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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10138-8.txt b/10138-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d5efb1d --- /dev/null +++ b/10138-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9085 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, +December, 1857, by Various + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: November 19, 2003 [eBook #10138] +[Date last updated: April 30, 2005] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: iso-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 1, +ISSUE 2, DECEMBER, 1857*** + + +E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Bob Blair, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. I.--DECEMBER, 1857.--NO. II. + + + + + + + +FLORENTINE MOSAICS. + +[Concluded.] + + +VI. + +THE CARMINE. + +The only part of this ancient church which escaped destruction by fire +in 1771 was, most fortunately, the famous Brancacci chapel. Here are +the frescos by Masolino da Panicale, who died in the early part of the +fifteenth century,--the Preaching of Saint Peter, and the Healing of +the Sick. His scholar, Masaccio, (1402-1443,) continued the series, +the completion of which was entrusted to Filippino Lippi, son of Fra +Filippo. + +No one can doubt that the hearty determination evinced by Masolino and +Masaccio to deal with actual life, to grapple to their souls the +visible forms of humanity, and to reproduce the types afterwards in +new, vivid, breathing combinations of dignity and intelligent action, +must have had an immense effect upon the course of Art. To judge by +the few and somewhat injured specimens of these masters which are +accessible, it is obvious that they had much more to do in forming the +great schools of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, than a painter +of such delicate, but limited genius as that of Fra Angelico could +possibly have. Certainly, the courage and accuracy exhibited in the +nude forms of Adam and Eve expelled from paradise, and the expressive +grace in the group of Saint Paul conversing with Saint Peter in +prison, where so much knowledge and power of action are combined with +so much beauty, all show an immense advance over the best works of the +preceding three quarters of a century. + +Besides the great intrinsic merits of these paintings, the Brancacci +chapel is especially interesting from the direct and unquestionable +effect which it is known to have had upon younger painters. Here +Raphael and Michel Angelo, in their youth, and Benvenuto Cellini +passed many hours, copying and recopying what were then the first +masterpieces of painting, the traces of which study are distinctly +visible in their later productions; and here, too, according to +Cellini, the famous punch in the nose befell Buonarotti, by which his +well-known physiognomy acquired its marked peculiarity. Torregiani, +painter and sculptor of secondary importance, but a bully of the first +class,--a man who was in the habit of knocking about the artists whom +he could not equal, and of breaking both their models and their +heads,--had been accustomed to copy in the Brancacci chapel, among the +rest. He had been much annoyed, according to his own account, by +Michel Angelo's habit of laughing at the efforts of artists inferior +in skill to himself, and had determined to punish him. One day, +Buonarotti came into the chapel as usual, and whistled and sneered at +a copy which Torregiani was making. The aggrieved artist, a man of +large proportions, very truculent of aspect, with a loud voice and a +savage frown, sprang upon his critic, and dealt him such a blow upon +the nose, that the bone and cartilage yielded under his hand, +according to his own account, as if they had been made of +dough,--_"come se fosse stato un cialdone."_ This was when both +were very young men; but Torregiani, when relating the story many +years afterwards, always congratulated himself that Buonarotti would +bear the mark of the blow all his life. It may be added, that the +bully met a hard fate afterwards. Having executed a statue in Spain +for a grandee, he was very much outraged by receiving only thirty +scudi as his reward, and accordingly smashed the statue to pieces with +a sledge-hammer. In revenge, the Spaniard accused him of heresy, so +that the unlucky artist was condemned to the flames by the +Inquisition, and only escaped that horrible death by starving himself +in prison before the execution. + + +VII. + +SANTA TRINITÀ. + +In the chapel of the Sassetti, in this church, is a good set of +frescos by Dominic Ghirlandaio, representing passages from the life of +Saint Francis. They are not so masterly as his compositions in the +Santa Maria Novella. Moreover, they are badly placed, badly lighted, +and badly injured. They are in a northwestern corner, where light +never comes that comes to all. The dramatic power and Flemish skill in +portraiture of the man are, however, very visible, even in the +darkness. No painter of his century approached him in animated +grouping and powerful physiognomizing. Dignified, noble, powerful, and +natural, he is the exact counterpart of Fra Angelico, among the +_Quattrocentisti_. Two great, distinct systems,--the shallow, +shrinking, timid, but rapturously devotional, piously sentimental +school, of which Beato Angelico was _facile princeps_, painfully +adventuring out of the close atmosphere of the _miniatori_ into +the broader light and more gairish colors of the actual, and falling +back, hesitating and distrustful; and the hardy, healthy, audacious +naturalists, wreaking strong and warm human emotions upon vigorous +expression and confident attitude;--these two widely separated streams +of Art, remote from each other in origin, and fed by various rills, in +their course through the century, were to meet in one ocean at its +close. This was then the fulness of perfection, the age of Angelo and +Raphael, Leonardo and Correggio. + + +VIII. + +SAN MARCO. + +Fra Beato Angelico, who was a brother of this Dominican house, has +filled nearly the whole monastery with the works of his +hand. Considering the date of his birth, 1387, and his conventual +life, he was hardly less wonderful than his wonderful epoch. Here is +the same convent, the same city; while instead merely of the works of +Cimabue, Giotto, and Orgagna, there are masterpieces by all the +painters who ever lived to study;--yet imagine the snuffy old monk who +will show you about the edifice, or any of his brethren, coming out +with a series of masterpieces! One might as well expect a new +Savonarola, who was likewise a friar in this establishment, to preach +against Pio Nono, and to get himself burned in the Piazza for his +pains. + +In the old chapter-house is a very large, and for the angelic Frater a +very hazardous performance,--a Crucifixion. The heads here are full +of feeling and feebleness, except those of Mary Mother and Mary +Magdalen, which are both very touching and tender. There is, however, +an absolute impotence to reproduce the actual, to deal with groups of +humanity upon a liberal scale. There is his usual want of +discrimination, too, in physiognomy; for if the seraphic and +intellectual head of the penitent thief were transferred to the +shoulders of the Saviour in exchange for his own, no one could dispute +that it would be an improvement. + +Up stairs is a very sweet Annunciation. The subdued, demure, somewhat +astonished joy of the Virgin is poetically rendered, both in face and +attitude, and the figure of the angel has much grace. A small, but +beautiful composition, the Coronation of the Virgin, is perhaps the +most impressive of the whole series. + +Below is a series of frescos by a very second-rate artist, +Poccetti. Among them is a portrait of Savonarola; but as the reformer +was burned half a century before Poccetti was born, it has not even +the merit of authenticity. It was from this house that Savonarola was +taken to be imprisoned and executed in 1498. There seems something +unsatisfactory about Savonarola. One naturally sympathizes with the +bold denouncer of Alexander VI.; but there was a lack of benevolence +in his head and his heart. Without that anterior depression of the +sinciput, he could hardly have permitted two friends to walk into the +fire in his stead, as they were about to do in the stupendous and +horrible farce enacted in the Piazza Gran Duca. There was no lack of +self-esteem either in the man or his head. Without it, he would +scarcely have thought so highly of his rather washy scheme for +reorganizing the democratic government, and so very humbly of the +genius of Dante, Petrarch, and others, whose works he condemned to the +flames. A fraternal regard, too, for such great artists as Fra +Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo,--both members of his own convent, and +the latter a personal friend,--might have prevented his organizing +that famous holocaust of paintings, that wretched iconoclasm, by which +he signalized his brief period of popularity and power. In weighing, +gauging, and measuring such a man, one ought to remember, that if he +could have had his way and carried out all his schemes, he would have +abolished Borgianism certainly, and perhaps the papacy, but that he +would have substituted the rhapsodical reign of a single demagogue, +perpetually seeing visions and dreaming dreams for the direction of +his fellow-citizens, who were all to be governed by the hallucinations +of this puritan Mahomet. + + +IX. + +THE MEDICI CHAPEL. + +The famous cemetery of the Medici, the Sagrestia Nuova, is a ponderous +and dismal toy. It is a huge mass of expensive, solemn, and insipid +magnificence, erected over the carcasses of as contemptible a family +as ever rioted above the earth, or rotted under it. The only man of +the race, Cosmo il Vecchio, who deserves any healthy admiration, +although he was the real assassin of Florentine and Italian freedom, +and has thus earned the nickname of _Pater Patriae,_ is not buried +here. The series of mighty dead begins with the infamous Cosmo, first +grand duke, the contemporary of Philip II. of Spain, and his +counterpart in character and crime. Then there is Ferdinando I., whose +most signal achievement was not eating the poisoned pie prepared by +the fair hands of Bianca Capello. There are other Ferdinandos, and +other Cosmos,--all grand-ducal and _pater-patrial,_ as Medici +should be. + +The chapel is a vast lump of Florentine mosaic, octagonal, a hundred +feet or so in diameter, and about twice as high. The cupola has some +brand-new frescos, by Benvenuto. "Anthropophagi, whose heads do grow +beneath their shoulders," may enjoy these pictures upon domes. For +common mortals it is not agreeable to remain very long upside down, +even to contemplate masterpieces, which these certainly are not. + +The walls of the chapel are all incrusted with gorgeous marbles and +precious stones, from malachite, porphyry, lapis-lazuli, chalcedony, +agate, to all the finer and more expensive gems which shone in Aaron's +ephod. When one considers that an ear-ring or a brooch, half an inch +long, of Florentine mosaic work, costs five or six dollars, and that +here is a great church of the same material and workmanship as a +breastpin, one may imagine it to have been somewhat expensive. + +The Sagrestia Nuova was built by Michel Angelo, to hold his monuments +to Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Urbino, and grandson of Lorenzo the +Magnificent, and to Julian de' Medici, son of Lorenzo Magnifico. + +It is not edifying to think of the creative soul and plastic hands of +Buonarotti employed in rendering worship to such creatures. This +Lorenzo is chiefly known as having married Madeleine de Boulogne, and +as having died, as well as his wife, of a nameless disorder, +immediately after they had engendered the renowned Catharine de' +Medici, whose hideous life was worthy of its corrupt and poisoned +source. + +Did Michel Angelo look upon his subject as a purely imaginary one? +Surely he must have had some definite form before his mental vision; +for although sculpture cannot, like painting, tell an elaborate story, +still each figure must have a moral and a meaning, must show cause for +its existence, and indicate a possible function, or the mind of the +spectator is left empty and craving. + +Here, at the tomb of Lorenzo, are three masterly figures. An heroic, +martial, deeply contemplative figure sits in grand repose. A +statesman, a sage, a patriot, a warrior, with countenance immersed in +solemn thought, and head supported and partly hidden by his hand, is +brooding over great recollections and mighty deeds. Was this Lorenzo, +the husband of Madeleine, the father of Catharine? Certainly the mind +at once dethrones him from his supremacy upon his own tomb, and +substitutes an Epaminondas, a Cromwell, a Washington,--what it +wills. 'Tis a godlike apparition, and need be called by no mortal +name. We feel unwilling to invade the repose of that majestic reverie +by vulgar invocation. The hero, nameless as he must ever remain, sits +there in no questionable shape, nor can we penetrate the sanctuary of +that marble soul. Till we can summon Michel, with his chisel, to add +the finishing strokes to the grave, silent face of the naked figure +reclining below the tomb, or to supply the lacking left hand to the +colossal form of female beauty sitting upon the opposite sepulchre, we +must continue to burst in ignorance. Sooner shall the ponderous +marble jaws of the tomb open, that Lorenzo may come forth to claim his +right to the trophy, than any admirer of human genius will doubt that +the shade of some real hero was present to the mind's eye of the +sculptor, when he tore these stately forms out of the enclosing rock. + +A colossal hero sits, serene and solemn, upon a sepulchre. Beneath him +recline two vast mourning figures, one of each sex. One longs to +challenge converse with the male figure, with the unfinished +Sphinx-like face, who is stretched there at his harmonious length, +like an ancient river-god without his urn. There is nothing appalling +or chilling in his expression, nor does he seem to mourn without +hope. 'Tis a stately recumbent figure, of wonderful anatomy, without +any exaggeration of muscle, and, accordingly, his name is----Twilight! + +Why Twilight should grieve at the tomb of Lorenzo, grandson of Lorenzo +Magnifico, any more than the grandfather would have done, does not +seem very clear, even to Twilight himself, who seems, after all, in a +very crepuscular state upon the subject. The mistiness is much aided +by the glimmering expression of his half-finished features. + +But if Twilight should be pensive at the demise of Lorenzo, is there +any reason why Aurora should weep outright upon the same occasion? +This Aurora, however, weeping and stately, all nobleness and all +tears, is a magnificent creation, fashioned with the audacious +accuracy which has been granted to few modern sculptors. The figure +and face are most beautiful, and rise above all puny criticism; and as +one looks upon that sublime and wailing form, that noble and nameless +child of a divine genius, the flippant question dies on the lip, and +we seek not to disturb that passionate and beautiful image of woman's +grief by idle curiosity or useless speculation. + +The monument, upon the opposite side, to Julian, third son of Lorenzo +Magnifico, is of very much the same character. Here are also two +mourning figures. One is a sleeping and wonderfully beautiful female +shape, colossal, in a position less adapted to repose than to the +display of the sculptor's power and her own perfections. This is +Night. A stupendously sculptured male figure, in a reclining attitude, +and exhibiting, I suppose, as much learning in his _torso_ as +does the famous figure in the Elgin marbles, strikes one as the most +triumphant statue of modern times. + +The figure of Julian is not agreeable. The neck, long and twisted, +suggests an heroic ostrich in a Roman breastplate. The attitude, too, +is ungraceful. The hero sits with his knees projecting beyond the +perpendicular, so that his legs seem to be doubling under him, a +position deficient in grace and dignity. + +It is superfluous to say that the spectator must invent for himself +the allegory which he may choose to see embodied in this stony +trio. It is not enough to be told the words of the charade,--Julian, +Night, Morning. One can never spell out the meaning by putting +together the group with the aid of such a key. Night is Night, +obviously, because she is asleep. For an equally profound reason, Day +is Day, because he is not asleep; and both, looked at in this vulgar +light, are creations as imaginative as Simon Snug, with his lantern, +representing moonshine. If the figures should arise and walk across +the chapel, changing places with the couple opposite them, as if in a +sepulchral quadrille, would the allegory become more intelligible? +Could not Day or Night move from Julian's monument, and take up the +same position at Lorenzo's tomb, or "Ninny's tomb," or any other tomb? +Was Lorenzo any more to Aurora than Julian, that she should weep for +him only? + +Therefore one must invent for one's self the fable of those immortal +groups. Each spectator must pluck out, unaided, the heart of their +mystery. Those matchless colossal forms, which the foolish chroniclers +of the time have baptized Night and Morning, speak an unknown language +to the crowd. They are mute as Sphinx to souls which cannot supply the +music and the poetry which fell from their marble lips upon the ear of +him who created them. + + +X. + +PALAZZO RICCARDI. + +The ancient residence of Cosmo Vecchio and his successors is a +magnificent example of that vast and terrible architecture peculiar to +Florence. This has always been a city, not of streets, but of +fortresses. Each block is one house, but a house of the size of a +citadel; while the corridors and apartments are like casemates and +bastions, so gloomy and savage is their expression. Ancient Florence, +the city of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries, the +Florence of the nobles, the Florence of the Ghibellines, the Florence +in which nearly every house was a castle, with frowning towers +hundreds of feet high, machicolated battlements, donjon keeps, +oubliettes, and all other appurtenances of a feudal stronghold, exists +no longer. With the expulsion of the imperial faction, and the advent +of the municipal Guelphs,--that proudest, boldest, most successful, +and most unreasonable _bourgeoisie_ which ever assumed organized +life,--the nobles were curtailed of all their privileges. Their city +castles, too, were shorn of their towers, which were limited to just +so many ells, cloth measure, by the haughty shopkeepers who had +displaced the grandees. The first third of the thirteenth century--the +epoch of the memorable Buondelmonti street fight which lasted thirty +years--was the period in which this dreadful architecture was fixed +upon Florence. Then was the time in which the chains, fastened in +those huge rings which still dangle from the grim house-fronts, were +stretched across the street; thus enclosing and fettering a compact +mass of combatants in an iron embrace, while from the rare and narrow +murder-windows in the walls, and from the beetling roofs, descended +the hail of iron and stone and scalding pitch and red-hot coals to +refresh the struggling throng below. + +After this epoch, and with the expiration of the imperial house of the +Hohenstaufen, the nobles here, as in Switzerland, sought to popularize +themselves, to become municipal. + + + Der Adel steigt von seinen alten Burgen, + Und schwört den Städten seinen Bürger-Eid, + + +said the prophetic old Attinghausen, in his dying moments. The change +was even more extraordinary in Florence. The expulsion of some of the +patrician families was absolute. Others were allowed to participate +with the plebeians in the struggle for civic honors, and for the +wealth earned in commerce, manufactures, and handicraft. It became a +severe and not uncommon punishment to degrade offending individuals or +families into the ranks of nobility, and thus deprive them of their +civil rights. Hundreds of low-born persons have, in a single day, been +declared noble, and thus disfranchised. And the example of Florence +was often followed by other cities. + +The result was twofold upon the aristocracy. Those who municipalized +themselves became more enlightened, more lettered, more refined, and, +at the same time, less chivalrous and less martial than their +ancestors. The characters of buccaneer, land-pirate, knight-errant +could not be conveniently united with those of banker, exchange +broker, dealer in dry goods, and general commission agents. + +The consequence was that the fighting business became a specialty, and +fell into the hands of private companies. Florence, like Venice, and +other Italian republics, jobbed her wars. The work was done by the +Hawkwoods, the Sforzas, the Bracciones, and other chiefs of the +celebrated free companies, black bands, lance societies, who +understood no other profession, but who were as accomplished in the +arts of their own guild as were any of the five major and seven minor +crafts into which the Florentine burgesses were divided. + +This proved a bad thing for the liberties of Florence in the end. The +chieftains of these military clubs, usually from the lowest ranks, +with no capacity but for bloodshed, and no revenue but rapine, often +ended their career by obtaining the seigniory of some petty republic, +a small town, or a handful of hamlets, whose liberty they crushed with +their own iron, and with the gold obtained, in exchange for their +blood, from the city bankers. In the course of time such seigniories +often rolled together, and assumed a menacing shape to all who valued +municipal liberty. Sforza--whose peasant father threw his axe into a +tree, resolving, if it fell, to join, as a common soldier, the roving +band which had just invited him; if it adhered to the wood, to remain +at home a laboring hind--becomes Duke of Milan, and is encouraged in +his usurpation by Cosmo Vecchio, who still gives himself the airs of +first-citizen of Florence. + +The serpent, the well-known cognizance of the Visconti, had already +coiled itself around all those fair and clustering cities which were +once the Lombard republics, and had poisoned their vigorous life. The +Ezzelinos, Carraras, Gonzagas, Scalas, had crushed the spirit of +liberty in the neighborhood of Venice. All this had been accomplished +by means of mercenary adventurers, guided only by the love of plunder; +while those two luxurious and stately republics--the one an oligarchy, +the other a democracy--looked on from their marble palaces, enjoying +the refreshing bloodshowers in which their own golden harvests were so +rapidly ripening. + +Meanwhile a gigantic despotism was maturing, which was eventually to +crush the power, glory, wealth, and freedom of Italy. + +This _palazzo_ of Cosmo the Elder is a good type of Florentine +architecture at its ultimate epoch, just as Cosmo himself was the +largest expression of the Florentine citizen in the last and over-ripe +stage. + +The Medici family, unheard of in the thirteenth century, obscure and +plebeian in the middle of the fourteenth, and wealthy bankers and +leaders of the democratic party at its close, culminated in the early +part of the fifteenth in the person of Cosmo. The _Pater +Patriae,_--so called, because, having at last absorbed all the +authority, he could afford to affect some of the benignity of a +parent, and to treat his fellow-citizens, not as men, but as little +children,--the Father of his Country had acquired, by means of his +great fortune and large financial connections, an immense control over +the destinies of Florence and Italy. But he was still a private +citizen in externals. There was, at least, elevation of taste, +refinement of sentiment in Cosmo's conception of a great citizen. His +habits of life were elegant, but frugal. He built churches, palaces, +villas. He employed all the great architects of the age. He adorned +these edifices with masterpieces from the pencils and chisels of the +wonderful _Quattrocentisti_, whose productions alone would have +given Florence an immortal name in Art history. Yet he preserved a +perfect simplicity of equipage and apparel. In this regard, faithful +to the traditions of the republic, which his family had really changed +from a democracy to a ploutarchy, he had the good taste to scorn the +vulgar pomp of kings,--"the horses led, and grooms besmeared with +gold,"--all the theatrical paraphernalia and plebeian tinsel "which +dazzle the crowd and set them all agape"; but his expenditures were +those of an intellectual and accomplished oligarch. He was worthy, in +many respects, to be the chief of those haughty merchants and +manufacturers, who wielded more power, through the length of their +purses and the cultivation of their brains, than did all the +contemporaneous and illiterate barons of the rest of Christendom, by +dint of castle-storming and cattle-stealing. + +In an age when other nobles were proud of being unable to write their +own names, or to read them when others wrote them, the great princes +and citizens of Florence protected and cultivated art, science, and +letters. Every citizen received a liberal education. Poets and +philosophers sat in the councils of the republic. Philosophy, +metaphysics, and the restoration of ancient learning occupied the +minds and diminished the revenues of its greater and inferior +burghers. In this respect, the Medici, and their abetters of the +fifteenth century, discharged a portion of the debt which they had +incurred to humanity. They robbed Italy of her freedom, but they gave +her back the philosophy of Plato. They reduced the generality of +Florentine citizens, who were once omnipotent, to a nullity; but they +had at least, the sense to cherish Donatello and Ghiberti, +Brunelleschi and Gozzoli, Ficino and Politian. + +It is singular, too, with what comparatively small means the Medici +were enabled to do such great things. Cosmo, unquestionably the +greatest and most successful citizen that ever lived,--for he almost +rivalled Pericles in position, if not in talent, while he surpassed +him in good fortune,--was, during his lifetime, the virtual sovereign +of the most enlightened and wealthy and powerful republic that had +existed in modern times. He built the church of San Marco, the church +of San Lorenzo, the cloister of San Verdiano. On the hill of Fiesole he +erected a church and a convent. At Jerusalem he built a church and a +hospital for pilgrims. All this was for religion, the republic, and +the world. For himself he constructed four splendid villas, at +Careggi, Fiesole, Caffaggiolo, and Trebbio, and in the city the +magnificent palace in the Via Larga, now called the Riccardi. + +In thirty-seven years, from 1434 to 1471, he and his successors +expended eight millions of francs (663,755 gold florins) in buildings +and charities,--a sum which may be represented by as many, or, as some +would reckon, twice as many, dollars at the present day. Nevertheless, +the income of Cosmo was never more than 600,000 francs, (50,000 gold +florins,) while his fortune was never thought to exceed three millions +of francs, or six hundred thousand dollars. Being invested in +commerce, his property yielded, and ought to have yielded, an income +of twenty _per cent_. Nevertheless, an inventory made in 1469 +showed, that, after twenty-nine years, he left to his son Pietro a +fortune but just about equal in amount to that which he had himself +received from his father. + +With six hundred thousand dollars for his whole capital, then, Cosmo +was able to play his magnificent part in the world's history; while +the Duke of Milan, son of the peasant Sforza, sometimes expended more +than that sum in a single year. So much difference was there between +the position and requirements of an educated and opulent +first-citizen, and a low-born military _parvenu_, whom, however, +Cosmo was most earnest to encourage and to strengthen in his designs +against the liberties of Lombardy. + +This Riccardi palace, as Cosmo observed after his poor son Peter had +become bed-ridden with the gout, was a marvellously large mansion for +so small a family as one old man and one cripple. It is chiefly +interesting, now, for the frescos with which Benozzo Gozzoli has +adorned the chapel. The same cause which has preserved these beautiful +paintings so fresh, four centuries long, has unfortunately always +prevented their being seen to any advantage. The absence of light, +which has kept the colors from fading, is most provoking, when one +wishes to admire the works of a great master, whose productions are so +rare. + +Gozzoli, who lived and worked through the middle of the fifteenth +century, is chiefly known by his large and graceful compositions in +the Pisan Campo Santo. These masterpieces are fast crumbling into +mildewed rubbish. He had as much vigor and audacity as Ghirlandaio, +with more grace and freshness of invention. He has, however, nothing +of his dramatic power. His genius is rather idyllic and +romantic. Although some of the figures in these Medici palace frescos +are thought to be family portraits, still they hardly seem very +lifelike. The subjects selected are a Nativity, and an Adoration of +the Magi. In the neighborhood of the window is a choir of angels +singing Hosanna, full of freshness and vernal grace. The long +procession of kings riding to pay their homage, "with tedious pomp and +rich retinue long," has given the artist an opportunity of exhibiting +more power in perspective and fore-shortening than one could expect at +that epoch. There are mules and horses, caparisoned and bedizened; +some led by grinning blackamoors, others ridden by showy kings, +effulgent in brocade, glittering spurs, and gleaming cuirasses. Here +are horsemen travelling straight towards the spectator,--there, a +group, in an exactly opposite direction, is forcing its way into the +picture,--while hunters with hound and horn are pursuing the stag on +the neighboring hills, and idle spectators stand around, gaping and +dazzled; all drawn with a free and accurate pencil, and colored with +much brilliancy;--a triumphant and masterly composition, hidden in a +dark corner of what has now become a great dusty building, filled with +public offices. + + +XI. + +FIESOLE. + +Here sits on her hill the weird old Etrurian nurse of Florence, +withered, superannuated, feeble, warming her palsied limbs in the sun, +and looking vacantly down upon the beautiful child whose cradle she +rocked. Fiesole is perhaps the oldest Italian city. The inhabitants of +middle and lower Italy were Pelasgians by origin, like the earlier +races of Greece. The Etrurians were an aboriginal stock,--that is to +say, as far as anything can be definitely stated regarding their +original establishment in the peninsula; for they, too, doubtless +came, at some remote epoch, from beyond the Altai mountains. + +In their arts they seem to have been original,--at least, until at a +later period they began to imitate the culture of Greece. They were +the only ancient Italian people who had the art-capacity; and they +supplied the wants of royal Rome, just as Greece afterwards supplied +the republic and the empire with the far more elevated creations of +her plastic genius. + +The great works undertaken by the Tarquins, if there ever were +Tarquins, were in the hands of Etrurian architects and sculptors. The +admirable system of subterranean drainage in Rome, by which the swampy +hollows among the seven hills were converted into stately streets, and +the stupendous _cloaca maxima_, the buried arches of which have +sustained for more than two thousand years, without flinching, the +weight of superincumbent Rome, were Etrurian performances, commenced +six centuries before Christ. + +It would appear that this people had rather a tendency to the useful, +than to the beautiful. Unable to assimilate the elements of beauty and +grace furnished by more genial races, this mystic and vanished nation +was rather prone to the stupendously and minutely practical, than +devoted to the beautiful for its own sake. + +At Fiesole, the vast Cyclopean walls, still fixed and firm as the +everlasting hills, in their parallelopipedal layers, attest the +grandeur of the ancient city. Here are walls built, probably, before +the foundation of Rome, and yet steadfast as the Apennines. There are +also a broken ring or two of an amphitheatre; for the Etrurians +preceded and instructed the Romans in gladiatorial shows. It is +suggestive to seat one's self upon these solid granite seats, where +twenty-five hundred years ago some grave Etrurian citizen, wrapped in +his mantle of Tyrrhenian purple, his straight-nosed wife at his side, +with serpent bracelet and enamelled brooch, and a hopeful family +clustering playfully at their knees, looked placidly on, while slaves +were baiting and butchering each other in the arena below. + +The Duomo is an edifice of the Romanesque period, and contains some +masterpieces by Mino da Fiesole. On a fine day, however, the church is +too dismal, and the scene outside too glowing and golden, to permit +any compromise between nature and Mino. The view from the Franciscan +convent upon the brow of the hill, site of the ancient acropolis, is +on the whole the very best which can be obtained of Florence and the +Val d' Arno. All the verdurous, gently rolling hills which are heaped +about Firenze la bella are visible at once. There, stretched languidly +upon those piles of velvet cushions, reposes the luxurious, jewelled, +tiara-crowned city, like Cleopatra on her couch. Nothing, save an +Oriental or Italian city on the sea-coast, can present a more +beautiful picture. The hills are tossed about so softly, the sunshine +comes down in its golden shower so voluptuously, the yellow Arno moves +along its channel so noiselessly, the chains of villages, villas, +convents, and palaces are strung together with such a profuse and +careless grace, wreathing themselves from hill to hill, and around +every coigne of vantage, the forests of olive and the festoons of vine +are so poetical and suggestive, that we wonder not that civilized man +has found this an attractive abode for twenty-five centuries. + +Florence is stone dead. 'Tis but a polished tortoise-shell, of which +the living inhabitant has long since crumbled to dust; but it still +gleams in the sun with wondrous radiance. + +Just at your feet, as you stand on the convent terrace, is the Villa +Mozzi, where, not long ago, were found buried jars of Roman coins of +the republican era, hidden there by Catiline, at the epoch of his +memorable conspiracy. Upon the same spot was the favorite residence of +Lorenzo Magnifico; concerning whose probable ponderings, as he sat +upon his terrace, with his legs dangling over Florence, much may be +learned from the guide-book of the immortal Murray, so that he who +runs may read and philosophize. + +Looking at Florence from the hill-top, one is more impressed than ever +with the appropriateness of its name. _The City of Flowers_ is +itself a flower, and, as you gaze upon it from a height, you see how +it opens from its calyx. The many bright villages, gay gardens, +palaces, and convents which encircle the city, are not to be regarded +separately, but as one whole. The germ and heart of Florence, the +compressed and half hidden Piazza, with its dome, campanile, and long, +slender towers, shooting forth like the stamens and pistils, is +closely folded and sombre, while the vast and beautiful corolla +spreads its brilliant and fragrant circumference, petal upon petal, +for miles and miles around. + + + + + +THE BATTLE OF LEPANTO. + + +It was two hours before dawn on Sunday, the memorable seventh of +October, 1571, when the fleet weighed anchor. The wind had become +lighter, but it was still contrary, and the galleys were indebted for +their progress much more to their oars than to their sails. By sunrise +they were abreast of the Curzolares, a cluster of huge rocks, or rocky +islets, which, on the north, defends the entrance of the Gulf of +Lepanto. The fleet moved laboriously along, while every eye was +strained to catch the first glimpse of the hostile navy. At length the +watch from the foretop of the _Real_ called out, "A sail!" and +soon after announced that the whole Ottoman fleet was in +sight. Several others, climbing up the rigging, confirmed his report; +and in a few moments more word was sent to the same effect by Andrew +Doria, who commanded on the right. There was no longer any doubt; and +Don John, ordering his pendant to be displayed at the mizzen-peak, +unfurled the great standard of the League, given by the pope, and +directed a gun to be fired, the signal for battle. The report, as it +ran along the rocky shores, fell cheerily on the ears of the +confederates, who, raising their eyes towards the consecrated banner, +filled the air with their shouts. + +The principal captains now came on board the _Real_ to receive +the last orders of the commander-in-chief. Even at this late hour +there were some who ventured to intimate their doubts of the +expediency of engaging the enemy in a position where he had a decided +advantage. But Don John cut short the discussion. "Gentlemen," he +said, "this is the time for combat, not for counsel." He then +continued the dispositions he was making for the assault. + +He had already given to each commander of a galley written +instructions as to the manner in which the line of battle was to be +formed, in case of meeting the enemy. The armada was now formed in +that order. It extended on a front of three miles. Far on the right a +squadron of sixty-four galleys was commanded by the Genoese, Andrew +Doria, a name of terror to the Moslems. The centre, or _battle_, as it +was called, consisting of sixty-three galleys, was led by John of +Austria, who was supported on the one side by Colonna, the +captain-general of the pope, and on the other by the Venetian +captain-general, Veniero. Immediately in the rear was the galley of +the _Comendador_ Requesens, who still remained near the person of his +former pupil; though a difference which arose between them on +the voyage, fortunately now healed, showed that the young +commander-in-chief was wholly independent of his teacher in the art of +war. The left wing was commanded by the noble Venetian, Barberigo, +whose vessels stretched along the Aetolian shore, which, to prevent his +being turned by the enemy, he approached as near as, in his ignorance +of the coast, he dared to venture. Finally, the reserve, consisting of +thirty-five galleys, was given to the brave Marquis of Santa Cruz, +with directions to act on any part where he thought his presence most +needed. The smaller craft, some of which had now arrived, seem to have +taken little part in the action, which was thus left to the galleys. + +Each commander was to occupy so much space with his galley as to allow +room for manoeuvring it to advantage, and yet not enough to enable the +enemy to break the line. He was directed to single out his adversary, +to close at once with him, and board as soon as possible. The beaks +of the galleys were pronounced to be a hindrance rather than a help in +action. They were rarely strong enough to resist a shock from the +enemy; and they much interfered with the working and firing of the +guns. Don John had the beak of his vessel cut away; and the example +was speedily followed throughout the fleet, and, as it is said, with +eminently good effect. It may seem strange that this discovery should +have been reserved for the crisis of a battle. + +When the officers had received their last instructions, they returned +to their respective vessels; and Don John, going on board of a light +frigate, passed rapidly through that part of the armada lying on his +right, while he commanded Requesens to do the same with the vessels on +his left. His object was to feel the temper of his men, and rouse +their mettle by a few words of encouragement. The Venetians he +reminded of their recent injuries. The hour for vengeance, he told +them, had arrived. To the Spaniards, and other confederates, he said, +"You have come to fight the battle of the Cross,--to conquer or +die. But whether you die or conquer, do your duty this day, and you +will secure a glorious immortality." His words were received with a +burst of enthusiasm which went to the heart of the commander, and +assured him that he could rely on his men in the hour of trial. On his +return to his vessel, he saw Veniero on his quarter-deck, and they +exchanged salutations in as friendly a manner as if no difference had +existed between them. At a time like this, both these brave men were +willing to forget all personal animosity, in a common feeling of +devotion to the great cause in which they were engaged. + +The Ottoman fleet came on slowly and with difficulty. For, strange to +say, the wind, which had hitherto been adverse to the Christians, +after lulling for a time, suddenly shifted to the opposite quarter, +and blew in the face of the enemy. As the day advanced, moreover, the +sun, which had shone in the eyes of the confederates, gradually shot +its rays into those of the Moslems. Both circumstances were of good +omen to the Christians, and the first was regarded as nothing short of +a direct interposition of Heaven. Thus ploughing its way along, the +Turkish armament, as it came nearer into view, showed itself in +greater strength than had been anticipated by the allies. It consisted +of nearly two hundred and fifty royal galleys, most of them of the +largest class, besides a number of smaller vessels in the rear, which, +like those of the allies, appear scarcely to have come into +action. The men on board, including those of every description, were +computed at not less than a hundred and twenty thousand. The galleys +spread out, as usual with the Turks, in the form of a regular +half-moon, covering a wider extent of surface than the combined +fleets, which they somewhat exceeded in numbers. They presented, +indeed, as they drew nearer, a magnificent array, with their gilded +and gaudily painted prows, and their myriads of pennons and streamers +fluttering gayly in the breeze, while the rays of the morning sun +glanced on the polished scymitars of Damascus, and on the superb +aigrettes of jewels which sparkled in the turbans of the Ottoman +chiefs. + +In the centre of the extended line, and directly opposite to the +station occupied by the captain-general of the League, was the huge +galley of Ali Pasha. The right of the armada was commanded by Mehemet +Siroco, viceroy of Egypt, a circumspect as well as courageous leader; +the left by Uluch Ali, dey of Algiers, the redoubtable corsair of the +Mediterranean. Ali Pasha had experienced a similar difficulty with Don +John, as several of his officers had strongly urged the inexpediency +of engaging so formidable an armament as that of the allies. But Ali, +like his rival, was young and ambitious. He had been sent by his +master to fight the enemy; and no remonstrances, not even those of +Mehemet Siroco, for whom he had great respect, could turn him from his +purpose. + +He had, moreover, received intelligence that the allied fleet was much +inferior in strength to what it proved. In this error he was +fortified by the first appearance of the Christians; for the extremity +of their left wing, commanded by Barberigo, stretching behind the +Aetolian shore, was hidden from his view. As he drew nearer, and saw +the whole extent of the Christian lines, it is said his countenance +fell. If so, he still did not abate one jot of his resolution. He +spoke to those around him with the same confidence as before of the +result of the battle. He urged his rowers to strain every effort. Ali +was a man of more humanity than often belonged to his nation. His +galley-slaves were all, or nearly all, Christian captives; and he +addressed them in this neat and pithy manner: "If your countrymen win +this day, Allah give you the benefit of it! Yet if I win it, you +shall have your freedom. If you feel that I do well by you, do then +the like by me." + +As the Turkish admiral drew nearer, he made a change in his order of +battle by separating his wings farther from his centre, thus +conforming to the dispositions of the allies. Before he had come +within cannon-shot, he fired a gun by way of challenge to his +enemy. It was answered by another from the galley of John of +Austria. A second gun discharged by Ali was as promptly replied to by +the Christian commander. The distance between the two fleets was now +rapidly diminishing. At this solemn hour a death-like silence reigned +throughout the armament of the confederates. Men seemed to hold their +breath, as if absorbed in the expectation of some great +catastrophe. The day was magnificent. A light breeze, still adverse +to the Turks, played on the waters, somewhat fretted by contrary +winds. It was nearly noon; and as the sun, mounting through a +cloudless sky, rose to the zenith, he seemed to pause, as if to look +down on the beautiful scene, where the multitude of galleys, moving +over the water, showed like a holiday spectacle rather than a +preparation for mortal combat. + +The illusion was soon dispelled by the fierce yells which rose on the +air from the Turkish armada. It was the customary war-cry with which +the Moslems entered into battle. Very different was the scene on board +of the Christian galleys. Don John might be there seen, armed +cap-a-pie, standing on the prow of the _Real_, anxiously awaiting +the coming conflict. In this conspicuous position, kneeling down, he +raised his eyes to heaven, and humbly prayed that the Almighty would +be with his people on that day. His example was speedily followed by +the whole fleet. Officers and men, all falling on their knees, and +turning their eyes to the consecrated banner which floated from the +_Real_, put up a petition like that of their commander. They +then received absolution from the priests, of whom there were some in +each vessel; and each man, as he rose to his feet, gathered new +strength from the assurance that the Lord of Hosts would fight on his +side. + +When the foremost vessels of the Turks had come within cannon-shot, +they opened a fire on the Christians. The firing soon ran along the +whole of the Turkish line, and was kept up without interruption as it +advanced. Don John gave orders for trumpet and atabal to sound the +signal for action; and a simultaneous discharge followed from such of +the guns in the combined fleet as could bear on the enemy. Don John +had caused the _galeazzas_ to be towed some half a mile ahead of +the fleet, where they might intercept the advance of the Turks. As the +latter came abreast of them, the huge galleys delivered their +broadsides right and left, and their heavy ordnance produced a +startling effect. Ali Pasha gave orders for his galleys to open on +either side, and pass without engaging these monsters of the deep, of +which he had had no experience. Even so their heavy guns did +considerable damage to the nearest vessels, and created some confusion +in the pasha's line of battle. They were, however, but unwieldy craft, +and, having accomplished their object, seem to have taken no further +part in the combat. The action began on the left wing of the allies, +which Mehemet Siroco was desirous of turning. This had been +anticipated by Barberigo, the Venetian admiral, who commanded in that +quarter. To prevent it, as we have seen, he lay with his vessels as +near the coast as he dared. Siroco, better acquainted with the +soundings, saw there was space enough for him to pass, and darting by +with all the speed that oars and wind could give him, he succeeded in +doubling on his enemy. Thus placed between two fires, the extreme of +the Christian left fought at terrible disadvantage. No less than eight +galleys went to the bottom. Several more were captured. The brave +Barberigo, throwing himself into the heat of the fight, without +availing himself of his defensive armor, was pierced in the eye by an +arrow, and though reluctant to leave the glory of the field to +another, was borne to his cabin. The combat still continued with +unabated fury on the part of the Venetians. They fought like men who +felt that the war was theirs, and who were animated not only by the +thirst for glory, but for revenge. + +Far on the Christian right, a manoeuvre similar to that so +successfully executed by Siroco was attempted by Uluch Ali, the +viceroy of Algiers. Profiting by his superiority of numbers, he +endeavored to turn the right wing of the confederates. It was in this +quarter that Andrew Doria commanded. He also had foreseen this +movement of his enemy, and he succeeded in foiling it. It was a trial +of skill between the two most accomplished seamen in the +Mediterranean. Doria extended his line so far to the right, indeed, +to prevent being surrounded, that Don John was obliged to remind him +that he left the centre much too exposed. His dispositions were so far +unfortunate for himself that his own line was thus weakened and +afforded some vulnerable points to his assailant. These were soon +detected by the eagle eye of Uluch Ali; and like the king of birds +swooping on his prey, he fell on some galleys separated by a +considerable interval from their companions, and, sinking more than +one, carried off the great _Capitana_ of Malta in triumph as his +prize. + +While the combat thus opened disastrously to the allies both on the +right and on the left, in the centre they may be said to have fought +with doubtful fortune. Don John had led his division gallantly +forward. But the object on which he was intent was an encounter with +Ali Pasha, the foe most worthy of his sword. The Turkish commander had +the same combat no less at heart. The galleys of both were easily +recognized, not only from their position, but from their superior size +and richer decoration. The one, moreover, displayed the holy banner +of the League; the other, the great Ottoman standard. This, like the +ancient standard of the caliphs, was held sacred in its character. It +was covered with texts from the Koran, emblazoned in letters of gold, +with the name of Allah inscribed upon it no less than twenty-eight +thousand nine hundred times. It was the banner of the Sultan, having +passed from father to son since the foundation of the imperial +dynasty, and was never seen in the field unless the Grand-Seignior or +his lieutenant was there in person. + +Both the Christian and the Moslem chief urged on their rowers to the +top of their speed. Their galleys soon shot ahead of the rest of the +line, driven through the boiling surges as by the force of a tornado, +and closing with a shock that made every timber crack, and the two +vessels quiver to their very keels. So powerful, indeed, was the +impetus they received, that the pasha's galley, which was considerably +the larger and loftier of the two, was thrown so far upon its opponent +that the prow reached the fourth bench of rowers. As soon as the +vessels were disengaged from each other, and those on board had +recovered from the shock, the work of death began. Don John's chief +strength consisted in some three hundred Spanish arquebusiers, culled +from the flower of his infantry. Ali, on the other hand, was provided +with the like number of janissaries. He was also followed by a +smaller vessel, in which two hundred more were stationed as a _corps +de réserve_. He had, moreover, a hundred archers on board. The bow +was still much in use with the Turks, as with the other Moslems. + +The pasha opened at once on his enemy a terrible fire of cannon and +musketry. It was returned with equal spirit, and much more effect; for +the Turkish marksmen were observed to shoot over the heads of their +adversaries. Their galley was unprovided with the defences which +protected the sides of the Spanish vessels; and the troops, huddled +together on their lofty prow, presented an easy mark to their enemies' +balls. But though numbers of them fell at every discharge, their +places were soon supplied by those in reserve. Their incessant fire, +moreover, wasted the strength of the Spaniards; and as both Christian +and Mussulman fought with indomitable spirit, it seemed doubtful to +which side the victory would incline. + +The affair was made more complicated by the entrance of other parties +into the conflict. Both Ali and Don John were supported by some of the +most valiant captains in their fleets. Next to the Spanish commander, +as we have seen, were Colonna and the veteran Veniero, who, at the age +of seventy-six, performed feats of arms worthy of a paladin of +romance. Thus a little squadron of combatants gathered around the +principal leaders, who sometimes found themselves assailed by several +enemies at the same time. Still the chiefs did not lose sight of one +another, but beating off their inferior foes as well as they could, +each refusing to loosen his hold, clung with mortal grasp to his +antagonist. + +Thus the fight raged along the whole extent of the entrance of the +Gulf of Lepanto. If the eye of the spectator could have penetrated the +cloud of smoke that enveloped the combatants, and have embraced the +whole scene at a glance, he would have beheld them broken up into +small detachments, engaged in conflict with one another, wholly +independently of the rest, and indeed ignorant of all that was doing +in other quarters. The volumes of vapor, rolling heavily over the +waters, effectually shut out from sight whatever was passing at any +considerable distance, unless when a fresher breeze dispelled the +smoke for a moment, or the flashes of the heavy guns threw a transient +gleam over the dark canopy of battle. The contest exhibited few of +those enlarged combinations and skilful manoeuvres to be expected in a +great naval encounter. It was rather an assemblage of petty actions, +resembling those on land. The galleys, grappling together, presented a +level arena, on which soldier and galley-slave fought hand to hand, +and the fate of the engagement was generally decided by boarding. As +in most hand-to-hand contests, there was an enormous waste of +life. The decks were loaded with corpses, Christian and Moslem lying +promiscuously together in the embrace of death. Instances are given +where every man on board was slain or wounded. It was a ghastly +spectacle, where blood flowed in rivulets down the sides of the +vessels, staining the waters of the Gulf for miles around. + +It seemed as if some hurricane had swept over the sea, and covered it +with the wreck of the noble armaments which a moment before were so +proudly riding on its bosom. Little had they now to remind one of +their late magnificent array, with their hulls battered and defaced, +their masts and spars gone or fearfully splintered by the shot, their +canvas cut into shreds and floating wildly on the breeze, while +thousands of wounded and drowning men were clinging to the floating +fragments, and calling piteously for help. Such was the wild uproar +which had succeeded to the Sabbath-like stillness that two hours +before had reigned over these beautiful solitudes! + +The left wing of the confederates, commanded by Barberigo, had been +sorely pressed by the Turks, as we have seen, at the beginning of the +fight. Barberigo himself had been mortally wounded. His line had been +turned. Several of his galleys had been sunk. But the Venetians +gathered courage from despair. By incredible efforts they succeeded in +beating off their enemies. They became the assailants in their +turn. Sword in hand, they carried one vessel after another. The +Capuchin, with uplifted crucifix, was seen to head the attack, and to +lead the boarders to the assault. The Christian galley-slaves, in some +instances, broke their fetters and joined their countrymen against +their masters. Fortunately, the vessel of Mehemet Siroco, the Moslem +admiral, was sunk; and though extricated from the water himself, it +was only to perish by the sword of his conqueror, Juan Contarini. The +Venetian could find no mercy for the Turk. + +The fall of their commander gave the final blow to his +followers. Without further attempt to prolong the fight, they fled +before the avenging swords of the Venetians. Those nearest the land +endeavored to escape by running their vessels ashore, where they +abandoned them as prizes to the Christians. Yet many of the fugitives, +before gaining the shore, perished miserably in the waves. Barberigo, +the Venetian admiral, who was still lingering in agony, heard the +tidings of the enemy's defeat, and exclaiming, "I die contented," he +breathed his last. + +Meanwhile the combat had been going forward in the centre between the +two commanders-in-chief, Don John and Ali Pasha, whose galleys blazed +with an incessant fire of artillery and musketry that enveloped them +like "a martyr's robe of flames." Both parties fought with equal +spirit, though not with equal fortune. Twice the Spaniards had boarded +their enemy, and both times they had been repulsed with loss. Still +their superiority in the use of their fire-arms would have given them +a decided advantage over their opponents, if the loss thus inflicted +had not been speedily repaired by fresh reinforcements. More than once +the contest between the two chieftains was interrupted by the arrival +of others to take part in the fray. They soon, however, returned to +one another, as if unwilling to waste their strength on a meaner +enemy. Through the whole engagement both commanders exposed themselves +to danger as freely as any common soldier. Even Philip must have +admitted that in such a contest it would have been difficult for his +brother to find with honor a place of safety. Don John received a +wound in the foot. It was a slight one, however, and he would not +allow it to be attended to till the action was over. + +At length the men were mustered, and a third time the trumpets sounded +to the assault. It was more successful than those preceding. The +Spaniards threw themselves boldly into the Turkish galley. They were +met by the janissaries with the same spirit as before. Ali Pasha led +them on. Unfortunately, at this moment he was struck by a musket-ball +in the head, and stretched senseless on the gangway. His men fought +worthily of their ancient renown. But they missed the accustomed voice +of their commander. After a short, but ineffectual struggle against +the fiery impetuosity of the Spaniards, they were overpowered and +threw down their arms. The decks were loaded with the bodies of the +dead and the dying. Beneath these was discovered the Turkish +commander-in-chief, sorely wounded, but perhaps not mortally. He was +drawn forth by some Castilian soldiers, who, recognizing his person, +would at once have despatched him. But the wounded chief, having +rallied from the first effects of his blow, had presence of mind +enough to divert them from their purpose by pointing out the place +below where he had deposited his money and jewels, and they hastened +to profit by the disclosure before the treasure should fall into the +hands of their comrades. + +Ali was not so successful with another soldier, who came up soon +after, brandishing his sword, and preparing to plunge it into the body +of the prostrate commander. It was in vain that the latter endeavored +to turn the ruffian from his purpose. He was a convict,--one of those +galley-slaves whom Don John had caused to be unchained from the oar, +and furnished with arms. He could not believe that any treasure would +be worth so much to him as the head of the pasha. Without further +hesitation he dealt him a blow which severed it from his shoulders. +Then returning to his galley, he laid the bloody trophy before Don +John. But he had miscalculated on his recompense. His commander gazed +on it with a look of pity mingled with horror. He may have thought of +the generous conduct of Ali to his Christian captives, and have felt +that he deserved a better fate. He coldly inquired "of what use such a +present could be to him," and then ordered it to be thrown into the +sea. Far from being obeyed, it is said the head was stuck on a pike +and raised aloft on board the captive galley. At the same time the +banner of the Crescent was pulled down, while that of the Cross run up +in its place proclaimed the downfall of the pasha. + +The sight of the sacred ensign was welcomed by the Christians with a +shout of "Victory!" which rose high above the din of battle. The +tidings of the death of Ali soon passed from mouth to mouth, giving +fresh heart to the confederates, but falling like a knell on the ears +of the Moslems. Their confidence was gone. Their fire slackened. Their +efforts grew weaker and weaker. They were too far from shore to seek +an asylum there, like their comrades on the right. They had no +resource but to prolong the combat or to surrender. Most preferred the +latter. Many vessels were carried by boarding, others sunk by the +victorious Christians. Before four hours had elapsed, the centre, like +the right wing of the Moslems, might be said to be annihilated. + +Still the fight was lingering on the right of the confederates, where, +it will be remembered, Uluch Ali, the Algerine chief, had profited by +Doria's error in extending his line so far as greatly to weaken +it. His adversary, attacking it on its most vulnerable quarter, had +succeeded, as we have seen, in capturing and destroying several +vessels, and would have inflicted still heavier losses on his enemy, +had it not been for the seasonable succor received from the Marquis of +Santa Cruz. This brave officer, who commanded the reserve, had already +been of much service to Don John, when the _Real_ was assailed by +several Turkish galleys at once, during his combat with Ali Pasha; the +Marquis having arrived at this juncture, and beating off the +assailants, one of whom he afterwards captured, the commander-in-chief +was enabled to resume his engagement with the pasha. + +No sooner did Santa Cruz learn the critical situation of Doria, than, +supported by Cardona, general of the Sicilian squadron, he pushed +forward to his relief. Dashing into the midst of the _melée_, +they fell like a thunderbolt on the Algerine galleys. Few attempted to +withstand the shock. But in their haste to avoid it, they were +encountered by Doria and his Genoese. Thus beset on all sides, Uluch +Ali was compelled to abandon his prizes and provide for his own safety +by flight. He cut adrift the Maltese _Capitana_, which he had +lashed to his stern, and on which three hundred corpses attested the +desperate character of her defence. As tidings reached him of the +discomfiture of the centre and the death of his commander, he felt +that nothing remained but to make the best of his way from the fatal +scene of action, and save as many of his own ships as he could. And +there were no ships in the Turkish fleet superior to his, or manned by +men under more perfect discipline; for they were the famous corsairs +of the Mediterranean, who had been rocked from infancy on its waters. + +Throwing out his signals for retreat, the Algerine was soon to be +seen, at the head of his squadron, standing towards the north, under +as much canvas as remained to him after the battle, and urged forward +through the deep by the whole strength of his oarsmen. Doria and Santa +Cruz followed quickly in his wake. But he was borne on the wings of +the wind, and soon distanced his pursuers. Don John, having disposed +of his own assailants, was coming to the support of Doria, and now +joined in the pursuit of the viceroy. A rocky headland, stretching far +into the sea, lay in the path of the fugitive, and his enemies hoped +to intercept him there. Some few of his vessels stranded on the +rocks. But the rest, near forty in number, standing more boldly out to +sea, safely doubled the promontory. Then quickening their flight, +they gradually faded from the horizon, their white sails, the last +thing visible, showing in the distance like a flock of Arctic sea-fowl +on their way to their native homes. The confederates explained the +inferior sailing of their own galleys by the circumstance of their +rowers, who had been allowed to bear arms in the fight, being crippled +by their wounds. + +The battle had lasted more than four hours. The sky, which had been +almost without a cloud through the day, began now to be overcast, and +showed signs of a coming storm. Before seeking a place of shelter for +himself and his prizes, Don John reconnoitred the scene of action. He +met with several vessels in too damaged a state for further +service. These mostly belonging to the enemy, after saving what was of +any value on board, he ordered to be burnt. He selected the +neighboring port of Petala, as affording the most secure and +accessible harbor for the night. Before he had arrived there, the +tempest began to mutter and darkness was on the water. Yet the +darkness rendered the more visible the blazing wrecks, which, sending +up streams of fire mingled with showers of sparks, looked like +volcanoes on the deep. + +Long and loud were the congratulations now paid to the young +commander-in-chief by his brave companions in arms, on the success of +the day. The hours passed blithely with officers and men, while they +recounted one to another their manifold achievements. But feelings of +gloom mingled with their gayety, as they gathered tidings of the loss +of friends who had bought this victory with their blood. + +It was, indeed, a sanguinary battle, surpassing in this particular any +sea-fight of modern times. The loss fell much the most heavily on the +enemy. There is the usual discrepancy about numbers; but it may be +safe to estimate the Turkish loss at about twenty-four thousand slain, +and five thousand prisoners. But what gave most joy to the hearts of +the conquerors was the liberation of twelve thousand Christian +captives, who had been chained to the oar on board the Moslem galleys, +and who now came forth with tears streaming down their haggard cheeks, +to bless their deliverers. + +The loss of the allies was comparatively small,--less than eight +thousand. That it was so much less than that of their enemies may be +referred in part to their superiority in the use of firearms; in part, +also, to their exclusive use of these, instead of employing bows and +arrows, weapons much less effective, but on which the Turks, like the +other Moslem nations, seem to have greatly relied. Lastly, the Turks +were the vanquished party, and in their heavier loss suffered the +almost invariable lot of the vanquished. + +As to their armada, it may almost be said to have been +annihilated. Not more than forty galleys escaped, out of near two +hundred and fifty which had entered into the action. One hundred and +thirty were taken and divided among the conquerors. The remainder, +sunk or burned, were swallowed up by the waves. To counterbalance all +this, the confederates are said to have lost not more than fifteen +galleys, though a much larger number doubtless were rendered unfit for +service. This disparity affords good evidence of the inferiority of +the Turks in the construction of their vessels, as well as in the +nautical skill required to manage them. A large amount of booty, in +the form of gold, jewels, and brocade, was found on board several of +the prizes. The galley of the commander-in-chief alone is stated to +have contained one hundred and seventy thousand gold sequins,--a large +sum, but not large enough, it seems, to buy off his life. + +The losses of the combatants cannot be fairly presented without taking +into the account the quality as well as the number of the slain. The +number of persons of consideration, both Christians and Moslems, who +embarked in the expedition, was very great. The roll of slaughter +showed that in the race of glory they gave little heed to their +personal safety. The officer second in command among the Venetians, +the commander-in-chief of the Turkish armament, and the commander of +its right wing, all fell in the battle. Many a high-born cavalier +closed at Lepanto a long career of honorable service. More than one, +on the other hand, dated the commencement of their career from this +day. Such was the case with Alexander Farnese, the young prince of +Parma. Though somewhat older than his uncle, John of Austria, +difference of birth had placed a wide distance in their conditions; +the one filling the post of commander-in-chief, the other only that of +a private adventurer. Yet even so he succeeded in winning great renown +by his achievements. The galley in which he sailed was lying, yard-arm +to yard-arm, alongside of a Turkish galley, with which it was hotly +engaged. In the midst of the action, the young Farnese sprang on board +of the enemy, and with his stout broadsword hewed down all who opposed +him, opening a path into which his comrades poured one after another; +and after a short, but murderous contest, he succeeded in carrying the +vessel. As Farnese's galley lay just astern of Don John's, the latter +could witness the achievement of his nephew, which filled him with an +admiration he did not affect to conceal. The intrepidity he displayed +on this occasion gave augury of his character in later life, when he +succeeded his uncle in command, and surpassed him in military renown. + +Another youth was in that sea-fight, who, then humble and unknown, was +destined one day to win laurels of a purer and more enviable kind than +those which grow on the battle-field. This was Cervantes, who, at the +age of twenty-four, was serving on board the fleet as a common +soldier. He was confined to his bed by a fever; but, notwithstanding +the remonstrances of his captain, insisted, on the morning of the +action, not only on bearing arms, but on being stationed at the post +of danger. And well did he perform his duty there, as was shown by two +wounds on the breast, and another in the hand, by which he lost the +use of it. Fortunately, it was the left hand. The right yet remained, +to record those immortal productions which were to be familiar as +household words, not only in his own land, but in every quarter of the +civilized world. + +A fierce storm of thunder and lightning raged for four-and-twenty +hours after the battle, during which the fleet rode safely at anchor +in the harbor of Petala. It remained there three days longer. Don John +profited by the time to visit the different galleys and ascertain +their condition. He informed himself of the conduct of the troops, and +was liberal of his praises to those who deserved them. With the sick +and the wounded he showed the greatest sympathy, endeavoring to +alleviate their sufferings, and furnishing them with whatever his +galley contained that could minister to their comfort. With so +generous and sympathetic a nature, it is not wonderful that he should +have established himself in the hearts of his soldiers. + +But the proofs of this kindly temper were not confined to his own +followers. Among the prisoners were two sons of Ali, the Turkish +commander-in-chief. One was seventeen, the other only thirteen years +of age. Thus early had their father desired to initiate them in a +profession which, beyond all others, opened the way to eminence in +Turkey. They were not on board of his galley, and when they were +informed of his death, they were inconsolable. To this sorrow was now +to be added the doom of slavery. + +As they were led into the presence of Don John, the youths prostrated +themselves on the deck of his vessel. But raising them up, he +affectionately embraced them. He said all he could to console them +under their troubles. He caused them to be treated with the +consideration due to their rank. His secretary, Juan de Soto, +surrendered his quarters to them. They were provided with the richest +apparel that could be found among the spoil. Their table was served +with the same delicacies as that of the commander-in-chief; and his +gentlemen of the chamber showed the same deference to them as to +himself. His kindness did not stop with these acts of chivalrous +courtesy. He received a letter from their sister Fatima, containing a +touching appeal to Don John's humanity, and soliciting the release of +her orphan brothers. He had sent a courier to give their friends in +Constantinople the assurance of their personal safety; "which," adds +the lady, "is held by all this court as an act of great +courtesy,--_gran gentilezza_; and there is no one here who does +not admire the goodness and magnanimity of your Highness." She +enforced her petition with a rich present, for which she gracefully +apologized, as intended to express her own feelings, though far below +his deserts. + +The young princes, in the division of the spoil, were assigned to the +pope. But Don John succeeded in obtaining their liberation. +Unfortunately, the elder died--of a broken heart, it is said--at +Naples. The younger was sent home, with three of his attendants, for +whom he had an especial regard. Don John declined the present, which +he gave to Fatima's brother. In a letter to the Turkish princess, he +remarked, that "he had done this, not because he undervalued her +beautiful gift, but because it had ever been the habit of his royal +ancestors freely to grant favors to those who stood in need of their +protection, but not to receive aught by way of recompense." + + + + +THE WIND AND STREAM. + + + A brook came stealing from the ground; + You scarcely saw its silvery gleam + Among the herbs that hung around + The borders of that winding stream,-- + A pretty stream, a placid stream, + A softly gliding, bashful stream. + + A breeze came wandering from the sky, + Light as the whispers of a dream; + He put the o'erhanging grasses by, + And gayly stooped to kiss the stream,-- + The pretty stream, the flattered stream, + The shy, yet unreluctant stream. + + The water, as the wind passed o'er, + Shot upward many a glancing beam, + Dimpled and quivered more and more, + And tripped along a livelier stream,-- + The flattered stream, the simpering stream, + The fond, delighted, silly stream. + + Away the airy wanderer flew + To where the fields with blossoms teem, + To sparkling springs and rivers blue, + And left alone that little stream,-- + The flattered stream, the cheated stream, + The sad, forsaken, lonely stream. + + That careless wind no more came back; + He wanders yet the fields, I deem; + But on its melancholy track + Complaining went that little stream,-- + The cheated stream, the hopeless stream, + The ever murmuring, moaning stream. + + + + +TURKEY TRACKS. + + +Don't open your eyes, Polder! You think I am going to tell you about +some of my Minnesota experiences; how I used to scamper over the +prairies on my Indian pony, and lie in wait for wild turkeys on the +edge of an oak opening. That is pretty sport, too, to creep under an +oak with low-hanging boughs, and in the silence of a glowing +autumn-day linger by the hour together in a trance of warm stillness, +watching the light tracery of shadow and sun on that smooth sward, +only now and then roused by the fleet rush of a deer through the wood, +or the brisk chatter of a plume-tailed squirrel, till one hears a +distant, sharp, clucking chuckle, and in an instant more pulls the +trigger, and upsets a grand old cock, every bronzed feather glittering +in the sunshine, and now splashed with scarlet blood, the delicate +underwing ground into down as he rolls and flutters; for the first +shot rarely kills at once with an amateur; there's too much +excitement. Splendid sport, that! but I'm not going into it +second-hand. I promised to tell you a story, now the skipper's fast, +and the night is too warm to think of sleep down in that wretched +bunk;--what another torture Dante might have lavished on his Inferno, +if he'd ever slept in a fishing-smack! No. The moonlight makes me +sentimental! Did I ever tell you about a month I spent up in +Centreville, the year I came home from Germany? That was +turkey-hunting with a vengeance! + +You see, my pretty cousin Peggy married Peter Smith, who owns +paper-mills in Centreville, and has exiled herself into deep country +for life; a circumstance I disapprove, because I like Peggy, and +manufacturers always bore me, though Peter is a clever fellow enough; +but madam was an old flame of mine, and I have a lingering tenderness +for her yet. I wish she was nearer town. Just that year Peggy had +been very ill indeed, and Kate, her sister, had gone up to nurse +her. When I came home Peggy was getting better, and sent for me to +come up and make a visitation there in June. I hadn't seen Kate for +seven years,--not since she was thirteen; our education +intervened. She had gone through that grading process and come out. By +Jupiter! when she met me at the door of Smith's pretty, +English-looking cottage, I took my hat off, she was so like that +little Brazilian princess we used to see in the _cortége_ of the +court at Paris. What was her name? Never mind that! Kate had just +such large, expressive eyes, just such masses of shiny black hair, +just such a little nose,--turned up undeniably, but all the more +piquant. And her teeth! good gracious! she smiled like a flash of +lightning,--dark and sallow as she was. But she was cross, or stiff, +or something, to me for a long time. Peggy only appeared after dinner, +looking pale and lovely enough in her loose wrapper to make Peter act +excessively like----a young married man, and to make me wish myself at +an invisible distance, doing something beside picking up Kate's +things, that she always dropped on the floor whenever she sewed. +Peggy saw I was bored, so she requested me one day to walk down to the +poultry-yard and ask about her chickens; she pretended a great deal of +anxiety, and Peter had sprained his ankle. + +"Kate will go with you," said she. + +"No, she won't!" ejaculated that young woman. + +"Thank you," said I, making a minuet bow, and off I went to the +farm-house. Such a pretty walk it was, too! through a thicket of +birches, down a little hill-side into a hollow full of hoary +chestnut-trees, across a bubbling, dancing brook, and you came out +upon the tiniest orchard in the world, a one-storied house with a red +porch, and a great sweet-brier bush thereby; while up the hill-side +behind stretched a high picket fence, enclosing huge trees, part of +the same brook I had crossed here dammed into a pond, and a +chicken-house of pretentious height and aspect,--one of those model +institutions that are the ruin of gentlemen-farmers and the delight of +women. I had to go into the farm-kitchen for the poultry-yard key. +The door stood open, and I stepped in cautiously, lest I should come +unaware upon some domestic scene not intended to be visible to the +naked eye. And a scene I did come upon, fit for Retzsch to +outline;--the cleanest kitchen, a dresser of white wood under one +window, and the farmer's daughter, Melinda Tucker, moulding bread +thereat in a ponderous tray; her deep red hair,--yes, it was red and +comely! of the deepest bay, full of gilded reflections, and +accompanied by the fair, rose-flushed skin, blue eyes, and scarlet +lips that belong to such hair,--which, as I began to say, was puckered +into a thousand curves trying to curl, and knotted strictly against a +pretty head, while her calico frock-sleeves were pinned-back to the +shoulders, baring such a dimpled pair of arms,--how they did fly up +and down in the tray! I stood still contemplating the picture, and +presently seeing her begin to strip the dough from her pink fingers +and mould it into a mass, I ventured to knock. If you had seen her +start and blush, Polder! But when she saw me, she grew as cool as you +please, and called her mother. Down came Mrs. Tucker, a talking +Yankee. You don't know what that is. Listen, then. + +"Well, good day, sir! I'xpect it's Mister Greene, Miss Smith's +cousin. Well, you be! Don't favor her much though; she's kinder dark +complected. She ha'n't got round yet, hes she? Dew tell! She's +dre'ful delicate. I do'no' as ever I see a woman so sickly's she looks +ter be sence that 'ere fever. She's real spry when she's so's to be +crawlin',--I'xpect too spry to be 'hulsome. Well, he tells me you've +ben 'crost the water. 'Ta'n't jest like this over there, I +guess. Pretty sightly places they be though, a'n't they? I've seen +picturs in Melindy's jography, looks as ef 'twa'n't so woodsy over +there as 'tis in these parts, 'specially out West. He's got folks out +to Indianny, an' we sot out fur to go a-cousinin', five year back, an' +we got out there inter the dre'fullest woodsy region ever ye see, +where 'twa'n't trees, it was 'sketers; husband he couldn't see none +out of his eyes for a hull day, and I thought I should caterpillar +every time I heerd one of 'em toot; they sartainly was the beater-ee!" + +"The key, if you please!" I meekly interposed. Mrs. Tucker was fast +stunning me! + +"Law yis! Melindy, you go git that 'ere key; it's a-hangin' up'side o' +the lookin'glass in the back shed, under that bunch o' onions father +strung up yisterday. Got the bread sot to rise, hev ye? well, git +yer bunnet an' go out to the coop with Mr. Greene, 'n' show him the +turkeys an' the chickens, 'n' tell what dre'ful luck we hev hed. I +never did see sech luck! the crows they keep a-comin' an' snippin' up +the little creturs jest as soon's they're hatched; an' the old turkey +hen't sot under the grapevine she got two hen's eggs under her, 'n' +they come out fust, so she quit--" + +Here I bolted out of the door, (a storm at sea did not deafen one like +that!) Melindy following, in silence such as our blessed New England +poet has immortalized,--silence that + + + "--Like a poultice comes, + To heal the blows of sound." + + +Indeed, I did not discover that Melindy could talk that day; she was +very silent, very incommunicative. I inspected the fowls, and tried to +look wise, but I perceived a strangled laugh twisting Melindy's face +when I innocently inquired if she found catnip of much benefit to the +little chickens; a natural question enough, for the yard was full of +it, and I had seen Hannah give it to the baby. (Hannah is my sister.) +I could only see two little turkeys,--both on the floor of the +second-story parlor in the chicken-house, both flat on their backs and +gasping. Melindy did not know what ailed them; so I picked them up, +slung them in my pocket-handkerchief, and took them home for Peggy to +manipulate. I heard Melindy chuckle as I walked off, swinging them; +and to be sure, when I brought the creatures in to Peggy, one of them +kicked and lay still, and the other gasped worse than ever. + +"What can we do?" asked Peggy, in the most plaintive voice, as the +feeble "week! week!" of the little turkey was gasped out, more feebly +every time. + +"Give it some whiskey-punch!" growled Peter, whose strict temperance +principles were shocked by the remedies prescribed for Peggy's ague. + +"So I would," said Kate, demurely. + +Now if Peggy had one trait more striking than another, it was her +perfect, simple faith in what people said; irony was a mystery to her; +lying, a myth,--something on a par with murder. She thought Kate meant +so; and reaching out for the pretty wicker-flask that contained her +daily ration of old Scotch whiskey, she dropped a little drop into a +spoon, diluted it with water, and was going to give it to the turkey +in all seriousness, when Kate exclaimed,-- + +"Peggy! when will you learn common sense? Who ever heard of giving +whiskey to a turkey?" + +"Why, you told me to, Kate!" + +"Oh, give it to the thing!" growled Peter; "it will die, of course." + +"I shall give it!" said Peggy, resolutely; "it does _me_ good, +and I will try." + +So I held the little creature up, while Peggy carefully tipped the +dose down its throat. How it choked, kicked, and began again with +"week! week!" when it meant "strong!" but it revived. Peggy held it in +the sun till it grew warm, gave it a drop more, fed it with +bread-crumbs from her own plate, and laid it on the south +window-sill. There it lay when we went to tea; when we came back, it +lay on the floor, dead; either it was tipsy, or it had tried its new +strength too soon, and, rolling off, had broken its neck! Poor Peggy! + +There were six more hatched the next day, though, and I held many +consultations with Melindy about their welfare. Truth to tell, Kate +continued so cool to me, Peter's sprained ankle lasted so long, and +Peggy could so well spare me from the little matrimonial +_tête-à-têtes_ that I interrupted, (I believe they didn't mind +Kate!) that I took wonderfully to the chickens. Mrs. Tucker gave me +rye-bread and milk of the best; "father" instructed me in the +mysteries of cattle-driving; and Melindy, and Joe, and I, used to go +strawberrying, or after "posies," almost every day. Melindy was a very +pretty girl, and it was very good fun to see her blue eyes open and +her red lips laugh over my European experiences. Really, I began to be +of some importance at the farm-house, and to take airs upon myself, I +suppose; but I was not conscious of the fact at the time. + +After a week or two, Melindy and I began to have bad luck with the +turkeys. I found two drenched and shivering, after a hail-and-thunder +storm, and setting them in a basket on the cooking-stove hearth, went +to help Melindy "dress her bow-pot," as she called arranging a vase of +flowers, and when I came back the little turkeys were singed; they +died a few hours after. Two more were trodden on by a great Shanghai +rooster, who was so tall he could not see where he set his feet down; +and of the remaining pair, one disappeared mysteriously,--supposed to +be rats; and one falling into the duck-pond, Melindy began to dry it +in her apron, and I went to help her; I thought, as I was rubbing the +thing down with the apron, while she held it, that I had found one of +her soft dimpled hands, and I gave the luckless turkey such a tender +pressure that it uttered a miserable squeak and departed this +life. Melindy all but cried. I laughed irresistibly. So there were no +more turkeys. Peggy began to wonder what they should do for the proper +Thanksgiving dinner, and Peter turned restlessly on his sofa, quite +convinced that everything was going to rack and ruin because he had a +sprained ankle. + +"Can't we buy some young turkeys?" timidly suggested Peggy. + +"Of course, if one knew who had them to sell," retorted Peter. + +"I know," said I; "Mrs. Amzi Peters, up on the hill over Taunton, has +got some." + +"Who told you about Mrs. Peters's turkeys, Cousin Sam?" said Peggy, +wondering. + +"Melindy," said I, quite innocently. + +Peter whistled, Peggy laughed, Kate darted a keen glance at me under +her long lashes. + +"I know the way there," said mademoiselle, in a suspiciously bland +tone. "Can't you drive there with me, Cousin Sam, and get some more?" + +"I shall be charmed," said I. + +Peter rang the bell and ordered the horse to be ready in the +single-seated wagon, after dinner. I was going right down to the +farm-house to console Melindy, and take her a book she wanted to read, +for no fine lady of all my New York acquaintance enjoyed a good book +more than she did; but Cousin Kate asked me to wind some yarn for her, +and was so brilliant, so amiable, so altogether charming, I quite +forgot Melindy till dinner-time, and then, when that was over, there +was a basket to be found, and we were off,--turkey-hunting! Down +hill-sides overhung with tasselled chestnut-boughs; through pine-woods +where neither horse nor wagon intruded any noise of hoof or wheel upon +the odorous silence, as we rolled over the sand, past green meadows, +and sloping orchards; over little bright brooks that chattered +musically to the bobolinks on the fence-posts, and were echoed by +those sacerdotal gentlemen in such liquid, bubbling, rollicking, +uproarious bursts of singing as made one think of Anacreon's +grasshopper + + + "Drunk with morning's dewy wine." + + +All these we passed, and at length drew up before Mrs. Peters's +house. I had been here before, on a strawberrying stroll with +Melindy,--(across lots it was not far,)--and having been asked in +then, and entertained the lady with a recital of some foreign exploit, +garnished for the occasion, of course she recognized me with clamorous +hospitality. + +"Why how do yew do, Mister Greene? I declare I ha'n't done a-thinkin' +of that 'ere story you told us the day you was here, 'long o' +Melindy." (Kate gave an ominous little cough.) "I was a-tellin' +husband yesterday 't I never see sech a master hand for stories as you +be. Well, yis, we hev _got_ turkeys, young 'uns; but my stars! I +don't know no more where they be than nothin'; they've strayed away +into the woods, I guess, and I do'no' as the boys can skeer 'em up; +besides, the boys is to school; h'm--yis! Where did you and Melindy +go that day arter berries?" + +"Up in the pine-lot, ma'am. You think you can't let us have the +turkeys?" + +"Dew tell ef you went up there! It's near about the sightliest place I +ever see. Well, no,--I don't see how's to ketch them turkeys. Miss +Bemont, she't lives over on Woodchuck Hill, she's got a lot o' little +turkeys in a coop; I guess you'd better go 'long over there, an' ef +you can't get none o' her'n, by that time our boys'll be to hum, an' +I'll set 'em arter our'n; they'll buckle right to; it's good sport +huntin' little turkeys; an' I guess you'll hev to stop, comin' home, +so's to let me know ef you'll hev 'em." + +Off we drove. I stood in mortal fear of Mrs. Peters's tongue,--and +Kate's comments; but she did not make any; she was even more charming +than before. Presently we came to the pine-lot, where Melindy and I +had been, and I drew the reins. I wanted to see Kate's enjoyment of a +scene that Kensett or Church should have made immortal long ago:--a +wide stretch of hill and valley, quivering with cornfields, rolled +away in pasture lands, thick with sturdy woods, or dotted over with +old apple-trees, whose dense leaves caught the slant sunshine, glowing +on their tops, and deepening to a dark, velvety green below, and far, +far away, on the broad blue sky, the lurid splendors of a +thunder-cloud, capped with pearly summits, tower upon tower, sharply +defined against the pure ether, while in its purple base forked +lightnings sped to and fro, and revealed depths of waiting tempest +that could not yet descend. Kate looked on, and over the superb +picture. + +"How magnificent!" was all she said, in a deep, low tone, her dark +cheek flushing with the words. Melindy and I had looked off there +together. "It's real good land to farm," had been the sweet little +rustic's comment. How charming are nature and simplicity! + +Presently we came to Mrs. Bemont's, a brown house in a cluster of +maples; the door-yard full of chickens, turkeys, ducks, and +geese. Kate took the reins, and I knocked. Mrs. Bemont herself +appeared, wiping her red, puckered hands on a long brown towel. + +"Can you let me have some of your young turkeys, ma'am?" said I, +insinuatingly. + +"Well, I do'no';--want to eat 'em or raise 'em?" + +"Both, I believe," was my meek answer. + +"I do'no' 'bout lettin' on 'em go; 'ta'n't no gret good to sell 'em +after all the risks is over; they git their own livin' pretty much +now, an' they'll be wuth twice as much by'm'by." + +"I suppose so; but Mrs. Smith's turkeys have all died, and she likes +to raise them." + +"Dew tell, ef you han't come from Miss Peter Smith's! Well, she'd +oughter do gret things with that 'ere meetin'-'us o' her'n for the +chickens; it's kinder genteel-lookin', and I spose they've got means; +they've got ability. Gentility without ability I do despise; but where +'t'a'n't so, 't'a'n't no matter; but I'xpect it don't ensure the +faowls none, doos it?" + +"I rather think not," said I, laughing; "that is the reason we want +some of yours." + +"Well, I should think you could hev some on 'em. What be you +calc'latin' to give?" + +"Whatever you say. I do not know at all the market price." + +"Good land! 't'a'n't never no use to try to dicker with city folks; +they a'n't use to't. I'xpect you can hev 'em for two York shillin' +apiece." + +"But how will you catch them?" + +"Oh, I'll ketch 'em, easy!" + +She went into the house and reappeared presently with a pan of Indian +meal and water, called the chickens, and in a moment they were all +crowding in and over the unexpected supper. + +"Now you jes' take a bit o' string an' tie that 'ere turkey's legs +together; 'twon't stir, I'll ensure it!" + +Strange to say, the innocent creature stood still and eat, while I +tied it up; all unconscious till it tumbled neck and heels into the +pan, producing a start and scatter of brief duration. Kate had left +the wagon, and was shaking with laughter over this extraordinary +goodness on the turkeys' part, and before long our basket was full of +struggling, kicking, squeaking things, "werry promiscuous," in +Mr. Weller's phrase. Mrs. Bemont was paid, and while she was giving me +the change,-- + +"Oh!" said she, "you're goin' right to Miss Tucker's, a'n't ye?--got +to drop the turkeys;--won't you tell Miss Tucker 't George is comin' +home tomorrer, an' he's ben to Californy. She know'd us allers, and +Melindy 'n' George used ter be dre'ful thick 'fore he went off, a good +spell back, when they was nigh about childern; so I guess you'd better +tell 'em." + +"Confound these turkeys!" muttered I, as I jumped over the basket. + +"Why?" said Kate, "I suspect they are confounded enough already!" + +"They make such a noise, Kate!" + +So they did; "week! week! week!" all the way, like a colony from some +spring-waked pool. + + + "Their song might be compared + To the croaking of frogs in a pond!" + + +The drive was lovelier than before. The road crept and curled down +the hill, now covered from side to side with the interlacing boughs of +grand old chestnuts; now barriered on the edge of a ravine with broken +fragments and boulders of granite, garlanded by heavy vines; now +skirting orchards full of promise; and all the way companied by a tiny +brook, veiled deeply in alder and hazel thickets, and making in its +shadowy channel perpetual muffled music, like a child singing in the +twilight to reassure its half-fearful heart. Kate's face was softened +and full of rich expression; her pink ribbons threw a delicate tinge +of bloom upon the rounded cheek and pensive eyelid; the air was pure +balm, and a cool breath from the receding showers of the distant +thunderstorm just freshened the odors of wood and field. I began to +feel suspiciously that sentimental, but through it all came +persevering "week! week! week!" from the basket at my feet. Did I +make a fine remark on the beauties of nature, "Week!" echoed the +turkeys. Did Kate praise some tint or shape by the way, "Week! week!" +was the feeble response. Did we get deep in poetry, romance, or +metaphysics, through the most brilliant quotation, the sublimest +climax, the most acute distinction, came in "Week! week! week!" I +began to feel as if the old story of transmigration were true, and the +souls of half a dozen quaint and ancient satirists had got into the +turkeys. I could not endure it! Was I to be squeaked out of all my +wisdom, and knowledge, and device, after this fashion? Never! I +began, too, to discover a dawning smile upon Kate's face; she turned +her head away, and I placed the turkey-basket on my knees, hoping a +change of position might quiet its contents. Never was man more at +fault! they were no way stilled by my magnetism; on the contrary, they +threw their sarcastic utterances into my teeth, as it were, and shamed +me to my very face. I forgot entirely to go round by Mrs. Peters's. I +took a cross-road directly homeward; a pause--a lull--took place among +the turkeys. + +"How sweet and mystical this hour is!" said I to Kate, in a +high-flown manner; "it is indeed + + + "'An hour when lips delay to speak, + Oppressed with silence deep and pure; + When passion pauses--'" + + +"Week! week! week!" chimed in those confounded turkeys. Kate burst +into a helpless fit of laughter. What could I do? I had to laugh +myself, since I must not choke the turkeys. + +"Excuse me, Cousin Sam," said Kate, in a laughter-wearied tone, "I +could not help it; turkeys and sentimentality do not agree--always!" +adding the last word maliciously, as I sprang out to open the +farm-house gate, and disclosed Melindy, framed in the buttery window, +skimming milk; a picture worthy of Wilkie. I delivered over my +captives to Joe, and stalked into the kitchen to give Mrs. Bemont's +message. Melindy came out; but as soon as I began to tell her mother +where I got that message, Miss Melindy, with the _sang froid_ of +a duchess, turned back to her skimming,--or appeared to. I gained +nothing by that move. + +Peggy and Peter received us benignly; so universal a solvent is +success, even in turkey-hunting! I meant to have gone down to the +farm-house after tea, and inquired about the safety of my prizes, but +Kate wanted to play chess. Peter couldn't, and Peggy wouldn't; I had +to, of course, and we played late. Kate had such pretty hands; long +taper fingers, rounded to the tiniest rosy points; no dimples, but +full muscles, firm and exquisitely moulded; and the dainty way in +which she handled her men was half the game to me;--I lost it; I +played wretchedly. The next day Kate went with me to see the turkeys; +so she did the day after. We were forgetting Melindy, I am afraid, for +it was a week before I remembered I had promised her a new magazine. I +recollected myself; then, with a sort of shame, rolled up the number, +and went off to the farm-house. It seems Kate was there, busy in the +garret, unpacking a bureau that had been stored there, with some of +Peggy's foreign purchases, for summer wear, in the drawers. I did not +know that. I found Melindy spreading yeast-cakes to dry on a table, +just by the north end of the house; a hop-vine in full blossom made a +sort of porch-roof over the window by which she stood. + +"I've brought your book, Melindy," said I. + +"Thank you, sir," returned she, crisply. + +"How pretty you look to-day." condescendingly remarked I. + +"I don't thank you for that, sir;-- + + + "'Praise to the face + Is open disgrace!'" + + +was all the response. + +"Why, Melindy! what makes you so cross?" inquired I, in a tone meant +to be tenderly reproachful,--in the mean time attempting to possess +myself of her hand; for, to be honest, Polder, I had been a little +sweet to the girl before Kate drove her out of my head. The hand was +snatched away. I tried indifference. + +"How are the turkeys to-day. Melindy?" + +Here Joe, an _enfant terrible,_ came upon the scene suddenly. + +"Them turkeys eats a lot, Mister Greene. Melindy says there's one on +'em struts jes' like you, 'n' makes as much gabble." + +"Gobble! gobble! gobble!" echoed an old turkey from somewhere; I +thought it was overhead, but I saw nothing. Melindy threw her apron +over her face and laughed till her arms grew red. I picked up my hat +and walked off. For three days I kept out of that part of the Smith +demesne, I assure you! Kate began to grow mocking and derisive; she +teased me from morning till night, and the more she teased me, the +more I adored her. I was getting desperate, when one Sunday night Kate +asked me to walk down to the farm-house with her after tea, as +Mrs. Tucker was sick, and she had something to take to her. We found +the old woman sitting up in the kitchen, and as full of talk as ever, +though an unlucky rheumatism kept her otherwise quiet. + +"How do the turkeys come on, Mrs. Tucker?" said I, by way of +conversation. + +"Well, I declare, you han't heerd about them turkeys, hev ye? You see +they was doin' fine, and father he went off to salt for a spell, so's +to see'f 'twouldn't stop a complaint he's got,--I do'no' but it's a +spine in the back,--makes him kinder' faint by spells, so's he loses +his conscientiousness all to once; so he left the chickens 'n' things +for Melindy to boss, 'n' she got somethin' else into her head, 'n' she +left the door open one night, and them ten turkeys they up and run +away, I'xpect they took to the woods, 'fore Melindy brought to mind +how't she hadn't shut the door. She's set out fur to hunt 'em. I +shouldn't wonder'f she was out now, seein' it's arter sundown." + +"She a'n't nuther!" roared the terrible Joe, from behind the door, +where he had retreated at my coming. "She's settin' on a flour-barrel +down by the well, an' George Bemont's a-huggin' on her" + +Good gracious! what a slap Mrs. Tucker fetched that unlucky child, +with a long brown towel that hung at hand! and how he howled! while +Kate exploded with laughter, in spite of her struggles to keep quiet. + +"He _is_ the dre'fullest boy!" whined Mrs. Tucker. "Melindy tells +how he sassed you 'tother day, Mr. Greene. I shall hev to tewtor that +boy; he's got to hev the rod, I guess!" + +I bade Mrs. Tucker good night, for Kate was already out of the door, +and, before I knew what she was about, had taken a by-path in sight of +the well; and there, to be sure, sat Melindy, on a prostrate +flour-barrel that was rolled to the foot of the big apple-tree, +twirling her fingers in pretty embarrassment, and held on her insecure +perch by the stout arm of George Bemont, a handsome brown fellow, +evidently very well content just now. + +"Pretty,--isn't it?" said Kate. + +"Very,--quite pastoral," sniffed I. + +We were sitting round the open door an hour after, listening to a +whippoorwill, and watching the slow moon rise over a hilly range just +east of Centreville, when that elvish little "week! week!" piped out +of the wood that lay behind the house. + +"That is hopeful," said Kate; "I think Melindy and George must have +tracked the turkeys to their haunt, and scared them homeward." + +"George--who?" said Peggy. + +"George Bemont; it seems he is--what is your Connecticut +phrase?--sparkin' Melindy." + +"I'm very glad; he is a clever fellow," said Peter. + +"And she is such a very pretty girl," continued Peggy,--"so +intelligent and graceful; don't you think so, Sam?" + +"Aw, yes, well enough for a rustic," said I, languidly. "I never could +endure red hair, though!" + +Kate stopped on the door-sill; she had risen to go up stairs. + +"Gobble! gobble! gobble!" mocked she. I had heard that once before! +Peter and Peggy roared;--they knew it all;--I was sold! + +"Cure me of Kate Stevens?" Of course it did. I never saw her again +without wanting to fight shy, I was so sure of an allusion to +turkeys. No, I took the first down train. There are more pretty girls +in New York, twice over, than there are in Centreville, I console +myself; but, by George! Polder, Kate Stevens was charming!--Look out +there! don't meddle with the skipper's coils of rope! can't you sleep +on deck without a pillow? + + + + + +ROBIN HOOD. + + +There is no one of the royal heroes of England that enjoys a more +enviable reputation than the bold outlaw of Barnsdale and +Sherwood. His chance for a substantial immortality is at least as good +as that of stout Lion-Heart, wild Prince Hal, or merry Charles. His +fame began with the yeomanry full five hundred years ago, was +constantly increasing for two or three centuries, has extended to all +classes of society, and, with some changes of aspect, is as great as +ever. Bishops, sheriffs, and game-keepers, the only enemies he ever +had, have relinquished their ancient grudges, and Englishmen would be +almost as loath to surrender his exploits as any part of the national +glory. His free life in the woods, his unerring eye and strong arm, +his open hand and love of fair play, his never forgotten courtesy, his +respect for women and devotion to Mary, form a picture eminently +healthful and agreeable to the imagination, and commend him to the +hearty favor of all genial minds. + +But securely established as Robin Hood is in popular esteem, his +historical position is by no means well ascertained, and his actual +existence has been a subject of shrewd doubt and discussion. "A tale +of Robin Hood" is an old proverb for the idlest of stories; yet all +the materials at our command for making up an opinion on these +questions are precisely of this description. They consist, that is to +say, of a few ballads of unknown antiquity. These ballads, or others +like them, are clearly the authority upon which the statements of the +earlier chroniclers who take notice of Robin Hood are founded. They +are also, to all appearance, the original source of the numerous and +wide-spread traditions concerning him; which, unless the contrary can +be shown, must be regarded, according to the almost universal rule in +such cases, as having been suggested by the very legends to which, in +the vulgar belief, they afford an irresistible confirmation. + +Various periods, ranging from the time of Richard the First to near +the end of the reign of Edward the Second, have been selected by +different writers as the age of Robin Hood; but (excepting always the +most ancient ballads, which may possibly be placed within these +limits) no mention whatever is made of him in literature before the +latter half of the reign of Edward the Third. "Rhymes of Robin Hood" +are then spoken of by the author of "Piers Ploughman" (assigned to +about 1362) as better known to idle fellows than pious songs, and from +the manner of the allusion it is a just inference that such rhymes +were at that time no novelties. The next notice is in Wyntown's +Scottish Chronicle, written about 1420, where the following lines +occur--without any connection, and in the form of an entry--under the +year 1283:-- + + + "Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude + Wayth-men ware commendyd gude: + In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale + Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale."[1] + + +At last we encounter Robin Hood in what may be called history; first +of all in a passage of the "Scotichronicon," often quoted, and highly +curious as containing the earliest theory upon this subject. The +"Scotichronicon" was written partly by Fordun, canon of Aberdeen, +between 1377 and 1384, and partly by his pupil Bower, abbot of +St. Columba, about 1450. Fordun has the character of a man of judgment +and research, and any statement or opinion delivered by him would be +entitled to respect. Of Bower not so much can be said. He largely +interpolated the work of his master, and sometimes with the absurdest +fictions.[2] _Among his interpolations_, and forming, it is +important to observe, _no part of the original text_, is a +passage translated as follows. It is inserted immediately after +Fordun's account of the defeat of Simon de Montfort, and the +punishments inflicted on his adherents. + +"At this time, [_sc_. 