid his tax, Oblivion gone home with her harvesting, 420 And all left smooth again as scythe could shave.

Far from beginning with you London folk, I took my book to Rome first, tried truth's power On likely people. " Have you met such names ? " Is a tradition extant of such facts ? 425 " Your law-courts stand, your records frown a-row : "What if I rove and rummage?" " — Why, you'll waste " Your pains and end as wise as you began ! " Everyone snickered : " names and facts thus old " Are newer much than Europe news we find 430 " Down in to-day's Diario. Records, quotha ? " Why, the French burned them, what else do the French ? "The rap-andrending nation ! And it tells "Against the Church, no doubt,— another gird " At the Temporality, your Trial, of course ? " 435 " — Quite otherwise this time," submitted I ; " Clean for the Church and dead against the world, " The flesh and the devil, does it tell for once."

" —The rarer and the happier ! All the same, " Content you with your treasure of a book, 440 " And waive what's wanting 1 Take a friend's advice ! " It's not the custom of the country. Mend " Your ways indeed and we may stretch a point : " Go get you manned by Manning and new-manned " By Newman and, mayhap, wise-manned to boot 445 " By Wiseman, and we'll see or else we won't ! "Thanks meantime for the story, long and strong, " A pretty piece of narrative enough, n "Which scarce ought so to drop out, one would think, " From the more curious annals of our kind. " Do you tell the story, now, in off-hand style, " Straight from the book? Or simply here and there, "(The while you vault it through the loose and large) " Hang to a hint ? Or is there book at all, "And don't you deal in poetry, make-believe, "And the white lies it sounds like?" 160 466 Yes and no !

From the book, yes ; thence bit by bit I dug The lingot truth, that memorable day, Assayed and knew my piecemeal gain was gold, — Yes ; but from something else surpassing that, Something of mine which, mixed up with the mass, Made it bear hammer and be firm to file. Fancy with fact is just one fact the more ; To-wit, that fancy has informed, transpierced, Thridded and so thrown fast the facts else free, As right through ring and ring runs the djereed And binds the loose, one bar without a break. I fused my live soul and that inert stuff, Before attempting smithcraft, on the night After the day when, — truth thus grasped and gained,— The book was shut and done with and laid by On the cream-coloured massive agate, broad 'Neath the twin cherubs in the tarnished frame O' the mirror, tall thence to the ceiling-top.

And from the reading, and that slab I leant My elbow on, the while I read and read, I turned, to free myself and find the world, And stepped out on the narrow terrace, built Over the street and opposite the church, And paced its lozenge-brickwork sprinkled cool ; Because Felice-church-side stretched, a-glow Through each square window fringed for festival, Whence came the clear voice of the cloistered ones Chanting a chant made for midsummer nights — I know not what particular praise of God, It always came and went with June. Beneath I' the street, quick shown by openings of the sky When flame fell silently from cloud to cloud, Richer than that gold snow Jove rained on Rhodes, The townsmen walked by twos and threes, and talked, Drinking the blackness in default of air — A busy human sense beneath my feet : While in and out the terrace-plants, and round One branch of tall datura, waxed and waned 460 405 470 475 4S0 485 490 610 615 620 625 630 535 540 The lamp-fly lured there, wanting the white flower.

Over the roof o' the lighted church I looked A bowshot to the street's end, north away Out of the Roman gate to the Roman road By the river, till I felt the Apennine. And there would lie Arezzo, the man's town, The woman's trap and cage and torture-place, Also the stage where the priest played his part, A spectacle for angels, — ay, indeed, There lay Arezzo ! Farther then I fared, Feeling my way on through the hot and dense, Romeward, until I found the wayside inn By Castelnuovo's few mean hut-like homes Huddled together on the hill-foot bleak, Bare, broken only by that tree or two Against the sudden bloody splendour poured Cursewise in day's departure by the sun O'er the low house-roof of that squalid inn Where they three, for the first time and the last, Husband and wife and priest, met face to face.

Whence I went on again, the end was near, Step by step, missing none and marking all, Till Rome itself, the ghastly goal, I reached. Why, all the while, — how could it otherwise ? — The life in me abolished the death of things, Deep calling unto deep : as then and there Acted itself over again once more The tragic piece. I saw with my own eyes In Florence as I trod the terrace, breathed The beauty and the fearfulness of night, How it had run, this round from Rome to Rome — Because, you are to know, they lived at Rome, Pompilia's parents, as they thought themselves, Two poor ignoble hearts who did their best Part God's way, part the other way than God's, To somehow make a shift and scramble through The world's mud, careless if it splashed and spoiled, Provided they might so hold high, keep clean Their child's soul, one soul white enough for three, And lift it to whatever star should stoop, What possible sphere of purer life than theirs Should come in aid of whiteness hard to save.

I saw the star stoop, that they strained to touch, And did touch and depose their treasure on, As Guido Franceschini took away Pompilia to be his for evermore, While they sang " Now let us depart in peace, " Having beheld thy glory, Guido's wife !" I saw the star supposed, but fog o' the fen, Gilded star-fashion by a glint from hell ; 646 Having been heaved up, haled on its gross way, By hands unguessed before, invisible help From a dark brotherhood, and specially Two obscure goblin creatures, fox-faced this, Cat-clawed the other, called his next of kin 660 By Guido the main monster, — cloaked and caped, Making as they were priests, to mock God more, — Abate Paul, Canon Girolamo. These who had rolled the starlike pest to Rome And stationed it to suck up and absorb 665 The sweetness of Pompilia, rolled again That bloated bubble, with her soul inside, Back to Arezzo and a palace there — Or say, a fissure in the honest earth Whence long ago had curled the vapour first, 660 Blown big by nether fires to appal day : It touched home, broke, and blasted far and wide.