1266,] from the number of those who had +been deprived of their estates arose the celebrated bandit Robert +Hood, (with Little John and their accomplices,) whose achievements the +foolish vulgar delight to celebrate in comedies and tragedies, while +the ballads upon his adventures sung by the jesters and minstrels are +preferred to all others. + +"Some things to his honor are also related, as appears from this. Once +on a time, when, having incurred the anger of the king and the prince, +he could hear mass nowhere but in Barnsdale, while he was devoutly +occupied with the service, (for this was his wont, nor would he ever +suffer it to be interrupted for the most pressing occasion,) he was +surprised by a certain sheriff and officers of the king, who had often +troubled him before, in the secret place in the woods where he was +engaged in worship as aforesaid. Some of his men, who had taken the +alarm, came to him and begged him to fly with all speed. This, out of +reverence for the host, which he was then most devoutly adoring, he +positively refused to do. But while the rest of his followers were +trembling for their lives, Robert, confiding in Him whom he +worshipped, fell on his enemies with a few who chanced to be with him, +and easily got the better of them; and having enriched himself with +their plunder and ransom, he was led from that time forth to hold +ministers of the church and masses in greater veneration than ever, +mindful of the common saying, that + + + "'God hears the man who often hears the mass.'" + + +In another place Bower writes to the same effect: "In this year [1266] +the dispossessed barons of England and the royalists were engaged in +fierce hostilities. Among the former, Roger Mortimer occupied the +Welsh marches, and John Daynil the Isle of Ely. Robert Hood was now +living in outlawry among the woodland copses and thickets." + +Mair, a Scottish writer of the first quarter of the sixteenth century, +the next historian who takes cognizance of our hero, and the only +other that requires any attention, has a passage which may be +considered in connection with the foregoing. In his "Historia Majoris +Britanniae" he remarks, under the reign of Richard the First: "About +this time [1189-99], as I conjecture, the notorious robbers, Robert +Hood of England and Little John, lurked in the woods, spoiling the +goods only of rich men. They slew nobody but those who attacked them, +or offered resistance in defence of their property. Robert maintained +by his plunder a hundred archers, so skilful in fight that four +hundred brave men feared to attack them. He suffered no woman to be +maltreated, and never robbed the poor, but assisted them abundantly +with the wealth which he took from abbots." + +It appears, then, that contemporaneous history is absolutely silent +concerning Robin Hood; that, excepting the casual allusion in "Piers +Ploughman," he is first mentioned by a rhyming chronicler who wrote +one hundred years after the latest date at which he can possibly be +supposed to have lived, and then by two prose chroniclers who wrote +about one hundred and twenty-five years and two hundred years +respectively after that date; and it is further manifest that all +three of these chroniclers had no other authority for their statements +than traditional tales similar to those which have come down to our +day. When, therefore, Thierry, relying upon these chronicles and +kindred popular legends, unhesitatingly adopts the conjecture of Mair, +and describes Robin Hood as the hero of the Saxon serfs, the chief of +a troop of Saxon banditti, that continued, even to the reign of Coeur +de Lion, a determined resistance against the Norman invaders,[3]--and +when another able and plausible writer accepts and maintains, with +equal confidence, the hypothesis of Bower, and exhibits the renowned +outlaw as an adherent of Simon de Montfort, who, after the fatal +battle of Evesham, kept up a vigorous guerilla warfare against the +officers of the tyrant Henry the Third, and of his successor,[4] we +must regard these representations, which were conjectural three or +four centuries ago, as conjectures still, and even as arbitrary +conjectures, unless one or the other can be proved from the only +_authorities_ we have, the ballads, to have a peculiar intrinsic +probability. That neither of them possesses this intrinsic probability +may easily be shown; but first it will be advisable to notice another +theory, which is more plausibly founded on internal evidence, and +claims to be confirmed by documents of unimpeachable validity. + +This theory has been propounded by the Rev. John Hunter, in one of his +"Critical and Historical Tracts."[5] Mr. Hunter admits that Robin +Hood "lives only as a hero of song"; that he is not found in authentic +contemporary chronicles; and that, when we find him mentioned in +history, "the information was derived from the ballads, and is not +independent of them or correlative with them." While making these +admissions, he accords a considerable degree of credibility to the +ballads, and particularly to the "Lytell Geste," the last two +_fits_ of which he regards as giving a tolerably accurate account +of real occurrences. + +In this part of the story King Edward is represented as coming to +Nottingham to take Robin Hood. He traverses Lancashire and a part of +Yorkshire, and finds his forests nearly stripped of their deer, but +can get no trace of the author of these extensive depredations. At +last, by the advice of one of his foresters, assuming with several of +his knights the dress of a monk, he proceeds from Nottingham to +Sherwood, and there soon encounters the object of his search. He +submits to plunder as a matter of course, and then announces himself +as a messenger sent to invite Robin Hood to the royal presence. The +outlaw receives this message with great respect. There is no man in +the world, he says, whom he loves so much as his king. The monk is +invited to remain and dine; and after the repast an exhibition of +archery is ordered, in which a bad shot is to be punished by a buffet +from the hand of the chieftain. Robin, having himself once failed of +the mark, requests the monk to administer the penalty. He receives a +staggering blow, which rouses his suspicions, recognizes the king on +an attentive consideration of his countenance, entreats grace for +himself and his followers, and is freely pardoned on condition that he +and they shall enter into the king's service. To this he agrees, and +for fifteen months resides at court. At the end of this time he has +lost all his followers but two, and spent all his money, and feels +that he shall pine to death with sorrow in such a life. He returns +accordingly to the greenwood, collects his old followers around him, +and for twenty-two years maintains his independence in defiance of the +power of Edward. + +Without asserting the literal verity of all the particulars of this +narrative, Mr. Hunter attempts to show that it contains a substratum +of fact. Edward the First, he informs us, was never in Lancashire +after he became king; and if Edward the Third was ever there at all, +it was not in the early years of his reign. But Edward the Second did +make one single progress in Lancashire, and this in the year 1323. +During this progress the king spent some time at Nottingham, and took +particular note of the condition of his forests, and among these of +the forest of Sherwood. Supposing now that the incidents detailed in +the "Lytell Geste" really took place at this time, Robin Hood must +have entered into the royal service before the end of the year +1353. It is a singular, and in the opinion of Mr. Hunter a very +pregnant coincidence, that in certain Exchequer documents, containing +accounts of expenses in the king's household, the name of Robyn Hode +(or Robert Hood) is found several times, beginning with the 24th of +March, 1324, among the "porters of the chamber" of the king. He +received, with Simon Hood and others, the wages of three pence a +day. In August of the following year Robin Hood suffers deduction from +his pay for non-attendance, his absences grow frequent, and on the 22d +of November he is discharged with a present of five shillings, +"_poar cas qil ne poait pluis travailler_."[6] + +It remains still for Mr. Hunter to account for the existence of a band +of seven score of outlaws in the reign of Edward the Second, in or +about Yorkshire. The stormy and troublous reigns of the Plantagenets +make this a matter of no difficulty. Running his finger down the long +list of rebellions and commotions, he finds that early in 1322 England +was convulsed by the insurrection of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the +king's near relation, supported by many powerful noblemen. The Earl's +chief seat was the castle of Pontefract, in the West Riding of +Yorkshire. He is said to have been popular, and it would be a fair +inference that many of his troops were raised in this part of England. +King Edward easily got the better of the rebels, and took exemplary +vengeance upon them. Many of the leaders were at once put to death, +and the lives of all their partisans were in danger. Is it impossible, +then, asks Mr. Hunter, that some who had been in the army of the Earl +secreted themselves in the woods, and turned their skill in archery +against the king's subjects or the king's deer? "that these were the +men who for so long a time haunted Barnsdale and Sherwood, and that +Robin Hood was one of them, a chief amongst them, being really of a +rank originally somewhat superior to the rest?" + +We have, then, three different hypotheses concerning Robin Hood: one +placing him in the reign of Richard the First, another in that of +Henry the Third, and the last under Edward the Second, and all +describing him as a political foe to the established government. To +all of these hypotheses there are two very obvious and decisive +objections. The first is, that Robin Hood, as already remarked, is not +so much as named in contemporary history. Whether as the unsubdued +leader of the Saxon peasantry, or insurgent against the tyranny of +Henry or Edward, it is inconceivable that we should not hear something +of him from the chroniclers. If, as Thierry says, "he had chosen +Hereward for his model," it is unexplained and inexplicable why his +historical fate has been so different from that of Hereward. The hero +of the Camp of Refuge fills an ample place in the annals of his day; +his achievements are also handed down in a prose romance, which +presents many points of resemblance to the ballads of Robin Hood. It +would have been no wonder, if the vulgar legends about Hereward had +utterly perished; but it is altogether anomalous that a popular +champion[7] who attained so extraordinary a notoriety in song, a man +living from one hundred to two hundred and fifty years later than +Hereward, should be passed over without one word of notice from any +authoritative historian.[8] That this would not be so we are most +fortunately able to demonstrate by reference to a real case which +furnishes a singularly exact parallel to the present,--that of the +famous outlaw, Adam Gordon. In the year 1267, says the continuator of +Matthew Paris, a soldier by the name of Adam Gordon, who had lost his +estates with other adherents of Simon de Montfort, and refused to seek +the mercy of the king, established himself with others in like +circumstances near a woody and tortuous road between the village of +Wilton and the castle of Farnham, from which position he made forays +into the country round about, directing his attacks especially against +those who were of the king's party. Prince Edward had heard much of +the prowess and honorable character of this man, and desired to have +some personal knowledge of him. He succeeded in surprising Gordon +with a superior force, and engaged him in single combat, forbidding +any of his own followers to interfere. They fought a long time, and +the prince was so filled with admiration of the courage and spirit of +his antagonist, that he promised him life and fortune on condition of +his surrendering. To these terms Gordon acceded, his estates were +restored, and Edward found him ever after an attached and faithful +servant.[9] The story is romantic, and yet Adam Gordon was not made +the subject of ballads. _Caruit vate sacro_. The contemporary +historians, however, all have a paragraph for him. He is celebrated +by Wikes, the Chronicle of Dunstaple, the Waverley Annals, and we know +not where else besides. + +But these theories are open to an objection stronger even than the +silence of history. They are contradicted by the spirit of the +ballads. No line of these songs breathes political animosity. There is +no suggestion or reminiscence of wrong, from invading Norman, or from +the established sovereign. On the contrary, Robin loved no man in the +world so well as his king. What the tone of these ballads would have +been, had Robin Hood been any sort of partisan, we may judge from the +mournful and indignant strains which were poured out on the fall of De +Montfort. We should have heard of the fatal field of Hastings, of the +perfidy of Henry, of the sanguinary revenge of Edward,--and not of +matches at archery and encounters at quarter-staff, the plundering of +rich abbots and squabbles with the sheriff. The Robin Hood of our +ballads is neither patriot under ban, nor proscribed rebel. An outlaw +indeed he is, but an "outlaw for venyson," like Adam Bell, and one who +superadds to deer-stealing the irregularity of a genteel +highway-robbery. + +Thus much of these conjectures in general. To recur to the particular +evidence by which Mr. Hunter's theory is supported, this consists +principally in the name of Robin Hood being found among the king's +servants shortly after Edward the Second returned from his visit to +the north of his dominions. But the value of this coincidence depends +entirely upon the rarity of the name.[10] Now Hood, as Mr. Hunter +himself remarks, is a well-established hereditary name in the reigns +of the Edwards. We find it very frequently in the indexes to the +Record Publications, and this although it does not belong to the +higher class of people. That Robert was an ordinary Christian name +requires no proof; and if it was, the combination of Robert Hood must +have been frequent also. We have taken no extraordinary pains to hunt +up this combination, for really the matter is altogether too trivial +to justify the expense of time; but since to some minds much may +depend on the coincidence in question, we will cite several Robin +Hoods in the reigns of the Edwards. + +28th Ed. I. Robert Hood, a citizen of London, says Mr. Hunter, +supplied the king's household with beer. + +30th Ed. I. Robert Hood is sued for three acres of pasture land in +Throckley, Northumberland. (_Rot. Orig. Abbrev._) + +7th Ed. II. Robert Hood is surety for a burgess returned for +Lostwithiel, Cornwall. (_Parliamentary Writs_.) + +9th Ed. II. Robert Hood is a citizen of Wakefield, Yorkshire, whom Mr. +Hunter (p. 47) "may be justly charged with carrying supposition too +far" in striving to identify with Robin the porter. + +10th Ed. III. A Robert Hood, of Howden, York, is mentioned in the +_Calendarium Rot. Patent_. + +Adding the Robin Hood of the 17th Ed. II. we have six persons of that +name mentioned within a period of less than forty years, and this +circumstance does not dispose us to receive with great favor any +argument that may be founded upon one individual case of its +occurrence. But there is no end to the absurdities which flow from +this supposition. We are to believe that the weak and timid prince, +that had severely punished his kinsman and his nobles, freely pardoned +a yeoman, who, after serving with the rebels, had for twenty months +made free with the king's deer and robbed on the highway,--and not +only pardoned him, but received him into service _near his +person_. We are further to believe that the man who had led so +daring and jovial a life, and had so generously dispensed the pillage +of opulent monks, willingly entered into this service, doffed his +Lincoln green for the Plantagenet plush, and _consented_ to be +enrolled among royal flunkies for three pence a day. And again, +admitting all this, we are finally obliged by Mr. Hunter's document to +concede that the stalworth archer (who, according to the ballad, +maintained himself two-and-twenty years in the wood) was worn out by +his duties as "proud porter" in less than two years, and was +discharged a superannuated lackey, with five shillings in his pocket, +_"poar cas qil ne poait pluis travailler"!_ + +To those who are well acquainted with ancient popular poetry the +adventure of King Edward and Robin Hood will seem the least eligible +portion of this circle of story for the foundation of an historical +theory. The ballad of King Edward and Robin Hood is but one version of +an extremely multiform legend, of which the tales of "King Edward and +the Shepherd" and "King Edward and the Hermit" are other specimens; +and any one who will take the trouble to examine will be convinced +that all these stories are one and the same thing, the personages +being varied for the sake of novelty, and the name of a recent or of +the reigning monarch substituted in successive ages for that of a +predecessor. + +Rejecting, then, as nugatory, every attempt to assign Robin Hood a +definite position in history, what view shall we adopt? Are all these +traditions absolute fictions, and is he himself a pure creation of the +imagination? Might not the ballads under consideration have a basis in +the exploits of a real person, living in the forests, _somewhere_ and +_at some time?_ Or, denying individual existence to Robin Hood, and +particular truth to the adventures ascribed to him, may we not regard +him as the ideal of the outlaw class, a class so numerous in all the +countries of Europe in the Middle Ages? We are perfectly contented to +form no opinion upon the subject; but if compelled to express one, we +should say that this last supposition (which is no novelty) possessed +decidedly more likelihood than any other. Its plausibility will be +confirmed by attending to the apparent signification of the name Robin +Hood. The natural refuge and stronghold of the outlaw was the +woods. Hence he is termed by Latin writers _silvatious,_ by the +Normans _forestier_. The Anglo-Saxon robber or highwayman is called a +woodrover _wealdgenga,_ and the Norse word for outlaw is exactly +equivalent.[11] It has often been suggested that Robin Hood is a +corruption, or dialectic form, of Robin of the Wood; and when we +remember that _wood_ is pronounced _hood_ in some parts of +England,[12] (as _whoop_ is pronounced _hoop_ everywhere,) and that +the outlaw bears in so many languages a name descriptive of his +habitation, this notion will not seem an idle fancy. + +Various circumstances, however, have disposed writers of learning to +look farther for a solution of the question before us. Mr. Wright +propounds an hypothesis that Robin Hood "one among the personages of +the early mythology of the Teutonic peoples"; and a German +scholar,[13] in an exceedingly interesting article which throws much +light on the history of English sports, has endeavored to show +specifically that he is in name and substance one with the god +Woden. The arguments by which these views are supported, though in +their present shape very far from convincing, are entitled to a +respectful consideration. + +The most important of these arguments are those which are based on the +peculiar connection between Robin Hood and the month of +May. Mr. Wright has justly remarked, that either an express mention of +this month, or a vivid description of the season, in the older +ballads, shows that the feats of the hero were generally performed +during this part of the year. Thus, the adventure of "Robin Hood and +the Monk" befell on "a morning of May." "Robin Hood and the Potter" +and "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne" begin, like "Robin Hood and the +Monk," with a description of the season when leaves are long, blossoms +are shooting, and the small birds are singing; and this season, though +called summer, is at the same time spoken of as May in "Robin Hood and +the Monk," which, from the description there given, it needs must be. +The liberation of Cloudesly by Adam Bel and Clym of the Clough is also +achieved "on a merry morning of May." + +Robin Hood is, moreover, intimately associated with the month of May +through the games which were celebrated at that time of the year. The +history of these games is unfortunately very defective, and hardly +extends farther back than the beginning of the sixteenth century. By +that time their primitive character seems to have been corrupted, or +at least their significance was so far forgotten, that distinct +pastimes and ceremonials were capriciously intermixed. At the +beginning of the sixteenth century the May sports in vogue were, +besides a contest of archery, four _pageants_,--the Kingham, or +election of a Lord and Lady of the May, otherwise called Summer King +and Queen, the Morris-Dance, the Hobby-Horse, and the "Robin Hood." +Though these pageants were diverse in their origin, they had, at the +epoch of which we write, begun to be confounded; and the Morris +exhibited a tendency to absorb and blend them all, as, from its +character, being a procession interspersed with dancing, it easily +might do. We shall hardly find the Morris pure and simple in the +English May-game; but from a comparison of the two earliest +representations which we have of this sport, the Flemish print given +by Douce in his "Illustrations of Shakspeare," and Tollett's +celebrated painted window, (described in Johnson and Steevens's +Shakspeare,) we may form an idea of what was essential and what +adventitious in the English spectacle. The Lady is evidently the +central personage in both. She is, we presume, the same as the Queen +of May, who is the oldest of all the characters in the May games, and +the apparent successor to the Goddess of Spring in the Roman +Floralia. In the English Morris she is called simply The Lady, or more +frequently Maid Marian, a name which, to our apprehension, means Lady +of the May, and nothing more.[14] A fool and a taborer seem also to +have been indispensable; but the other dancers had neither names nor +peculiar offices, and were unlimited in number. The Morris, then, +though it lost in allegorical significance, would gain considerably in +spirit and variety by combining with the other shows. Was it not +natural, therefore, and in fact inevitable, that the old favorites of +the populace, Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, and Little John, should in the +course of time displace three of the anonymous performers in the show? +This they had pretty effectually done at the beginning of the +sixteenth century; and the Lady, who had accepted the more precise +designation of Maid Marian, was after that generally regarded as the +consort of Robin Hood, though she sometimes appeared in the Morris +without him. In like manner, the Hobby-Horse was quite early adopted +into the Morris, of which it formed no original part, and at last even +a Dragon was annexed to the company. Under these circumstances we +cannot be surprised to find the principal performers in the May +pageants passing the one into the other,--to find the May King, whose +occupation was gone when the gallant outlaw had supplanted him in the +favor of the Lady, assuming the part of the Hobby-Horse,[15] Robin +Hood usurping the title of King of the May,[16] and the Hobby-Horse +entering into a contest with the Dragon, as St. George. + +We feel obliged to regard this interchange of functions among the +characters in the English May-pageants as fortuitous, notwithstanding +the coincidence of the May King sometimes appearing on horseback in +Germany, and notwithstanding our conviction that Kuhn is right in +maintaining that the May King, the Hobby-Horse, and the Dragon-Slayer +are symbols of one mythical idea. This idea we are compelled by want +of space barely to state, with the certainty of doing injustice to the +learning and ingenuity with which the author has supported his +views. Kuhn has shown it to be extremely probable, first, that the +Christmas games, which both in Germany and England have a close +resemblance to those of Spring, are to be considered as a prelude to +the May sports, and that they both originally symbolized the victory +of Summer over Winter,[17] which, beginning at the winter solstice, is +completed in the second month of spring; secondly, that the conquering +Summer is represented by the May King, or by the Hobby-Horse (as also +by the Dragon-Slayer, whether St. George, Siegfried, Apollo, or the +Sanskrit Indras); and thirdly, that the Hobby-Horse in particular +represents the god Woden, who, as well as Mars [18] among the Romans, +is the god at once of Spring and of Victory. + +The essential point, all this being admitted, is now to establish the +identity of Robin Hood and the Hobby-Horse. This we think we have +shown cannot be done by reasoning founded on the early history of the +games under consideration. Kuhn relies principally upon two modern +accounts of Christmas pageants. In one of these pageants there is +introduced a man on horseback, who carries in his hands a bow and +arrows. The other furnishes nothing peculiar except a name: the +ceremony is called a _hoodening,_ and the hobby-horse a +_hooden_. In the rider with bow and arrows Kuhn sees Robin Hood +and the Hobby-Horse, and in the name _hooden_ (which is explained +by the authority he quotes to mean wooden) he discovers a provincial +form of wooden, which connects the outlaw and the divinity.[19] It +will be generally agreed that these slender premises are totally +inadequate to support the weighty conclusion that is rested upon them. + +Why the adventures of Robin Hood should be specially assigned, as they +are in the old ballads, to the month of May, remains unexplained. We +have no exquisite reason to offer, but we may perhaps find reason good +enough in the delicious stanzas with which some of these ballads +begin. + + + "In summer when the shawès be sheen, + And leavès be large and long, + It is full merry in fair forèst + To hear the fowlès song; + To see the deer draw to the dale, + And leave the hillès hee, + And shadow them in the leavès green + Under the green-wood tree." + + +The poetical character of the season affords all the explanation that +is required. + +Nor need the occurrence of exhibitions of archery and of the Robin +Hood plays and pageants, at this time of the year, occasion any +difficulty. Repeated statutes, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth +century, enjoined practice with the bow, and ordered that the leisure +time of holidays should be employed for this purpose. Under Henry the +Eighth the custom was still kept up, and those who partook in this +exercise often gave it a spirit by assuming the style and character of +Robin Hood and his associates. In like manner the society of archers +in Elizabeth's time took the name of Arthur and his Knights; all which +was very natural then, and would be now. None of all the merrymakings +in merry England surpassed the May festival. The return of the sun +stimulated the populace to the accumulation of all sorts of +amusements. In addition to the traditional and appropriate sports of +the season, there were, as Stowe tells us, divers warlike shows, with +good archers, morris-dancers, and other devices for pastime all day +long, and towards evening stage-plays and bonfires in the streets. A +Play of Robin Hood was considered "very proper for a May-game"; but if +Robin Hood was peculiarly prominent in these entertainments, the +obvious reason would appear to be that he was the hero of that loved +green-wood to which all the world resorted, when the cold obstruction +of winter was broken up, "to do observance for a morn of May." + +We do not, therefore, attribute much value to the theory of +Mr. Wright, that the May festival was, in its earliest form, "a +religious celebration, though, like such festivals in general, it +possessed a double character, that of a religious ceremony, and of an +opportunity for the performance of warlike games; that, at such +festivals, the songs would take the character of the amusements on the +occasion, and would most likely celebrate warlike deeds,--perhaps the +myths of the patron whom superstition supposed to preside over them; +that, as the character of the exercises changed, the attributes of the +patron would change also, and he who was once celebrated as working +wonders with his good axe or his elf-made sword might afterwards +assume the character of a skilful bowman; that the scene of his +actions would likewise change, and the person whose weapons were the +bane of dragons and giants, who sought them in the wildernesses they +infested, might become the enemy only of the sheriff and his officers, +under the 'grene-wode lefe.'" It is unnecessary to point out that the +language we have quoted contains, beyond the statement that warlike +exercises were anciently combined with religious rites, a very +slightly founded surmise, and nothing more. + +Another circumstance, which weighs much with Mr. Wright, goes but a +very little way with us in demonstrating the mythological character of +Robin Hood. This is the frequency with which his name is attached to +mounds, wells, and stones, such as in the popular creed are connected +with fairies, dwarfs, or giants. There is scarcely a county in England +which does not possess some monument of this description. "Cairns on +Blackdown in Somersetshire, and barrows near to Whitby in Yorkshire +and Ludlow in Shropshire, are termed Robin Hood's pricks or butts; +lofty natural eminences in Gloucestershire and Derbyshire are Robin +Hood's hills; a huge rock near Matlock is Robin Hood's Tor; ancient +boundary-stones, as in Lincolnshire, are Robin Hood's crosses; a +presumed loggan, or rocking-stone, in Yorkshire, is Robin Hood's +penny-stone; a fountain near Nottingham, another between Doncaster and +Wakefield, and one in Lancashire, are Robin Hood's wells; a cave in +Nottinghamshire is his stable; a rude natural rock in Hope Dale is his +chair; a chasm at Chatsworth is his leap; Blackstone Edge, in +Lancashire, is his bed."[20] In fact, his name bids fair to overrun +every remarkable object of the sort which has not been already +appropriated to King Arthur or the Devil; with the latter of whom, at +least, it is presumed, that, however ancient, he will not dispute +precedence. + +"The legends of the peasantry," quoth Mr. Wright, "are the shadows of +a very remote antiquity." This proposition, thus broadly stated, we +deny. Nothing is more deceptive than popular legends; and the +"legends" we speak of, if they are to bear that name, have no claim to +antiquity at all. They do not go beyond the ballads. They are palpably +of subsequent and comparatively recent origin. It was absolutely +impossible that they should arise while Robin Hood was a living +reality to the people. The archer of Sherwood who could barely stand +King Edward's buffet, and was felled by the Potter, was no man to be +playing with rocking-stones. This trick of naming must have begun in +the decline of his fame; for there was a time when his popularity +drooped, and his existence was just not doubted,--not elaborately +maintained by learned historians, and antiquarians deeply read in the +Public Records. And what do these names prove? The vulgar passion for +bestowing them is notorious and universal. We Americans are too young +to be well provided with heroes that might serve this purpose. We have +no imaginative peasantry to invent legends, no ignorant peasantry to +believe them. But we have the good fortune to possess the Devil in +common with the rest of the world; and we take it upon us to say, that +there is not a mountain district in the land, which has been opened to +summer travellers, where a "Devil's Bridge," a "Devil's Punch-bowl," +or some object with the like designation, will not be pointed out.[21] + +We have taken no notice of the later fortunes of Robin Hood in his +true and original character of a hero of romance. Towards the end of +the sixteenth century Anthony Munday attempted to revive the decaying +popularity of this king of good fellows, who had won all his honors as +a simple yeoman, by representing him in the play of "The Downfall of +Robert, Earl of Huntington" as a nobleman in disguise, outlawed by the +machinations of his steward. This pleasing and successful drama is +Robin's sole patent to that title of Earl of Huntington, in +confirmation of which Dr. Stukeley fabricated a pedigree that +transcends even the absurdities of heraldry, and some unknown forger +an epitaph beneath the skill of a Chatterton. Those who desire a full +acquaintance with the fabulous history of Robin Hood will seek it in +the well-known volumes of Ritson, or in those of his recent editor, +Gutch, who does not make up by superior discrimination for his +inferiority in other respects to that industrious antiquary. + + +[Footnote 1: A writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ (July, 1847, +p. 134) has cited an allusion to Robin Hood, of a date intermediate +between the passages from Wyntown and the one about to be cited from +Bower. In the year 1439, a petition was presented to Parliament +against one Piers Venables of Aston, in Derbyshire, "who having no +liflode, ne sufficeante of goodes, gadered and assembled unto him many +misdoers, beynge of his clothynge, and, in manere of insurrection, +wente into the wodes in that countrie, like as it hadde be _Robyn +Hude and his meyne_."--_Rot. Parl._ v. 16.] + +[Footnote 2: "Legendis non raro incredilibibus aliisque plusquam +anilibus neniis."--Hearne, _Scotichronicon_, p. xxix.] + +[Footnote 3: In his _Histoire de la Conquête de l'Angleterre par les +Normands_, livr. xi. Thierry was anticipated in his theory by +Barry, in a dissertation cited by Mr. Wright in his Essays: _Thèse +de Littérature sur les Vicissitudes et les Transformations du Cycle +populaire de Robin Hood_. Paris, 1832.] + +[Footnote 4: _London, and Westminster Review_, vol. xxxiii. p. 424.] + +[Footnote 5: No 4. _The Ballad Hero, Robin Hood_. June, 1852.] + +[Footnote 6: Hunter, pp. 28, 35-38] + +[Footnote 7: Mr. Hunter thinks it necessary to prove that it was +formerly a usage in England to celebrate real events in popular +song. We submit that it has been still more customary to celebrate +them in history, when they were of public importance. The case of +private and domestic stories is different.] + +[Footnote 8: Most remarkable of all would this be, should we adopt the +views of Mr. Hunter, because we know, from the incidental testimony of +_Piers Ploughman_, that only forty years after the date fixed +upon for the outlaw's submission "rhymes of Robin Hood" were in the +mouth of every tavern lounger; and yet no chronicler can spare him a +word.] + +[Footnote 9: Matthew Paris, London, 1640, p. 1002] + +[Footnote 10: Mr. Hunter had previously instituted a similar argument +in the case of Adam Bell, and doubtless the reasoning might be +extended to Will Scathlock and Little John. With a little more +rummaging of old account-books we shall be enabled to "comprehend all +vagrom men." It is a pity that the Sheriff of Nottingham could not +have availed himself of the services of our "detective."] + +[Footnote 11: See Wright's _Essays,_ ii. 207. "The name of +Witikind, the famous opponent of Charlemagne, who always fled before +his sight, concealed himself in the forests, and returned again in his +absence, is no more than _uitu chint,_ in Old High Dutch, and +signifies the _son of the wood,_ an appellation which he could +never have received at his birth, since it denotes an exile or +outlaw. Indeed, the name Witikind, though such a person seems to have +existed, appears to be the representative of all the defenders of his +country against the invaders."] + +[Footnote 12: Thus, in Kent, the Hobby-Horse is called _hooden,_ +i.e. wooden. It is curious that Orlando, in _As You Like It,_ +(who represents the outlaw Gamelyn in the _Tale of Gamelyn,_ a +tale which clearly belongs to the cycle of Robin Hood,) should be the +son of Sir Rowland de Bois. Robin de Bois (says a writer in _Notes +and Queries,_ vi. 597) occurs in one of Sue's novels "as a +well-known mythical character, whose name is employed by French +mothers to frighten their children."] + +[Footnote 13: Kuhn, in Haupt's _Zeitschrift für deutsches +Alterthum,_ v. 472. The idea of a northern myth will of course +excite the alarm of all sensible, patriotic Englishmen, (e.g. Mr. +Hunter, at page 3 of his tract,) and the bare suggestion of Woden will +be received, in the same quarters, with an explosion of scorn. And +yet we find the famous shot of Elgill, one of the mythical personages +of the Scandinavians, (and perhaps to be regarded as one of the forms +of Woden,) attributed in the ballad of _Adam Bel_ to William of +Cloudesly, who may be considered as Robin Hood under another name.] + +[Footnote: 14. Unless importance is to be attached to +the consideration that May is the Virgin's +month.] + +[Footnote 15: As in Tollett's window.] + +[Footnote 16: In Lord Hailes's _Extracts from the Book of the +Universal Kirk._] + +[Footnote 17: More openly exhibited in the mock battle between Summer +and Winter celebrated by the Scandinavians in honor of May, a custom +still retained in the Isle of Man, where the month is every year +ushered in with a contest between the Queen of Summer and the Queen of +Winter. (Brand's _Antiquities,_ by Ellis, i. 222, 257.) A similar +ceremony in Germany, occurring at Christmas, is noticed by Kuhn, +p. 478.] + +[Footnote 18: Hence the spring begins with March. The connection with +Mars suggests a possible etymology for the Morris,--which is usually +explained, for want of something better, as a Morisco or Moorish +dance. There is some resemblance between the Morris and the Salic +dance. The Salic games are said to have been instituted by the Veian +king Morrius, a name pointing to Mars, the divinity of the +Salli.--Kuhn, 488-493.] + +[Footnote 19: The name Robin also appears to Kuhn worthy of notice, +since the horseman in the May pageant is in some parts of Germany +called Ruprecht (Rupert, Robert).] + +[Footnote 20: _Edinburgh Review,_ vol. 86, p. 123.] + +[Footnote 21: See some sensible remarks in the _Gentleman's +Magazine_ for March, 1793, by D. H., that is, says the courteous +Ritson, by Gough, "the scurrilous and malignant editor of that +degraded publication."] + + + + +THE GHOST REDIVIVUS. + + +One of those violent, though shortlived storms, which occasionally +rage in southern climates, had blown all night in the neighborhood of +the little town of San Cipriano, situated in a wild valley of the +Apennines opening towards the sea. Under the olive-woods that cover +those steep hills lay the olive-berries strewed thick and wide; here +and there a branch heavy-laden with half-ripe fruit, torn by the blast +from its parent tree, stretched its prostrate length upon the +ground. An abundant premature harvest had fallen, but at present there +were no means of collecting it; for the deluging rains of the night +had soaked the ground, the grass, the dead leaves, the fruit itself, +and the rain was still falling heavily. If gathered in that state, the +olives are sure to rot. + +_"Pazienza!"_ in such disasters exclaim the inhabitants of the +_Riviera_, with a melancholy shrug of the shoulders. And they +needs must have patience until the weather clears and the ground +dries, before they can secure such of the olives as may happily be +uninjured. + +On the day we speak of, the 21st of December, 1852, the proprietors of +olive-grounds in San Cipriano wore very blank faces; they talked sadly +of the falling prices of the fruit and oil, and the olive-pickers +crossed their hands and looked vacantly at the gray sky. + +In the spacious kitchen of Doctor Morani were assembled a body of +young rosy lasses in laced bodices, and short, bright-colored +petticoats, come down from the neighboring mountains for the +olive-gathering, much as Irish laborers cross over to England for the +hay-making season. These girls arrive in troops from their native +villages among the hills, carrying on their heads a sackful of the +flour of dried beans and a lesser quantity of dried chestnuts. They +offer their services to the inhabitants of the valley at the rate of +four pence English a day; about three pence less than the sum demanded +by the women of the place. But the pretty mountaineers ask, in +addition to their modest wages, a shelter for the night, a little +straw or hay for their beds, and a small daily portion of oil and salt +to season the bean-flour and chestnuts, which constitute their sole +food. They are then perfectly contented. + +The old Doctor had hired several of these damsels to assist in getting +in his olive crop, with the customary additional compact to spin some +of the unwrought flax of the household when bad weather prevented +their out-of-door work, as well as regularly in the evening between +early dusk and bed-time. Happy those to whose lot it fell to be +employed by Dr. Morani! Besides not beating down their wages to the +utmost, it was the Doctor's wont, out of the exuberance of a +warm-hearted, joyous nature, unchilled even by his sixty winters, to +give to his serving men and maidens not only kind words and +encouraging looks, but also what made him perhaps still more popular, +humorous jokes and droll stories. + +The Doctor, indeed, concealed something of the philosopher under the +garb of a wag. His quaint sayings and doings were frequently quoted +with great relish among this rural population. He had a way of his own +of shooting facts and truths into the uncultivated understandings of +these laborers,--facts and truths that never otherwise could have +penetrated so far; he feathered his philosophical or moral arrows with +a jest, and they stuck fast. + +Signora Martina, his wife, was a good soul, and, though a strict +housewife, was yet not so thrifty but that she could allow a little of +her abundance to overflow on those in her service; and these crumbs +from her table added many delicious bits to the bean-flour +repasts. So, as we have said, happy the mountain girls taken into +Dr. Morani's service! But specially blest among the blest this year +were two sisters, to whom was allotted a bed, a real bed, to sleep +upon! How came they to be furnished with such a luxury? Why, this +season the Doctor had hired more than the usual number of pickers. The +outbuilding given them to sleep in was thus too small to accommodate +all, so two were taken into the house, and a diminutive closet, +generally used by the family as a bath-room, was turned into a +bed-room for the lucky couple. Now for a description of the bed. Over +the bath was placed an ironing-board, and upon this a mattress quite +as narrow, almost as hard, and far less smooth than the narrow plank +on which it lay. The width of the bed was just sufficient to admit the +two sisters, packed close, each lying on her side. As to turning, that +was simply out of the question; but "poor labor in sweet slumber +lock'd" lay from night till morning without once dreaming of change of +position. + +Signora Martina, the first day or two, expressed some fear lest they +might not rest well; but both girls averred they never in their lives +had known so luxurious a bed,--and never should again, unless their +good fortune brought them back another year to enjoy this sybarite +couch at Dr. Morani's. + +Though irrelevant to our story, this short digression may serve to +illustrate the Arcadian simplicity of habits prevailing in these +mountainous districts, and affords one more illustration of the axiom, +not more trite than true, that human enjoyment and luxury are all +comparative. + +Well! the wet afternoon was wearing on, beguiled by the young girls as +best it might be, with the spindle and distaff, and incessant chatter +and laugh, save when they joined their voices in some popular +chant. Signora Martina was delivering fresh flax to the spinners; +Marietta, the maid, was busy about the fire, in provident forethought +for supper; and Beppo, a barefooted, weather-beaten individual, was +bringing in the wood he had been sawing this rainy day, which +interfered with his more usual business at that season. For Beppo was +one of the men whose task it was to climb the olive-trees and shake +down the olives for the women gathering below. He was distinguished +among many as a skilful and valiant climber; nor had his laurels been +earned without perils and wounds. Occasionally he fell, and +occasionally broke a bone or two,--episodes that had their +compensation. Beppo, then, on this particular rainy afternoon, came +in with a flat basket full of newly cut wood on his head, respectfully +saluted the _Padrona_, and, after throwing down his load in a +corner of the kitchen, leisurely turned his basket topsy-turvy, seated +himself upon it, and prepared to take his part in the general +conversation. + +At this moment the Doctor himself entered, his cloak and hat dripping. + +"Heugh! heugh!" he exclaimed, in a voice of disgust, as his wife +helped him out of his covering; "what weather!" He went towards the +fire, and spread out his hands to catch the heat of the glowing +embers, on which sat a saucepan. "Horrid weather! The wind played the +very mischief with us last night!" + +"Many branches broken, Padrone?" asked Beppo, eagerly. + +"Branches, eh? Aye, aye; saw away; burn away; don't be afraid of a +supply failing," said the Doctor, dryly. + +"Oh, Santa Maria!" sighed Signora Martina, in sad presentiment. + +"Plenty of firewood, my dear soul, for two years," went on the +Doctor. "The big tree near the pigeon-house is head down, root up, +torn, smashed, prostrate, while good-for-nothing saplings are +standing." + +"Oh Lord! such a tree! that never failed, bad year or good year, to +give us a sack of olives, and often more!" cried Signora Martina, +piteously. "More than three generations old it was!" And she began +actually to weep. "Oil selling for nothing, and the tree, the best of +trees, to be blown down!" + +"Take care," said the Doctor, "take care of repining! Little +misfortunes are like a rash, which carries off bad humors from a too +robust body. Suppose the storm had laid my head low, and turned up my +toes; what then, eh, little girls?" turning to the group of young +creatures standing with their eyes very wide open at the recital of +the misdeeds of the turbulent wind, and now as suddenly off into a +laugh at the image of the Doctor's decease so represented. "Ah! you +giggling set! Happy you that have no branches to be broken, and no +olive-pickers to pay! _Per Bacco!_ you are well off, if you only +knew it!" + +He walked over to where his weeping wife sat, laid his hand on her +head, and stooping, kissed her brow. The girls laughed again. + +"Be quiet, all of you! Do you think that only smooth brows and bright +cheeks ought to be kissed? Be good loving wives, and I promise you +your husbands will be blind to your wrinkles. I could not be happy +without the sight of this well-known face; it is the record of +happiness for me. I wish you all our luck, my dears!" + +All simpered or laughed, and Martina's brow smoothed. + +"Now I see that I can still make you smile at misfortune," continued +the Doctor, "I will tell you something comforting. As I came along, I +met Paolo, the olive-merchant, who offered me a franc more a sack than +he did to any one else, because he knows our olives are of a superior +quality." + +Signora Martina smiled rather a grim smile at this compliment to her +olives. + +"But I told him," went on Doctor Morani, with a certain look of pride, +"that we were not going to sell; we intended to make oil for +ourselves. And so we will, Martina, with the olives that have been +blown down, hoping the best for those still on the trees. Now let us +talk of something more pleasant. Pasqualina, suppose you tell us a +story; you are our best hand, I believe." + +"I am sure, Signor Dottore, I have nothing worth your listening to," +answered Pasqualina, blushing. + +"Tell us about the ghost your uncle saw," suggested another of the +girls. + +"A ghost!" cried the Doctor. "Any one here seen a ghost? I wish I +could have such a chance! What was it like?" + +"I did not see it myself; I do but believe what my uncle told me," +said Pasqualina, with a gravity that had a shade of resentment. + +"If one is only to speak of what one has seen," urged the prompter of +the uncle's ghost-story, "tell the Padrone of the witch that bewitched +your sister." + +"Ah! and so we have witches too?" groaned the Doctor. + +"As to that," resumed Pasqualina, with a dignified look, "I can't help +believing my own eyes, and those of all the people of our village." + +"Well," exclaimed Doctor Morani, "let us hear all about the witch." + +"You know, all of you," said Pasqualina, "what bad fits my sister had, +and how she was cured by the miraculous Madonna del Laghetto. So my +sister had no more fits, till Madalena, a spiteful old woman, and whom +everybody in the village knows to be a witch, mumbled some of her +spells and----" + +"Hallo!" cried the Doctor, "do you mean that witches have more power +than the Madonna?" + +"Oh! Signor Dottore, you put things so strangely! just listen to the +truth. So this old woman came and mumbled some of her spells, and then +my poor sister fell down again, and has since had fits as bad as +ever. But my father and brother were not going to take it so easily, +and they beat the bad old witch till she couldn't move, and had to be +carried to the hospital. I hope she may die, with all my heart I do!" + +"You had better hope she will get well," observed the Doctor, coolly; +"for if she should happen to die, my good Pasqualina, it would be very +possible that your father and brother might be sent to the galleys." + +Here Pasqualina set up a howl. + +"Do not afflict yourself just now," resumed Doctor Morani; "for, with +all their good-will, they have not quite killed the woman. I saw her +myself at the hospital; she is getting better, and when cured, I shall +take care that she does not return among such a set of savages as +flourish in your village, Signorina Pasqualina. Excuse my +boldness,"--and the Doctor took off his skull-cap, in playful +obeisance to the young girl,--"only advise your family another time to +be less ready with their hands and their belief in every species of +absurdity. Did not Father Tommaso tell you but yesterday, that it was +not right to believe in ghosts or witches, save and except the +peculiar one or two it is his business to know about, and who lived +some thousand years ago? There have been none since, believe me." + +"Strange things do happen, however," observed Signora Martina, +thoughtfully,--"things that neither priest nor lawyer can +explain. What was that thing which appeared, twenty years ago, on the +tower of San Ciprano?" The Signora's voice sent a shudder through all +the women present. + +"A trick, and a stupid trick," persisted her husband. + +"Not at all a trick, Doctor," said Martina, shaking her head. + +"Did you see it yourself, Martina?" + +"No; but I saw those who did with their own two blessed eyes." + +"The Padrona is quite right," said Beppo, without leaving his +basket. "I, for one, saw it." + +This assertion produced such a hubbub as sent the Doctor growling from +the room, and left Signora Martina at liberty to comply with the +general petition for the story. + +"It was twenty-five years last Easter since Hans Reuter came to San +Cipriano with Carlo Boschi, the son of old Pietro, of our town. Carlo +had gone away three years before to seek his fortune. He went to +Switzerland, it seems, a distant country beyond the mountains, where +the language is different from ours, and where it is said"--(here +Martina lowered her voice)--"the people do not follow our holy +religion, and are called, therefore, Protestants and heretics. They +are industrious, notwithstanding, and clever in certain arts and +manufactures, and it was from some of them that Carlo learned the +watchmaking trade. After staying away three years, one fine day he +came back, bringing with him one of these Swiss, Hans Reuter; and the +two, being great friends, set up a shop together, where they made and +sold watches and jewelry. There was not business enough in San +Cipriano to maintain them, but they made it out by selling at +wholesale in the neighboring towns. + +"For years all went smoothly with the partners, and their good luck +began to be wondered at, when one morning their shop was not open at +the usual hour. What was the matter? what had happened? there was +Carlo Boschi knocking and shouting to Hans, and all in vain. I must +tell you that Carlo lived elsewhere, and Hans had the care of the +premises at night, sleeping in a little room at the back of the +shop. The neighbors went out and advised Carlo to force the door. Very +well. When they got in, they found Hans bound hand and foot, and so +closely gagged that he was almost stifled. As soon as he could speak, +he said that just after he had shut up the previous evening, there +was a knock at the door. He had scarcely opened it, when he was seized +by two ruffians with blackened faces, who threw him down, gagged and +tied him, and then coolly proceeded to ransack every place, packed up +every bit of jewelry, every watch, and every piece of money, and then +decamped with their booty, locking the door on the outside. The +robbery took place on the third and last day of the Easter Fair, +exactly when there was the greatest noise and bustle from the breaking +up of booths, such an uproar of singing, brawling, and rolling of +carts, and such a stream of people going in every direction, as made +it easy for the thieves to escape detection. The police took a great +many depositions, and made a great fuss; but there the matter ended. + +"To say the truth, it was like looking for a bird in a forest, +considering the number of strangers who had attended the fair; +besides, the police, you know, at that time, were too busy dogging and +hunting down Liberals to care for tracking only thieves. That, +however, is no business of mine or yours; and perhaps it would have +done no good to poor Hans, even if the criminals had been discovered. +He had got a great shock; he could not recover his spirits. Every one +felt for him, because he was a kind, sociable man, as well as +industrious; the only fault he had was being a Protestant. What that +was no one exactly knew; but it was a great sin and a great pity, it +seems. Sure it is that Hans never went to confession, or to the +communion. However, as time passed and brought no tidings of the +robbers, the poor man grew more thin and careworn every day. He would +talk for hours about Switzerland, about his own village, his father's +house, his parents and relations. He had left them so thoughtlessly, +he said, he had scarcely felt a regret; yet now a yearning grew within +him to look once more upon those dear faces, and the verdant mountains +of his country,--upon its cool, rushing streams, wide, green pastures, +and the cows that grazed on them. He used to tell us, that, when he +was alone, he heard their bells in the distance, and they seemed to +call him home. My husband did not like all this, and said Hans ought +to go at once, or it would be too late. But Hans delayed and delayed, +in the hope of recovering some of his stolen property, till one day he +was taken very ill and had to be carried to the hospital. The Doctor +attended him two or three times every day, and on the third was +summoned in a great hurry. Morani went and had a long conversation +with the poor dying fellow, and then Padre Michele of the Capuchin +Convent was sent for. It was some time before the good monk could be +found, and then it took still longer, he being old and very infirm, +before he could get to the hospital. When he did, it was too late; +poor Hans was dead. + +"This was a sad business; for, if the Padre had come in time, at all +events Hans's soul would have been safe, and his body buried in +consecrated ground. My husband went to the Rector and told his +Reverence that Hans had renounced his errors, and had made a full +profession of the Catholic faith to him; but his Reverence shook his +head, and said that was not the same thing as if Padre Michele had +received Hans into the true fold. Then my husband said it was a pity +Hans should suffer because the Padre had been out of the way; but his +Reverence always answered, 'No,' and so 'No' it was. The clergy were +not to attend, and the body was to be put into the ground just as you +might bury a dog. What could my husband do more? So he went his way +to his patients. It happened that he had to see several, far in the +country, and so did not come home till late at night. + +"You all know the tower which stands upon the green knoll high above +the town. It is a relic of very old times, when San Cipriano had +fortifications. It has been a ruin for more than a century,--a mere +shell, open to the sky, encircling a wide space of ground. A few days +before Hans's death, the Doctor had taken it into his head he would +like to hire this tower of the municipality, to which it belongs, to +make a garden within its walls. He had been to examine the place a +week previous, and had brought home the key of the gate, being +determined to take it. Now this very day after Hans died, and while my +husband was away on his round of country visits, the Syndic sent to +ask for the key, and I, thinking no harm, gave it. And now what do you +think the Syndic wanted the key for? Just to dig a hole for poor +Hans. Yes, the body was carried up there, and buried out of sight as +quickly as possible. + +"When the Doctor came home he was in a mighty passion with +everybody;--with the Rector, for refusing Hans a place in the +burial-ground; with the Syndic, for allowing the tower to be used for +such a purpose; and most of all with me, for giving the key without +asking why or wherefore. + +"However, what was done could not be undone, and so no more was said +about the matter. It might have been a week after, when some girls who +had set out before daylight to go to the wood for leaves, came back +much terrified, declaring they had seen an apparition on the tower +wall. Not one had dared to go on to the wood, but all ran back to the +town and spread the alarm. A dozen persons, at least, came to our +house to tell us about it, and I promise you my husband did not call +it a stupid trick, as he did today. He looked very grave, and +exclaimed, 'I don't wonder at it. No doubt it is poor Hans, who does +not like to lie in unconsecrated ground. Don't come to me,--it's none +of my business,--I have only to do with the living,--the dead belong +to the clergy,--this is the Rector's affair. If ever a ghost had a +right to walk, it is in such a case as this, when a poor, honest +fellow is denied Christian burial because an old monk's legs refuse to +carry him fast enough. Had Padre Michele been a younger man, all +would have been right.' + +"There was quite a general commotion in the town, and at last, after a +day or two, some of the young men determined they would go and watch +the next night, to see if the thing appeared, or if it was mere +women's nonsense, and they went accordingly." + +"I was one of the party," interrupted Beppo, taking the narrative out +of his Padrona's mouth, stirred by the high-wrought excitement of his +recollections. "I went with ten others, and I had a good loaded gun +with me. We hid ourselves behind some bushes, and watched and +watched. Nothing appeared, until the girls, who had agreed to come at +their usual hour for going to the wood, passed by; then, just at that +moment, I swear I saw it. I felt all,--I can't tell how,--a sort of +hot cold, and as if my legs were water. I don't know how I managed to +raise my gun,--I did it quite dreaming like; it went off with the +biggest noise ever a gun made, and the bullet must have gone through +the very head of the ghost, for it waved its thin arms fearfully. All +the rest ran away, but I could not move a peg. Then a terrible voice +roared out, 'I shall not forget thee, my friend! I will visit thee +again before thy last hour! Now begone!'" + +Beppo ceased speaking, and a shuddering silence fell on the +listeners. Martina alone ventured on the awe-struck whisper of "What +was it like, Beppo?" + +"A tall, white figure; its arms spread out like a cross,--so," replied +Beppo, rising from his basket, the better to personate the +ghost. "_Jesu Maria!_" he shrieked, "there it is! O Lord, have +mercy on us!" + +And sure enough, standing against the door was a tall, white figure, +its arms spread out like the limbs of a cross. Screams, both shrill +and discordant, filled the room,--Martini, Beppo, Marietta, and the +girls tumbling and rushing about distraught with terror. Such a +mad-like scene! There was a trembling and a shaking of the white +figure for a moment, then down it went in a heap to the floor, and out +came the substantial proportions of Doctor Morani, looming formidable +in the dusky light of the expiring embers. The sound of his +well-known vigorous laugh resounded through the kitchen, as he flung a +bunch of pine branches on the fire. The next moment a bright flame +shot up, and the light as by magic brought the scared group to their +senses. Each looked into the faces of the others with an expression +of rising merriment struggling with ghastly fear, and first a +long-drawn breath of relief, and then a burst of laughter broke from +all. + +"What a fright you have given us, Padrone!" Beppo was the first to +say. + +"I hope so," replied the Doctor,--"it has only paid you off for the +one you gave me twenty years ago." + +"I!--you!--but how, caro Padrone?" + +"Ah! you haven't yet, I assure you, recognized your old acquaintance, +the identical ghost which you favored with a bullet. Would you like to +see it once more?" + +"_Pazienza!_" exclaimed Beppo, "for once,--twice;--but three +times,--no, that is more than enough. I am satisfied with what I have +seen." + +"Do you know what you have seen?" resumed the Doctor. "Very well, +listen to me. When the Rector refused to let poor Hans lie in the same +ground with many of our townspeople who (God rest their souls!) had +lived scarcely so honest a life as he had done, I was far from +imagining that he was to be thrust into the tower, of all places in +the world, and just when it was well known I had bargained for +it. 'That's the way I am to be used, is it?' thought I. I'll play you +a trick, my friends, worth two of yours,--one that will make you glad +to give honest Hans hospitality in your churchyard.' + +"I waited a few days, till the moon should rise late, so as to be +shining about one or two in the morning, the time when the girls set +off for the woods. I provided myself with a sheet, and took care to +be in the tower before midnight. I tied two long sticks together in +the shape of a cross, stuck my hat on the top, and threw the linen +over the whole; and a capital ghost it was. Then I got under the +drapery, pushing up the stick, so as to give the idea of a gigantic +human figure with extended arms. I had no fear of being discovered, +for the Syndic had the key still in his possession, and I had made +good my entrance through a gap in the wall sufficiently well concealed +by brambles. I suppose I need not tell you, young women, how brave +your mothers were. My ghostship heard of the young men's project, and +encouraged them, never thinking there was one among them so stupid as +to carry a gun to fight a ghost with; for how can you shoot a ghost, +when it has neither flesh nor blood? It was impossible to suspect any +one of being such a monstrous blockhead; so I was rather disagreeably +startled at hearing the crack of a gun, and feeling the tingling of a +bullet whizzing past my ear. You nearly made me into a real ghost, +friend Beppo; for I assure you, you are a capital shot. Ever since +that memorable aim, I have entertained the deepest respect for you as +a marksman; it was not your fault that I am here now to make this +confession. I ducked my head below the wall in case a volley was to +follow the signal gun. When I peeped again, there remained one +solitary figure before the tower, immovable as a stone pillar. O noble +Beppo, it was thou! + +"'I must get rid of this fellow one way or other,' thought I, 'but not +by shaking my stick-covered sheet, or I shall have another bullet.' So +I raised myself breasthigh above the wall, made a trumpet of my hands, +and roared out the fearful promise I have kept this evening. As soon +as I saw my enemy's back, I left my station, and never played the +ghost again." + +"A pretty folly for a man of forty!" cried Signora Martina, still +smarting under her late fright. "Why, a boy would be well whipped for +such a trick. There's no knowing what to believe in a man like you, no +saying when you are in earnest or in fun." + +After a moment's silence, the lady asked in a softer tone, "Now do +tell me, Morani, is it true that poor Hans recanted before he died?" + +"My dear, if Padre Michele had been in time, we should have been sure +of the fact. You see the Rector did not think I knew enough of +theology to decide. I am a submissive child of the Church," replied +the husband. "As for the ghost, I took care to provide against +forgetting my folly. On the top shelf of the laboratory I hung up the +bullet-pierced hat; and the bullet itself I ticketed with the date and +kept in my desk. Who wants to see the ghost's hat?"--and the Doctor +drew a hat from under the sheet still lying on the floor, and +exhibited it to the curious eyes of all present, making them admire +the neat hole in it. The bullet itself he took out of his waistcoat +pocket, and holding it towards Beppo, asked, "Hadn't it a mark?" + +"Yes, sir, I cut a cross on it," replied the abashed climber of +olive-trees; "and by all the Saints, there it is still! Pasqualina, +my girl," turning to her, "your uncle's ghost will turn out to be +somebody." + +"Bravo! Beppo," cried the Doctor. + +"Knowing what you know by experience, suppose you hint to any one +inclined to spectre-shooting, that he runs the risk of killing a live +man, and having two ghosts on his hands,--the ghost of the poor devil +shot, and one of himself hanged for murder. As for you, young girls, +remember that when you go forth to meet the perils of dark mornings, +you are more likely to encounter dangers from flesh and blood than +from spirits." + + + + +THE GOLDEN MILE-STONE. + + +[The _Milliorium Aureum,_ or Golden Mile-Stone, was a gilt marble +pillar in the Forum at Rome, from which, as a central point, the great +roads of the empire diverged through the several gates of the city, +and the distances were measured.] + + + Leafless are the trees; their purple branches + Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral + Rising silent + In the Red Sea of the winter sunset. + + From the hundred chimneys of the village, + Like the Afreet in the Arabian story, + Smoky columns + Tower aloft into the air of amber. + + At the window winks the flickering fire-light; + Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer, + Social watch-fires, + Answering one another through the darkness. + + On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing, + And, like Ariel in the cloven pine-tree, + For its freedom + Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in them. + + By the fireside there are old men seated, + Seeing ruined cities in the ashes, + Asking sadly + Of the Past what it can ne'er restore them. + + By the fireside there are youthful dreamers, + Building castles fair with stately stairways, + Asking blindly + Of the Future what it cannot give them. + + By the fireside tragedies are acted + In whose scenes appear two actors only, + Wife and husband, + And above them God, the sole spectator. + + By the fireside there are peace and comfort, + Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces, + Waiting, watching + For a well-known footstep in the passage. + + Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile-Stone,-- + Is the central point from which he measures + Every distance + Through the gateways of the world around him. + + In his farthest wanderings still he sees it; + Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind, + As he heard them + When he sat with those who were, but are not. + + Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, + Nor the march of the encroaching city, + Drives an exile + From the hearth of his ancestral homestead! + + We may build more splendid habitations, + Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures, + But we cannot + Buy with gold the old associations. + + + + + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + + +EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL. + +I really believe some people save their bright thoughts, as being too +precious for conversation. What do you think an admiring friend said +the other day to one that was talking good things,--good enough to +print? "Why," said he, "you are wasting merchantable literature, a +cash article, at the rate, as nearly as I can tell, of fifty dollars +an hour." The talker took him to the window and asked him to look out +and tell what he saw. + +"Nothing but a very dusty street," he said, "and a man driving a +sprinkling-machine through it." + +"Why don't you tell the man he is wasting that water? What would be +the state of the highways of life, if we did not drive our +_thought-sprinklers_ through them with the valves open, +sometimes? + +"Besides, there is another thing about this talking, which you +forget. It shapes our thoughts for us;--the waves of conversation roll +them as the surf rolls the pebbles on the shore. Let me modify the +image a little. I rough out my thoughts in talk as an artist models in +clay. Spoken language is so plastic,--you can pat and coax, and spread +and shave, and rub out, and fill up, and stick on so easily, when you +work that soft material, that there is nothing like it for +modelling. Out of it come the shapes which you turn into marble or +bronze in your immortal books, if you happen to write such. Or, to use +another illustration, writing or printing is like shooting with a +rifle; you may hit your reader's mind, or miss it;--but talking is +like playing at a mark with the pipe of an engine; if it is within +reach, and you have time enough, you can't help hitting it." + +The company agreed that this last illustration was of superior +excellence, or, in the phrase used by them, "Fust-rate." I +acknowledged the compliment, but gently rebuked the expression. +"Fust-rate," "prime," "a prime article," "a superior piece +of goods," "a handsome garment," "a gent in a flowered vest,"--all +such expressions are final. They blast the lineage of him or her who +utters them, for generations up and down. There is one other phrase +which will soon come to be decisive of a man's social _status_, if it +is not already: "That tells the whole story." It is an expression +which vulgar and conceited people particularly affect, and which +well-meaning ones, who know better, catch from them. It is intended to +stop all debate, like the previous question in the General Court. Only +it don't; simply because "that" does not usually tell the whole, nor +one half of the whole story. + +----It is an odd idea, that almost all our people have had a +professional education. To become a doctor a man must study some +three years and hear a thousand lectures, more or less. Just how much +study it takes to make a lawyer I cannot say, but probably not more +than this. Now most decent people hear one hundred lectures or sermons +(discourses) on theology every year,--and this, twenty, thirty, fifty +years together. They read a great many religious books besides. The +clergy, however, rarely hear any sermons except what they preach +themselves. A dull preacher might be conceived, therefore, to lapse +into a state of _quasi_ heathenism, simply for want of religious +instruction. And on the other hand, an attentive and intelligent +hearer, listening to a succession of wise teachers, might become +actually better educated in theology than any one of them. We are all +theological students, and more of us qualified as doctors of divinity +than have received degrees at any of the universities. + +It is not strange, therefore, that very good people should often find +it difficult, if not impossible, to keep their attention fixed upon a +sermon treating feebly a subject which they have thought vigorously +about for years, and heard able men discuss scores of times. I have +often noticed, however, that a hopelessly dull discourse acts +_inductively_, as electricians would say, in developing strong +mental currents. I am ashamed to think with what accompaniments and +variations and _fioriture_ I have sometimes followed the droning +of a heavy speaker,--not willingly,--for my habit is reverential,--but +as a necessary result of a slight continuous impression on the senses +and the mind, which kept both in action without furnishing the food +they required to work upon. If you ever saw a crow with a king-bird +after him, you will get an image of a dull speaker and a lively +listener. The bird in sable plumage flaps heavily along his +straight-forward course, while the other sails round him, over him, +under him, leaves him, comes back again, tweaks out a black feather, +shoots away once more, never losing sight of him, and finally reaches +the crow's perch at the same time the crow does, having cut a perfect +labyrinth of loops and knots and spirals while the slow fowl was +painfully working from one end of his straight line to the other. + +[I think these remarks were received rather coolly. A temporary +boarder from the country, consisting of a somewhat more than +middle-aged female, with a parchment forehead and a dry little +"frisette" shingling it, a sallow neck with a necklace of gold beads, a +black dress too rusty for recent grief, and contours in basso-rilievo, +left the table prematurely, and was reported to have been very +virulent about what I said. So I went to my good old minister, and +repeated the remarks, as nearly as I could remember them, to him. He +laughed good-naturedly, and said there was considerable truth in +them. He thought he could tell when people's minds were wandering, by +their looks. In the earlier years of his ministry he had sometimes +noticed this, when he was preaching;--very little of late +years. Sometimes, when his colleague was preaching, he observed this +kind of inattention; but after all, it was not so very unnatural. I +will say, by the way, that it is a rule I have long followed, to tell +my worst thoughts to my minister, and my best thoughts to the young +people I talk with.] + +----I want to make a literary confession now, which I believe nobody +has made before me. You know very well that I write verses sometimes, +because I have read some of them at this table. (The company +assented,--two or three of them in a resigned sort of way, as I +thought, as if they supposed I had an epic in my pocket, and was going +to read half a dozen books or so for their benefit.)--I continued. Of +course I write some lines or passages which are better than others; +some which, compared with the others, might be called relatively +excellent. It is in the nature of things that I should consider these +relatively excellent lines or passages as absolutely good. So much +must be pardoned to humanity. Now I never wrote a "good" line in my +life, but the moment after it was written it seemed a hundred years +old. Very commonly I had a sudden conviction that I had seen it +somewhere. Possibly I may have sometimes unconsciously stolen it, but +I do not remember that I ever once detected any historical truth in +these sudden convictions of the antiquity of my new thought or +phrase. I have learned utterly to distrust them, and never allow them +to bully me out of a thought or line. + +This is the philosophy of it. (Here the number of the company was +diminished by a small secession.) Any new formula which suddenly +emerges in our consciousness has its roots in long trains of thought; +it is virtually old when it first makes its appearance among the +recognized growths of our intellect. Any crystalline group of musical +words has had a long and still period to form in. Here is one theory. + +But there is a larger law which perhaps comprehends these facts. It is +this. The rapidity with which ideas grow old in our memories is in a +direct ratio to the squares of their importance. Their apparent age +runs up miraculously, like the value of diamonds, as they increase in +magnitude. A great calamity, for instance, is as old as the trilobites +an hour after it has happened. It stains backward through all the +leaves we have turned over in the book of life, before its blot of +tears or of blood is dry on the page we are turning. For this we seem +to have lived; it was foreshadowed in dreams that we leaped out of in +the cold sweat of terror; in the "dissolving views" of dark +day-visions; all omens pointed to it; all paths led to it. After the +tossing half-forgetfulness of the first sleep that follows such an +event, it comes upon us afresh, as a surprise, at waking; in a few +moments it is old again,--old as eternity. + +[I wish I had not said all this then and there. I might have known +better. The pale schoolmistress, in her mourning dress, was looking +at me, as I noticed, with a wild sort of expression. All at once the +blood dropped out of her cheeks as the mercury drops from a broken +barometer-tube, and she melted away from her seat like an image of +snow; a slung-shot could not have brought her down better. God forgive +me! + +After this little episode, I continued, to some few that remained +balancing teaspoons on the edges of cups, twirling knives, or tilting +upon the hind legs of their chairs until their heads reached the wall, +where they left gratuitous advertisements of various popular +cosmetics.] + +When a person is suddenly thrust into any strange, new position of +trial, he finds the place fits him as if he had been measured for +it. He has committed a great crime, for instance, and is sent to the +State Prison. The traditions, prescriptions, limitations, privileges, +all the sharp conditions of his new life, stamp themselves upon his +consciousness as the signet on soft wax;--a single pressure is +enough. Let me strengthen the image a little. Did you ever happen to +see that most soft-spoken and velvet-handed steam-engine at the Mint? +The smooth piston slides backward and forward as a lady might slip her +delicate finger in and out of a ring. The engine lays one of +_its_ fingers calmly, but firmly, upon a bit of metal; it is a +coin now, and will remember that touch, and tell a new race about it, +when the date upon it is crusted over with twenty centuries. So it is +that a great silent-moving misery puts a new stamp on us in an hour or +a moment,--as sharp an impression as if it had taken half a lifetime +to engrave it. + +It is awful to be in the hands of the wholesale professional dealers +in misfortune; undertakers and jailers magnetize you in a moment, and +you pass out of the individual life you were living into the +rhythmical movements of their horrible machinery. Do the worst thing +you can, or suffer the worst that can be thought of, you find yourself +in a category of humanity that stretches back as far as Cain, and with +an expert at your elbow that has studied your case all out beforehand, +and is waiting for you with his implements of hemp or mahogany. I +believe, if a man were to be burned in any of our cities to-morrow for +heresy, there would be found a master of ceremonies that knew just how +many fagots were necessary, and the best way of arranging the whole +matter. + +----So we have not won the Good-wood cup; _au contraire_, we were +a "bad fifth," if not worse than that; and trying it again, and the +third time, has not yet bettered the matter. Now I am as patriotic as +any of my fellow-citizens,--too patriotic in fact, for I have got into +hot water by loving too much of my country; in short, if any man, +whose fighting weight is not more than eight stone four pounds, +disputes it, I am ready to discuss the point with him. I should have +gloried to see the stars and stripes in front at the finish. I love my +country, and I love horses. Stubbs's old mezzotint of Eclipse hangs +over my desk, and Herring's portrait of Plenipotentiary,--whom I saw +run at Epsom,--over my fireplace. Did I not elope from school to see +Revenge, and Prospect, and Little John, and Peacemaker run over the +race-course where now yon suburban village flourishes, in the year +eighteen hundred and ever-so-few? Though I never owned a horse, have I +not been the proprietor of six equine females, of which one was the +prettiest little "Morgin" that ever stepped? Listen, then, to an +opinion I have often expressed long before this venture of ours in +England. Horse-_racing_ is not a republican institution; +horse-_trotting_ is. Only very rich persons can keep race-horses, +and everybody knows they are kept mainly as gambling implements. All +that matter about blood and speed we won't discuss; we understand all +that; useful, very,--_of_ course,--great obligations to the +Godolphin "Arabian," and the rest. I say racing horses are +essentially gambling implements, as much as roulette tables. Now I am +not preaching at this moment; I may read you one of my sermons some +other morning; but I maintain that gambling, on the great scale, is +not republican. It belongs to two phases of society,--a cankered +over-civilization, such as exists in rich aristocracies, and the +reckless life of borderers and adventurers, or the semi-barbarism of a +civilization resolved into its primitive elements. Real republicanism +is stern and severe; its essence is not in forms of government, but in +the omnipotence of public opinion which grows out of it. This public +opinion cannot prevent gambling with dice or stocks, but it can and +does compel it to keep comparatively quiet. But horse-racing is the +most public way of gambling; and with all its immense attractions to +the sense and the feelings,--to which I plead very susceptible,--the +disguise is too thin that covers it, and everybody knows what it +means. Its supporters are the Southern gentry,--fine fellows, no +doubt, but not republicans exactly, as we understand the term,--a few +Northern millionnaires more or less thoroughly millioned, who do not +represent the real people, and the mob of sporting men, the best of +whom are commonly idlers, and the worst very bad neighbors to have +near one in a crowd, or to meet in a dark alley. In England, on the +other hand, with its aristocratic institutions, racing is a natural +growth enough; the passion for it spreads downwards through all +classes, from the Queen to the costermonger. London is like a shelled +corn-cob on the Derby day, and there is not a clerk who could raise +the money to hire a saddle with an old hack under it that can sit down +on his office-stool the next day without wincing. + +Now just compare the racer with the trotter for a moment. The racer is +incidentally useful, but essentially something to bet upon, as much as +the thimble-rigger's "little joker." The trotter is essentially and +daily useful, and only incidentally a tool for sporting men. + +What better reason do you want for the fact that the racer is most +cultivated and reaches his greatest perfection in England, and that +the trotting horses of America beat the world? And why should we have +expected that the pick--if it was the pick--of our few and far-between +racing stables should beat the pick of England and France? Throw over +the fallacious time-test, and there was nothing to show for it but a +natural kind of patriotic feeling, which we all have, with a +thoroughly provincial conceit, which some of us must plead guilty to. + +We may beat yet. As an American, I hope we shall. As a moralist and +occasional sermonizer, I am not so anxious about it. Wherever the +trotting horse goes, he carries in his train brisk omnibuses, lively +bakers' carts, and therefore hot rolls, the jolly butcher's wagon, the +cheerful gig, the wholesome afternoon drive with wife and child,--all +the forms of moral excellence, except truth, which does not agree with +any kind of horse-flesh. The racer brings with him gambling, cursing, +swearing, drinking, the eating of oysters, and a distaste for mob-caps +and the middle-aged virtues. + +And by the way, let me beg you not to call a _trotting match_ a +_race_, and not to speak of a "thorough-bred" as a "_blooded_" horse, +unless he has been recently phlebotomized. I consent to your saying +"blood horse," if you like. Also, if, next year, we send out Posterior +and Posterioress, the winners of the great national four-mile race in +7 18-1/2, and they happen to get beaten, pay your bets, and behave +like men and gentlemen about it, if you know how. + +[I felt a great deal better after blowing off the ill-temper condensed +in the above paragraph. To brag little,--to show--well,--to crow +gently, if in luck,--to pay up, to own up, and to shut up, if beaten, +are the virtues of a sporting man, and I can't say that I think we +have shown them in any great perfection of late.] + +----Apropos of horses. Do you know how important good jockeying is to +authors? Judicious management; letting the public see your animal +just enough, and not too much; holding him up hard when the market is +too full of him; letting him out at just the right buying intervals; +always gently feeling his mouth; never slacking and never jerking the +rein;--this is what I mean by jockeying. + +----When an author has a number of books out, a cunning hand will keep +them all spinning, as Signor Blitz does his dinner-plates; fetching +each one up, as it begins to "wabble," by an advertisement, a puff, or +a quotation. + +----Whenever the extracts from a living writer begin to multiply fast in +the papers, without obvious reason, there is a new book or a new +edition coming. The extracts are _ground-bait_. + +----Literary life is full of curious phenomena. I don't know that there +is anything more noticeable than what we may call _conventional +reputations_. There is a tacit understanding in every community of +men of letters that they will not disturb the popular fallacy +respecting this or that electro-gilded celebrity. There are various +reasons for this forbearance: one is old; one is rich; one is +good-natured; one is such a favorite with the pit that it would not be +safe to hiss him from the manager's box. The venerable augurs of the +literary or scientific temple may smile faintly when one of the tribe +is mentioned; but the farce is in general kept up as well as the +Chinese comic scene of entreating and imploring a man to stay with +you, with the implied compact between you that he shall by no means +think of doing it. A poor wretch he must be who would wantonly sit +down on one of these bandbox reputations. A Prince-Rupert's-drop, +which is a tear of unannealed glass, lasts indefinitely, if you keep +it from meddling hands; but break its tail off, and it explodes and +resolves itself into powder. These celebrities I speak of are the +Prince-Rupert's-drops of the learned and polite world. See how the +papers treat them! What an array of pleasant kaleidoscopic phrases, +that can be arranged in ever so many charming patterns, is at their +service! How kind the "Critical Notices"--where small authorship +comes to pick up chips of praise, fragrant, sugary, and sappy--always +are to them! Well, life would be nothing without paper-credit and +other fictions; so let them pass current. Don't steal their chips; +don't puncture their swimming-bladders; don't come down on their +pasteboard boxes; don't break the ends of their brittle and unstable +reputations, you fellows who all feel sure that your names will be +household words a thousand years from now. + +"A thousand years is a good while," said the old gentleman who sits +opposite, thoughtfully. + +----Where have I been for the last three or four days? Down at the +Island, deer-shooting.--How many did I bag? I brought home one buck +shot.--The Island is where? No matter. It is the most splendid domain +that any man looks upon in these latitudes. Blue sea around it, and +running up into its heart, so that the little boat slumbers like a +baby in lap, while the tall ships are stripping naked to fight the +hurricane outside, and storm-stay-sails banging and flying in ribbons. +Trees, in stretches of miles; beeches, oaks, most numerous;--many of +them hung with moss, looking like bearded Druids; some coiled in the +clasp of huge, dark-stemmed grape-vines. Open patches where the sun +gets in and goes to sleep, and the winds come so finely +sifted that they are as soft as swan's down. Rocks scattered +about,--Stonehenge-like monoliths. Fresh-water lakes; one of them, +Mary's lake, crystal-clear, full of flashing pickerel lying under the +lily-pads like tigers in the jungle. Six pounds of ditto one morning +for breakfast. EGO _fecit_. + +The divinity-student looked as if he would like to question my +Latin. No, sir, I said,--you need not trouble yourself. There is a +higher law in grammar, not to be put down by Andrews and +Stoddard. Then I went on. + +Such hospitality as that island has seen there has not been the like +of in these our New England sovereignties. There is nothing in the +shape of kindness and courtesy that can make life beautiful, which has +not found its home in that ocean-principality. It has welcomed all who +were worthy of welcome, from the pale clergyman who came to breathe +the sea-air with its medicinal salt and iodine, to the great statesman +who turned his back on the affairs of empire, and smoothed his +Olympian forehead, and flashed his white teeth in merriment over +the long table, where his wit was the keenest and his story the best. + +[I don't believe any man ever talked like that in this world. I don't +believe _I_ talked just so; but the fact is, in reporting one's +conversation, one cannot help _Blair_-ing it up more or less, +ironing out crumpled paragraphs, starching limp ones, and crimping and +plaiting a little sometimes; it is as natural as prinking at the +looking-glass.] + +----How can a man help writing poetry in such a place? Everybody does +write poetry that goes there. In the state archives, kept in the +library of the Lord of the Isle, are whole volumes of unpublished +verse,--some by well-known hands, and others, quite as good, by the +last people you would think of as versifiers,--men who could pension +off all the genuine poets in the country, and buy ten acres of Boston +common, if it was for sale, with what they had left. Of course I had +to write my little copy of verses with the rest; here it is, if you +will hear me read it. When the sun is in the west, vessels sailing in +an easterly direction look bright or dark to one who observes them +from the north or south, according to the tack they are sailing +upon. Watching them from one of the windows of the great mansion, I +saw these perpetual changes, and moralized thus:-- + + + As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green + To the billows of foam-crested blue, + Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen, + Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue: + Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray + As the chaff in the stroke of the flail; + Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way, + The sun gleaming bright on her sail. + + Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,-- + Of breakers that whiten and roar; + How little he cares, if in shadow or sun + They see him that gaze from the shore! + He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, + To the rock that is under his lee, + As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, + O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. + + Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves + Where life and its ventures are laid, + The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves + May see us in sunshine or shade; + Yet true to our course, though our shadow grow dark, + We'll trim our broad sail as before, + And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, + Nor ask how we look from the shore! + + +----Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good +mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything +is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse +their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt +itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad. We frequently see +persons in insane hospitals, sent there in consequence of what are +called _religious_ mental disturbances. I confess that I think +better of them than of many who hold the same notions, and keep their +wits and appear to enjoy life very well, outside of the asylums. Any +decent person ought to go mad, if he really holds such or such +opinions. It is very much to his discredit in every point of view, if +he does not. What is the use of my saying what some of these opinions +are? Perhaps more than one of you hold such as I should think ought to +send you straight over to Somerville, if you have any logic in your +heads or any human feeling in your hearts. Anything that is brutal, +cruel, heathenish, that makes life hopeless for the most of mankind +and perhaps for entire races,--anything that assumes the necessity of +the extermination of instincts which were given to be regulated,--no +matter by what name you call it,--no matter whether a fakir, or a +monk, or a deacon believes it,--if received, ought to produce insanity +in every well-regulated mind. That condition becomes a normal one, +under the circumstances. I am very much ashamed of some people for +retaining their reason, when they know perfectly well that if they +were not the most stupid or the most selfish of human beings, they +would become _non-compotes_ at once. + +[Nobody understood this but the theological student and the +schoolmistress. They looked intelligently at each other; but whether +they were thinking about my paradox or not, I am not clear.--It would +be natural enough. Stranger things have happened. Love and Death enter +boarding-houses without asking the price of board, or whether there is +room for them. Alas, these young people are poor and pallid! Love +_should_ be both rich and rosy, but _must_ be either rich or +rosy. Talk about military duty! What is that to the warfare of a +married maid-of-all-work, with the title of mistress, and an American +female constitution, which collapses just in the middle third of life, +and comes out vulcanised India-rubber, if it happen to live through +the period when health and strength are most wanted?] + +----Have I ever acted in private theatricals? Often. I have +played the part of the "Poor Gentleman," before a great many +audiences,--more, I trust, than I shall ever face again. I did not +wear a stage-costume, nor a wig, nor moustaches of burnt cork; but I +was placarded and announced as a public performer, and at the proper +hour I came forward with the ballet-dancer's smile upon my +countenance, and made my bow and acted my part. I have seen my name +stuck up in letters so big that I was ashamed to show myself in the +place by daylight. I have gone to a town with a sober literary essay +in my pocket, and seen myself everywhere announced as the most +desperate of _buffos_,--one who was obliged to restrain himself +in the full exercise of his powers, from prudential considerations. I +have been through as many hardships as Ulysses, in the pursuit of my +histrionic vocation. I have travelled in cars until the conductors all +knew me like a brother. I have run off the rails, and stuck all night +in snowdrifts, and sat behind females that would have the window open +when one could not wink without his eyelids freezing together. Perhaps +I shall give you some of my experiences one of these days;--I will not +now, for I have something else for you. + +Private theatricals, as I have figured in them in country +lyceum-halls, are one thing,--and private theatricals, as they may be +seen in certain gilded and frescoed saloons of our metropolis, are +another. Yes, it is pleasant to see real gentlemen and ladies, who do +not think it necessary to mouth, and rant, and stride, like most of +our stage heroes and heroines, in the characters which show off their +graces and talents; most of all to see a fresh, unrouged, unspoiled, +highbred young maiden, with a lithe figure, and a pleasant voice, +acting in those love-dramas that make us young again to look upon, +when real youth and beauty will play them for us. + +----Of course I wrote the prologue I was asked to write. I did not see +the play, though. I knew there was a young lady in it, and that +somebody was in love with her, and she was in love with him, and +somebody (an old tutor, I believe) wanted to interfere, and, very +naturally, the young lady was too sharp for him. The play of course +ends charmingly; there is a general reconciliation, and all concerned +form a line and take each others' hands, as people always do after +they have made up their quarrels,--and then the curtain falls,--if it +does not stick, as it commonly does at private theatrical exhibitions, +in which case a boy is detailed to pull it down, which he does, +blushing violently. + +Now, then, for my prologue. I am not going to change my caesuras and +cadences for anybody; so if you do not like the heroic, or iambic +trimeter brachycatalectic, you had better not wait to hear it. + + +THIS IS IT. + +A Prologue? Well, of course the ladies know;-- + +I have my doubts. No matter,--here we go! + + + What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach: + _Pro_ means beforehand; _logos_ stands for speech. + 'Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings, + The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings;-- + Prologues in metre are to other _pros_ + As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. + + "The world's a stage,"--as Shakspeare said, one day; + The stage a world--was what he meant to say. + The outside world's a blunder, that is clear; + The real world that Nature meant is here. + Here every foundling finds its lost mamma; + Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa; + Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid, + The cheats are taken in the traps they laid; + One after one the troubles all are past + Till the fifth act comes right side up at last, + When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all, + Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall. + --Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, + And black-browed ruffians always come to grief. + --When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech, + And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach, + Cries, "Help, kyind Heaven!" and drops upon her knees + On the green--baize,--beneath the (canvas) trees,-- + See to her side avenging Valor fly:-- + "Ha! Villain! Draw! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die!" + --When the poor hero flounders in despair, + Some dear lost uncle turns up millionnaire,-- + Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy, + Sobs on his neck, "My boy! My Boy!! MY BOY!!!" + + Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night + Of love that conquers in disaster's spite. + Ladies, attend! While woful cares and doubt + Wrong the soft passion in the world without, + Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere, + One thing is certain: Love will triumph here! + + Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule,-- + The world's great masters, when you're out of school,-- + Learn the brief moral of our evening's play: + Man has his will,--but woman has her way! + While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire, + Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire,-- + The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves + Beats the black giant with his score of slaves. + All earthly powers confess your sovereign art + But that one rebel,--woman's wilful heart. + All foes you master; but a woman's wit + Lets daylight through you ere you know you're hit. + So, just to picture what her art can do, + Hear an old story made as good as new. + + Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade, + Alike was famous for his arm and blade. + One day a prisoner Justice had to kill + Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. + Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, + Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. + His falchion lightened with a sudden gleam, + As the pike's armor flashes in the stream. + He sheathed his blade; he turned as if to go; + The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. + "Why strikest not? Perform thy murderous act," + The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.) + "Friend, I _have_ struck," the artist straight replied; + "Wait but one moment, and yourself decide." + He held his snuff-box,--"Now then, if you please!" + The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze, + Off his head tumbled,--bowled along the floor,-- + Bounced down the steps;--the prisoner said no more! + + Woman! thy falchion is a glittering eye; + If death lurks in it, oh, how sweet to die! + Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head; + We die with love, and never dream we're dead! + + +The prologue went off very well, as I hear. No alterations were +suggested by the lady to whom it was sent, for as far as I +know. Sometimes people criticize the poems one sends them, and +suggest all sorts of improvements. Who was that silly body that +wanted Burns to alter "Scots wha hae," so as to lengthen the last +line, thus?-- + + + "_Edward!_". Chains and slavery! + + +Here is a little poem I sent a short time since to a committee for a +certain celebration. I understood that it was to be a festive and +convivial occasion, and ordered myself accordingly. It seems the +president of the day was what is called a "teetotaller." I received a +note from him in the following words, containing the copy subjoined, +with the emendations annexed to it: + + +"Dear Sir,--Your poem gives good satisfaction to the committee. The +sentiments expressed with reference to liquor are not, however, those +generally entertained by this community. I have therefore consulted +the clergyman of this place, who has made some slight changes, which +he thinks will remove all objections, and keep the valuable portions +of the poem. Please to inform me of your charge for said poem. Our +means are limited, etc., etc., etc. + +"Yours with respect." + + +HERE IT IS,--WITH THE _SLIGHT ALTERATIONS!_ + + + Come! fill a fresh bumper,--for why should we go + + logwood + While the <nectar> still reddens our cups as they flow? + + decoction + Pour out the <rich juices> still bright with the sun, + + dye-stuff + Till o'er the brimmed crystal the <rubies> shall run. + + half-ripened apples + The <purple-globed-clusters> their life-dews have bled; + + taste sugar of lead + How sweet is the <breath> of the <fragrance they shed>! + + rank poisons _wines!!!_ + For summer's <last roses> lie hid in the <wines> + + stable-boys smoking long-nines. + That were garnered by <maidens who laughed through the vines.> + + scowl howl scoff sneer + Then a <smile>, and a <glass>, and a <toast>, and a <cheer>, + + strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer! + For <all the good-wine, and we've some of it here> + + In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, + + Down, down, with the tyrant that masters us all! + <Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all!> + + +The company said I had been shabbily treated, and advised me to charge +the committee double,--which I did. But as I never got my pay, I don't +know that it made much difference. I am a very particular person about +having all I write printed as I write it, I require to see a proof, a +revise, a re-revise, and a double re-revise, or fourth-proof rectified +impression of all my productions, especially verse. Manuscripts are +such puzzles! Why, I was reading some lines near the end of the last +number of this journal, when I came across one beginning + + + "The _stream_ flashes by,"-- + + +Now as no stream had been mentioned, I was perplexed to know what it +meant. It proved, on inquiry, to be only a misprint for "dream." +Think of it! No wonder so many poets die young. + +I have nothing more to report at this time, except two pieces of +advice I gave to the young women at table. One relates to a vulgarism +of language, which I grieve to say is sometimes heard even from female +lips. The other is of more serious purport, and applies to such as +contemplate a change of condition,--matrimony, in fact. + +--The woman who "calc'lates" is lost. + +--Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust. + + + + + +THOMAS CARLYLE. + + +THOMAS CARLYLE is a name which no man of this generation should +pronounce without respect; for it belongs to one of the high-priests +of modern literature, to whom all contemporary minds are indebted, and +by whose intellect and influence a new spiritual cultus has been +established in the realm of letters. It is yet impossible to estimate +either the present value or the remote issues of the work which he has +accomplished. We see that a revolution in all the departments of +thought, feeling, and literary enterprise has been silently achieved +amongst us, but we are yet ignorant of its full bearing, and of the +final goal to which it is hurrying us. One thing, however, is clear +respecting it: that it was not forced in the hot-bed of any possible +fanaticism, but that it grew fairly out of the soil, a genuine product +of the time and its circumstances. It was, indeed, a new manifestation +of the hidden forces and vitalities of what we call Protestantism,--an +assertion by the living soul of its right to be heard once more in a +world which seemed to ignore its existence, and had set up a ghastly +skeleton of dry bones for its oracle and God. It was that necessary +return to health, earnestness, and virtuous endeavor which Kreeshna +speaks of in the Hindoo Geeta: "Whenever vice and corruption have +sapped the foundations of the world, and men have lost their sense of +good and evil, I, Kreeshna, make myself manifest for the restoration +of order, and the establishment of justice, virtue, and piety." And so +this literary revolution, of which we are speaking, brought us from +frivolity to earnestness, from unbelief and all the dire negations +which it engenders, to a sublime faith in human duty and the +providence of God. + +We have no room here to trace either the foreign or the native +influences which, operating as antagonism or as inspiration upon the +minds of Coleridge, Carlyle, and others, produced finally these great +and memorable results. It is but justice, however, to recognize +Coleridge as the pioneer of the new era. His fine metaphysical +intellect and grand imagination, nurtured and matured in the German +schools of philosophy and theology, reproduced the speculations of +their great thinkers in a form and coloring which could not fail to be +attractive to all seeking and sincere minds in England. The French +Revolution and the Encyclopedists had already prepared the ground for +the reception of new thought and revelation. Hence Coleridge, as +writer and speaker, drew towards his centre all the young and ardent +men of his time,--and among others, the subject of the present +article. Carlyle, however, does not seem to have profited much by the +spoken discourses of the master; and in his "Life of Sterling" he +gives an exceedingly graphic, cynical, and amusing account of the +oracular meetings at Highgate, where the philosopher sat in his great +easy-chair, surrounded by his disciples and devotees, uttering, amid +floods of unintelligible, mystic eloquence, those radiant thoughts and +startling truths which warrant his claim to genius, if not to +greatness. It is curious to observe how at this early period of +Carlyle's life, when all the talent and learning of England bowed at +these levees before the gigantic speculator and dreamer, he, perhaps +alone, stood aloof from the motley throng of worshippers,--_with_ +them, but not _of_ them,--coolly analyzing every sentence +delivered by the oracle, and sufficiently learned in the divine lore +to separate the gold from the dross. What was good and productive he +was ready to recognize and assimilate; leaving the opium pomps and +splendors of the discourse, and all the Oriental imagery with which +the speaker decorated his bathos, to those who could find profit +therein. It is still more curious and sorrowful to see this great +Coleridge, endowed with such high gifts, of so various learning, and +possessing so marvellous and plastic a power over all the forms of +language, forsaking the true for the false inspiration, and relying +upon a vile drug to stimulate his large and lazy intellect into +action. Carlyle seems to have regarded him at this period as a sort of +fallen demigod; and although he sneers, with an almost Mephistophelean +distortion of visage, at the philosopher's half inarticulate drawling +of speech, at his snuffy, nasal utterance of the ever-recurring +"_omnject_" and "_sumnject_" yet gleams of sympathy and +affection, not unmixed with sorrow, appear here and there in what he +says concerning him. And indeed, although the immense fame of +Coleridge is scarcely warranted by his printed performances, he was, +nevertheless, worthy both of affection and homage. For whilst we pity +the weakness and disease of his moral nature, under the influence of +that dark and terribly enchanting weed, we cannot forget either his +personal amiabilities or the great service which he rendered to +letters and to society. Carlyle himself would be the last man to deny +this laurel to the brows of "the poet, the philosopher, and the +divine," as Charles Lamb calls him; and it is certain that the +thinking of Coleridge helped to fashion Carlyle's mind, and not +unlikely that it directed him to a profounder study of German writers +than he had hitherto given to them. + +Coleridge had already formed a school both of divinity and +philosophy. He had his disciples, as well as those far-off gazers who +looked upon him with amazement and trembling, not knowing what to make +of the phenomenon, or whether to regard him as friend or foe to the +old dispensation and the established order of things. He had written +books and poems, preached Unitarian sermons, recanted, and preached +philosophy and Church-of-Englandism. To the dazzled eyes of all +ordinary mortals, content to chew the cud of parish sermons, and +swallow, Sunday after Sunday, the articles of common belief, he seemed +an eccentric comet. But a better astronomy recognized him as a fixed +star, for he was unmistakable by that fitting Few whose verdict is +both history and immortality. + +But a greater than Coleridge, destined to assume a more commanding +position, and exercise a still wider power over the minds of his age, +arose in Thomas Carlyle. The son of a Scotch farmer, he had in his +youth a hard student's life of it, and many severe struggles to win +the education which is the groundwork of his greatness. His father was +a man of keen penetration, who saw into the heart of things, and +possessed such strong intellect and sterling common sense that the +country people said "he always hit the nail on the head and clinched +it." His mother was a good, pious woman, who loved the Bible, and +Luther's "Table Talk," and Luther,--walking humbly and sincerely +before God, her Heavenly Father. Carlyle was brought up in the +religion of his fathers and his country; and it is easy to see in his +writings how deep a root this solemn and earnest belief had struck +down into his mind and character. He readily confesses how much he +owes to his mother's early teaching, to her beautiful and beneficent +example of goodness and holiness; and he ever speaks of her with +affection and reverence. We once saw him at a friend's house take up a +folio edition of the "Table Talk" alluded to, and turn over the pages +with a gentle and loving hand, reading here and there his mother's +favorite passages,--now speaking of the great historic value of the +book, and again of its more private value, as his mother's constant +companion and solace. It was touching to see this pitiless intellect, +which had bruised and broken the idols of so many faiths, to which +Luther himself was recommended only by his bravery and self-reliance +and the grandeur of his aims,--it was touching, we say, and suggestive +also of many things, to behold the strong, stern man paying homage to +language whose spirit was dead to him, out of pure love for his dear +mother, and veneration also for the great heart in which that spirit +was once alive that fought so grand and terrible a battle. Carlyle +likes to talk of Luther, and, as his "Hero-Worship" shows, loves his +character. A great, fiery, angry gladiator, with something of the +bully in him,--as what controversialist has not, from Luther to +Erasmus, to Milton, to Carlyle himself?--a dread image-breaker, +implacable as Cromwell, but higher and nobler than he, with the +tenderness of a woman in his inmost heart, full of music, and glory, +and spirituality, and power; his speech genuine and idiomatic, not +battles only, but conquests; and all his highest, best, and gentlest +thoughts robed in the divine garments of religion and poetry;--such +was Luther, and as such Carlyle delights to behold him. Are they not +akin? We assuredly think so. For the blood of this aristocracy +refuses to mix with that of churls and bastards, and flows pure and +uncontaminated from century to century, descending in all its richness +and vigor from Piromis to Piromis. The ancient philosopher knew this +secret well enough when he said a Parthian and a Libyan might be +related, although they had no common parental blood; and that a man is +not necessarily my brother because he is born of the same womb. + +We find that Carlyle in his student-life manifested many of those +strong moral characteristics which are the attributes of all his +heroes. An indomitable courage and persistency meet us everywhere in +his pages,--persistency, and also careful painstaking, and patience in +sifting facts and gathering results. He disciplined himself to this +end in early youth, and never allowed any study or work to conquer +him. Speaking to us once in private upon the necessity of persevering +effort in order to any kind of success in life, he said, "When I was a +student, I resolved to make myself master of Newton's 'Principia,' and +although I had not at that time knowledge enough of mathematics to +make the task other than a Hercules-labor to me, yet I read and +wrought unceasingly, through all obstructions and difficulties, until +I had accomplished it; and no Tamerlane conqueror ever felt half so +happy as I did when the terrible book lay subdued and vanquished +before me." This trifling anecdote is a key to Carlyle's character. To +achieve his object, he exhausts all the means within his command; +never shuffles through his work, but does it faithfully and sincerely, +with a man's heart and hand. This outward sincerity in the conduct of +his executive faculty has its counterpart in the inmost recesses of +his nature. We feel that this man and falsehood are impossible +companions, and our faith in his integrity is perfect and absolute. +Herein lies his power; and here also lies the power of all men who +have ever moved the world. For it is in the nature of truth to +conserve itself, whilst falsehood is centrifugal, and flies off into +inanity and nothingness. It is by the cardinal virtue of sincerity +alone--the truthfulness of deed to thought, of effect to cause--that +man and nature are sustained. God is truth; and he who is most +faithful to truth is not only likest to God, but is made a +participator in the divine nature. For without truth there is neither +power, vitality, nor permanence. + +Carlyle was fortunate that he was comparatively poor, and never +tempted, therefore, as a student, to dissipate his fine talents in the +gay pursuits of university life. Not that there would have been any +likelihood of his running into the excesses of ordinary students, but +we are pleased and thankful to reflect that he suffered no kind of +loss or harm in those days of his novitiate. It is one of the many +consolations of poverty that it protects young men from snares and +vices to which the rich are exposed; and our poor student in his +garret was preserved faithful to his vocation, and laid up day by day +those stores of knowledge, experience, and heavenly wisdom which he +has since turned to so good account. It would be deeply interesting, +if we could learn the exact position of Carlyle's mind at this time, +with respect to those profound problems of human nature and destiny +which have occupied the greatest men in all ages, ceaselessly and +pertinaciously urging their dark and solemn questions, and refusing to +depart until their riddles were in some sort solved. That Carlyle was +haunted by these questions, and by the pitiless Sphinx herself who +guards the portals of life and death,--that he had to meet her face to +face, staring at him with her stony, passionless eyes,--that he had to +grapple and struggle with her for victory,--there are proofs abundant +in his writings. The details of the struggle, however, are not given +us; it is the result only that we know. But it is evident that the +progress of his mind from the bog-region of orthodoxy to the high +realms of thought and faith was a slow proceeding,--not rolled onward +as with the chariot-wheels of a fierce and sudden revolution, but +gradually developed in a long series of births, growths, and deaths. +The theological phraseology sticks to him, indeed, even to the present +time, although he puts it to new uses; and it acquires in his hands a +power and significance which it possessed only when, of old, it was +representative of the divine. + +Carlyle was matured in solitude. Emerson found him, in the year 1833, +on the occasion of his first visit to England, living at +Craigenputtock, a farm in Nithsdale, far away from all civilization, +and "no one to talk to but the minister of the parish." He, good man, +could make but little of his solitary friend, and must many a time +have been startled out of his canonicals by the strange, alien +speeches which he heard. It is a pity that this minister had not had +some of the Boswell faculty in him, that he might have reported what +we should all be so glad to hear. Over that period of his life, +however, the curtain falls at present, to be lifted only, if ever, by +Carlyle himself. Through the want of companionship, he fell back +naturally upon books and his own thoughts. Here he wrote some of his +finest critical essays for the reviews, and that "rag of a book," as +he calls it, the "Life of Schiller." The essays show a catholic, but +conservative spirit, and are full of deep thought. They exhibit also +a profoundly philosophical mind, and a power of analysis which is +almost unique in letters. They are pervaded likewise by an earnestness +and solemnity which are perfectly Hebraic; and each performance is +presented in a style decorated with all the costly jewels of +imagination and fancy,--a style of far purer and more genuine English +than any of his subsequent writings, which are often marred, indeed, +by gross exaggerations, and still grosser violations of good taste and +the chastities of language. What made these writings, however, so +notable at the time, and so memorable since, was that sincerity and +deep religious feeling of the writer which we have already alluded +to. Here were new elements introduced into the current literature, +destined to revivify it, and to propagate themselves, as by seminal +vitality, in myriad minds and forms. These utterances were both +prophetic and creative, and took all sincere minds captive. Dry and +arid in comparison as Egyptian deserts, lay all around him the +writings of his contemporaries. No living waters flowed through them; +all was sand, and parch, and darkness. The contrast was immense: a +living soul and a dead corpse! Since the era of the Commonwealth,--the +holy, learned, intellectual, and earnest age of Taylor, Barrow, +Milton, Fuller,--no such pen of fire had wrought its miracles amongst +us. Writers spoke from the intellect, believed in the intellect, and +divorced it from the soul and the moral nature. Science, history, +ethics, religion, whenever treated of in literary form, were +mechanized, and shone not with any spiritual illumination. There was +abundance of lawyer-like ability,--but of genius, and its accompanying +divine afflatus, little. Carlyle is full of genius; and this is +evidenced not only by the fine aroma of his language, but by the +depths of his insight, his wondrous historical pictures,--living +cartoons of persons, events, and epochs, which he paints often in +single sentences,--and the rich mosaic of truths with which every page +of his writings is inlaid. + +That German literature, with which at this time Carlyle had been more +or less acquainted for ten years, had done much to foster and develop +his genius there can be no doubt; although the book which first +created a storm in his mind, and awoke him to the consciousness of his +own abundant faculty, was the "Confessions" of Rousseau,--a fact which +is well worthy of record and remembrance. He speaks subsequently of +poor Jean Jacques with much sympathy and sorrow; not as the greatest +man of his time and country, but as the sincerest,--a smitten, +struggling spirit,-- + + + "An infant crying in the night, + An infant crying for the light, + And with no language but a cry." + + +From Rousseau, and his strange thoughts, and wild, ardent eloquence, +the transition to German literature was easy. Some one had told +Carlyle that he would find in this literature what he had so long +sought after,--truth and rest,--and he gladly learned the language, +and addressed himself to the study of its masters; with what success +all the world knows, for he has grafted their thoughts upon his own, +and whoever now speaks is more or less consciously impregnated by his +influence. Who the man was that sent Carlyle to them does not appear, +and so far as he is concerned it is of little moment to inquire; but +the fact constitutes the grand epoch in Carlyle's life, and his true +history dates from that period. + +It was natural that he should be deeply moved on his introduction to +German literature. He went to it with an open and receptive nature, +and with an earnestness of purpose which could not fail to be +productive. Jean Paul, the beautiful!--the good man, and the wise +teacher, with poetic stuff in him sufficient to have floated an argosy +of modern writers,--this great, imaginative Jean Paul was for a long +time Carlyle's idol, whom he reverently and affectionately studied. He +has written a fine paper about him in his "Miscellanies," and we trace +his influence not only in Carlyle's thought and sentiment, but in the +very form of their utterance. He was, indeed, warped by him, at one +period, clear out of his orbit, and wrote as he inspired. The +dazzling sunbursts of Richter's imagination, however,--its gigantic +procession of imagery, moving along in sublime and magnificent marches +from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth,--the array, symbolism, and +embodiment of his manifold ideas, ceased in the end to enslave, though +they still captivated Carlyle's mind; and he turns from him to the +thinkers who deal with God's geometry, and penetrate into the abysses +of being,--to primordial Kant, and his behemoth brother, Fichte. Nor +does Hegel, or Schelling, or Schlegel, or Novalis escape his pursuit, +but he hunts them all down, and takes what is needful to him, out of +them, as his trophy. Schiller is his king of singers, although he does +not much admire his "Philosophical Letters," or his "Aesthetic +Letters." But his grandest modern man is the calm and plastic Goethe, +and the homage he renders him is worthy of a better and a holier +idol. Goethe's "Autobiography," in so far as it relates to his early +days, is a bad book; and Wordsworth might well say of the "Wilhelm +Meister," that "it was full of all manner of fornication, like the +crossing of flies in the air." Goethe, however, is not to be judged by +any fragmentary estimate of him, but as an intellectual whole; for he +represented the intellect, and grasped with his selfish and cosmical +mind all the provinces of thought, learning, art, science, and +government, for purely intellectual purposes. This entrance into, and +breaking up of, the minds of these distinguished persons was, however, +a fine discipline for Carlyle, who is fully aware of its value; and +whilst holding communion with these great men, who by their genius and +insight seemed to apprehend the essential truth of things at a glance, +it is not wonderful that he should have been so merciless in his +denunciations of the mere logic-ability of English writers, as he +shows himself in the essays of that period. Logic, useful as it is, as +a help to reasoning, is but the dead body of thought, as Novalis +designates it, and has no place in the inspired regions where the +prophets and the bards reside. + +Carlyle's fame, however, had not reached its culminating point when +Emerson visited him. The English are a slow, unimpressionable people, +not given to hasty judgments, nor too much nor too sudden praise; +requiring first to take the true altitude of a man, to measure him by +severe tests; often grudging him his proper and natural advantages and +talents, buffeting and abusing him in a merciless and sometimes an +unreasoning and unreasonable manner, allowing him now and then, +however, a sunbeam for his consolation, until at last they come to a +settled understanding of him, and he is generously praised and abused +into the sanctuary of their worthies. This was not the case, however, +at present, with Carlyle; for although he had the highest recognitions +from some of those who constitute the flower and chivalry of England, +he was far better known and more widely read in America than in his +own country. Emerson, then a young man, with a great destiny before +him, was attracted by his writings, and carried a letter of +introduction to him at Craigenputtock. "He was tall and gaunt, with a +cliff-like brow; self-possessed, and holding his extraordinary powers +of conversation in easy command; clinging to his northern accent with +evident relish; full of lively anecdote, and with a streaming humor +which floated everything he looked upon." He is the same man, in his +best moods, in the year 1857, as he was in 1833. His person, except +that he stoops slightly, is tall, and very little changed. He is +thinner, and the once ruddy hues of his cheek are dying away like +faint streaks of light in the twilight sky of a summer evening. But he +is strong and hearty on the whole; although the excitement of +continuous writing keeps him in a perpetual fever, deranges his liver, +and makes him at times acrid and savage as a sick giant. Hence his +increased pugnacity of late,--his fierceness, and angry hammering of +all things sacred and profane. It is but physical and temporary, +however, all this, and does not affect his healthy and serene +moments. For no man lives who possesses greater kindness and +affection, or more good, noble, and humane qualities. All who know him +love him, although they may have much to pardon in him; not in a +social or moral sense, however, but in an intellectual one. His talk +is as rich as ever,--perhaps richer; for his mind has increased its +stores, and the old fire of geniality still burns in his great and +loving heart. Perhaps his conversation is better than his printed +discourse. We have never heard anything like it. It is all alive, as +if each word had a soul in it. + +How characteristic is all that Emerson tells us of him in his "English +Traits"!--a book, by the way, concerning which no adequate word has +yet been spoken; the best book ever written upon England, and which no +brave young Englishman can read, and ever after commit either a mean +or a bad action. We are therefore doubly thankful to Emerson, both for +what he says of England, and for what he relates of Carlyle, whose +independent speech upon all subjects is one of his chief charms. He +reads "Blackwood," for example, and has enjoyed many a racy, vigorous +article in its pages; but it does not satisfy him, and he calls it +"Sand Magazine." "Fraser's" is a little better, but not good enough to +be worthy of a higher nomenclature than "Mud Magazine." Excessive +praise of any one's talents drives him into admiration of the parts of +his own learned pig, now wallowing in the stye. The best thing he knew +about America was that there a man could have meat for his labor. He +did not read Plato, and he disparaged Socrates. Mirabeau was a hero; +Gibbon the splendid bridge from the old world to the new. It is +interesting also to hear that "Tristram Shandy" was one of the first +books he read after "Robinson Crusoe," and that Robertson's "America" +was an early favorite. Rousseau's "Confessions" had discovered to him +that he was not a dunce. Speaking of English pauperism, he said that +government should direct poor men what to do. "Poor Irish folks come +wandering over these moors. My dame makes it a rule to give to every +son of Adam bread to eat, and supplies his wants to the next +house. But here are thousands of acres which might give them all meat, +and nobody to bid those poor Irish go to the moor and till it. They +burned the stacks, and so found a way to force the rich people to +attend to them." Here is the germ of his book on "Chartism." Emerson +and he talk of the immortality of the soul, seated on the hill-tops +near Old Criffel, and looking down "into Wordsworth's country." +Carlyle had the natural disinclination of every nimble spirit to +bruise itself against walls, and did not like to place himself where +no step can be taken; but he was honest and true, and cognizant of the +subtile links that bind ages together, and saw how every event affects +all the future. "Christ died on the tree; that built Dunscore Kirk +yonder; that brought you and me together. Time has only a relative +existence." + +Such is Emerson's account of his first visit to our author, whose eyes +were already turned towards London as the heart of the world, whither +he subsequently went, and where he now abides. + +From Craigenputtock, with its savage rocks and moorlands, its +sheepwalk solitudes, its isolation and distance from all the +advantages of civil and intellectual life, to London and the living +solitude of its unnumberable inhabitants, its activities, polity, and +world-wide ramifications of commerce, learning, science, literature, +and art, was a change of great magnitude, whose true proportions it +took time to estimate. Carlyle, however, was not afraid of the huge +mechanism of London life, but took to it bravely and kindly, and was +soon at home amidst the everlasting whirl and clamor, the roar and +thunder of its revolutions. For although a scholar, and bred in +seclusion, he was also a genuine man of the world, and well acquainted +with its rough ways and Plutonic wisdom. This knowledge, combined with +his strong "common sense,"--as poor Dr. Beattie calls it, fighting for +its supremacy with canine ferocity,--gave Carlyle high vantage-ground +in his writings. He could meet the world with its own weapons, and +was cunning enough at that fence, as the world was very shortly +sensible. He was saved, therefore, from the contumely which vulgar +minds are always ready to bestow upon saints and mystics who sit aloof +from them, high enthroned amidst the truths and solemnities of +God. The secluded and ascetic life of most scholars, highly favorable +as it undoubtedly is to contemplation and internal development, has +likewise its disadvantages, and puts them, as being undisciplined in +the ways of life, at great odds, when they come to the actual and +practical battle. A man should be armed at all points, and not subject +himself, like good George Fox, Jacob Behmen, and other holy men, to +the taunts of the mob, on account of any awkward gait, mannerism, or +ignorance of men and affairs. Paul had none of these absurdities about +him; but was an accomplished person, as well as a divine speaker. His +doctrine of being all things to all men, that he might win souls to +Christ, is, like good manners and politeness, a part of that mundane +philosophy which obtains in every society, both as theory and +performance; not, however, in its literal meaning, which would involve +all sorts of hypocrisy and lies as its accessories, but in the sense +of ability to meet all kinds of men on their own grounds and with +their own enginery of warfare. + +Strength, whether of mind or body, is sure to command respect, even +though it be used against ourselves; for we Anglo-Saxons are all +pugilists. A man, therefore, who accredits his metal by the work he +accomplishes, will be readily enough heard when he comes to speak and +labor upon higher platforms. This was the case with Carlyle; and when +he published that new Book of Job, that weird and marvellous Pilgrim's +Progress of a modern cultivated soul, the "Sartor Resartus," in +"Fraser's Magazine," strange, wild, and incomprehensible as it was to +most men, they did not put it contemptuously aside, but pondered it, +laughed at it, trembled over it and its dread apocalyptical visions +and revelations, respecting its earnestness and eloquence, although +not comprehending what manner of writing it essentially was. Carlyle +enjoyed the perplexity of his readers and reviewers, neither of whom, +with the exception of men like Sterling, and a writer in one of the +Quarterlies, seemed to know what they were talking about when they +spoke of it. The criticisms upon it were exceedingly comical in many +instances, and the author put the most notable of these together, and +always alluded to them with roars of laughter. The book has never yet +received justice at the hands of any literary tribunal. It requires, +indeed, a large amount of culture to appreciate it, either as a work +of art, or as a living flame-painting of spiritual struggle and +revelation. In his previous writings he had insisted upon the +sacredness and infinite value of the human soul,--upon the wonder and +mystery of life, and its dread surroundings,--upon the divine +significance of the universe, with its star pomp, and overhanging +immensities,--and upon the primal necessity for each man to stand with +awe and reverence in this august and solemn presence, if he would hope +to receive any glimpses of its meaning, or live a true and divine life +in the world; and in the "Sartor" he has embodied and illustrated this +in the person and actions of his hero. He saw that religion had become +secular; that it was reduced to a mere Sunday holiday and Vanity Fair, +taking no vital hold of the lives of men, and radiating, therefore, +none of its blessed and beautiful influences about their feet and +ways; that human life itself, with all its adornments of beauty and +poetry, was in danger of paralysis and death; that love and faith, +truth, duty, and holiness, were fast losing their divine attributes in +the common estimation, and were hurrying downwards with tears and a +sad threnody into gloom and darkness. Carlyle saw all this, and knew +that it was the reaction of that intellectual idolatry which brought +the eighteenth century to a close; knew also that there was only one +remedy which could restore men to life and health,--namely, the +quickening once again of their spiritual nature. He felt, also, that +it was his mission to attempt this miracle; and hence the prophetic +fire and vehemence of his words. No man, and especially no earnest +man, can read him without feeling himself arrested as by the grip of a +giant,--without trembling before his stern questions, inculcations, +and admonitions. There is a God, O Man! and not a blind chance, as +governor of this world. Thy soul has infinite relations with this +God, which thou canst never realize in thy being, or manifest in thy +practical life, save by a devout reverence for him, and his +miraculous, awful universe. This reverence, this deep, abiding +religious feeling, is the only link which binds us to the +Infinite. That severed, broken, or destroyed, and man is an alien and +an orphan; lost to him forever is the key to all spiritual mystery, to +the hieroglyph of the soul, to the symbolism of nature, of time, and +of eternity. Such, as we understand it, is Carlyle's teaching. But +this is not all. Man is to be man in that high sense we have spoken +his robes of immortality around him, as if God had done with him for +all practical purposes, and he with God,--but for action,--action in a +world which is to prove his power, his beneficence, his usefulness. +That spiritual fashioning by the Great Fashioner of all things is so +ordained that we ourselves may become fashioners, workers, makers. For +it is given to no man to be an idle cumberer of the ground, but to +dig, and sow, and plant, and reap the fruits of his labor for the +garner. This is man's first duty, and the diviner he is the more +divinely will he execute it. + +That such a gospel as this could find utterance in the pages of the +"Edinburgh Review" is curious enough; and it is scarcely less +surprising that the "Sartor Resartus" should make its first appearance +in the somewhat narrow and conservative pages of Fraser. Carlyle has +clearly written his own struggles in this book,--his struggles and his +conquests. From the "Everlasting No,"--that dreadful realm of +enchantment, where all the forms of nature are frozen forever in dumb +imprisonment and despair,--the great vaulted firmament no longer +serene and holy and loving as God's curtain for his children's +slumbers, but flaming in starry portents, and dropping down over the +earth like a funeral pall; through this region of life-semblance and +death-reality the lonely and aching pilgrim wanders,--questioning +without reply,--wailing, broken, self-consuming,--looking with eager +eyes for the waters of immortality, and finding nothing but pools of +salt and Marahs of bitterness. Herein is no Calvary, no +Cross-symbolism, by whose miraculous power he is relieved of his +infinite burden of sorrow, starting onward with hope and joy in his +heart; nor does he ever find his Calvary until the deeps of his +spiritual nature are broken up and flooded with celestial light, as he +knocks reverently at the portals of heaven for communion with his +Father who is in heaven. Then bursts upon him a new significance from +all things; he sees that the great world is but a fable of divine +truth, hiding its secrets from all but the initiated and the worthy, +and that faith, and trust, and worship are the cipher, which unlocks +them all. He thus arrives at the plains of heaven in the region of the +"Everlasting Yes." His own soul lies naked and resolved before +him,--its unspeakable greatness, its meaning, faculty, and +destiny. Work, and dutiful obedience to the laws of work, are the +outlets of his power; and herein he finds peace and rest to his soul. + +That Carlyle is not only an earnest, but a profoundly religious man, +these attempted elucidations of his teachings will abundantly +show. His religion, however, is very far remote from what is called +religion in this day. He has no patience with second-hand +beliefs,--with articles of faith ready-made for the having. +Whatsoever is accepted by men because it is the tradition of their +fathers, and not a deep conviction arrived at by legitimate search, is +to him of no avail; and all merely historical and intellectual faith, +standing outside the man, and not absorbed in the life as a vital, +moving, and spiritual power, he places also amongst the chaff for +burning. This world is a serious world, and human life and business +are also serious matters,--not to be trifled with, nor cheated by +shams and hypocrisies, but to be dealt with in all truth, soberness, +and sincerity. No one can thus deal with it who is not himself +possessed of these qualities, and the result of a life is the test of +what virtue there is in it. False men leave no mark. It is truth +alone which does the masonry of the world,--which founds empires, and +builds cities, and establishes laws, commerce, and civilization. And +in private life the same law abides, indestructible as God. Carlyle's +teaching tends altogether in this direction; and whilst he belongs to +no church and no creed, he is tolerant of all, and of everything that +is heartily and unfeignedly believed in by his fellows. He is no +Catholic; and yet for years he read little else than the forty volumes +of the "Acta Sanctorum," and found, he says, all Christian history +there, and much of profane history. Neither is he a Mahometan; but he +nevertheless makes a hero of Mahomet, whom he loves for his Ishmaelite +fierceness, bravery, and religious sincerity,--and because he taught +deism, or the belief in one God, instead of the old polytheism, or the +belief in many gods,--and gave half the East his very good book, +called the Koran, for his followers to live and die by. + +Whether this large catholicism, this worship of heroes, is the best of +what now remains of religion on earth is certainly questionable +enough; and if we regard it in no other light than merely as an +idolatry of persons, there is an easy answer ready for it. But +considering that religion is now so far dead that it consists in +little else than formalities, and that its divine truth is no longer +such to half the great world, which lies, indeed, in dire atrophy and +wickedness,--and if we further consider and agree that the awakened +human soul is the divinest thing on earth, and partakes of the divine +nature itself, and that its manifestations are also divine in +whomsoever it is embodied, we can see some apology for its adoption; +inasmuch as it is the divine likeness to which reverence and homage +are rendered, and not the person merely, but only so far as he is the +medium of its showing. Christianity, however, will assuredly survive, +although doubtless in a new form, preserving all the integrity of its +message,--and be once more faith and life to men, when the present +old, established, decaying cultus shall be venerated only as history. + +Carlyle clings to the Christian formulary and the old Christian life +in spite of himself. He is almost fanatical in his attachment to the +mediaeval times,--to the ancient worship, its ceremonial, music, and +architecture, its monastic government, its saints and martyrs. And the +reason, as he shows in the "Past and Present," is, that all this array +of devotion, this pomp and ceremony, this music and painting, this +gorgeous and sublime architecture, this fasting and praying, were +_real_,--faithful manifestations of a religion which to that +people was truly genuine and holy. They who built the cathedrals of +Europe, adorned them with carvings, pictures, and those stately +windows with their storied illuminations which at this day are often +miracles of beauty and of art, were not frivolous modern +conventicle-builders, but poets as grand as Milton, and sculptors +whose genius might front that of Michel Angelo. It was no dead belief +in a dead religion which designed and executed these matchless +temples. Man and Religion were both alive in those days; and the +worship of God was so profound a prostration of the inmost spirit +before his majesty and glory, that the souls of the artists seem to +have been inspired, and to have received their archetypes in heavenly +visions. Such temples it is neither in the devotion nor the faculty of +the modern Western world to conceive or construct. Carlyle knows all +this, and he falls back in loving admiration upon those old times and +their worthies, despising the filigree materials of which the men of +to-day are for the most part composed. He revels in that picture of +monastic life, also, which is preserved in the record of Jocelyn de +Brakelonde. He sees all men at work there, each at his proper +vocation;--and he praises them, because they fear God and do their +duty. He finds them the same men, although with better and devouter +hearts, as we are at this day. Time makes no difference in this +verdant human nature, which shows ever the same in Catholic +monasteries as in Puritan meeting-houses. We have a wise preachment, +however, from that Past, to the Present, in Carlyle's book, which is +one of his best efforts, and contains isolated passages which for +wisdom and beauty, and chastity of utterance, he has never exceeded. + +We have no space to speak here of all his books with anything like +critical integrity. The greatest amongst them, however, is, perhaps, +his "French Revolution, a History,"--which is no history, but a vivid +painting of characters and events as they moved along in tumultuous +procession. No one can appreciate this book who is not acquainted +with the history in its details beforehand. Emerson once related to us +a striking anecdote connected with this work, which gives us another +glimpse of Carlyle's character. He had just completed, after infinite +labor, one of the three volumes of his History, which he left exposed +on his study table when he went to bed. Next morning he sought in vain +for the manuscript, and had wellnigh concluded with Robert Hall, who +was once in a similar dilemma, that the Devil had run away with it, +when the servant-girl, on being questioned, confessed that she had +burnt it to kindle the fire. Carlyle neither stamped nor raved, but +sat down without a word and rewrote it. + +In summing up the present results of Carlyle's labor, foolish men of +the world and small critics have not failed to ask what it all amounts +to,--what the great Demiurgus is aiming at in his weary battle of +life; and the question is significant enough,--one more proof of that +Egyptian darkness of vision which he is here to dispel. "He pulls down +the old," say they; "but what does he give us in place of it? Why does +he not strike out a system of his own? And after all, there is nothing +new in him." Such is the idle talk of the day, and such are the men +who either guide the people, or seek to guide them. Poor ignorant +souls! who do not know the beginning of the knowledge which Carlyle +teaches, nor its infinite importance to life and all its +concerns:--this, namely, as we have said before, that the soul should +first of all be wakened to the consciousness of its own miraculous +being, that it may be penetrated by the miracles of the universe, and +rise by aspiration and faith to the knowledge and worship of God, in +whom are all things; that this attitude of the soul, and its +accompanying wisdom, will beget the strength, purity, virtue, and +truth which can alone restore order and beauty upon the earth; that +all "systems," and mechanical, outward means and appliances to the +end, will but increase the Babel of confusion, as things unfitted to +it, and altogether extraneous and hopeless. "Systems!" It is living, +truthful men we want; these will make their own systems; and let those +who doubt the truth humbly watch and wait until it is manifest to +them, or go on their own arid and sorrowful ways in what peace they +can find there. + +The catholic spirit of Carlyle's works cannot be better illustrated +than by the fact that he has received letters from all sorts and +conditions of men, Methodists and Shakers, Churchmen and Romanists, +Deists and Infidels, all claiming his fellowship, and thinking they +find their peculiarities of thought in him. This is owing partly, +perhaps, to the fact that in his earlier writings he masked his +sentiments both in Hebraic and Christian phraseology; and partly to +the lack of vision in his admirers, who could not distinguish a new +thought in an old garment. His "Cromwell" deceived not a few in this +respect; and we were once asked in earnest, by a man who should have +been better informed, if Carlyle was a Puritan. Whatever he may be +called, or believed to be, one thing is certain concerning him: that +he is a true and valiant man,--all out a man!--and that literature and +the world are deeply indebted to him. His mission, like that of Jeremy +Collier in a still baser age, was to purge our literature of its +falsehood, to recreate it, and to make men once more believe in the +divine, and live in it. So earnest a man has not appeared since the +days of Luther, nor any one whose thoughts are so suggestive, +germinal, and propagative. All our later writers are tinged with his +thought, and he has to answer for such men as Kingsley, Newman, +Froude, and others who will not answer for him, nor acknowledge him. + +In private life Carlyle is amiable, and often high and beautiful in +his demeanor. He talks much, and, as we have said, well; impatient, +at times, of interruption, and at other times readily listening to +those who have anything to say. But he hates babblers, and cant, and +sham, and has no mercy for them, but sweeps them away in the whirlwind +and terror of his wrath. He receives distinguished men, in the +evening, at his house in Chelsea; but he rarely visits. He used +occasionally to grace the saloons of Lady Blessington, in the palmy +days of her life, when she attracted around her all noble and +beautiful persons, who were distinguished by their attainments in +literature, science, or art; but he rarely leaves his home now for +such a purpose. He is at present engaged in his "Life of Frederick the +Great," whom he will hardly make a hero of, and with whom, we learn, +he is already very heartily disgusted. The first volume will shortly +appear. + +And now we must close this imperfect paper,--reserving for a future +occasion some personal reminiscences of him, which may prove both +interesting and illustrative. + + + + +THE BUTTON-ROSE. + + +CHAPTER I. + +I fear I have not what is called "a taste for flowers." To be sure, my +cottage home is half buried in tall shrubs, some of which are +flowering, and some are not. A giant woodbine has wrapped the whole +front in its rich green mantle; and the porch is roofed and the +windows curtained with luxuriant honeysuckles and climbing +wild-roses. But, though I have tried for it many times, I never yet +had a successful bed of flowers. My next neighbor, Mrs. Smith, is "a +lady of great taste"; and when she leads me proudly through her trim +alleys edged with box, and displays her hyacinths and tulips, her +heliotropes, cactuses, and gladioluses, her choice roses, "so +extremely double," and all the rare plants which adorn her parterre, I +conclude it must be that I have no taste at all. I beg her to save me +seeds and bulbs, get fresh directions for laying down, and +inoculating, grafting, and potting, and go home with my head full of +improvements. But the next summer comes round with no change, except +that the old denizens of the soil (like my maids and my children) have +grown more wild and audacious than ever, and I find no place for beds +of flowers. I must e'en give it up; I have no taste for flowers, in +the common sense of the words. In fact, they awaken in me no +sentiment, no associations, as they stand, marshalled for show, "in +beds and curious knots"; and I do not like the care of them. + +Yet let me find these daughters of the early year in their native +haunts, scattered about on hillside and in woody dingle, half hidden +by green leaves, starting up like fairies in secluded nooks, nestling +at the root of some old tree, or leaning over to peep into some glassy +bit of water, and no heart thrills quicker than mine at the +sight. There they seem to me to enjoy a sweet wild life of their own; +nodding and smiling in the sunshine or verdant gloom, caring not to +see or to be seen. Some of the loveliest of my early recollections are +of rambles after flowers. There was a certain "little pink and yellow +flower" (so described to me by one of my young cousins) after which I +searched a whole summer with unabated eagerness. I was fairly haunted +by its ideal image. Henry von Ofterdingen never sought with intenser +desire for his wondrous blue flower, nor more vainly; for I never +found it. One day, this same cousin and myself, while wandering in +the woods, found ourselves on the summit of a little rocky precipice, +and at its foot, lo! in full bloom, a splendid variety of the orchis, +(a flower I had never seen before,) looking to my astonished eyes like +an enchanted princess in a fairy tale. With a scream of joy we both +sprang for the prize. Harriet seized it first, but after gazing at it +a moment with a quiet smile, presented it to me. "Kings may be blest, +but I was glorious!" I never felt so rich before or since. + +But there was one flower,--and I must confess that I made acquaintance +with it in a garden, but at an age when I thought all things grew out +of the blessed earth of their own sweet will,--which, as it is the +first I remember to have loved, has maintained the right of priority +in my affections to this day. Nay, many an object of deep, absorbing +interest, more than one glowing friendship, has meantime passed away, +leaving no memorial but sad and bitter thoughts; while this wee flower +still lives and makes glad a little green nook in my heart. It was a +Button-Rose of the smallest species, the outspread blossom scarce +exceeding in size a shilling-piece. It stood in my grandfather's +garden,--that garden which, at my first sight of it, (I was then about +five years old,) seemed to me boundless in extent, and beautiful +beyond aught that I had seen or thought before. It was a large, +old-fashioned kitchen-garden, adorned and enriched, however, as then +the custom was, with flowers and fruit-trees. Several fine old +pear-trees and a few of the choicest varieties of plum and cherry were +scattered over it; currants and gooseberries lined the fences; the +main alley, running through its whole extent, was thickly bordered by +lilacs, syringas, and roses, with many showy flowers intermixed, and +terminated in a very pleasant grape-arbor. Behind this rose a steep +green hill covered with an apple-orchard, through which a little +thread of a footpath wound up to another arbor which stood on the +summit relieved against the sky. It was but little after sunrise, the +first morning of my visit, when I timidly opened the garden gate and +stood in full view of these glories. All was dewy, glittering, +fragrant, musical as a morn in Eden. For a while I stood still, in a +kind of enchantment. Venturing, at length, a few steps forward, +gazing eagerly from side to side, I was suddenly arrested by the most +marvellously beautiful object my eyes had ever seen,--no other than +the little Button-Rose of our story! So small, so perfect! It filled +my infant sense with its loveliness. It grew in a very pretty china +vase, as if more precious than the other flowers. Several blossoms +were fully expanded, and many tiny buds were showing their crimson +tips. As I stood lost in rapture over this little miracle of beauty, a +humming-bird, the smallest of its fairy tribe, darted into sight, and +hung for an instant, its ruby crest and green and golden plumage +flashing in the sun, over my new-found treasure. Were it not that the +emotions of a few such moments are stamped indelibly on the memory, we +should have no conception in maturer life of the intenseness of +childish enjoyment. Oh for one drop of that fresh morning dew, that +pure nectar of life, in which I then bathed with an unconscious bliss! +Methinks I would give many days of sober, thoughtful, _rational_ +enjoyment for one hour of the eager rapture which thrilled my being as +I stood in that enchanted garden, gazing upon my little rose, and that +gay creature of the elements, that winged blossom, that living +fragment of a rainbow, that glanced and quivered and murmured over it. + +But, dear as the Button-Rose is to my memory, I should hardly think of +obtruding it on the notice of others, were it not for a little tale of +human interest connected with it. While I yet stood motionless in the +ecstasy of my first wonder, a young man and woman entered the garden, +chatting and laughing in a very lively manner. The lady was my Aunt +Caroline, then in the fresh bloom of seventeen; the young man I had +never seen before. Seeing me standing alone in the walk, my aunt +called me; but as I shrunk away shy and blushing at sight of the +stranger, she came forward and took hold of my hand. + +"This is our little Katy, Cousin Harry," said she, leading me towards +him. + +"Our little Katy's most obedient!" replied he, taking off his +broad-brimmed straw hat, and making a flourishing bow nearly to the +ground. + +"Don't be afraid of him, Katy dear; he's nobody," said my aunt, +laughing. + +At these encouraging words I glanced up at the merry pair, and thought +them almost as pretty as the rose and hummingbird. My Aunt Caroline's +beauty was of a somewhat peculiar character,--if beauty that can be +called which was rather spirit, brilliancy, geniality of expression, +than symmetrical mould of features. The large, full eye was of the +deepest violet hue; the finely arched forehead, a little too boldly +cast for feminine beauty, was shaded by masses of rich chestnut hair; +the mouth,--but who could describe that mouth? Even in repose, some +arch thought seemed ever at play among its changeful curves; and when +she spoke or laughed, its wonderful mobility and sweetness of +expression threw a perfect witchery over her face. She was quite +short, and, if the truth must be told, a little too stout in figure; +but this was in a great measure redeemed by a beautifully moulded +neck, on which her head turned with the quickness and grace of a wild +pigeon. Every motion was rapid and decided, and her whole aspect +beamed with genius, gayety, and a cordial friendliness, which took the +heart at first sight. And then, her voice, her laugh!--not so low as +Shakspeare commends in woman, but clear, musical, true-hearted, making +one glad like the song of the lark at sunrise. + +Cousin Harry was a very tall, very pale, very black-haired and +black-eyed young gentleman, with a high, open brow, and a very +fascinating smile. + +The remainder of the garden scene was to me but little more than dumb +show. Perhaps it was more vividly remembered for that very reason. I +recollect being busy filling a little basket with strawberries, while +I watched with a pleased, childish curiosity the two young people, as +they passed many times up and down the gravelled walk between the rows +of flowers. I was not far from the Button-Rose, and I had nearly +filled my basket, when my aunt came to the spot and stooped over the +little plant. Her face was towards me, and I saw several large tears +fall from her eyes upon the leaves. She broke off the most beautiful +blossom, and tying it up with some sprigs of mignonette, presented it +to Cousin Harry. They then left the garden. + +The next day I heard it said that Cousin Harry was gone away. The +little rose was brought into the house and installed in the bow-window +of my aunt's room, where it was watched and tended by us both with the +greatest care. + +Some time after this, the news came that Cousin Harry was married. The +next morning I missed my little favorite from the window. My aunt was +reading when I waked. + +"Oh, Aunty!" I cried, "where is our little rose?" + +"It was too much trouble, Katy," said she, quietly; "I have put it +into the garden." + +"But isn't it going to stand in our window any more?" + +"No, dear, I am tired of it." + +"Oh, do bring it back! I will take the whole care of it," said I, +beginning to cry. + +"Katy," said my aunt, taking me into her lap, and looking steadily, +but kindly, into my face, "listen to me. I do not wish to have that +rose in my room any more; and if you love me, you will never mention +it again." + +Something in her manner prevented my uttering a word more in behalf of +the poor little exile. As soon as I was dressed, I ran down into the +garden to visit it. It looked very lonely, I thought; I could hardly +bear to leave it. The day following, it disappeared from the garden, +and old Nanny, the housemaid, told me that my aunt had given it +away. I never saw it again. + +Thus ended my personal acquaintance with the little Button-Rose. But +that first strong impression on my fancy was indelible. The flower +still lived in my memory, surrounded by associations which gave it a +mystic charm. By degrees I ceased to miss it from the window; but that +strange garden scene grew more and more vivid, and became a cabinet +picture in one of the little inner chambers of memory, where I often +pondered it with a delicious sense of mystery. The rose and +humming-bird seemed to me the chief actors in the magic pantomime, and +they were some way connected with my dear Aunt Linny and the +black-eyed young man; but what it all meant was the great puzzle of my +busy little brain. It has sometimes been a matter of curious +speculation to me, what share that diminutive flower had in the +development of my mind and character. With it, so it seems to me, +began the first dawn of a conscious inner life. I can still recollect +with wonderful distinctness what I have thought and felt since that +date, while all the preceding years are vague and shadowy as an +ill-remembered dream. From them I can only conjure up, as it were, my +outward form,--a happy animal existence, with which scarce a feeling +of self is connected; but from the time when I bore a part in this +little fragment of a romance the current of identity flows on +unbroken. From that light waking touch, perchance, the whole +subsequent development took form and tone.--But, gentle reader, your +pardon! This is nothing to my story. + + +CHAPTER II. + +Ten years had slipped away, and I was now in my sixteenth year. Of +course, my little cabinet picture had been joined by many others. It +was now but one in an extensive gallery; and the modest little gem, +dimmed with dust, and hidden by larger pieces, had not been thought of +for many a day. + +External circumstances had remained much the same with us; only one +great change, the death of my dear grandmother, having occurred in the +family. My aunt presided over her father's household, and the +admirable order and good taste which pervaded every department bore +witness how well she understood combining the elements of a home. + +Aunt Linny, now twenty-seven years of age, had lost nothing of her +former attractiveness. The brilliant, impulsive girl had but ripened +into the still more lovely woman. Her cheek was not faded nor her eye +dimmed. There was the same frankness, the same heart in her glance, +her smile, the warm pressure of her hand, but tempered by experience, +reflection, and self-control. One felt that she could be loved and +trusted with the whole heart and judgment. Her personal attractions, +and yet more the charm of her sensible, genial, and racy conversation, +brought to our house many pleasant visitors, and made her the +sparkling centre of every circle into which she could be drawn. But it +was rarely that she could be beguiled from home; for, since her +mother's death, she had devoted herself heart and soul to her widowed +father. + +The relation between myself and my aunt was somewhat peculiar. Neither +of us having associates of our own age in the family, I had become her +companion, and even friend, to a degree which would have been +impossible in other circumstances. She had scarcely outgrown the +freshness and simplicity of childhood when I first came to live with +her, and my mind and feelings had expanded rapidly under the constant +stimulus of a nature so full of rich life; so that at the date I now +speak of, we lived together more as sisters than as aunt and niece. An +inexpressible charm rests on those days, when we read, wrote, rambled +together, shared the same room, and had every pleasure, every trouble +in common. All show of authority over me had gradually melted away; +but her influence with me was still unbounded, for I loved her with +the passionate earnestness of a first, full-hearted friendship.--But +to proceed with my story. + +One sweet afternoon in early summer, we two were sitting alone. The +windows towards the garden were open, and the breath of lilacs and +roses stole in. I had been reading to her some verses of my own, +celebrating the praise of first love as an imperishable sentiment. My +fancy had just been crazed with the poetry of L.E.L., who was then +shining as the "bright particular star" in the literary heavens. + +"The lines are very pretty," said my aunt, "but I trust it's only +poetizing, Kate; I should be sorry indeed to have you join the school +of romantic misses who think first love such a killing matter." + +"But, Aunty," I cried, "what a horribly prosy, matter-of-fact affair +life would be in any other view! I believe poetry itself would become +extinct." + +"So, then, if a woman is disappointed in first love, she is bound to +die for the benefit of poetry!" + +"But just think, Aunt Linny--if Ophelia, instead of going mad so +prettily, and dying in a way to break everybody's heart, had soberly +set herself to consider that there were as fine fish yet in the sea as +ever were caught, and that it was best, therefore, to cheer up and +wait for better times! Frightful!" + +"Never trouble your little head, Kate, with fear that there will not +be Ophelias enough, as long as the world stands. But I wouldn't be +one, if I were you, unless I could bespeak a Shakspeare to do me into +poetry. That would be an inducement, I allow. How would you fancy +being a Sukey Fay, Kate?" + +"Oh, the poor old wretch, with her rags and dirt and gin-bottle! Has +she a story?" + +"Just as romantic a one as Ophelia, only she lacks a poet. But, in +sober truth, Katy, why is there not as true poetry in battling with +feeling as in yielding to it? To me there seems something far more +lofty and beautiful in bearing to live, under certain circumstances, +than in daring to die." + +"If you only spoke experimentally, dear Aunty! Oh that Plato, or John +Milton, or Sir Philip Sydney would reappear, and lay all his genius +and glory at your feet! I wonder if you'd be of the same mind then!" + +"And then, of course, this sublime suitor must die, or desert me, to +show how I would behave under the trial.--Katy," continued my aunt, +after a little pause, with a smile and slight blush, "I have half a +mind to tell you a little romance of my early days, when I was just +your age. It may be useful to you at this point of your life." + +"Is it possible?" cried I,--"a romance of your early days! Quick, let +me hear!" + +"I shouldn't have called it a romance, Katy; for as a story, it is +just nothing. It has no interest except as marking the beginning of +my education,--the education, I mean, of real life." + +"But let me hear; there's some spice of poetry in it, I know." + +"Well, then, it's like many another story of early fancy. In my +childhood I had a playmate. Our fathers' houses stood but a few rods +apart, and the families lived in habits of the closest intimacy. From +my earliest remembrance, the brave little boy, four years older than +I, was my sworn friend and protector; and as we increased in years, an +affection warm and frank as that of brother and sister grew up between +us. A love of nature and of poetry, and a certain earnestness and +enthusiasm of character, which separated us both from other children, +drew us closely together. At fifteen he left us to fit for college at +a distant school, and thenceforward he was at home only for brief +visits, till he was graduated with distinguished honor at the age of +twenty-one. During those six years of separation our relation to each +other had suffered no change. We had corresponded with tolerable +regularity, and I had felt a sister's pride in his talents and +literary honors. When, therefore, he returned home to recruit his +health, which had been seriously impaired by study and confinement, I +welcomed him with great joy, and with all the frankness of former +times. + +"Again we read, chatted, and rambled together. I found him unchanged +in character, but improved, cultivated, to a degree which delighted, +almost awed me. When he read our favorite authors with his rich, +musical voice, and descanted on their beauties with discriminating +taste and fervent poetic feeling, a new light fell on the +page. Through his eyes I learned to behold in nature a richness, a +grace, a harmony, a meaning, only vaguely felt before. It was as if I +had just received the key to a mysterious cipher, unlocking deep and +beautiful truths in earth and sea and sky, by which they were invested +with a life and splendor till now unseen. But it was his noble +sentiments, his generous human sympathies, his ardent aspirations +after honorable distinction to be won by toil and self-denial, which +woke my heart as by an electric touch. My own unshaped, half-conscious +aims and aspirations, stirred with life, took wing and soared with his +into the pure upper air. Ah! it was a bright, beautiful dream, Kate, +the life of those few months. I never once thought of love, nor of the +possibility of separation. All flowed so naturally from our life-long +intimacy, that I had not the slightest suspicion of the change which +had come over me. But the hour of waking was at hand. We had looked +forward to the settled summer weather for a marked improvement in his +health. But June had come and he still seemed very delicate. His +physician prescribed travelling and change of climate; and though his +high spirits had deceived me as to his real danger, I urged him to +go. He left us to visit an elder brother residing in one of the Middle +States. Ten years this very month!" added Aunt Linny, with an absent +air. + +"Ten years ago this very month," I exclaimed, "did my distinguished +self arrive at this venerable mansion. What a singular conjunction of +events! No doubt our horoscopes would reveal some strange entanglement +of destinies at this point. Perchance I, even I, was 'the star malign' +whose rising disturbed the harmonious movement of the spheres!" + +"No doubt of it; the birth of a mouse once caused an earthquake, you +know." + +"But could I have seen him? Did I arrive before he had left?" + +"Oh, yes, very likely; but of course you can have no recollection of +him, such a chit as you were then." + +"What was his name?" I cried, eagerly. A long-silent chord of memory +began to give forth a vague, uncertain murmur. + +"Oh, no matter, Kate. I would a little rather you shouldn't know. It +doesn't affect the moral of the story, which was all I had in view in +relating it." + +"A plague take the moral, Aunty! The romance is what I want; and +what's that without 'the magic of a name'?" + +"Excuse me." + +"Tell me his Christian name, then,--just for a peg to hang my ideas +on; that is, if it's meat for romance. If it is Isaac or Jonathan, you +needn't mention it." + +"Well, then, you tease,--I called him Cousin Harry." + +"Cousin Harry!" I screamed, starting forward, and staring at her with +eyes wide open. + +"Yes; but what ails you, child? You glare upon me like a maniac." + +"Hush! hush! don't speak!" said I. + +As I sunk back, in a sort of dream, into the rocking-chair in which I +had been idling, the garden caught my eye through the open window. The +gate overarched with honeysuckle, the long alley with its fragrant +flowering border, the grape arbor, the steep green hill behind, lay +before me in the still, rich beauty of June. In a twinkling, memory +had swept the dust from my little cabinet picture, and let in upon it +a sudden light. The ten intervening years vanished like a dream, and +that long-forgotten garden scene started up, vivid as in the hour when +it actually passed before my eyes. The clue to that mystery which had +so spellbound my childish fancy was at length found. I sat for a time +in silence, lost in a delicious, confused reverie. + +"The Button-Rose was a gift from him, then?" were my first words. + +"What, Kate?" said Aunt Linny, now opening her large blue eyes with a +strange look. + +"Did you give away the flower-pot too? That was so pretty! Whom did +you give it to?" + +"Incredible!" she exclaimed, coloring, and with the strongest +expression of surprise. "Truly, little pitchers have not been +slandered!" + +"But the wonderful humming-bird, Aunty! What had that to do with it?" + +"Kate," said my aunt, "you talk like one in sleep. Wake up, and let me +know what all this means." + +"I see it all now!" I rattled on, more to myself than her. "First +young love,--parting gift,--Cousin Harry proves fickle,--Aunt Linny +banishes the Button-Rose from her window,--takes to books, and +educating naughty nieces, and doing good to everybody,--'bearing to +live,' as more heroic than 'daring to die,'--in ten years gets so that +she can speak of it with composure, as a lesson to romantic +girls. So?" + +"Even so, Katy!" she replied, quietly; "and to that early +disappointment I owe more than to anything that ever befell me." + +She said this with a smile; but her voice trembled a little, and I +perceived that a soft dew had gathered over her eyes. By an +irresistible impulse I rose, and stealing softly behind her, clasped +my arms round her neck, and kissing her forehead whispered, "Forgive +me, sweet Aunty!" + +"Not a bit of harm, Katy," she replied, drawing me down for a warm +kiss. "But what a gypsy you must be," she added, in her usually +lively tone, "to have trudged along so many years with this precious +little bundle, and said never a word to anybody!" + +"I've not thought of it myself, these ever so many years," said I, +"and it seems like witchwork that it should all have come to me at +this moment." + +I then related to her my childish reminiscences and speculations, +which amused her not a little. Her hearty, mirthful zest showed that +the theme was not a disquieting one. I now begged her to proceed with +her story. + +"But stay a moment," said I; "let me fetch our garden bonnets, that we +may enjoy it in the very scene of the romance." + +"Ah, Kate, you are bent on making a heroine of me!" was the reply, as +she took her seat in the grape arbor; "but there are really no +materials. I shall finish in fifteen minutes by my watch, and you'll +drop me as an Ophelia, I venture to say. Cousin Harry had left us, as +I told you, to visit his brother. For some months his letters were +very frequent, and as the time approached for his return they grew +increasingly cheerful, and--Katy, I cannot but excuse myself in part, +when I recall the magic charm of those letters. But no matter; all of +a sudden they ceased, and for several weeks not a word was heard from +him by his own family. At length, when my anxiety had become wellnigh +intolerable, there came a brief letter to his father, announcing his +marriage with the sister of his brother's wife, and his decision to +enter into business with his brother." + +"Did you know anything of the young lady?" + +"He had once or twice mentioned her in his letters as a beautiful, +amiable creature, whose education had been shamefully neglected. Her +kindness to him in his illness and loneliness, added to her natural +charms, won his heart, no doubt many a wise man has been caught in +that snare." + +"But what base conduct towards you!" + +"Not at all, my dear! My dream had suffused his words with its own +coloring,--that was all. As soon as reason could make her voice heard, +I acquitted him of all blame. His feelings towards me had been those +of a brother,--no more." + +"But why, then, did he cease to write? why not share his new +happiness with so dear a friend?" + +"That was not unnatural, after what he had said of the young lady's +deficiencies. Probably the awkwardness of the thing led him to defer +writing from time to time, till he had become so absorbed in his +domestic relations and his business, that he had ceased to think of +it. Life's early dewdrops often exhale in that way, Kate!" + +"Then life is a hateful stupidity!" + +"Yes; if it could be morning all day, and childhood could outlast our +whole lives, it would be very charming. But life has jewels that don't +exhale, Kate, but sparkle brightest in the hottest sun. These lie +deep in the earth, and to dig them out requires more than a child's +strength of heart and arm. One must be well inured to toil and weather +before he can win these treasures; but when once he wears these in his +bosom he doesn't sigh for dewdrops." + +"Well, let me hear how you were inured." + +"The news of this marriage revealed to me, as by a flash of lightning, +my whole inner world of feeling. When I knew that he was forever lost, +I first knew what he had become to me. The pangs of disappointment, of +self-humiliation,--I hardly know which were the stronger,--were like +poisoned arrows in my heart. It was my first trouble, and I had to +bear it in silence and alone. Not for worlds would I have had it +guessed that I had cherished an unreturned affection, and it would +have killed me to hear him blamed. Towards him I had, in my most +secret heart, no emotion of resentment or reproach. A feeling of +dreary loss, of a long, weary life from which all the flowers had +vanished, a sort of tender self-pity, filled my heart. It is not worth +while to detail the whole process by which I gradually forced myself +out of this miserable state. One thing helped me much. As soon as the +first bitterness of my heart was passed, I saw clearly that the +indulgence of such a sentiment towards one who was now the husband of +another could not be innocent. It must not be merely concealed; it +must be torn up, root and branch. With this steadily before my mind +as the central point of my efforts, I worked my way step by +step. First came the removal of the numerous little mementos of those +happy days in dreamland, the sight of which softened my heart into +weakness and vain regret. Next I threw aside my favorite works of +imagination and feeling, and for two years read scarcely a book which +did not severely task my mind. I devoted myself more to my mother, and +interested myself in the poor and sick. Last, not least, I resolved on +taking the whole charge of your education, Katy; and of my various +specifics, I think I would recommend the training of such an elf as +the 'sovereignest remedy' for first love. The luxuriant growth of your +character interested, stimulated, kept me perpetually on the alert. I +soon began to work _con amore_ at this task; my spirits caught at +times the contagious gayety of yours; my poor heart was refreshed by +your warm childish love. In short, I began to live again. But, ah! +dear Kate, it was a long, stern conflict. Many, many months, yes, +years, passed by, ere those troubled waters became clear and +still. But I held firmly on my way, and the full reward came at +last. By degrees I had created within and around me a new world of +interest and activity, in which this little whirlpool of morbid +feeling became an insignificant point. I was conscious of the birth of +new energies, of a bolder and steadier sweep of thought, of fuller +sympathies, of that settled quiet and harmony of soul which are to be +gained only in the school of self-discipline. That dream of my youth +now lies like a soft cloud far off in the horizon, beautiful with the +morning tints of memory, but casting no shadow." + +She paused; then added, in a lively tone: "Well, Kate, the fifteen +minutes are not out, and yet my story is done. Think you now it would +really have been better to go a-swinging on a willow-tree over a pond, +and so have made a good poetical end?" + +"Oh, I am so glad you were not such a goose as to make a swan of +yourself, like poor Ophelia!" said I, throwing my arms around her, and +giving her half a dozen kisses. "But tell me truly, was I indeed such +a blessing to you, 'the very cherubim that did preserve thee'? To +think of the repentance I have wasted over my childish naughtiness, +when it was all inspired by your good angel! I shall take heed to this +hint." + +"Do so, Kate, and your good angel will doubtless inspire in me a +suitable response." + +"But tell me now, Aunt Linny, who the living man was. Was he a real +cousin?" + +"I may as well tell you, Kate, or you will get it from your +'familiar.' You have heard of our rich cousin in Cuba, Henry +Morrison?" + +"Oh, yes; I have heard grandfather speak of him. So, then, he was +Cousin Harry! I should like one chance at his hair, for all his +goodness. Did you ever meet again?" + +"Never. His father's family soon removed to a distant place, so that +there was no necessity for visiting the old home. But I have always +heard him spoken of as an upright merchant and a cultivated and +generous man. He has resided several years in Cuba. A year or two +since, he went to Europe for his wife's health, and there she +died. Rumor now reports him as about to become the husband of an +Englishwoman of high connections. I should be very glad to see him +once more.--But come now, Kate, let's have a decennial celebration of +our two anniversaries. Lay the tea-table in the grape arbor, and then +invite grandpapa to a feast of strawberries and cream." + +I hastily ornamented our rural banquet-hall with long branches of +roses and honeysuckles in full bloom, stuck into the leafy roof. As we +sat chatting and laughing over our simple treat, a humming-bird darted +several times in and out. "A messenger!" whispered I to Aunt +Linny. "Depend upon it, Cousin Harry didn't marry the English lady." + + +CHAPTER III. + +The next morning I slept late. Fancy had all night been busy, +combining her old and new materials into many a wild shape. After my +aunt had risen at her usual early hour, I fell into one of those balmy +morning-naps which make up for a whole night's unrest. I dreamed +still, but the visions floated by with that sweet changeful play which +soothes rather than fatigues the brain. The principal objects were +always the same; but the combination shifted every instant, as by the +turn of a kaleidoscope. At length they arranged themselves in a +lovely miniature scene in a convex mirror. There bloomed the little +Button-Rose in the centre, and above it the humming-bird glanced and +murmured, and now and then darted his slender bill deep into the bosom +of the flowers. With hands clasped above this central object, as if +exchanging vows upon an altar, stood the young human pair. Of a +sudden, old Cornelius Agrippa was in the room, robed in a black +scholar's-gown, over which his snowy beard descended nearly to his +knees. Stretching forth a long white wand, he touched the picture, and +immediately a wedding procession began to move out of the magic +crystal, the figures, as they emerged, assuming the size of +life. First tripped a numerous train of white-robed little maidens, +scattering flowers; then came a priest in surplice and bands, holding +before him a great open service-book; after him, the bridal pair, +attended by their friends. But by an odd trick of fancy, the +bridegroom, who looked very stately and happy, appeared with the china +flower-pot containing the Button-Rose balanced on the end of his nose! +Awaked by my own laughter at this comical sight, I opened my eyes and +found Aunt Linny sitting on the bedside and laughing with me. + +"I should have waked you before, Katy," said she, "if you had not +seemed to be enjoying yourself so much. Come, unfold your dream. I +presume it will save me the trouble of telling you the contents of +this wonderful epistle which I hold in my hand." + +"It's from Cousin Harry! Huzza!" cried I, springing up to snatch it. + +But she held it out of my reach. "Softly! good Mistress +Fortuneteller," said she. "Read me the letter without seeing it, and +then I shall know that you can tell the interpretation thereof." + +"Of course it's from Cousin Harry. That's what the humming-bird came +to say last night. As for the contents,--he's not married,--his heart +turns to the sister-friend of his youth,--he yearns to look into her +lustrous orbs once more,--she alone, he finds, is the completion of +his _'Ich'_. He hastens across the dark blue sea; soon will she +behold him at her feet." + +"Alas, poor gypsy, thou hast lost thy silver penny this time. The +letter is indeed from Cousin Harry, and that of itself is one of +life's wonders. But it is addressed with all propriety to his +'venerable uncle.' He arrived from Europe a month since, and being now +on a tour for health and pleasure, proposes to make a hasty call on +his relatives and visit the old homestead. He brings his bride with +him. Now, Kate, be stirring; they will be here to-night, and we must +look our prettiest." + +"The hateful, prosy man! I'll not do anything to make his visit +agreeable," said I, pettishly. + +"Why, Kate, what are you conjuring up in your foolish little noddle?" + +"Oh, I supposed an _éclaircissement_ would come round somehow, +and we should finish the romance in style." + +"Why, Kate, do you really wish to get rid of me?" + +"No, indeed! I wouldn't have you accept his old withered heart for the +world. But I wanted you to have the triumph of rejecting it. 'Indeed, +my dear cousin,'--thus you should have said,--'I shall always be +interested in you as a kinsman, but I can never love you.'" + +"Kate is crazed!" she exclaimed, in a voice of despair. "Why, dear +child, there is not a shadow of foundation for this nonsense. I am +heartily glad at the thought of seeing my cousin once more, and all +the gladder that he brings a wife with him. Will you read the letter?" + +I read it twice, and then asked,--"Where does he mention his wife?" + +"Why, there,--don't you see? 'I shall bring with me a young lady, +whom, though a stranger and a foreigner, I trust you will be pleased +to welcome.' Isn't that plain?" + +The inference seemed sufficiently natural; but the slight uncertainty +was the basis of many entertaining dreams through the day. I resolved +to hold fast my faith in romance till the last moment. Towards +evening, when the parlors and guest-chambers had received the last +touches, when the silver had been polished, the sponge-cake and tarts +baked, and our own toilette made,--when, in short, nothing remained to +be done, my excitement and impatience rose to the highest pitch. I +ran repeatedly down the avenue, and finally mounted with a +pocket-telescope to the top of the house for a more extensive survey. + +"See you aught, Sister Annie?" called my aunt from below. + +"Nothing yet, good Fatima!--spin out thy prayers a little +longer. Stay! a cloud of dust, a horseman!--no doubt an outrider +hastening on to announce his approach. Ah! he passes, the stupid +clown! Another! Nay, that was only a Derby wagon; the stars forbid +that our deliverer should come in a Derby! But now, hush! there's a +_bonâ fide_ barouche, two black horses, black driver and +all. Almost at the turn! O gentle Ethiopian, tarry! this is the +castle! Go, then, false man! Fatima, thy last hope is past! No, they +stop! the gentleman looks out! he waves his hand this way! Aunt +Linny, 'tis he! the carriage is coming up the avenue!" So saying, I +threw down the telescope and flew to her room. + +"You are right, Kate, it must be he," said she, glancing through the +window, and then following me quietly down stairs. + +The carriage stopped, and we all went down the steps to receive our +long absent relative. A tall, pale gentleman in black sprang out and +came hurriedly towards us. He looked much older than I had expected; +but the next instant the flash of his black eye, and the eloquent +smile which lighted up his pensive countenance as with a sunbeam, +brought back the Cousin Harry of ten years ago. He returned my +grandfather's truly paternal greeting with the most affectionate +cordiality; but with scarce a reply to my aunt's frank welcome, gave +her his arm, and made a movement towards the house. + +"But, cousin," said she, smiling, "what gem have you there, hidden in +the carriage, too precious to be seen? We have a place in our hearts +for the fair stranger, I assure you." + +"Ah, poor thing! I had quite forgotten her," said he, coloring and +laughing, as he turned towards the carriage. + +Aunt Linny and I exchanged mirthful glances at this treatment of a +bride; but the next instant he had lifted out and led towards us a +small female personage, who, when her green veil was thrown aside, +proved to be a lovely girl of some seven or eight years. + +"Permit me," said he, smiling, "to present Miss Caroline Morrison, +'sole daughter of my house and heart.'" + +"But the stranger, the foreign lady?" inquired Aunt Linny, as she +kissed and welcomed the child. + +"Why, this is she,--this young Cuban! Whom else did you look for?" +was the reply, in a tone of surprise, and, as it seemed to me, of +slight vexation. + +"We expected a lady with a few more years on her head," interposed +grandpapa; "but the little pet is just as welcome. There, Katy, this +curly-pate will answer as well as a wax doll for you." + +The dear old gentleman could never realize that I was grown up to be a +woman. Of course, I was now introduced in due form, and we went +together up the steps. + +"How pleasant, how familiar all things look!" said our visitor, +pausing and gazing round him. "Why, uncle, you must have had your +house, and yourself, and everything about you insured against old +age. Nothing has changed except to improve. I see the very picture I +carried with me ten years ago." + +The tears stood in my grandfather's eyes. "You have forgotten one +great change, dear nephew," said he; "against that we could find no +insurance." + +"How could I forget?" was the answer, in a low tone, full of feeling, +his own eyes filling with moisture. "My dear aunt! I shed many tears +with and for you, when I heard of her death." He looked extremely +amiable at this moment; I knew that I should love him. + +My aunt smiled through her tears, and said, very sweetly, "The thought +of her should cheer, and not cloud our meeting. Her presence never +brought me sorrow, nor does her remembrance. Come, dear," she added, +cheerfully, taking the child's hand, "come in and rest your poor +little tired self. Kate, find the white kitten for her. A prettier one +you never saw in France or Cuba, Miss Carrie,--that's what papa calls +you, I suppose?" + +"It used to be my name," said the little smiler; "but papa always +calls me Linny now, because he thinks it sweeter." + + * * * * * + +"What say you to the humming-bird now?" I whispered to my aunt, as we +were a moment alone in the tea-room. + +"Kate, I wish you were fifty miles off at this moment! It was no good +angel that deluded me into telling you that foolish tale last +evening. Indeed, Kate," added she, earnestly, "you will seriously +compromise me, if you are not more careful. Promise me that you will +not make one more allusion of this kind, even to me, while they +remain!" + +"But I may give you just a look, now and then?" + +"Do you wish me to repent having trusted you, Kate?" + +"I promise, aunty,--by my faith in first love!" + +"Nonsense! Go, call them to tea." + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Our kinsman had been easily persuaded to remain with us a week, and a +charming week it had been to all of us. He had visited all the West +India Islands, and the most interesting portions of England and the +Continent. My grandfather, who, as the commander of his own +merchant-ship, had formerly visited many foreign countries, was +delighted to refresh his recollections of distant scenes, and to live +over again his adventures by sea and land. The conversation of our +guest with his uncle was richly instructive and entertaining; for he +had a lively appreciation of national and individual character, and +could illustrate them by a world of amusing anecdote. The old +veteran's early fondness for his nephew revived in full force, and his +enjoyment was alloyed only by the dread of a new separation. "What +shall I do when you are gone, Harry!" was his frequent exclamation; +and then he would sigh and shake his head, and wish he had one son +left. + +But the richest treat for my aunt and me was reserved till the late +evening, when the dear patriarch had retired to rest. Those warm, +balmy nights on the piazza, with the moonlight quivering through the +vines, and turning the terraced lawn with fantastic mixture of light +and shadow into a fairy scene, while the cultivated traveller +discoursed of all things beautiful in nature and art, were full of +witchery. Mont Blanc at sunrise, the wild scenery of the Simplon, the +exhumed streets of Pompeii, the Colosseum by moonlight, those wondrous +galleries of painting and sculpture of which I had read as I had read +of the palace of Aladdin and the gardens of the genii,--the living man +before me had seen all these! I looked upon him as an ambassador from +the world of poetry. But even this interested me less than the tone of +high and manly sentiment by which his conversation was pervaded, the +feeling reminiscences of endeared friendships formed in those far-off +lands, the brief glimpses of deep sorrows bravely borne; and I watched +with a sweet, sly pleasure my aunt's quiet surrender to the old spell. + +"It makes me very happy, Kate," said she one day, "to have found my +cousin and friend again. I am glad to feel that friendships springing +from the pure and good feelings of the heart are not so transient as I +have sometimes been tempted to think them. They may be buried for +years under a drift of new interests; but give them air, and they will +live again." + +"What is that remark of Byron about young ladies' friendship? Take +care, take care!" said I, shaking my head, gravely; "receive the +warning of a calm observer!" + +"Oh, no, Kate! this visit is but a little green oasis in the +desert. In a day or two we shall separate, probably forever; but both, +I doubt not, will be happier through life for this brief reunion. His +plan is to make his future residence in France." + +At the end of the week our kinsman left us for a fortnight's visit to +the metropolis. Intending to give us a call on his return south, he +willingly complied with our desire to leave his little girl with +us. As we were sitting together in my aunt's room after his departure, +the child brought her a small packet which her father had intrusted to +her. "I believe," said the little smiler, "he said it was a story for +you to read. Won't you please to read it to me?" She took it with a +look of surprise and curiosity, and immediately opened it and began to +read. But her color soon began to vary, her hand trembled, and +presently laying down the sheets in her lap, she sat lost in thought. + +"It seems a moving story!" I remarked, dryly. + +"Kate, this is the strangest affair!--But I can't tell you now; I must +read it first alone." + +She left the room, and I heard the key turn in the lock as she entered +another chamber. In about an hour she came out very composedly, and +said nothing more on the subject. + +After our little guest was asleep at night, I could restrain myself no +longer. "You are treating me shabbily, aunty," said I. "See if I am +ever a good girl again to please you!" + +"You shall know it all, Katy; I only wished to think it over first by +myself. There, take the letter; but make no note or comment till I +mention it again." + + * * * * * + +The letter of Cousin Harry seemed to me rather matter-of-fact, I must +confess, till near the end, where he spoke of a little nosegay which +he enclosed, and which would speak to her of dear old times. + +"But where is the nosegay, aunty?" + +With a beautiful flush, as if the sunset of that vanished day were +reddening the sky of memory, she drew a small packet from her bosom, +and in it I found a withered rose-bud tied up with a shrivelled sprig +of mignonette. + +I am afraid that my Aunt Linny's answer was a great deal more proper +than I should have wished; and yet, with all its emphatic expressions +of duty towards her father and the impossibility of leaving him, there +must have been something between the lines which I could not read. I +have since discovered that all such epistles have their real meaning +concealed in some kind of more rarefied sympathetic ink, which betrays +itself only under the burning hands of a lover. + +"So, then," said Aunt Linny, as she was sealing this letter, "you see, +Katy, that your romance has come to an untimely end." + +I turned round her averted face with both my hands, and looked in her +eyes till she blushed and laughed in spite of herself. + +"My knowledge of symptoms is not large," said I, "but I have a +conviction that his health will now endure a northern climate." + +"Let's talk no more of this!" said she, putting me aside with a gentle +gravity, which checked my nonsense. But as I was unable to detect in +her, on this or the following day, the slightest depression of +spirits, I shrewdly guessed that our anticipations of the result were +not very dissimilar. + +The next return post brought, not the expected letter, but our hero +himself. I was really amazed at the change in his appearance. Erect, +elastic, his face radiant with expression, he looked years younger +than at his first arrival. I caught Aunt Linny's eloquent glance of +surprise and pleasure as they met. For a moment the bridal pair of my +dream stood living before me; then vanished even more suddenly than +that fancy show of the old magician. When we again met, two or three +hours after, my aunt's serene smile and dewy eyes told me that all was +right. + + * * * * * + +In a month the wedding took place, and the "happy pair" started off on +a few weeks' excursion. As I was helping my aunt exchange her bridal +for her travelling attire, I whispered, "What say you to my doctrine +of first love, aunty?" + +"That it finds its best refutation in my experience. No, believe me, +dearest Katy, the true jewel of life is a spirit that can rule itself, +that can subject even the strongest, dearest impulses to reason and +duty. Without it, indeed," she added, with a soft earnestness, +"affection towards the worthiest object becomes an unworthy +sentiment--And besides, Kate,"--here her eye gleamed with girlish +mirth--"you see, if I had made love my all, I should have missed it +all. Not even Cousin Harry's constancy would have been proof against a +withered, whining, sentimental old maid." + +"Well, you will allow that it's a great paradox, aunty! If you believe +in my doctrine, it turns out a mere delusion; if you don't believe in +it, 'tis sure to come true." + +"Take care, then, and disbelieve in it with all your might!" said she, +laughing, and kissing me, as we left her room,--my room alone +henceforth. A shadow seemed to fill it, as she passed the threshold. + + + + +OUR BIRDS, AND THEIR WAYS. + + +Among our summer birds, the vast majority are but transient visitors, +born and bred far to the northward, and returning thither every +year. The North, then, is their proper domicile, their legal "place of +residence," which they have never renounced, but only temporarily +desert, for special reasons. Their sojourn with us, or farther south, +is merely an exile by stress of climate, like the flitting of the +Southern planters from the rice-fields to the mountains in summer, or +the pleasure tour or watering-place visit customary with the citizens +of Boston and New York. + +The lower orders, such as the humming-bird with his insect-like +stomach and sucking-tube, and so on up through the warblers and +flycatchers, more strictly bound by the necessities of their life, +closely follow the sun,--while the upper-ten-thousand, the robins, +cedar-birds, sparrows, etc., like man, omnivorous in their diet and +their attendant _chevaliers d'industrie_, the rapacious birds, +allow themselves greater latitude, and go and come occasionally at all +seasons, though in general tending to the south in winter and north in +summer. But precedence before all is due to permanent residents, with +whom our intercourse is not of this transitory and fair-weather +sort. Such are the crow, the blue jay, the chickadee, the partridge, +and the quail, who may be called regular inhabitants, though perhaps +all of them wander occasionally from one district to another. Besides +these, perhaps some of the hawks and owls remain here throughout the +year. But the species I have named are the only ones that occur to me +as equally numerous at all seasons in the immediate vicinity of +Boston, and never out of town, whether you take the census in May or +in January. + +In spite of our uninterrupted acquaintance with them, however, there +are still many of the nearest questions concerning these birds for +which I find no sufficient answers. Even to the first question--How do +they get their living?--there are only vague replies in the books. + +There is the crow, for example. I have seen crows in the neighborhood +of Boston every week of the year, and in not very different +numbers. My friend the ornithologist said to me last winter, "You will +see that they will be off as soon as the ground is well covered with +snow." But on the contrary, when the snow came, and after it had lain +deep on the fields for many days, I saw more than before,--probably +because they found it easier to get food in the neighborhood of the +houses and cultivated grounds. + +A crow must require certainly half a pound of animal food, or its +equivalent, daily, in order to keep from starving. Yet they not only +do not starve that I hear of, but seem to keep in as good case in +winter as in summer, though what they find to eat is not immediately +apparent. The vague traditional suggestion of "carrion," as of dead +horses and the like, does not help us much. Some scraps doubtless may +be left lying about, but any reliable stores of this kind are hardly +to be looked for in this neighborhood. A few scattered kernels of +corn, perhaps on a pinch a few berries, he may pick up; though I +suspect the crow is somewhat human in his tastes, and, besides animal +food, affects only the cereals. The frogs are deep in the mud. Now +and then a squirrel or a mouse may be had; but they are mostly dozing +in their holes. As for larger game, rabbits and the like, the crow is +hardly nimble enough for them, nor are his claws well adapted for +seizing; anything of this kind he will scarcely get, except as the +leavings of the weasel or skunk. These he will not refuse; for though +he is of a different species from the carrion crow of Europe, with +whom he was formerly confounded, yet he is of similar, though perhaps +less extreme, tastes as to his food. But when the ground is freshly +covered with snow, all supplies of this sort would seem to be cut off, +for the time at least. Yet who ever found a starved crow, or even saw +one driven by hunger from any of his accustomed caution? He is ever +the same alert, vivacious, harsh-tongued wanderer over the white +fields as over the summer meadows. + +A partial solution of the mystery is to be found in the habit which +the bird has in common with most of the crow kind, of depositing any +surplus food in a place of safety for future use. A tame crow that I +saw last year was constantly employed in this way. As soon as his +hunger was satisfied, if a piece of meat was given to him, he flew off +to some remote spot, and there covered it up with twigs and leaves. I +was told that the woods were full of these caches of his. Bits of +bread and the like he was too well-fed to care much about, but he +would generally go through the form of covering them, at your very +feet, with a little rubbish, not taking the trouble to hide them. +Meanwhile his hunting went on as if he still had his living to get, +and he would watch for field-mice, or come flying in from the woods +with a squirrel swinging from his claws, either for variety's sake, or +because he had really forgotten the stores he had laid up. Scattered +magazines of this kind, established in times of accidental plenty, may +render life during our winters possible to the crow. + +But why should he give himself so much trouble to subsist here, when a +few hours' work with those broad wings would bear him to a land of +tropical abundance? The crow, it seems, is not a mere eating and +drinking machine, drawn hither and thither by the balance of supply +and demand, but has his motives of another sort. Is it, perhaps, some +local attachment, so that a crow hatched in Brookline, for example, +would be more loath than another to quit that neighborhood,--a sort of +crow patriotism, akin to that which keeps the Greenlanders slowly +starving of cold and hunger on that awful coast of theirs. + +It is not probable, however, that the crow allows himself to suffer +much from these causes; he is far too knowing for that, and shows his +position at the head of the bird kind by an almost total emancipation +from scruples and prejudices, and by the facility with which he adapts +himself to special cases. Instinct works by formulas, which, as it +were, make up the animal, so that the ant and the bee are atoms of +incarnate constructiveness and acquisitiveness, and nothing else. And +as intelligence, when its action is too narrowly concentrated, whether +upon pin-making or money-making, tends to degenerate into mere +instinct,--so instinct, when it begins to compare, and to except, and +to vary its action according to circumstances, shows itself in the act +of passing into intelligence. This marks the superiority of the crow +over birds it often resembles in its actions. Most birds are +wary. The crow is wary, and something more. Other shy birds, for +instance ducks, avoid every strange object. The crow considers whether +there be anything dangerous in the strangeness. An ordinary scarecrow +will not keep our crow from anything worth a little risk. He fathoms +the scarecrow, compares its behavior, under various circumstances, +with that of the usual wearer of its garments, and decides to take the +risk. To protect his corn, the farmer takes advantage of this very +discursiveness, and stretches round the field a simple line, nothing +in itself, but hinting at some undeveloped mischief which the bird +cannot penetrate. + +Again, the crow is sometimes looked upon as a mere marauder; but this +description also is much too narrow for him. He is anxious only for +his dinner, and swallows seed-corn and noxious grubs with perfect +impartiality. He is not a mere pirate, living by plunder alone, but +rather like the old Phoenician sea-farer, indifferently honest or +robber as occasion serves,--and robber not from fierceness of +disposition, but merely from utter unscrupulousness as to means. + +This is shown in his docility. A hawk or an eagle is never tamed, but +a crow is more easily and completely tamable than the gentlest +singing-bird. The one I have just spoken of, though hardly six months +from the nest, would allow himself to be handled by his owner, and +would suffer even a stranger to touch him. When I first came near the +house, he greeted me with a suppressed caw, and flew along some +hundred yards just over my head, looking down, first with one eye and +then with the other, to get a complete view of the stranger. Next +morning I became aware, when but half awake, of a sort of mewing sound +in the neighborhood, and at last looking around, I saw through the +window, which opened to the floor, my new acquaintance perched on the +porch roof, which was at the same level, turning his head from side to +side, and eyeing me through the glass with divers queer contortions +and gesticulations, reminding me of some odd, old, dried-up French +dancing-master, and with a varied succession of croakings, now high, +now low, evidently bent upon attracting my attention. When he had +succeeded, he flew off with loud, joyous caws to the top of the house, +where I heard him rolling nuts or acorns from the ridge, and flying to +catch them before they fell off. + +Their independence of seasons is shown also in their habit of +associating in about equal numbers throughout the year. In the spring +the flocks are more noticeable, hovering about some grove of pines, +flying straight up in the air and swooping down again with an +uninterrupted cawing,--seemingly a sort of crow ball, with a view to +match-making. Afterwards they become more silent, and apparently more +solitary, but still fly out to their feeding-grounds morning and +evening; and if you sit down in the woods near one of their nests, the +uneasy choking chuckle, ending at last in the outright cawing of the +disturbed owner, will generally be answered from every point, and crow +after crow come edging up from tree to tree to see what is the matter. + +Though all of the crow tribe are notorious for their harsh voices, yet +if the power of mimicry be considered as a mark of superiority, the +crow has claims to high rank in this department also. The closest +imitators of the human voice are birds of this family: for instance, +the Mino bird. Our crow also is a vocal mimic, and that not in the +matter-of-course way of the mocking-bird, but, as it were, more +individual and spontaneous. He is not merely an imitator of the human +voice, like the parrots, (and a better one as regards tone,) nor of +other birds, like the thrushes, but combines both. The tame crow +already mentioned very readily undertook extempore imitations of +words, and with considerable success. I once heard a crow imitate the +warbling of a small bird, in a tone so entirely at variance with his +ordinary voice, that, though assured by one who had heard him before, +that it was a crow and nothing else, it was only on the clearest proof +that I could satisfy myself of the fact. It seemed to be quite an +original and individual performance. + +The blue jay is a near relative of the crow, and, like him, +omnivorous, harsh-voiced, predaceous, a robber of birds' nests; so +that if you hear the robins during their nesting-time making an +unusual clamor about the house, the chances are you will get a glimpse +of this brilliant marauder, sneaking away with a troop of them in +pursuit. His usual voice is a harsh scream, but he has some low +flute-like notes not without melody. The presence of a hawk, or more +particularly an owl in the woods, is often made known by the screaming +of the jays, who flock together about him with ever-increasing noise, +like a troop of jackals about a lion, pressing in upon him closer and +closer in a paroxysm of excitement, while the owl, thus taken at +disadvantage, sidles along his bough seeking concealment, and at +length softly flaps off to some more undisturbed retreat. + +The blue jay is a shy bird, but he is enough of a crow to take a risk +where anything is to be had for it, and in winter will come close to +the house for food. In his choice of a nesting-place he seems at first +sight to show less than his usual caution; for, though the nest is a +very conspicuous one, it is generally made in a pine sapling not far +from the ground, and often on a path or other opening in the +woods. But perhaps, in the somewhat remote situations where he builds, +the danger is less from below than from birds of prey sailing +overhead. I once found a blue jay's nest on a path in the woods +somewhat frequented by me, but not often trodden by any one else, and +passed it twice on different days, and saw the bird sitting, but took +some pains not to alarm her. The next time, and the next, she was not +there; and on examination I found the nest empty, though with no marks +of having been robbed. There was not time for the eggs to have +hatched, and it was plain, that, finding herself observed, she had +carried them off. + +As a general thing, the severity of our winters does not seem much to +affect the birds that stay with us. I have found chickadees and some +of the smaller sparrows apparently frozen to death, but the +extravasation of blood usual in such cases leaves us in doubt whether +some accident may not have first disabled the bird; and if dead birds +are more often found in winter than in summer, it may be only that the +body keeps longer, and, from the absence of grass and leaves, and the +white covering of the ground, is more readily seen. At all events, +such specimens are not usually emaciated, and sometimes they are in +remarkably good case, which, considering the rapid circulation and the +corresponding waste of the body, shows that the cold had not affected +their activity and their power of obtaining food. + +The truth is, that birds are remarkably well guarded against cold by +their quick circulation, their dense covering of down and feathers, +and the ease with which they can protect their extremities. The +chickadee is never so lively as in clear, cold weather;--not that he +is absolutely insensible to cold; for on those days, rare in this +neighborhood, when the mercury falls to fifteen degrees or more below +zero, the chickadee shows by his behavior that he, too, feels it to be +an exceptional state of things. Of such a morning I have seen a small +flock of them collected on the sunny side of a thick hemlock, rather +silent and quiet, with ruffled plumage, like balls of gray fur, +waiting, with an occasional chirp, for the sun's rays to begin to warm +them up, and meanwhile not depressed, but only a little sobered in +their deportment, and ready, if the cold continued, to get used to +that too. + +The matter of food-supply during the winter for the smaller birds is +more easily understood than in the case of the crow. The seeds of +grasses and the taller summer flowers, and of the birches, alders, and +maples, furnish supplies that are not interfered with by cold or snow; +also the buds of various trees and shrubs,--for the buds do not first +come into existence in the spring, as our city friends suppose, but +are to be found all winter. Nor is insect-life suspended at this +season to the extent that a careless observer might suppose. A sunny, +sheltered nook, at any time during the winter, will show you a variety +of two-winged flies, and several species of spiders, often in +considerable abundance, and as brisk as ever. And the numbers of eggs, +and larvae, and of the lurking tenants of crevices in tree-bark and +dead wood, may be guessed by the incessant and assuredly not aimless +activity of the chickadees and gold-crests and their associates. + +This winter activity of the birds ought to be taken into account by +those who accuse them of mischief-doing in summer. In winter, at +least, no mischief can be done; there is no fruit to steal; and even +sap-sucking, if such a practice at any time be not altogether +fabulous, certainly cannot be carried on now. Nothing can be destroyed +now except the farmer's enemies, or at best neutrals. Yet the birds +keep at work all the time. + +The only bird that occurs to me as a proved sufferer from famine in +the winter is the quail. This is the most limited in its range of all +our birds. Not only does it not migrate, (or only exceptionally,) but +it does not even wander much,--the same covey keeping all the year, +and even year after year, to the same feeding-ground. Nor does it ever +seek its food upon trees, like the partridge, but solely upon the +ground. + +The quail is our nearest representative of the common barn-yard +fowl. This it resembles in many respects, and among others, in its +habit of going a-foot, except when the covey crosses from one feeding +or roosting ground to another, or when the cock-bird mounts upon a +rail-fence or stone-wall to sound his call in the spring. This +persistence exposes the quail to hardship when the ground is covered +with snow, and the fruit of the skunk-cabbage and all the berries and +grain are inaccessible. He takes refuge at such times in the +smilax-thickets, whose dense, matted covering leaves an open +feeding-ground below. But a snowy winter always tells upon their +numbers in any neighborhood. Whole coveys are said to have been found +dead, frozen stiff, under the bush where they had huddled together for +warmth; and even before this extremity, their hardships lay them open +to their enemies, and the fox and the weasel, and the farmer's boy +with his box-trap, destroy them by wholesale. The deep snows of 1856 +and 1857 have nearly exterminated them hereabouts; and I was told at +Vergennes, in Vermont, that there were quails there many years ago, +but that they had now entirely disappeared. + +The appearance and disappearance of species within our experience +teach us that Nature's lists are not filled once for all, but that the +changes which geology shows in past ages continue into the +present. Sometimes we can trace the immediate cause, or rather +occasion, as in the case of the quail's congeners, the pinnated +grouse, and the wild turkey, both of them inhabitants of all parts of +the State in the early times. The pinnated grouse has been seen near +Boston within the present century, but is now exterminated, I believe, +except in Martha's Vineyard. The wild turkey was to be found not long +since in Berkshire, but probably it has become extinct there +too. Sometimes, for no reason that we can see, certain species forsake +their old abodes, as the purple martin, which within the last +quarter-century has receded some twenty miles from the seaboard,--or +appear where they were before unknown, as the cliff swallow, which was +first seen in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, but within +about the same space of time has become as common hereabouts as any of +the genus. In examples so conspicuous the movement is obvious enough; +but in the case of rarer species, for instance, the olive-sided +flycatcher, who can tell whether, when first observed, it was new to +naturalists merely, or to this part of the country, or to the earth +generally? The distinction sometimes made in such cases between +accidental influences and the regular course of nature is a +superficial one. The regular course of nature is in itself a series of +accidental influences; that is, the particular occasion is subservient +to a general law with which it does not seem at first sight to have +any connection. A severe winter may be sufficient to kill the quails, +just as the ancient morass was sufficient to drown the mastodon. But +the question is, why these causes began to operate just at these +times. We may as well stop with the evident fact, that the unresting +circulation is forever going on in the universe. + +But if the quail, who is here very near his northern limits, has a +hard time of it in the winter, and is threatened with such "removal" +as we treat the Indians to, his relative, the partridge, our other +gallinaceous or hen-like bird, is of a tougher fibre, as you see when +you come upon his star-like tracks across the path, eight or nine +inches apart, and struck sharp and deep in the snow, or closer +together among the bushes, where he stretched up for barberries or +buds, and ending on either side with a series of fine parallel cuts, +where the sharp-pointed quills struck the snow as he rose,--a picture +of vigor and success. He knows how to take care of himself, and to +find both food and shelter in the evergreens, when the snow lies fresh +upon the ground. There, in some sunny glade among the pines, he will +ensconce himself in the thickest branches, and whir off as you come +near, sailing down the opening with his body balancing from side to +side. + +The partridge is altogether a wilder and more solitary bird than the +quail, and does not frequent cultivated fields, nor make his nest in +the orchard, as the quail does, but prefers the shelf of some rocky +ledge under the shadow of the pines in remote woods. He is one of the +few birds found in the forest; for it is a mistake to suppose that +birds abound in the forest, or avoid the neighborhood of man. On the +contrary, you may pass days and weeks in our northern woods without +seeing more than half a dozen species, of which the partridge is +pretty sure to be one. All birds increase in numbers about +settlements,--even the crow, though he is a forest bird too. Hence, +no doubt, has arisen the notion that the crow (supposed to be of the +same species with the European) made his appearance in this country +first on the Atlantic coast, and gradually spread westward, passing +through the State of New York about the time of the Revolution. I was +told some years since by a resident of Chicago, that the quails had +increased eight-fold in that vicinity since he came there. The fact +is, that the bird population, like the human, in the absence of +counteracting causes, will continue to expand in precise ratio to the +supply of food. The partridge goes farther north than the quail, and +is found throughout the United States. With us he affects high and +rocky ground, but northward he keeps at a lower level. At the White +Mountains, the regions of this species and of the Canada grouse or +spruce partridge are as well defined in height as those of the maples +and the "black growth." Still farther north I have observed that our +partridge frequents the lowest marshy ground, thus equalizing his +climate in every latitude. + +There are few of our land-birds that flock together in summer, and few +that are solitary in winter,--none that I recollect, except birds of +prey. And not only do birds of the same kind associate, but certain +species are almost always found together. Thus, the chickadee, the +golden-crested wren, the white-breasted nuthatch, and, less +constantly, the brown creeper and the downy woodpecker, form a little +winter clique, of which you do not often see one of the members +without one or more of the others. No sound in nature more cheery and +refreshing than the alternating calls of a little troop of this kind +echoing through the glades of the woods on a still, sunny day in +winter: the vivacious chatter of the chickadee, the slender, contented +pipe of the gold-crest, and the emphatic, business-like _hank_ of the +nuthatch, as they drift leisurely along from tree to tree. The winter +seems to be the season of holiday enjoyment to the chickadee, and he +is never so evidently and conspicuously contented as in very cold +weather. In summer he withdraws to the thickets, and becomes less +noisy and active. His plumage becomes dull, and his brisk note changes +to a fine, delicate _pee-peh-wy_, or oftenest a mere whisper. They are +so much less noticeable at this season that one might suppose they had +followed their gold-crest companions to the North, as some of them +doubtless do, but their nests are not uncommon with us. Fearless as +the chickadee is in winter,--so fearless, that, if you stand still, he +will alight upon your head or shoulder,--in summer he becomes cautious +about his nest, and will desert it, if much watched. They build here, +generally, in a partly decayed white-birch or apple-tree, excavating a +hole eighteen inches or two feet deep,--the chips being carefully +carried off a short distance, so as not to betray the workman,--and +lining the bottom of it with a felting of soft materials, generally +rabbits' fur, of which I have taken from one hole as much as could be +conveniently grasped with the hand. + +Besides the species that we regularly count upon in winter, there are +more or less irregular visitors at this season, some of them summer +birds also,--as the purple finch, cedar-bird, gold-finch, robin, the +flicker, or pigeon woodpecker, and the yellow-bellied and hairy +woodpeckers. Others, again, linger on from the autumn, and sometimes +through the winter,--as the snow-bird, song-sparrow, tree-sparrow. +Still others are seen only in winter,--as the brown and shore larks, +the crossbills, redpolls, snow-buntings, pine grosbeak, and some of +the hawks and owls; and of these some are merely accidental,--as the +pine grosbeak, which in 1836 appeared here in great numbers in +October, and remained until May. This beautiful and gentle bird (a +sweet songster too) is doubtless a permanent resident within the +United States, for I have seen them at the White Mountains in +August. What impels them to these occasional wanderings it is +difficult to guess; it is obviously not mere stress of weather; for in +1836, as I have remarked, they came early in autumn and continued +resident until late in the spring; and their food, being mainly the +buds of resinous trees, must have been as easy to get elsewhere as +here. Their coming, like the crow's staying, is a mystery to us. + +I have spoken only of the land-birds; but the position of our city, so +embraced by the sea, affords unusual opportunities for observing the +sea-birds also. All winter long, from the most crowded thoroughfares +of the city, any one, who has leisure enough to raise his eyes over +the level of the roofs to the tranquil air above, may see the gulls +passing to and fro between the harbor and the flats at the mouth of +Charles River. The gulls, and particularly that cosmopolite, the +herring gull, are met with in this neighborhood throughout the year, +though in summer most of them go farther north to breed. On a still, +sunny day in winter, you may see them high in the air over the river, +calmly soaring in wide circles, a hundred perhaps at a time, or +pluming themselves leisurely on the edge of a hole in the ice. When +the wind is violent from the west, they come in over the city from the +bay outside, strong-winged and undaunted, breasting the gale, now +high, now low, but always working to windward, until they reach the +shelter of the inland waters. + +In the spring they come in greater numbers, and other species arrive: +the great saddle-back, from the similarity of coloring almost to be +mistaken for the white-headed eagle, as he sits among the broken ice +at the edge of the channel; and the beautiful little Bonaparte's gull. + +The ducks, too, still resort to our rivermouth, in spite of the +railroads and the tall chimneys by which their old feeding-grounds are +surrounded. As long as the channel is open, you may see the +golden-eyes, or "whistlers," in extended lines, visible only as a row +of bright specks, as their white breasts rise and fall on the waves; +and farther than you can see them, you may hear the whistle of their +wings as they rise. Spring and fall the "black ducks" still come to +find the brackish waters which they like, and to fill their crops with +the seeds of the eel-grass and the mixed food of the flats. In the +late twilight you may sometimes catch sight of a flock speeding in, +silent and swift, over the Mill-dam, or hear their sonorous quacking +from their feeding-ground. + +At least, these things were,--and not long since,--though I cannot +answer for a year or two back. The birds long retain the tradition of +the old places, and strive to keep their hold upon them; but we are +building them out year by year. The memory is still fresh of flocks of +teal by the "Green Stores" on the Neck; but the teal and the "Stores" +are gone, and perhaps the last black duck has quacked on the river, +and the last whistler taken his final flight. Some of us, who are not +yet old men, have killed "brown-backs" and "yellow-legs" on the +marshes that lie along to the west and south of the city, now cut up +by the railroads; and you may yet see from the cars an occasional +long-booted individual, whose hopes still live on the tales of the +past, stalking through the sedge with "superfluous gun," or patiently +watching his troop of one-legged wooden decoys. + +The sea keeps its own climate, and keeps its highways open, after all +on the land is shut up by frost. The sea-birds, accordingly, seem to +lead an existence more independent of latitude and of seasons. In +midwinter, when the seashore watering-places are forsaken by men, you +may find Nahant or Nantasket Beach more thronged with bipeds of this +sort than by the featherless kind in summer. The Long Beach of Nahant +at that season is lined sometimes by an almost continuous flock of +sea-ducks, and a constant passing and repassing are kept up between +Lynn Bay and the surf outside. + +Early of a winter's morning at Nantasket I once saw a flock of geese, +many hundreds in number, coming in from the Bay to cross the land in +their line of migration. They advanced with a vast, irregular front +extending far along the horizon, their multitudinous _honking_ +softened into music by the distance. As they neared the beach the +clamor increased and the line broke up in apparent confusion, circling +round and round for some minutes in what seemed aimless +uncertainty. Gradually the cloud of birds resolved itself into a +number of open triangles, each of which with its deeper-voiced leader +took its way inland; as if they trusted to their general sense of +direction while flying over the water, but on coming to encounter the +dangers of the land, preferred to delegate the responsibility. This +done, all is left to the leader; if he is shot, it is said the whole +flock seem bewildered, and often alight without regard to place or to +their safety. The selection of the leader must therefore be a matter +of deliberation with them; and this, no doubt, was going on in the +flock I saw at Nantasket during their pause at the edge of the +beach. The leader is probably always an old bird. I have noticed +sometimes that his _honking_ is more steady and in a deeper tone, +and that it is answered in a higher key along the line. + + + +THE INDIAN REVOLT. + + +For the first time in the history of the English dominion in India, +its power has been shaken from within its own possessions, and by its +own subjects. Whatever attacks have been made upon it heretofore have +been from without, and its career of conquest has been the result to +which they have led. But now no external enemy threatens it, and the +English in India have found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly +engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with a portion of their subjects, +not so much for dominion as for life. There had been signs and +warnings, indeed, of the coming storm; but the feeling of security in +possession and the confidence of moral strength were so strong, that +the signs had been neglected and the warnings disregarded. + +No one in our time has played the part of Cassandra with more +foresight and vehemence than the late Sir Charles Napier. He saw the +quarter in which the storm was gathering, and he affirmed that +it was at hand. In 1850, after a short period of service as +commander-in-chief of the forces in India, he resigned his place, +owing to a difference between himself and the government, and +immediately afterwards prepared a memoir in justification of his +course, accompanied with remarks upon the general administration of +affairs in that country. It was written with all his accustomed +clearness of mind, vigor of expression, and intensity of personal +feeling,--but it was not published until after his death, which took +place in 1853, when it appeared under the editorship of his brother, +Lieutenant-General Sir W.F.P. Napier, with the title of "Defects, +Civil and Military, of the Indian Government." Its interest is +greatly enhanced when read by the light of recent events. It is in +great part occupied with a narrative of the exhibition of a mutinous +spirit which appeared in 1849 in some thirty Sepoy battalions, in +regard to a reduction of their pay, and of the means taken to check +and subdue it. On the third page is a sentence which read now is of +terrible import: "Mutiny with [among?] the Sepoys is the _most_ +formidable danger menacing our Indian empire." And a few pages farther +on occurs the following striking passage: "The ablest and most +experienced civil and military servants of the East India Company +consider mutiny as one of the greatest, if not _the_ greatest danger +threatening India,--a danger also that may come unexpectedly, and, if +the first symptoms be not carefully treated, with a power to shake +Leadenhall." + +The anticipated mutiny has now come, its first symptoms were treated +with utter want of judgment, and its power is shaking the whole fabric +of the English rule in India. + +One day toward the end of January last, a workman employed in the +magazine at Barrackpore, an important station about seventeen miles +from Calcutta, stopped to ask a Sepoy for some water from his +drinking-vessel. Being refused, because he was of low caste, and his +touch would defile the vessel, he said, with a sneer, "What caste are +you of, who bite pig's grease and cow's fat on your cartridges?" +Practice with the new Enfield rifle had just been introduced, and the +cartridges were greased for use in order not to foul the gun. The +rumor spread among the Sepoys that there was a trick played upon +them,--that this was but a device to pollute them and destroy their +caste, and the first step toward a general and forcible conversion of +the soldiers to Christianity. The groundlessness of the idea upon +which this alarm was founded afforded no hindrance to its ready +reception, nor was the absurdity of the design attributed to the +ruling powers apparent to the obscured and timid intellect of the +Sepoys. The consequences of loss of caste are so feared,--and are in +reality of so trying a nature,--that upon this point the sensitiveness +of the Sepoy is always extreme, and his suspicions are easily +aroused. Their superstitions and religious customs "interfere in many +strange ways with their military duties." "The brave men of the 35th +Native Infantry," says Sir Charles Napier, "lost caste because they +did their duty at Jelalabad; that is, they fought like soldiers, and +ate what could be had to sustain their strength for battle." But they +are under a double rule, of religious and of military discipline,--and +if the two come into conflict, the latter is likely to give way. + +The discontent at Barrackpore soon manifested itself in ways not to be +mistaken. There were incendiary fires within the lines. It was +discovered that messengers had been sent to regiments at other +stations, with incitements to insubordination. The officer in command +at Barrackpore, General Hearsay, addressed the troops on parade, +explained to them that the cartridges were not prepared with the +obnoxious materials supposed, and set forth the groundlessness of +their suspicions. The address was well received at first, but had no +permanent effect. The ill-feeling spread to other troops and other +stations. The government seems to have taken no measure of precaution +in view of the impending trouble, and contented itself with +despatching telegraphic messages to the more distant stations, where +the new rifle-practice was being introduced, ordering that the native +troops were "to have no practice ammunition served out to them, but +only to watch the firing of the Europeans." On the 26th of February, +the 19th regiment, then stationed at Berhampore, refused to receive +the cartridges that were served out, and were prevented from open +violence only by the presence of a superior English force. After great +delay, it was determined that this regiment should be disbanded. The +authorities were not even yet alarmed; they were uneasy, but even +their uneasiness does not seem to have been shared by the majority of +the English residents in India. It was not until the 3d of April that +the sentence passed upon the 19th regiment was executed. The affair +was dallied with, and inefficiency and dilatoriness prevailed +everywhere. + +But meanwhile the disaffection was spreading. The order for confining +the use of the new cartridges to the Europeans seems to have been +looked upon by the native regiments as a confirmation of their +suspicions with regard to them. The more daring and evil-disposed of +the soldiers stimulated the alarm, and roused the prejudices of their +more timid and unreasoning companions. No general plan of revolt +seems to have been formed, but the materials of discontent were +gradually being concentrated; the inflammable spirits of the Sepoys +were ready to burst into a blaze. Strong and judicious measures, +promptly put into action, might even now have allayed the excitement +and dissipated the danger. But the imbecile commander-in-chief was +enjoying himself and shirking care in the mountains; and Lord Canning +and his advisers at Calcutta seem to have preferred to allow to take +the initiative in their own way. Generally throughout Northern India +the common routine of affairs went on at the different stations, and +the ill-feeling and insubordination among the Sepoys scarcely +disturbed the established quiet and monotony of Anglo-Indian life. +But the storm was rising,--and the following extracts from a letter, +hitherto unpublished, written on the 30th of May, by an officer of +great distinction, and now in high command before Delhi, will show the +manner of its breaking. + +"A fortnight ago no community in the world could have been living in +greater security of life and property than ours. Clouds there were +that indicated to thoughtful minds a coming storm, and in the most +dangerous quarter; but the actual outbreak was a matter of an hour, +and has fallen on us like a judgment from Heaven,--sudden, +irresistible as yet, terrible in its effects, and still spreading from +place to place. I dare say you may have observed among the Indian news +of late months, that here and there throughout the country mutinies of +native regiments had been taking place. They had, however, been +isolated cases, and the government thought it did enough to check the +spirit of disaffection by disbanding the corps involved. The failure +of the remedy was, however, complete, and, instead of having to deal +now with mutinies of separate regiments, we stand face to face with a +general mutiny of the Sepoy army of Bengal. To those who have thought +most deeply of the perils of the English empire in India this has +always seemed the monster one. It was thought to have been guarded +against by the strong ties of mercenary interest that bound the army +to the state, and there was, probably, but one class of feelings that +would have been strong enough to have broken these ties,--those, +namely, of religious sympathy or prejudice. The overt ground of the +general mutiny was offence to caste feelings, given by the +introduction into the army of certain cartridges said to have been +prepared with hog's lard and cow's fat. The men must bite off the ends +of these cartridges; so the Mahometans are defiled by the unclean +animal, and the Hindoos by the contact of the dead cow. Of course the +cartridges are _not_ prepared as stated, and they form the mere +handle for designing men to work with. They are, I believe, equally +innocent of lard and fat; but that a general dread of being +Christianized has by some means or other been created is without +doubt, though there is still much that is mysterious in the process by +which it has been instilled into the Sepoy mind, and I question if the +government itself has any accurate information on the subject. + +"It was on the 10th of the present month [May] that the outburst of +the mutinous spirit took place in our own neighborhood,--at +Meerut. The immediate cause was the punishment of eighty-five troopers +of the 3d Light Cavalry, who had refused to use the obnoxious +cartridges, and had been sentenced by a native court-martial to ten +years' imprisonment. On Saturday, the 9th, the men were put in irons, +in presence of their comrades, and marched off to jail. On Sunday, +the 10th, just at the time of evening service, the mutiny broke +out. Three regiments left their lines, fell upon every European, man, +woman, or child, they met or could find, murdered them all, burnt half +the houses in the station, and, after working such a night of mischief +and horror as devils might have delighted in, marched off to Delhi +_en masse_, where three other regiments ripe for mutiny were +stationed. On the junction of the two brigades, the horrors of Meerut +were repeated in the imperial city, and every European who could be +found was massacred with revolting barbarity. In fact, the spirit was +that of a servile war. Annihilation of the ruling race was felt to be +the only chance of safety or impunity; so no one of the ruling race +was spared. Many, however, effected their escape, and, after all sorts +of perils and sufferings, succeeded in reaching military stations +containing European troops. * * * + +"From the crisis of the mutiny our local anxieties have lessened. The +country round is in utter confusion. Bands of robbers are murdering +and plundering defenceless people. Civil government has practically +ceased from the land. The most loathsome irresolution and incapacity +have been exhibited in some of the highest quarters. A full month will +elapse before the mutineers are checked by any organized resistance. +A force is, or is supposed to be, marching on Delhi; but the outbreak +occurred on the 10th of May, and this day is the first of June, and +Delhi has seen no British colors and heard no British guns as +yet. * * * + +"As to the empire, it will be all the stronger after this storm. It is +not five or six thousand mutinous mercenaries, or ten times the +number, that will change the destiny of England in India. Though we +small fragments of the great machine may fall at our posts, there is +that vitality in the English people that will bound stronger against +misfortunes, and build up the damaged fabric anew." + +So far the letter from which we have quoted.--It was not until the 8th +of June that an English force appeared before the walls of Delhi. For +four weeks the mutineers had been left in undisturbed possession of +the city, a possession which was of incalculable advantage to them by +adding to their moral strength the prestige of a name which has always +been associated with the sceptre of Indian empire. The masters of +Delhi are the masters not only of a city, but of a deeply rooted +tradition of supremacy. The delay had told. Almost every day in the +latter half of May was marked by a new mutiny in different military +stations, widely separated from each other, throughout the +North-Western Provinces and Bengal. The tidings of the possession of +Delhi by the mutineers stimulated the daring madness of regiments that +had been touched by disaffection. Some mutinied from mere panic, some +from bitterness of hate. Some fled away quietly with their arms, to +join the force that had now swelled to an army in the city of the +Great Moghul; some repeated the atrocities of Meerut, and set up a +separate standard of revolt, to which all the disaffected and all the +worst characters of the district flocked, to gratify their lust for +revenge of real or fancied wrongs, or their baser passions for plunder +and unmeaning cruelty. The malignity of a subtle, acute, +semi-civilized race, unrestrained by law or by moral feeling, broke +out in its most frightful forms. Cowardice possessed of strength never +wreaked more horrible sufferings upon its victims, and the bloody and +barbarous annals of Indian history show no more bloody and barbarous +page. + +The course of English life in those stations where the worst cruelties +and the bitterest sufferings have been inflicted on the unhappy +Europeans has been for a long time so peaceful and undisturbed, it has +gone on for the most part in such pleasant and easy quiet and with +such absolute security, that the agony of sudden alarm and unwarned +violence has added its bitterness to the overwhelming horror. It is +not as in border settlements, where the inhabitants choose their lot +knowing that they are exposed to the incursions of savage +enemies,--but it is as if on a night in one of the most peaceful of +long-settled towns, troops of men, with a sort of civilization that +renders their attack worse than that of savages, should be let loose +to work their worst will of lust and cruelty. The details are too +recent, too horrible, and as yet too broken and irregular, to be +recounted here. + +Although, at the first sally of the mutineers from Delhi against the +force that had at length arrived, a considerable advantage was gained +by the Europeans, this advantage was followed up by no decisive +blow. The number of troops was too small to attempt an assault against +an army of thirty thousand men, each man of whom was a trained +soldier. The English force was unprovided with any sufficient siege +battery. It could do little more than encamp, throw up intrenchments +for its own defence, and wait for attacks to be made upon it,--attacks +which it usually repulsed with great loss to the attackers. The month +of June is the hottest month of the year at Delhi; the average height +of the thermometer being 92°. There, in such weather, the force must +sit still, watch the pouring in of reinforcements and supplies to the +city which it was too small to invest, and hear from day to day fresh +tidings of disaster and revolt on every hand,--tidings of evil which +there could scarcely be any hope of checking, until this central point +of the mutiny had fallen before the British arms. A position more +dispiriting can scarcely be imagined; and to all these causes for +despondency were added the incompetency and fatuity of the Indian +government, and the procrastination of the home government in the +forwarding of the necessary reinforcements. + +Delhi has been often besieged, but seldom has a siege been laid to it +that at first sight would have appeared more desperate than this. The +city is strong in its artificial defences, and Nature lends her force +to the native troops within the walls. If they could hold out through +the summer, September was likely to be as great a general for them as +the famous two upon whom the Czar relied in the Crimea. A wall of gray +stone, strengthened by the modern science of English engineers, and +nearly seven miles in circumference, surrounds the city upon three +sides, while the fourth is defended by a wide offset of the Jumna, and +by a portion of the high, embattled, red stone wall of the palace, +which almost equals the city wall in strength, and is itself more than +a mile in length. Few cities in the East present a more striking +aspect from without. Over the battlements of the walls rise the +slender minarets and shining domes of the mosques, the pavilions and +the towers of the gates, the balustraded roofs of the higher and finer +houses, the light foliage of acacias, and the dark crests of tall +date-palms. It is a new city, only two hundred and twenty-six years +old. Shah Jehan, its founder, was fond of splendor in building, was +lavish of expense, and was eager to make his city imperial in +appearance as in name. The great mosque that he built here is the +noblest and most beautiful in all India. His palace might be set in +comparison with that of Aladdin; it was the fulfilment of an Oriental +voluptuary's dream. All that Eastern taste could devise of beauty, +that Eastern lavishness could fancy of adornment, or voluptuousness +demand of luxury, was brought together and displayed here. But its day +of splendor was not long; and now, instead of furnishing a home to a +court, which, if wicked, was at least magnificent, it is the abode of +demoralized pensioners, who, having lost the reality, retain the pride +and the vices of power. For years it has been utterly given over to +dirt and to decay. Its beautiful halls and chambers, rich with marbles +and mosaics, its "Pearl" _musjid_, its delicious gardens, its +shady summer-houses, its fountains, and all its walks and +pleasure-grounds, are neglected, abused, and occupied by the filthy +retainers of an effete court. + +The city stands partly on the sandy border of the river, partly on a +low range of rocks. With its suburbs it may contain about one hundred +and sixty thousand inhabitants, a little more than half of whom are +Hindoos, and the remainder nominally Mahometans, in creed. Around the +wall stretches a wide, barren, irregular plain, covered, mile after +mile, with the ruins of earlier Delhis, and the tombs of the great or +the rich men of the Mahometan dynasty. There is no other such +monumental plain as this in the world. It is as full of traditions and +historic memories as of ruins; and in this respect, as in many others, +Delhi bears a striking resemblance to Rome,--for the Roman Campagna is +the only field which in its crowd of memories may be compared with it, +and the imperial city of India holds in the Mahometan mind much the +same place that Rome occupies in that of the Christian. + +Before these pages are printed it is not unlikely that the news of the +fall of Delhi will have reached us. The troops of the besiegers +amounted in the middle of August to about five thousand five hundred +men. Other troops near them, and reinforcements on the way, may by the +end of the month have increased their force to ten thousand. At the +last accounts a siege train was expected to arrive on the 3d of +September, and an assault might be made very shortly afterwards. But +September is an unhealthy month, and there may be delays. _Dehli +door ust_,--"Delhi is far off,"--is a favorite Indian proverb. But +the chances are in favor of its being now in British hands.[1] +With its fall the war will be virtually ended,--for the reconquest of +the disturbed territories will be a matter of little difficulty, when +undertaken with the aid of the twenty thousand English troops who will +arrive in India before the end of the year. + +The settlement of the country, after these long disturbances, cannot +be expected to take place at once; civil government has been too much +interrupted to resume immediately its ordinary operation. But as this +great revolt has had in very small degree the character of a popular +rising, and as the vast mass of natives are in general not +discontented with the English rule, order will be reëstablished with +comparative rapidity, and the course of life will before many months +resume much of its accustomed aspect. + +The struggle of the trained and ambitious classes against the English +power will but have served to confirm it. The revolt overcome, the +last great danger menacing English security in India will have +disappeared. England will have learnt much from the trials she has had +to pass through, and that essential changes will take place within a +few years in the constitution of the Indian government there can be no +doubt. But it is to be remembered that for the past thirty years, +English rule in India has been, with all its defects, an enlightened +and beneficent rule. The crimes with which it has been charged, the +crimes of which it has been guilty, are small in amount, compared with +the good it has effected. Moreover, they are not the result of +inherent vices in the system of government, so much as of the +character of exceptional individuals employed to carry out that +system, and of the native character itself.--But on these points we do +not propose now to enter. + +If the close of this revolt be not stained with retaliating cruelties, +if English soldiers remember mercy, then the whole history of this +time will be a proud addition to the annals of England. For though it +will display the incompetency and the folly of her governments, it +will show how these were remedied by the energy and spirit of +individuals; it will tell of the daring and gallantry of her men, of +their patient endurance, of their undaunted courage, and it will tell, +too, with a voice full of tears, of the sorrows, and of the brave and +tender hearts, and of the unshaken religious faith supporting them to +the end, of the women who died in the hands of their enemies. The +names of Havelock and Lawrence will be reckoned in the list of +England's worthies, and the story of the garrison of Cawnpore will be +treasured up forever among England's saddest and most touching +memories. + + +[Footnote 1: It is earnestly to be hoped that the officers in command +of the British force will not yield to the savage suggestions and +incitements of the English press, with regard to the fate of +Delhi. The tone of feeling which has been shown in many quarters in +England has been utterly disgraceful. Indiscriminate cruelty and +brutality are no fitting vengeance for the Hindoo and Mussulman +barbarities. The sack of Delhi and the massacre of its people would +bring the English conquerors down to the level of the conquered. Great +sins cry out for great punishments,--but let the punishment fall on +the guilty, and not involve the innocent. The strength of English rule +in India must be in her justice, in her severity,--but not in the +force and irresistible violence of her passions. To destroy the city +would be to destroy one of the great ornaments of her empire,--to +murder the people would be to commence the new period of her rule with +a revolting crime. + +"For five days," says the historian, "Tamerlane remained a tranquil +spectator of the sack and conflagration of Delhi and the massacre of +its inhabitants, while he was celebrating a feast in honor of his +victory. When the troops were wearied with slaughter, and nothing was +left to plunder, he gave orders for the prosecution of his march, and +on the day of his departure he offered up to the Divine Majesty the +sincere and humble tribute of grateful praise." + +"It is said that Nadir Shah, during the massacre that he had +commanded, sat in gloomy silence in the little mosque of +Rokn-u-doulah, which stands at the present day in the Great +Bazaar. Here the Emperor and his nobles at length took courage to +present themselves. They stood before him with downcast eyes, until +Nadir commanded them to speak, when the Emperor burst into tears and +entreated Nadir to spare his subjects."] + + + + +SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. + + + Of all the rides since the birth of time, + Told in story or sung in rhyme,-- + On Apuleius's Golden Ass, + Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass, + Witch astride of a human hack, + Islam's prophet on Al-Borák,-- + The strangest ride that ever was sped + Was Ireson's out from Marblehead! + Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart + By the women of Marblehead! + + Body of turkey, head of owl, + Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl, + Feathered and ruffled in every part, + Captain Ireson stood in the cart. + Scores of women, old and young, + Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, + Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane, + Shouting and singing the shrill refrain: + "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, + Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt + By the women o' Morble'ead!" + + Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, + Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, + Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase + Bacchus round some antique vase, + Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, + Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, + With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, + Over and over the Maenads sang: + "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, + Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt + By the women o' Morble'ead!" + + Small pity for him!--He sailed away + From a leaking ship in Chaleur Bay,-- + Sailed away from a sinking wreck, + With his own town's-people on her deck! + "Lay by! lay by!" they called to him. + Back he answered, "Sink or swim! + Brag of your catch of fish again!" + And off he sailed through the fog and rain! + Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart + By the women of Marblehead! + + Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur + That wreck shall lie forevermore. + Mother and sister, wife and maid, + Looked from the rocks of Marblehead + Over the moaning and rainy sea, + Looked for the coming that might not be! + What did the winds and the sea-birds say + Of the cruel captain who sailed away?-- + Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart + By the women of Marblehead! + + Through the street, on either side, + Up flew windows, doors swung wide; + Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray, + Treble lent the fish-horn's bray. + Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound, + Hulks of old sailors run aground, + Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane, + And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain: + "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, + Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt + By the women o' Morble'ead!" + + Sweetly along the Salem road + Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. + Little the wicked skipper knew + Of the fields so green and the sky so blue. + Riding there in his sorry trim, + Like an Indian idol glum and grim, + Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear + Of voices shouting far and near: + "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, + Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt + By the women o' Morble'ead!" + + "Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried,-- + "What to me is this noisy ride? + What is the shame that clothes the skin, + To the nameless horror that lives within? + Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck + And hear a cry from a reeling deck! + Hate me and curse me,--I only dread + The hand of God and the face of the dead!" + Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart + By the women of Marblehead! + + Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea + Said, "God has touched him!--why should we?" + Said an old wife mourning her only son, + "Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!" + So with soft relentings and rude excuse, + Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, + And gave him cloak to hide him in, + And left him alone with his shame and sin. + Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart + By the women of Marblehead! + + + + +SOLITUDE AND SOCIETY. + + +I fell in with a humorist, on my travels, who had in his chamber a +cast of the Rondanini Medusa, and who assured me that the name which +that fine work of art bore in the catalogues was a misnomer, as he was +convinced that the sculptor who carved it intended it for Memory, the +mother of the Muses. In the conversation that followed, my new friend +made some extraordinary confessions. "Do you not see," he said, "the +penalty of learning, and that each of these scholars whom you have met +at S., though he were to be the last man, would, like the executioner +in Hood's poem, guillotine the last but one?" He added many lively +remarks, but his evident earnestness engaged my attention, and, in the +weeks that followed, we became better acquainted. He had great +abilities, a genial temper, and no vices; but he had one defect,--he +could not speak in the tone of the people. There was some paralysis on +his will, that, when he met men on common terms, he spoke weakly, and +from the point, like a flighty girl. His consciousness of the fault +made it worse. He envied every daysman and drover in the tavern their +manly speech. He coveted Mirabeau's _don terrible de la +familiarité_, believing that he whose sympathy goes lowest is the +man from whom kings have the most to fear. For himself, he declared +that he could not get enough alone to write a letter to a friend. He +left the city; he hid himself in pastures. The solitary river was not +solitary enough; the sun and moon put him out. When he bought a house, +the first thing he did was to plant trees. He could not enough conceal +himself. Set a hedge here; set oaks there,--trees behind trees; above +all, set evergreens, for they will keep a secret all the year +round. The most agreeable compliment you could pay him was, to say +that you had not observed him in a house or a street where you had met +him. Whilst he suffered at being seen where he was, he consoled +himself with the delicious thought of the inconceivable number of +places where he was not. All he wished of his tailor was, to provide +that sober mean of color and cut which would never detain the eye for +a moment. He went to Vienna, to Smyrna, to London. In all the variety +of costumes, a carnival, a kaleidoscope of clothes, to his horror he +could never discover a man in the street who wore anything like his +own dress. He would have given his soul for the ring of Gyges. His +dismay at his visibility had blunted the fears of mortality. "Do you +think," he said, "I am in such great terror of being shot,--I, who am +only waiting to shuffle off my corporeal jacket, to slip away into the +back stars, and put diameters of the solar system and sidereal orbits +between me and all souls,--there to wear out ages in solitude, and +forget memory itself, if it be possible?" He had a remorse running to +despair of his social _gaucheries_, and walked miles and miles to +get the twitchings out of his face, the starts and shrugs out of his +arms and shoulders. "God may forgive sins," he said, "but awkwardness +has no forgiveness in heaven or earth." He admired in Newton, not so +much his theory of the moon, as his letter to Collins, in which he +forbade him to insert his name with the solution of the problem in the +"Philosophical Transactions": "It would perhaps increase my +acquaintance, the thing which I chiefly study to decline." + +These conversations led me somewhat later to the knowledge of similar +cases, existing elsewhere, and to the discovery that they are not of +very infrequent occurrence. Few substances are found pure in +nature. Those constitutions which can bear in open day the rough +dealing of the world must be of that mean and average structure,--such +as iron and salt, atmospheric air, and water. But there are metals, +like potassium and sodium, which, to be kept pure, must be kept under +naphtha. Such are the talents determined on some specialty, which a +culminating civilization fosters in the heart of great cities and in +royal chambers. Nature protects her own work. To the culture of the +world, an Archimedes, a Newton is indispensable; so she guards them by +a certain aridity. If these had been good fellows, fond of dancing, +Port, and clubs, we should have had no "Theory of the Sphere," and no +"Principia." They had that necessity of isolation which genius +feels. Each must stand on his glass tripod, if he would keep his +electricity. Even Swedenborg, whose theory of the universe is based on +affection, and who reprobates to weariness the danger and vice of pure +intellect, is constrained to make an extraordinary exception: "There +are also angels who do not live consociated, but separate, house and +house; these dwell in the midst of heaven, because they are the best +of angels." + +We have known many fine geniuses have that imperfection that they +cannot do anything useful, not so much as write one clean +sentence. 'Tis worse, and tragic, that no man is fit for society who +has fine traits. At a distance, he is admired; but bring him hand to +hand, he is a cripple. One protects himself by solitude, and one by +courtesy, and one by an acid, worldly manner,--each concealing how he +can the thinness of his skin and his incapacity for strict +association. But there is no remedy that can reach the heart of the +disease, but either habits of self-reliance that should go in practice +to making the man independent of the human race, or else a religion of +love. Now he hardly seems entitled to marry; for how can he protect a +woman, who cannot protect himself? + +We pray to be conventional. But the wary Heaven takes care you shall +not be, if there is anything good in you. Dante was very bad company, +and was never invited to dinner. Michel Angelo had a sad, sour time of +it. The ministers of beauty are rarely beautiful in coaches and +saloons. Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself. Yet +each of these potentates saw well the reason of his exclusion. +Solitary was he? Why, yes; but his society was limited only +by the amount of brain Nature appropriated in that age to carry on the +government of the world. "If I stay," said Dante, when there was +question of going to Rome, "who will go? and if I go, who will stay?" + +But the necessity of solitude is deeper than we have said, and is +organic. I have seen many a philosopher whose world is large enough +for only one person. He affects to be a good companion; but we are +still surprising his secret, that he means and needs to impose his +system on all the rest. The determination of each is _from_ all +the others, like that of each tree up into free space. 'Tis no wonder, +when each has his whole head, our societies should be so small. Like +President Tyler, our party falls from us every day, and we must ride +in a sulky at last. Dear heart! take it sadly home to thee, there is +no coöperation. We begin with friendships, and all our youth is a +reconnoitring and recruiting of the holy fraternity that shall combine +for the salvation of men. But so the remoter stars seem a nebula of +united light, yet there is no group which a telescope will not +resolve, and the dearest friends are separated by impassable +gulfs. The coöperation is involuntary, and is put upon us by the +Genius of Life, who reserves this as a part of his prerogative. 'Tis +fine for us to talk: we sit and muse, and are serene, and complete; +but the moment we meet with anybody, each becomes a fraction. + +Though the stuff of tragedy and of romances is in a moral union of two +superior persons, whose confidence in each other for long years, out +of sight, and in sight, and against all appearances, is at last +justified by victorious proof of probity to gods and men, causing +joyful emotions, tears, and glory,--though there be for heroes this +_moral union_, yet they, too, are as far off as ever from an +intellectual union, and the moral union is for comparatively low and +external purposes, like the coöperation of a ship's company, or of a +fire-club. But how insular and pathetically solitary are all the +people we know! Nor dare they tell what they think of each other, when +they meet in the street. We have a fine right, to be sure, to taunt +men of the world with superficial and treacherous courtesies! + +Such is the tragic necessity which strict science finds underneath our +domestic and neighborly life, irresistibly driving each adult soul as +with whips into the desert, and making our warm covenants sentimental +and momentary. We must infer that the ends of thought were +peremptory, if they were to be secured at such ruinous cost. They are +deeper than can be told, and belong to the immensities and +eternities. They reach down to that depth where society itself +originates and disappears,--where the question is, Which is first, man +or men?--where the individual is lost in his source. + +But this banishment to the rocks and echoes no metaphysics can make +right or tolerable. This result is so against nature, such a +half-view, that it must be corrected by a common sense and +experience. "A man is born by the side of his father, and there he +remains." A man must be clothed with society, or we shall feel a +certain bareness and poverty, as of a displaced and unfurnished +member. He is to be dressed in arts and institutions, as well as +body-garments. Now and then a man exquisitely made can live alone, +and must but coop up most men, and you undo them. "The king lived and +ate in his hall with men, and understood men," said Selden. When a +young barrister said to the late Mr. Mason, "I keep my chamber to read +law." "Read law!" replied the veteran, "'tis in the courtroom you +must read law." Nor is the rule otherwise for literature. If you would +learn to write, 'tis in the street you must learn it. Both for the +vehicle and for the aims of fine arts, you must frequent the public +square. The people, and not the college, is the writer's home. A +scholar is a candle, which the love and desire of all men will +light. Never his lands or his rents, but the power to charm the +disguised soul that sits veiled under this bearded and that rosy +visage is his rent and ration. His products are as needful as those of +the baker or the weaver. Society cannot do without cultivated men. As +soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher wants become +imperative. + +'Tis hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our own top; but through +sympathy we are capable of energy and endurance. Concert exasperates +people to a certain fury of performance they can rarely reach +alone. Here is the use of society: it is so easy with the great to be +great! so easy to come up to an existing standard!--as easy as it is +to the lover to swim to his maiden, through waves so grim before. The +benefits of affection are immense; and the one event which never loses +its romance is the alighting of superior persons at our gate. + +It by no means follows that we are not fit for society, because +_soirées_ are tedious, and because the _soirée_ finds us +tedious. A backwoodsman, who had been sent to the university, told +me, that when he heard the best-bred young men at the law-school talk +together, he reckoned himself a boor; but whenever he caught them +apart, and had one to himself alone, then they were the boors, and he +the better man. And if we recall the rare hours when we encountered +the best persons, we then found ourselves, and then first society +seemed to exist. That was society, though in the transom of a brig, +or on the Florida Keys. + +A cold, sluggish blood thinks it has not facts enough to the purpose, +and must decline its turn in the conversation. But they who speak have +no more,--have less. 'Tis not new facts that avail, but the heat to +dissolve everybody's facts. Heat puts you in right relation with +magazines of facts. The capital defect of cold, arid natures is the +want of animal spirits. They seem a power incredible, as if God +should raise the dead. The recluse witnesses what others perform by +their aid with a kind of fear. It is as much out of his possibility, +as the prowess of Coeur-de-Lion, or an Irishman's day's work on the +railroad. 'Tis said, the present and the future are always +rivals. Animal spirits constitute the power of the present, and their +feats are like the structure of a pyramid. Their result is a lord, a +general, or a boon-companion. Before these, what a base mendicant is +Memory with his leathern badge! But this genial heat is latent in all +constitutions, and is disengaged only by the friction of society. As +Bacon said of manners, "To obtain them, it only needs not to despise +them," so we say of animal spirits, that they are the spontaneous +product of health and of a social habit. "For behavior, men learn it, +as they take diseases, one of another." + +But the people are to be taken in very small doses. If solitude is +proud, so is society vulgar. In society, high advantages are set down +to the individual as disadvantages. We sink as easily as we rise, +through sympathy. So many men whom I know are degraded by their +sympathies, their native aims being high enough, but their relation +all too tender to the gross people about them. Men cannot afford to +live together on their merits, and they adjust themselves by their +demerits,--by their love of gossip, or sheer tolerance and animal +good-nature. They untune and dissipate the brave aspirant. + +The remedy is, to reinforce each of these moods from the +other. Conversation will not corrupt us, if we come to the assembly in +our own garb and speech, and with the energy of health to select what +is ours and reject what is not. Society we must have; but let it be +society, and not exchanging news, or eating from the same dish. Is it +society to sit in one of your chairs? I cannot go to the houses of my +nearest relatives, because I do not wish to be alone. Society exists +by chemical affinity, and not otherwise. + +Put any company of people together with freedom for conversation, and +a rapid self-distribution takes place into sets and pairs. The best +are accused of exclusiveness. It would be more true to say, they +separate as oil from water, as children from old people, without love +or hatred in the matter, each seeking his like; and any interference +with the affinities would produce constraint and suffocation. All +conversation is a magnetic experiment. I know that my friend can talk +eloquently; you know that he cannot articulate a sentence: we have +seen him in different company. Assort your party, or invite none. Put +Stubbs and Byron, Quintilian and Aunt Miriam, into pairs, and you make +them all wretched. 'Tis an extempore Sing-Sing built in a +parlor. Leave them to seek their own mates, and they will be as merry +as sparrows. + +A higher civility will reëstablish in our customs a certain reverence +which we have lost. What to do with these brisk young men who break +through all fences, and make themselves at home in every house? I find +out in an instant if my companion does not want me, and ropes cannot +hold me when my welcome is gone. One would think that the affinities +would pronounce themselves with a surer reciprocity. + +Here again, as so often, Nature delights to put us between extreme +antagonisms, and our safety is in the skill with which we keep the +diagonal line. Solitude is impracticable, and society fatal. We must +keep our head in the one, and our hands in the other. The conditions +are met, if we keep our independence, yet do not lose our +sympathy. These wonderful horses need to be driven by fine hands. We +require such a solitude as shall hold us to its revelations when we +are in the street and in palaces; for most men are cowed in society, +and say good things to you in private, but will not stand to them in +public. But let us not be the victims of words. Society and solitude +are deceptive names. It is not the circumstance of seeing more or +fewer people, but the readiness of sympathy, that imports; and a sound +mind will derive its principles from insight, with ever a purer ascent +to the sufficient and absolute right, and will accept society as the +natural element in which they are to be applied. + + + + +AKIN BY MARRIAGE. + +[Continued.] + + +CHAPTER III + +When little Helen was not far from nine years old, her mother, (as she +had learned to call Mrs. Bugbee,) whose health for a long time had +been failing, fell sick and took to her bed. Sometimes, for a brief +space, she would seem to mend a little; and a council of doctors, +convened to consider her case,--though each member differed from all +the others touching the nature of her malady,--unanimously declared +she would ultimately recover. But her disease, whatever it was, proved +to be her mortal illness; for the very next night she came suddenly to +her end. Her loss was a heavy one, especially to her own household. +She had always been a quiet person, of rather pensive humor, whose +native diffidence caused her to shrink from observation; and after +Amelia's death she was rarely seen abroad, except at meeting, on +Sundays, or when she went to visit the poor, the sick, or the +grief-stricken. It was at home that her worth was most apparent; +for plain domestic virtues, such as hers, seldom gain wide +distinction. Her children's sorrow was deep and lasting, and the badge +of mourning which her husband wore for many months after her death was +a truthful symbol of unaffected grief. From the beginning, he was +warmly attached to his wife, whose affection for him was very great +indeed. It would have been strange if he had been unhappy, when she, +who made his tastes her study, also made it the business of her life +to please him. Besides, his cheerful temper enabled him to make light +of more grievous misfortunes than the getting of a loving wife and +thrifty helpmeet ten years older than himself. + +When a widower, like the Doctor, is but fifty, with the look of a much +younger man, people are apt to talk about the chances of his marrying +again. Before Mrs. Bugbee had been dead a twelve-month, rumors were as +plenty as blackberries that the Doctor had been seen, late on Sunday +evenings, leaving this house, or that house, the dwelling-place of +some marriageable lady; and if he had finally espoused all whom the +gossips reported he was going to marry, he would have had as many +wives as any Turkish pasha or Mormon elder. It was doubtless true that +he called at certain places more frequently than had been his custom +in Mrs. Bugbee's lifetime. This, he assured Cornelia, to whom the +reports I have mentioned occasioned some uneasiness, was because he +was more often summoned to attend, in a professional way, at those +places, than he had ever been of old; which was true enough, I dare +say, for more spinsters and widows were taken ailing about this time +than had ever been ill at once before. Be that as it may, certain +arrangements which the Doctor presently made in his domestic affairs +did not seem to foretoken an immediate change of condition. + +Miss Statira Blake, whom the Doctor engaged as housekeeper, was the +youngest daughter of an honest shoemaker, who formerly flourished at +Belfield Green, where he was noted for industry, a fondness for +reading, a tenacious memory, a ready wit, and a fluent tongue. In +politics he was a radical, and in religion a schismatic. The little +knot of Presbyterian Federalist magnates, who used to assemble at the +tavern to discuss affairs of church and state over mugs of flip and +tumblers of sling, regarded him with feelings of terror and +aversion. The doughty little cobbler made nothing of attacking them +single-handed, and putting them utterly to rout; for he was a dabster +at debate, and entertained as strong a liking for polemics as for +books. Nay, he was a thorn in the side of the parson himself, for +whom he used to lie in wait with knotty questions,--snares set to +entrap the worthy divine, in the hope of beguiling him into a +controversy respecting some abstruse point of doctrine, in which the +cobbler, who had every verse of the Bible at his tongue's end, was not +apt to come off second best. + +But one day, Tommy Blake, being at a raising where plenty of liquor +was furnished, (as the fashion used to be,) slipped and fell from a +high beam, and was carried home groaning with a skinful of broken +bones. He died the next day, poor man, and his bedridden widow +survived the shock of witnessing his dreadful agonies and death but a +very little while. Her daughters, two young girls, were left destitute +and friendless. But Major Bugbee, to whom the cobbler's wife had been +remotely akin, and who was at that time first selectman of the town, +took the orphans with him to his house, where they tarried till he +found good places for them. Roxana, the elder girl, went to live with +a reputable farmer's wife, whose only son she afterwards +married. Statira remained under the shelter of the good Major's +hospitable roof much longer than her sister did, and would have been +welcome to stay, but she was not one of those who like to eat the +bread of dependence. With the approval of the selectmen, she bound +herself an indentured apprentice to Billy Tuthill, the little lame +tailor, for whom she worked faithfully four years, until she had +served out her time and was mistress of her trade, even to the +recondite mystery of cutting a double-breasted swallow-tail coat by +rule and measure. Then, at eighteen, she set up business for herself, +going from house to house as her customers required, working by the +day. Her services were speedily in great demand, and she was never out +of employment. Many a worthy citizen of Belfield well remembers his +first jacket-and-trowsers, the handiwork of Tira Blake. The Sunday +breeches of half the farmers who came to meeting used to be the +product of her skilful labor. Thus for many years (refusing meanwhile +several good offers of marriage) she continued to ply her needle and +shears, working steadily and cheerfully in her vocation, earning good +wages and spending but little, until the thrifty sempstress was +counted well to do, and held in esteem according. Sometimes, when she +got weary, and thought a change of labor would do her good, she would +engage with some lucky dame to help do housework for a month or +two. She was a famous hand at pickling, preserving, and making all +manner of toothsome knick-knacks and dainties. Nor was she deficient +in the pleasure walks of the culinary art. Betsey Pratt, the +tavernkeeper's wife, a special crony of Statira's, used always to send +for her whenever she was in straits, or when, on some grand occasion, +a dinner or supper was to be prepared and served up in more than +ordinary style. So learned was she in all the devices of the pantry +and kitchen, that many a young woman in the parish would have given +half her setting-out, and her whole store of printed cookery-books, to +know by heart Tira Blake's unwritten lore of rules and recipes. So, +wherever she went, she was welcome, albeit not a few stood in fear of +her; for though, when well treated, she was as good-humored as a +kitten, when provoked, especially by a slight or affront, her wrath +was dangerous. Her tongue was sharper than her needle, and her +pickles were not more piquant than her sarcastic wit. Tira, the older +people used to remark, was Tommy Blake's own daughter; and truly, she +did inherit many of her father's qualities, both good and bad, and not +a few of his crotchets and opinions. In fine, she was a shrewd, +sensible, Yankee old maid, who, as she herself was wont to say, was as +well able to take care of 'number one' as e'er a man in town. + +Statira never forgot Major Bugbee's kindness to her in her lonely +orphanhood. She preserved for him and for every member of his family +a grateful affection; but her special favorite was James, the Doctor's +brother, who was a little younger than she, and who repaid this +partiality with hearty good-will and esteem. When he grew up and +married, his house became one of Statira's homes; the other being at +her sister's house, which was too remote from Belfield Green to be at +all times convenient. So she had rooms, which she called alike her +own, at both these places, in each of which she kept a part of her +wardrobe and a portion of her other goods and chattels. The children +of both families called her Aunt Statira, but, if the truth were +known, she loved little Frank Bugbee, James's only son, better than +she did the whole brood of her sister Roxy's flaxen-pated +offspring. Nay, she loved him better than all the world besides. +Statira used to call James her right-hand man, asking for his advice +in every matter of importance, and usually acting in accordance with +it. So, when Doctor Bugbee invited her to take charge of his household +affairs, Cornelia joining in the request with earnest importunity, she +did not at once return a favorable reply, though strongly inclined +thereto, but waited until she had consulted James and his wife, who +advised her to accept the proffered trust, giving many sound and +excellent reasons why she ought to do so. + +Accordingly, a few months after Mrs. Bugbee's death, Statira began to +sway the sceptre where she had once found refuge from the poor-house; +for though Cornelia remained the titular mistress of the mansion, +Statira was the actual ruler, invested with all the real power. +Cornelia gladly resigned into her more experienced hands the reins of +government, and betook herself to occupations more congenial to her +tastes than housekeeping. Whenever, afterwards, she made a languid +offer to perform some light domestic duty, Statira was accustomed to +reply in such wise that the most perfect concord was maintained +between them. "No, my dear," the latter would say, "do you just leave +these things to me. If there a'n't help enough in the house to do the +work, your pa'll get 'em; and as for overseein', one's better than +two." But sometimes, when little Helen proffered her assistance, Tira +let the child try her hand, taking great pains to instruct her in +housewifery, warmly praising her successful essays, and finding +excuses for every failure. It was not long before a cordial friendship +subsisted between the teacher and her pupil. + +The Doctor, of course, experienced great contentment at beholding his +children made happy, his house well kept and ordered, his table spread +with plentiful supplies of savory victuals, and all his domestic +concerns managed with sagacity and prudence, by one upon whose +goodwill and ability to promote his welfare he could rely with +implicit confidence. Even the servants shared in the general +satisfaction; for though, under Tira's vigorous rule, no task or duty +could be safely shunned or slighted, she proved a kind and even an +indulgent mistress to those who showed themselves worthy of her +favor. Old Violet, the mother of Dinah, the little black girl +elsewhere mentioned, yielded at once to Tira Blake the same respectful +obedience that she and her ancestors, for more than a century in due +succession, had been wont to render only to dames of the ancient +Bugbee line. Dinah herself, now a well-grown damsel, black, but +comely, who, during Cornelia's maladministration, had been suffered to +follow too much the devices and desires of her own heart, setting at +naught alike the entreaties and reproofs of her mistress and her +mother's angry scoldings,--even Dinah submitted without a murmur to +Tira's wholesome authority, and abandoned all her evil courses. +Bildad Royce, a crotchety hired-man, whom the Doctor kept to do the +chores and till the garden, albeit at first inclined to be captious, +accorded to the new housekeeper the meed of his approbation. + +"I like her well enough to hope she'll stay, mum," quoth he, in reply +to an inquisitive neighbor. "And for my part, Miss Prouty," he added, +nodding and winking at his questioner, "I'd like to see it fixed so +she'd alwus stay; and if the Doctor _doos_ think he can't do no +better'n to have her bimeby, when the time comes, who's a right to say +a word agin it?" + +"Goodness me!" exclaimed the unwary Mrs. Prouty,--"do you mean to say +you think he's got any idea of such a thing, Bildad?" + +"Yes, I _don't_ mean to say I think he's got any idee of sich a thing, +Bildad," replied Bildad himself, who took great delight in mystifying +people, and who sometimes, in order to express the most unqualified +negation, was accustomed to employ this apparently ambiguous form of +speech. "I said for _my_ part, Miss Prouty,--for _my_ part. As for the +Doctor, he'll prob'bly have his own notions, and foller 'em." + +Besides these already mentioned, there was another person, who sat so +often at the Doctor's board and spent so many hours beneath his roof, +that, for the nonce, I shall reckon her among his family. Indeed, +Laura Stebbins was almost as much at home in the Bugbee mansion as at +the parsonage, and she used to regard the Doctor and his wife with an +affection quite filial in kind and very ardent in degree. For this she +had abundant reason, the good couple always treating her with the +utmost kindness, frequently making her presents of clothes and things +which she needed, besides gifts of less use and value. These tokens of +her friends' good-will she used to receive with many sprightly +demonstrations of thankfulness; sometimes, in her transports of +gratitude, distributing between the Doctor and his wife a number of +delicious kisses, and telling the latter that her husband was the best +and most generous of men. After Mrs. Bugbee's death, the Doctor's +manner, as was to be expected, became more grave and sober, and he +very wisely thought proper to treat Laura with a kindness less +familiar than before, which perceiving with the quickness of her sex, +she also practised a like reserve. But notwithstanding this prudent +change in his demeanor, his good-will for Laura was in no wise +abated. At all events, the friendship between Cornelia and Laura +suffered no decay or diminution. Indeed, it increased in fervency and +strength. For Laura, having finished her course of study at the +Belfield Academy, had now more time to devote to Cornelia than when +she had had lessons to get and recitations to attend. The parsonage +stood next to the Bugbee mansion, and in the paling between the two +gardens there was a wicket, through which Cornelia, Laura, and Helen +used to run to and fro a dozen times a day. The females of the +Doctor's family made nothing of scudding, bareheaded, across to the +parsonage by this convenient back-way, and bolting into the kitchen +without so much as knocking at the door; and Laura's habits at the +Bugbee mansion were still more familiar. Mrs. Jaynes, though not the +most affable of womankind, gave this close intimacy much favor and +encouragement; for she bore in mind that Cornelia's father was the +richest and most influential member of her husband's church and +parish. + +At first, Laura was a little shy of the plain-spoken old maid, for +whose person, manners, and opinions she had often heard Mrs. Jaynes +express, in private, a most bitter dislike. But Statira had been +regnant in the Bugbee mansion less than a week, when Laura began to +make timid advances towards a mutual good understanding, of which for +a while Statira affected to take no heed; for having formed a +resolution to maintain a strict reserve towards every inmate of the +parsonage, she was not disposed to break it so soon, even in favor of +Laura, whose winsome overtures she found it difficult to resist. + +"If it wa'n't for her bein' Miss Jaynes's sister," said she, one day, +to Cornelia, who had been praising her friend,--"if it wa'n't for that +one thing, I should like her remarkable well,--a good deal more'n +common." + +"Pray, what have you got such a spite against the Jayneses for?" asked +Cornelia. + +"What do you mean by askin' such a question as that, Cornele?" said +Tira, in a tone of stern reproof. "Who's got a spite against 'em? Not +I, by a good deal! As for the parson himself, he's a well-meanin' man, +and does as near right as he knows how. If you could say as much as +that for everybody, there wouldn't be any need of parsons any more." + +"But you don't like Mrs. Jaynes," persisted Cornelia. + +"I ha'n't got a spite against her, Cornele,--though, I confess, I +don't love the woman," replied Statira. "But I always treat her well; +though, to be sure, I don't curchy so low and keep smilin' so much as +most folks do, when they meet a minister's wife and have talk with +her. Even when she comes here a-borrowin' things she knows will be +giv' to her when she asks for 'em, which makes it so near to beggin' +that she ought to be ashamed on't, which I only give to her because +it's your father's wish for me to do so, and the things are his'n; but +I always treat her well, Cornele." + +"But why don't you like her, Tira?" asked Helen. + +"My dear, I'll tell you," said Statira; "for I don't want you to think +I'm set against any person unreasonable and without cause. You see +Miss Jaynes is a nateral-born beggar. I don't say it with any +ill-will, but it's a fact. She takes to beggin' as naterally as a +goslin' takes to a puddle; and when she first come to town she +commenced a-beggin', and has kep' it up ever since. She used to tackle +me the same as she does everybody else, askin' me to give somethin' to +this, and to that, and to t'other pet humbug of her'n, but I never +would do it; and when she found she could'nt worry me into it, like +the rest of 'em, it set her very bitter against me; and I heard of her +tellin' I'd treated her with rudeness, which I'd always treated her +civilly, only when I said 'No,' she found coaxin' and palaverin' +wouldn't stir me. So it went on for a year or two, till, one fall, I +was stayin' here to your ma's,--Cornele, I guess you remember the +time,--helpin' of her make up her quinces and apples. We was jest in +the midst of bilin' cider, with one biler on the stove and the biggest +brass kittle full in the fireplace, when in comes boltin' Miss Jaynes, +dressed up as fine as a fiddle. She set right down in the kitchen, and +your ma rolled her sleeves down and took off her apurn, lookin' kind +o' het and worried. After a few words, Miss Jaynes took a paper out +of her pocket, and says she to your ma, 'Miss Bugbee,' says she, 'I'm +a just startin' forth on the Lord's business, and I come to you as the +helpmate and pardner of one of his richest stewards in this +vineyard.'--'What is it now?' says your ma, lookin' out of one eye at +the brass kittle, and speakin' more impatient than I ever heard her +speak to a minister's wife before. Well, I can't spend time to tell +all that Miss Jaynes said in answer, but it seemed some of the big +folks in New York had started a new society, and its object was to +provide, as near as ever I could find out, such kind of necessary +notions for indigent young men studyin' to be ministers as they +couldn't well afford to buy for themselves,--such as steel-bowed specs +for the near-sighted ones, and white cravats, black silk gloves, and +linen-cambric handkerchiefs for 'em all,--in order, as Miss Jaynes +said, these young fellers might keep up a respectable appearance, and +not give a chance for the world's people to get a contemptible idee of +the ministry, on account of the shabby looks of the young men that had +laid out to foller that holy callin'. She said it was a cause that +ought to lay near the heart of every evangelical Christian man, and +especially the women. 'We mothers in Israel,' says Miss Jaynes, 'ought +to feel for these young Davids that have gone forth to give battle to +the Goliaths of sin that are a-stalkin' and struttin' round all over +the land.' She said the society was goin' to be a great institution, +with an office to New York, with an executive committee and three +secretaries in attendance there, and was a-goin' to employ a great +number of clergymen, out of a parish, to travel as agents collecting +funds; 'but,' says she, 'I've a better tack for collectin' than most +people, and I've concluded to canvass this town myself for donations +to this noble and worthy cause; and I've come to you, Miss Bugbee,' +says she, 'to lead off with your accustomed liberality.'--Well, what +does your ma do, but go into her room, to her draw, I suppose, and +fetch out a five-dollar bill, and give it to Miss Jaynes, which I'd +'a' had to work a week, stitchin' from mornin' to night, to have earnt +that five-dollar bill; though, of course, your ma had a right to burn +it up, if she'd 'a' been a mind to; only it made me ache to see it go +so, when there was thousands of poor starvin' ragged orphans needin' +it so bad. All to once Miss Jaynes wheeled and spoke to me: 'Well, +Miss Tira,' says she, 'can I have a dollar from you?'--'No, ma'am,' +says I.--'I supposed not,' says she; which would have been sassy in +anybody but the parson's wife. But I held my tongue, and out she went, +takin' no more notice of me than she did of Vi'let, nor half so +much,--for I see her kind o' look towards the old woman, as if she was +half a mind to ask her for a fourpence-ha'penny. Well, that was the +last on't for a spell, until after New Year's. I was stayin' then at +your Uncle James's, and one afternoon your ma sent for your Aunt +Eunice and me to come over and take tea. So we went over, and there +was several of the neighbors invited in,--Squire Bramhall's wife, and +them your ma used to go with most, and amongst the rest, of course, +Miss Jaynes. There had just before that been a donation party, New +Year's night, to the parson's, and the Dorcas Society had bought Miss +Jaynes a nice new Brussels carpet for her parlor, all cut and fitted +and made up. In the course of the afternoon Miss Bramhall spoke and +asked if the new carpet was put down, and if it fitted well. 'Oh, +beautiful!' says she, 'it fits the room like a glove; somebody must +have had pretty good eyes to took the measure so correct, and I not +know anything what was a-comin'; and I hope,' says she, 'ladies, +you'll take an early opportunity to drop in and see it; for there +a'n't one of you but what I'm under obligation to for this touchin' +token of your love,' (that's what she called it,)--'except,' says she, +of a sudden, 'except Miss Blake, whom, really, I hadn't noticed +before!'--I tell ye, Cornele, my ebenezer was up at this; for you +can't tell how mean and spiteful she spoke and looked, pretendin' as +if I was so insignificant a critter she hadn't taken notice of my +bein' there before, which, to be sure, she hadn't even bid me good +afternoon; and for my part, I hadn't put myself forward among such +women as was there, though I didn't feel beneath 'em, nor they didn't +think so, except Miss Jaynes.--Then she went on. 'Miss Blake,' says +she, 'I believe didn't mean no slight for not helpin' towards the +carpet; for she never gives to anything, as I know of,' says +she. 'I've often asked her for various objects, and have been as often +refused. The last time,' says she, 'I did expect to get somethin'; for +I asked only for a dollar to that noble society for providin' young +men, a-strugglin' to prepare themselves for usefulness in the +ministry, with some of the common necessaries of life, but she refused +me. I expect,' says she, a-sneerin' in such a way that I couldn't +stand it any longer, 'I expect Miss Blake is a-savin' all her money to +buy her settin'-out and furniture with; for I suppose,' says she, +lookin' more spiteful than ever, 'I suppose Miss Blake thinks that as +long as there's life there's hope for a husband.'--I happen to know +what all the ladies thought of this speech, for every one of 'em +afterwards told me; but, if you'll believe me, one or two of the +youngest of 'em kind of pretended to smile at the joke on't, when Miss +Jaynes looked round as if she expected 'em to laugh; for she thought, +I suppose, I was really and truly no account, bein' a cobbler's +daughter and a tailoress,--and that when the minister's wife insulted +me, I dars'n't reply, and all hands would stand by and applaud. But +she found out her mistake, and she begun to think so, when she see how +grave your ma and all the rest of the older ladies looked, for they +knew what was comin'. I'd bit my lips up till now, and held in out of +respect to the place and the company, but I thought it was due to +myself to speak at last. Says I, 'Miss Jaynes, I've always treated you +with civility and the respect due to your place; though I own I ha'n't +felt free to give my hard-earned wages away to objects I didn't know +much about, when, with my limited means, I could find places to bestow +what little I could spare without huntin' 'em up. I don't mean to +boast,' says I, 'of my benevolence, and I don't have gilt-framed +diplomas hung up in my room to certify to it, to be seen and read of +all men, as the manner of some is,--but,' says I, 'I _will_ say +that I've given this year twenty-five dollars to the Orphan Asylum, to +Hartford, and I've a five-dollar gold-piece in my puss,' says I, 'that +I can spare, and will give that more to the same charity, for the +privilege of tellin' before these ladies, that heard me accused of +being stingy, why I don't give to you when you ask me to, and +especially why I didn't give the last time you asked me. I would like +to tell why I didn't help sew in the Dorcas Society, to buy the new +carpet,' says I, 'but I don't want to hurt anybody's feelin's that +ha'n't hurt mine, and I'll forbear.'--By this time Miss Jaynes was +pale as a sheet. 'I'm sure,' says she, 'I don't care why you don't +choose to give, and I don't suppose any one else does. It's your own +affair,' says she, 'and you a'n't compelled to give unless you're a +mind to.'--'You should have thought of that before you twitted me,' +says I, 'before all this company.'--'Oh, Tira, never mind,' says Miss +Bramhall, 'let it all go!' But up spoke your Aunt Eunice, and says +she, 'It's no more than fair to hear Tira's reasons, after what's been +said.'" + +"Good!" said little Helen; "hurrah for Aunt Eunice!" + +"And your ma," resumed Statira, "I knew by her looks she was on my +side, though, it bein' her own house, she felt less free to say as +much as your Aunt Eunice did.--'In the first place,' says I, 'if I did +want to keep my money to buy furniture with, in case I should get a +husband, I expect I've a right to, for 'ta'n't likely,' says I, 'I +shall be lucky enough to have my carpets giv' to me. But that wa'n't +the reason I didn't put my name down for a dollar on that +subscription. One reason was, I knew the upshot on't would be that +somebody would be put up to suggestin' that the money should go for a +life-membership in the society for Miss Jaynes,' says I; 'and I don't +like to encourage anybody in goin' round beggin' for money to buy her +own promotion to a high seat in the synagogue.'--You ought to seen +Miss Jaynes's face then! It was redder'n any beet, for I'd hit the +nail square on the head, as it happened, and the ladies could scurcely +keep from smilin'.--'Then,' says I, 'I shouldn't be my father's +daughter, if I'd give a cent for a preacher that isn't smart enough to +get his own livin' and pay for his own clothes and eddication. To ask +poor women to pay for an able-bodied man's expenses,' says I, 'seems +to me like turnin' the thing wrong end foremost. A young feller that +a'n't smart enough to find himself in victuals and clothes won't be of +much help in the Lord's vineyard,' says I." + +"And what did Mrs. Jaynes say?" asked little Helen, when Tira finally +came to a pause. + +"Well, really, my dear," replied Miss Blake, "the woman had nothin' to +say, and so she said it. When I got through my speech I handed the +five-dollar gold-piece to your Aunt Eunice, to send to the Asylum, and +that ended it; for just then Dinah come in and said tea was ready, and +we all went out. It was rather stiff for a while, and after tea we all +went home; and for three long years Miss Jaynes never opened her face +to me, until I came here to live, this time. Now she finds it's for +her interest to make up, and so she tries to be as good as pie. But +though I mean to be civil, I'm no hypocrite, and I can't be all honey +and cream to them I don't like; and besides, it a'n't right to be." + +"But you ought not to blame Laura because her sister affronted you," +said Helen. + +"I know that, my dear," replied Miss Blake; "and if I've hurt the +girl's feelin's, I'm sorry for't. She's tried hard to be friends with +me, but I've pushed her off; for, not bein' much acquainted, I was +jealous, at first, that Miss Jaynes had put her up to it, to try to +get round me in some way." + +"Never!" cried Cornelia,--"my Laura is incapable of such baseness!" + +"Well," said Statira, smiling, "come to know her, I guess you can't +find much guile in her, that's a fact. If I did her wrong by +mistrustin' her without cause, I'll try to make amends. It a'n't in me +to speak ha'sh even to a dog, if the critter looks up into my face and +wags his tail in honest good-nater. And I'll say this for Laura +Stebbins, anyhow, if she _is_ Miss Jaynes's sister,--she's got +the most takin' ways of 'most any grown-up person I ever see." + +The reflection is painful to a generous mind, that, by harboring +unjust suspicions of another, one has been led to repel friendly +advances with indifference or disdain. In order to assuage some +remorseful pangs, Miss Blake began from this time to treat Laura with +distinguished favor. On the other hand, Laura, delighted at this +pleasant change in Miss Blake's demeanor, sought frequent +opportunities of testifying her joy and gratitude. In this manner an +intimacy began, which ripened at length into a firm and enduring +friendship. Laura soon commenced the practice of applying to her more +experienced friend for advice and direction in almost every matter, +great or small, and of confiding to her trust divers secrets and +confessions which she would never have ventured to repose even in +Cornelia's faithful bosom. This prudent habit Tira encouraged. + +"I know, my dear," said she, one day, "I know what it is to be almost +alone in the world, and what a comfort it is to have somebody you can +rely on to tell your griefs and troubles to, and, as it were, get 'em +to help you bear 'em. So, my dear child, whenever you want to get my +notions on any point, just come right straight to me, if you feel like +it. I may not be able to give you the best advice, for I a'n't so +wise as you seem to think I be; however, I ha'n't lived nigh fifty +years in the world for naught, I trust, and without havin' learnt some +things worth knowin'; and though my counsel mayn't be worth much, +still you shall have the best I can give." + +"Oh, thank you, thank you!" cried Laura, with such a burst of +passionate emotion that Miss Blake's eyes watered at the sight of +it. "My dear, dear, dear good friend! you don't know how glad I shall +be, if you will let me do as you say, and tell me what to do, and +scold me, and admonish and warn me! Oh, it will be such happiness to +have somebody to tell all my _real_ secrets and troubles to! I do +so need such a friend sometimes!" + +"Don't I know it, you poor dear?" said Miss Blake, wiping her +eyes. "Ha'n't I been through the same straits myself? None but them +that's been a young gal themselves, an orphan without a mother to +confide in and to warn and guide 'em, knows what it is. But I do, my +dear; and though I shall be a pretty poor substitute for an own +mother, I'll do the best I can." + +"Tira," said Laura, with a tearful and blushing cheek held up to the +good spinster's, "kiss me, won't you?--you never have." + +"My dear," said Miss Blake, preparing to comply with this request by +wiping her lips with her apron, "you see I a'n't one of the kissin' +sort, and I scurcely ever kiss a grown-up person; but here's my hand, +and here's a kiss,"--with an old-fashioned smack that might have been +heard in the next room,--"for a token that you may always come to me +as freely as if I was your mother, relyin' upon my givin' you my +honest advice and opinion concernin' any affair that you may ask for +counsel upon. And furthermore, as girls naterally have a wish that the +very things they need some one to direct 'em the most in sha'n't be +known except by them they tell the secret to, I promise you, my dear, +that I'll be as close as a freemason concernin' any privacy that you +may trust me with, about any offer or courtin' matter of any kind." + +"Oh, I shall never have any such secrets," said Laura, blushing; "my +sister never lets the beaux come to see me, you know. I'm going to be +an old maid." + +"Well, perhaps you will be," said Miss Blake; "only they gen'ally +don't make old maids of such lookin' girls as you be." + +But though Miss Blake took Laura into favor, she was by no means +inclined to do the same by Mrs. Jaynes, who, having found to her cost +that the ill-will of the humble sempstress was not to be lightly +contemned, was now plainly anxious to conciliate her. But Statira was +proof against all the wheedling and flattery of the parson's wife, +behaving towards her always with the same cool civility, and with +great self-control,--using none of the frequent opportunities afforded +her to make some taunt, or fling, or reproachful allusion to +Mrs. Jaynes's former conduct. Once, to be sure, when urged by the +parson's wife and a committee of the Dorcas Society to invite that +respectable body to convene at the Bugbee mansion for labor and +refreshment, Statira returned a reply so plainly spoken that it was +deemed rude and ungracious. + +"Cornelia is mistress of this house, Miss Jaynes," said she, "and if +she belonged to your society, and wanted to have its weekly meetin's +here in turn, I'd do my best to give 'em somethin' good to eat and +drink. But as she has left the matter to me, I say 'No,' without any +misgivin' or doubt; and for fear I may be called stingy or unsociable, +I'll tell the reason why I say so,--and besides, it's due to you to +tell it. There's poor women, even in this town, put to it to get +employment by which they can earn bread for themselves and their +children. They can't go out to do housework, for they've got young +ones too little to carry with 'em, and maybe a whole family of +'em. Takin' in sewin' is their only resource. Well, ma'am, for ladies, +well-to-do and rich, to get together, under pretence of good works and +charity, and take away work from these poor women, by offerin' to do +it cheaper, underbiddin' of 'em for jobs, which I've known the thing +to be done, and then settin' over their ill-gotten tasks, sewin', and +gabblin' slander all the afternoon, to get money to buy velvet +pulpit-cushions or gilt chandeliers with, or to help pay some +missionary's passage to the Tongoo Islands, is, in my opinion, a +humbug, and, what's worse, a downright breach of the Golden Rule. At +any rate, with my notions, it would be hypocrisy in me to join in, and +that's why I don't invite the society here. I don't know but I have +spoke too strong; if so, I'm sorry; but I've had to earn my own +livin', ever since I was a girl, with my needle, and I know how hard +the lot of them is that have to do so too. Besides, I can't help +thinkin', what, perhaps, you never thought of, yourselves, ladies, +that every person, who, while they can just as well turn their hands +to other business, yet, for their own whim, or pleasure, or +convenience, or profit, chooses to do work, of which there a'n't +enough now in the world to keep in employment them that must get such +work to do, or else beg, or sin, or starve,--when I think, I say, that +every such person helps some poor cretur into the grave, or the jail, +or a place worse than both, I feel that strong talk isn't out of +place; and I've known this very Dorcas Society to send to Hartford and +get shirts to make, under price, and spend their blood-money +afterwards to buy a new carpet for the minister's parlor. That was a +fact, Miss Jaynes, though perhaps it wa'n't polite in me to speak +on't; and so for fear of worse, I'll say no more." + +When this speech of his housekeeper came to the Doctor's ears, he +expressed so warm an approval of its sentiments, that several who +heard him began to be confirmed in suspicions they had previously +entertained, the nature of which may be inferred from a remark which +Mrs. Prouty confided to the ear of a trusty friend and crony. "Now do +you mind what I say, Miss Baker," said she, shaking her snuffy +forefinger in Mrs. Baker's face; "Doctor Bugbee'll marry Tira Blake +yet. Now do you just stick a pin there." + +But the revolving seasons twice went their annual round, the great +weeping-willow-tree in the burying-ground twice put forth its tender +foliage in the early spring, and twice in autumn strewed with yellow +leaves the mound of Mrs. Bugbee's grave, while the predictions of +many, who, like Mrs. Prouty, had foretold the Doctor's second wedding, +still remained without fulfilment. Nay, at the end of two years after +his wife's death, Doctor Bugbee seemed to be no more disposed to +matrimony than in the first days of his bereavement. There were, to be +sure, floating on the current of village gossip, certain rumors that +he was soon to take a second wife; but as none of these reports agreed +touching the name of the lady, each contradicted all the others, and +so none were of much account. Besides, there was nothing in the +Doctor's appearance or behavior that seemed to warrant any of these +idle stories. It is the way with many hopeful widowers (as everybody +knows) to become, after an interval of decorous sadness, more brisk +and gay than even in their youthful days; bestowing unusual care upon +their attire and the adornment of their persons, and endeavoring, by a +courteous and gallant demeanor towards every unmarried lady, to +signify the great esteem in which they hold the female sex. But these +signs, and all others which betoken an ardent desire to win the +favor of the fair, were wanting in the Doctor's aspect and +deportment. Though, as my reader knows, he was by nature a man of +lively temper, he was now grown more sedate than he had ever been +before; and instead of attiring himself more sprucely than of old, he +neglected his apparel to such a degree, that, although few would have +noticed the untidy change, Statira was filled with continual alarms, +lest some invidious housewife should perceive it, and lay the blame at +her door. Except when called abroad to perform some professional duty, +he spent his time at home, although his family observed that he +secluded himself in his office, among his books and gallipots, more +than had been his wont, and that he sometimes indulged in moods of +silent abstraction, which had never been noticed in his manner until +of late. But these changes of demeanor seemed to betoken an enduring +sorrow for the loss of his wife, rather than to indicate a desire or +an intention to choose a successor to her. My readers, therefore, will +not be surprised to learn, by a plain averment of the simple truth, +that not one of all the score of ladies, whose names had been coupled +with his own, would Doctor Bugbee have married, if he could, and that +to none of them had he ever given any good reason for believing that +she stood especially high in his esteem. + + [To be continued in the next Number.] + + + + +WHERE WILL IT END? + + +Wise men of every name and nation, whether poets, philosophers, +statesmen, or divines, have been trying to explain the puzzles of +human condition, since the world began. For three thousand years, at +least, they have been at this problem, and it is far enough from being +solved yet. Its anomalies seem to have been expressly contrived by +Nature to elude our curiosity and defy our cunning. And no part of it +has she arranged so craftily as that web of institutions, habits, +manners, and customs, in which we find ourselves enmeshed as soon as +we begin to have any perception at all, and which, slight and almost +invisible as it may seem, it is so hard to struggle with and so +impossible to break through. It may be true, according to the poetical +Platonism of Wordsworth, that "heaven lies about us in our infancy"; +but we very soon leave it far behind us, and, as we approach manhood, +sadly discover that we have grown up into a jurisdiction of a very +different kind. + +In almost every region of the earth, indeed, it is literally true that +"shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy." As +his faculties develope, he becomes more and more conscious of the +deepening shadows, as well as of the grim walls that cast them on his +soul, and his opening intelligence is earliest exercised in divining +who built them first, and why they exist at all. The infant Chinese, +the baby Calmuck, the suckling Hottentot, we must suppose, rest +unconsciously in the calm of the heaven from which they, too, have +emigrated, as well as the sturdy new-born Briton, or the freest and +most independent little Yankee that is native and to the manner born +of this great country of our own. But all alike grow gradually into a +consciousness of walls, which, though invisible, are none the less +impassable, and of chains, though light as air, yet stronger than +brass or iron. And everywhere is the machinery ready, though different +in its frame and operation in different torture-chambers, to crush out +the budding skepticism, and to mould the mind into the monotonous +decency of general conformity. Foe or Fetish, King or Kaiser, Deity +itself or the vicegerents it has appointed in its stead, are +answerable for it all. God himself has looked upon it, and it is very +good, and there is no appeal from that approval of the Heavenly +vision. + +In almost every country in the world this deification of institutions +has been promoted by their antiquity. As nobody can remember when they +were not, and as no authentic records exist of their first +establishment, their genealogy can be traced direct to Heaven without +danger of positive disproof. Thus royal races and hereditary +aristocracies and privileged priesthoods established themselves so +firmly in the opinion of Europe, as well as of Asia, and still retain +so much of their _prestige_ there, notwithstanding the turnings +and overturnings of the last two centuries. This northern half of the +great American continent, however, seems to have been kept back by +Nature as a _tabula rasa_, a clean blackboard, on which the great +problem of civil government might be worked out, without any of the +incongruous drawbacks which have cast perplexity and despair upon +those who have undertaken its solution in the elder world. All the +elements of the demonstration were of the most favorable +nature. Settled by races who had inherited or achieved whatever of +constitutional liberty existed in the world, with no hereditary +monarch, or governing oligarchy, or established religion on the soil, +with every opportunity to avoid all the vices and to better all the +virtues of the old polities, the era before which all history had been +appointed to prepare the way seemed to have arrived, when the just +relations of personal liberty and civil government were to be +established forever. + +And how magnificent the field on which the trophy of this final +victory of a true civilization was to be erected! No empire or +kingdom, at least since imperial Rome perished from the earth, ever +unrolled a surface so vast and so variegated, so manifold in its +fertilities and so various in its aspects of beauty and +sublimity. From the Northern wastes, where the hunter and the trapper +pursue by force or guile the fur-bearing animals, to the ever-perfumed +latitudes of the lemon and the myrtle,--from the stormy Atlantic, +where the skiff of the fisherman rocks fearlessly under the menace of +beetling crags amid the foam of angry breakers, to where the solemn +surge of the Pacific pours itself around our Western continent, boon +Nature has spread out fields which ask only the magic touch of Labor +to wave with every harvest and blush with every fruitage. Majestic +forests crown the hills, asking to be transformed into homes for man +on the solid earth, or into the moving miracles in which he flies on +wings of wind or flame over the ocean to the ends of the +earth. Exhaustless mineral treasures offer themselves to his hand, +scarce hidden beneath the soil, or lying carelessly upon the +surface,--coal, and lead, and copper, and the "all-worshipped ore" of +gold itself; while quarries, reaching to the centre, from many a +rugged hill-top, barren of all beside, court the architect and the +sculptor, ready to give shape to their dreams of beauty in the palace +or in the statue. + +The soil, too, is fitted by the influences of every sky for the +production of every harvest that can bring food, comfort, wealth, and +luxury to man. Every family of the grasses, every cereal that can +strengthen the heart, every fruit that can delight the taste, every +fibre that can be woven into raiment or persuaded into the thousand +shapes of human necessity, asks but a gentle solicitation to pour its +abundance bounteously into the bosom of the husbandman. And men have +multiplied under conditions thus auspicious to life, until they swarm +on the Atlantic slope, are fast filling up the great valley of the +Mississippi, and gradually flow over upon the descent towards the +Pacific. The three millions, who formed the population of the Thirteen +States that set the British empire at defiance, have grown up into a +nation of nearly, if not quite, ten times that strength, within the +duration of active lives not yet finished. And in freedom from +unmanageable debt, in abundance and certainty of revenue, in the +materials for naval armaments, in the elements of which armies are +made up, in everything that goes to form national wealth, power, and +strength, the United States, it would seem, even as they are now, +might stand against the world in arms, or in the arts of peace. Are +not these results proofs irrefragable of the wisdom of the government +under which they have come to pass? + +When the eyes of the thoughtful inquirer turn from the general +prospect of the national greatness and strength, to the geographical +divisions of the country, to examine the relative proportions of these +gifts contributed by each, he begins to be aware that there are +anomalies in the moral and political condition even of this youngest +of nations, not unlike what have perplexed him in his observation of +her elder sisters. He beholds the Southern region, embracing within +its circuit three hundred thousand more square miles than the domain +of the North, dowered with a soil incomparably more fertile, watered +by mighty rivers fit to float the argosies of the world, placed nearer +the sun and canopied by more propitious skies, with every element of +prosperity and wealth showered upon it with Nature's fullest and most +unwithdrawing hand, and sees, that, notwithstanding all this, the +share of public wealth and strength drawn thence is almost +inappreciable by the side of what is poured into the common stock by +the strenuous sterility of the North. With every opportunity and means +that Nature can supply for commerce, with navigable rivers searching +its remotest corners, with admirable harbors in which the navies of +the world might ride, with the chief articles of export for its staple +productions, it still depends upon its Northern partner to fetch and +carry all that it produces, and the little that it consumes. Possessed +of all the raw materials of manufactures and the arts, its inhabitants +look to the North for everything they need from the cradle to the +coffin. Essentially agricultural in its constitution, with every +blessing Nature can bestow upon it, the gross value of all its +productions is less by millions than that of the simple grass of the +field gathered into Northern barns. With all the means and materials +of wealth, the South is poor. With every advantage for gathering +strength and self-reliance, it is weak and dependent.--Why this +difference between the two? + +The _why_ is not far to seek. It is to be found in the reward +which Labor bestows on those that pay it due reverence in the one +case, and the punishment it inflicts on those offering it outrage and +insult in the other. All wealth proceeding forth from Labor, the land +where it is honored and its ministers respected and rewarded must +needs rejoice in the greatest abundance of its gifts. Where, on the +contrary, its exercise is regarded as the badge of dishonor and the +vile office of the refuse and offscouring of the race, its largess +must be proportionably meagre and scanty. The key of the enigma is to +be found in the constitution of human nature. A man in fetters cannot +do the task-work that one whose limbs are unshackled looks upon as a +pastime. A man urged by the prospect of winning an improved condition +for himself and his children by the skill of his brain and the +industry of his hand must needs achieve results such as no fear of +torture can extort from one denied the holy stimulus of hope. Hence +the difference so often noticed between tracts lying side by side, +separated only by a river or an imaginary line; on one side of which, +thrift and comfort and gathering wealth, growing villages, smiling +farms, convenient habitations, school-houses, and churches make the +landscape beautiful; while on the other, slovenly husbandry, +dilapidated mansions, sordid huts, perilous wastes, horrible roads, +the rare spire, and rarer village school betray all the nakedness of +the land. It is the magic of motive that calls forth all this wealth +and beauty to bless the most sterile soil stirred by willing and +intelligent labor; while the reversing of that spell scatters squalor +and poverty and misery over lands endowed by Nature with the highest +fertility, spreading their leprous infection from the laborer to his +lord. All this is in strict accordance with the laws of God, as +expounded by man in his books on political economy. + +Not so, however, with the stranger phenomenon to be discerned +inextricably connected with this anomaly, but not, apparently, +naturally and inevitably flowing from it. That the denial of his +natural and civil rights to the laborer who sows and reaps the +harvests of the Southern country should be avenged upon his enslaver +in the scanty yielding of the earth, and in the unthrift, the vices, +and the wretchedness which are the only crops that spring +spontaneously from soil blasted by slavery, is nothing strange. It is +only the statement of the truism in moral and in political economy, +that true prosperity can never grow up from wrong and wickedness. That +pauperism, and ignorance, and vice, that reckless habits, and debasing +customs, and barbarous manners should come of an organized degradation +of labor, and of cruelty and injustice crystallized into an +institution, is an inevitable necessity, and strictly according to the +nature of things. But that the stronger half of the nation should +suffer the weaker to rule over it in virtue of its weakness, that the +richer region should submit to the political tyranny of its +impoverished moiety because of that very poverty, is indeed a marvel +and a mystery. That the intelligent, educated, and civilized portion +of a race should consent to the sway of their ignorant, illiterate, +and barbarian companions in the commonwealth, and this by reason of +that uncouth barbarism, is an astonishment, and should be a hissing to +all beholders everywhere. It would be so to ourselves, were we not so +used to the fact, had it not so grown into our essence and ingrained +itself with our nature as to seem a vital organism of our being. Of +all the anomalies in morals and in politics which the history of +civilized man affords, this is surely the most abnormous and the most +unreasonable. + +The entire history of the United States is but the record of the +evidence of this fact. What event in our annals is there that Slavery +has not set her brand upon it to mark it as her own? In the very +moment of the nation's birth, like the evil fairy of the nursery tale, +she was present to curse it with her fatal words. The spell then wound +up has gone on increasing in power, until the scanty formulas which +seemed in those days of infancy as if they would fade out of the +parchment into which they had been foisted, and leave no trace that +they ever were, have blotted out all beside, and statesmen and judges +read nothing there but the awful and all-pervading name of Slavery. +Once intrenched among the institutions of the country, this baleful +power has advanced from one position to another, never losing ground, +but establishing itself at each successive point more impregnably than +before, until it has us at an advantage that encourages it to demand +the surrender of our rights, our self-respect, and our honor. What was +once whispered in the secret chamber of council is now proclaimed upon +the housetops; what was once done by indirection and guile is now +carried with the high hand, in the face of day, at the mouth of the +cannon and by the edge of the sabre of the nation. Doctrines and +designs which a few years since could find no mouthpiece out of a +bar-room, or the piratical den of a filibuster, are now clothed with +power by the authentic response of the bench of our highest +judicatory, and obsequiously iterated from the oracular recesses of +the National Palace. + +And the events which now fill the scene are but due successors in the +train that has swept over the stage ever since the nineteenth century +opened the procession with the purchase of Louisiana. The acquisition +of that vast territory, important as it was in a national point of +view,--but coveted by the South mainly as the fruitful mother of +slave-holding States, and for the precedent it established, that the +Constitution was a barrier only to what should impede, never to what +might promote, the interests of Slavery,--was the first great stride +she made as she stalked to her design. The admission of Missouri as a +slaveholding State, granted after a struggle that shook American +society to the centre, and then only on the memorable promises now +broken to the ear as well as to the hope, was the next vantage-ground +seized and maintained. The nearly contemporary purchase of Florida, +though in design and in effect as revolutionary an action as that of +Louisiana, excited comparatively little opposition. It was but the +following up of an acknowledged victory by the Slave Power. The long +and bloody wars in her miserable swamps, waged against the +humanity of savages that gave shelter to the fugitives from her +tyranny,--slave-hunts, merely, on a national scale and at the common +expense,--followed next in the march of events. Then Texas loomed in +the distance, and, after years of gradual approach and covert +advances, was first wrested from Mexico. Slavery next indissolubly +chained to her, and then, by a _coup d'état_ of astonishing impudence, +was added, by a flourish of John Tyler's pen, in the very article of +his political dissolution, to "the Area of Freedom!" Next came the war +with Mexico, lying in its pretences, bloody in its conduct, triumphant +in its results, for it won vast regions suitable for Slavery now, and +taught the way to win larger conquests when her ever-hungry maw should +crave them. What need to recount the Fugitive-Slave Bill, and the +other "Compromises" of 1850? or to recite the base repeal of the +Missouri Compromise, showing the slaveholder's regard for promises to +be as sacred as that of a pettifogger for justice or of a dicer for an +oath? or to point to the plains of Kansas, red with the blood of her +sons and blackened with the cinders of her towns, while the President +of the United States held the sword of the nation at her throat to +compel her to submission? + +Success, perpetual and transcendent, such as has always waited on +Slavery in all her attempts to mould the history of the country and to +compel the course of its events to do her bidding, naturally excites a +measure of curiosity if not of admiration, in the mind of every +observer. Have the slave-owners thus gone on from victory to victory +and from strength to strength by reason of their multitude, of their +wealth, of their public services, of their intelligence, of their +wisdom, of their genius, or of their virtue? Success in gigantic +crime sometimes implies a strength and energy which compel a kind of +respect even from those that hate it most. The right supremacy of the +power that thus sways our destiny clearly does not reside in the +overwhelming numbers of those that bear rule. The entire sum of all +who have any direct connection with Slavery, as owners or hirers, is +less than THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND,--not half as many as the +inhabitants of the single city of New York! And yet even this number +exaggerates the numerical force of the dominant element in our +affairs. To approximate to the true result, it would be fair to strike +from the gross sum those owning or employing less than ten slaves, in +order to arrive at the number of slave-owners who really compose the +ruling influence of the nation. This would leave but a small fraction +over NINETY THOUSAND, men, women, and children, owning slaves enough +to unite them in a common interest. And from this should be deducted +the women and minors, actually owning slaves in their own right, but +who have no voice in public affairs. These taken away, and the +absentees flying to Europe or the North from the moral contaminations +and material discomforts inseparable from Slavery, and not much more +than FIFTY THOUSAND voting men will remain to represent this mighty +and all-controlling power!--a fact as astounding as it is +incontrovertible. + +Oligarchies are nothing new in the history of the world. The +government of the many by the few is the rule, and not the exception, +in the politics of the times that have been and of those that now +are. But the concentration of the power that determines the policy, +makes the laws, and appoints the ministers of a mighty nation, in the +hands of less than the five-hundredth part of its members, is an +improvement on the essence of the elder aristocracies; while the +usurpation of the title of the Model Republic and of the Pattern +Democracy, under which we offer ourselves to the admiration and +imitation of less happy nations, is certainly a refinement on their +nomenclature. + +This prerogative of power, too, is elsewhere conceded by the multitude +to their rulers generally for some especial fitness, real or +imaginary, for the office they have assumed. Some services of their +own or of their ancestors to the state, some superiority, natural or +acquired, of parts or skill, at least some specialty of high culture +and elegant breeding, a quick sense of honor, a jealousy of insult to +the public, an impatience of personal stain,--some or all of these +qualities, appealing to the gratitude or to the imagination of the +masses, have usually been supposed to inhere in the class they permit +to rule over them. By virtue of some or all of these things, its +members have had allowed to them their privileges and their +precedency, their rights of exemption and of preeminence, their voice +potential in the councils of the state, and their claim to be foremost +in its defence in the hour of its danger. Some ray of imagination +there is, which, falling on the knightly shields and heraldic devices +that symbolize their conceded superiority, at least dazzles the eyes +and delights the fancy of the crowd, so as to blind them to the +inhering vices and essential fallacies of the Order to whose will they +bow. + +But no such consolations of delusion remain to us, as we stand face to +face with the Power which holds our destinies in its hand. None of +these blear illusions can cheat our eyes with any such false +presentments. No antiquity hallows, no public services consecrate, no +gifts of lofty culture adorn, no graces of noble breeding embellish +the coarse and sordid oligarchy that gives law to us. And in the +blighting shadow of Slavery letters die and art cannot live. What book +has the South ever given to the libraries of the world? What work of +art has she ever added to its galleries? What artist has she produced +that did not instinctively fly, like Allston, to regions in which +genius could breathe and art was possible? What statesman has she +reared, since Jefferson died and Madison ceased to write, save those +intrepid discoverers who have taught that Slavery is the corner-stone +of republican institutions, and the vital element of Freedom herself? +What divine, excepting the godly men whose theologic skill has +attained to the doctrine that Slavery is of the essence of the Gospel +of Jesus Christ? What moralist, besides those ethic doctors who teach +that it is according to the Divine Justice that the stronger race +should strip the weaker of every civil, social, and moral right? The +unrighteous partiality, extorted by the threats of Carolina and +Georgia in 1788, which gives them a disproportionate representation +because of their property in men, and the unity of interest which +makes them always act in behalf of Slavery as one man, have made them +thus omnipotent. The North, distracted by a thousand interests, has +always been at the mercy of whatever barbarian chief in the capital +could throw his slave whip into the trembling scale of party. The +government having been always, since this century began, at least, the +creature and the tool of the slaveholders, the whole patronage of the +nation, and the treasury filled chiefly by Northern commerce, have +been at their command to help manipulate and mould plastic Northern +consciences into practicable shapes. When the slave interest, +consisting, at its own largest account of itself, of less than THREE +HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND souls, has _thirty_ members of the +Senate, while the free-labor interest, consisting of at least +TWENTY-FOUR MILLIONS, SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND souls, has but +_thirty-two_, and when the former has a delegation of some score +of members to represent its slaves in the House, besides its own fair +proportion, can we marvel that it has achieved the mastery over us, +which is written in black and bloody characters on so many pages of +our history? + +Such having been the absolute sway Slavery has exercised over the +facts of our history, what has been its influence upon the characters +of the men with whom it has had to do? Of all the productions of a +nation, its men are what prove its quality the most surely. How have +the men of America stood this test? Have those in the high places, +they who have been called to wait at the altar before all the people, +maintained the dignity of character and secured the general reverence +which marked and waited upon their predecessors in the days of our +small things? The population of the United States has multiplied +itself nearly tenfold, while its wealth has increased in a still +greater proportion, since the peace of 'Eighty-Three. Have the +Representative Men of the nation been made or maintained great and +magnanimous, too? Or is that other anomaly, which has so perplexed the +curious foreigner, an admitted fact, that in proportion as the country +has waxed great and powerful, its public men have dwindled from giants +in the last century to dwarfs in this? Alas, to ask the question is to +answer it. Compare Franklin, and Adams, and Jay, met at Paris to +negotiate the treaty of peace which was to seal the recognition of +their country as an equal sister in the family of nations, with +Buchanan, and Soulé, and Mason, convened at Ostend to plot the larceny +of Cuba! Sages and lawgivers, consulting for the welfare of a world +and a race, on the one hand, and buccaneers conspiring for the pillage +of a sugar-island on the other! + +What men, too, did not Washington and Adams call around them in the +Cabinet!--how representative of great ideas! how historical! how +immortal! How many of our readers can name the names of their +successors of the present day? Inflated obscurities, bloated +insignificances, who knows or cares whence they came or what they are? +We know whose bidding they were appointed to obey, and what manner of +work they are ready to perform. And shall we dare extend our profane +comparisons even higher than the Cabinet? Shall we bring the shadowy +majesty of Washington's august idea alongside the microscopic +realities of to-day? Let us be more merciful, and take our departure +from the middle term between the Old and the New, occupied by Andrew +Jackson, whose iron will and doggedness of purpose give definite +character, if not awful dignity, to his image. In his time, the Slave +Power, though always the secret spring which set events in motion, +began to let its workings be seen more openly than ever before. And +from his time forward, what a graduated line of still diminishing +shadows have glided successively through the portals of the White +House! From Van Buren to Tyler, from Tyler to Polk, from Polk to +Fillmore, from Fillmore to Pierce! "Fine by degrees and beautifully +less," until it at last reached the vanishing point! + +The baleful influence thus ever shed by Slavery on our national +history and our public men has not yet spent its malignant forces. It +has, indeed, reached a height which a few years ago it was thought the +wildest fanaticism to predict; but its fatal power will not be stayed +in the mid-sweep of its career. The Ordinance of 1787 torn to shreds +and scattered to the winds,--the line drawn in 1820, which the +slaveholders plighted their faith Slavery should never overstep, +insolently as well as infamously obliterated,--Slavery presiding in +the Cabinet, seated on the Supreme Bench, absolute in the halls of +Congress,--no man can say what shape its next aggression may not take +to itself. A direct attack on the freedom of the press and the liberty +of speech at the North, where alone either exists, were no more +incredible than the later insolences of its tyranny. The battle not +yet over in Kansas, for the compulsory establishment of Slavery there +by the interposition of the Federal arm, will be renewed in every +Territory as it is ripening into a State. Already warning voices are +heard in the air, presaging such a conflict in Oregon. Parasites +everywhere instinctively feel that a zeal for the establishment of +Slavery where it has been abolished, or its introduction where it had +been prohibited, is the highest recommendation to the Executive favor. +The rehabilitation of the African slave-trade is seriously proposed +and will be furiously urged, and nothing can hinder its accomplishment +but its interference with the domestic manufactures of the breeding +Slave States. The pirate Walker is already mustering his forces for +another incursion into Nicaragua, and rumors are rife that General +Houston designs wresting yet another Texas from Mexico. Mighty events +are at hand, even at the door; and the mission of them all will be to +fix Slavery firmly and forever on the throne of this nation. + +Is the success of this conspiracy to be final and eternal? Are the +States which name themselves, in simplicity or in irony, the Free +States, to be always the satrapies of a central power like this? Are +we forever to submit to be cheated out of our national rights by an +oligarchy as despicable as it is detestable, because it clothes itself +in the forms of democracy, and allows us the ceremonies of choice, the +name of power, and the permission to register the edicts of the +sovereign? We, who broke the sceptre of King George, and set our feet +on the supremacy of the British Parliament, surrender ourselves, bound +hand and foot in bonds of our own weaving, into the hands of the +slaveholding Philistines! We, who scorned the rule of the aristocracy +of English acres, submit without a murmur, or with an ineffectual +resistance, to the aristocracy of American flesh and blood! Is our +spirit effectually broken? is the brand of meanness and compromise +burnt in uneffaceably upon our souls? and are we never to be roused, +by any indignities, to fervent resentment and effectual resistance? +The answer to these grave questions lies with ourselves alone. One +hundred thousand, or three hundred thousand men, however crafty and +unscrupulous, cannot forever keep under their rule more than twenty +millions, as much their superiors in wealth and intelligence as in +numbers, except by their own consent. If the growing millions are to +be driven with cartwhips along the pathway of their history by the +dwindling thousands, they have none to blame for it but themselves. +If they like to have their laws framed and expounded, their presidents +appointed, their foreign policy dictated, their domestic interests +tampered with, their war and peace made for them, their national fame +and personal honor tarnished, and the lie given to all their boastings +before the old despotisms, by this insignificant fraction of their +number,--scarcely visible to the naked eye in the assembly of the +whole people,--none can gainsay or resist their pleasure. + +But will the many always thus submit themselves to the domination of +the few? We believe that the days of this ignominious subjection are +already numbered. Signs in heaven and on earth tell us that one of +those movements has begun to be felt in the Northern mind, which +perplex tyrannies everywhere with the fear of change. The insults and +wrongs so long heaped upon the North by the South begin to be +felt. The torpid giant moves uneasily beneath his mountain-load of +indignities. The people of the North begin to feel that they support a +government for the benefit of their natural enemies; for, of all +antipathies, that of slave labor to free is the most deadly and +irreconcilable. There never was a time when the relations of the North +and the South, as complicated by Slavery, were so well understood and +so deeply resented as now. In fields, in farmhouses, and in workshops, +there is a spirit aroused which can never be laid or exorcised till it +has done its task. We see its work in the great uprising of the Free +States against the Slave States in the late national election. Though +trickery and corruption cheated it of its end, the thunder of its +protest struck terror into the hearts of the tyrants. We hear its +echo, as it comes back from the Slave States themselves, in the +exceeding bitter cry of the whites for deliverance from the bondage +which the slavery of the blacks has brought upon them also. We +discern the confession of its might in the very extravagances and +violences of the Slave Power. It is its conscious and admitted +weakness that has made Texas and Mexico and Cuba, and our own +Northwestern territory, necessary to be devoured. It is desperation, +and not strength, that has made the bludgeon and the bowie-knife +integral parts of the national legislation. It has the American +Government, the American Press, and the American Church, in its +national organizations, on its side; but the Humanity and the +Christianity of the Nation and the World abhor and execrate it. They +that be against it are more than they that be for it. + +It rages, for its time is short. And its rage is the fiercer because +of the symptoms of rebellion against its despotism which it discerns +among the white men of the South, who from poverty or from principle +have no share in its sway. When we speak of the South as +distinguished from the North by elements of inherent hostility, we +speak only of the governing faction, and not of the millions of +nominally free men who are scarcely less its thralls than the black +slaves themselves. This unhappy class of our countrymen are the first +to feel the blight which Slavery spreads around it, because they are +the nearest to its noxious power. The subjects of no European +despotism are under a closer _espionage,_ or a more organized +system of terrorism, than are they. The slaveholders, having the +wealth, and nearly all the education that the South can boast of, +employ these mighty instruments of power to create the public +sentiment and to control the public affairs of their region, so as +best to secure their own supremacy. No word of dissent to the +institutions under which they live, no syllable of dissatisfaction, +even, with any of the excesses they stimulate, can be breathed in +safety. A Christian minister in Tennessee relates an act of fiendish +cruelty inflicted upon a slave by one of the members of his church, +and he is forced to leave his charge, if not to fly the +country. Another in South Carolina presumes to express in conversation +his disapprobation of the murderous assault of Brooks on Senator +Sumner, and his pastoral relations are broken up on the instant, as if +he had been guilty of gross crime or flagrant heresy. Professor +Hedrick, in North Carolina, ventures to utter a preference for the +Northern candidate in the last presidential campaign, and he is +summarily ejected from his chair, and virtually banished from his +native State. Mr. Underwood, of Virginia, dares to attend the +convention of the party he preferred, and he is forbidden to return to +his home on pain of death. The blackness of darkness and the stillness +of death are thus forced to brood over that land which God formed so +fair, and made to be so happy. + +That such a tyranny should excite an antagonistic spirit of resistance +is inevitable from the constitution of man and the character of +God. The sporadic cases of protest and of resistance to the +slaveholding aristocracy, which lift themselves occasionally above the +dead level of the surrounding despotism, are representative +cases. They stand for much more than their single selves. They prove +that there is a wide-spread spirit of discontent, informing great +regions of the slave-land, which must one day find or force an +opportunity of making itself heard and felt. This we have just seen in +the great movement in Missouri, the very nursing-mother of +Border-Ruffianism itself, which narrowly missed making Emancipation +the policy of the majority of the voters there. Such a result is the +product of no sudden culture. It must have been long and slowly +growing up. And how could it be otherwise? There must be intelligence +enough among the non-slaveholding whites to see the difference there +is between themselves and persons of the same condition in the Free +States. Why can they have no free schools? Why is it necessary that a +missionary society be formed at the North to furnish them with such +ministers as the slave-master can approve? Why can they not support +their own ministers, and have a Gospel of Free Labor preached to them, +if they choose? Why are they hindered from taking such newspapers as +they please? Why are they subjected to a censorship of the press, +which dictates to them what they may or may not read, and which +punishes booksellers with exile and ruin for keeping for sale what +they want to buy? Why must Northern publishers expurgate and +emasculate the literature of the world before it is permitted to reach +them? Why is it that the value of acres increases in a geometrical +ratio, as they stretch away towards the North Star from the frontier +of Slavery? These questions must suggest their sufficient answer to +thousands of hearts, and be preparing the way for the insurrection of +which the slaveholders stand in the deadliest fear,--that of the +whites at their gates, who can do with them and their institutions +what seems to them good, when once they know their power, and choose +to put it forth. The unity of interest of the non-slaveholders of the +South with the people of the Free States is perfect, and it must one +day combine them in a unity of action. + +The exact time when the millions of the North and of the South shall +rise upon this puny mastership, and snatch from its hands the control +of their own affairs, we cannot tell,--nor yet the authentic shape +which that righteous insurrection will take unto itself. But we know +that when the great body of any nation is thoroughly aroused, and +fully in earnest to abate a mischief or to right a wrong, nothing can +resist its energy or defeat its purpose. It will provide the way, when +its will is once thoroughly excited. Men look out upon the world they +live in, and it seems as if a change for the better were hopeless and +impossible. The great statesmen, the eminent divines, the reverend +judges, the learned lawyers, the wealthy landholders and merchants are +all leagued together to repel innovation. But the earth still moves +in its orbit around the sun; decay and change and death pursue their +inevitable course; the child is born and grows up; the strong man +grows old and dies; the law of flux and efflux never ceases, and lo! +ere men are aware of it, all things have become new. Fresh eyes look +upon the world, and it is changed. Where are now Calhoun, and Clay, +and Webster? Where will shortly be Cass, and Buchanan, and Benton, and +their like? Vanished from the stage of affairs, if not from the face +of Nature. Who are to take their places? God knows. But we know that +the school in which men are now in training for the arena is very +different from the one which formed the past and passing generations +of politicians. Great ideas are abroad, challenging the encounter of +youth. Angels wrestle with the men of this generation, as with the +Patriarch of old, and it is our own fault if a blessing be not +extorted ere they take their flight. Principles, like those which in +the earlier days of the republic elevated men into statesmen, are now +again in the field, chasing the policies which have dwarfed their sons +into politicians. These things are portentous of change,--perhaps +sudden, but, however delayed, inevitable. + +And this change, whatever the outward shape in which it may incarnate +itself, in the fulness of time, will come of changed ideas, opinions, +and feelings in the general mind and heart. All institutions, even +those of the oldest of despotisms, exist by the permission and consent +of those who live under them. Change the ideas of the thronging +multitudes by the banks of the Neva, or on the shores of the +Bosphorus, and they will be changed into Republicans and Christians in +the twinkling of an eye. Not merely the Kingdom of Heaven, but the +kingdoms of this world, are within us. Ideas are their substance; +institutions and customs but the shadows they cast into the visible +sphere. Mould the substance anew, and the projected shadow must +represent the altered shape within. Hence the dread despots feel, and +none more than the petty despots of the plantation, of whatever may +throw the light of intelligence across the mental sight of their +slaves. Men endure the ills they have, either because they think them +blessings, or because they fear lest, should they seek to fly them, it +might be to others that they know not of. The present Bonaparte holds +France in a chain because she is willing that he should. Let her but +breathe upon the padlock, and, like that in the fable, it will fade +into air, and he and his dynasty will vanish with it. So the people of +the North submit to the domination of the South because they are used +to it, and are doubtful as to what may replace it. Whenever the +millions, North and South, whom Slavery grinds under her heel, shall +be resolutely minded that her usurpation shall cease, it will +disappear, and forever. As soon as the stone is thrown the giant will +die, and men will marvel that they endured him so long. But this can +only come to pass by virtue of a change yet to be wrought in the +hearts and minds of men. Ideas everywhere are royal;--here they are +imperial. It is the great office of genius, and eloquence, and sacred +function, and conspicuous station, and personal influence to herald +their approach and to prepare the way before them, that they may +assert their state and give holy laws to the listening nation. Thus a +glorious form and pressure may be given to the coming age. Thus the +ideal of a true republic, of a government of laws made and executed by +the people, of which bards have sung and prophets dreamed, and for +which martyrs have suffered and heroes died, may yet be possible to +us, and the great experiment of this Western World be indeed a Model, +instead of a Warning to the nations. + + + + +MY PORTRAIT GALLERY. + + + Oft round my hall of portraiture I gaze, + By Memory reared, the artist wise and holy, + From stainless quarries of deep-buried days. + There, as I muse in soothing melancholy, + Your faces glow in more than mortal youth, + Companions of my prime, now vanished wholly,-- + The loud, impetuous boy, the low-voiced maiden. + Ah, never master that drew mortal breath + Can match thy portraits, just and generous Death, + Whose brush with sweet regretful tints is laden! + Thou paintest that which struggled here below + Half understood, or understood for woe, + And, with a sweet forewarning, + Mak'st round the sacred front an aureole glow + Woven of that light that rose on Easter morning. + + + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Homoeopathic Domestic Physician_, etc., etc. By J. H. PULTE, +M.D., Author of "Woman's Medical Guide," etc. Twenty-fourth +thousand. Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach, Keys, & Co. London: James Epps, +170, Piccadilly, 1857. + +Of course the reader understands the following notice to be written by +a venerable practitioner, who carries a gold-headed cane, and does not +believe in any medical authority later than Sydenham. Listen to him, +then, and remember that if anything in the way of answer, or +remonstrance, or controversial advertisement is sent to the +head-quarters of this periodical, it will go directly into the basket, +which, entering, a manuscript leaves all hope behind. The "old salts" +of the "Atlantic" do not go for non-committal and neutrality, or any +of that kind of nonsense. Our oracle with the gold stick must have +the ground to himself, or keep his wisdom for another set of +readers. A quarrel between "Senex" and "Fairplay" would be amusing, +but expensive. We have no space for it; and the old gentleman, though +he can use his cane smartly for one of his age, positively declines +the game of single-stick. Hear him. + +--The book mentioned above lies before us with its valves open, +helpless as an oyster on its shell, inviting the critical pungent, the +professional acid, and the judicial impaling trident. We will be +merciful. This fat little literary mollusk is well-conditioned, of +fair aspect, and seemingly good of its kind. Twenty-four thousand +individuals,--we have its title-page as authority,--more or less +lineal descendants of Solomon, have become the fortunate possessors of +this plethoric guide to earthly immortality. They might have done +worse; for the work is well printed, well arranged, and +typographically creditable to the great publishing-house which honors +Cincinnati by its intelligent enterprise. The purchasers have done +very wisely in buying a book which will not hurt their eyes. Mr. Otis +Clapp, bibliopolist, has the work, and will be pleased to supply it to +an indefinite number of the family above referred to. + +--Men live in the immediate neighborhood of a great menagerie, the +doors of which are always open. The beasts of prey that come out are +called diseases. They feed upon us, and between their teeth we must +all pass sooner or later,--all but a few, who are otherwise taken care +of. When these animals attack a man, most of them give him a scratch +or a bite, and let him go. Some hold on a little while; some are +carried about for weeks or months, until the carrier drops down, or +they drop off. By and by one is sure to come along that drags down the +strongest, and makes an end of him. + +Most people know little or nothing of these beasts, until all at once +they find themselves attacked by one of them. They are therefore +liable to be frightened by those that are not dangerous, and careless +with those that are destructive. They do not know what will soothe, +and what will exasperate them. They do not even know the dens of many +of them, though they are close to their own dwellings. + +A physician is one that has lived among these beasts, and studied +their aspects and habits. He knows them all well, and looks them in +the face, and lays his hand on their backs daily. They seem, as it +were, to know him, and to greet him with such _risus sardonicus_ +as they can muster. He knows that his friends and himself have all +got to be eaten up at last by them, and his friends have the same +belief. Yet they want him near them at all times, and with them when +they are set upon by any of these their natural enemies. He goes, +knowing pretty well what he can do and what he cannot. + +He can talk to them in a quiet and sensible way about these terrible +beings, concerning which they are so ignorant, and liable to harbor +such foolish fancies. He can frighten away some of the lesser kind of +animals with certain ill-smelling preparations he carries about +him. Once in a while he can draw the teeth of some of the biggest, or +throttle them. He can point out their dens, and so keep many from +falling into their jaws. + +This is a great deal to promise or perform, but it is not all that is +expected of him. Sick people are very apt to be both fools and +cowards. Many of them confess the fact in the frankest possible +way. If you doubt it, ask the next dentist about the wisdom and +courage of average manhood under the dispensation of a bad tooth. As a +tooth is to a liver, so are the dentists' patients to the doctors', in +the want of the two excellences above mentioned. + +Those not over-wise human beings called patients are frequently a +little unreasonable. They come with a small scratch, which Nature +will heal very nicely in a few days, and insist on its being closed at +once with some kind of joiner's glue. They want their little coughs +cured, so that they may breathe at their ease, when they have no lungs +left that are worth mentioning. They would have called in Luke the +physician to John the Baptist, when his head was in the charger, and +asked for a balsam that would cure cuts. This kind of thing cannot be +done. But it is very profitable to lie about it, and say that it can +be done. The people who make a business of this lying, and profiting +by it, are called quacks. + +--But as patients wish to believe in all manner of "cures," and as all +doctors love to believe in the power of their remedies and as nothing +is more open to self-deception than medical experience, the whole +matter of therapeutics has always been made a great deal more of than +the case would justify. It has been an inflated currency,--fifty +pretences on paper, to one fact of true, ringing metal. + +Many of the older books are full of absurd nostrums. A century ago, +Huxham gave messes to his patients containing more than four hundred +ingredients. Remedies were ordered that must have been suggested by +the imagination; things odious, abominable, unmentionable; flesh of +vipers, powder of dead men's bones, and other horrors, best mused in +expressive silence. Go to the little book of Robert Boyle,--wise man, +philosopher, revered of cures for the most formidable diseases, many +of them of this fantastic character, that disease should seem to have +been a thing that one could turn off at will, like gas or water in our +houses. Only there were rather too many specifics in those days. For +if one has "an excellent approved remedy" that never fails, it seems +unnecessary to print a list of twenty others for the same +purpose. This is wanton excess; it is gilding the golden pill, and +throwing fresh perfume on the Mistura Assafoetidae. + +As the observation of nature has extended, and as mankind have +approached the state of only _semi_-barbarism in which they now +exist, there has been an improvement. The materia medica has been +weeded; much that was worthless and revolting has been thrown +overboard; simplicity has been introduced into prescriptions; and the +whole business of _drugging_ the sick has undergone a most +salutary reform. The great fact has been practically recognized, that +the movements of life in disease obey laws which, under the +circumstances, are on the whole salutary, and only require a limited +and occasional interference by any special disturbing agents. The list +of specifics has been reduced to a very brief catalogue, and the +delusion which had exaggerated the power of drugging for so many +generations has been tempered down by sound and systematic +observation. + +Homoeopathy came, and with one harlequin bound leaped out of its +century backwards into the region of quagmires and fogs and mirages, +from which true medical science was painfully emerging. All the +trumpery of exploded pharmacopoeias was revived under new names. Even +the domain of the loathsome has been recently invaded, and simpletons +are told in the book before us to swallow serpents' poison; nay, it is +said that the _pediculis capitis_ is actually prescribed in +infusion,--hunted down in his capillary forest, and transferred to the +digestive organs of those he once fed upon. + +It falsely alleged one axiom as the basis of existing medical +practice, namely, _Contraria contrarüs curantur_,--"Contraries +are cured by contraries." No such principle was ever acted upon, +exclusively, as the basis of medical practice. The man who does not +admit it as _one_ of the principles of practice would, on +_medical_ principles, refuse a drop of cold water to cool the +tongue of Dives in fiery torments. The only unconditional principle +ever recognized by medical science has been, that diseases are to be +treated by the remedies that experience shows to be useful. The +universal use of both _cold_ and _hot_ external and internal +remedies in various inflammatory states puts the garrote at once on +the babbling throat of the senseless assertion of the homaeopathists, +and stultifies for all time the nickname "allopathy." + +It falsely alleged a second axiom, _Similia similibus +curantur_,--"Like is cured by like,"--as the basis of its own +practice; for it does not keep to any such rule, as every page of the +book before us abundantly shows. + +It subjected credulous mankind to the last of indignities, in forcing +it to listen to that doctrine of infinitesimals and potencies which is +at once the most epigrammatic of paradoxes, and the crowning exploit +of pseudo-scientific audacity. + +It proceeded to prove itself true by juggling statistics; some of the +most famous of which, we may remark, are very well shown up by +Professor Worthington Hooker, in a recent essay. And having done all +these things, it sat down in the shadow of a brazen bust of its +founder, and invited mankind to join in the Barmecide feast it had +spread on the coffin of Science; who, however, proved not to have been +buried in it,--indeed, not to have been buried at all. + +Of course, it had, and has, a certain success. Its infinitesimal +treatment being a nullity, patients are never hurt by drugs, _when +it is adhered to_. It pleases the imagination. It is image-worship, +relic-wearing, holy-water-sprinkling, transferred from the spiritual +world to that of the body. Poets accept it; sensitive and spiritual +women become sisters of charity in its service. It does not offend the +palate, and so spares the nursery those scenes of single combat in +which infants were wont to yield at length to the pressure of the +spoon and the imminence of asphyxia. It gives the ignorant, who have +such an inveterate itch for dabbling in physic, a book and a doll's +medicine-chest, and lets them play doctors and doctresses without fear +of having to call in the coroner. And just so long as unskilful and +untaught people cannot tell coincidences from cause and effect in +medical practice,--which to do, the wise and experienced know how +difficult!--so long it will have plenty of "facts" to fall back +upon. Who can blame a man for being satisfied with the argument, "I +was ill, and am well,--great is Hahnemann!"? Only this argument serves +all impostors and impositions. It is not of much value, but it is +irresistible, and therefore quackery is immortal. + +Homaeopathy is one of its many phases; the most imaginative, the most +elegant, and, it is fair to say, the least noxious in its direct +agencies. "It is melancholy,"--we use the recent words of the +world-honored physician of the Queen's household, Sir John +Forbes,--"to be forced to make admissions in favor of a system so +utterly false and despicable as Homaeopathy." Yet we must own that it +may have been indirectly useful, as the older farce of the weapon +ointment certainly was, in teaching medical practitioners to place +more reliance upon nature. Most scientific men see through its +deceptions at a glance. It may be practised by shrewd men and by +honest ones; rarely, it must be feared, by those who are both shrewd +and honest. As a psychological experiment on the weakness of +cultivated minds, it is the best trick of the century. + +--Here the old gentleman took his cane and walked out to cool himself. + + + +FOREIGN. + +It is an old remark of Lessing, often repeated, but nevertheless true, +that Frenchmen, as a general rule, are sadly deficient in the mental +powers suited to _objective_ observation, and therefore eminently +disqualified for reliable reports of travels. Among the host of French +writing travellers or travelling writers, on whatever foreign +countries, there have always been very few who looked at foreign +countries, nations, institutions, and achievements, with anything like +fairness of judgment and capacity of understanding. For an average +Frenchman, Molière's renowned juxtaposition of + + "Paris, la cour, le monde, l'univers," + +is a gospel down to this day; and no country can so justly complain of +being constantly misunderstood and misrepresented by French tourists +as ours. The more difficult it is for a Frenchman not to glance +through colored spectacles from the Palais Royal at whatever does not +belong to "the Great Nation," the more praise those few of them +deserve who give to the world correct and impartial impressions of +travel and reliable ethnological works. + +Such is the case with two works which we are glad to recommend to our +readers. The first is + + +_La Norwège_, par LOUIS ENAULT. Paris: Hachette. 1857. + +Norway, though a member of the European family, with a population once +so influential in the world's history, is comparatively the least +known of all civilized countries to the world at large, and what +little we know of it is of a very recent date,--Stephens's and Leopold +von Buch's works being not much more than a quarter of a century old, +while Bayard Taylor's lively sketches in the "New York Tribune" are +almost wet still, and not yet complete. The latter and M. Enault's +book, when compared with each other, leave not the slightest doubt +that each observes carefully and conscientiously in his own way, that +both possess peculiar gifts for studying and describing correctly what +there is worth studying and describing in this _terra incognita_, and +that we can rely on both. Mr. Taylor is more picturesque, lively, +fascinating, and drastic; M. Enault more thorough, quiet, and reserved +in the expression of his opinions. The parts seem to be +interchanged,--the Frenchman exhibiting more of the Anglo-Saxon, the +American more of the French genius; but both confirm each other's +statements admirably, and should be read side by side. If our readers +wish to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the workings of the +laws and institutions, with the statistical, economical, and +geographical facts, the society and manners, the later history and +future prospects of Norway, they will find here a work trustworthy in +every respect. + + +_Les Anglais et l'Inde_, avec Notes, Pièces justificatives et +Tableaux statistiques, par E. DE VALBEZEN. Paris. 1857. + +This is no narrative of travel, though evidently written by one who +has been for a considerable time an eyewitness of Indian affairs, and +by a man of acute mind and quick and comprehensive perception, +thoroughly versed in the history and condition of India. It is a +treatise on all those topics bearing upon the present political, +social, and commercial state of things there, beginning with the +exposition of the English governmental institutions there existing, +describing the country, its productions and resources, its various +populations, its social relations, its agriculture, commerce, and +wealth, and concluding with statistical and other documents in support +of the author's statements. It gives a nearly systematical and +complete picture of Indian affairs, enabling the reader to understand +the present situation of the country and its foreign rulers, and to +form a judgment on all corresponding topics. The style is classical, +though somewhat concise and epigrammatic, giving proof everywhere of a +mind that forms its own conclusions and takes independent, +statesmanlike views. The author refrains from obtruding his own +opinions on the reader, leaving things to speak for themselves. He is +not ostensibly antagonistic to the English, as we should expect from a +true Frenchman,--is no cordial hater of "_perfide Albion_." You +cannot, from his book, with any show of reason, infer that he is a +Jesuit, a French missionary, a merchant, a governmental employé, or a +simple traveller; but you feel instinctively that he is wide-awake, +shrewd, and reserved, and that you may trust his reports in the +main. He refers, for proof of his statements, mostly to English +documents, and does not try to preoccupy your mind. Particularly +noteworthy is what he says of the political economy of India; he +controverts effectively the prevailing opinion that it is the richest +country in the world,--showing its real poverty, in spite of its great +natural resources, and the almost hopeless task of improving these +resources. For the American merchant this is a very readable book, +warning him to refrain from too hastily investing his capital and +enterprise in Indian commerce,--India being the most insecure of all +countries for foreign commercial undertakings; and in general, there +are so many entirely new and startling revelations in it, that, to any +one interested in Indian matters, it well repays reading. + + +_Histoire de la Révolution Française_, (1789-1799,) Par +THÉOD. H. BARRAU. Paris: Hachette. 1857. + +We cannot vouch that we have here a new, original history of this +important epoch, based on an independent study of historical sources; +but it is the very first history of the French Revolution we have +known, not written in a partisan spirit, and bent on falsifying the +facts in order to make political capital or to flatter national +prejudices. It bears no evidence of any tendency whatever,--perhaps +only because, with its more than five hundred pages, it is too short +for that. + + +_Histoire de France au XVI. Siècle_, par MICHÉLET. Tom. 10. +_Henri IV. et Richelieu_. + +Michélet is too well known as a truly Republican historiographer and +truly humane and noble writer, and the former volumes of this history +have been too long before the public, to require for this volume a +particular recommendation. It begins with the last _décade_ of the +sixteenth century, and concludes with the year 1626. We are no +particular admirers of Michélet's historical style and method of +delineation, but we acknowledge his sense of historical justice, his +unprejudiced mind, and his Republicanism, even when treating a subject +so delicate, and so dear to Frenchmen, as Henry IV. Doing justice to +whatever was really admirable in the character of this much beloved +king, he overthrows a good many superstitious ideas current concerning +him even down to our days. He shows that the Utopian, though +benevolent project, ascribed to Henry, of establishing an everlasting +peace by revising the map of Europe and constituting a political +equilibrium between the several European powers, never in fact existed +in the king's mind, nor even in Sully's, whom he equally divests of +much unfounded glory and fictitious greatness. No doubt, but for his +fickleness and inconsistency, Henry could have done a good deal toward +realizing such ideas and reforming European politics; but it is saying +too much for Henry's influence on the popular opinions of Europe, to +affirm, what Michélet gives us to understand, that he could have +combined the nations of Europe against all their depraved rulers +together. + + +_La Liberté_, par ÉMILE DE GIRARDIN. Paris. 1857. + +This book contains a discussion between the author and M. de +Lourdoueix, ex-editor of the "Gazette de France," written in the form +of letters, on the various topics connected with the notion of +Liberty. Girardin is, no doubt, the most genial of all living French +writers on Socialism and Politics. He belongs neither to the fanatical +school of Communists and Social Equalizers by force and "_par ordre +da Mufti_," nor to the class of pliable tools of Imperial or Royal +Autocracy. He is the only writer who, in the face of the prevailing +restrictions upon the press in France, dares to speak out his whole +mind, and to preach the Age of Reason in Politics and in the Social +System. He is full of new ideas, which should, we think, be very +attractive to American readers; and it is, indeed, strange that his +writings are so little read and reviewed on this side of the +ocean. His ideas on general education, on the total extinction of +authority or government, on the abolition of public punishments of +every kind, on the doing away with standing armies, war, and tyranny, +and on making the State a great Assurance Company against all +imaginable misfortunes and their consequences, are a fair index of the +best philosophemes of the European mind since the last Revolution. We +do not say that we approve every one of his issues and conclusions, +but we insist most earnestly, that this book and similar ones, bearing +testimony to what the political and social thinkers of the day in +Europe are revolving in their minds, should be read and reviewed under +the light of American institutions and ideas. The reader enjoys in the +present book the great advantage of seeing the ideas of the Social +Reformers discussed _pro_ and _contra_,--M. Lourdoueix being +their obstinate adversary. + + +_Mémoires de M. Joseph Prudhomme_, par HENRI MONNIER. 2 +vols. Paris. 1857. + +This is not what is commonly called _mémoires_,--to wit, +historical recollections modified by the subjective impressions of +eyewitnesses to the past; it is rather a novel or romance in the form +of _mémoires_, ridiculing the predominant _bourgeoisie_ of +the Old World, and sketching the whole life of a _bourgeois_, +from infancy to green old age. For readers, who, through travel in +Europe and acquaintance with French literature and tastes, are enabled +to understand the many nice allusions contained in this novel, it is a +very entertaining book. + + +1. _Kraft und Stoff_. By G. BÜCHNER. Fourth edition. 1857. + +2. _Materie und Geist_. By the same. 1857. + +It is certainly a remarkable sign of the times, that a book treating +of purely scientific matters,--physiological facts and ideas,--like +the first of these, of which the second is the complement, should in a +very few years have attained to its fourth edition in Germany. All +those works on Natural Science, by Alexander von Humboldt, Oersted, Du +Bois-Raymond, Cotta, Vogt, Moleschott, Büchner, Rossmässler, Ule, +Müller, and others, which have appeared since the Revolution of 1848, +uniting a more popular and intelligible style with a purely scientific +treatment of the matter-of-fact, irrespective of the religious and +political dogmas that conflict with the results of natural science, +have met with decided success in Germany and France. They are +extensively read and appreciated, even by the less educated and +learned classes. Among these works, that of Büchner ranks high, and +it is therefore strange that we have seen it hitherto reviewed in no +American journal. This may serve us as an excuse for noticing this +fourth edition, though it is little improved over the former ones. It +exhibits the last results of the science of physiology, in a +scientific, but rather popular method of exposition. There is quite a +hive of new ideas and intuitions contained in it,--ideas conflicting, +it is true, with many received dogmas, and irreconcilable with +orthodoxy; but it is of no use to shut our eyes to these ideas, as +though the danger threatening from this side could be averted by +imitating the policy of the ostrich. They should be faced and +examined; the danger is far greater from ignoring them. It is +impossible that ideas, largely entertained and cultivated by a nation +so expert in thinking, so versed in science and literature as the +Germans, should have no interest for the great, intelligent American +public. Natural Science may be said to form, at present, an integral +portion of the religion of the Germans. It is, at least, a matter of +ethnological and historical interest to learn in what regions of +thought and speculation our German contemporaries are at home, and +wherein they find their mental happiness and delight. + + +_Die deutsche komische und humoristische Dichtung seit Beginn des +16. Jahrhunderts bis auf unsere Zeit_. Von IGNAZ HUB. Nürnberg: +Ebner. 1857. + +Two volumes of this interesting work are coming out at the same +time,--one containing the second of the five parts into which the +prose anthology is divided, with comical and humorous pieces from the +sixteenth century, (for instance, extracts from "Fortunatus," the +"Historia" of Dr. J. Faust, "Die Schildbürger," Desid, Erasmus's +"Gespräche," etc.,)--the other containing a collection of poetry of +the same kind, belonging to the present century, and forming part of +the third volume, with pieces by Uhland, Eichendorff, Rückert, +Sapphir, Wm. Müller, Immermann, Palten, Hoffmann, Kopisch, Heine, +Lenau, Möricke, Grün, Wackernagel, and many others. The anthology is +accompanied with biographical and historical notes, and explanations +of provincialisms and such words as to the American reader of German +would be likely to be otherwise unintelligible; so that he may thus, +without too much trouble, satisfactorily enjoy this treasury of +entertainment. The Germans may well be proud of such literary riches, +in which England alone surpasses them. + + +_Thüringer Naturen, Charakter-und Sittenbilder in +Erzählungen_. Von OTTO LUDWIG. Erster Band. _Die Heiterethei und +ihr Widerspiel_. Frankfurt. 1857. + +This is one of the numerous imitations of the celebrated +"Dorfgeschichten," by Berthold Auerbach. The latter introduced, in a +time of literary poverty, a wide range of new subjects for epical +treatment,--the life of German peasants, with their simple, healthy, +vigorous natures undepraved by a spurious civilization. In painting +these sinewy figures, full of a character of their own, he was very +felicitous, had an enormous success, and drew a host of less gifted +followers after him. Herr Ludwig is one of these. We shall not despair +of his becoming, at some future time, a second Auerbach; but he is not +one yet. There is, in this work, too much spreading out and +extenuation of a material which, in itself not very rich and varied, +requires great skill to mould into an epic form. But the author has a +remarkable power of drawing true, lifelike characters, and developing +them psychologically. It is refreshing to see that the German literary +taste is becoming gradually more _realistic,_ pure, and natural, +turning its back on the romantic school of the French. + + +_May Carols._ By AUBREY DE VERE. London. +1857. + +The name of Aubrey de Vere has for some years past been familiar to +the lovers of poetry, as that of a scholarly and genial poet. His +successive volumes have shown a steady growth in poetic power and +elevation of spirit. While gaining a firmer mastery over the +instruments of poetry he has struck from them a deeper, fuller, and +more significant tone. In this his last volume, which has lately +appeared, his verse is brought completely into the service of the +Church. The "May Carols" are poems celebrating the Virgin Mary in her +month of May. For that month, and for the Roman church, Mr. De Vere +has done in this volume what Keble did for the festivals of the year, +and the English church, in his "Christian Year." Catholicism in +England has produced no poet since the days of Crashaw so sincere in +his piety, so sweet in his melody, so pure in spirit as De Vere. And +the volume is not for Roman Catholic readers alone. Others may be +touched by its religious fervor, and charmed with its beauties of +description or of feeling. It is full and redolent of spring. The +sweetness of the May air flows through many of its verses,--of that +season when + + + Trees, that from winter's gray eclipse + Of late but pushed their topmost plume, + Or felt with green-touched finger-tips + For spring, their perfect robes assume. + + While, vague no more, the mountains stand + With quivering line or hazy hue; + But drawn with finer, firmer, hand, + And settling into deeper blue. + + +Mr. De Vere is an exquisite student of nature, with fine perceptions +that have been finely cultivated. Take this picture of the lark:-- + + + From his cold nest the skylark springs; + Sings, pauses, sings; shoots up anew; + Attains his topmost height, and sings + Quiescent in his vault of blue. + + +And here is a description of the later spring:-- + + + Brow-bound with myrtle and with gold, + Spring, sacred now from blasts and blights, + Lifts in a firm, untrembling hold + Her chalice of fulfilled delights. + + Confirmed around her queenly lip + The smile late wavering, on she moves; + And seems through deepening tides to step + Of steadier joys and larger loves. + + +The little volume contains many passages such as these. We have space +to quote but one of the poems complete, to show the manner in which +Mr. De Vere unites the real, the symbolic, and the external, with the +spiritual. Like most of his poems, it is marked by artistic finish and +grace, and many of the lines have a natural beauty of unsought +alliteration and assonance. + + + When all the breathless woods aloof + Lie hushed in noontide's deep repose + The dove, sun-warmed on yonder roof, + With what a grave content she coos! + + One note for her! Deep streams run smooth: + The ecstatic song of transience tells. + O, what a depth of loving truth + In thy divine contentment dwells! + + All day with down-dropt lids I sat + In trance; the present scene foregone. + When Hesper rose, on Ararat, + Methought, not English hills, he shone. + + Back to the Ark, the waters o'er, + The primal dove pursued her flight: + A branch of that blest tree she bore + Which feeds the Church with holy light. + + I heard her rustling through the air + With sliding plume,--no sound beside, + Save the sea-sobbings everywhere, + And sighs of the subsiding tide. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 1, +ISSUE 2, DECEMBER, 1857*** + + +******* This file should be named 10138-8.txt or 10138-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/3/10138 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857</p> +<p>Author: Various</p> +<p>Release Date: November 19, 2003 [eBook #10138]</p> +<p>[Date last updated: April 30, 2005]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Chatacter set encoding: iso-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2, DECEMBER, 1857***</p> +<center><h3>E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Bob Blair,<br> + and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders</h3></center> + +<hr> +<center> +<h1> + + THE<br> + ATLANTIC MONTHLY. +</h1> +<h2> + A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. +</h2> +<h3> + VOL. I.—DECEMBER, 1857.—NO. II. +</h3> +</center> + + + + + +<br><hr> +<br><br><br> + +<center> +<h2> +<a name="1">FLORENTINE MOSAICS.</a> +</h2> +</center> +<br> +<br> +[Concluded.] +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3> +VI. THE CARMINE. +</h3> +The only part of this ancient church which escaped destruction by fire +in 1771 was, most fortunately, the famous Brancacci chapel. Here are +the frescos by Masolino da Panicale, who died in the early part of the +fifteenth century,—the Preaching of Saint Peter, and the Healing of +the Sick. His scholar, Masaccio, (1402-1443,) continued the series, +the completion of which was entrusted to Filippino Lippi, son of Fra +Filippo. +<p> +No one can doubt that the hearty determination evinced by Masolino and +Masaccio to deal with actual life, to grapple to their souls the +visible forms of humanity, and to reproduce the types afterwards in +new, vivid, breathing combinations of dignity and intelligent action, +must have had an immense effect upon the course of Art. To judge by +the few and somewhat injured specimens of these masters which are +accessible, it is obvious that they had much more to do in forming the +great schools of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, than a painter +of such delicate, but limited genius as that of Fra Angelico could +possibly have. Certainly, the courage and accuracy exhibited in the +nude forms of Adam and Eve expelled from paradise, and the expressive +grace in the group of Saint Paul conversing with Saint Peter in +prison, where so much knowledge and power of action are combined with +so much beauty, all show an immense advance over the best works of the +preceding three quarters of a century. +<p> +Besides the great intrinsic merits of these paintings, the Brancacci +chapel is especially interesting from the direct and unquestionable +effect which it is known to have had upon younger painters. Here +Raphael and Michel Angelo, in their youth, and Benvenuto Cellini +passed many hours, copying and recopying what were then the first +masterpieces of painting, the traces of which study are distinctly +visible in their later productions; and here, too, according to +Cellini, the famous punch in the nose befell Buonarotti, by which his +well-known physiognomy acquired its marked peculiarity. Torregiani, +painter and sculptor of secondary importance, but a bully of the first +class,—a man who was in the habit of knocking about the artists whom +he could not equal, and of breaking both their models and their +heads,—had been accustomed to copy in the Brancacci chapel, among the +rest. He had been much annoyed, according to his own account, by +Michel Angelo's habit of laughing at the efforts of artists inferior +in skill to himself, and had determined to punish him. One day, +Buonarotti came into the chapel as usual, and whistled and sneered at +a copy which Torregiani was making. The aggrieved artist, a man of +large proportions, very truculent of aspect, with a loud voice and a +savage frown, sprang upon his critic, and dealt him such a blow upon +the nose, that the bone and cartilage yielded under his hand, +according to his own account, as if they had been made of +dough,—<i>"come se fosse stato un cialdone."</i> This was when both +were very young men; but Torregiani, when relating the story many +years afterwards, always congratulated himself that Buonarotti would +bear the mark of the blow all his life. It may be added, that the +bully met a hard fate afterwards. Having executed a statue in Spain +for a grandee, he was very much outraged by receiving only thirty +scudi as his reward, and accordingly smashed the statue to pieces with +a sledge-hammer. In revenge, the Spaniard accused him of heresy, so +that the unlucky artist was condemned to the flames by the +Inquisition, and only escaped that horrible death by starving himself +in prison before the execution. + +<h3> +VII. SANTA TRINITÀ. +</h3> +<p> +In the chapel of the Sassetti, in this church, is a good set of +frescos by Dominic Ghirlandaio, representing passages from the life of +Saint Francis. They are not so masterly as his compositions in the +Santa Maria Novella. Moreover, they are badly placed, badly lighted, +and badly injured. They are in a northwestern corner, where light +never comes that comes to all. The dramatic power and Flemish skill in +portraiture of the man are, however, very visible, even in the +darkness. No painter of his century approached him in animated +grouping and powerful physiognomizing. Dignified, noble, powerful, and +natural, he is the exact counterpart of Fra Angelico, among the +<i>Quattrocentisti</i>. Two great, distinct systems,—the shallow, +shrinking, timid, but rapturously devotional, piously sentimental +school, of which Beato Angelico was <i>facile princeps</i>, painfully +adventuring out of the close atmosphere of the <i>miniatori</i> into +the broader light and more gairish colors of the actual, and falling +back, hesitating and distrustful; and the hardy, healthy, audacious +naturalists, wreaking strong and warm human emotions upon vigorous +expression and confident attitude;—these two widely separated streams +of Art, remote from each other in origin, and fed by various rills, in +their course through the century, were to meet in one ocean at its +close. This was then the fulness of perfection, the age of Angelo and +Raphael, Leonardo and Correggio. + +<h3> +VIII. SAN MARCO. +</h3> +<p> +Fra Beato Angelico, who was a brother of this Dominican house, has +filled nearly the whole monastery with the works of his +hand. Considering the date of his birth, 1387, and his conventual +life, he was hardly less wonderful than his wonderful epoch. Here is +the same convent, the same city; while instead merely of the works of +Cimabue, Giotto, and Orgagna, there are masterpieces by all the +painters who ever lived to study;—yet imagine the snuffy old monk who +will show you about the edifice, or any of his brethren, coming out +with a series of masterpieces! One might as well expect a new +Savonarola, who was likewise a friar in this establishment, to preach +against Pio Nono, and to get himself burned in the Piazza for his +pains. +<p> +In the old chapter-house is a very large, and for the angelic Frater a +very hazardous performance,—a Crucifixion. The heads here are full +of feeling and feebleness, except those of Mary Mother and Mary +Magdalen, which are both very touching and tender. There is, however, +an absolute impotence to reproduce the actual, to deal with groups of +humanity upon a liberal scale. There is his usual want of +discrimination, too, in physiognomy; for if the seraphic and +intellectual head of the penitent thief were transferred to the +shoulders of the Saviour in exchange for his own, no one could dispute +that it would be an improvement. +<p> +Up stairs is a very sweet Annunciation. The subdued, demure, somewhat +astonished joy of the Virgin is poetically rendered, both in face and +attitude, and the figure of the angel has much grace. A small, but +beautiful composition, the Coronation of the Virgin, is perhaps the +most impressive of the whole series. +<p> +Below is a series of frescos by a very second-rate artist, +Poccetti. Among them is a portrait of Savonarola; but as the reformer +was burned half a century before Poccetti was born, it has not even +the merit of authenticity. It was from this house that Savonarola was +taken to be imprisoned and executed in 1498. There seems something +unsatisfactory about Savonarola. One naturally sympathizes with the +bold denouncer of Alexander VI.; but there was a lack of benevolence +in his head and his heart. Without that anterior depression of the +sinciput, he could hardly have permitted two friends to walk into the +fire in his stead, as they were about to do in the stupendous and +horrible farce enacted in the Piazza Gran Duca. There was no lack of +self-esteem either in the man or his head. Without it, he would +scarcely have thought so highly of his rather washy scheme for +reorganizing the democratic government, and so very humbly of the +genius of Dante, Petrarch, and others, whose works he condemned to the +flames. A fraternal regard, too, for such great artists as Fra +Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo,—both members of his own convent, and +the latter a personal friend,—might have prevented his organizing +that famous holocaust of paintings, that wretched iconoclasm, by which +he signalized his brief period of popularity and power. In weighing, +gauging, and measuring such a man, one ought to remember, that if he +could have had his way and carried out all his schemes, he would have +abolished Borgianism certainly, and perhaps the papacy, but that he +would have substituted the rhapsodical reign of a single demagogue, +perpetually seeing visions and dreaming dreams for the direction of +his fellow-citizens, who were all to be governed by the hallucinations +of this puritan Mahomet. + +<h3> +IX. THE MEDICI CHAPEL. +</h3> +<p> +The famous cemetery of the Medici, the Sagrestia Nuova, is a ponderous +and dismal toy. It is a huge mass of expensive, solemn, and insipid +magnificence, erected over the carcasses of as contemptible a family +as ever rioted above the earth, or rotted under it. The only man of +the race, Cosmo il Vecchio, who deserves any healthy admiration, +although he was the real assassin of Florentine and Italian freedom, +and has thus earned the nickname of <i>Pater Patriæ,</i> is not buried +here. The series of mighty dead begins with the infamous Cosmo, first +grand duke, the contemporary of Philip II. of Spain, and his +counterpart in character and crime. Then there is Ferdinando I., whose +most signal achievement was not eating the poisoned pie prepared by +the fair hands of Bianca Capello. There are other Ferdinandos, and +other Cosmos,—all grand-ducal and <i>pater-patrial,</i> as Medici +should be. +<p> +The chapel is a vast lump of Florentine mosaic, octagonal, a hundred +feet or so in diameter, and about twice as high. The cupola has some +brand-new frescos, by Benvenuto. "Anthropophagi, whose heads do grow +beneath their shoulders," may enjoy these pictures upon domes. For +common mortals it is not agreeable to remain very long upside down, +even to contemplate masterpieces, which these certainly are not. +<p> +The walls of the chapel are all incrusted with gorgeous marbles and +precious stones, from malachite, porphyry, lapis-lazuli, chalcedony, +agate, to all the finer and more expensive gems which shone in Aaron's +ephod. When one considers that an ear-ring or a brooch, half an inch +long, of Florentine mosaic work, costs five or six dollars, and that +here is a great church of the same material and workmanship as a +breastpin, one may imagine it to have been somewhat expensive. +<p> +The Sagrestia Nuova was built by Michel Angelo, to hold his monuments +to Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Urbino, and grandson of Lorenzo the +Magnificent, and to Julian de' Medici, son of Lorenzo Magnifico. +<p> +It is not edifying to think of the creative soul and plastic hands of +Buonarotti employed in rendering worship to such creatures. This +Lorenzo is chiefly known as having married Madeleine de Boulogne, and +as having died, as well as his wife, of a nameless disorder, +immediately after they had engendered the renowned Catharine de' +Medici, whose hideous life was worthy of its corrupt and poisoned +source. +<p> +Did Michel Angelo look upon his subject as a purely imaginary one? +Surely he must have had some definite form before his mental vision; +for although sculpture cannot, like painting, tell an elaborate story, +still each figure must have a moral and a meaning, must show cause for +its existence, and indicate a possible function, or the mind of the +spectator is left empty and craving. +<p> +Here, at the tomb of Lorenzo, are three masterly figures. An heroic, +martial, deeply contemplative figure sits in grand repose. A +statesman, a sage, a patriot, a warrior, with countenance immersed in +solemn thought, and head supported and partly hidden by his hand, is +brooding over great recollections and mighty deeds. Was this Lorenzo, +the husband of Madeleine, the father of Catharine? Certainly the mind +at once dethrones him from his supremacy upon his own tomb, and +substitutes an Epaminondas, a Cromwell, a Washington,—what it +wills. 'Tis a godlike apparition, and need be called by no mortal +name. We feel unwilling to invade the repose of that majestic reverie +by vulgar invocation. The hero, nameless as he must ever remain, sits +there in no questionable shape, nor can we penetrate the sanctuary of +that marble soul. Till we can summon Michel, with his chisel, to add +the finishing strokes to the grave, silent face of the naked figure +reclining below the tomb, or to supply the lacking left hand to the +colossal form of female beauty sitting upon the opposite sepulchre, we +must continue to burst in ignorance. Sooner shall the ponderous +marble jaws of the tomb open, that Lorenzo may come forth to claim his +right to the trophy, than any admirer of human genius will doubt that +the shade of some real hero was present to the mind's eye of the +sculptor, when he tore these stately forms out of the enclosing rock. +<p> +A colossal hero sits, serene and solemn, upon a sepulchre. Beneath him +recline two vast mourning figures, one of each sex. One longs to +challenge converse with the male figure, with the unfinished +Sphinx-like face, who is stretched there at his harmonious length, +like an ancient river-god without his urn. There is nothing appalling +or chilling in his expression, nor does he seem to mourn without +hope. 'Tis a stately recumbent figure, of wonderful anatomy, without +any exaggeration of muscle, and, accordingly, his name is——Twilight! +<p> +Why Twilight should grieve at the tomb of Lorenzo, grandson of Lorenzo +Magnifico, any more than the grandfather would have done, does not +seem very clear, even to Twilight himself, who seems, after all, in a +very crepuscular state upon the subject. The mistiness is much aided +by the glimmering expression of his half-finished features. +<p> +But if Twilight should be pensive at the demise of Lorenzo, is there +any reason why Aurora should weep outright upon the same occasion? +This Aurora, however, weeping and stately, all nobleness and all +tears, is a magnificent creation, fashioned with the audacious +accuracy which has been granted to few modern sculptors. The figure +and face are most beautiful, and rise above all puny criticism; and as +one looks upon that sublime and wailing form, that noble and nameless +child of a divine genius, the flippant question dies on the lip, and +we seek not to disturb that passionate and beautiful image of woman's +grief by idle curiosity or useless speculation. +<p> +The monument, upon the opposite side, to Julian, third son of Lorenzo +Magnifico, is of very much the same character. Here are also two +mourning figures. One is a sleeping and wonderfully beautiful female +shape, colossal, in a position less adapted to repose than to the +display of the sculptor's power and her own perfections. This is +Night. A stupendously sculptured male figure, in a reclining attitude, +and exhibiting, I suppose, as much learning in his <i>torso</i> as +does the famous figure in the Elgin marbles, strikes one as the most +triumphant statue of modern times. +<p> +The figure of Julian is not agreeable. The neck, long and twisted, +suggests an heroic ostrich in a Roman breastplate. The attitude, too, +is ungraceful. The hero sits with his knees projecting beyond the +perpendicular, so that his legs seem to be doubling under him, a +position deficient in grace and dignity. +<p> +It is superfluous to say that the spectator must invent for himself +the allegory which he may choose to see embodied in this stony +trio. It is not enough to be told the words of the charade,—Julian, +Night, Morning. One can never spell out the meaning by putting +together the group with the aid of such a key. Night is Night, +obviously, because she is asleep. For an equally profound reason, Day +is Day, because he is not asleep; and both, looked at in this vulgar +light, are creations as imaginative as Simon Snug, with his lantern, +representing moonshine. If the figures should arise and walk across +the chapel, changing places with the couple opposite them, as if in a +sepulchral quadrille, would the allegory become more intelligible? +Could not Day or Night move from Julian's monument, and take up the +same position at Lorenzo's tomb, or "Ninny's tomb," or any other tomb? +Was Lorenzo any more to Aurora than Julian, that she should weep for +him only? +<p> +Therefore one must invent for one's self the fable of those immortal +groups. Each spectator must pluck out, unaided, the heart of their +mystery. Those matchless colossal forms, which the foolish chroniclers +of the time have baptized Night and Morning, speak an unknown language +to the crowd. They are mute as Sphinx to souls which cannot supply the +music and the poetry which fell from their marble lips upon the ear of +him who created them. + +<h3> +X. PALAZZO RICCARDI. +</h3> +<p> +The ancient residence of Cosmo Vecchio and his successors is a +magnificent example of that vast and terrible architecture peculiar to +Florence. This has always been a city, not of streets, but of +fortresses. Each block is one house, but a house of the size of a +citadel; while the corridors and apartments are like casemates and +bastions, so gloomy and savage is their expression. Ancient Florence, +the city of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries, the +Florence of the nobles, the Florence of the Ghibellines, the Florence +in which nearly every house was a castle, with frowning towers +hundreds of feet high, machicolated battlements, donjon keeps, +oubliettes, and all other appurtenances of a feudal stronghold, exists +no longer. With the expulsion of the imperial faction, and the advent +of the municipal Guelphs,—that proudest, boldest, most successful, +and most unreasonable <i>bourgeoisie</i> which ever assumed organized +life,—the nobles were curtailed of all their privileges. Their city +castles, too, were shorn of their towers, which were limited to just +so many ells, cloth measure, by the haughty shopkeepers who had +displaced the grandees. The first third of the thirteenth century—the +epoch of the memorable Buondelmonti street fight which lasted thirty +years—was the period in which this dreadful architecture was fixed +upon Florence. Then was the time in which the chains, fastened in +those huge rings which still dangle from the grim house-fronts, were +stretched across the street; thus enclosing and fettering a compact +mass of combatants in an iron embrace, while from the rare and narrow +murder-windows in the walls, and from the beetling roofs, descended +the hail of iron and stone and scalding pitch and red-hot coals to +refresh the struggling throng below. +<p> +After this epoch, and with the expiration of the imperial house of the +Hohenstaufen, the nobles here, as in Switzerland, sought to popularize +themselves, to become municipal. + +<blockquote> + Der Adel steigt von seinen alten Burgen,<br> + Und schwört den Städten seinen Bürger-Eid, +</blockquote> +<p> +said the prophetic old Attinghausen, in his dying moments. The change +was even more extraordinary in Florence. The expulsion of some of the +patrician families was absolute. Others were allowed to participate +with the plebeians in the struggle for civic honors, and for the +wealth earned in commerce, manufactures, and handicraft. It became a +severe and not uncommon punishment to degrade offending individuals or +families into the ranks of nobility, and thus deprive them of their +civil rights. Hundreds of low-born persons have, in a single day, been +declared noble, and thus disfranchised. And the example of Florence +was often followed by other cities. +<p> +The result was twofold upon the aristocracy. Those who municipalized +themselves became more enlightened, more lettered, more refined, and, +at the same time, less chivalrous and less martial than their +ancestors. The characters of buccaneer, land-pirate, knight-errant +could not be conveniently united with those of banker, exchange +broker, dealer in dry goods, and general commission agents. +<p> +The consequence was that the fighting business became a specialty, and +fell into the hands of private companies. Florence, like Venice, and +other Italian republics, jobbed her wars. The work was done by the +Hawkwoods, the Sforzas, the Bracciones, and other chiefs of the +celebrated free companies, black bands, lance societies, who +understood no other profession, but who were as accomplished in the +arts of their own guild as were any of the five major and seven minor +crafts into which the Florentine burgesses were divided. +<p> +This proved a bad thing for the liberties of Florence in the end. The +chieftains of these military clubs, usually from the lowest ranks, +with no capacity but for bloodshed, and no revenue but rapine, often +ended their career by obtaining the seigniory of some petty republic, +a small town, or a handful of hamlets, whose liberty they crushed with +their own iron, and with the gold obtained, in exchange for their +blood, from the city bankers. In the course of time such seigniories +often rolled together, and assumed a menacing shape to all who valued +municipal liberty. Sforza—whose peasant father threw his axe into a +tree, resolving, if it fell, to join, as a common soldier, the roving +band which had just invited him; if it adhered to the wood, to remain +at home a laboring hind—becomes Duke of Milan, and is encouraged in +his usurpation by Cosmo Vecchio, who still gives himself the airs of +first-citizen of Florence. +<p> +The serpent, the well-known cognizance of the Visconti, had already +coiled itself around all those fair and clustering cities which were +once the Lombard republics, and had poisoned their vigorous life. The +Ezzelinos, Carraras, Gonzagas, Scalas, had crushed the spirit of +liberty in the neighborhood of Venice. All this had been accomplished +by means of mercenary adventurers, guided only by the love of plunder; +while those two luxurious and stately republics—the one an oligarchy, +the other a democracy—looked on from their marble palaces, enjoying +the refreshing bloodshowers in which their own golden harvests were so +rapidly ripening. +<p> +Meanwhile a gigantic despotism was maturing, which was eventually to +crush the power, glory, wealth, and freedom of Italy. +<p> +This <i>palazzo</i> of Cosmo the Elder is a good type of Florentine +architecture at its ultimate epoch, just as Cosmo himself was the +largest expression of the Florentine citizen in the last and over-ripe +stage. +<p> +The Medici family, unheard of in the thirteenth century, obscure and +plebeian in the middle of the fourteenth, and wealthy bankers and +leaders of the democratic party at its close, culminated in the early +part of the fifteenth in the person of Cosmo. The <i>Pater +Patriæ,</i>—so called, because, having at last absorbed all the +authority, he could afford to affect some of the benignity of a +parent, and to treat his fellow-citizens, not as men, but as little +children,—the Father of his Country had acquired, by means of his +great fortune and large financial connections, an immense control over +the destinies of Florence and Italy. But he was still a private +citizen in externals. There was, at least, elevation of taste, +refinement of sentiment in Cosmo's conception of a great citizen. His +habits of life were elegant, but frugal. He built churches, palaces, +villas. He employed all the great architects of the age. He adorned +these edifices with masterpieces from the pencils and chisels of the +wonderful <i>Quattrocentisti</i>, whose productions alone would have +given Florence an immortal name in Art history. Yet he preserved a +perfect simplicity of equipage and apparel. In this regard, faithful +to the traditions of the republic, which his family had really changed +from a democracy to a ploutarchy, he had the good taste to scorn the +vulgar pomp of kings,—"the horses led, and grooms besmeared with +gold,"—all the theatrical paraphernalia and plebeian tinsel "which +dazzle the crowd and set them all agape"; but his expenditures were +those of an intellectual and accomplished oligarch. He was worthy, in +many respects, to be the chief of those haughty merchants and +manufacturers, who wielded more power, through the length of their +purses and the cultivation of their brains, than did all the +contemporaneous and illiterate barons of the rest of Christendom, by +dint of castle-storming and cattle-stealing. +<p> +In an age when other nobles were proud of being unable to write their +own names, or to read them when others wrote them, the great princes +and citizens of Florence protected and cultivated art, science, and +letters. Every citizen received a liberal education. Poets and +philosophers sat in the councils of the republic. Philosophy, +metaphysics, and the restoration of ancient learning occupied the +minds and diminished the revenues of its greater and inferior +burghers. In this respect, the Medici, and their abetters of the +fifteenth century, discharged a portion of the debt which they had +incurred to humanity. They robbed Italy of her freedom, but they gave +her back the philosophy of Plato. They reduced the generality of +Florentine citizens, who were once omnipotent, to a nullity; but they +had at least, the sense to cherish Donatello and Ghiberti, +Brunelleschi and Gozzoli, Ficino and Politian. +<p> +It is singular, too, with what comparatively small means the Medici +were enabled to do such great things. Cosmo, unquestionably the +greatest and most successful citizen that ever lived,—for he almost +rivalled Pericles in position, if not in talent, while he surpassed +him in good fortune,—was, during his lifetime, the virtual sovereign +of the most enlightened and wealthy and powerful republic that had +existed in modern times. He built the church of San Marco, the church +of San Lorenzo, the cloister of San Verdiano. On the hill of Fiesole he +erected a church and a convent. At Jerusalem he built a church and a +hospital for pilgrims. All this was for religion, the republic, and +the world. For himself he constructed four splendid villas, at +Careggi, Fiesole, Caffaggiolo, and Trebbio, and in the city the +magnificent palace in the Via Larga, now called the Riccardi. +<p> +In thirty-seven years, from 1434 to 1471, he and his successors +expended eight millions of francs (663,755 gold florins) in buildings +and charities,—a sum which may be represented by as many, or, as some +would reckon, twice as many, dollars at the present day. Nevertheless, +the income of Cosmo was never more than 600,000 francs, (50,000 gold +florins,) while his fortune was never thought to exceed three millions +of francs, or six hundred thousand dollars. Being invested in +commerce, his property yielded, and ought to have yielded, an income +of twenty <i>per cent</i>. Nevertheless, an inventory made in 1469 +showed, that, after twenty-nine years, he left to his son Pietro a +fortune but just about equal in amount to that which he had himself +received from his father. +<p> +With six hundred thousand dollars for his whole capital, then, Cosmo +was able to play his magnificent part in the world's history; while +the Duke of Milan, son of the peasant Sforza, sometimes expended more +than that sum in a single year. So much difference was there between +the position and requirements of an educated and opulent +first-citizen, and a low-born military <i>parvenu</i>, whom, however, +Cosmo was most earnest to encourage and to strengthen in his designs +against the liberties of Lombardy. +<p> +This Riccardi palace, as Cosmo observed after his poor son Peter had +become bed-ridden with the gout, was a marvellously large mansion for +so small a family as one old man and one cripple. It is chiefly +interesting, now, for the frescos with which Benozzo Gozzoli has +adorned the chapel. The same cause which has preserved these beautiful +paintings so fresh, four centuries long, has unfortunately always +prevented their being seen to any advantage. The absence of light, +which has kept the colors from fading, is most provoking, when one +wishes to admire the works of a great master, whose productions are so +rare. +<p> +Gozzoli, who lived and worked through the middle of the fifteenth +century, is chiefly known by his large and graceful compositions in +the Pisan Campo Santo. These masterpieces are fast crumbling into +mildewed rubbish. He had as much vigor and audacity as Ghirlandaio, +with more grace and freshness of invention. He has, however, nothing +of his dramatic power. His genius is rather idyllic and +romantic. Although some of the figures in these Medici palace frescos +are thought to be family portraits, still they hardly seem very +lifelike. The subjects selected are a Nativity, and an Adoration of +the Magi. In the neighborhood of the window is a choir of angels +singing Hosanna, full of freshness and vernal grace. The long +procession of kings riding to pay their homage, "with tedious pomp and +rich retinue long," has given the artist an opportunity of exhibiting +more power in perspective and fore-shortening than one could expect at +that epoch. There are mules and horses, caparisoned and bedizened; +some led by grinning blackamoors, others ridden by showy kings, +effulgent in brocade, glittering spurs, and gleaming cuirasses. Here +are horsemen travelling straight towards the spectator,—there, a +group, in an exactly opposite direction, is forcing its way into the +picture,—while hunters with hound and horn are pursuing the stag on +the neighboring hills, and idle spectators stand around, gaping and +dazzled; all drawn with a free and accurate pencil, and colored with +much brilliancy;—a triumphant and masterly composition, hidden in a +dark corner of what has now become a great dusty building, filled with +public offices. + +<h3> +XI. FIESOLE. +</h3> +<p> +Here sits on her hill the weird old Etrurian nurse of Florence, +withered, superannuated, feeble, warming her palsied limbs in the sun, +and looking vacantly down upon the beautiful child whose cradle she +rocked. Fiesole is perhaps the oldest Italian city. The inhabitants of +middle and lower Italy were Pelasgians by origin, like the earlier +races of Greece. The Etrurians were an aboriginal stock,—that is to +say, as far as anything can be definitely stated regarding their +original establishment in the peninsula; for they, too, doubtless +came, at some remote epoch, from beyond the Altai mountains. +<p> +In their arts they seem to have been original,—at least, until at a +later period they began to imitate the culture of Greece. They were +the only ancient Italian people who had the art-capacity; and they +supplied the wants of royal Rome, just as Greece afterwards supplied +the republic and the empire with the far more elevated creations of +her plastic genius. +<p> +The great works undertaken by the Tarquins, if there ever were +Tarquins, were in the hands of Etrurian architects and sculptors. The +admirable system of subterranean drainage in Rome, by which the swampy +hollows among the seven hills were converted into stately streets, and +the stupendous <i>cloaca maxima</i>, the buried arches of which have +sustained for more than two thousand years, without flinching, the +weight of superincumbent Rome, were Etrurian performances, commenced +six centuries before Christ. +<p> +It would appear that this people had rather a tendency to the useful, +than to the beautiful. Unable to assimilate the elements of beauty and +grace furnished by more genial races, this mystic and vanished nation +was rather prone to the stupendously and minutely practical, than +devoted to the beautiful for its own sake. +<p> +At Fiesole, the vast Cyclopean walls, still fixed and firm as the +everlasting hills, in their parallelopipedal layers, attest the +grandeur of the ancient city. Here are walls built, probably, before +the foundation of Rome, and yet steadfast as the Apennines. There are +also a broken ring or two of an amphitheatre; for the Etrurians +preceded and instructed the Romans in gladiatorial shows. It is +suggestive to seat one's self upon these solid granite seats, where +twenty-five hundred years ago some grave Etrurian citizen, wrapped in +his mantle of Tyrrhenian purple, his straight-nosed wife at his side, +with serpent bracelet and enamelled brooch, and a hopeful family +clustering playfully at their knees, looked placidly on, while slaves +were baiting and butchering each other in the arena below. +<p> +The Duomo is an edifice of the Romanesque period, and contains some +masterpieces by Mino da Fiesole. On a fine day, however, the church is +too dismal, and the scene outside too glowing and golden, to permit +any compromise between nature and Mino. The view from the Franciscan +convent upon the brow of the hill, site of the ancient acropolis, is +on the whole the very best which can be obtained of Florence and the +Val d' Arno. All the verdurous, gently rolling hills which are heaped +about Firenze la bella are visible at once. There, stretched languidly +upon those piles of velvet cushions, reposes the luxurious, jewelled, +tiara-crowned city, like Cleopatra on her couch. Nothing, save an +Oriental or Italian city on the sea-coast, can present a more +beautiful picture. The hills are tossed about so softly, the sunshine +comes down in its golden shower so voluptuously, the yellow Arno moves +along its channel so noiselessly, the chains of villages, villas, +convents, and palaces are strung together with such a profuse and +careless grace, wreathing themselves from hill to hill, and around +every coigne of vantage, the forests of olive and the festoons of vine +are so poetical and suggestive, that we wonder not that civilized man +has found this an attractive abode for twenty-five centuries. +<p> +Florence is stone dead. 'Tis but a polished tortoise-shell, of which +the living inhabitant has long since crumbled to dust; but it still +gleams in the sun with wondrous radiance. +<p> +Just at your feet, as you stand on the convent terrace, is the Villa +Mozzi, where, not long ago, were found buried jars of Roman coins of +the republican era, hidden there by Catiline, at the epoch of his +memorable conspiracy. Upon the same spot was the favorite residence of +Lorenzo Magnifico; concerning whose probable ponderings, as he sat +upon his terrace, with his legs dangling over Florence, much may be +learned from the guide-book of the immortal Murray, so that he who +runs may read and philosophize. +<p> +Looking at Florence from the hill-top, one is more impressed than ever +with the appropriateness of its name. <i>The City of Flowers</i> is +itself a flower, and, as you gaze upon it from a height, you see how +it opens from its calyx. The many bright villages, gay gardens, +palaces, and convents which encircle the city, are not to be regarded +separately, but as one whole. The germ and heart of Florence, the +compressed and half hidden Piazza, with its dome, campanile, and long, +slender towers, shooting forth like the stamens and pistils, is +closely folded and sombre, while the vast and beautiful corolla +spreads its brilliant and fragrant circumference, petal upon petal, +for miles and miles around. + + +<br><br><hr> +<br><br><br> + +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="2">THE BATTLE OF LEPANTO.</a> +</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +It was two hours before dawn on Sunday, the memorable seventh of +October, 1571, when the fleet weighed anchor. The wind had become +lighter, but it was still contrary, and the galleys were indebted for +their progress much more to their oars than to their sails. By sunrise +they were abreast of the Curzolares, a cluster of huge rocks, or rocky +islets, which, on the north, defends the entrance of the Gulf of +Lepanto. The fleet moved laboriously along, while every eye was +strained to catch the first glimpse of the hostile navy. At length the +watch from the foretop of the <i>Real</i> called out, "A sail!" and +soon after announced that the whole Ottoman fleet was in +sight. Several others, climbing up the rigging, confirmed his report; +and in a few moments more word was sent to the same effect by Andrew +Doria, who commanded on the right. There was no longer any doubt; and +Don John, ordering his pendant to be displayed at the mizzen-peak, +unfurled the great standard of the League, given by the pope, and +directed a gun to be fired, the signal for battle. The report, as it +ran along the rocky shores, fell cheerily on the ears of the +confederates, who, raising their eyes towards the consecrated banner, +filled the air with their shouts. +<p> +The principal captains now came on board the <i>Real</i> to receive +the last orders of the commander-in-chief. Even at this late hour +there were some who ventured to intimate their doubts of the +expediency of engaging the enemy in a position where he had a decided +advantage. But Don John cut short the discussion. "Gentlemen," he +said, "this is the time for combat, not for counsel." He then +continued the dispositions he was making for the assault. +<p> +He had already given to each commander of a galley written +instructions as to the manner in which the line of battle was to be +formed, in case of meeting the enemy. The armada was now formed in +that order. It extended on a front of three miles. Far on the right a +squadron of sixty-four galleys was commanded by the Genoese, Andrew +Doria, a name of terror to the Moslems. The centre, or <i>battle</i>, as it +was called, consisting of sixty-three galleys, was led by John of +Austria, who was supported on the one side by Colonna, the +captain-general of the pope, and on the other by the Venetian +captain-general, Veniero. Immediately in the rear was the galley of +the <i>Comendador</i> Requesens, who still remained near the person of his +former pupil; though a difference which arose between them on +the voyage, fortunately now healed, showed that the young +commander-in-chief was wholly independent of his teacher in the art of +war. The left wing was commanded by the noble Venetian, Barberigo, +whose vessels stretched along the Ætolian shore, which, to prevent his +being turned by the enemy, he approached as near as, in his ignorance +of the coast, he dared to venture. Finally, the reserve, consisting of +thirty-five galleys, was given to the brave Marquis of Santa Cruz, +with directions to act on any part where he thought his presence most +needed. The smaller craft, some of which had now arrived, seem to have +taken little part in the action, which was thus left to the galleys. +<p> +Each commander was to occupy so much space with his galley as to allow +room for manoeuvring it to advantage, and yet not enough to enable the +enemy to break the line. He was directed to single out his adversary, +to close at once with him, and board as soon as possible. The beaks +of the galleys were pronounced to be a hindrance rather than a help in +action. They were rarely strong enough to resist a shock from the +enemy; and they much interfered with the working and firing of the +guns. Don John had the beak of his vessel cut away; and the example +was speedily followed throughout the fleet, and, as it is said, with +eminently good effect. It may seem strange that this discovery should +have been reserved for the crisis of a battle. +<p> +When the officers had received their last instructions, they returned +to their respective vessels; and Don John, going on board of a light +frigate, passed rapidly through that part of the armada lying on his +right, while he commanded Requesens to do the same with the vessels on +his left. His object was to feel the temper of his men, and rouse +their mettle by a few words of encouragement. The Venetians he +reminded of their recent injuries. The hour for vengeance, he told +them, had arrived. To the Spaniards, and other confederates, he said, +"You have come to fight the battle of the Cross,—to conquer or +die. But whether you die or conquer, do your duty this day, and you +will secure a glorious immortality." His words were received with a +burst of enthusiasm which went to the heart of the commander, and +assured him that he could rely on his men in the hour of trial. On his +return to his vessel, he saw Veniero on his quarter-deck, and they +exchanged salutations in as friendly a manner as if no difference had +existed between them. At a time like this, both these brave men were +willing to forget all personal animosity, in a common feeling of +devotion to the great cause in which they were engaged. +<p> +The Ottoman fleet came on slowly and with difficulty. For, strange to +say, the wind, which had hitherto been adverse to the Christians, +after lulling for a time, suddenly shifted to the opposite quarter, +and blew in the face of the enemy. As the day advanced, moreover, the +sun, which had shone in the eyes of the confederates, gradually shot +its rays into those of the Moslems. Both circumstances were of good +omen to the Christians, and the first was regarded as nothing short of +a direct interposition of Heaven. Thus ploughing its way along, the +Turkish armament, as it came nearer into view, showed itself in +greater strength than had been anticipated by the allies. It consisted +of nearly two hundred and fifty royal galleys, most of them of the +largest class, besides a number of smaller vessels in the rear, which, +like those of the allies, appear scarcely to have come into +action. The men on board, including those of every description, were +computed at not less than a hundred and twenty thousand. The galleys +spread out, as usual with the Turks, in the form of a regular +half-moon, covering a wider extent of surface than the combined +fleets, which they somewhat exceeded in numbers. They presented, +indeed, as they drew nearer, a magnificent array, with their gilded +and gaudily painted prows, and their myriads of pennons and streamers +fluttering gayly in the breeze, while the rays of the morning sun +glanced on the polished scymitars of Damascus, and on the superb +aigrettes of jewels which sparkled in the turbans of the Ottoman +chiefs. +<p> +In the centre of the extended line, and directly opposite to the +station occupied by the captain-general of the League, was the huge +galley of Ali Pasha. The right of the armada was commanded by Mehemet +Siroco, viceroy of Egypt, a circumspect as well as courageous leader; +the left by Uluch Ali, dey of Algiers, the redoubtable corsair of the +Mediterranean. Ali Pasha had experienced a similar difficulty with Don +John, as several of his officers had strongly urged the inexpediency +of engaging so formidable an armament as that of the allies. But Ali, +like his rival, was young and ambitious. He had been sent by his +master to fight the enemy; and no remonstrances, not even those of +Mehemet Siroco, for whom he had great respect, could turn him from his +purpose. +<p> +He had, moreover, received intelligence that the allied fleet was much +inferior in strength to what it proved. In this error he was +fortified by the first appearance of the Christians; for the extremity +of their left wing, commanded by Barberigo, stretching behind the +Ætolian shore, was hidden from his view. As he drew nearer, and saw +the whole extent of the Christian lines, it is said his countenance +fell. If so, he still did not abate one jot of his resolution. He +spoke to those around him with the same confidence as before of the +result of the battle. He urged his rowers to strain every effort. Ali +was a man of more humanity than often belonged to his nation. His +galley-slaves were all, or nearly all, Christian captives; and he +addressed them in this neat and pithy manner: "If your countrymen win +this day, Allah give you the benefit of it! Yet if I win it, you +shall have your freedom. If you feel that I do well by you, do then +the like by me." +<p> +As the Turkish admiral drew nearer, he made a change in his order of +battle by separating his wings farther from his centre, thus +conforming to the dispositions of the allies. Before he had come +within cannon-shot, he fired a gun by way of challenge to his +enemy. It was answered by another from the galley of John of +Austria. A second gun discharged by Ali was as promptly replied to by +the Christian commander. The distance between the two fleets was now +rapidly diminishing. At this solemn hour a death-like silence reigned +throughout the armament of the confederates. Men seemed to hold their +breath, as if absorbed in the expectation of some great +catastrophe. The day was magnificent. A light breeze, still adverse +to the Turks, played on the waters, somewhat fretted by contrary +winds. It was nearly noon; and as the sun, mounting through a +cloudless sky, rose to the zenith, he seemed to pause, as if to look +down on the beautiful scene, where the multitude of galleys, moving +over the water, showed like a holiday spectacle rather than a +preparation for mortal combat. +<p> +The illusion was soon dispelled by the fierce yells which rose on the +air from the Turkish armada. It was the customary war-cry with which +the Moslems entered into battle. Very different was the scene on board +of the Christian galleys. Don John might be there seen, armed +cap-a-pie, standing on the prow of the <i>Real</i>, anxiously awaiting +the coming conflict. In this conspicuous position, kneeling down, he +raised his eyes to heaven, and humbly prayed that the Almighty would +be with his people on that day. His example was speedily followed by +the whole fleet. Officers and men, all falling on their knees, and +turning their eyes to the consecrated banner which floated from the +<i>Real</i>, put up a petition like that of their commander. They +then received absolution from the priests, of whom there were some in +each vessel; and each man, as he rose to his feet, gathered new +strength from the assurance that the Lord of Hosts would fight on his +side. +<p> +When the foremost vessels of the Turks had come within cannon-shot, +they opened a fire on the Christians. The firing soon ran along the +whole of the Turkish line, and was kept up without interruption as it +advanced. Don John gave orders for trumpet and atabal to sound the +signal for action; and a simultaneous discharge followed from such of +the guns in the combined fleet as could bear on the enemy. Don John +had caused the <i>galeazzas</i> to be towed some half a mile ahead of +the fleet, where they might intercept the advance of the Turks. As the +latter came abreast of them, the huge galleys delivered their +broadsides right and left, and their heavy ordnance produced a +startling effect. Ali Pasha gave orders for his galleys to open on +either side, and pass without engaging these monsters of the deep, of +which he had had no experience. Even so their heavy guns did +considerable damage to the nearest vessels, and created some confusion +in the pasha's line of battle. They were, however, but unwieldy craft, +and, having accomplished their object, seem to have taken no further +part in the combat. The action began on the left wing of the allies, +which Mehemet Siroco was desirous of turning. This had been +anticipated by Barberigo, the Venetian admiral, who commanded in that +quarter. To prevent it, as we have seen, he lay with his vessels as +near the coast as he dared. Siroco, better acquainted with the +soundings, saw there was space enough for him to pass, and darting by +with all the speed that oars and wind could give him, he succeeded in +doubling on his enemy. Thus placed between two fires, the extreme of +the Christian left fought at terrible disadvantage. No less than eight +galleys went to the bottom. Several more were captured. The brave +Barberigo, throwing himself into the heat of the fight, without +availing himself of his defensive armor, was pierced in the eye by an +arrow, and though reluctant to leave the glory of the field to +another, was borne to his cabin. The combat still continued with +unabated fury on the part of the Venetians. They fought like men who +felt that the war was theirs, and who were animated not only by the +thirst for glory, but for revenge. +<p> +Far on the Christian right, a manoeuvre similar to that so +successfully executed by Siroco was attempted by Uluch Ali, the +viceroy of Algiers. Profiting by his superiority of numbers, he +endeavored to turn the right wing of the confederates. It was in this +quarter that Andrew Doria commanded. He also had foreseen this +movement of his enemy, and he succeeded in foiling it. It was a trial +of skill between the two most accomplished seamen in the +Mediterranean. Doria extended his line so far to the right, indeed, +to prevent being surrounded, that Don John was obliged to remind him +that he left the centre much too exposed. His dispositions were so far +unfortunate for himself that his own line was thus weakened and +afforded some vulnerable points to his assailant. These were soon +detected by the eagle eye of Uluch Ali; and like the king of birds +swooping on his prey, he fell on some galleys separated by a +considerable interval from their companions, and, sinking more than +one, carried off the great <i>Capitana</i> of Malta in triumph as his +prize. +<p> +While the combat thus opened disastrously to the allies both on the +right and on the left, in the centre they may be said to have fought +with doubtful fortune. Don John had led his division gallantly +forward. But the object on which he was intent was an encounter with +Ali Pasha, the foe most worthy of his sword. The Turkish commander had +the same combat no less at heart. The galleys of both were easily +recognized, not only from their position, but from their superior size +and richer decoration. The one, moreover, displayed the holy banner +of the League; the other, the great Ottoman standard. This, like the +ancient standard of the caliphs, was held sacred in its character. It +was covered with texts from the Koran, emblazoned in letters of gold, +with the name of Allah inscribed upon it no less than twenty-eight +thousand nine hundred times. It was the banner of the Sultan, having +passed from father to son since the foundation of the imperial +dynasty, and was never seen in the field unless the Grand-Seignior or +his lieutenant was there in person. +<p> +Both the Christian and the Moslem chief urged on their rowers to the +top of their speed. Their galleys soon shot ahead of the rest of the +line, driven through the boiling surges as by the force of a tornado, +and closing with a shock that made every timber crack, and the two +vessels quiver to their very keels. So powerful, indeed, was the +impetus they received, that the pasha's galley, which was considerably +the larger and loftier of the two, was thrown so far upon its opponent +that the prow reached the fourth bench of rowers. As soon as the +vessels were disengaged from each other, and those on board had +recovered from the shock, the work of death began. Don John's chief +strength consisted in some three hundred Spanish arquebusiers, culled +from the flower of his infantry. Ali, on the other hand, was provided +with the like number of janissaries. He was also followed by a +smaller vessel, in which two hundred more were stationed as a <i>corps +de réserve</i>. He had, moreover, a hundred archers on board. The bow +was still much in use with the Turks, as with the other Moslems. +<p> +The pasha opened at once on his enemy a terrible fire of cannon and +musketry. It was returned with equal spirit, and much more effect; for +the Turkish marksmen were observed to shoot over the heads of their +adversaries. Their galley was unprovided with the defences which +protected the sides of the Spanish vessels; and the troops, huddled +together on their lofty prow, presented an easy mark to their enemies' +balls. But though numbers of them fell at every discharge, their +places were soon supplied by those in reserve. Their incessant fire, +moreover, wasted the strength of the Spaniards; and as both Christian +and Mussulman fought with indomitable spirit, it seemed doubtful to +which side the victory would incline. +<p> +The affair was made more complicated by the entrance of other parties +into the conflict. Both Ali and Don John were supported by some of the +most valiant captains in their fleets. Next to the Spanish commander, +as we have seen, were Colonna and the veteran Veniero, who, at the age +of seventy-six, performed feats of arms worthy of a paladin of +romance. Thus a little squadron of combatants gathered around the +principal leaders, who sometimes found themselves assailed by several +enemies at the same time. Still the chiefs did not lose sight of one +another, but beating off their inferior foes as well as they could, +each refusing to loosen his hold, clung with mortal grasp to his +antagonist. +<p> +Thus the fight raged along the whole extent of the entrance of the +Gulf of Lepanto. If the eye of the spectator could have penetrated the +cloud of smoke that enveloped the combatants, and have embraced the +whole scene at a glance, he would have beheld them broken up into +small detachments, engaged in conflict with one another, wholly +independently of the rest, and indeed ignorant of all that was doing +in other quarters. The volumes of vapor, rolling heavily over the +waters, effectually shut out from sight whatever was passing at any +considerable distance, unless when a fresher breeze dispelled the +smoke for a moment, or the flashes of the heavy guns threw a transient +gleam over the dark canopy of battle. The contest exhibited few of +those enlarged combinations and skilful manoeuvres to be expected in a +great naval encounter. It was rather an assemblage of petty actions, +resembling those on land. The galleys, grappling together, presented a +level arena, on which soldier and galley-slave fought hand to hand, +and the fate of the engagement was generally decided by boarding. As +in most hand-to-hand contests, there was an enormous waste of +life. The decks were loaded with corpses, Christian and Moslem lying +promiscuously together in the embrace of death. Instances are given +where every man on board was slain or wounded. It was a ghastly +spectacle, where blood flowed in rivulets down the sides of the +vessels, staining the waters of the Gulf for miles around. +<p> +It seemed as if some hurricane had swept over the sea, and covered it +with the wreck of the noble armaments which a moment before were so +proudly riding on its bosom. Little had they now to remind one of +their late magnificent array, with their hulls battered and defaced, +their masts and spars gone or fearfully splintered by the shot, their +canvas cut into shreds and floating wildly on the breeze, while +thousands of wounded and drowning men were clinging to the floating +fragments, and calling piteously for help. Such was the wild uproar +which had succeeded to the Sabbath-like stillness that two hours +before had reigned over these beautiful solitudes! +<p> +The left wing of the confederates, commanded by Barberigo, had been +sorely pressed by the Turks, as we have seen, at the beginning of the +fight. Barberigo himself had been mortally wounded. His line had been +turned. Several of his galleys had been sunk. But the Venetians +gathered courage from despair. By incredible efforts they succeeded in +beating off their enemies. They became the assailants in their +turn. Sword in hand, they carried one vessel after another. The +Capuchin, with uplifted crucifix, was seen to head the attack, and to +lead the boarders to the assault. The Christian galley-slaves, in some +instances, broke their fetters and joined their countrymen against +their masters. Fortunately, the vessel of Mehemet Siroco, the Moslem +admiral, was sunk; and though extricated from the water himself, it +was only to perish by the sword of his conqueror, Juan Contarini. The +Venetian could find no mercy for the Turk. +<p> +The fall of their commander gave the final blow to his +followers. Without further attempt to prolong the fight, they fled +before the avenging swords of the Venetians. Those nearest the land +endeavored to escape by running their vessels ashore, where they +abandoned them as prizes to the Christians. Yet many of the fugitives, +before gaining the shore, perished miserably in the waves. Barberigo, +the Venetian admiral, who was still lingering in agony, heard the +tidings of the enemy's defeat, and exclaiming, "I die contented," he +breathed his last. +<p> +Meanwhile the combat had been going forward in the centre between the +two commanders-in-chief, Don John and Ali Pasha, whose galleys blazed +with an incessant fire of artillery and musketry that enveloped them +like "a martyr's robe of flames." Both parties fought with equal +spirit, though not with equal fortune. Twice the Spaniards had boarded +their enemy, and both times they had been repulsed with loss. Still +their superiority in the use of their fire-arms would have given them +a decided advantage over their opponents, if the loss thus inflicted +had not been speedily repaired by fresh reinforcements. More than once +the contest between the two chieftains was interrupted by the arrival +of others to take part in the fray. They soon, however, returned to +one another, as if unwilling to waste their strength on a meaner +enemy. Through the whole engagement both commanders exposed themselves +to danger as freely as any common soldier. Even Philip must have +admitted that in such a contest it would have been difficult for his +brother to find with honor a place of safety. Don John received a +wound in the foot. It was a slight one, however, and he would not +allow it to be attended to till the action was over. +<p> +At length the men were mustered, and a third time the trumpets sounded +to the assault. It was more successful than those preceding. The +Spaniards threw themselves boldly into the Turkish galley. They were +met by the janissaries with the same spirit as before. Ali Pasha led +them on. Unfortunately, at this moment he was struck by a musket-ball +in the head, and stretched senseless on the gangway. His men fought +worthily of their ancient renown. But they missed the accustomed voice +of their commander. After a short, but ineffectual struggle against +the fiery impetuosity of the Spaniards, they were overpowered and +threw down their arms. The decks were loaded with the bodies of the +dead and the dying. Beneath these was discovered the Turkish +commander-in-chief, sorely wounded, but perhaps not mortally. He was +drawn forth by some Castilian soldiers, who, recognizing his person, +would at once have despatched him. But the wounded chief, having +rallied from the first effects of his blow, had presence of mind +enough to divert them from their purpose by pointing out the place +below where he had deposited his money and jewels, and they hastened +to profit by the disclosure before the treasure should fall into the +hands of their comrades. +<p> +Ali was not so successful with another soldier, who came up soon +after, brandishing his sword, and preparing to plunge it into the body +of the prostrate commander. It was in vain that the latter endeavored +to turn the ruffian from his purpose. He was a convict,—one of those +galley-slaves whom Don John had caused to be unchained from the oar, +and furnished with arms. He could not believe that any treasure would +be worth so much to him as the head of the pasha. Without further +hesitation he dealt him a blow which severed it from his shoulders. +Then returning to his galley, he laid the bloody trophy before Don +John. But he had miscalculated on his recompense. His commander gazed +on it with a look of pity mingled with horror. He may have thought of +the generous conduct of Ali to his Christian captives, and have felt +that he deserved a better fate. He coldly inquired "of what use such a +present could be to him," and then ordered it to be thrown into the +sea. Far from being obeyed, it is said the head was stuck on a pike +and raised aloft on board the captive galley. At the same time the +banner of the Crescent was pulled down, while that of the Cross run up +in its place proclaimed the downfall of the pasha. +<p> +The sight of the sacred ensign was welcomed by the Christians with a +shout of "Victory!" which rose high above the din of battle. The +tidings of the death of Ali soon passed from mouth to mouth, giving +fresh heart to the confederates, but falling like a knell on the ears +of the Moslems. Their confidence was gone. Their fire slackened. Their +efforts grew weaker and weaker. They were too far from shore to seek +an asylum there, like their comrades on the right. They had no +resource but to prolong the combat or to surrender. Most preferred the +latter. Many vessels were carried by boarding, others sunk by the +victorious Christians. Before four hours had elapsed, the centre, like +the right wing of the Moslems, might be said to be annihilated. +<p> +Still the fight was lingering on the right of the confederates, where, +it will be remembered, Uluch Ali, the Algerine chief, had profited by +Doria's error in extending his line so far as greatly to weaken +it. His adversary, attacking it on its most vulnerable quarter, had +succeeded, as we have seen, in capturing and destroying several +vessels, and would have inflicted still heavier losses on his enemy, +had it not been for the seasonable succor received from the Marquis of +Santa Cruz. This brave officer, who commanded the reserve, had already +been of much service to Don John, when the <i>Real</i> was assailed by +several Turkish galleys at once, during his combat with Ali Pasha; the +Marquis having arrived at this juncture, and beating off the +assailants, one of whom he afterwards captured, the commander-in-chief +was enabled to resume his engagement with the pasha. +<p> +No sooner did Santa Cruz learn the critical situation of Doria, than, +supported by Cardona, general of the Sicilian squadron, he pushed +forward to his relief. Dashing into the midst of the <i>melée</i>, +they fell like a thunderbolt on the Algerine galleys. Few attempted to +withstand the shock. But in their haste to avoid it, they were +encountered by Doria and his Genoese. Thus beset on all sides, Uluch +Ali was compelled to abandon his prizes and provide for his own safety +by flight. He cut adrift the Maltese <i>Capitana</i>, which he had +lashed to his stern, and on which three hundred corpses attested the +desperate character of her defence. As tidings reached him of the +discomfiture of the centre and the death of his commander, he felt +that nothing remained but to make the best of his way from the fatal +scene of action, and save as many of his own ships as he could. And +there were no ships in the Turkish fleet superior to his, or manned by +men under more perfect discipline; for they were the famous corsairs +of the Mediterranean, who had been rocked from infancy on its waters. +<p> +Throwing out his signals for retreat, the Algerine was soon to be +seen, at the head of his squadron, standing towards the north, under +as much canvas as remained to him after the battle, and urged forward +through the deep by the whole strength of his oarsmen. Doria and Santa +Cruz followed quickly in his wake. But he was borne on the wings of +the wind, and soon distanced his pursuers. Don John, having disposed +of his own assailants, was coming to the support of Doria, and now +joined in the pursuit of the viceroy. A rocky headland, stretching far +into the sea, lay in the path of the fugitive, and his enemies hoped +to intercept him there. Some few of his vessels stranded on the +rocks. But the rest, near forty in number, standing more boldly out to +sea, safely doubled the promontory. Then quickening their flight, +they gradually faded from the horizon, their white sails, the last +thing visible, showing in the distance like a flock of Arctic sea-fowl +on their way to their native homes. The confederates explained the +inferior sailing of their own galleys by the circumstance of their +rowers, who had been allowed to bear arms in the fight, being crippled +by their wounds. +<p> +The battle had lasted more than four hours. The sky, which had been +almost without a cloud through the day, began now to be overcast, and +showed signs of a coming storm. Before seeking a place of shelter for +himself and his prizes, Don John reconnoitred the scene of action. He +met with several vessels in too damaged a state for further +service. These mostly belonging to the enemy, after saving what was of +any value on board, he ordered to be burnt. He selected the +neighboring port of Petala, as affording the most secure and +accessible harbor for the night. Before he had arrived there, the +tempest began to mutter and darkness was on the water. Yet the +darkness rendered the more visible the blazing wrecks, which, sending +up streams of fire mingled with showers of sparks, looked like +volcanoes on the deep. +<p> +Long and loud were the congratulations now paid to the young +commander-in-chief by his brave companions in arms, on the success of +the day. The hours passed blithely with officers and men, while they +recounted one to another their manifold achievements. But feelings of +gloom mingled with their gayety, as they gathered tidings of the loss +of friends who had bought this victory with their blood. +<p> +It was, indeed, a sanguinary battle, surpassing in this particular any +sea-fight of modern times. The loss fell much the most heavily on the +enemy. There is the usual discrepancy about numbers; but it may be +safe to estimate the Turkish loss at about twenty-four thousand slain, +and five thousand prisoners. But what gave most joy to the hearts of +the conquerors was the liberation of twelve thousand Christian +captives, who had been chained to the oar on board the Moslem galleys, +and who now came forth with tears streaming down their haggard cheeks, +to bless their deliverers. +<p> +The loss of the allies was comparatively small,—less than eight +thousand. That it was so much less than that of their enemies may be +referred in part to their superiority in the use of firearms; in part, +also, to their exclusive use of these, instead of employing bows and +arrows, weapons much less effective, but on which the Turks, like the +other Moslem nations, seem to have greatly relied. Lastly, the Turks +were the vanquished party, and in their heavier loss suffered the +almost invariable lot of the vanquished. +<p> +As to their armada, it may almost be said to have been +annihilated. Not more than forty galleys escaped, out of near two +hundred and fifty which had entered into the action. One hundred and +thirty were taken and divided among the conquerors. The remainder, +sunk or burned, were swallowed up by the waves. To counterbalance all +this, the confederates are said to have lost not more than fifteen +galleys, though a much larger number doubtless were rendered unfit for +service. This disparity affords good evidence of the inferiority of +the Turks in the construction of their vessels, as well as in the +nautical skill required to manage them. A large amount of booty, in +the form of gold, jewels, and brocade, was found on board several of +the prizes. The galley of the commander-in-chief alone is stated to +have contained one hundred and seventy thousand gold sequins,—a large +sum, but not large enough, it seems, to buy off his life. +<p> +The losses of the combatants cannot be fairly presented without taking +into the account the quality as well as the number of the slain. The +number of persons of consideration, both Christians and Moslems, who +embarked in the expedition, was very great. The roll of slaughter +showed that in the race of glory they gave little heed to their +personal safety. The officer second in command among the Venetians, +the commander-in-chief of the Turkish armament, and the commander of +its right wing, all fell in the battle. Many a high-born cavalier +closed at Lepanto a long career of honorable service. More than one, +on the other hand, dated the commencement of their career from this +day. Such was the case with Alexander Farnese, the young prince of +Parma. Though somewhat older than his uncle, John of Austria, +difference of birth had placed a wide distance in their conditions; +the one filling the post of commander-in-chief, the other only that of +a private adventurer. Yet even so he succeeded in winning great renown +by his achievements. The galley in which he sailed was lying, yard-arm +to yard-arm, alongside of a Turkish galley, with which it was hotly +engaged. In the midst of the action, the young Farnese sprang on board +of the enemy, and with his stout broadsword hewed down all who opposed +him, opening a path into which his comrades poured one after another; +and after a short, but murderous contest, he succeeded in carrying the +vessel. As Farnese's galley lay just astern of Don John's, the latter +could witness the achievement of his nephew, which filled him with an +admiration he did not affect to conceal. The intrepidity he displayed +on this occasion gave augury of his character in later life, when he +succeeded his uncle in command, and surpassed him in military renown. +<p> +Another youth was in that sea-fight, who, then humble and unknown, was +destined one day to win laurels of a purer and more enviable kind than +those which grow on the battle-field. This was Cervantes, who, at the +age of twenty-four, was serving on board the fleet as a common +soldier. He was confined to his bed by a fever; but, notwithstanding +the remonstrances of his captain, insisted, on the morning of the +action, not only on bearing arms, but on being stationed at the post +of danger. And well did he perform his duty there, as was shown by two +wounds on the breast, and another in the hand, by which he lost the +use of it. Fortunately, it was the left hand. The right yet remained, +to record those immortal productions which were to be familiar as +household words, not only in his own land, but in every quarter of the +civilized world. +<p> +A fierce storm of thunder and lightning raged for four-and-twenty +hours after the battle, during which the fleet rode safely at anchor +in the harbor of Petala. It remained there three days longer. Don John +profited by the time to visit the different galleys and ascertain +their condition. He informed himself of the conduct of the troops, and +was liberal of his praises to those who deserved them. With the sick +and the wounded he showed the greatest sympathy, endeavoring to +alleviate their sufferings, and furnishing them with whatever his +galley contained that could minister to their comfort. With so +generous and sympathetic a nature, it is not wonderful that he should +have established himself in the hearts of his soldiers. +<p> +But the proofs of this kindly temper were not confined to his own +followers. Among the prisoners were two sons of Ali, the Turkish +commander-in-chief. One was seventeen, the other only thirteen years +of age. Thus early had their father desired to initiate them in a +profession which, beyond all others, opened the way to eminence in +Turkey. They were not on board of his galley, and when they were +informed of his death, they were inconsolable. To this sorrow was now +to be added the doom of slavery. +<p> +As they were led into the presence of Don John, the youths prostrated +themselves on the deck of his vessel. But raising them up, he +affectionately embraced them. He said all he could to console them +under their troubles. He caused them to be treated with the +consideration due to their rank. His secretary, Juan de Soto, +surrendered his quarters to them. They were provided with the richest +apparel that could be found among the spoil. Their table was served +with the same delicacies as that of the commander-in-chief; and his +gentlemen of the chamber showed the same deference to them as to +himself. His kindness did not stop with these acts of chivalrous +courtesy. He received a letter from their sister Fatima, containing a +touching appeal to Don John's humanity, and soliciting the release of +her orphan brothers. He had sent a courier to give their friends in +Constantinople the assurance of their personal safety; "which," adds +the lady, "is held by all this court as an act of great +courtesy,—<i>gran gentilezza</i>; and there is no one here who does +not admire the goodness and magnanimity of your Highness." She +enforced her petition with a rich present, for which she gracefully +apologized, as intended to express her own feelings, though far below +his deserts. +<p> +The young princes, in the division of the spoil, were assigned to the +pope. But Don John succeeded in obtaining their liberation. +Unfortunately, the elder died—of a broken heart, it is said—at +Naples. The younger was sent home, with three of his attendants, for +whom he had an especial regard. Don John declined the present, which +he gave to Fatima's brother. In a letter to the Turkish princess, he +remarked, that "he had done this, not because he undervalued her +beautiful gift, but because it had ever been the habit of his royal +ancestors freely to grant favors to those who stood in need of their +protection, but not to receive aught by way of recompense." + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> + +<table border="0"> +<tr> +<td width="33%"> </td> +<td width="67%"> +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="3">THE WIND AND STREAM.</a> +</h2> +<br><br> +<p> + A brook came stealing from the ground;<br> + You scarcely saw its silvery gleam<br> + Among the herbs that hung around<br> + The borders of that winding stream,—<br> + A pretty stream, a placid stream,<br> + A softly gliding, bashful stream. +<p> + A breeze came wandering from the sky,<br> + Light as the whispers of a dream;<br> + He put the o'erhanging grasses by,<br> + And gayly stooped to kiss the stream,—<br> + The pretty stream, the flattered stream,<br> + The shy, yet unreluctant stream. +<p> + The water, as the wind passed o'er,<br> + Shot upward many a glancing beam,<br> + Dimpled and quivered more and more,<br> + And tripped along a livelier stream,—<br> + The flattered stream, the simpering stream,<br> + The fond, delighted, silly stream. +<p> + Away the airy wanderer flew<br> + To where the fields with blossoms teem,<br> + To sparkling springs and rivers blue,<br> + And left alone that little stream,—<br> + The flattered stream, the cheated stream,<br> + The sad, forsaken, lonely stream. +<p> + That careless wind no more came back;<br> + He wanders yet the fields, I deem;<br> + But on its melancholy track<br> + Complaining went that little stream,—<br> + The cheated stream, the hopeless stream,<br> + The ever murmuring, moaning stream. +</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> + +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="4">TURKEY TRACKS.</a> +</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +Don't open your eyes, Polder! You think I am going to tell you about +some of my Minnesota experiences; how I used to scamper over the +prairies on my Indian pony, and lie in wait for wild turkeys on the +edge of an oak opening. That is pretty sport, too, to creep under an +oak with low-hanging boughs, and in the silence of a glowing +autumn-day linger by the hour together in a trance of warm stillness, +watching the light tracery of shadow and sun on that smooth sward, +only now and then roused by the fleet rush of a deer through the wood, +or the brisk chatter of a plume-tailed squirrel, till one hears a +distant, sharp, clucking chuckle, and in an instant more pulls the +trigger, and upsets a grand old cock, every bronzed feather glittering +in the sunshine, and now splashed with scarlet blood, the delicate +underwing ground into down as he rolls and flutters; for the first +shot rarely kills at once with an amateur; there's too much +excitement. Splendid sport, that! but I'm not going into it +second-hand. I promised to tell you a story, now the skipper's fast, +and the night is too warm to think of sleep down in that wretched +bunk;—what another torture Dante might have lavished on his Inferno, +if he'd ever slept in a fishing-smack! No. The moonlight makes me +sentimental! Did I ever tell you about a month I spent up in +Centreville, the year I came home from Germany? That was +turkey-hunting with a vengeance! +<p> +You see, my pretty cousin Peggy married Peter Smith, who owns +paper-mills in Centreville, and has exiled herself into deep country +for life; a circumstance I disapprove, because I like Peggy, and +manufacturers always bore me, though Peter is a clever fellow enough; +but madam was an old flame of mine, and I have a lingering tenderness +for her yet. I wish she was nearer town. Just that year Peggy had +been very ill indeed, and Kate, her sister, had gone up to nurse +her. When I came home Peggy was getting better, and sent for me to +come up and make a visitation there in June. I hadn't seen Kate for +seven years,—not since she was thirteen; our education +intervened. She had gone through that grading process and come out. By +Jupiter! when she met me at the door of Smith's pretty, +English-looking cottage, I took my hat off, she was so like that +little Brazilian princess we used to see in the <i>cortége</i> of the +court at Paris. What was her name? Never mind that! Kate had just +such large, expressive eyes, just such masses of shiny black hair, +just such a little nose,—turned up undeniably, but all the more +piquant. And her teeth! good gracious! she smiled like a flash of +lightning,—dark and sallow as she was. But she was cross, or stiff, +or something, to me for a long time. Peggy only appeared after dinner, +looking pale and lovely enough in her loose wrapper to make Peter act +excessively like——a young married man, and to make me wish myself at +an invisible distance, doing something beside picking up Kate's +things, that she always dropped on the floor whenever she sewed. +Peggy saw I was bored, so she requested me one day to walk down to the +poultry-yard and ask about her chickens; she pretended a great deal of +anxiety, and Peter had sprained his ankle. +<p> +"Kate will go with you," said she. +<p> +"No, she won't!" ejaculated that young woman. +<p> +"Thank you," said I, making a minuet bow, and off I went to the +farm-house. Such a pretty walk it was, too! through a thicket of +birches, down a little hill-side into a hollow full of hoary +chestnut-trees, across a bubbling, dancing brook, and you came out +upon the tiniest orchard in the world, a one-storied house with a red +porch, and a great sweet-brier bush thereby; while up the hill-side +behind stretched a high picket fence, enclosing huge trees, part of +the same brook I had crossed here dammed into a pond, and a +chicken-house of pretentious height and aspect,—one of those model +institutions that are the ruin of gentlemen-farmers and the delight of +women. I had to go into the farm-kitchen for the poultry-yard key. +The door stood open, and I stepped in cautiously, lest I should come +unaware upon some domestic scene not intended to be visible to the +naked eye. And a scene I did come upon, fit for Retzsch to +outline;—the cleanest kitchen, a dresser of white wood under one +window, and the farmer's daughter, Melinda Tucker, moulding bread +thereat in a ponderous tray; her deep red hair,—yes, it was red and +comely! of the deepest bay, full of gilded reflections, and +accompanied by the fair, rose-flushed skin, blue eyes, and scarlet +lips that belong to such hair,—which, as I began to say, was puckered +into a thousand curves trying to curl, and knotted strictly against a +pretty head, while her calico frock-sleeves were pinned-back to the +shoulders, baring such a dimpled pair of arms,—how they did fly up +and down in the tray! I stood still contemplating the picture, and +presently seeing her begin to strip the dough from her pink fingers +and mould it into a mass, I ventured to knock. If you had seen her +start and blush, Polder! But when she saw me, she grew as cool as you +please, and called her mother. Down came Mrs. Tucker, a talking +Yankee. You don't know what that is. Listen, then. +<p> +"Well, good day, sir! I'xpect it's Mister Greene, Miss Smith's +cousin. Well, you be! Don't favor her much though; she's kinder dark +complected. She ha'n't got round yet, hes she? Dew tell! She's +dre'ful delicate. I do'no' as ever I see a woman so sickly's she looks +ter be sence that 'ere fever. She's real spry when she's so's to be +crawlin',—I'xpect too spry to be 'hulsome. Well, he tells me you've +ben 'crost the water. 'Ta'n't jest like this over there, I +guess. Pretty sightly places they be though, a'n't they? I've seen +picturs in Melindy's jography, looks as ef 'twa'n't so woodsy over +there as 'tis in these parts, 'specially out West. He's got folks out +to Indianny, an' we sot out fur to go a-cousinin', five year back, an' +we got out there inter the dre'fullest woodsy region ever ye see, +where 'twa'n't trees, it was 'sketers; husband he couldn't see none +out of his eyes for a hull day, and I thought I should caterpillar +every time I heerd one of 'em toot; they sartainly was the beater-ee!" +<p> +"The key, if you please!" I meekly interposed. Mrs. Tucker was fast +stunning me! +<p> +"Law yis! Melindy, you go git that 'ere key; it's a-hangin' up'side o' +the lookin'glass in the back shed, under that bunch o' onions father +strung up yisterday. Got the bread sot to rise, hev ye? well, git +yer bunnet an' go out to the coop with Mr. Greene, 'n' show him the +turkeys an' the chickens, 'n' tell what dre'ful luck we hev hed. I +never did see sech luck! the crows they keep a-comin' an' snippin' up +the little creturs jest as soon's they're hatched; an' the old turkey +hen't sot under the grapevine she got two hen's eggs under her, 'n' +they come out fust, so she quit—" +<p> +Here I bolted out of the door, (a storm at sea did not deafen one like +that!) Melindy following, in silence such as our blessed New England +poet has immortalized,—silence that +<blockquote> + "—Like a poultice comes,<br> + To heal the blows of sound." +</blockquote> +<p> +Indeed, I did not discover that Melindy could talk that day; she was +very silent, very incommunicative. I inspected the fowls, and tried to +look wise, but I perceived a strangled laugh twisting Melindy's face +when I innocently inquired if she found catnip of much benefit to the +little chickens; a natural question enough, for the yard was full of +it, and I had seen Hannah give it to the baby. (Hannah is my sister.) +I could only see two little turkeys,—both on the floor of the +second-story parlor in the chicken-house, both flat on their backs and +gasping. Melindy did not know what ailed them; so I picked them up, +slung them in my pocket-handkerchief, and took them home for Peggy to +manipulate. I heard Melindy chuckle as I walked off, swinging them; +and to be sure, when I brought the creatures in to Peggy, one of them +kicked and lay still, and the other gasped worse than ever. +<p> +"What can we do?" asked Peggy, in the most plaintive voice, as the +feeble "week! week!" of the little turkey was gasped out, more feebly +every time. +<p> +"Give it some whiskey-punch!" growled Peter, whose strict temperance +principles were shocked by the remedies prescribed for Peggy's ague. +<p> +"So I would," said Kate, demurely. +<p> +Now if Peggy had one trait more striking than another, it was her +perfect, simple faith in what people said; irony was a mystery to her; +lying, a myth,—something on a par with murder. She thought Kate meant +so; and reaching out for the pretty wicker-flask that contained her +daily ration of old Scotch whiskey, she dropped a little drop into a +spoon, diluted it with water, and was going to give it to the turkey +in all seriousness, when Kate exclaimed,— +<p> +"Peggy! when will you learn common sense? Who ever heard of giving +whiskey to a turkey?" +<p> +"Why, you told me to, Kate!" +<p> +"Oh, give it to the thing!" growled Peter; "it will die, of course." +<p> +"I shall give it!" said Peggy, resolutely; "it does <i>me</i> good, +and I will try." +<p> +So I held the little creature up, while Peggy carefully tipped the +dose down its throat. How it choked, kicked, and began again with +"week! week!" when it meant "strong!" but it revived. Peggy held it in +the sun till it grew warm, gave it a drop more, fed it with +bread-crumbs from her own plate, and laid it on the south +window-sill. There it lay when we went to tea; when we came back, it +lay on the floor, dead; either it was tipsy, or it had tried its new +strength too soon, and, rolling off, had broken its neck! Poor Peggy! +<p> +There were six more hatched the next day, though, and I held many +consultations with Melindy about their welfare. Truth to tell, Kate +continued so cool to me, Peter's sprained ankle lasted so long, and +Peggy could so well spare me from the little matrimonial +<i>tête-à-têtes</i> that I interrupted, (I believe they didn't mind +Kate!) that I took wonderfully to the chickens. Mrs. Tucker gave me +rye-bread and milk of the best; "father" instructed me in the +mysteries of cattle-driving; and Melindy, and Joe, and I, used to go +strawberrying, or after "posies," almost every day. Melindy was a very +pretty girl, and it was very good fun to see her blue eyes open and +her red lips laugh over my European experiences. Really, I began to be +of some importance at the farm-house, and to take airs upon myself, I +suppose; but I was not conscious of the fact at the time. +<p> +After a week or two, Melindy and I began to have bad luck with the +turkeys. I found two drenched and shivering, after a hail-and-thunder +storm, and setting them in a basket on the cooking-stove hearth, went +to help Melindy "dress her bow-pot," as she called arranging a vase of +flowers, and when I came back the little turkeys were singed; they +died a few hours after. Two more were trodden on by a great Shanghai +rooster, who was so tall he could not see where he set his feet down; +and of the remaining pair, one disappeared mysteriously,—supposed to +be rats; and one falling into the duck-pond, Melindy began to dry it +in her apron, and I went to help her; I thought, as I was rubbing the +thing down with the apron, while she held it, that I had found one of +her soft dimpled hands, and I gave the luckless turkey such a tender +pressure that it uttered a miserable squeak and departed this +life. Melindy all but cried. I laughed irresistibly. So there were no +more turkeys. Peggy began to wonder what they should do for the proper +Thanksgiving dinner, and Peter turned restlessly on his sofa, quite +convinced that everything was going to rack and ruin because he had a +sprained ankle. +<p> +"Can't we buy some young turkeys?" timidly suggested Peggy. +<p> +"Of course, if one knew who had them to sell," retorted Peter. +<p> +"I know," said I; "Mrs. Amzi Peters, up on the hill over Taunton, has +got some." +<p> +"Who told you about Mrs. Peters's turkeys, Cousin Sam?" said Peggy, +wondering. +<p> +"Melindy," said I, quite innocently. +<p> +Peter whistled, Peggy laughed, Kate darted a keen glance at me under +her long lashes. +<p> +"I know the way there," said mademoiselle, in a suspiciously bland +tone. "Can't you drive there with me, Cousin Sam, and get some more?" +<p> +"I shall be charmed," said I. +<p> +Peter rang the bell and ordered the horse to be ready in the +single-seated wagon, after dinner. I was going right down to the +farm-house to console Melindy, and take her a book she wanted to read, +for no fine lady of all my New York acquaintance enjoyed a good book +more than she did; but Cousin Kate asked me to wind some yarn for her, +and was so brilliant, so amiable, so altogether charming, I quite +forgot Melindy till dinner-time, and then, when that was over, there +was a basket to be found, and we were off,—turkey-hunting! Down +hill-sides overhung with tasselled chestnut-boughs; through pine-woods +where neither horse nor wagon intruded any noise of hoof or wheel upon +the odorous silence, as we rolled over the sand, past green meadows, +and sloping orchards; over little bright brooks that chattered +musically to the bobolinks on the fence-posts, and were echoed by +those sacerdotal gentlemen in such liquid, bubbling, rollicking, +uproarious bursts of singing as made one think of Anacreon's +grasshopper +<blockquote> + "Drunk with morning's dewy wine." +</blockquote> +<p> +All these we passed, and at length drew up before Mrs. Peters's +house. I had been here before, on a strawberrying stroll with +Melindy,—(across lots it was not far,)—and having been asked in +then, and entertained the lady with a recital of some foreign exploit, +garnished for the occasion, of course she recognized me with clamorous +hospitality. +<p> +"Why how do yew do, Mister Greene? I declare I ha'n't done a-thinkin' +of that 'ere story you told us the day you was here, 'long o' +Melindy." (Kate gave an ominous little cough.) "I was a-tellin' +husband yesterday 't I never see sech a master hand for stories as you +be. Well, yis, we hev <i>got</i> turkeys, young 'uns; but my stars! I +don't know no more where they be than nothin'; they've strayed away +into the woods, I guess, and I do'no' as the boys can skeer 'em up; +besides, the boys is to school; h'm—yis! Where did you and Melindy +go that day arter berries?" +<p> +"Up in the pine-lot, ma'am. You think you can't let us have the +turkeys?" +<p> +"Dew tell ef you went up there! It's near about the sightliest place I +ever see. Well, no,—I don't see how's to ketch them turkeys. Miss +Bemont, she't lives over on Woodchuck Hill, she's got a lot o' little +turkeys in a coop; I guess you'd better go 'long over there, an' ef +you can't get none o' her'n, by that time our boys'll be to hum, an' +I'll set 'em arter our'n; they'll buckle right to; it's good sport +huntin' little turkeys; an' I guess you'll hev to stop, comin' home, +so's to let me know ef you'll hev 'em." +<p> +Off we drove. I stood in mortal fear of Mrs. Peters's tongue,—and +Kate's comments; but she did not make any; she was even more charming +than before. Presently we came to the pine-lot, where Melindy and I +had been, and I drew the reins. I wanted to see Kate's enjoyment of a +scene that Kensett or Church should have made immortal long ago:—a +wide stretch of hill and valley, quivering with cornfields, rolled +away in pasture lands, thick with sturdy woods, or dotted over with +old apple-trees, whose dense leaves caught the slant sunshine, glowing +on their tops, and deepening to a dark, velvety green below, and far, +far away, on the broad blue sky, the lurid splendors of a +thunder-cloud, capped with pearly summits, tower upon tower, sharply +defined against the pure ether, while in its purple base forked +lightnings sped to and fro, and revealed depths of waiting tempest +that could not yet descend. Kate looked on, and over the superb +picture. +<p> +"How magnificent!" was all she said, in a deep, low tone, her dark +cheek flushing with the words. Melindy and I had looked off there +together. "It's real good land to farm," had been the sweet little +rustic's comment. How charming are nature and simplicity! +<p> +Presently we came to Mrs. Bemont's, a brown house in a cluster of +maples; the door-yard full of chickens, turkeys, ducks, and +geese. Kate took the reins, and I knocked. Mrs. Bemont herself +appeared, wiping her red, puckered hands on a long brown towel. +<p> +"Can you let me have some of your young turkeys, ma'am?" said I, +insinuatingly. +<p> +"Well, I do'no';—want to eat 'em or raise 'em?" +<p> +"Both, I believe," was my meek answer. +<p> +"I do'no' 'bout lettin' on 'em go; 'ta'n't no gret good to sell 'em +after all the risks is over; they git their own livin' pretty much +now, an' they'll be wuth twice as much by'm'by." +<p> +"I suppose so; but Mrs. Smith's turkeys have all died, and she likes +to raise them." +<p> +"Dew tell, ef you han't come from Miss Peter Smith's! Well, she'd +oughter do gret things with that 'ere meetin'-'us o' her'n for the +chickens; it's kinder genteel-lookin', and I spose they've got means; +they've got ability. Gentility without ability I do despise; but where +'t'a'n't so, 't'a'n't no matter; but I'xpect it don't ensure the +faowls none, doos it?" +<p> +"I rather think not," said I, laughing; "that is the reason we want +some of yours." +<p> +"Well, I should think you could hev some on 'em. What be you +calc'latin' to give?" +<p> +"Whatever you say. I do not know at all the market price." +<p> +"Good land! 't'a'n't never no use to try to dicker with city folks; +they a'n't use to't. I'xpect you can hev 'em for two York shillin' +apiece." +<p> +"But how will you catch them?" +<p> +"Oh, I'll ketch 'em, easy!" +<p> +She went into the house and reappeared presently with a pan of Indian +meal and water, called the chickens, and in a moment they were all +crowding in and over the unexpected supper. +<p> +"Now you jes' take a bit o' string an' tie that 'ere turkey's legs +together; 'twon't stir, I'll ensure it!" +<p> +Strange to say, the innocent creature stood still and eat, while I +tied it up; all unconscious till it tumbled neck and heels into the +pan, producing a start and scatter of brief duration. Kate had left +the wagon, and was shaking with laughter over this extraordinary +goodness on the turkeys' part, and before long our basket was full of +struggling, kicking, squeaking things, "werry promiscuous," in +Mr. Weller's phrase. Mrs. Bemont was paid, and while she was giving me +the change,— +<p> +"Oh!" said she, "you're goin' right to Miss Tucker's, a'n't ye?—got +to drop the turkeys;—won't you tell Miss Tucker 't George is comin' +home tomorrer, an' he's ben to Californy. She know'd us allers, and +Melindy 'n' George used ter be dre'ful thick 'fore he went off, a good +spell back, when they was nigh about childern; so I guess you'd better +tell 'em." +<p> +"Confound these turkeys!" muttered I, as I jumped over the basket. +<p> +"Why?" said Kate, "I suspect they are confounded enough already!" +<p> +"They make such a noise, Kate!" +<p> +So they did; "week! week! week!" all the way, like a colony from some +spring-waked pool. +<blockquote> + "Their song might be compared<br> + To the croaking of frogs in a pond!" +</blockquote> +<p> +The drive was lovelier than before. The road crept and curled down +the hill, now covered from side to side with the interlacing boughs of +grand old chestnuts; now barriered on the edge of a ravine with broken +fragments and boulders of granite, garlanded by heavy vines; now +skirting orchards full of promise; and all the way companied by a tiny +brook, veiled deeply in alder and hazel thickets, and making in its +shadowy channel perpetual muffled music, like a child singing in the +twilight to reassure its half-fearful heart. Kate's face was softened +and full of rich expression; her pink ribbons threw a delicate tinge +of bloom upon the rounded cheek and pensive eyelid; the air was pure +balm, and a cool breath from the receding showers of the distant +thunderstorm just freshened the odors of wood and field. I began to +feel suspiciously that sentimental, but through it all came +persevering "week! week! week!" from the basket at my feet. Did I +make a fine remark on the beauties of nature, "Week!" echoed the +turkeys. Did Kate praise some tint or shape by the way, "Week! week!" +was the feeble response. Did we get deep in poetry, romance, or +metaphysics, through the most brilliant quotation, the sublimest +climax, the most acute distinction, came in "Week! week! week!" I +began to feel as if the old story of transmigration were true, and the +souls of half a dozen quaint and ancient satirists had got into the +turkeys. I could not endure it! Was I to be squeaked out of all my +wisdom, and knowledge, and device, after this fashion? Never! I +began, too, to discover a dawning smile upon Kate's face; she turned +her head away, and I placed the turkey-basket on my knees, hoping a +change of position might quiet its contents. Never was man more at +fault! they were no way stilled by my magnetism; on the contrary, they +threw their sarcastic utterances into my teeth, as it were, and shamed +me to my very face. I forgot entirely to go round by Mrs. Peters's. I +took a cross-road directly homeward; a pause—a lull—took place among +the turkeys. +<p> +"How sweet and mystical this hour is!" said I to Kate, in a +high-flown manner; "it is indeed +<blockquote> + "'An hour when lips delay to speak,<br> + Oppressed with silence deep and pure;<br> + When passion pauses—'" +</blockquote> +<p> +"Week! week! week!" chimed in those confounded turkeys. Kate burst +into a helpless fit of laughter. What could I do? I had to laugh +myself, since I must not choke the turkeys. +<p> +"Excuse me, Cousin Sam," said Kate, in a laughter-wearied tone, "I +could not help it; turkeys and sentimentality do not agree—always!" +adding the last word maliciously, as I sprang out to open the +farm-house gate, and disclosed Melindy, framed in the buttery window, +skimming milk; a picture worthy of Wilkie. I delivered over my +captives to Joe, and stalked into the kitchen to give Mrs. Bemont's +message. Melindy came out; but as soon as I began to tell her mother +where I got that message, Miss Melindy, with the <i>sang froid</i> of +a duchess, turned back to her skimming,—or appeared to. I gained +nothing by that move. +<p> +Peggy and Peter received us benignly; so universal a solvent is +success, even in turkey-hunting! I meant to have gone down to the +farm-house after tea, and inquired about the safety of my prizes, but +Kate wanted to play chess. Peter couldn't, and Peggy wouldn't; I had +to, of course, and we played late. Kate had such pretty hands; long +taper fingers, rounded to the tiniest rosy points; no dimples, but +full muscles, firm and exquisitely moulded; and the dainty way in +which she handled her men was half the game to me;—I lost it; I +played wretchedly. The next day Kate went with me to see the turkeys; +so she did the day after. We were forgetting Melindy, I am afraid, for +it was a week before I remembered I had promised her a new magazine. I +recollected myself; then, with a sort of shame, rolled up the number, +and went off to the farm-house. It seems Kate was there, busy in the +garret, unpacking a bureau that had been stored there, with some of +Peggy's foreign purchases, for summer wear, in the drawers. I did not +know that. I found Melindy spreading yeast-cakes to dry on a table, +just by the north end of the house; a hop-vine in full blossom made a +sort of porch-roof over the window by which she stood. +<p> +"I've brought your book, Melindy," said I. +<p> +"Thank you, sir," returned she, crisply. +<p> +"How pretty you look to-day." condescendingly remarked I. +<p> +"I don't thank you for that, sir;— +<blockquote> + "'Praise to the face<br> + Is open disgrace!'" +</blockquote> +<p> +was all the response. +<p> +"Why, Melindy! what makes you so cross?" inquired I, in a tone meant +to be tenderly reproachful,—in the mean time attempting to possess +myself of her hand; for, to be honest, Polder, I had been a little +sweet to the girl before Kate drove her out of my head. The hand was +snatched away. I tried indifference. +<p> +"How are the turkeys to-day. Melindy?" +<p> +Here Joe, an <i>enfant terrible,</i> came upon the scene suddenly. +<p> +"Them turkeys eats a lot, Mister Greene. Melindy says there's one on +'em struts jes' like you, 'n' makes as much gabble." +<p> +"Gobble! gobble! gobble!" echoed an old turkey from somewhere; I +thought it was overhead, but I saw nothing. Melindy threw her apron +over her face and laughed till her arms grew red. I picked up my hat +and walked off. For three days I kept out of that part of the Smith +demesne, I assure you! Kate began to grow mocking and derisive; she +teased me from morning till night, and the more she teased me, the +more I adored her. I was getting desperate, when one Sunday night Kate +asked me to walk down to the farm-house with her after tea, as +Mrs. Tucker was sick, and she had something to take to her. We found +the old woman sitting up in the kitchen, and as full of talk as ever, +though an unlucky rheumatism kept her otherwise quiet. +<p> +"How do the turkeys come on, Mrs. Tucker?" said I, by way of +conversation. +<p> +"Well, I declare, you han't heerd about them turkeys, hev ye? You see +they was doin' fine, and father he went off to salt for a spell, so's +to see'f 'twouldn't stop a complaint he's got,—I do'no' but it's a +spine in the back,—makes him kinder' faint by spells, so's he loses +his conscientiousness all to once; so he left the chickens 'n' things +for Melindy to boss, 'n' she got somethin' else into her head, 'n' she +left the door open one night, and them ten turkeys they up and run +away, I'xpect they took to the woods, 'fore Melindy brought to mind +how't she hadn't shut the door. She's set out fur to hunt 'em. I +shouldn't wonder'f she was out now, seein' it's arter sundown." +<p> +"She a'n't nuther!" roared the terrible Joe, from behind the door, +where he had retreated at my coming. "She's settin' on a flour-barrel +down by the well, an' George Bemont's a-huggin' on her" +<p> +Good gracious! what a slap Mrs. Tucker fetched that unlucky child, +with a long brown towel that hung at hand! and how he howled! while +Kate exploded with laughter, in spite of her struggles to keep quiet. +<p> +"He <i>is</i> the dre'fullest boy!" whined Mrs. Tucker. "Melindy tells +how he sassed you 'tother day, Mr. Greene. I shall hev to tewtor that +boy; he's got to hev the rod, I guess!" +<p> +I bade Mrs. Tucker good night, for Kate was already out of the door, +and, before I knew what she was about, had taken a by-path in sight of +the well; and there, to be sure, sat Melindy, on a prostrate +flour-barrel that was rolled to the foot of the big apple-tree, +twirling her fingers in pretty embarrassment, and held on her insecure +perch by the stout arm of George Bemont, a handsome brown fellow, +evidently very well content just now. +<p> +"Pretty,—isn't it?" said Kate. +<p> +"Very,—quite pastoral," sniffed I. +<p> +We were sitting round the open door an hour after, listening to a +whippoorwill, and watching the slow moon rise over a hilly range just +east of Centreville, when that elvish little "week! week!" piped out +of the wood that lay behind the house. +<p> +"That is hopeful," said Kate; "I think Melindy and George must have +tracked the turkeys to their haunt, and scared them homeward." +<p> +"George—who?" said Peggy. +<p> +"George Bemont; it seems he is—what is your Connecticut +phrase?—sparkin' Melindy." +<p> +"I'm very glad; he is a clever fellow," said Peter. +<p> +"And she is such a very pretty girl," continued Peggy,—"so +intelligent and graceful; don't you think so, Sam?" +<p> +"Aw, yes, well enough for a rustic," said I, languidly. "I never could +endure red hair, though!" +<p> +Kate stopped on the door-sill; she had risen to go up stairs. +<p> +"Gobble! gobble! gobble!" mocked she. I had heard that once before! +Peter and Peggy roared;—they knew it all;—I was sold! +<p> +"Cure me of Kate Stevens?" Of course it did. I never saw her again +without wanting to fight shy, I was so sure of an allusion to +turkeys. No, I took the first down train. There are more pretty girls +in New York, twice over, than there are in Centreville, I console +myself; but, by George! Polder, Kate Stevens was charming!—Look out +there! don't meddle with the skipper's coils of rope! can't you sleep +on deck without a pillow? + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> + +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="5">ROBIN HOOD.</a> +</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +There is no one of the royal heroes of England that enjoys a more +enviable reputation than the bold outlaw of Barnsdale and +Sherwood. His chance for a substantial immortality is at least as good +as that of stout Lion-Heart, wild Prince Hal, or merry Charles. His +fame began with the yeomanry full five hundred years ago, was +constantly increasing for two or three centuries, has extended to all +classes of society, and, with some changes of aspect, is as great as +ever. Bishops, sheriffs, and game-keepers, the only enemies he ever +had, have relinquished their ancient grudges, and Englishmen would be +almost as loath to surrender his exploits as any part of the national +glory. His free life in the woods, his unerring eye and strong arm, +his open hand and love of fair play, his never forgotten courtesy, his +respect for women and devotion to Mary, form a picture eminently +healthful and agreeable to the imagination, and commend him to the +hearty favor of all genial minds. +<p> +But securely established as Robin Hood is in popular esteem, his +historical position is by no means well ascertained, and his actual +existence has been a subject of shrewd doubt and discussion. "A tale +of Robin Hood" is an old proverb for the idlest of stories; yet all +the materials at our command for making up an opinion on these +questions are precisely of this description. They consist, that is to +say, of a few ballads of unknown antiquity. These ballads, or others +like them, are clearly the authority upon which the statements of the +earlier chroniclers who take notice of Robin Hood are founded. They +are also, to all appearance, the original source of the numerous and +wide-spread traditions concerning him; which, unless the contrary can +be shown, must be regarded, according to the almost universal rule in +such cases, as having been suggested by the very legends to which, in +the vulgar belief, they afford an irresistible confirmation. +<p> +Various periods, ranging from the time of Richard the First to near +the end of the reign of Edward the Second, have been selected by +different writers as the age of Robin Hood; but (excepting always the +most ancient ballads, which may possibly be placed within these +limits) no mention whatever is made of him in literature before the +latter half of the reign of Edward the Third. "Rhymes of Robin Hood" +are then spoken of by the author of "Piers Ploughman" (assigned to +about 1362) as better known to idle fellows than pious songs, and from +the manner of the allusion it is a just inference that such rhymes +were at that time no novelties. The next notice is in Wyntown's +Scottish Chronicle, written about 1420, where the following lines +occur—without any connection, and in the form of an entry—under the +year 1283:— + + + "Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude + Wayth-men ware commendyd gude: + In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale + Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale."[1] + +<p> +At last we encounter Robin Hood in what may be called history; first +of all in a passage of the "Scotichronicon," often quoted, and highly +curious as containing the earliest theory upon this subject. The +"Scotichronicon" was written partly by Fordun, canon of Aberdeen, +between 1377 and 1384, and partly by his pupil Bower, abbot of +St. Columba, about 1450. Fordun has the character of a man of judgment +and research, and any statement or opinion delivered by him would be +entitled to respect. Of Bower not so much can be said. He largely +interpolated the work of his master, and sometimes with the absurdest +fictions.[2] <i>Among his interpolations</i>, and forming, it is +important to observe, <i>no part of the original text</i>, is a +passage translated as follows. It is inserted immediately after +Fordun's account of the defeat of Simon de Montfort, and the +punishments inflicted on his adherents. +<p> +"At this time, [<i>sc</i>. 1266,] from the number of those who had +been deprived of their estates arose the celebrated bandit Robert +Hood, (with Little John and their accomplices,) whose achievements the +foolish vulgar delight to celebrate in comedies and tragedies, while +the ballads upon his adventures sung by the jesters and minstrels are +preferred to all others. +<p> +"Some things to his honor are also related, as appears from this. Once +on a time, when, having incurred the anger of the king and the prince, +he could hear mass nowhere but in Barnsdale, while he was devoutly +occupied with the service, (for this was his wont, nor would he ever +suffer it to be interrupted for the most pressing occasion,) he was +surprised by a certain sheriff and officers of the king, who had often +troubled him before, in the secret place in the woods where he was +engaged in worship as aforesaid. Some of his men, who had taken the +alarm, came to him and begged him to fly with all speed. This, out of +reverence for the host, which he was then most devoutly adoring, he +positively refused to do. But while the rest of his followers were +trembling for their lives, Robert, confiding in Him whom he +worshipped, fell on his enemies with a few who chanced to be with him, +and easily got the better of them; and having enriched himself with +their plunder and ransom, he was led from that time forth to hold +ministers of the church and masses in greater veneration than ever, +mindful of the common saying, that + + + 'God hears the man who often hears the mass.'" + +<p> +In another place Bower writes to the same effect: "In this year [1266] +the dispossessed barons of England and the royalists were engaged in +fierce hostilities. Among the former, Roger Mortimer occupied the +Welsh marches, and John Daynil the Isle of Ely. Robert Hood was now +living in outlawry among the woodland copses and thickets." +<p> +Mair, a Scottish writer of the first quarter of the sixteenth century, +the next historian who takes cognizance of our hero, and the only +other that requires any attention, has a passage which may be +considered in connection with the foregoing. In his "Historia Majoris +Britanniae" he remarks, under the reign of Richard the First: "About +this time [1189-99], as I conjecture, the notorious robbers, Robert +Hood of England and Little John, lurked in the woods, spoiling the +goods only of rich men. They slew nobody but those who attacked them, +or offered resistance in defence of their property. Robert maintained +by his plunder a hundred archers, so skilful in fight that four +hundred brave men feared to attack them. He suffered no woman to be +maltreated, and never robbed the poor, but assisted them abundantly +with the wealth which he took from abbots." +<p> +It appears, then, that contemporaneous history is absolutely silent +concerning Robin Hood; that, excepting the casual allusion in "Piers +Ploughman," he is first mentioned by a rhyming chronicler who wrote +one hundred years after the latest date at which he can possibly be +supposed to have lived, and then by two prose chroniclers who wrote +about one hundred and twenty-five years and two hundred years +respectively after that date; and it is further manifest that all +three of these chroniclers had no other authority for their statements +than traditional tales similar to those which have come down to our +day. When, therefore, Thierry, relying upon these chronicles and +kindred popular legends, unhesitatingly adopts the conjecture of Mair, +and describes Robin Hood as the hero of the Saxon serfs, the chief of +a troop of Saxon banditti, that continued, even to the reign of Coeur +de Lion, a determined resistance against the Norman invaders,[3]—and +when another able and plausible writer accepts and maintains, with +equal confidence, the hypothesis of Bower, and exhibits the renowned +outlaw as an adherent of Simon de Montfort, who, after the fatal +battle of Evesham, kept up a vigorous guerilla warfare against the +officers of the tyrant Henry the Third, and of his successor,[4] we +must regard these representations, which were conjectural three or +four centuries ago, as conjectures still, and even as arbitrary +conjectures, unless one or the other can be proved from the only +<i>authorities</i> we have, the ballads, to have a peculiar intrinsic +probability. That neither of them possesses this intrinsic probability +may easily be shown; but first it will be advisable to notice another +theory, which is more plausibly founded on internal evidence, and +claims to be confirmed by documents of unimpeachable validity. +<p> +This theory has been propounded by the Rev. John Hunter, in one of his +"Critical and Historical Tracts."[5] Mr. Hunter admits that Robin +Hood "lives only as a hero of song"; that he is not found in authentic +contemporary chronicles; and that, when we find him mentioned in +history, "the information was derived from the ballads, and is not +independent of them or correlative with them." While making these +admissions, he accords a considerable degree of credibility to the +ballads, and particularly to the "Lytell Geste," the last two +<i>fits</i> of which he regards as giving a tolerably accurate account +of real occurrences. +<p> +In this part of the story King Edward is represented as coming to +Nottingham to take Robin Hood. He traverses Lancashire and a part of +Yorkshire, and finds his forests nearly stripped of their deer, but +can get no trace of the author of these extensive depredations. At +last, by the advice of one of his foresters, assuming with several of +his knights the dress of a monk, he proceeds from Nottingham to +Sherwood, and there soon encounters the object of his search. He +submits to plunder as a matter of course, and then announces himself +as a messenger sent to invite Robin Hood to the royal presence. The +outlaw receives this message with great respect. There is no man in +the world, he says, whom he loves so much as his king. The monk is +invited to remain and dine; and after the repast an exhibition of +archery is ordered, in which a bad shot is to be punished by a buffet +from the hand of the chieftain. Robin, having himself once failed of +the mark, requests the monk to administer the penalty. He receives a +staggering blow, which rouses his suspicions, recognizes the king on +an attentive consideration of his countenance, entreats grace for +himself and his followers, and is freely pardoned on condition that he +and they shall enter into the king's service. To this he agrees, and +for fifteen months resides at court. At the end of this time he has +lost all his followers but two, and spent all his money, and feels +that he shall pine to death with sorrow in such a life. He returns +accordingly to the greenwood, collects his old followers around him, +and for twenty-two years maintains his independence in defiance of the +power of Edward. +<p> +Without asserting the literal verity of all the particulars of this +narrative, Mr. Hunter attempts to show that it contains a substratum +of fact. Edward the First, he informs us, was never in Lancashire +after he became king; and if Edward the Third was ever there at all, +it was not in the early years of his reign. But Edward the Second did +make one single progress in Lancashire, and this in the year 1323. +During this progress the king spent some time at Nottingham, and took +particular note of the condition of his forests, and among these of +the forest of Sherwood. Supposing now that the incidents detailed in +the "Lytell Geste" really took place at this time, Robin Hood must +have entered into the royal service before the end of the year +1353. It is a singular, and in the opinion of Mr. Hunter a very +pregnant coincidence, that in certain Exchequer documents, containing +accounts of expenses in the king's household, the name of Robyn Hode +(or Robert Hood) is found several times, beginning with the 24th of +March, 1324, among the "porters of the chamber" of the king. He +received, with Simon Hood and others, the wages of three pence a +day. In August of the following year Robin Hood suffers deduction from +his pay for non-attendance, his absences grow frequent, and on the 22d +of November he is discharged with a present of five shillings, +"<i>poar cas qil ne poait pluis travailler</i>."[6] +<p> +It remains still for Mr. Hunter to account for the existence of a band +of seven score of outlaws in the reign of Edward the Second, in or +about Yorkshire. The stormy and troublous reigns of the Plantagenets +make this a matter of no difficulty. Running his finger down the long +list of rebellions and commotions, he finds that early in 1322 England +was convulsed by the insurrection of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the +king's near relation, supported by many powerful noblemen. The Earl's +chief seat was the castle of Pontefract, in the West Riding of +Yorkshire. He is said to have been popular, and it would be a fair +inference that many of his troops were raised in this part of England. +King Edward easily got the better of the rebels, and took exemplary +vengeance upon them. Many of the leaders were at once put to death, +and the lives of all their partisans were in danger. Is it impossible, +then, asks Mr. Hunter, that some who had been in the army of the Earl +secreted themselves in the woods, and turned their skill in archery +against the king's subjects or the king's deer? "that these were the +men who for so long a time haunted Barnsdale and Sherwood, and that +Robin Hood was one of them, a chief amongst them, being really of a +rank originally somewhat superior to the rest?" +<p> +We have, then, three different hypotheses concerning Robin Hood: one +placing him in the reign of Richard the First, another in that of +Henry the Third, and the last under Edward the Second, and all +describing him as a political foe to the established government. To +all of these hypotheses there are two very obvious and decisive +objections. The first is, that Robin Hood, as already remarked, is not +so much as named in contemporary history. Whether as the unsubdued +leader of the Saxon peasantry, or insurgent against the tyranny of +Henry or Edward, it is inconceivable that we should not hear something +of him from the chroniclers. If, as Thierry says, "he had chosen +Hereward for his model," it is unexplained and inexplicable why his +historical fate has been so different from that of Hereward. The hero +of the Camp of Refuge fills an ample place in the annals of his day; +his achievements are also handed down in a prose romance, which +presents many points of resemblance to the ballads of Robin Hood. It +would have been no wonder, if the vulgar legends about Hereward had +utterly perished; but it is altogether anomalous that a popular +champion[7] who attained so extraordinary a notoriety in song, a man +living from one hundred to two hundred and fifty years later than +Hereward, should be passed over without one word of notice from any +authoritative historian.[8] That this would not be so we are most +fortunately able to demonstrate by reference to a real case which +furnishes a singularly exact parallel to the present,—that of the +famous outlaw, Adam Gordon. In the year 1267, says the continuator of +Matthew Paris, a soldier by the name of Adam Gordon, who had lost his +estates with other adherents of Simon de Montfort, and refused to seek +the mercy of the king, established himself with others in like +circumstances near a woody and tortuous road between the village of +Wilton and the castle of Farnham, from which position he made forays +into the country round about, directing his attacks especially against +those who were of the king's party. Prince Edward had heard much of +the prowess and honorable character of this man, and desired to have +some personal knowledge of him. He succeeded in surprising Gordon +with a superior force, and engaged him in single combat, forbidding +any of his own followers to interfere. They fought a long time, and +the prince was so filled with admiration of the courage and spirit of +his antagonist, that he promised him life and fortune on condition of +his surrendering. To these terms Gordon acceded, his estates were +restored, and Edward found him ever after an attached and faithful +servant.[9] The story is romantic, and yet Adam Gordon was not made +the subject of ballads. <i>Caruit vate sacro</i>. The contemporary +historians, however, all have a paragraph for him. He is celebrated +by Wikes, the Chronicle of Dunstaple, the Waverley Annals, and we know +not where else besides. +<p> +But these theories are open to an objection stronger even than the +silence of history. They are contradicted by the spirit of the +ballads. No line of these songs breathes political animosity. There is +no suggestion or reminiscence of wrong, from invading Norman, or from +the established sovereign. On the contrary, Robin loved no man in the +world so well as his king. What the tone of these ballads would have +been, had Robin Hood been any sort of partisan, we may judge from the +mournful and indignant strains which were poured out on the fall of De +Montfort. We should have heard of the fatal field of Hastings, of the +perfidy of Henry, of the sanguinary revenge of Edward,—and not of +matches at archery and encounters at quarter-staff, the plundering of +rich abbots and squabbles with the sheriff. The Robin Hood of our +ballads is neither patriot under ban, nor proscribed rebel. An outlaw +indeed he is, but an "outlaw for venyson," like Adam Bell, and one who +superadds to deer-stealing the irregularity of a genteel +highway-robbery. +<p> +Thus much of these conjectures in general. To recur to the particular +evidence by which Mr. Hunter's theory is supported, this consists +principally in the name of Robin Hood being found among the king's +servants shortly after Edward the Second returned from his visit to +the north of his dominions. But the value of this coincidence depends +entirely upon the rarity of the name.[10] Now Hood, as Mr. Hunter +himself remarks, is a well-established hereditary name in the reigns +of the Edwards. We find it very frequently in the indexes to the +Record Publications, and this although it does not belong to the +higher class of people. That Robert was an ordinary Christian name +requires no proof; and if it was, the combination of Robert Hood must +have been frequent also. We have taken no extraordinary pains to hunt +up this combination, for really the matter is altogether too trivial +to justify the expense of time; but since to some minds much may +depend on the coincidence in question, we will cite several Robin +Hoods in the reigns of the Edwards. +<p> +28th Ed. I. Robert Hood, a citizen of London, says Mr. Hunter, +supplied the king's household with beer. +<p> +30th Ed. I. Robert Hood is sued for three acres of pasture land in +Throckley, Northumberland. (<i>Rot. Orig. Abbrev.</i>) +<p> +7th Ed. II. Robert Hood is surety for a burgess returned for +Lostwithiel, Cornwall. (<i>Parliamentary Writs</i>.) +<p> +9th Ed. II. Robert Hood is a citizen of Wakefield, Yorkshire, whom Mr. +Hunter (p. 47) "may be justly charged with carrying supposition too +far" in striving to identify with Robin the porter. +<p> +10th Ed. III. A Robert Hood, of Howden, York, is mentioned in the +<i>Calendarium Rot. Patent</i>. +<p> +Adding the Robin Hood of the 17th Ed. II. we have six persons of that +name mentioned within a period of less than forty years, and this +circumstance does not dispose us to receive with great favor any +argument that may be founded upon one individual case of its +occurrence. But there is no end to the absurdities which flow from +this supposition. We are to believe that the weak and timid prince, +that had severely punished his kinsman and his nobles, freely pardoned +a yeoman, who, after serving with the rebels, had for twenty months +made free with the king's deer and robbed on the highway,—and not +only pardoned him, but received him into service <i>near his +person</i>. We are further to believe that the man who had led so +daring and jovial a life, and had so generously dispensed the pillage +of opulent monks, willingly entered into this service, doffed his +Lincoln green for the Plantagenet plush, and <i>consented</i> to be +enrolled among royal flunkies for three pence a day. And again, +admitting all this, we are finally obliged by Mr. Hunter's document to +concede that the stalworth archer (who, according to the ballad, +maintained himself two-and-twenty years in the wood) was worn out by +his duties as "proud porter" in less than two years, and was +discharged a superannuated lackey, with five shillings in his pocket, +<i>"poar cas qil ne poait pluis travailler"!</i> +<p> +To those who are well acquainted with ancient popular poetry the +adventure of King Edward and Robin Hood will seem the least eligible +portion of this circle of story for the foundation of an historical +theory. The ballad of King Edward and Robin Hood is but one version of +an extremely multiform legend, of which the tales of "King Edward and +the Shepherd" and "King Edward and the Hermit" are other specimens; +and any one who will take the trouble to examine will be convinced +that all these stories are one and the same thing, the personages +being varied for the sake of novelty, and the name of a recent or of +the reigning monarch substituted in successive ages for that of a +predecessor. +<p> +Rejecting, then, as nugatory, every attempt to assign Robin Hood a +definite position in history, what view shall we adopt? Are all these +traditions absolute fictions, and is he himself a pure creation of the +imagination? Might not the ballads under consideration have a basis in +the exploits of a real person, living in the forests, <i>somewhere</i> and +<i>at some time?</i> Or, denying individual existence to Robin Hood, and +particular truth to the adventures ascribed to him, may we not regard +him as the ideal of the outlaw class, a class so numerous in all the +countries of Europe in the Middle Ages? We are perfectly contented to +form no opinion upon the subject; but if compelled to express one, we +should say that this last supposition (which is no novelty) possessed +decidedly more likelihood than any other. Its plausibility will be +confirmed by attending to the apparent signification of the name Robin +Hood. The natural refuge and stronghold of the outlaw was the +woods. Hence he is termed by Latin writers <i>silvatious,</i> by the +Normans <i>forestier</i>. The Anglo-Saxon robber or highwayman is called a +woodrover <i>wealdgenga,</i> and the Norse word for outlaw is exactly +equivalent.[11] It has often been suggested that Robin Hood is a +corruption, or dialectic form, of Robin of the Wood; and when we +remember that <i>wood</i> is pronounced <i>hood</i> in some parts of +England,[12] (as <i>whoop</i> is pronounced <i>hoop</i> everywhere,) and that +the outlaw bears in so many languages a name descriptive of his +habitation, this notion will not seem an idle fancy. +<p> +Various circumstances, however, have disposed writers of learning to +look farther for a solution of the question before us. Mr. Wright +propounds an hypothesis that Robin Hood "one among the personages of +the early mythology of the Teutonic peoples"; and a German +scholar,[13] in an exceedingly interesting article which throws much +light on the history of English sports, has endeavored to show +specifically that he is in name and substance one with the god +Woden. The arguments by which these views are supported, though in +their present shape very far from convincing, are entitled to a +respectful consideration. +<p> +The most important of these arguments are those which are based on the +peculiar connection between Robin Hood and the month of +May. Mr. Wright has justly remarked, that either an express mention of +this month, or a vivid description of the season, in the older +ballads, shows that the feats of the hero were generally performed +during this part of the year. Thus, the adventure of "Robin Hood and +the Monk" befell on "a morning of May." "Robin Hood and the Potter" +and "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne" begin, like "Robin Hood and the +Monk," with a description of the season when leaves are long, blossoms +are shooting, and the small birds are singing; and this season, though +called summer, is at the same time spoken of as May in "Robin Hood and +the Monk," which, from the description there given, it needs must be. +The liberation of Cloudesly by Adam Bel and Clym of the Clough is also +achieved "on a merry morning of May." +<p> +Robin Hood is, moreover, intimately associated with the month of May +through the games which were celebrated at that time of the year. The +history of these games is unfortunately very defective, and hardly +extends farther back than the beginning of the sixteenth century. By +that time their primitive character seems to have been corrupted, or +at least their significance was so far forgotten, that distinct +pastimes and ceremonials were capriciously intermixed. At the +beginning of the sixteenth century the May sports in vogue were, +besides a contest of archery, four <i>pageants</i>,—the Kingham, or +election of a Lord and Lady of the May, otherwise called Summer King +and Queen, the Morris-Dance, the Hobby-Horse, and the "Robin Hood." +Though these pageants were diverse in their origin, they had, at the +epoch of which we write, begun to be confounded; and the Morris +exhibited a tendency to absorb and blend them all, as, from its +character, being a procession interspersed with dancing, it easily +might do. We shall hardly find the Morris pure and simple in the +English May-game; but from a comparison of the two earliest +representations which we have of this sport, the Flemish print given +by Douce in his "Illustrations of Shakspeare," and Tollett's +celebrated painted window, (described in Johnson and Steevens's +Shakspeare,) we may form an idea of what was essential and what +adventitious in the English spectacle. The Lady is evidently the +central personage in both. She is, we presume, the same as the Queen +of May, who is the oldest of all the characters in the May games, and +the apparent successor to the Goddess of Spring in the Roman +Floralia. In the English Morris she is called simply The Lady, or more +frequently Maid Marian, a name which, to our apprehension, means Lady +of the May, and nothing more.[14] A fool and a taborer seem also to +have been indispensable; but the other dancers had neither names nor +peculiar offices, and were unlimited in number. The Morris, then, +though it lost in allegorical significance, would gain considerably in +spirit and variety by combining with the other shows. Was it not +natural, therefore, and in fact inevitable, that the old favorites of +the populace, Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, and Little John, should in the +course of time displace three of the anonymous performers in the show? +This they had pretty effectually done at the beginning of the +sixteenth century; and the Lady, who had accepted the more precise +designation of Maid Marian, was after that generally regarded as the +consort of Robin Hood, though she sometimes appeared in the Morris +without him. In like manner, the Hobby-Horse was quite early adopted +into the Morris, of which it formed no original part, and at last even +a Dragon was annexed to the company. Under these circumstances we +cannot be surprised to find the principal performers in the May +pageants passing the one into the other,—to find the May King, whose +occupation was gone when the gallant outlaw had supplanted him in the +favor of the Lady, assuming the part of the Hobby-Horse,[15] Robin +Hood usurping the title of King of the May,[16] and the Hobby-Horse +entering into a contest with the Dragon, as St. George. +<p> +We feel obliged to regard this interchange of functions among the +characters in the English May-pageants as fortuitous, notwithstanding +the coincidence of the May King sometimes appearing on horseback in +Germany, and notwithstanding our conviction that Kuhn is right in +maintaining that the May King, the Hobby-Horse, and the Dragon-Slayer +are symbols of one mythical idea. This idea we are compelled by want +of space barely to state, with the certainty of doing injustice to the +learning and ingenuity with which the author has supported his +views. Kuhn has shown it to be extremely probable, first, that the +Christmas games, which both in Germany and England have a close +resemblance to those of Spring, are to be considered as a prelude to +the May sports, and that they both originally symbolized the victory +of Summer over Winter,[17] which, beginning at the winter solstice, is +completed in the second month of spring; secondly, that the conquering +Summer is represented by the May King, or by the Hobby-Horse (as also +by the Dragon-Slayer, whether St. George, Siegfried, Apollo, or the +Sanskrit Indras); and thirdly, that the Hobby-Horse in particular +represents the god Woden, who, as well as Mars [18] among the Romans, +is the god at once of Spring and of Victory. +<p> +The essential point, all this being admitted, is now to establish the +identity of Robin Hood and the Hobby-Horse. This we think we have +shown cannot be done by reasoning founded on the early history of the +games under consideration. Kuhn relies principally upon two modern +accounts of Christmas pageants. In one of these pageants there is +introduced a man on horseback, who carries in his hands a bow and +arrows. The other furnishes nothing peculiar except a name: the +ceremony is called a <i>hoodening,</i> and the hobby-horse a +<i>hooden</i>. In the rider with bow and arrows Kuhn sees Robin Hood +and the Hobby-Horse, and in the name <i>hooden</i> (which is explained +by the authority he quotes to mean wooden) he discovers a provincial +form of wooden, which connects the outlaw and the divinity.[19] It +will be generally agreed that these slender premises are totally +inadequate to support the weighty conclusion that is rested upon them. +<p> +Why the adventures of Robin Hood should be specially assigned, as they +are in the old ballads, to the month of May, remains unexplained. We +have no exquisite reason to offer, but we may perhaps find reason good +enough in the delicious stanzas with which some of these ballads +begin. + + + "In summer when the shawès be sheen, + And leavès be large and long, + It is full merry in fair forèst + To hear the fowlès song; + To see the deer draw to the dale, + And leave the hillès hee, + And shadow them in the leavès green + Under the green-wood tree." + +<p> +The poetical character of the season affords all the explanation that +is required. +<p> +Nor need the occurrence of exhibitions of archery and of the Robin +Hood plays and pageants, at this time of the year, occasion any +difficulty. Repeated statutes, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth +century, enjoined practice with the bow, and ordered that the leisure +time of holidays should be employed for this purpose. Under Henry the +Eighth the custom was still kept up, and those who partook in this +exercise often gave it a spirit by assuming the style and character of +Robin Hood and his associates. In like manner the society of archers +in Elizabeth's time took the name of Arthur and his Knights; all which +was very natural then, and would be now. None of all the merrymakings +in merry England surpassed the May festival. The return of the sun +stimulated the populace to the accumulation of all sorts of +amusements. In addition to the traditional and appropriate sports of +the season, there were, as Stowe tells us, divers warlike shows, with +good archers, morris-dancers, and other devices for pastime all day +long, and towards evening stage-plays and bonfires in the streets. A +Play of Robin Hood was considered "very proper for a May-game"; but if +Robin Hood was peculiarly prominent in these entertainments, the +obvious reason would appear to be that he was the hero of that loved +green-wood to which all the world resorted, when the cold obstruction +of winter was broken up, "to do observance for a morn of May." +<p> +We do not, therefore, attribute much value to the theory of +Mr. Wright, that the May festival was, in its earliest form, "a +religious celebration, though, like such festivals in general, it +possessed a double character, that of a religious ceremony, and of an +opportunity for the performance of warlike games; that, at such +festivals, the songs would take the character of the amusements on the +occasion, and would most likely celebrate warlike deeds,—perhaps the +myths of the patron whom superstition supposed to preside over them; +that, as the character of the exercises changed, the attributes of the +patron would change also, and he who was once celebrated as working +wonders with his good axe or his elf-made sword might afterwards +assume the character of a skilful bowman; that the scene of his +actions would likewise change, and the person whose weapons were the +bane of dragons and giants, who sought them in the wildernesses they +infested, might become the enemy only of the sheriff and his officers, +under the 'grene-wode lefe.'" It is unnecessary to point out that the +language we have quoted contains, beyond the statement that warlike +exercises were anciently combined with religious rites, a very +slightly founded surmise, and nothing more. +<p> +Another circumstance, which weighs much with Mr. Wright, goes but a +very little way with us in demonstrating the mythological character of +Robin Hood. This is the frequency with which his name is attached to +mounds, wells, and stones, such as in the popular creed are connected +with fairies, dwarfs, or giants. There is scarcely a county in England +which does not possess some monument of this description. "Cairns on +Blackdown in Somersetshire, and barrows near to Whitby in Yorkshire +and Ludlow in Shropshire, are termed Robin Hood's pricks or butts; +lofty natural eminences in Gloucestershire and Derbyshire are Robin +Hood's hills; a huge rock near Matlock is Robin Hood's Tor; ancient +boundary-stones, as in Lincolnshire, are Robin Hood's crosses; a +presumed loggan, or rocking-stone, in Yorkshire, is Robin Hood's +penny-stone; a fountain near Nottingham, another between Doncaster and +Wakefield, and one in Lancashire, are Robin Hood's wells; a cave in +Nottinghamshire is his stable; a rude natural rock in Hope Dale is his +chair; a chasm at Chatsworth is his leap; Blackstone Edge, in +Lancashire, is his bed."[20] In fact, his name bids fair to overrun +every remarkable object of the sort which has not been already +appropriated to King Arthur or the Devil; with the latter of whom, at +least, it is presumed, that, however ancient, he will not dispute +precedence. +<p> +"The legends of the peasantry," quoth Mr. Wright, "are the shadows of +a very remote antiquity." This proposition, thus broadly stated, we +deny. Nothing is more deceptive than popular legends; and the +"legends" we speak of, if they are to bear that name, have no claim to +antiquity at all. They do not go beyond the ballads. They are palpably +of subsequent and comparatively recent origin. It was absolutely +impossible that they should arise while Robin Hood was a living +reality to the people. The archer of Sherwood who could barely stand +King Edward's buffet, and was felled by the Potter, was no man to be +playing with rocking-stones. This trick of naming must have begun in +the decline of his fame; for there was a time when his popularity +drooped, and his existence was just not doubted,—not elaborately +maintained by learned historians, and antiquarians deeply read in the +Public Records. And what do these names prove? The vulgar passion for +bestowing them is notorious and universal. We Americans are too young +to be well provided with heroes that might serve this purpose. We have +no imaginative peasantry to invent legends, no ignorant peasantry to +believe them. But we have the good fortune to possess the Devil in +common with the rest of the world; and we take it upon us to say, that +there is not a mountain district in the land, which has been opened to +summer travellers, where a "Devil's Bridge," a "Devil's Punch-bowl," +or some object with the like designation, will not be pointed out.[21] +<p> +We have taken no notice of the later fortunes of Robin Hood in his +true and original character of a hero of romance. Towards the end of +the sixteenth century Anthony Munday attempted to revive the decaying +popularity of this king of good fellows, who had won all his honors as +a simple yeoman, by representing him in the play of "The Downfall of +Robert, Earl of Huntington" as a nobleman in disguise, outlawed by the +machinations of his steward. This pleasing and successful drama is +Robin's sole patent to that title of Earl of Huntington, in +confirmation of which Dr. Stukeley fabricated a pedigree that +transcends even the absurdities of heraldry, and some unknown forger +an epitaph beneath the skill of a Chatterton. Those who desire a full +acquaintance with the fabulous history of Robin Hood will seek it in +the well-known volumes of Ritson, or in those of his recent editor, +Gutch, who does not make up by superior discrimination for his +inferiority in other respects to that industrious antiquary. +<br> +<p> +[Footnote 1: A writer in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> (July, 1847, +p. 134) has cited an allusion to Robin Hood, of a date intermediate +between the passages from Wyntown and the one about to be cited from +Bower. In the year 1439, a petition was presented to Parliament +against one Piers Venables of Aston, in Derbyshire, "who having no +liflode, ne sufficeante of goodes, gadered and assembled unto him many +misdoers, beynge of his clothynge, and, in manere of insurrection, +wente into the wodes in that countrie, like as it hadde be <i>Robyn +Hude and his meyne</i>."—<i>Rot. Parl.</i> v. 16.] +<p> +[Footnote 2: "Legendis non raro incredilibibus aliisque plusquam +anilibus neniis."--Hearne, <i>Scotichronicon</i>, p. xxix.] +<p> +[Footnote 3: In his <i>Histoire de la Conquête de l'Angleterre par les +Normands</i>, livr. xi. Thierry was anticipated in his theory by +Barry, in a dissertation cited by Mr. Wright in his Essays: <i>Thèse +de Littérature sur les Vicissitudes et les Transformations du Cycle +populaire de Robin Hood</i>. Paris, 1832.] +<p> +[Footnote 4: <i>London, and Westminster Review</i>, vol. xxxiii. p. 424.] +<p> +[Footnote 5: No 4. <i>The Ballad Hero, Robin Hood</i>. June, 1852.] +<p> +[Footnote 6: Hunter, pp. 28, 35-38] +<p> +[Footnote 7: Mr. Hunter thinks it necessary to prove that it was +formerly a usage in England to celebrate real events in popular +song. We submit that it has been still more customary to celebrate +them in history, when they were of public importance. The case of +private and domestic stories is different.] +<p> +[Footnote 8: Most remarkable of all would this be, should we adopt the +views of Mr. Hunter, because we know, from the incidental testimony of +<i>Piers Ploughman</i>, that only forty years after the date fixed +upon for the outlaw's submission "rhymes of Robin Hood" were in the +mouth of every tavern lounger; and yet no chronicler can spare him a +word.] +<p> +[Footnote 9: Matthew Paris, London, 1640, p. 1002] +<p> +[Footnote 10: Mr. Hunter had previously instituted a similar argument +in the case of Adam Bell, and doubtless the reasoning might be +extended to Will Scathlock and Little John. With a little more +rummaging of old account-books we shall be enabled to "comprehend all +vagrom men." It is a pity that the Sheriff of Nottingham could not +have availed himself of the services of our "detective."] +<p> +[Footnote 11: See Wright's <i>Essays,</i> ii. 207. "The name of +Witikind, the famous opponent of Charlemagne, who always fled before +his sight, concealed himself in the forests, and returned again in his +absence, is no more than <i>uitu chint,</i> in Old High Dutch, and +signifies the <i>son of the wood,</i> an appellation which he could +never have received at his birth, since it denotes an exile or +outlaw. Indeed, the name Witikind, though such a person seems to have +existed, appears to be the representative of all the defenders of his +country against the invaders."] +<p> +[Footnote 12: Thus, in Kent, the Hobby-Horse is called <i>hooden,</i> +i.e. wooden. It is curious that Orlando, in <i>As You Like It,</i> +(who represents the outlaw Gamelyn in the <i>Tale of Gamelyn,</i> a +tale which clearly belongs to the cycle of Robin Hood,) should be the +son of Sir Rowland de Bois. Robin de Bois (says a writer in <i>Notes +and Queries,</i> vi. 597) occurs in one of Sue's novels "as a +well-known mythical character, whose name is employed by French +mothers to frighten their children."] +<p> +[Footnote 13: Kuhn, in Haupt's <i>Zeitschrift für deutsches +Alterthum,</i> v. 472. The idea of a northern myth will of course +excite the alarm of all sensible, patriotic Englishmen, (e.g. Mr. +Hunter, at page 3 of his tract,) and the bare suggestion of Woden will +be received, in the same quarters, with an explosion of scorn. And +yet we find the famous shot of Elgill, one of the mythical personages +of the Scandinavians, (and perhaps to be regarded as one of the forms +of Woden,) attributed in the ballad of <i>Adam Bel</i> to William of +Cloudesly, who may be considered as Robin Hood under another name.] +<p> +[Footnote: 14. Unless importance is to be attached to +the consideration that May is the Virgin's +month.] +<p> +[Footnote 15: As in Tollett's window.] +<p> +[Footnote 16: In Lord Hailes's <i>Extracts from the Book of the +Universal Kirk.</i>] +<p> +[Footnote 17: More openly exhibited in the mock battle between Summer +and Winter celebrated by the Scandinavians in honor of May, a custom +still retained in the Isle of Man, where the month is every year +ushered in with a contest between the Queen of Summer and the Queen of +Winter. (Brand's <i>Antiquities,</i> by Ellis, i. 222, 257.) A similar +ceremony in Germany, occurring at Christmas, is noticed by Kuhn, +p. 478.] +<p> +[Footnote 18: Hence the spring begins with March. The connection with +Mars suggests a possible etymology for the Morris,—which is usually +explained, for want of something better, as a Morisco or Moorish +dance. There is some resemblance between the Morris and the Salic +dance. The Salic games are said to have been instituted by the Veian +king Morrius, a name pointing to Mars, the divinity of the +Salli.—Kuhn, 488-493.] +<p> +[Footnote 19: The name Robin also appears to Kuhn worthy of notice, +since the horseman in the May pageant is in some parts of Germany +called Ruprecht (Rupert, Robert).] +<p> +[Footnote 20: <i>Edinburgh Review,</i> vol. 86, p. 123.] +<p> +[Footnote 21: See some sensible remarks in the <i>Gentleman's +Magazine</i> for March, 1793, by D. H., that is, says the courteous +Ritson, by Gough, "the scurrilous and malignant editor of that +degraded publication."] + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> + +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="6">THE GHOST REDIVIVUS.</a> +</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +One of those violent, though shortlived storms, which occasionally +rage in southern climates, had blown all night in the neighborhood of +the little town of San Cipriano, situated in a wild valley of the +Apennines opening towards the sea. Under the olive-woods that cover +those steep hills lay the olive-berries strewed thick and wide; here +and there a branch heavy-laden with half-ripe fruit, torn by the blast +from its parent tree, stretched its prostrate length upon the +ground. An abundant premature harvest had fallen, but at present there +were no means of collecting it; for the deluging rains of the night +had soaked the ground, the grass, the dead leaves, the fruit itself, +and the rain was still falling heavily. If gathered in that state, the +olives are sure to rot. +<p> +<i>"Pazienza!"</i> in such disasters exclaim the inhabitants of the +<i>Riviera</i>, with a melancholy shrug of the shoulders. And they +needs must have patience until the weather clears and the ground +dries, before they can secure such of the olives as may happily be +uninjured. +<p> +On the day we speak of, the 21st of December, 1852, the proprietors of +olive-grounds in San Cipriano wore very blank faces; they talked sadly +of the falling prices of the fruit and oil, and the olive-pickers +crossed their hands and looked vacantly at the gray sky. +<p> +In the spacious kitchen of Doctor Morani were assembled a body of +young rosy lasses in laced bodices, and short, bright-colored +petticoats, come down from the neighboring mountains for the +olive-gathering, much as Irish laborers cross over to England for the +hay-making season. These girls arrive in troops from their native +villages among the hills, carrying on their heads a sackful of the +flour of dried beans and a lesser quantity of dried chestnuts. They +offer their services to the inhabitants of the valley at the rate of +four pence English a day; about three pence less than the sum demanded +by the women of the place. But the pretty mountaineers ask, in +addition to their modest wages, a shelter for the night, a little +straw or hay for their beds, and a small daily portion of oil and salt +to season the bean-flour and chestnuts, which constitute their sole +food. They are then perfectly contented. +<p> +The old Doctor had hired several of these damsels to assist in getting +in his olive crop, with the customary additional compact to spin some +of the unwrought flax of the household when bad weather prevented +their out-of-door work, as well as regularly in the evening between +early dusk and bed-time. Happy those to whose lot it fell to be +employed by Dr. Morani! Besides not beating down their wages to the +utmost, it was the Doctor's wont, out of the exuberance of a +warm-hearted, joyous nature, unchilled even by his sixty winters, to +give to his serving men and maidens not only kind words and +encouraging looks, but also what made him perhaps still more popular, +humorous jokes and droll stories. +<p> +The Doctor, indeed, concealed something of the philosopher under the +garb of a wag. His quaint sayings and doings were frequently quoted +with great relish among this rural population. He had a way of his own +of shooting facts and truths into the uncultivated understandings of +these laborers,—facts and truths that never otherwise could have +penetrated so far; he feathered his philosophical or moral arrows with +a jest, and they stuck fast. +<p> +Signora Martina, his wife, was a good soul, and, though a strict +housewife, was yet not so thrifty but that she could allow a little of +her abundance to overflow on those in her service; and these crumbs +from her table added many delicious bits to the bean-flour +repasts. So, as we have said, happy the mountain girls taken into +Dr. Morani's service! But specially blest among the blest this year +were two sisters, to whom was allotted a bed, a real bed, to sleep +upon! How came they to be furnished with such a luxury? Why, this +season the Doctor had hired more than the usual number of pickers. The +outbuilding given them to sleep in was thus too small to accommodate +all, so two were taken into the house, and a diminutive closet, +generally used by the family as a bath-room, was turned into a +bed-room for the lucky couple. Now for a description of the bed. Over +the bath was placed an ironing-board, and upon this a mattress quite +as narrow, almost as hard, and far less smooth than the narrow plank +on which it lay. The width of the bed was just sufficient to admit the +two sisters, packed close, each lying on her side. As to turning, that +was simply out of the question; but "poor labor in sweet slumber +lock'd" lay from night till morning without once dreaming of change of +position. +<p> +Signora Martina, the first day or two, expressed some fear lest they +might not rest well; but both girls averred they never in their lives +had known so luxurious a bed,—and never should again, unless their +good fortune brought them back another year to enjoy this sybarite +couch at Dr. Morani's. +<p> +Though irrelevant to our story, this short digression may serve to +illustrate the Arcadian simplicity of habits prevailing in these +mountainous districts, and affords one more illustration of the axiom, +not more trite than true, that human enjoyment and luxury are all +comparative. +<p> +Well! the wet afternoon was wearing on, beguiled by the young girls as +best it might be, with the spindle and distaff, and incessant chatter +and laugh, save when they joined their voices in some popular +chant. Signora Martina was delivering fresh flax to the spinners; +Marietta, the maid, was busy about the fire, in provident forethought +for supper; and Beppo, a barefooted, weather-beaten individual, was +bringing in the wood he had been sawing this rainy day, which +interfered with his more usual business at that season. For Beppo was +one of the men whose task it was to climb the olive-trees and shake +down the olives for the women gathering below. He was distinguished +among many as a skilful and valiant climber; nor had his laurels been +earned without perils and wounds. Occasionally he fell, and +occasionally broke a bone or two,—episodes that had their +compensation. Beppo, then, on this particular rainy afternoon, came +in with a flat basket full of newly cut wood on his head, respectfully +saluted the <i>Padrona</i>, and, after throwing down his load in a +corner of the kitchen, leisurely turned his basket topsy-turvy, seated +himself upon it, and prepared to take his part in the general +conversation. +<p> +At this moment the Doctor himself entered, his cloak and hat dripping. +<p> +"Heugh! heugh!" he exclaimed, in a voice of disgust, as his wife +helped him out of his covering; "what weather!" He went towards the +fire, and spread out his hands to catch the heat of the glowing +embers, on which sat a saucepan. "Horrid weather! The wind played the +very mischief with us last night!" +<p> +"Many branches broken, Padrone?" asked Beppo, eagerly. +<p> +"Branches, eh? Aye, aye; saw away; burn away; don't be afraid of a +supply failing," said the Doctor, dryly. +<p> +"Oh, Santa Maria!" sighed Signora Martina, in sad presentiment. +<p> +"Plenty of firewood, my dear soul, for two years," went on the +Doctor. "The big tree near the pigeon-house is head down, root up, +torn, smashed, prostrate, while good-for-nothing saplings are +standing." +<p> +"Oh Lord! such a tree! that never failed, bad year or good year, to +give us a sack of olives, and often more!" cried Signora Martina, +piteously. "More than three generations old it was!" And she began +actually to weep. "Oil selling for nothing, and the tree, the best of +trees, to be blown down!" +<p> +"Take care," said the Doctor, "take care of repining! Little +misfortunes are like a rash, which carries off bad humors from a too +robust body. Suppose the storm had laid my head low, and turned up my +toes; what then, eh, little girls?" turning to the group of young +creatures standing with their eyes very wide open at the recital of +the misdeeds of the turbulent wind, and now as suddenly off into a +laugh at the image of the Doctor's decease so represented. "Ah! you +giggling set! Happy you that have no branches to be broken, and no +olive-pickers to pay! <i>Per Bacco!</i> you are well off, if you only +knew it!" +<p> +He walked over to where his weeping wife sat, laid his hand on her +head, and stooping, kissed her brow. The girls laughed again. +<p> +"Be quiet, all of you! Do you think that only smooth brows and bright +cheeks ought to be kissed? Be good loving wives, and I promise you +your husbands will be blind to your wrinkles. I could not be happy +without the sight of this well-known face; it is the record of +happiness for me. I wish you all our luck, my dears!" +<p> +All simpered or laughed, and Martina's brow smoothed. +<p> +"Now I see that I can still make you smile at misfortune," continued +the Doctor, "I will tell you something comforting. As I came along, I +met Paolo, the olive-merchant, who offered me a franc more a sack than +he did to any one else, because he knows our olives are of a superior +quality." +<p> +Signora Martina smiled rather a grim smile at this compliment to her +olives. +<p> +"But I told him," went on Doctor Morani, with a certain look of pride, +"that we were not going to sell; we intended to make oil for +ourselves. And so we will, Martina, with the olives that have been +blown down, hoping the best for those still on the trees. Now let us +talk of something more pleasant. Pasqualina, suppose you tell us a +story; you are our best hand, I believe." +<p> +"I am sure, Signor Dottore, I have nothing worth your listening to," +answered Pasqualina, blushing. +<p> +"Tell us about the ghost your uncle saw," suggested another of the +girls. +<p> +"A ghost!" cried the Doctor. "Any one here seen a ghost? I wish I +could have such a chance! What was it like?" +<p> +"I did not see it myself; I do but believe what my uncle told me," +said Pasqualina, with a gravity that had a shade of resentment. +<p> +"If one is only to speak of what one has seen," urged the prompter of +the uncle's ghost-story, "tell the Padrone of the witch that bewitched +your sister." +<p> +"Ah! and so we have witches too?" groaned the Doctor. +<p> +"As to that," resumed Pasqualina, with a dignified look, "I can't help +believing my own eyes, and those of all the people of our village." +<p> +"Well," exclaimed Doctor Morani, "let us hear all about the witch." +<p> +"You know, all of you," said Pasqualina, "what bad fits my sister had, +and how she was cured by the miraculous Madonna del Laghetto. So my +sister had no more fits, till Madalena, a spiteful old woman, and whom +everybody in the village knows to be a witch, mumbled some of her +spells and——" +<p> +"Hallo!" cried the Doctor, "do you mean that witches have more power +than the Madonna?" +<p> +"Oh! Signor Dottore, you put things so strangely! just listen to the +truth. So this old woman came and mumbled some of her spells, and then +my poor sister fell down again, and has since had fits as bad as +ever. But my father and brother were not going to take it so easily, +and they beat the bad old witch till she couldn't move, and had to be +carried to the hospital. I hope she may die, with all my heart I do!" +<p> +"You had better hope she will get well," observed the Doctor, coolly; +"for if she should happen to die, my good Pasqualina, it would be very +possible that your father and brother might be sent to the galleys." +<p> +Here Pasqualina set up a howl. +<p> +"Do not afflict yourself just now," resumed Doctor Morani; "for, with +all their good-will, they have not quite killed the woman. I saw her +myself at the hospital; she is getting better, and when cured, I shall +take care that she does not return among such a set of savages as +flourish in your village, Signorina Pasqualina. Excuse my +boldness,"—and the Doctor took off his skull-cap, in playful +obeisance to the young girl,—"only advise your family another time to +be less ready with their hands and their belief in every species of +absurdity. Did not Father Tommaso tell you but yesterday, that it was +not right to believe in ghosts or witches, save and except the +peculiar one or two it is his business to know about, and who lived +some thousand years ago? There have been none since, believe me." +<p> +"Strange things do happen, however," observed Signora Martina, +thoughtfully,—"things that neither priest nor lawyer can +explain. What was that thing which appeared, twenty years ago, on the +tower of San Ciprano?" The Signora's voice sent a shudder through all +the women present. +<p> +"A trick, and a stupid trick," persisted her husband. +<p> +"Not at all a trick, Doctor," said Martina, shaking her head. +<p> +"Did you see it yourself, Martina?" +<p> +"No; but I saw those who did with their own two blessed eyes." +<p> +"The Padrona is quite right," said Beppo, without leaving his +basket. "I, for one, saw it." +<p> +This assertion produced such a hubbub as sent the Doctor growling from +the room, and left Signora Martina at liberty to comply with the +general petition for the story. +<p> +"It was twenty-five years last Easter since Hans Reuter came to San +Cipriano with Carlo Boschi, the son of old Pietro, of our town. Carlo +had gone away three years before to seek his fortune. He went to +Switzerland, it seems, a distant country beyond the mountains, where +the language is different from ours, and where it is said"—(here +Martina lowered her voice)—"the people do not follow our holy +religion, and are called, therefore, Protestants and heretics. They +are industrious, notwithstanding, and clever in certain arts and +manufactures, and it was from some of them that Carlo learned the +watchmaking trade. After staying away three years, one fine day he +came back, bringing with him one of these Swiss, Hans Reuter; and the +two, being great friends, set up a shop together, where they made and +sold watches and jewelry. There was not business enough in San +Cipriano to maintain them, but they made it out by selling at +wholesale in the neighboring towns. +<p> +"For years all went smoothly with the partners, and their good luck +began to be wondered at, when one morning their shop was not open at +the usual hour. What was the matter? what had happened? there was +Carlo Boschi knocking and shouting to Hans, and all in vain. I must +tell you that Carlo lived elsewhere, and Hans had the care of the +premises at night, sleeping in a little room at the back of the +shop. The neighbors went out and advised Carlo to force the door. Very +well. When they got in, they found Hans bound hand and foot, and so +closely gagged that he was almost stifled. As soon as he could speak, +he said that just after he had shut up the previous evening, there +was a knock at the door. He had scarcely opened it, when he was seized +by two ruffians with blackened faces, who threw him down, gagged and +tied him, and then coolly proceeded to ransack every place, packed up +every bit of jewelry, every watch, and every piece of money, and then +decamped with their booty, locking the door on the outside. The +robbery took place on the third and last day of the Easter Fair, +exactly when there was the greatest noise and bustle from the breaking +up of booths, such an uproar of singing, brawling, and rolling of +carts, and such a stream of people going in every direction, as made +it easy for the thieves to escape detection. The police took a great +many depositions, and made a great fuss; but there the matter ended. +<p> +"To say the truth, it was like looking for a bird in a forest, +considering the number of strangers who had attended the fair; +besides, the police, you know, at that time, were too busy dogging and +hunting down Liberals to care for tracking only thieves. That, +however, is no business of mine or yours; and perhaps it would have +done no good to poor Hans, even if the criminals had been discovered. +He had got a great shock; he could not recover his spirits. Every one +felt for him, because he was a kind, sociable man, as well as +industrious; the only fault he had was being a Protestant. What that +was no one exactly knew; but it was a great sin and a great pity, it +seems. Sure it is that Hans never went to confession, or to the +communion. However, as time passed and brought no tidings of the +robbers, the poor man grew more thin and careworn every day. He would +talk for hours about Switzerland, about his own village, his father's +house, his parents and relations. He had left them so thoughtlessly, +he said, he had scarcely felt a regret; yet now a yearning grew within +him to look once more upon those dear faces, and the verdant mountains +of his country,—upon its cool, rushing streams, wide, green pastures, +and the cows that grazed on them. He used to tell us, that, when he +was alone, he heard their bells in the distance, and they seemed to +call him home. My husband did not like all this, and said Hans ought +to go at once, or it would be too late. But Hans delayed and delayed, +in the hope of recovering some of his stolen property, till one day he +was taken very ill and had to be carried to the hospital. The Doctor +attended him two or three times every day, and on the third was +summoned in a great hurry. Morani went and had a long conversation +with the poor dying fellow, and then Padre Michele of the Capuchin +Convent was sent for. It was some time before the good monk could be +found, and then it took still longer, he being old and very infirm, +before he could get to the hospital. When he did, it was too late; +poor Hans was dead. +<p> +"This was a sad business; for, if the Padre had come in time, at all +events Hans's soul would have been safe, and his body buried in +consecrated ground. My husband went to the Rector and told his +Reverence that Hans had renounced his errors, and had made a full +profession of the Catholic faith to him; but his Reverence shook his +head, and said that was not the same thing as if Padre Michele had +received Hans into the true fold. Then my husband said it was a pity +Hans should suffer because the Padre had been out of the way; but his +Reverence always answered, 'No,' and so 'No' it was. The clergy were +not to attend, and the body was to be put into the ground just as you +might bury a dog. What could my husband do more? So he went his way +to his patients. It happened that he had to see several, far in the +country, and so did not come home till late at night. +<p> +"You all know the tower which stands upon the green knoll high above +the town. It is a relic of very old times, when San Cipriano had +fortifications. It has been a ruin for more than a century,—a mere +shell, open to the sky, encircling a wide space of ground. A few days +before Hans's death, the Doctor had taken it into his head he would +like to hire this tower of the municipality, to which it belongs, to +make a garden within its walls. He had been to examine the place a +week previous, and had brought home the key of the gate, being +determined to take it. Now this very day after Hans died, and while my +husband was away on his round of country visits, the Syndic sent to +ask for the key, and I, thinking no harm, gave it. And now what do you +think the Syndic wanted the key for? Just to dig a hole for poor +Hans. Yes, the body was carried up there, and buried out of sight as +quickly as possible. +<p> +"When the Doctor came home he was in a mighty passion with +everybody;—with the Rector, for refusing Hans a place in the +burial-ground; with the Syndic, for allowing the tower to be used for +such a purpose; and most of all with me, for giving the key without +asking why or wherefore. +<p> +"However, what was done could not be undone, and so no more was said +about the matter. It might have been a week after, when some girls who +had set out before daylight to go to the wood for leaves, came back +much terrified, declaring they had seen an apparition on the tower +wall. Not one had dared to go on to the wood, but all ran back to the +town and spread the alarm. A dozen persons, at least, came to our +house to tell us about it, and I promise you my husband did not call +it a stupid trick, as he did today. He looked very grave, and +exclaimed, 'I don't wonder at it. No doubt it is poor Hans, who does +not like to lie in unconsecrated ground. Don't come to me,—it's none +of my business,—I have only to do with the living,—the dead belong +to the clergy,—this is the Rector's affair. If ever a ghost had a +right to walk, it is in such a case as this, when a poor, honest +fellow is denied Christian burial because an old monk's legs refuse to +carry him fast enough. Had Padre Michele been a younger man, all +would have been right.' +<p> +"There was quite a general commotion in the town, and at last, after a +day or two, some of the young men determined they would go and watch +the next night, to see if the thing appeared, or if it was mere +women's nonsense, and they went accordingly." +<p> +"I was one of the party," interrupted Beppo, taking the narrative out +of his Padrona's mouth, stirred by the high-wrought excitement of his +recollections. "I went with ten others, and I had a good loaded gun +with me. We hid ourselves behind some bushes, and watched and +watched. Nothing appeared, until the girls, who had agreed to come at +their usual hour for going to the wood, passed by; then, just at that +moment, I swear I saw it. I felt all,—I can't tell how,—a sort of +hot cold, and as if my legs were water. I don't know how I managed to +raise my gun,—I did it quite dreaming like; it went off with the +biggest noise ever a gun made, and the bullet must have gone through +the very head of the ghost, for it waved its thin arms fearfully. All +the rest ran away, but I could not move a peg. Then a terrible voice +roared out, 'I shall not forget thee, my friend! I will visit thee +again before thy last hour! Now begone!'" +<p> +Beppo ceased speaking, and a shuddering silence fell on the +listeners. Martina alone ventured on the awe-struck whisper of "What +was it like, Beppo?" +<p> +"A tall, white figure; its arms spread out like a cross,—so," replied +Beppo, rising from his basket, the better to personate the +ghost. "<i>Jesu Maria!</i>" he shrieked, "there it is! O Lord, have +mercy on us!" +<p> +And sure enough, standing against the door was a tall, white figure, +its arms spread out like the limbs of a cross. Screams, both shrill +and discordant, filled the room,—Martini, Beppo, Marietta, and the +girls tumbling and rushing about distraught with terror. Such a +mad-like scene! There was a trembling and a shaking of the white +figure for a moment, then down it went in a heap to the floor, and out +came the substantial proportions of Doctor Morani, looming formidable +in the dusky light of the expiring embers. The sound of his +well-known vigorous laugh resounded through the kitchen, as he flung a +bunch of pine branches on the fire. The next moment a bright flame +shot up, and the light as by magic brought the scared group to their +senses. Each looked into the faces of the others with an expression +of rising merriment struggling with ghastly fear, and first a +long-drawn breath of relief, and then a burst of laughter broke from +all. +<p> +"What a fright you have given us, Padrone!" Beppo was the first to +say. +<p> +"I hope so," replied the Doctor,—"it has only paid you off for the +one you gave me twenty years ago." +<p> +"I!—you!—but how, caro Padrone?" +<p> +"Ah! you haven't yet, I assure you, recognized your old acquaintance, +the identical ghost which you favored with a bullet. Would you like to +see it once more?" +<p> +"<i>Pazienza!</i>" exclaimed Beppo, "for once,—twice;—but three +times,—no, that is more than enough. I am satisfied with what I have +seen." +<p> +"Do you know what you have seen?" resumed the Doctor. "Very well, +listen to me. When the Rector refused to let poor Hans lie in the same +ground with many of our townspeople who (God rest their souls!) had +lived scarcely so honest a life as he had done, I was far from +imagining that he was to be thrust into the tower, of all places in +the world, and just when it was well known I had bargained for +it. 'That's the way I am to be used, is it?' thought I. I'll play you +a trick, my friends, worth two of yours,—one that will make you glad +to give honest Hans hospitality in your churchyard.' +<p> +"I waited a few days, till the moon should rise late, so as to be +shining about one or two in the morning, the time when the girls set +off for the woods. I provided myself with a sheet, and took care to +be in the tower before midnight. I tied two long sticks together in +the shape of a cross, stuck my hat on the top, and threw the linen +over the whole; and a capital ghost it was. Then I got under the +drapery, pushing up the stick, so as to give the idea of a gigantic +human figure with extended arms. I had no fear of being discovered, +for the Syndic had the key still in his possession, and I had made +good my entrance through a gap in the wall sufficiently well concealed +by brambles. I suppose I need not tell you, young women, how brave +your mothers were. My ghostship heard of the young men's project, and +encouraged them, never thinking there was one among them so stupid as +to carry a gun to fight a ghost with; for how can you shoot a ghost, +when it has neither flesh nor blood? It was impossible to suspect any +one of being such a monstrous blockhead; so I was rather disagreeably +startled at hearing the crack of a gun, and feeling the tingling of a +bullet whizzing past my ear. You nearly made me into a real ghost, +friend Beppo; for I assure you, you are a capital shot. Ever since +that memorable aim, I have entertained the deepest respect for you as +a marksman; it was not your fault that I am here now to make this +confession. I ducked my head below the wall in case a volley was to +follow the signal gun. When I peeped again, there remained one +solitary figure before the tower, immovable as a stone pillar. O noble +Beppo, it was thou! +<p> +"'I must get rid of this fellow one way or other,' thought I, 'but not +by shaking my stick-covered sheet, or I shall have another bullet.' So +I raised myself breasthigh above the wall, made a trumpet of my hands, +and roared out the fearful promise I have kept this evening. As soon +as I saw my enemy's back, I left my station, and never played the +ghost again." +<p> +"A pretty folly for a man of forty!" cried Signora Martina, still +smarting under her late fright. "Why, a boy would be well whipped for +such a trick. There's no knowing what to believe in a man like you, no +saying when you are in earnest or in fun." +<p> +After a moment's silence, the lady asked in a softer tone, "Now do +tell me, Morani, is it true that poor Hans recanted before he died?" +<p> +"My dear, if Padre Michele had been in time, we should have been sure +of the fact. You see the Rector did not think I knew enough of +theology to decide. I am a submissive child of the Church," replied +the husband. "As for the ghost, I took care to provide against +forgetting my folly. On the top shelf of the laboratory I hung up the +bullet-pierced hat; and the bullet itself I ticketed with the date and +kept in my desk. Who wants to see the ghost's hat?"—and the Doctor +drew a hat from under the sheet still lying on the floor, and +exhibited it to the curious eyes of all present, making them admire +the neat hole in it. The bullet itself he took out of his waistcoat +pocket, and holding it towards Beppo, asked, "Hadn't it a mark?" +<p> +"Yes, sir, I cut a cross on it," replied the abashed climber of +olive-trees; "and by all the Saints, there it is still! Pasqualina, +my girl," turning to her, "your uncle's ghost will turn out to be +somebody." +<p> +"Bravo! Beppo," cried the Doctor. +<p> +"Knowing what you know by experience, suppose you hint to any one +inclined to spectre-shooting, that he runs the risk of killing a live +man, and having two ghosts on his hands,—the ghost of the poor devil +shot, and one of himself hanged for murder. As for you, young girls, +remember that when you go forth to meet the perils of dark mornings, +you are more likely to encounter dangers from flesh and blood than +from spirits." + + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> + +<table border="0"> +<tr> +<td width="33%"> + +</td> +<td width="67%"> +<h2> +<a name="7">THE GOLDEN MILE-STONE.</a> +</h2> +</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td><td> </td></tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> +[The <i>Milliorium Aureum,</i> or Golden Mile-Stone, was a gilt marble +pillar in the Forum at Rome, from which, as a central point, the great +roads of the empire diverged through the several gates of the city, +and the distances were measured.] +</td> +</tr> +<tr><td> </td><td> </td></tr> +<tr> +<td> + +</td> +<td> + Leafless are the trees; their purple branches<br> + Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral<br> + Rising silent<br> + In the Red Sea of the winter sunset. +<p> + From the hundred chimneys of the village,<br> + Like the Afreet in the Arabian story,<br> + Smoky columns<br> + Tower aloft into the air of amber. +<p> + At the window winks the flickering fire-light;<br> + Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer,<br> + Social watch-fires,<br> + Answering one another through the darkness. +<p> + On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing,<br> + And, like Ariel in the cloven pine-tree,<br> + For its freedom<br> + Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in them. +<p> + By the fireside there are old men seated,<br> + Seeing ruined cities in the ashes,<br> + Asking sadly<br> + Of the Past what it can ne'er restore them. +<p> + By the fireside there are youthful dreamers,<br> + Building castles fair with stately stairways,<br> + Asking blindly<br> + Of the Future what it cannot give them. +<p> + By the fireside tragedies are acted<br> + In whose scenes appear two actors only,<br> + Wife and husband,<br> + And above them God, the sole spectator. +<p> + By the fireside there are peace and comfort,<br> + Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces,<br> + Waiting, watching<br> + For a well-known footstep in the passage. +<p> + Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile-Stone,—<br> + Is the central point from which he measures<br> + Every distance<br> + Through the gateways of the world around him. +<p> + In his farthest wanderings still he sees it;<br> + Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind,<br> + As he heard them<br> + When he sat with those who were, but are not. +<p> + Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion,<br> + Nor the march of the encroaching city,<br> + Drives an exile<br> + From the hearth of his ancestral homestead! +<p> + We may build more splendid habitations,<br> + Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures,<br> + But we cannot<br> + Buy with gold the old associations. +</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="8">THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.</a> +</h2> +<br><br> + +EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL. +<p> +I really believe some people save their bright thoughts, as being too +precious for conversation. What do you think an admiring friend said +the other day to one that was talking good things,—good enough to +print? "Why," said he, "you are wasting merchantable literature, a +cash article, at the rate, as nearly as I can tell, of fifty dollars +an hour." The talker took him to the window and asked him to look out +and tell what he saw. +<p> +"Nothing but a very dusty street," he said, "and a man driving a +sprinkling-machine through it." +<p> +"Why don't you tell the man he is wasting that water? What would be +the state of the highways of life, if we did not drive our +<i>thought-sprinklers</i> through them with the valves open, +sometimes? +<p> +"Besides, there is another thing about this talking, which you +forget. It shapes our thoughts for us;—the waves of conversation roll +them as the surf rolls the pebbles on the shore. Let me modify the +image a little. I rough out my thoughts in talk as an artist models in +clay. Spoken language is so plastic,—you can pat and coax, and spread +and shave, and rub out, and fill up, and stick on so easily, when you +work that soft material, that there is nothing like it for +modelling. Out of it come the shapes which you turn into marble or +bronze in your immortal books, if you happen to write such. Or, to use +another illustration, writing or printing is like shooting with a +rifle; you may hit your reader's mind, or miss it;—but talking is +like playing at a mark with the pipe of an engine; if it is within +reach, and you have time enough, you can't help hitting it." +<p> +The company agreed that this last illustration was of superior +excellence, or, in the phrase used by them, "Fust-rate." I +acknowledged the compliment, but gently rebuked the expression. +"Fust-rate," "prime," "a prime article," "a superior piece +of goods," "a handsome garment," "a gent in a flowered vest,"—all +such expressions are final. They blast the lineage of him or her who +utters them, for generations up and down. There is one other phrase +which will soon come to be decisive of a man's social <i>status</i>, if it +is not already: "That tells the whole story." It is an expression +which vulgar and conceited people particularly affect, and which +well-meaning ones, who know better, catch from them. It is intended to +stop all debate, like the previous question in the General Court. Only +it don't; simply because "that" does not usually tell the whole, nor +one half of the whole story. +<p> +——It is an odd idea, that almost all our people have had a +professional education. To become a doctor a man must study some +three years and hear a thousand lectures, more or less. Just how much +study it takes to make a lawyer I cannot say, but probably not more +than this. Now most decent people hear one hundred lectures or sermons +(discourses) on theology every year,—and this, twenty, thirty, fifty +years together. They read a great many religious books besides. The +clergy, however, rarely hear any sermons except what they preach +themselves. A dull preacher might be conceived, therefore, to lapse +into a state of <i>quasi</i> heathenism, simply for want of religious +instruction. And on the other hand, an attentive and intelligent +hearer, listening to a succession of wise teachers, might become +actually better educated in theology than any one of them. We are all +theological students, and more of us qualified as doctors of divinity +than have received degrees at any of the universities. +<p> +It is not strange, therefore, that very good people should often find +it difficult, if not impossible, to keep their attention fixed upon a +sermon treating feebly a subject which they have thought vigorously +about for years, and heard able men discuss scores of times. I have +often noticed, however, that a hopelessly dull discourse acts +<i>inductively</i>, as electricians would say, in developing strong +mental currents. I am ashamed to think with what accompaniments and +variations and <i>fioriture</i> I have sometimes followed the droning +of a heavy speaker,—not willingly,—for my habit is reverential,—but +as a necessary result of a slight continuous impression on the senses +and the mind, which kept both in action without furnishing the food +they required to work upon. If you ever saw a crow with a king-bird +after him, you will get an image of a dull speaker and a lively +listener. The bird in sable plumage flaps heavily along his +straight-forward course, while the other sails round him, over him, +under him, leaves him, comes back again, tweaks out a black feather, +shoots away once more, never losing sight of him, and finally reaches +the crow's perch at the same time the crow does, having cut a perfect +labyrinth of loops and knots and spirals while the slow fowl was +painfully working from one end of his straight line to the other. +<p> +[I think these remarks were received rather coolly. A temporary +boarder from the country, consisting of a somewhat more than +middle-aged female, with a parchment forehead and a dry little +"frisette" shingling it, a sallow neck with a necklace of gold beads, a +black dress too rusty for recent grief, and contours in basso-rilievo, +left the table prematurely, and was reported to have been very +virulent about what I said. So I went to my good old minister, and +repeated the remarks, as nearly as I could remember them, to him. He +laughed good-naturedly, and said there was considerable truth in +them. He thought he could tell when people's minds were wandering, by +their looks. In the earlier years of his ministry he had sometimes +noticed this, when he was preaching;—very little of late +years. Sometimes, when his colleague was preaching, he observed this +kind of inattention; but after all, it was not so very unnatural. I +will say, by the way, that it is a rule I have long followed, to tell +my worst thoughts to my minister, and my best thoughts to the young +people I talk with.] +<p> +——I want to make a literary confession now, which I believe nobody +has made before me. You know very well that I write verses sometimes, +because I have read some of them at this table. (The company +assented,—two or three of them in a resigned sort of way, as I +thought, as if they supposed I had an epic in my pocket, and was going +to read half a dozen books or so for their benefit.)—I continued. Of +course I write some lines or passages which are better than others; +some which, compared with the others, might be called relatively +excellent. It is in the nature of things that I should consider these +relatively excellent lines or passages as absolutely good. So much +must be pardoned to humanity. Now I never wrote a "good" line in my +life, but the moment after it was written it seemed a hundred years +old. Very commonly I had a sudden conviction that I had seen it +somewhere. Possibly I may have sometimes unconsciously stolen it, but +I do not remember that I ever once detected any historical truth in +these sudden convictions of the antiquity of my new thought or +phrase. I have learned utterly to distrust them, and never allow them +to bully me out of a thought or line. +<p> +This is the philosophy of it. (Here the number of the company was +diminished by a small secession.) Any new formula which suddenly +emerges in our consciousness has its roots in long trains of thought; +it is virtually old when it first makes its appearance among the +recognized growths of our intellect. Any crystalline group of musical +words has had a long and still period to form in. Here is one theory. +<p> +But there is a larger law which perhaps comprehends these facts. It is +this. The rapidity with which ideas grow old in our memories is in a +direct ratio to the squares of their importance. Their apparent age +runs up miraculously, like the value of diamonds, as they increase in +magnitude. A great calamity, for instance, is as old as the trilobites +an hour after it has happened. It stains backward through all the +leaves we have turned over in the book of life, before its blot of +tears or of blood is dry on the page we are turning. For this we seem +to have lived; it was foreshadowed in dreams that we leaped out of in +the cold sweat of terror; in the "dissolving views" of dark +day-visions; all omens pointed to it; all paths led to it. After the +tossing half-forgetfulness of the first sleep that follows such an +event, it comes upon us afresh, as a surprise, at waking; in a few +moments it is old again,—old as eternity. +<p> +[I wish I had not said all this then and there. I might have known +better. The pale schoolmistress, in her mourning dress, was looking +at me, as I noticed, with a wild sort of expression. All at once the +blood dropped out of her cheeks as the mercury drops from a broken +barometer-tube, and she melted away from her seat like an image of +snow; a slung-shot could not have brought her down better. God forgive +me! +<p> +After this little episode, I continued, to some few that remained +balancing teaspoons on the edges of cups, twirling knives, or tilting +upon the hind legs of their chairs until their heads reached the wall, +where they left gratuitous advertisements of various popular +cosmetics.] +<p> +When a person is suddenly thrust into any strange, new position of +trial, he finds the place fits him as if he had been measured for +it. He has committed a great crime, for instance, and is sent to the +State Prison. The traditions, prescriptions, limitations, privileges, +all the sharp conditions of his new life, stamp themselves upon his +consciousness as the signet on soft wax;—a single pressure is +enough. Let me strengthen the image a little. Did you ever happen to +see that most soft-spoken and velvet-handed steam-engine at the Mint? +The smooth piston slides backward and forward as a lady might slip her +delicate finger in and out of a ring. The engine lays one of +<i>its</i> fingers calmly, but firmly, upon a bit of metal; it is a +coin now, and will remember that touch, and tell a new race about it, +when the date upon it is crusted over with twenty centuries. So it is +that a great silent-moving misery puts a new stamp on us in an hour or +a moment,—as sharp an impression as if it had taken half a lifetime +to engrave it. +<p> +It is awful to be in the hands of the wholesale professional dealers +in misfortune; undertakers and jailers magnetize you in a moment, and +you pass out of the individual life you were living into the +rhythmical movements of their horrible machinery. Do the worst thing +you can, or suffer the worst that can be thought of, you find yourself +in a category of humanity that stretches back as far as Cain, and with +an expert at your elbow that has studied your case all out beforehand, +and is waiting for you with his implements of hemp or mahogany. I +believe, if a man were to be burned in any of our cities to-morrow for +heresy, there would be found a master of ceremonies that knew just how +many fagots were necessary, and the best way of arranging the whole +matter. +<p> +——So we have not won the Good-wood cup; <i>au contraire</i>, we were +a "bad fifth," if not worse than that; and trying it again, and the +third time, has not yet bettered the matter. Now I am as patriotic as +any of my fellow-citizens,—too patriotic in fact, for I have got into +hot water by loving too much of my country; in short, if any man, +whose fighting weight is not more than eight stone four pounds, +disputes it, I am ready to discuss the point with him. I should have +gloried to see the stars and stripes in front at the finish. I love my +country, and I love horses. Stubbs's old mezzotint of Eclipse hangs +over my desk, and Herring's portrait of Plenipotentiary,—whom I saw +run at Epsom,—over my fireplace. Did I not elope from school to see +Revenge, and Prospect, and Little John, and Peacemaker run over the +race-course where now yon suburban village flourishes, in the year +eighteen hundred and ever-so-few? Though I never owned a horse, have I +not been the proprietor of six equine females, of which one was the +prettiest little "Morgin" that ever stepped? Listen, then, to an +opinion I have often expressed long before this venture of ours in +England. Horse-<i>racing</i> is not a republican institution; +horse-<i>trotting</i> is. Only very rich persons can keep race-horses, +and everybody knows they are kept mainly as gambling implements. All +that matter about blood and speed we won't discuss; we understand all +that; useful, very,—<i>of</i> course,—great obligations to the +Godolphin "Arabian," and the rest. I say racing horses are +essentially gambling implements, as much as roulette tables. Now I am +not preaching at this moment; I may read you one of my sermons some +other morning; but I maintain that gambling, on the great scale, is +not republican. It belongs to two phases of society,—a cankered +over-civilization, such as exists in rich aristocracies, and the +reckless life of borderers and adventurers, or the semi-barbarism of a +civilization resolved into its primitive elements. Real republicanism +is stern and severe; its essence is not in forms of government, but in +the omnipotence of public opinion which grows out of it. This public +opinion cannot prevent gambling with dice or stocks, but it can and +does compel it to keep comparatively quiet. But horse-racing is the +most public way of gambling; and with all its immense attractions to +the sense and the feelings,—to which I plead very susceptible,—the +disguise is too thin that covers it, and everybody knows what it +means. Its supporters are the Southern gentry,—fine fellows, no +doubt, but not republicans exactly, as we understand the term,—a few +Northern millionnaires more or less thoroughly millioned, who do not +represent the real people, and the mob of sporting men, the best of +whom are commonly idlers, and the worst very bad neighbors to have +near one in a crowd, or to meet in a dark alley. In England, on the +other hand, with its aristocratic institutions, racing is a natural +growth enough; the passion for it spreads downwards through all +classes, from the Queen to the costermonger. London is like a shelled +corn-cob on the Derby day, and there is not a clerk who could raise +the money to hire a saddle with an old hack under it that can sit down +on his office-stool the next day without wincing. +<p> +Now just compare the racer with the trotter for a moment. The racer is +incidentally useful, but essentially something to bet upon, as much as +the thimble-rigger's "little joker." The trotter is essentially and +daily useful, and only incidentally a tool for sporting men. +<p> +What better reason do you want for the fact that the racer is most +cultivated and reaches his greatest perfection in England, and that +the trotting horses of America beat the world? And why should we have +expected that the pick—if it was the pick—of our few and far-between +racing stables should beat the pick of England and France? Throw over +the fallacious time-test, and there was nothing to show for it but a +natural kind of patriotic feeling, which we all have, with a +thoroughly provincial conceit, which some of us must plead guilty to. +<p> +We may beat yet. As an American, I hope we shall. As a moralist and +occasional sermonizer, I am not so anxious about it. Wherever the +trotting horse goes, he carries in his train brisk omnibuses, lively +bakers' carts, and therefore hot rolls, the jolly butcher's wagon, the +cheerful gig, the wholesome afternoon drive with wife and child,—all +the forms of moral excellence, except truth, which does not agree with +any kind of horse-flesh. The racer brings with him gambling, cursing, +swearing, drinking, the eating of oysters, and a distaste for mob-caps +and the middle-aged virtues. +<p> +And by the way, let me beg you not to call a <i>trotting match</i> a +<i>race</i>, and not to speak of a "thorough-bred" as a "<i>blooded</i>" horse, +unless he has been recently phlebotomized. I consent to your saying +"blood horse," if you like. Also, if, next year, we send out Posterior +and Posterioress, the winners of the great national four-mile race in +7 18-1/2, and they happen to get beaten, pay your bets, and behave +like men and gentlemen about it, if you know how. +<p> +[I felt a great deal better after blowing off the ill-temper condensed +in the above paragraph. To brag little,—to show—well,—to crow +gently, if in luck,—to pay up, to own up, and to shut up, if beaten, +are the virtues of a sporting man, and I can't say that I think we +have shown them in any great perfection of late.] +<p> +——Apropos of horses. Do you know how important good jockeying is to +authors? Judicious management; letting the public see your animal +just enough, and not too much; holding him up hard when the market is +too full of him; letting him out at just the right buying intervals; +always gently feeling his mouth; never slacking and never jerking the +rein;—this is what I mean by jockeying. +<p> +——When an author has a number of books out, a cunning hand will keep +them all spinning, as Signor Blitz does his dinner-plates; fetching +each one up, as it begins to "wabble," by an advertisement, a puff, or +a quotation. +<p> +——Whenever the extracts from a living writer begin to multiply fast in +the papers, without obvious reason, there is a new book or a new +edition coming. The extracts are <i>ground-bait</i>. +<p> +——Literary life is full of curious phenomena. I don't know that there +is anything more noticeable than what we may call <i>conventional +reputations</i>. There is a tacit understanding in every community of +men of letters that they will not disturb the popular fallacy +respecting this or that electro-gilded celebrity. There are various +reasons for this forbearance: one is old; one is rich; one is +good-natured; one is such a favorite with the pit that it would not be +safe to hiss him from the manager's box. The venerable augurs of the +literary or scientific temple may smile faintly when one of the tribe +is mentioned; but the farce is in general kept up as well as the +Chinese comic scene of entreating and imploring a man to stay with +you, with the implied compact between you that he shall by no means +think of doing it. A poor wretch he must be who would wantonly sit +down on one of these bandbox reputations. A Prince-Rupert's-drop, +which is a tear of unannealed glass, lasts indefinitely, if you keep +it from meddling hands; but break its tail off, and it explodes and +resolves itself into powder. These celebrities I speak of are the +Prince-Rupert's-drops of the learned and polite world. See how the +papers treat them! What an array of pleasant kaleidoscopic phrases, +that can be arranged in ever so many charming patterns, is at their +service! How kind the "Critical Notices"—where small authorship +comes to pick up chips of praise, fragrant, sugary, and sappy—always +are to them! Well, life would be nothing without paper-credit and +other fictions; so let them pass current. Don't steal their chips; +don't puncture their swimming-bladders; don't come down on their +pasteboard boxes; don't break the ends of their brittle and unstable +reputations, you fellows who all feel sure that your names will be +household words a thousand years from now. +<p> +"A thousand years is a good while," said the old gentleman who sits +opposite, thoughtfully. +<p> +——Where have I been for the last three or four days? Down at the +Island, deer-shooting.—How many did I bag? I brought home one buck +shot.—The Island is where? No matter. It is the most splendid domain +that any man looks upon in these latitudes. Blue sea around it, and +running up into its heart, so that the little boat slumbers like a +baby in lap, while the tall ships are stripping naked to fight the +hurricane outside, and storm-stay-sails banging and flying in ribbons. +Trees, in stretches of miles; beeches, oaks, most numerous;—many of +them hung with moss, looking like bearded Druids; some coiled in the +clasp of huge, dark-stemmed grape-vines. Open patches where the sun +gets in and goes to sleep, and the winds come so finely +sifted that they are as soft as swan's down. Rocks scattered +about,—Stonehenge-like monoliths. Fresh-water lakes; one of them, +Mary's lake, crystal-clear, full of flashing pickerel lying under the +lily-pads like tigers in the jungle. Six pounds of ditto one morning +for breakfast. EGO <i>fecit</i>. +<p> +The divinity-student looked as if he would like to question my +Latin. No, sir, I said,—you need not trouble yourself. There is a +higher law in grammar, not to be put down by Andrews and +Stoddard. Then I went on. +<p> +Such hospitality as that island has seen there has not been the like +of in these our New England sovereignties. There is nothing in the +shape of kindness and courtesy that can make life beautiful, which has +not found its home in that ocean-principality. It has welcomed all who +were worthy of welcome, from the pale clergyman who came to breathe +the sea-air with its medicinal salt and iodine, to the great statesman +who turned his back on the affairs of empire, and smoothed his +Olympian forehead, and flashed his white teeth in merriment over +the long table, where his wit was the keenest and his story the best. +<p> +[I don't believe any man ever talked like that in this world. I don't +believe <i>I</i> talked just so; but the fact is, in reporting one's +conversation, one cannot help <i>Blair</i>-ing it up more or less, +ironing out crumpled paragraphs, starching limp ones, and crimping and +plaiting a little sometimes; it is as natural as prinking at the +looking-glass.] +<p> +——How can a man help writing poetry in such a place? Everybody does +write poetry that goes there. In the state archives, kept in the +library of the Lord of the Isle, are whole volumes of unpublished +verse,—some by well-known hands, and others, quite as good, by the +last people you would think of as versifiers,—men who could pension +off all the genuine poets in the country, and buy ten acres of Boston +common, if it was for sale, with what they had left. Of course I had +to write my little copy of verses with the rest; here it is, if you +will hear me read it. When the sun is in the west, vessels sailing in +an easterly direction look bright or dark to one who observes them +from the north or south, according to the tack they are sailing +upon. Watching them from one of the windows of the great mansion, I +saw these perpetual changes, and moralized thus:— +<blockquote> + As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green<br> + To the billows of foam-crested blue,<br> + Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen,<br> + Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue:<br> + Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray<br> + As the chaff in the stroke of the flail;<br> + Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way,<br> + The sun gleaming bright on her sail. + + Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,—<br> + Of breakers that whiten and roar;<br> + How little he cares, if in shadow or sun<br> + They see him that gaze from the shore!<br> + He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef,<br> + To the rock that is under his lee,<br> + As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf,<br> + O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. + + Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves<br> + Where life and its ventures are laid,<br> + The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves<br> + May see us in sunshine or shade;<br> + Yet true to our course, though our shadow grow dark,<br> + We'll trim our broad sail as before,<br> + And stand by the rudder that governs the bark,<br> + Nor ask how we look from the shore! +</blockquote> +<p> +——Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good +mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything +is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse +their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt +itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad. We frequently see +persons in insane hospitals, sent there in consequence of what are +called <i>religious</i> mental disturbances. I confess that I think +better of them than of many who hold the same notions, and keep their +wits and appear to enjoy life very well, outside of the asylums. Any +decent person ought to go mad, if he really holds such or such +opinions. It is very much to his discredit in every point of view, if +he does not. What is the use of my saying what some of these opinions +are? Perhaps more than one of you hold such as I should think ought to +send you straight over to Somerville, if you have any logic in your +heads or any human feeling in your hearts. Anything that is brutal, +cruel, heathenish, that makes life hopeless for the most of mankind +and perhaps for entire races,—anything that assumes the necessity of +the extermination of instincts which were given to be regulated,—no +matter by what name you call it,—no matter whether a fakir, or a +monk, or a deacon believes it,—if received, ought to produce insanity +in every well-regulated mind. That condition becomes a normal one, +under the circumstances. I am very much ashamed of some people for +retaining their reason, when they know perfectly well that if they +were not the most stupid or the most selfish of human beings, they +would become <i>non-compotes</i> at once. +<p> +[Nobody understood this but the theological student and the +schoolmistress. They looked intelligently at each other; but whether +they were thinking about my paradox or not, I am not clear.—It would +be natural enough. Stranger things have happened. Love and Death enter +boarding-houses without asking the price of board, or whether there is +room for them. Alas, these young people are poor and pallid! Love +<i>should</i> be both rich and rosy, but <i>must</i> be either rich or +rosy. Talk about military duty! What is that to the warfare of a +married maid-of-all-work, with the title of mistress, and an American +female constitution, which collapses just in the middle third of life, +and comes out vulcanised India-rubber, if it happen to live through +the period when health and strength are most wanted?] +<p> +——Have I ever acted in private theatricals? Often. I have +played the part of the "Poor Gentleman," before a great many +audiences,—more, I trust, than I shall ever face again. I did not +wear a stage-costume, nor a wig, nor moustaches of burnt cork; but I +was placarded and announced as a public performer, and at the proper +hour I came forward with the ballet-dancer's smile upon my +countenance, and made my bow and acted my part. I have seen my name +stuck up in letters so big that I was ashamed to show myself in the +place by daylight. I have gone to a town with a sober literary essay +in my pocket, and seen myself everywhere announced as the most +desperate of <i>buffos</i>,—one who was obliged to restrain himself +in the full exercise of his powers, from prudential considerations. I +have been through as many hardships as Ulysses, in the pursuit of my +histrionic vocation. I have travelled in cars until the conductors all +knew me like a brother. I have run off the rails, and stuck all night +in snowdrifts, and sat behind females that would have the window open +when one could not wink without his eyelids freezing together. Perhaps +I shall give you some of my experiences one of these days;—I will not +now, for I have something else for you. +<p> +Private theatricals, as I have figured in them in country +lyceum-halls, are one thing,—and private theatricals, as they may be +seen in certain gilded and frescoed saloons of our metropolis, are +another. Yes, it is pleasant to see real gentlemen and ladies, who do +not think it necessary to mouth, and rant, and stride, like most of +our stage heroes and heroines, in the characters which show off their +graces and talents; most of all to see a fresh, unrouged, unspoiled, +highbred young maiden, with a lithe figure, and a pleasant voice, +acting in those love-dramas that make us young again to look upon, +when real youth and beauty will play them for us. +<p> +——Of course I wrote the prologue I was asked to write. I did not see +the play, though. I knew there was a young lady in it, and that +somebody was in love with her, and she was in love with him, and +somebody (an old tutor, I believe) wanted to interfere, and, very +naturally, the young lady was too sharp for him. The play of course +ends charmingly; there is a general reconciliation, and all concerned +form a line and take each others' hands, as people always do after +they have made up their quarrels,—and then the curtain falls,—if it +does not stick, as it commonly does at private theatrical exhibitions, +in which case a boy is detailed to pull it down, which he does, +blushing violently. +<p> +Now, then, for my prologue. I am not going to change my cæsuras and +cadences for anybody; so if you do not like the heroic, or iambic +trimeter brachycatalectic, you had better not wait to hear it. +<p> +THIS IS IT. +<p> +A Prologue? Well, of course the ladies know;— +<p> +I have my doubts. No matter,—here we go! +<blockquote> + What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach:<br> + <i>Pro</i> means beforehand; <i>logos</i> stands for speech.<br> + 'Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings,<br> + The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings;—<br> + Prologues in metre are to other <i>pros</i><br> + As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. +<p> + "The world's a stage,"—as Shakspeare said, one day;<br> + The stage a world—was what he meant to say.<br> + The outside world's a blunder, that is clear;<br> + The real world that Nature meant is here.<br> + Here every foundling finds its lost mamma;<br> + Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa;<br> + Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid,<br> + The cheats are taken in the traps they laid;<br> + One after one the troubles all are past<br> + Till the fifth act comes right side up at last,<br> + When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all,<br> + Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall.<br> + —Here suffering virtue ever finds relief,<br> + And black-browed ruffians always come to grief.<br> + —When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech,<br> + And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach,<br> + Cries, "Help, kyind Heaven!" and drops upon her knees<br> + On the green—baize,—beneath the (canvas) trees,—<br> + See to her side avenging Valor fly:—<br> + "Ha! Villain! Draw! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die!"<br> + —When the poor hero flounders in despair,<br> + Some dear lost uncle turns up millionnaire,—<br> + Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy,<br> + Sobs on his neck, "My boy! My Boy!! MY BOY!!!" +<p> + Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night<br> + Of love that conquers in disaster's spite.<br> + Ladies, attend! While woful cares and doubt<br> + Wrong the soft passion in the world without,<br> + Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere,<br> + One thing is certain: Love will triumph here! +<p> + Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule,—<br> + The world's great masters, when you're out of school,—<br> + Learn the brief moral of our evening's play:<br> + Man has his will,—but woman has her way!<br> + While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire,<br> + Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire,—<br> + The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves<br> + Beats the black giant with his score of slaves.<br> + All earthly powers confess your sovereign art<br> + But that one rebel,—woman's wilful heart.<br> + All foes you master; but a woman's wit<br> + Lets daylight through you ere you know you're hit.<br> + So, just to picture what her art can do,<br> + Hear an old story made as good as new. +<p> + Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade,<br> + Alike was famous for his arm and blade.<br> + One day a prisoner Justice had to kill<br> + Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill.<br> + Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed,<br> + Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd.<br> + His falchion lightened with a sudden gleam,<br> + As the pike's armor flashes in the stream.<br> + He sheathed his blade; he turned as if to go;<br> + The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow.<br> + "Why strikest not? Perform thy murderous act,"<br> + The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.)<br> + "Friend, I <i>have</i> struck," the artist straight replied;<br> + "Wait but one moment, and yourself decide."<br> + He held his snuff-box,—"Now then, if you please!"<br> + The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze,<br> + Off his head tumbled,—bowled along the floor,—<br> + Bounced down the steps;—the prisoner said no more! +<p> + Woman! thy falchion is a glittering eye;<br> + If death lurks in it, oh, how sweet to die!<br> + Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head;<br> + We die with love, and never dream we're dead! +</blockquote> +<p> +The prologue went off very well, as I hear. No alterations were +suggested by the lady to whom it was sent, for as far as I +know. Sometimes people criticize the poems one sends them, and +suggest all sorts of improvements. Who was that silly body that +wanted Burns to alter "Scots wha hae," so as to lengthen the last +line, thus?— +<blockquote> + "<i>Edward!</i>". Chains and slavery! +</blockquote> +<p> +Here is a little poem I sent a short time since to a committee for a +certain celebration. I understood that it was to be a festive and +convivial occasion, and ordered myself accordingly. It seems the +president of the day was what is called a "teetotaller." I received a +note from him in the following words, containing the copy subjoined, +with the emendations annexed to it: +<blockquote> +"Dear Sir,—Your poem gives good satisfaction to the committee. The +sentiments expressed with reference to liquor are not, however, those +generally entertained by this community. I have therefore consulted +the clergyman of this place, who has made some slight changes, which +he thinks will remove all objections, and keep the valuable portions +of the poem. Please to inform me of your charge for said poem. Our +means are limited, etc., etc., etc. +<p> +"Yours with respect." +</blockquote> +<p> +HERE IT IS,—WITH THE <i>SLIGHT ALTERATIONS!</i> +<blockquote> +<pre> + Come! fill a fresh bumper,—for why should we go + logwood + While the <s>nectar</s> still reddens our cups as they flow? + decoction + Pour out the <s>rich juices</s> still bright with the sun, + dye-stuff + Till o'er the brimmed crystal the <s>rubies</s> shall run. + + half-ripened apples + The <s>purple-globed-clusters</s> their life-dews have bled; + taste sugar of lead + How sweet is the <s>breath</s> of the <s>fragrance they shed</s>! + rank poisons <i>wines!!!</i> + For summer's <s>last roses</s> lie hid in the <s>wines</s> + stable-boys smoking long-nines. + That were garnered by <s>maidens who laughed through the vines.</s> + + scowl howl scoff sneer + Then a <s>smile</s>, and a <s>glass</s>, and a <s>toast</s>, and a <s>cheer</s>, + strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer! + For <s>all the good-wine, and we've some of it here</s> + In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, + Down, down, with the tyrant that masters us all! + <s>Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all!</s> +</pre> +</blockquote> +<p> +The company said I had been shabbily treated, and advised me to charge +the committee double,—which I did. But as I never got my pay, I don't +know that it made much difference. I am a very particular person about +having all I write printed as I write it, I require to see a proof, a +revise, a re-revise, and a double re-revise, or fourth-proof rectified +impression of all my productions, especially verse. Manuscripts are +such puzzles! Why, I was reading some lines near the end of the last +number of this journal, when I came across one beginning +<blockquote> + "The <i>stream</i> flashes by,"— +</blockquote> +<p> +Now as no stream had been mentioned, I was perplexed to know what it +meant. It proved, on inquiry, to be only a misprint for "dream." +Think of it! No wonder so many poets die young. +<p> +I have nothing more to report at this time, except two pieces of +advice I gave to the young women at table. One relates to a vulgarism +of language, which I grieve to say is sometimes heard even from female +lips. The other is of more serious purport, and applies to such as +contemplate a change of condition,—matrimony, in fact. +<p> +—The woman who "calc'lates" is lost. +<p> +—Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust. + + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="9">THOMAS CARLYLE.</a> +</h2> +<p> +THOMAS CARLYLE is a name which no man of this generation should +pronounce without respect; for it belongs to one of the high-priests +of modern literature, to whom all contemporary minds are indebted, and +by whose intellect and influence a new spiritual cultus has been +established in the realm of letters. It is yet impossible to estimate +either the present value or the remote issues of the work which he has +accomplished. We see that a revolution in all the departments of +thought, feeling, and literary enterprise has been silently achieved +amongst us, but we are yet ignorant of its full bearing, and of the +final goal to which it is hurrying us. One thing, however, is clear +respecting it: that it was not forced in the hot-bed of any possible +fanaticism, but that it grew fairly out of the soil, a genuine product +of the time and its circumstances. It was, indeed, a new manifestation +of the hidden forces and vitalities of what we call Protestantism,—an +assertion by the living soul of its right to be heard once more in a +world which seemed to ignore its existence, and had set up a ghastly +skeleton of dry bones for its oracle and God. It was that necessary +return to health, earnestness, and virtuous endeavor which Kreeshna +speaks of in the Hindoo Geeta: "Whenever vice and corruption have +sapped the foundations of the world, and men have lost their sense of +good and evil, I, Kreeshna, make myself manifest for the restoration +of order, and the establishment of justice, virtue, and piety." And so +this literary revolution, of which we are speaking, brought us from +frivolity to earnestness, from unbelief and all the dire negations +which it engenders, to a sublime faith in human duty and the +providence of God. +<p> +We have no room here to trace either the foreign or the native +influences which, operating as antagonism or as inspiration upon the +minds of Coleridge, Carlyle, and others, produced finally these great +and memorable results. It is but justice, however, to recognize +Coleridge as the pioneer of the new era. His fine metaphysical +intellect and grand imagination, nurtured and matured in the German +schools of philosophy and theology, reproduced the speculations of +their great thinkers in a form and coloring which could not fail to be +attractive to all seeking and sincere minds in England. The French +Revolution and the Encyclopedists had already prepared the ground for +the reception of new thought and revelation. Hence Coleridge, as +writer and speaker, drew towards his centre all the young and ardent +men of his time,—and among others, the subject of the present +article. Carlyle, however, does not seem to have profited much by the +spoken discourses of the master; and in his "Life of Sterling" he +gives an exceedingly graphic, cynical, and amusing account of the +oracular meetings at Highgate, where the philosopher sat in his great +easy-chair, surrounded by his disciples and devotees, uttering, amid +floods of unintelligible, mystic eloquence, those radiant thoughts and +startling truths which warrant his claim to genius, if not to +greatness. It is curious to observe how at this early period of +Carlyle's life, when all the talent and learning of England bowed at +these levees before the gigantic speculator and dreamer, he, perhaps +alone, stood aloof from the motley throng of worshippers,—<i>with</i> +them, but not <i>of</i> them,—coolly analyzing every sentence +delivered by the oracle, and sufficiently learned in the divine lore +to separate the gold from the dross. What was good and productive he +was ready to recognize and assimilate; leaving the opium pomps and +splendors of the discourse, and all the Oriental imagery with which +the speaker decorated his bathos, to those who could find profit +therein. It is still more curious and sorrowful to see this great +Coleridge, endowed with such high gifts, of so various learning, and +possessing so marvellous and plastic a power over all the forms of +language, forsaking the true for the false inspiration, and relying +upon a vile drug to stimulate his large and lazy intellect into +action. Carlyle seems to have regarded him at this period as a sort of +fallen demigod; and although he sneers, with an almost Mephistophelean +distortion of visage, at the philosopher's half inarticulate drawling +of speech, at his snuffy, nasal utterance of the ever-recurring +"<i>omnject</i>" and "<i>sumnject</i>" yet gleams of sympathy and +affection, not unmixed with sorrow, appear here and there in what he +says concerning him. And indeed, although the immense fame of +Coleridge is scarcely warranted by his printed performances, he was, +nevertheless, worthy both of affection and homage. For whilst we pity +the weakness and disease of his moral nature, under the influence of +that dark and terribly enchanting weed, we cannot forget either his +personal amiabilities or the great service which he rendered to +letters and to society. Carlyle himself would be the last man to deny +this laurel to the brows of "the poet, the philosopher, and the +divine," as Charles Lamb calls him; and it is certain that the +thinking of Coleridge helped to fashion Carlyle's mind, and not +unlikely that it directed him to a profounder study of German writers +than he had hitherto given to them. +<p> +Coleridge had already formed a school both of divinity and +philosophy. He had his disciples, as well as those far-off gazers who +looked upon him with amazement and trembling, not knowing what to make +of the phenomenon, or whether to regard him as friend or foe to the +old dispensation and the established order of things. He had written +books and poems, preached Unitarian sermons, recanted, and preached +philosophy and Church-of-Englandism. To the dazzled eyes of all +ordinary mortals, content to chew the cud of parish sermons, and +swallow, Sunday after Sunday, the articles of common belief, he seemed +an eccentric comet. But a better astronomy recognized him as a fixed +star, for he was unmistakable by that fitting Few whose verdict is +both history and immortality. +<p> +But a greater than Coleridge, destined to assume a more commanding +position, and exercise a still wider power over the minds of his age, +arose in Thomas Carlyle. The son of a Scotch farmer, he had in his +youth a hard student's life of it, and many severe struggles to win +the education which is the groundwork of his greatness. His father was +a man of keen penetration, who saw into the heart of things, and +possessed such strong intellect and sterling common sense that the +country people said "he always hit the nail on the head and clinched +it." His mother was a good, pious woman, who loved the Bible, and +Luther's "Table Talk," and Luther,—walking humbly and sincerely +before God, her Heavenly Father. Carlyle was brought up in the +religion of his fathers and his country; and it is easy to see in his +writings how deep a root this solemn and earnest belief had struck +down into his mind and character. He readily confesses how much he +owes to his mother's early teaching, to her beautiful and beneficent +example of goodness and holiness; and he ever speaks of her with +affection and reverence. We once saw him at a friend's house take up a +folio edition of the "Table Talk" alluded to, and turn over the pages +with a gentle and loving hand, reading here and there his mother's +favorite passages,—now speaking of the great historic value of the +book, and again of its more private value, as his mother's constant +companion and solace. It was touching to see this pitiless intellect, +which had bruised and broken the idols of so many faiths, to which +Luther himself was recommended only by his bravery and self-reliance +and the grandeur of his aims,—it was touching, we say, and suggestive +also of many things, to behold the strong, stern man paying homage to +language whose spirit was dead to him, out of pure love for his dear +mother, and veneration also for the great heart in which that spirit +was once alive that fought so grand and terrible a battle. Carlyle +likes to talk of Luther, and, as his "Hero-Worship" shows, loves his +character. A great, fiery, angry gladiator, with something of the +bully in him,—as what controversialist has not, from Luther to +Erasmus, to Milton, to Carlyle himself?—a dread image-breaker, +implacable as Cromwell, but higher and nobler than he, with the +tenderness of a woman in his inmost heart, full of music, and glory, +and spirituality, and power; his speech genuine and idiomatic, not +battles only, but conquests; and all his highest, best, and gentlest +thoughts robed in the divine garments of religion and poetry;—such +was Luther, and as such Carlyle delights to behold him. Are they not +akin? We assuredly think so. For the blood of this aristocracy +refuses to mix with that of churls and bastards, and flows pure and +uncontaminated from century to century, descending in all its richness +and vigor from Piromis to Piromis. The ancient philosopher knew this +secret well enough when he said a Parthian and a Libyan might be +related, although they had no common parental blood; and that a man is +not necessarily my brother because he is born of the same womb. +<p> +We find that Carlyle in his student-life manifested many of those +strong moral characteristics which are the attributes of all his +heroes. An indomitable courage and persistency meet us everywhere in +his pages,—persistency, and also careful painstaking, and patience in +sifting facts and gathering results. He disciplined himself to this +end in early youth, and never allowed any study or work to conquer +him. Speaking to us once in private upon the necessity of persevering +effort in order to any kind of success in life, he said, "When I was a +student, I resolved to make myself master of Newton's 'Principia,' and +although I had not at that time knowledge enough of mathematics to +make the task other than a Hercules-labor to me, yet I read and +wrought unceasingly, through all obstructions and difficulties, until +I had accomplished it; and no Tamerlane conqueror ever felt half so +happy as I did when the terrible book lay subdued and vanquished +before me." This trifling anecdote is a key to Carlyle's character. To +achieve his object, he exhausts all the means within his command; +never shuffles through his work, but does it faithfully and sincerely, +with a man's heart and hand. This outward sincerity in the conduct of +his executive faculty has its counterpart in the inmost recesses of +his nature. We feel that this man and falsehood are impossible +companions, and our faith in his integrity is perfect and absolute. +Herein lies his power; and here also lies the power of all men who +have ever moved the world. For it is in the nature of truth to +conserve itself, whilst falsehood is centrifugal, and flies off into +inanity and nothingness. It is by the cardinal virtue of sincerity +alone—the truthfulness of deed to thought, of effect to cause—that +man and nature are sustained. God is truth; and he who is most +faithful to truth is not only likest to God, but is made a +participator in the divine nature. For without truth there is neither +power, vitality, nor permanence. +<p> +Carlyle was fortunate that he was comparatively poor, and never +tempted, therefore, as a student, to dissipate his fine talents in the +gay pursuits of university life. Not that there would have been any +likelihood of his running into the excesses of ordinary students, but +we are pleased and thankful to reflect that he suffered no kind of +loss or harm in those days of his novitiate. It is one of the many +consolations of poverty that it protects young men from snares and +vices to which the rich are exposed; and our poor student in his +garret was preserved faithful to his vocation, and laid up day by day +those stores of knowledge, experience, and heavenly wisdom which he +has since turned to so good account. It would be deeply interesting, +if we could learn the exact position of Carlyle's mind at this time, +with respect to those profound problems of human nature and destiny +which have occupied the greatest men in all ages, ceaselessly and +pertinaciously urging their dark and solemn questions, and refusing to +depart until their riddles were in some sort solved. That Carlyle was +haunted by these questions, and by the pitiless Sphinx herself who +guards the portals of life and death,—that he had to meet her face to +face, staring at him with her stony, passionless eyes,—that he had to +grapple and struggle with her for victory,—there are proofs abundant +in his writings. The details of the struggle, however, are not given +us; it is the result only that we know. But it is evident that the +progress of his mind from the bog-region of orthodoxy to the high +realms of thought and faith was a slow proceeding,—not rolled onward +as with the chariot-wheels of a fierce and sudden revolution, but +gradually developed in a long series of births, growths, and deaths. +The theological phraseology sticks to him, indeed, even to the present +time, although he puts it to new uses; and it acquires in his hands a +power and significance which it possessed only when, of old, it was +representative of the divine. +<p> +Carlyle was matured in solitude. Emerson found him, in the year 1833, +on the occasion of his first visit to England, living at +Craigenputtock, a farm in Nithsdale, far away from all civilization, +and "no one to talk to but the minister of the parish." He, good man, +could make but little of his solitary friend, and must many a time +have been startled out of his canonicals by the strange, alien +speeches which he heard. It is a pity that this minister had not had +some of the Boswell faculty in him, that he might have reported what +we should all be so glad to hear. Over that period of his life, +however, the curtain falls at present, to be lifted only, if ever, by +Carlyle himself. Through the want of companionship, he fell back +naturally upon books and his own thoughts. Here he wrote some of his +finest critical essays for the reviews, and that "rag of a book," as +he calls it, the "Life of Schiller." The essays show a catholic, but +conservative spirit, and are full of deep thought. They exhibit also +a profoundly philosophical mind, and a power of analysis which is +almost unique in letters. They are pervaded likewise by an earnestness +and solemnity which are perfectly Hebraic; and each performance is +presented in a style decorated with all the costly jewels of +imagination and fancy,—a style of far purer and more genuine English +than any of his subsequent writings, which are often marred, indeed, +by gross exaggerations, and still grosser violations of good taste and +the chastities of language. What made these writings, however, so +notable at the time, and so memorable since, was that sincerity and +deep religious feeling of the writer which we have already alluded +to. Here were new elements introduced into the current literature, +destined to revivify it, and to propagate themselves, as by seminal +vitality, in myriad minds and forms. These utterances were both +prophetic and creative, and took all sincere minds captive. Dry and +arid in comparison as Egyptian deserts, lay all around him the +writings of his contemporaries. No living waters flowed through them; +all was sand, and parch, and darkness. The contrast was immense: a +living soul and a dead corpse! Since the era of the Commonwealth,—the +holy, learned, intellectual, and earnest age of Taylor, Barrow, +Milton, Fuller,—no such pen of fire had wrought its miracles amongst +us. Writers spoke from the intellect, believed in the intellect, and +divorced it from the soul and the moral nature. Science, history, +ethics, religion, whenever treated of in literary form, were +mechanized, and shone not with any spiritual illumination. There was +abundance of lawyer-like ability,—but of genius, and its accompanying +divine afflatus, little. Carlyle is full of genius; and this is +evidenced not only by the fine aroma of his language, but by the +depths of his insight, his wondrous historical pictures,—living +cartoons of persons, events, and epochs, which he paints often in +single sentences,—and the rich mosaic of truths with which every page +of his writings is inlaid. +<p> +That German literature, with which at this time Carlyle had been more +or less acquainted for ten years, had done much to foster and develop +his genius there can be no doubt; although the book which first +created a storm in his mind, and awoke him to the consciousness of his +own abundant faculty, was the "Confessions" of Rousseau,—a fact which +is well worthy of record and remembrance. He speaks subsequently of +poor Jean Jacques with much sympathy and sorrow; not as the greatest +man of his time and country, but as the sincerest,—a smitten, +struggling spirit,— + + + "An infant crying in the night, + An infant crying for the light, + And with no language but a cry." + +<p> +From Rousseau, and his strange thoughts, and wild, ardent eloquence, +the transition to German literature was easy. Some one had told +Carlyle that he would find in this literature what he had so long +sought after,—truth and rest,—and he gladly learned the language, +and addressed himself to the study of its masters; with what success +all the world knows, for he has grafted their thoughts upon his own, +and whoever now speaks is more or less consciously impregnated by his +influence. Who the man was that sent Carlyle to them does not appear, +and so far as he is concerned it is of little moment to inquire; but +the fact constitutes the grand epoch in Carlyle's life, and his true +history dates from that period. +<p> +It was natural that he should be deeply moved on his introduction to +German literature. He went to it with an open and receptive nature, +and with an earnestness of purpose which could not fail to be +productive. Jean Paul, the beautiful!—the good man, and the wise +teacher, with poetic stuff in him sufficient to have floated an argosy +of modern writers,—this great, imaginative Jean Paul was for a long +time Carlyle's idol, whom he reverently and affectionately studied. He +has written a fine paper about him in his "Miscellanies," and we trace +his influence not only in Carlyle's thought and sentiment, but in the +very form of their utterance. He was, indeed, warped by him, at one +period, clear out of his orbit, and wrote as he inspired. The +dazzling sunbursts of Richter's imagination, however,—its gigantic +procession of imagery, moving along in sublime and magnificent marches +from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth,—the array, symbolism, and +embodiment of his manifold ideas, ceased in the end to enslave, though +they still captivated Carlyle's mind; and he turns from him to the +thinkers who deal with God's geometry, and penetrate into the abysses +of being,—to primordial Kant, and his behemoth brother, Fichte. Nor +does Hegel, or Schelling, or Schlegel, or Novalis escape his pursuit, +but he hunts them all down, and takes what is needful to him, out of +them, as his trophy. Schiller is his king of singers, although he does +not much admire his "Philosophical Letters," or his "Æsthetic +Letters." But his grandest modern man is the calm and plastic Goethe, +and the homage he renders him is worthy of a better and a holier +idol. Goethe's "Autobiography," in so far as it relates to his early +days, is a bad book; and Wordsworth might well say of the "Wilhelm +Meister," that "it was full of all manner of fornication, like the +crossing of flies in the air." Goethe, however, is not to be judged by +any fragmentary estimate of him, but as an intellectual whole; for he +represented the intellect, and grasped with his selfish and cosmical +mind all the provinces of thought, learning, art, science, and +government, for purely intellectual purposes. This entrance into, and +breaking up of, the minds of these distinguished persons was, however, +a fine discipline for Carlyle, who is fully aware of its value; and +whilst holding communion with these great men, who by their genius and +insight seemed to apprehend the essential truth of things at a glance, +it is not wonderful that he should have been so merciless in his +denunciations of the mere logic-ability of English writers, as he +shows himself in the essays of that period. Logic, useful as it is, as +a help to reasoning, is but the dead body of thought, as Novalis +designates it, and has no place in the inspired regions where the +prophets and the bards reside. +<p> +Carlyle's fame, however, had not reached its culminating point when +Emerson visited him. The English are a slow, unimpressionable people, +not given to hasty judgments, nor too much nor too sudden praise; +requiring first to take the true altitude of a man, to measure him by +severe tests; often grudging him his proper and natural advantages and +talents, buffeting and abusing him in a merciless and sometimes an +unreasoning and unreasonable manner, allowing him now and then, +however, a sunbeam for his consolation, until at last they come to a +settled understanding of him, and he is generously praised and abused +into the sanctuary of their worthies. This was not the case, however, +at present, with Carlyle; for although he had the highest recognitions +from some of those who constitute the flower and chivalry of England, +he was far better known and more widely read in America than in his +own country. Emerson, then a young man, with a great destiny before +him, was attracted by his writings, and carried a letter of +introduction to him at Craigenputtock. "He was tall and gaunt, with a +cliff-like brow; self-possessed, and holding his extraordinary powers +of conversation in easy command; clinging to his northern accent with +evident relish; full of lively anecdote, and with a streaming humor +which floated everything he looked upon." He is the same man, in his +best moods, in the year 1857, as he was in 1833. His person, except +that he stoops slightly, is tall, and very little changed. He is +thinner, and the once ruddy hues of his cheek are dying away like +faint streaks of light in the twilight sky of a summer evening. But he +is strong and hearty on the whole; although the excitement of +continuous writing keeps him in a perpetual fever, deranges his liver, +and makes him at times acrid and savage as a sick giant. Hence his +increased pugnacity of late,—his fierceness, and angry hammering of +all things sacred and profane. It is but physical and temporary, +however, all this, and does not affect his healthy and serene +moments. For no man lives who possesses greater kindness and +affection, or more good, noble, and humane qualities. All who know him +love him, although they may have much to pardon in him; not in a +social or moral sense, however, but in an intellectual one. His talk +is as rich as ever,—perhaps richer; for his mind has increased its +stores, and the old fire of geniality still burns in his great and +loving heart. Perhaps his conversation is better than his printed +discourse. We have never heard anything like it. It is all alive, as +if each word had a soul in it. +<p> +How characteristic is all that Emerson tells us of him in his "English +Traits"!—a book, by the way, concerning which no adequate word has +yet been spoken; the best book ever written upon England, and which no +brave young Englishman can read, and ever after commit either a mean +or a bad action. We are therefore doubly thankful to Emerson, both for +what he says of England, and for what he relates of Carlyle, whose +independent speech upon all subjects is one of his chief charms. He +reads "Blackwood," for example, and has enjoyed many a racy, vigorous +article in its pages; but it does not satisfy him, and he calls it +"Sand Magazine." "Fraser's" is a little better, but not good enough to +be worthy of a higher nomenclature than "Mud Magazine." Excessive +praise of any one's talents drives him into admiration of the parts of +his own learned pig, now wallowing in the stye. The best thing he knew +about America was that there a man could have meat for his labor. He +did not read Plato, and he disparaged Socrates. Mirabeau was a hero; +Gibbon the splendid bridge from the old world to the new. It is +interesting also to hear that "Tristram Shandy" was one of the first +books he read after "Robinson Crusoe," and that Robertson's "America" +was an early favorite. Rousseau's "Confessions" had discovered to him +that he was not a dunce. Speaking of English pauperism, he said that +government should direct poor men what to do. "Poor Irish folks come +wandering over these moors. My dame makes it a rule to give to every +son of Adam bread to eat, and supplies his wants to the next +house. But here are thousands of acres which might give them all meat, +and nobody to bid those poor Irish go to the moor and till it. They +burned the stacks, and so found a way to force the rich people to +attend to them." Here is the germ of his book on "Chartism." Emerson +and he talk of the immortality of the soul, seated on the hill-tops +near Old Criffel, and looking down "into Wordsworth's country." +Carlyle had the natural disinclination of every nimble spirit to +bruise itself against walls, and did not like to place himself where +no step can be taken; but he was honest and true, and cognizant of the +subtile links that bind ages together, and saw how every event affects +all the future. "Christ died on the tree; that built Dunscore Kirk +yonder; that brought you and me together. Time has only a relative +existence." +<p> +Such is Emerson's account of his first visit to our author, whose eyes +were already turned towards London as the heart of the world, whither +he subsequently went, and where he now abides. +<p> +From Craigenputtock, with its savage rocks and moorlands, its +sheepwalk solitudes, its isolation and distance from all the +advantages of civil and intellectual life, to London and the living +solitude of its unnumberable inhabitants, its activities, polity, and +world-wide ramifications of commerce, learning, science, literature, +and art, was a change of great magnitude, whose true proportions it +took time to estimate. Carlyle, however, was not afraid of the huge +mechanism of London life, but took to it bravely and kindly, and was +soon at home amidst the everlasting whirl and clamor, the roar and +thunder of its revolutions. For although a scholar, and bred in +seclusion, he was also a genuine man of the world, and well acquainted +with its rough ways and Plutonic wisdom. This knowledge, combined with +his strong "common sense,"—as poor Dr. Beattie calls it, fighting for +its supremacy with canine ferocity,—gave Carlyle high vantage-ground +in his writings. He could meet the world with its own weapons, and +was cunning enough at that fence, as the world was very shortly +sensible. He was saved, therefore, from the contumely which vulgar +minds are always ready to bestow upon saints and mystics who sit aloof +from them, high enthroned amidst the truths and solemnities of +God. The secluded and ascetic life of most scholars, highly favorable +as it undoubtedly is to contemplation and internal development, has +likewise its disadvantages, and puts them, as being undisciplined in +the ways of life, at great odds, when they come to the actual and +practical battle. A man should be armed at all points, and not subject +himself, like good George Fox, Jacob Behmen, and other holy men, to +the taunts of the mob, on account of any awkward gait, mannerism, or +ignorance of men and affairs. Paul had none of these absurdities about +him; but was an accomplished person, as well as a divine speaker. His +doctrine of being all things to all men, that he might win souls to +Christ, is, like good manners and politeness, a part of that mundane +philosophy which obtains in every society, both as theory and +performance; not, however, in its literal meaning, which would involve +all sorts of hypocrisy and lies as its accessories, but in the sense +of ability to meet all kinds of men on their own grounds and with +their own enginery of warfare. +<p> +Strength, whether of mind or body, is sure to command respect, even +though it be used against ourselves; for we Anglo-Saxons are all +pugilists. A man, therefore, who accredits his metal by the work he +accomplishes, will be readily enough heard when he comes to speak and +labor upon higher platforms. This was the case with Carlyle; and when +he published that new Book of Job, that weird and marvellous Pilgrim's +Progress of a modern cultivated soul, the "Sartor Resartus," in +"Fraser's Magazine," strange, wild, and incomprehensible as it was to +most men, they did not put it contemptuously aside, but pondered it, +laughed at it, trembled over it and its dread apocalyptical visions +and revelations, respecting its earnestness and eloquence, although +not comprehending what manner of writing it essentially was. Carlyle +enjoyed the perplexity of his readers and reviewers, neither of whom, +with the exception of men like Sterling, and a writer in one of the +Quarterlies, seemed to know what they were talking about when they +spoke of it. The criticisms upon it were exceedingly comical in many +instances, and the author put the most notable of these together, and +always alluded to them with roars of laughter. The book has never yet +received justice at the hands of any literary tribunal. It requires, +indeed, a large amount of culture to appreciate it, either as a work +of art, or as a living flame-painting of spiritual struggle and +revelation. In his previous writings he had insisted upon the +sacredness and infinite value of the human soul,—upon the wonder and +mystery of life, and its dread surroundings,—upon the divine +significance of the universe, with its star pomp, and overhanging +immensities,—and upon the primal necessity for each man to stand with +awe and reverence in this august and solemn presence, if he would hope +to receive any glimpses of its meaning, or live a true and divine life +in the world; and in the "Sartor" he has embodied and illustrated this +in the person and actions of his hero. He saw that religion had become +secular; that it was reduced to a mere Sunday holiday and Vanity Fair, +taking no vital hold of the lives of men, and radiating, therefore, +none of its blessed and beautiful influences about their feet and +ways; that human life itself, with all its adornments of beauty and +poetry, was in danger of paralysis and death; that love and faith, +truth, duty, and holiness, were fast losing their divine attributes in +the common estimation, and were hurrying downwards with tears and a +sad threnody into gloom and darkness. Carlyle saw all this, and knew +that it was the reaction of that intellectual idolatry which brought +the eighteenth century to a close; knew also that there was only one +remedy which could restore men to life and health,—namely, the +quickening once again of their spiritual nature. He felt, also, that +it was his mission to attempt this miracle; and hence the prophetic +fire and vehemence of his words. No man, and especially no earnest +man, can read him without feeling himself arrested as by the grip of a +giant,—without trembling before his stern questions, inculcations, +and admonitions. There is a God, O Man! and not a blind chance, as +governor of this world. Thy soul has infinite relations with this +God, which thou canst never realize in thy being, or manifest in thy +practical life, save by a devout reverence for him, and his +miraculous, awful universe. This reverence, this deep, abiding +religious feeling, is the only link which binds us to the +Infinite. That severed, broken, or destroyed, and man is an alien and +an orphan; lost to him forever is the key to all spiritual mystery, to +the hieroglyph of the soul, to the symbolism of nature, of time, and +of eternity. Such, as we understand it, is Carlyle's teaching. But +this is not all. Man is to be man in that high sense we have spoken +his robes of immortality around him, as if God had done with him for +all practical purposes, and he with God,—but for action,—action in a +world which is to prove his power, his beneficence, his usefulness. +That spiritual fashioning by the Great Fashioner of all things is so +ordained that we ourselves may become fashioners, workers, makers. For +it is given to no man to be an idle cumberer of the ground, but to +dig, and sow, and plant, and reap the fruits of his labor for the +garner. This is man's first duty, and the diviner he is the more +divinely will he execute it. +<p> +That such a gospel as this could find utterance in the pages of the +"Edinburgh Review" is curious enough; and it is scarcely less +surprising that the "Sartor Resartus" should make its first appearance +in the somewhat narrow and conservative pages of Fraser. Carlyle has +clearly written his own struggles in this book,—his struggles and his +conquests. From the "Everlasting No,"—that dreadful realm of +enchantment, where all the forms of nature are frozen forever in dumb +imprisonment and despair,—the great vaulted firmament no longer +serene and holy and loving as God's curtain for his children's +slumbers, but flaming in starry portents, and dropping down over the +earth like a funeral pall; through this region of life-semblance and +death-reality the lonely and aching pilgrim wanders,—questioning +without reply,—wailing, broken, self-consuming,—looking with eager +eyes for the waters of immortality, and finding nothing but pools of +salt and Marahs of bitterness. Herein is no Calvary, no +Cross-symbolism, by whose miraculous power he is relieved of his +infinite burden of sorrow, starting onward with hope and joy in his +heart; nor does he ever find his Calvary until the deeps of his +spiritual nature are broken up and flooded with celestial light, as he +knocks reverently at the portals of heaven for communion with his +Father who is in heaven. Then bursts upon him a new significance from +all things; he sees that the great world is but a fable of divine +truth, hiding its secrets from all but the initiated and the worthy, +and that faith, and trust, and worship are the cipher, which unlocks +them all. He thus arrives at the plains of heaven in the region of the +"Everlasting Yes." His own soul lies naked and resolved before +him,—its unspeakable greatness, its meaning, faculty, and +destiny. Work, and dutiful obedience to the laws of work, are the +outlets of his power; and herein he finds peace and rest to his soul. +<p> +That Carlyle is not only an earnest, but a profoundly religious man, +these attempted elucidations of his teachings will abundantly +show. His religion, however, is very far remote from what is called +religion in this day. He has no patience with second-hand +beliefs,—with articles of faith ready-made for the having. +Whatsoever is accepted by men because it is the tradition of their +fathers, and not a deep conviction arrived at by legitimate search, is +to him of no avail; and all merely historical and intellectual faith, +standing outside the man, and not absorbed in the life as a vital, +moving, and spiritual power, he places also amongst the chaff for +burning. This world is a serious world, and human life and business +are also serious matters,—not to be trifled with, nor cheated by +shams and hypocrisies, but to be dealt with in all truth, soberness, +and sincerity. No one can thus deal with it who is not himself +possessed of these qualities, and the result of a life is the test of +what virtue there is in it. False men leave no mark. It is truth +alone which does the masonry of the world,—which founds empires, and +builds cities, and establishes laws, commerce, and civilization. And +in private life the same law abides, indestructible as God. Carlyle's +teaching tends altogether in this direction; and whilst he belongs to +no church and no creed, he is tolerant of all, and of everything that +is heartily and unfeignedly believed in by his fellows. He is no +Catholic; and yet for years he read little else than the forty volumes +of the "Acta Sanctorum," and found, he says, all Christian history +there, and much of profane history. Neither is he a Mahometan; but he +nevertheless makes a hero of Mahomet, whom he loves for his Ishmaelite +fierceness, bravery, and religious sincerity,—and because he taught +deism, or the belief in one God, instead of the old polytheism, or the +belief in many gods,—and gave half the East his very good book, +called the Koran, for his followers to live and die by. +<p> +Whether this large catholicism, this worship of heroes, is the best of +what now remains of religion on earth is certainly questionable +enough; and if we regard it in no other light than merely as an +idolatry of persons, there is an easy answer ready for it. But +considering that religion is now so far dead that it consists in +little else than formalities, and that its divine truth is no longer +such to half the great world, which lies, indeed, in dire atrophy and +wickedness,—and if we further consider and agree that the awakened +human soul is the divinest thing on earth, and partakes of the divine +nature itself, and that its manifestations are also divine in +whomsoever it is embodied, we can see some apology for its adoption; +inasmuch as it is the divine likeness to which reverence and homage +are rendered, and not the person merely, but only so far as he is the +medium of its showing. Christianity, however, will assuredly survive, +although doubtless in a new form, preserving all the integrity of its +message,—and be once more faith and life to men, when the present +old, established, decaying cultus shall be venerated only as history. +<p> +Carlyle clings to the Christian formulary and the old Christian life +in spite of himself. He is almost fanatical in his attachment to the +mediæval times,—to the ancient worship, its ceremonial, music, and +architecture, its monastic government, its saints and martyrs. And the +reason, as he shows in the "Past and Present," is, that all this array +of devotion, this pomp and ceremony, this music and painting, this +gorgeous and sublime architecture, this fasting and praying, were +<i>real</i>,—faithful manifestations of a religion which to that +people was truly genuine and holy. They who built the cathedrals of +Europe, adorned them with carvings, pictures, and those stately +windows with their storied illuminations which at this day are often +miracles of beauty and of art, were not frivolous modern +conventicle-builders, but poets as grand as Milton, and sculptors +whose genius might front that of Michel Angelo. It was no dead belief +in a dead religion which designed and executed these matchless +temples. Man and Religion were both alive in those days; and the +worship of God was so profound a prostration of the inmost spirit +before his majesty and glory, that the souls of the artists seem to +have been inspired, and to have received their archetypes in heavenly +visions. Such temples it is neither in the devotion nor the faculty of +the modern Western world to conceive or construct. Carlyle knows all +this, and he falls back in loving admiration upon those old times and +their worthies, despising the filigree materials of which the men of +to-day are for the most part composed. He revels in that picture of +monastic life, also, which is preserved in the record of Jocelyn de +Brakelonde. He sees all men at work there, each at his proper +vocation;—and he praises them, because they fear God and do their +duty. He finds them the same men, although with better and devouter +hearts, as we are at this day. Time makes no difference in this +verdant human nature, which shows ever the same in Catholic +monasteries as in Puritan meeting-houses. We have a wise preachment, +however, from that Past, to the Present, in Carlyle's book, which is +one of his best efforts, and contains isolated passages which for +wisdom and beauty, and chastity of utterance, he has never exceeded. +<p> +We have no space to speak here of all his books with anything like +critical integrity. The greatest amongst them, however, is, perhaps, +his "French Revolution, a History,"—which is no history, but a vivid +painting of characters and events as they moved along in tumultuous +procession. No one can appreciate this book who is not acquainted +with the history in its details beforehand. Emerson once related to us +a striking anecdote connected with this work, which gives us another +glimpse of Carlyle's character. He had just completed, after infinite +labor, one of the three volumes of his History, which he left exposed +on his study table when he went to bed. Next morning he sought in vain +for the manuscript, and had wellnigh concluded with Robert Hall, who +was once in a similar dilemma, that the Devil had run away with it, +when the servant-girl, on being questioned, confessed that she had +burnt it to kindle the fire. Carlyle neither stamped nor raved, but +sat down without a word and rewrote it. +<p> +In summing up the present results of Carlyle's labor, foolish men of +the world and small critics have not failed to ask what it all amounts +to,—what the great Demiurgus is aiming at in his weary battle of +life; and the question is significant enough,—one more proof of that +Egyptian darkness of vision which he is here to dispel. "He pulls down +the old," say they; "but what does he give us in place of it? Why does +he not strike out a system of his own? And after all, there is nothing +new in him." Such is the idle talk of the day, and such are the men +who either guide the people, or seek to guide them. Poor ignorant +souls! who do not know the beginning of the knowledge which Carlyle +teaches, nor its infinite importance to life and all its +concerns:—this, namely, as we have said before, that the soul should +first of all be wakened to the consciousness of its own miraculous +being, that it may be penetrated by the miracles of the universe, and +rise by aspiration and faith to the knowledge and worship of God, in +whom are all things; that this attitude of the soul, and its +accompanying wisdom, will beget the strength, purity, virtue, and +truth which can alone restore order and beauty upon the earth; that +all "systems," and mechanical, outward means and appliances to the +end, will but increase the Babel of confusion, as things unfitted to +it, and altogether extraneous and hopeless. "Systems!" It is living, +truthful men we want; these will make their own systems; and let those +who doubt the truth humbly watch and wait until it is manifest to +them, or go on their own arid and sorrowful ways in what peace they +can find there. +<p> +The catholic spirit of Carlyle's works cannot be better illustrated +than by the fact that he has received letters from all sorts and +conditions of men, Methodists and Shakers, Churchmen and Romanists, +Deists and Infidels, all claiming his fellowship, and thinking they +find their peculiarities of thought in him. This is owing partly, +perhaps, to the fact that in his earlier writings he masked his +sentiments both in Hebraic and Christian phraseology; and partly to +the lack of vision in his admirers, who could not distinguish a new +thought in an old garment. His "Cromwell" deceived not a few in this +respect; and we were once asked in earnest, by a man who should have +been better informed, if Carlyle was a Puritan. Whatever he may be +called, or believed to be, one thing is certain concerning him: that +he is a true and valiant man,—all out a man!—and that literature and +the world are deeply indebted to him. His mission, like that of Jeremy +Collier in a still baser age, was to purge our literature of its +falsehood, to recreate it, and to make men once more believe in the +divine, and live in it. So earnest a man has not appeared since the +days of Luther, nor any one whose thoughts are so suggestive, +germinal, and propagative. All our later writers are tinged with his +thought, and he has to answer for such men as Kingsley, Newman, +Froude, and others who will not answer for him, nor acknowledge him. +<p> +In private life Carlyle is amiable, and often high and beautiful in +his demeanor. He talks much, and, as we have said, well; impatient, +at times, of interruption, and at other times readily listening to +those who have anything to say. But he hates babblers, and cant, and +sham, and has no mercy for them, but sweeps them away in the whirlwind +and terror of his wrath. He receives distinguished men, in the +evening, at his house in Chelsea; but he rarely visits. He used +occasionally to grace the saloons of Lady Blessington, in the palmy +days of her life, when she attracted around her all noble and +beautiful persons, who were distinguished by their attainments in +literature, science, or art; but he rarely leaves his home now for +such a purpose. He is at present engaged in his "Life of Frederick the +Great," whom he will hardly make a hero of, and with whom, we learn, +he is already very heartily disgusted. The first volume will shortly +appear. +<p> +And now we must close this imperfect paper,—reserving for a future +occasion some personal reminiscences of him, which may prove both +interesting and illustrative. + + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="10">THE BUTTON-ROSE.</a> +</h2> +<br><br> + +CHAPTER I. +<p> +I fear I have not what is called "a taste for flowers." To be sure, my +cottage home is half buried in tall shrubs, some of which are +flowering, and some are not. A giant woodbine has wrapped the whole +front in its rich green mantle; and the porch is roofed and the +windows curtained with luxuriant honeysuckles and climbing +wild-roses. But, though I have tried for it many times, I never yet +had a successful bed of flowers. My next neighbor, Mrs. Smith, is "a +lady of great taste"; and when she leads me proudly through her trim +alleys edged with box, and displays her hyacinths and tulips, her +heliotropes, cactuses, and gladioluses, her choice roses, "so +extremely double," and all the rare plants which adorn her parterre, I +conclude it must be that I have no taste at all. I beg her to save me +seeds and bulbs, get fresh directions for laying down, and +inoculating, grafting, and potting, and go home with my head full of +improvements. But the next summer comes round with no change, except +that the old denizens of the soil (like my maids and my children) have +grown more wild and audacious than ever, and I find no place for beds +of flowers. I must e'en give it up; I have no taste for flowers, in +the common sense of the words. In fact, they awaken in me no +sentiment, no associations, as they stand, marshalled for show, "in +beds and curious knots"; and I do not like the care of them. +<p> +Yet let me find these daughters of the early year in their native +haunts, scattered about on hillside and in woody dingle, half hidden +by green leaves, starting up like fairies in secluded nooks, nestling +at the root of some old tree, or leaning over to peep into some glassy +bit of water, and no heart thrills quicker than mine at the +sight. There they seem to me to enjoy a sweet wild life of their own; +nodding and smiling in the sunshine or verdant gloom, caring not to +see or to be seen. Some of the loveliest of my early recollections are +of rambles after flowers. There was a certain "little pink and yellow +flower" (so described to me by one of my young cousins) after which I +searched a whole summer with unabated eagerness. I was fairly haunted +by its ideal image. Henry von Ofterdingen never sought with intenser +desire for his wondrous blue flower, nor more vainly; for I never +found it. One day, this same cousin and myself, while wandering in +the woods, found ourselves on the summit of a little rocky precipice, +and at its foot, lo! in full bloom, a splendid variety of the orchis, +(a flower I had never seen before,) looking to my astonished eyes like +an enchanted princess in a fairy tale. With a scream of joy we both +sprang for the prize. Harriet seized it first, but after gazing at it +a moment with a quiet smile, presented it to me. "Kings may be blest, +but I was glorious!" I never felt so rich before or since. +<p> +But there was one flower,—and I must confess that I made acquaintance +with it in a garden, but at an age when I thought all things grew out +of the blessed earth of their own sweet will,—which, as it is the +first I remember to have loved, has maintained the right of priority +in my affections to this day. Nay, many an object of deep, absorbing +interest, more than one glowing friendship, has meantime passed away, +leaving no memorial but sad and bitter thoughts; while this wee flower +still lives and makes glad a little green nook in my heart. It was a +Button-Rose of the smallest species, the outspread blossom scarce +exceeding in size a shilling-piece. It stood in my grandfather's +garden,—that garden which, at my first sight of it, (I was then about +five years old,) seemed to me boundless in extent, and beautiful +beyond aught that I had seen or thought before. It was a large, +old-fashioned kitchen-garden, adorned and enriched, however, as then +the custom was, with flowers and fruit-trees. Several fine old +pear-trees and a few of the choicest varieties of plum and cherry were +scattered over it; currants and gooseberries lined the fences; the +main alley, running through its whole extent, was thickly bordered by +lilacs, syringas, and roses, with many showy flowers intermixed, and +terminated in a very pleasant grape-arbor. Behind this rose a steep +green hill covered with an apple-orchard, through which a little +thread of a footpath wound up to another arbor which stood on the +summit relieved against the sky. It was but little after sunrise, the +first morning of my visit, when I timidly opened the garden gate and +stood in full view of these glories. All was dewy, glittering, +fragrant, musical as a morn in Eden. For a while I stood still, in a +kind of enchantment. Venturing, at length, a few steps forward, +gazing eagerly from side to side, I was suddenly arrested by the most +marvellously beautiful object my eyes had ever seen,—no other than +the little Button-Rose of our story! So small, so perfect! It filled +my infant sense with its loveliness. It grew in a very pretty china +vase, as if more precious than the other flowers. Several blossoms +were fully expanded, and many tiny buds were showing their crimson +tips. As I stood lost in rapture over this little miracle of beauty, a +humming-bird, the smallest of its fairy tribe, darted into sight, and +hung for an instant, its ruby crest and green and golden plumage +flashing in the sun, over my new-found treasure. Were it not that the +emotions of a few such moments are stamped indelibly on the memory, we +should have no conception in maturer life of the intenseness of +childish enjoyment. Oh for one drop of that fresh morning dew, that +pure nectar of life, in which I then bathed with an unconscious bliss! +Methinks I would give many days of sober, thoughtful, <i>rational</i> +enjoyment for one hour of the eager rapture which thrilled my being as +I stood in that enchanted garden, gazing upon my little rose, and that +gay creature of the elements, that winged blossom, that living +fragment of a rainbow, that glanced and quivered and murmured over it. +<p> +But, dear as the Button-Rose is to my memory, I should hardly think of +obtruding it on the notice of others, were it not for a little tale of +human interest connected with it. While I yet stood motionless in the +ecstasy of my first wonder, a young man and woman entered the garden, +chatting and laughing in a very lively manner. The lady was my Aunt +Caroline, then in the fresh bloom of seventeen; the young man I had +never seen before. Seeing me standing alone in the walk, my aunt +called me; but as I shrunk away shy and blushing at sight of the +stranger, she came forward and took hold of my hand. +<p> +"This is our little Katy, Cousin Harry," said she, leading me towards +him. +<p> +"Our little Katy's most obedient!" replied he, taking off his +broad-brimmed straw hat, and making a flourishing bow nearly to the +ground. +<p> +"Don't be afraid of him, Katy dear; he's nobody," said my aunt, +laughing. +<p> +At these encouraging words I glanced up at the merry pair, and thought +them almost as pretty as the rose and hummingbird. My Aunt Caroline's +beauty was of a somewhat peculiar character,—if beauty that can be +called which was rather spirit, brilliancy, geniality of expression, +than symmetrical mould of features. The large, full eye was of the +deepest violet hue; the finely arched forehead, a little too boldly +cast for feminine beauty, was shaded by masses of rich chestnut hair; +the mouth,—but who could describe that mouth? Even in repose, some +arch thought seemed ever at play among its changeful curves; and when +she spoke or laughed, its wonderful mobility and sweetness of +expression threw a perfect witchery over her face. She was quite +short, and, if the truth must be told, a little too stout in figure; +but this was in a great measure redeemed by a beautifully moulded +neck, on which her head turned with the quickness and grace of a wild +pigeon. Every motion was rapid and decided, and her whole aspect +beamed with genius, gayety, and a cordial friendliness, which took the +heart at first sight. And then, her voice, her laugh!—not so low as +Shakspeare commends in woman, but clear, musical, true-hearted, making +one glad like the song of the lark at sunrise. +<p> +Cousin Harry was a very tall, very pale, very black-haired and +black-eyed young gentleman, with a high, open brow, and a very +fascinating smile. +<p> +The remainder of the garden scene was to me but little more than dumb +show. Perhaps it was more vividly remembered for that very reason. I +recollect being busy filling a little basket with strawberries, while +I watched with a pleased, childish curiosity the two young people, as +they passed many times up and down the gravelled walk between the rows +of flowers. I was not far from the Button-Rose, and I had nearly +filled my basket, when my aunt came to the spot and stooped over the +little plant. Her face was towards me, and I saw several large tears +fall from her eyes upon the leaves. She broke off the most beautiful +blossom, and tying it up with some sprigs of mignonette, presented it +to Cousin Harry. They then left the garden. +<p> +The next day I heard it said that Cousin Harry was gone away. The +little rose was brought into the house and installed in the bow-window +of my aunt's room, where it was watched and tended by us both with the +greatest care. +<p> +Some time after this, the news came that Cousin Harry was married. The +next morning I missed my little favorite from the window. My aunt was +reading when I waked. +<p> +"Oh, Aunty!" I cried, "where is our little rose?" +<p> +"It was too much trouble, Katy," said she, quietly; "I have put it +into the garden." +<p> +"But isn't it going to stand in our window any more?" +<p> +"No, dear, I am tired of it." +<p> +"Oh, do bring it back! I will take the whole care of it," said I, +beginning to cry. +<p> +"Katy," said my aunt, taking me into her lap, and looking steadily, +but kindly, into my face, "listen to me. I do not wish to have that +rose in my room any more; and if you love me, you will never mention +it again." +<p> +Something in her manner prevented my uttering a word more in behalf of +the poor little exile. As soon as I was dressed, I ran down into the +garden to visit it. It looked very lonely, I thought; I could hardly +bear to leave it. The day following, it disappeared from the garden, +and old Nanny, the housemaid, told me that my aunt had given it +away. I never saw it again. +<p> +Thus ended my personal acquaintance with the little Button-Rose. But +that first strong impression on my fancy was indelible. The flower +still lived in my memory, surrounded by associations which gave it a +mystic charm. By degrees I ceased to miss it from the window; but that +strange garden scene grew more and more vivid, and became a cabinet +picture in one of the little inner chambers of memory, where I often +pondered it with a delicious sense of mystery. The rose and +humming-bird seemed to me the chief actors in the magic pantomime, and +they were some way connected with my dear Aunt Linny and the +black-eyed young man; but what it all meant was the great puzzle of my +busy little brain. It has sometimes been a matter of curious +speculation to me, what share that diminutive flower had in the +development of my mind and character. With it, so it seems to me, +began the first dawn of a conscious inner life. I can still recollect +with wonderful distinctness what I have thought and felt since that +date, while all the preceding years are vague and shadowy as an +ill-remembered dream. From them I can only conjure up, as it were, my +outward form,—a happy animal existence, with which scarce a feeling +of self is connected; but from the time when I bore a part in this +little fragment of a romance the current of identity flows on +unbroken. From that light waking touch, perchance, the whole +subsequent development took form and tone.—But, gentle reader, your +pardon! This is nothing to my story. +<p> +<br> +CHAPTER II. +<p> +Ten years had slipped away, and I was now in my sixteenth year. Of +course, my little cabinet picture had been joined by many others. It +was now but one in an extensive gallery; and the modest little gem, +dimmed with dust, and hidden by larger pieces, had not been thought of +for many a day. +<p> +External circumstances had remained much the same with us; only one +great change, the death of my dear grandmother, having occurred in the +family. My aunt presided over her father's household, and the +admirable order and good taste which pervaded every department bore +witness how well she understood combining the elements of a home. +<p> +Aunt Linny, now twenty-seven years of age, had lost nothing of her +former attractiveness. The brilliant, impulsive girl had but ripened +into the still more lovely woman. Her cheek was not faded nor her eye +dimmed. There was the same frankness, the same heart in her glance, +her smile, the warm pressure of her hand, but tempered by experience, +reflection, and self-control. One felt that she could be loved and +trusted with the whole heart and judgment. Her personal attractions, +and yet more the charm of her sensible, genial, and racy conversation, +brought to our house many pleasant visitors, and made her the +sparkling centre of every circle into which she could be drawn. But it +was rarely that she could be beguiled from home; for, since her +mother's death, she had devoted herself heart and soul to her widowed +father. +<p> +The relation between myself and my aunt was somewhat peculiar. Neither +of us having associates of our own age in the family, I had become her +companion, and even friend, to a degree which would have been +impossible in other circumstances. She had scarcely outgrown the +freshness and simplicity of childhood when I first came to live with +her, and my mind and feelings had expanded rapidly under the constant +stimulus of a nature so full of rich life; so that at the date I now +speak of, we lived together more as sisters than as aunt and niece. An +inexpressible charm rests on those days, when we read, wrote, rambled +together, shared the same room, and had every pleasure, every trouble +in common. All show of authority over me had gradually melted away; +but her influence with me was still unbounded, for I loved her with +the passionate earnestness of a first, full-hearted friendship.—But +to proceed with my story. +<p> +One sweet afternoon in early summer, we two were sitting alone. The +windows towards the garden were open, and the breath of lilacs and +roses stole in. I had been reading to her some verses of my own, +celebrating the praise of first love as an imperishable sentiment. My +fancy had just been crazed with the poetry of L.E.L., who was then +shining as the "bright particular star" in the literary heavens. +<p> +"The lines are very pretty," said my aunt, "but I trust it's only +poetizing, Kate; I should be sorry indeed to have you join the school +of romantic misses who think first love such a killing matter." +<p> +"But, Aunty," I cried, "what a horribly prosy, matter-of-fact affair +life would be in any other view! I believe poetry itself would become +extinct." +<p> +"So, then, if a woman is disappointed in first love, she is bound to +die for the benefit of poetry!" +<p> +"But just think, Aunt Linny—if Ophelia, instead of going mad so +prettily, and dying in a way to break everybody's heart, had soberly +set herself to consider that there were as fine fish yet in the sea as +ever were caught, and that it was best, therefore, to cheer up and +wait for better times! Frightful!" +<p> +"Never trouble your little head, Kate, with fear that there will not +be Ophelias enough, as long as the world stands. But I wouldn't be +one, if I were you, unless I could bespeak a Shakspeare to do me into +poetry. That would be an inducement, I allow. How would you fancy +being a Sukey Fay, Kate?" +<p> +"Oh, the poor old wretch, with her rags and dirt and gin-bottle! Has +she a story?" +<p> +"Just as romantic a one as Ophelia, only she lacks a poet. But, in +sober truth, Katy, why is there not as true poetry in battling with +feeling as in yielding to it? To me there seems something far more +lofty and beautiful in bearing to live, under certain circumstances, +than in daring to die." +<p> +"If you only spoke experimentally, dear Aunty! Oh that Plato, or John +Milton, or Sir Philip Sydney would reappear, and lay all his genius +and glory at your feet! I wonder if you'd be of the same mind then!" +<p> +"And then, of course, this sublime suitor must die, or desert me, to +show how I would behave under the trial.—Katy," continued my aunt, +after a little pause, with a smile and slight blush, "I have half a +mind to tell you a little romance of my early days, when I was just +your age. It may be useful to you at this point of your life." +<p> +"Is it possible?" cried I,—"a romance of your early days! Quick, let +me hear!" +<p> +"I shouldn't have called it a romance, Katy; for as a story, it is +just nothing. It has no interest except as marking the beginning of +my education,—the education, I mean, of real life." +<p> +"But let me hear; there's some spice of poetry in it, I know." +<p> +"Well, then, it's like many another story of early fancy. In my +childhood I had a playmate. Our fathers' houses stood but a few rods +apart, and the families lived in habits of the closest intimacy. From +my earliest remembrance, the brave little boy, four years older than +I, was my sworn friend and protector; and as we increased in years, an +affection warm and frank as that of brother and sister grew up between +us. A love of nature and of poetry, and a certain earnestness and +enthusiasm of character, which separated us both from other children, +drew us closely together. At fifteen he left us to fit for college at +a distant school, and thenceforward he was at home only for brief +visits, till he was graduated with distinguished honor at the age of +twenty-one. During those six years of separation our relation to each +other had suffered no change. We had corresponded with tolerable +regularity, and I had felt a sister's pride in his talents and +literary honors. When, therefore, he returned home to recruit his +health, which had been seriously impaired by study and confinement, I +welcomed him with great joy, and with all the frankness of former +times. +<p> +"Again we read, chatted, and rambled together. I found him unchanged +in character, but improved, cultivated, to a degree which delighted, +almost awed me. When he read our favorite authors with his rich, +musical voice, and descanted on their beauties with discriminating +taste and fervent poetic feeling, a new light fell on the +page. Through his eyes I learned to behold in nature a richness, a +grace, a harmony, a meaning, only vaguely felt before. It was as if I +had just received the key to a mysterious cipher, unlocking deep and +beautiful truths in earth and sea and sky, by which they were invested +with a life and splendor till now unseen. But it was his noble +sentiments, his generous human sympathies, his ardent aspirations +after honorable distinction to be won by toil and self-denial, which +woke my heart as by an electric touch. My own unshaped, half-conscious +aims and aspirations, stirred with life, took wing and soared with his +into the pure upper air. Ah! it was a bright, beautiful dream, Kate, +the life of those few months. I never once thought of love, nor of the +possibility of separation. All flowed so naturally from our life-long +intimacy, that I had not the slightest suspicion of the change which +had come over me. But the hour of waking was at hand. We had looked +forward to the settled summer weather for a marked improvement in his +health. But June had come and he still seemed very delicate. His +physician prescribed travelling and change of climate; and though his +high spirits had deceived me as to his real danger, I urged him to +go. He left us to visit an elder brother residing in one of the Middle +States. Ten years this very month!" added Aunt Linny, with an absent +air. +<p> +"Ten years ago this very month," I exclaimed, "did my distinguished +self arrive at this venerable mansion. What a singular conjunction of +events! No doubt our horoscopes would reveal some strange entanglement +of destinies at this point. Perchance I, even I, was 'the star malign' +whose rising disturbed the harmonious movement of the spheres!" +<p> +"No doubt of it; the birth of a mouse once caused an earthquake, you +know." +<p> +"But could I have seen him? Did I arrive before he had left?" +<p> +"Oh, yes, very likely; but of course you can have no recollection of +him, such a chit as you were then." +<p> +"What was his name?" I cried, eagerly. A long-silent chord of memory +began to give forth a vague, uncertain murmur. +<p> +"Oh, no matter, Kate. I would a little rather you shouldn't know. It +doesn't affect the moral of the story, which was all I had in view in +relating it." +<p> +"A plague take the moral, Aunty! The romance is what I want; and +what's that without 'the magic of a name'?" +<p> +"Excuse me." +<p> +"Tell me his Christian name, then,—just for a peg to hang my ideas +on; that is, if it's meat for romance. If it is Isaac or Jonathan, you +needn't mention it." +<p> +"Well, then, you tease,—I called him Cousin Harry." +<p> +"Cousin Harry!" I screamed, starting forward, and staring at her with +eyes wide open. +<p> +"Yes; but what ails you, child? You glare upon me like a maniac." +<p> +"Hush! hush! don't speak!" said I. +<p> +As I sunk back, in a sort of dream, into the rocking-chair in which I +had been idling, the garden caught my eye through the open window. The +gate overarched with honeysuckle, the long alley with its fragrant +flowering border, the grape arbor, the steep green hill behind, lay +before me in the still, rich beauty of June. In a twinkling, memory +had swept the dust from my little cabinet picture, and let in upon it +a sudden light. The ten intervening years vanished like a dream, and +that long-forgotten garden scene started up, vivid as in the hour when +it actually passed before my eyes. The clue to that mystery which had +so spellbound my childish fancy was at length found. I sat for a time +in silence, lost in a delicious, confused reverie. +<p> +"The Button-Rose was a gift from him, then?" were my first words. +<p> +"What, Kate?" said Aunt Linny, now opening her large blue eyes with a +strange look. +<p> +"Did you give away the flower-pot too? That was so pretty! Whom did +you give it to?" +<p> +"Incredible!" she exclaimed, coloring, and with the strongest +expression of surprise. "Truly, little pitchers have not been +slandered!" +<p> +"But the wonderful humming-bird, Aunty! What had that to do with it?" +<p> +"Kate," said my aunt, "you talk like one in sleep. Wake up, and let me +know what all this means." +<p> +"I see it all now!" I rattled on, more to myself than her. "First +young love,—parting gift,—Cousin Harry proves fickle,—Aunt Linny +banishes the Button-Rose from her window,—takes to books, and +educating naughty nieces, and doing good to everybody,—'bearing to +live,' as more heroic than 'daring to die,'—in ten years gets so that +she can speak of it with composure, as a lesson to romantic +girls. So?" +<p> +"Even so, Katy!" she replied, quietly; "and to that early +disappointment I owe more than to anything that ever befell me." +<p> +She said this with a smile; but her voice trembled a little, and I +perceived that a soft dew had gathered over her eyes. By an +irresistible impulse I rose, and stealing softly behind her, clasped +my arms round her neck, and kissing her forehead whispered, "Forgive +me, sweet Aunty!" +<p> +"Not a bit of harm, Katy," she replied, drawing me down for a warm +kiss. "But what a gypsy you must be," she added, in her usually +lively tone, "to have trudged along so many years with this precious +little bundle, and said never a word to anybody!" +<p> +"I've not thought of it myself, these ever so many years," said I, +"and it seems like witchwork that it should all have come to me at +this moment." +<p> +I then related to her my childish reminiscences and speculations, +which amused her not a little. Her hearty, mirthful zest showed that +the theme was not a disquieting one. I now begged her to proceed with +her story. +<p> +"But stay a moment," said I; "let me fetch our garden bonnets, that we +may enjoy it in the very scene of the romance." +<p> +"Ah, Kate, you are bent on making a heroine of me!" was the reply, as +she took her seat in the grape arbor; "but there are really no +materials. I shall finish in fifteen minutes by my watch, and you'll +drop me as an Ophelia, I venture to say. Cousin Harry had left us, as +I told you, to visit his brother. For some months his letters were +very frequent, and as the time approached for his return they grew +increasingly cheerful, and—Katy, I cannot but excuse myself in part, +when I recall the magic charm of those letters. But no matter; all of +a sudden they ceased, and for several weeks not a word was heard from +him by his own family. At length, when my anxiety had become wellnigh +intolerable, there came a brief letter to his father, announcing his +marriage with the sister of his brother's wife, and his decision to +enter into business with his brother." +<p> +"Did you know anything of the young lady?" +<p> +"He had once or twice mentioned her in his letters as a beautiful, +amiable creature, whose education had been shamefully neglected. Her +kindness to him in his illness and loneliness, added to her natural +charms, won his heart, no doubt many a wise man has been caught in +that snare." +<p> +"But what base conduct towards you!" +<p> +"Not at all, my dear! My dream had suffused his words with its own +coloring,—that was all. As soon as reason could make her voice heard, +I acquitted him of all blame. His feelings towards me had been those +of a brother,—no more." +<p> +"But why, then, did he cease to write? why not share his new +happiness with so dear a friend?" +<p> +"That was not unnatural, after what he had said of the young lady's +deficiencies. Probably the awkwardness of the thing led him to defer +writing from time to time, till he had become so absorbed in his +domestic relations and his business, that he had ceased to think of +it. Life's early dewdrops often exhale in that way, Kate!" +<p> +"Then life is a hateful stupidity!" +<p> +"Yes; if it could be morning all day, and childhood could outlast our +whole lives, it would be very charming. But life has jewels that don't +exhale, Kate, but sparkle brightest in the hottest sun. These lie +deep in the earth, and to dig them out requires more than a child's +strength of heart and arm. One must be well inured to toil and weather +before he can win these treasures; but when once he wears these in his +bosom he doesn't sigh for dewdrops." +<p> +"Well, let me hear how you were inured." +<p> +"The news of this marriage revealed to me, as by a flash of lightning, +my whole inner world of feeling. When I knew that he was forever lost, +I first knew what he had become to me. The pangs of disappointment, of +self-humiliation,—I hardly know which were the stronger,—were like +poisoned arrows in my heart. It was my first trouble, and I had to +bear it in silence and alone. Not for worlds would I have had it +guessed that I had cherished an unreturned affection, and it would +have killed me to hear him blamed. Towards him I had, in my most +secret heart, no emotion of resentment or reproach. A feeling of +dreary loss, of a long, weary life from which all the flowers had +vanished, a sort of tender self-pity, filled my heart. It is not worth +while to detail the whole process by which I gradually forced myself +out of this miserable state. One thing helped me much. As soon as the +first bitterness of my heart was passed, I saw clearly that the +indulgence of such a sentiment towards one who was now the husband of +another could not be innocent. It must not be merely concealed; it +must be torn up, root and branch. With this steadily before my mind +as the central point of my efforts, I worked my way step by +step. First came the removal of the numerous little mementos of those +happy days in dreamland, the sight of which softened my heart into +weakness and vain regret. Next I threw aside my favorite works of +imagination and feeling, and for two years read scarcely a book which +did not severely task my mind. I devoted myself more to my mother, and +interested myself in the poor and sick. Last, not least, I resolved on +taking the whole charge of your education, Katy; and of my various +specifics, I think I would recommend the training of such an elf as +the 'sovereignest remedy' for first love. The luxuriant growth of your +character interested, stimulated, kept me perpetually on the alert. I +soon began to work <i>con amore</i> at this task; my spirits caught at +times the contagious gayety of yours; my poor heart was refreshed by +your warm childish love. In short, I began to live again. But, ah! +dear Kate, it was a long, stern conflict. Many, many months, yes, +years, passed by, ere those troubled waters became clear and +still. But I held firmly on my way, and the full reward came at +last. By degrees I had created within and around me a new world of +interest and activity, in which this little whirlpool of morbid +feeling became an insignificant point. I was conscious of the birth of +new energies, of a bolder and steadier sweep of thought, of fuller +sympathies, of that settled quiet and harmony of soul which are to be +gained only in the school of self-discipline. That dream of my youth +now lies like a soft cloud far off in the horizon, beautiful with the +morning tints of memory, but casting no shadow." +<p> +She paused; then added, in a lively tone: "Well, Kate, the fifteen +minutes are not out, and yet my story is done. Think you now it would +really have been better to go a-swinging on a willow-tree over a pond, +and so have made a good poetical end?" +<p> +"Oh, I am so glad you were not such a goose as to make a swan of +yourself, like poor Ophelia!" said I, throwing my arms around her, and +giving her half a dozen kisses. "But tell me truly, was I indeed such +a blessing to you, 'the very cherubim that did preserve thee'? To +think of the repentance I have wasted over my childish naughtiness, +when it was all inspired by your good angel! I shall take heed to this +hint." +<p> +"Do so, Kate, and your good angel will doubtless inspire in me a +suitable response." +<p> +"But tell me now, Aunt Linny, who the living man was. Was he a real +cousin?" +<p> +"I may as well tell you, Kate, or you will get it from your +'familiar.' You have heard of our rich cousin in Cuba, Henry +Morrison?" +<p> +"Oh, yes; I have heard grandfather speak of him. So, then, he was +Cousin Harry! I should like one chance at his hair, for all his +goodness. Did you ever meet again?" +<p> +"Never. His father's family soon removed to a distant place, so that +there was no necessity for visiting the old home. But I have always +heard him spoken of as an upright merchant and a cultivated and +generous man. He has resided several years in Cuba. A year or two +since, he went to Europe for his wife's health, and there she +died. Rumor now reports him as about to become the husband of an +Englishwoman of high connections. I should be very glad to see him +once more.—But come now, Kate, let's have a decennial celebration of +our two anniversaries. Lay the tea-table in the grape arbor, and then +invite grandpapa to a feast of strawberries and cream." +<p> +I hastily ornamented our rural banquet-hall with long branches of +roses and honeysuckles in full bloom, stuck into the leafy roof. As we +sat chatting and laughing over our simple treat, a humming-bird darted +several times in and out. "A messenger!" whispered I to Aunt +Linny. "Depend upon it, Cousin Harry didn't marry the English lady." +<p> +<br> +CHAPTER III. +<p> +The next morning I slept late. Fancy had all night been busy, +combining her old and new materials into many a wild shape. After my +aunt had risen at her usual early hour, I fell into one of those balmy +morning-naps which make up for a whole night's unrest. I dreamed +still, but the visions floated by with that sweet changeful play which +soothes rather than fatigues the brain. The principal objects were +always the same; but the combination shifted every instant, as by the +turn of a kaleidoscope. At length they arranged themselves in a +lovely miniature scene in a convex mirror. There bloomed the little +Button-Rose in the centre, and above it the humming-bird glanced and +murmured, and now and then darted his slender bill deep into the bosom +of the flowers. With hands clasped above this central object, as if +exchanging vows upon an altar, stood the young human pair. Of a +sudden, old Cornelius Agrippa was in the room, robed in a black +scholar's-gown, over which his snowy beard descended nearly to his +knees. Stretching forth a long white wand, he touched the picture, and +immediately a wedding procession began to move out of the magic +crystal, the figures, as they emerged, assuming the size of +life. First tripped a numerous train of white-robed little maidens, +scattering flowers; then came a priest in surplice and bands, holding +before him a great open service-book; after him, the bridal pair, +attended by their friends. But by an odd trick of fancy, the +bridegroom, who looked very stately and happy, appeared with the china +flower-pot containing the Button-Rose balanced on the end of his nose! +Awaked by my own laughter at this comical sight, I opened my eyes and +found Aunt Linny sitting on the bedside and laughing with me. +<p> +"I should have waked you before, Katy," said she, "if you had not +seemed to be enjoying yourself so much. Come, unfold your dream. I +presume it will save me the trouble of telling you the contents of +this wonderful epistle which I hold in my hand." +<p> +"It's from Cousin Harry! Huzza!" cried I, springing up to snatch it. +<p> +But she held it out of my reach. "Softly! good Mistress +Fortuneteller," said she. "Read me the letter without seeing it, and +then I shall know that you can tell the interpretation thereof." +<p> +"Of course it's from Cousin Harry. That's what the humming-bird came +to say last night. As for the contents,—he's not married,—his heart +turns to the sister-friend of his youth,—he yearns to look into her +lustrous orbs once more,—she alone, he finds, is the completion of +his <i>'Ich'</i>. He hastens across the dark blue sea; soon will she +behold him at her feet." +<p> +"Alas, poor gypsy, thou hast lost thy silver penny this time. The +letter is indeed from Cousin Harry, and that of itself is one of +life's wonders. But it is addressed with all propriety to his +'venerable uncle.' He arrived from Europe a month since, and being now +on a tour for health and pleasure, proposes to make a hasty call on +his relatives and visit the old homestead. He brings his bride with +him. Now, Kate, be stirring; they will be here to-night, and we must +look our prettiest." +<p> +"The hateful, prosy man! I'll not do anything to make his visit +agreeable," said I, pettishly. +<p> +"Why, Kate, what are you conjuring up in your foolish little noddle?" +<p> +"Oh, I supposed an <i>éclaircissement</i> would come round somehow, +and we should finish the romance in style." +<p> +"Why, Kate, do you really wish to get rid of me?" +<p> +"No, indeed! I wouldn't have you accept his old withered heart for the +world. But I wanted you to have the triumph of rejecting it. 'Indeed, +my dear cousin,'—thus you should have said,—'I shall always be +interested in you as a kinsman, but I can never love you.'" +<p> +"Kate is crazed!" she exclaimed, in a voice of despair. "Why, dear +child, there is not a shadow of foundation for this nonsense. I am +heartily glad at the thought of seeing my cousin once more, and all +the gladder that he brings a wife with him. Will you read the letter?" +<p> +I read it twice, and then asked,—"Where does he mention his wife?" +<p> +"Why, there,—don't you see? 'I shall bring with me a young lady, +whom, though a stranger and a foreigner, I trust you will be pleased +to welcome.' Isn't that plain?" +<p> +The inference seemed sufficiently natural; but the slight uncertainty +was the basis of many entertaining dreams through the day. I resolved +to hold fast my faith in romance till the last moment. Towards +evening, when the parlors and guest-chambers had received the last +touches, when the silver had been polished, the sponge-cake and tarts +baked, and our own toilette made,—when, in short, nothing remained to +be done, my excitement and impatience rose to the highest pitch. I +ran repeatedly down the avenue, and finally mounted with a +pocket-telescope to the top of the house for a more extensive survey. +<p> +"See you aught, Sister Annie?" called my aunt from below. +<p> +"Nothing yet, good Fatima!—spin out thy prayers a little +longer. Stay! a cloud of dust, a horseman!—no doubt an outrider +hastening on to announce his approach. Ah! he passes, the stupid +clown! Another! Nay, that was only a Derby wagon; the stars forbid +that our deliverer should come in a Derby! But now, hush! there's a +<i>bonâ fide</i> barouche, two black horses, black driver and +all. Almost at the turn! O gentle Ethiopian, tarry! this is the +castle! Go, then, false man! Fatima, thy last hope is past! No, they +stop! the gentleman looks out! he waves his hand this way! Aunt +Linny, 'tis he! the carriage is coming up the avenue!" So saying, I +threw down the telescope and flew to her room. +<p> +"You are right, Kate, it must be he," said she, glancing through the +window, and then following me quietly down stairs. +<p> +The carriage stopped, and we all went down the steps to receive our +long absent relative. A tall, pale gentleman in black sprang out and +came hurriedly towards us. He looked much older than I had expected; +but the next instant the flash of his black eye, and the eloquent +smile which lighted up his pensive countenance as with a sunbeam, +brought back the Cousin Harry of ten years ago. He returned my +grandfather's truly paternal greeting with the most affectionate +cordiality; but with scarce a reply to my aunt's frank welcome, gave +her his arm, and made a movement towards the house. +<p> +"But, cousin," said she, smiling, "what gem have you there, hidden in +the carriage, too precious to be seen? We have a place in our hearts +for the fair stranger, I assure you." +<p> +"Ah, poor thing! I had quite forgotten her," said he, coloring and +laughing, as he turned towards the carriage. +<p> +Aunt Linny and I exchanged mirthful glances at this treatment of a +bride; but the next instant he had lifted out and led towards us a +small female personage, who, when her green veil was thrown aside, +proved to be a lovely girl of some seven or eight years. +<p> +"Permit me," said he, smiling, "to present Miss Caroline Morrison, +'sole daughter of my house and heart.'" +<p> +"But the stranger, the foreign lady?" inquired Aunt Linny, as she +kissed and welcomed the child. +<p> +"Why, this is she,—this young Cuban! Whom else did you look for?" +was the reply, in a tone of surprise, and, as it seemed to me, of +slight vexation. +<p> +"We expected a lady with a few more years on her head," interposed +grandpapa; "but the little pet is just as welcome. There, Katy, this +curly-pate will answer as well as a wax doll for you." +<p> +The dear old gentleman could never realize that I was grown up to be a +woman. Of course, I was now introduced in due form, and we went +together up the steps. +<p> +"How pleasant, how familiar all things look!" said our visitor, +pausing and gazing round him. "Why, uncle, you must have had your +house, and yourself, and everything about you insured against old +age. Nothing has changed except to improve. I see the very picture I +carried with me ten years ago." +<p> +The tears stood in my grandfather's eyes. "You have forgotten one +great change, dear nephew," said he; "against that we could find no +insurance." +<p> +"How could I forget?" was the answer, in a low tone, full of feeling, +his own eyes filling with moisture. "My dear aunt! I shed many tears +with and for you, when I heard of her death." He looked extremely +amiable at this moment; I knew that I should love him. +<p> +My aunt smiled through her tears, and said, very sweetly, "The thought +of her should cheer, and not cloud our meeting. Her presence never +brought me sorrow, nor does her remembrance. Come, dear," she added, +cheerfully, taking the child's hand, "come in and rest your poor +little tired self. Kate, find the white kitten for her. A prettier one +you never saw in France or Cuba, Miss Carrie,—that's what papa calls +you, I suppose?" +<p> +"It used to be my name," said the little smiler; "but papa always +calls me Linny now, because he thinks it sweeter." +<p> + * * * * * +<p> +"What say you to the humming-bird now?" I whispered to my aunt, as we +were a moment alone in the tea-room. +<p> +"Kate, I wish you were fifty miles off at this moment! It was no good +angel that deluded me into telling you that foolish tale last +evening. Indeed, Kate," added she, earnestly, "you will seriously +compromise me, if you are not more careful. Promise me that you will +not make one more allusion of this kind, even to me, while they +remain!" +<p> +"But I may give you just a look, now and then?" +<p> +"Do you wish me to repent having trusted you, Kate?" +<p> +"I promise, aunty,—by my faith in first love!" +<p> +"Nonsense! Go, call them to tea." +<p> +<br> +CHAPTER IV. +<p> +Our kinsman had been easily persuaded to remain with us a week, and a +charming week it had been to all of us. He had visited all the West +India Islands, and the most interesting portions of England and the +Continent. My grandfather, who, as the commander of his own +merchant-ship, had formerly visited many foreign countries, was +delighted to refresh his recollections of distant scenes, and to live +over again his adventures by sea and land. The conversation of our +guest with his uncle was richly instructive and entertaining; for he +had a lively appreciation of national and individual character, and +could illustrate them by a world of amusing anecdote. The old +veteran's early fondness for his nephew revived in full force, and his +enjoyment was alloyed only by the dread of a new separation. "What +shall I do when you are gone, Harry!" was his frequent exclamation; +and then he would sigh and shake his head, and wish he had one son +left. +<p> +But the richest treat for my aunt and me was reserved till the late +evening, when the dear patriarch had retired to rest. Those warm, +balmy nights on the piazza, with the moonlight quivering through the +vines, and turning the terraced lawn with fantastic mixture of light +and shadow into a fairy scene, while the cultivated traveller +discoursed of all things beautiful in nature and art, were full of +witchery. Mont Blanc at sunrise, the wild scenery of the Simplon, the +exhumed streets of Pompeii, the Colosseum by moonlight, those wondrous +galleries of painting and sculpture of which I had read as I had read +of the palace of Aladdin and the gardens of the genii,—the living man +before me had seen all these! I looked upon him as an ambassador from +the world of poetry. But even this interested me less than the tone of +high and manly sentiment by which his conversation was pervaded, the +feeling reminiscences of endeared friendships formed in those far-off +lands, the brief glimpses of deep sorrows bravely borne; and I watched +with a sweet, sly pleasure my aunt's quiet surrender to the old spell. +<p> +"It makes me very happy, Kate," said she one day, "to have found my +cousin and friend again. I am glad to feel that friendships springing +from the pure and good feelings of the heart are not so transient as I +have sometimes been tempted to think them. They may be buried for +years under a drift of new interests; but give them air, and they will +live again." +<p> +"What is that remark of Byron about young ladies' friendship? Take +care, take care!" said I, shaking my head, gravely; "receive the +warning of a calm observer!" +<p> +"Oh, no, Kate! this visit is but a little green oasis in the +desert. In a day or two we shall separate, probably forever; but both, +I doubt not, will be happier through life for this brief reunion. His +plan is to make his future residence in France." +<p> +At the end of the week our kinsman left us for a fortnight's visit to +the metropolis. Intending to give us a call on his return south, he +willingly complied with our desire to leave his little girl with +us. As we were sitting together in my aunt's room after his departure, +the child brought her a small packet which her father had intrusted to +her. "I believe," said the little smiler, "he said it was a story for +you to read. Won't you please to read it to me?" She took it with a +look of surprise and curiosity, and immediately opened it and began to +read. But her color soon began to vary, her hand trembled, and +presently laying down the sheets in her lap, she sat lost in thought. +<p> +"It seems a moving story!" I remarked, dryly. +<p> +"Kate, this is the strangest affair!—But I can't tell you now; I must +read it first alone." +<p> +She left the room, and I heard the key turn in the lock as she entered +another chamber. In about an hour she came out very composedly, and +said nothing more on the subject. +<p> +After our little guest was asleep at night, I could restrain myself no +longer. "You are treating me shabbily, aunty," said I. "See if I am +ever a good girl again to please you!" +<p> +"You shall know it all, Katy; I only wished to think it over first by +myself. There, take the letter; but make no note or comment till I +mention it again." +<p> + * * * * * +<p> +The letter of Cousin Harry seemed to me rather matter-of-fact, I must +confess, till near the end, where he spoke of a little nosegay which +he enclosed, and which would speak to her of dear old times. +<p> +"But where is the nosegay, aunty?" +<p> +With a beautiful flush, as if the sunset of that vanished day were +reddening the sky of memory, she drew a small packet from her bosom, +and in it I found a withered rose-bud tied up with a shrivelled sprig +of mignonette. +<p> +I am afraid that my Aunt Linny's answer was a great deal more proper +than I should have wished; and yet, with all its emphatic expressions +of duty towards her father and the impossibility of leaving him, there +must have been something between the lines which I could not read. I +have since discovered that all such epistles have their real meaning +concealed in some kind of more rarefied sympathetic ink, which betrays +itself only under the burning hands of a lover. +<p> +"So, then," said Aunt Linny, as she was sealing this letter, "you see, +Katy, that your romance has come to an untimely end." +<p> +I turned round her averted face with both my hands, and looked in her +eyes till she blushed and laughed in spite of herself. +<p> +"My knowledge of symptoms is not large," said I, "but I have a +conviction that his health will now endure a northern climate." +<p> +"Let's talk no more of this!" said she, putting me aside with a gentle +gravity, which checked my nonsense. But as I was unable to detect in +her, on this or the following day, the slightest depression of +spirits, I shrewdly guessed that our anticipations of the result were +not very dissimilar. +<p> +The next return post brought, not the expected letter, but our hero +himself. I was really amazed at the change in his appearance. Erect, +elastic, his face radiant with expression, he looked years younger +than at his first arrival. I caught Aunt Linny's eloquent glance of +surprise and pleasure as they met. For a moment the bridal pair of my +dream stood living before me; then vanished even more suddenly than +that fancy show of the old magician. When we again met, two or three +hours after, my aunt's serene smile and dewy eyes told me that all was +right. +<p> + * * * * * +<p> +In a month the wedding took place, and the "happy pair" started off on +a few weeks' excursion. As I was helping my aunt exchange her bridal +for her travelling attire, I whispered, "What say you to my doctrine +of first love, aunty?" +<p> +"That it finds its best refutation in my experience. No, believe me, +dearest Katy, the true jewel of life is a spirit that can rule itself, +that can subject even the strongest, dearest impulses to reason and +duty. Without it, indeed," she added, with a soft earnestness, +"affection towards the worthiest object becomes an unworthy +sentiment—And besides, Kate,"—here her eye gleamed with girlish +mirth—"you see, if I had made love my all, I should have missed it +all. Not even Cousin Harry's constancy would have been proof against a +withered, whining, sentimental old maid." +<p> +"Well, you will allow that it's a great paradox, aunty! If you believe +in my doctrine, it turns out a mere delusion; if you don't believe in +it, 'tis sure to come true." +<p> +"Take care, then, and disbelieve in it with all your might!" said she, +laughing, and kissing me, as we left her room,—my room alone +henceforth. A shadow seemed to fill it, as she passed the threshold. + + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="11">OUR BIRDS, AND THEIR WAYS.</a> +</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +Among our summer birds, the vast majority are but transient visitors, +born and bred far to the northward, and returning thither every +year. The North, then, is their proper domicile, their legal "place of +residence," which they have never renounced, but only temporarily +desert, for special reasons. Their sojourn with us, or farther south, +is merely an exile by stress of climate, like the flitting of the +Southern planters from the rice-fields to the mountains in summer, or +the pleasure tour or watering-place visit customary with the citizens +of Boston and New York. +<p> +The lower orders, such as the humming-bird with his insect-like +stomach and sucking-tube, and so on up through the warblers and +flycatchers, more strictly bound by the necessities of their life, +closely follow the sun,—while the upper-ten-thousand, the robins, +cedar-birds, sparrows, etc., like man, omnivorous in their diet and +their attendant <i>chevaliers d'industrie</i>, the rapacious birds, +allow themselves greater latitude, and go and come occasionally at all +seasons, though in general tending to the south in winter and north in +summer. But precedence before all is due to permanent residents, with +whom our intercourse is not of this transitory and fair-weather +sort. Such are the crow, the blue jay, the chickadee, the partridge, +and the quail, who may be called regular inhabitants, though perhaps +all of them wander occasionally from one district to another. Besides +these, perhaps some of the hawks and owls remain here throughout the +year. But the species I have named are the only ones that occur to me +as equally numerous at all seasons in the immediate vicinity of +Boston, and never out of town, whether you take the census in May or +in January. +<p> +In spite of our uninterrupted acquaintance with them, however, there +are still many of the nearest questions concerning these birds for +which I find no sufficient answers. Even to the first question—How do +they get their living?—there are only vague replies in the books. +<p> +There is the crow, for example. I have seen crows in the neighborhood +of Boston every week of the year, and in not very different +numbers. My friend the ornithologist said to me last winter, "You will +see that they will be off as soon as the ground is well covered with +snow." But on the contrary, when the snow came, and after it had lain +deep on the fields for many days, I saw more than before,—probably +because they found it easier to get food in the neighborhood of the +houses and cultivated grounds. +<p> +A crow must require certainly half a pound of animal food, or its +equivalent, daily, in order to keep from starving. Yet they not only +do not starve that I hear of, but seem to keep in as good case in +winter as in summer, though what they find to eat is not immediately +apparent. The vague traditional suggestion of "carrion," as of dead +horses and the like, does not help us much. Some scraps doubtless may +be left lying about, but any reliable stores of this kind are hardly +to be looked for in this neighborhood. A few scattered kernels of +corn, perhaps on a pinch a few berries, he may pick up; though I +suspect the crow is somewhat human in his tastes, and, besides animal +food, affects only the cereals. The frogs are deep in the mud. Now +and then a squirrel or a mouse may be had; but they are mostly dozing +in their holes. As for larger game, rabbits and the like, the crow is +hardly nimble enough for them, nor are his claws well adapted for +seizing; anything of this kind he will scarcely get, except as the +leavings of the weasel or skunk. These he will not refuse; for though +he is of a different species from the carrion crow of Europe, with +whom he was formerly confounded, yet he is of similar, though perhaps +less extreme, tastes as to his food. But when the ground is freshly +covered with snow, all supplies of this sort would seem to be cut off, +for the time at least. Yet who ever found a starved crow, or even saw +one driven by hunger from any of his accustomed caution? He is ever +the same alert, vivacious, harsh-tongued wanderer over the white +fields as over the summer meadows. +<p> +A partial solution of the mystery is to be found in the habit which +the bird has in common with most of the crow kind, of depositing any +surplus food in a place of safety for future use. A tame crow that I +saw last year was constantly employed in this way. As soon as his +hunger was satisfied, if a piece of meat was given to him, he flew off +to some remote spot, and there covered it up with twigs and leaves. I +was told that the woods were full of these caches of his. Bits of +bread and the like he was too well-fed to care much about, but he +would generally go through the form of covering them, at your very +feet, with a little rubbish, not taking the trouble to hide them. +Meanwhile his hunting went on as if he still had his living to get, +and he would watch for field-mice, or come flying in from the woods +with a squirrel swinging from his claws, either for variety's sake, or +because he had really forgotten the stores he had laid up. Scattered +magazines of this kind, established in times of accidental plenty, may +render life during our winters possible to the crow. +<p> +But why should he give himself so much trouble to subsist here, when a +few hours' work with those broad wings would bear him to a land of +tropical abundance? The crow, it seems, is not a mere eating and +drinking machine, drawn hither and thither by the balance of supply +and demand, but has his motives of another sort. Is it, perhaps, some +local attachment, so that a crow hatched in Brookline, for example, +would be more loath than another to quit that neighborhood,—a sort of +crow patriotism, akin to that which keeps the Greenlanders slowly +starving of cold and hunger on that awful coast of theirs. +<p> +It is not probable, however, that the crow allows himself to suffer +much from these causes; he is far too knowing for that, and shows his +position at the head of the bird kind by an almost total emancipation +from scruples and prejudices, and by the facility with which he adapts +himself to special cases. Instinct works by formulas, which, as it +were, make up the animal, so that the ant and the bee are atoms of +incarnate constructiveness and acquisitiveness, and nothing else. And +as intelligence, when its action is too narrowly concentrated, whether +upon pin-making or money-making, tends to degenerate into mere +instinct,—-so instinct, when it begins to compare, and to except, and +to vary its action according to circumstances, shows itself in the act +of passing into intelligence. This marks the superiority of the crow +over birds it often resembles in its actions. Most birds are +wary. The crow is wary, and something more. Other shy birds, for +instance ducks, avoid every strange object. The crow considers whether +there be anything dangerous in the strangeness. An ordinary scarecrow +will not keep our crow from anything worth a little risk. He fathoms +the scarecrow, compares its behavior, under various circumstances, +with that of the usual wearer of its garments, and decides to take the +risk. To protect his corn, the farmer takes advantage of this very +discursiveness, and stretches round the field a simple line, nothing +in itself, but hinting at some undeveloped mischief which the bird +cannot penetrate. +<p> +Again, the crow is sometimes looked upon as a mere marauder; but this +description also is much too narrow for him. He is anxious only for +his dinner, and swallows seed-corn and noxious grubs with perfect +impartiality. He is not a mere pirate, living by plunder alone, but +rather like the old Phoenician sea-farer, indifferently honest or +robber as occasion serves,—and robber not from fierceness of +disposition, but merely from utter unscrupulousness as to means. +<p> +This is shown in his docility. A hawk or an eagle is never tamed, but +a crow is more easily and completely tamable than the gentlest +singing-bird. The one I have just spoken of, though hardly six months +from the nest, would allow himself to be handled by his owner, and +would suffer even a stranger to touch him. When I first came near the +house, he greeted me with a suppressed caw, and flew along some +hundred yards just over my head, looking down, first with one eye and +then with the other, to get a complete view of the stranger. Next +morning I became aware, when but half awake, of a sort of mewing sound +in the neighborhood, and at last looking around, I saw through the +window, which opened to the floor, my new acquaintance perched on the +porch roof, which was at the same level, turning his head from side to +side, and eyeing me through the glass with divers queer contortions +and gesticulations, reminding me of some odd, old, dried-up French +dancing-master, and with a varied succession of croakings, now high, +now low, evidently bent upon attracting my attention. When he had +succeeded, he flew off with loud, joyous caws to the top of the house, +where I heard him rolling nuts or acorns from the ridge, and flying to +catch them before they fell off. +<p> +Their independence of seasons is shown also in their habit of +associating in about equal numbers throughout the year. In the spring +the flocks are more noticeable, hovering about some grove of pines, +flying straight up in the air and swooping down again with an +uninterrupted cawing,—seemingly a sort of crow ball, with a view to +match-making. Afterwards they become more silent, and apparently more +solitary, but still fly out to their feeding-grounds morning and +evening; and if you sit down in the woods near one of their nests, the +uneasy choking chuckle, ending at last in the outright cawing of the +disturbed owner, will generally be answered from every point, and crow +after crow come edging up from tree to tree to see what is the matter. +<p> +Though all of the crow tribe are notorious for their harsh voices, yet +if the power of mimicry be considered as a mark of superiority, the +crow has claims to high rank in this department also. The closest +imitators of the human voice are birds of this family: for instance, +the Mino bird. Our crow also is a vocal mimic, and that not in the +matter-of-course way of the mocking-bird, but, as it were, more +individual and spontaneous. He is not merely an imitator of the human +voice, like the parrots, (and a better one as regards tone,) nor of +other birds, like the thrushes, but combines both. The tame crow +already mentioned very readily undertook extempore imitations of +words, and with considerable success. I once heard a crow imitate the +warbling of a small bird, in a tone so entirely at variance with his +ordinary voice, that, though assured by one who had heard him before, +that it was a crow and nothing else, it was only on the clearest proof +that I could satisfy myself of the fact. It seemed to be quite an +original and individual performance. +<p> +The blue jay is a near relative of the crow, and, like him, +omnivorous, harsh-voiced, predaceous, a robber of birds' nests; so +that if you hear the robins during their nesting-time making an +unusual clamor about the house, the chances are you will get a glimpse +of this brilliant marauder, sneaking away with a troop of them in +pursuit. His usual voice is a harsh scream, but he has some low +flute-like notes not without melody. The presence of a hawk, or more +particularly an owl in the woods, is often made known by the screaming +of the jays, who flock together about him with ever-increasing noise, +like a troop of jackals about a lion, pressing in upon him closer and +closer in a paroxysm of excitement, while the owl, thus taken at +disadvantage, sidles along his bough seeking concealment, and at +length softly flaps off to some more undisturbed retreat. +<p> +The blue jay is a shy bird, but he is enough of a crow to take a risk +where anything is to be had for it, and in winter will come close to +the house for food. In his choice of a nesting-place he seems at first +sight to show less than his usual caution; for, though the nest is a +very conspicuous one, it is generally made in a pine sapling not far +from the ground, and often on a path or other opening in the +woods. But perhaps, in the somewhat remote situations where he builds, +the danger is less from below than from birds of prey sailing +overhead. I once found a blue jay's nest on a path in the woods +somewhat frequented by me, but not often trodden by any one else, and +passed it twice on different days, and saw the bird sitting, but took +some pains not to alarm her. The next time, and the next, she was not +there; and on examination I found the nest empty, though with no marks +of having been robbed. There was not time for the eggs to have +hatched, and it was plain, that, finding herself observed, she had +carried them off. +<p> +As a general thing, the severity of our winters does not seem much to +affect the birds that stay with us. I have found chickadees and some +of the smaller sparrows apparently frozen to death, but the +extravasation of blood usual in such cases leaves us in doubt whether +some accident may not have first disabled the bird; and if dead birds +are more often found in winter than in summer, it may be only that the +body keeps longer, and, from the absence of grass and leaves, and the +white covering of the ground, is more readily seen. At all events, +such specimens are not usually emaciated, and sometimes they are in +remarkably good case, which, considering the rapid circulation and the +corresponding waste of the body, shows that the cold had not affected +their activity and their power of obtaining food. +<p> +The truth is, that birds are remarkably well guarded against cold by +their quick circulation, their dense covering of down and feathers, +and the ease with which they can protect their extremities. The +chickadee is never so lively as in clear, cold weather;—not that he +is absolutely insensible to cold; for on those days, rare in this +neighborhood, when the mercury falls to fifteen degrees or more below +zero, the chickadee shows by his behavior that he, too, feels it to be +an exceptional state of things. Of such a morning I have seen a small +flock of them collected on the sunny side of a thick hemlock, rather +silent and quiet, with ruffled plumage, like balls of gray fur, +waiting, with an occasional chirp, for the sun's rays to begin to warm +them up, and meanwhile not depressed, but only a little sobered in +their deportment, and ready, if the cold continued, to get used to +that too. +<p> +The matter of food-supply during the winter for the smaller birds is +more easily understood than in the case of the crow. The seeds of +grasses and the taller summer flowers, and of the birches, alders, and +maples, furnish supplies that are not interfered with by cold or snow; +also the buds of various trees and shrubs,—for the buds do not first +come into existence in the spring, as our city friends suppose, but +are to be found all winter. Nor is insect-life suspended at this +season to the extent that a careless observer might suppose. A sunny, +sheltered nook, at any time during the winter, will show you a variety +of two-winged flies, and several species of spiders, often in +considerable abundance, and as brisk as ever. And the numbers of eggs, +and larvae, and of the lurking tenants of crevices in tree-bark and +dead wood, may be guessed by the incessant and assuredly not aimless +activity of the chickadees and gold-crests and their associates. +<p> +This winter activity of the birds ought to be taken into account by +those who accuse them of mischief-doing in summer. In winter, at +least, no mischief can be done; there is no fruit to steal; and even +sap-sucking, if such a practice at any time be not altogether +fabulous, certainly cannot be carried on now. Nothing can be destroyed +now except the farmer's enemies, or at best neutrals. Yet the birds +keep at work all the time. +<p> +The only bird that occurs to me as a proved sufferer from famine in +the winter is the quail. This is the most limited in its range of all +our birds. Not only does it not migrate, (or only exceptionally,) but +it does not even wander much,—the same covey keeping all the year, +and even year after year, to the same feeding-ground. Nor does it ever +seek its food upon trees, like the partridge, but solely upon the +ground. +<p> +The quail is our nearest representative of the common barn-yard +fowl. This it resembles in many respects, and among others, in its +habit of going a-foot, except when the covey crosses from one feeding +or roosting ground to another, or when the cock-bird mounts upon a +rail-fence or stone-wall to sound his call in the spring. This +persistence exposes the quail to hardship when the ground is covered +with snow, and the fruit of the skunk-cabbage and all the berries and +grain are inaccessible. He takes refuge at such times in the +smilax-thickets, whose dense, matted covering leaves an open +feeding-ground below. But a snowy winter always tells upon their +numbers in any neighborhood. Whole coveys are said to have been found +dead, frozen stiff, under the bush where they had huddled together for +warmth; and even before this extremity, their hardships lay them open +to their enemies, and the fox and the weasel, and the farmer's boy +with his box-trap, destroy them by wholesale. The deep snows of 1856 +and 1857 have nearly exterminated them hereabouts; and I was told at +Vergennes, in Vermont, that there were quails there many years ago, +but that they had now entirely disappeared. +<p> +The appearance and disappearance of species within our experience +teach us that Nature's lists are not filled once for all, but that the +changes which geology shows in past ages continue into the +present. Sometimes we can trace the immediate cause, or rather +occasion, as in the case of the quail's congeners, the pinnated +grouse, and the wild turkey, both of them inhabitants of all parts of +the State in the early times. The pinnated grouse has been seen near +Boston within the present century, but is now exterminated, I believe, +except in Martha's Vineyard. The wild turkey was to be found not long +since in Berkshire, but probably it has become extinct there +too. Sometimes, for no reason that we can see, certain species forsake +their old abodes, as the purple martin, which within the last +quarter-century has receded some twenty miles from the seaboard,—or +appear where they were before unknown, as the cliff swallow, which was +first seen in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, but within +about the same space of time has become as common hereabouts as any of +the genus. In examples so conspicuous the movement is obvious enough; +but in the case of rarer species, for instance, the olive-sided +flycatcher, who can tell whether, when first observed, it was new to +naturalists merely, or to this part of the country, or to the earth +generally? The distinction sometimes made in such cases between +accidental influences and the regular course of nature is a +superficial one. The regular course of nature is in itself a series of +accidental influences; that is, the particular occasion is subservient +to a general law with which it does not seem at first sight to have +any connection. A severe winter may be sufficient to kill the quails, +just as the ancient morass was sufficient to drown the mastodon. But +the question is, why these causes began to operate just at these +times. We may as well stop with the evident fact, that the unresting +circulation is forever going on in the universe. +<p> +But if the quail, who is here very near his northern limits, has a +hard time of it in the winter, and is threatened with such "removal" +as we treat the Indians to, his relative, the partridge, our other +gallinaceous or hen-like bird, is of a tougher fibre, as you see when +you come upon his star-like tracks across the path, eight or nine +inches apart, and struck sharp and deep in the snow, or closer +together among the bushes, where he stretched up for barberries or +buds, and ending on either side with a series of fine parallel cuts, +where the sharp-pointed quills struck the snow as he rose,—a picture +of vigor and success. He knows how to take care of himself, and to +find both food and shelter in the evergreens, when the snow lies fresh +upon the ground. There, in some sunny glade among the pines, he will +ensconce himself in the thickest branches, and whir off as you come +near, sailing down the opening with his body balancing from side to +side. +<p> +The partridge is altogether a wilder and more solitary bird than the +quail, and does not frequent cultivated fields, nor make his nest in +the orchard, as the quail does, but prefers the shelf of some rocky +ledge under the shadow of the pines in remote woods. He is one of the +few birds found in the forest; for it is a mistake to suppose that +birds abound in the forest, or avoid the neighborhood of man. On the +contrary, you may pass days and weeks in our northern woods without +seeing more than half a dozen species, of which the partridge is +pretty sure to be one. All birds increase in numbers about +settlements,—even the crow, though he is a forest bird too. Hence, +no doubt, has arisen the notion that the crow (supposed to be of the +same species with the European) made his appearance in this country +first on the Atlantic coast, and gradually spread westward, passing +through the State of New York about the time of the Revolution. I was +told some years since by a resident of Chicago, that the quails had +increased eight-fold in that vicinity since he came there. The fact +is, that the bird population, like the human, in the absence of +counteracting causes, will continue to expand in precise ratio to the +supply of food. The partridge goes farther north than the quail, and +is found throughout the United States. With us he affects high and +rocky ground, but northward he keeps at a lower level. At the White +Mountains, the regions of this species and of the Canada grouse or +spruce partridge are as well defined in height as those of the maples +and the "black growth." Still farther north I have observed that our +partridge frequents the lowest marshy ground, thus equalizing his +climate in every latitude. +<p> +There are few of our land-birds that flock together in summer, and few +that are solitary in winter,—none that I recollect, except birds of +prey. And not only do birds of the same kind associate, but certain +species are almost always found together. Thus, the chickadee, the +golden-crested wren, the white-breasted nuthatch, and, less +constantly, the brown creeper and the downy woodpecker, form a little +winter clique, of which you do not often see one of the members +without one or more of the others. No sound in nature more cheery and +refreshing than the alternating calls of a little troop of this kind +echoing through the glades of the woods on a still, sunny day in +winter: the vivacious chatter of the chickadee, the slender, contented +pipe of the gold-crest, and the emphatic, business-like <i>hank</i> of the +nuthatch, as they drift leisurely along from tree to tree. The winter +seems to be the season of holiday enjoyment to the chickadee, and he +is never so evidently and conspicuously contented as in very cold +weather. In summer he withdraws to the thickets, and becomes less +noisy and active. His plumage becomes dull, and his brisk note changes +to a fine, delicate <i>pee-peh-wy</i>, or oftenest a mere whisper. They are +so much less noticeable at this season that one might suppose they had +followed their gold-crest companions to the North, as some of them +doubtless do, but their nests are not uncommon with us. Fearless as +the chickadee is in winter,—so fearless, that, if you stand still, he +will alight upon your head or shoulder,—in summer he becomes cautious +about his nest, and will desert it, if much watched. They build here, +generally, in a partly decayed white-birch or apple-tree, excavating a +hole eighteen inches or two feet deep,—the chips being carefully +carried off a short distance, so as not to betray the workman,—and +lining the bottom of it with a felting of soft materials, generally +rabbits' fur, of which I have taken from one hole as much as could be +conveniently grasped with the hand. +<p> +Besides the species that we regularly count upon in winter, there are +more or less irregular visitors at this season, some of them summer +birds also,—as the purple finch, cedar-bird, gold-finch, robin, the +flicker, or pigeon woodpecker, and the yellow-bellied and hairy +woodpeckers. Others, again, linger on from the autumn, and sometimes +through the winter,—as the snow-bird, song-sparrow, tree-sparrow. +Still others are seen only in winter,—as the brown and shore larks, +the crossbills, redpolls, snow-buntings, pine grosbeak, and some of +the hawks and owls; and of these some are merely accidental,—as the +pine grosbeak, which in 1836 appeared here in great numbers in +October, and remained until May. This beautiful and gentle bird (a +sweet songster too) is doubtless a permanent resident within the +United States, for I have seen them at the White Mountains in +August. What impels them to these occasional wanderings it is +difficult to guess; it is obviously not mere stress of weather; for in +1836, as I have remarked, they came early in autumn and continued +resident until late in the spring; and their food, being mainly the +buds of resinous trees, must have been as easy to get elsewhere as +here. Their coming, like the crow's staying, is a mystery to us. +<p> +I have spoken only of the land-birds; but the position of our city, so +embraced by the sea, affords unusual opportunities for observing the +sea-birds also. All winter long, from the most crowded thoroughfares +of the city, any one, who has leisure enough to raise his eyes over +the level of the roofs to the tranquil air above, may see the gulls +passing to and fro between the harbor and the flats at the mouth of +Charles River. The gulls, and particularly that cosmopolite, the +herring gull, are met with in this neighborhood throughout the year, +though in summer most of them go farther north to breed. On a still, +sunny day in winter, you may see them high in the air over the river, +calmly soaring in wide circles, a hundred perhaps at a time, or +pluming themselves leisurely on the edge of a hole in the ice. When +the wind is violent from the west, they come in over the city from the +bay outside, strong-winged and undaunted, breasting the gale, now +high, now low, but always working to windward, until they reach the +shelter of the inland waters. +<p> +In the spring they come in greater numbers, and other species arrive: +the great saddle-back, from the similarity of coloring almost to be +mistaken for the white-headed eagle, as he sits among the broken ice +at the edge of the channel; and the beautiful little Bonaparte's gull. +<p> +The ducks, too, still resort to our rivermouth, in spite of the +railroads and the tall chimneys by which their old feeding-grounds are +surrounded. As long as the channel is open, you may see the +golden-eyes, or "whistlers," in extended lines, visible only as a row +of bright specks, as their white breasts rise and fall on the waves; +and farther than you can see them, you may hear the whistle of their +wings as they rise. Spring and fall the "black ducks" still come to +find the brackish waters which they like, and to fill their crops with +the seeds of the eel-grass and the mixed food of the flats. In the +late twilight you may sometimes catch sight of a flock speeding in, +silent and swift, over the Mill-dam, or hear their sonorous quacking +from their feeding-ground. +<p> +At least, these things were,—and not long since,—though I cannot +answer for a year or two back. The birds long retain the tradition of +the old places, and strive to keep their hold upon them; but we are +building them out year by year. The memory is still fresh of flocks of +teal by the "Green Stores" on the Neck; but the teal and the "Stores" +are gone, and perhaps the last black duck has quacked on the river, +and the last whistler taken his final flight. Some of us, who are not +yet old men, have killed "brown-backs" and "yellow-legs" on the +marshes that lie along to the west and south of the city, now cut up +by the railroads; and you may yet see from the cars an occasional +long-booted individual, whose hopes still live on the tales of the +past, stalking through the sedge with "superfluous gun," or patiently +watching his troop of one-legged wooden decoys. +<p> +The sea keeps its own climate, and keeps its highways open, after all +on the land is shut up by frost. The sea-birds, accordingly, seem to +lead an existence more independent of latitude and of seasons. In +midwinter, when the seashore watering-places are forsaken by men, you +may find Nahant or Nantasket Beach more thronged with bipeds of this +sort than by the featherless kind in summer. The Long Beach of Nahant +at that season is lined sometimes by an almost continuous flock of +sea-ducks, and a constant passing and repassing are kept up between +Lynn Bay and the surf outside. +<p> +Early of a winter's morning at Nantasket I once saw a flock of geese, +many hundreds in number, coming in from the Bay to cross the land in +their line of migration. They advanced with a vast, irregular front +extending far along the horizon, their multitudinous <i>honking</i> +softened into music by the distance. As they neared the beach the +clamor increased and the line broke up in apparent confusion, circling +round and round for some minutes in what seemed aimless +uncertainty. Gradually the cloud of birds resolved itself into a +number of open triangles, each of which with its deeper-voiced leader +took its way inland; as if they trusted to their general sense of +direction while flying over the water, but on coming to encounter the +dangers of the land, preferred to delegate the responsibility. This +done, all is left to the leader; if he is shot, it is said the whole +flock seem bewildered, and often alight without regard to place or to +their safety. The selection of the leader must therefore be a matter +of deliberation with them; and this, no doubt, was going on in the +flock I saw at Nantasket during their pause at the edge of the +beach. The leader is probably always an old bird. I have noticed +sometimes that his <i>honking</i> is more steady and in a deeper tone, +and that it is answered in a higher key along the line. + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="12">THE INDIAN REVOLT.</a> +</h2> +<p> +For the first time in the history of the English dominion in India, +its power has been shaken from within its own possessions, and by its +own subjects. Whatever attacks have been made upon it heretofore have +been from without, and its career of conquest has been the result to +which they have led. But now no external enemy threatens it, and the +English in India have found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly +engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with a portion of their subjects, +not so much for dominion as for life. There had been signs and +warnings, indeed, of the coming storm; but the feeling of security in +possession and the confidence of moral strength were so strong, that +the signs had been neglected and the warnings disregarded. +<p> +No one in our time has played the part of Cassandra with more +foresight and vehemence than the late Sir Charles Napier. He saw the +quarter in which the storm was gathering, and he affirmed that +it was at hand. In 1850, after a short period of service as +commander-in-chief of the forces in India, he resigned his place, +owing to a difference between himself and the government, and +immediately afterwards prepared a memoir in justification of his +course, accompanied with remarks upon the general administration of +affairs in that country. It was written with all his accustomed +clearness of mind, vigor of expression, and intensity of personal +feeling,—but it was not published until after his death, which took +place in 1853, when it appeared under the editorship of his brother, +Lieutenant-General Sir W.F.P. Napier, with the title of "Defects, +Civil and Military, of the Indian Government." Its interest is +greatly enhanced when read by the light of recent events. It is in +great part occupied with a narrative of the exhibition of a mutinous +spirit which appeared in 1849 in some thirty Sepoy battalions, in +regard to a reduction of their pay, and of the means taken to check +and subdue it. On the third page is a sentence which read now is of +terrible import: "Mutiny with [among?] the Sepoys is the <i>most</i> +formidable danger menacing our Indian empire." And a few pages farther +on occurs the following striking passage: "The ablest and most +experienced civil and military servants of the East India Company +consider mutiny as one of the greatest, if not <i>the</i> greatest danger +threatening India,—a danger also that may come unexpectedly, and, if +the first symptoms be not carefully treated, with a power to shake +Leadenhall." +<p> +The anticipated mutiny has now come, its first symptoms were treated +with utter want of judgment, and its power is shaking the whole fabric +of the English rule in India. +<p> +One day toward the end of January last, a workman employed in the +magazine at Barrackpore, an important station about seventeen miles +from Calcutta, stopped to ask a Sepoy for some water from his +drinking-vessel. Being refused, because he was of low caste, and his +touch would defile the vessel, he said, with a sneer, "What caste are +you of, who bite pig's grease and cow's fat on your cartridges?" +Practice with the new Enfield rifle had just been introduced, and the +cartridges were greased for use in order not to foul the gun. The +rumor spread among the Sepoys that there was a trick played upon +them,—that this was but a device to pollute them and destroy their +caste, and the first step toward a general and forcible conversion of +the soldiers to Christianity. The groundlessness of the idea upon +which this alarm was founded afforded no hindrance to its ready +reception, nor was the absurdity of the design attributed to the +ruling powers apparent to the obscured and timid intellect of the +Sepoys. The consequences of loss of caste are so feared,—and are in +reality of so trying a nature,—that upon this point the sensitiveness +of the Sepoy is always extreme, and his suspicions are easily +aroused. Their superstitions and religious customs "interfere in many +strange ways with their military duties." "The brave men of the 35th +Native Infantry," says Sir Charles Napier, "lost caste because they +did their duty at Jelalabad; that is, they fought like soldiers, and +ate what could be had to sustain their strength for battle." But they +are under a double rule, of religious and of military discipline,—and +if the two come into conflict, the latter is likely to give way. +<p> +The discontent at Barrackpore soon manifested itself in ways not to be +mistaken. There were incendiary fires within the lines. It was +discovered that messengers had been sent to regiments at other +stations, with incitements to insubordination. The officer in command +at Barrackpore, General Hearsay, addressed the troops on parade, +explained to them that the cartridges were not prepared with the +obnoxious materials supposed, and set forth the groundlessness of +their suspicions. The address was well received at first, but had no +permanent effect. The ill-feeling spread to other troops and other +stations. The government seems to have taken no measure of precaution +in view of the impending trouble, and contented itself with +despatching telegraphic messages to the more distant stations, where +the new rifle-practice was being introduced, ordering that the native +troops were "to have no practice ammunition served out to them, but +only to watch the firing of the Europeans." On the 26th of February, +the 19th regiment, then stationed at Berhampore, refused to receive +the cartridges that were served out, and were prevented from open +violence only by the presence of a superior English force. After great +delay, it was determined that this regiment should be disbanded. The +authorities were not even yet alarmed; they were uneasy, but even +their uneasiness does not seem to have been shared by the majority of +the English residents in India. It was not until the 3d of April that +the sentence passed upon the 19th regiment was executed. The affair +was dallied with, and inefficiency and dilatoriness prevailed +everywhere. +<p> +But meanwhile the disaffection was spreading. The order for confining +the use of the new cartridges to the Europeans seems to have been +looked upon by the native regiments as a confirmation of their +suspicions with regard to them. The more daring and evil-disposed of +the soldiers stimulated the alarm, and roused the prejudices of their +more timid and unreasoning companions. No general plan of revolt +seems to have been formed, but the materials of discontent were +gradually being concentrated; the inflammable spirits of the Sepoys +were ready to burst into a blaze. Strong and judicious measures, +promptly put into action, might even now have allayed the excitement +and dissipated the danger. But the imbecile commander-in-chief was +enjoying himself and shirking care in the mountains; and Lord Canning +and his advisers at Calcutta seem to have preferred to allow to take +the initiative in their own way. Generally throughout Northern India +the common routine of affairs went on at the different stations, and +the ill-feeling and insubordination among the Sepoys scarcely +disturbed the established quiet and monotony of Anglo-Indian life. +But the storm was rising,—and the following extracts from a letter, +hitherto unpublished, written on the 30th of May, by an officer of +great distinction, and now in high command before Delhi, will show the +manner of its breaking. +<p> +"A fortnight ago no community in the world could have been living in +greater security of life and property than ours. Clouds there were +that indicated to thoughtful minds a coming storm, and in the most +dangerous quarter; but the actual outbreak was a matter of an hour, +and has fallen on us like a judgment from Heaven,—sudden, +irresistible as yet, terrible in its effects, and still spreading from +place to place. I dare say you may have observed among the Indian news +of late months, that here and there throughout the country mutinies of +native regiments had been taking place. They had, however, been +isolated cases, and the government thought it did enough to check the +spirit of disaffection by disbanding the corps involved. The failure +of the remedy was, however, complete, and, instead of having to deal +now with mutinies of separate regiments, we stand face to face with a +general mutiny of the Sepoy army of Bengal. To those who have thought +most deeply of the perils of the English empire in India this has +always seemed the monster one. It was thought to have been guarded +against by the strong ties of mercenary interest that bound the army +to the state, and there was, probably, but one class of feelings that +would have been strong enough to have broken these ties,—those, +namely, of religious sympathy or prejudice. The overt ground of the +general mutiny was offence to caste feelings, given by the +introduction into the army of certain cartridges said to have been +prepared with hog's lard and cow's fat. The men must bite off the ends +of these cartridges; so the Mahometans are defiled by the unclean +animal, and the Hindoos by the contact of the dead cow. Of course the +cartridges are <i>not</i> prepared as stated, and they form the mere +handle for designing men to work with. They are, I believe, equally +innocent of lard and fat; but that a general dread of being +Christianized has by some means or other been created is without +doubt, though there is still much that is mysterious in the process by +which it has been instilled into the Sepoy mind, and I question if the +government itself has any accurate information on the subject. +<p> +"It was on the 10th of the present month [May] that the outburst of +the mutinous spirit took place in our own neighborhood,—at +Meerut. The immediate cause was the punishment of eighty-five troopers +of the 3d Light Cavalry, who had refused to use the obnoxious +cartridges, and had been sentenced by a native court-martial to ten +years' imprisonment. On Saturday, the 9th, the men were put in irons, +in presence of their comrades, and marched off to jail. On Sunday, +the 10th, just at the time of evening service, the mutiny broke +out. Three regiments left their lines, fell upon every European, man, +woman, or child, they met or could find, murdered them all, burnt half +the houses in the station, and, after working such a night of mischief +and horror as devils might have delighted in, marched off to Delhi +<i>en masse</i>, where three other regiments ripe for mutiny were +stationed. On the junction of the two brigades, the horrors of Meerut +were repeated in the imperial city, and every European who could be +found was massacred with revolting barbarity. In fact, the spirit was +that of a servile war. Annihilation of the ruling race was felt to be +the only chance of safety or impunity; so no one of the ruling race +was spared. Many, however, effected their escape, and, after all sorts +of perils and sufferings, succeeded in reaching military stations +containing European troops. * * * +<p> +"From the crisis of the mutiny our local anxieties have lessened. The +country round is in utter confusion. Bands of robbers are murdering +and plundering defenceless people. Civil government has practically +ceased from the land. The most loathsome irresolution and incapacity +have been exhibited in some of the highest quarters. A full month will +elapse before the mutineers are checked by any organized resistance. +A force is, or is supposed to be, marching on Delhi; but the outbreak +occurred on the 10th of May, and this day is the first of June, and +Delhi has seen no British colors and heard no British guns as +yet. * * * +<p> +"As to the empire, it will be all the stronger after this storm. It is +not five or six thousand mutinous mercenaries, or ten times the +number, that will change the destiny of England in India. Though we +small fragments of the great machine may fall at our posts, there is +that vitality in the English people that will bound stronger against +misfortunes, and build up the damaged fabric anew." +<p> +So far the letter from which we have quoted.—It was not until the 8th +of June that an English force appeared before the walls of Delhi. For +four weeks the mutineers had been left in undisturbed possession of +the city, a possession which was of incalculable advantage to them by +adding to their moral strength the prestige of a name which has always +been associated with the sceptre of Indian empire. The masters of +Delhi are the masters not only of a city, but of a deeply rooted +tradition of supremacy. The delay had told. Almost every day in the +latter half of May was marked by a new mutiny in different military +stations, widely separated from each other, throughout the +North-Western Provinces and Bengal. The tidings of the possession of +Delhi by the mutineers stimulated the daring madness of regiments that +had been touched by disaffection. Some mutinied from mere panic, some +from bitterness of hate. Some fled away quietly with their arms, to +join the force that had now swelled to an army in the city of the +Great Moghul; some repeated the atrocities of Meerut, and set up a +separate standard of revolt, to which all the disaffected and all the +worst characters of the district flocked, to gratify their lust for +revenge of real or fancied wrongs, or their baser passions for plunder +and unmeaning cruelty. The malignity of a subtle, acute, +semi-civilized race, unrestrained by law or by moral feeling, broke +out in its most frightful forms. Cowardice possessed of strength never +wreaked more horrible sufferings upon its victims, and the bloody and +barbarous annals of Indian history show no more bloody and barbarous +page. +<p> +The course of English life in those stations where the worst cruelties +and the bitterest sufferings have been inflicted on the unhappy +Europeans has been for a long time so peaceful and undisturbed, it has +gone on for the most part in such pleasant and easy quiet and with +such absolute security, that the agony of sudden alarm and unwarned +violence has added its bitterness to the overwhelming horror. It is +not as in border settlements, where the inhabitants choose their lot +knowing that they are exposed to the incursions of savage +enemies,—-but it is as if on a night in one of the most peaceful of +long-settled towns, troops of men, with a sort of civilization that +renders their attack worse than that of savages, should be let loose +to work their worst will of lust and cruelty. The details are too +recent, too horrible, and as yet too broken and irregular, to be +recounted here. +<p> +Although, at the first sally of the mutineers from Delhi against the +force that had at length arrived, a considerable advantage was gained +by the Europeans, this advantage was followed up by no decisive +blow. The number of troops was too small to attempt an assault against +an army of thirty thousand men, each man of whom was a trained +soldier. The English force was unprovided with any sufficient siege +battery. It could do little more than encamp, throw up intrenchments +for its own defence, and wait for attacks to be made upon it,—attacks +which it usually repulsed with great loss to the attackers. The month +of June is the hottest month of the year at Delhi; the average height +of the thermometer being 92°. There, in such weather, the force must +sit still, watch the pouring in of reinforcements and supplies to the +city which it was too small to invest, and hear from day to day fresh +tidings of disaster and revolt on every hand,—tidings of evil which +there could scarcely be any hope of checking, until this central point +of the mutiny had fallen before the British arms. A position more +dispiriting can scarcely be imagined; and to all these causes for +despondency were added the incompetency and fatuity of the Indian +government, and the procrastination of the home government in the +forwarding of the necessary reinforcements. +<p> +Delhi has been often besieged, but seldom has a siege been laid to it +that at first sight would have appeared more desperate than this. The +city is strong in its artificial defences, and Nature lends her force +to the native troops within the walls. If they could hold out through +the summer, September was likely to be as great a general for them as +the famous two upon whom the Czar relied in the Crimea. A wall of gray +stone, strengthened by the modern science of English engineers, and +nearly seven miles in circumference, surrounds the city upon three +sides, while the fourth is defended by a wide offset of the Jumna, and +by a portion of the high, embattled, red stone wall of the palace, +which almost equals the city wall in strength, and is itself more than +a mile in length. Few cities in the East present a more striking +aspect from without. Over the battlements of the walls rise the +slender minarets and shining domes of the mosques, the pavilions and +the towers of the gates, the balustraded roofs of the higher and finer +houses, the light foliage of acacias, and the dark crests of tall +date-palms. It is a new city, only two hundred and twenty-six years +old. Shah Jehan, its founder, was fond of splendor in building, was +lavish of expense, and was eager to make his city imperial in +appearance as in name. The great mosque that he built here is the +noblest and most beautiful in all India. His palace might be set in +comparison with that of Aladdin; it was the fulfilment of an Oriental +voluptuary's dream. All that Eastern taste could devise of beauty, +that Eastern lavishness could fancy of adornment, or voluptuousness +demand of luxury, was brought together and displayed here. But its day +of splendor was not long; and now, instead of furnishing a home to a +court, which, if wicked, was at least magnificent, it is the abode of +demoralized pensioners, who, having lost the reality, retain the pride +and the vices of power. For years it has been utterly given over to +dirt and to decay. Its beautiful halls and chambers, rich with marbles +and mosaics, its "Pearl" <i>musjid</i>, its delicious gardens, its +shady summer-houses, its fountains, and all its walks and +pleasure-grounds, are neglected, abused, and occupied by the filthy +retainers of an effete court. +<p> +The city stands partly on the sandy border of the river, partly on a +low range of rocks. With its suburbs it may contain about one hundred +and sixty thousand inhabitants, a little more than half of whom are +Hindoos, and the remainder nominally Mahometans, in creed. Around the +wall stretches a wide, barren, irregular plain, covered, mile after +mile, with the ruins of earlier Delhis, and the tombs of the great or +the rich men of the Mahometan dynasty. There is no other such +monumental plain as this in the world. It is as full of traditions and +historic memories as of ruins; and in this respect, as in many others, +Delhi bears a striking resemblance to Rome,—for the Roman Campagna is +the only field which in its crowd of memories may be compared with it, +and the imperial city of India holds in the Mahometan mind much the +same place that Rome occupies in that of the Christian. +<p> +Before these pages are printed it is not unlikely that the news of the +fall of Delhi will have reached us. The troops of the besiegers +amounted in the middle of August to about five thousand five hundred +men. Other troops near them, and reinforcements on the way, may by the +end of the month have increased their force to ten thousand. At the +last accounts a siege train was expected to arrive on the 3d of +September, and an assault might be made very shortly afterwards. But +September is an unhealthy month, and there may be delays. <i>Dehli +door ust</i>,—"Delhi is far off,"—is a favorite Indian proverb. But +the chances are in favor of its being now in British hands.[1] +With its fall the war will be virtually ended,—for the reconquest of +the disturbed territories will be a matter of little difficulty, when +undertaken with the aid of the twenty thousand English troops who will +arrive in India before the end of the year. +<p> +The settlement of the country, after these long disturbances, cannot +be expected to take place at once; civil government has been too much +interrupted to resume immediately its ordinary operation. But as this +great revolt has had in very small degree the character of a popular +rising, and as the vast mass of natives are in general not +discontented with the English rule, order will be reëstablished with +comparative rapidity, and the course of life will before many months +resume much of its accustomed aspect. +<p> +The struggle of the trained and ambitious classes against the English +power will but have served to confirm it. The revolt overcome, the +last great danger menacing English security in India will have +disappeared. England will have learnt much from the trials she has had +to pass through, and that essential changes will take place within a +few years in the constitution of the Indian government there can be no +doubt. But it is to be remembered that for the past thirty years, +English rule in India has been, with all its defects, an enlightened +and beneficent rule. The crimes with which it has been charged, the +crimes of which it has been guilty, are small in amount, compared with +the good it has effected. Moreover, they are not the result of +inherent vices in the system of government, so much as of the +character of exceptional individuals employed to carry out that +system, and of the native character itself.—But on these points we do +not propose now to enter. +<p> +If the close of this revolt be not stained with retaliating cruelties, +if English soldiers remember mercy, then the whole history of this +time will be a proud addition to the annals of England. For though it +will display the incompetency and the folly of her governments, it +will show how these were remedied by the energy and spirit of +individuals; it will tell of the daring and gallantry of her men, of +their patient endurance, of their undaunted courage, and it will tell, +too, with a voice full of tears, of the sorrows, and of the brave and +tender hearts, and of the unshaken religious faith supporting them to +the end, of the women who died in the hands of their enemies. The +names of Havelock and Lawrence will be reckoned in the list of +England's worthies, and the story of the garrison of Cawnpore will be +treasured up forever among England's saddest and most touching +memories. +<br> +<p> +[Footnote 1: It is earnestly to be hoped that the officers in command +of the British force will not yield to the savage suggestions and +incitements of the English press, with regard to the fate of +Delhi. The tone of feeling which has been shown in many quarters in +England has been utterly disgraceful. Indiscriminate cruelty and +brutality are no fitting vengeance for the Hindoo and Mussulman +barbarities. The sack of Delhi and the massacre of its people would +bring the English conquerors down to the level of the conquered. Great +sins cry out for great punishments,—but let the punishment fall on +the guilty, and not involve the innocent. The strength of English rule +in India must be in her justice, in her severity,—but not in the +force and irresistible violence of her passions. To destroy the city +would be to destroy one of the great ornaments of her empire,—to +murder the people would be to commence the new period of her rule with +a revolting crime. +<p> +"For five days," says the historian, "Tamerlane remained a tranquil +spectator of the sack and conflagration of Delhi and the massacre of +its inhabitants, while he was celebrating a feast in honor of his +victory. When the troops were wearied with slaughter, and nothing was +left to plunder, he gave orders for the prosecution of his march, and +on the day of his departure he offered up to the Divine Majesty the +sincere and humble tribute of grateful praise." +<p> +"It is said that Nadir Shah, during the massacre that he had +commanded, sat in gloomy silence in the little mosque of +Rokn-u-doulah, which stands at the present day in the Great +Bazaar. Here the Emperor and his nobles at length took courage to +present themselves. They stood before him with downcast eyes, until +Nadir commanded them to speak, when the Emperor burst into tears and +entreated Nadir to spare his subjects."] + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> + +<table border="0"> +<tr> +<td width="33%"> + +</td> +<td width="67%"> +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="13">SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.</a> +</h2> +<p> + Of all the rides since the birth of time,<br> + Told in story or sung in rhyme,—<br> + On Apuleius's Golden Ass,<br> + Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass,<br> + Witch astride of a human hack,<br> + Islam's prophet on Al-Borák,—<br> + The strangest ride that ever was sped<br> + Was Ireson's out from Marblehead!<br> + Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,<br> + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart<br> + By the women of Marblehead! +<p> + Body of turkey, head of owl,<br> + Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,<br> + Feathered and ruffled in every part,<br> + Captain Ireson stood in the cart.<br> + Scores of women, old and young,<br> + Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue,<br> + Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane,<br> + Shouting and singing the shrill refrain:<br> + "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,<br> + Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt<br> + By the women o' Morble'ead!" +<p> + Girls in bloom of cheek and lips,<br> + Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips,<br> + Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase<br> + Bacchus round some antique vase,<br> + Brief of skirt, with ankles bare,<br> + Loose of kerchief and loose of hair,<br> + With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang,<br> + Over and over the Mænads sang:<br> + "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,<br> + Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt<br> + By the women o' Morble'ead!" +<p> + Small pity for him!—He sailed away<br> + From a leaking ship in Chaleur Bay,—<br> + Sailed away from a sinking wreck,<br> + With his own town's-people on her deck!<br> + "Lay by! lay by!" they called to him.<br> + Back he answered, "Sink or swim!<br> + Brag of your catch of fish again!"<br> + And off he sailed through the fog and rain!<br> + Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,<br> + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart<br> + By the women of Marblehead! +<p> + Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur<br> + That wreck shall lie forevermore.<br> + Mother and sister, wife and maid,<br> + Looked from the rocks of Marblehead<br> + Over the moaning and rainy sea,<br> + Looked for the coming that might not be!<br> + What did the winds and the sea-birds say<br> + Of the cruel captain who sailed away?—<br> + Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,<br> + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart<br> + By the women of Marblehead! +<p> + Through the street, on either side,<br> + Up flew windows, doors swung wide;<br> + Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray,<br> + Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.<br> + Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,<br> + Hulks of old sailors run aground,<br> + Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane,<br> + And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain:<br> + "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,<br> + Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt<br> + By the women o' Morble'ead!" +<p> + Sweetly along the Salem road<br> + Bloom of orchard and lilac showed.<br> + Little the wicked skipper knew<br> + Of the fields so green and the sky so blue.<br> + Riding there in his sorry trim,<br> + Like an Indian idol glum and grim,<br> + Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear<br> + Of voices shouting far and near:<br> + "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,<br> + Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt<br> + By the women o' Morble'ead!" +<p> + "Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried,—<br> + "What to me is this noisy ride?<br> + What is the shame that clothes the skin,<br> + To the nameless horror that lives within?<br> + Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck<br> + And hear a cry from a reeling deck!<br> + Hate me and curse me,—I only dread<br> + The hand of God and the face of the dead!"<br> + Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,<br> + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart<br> + By the women of Marblehead! +<p> + Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea<br> + Said, "God has touched him!—why should we?"<br> + Said an old wife mourning her only son,<br> + "Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!"<br> + So with soft relentings and rude excuse,<br> + Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose,<br> + And gave him cloak to hide him in,<br> + And left him alone with his shame and sin.<br> + Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,<br> + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart<br> + By the women of Marblehead! +</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> + +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="14">SOLITUDE AND SOCIETY.</a> +</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +I fell in with a humorist, on my travels, who had in his chamber a +cast of the Rondanini Medusa, and who assured me that the name which +that fine work of art bore in the catalogues was a misnomer, as he was +convinced that the sculptor who carved it intended it for Memory, the +mother of the Muses. In the conversation that followed, my new friend +made some extraordinary confessions. "Do you not see," he said, "the +penalty of learning, and that each of these scholars whom you have met +at S., though he were to be the last man, would, like the executioner +in Hood's poem, guillotine the last but one?" He added many lively +remarks, but his evident earnestness engaged my attention, and, in the +weeks that followed, we became better acquainted. He had great +abilities, a genial temper, and no vices; but he had one defect,—he +could not speak in the tone of the people. There was some paralysis on +his will, that, when he met men on common terms, he spoke weakly, and +from the point, like a flighty girl. His consciousness of the fault +made it worse. He envied every daysman and drover in the tavern their +manly speech. He coveted Mirabeau's <i>don terrible de la +familiarité</i>, believing that he whose sympathy goes lowest is the +man from whom kings have the most to fear. For himself, he declared +that he could not get enough alone to write a letter to a friend. He +left the city; he hid himself in pastures. The solitary river was not +solitary enough; the sun and moon put him out. When he bought a house, +the first thing he did was to plant trees. He could not enough conceal +himself. Set a hedge here; set oaks there,—trees behind trees; above +all, set evergreens, for they will keep a secret all the year +round. The most agreeable compliment you could pay him was, to say +that you had not observed him in a house or a street where you had met +him. Whilst he suffered at being seen where he was, he consoled +himself with the delicious thought of the inconceivable number of +places where he was not. All he wished of his tailor was, to provide +that sober mean of color and cut which would never detain the eye for +a moment. He went to Vienna, to Smyrna, to London. In all the variety +of costumes, a carnival, a kaleidoscope of clothes, to his horror he +could never discover a man in the street who wore anything like his +own dress. He would have given his soul for the ring of Gyges. His +dismay at his visibility had blunted the fears of mortality. "Do you +think," he said, "I am in such great terror of being shot,—I, who am +only waiting to shuffle off my corporeal jacket, to slip away into the +back stars, and put diameters of the solar system and sidereal orbits +between me and all souls,—there to wear out ages in solitude, and +forget memory itself, if it be possible?" He had a remorse running to +despair of his social <i>gaucheries</i>, and walked miles and miles to +get the twitchings out of his face, the starts and shrugs out of his +arms and shoulders. "God may forgive sins," he said, "but awkwardness +has no forgiveness in heaven or earth." He admired in Newton, not so +much his theory of the moon, as his letter to Collins, in which he +forbade him to insert his name with the solution of the problem in the +"Philosophical Transactions": "It would perhaps increase my +acquaintance, the thing which I chiefly study to decline." +<p> +These conversations led me somewhat later to the knowledge of similar +cases, existing elsewhere, and to the discovery that they are not of +very infrequent occurrence. Few substances are found pure in +nature. Those constitutions which can bear in open day the rough +dealing of the world must be of that mean and average structure,—such +as iron and salt, atmospheric air, and water. But there are metals, +like potassium and sodium, which, to be kept pure, must be kept under +naphtha. Such are the talents determined on some specialty, which a +culminating civilization fosters in the heart of great cities and in +royal chambers. Nature protects her own work. To the culture of the +world, an Archimedes, a Newton is indispensable; so she guards them by +a certain aridity. If these had been good fellows, fond of dancing, +Port, and clubs, we should have had no "Theory of the Sphere," and no +"Principia." They had that necessity of isolation which genius +feels. Each must stand on his glass tripod, if he would keep his +electricity. Even Swedenborg, whose theory of the universe is based on +affection, and who reprobates to weariness the danger and vice of pure +intellect, is constrained to make an extraordinary exception: "There +are also angels who do not live consociated, but separate, house and +house; these dwell in the midst of heaven, because they are the best +of angels." +<p> +We have known many fine geniuses have that imperfection that they +cannot do anything useful, not so much as write one clean +sentence. 'Tis worse, and tragic, that no man is fit for society who +has fine traits. At a distance, he is admired; but bring him hand to +hand, he is a cripple. One protects himself by solitude, and one by +courtesy, and one by an acid, worldly manner,—each concealing how he +can the thinness of his skin and his incapacity for strict +association. But there is no remedy that can reach the heart of the +disease, but either habits of self-reliance that should go in practice +to making the man independent of the human race, or else a religion of +love. Now he hardly seems entitled to marry; for how can he protect a +woman, who cannot protect himself? +<p> +We pray to be conventional. But the wary Heaven takes care you shall +not be, if there is anything good in you. Dante was very bad company, +and was never invited to dinner. Michel Angelo had a sad, sour time of +it. The ministers of beauty are rarely beautiful in coaches and +saloons. Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself. Yet +each of these potentates saw well the reason of his exclusion. +Solitary was he? Why, yes; but his society was limited only +by the amount of brain Nature appropriated in that age to carry on the +government of the world. "If I stay," said Dante, when there was +question of going to Rome, "who will go? and if I go, who will stay?" +<p> +But the necessity of solitude is deeper than we have said, and is +organic. I have seen many a philosopher whose world is large enough +for only one person. He affects to be a good companion; but we are +still surprising his secret, that he means and needs to impose his +system on all the rest. The determination of each is <i>from</i> all +the others, like that of each tree up into free space. 'Tis no wonder, +when each has his whole head, our societies should be so small. Like +President Tyler, our party falls from us every day, and we must ride +in a sulky at last. Dear heart! take it sadly home to thee, there is +no coöperation. We begin with friendships, and all our youth is a +reconnoitring and recruiting of the holy fraternity that shall combine +for the salvation of men. But so the remoter stars seem a nebula of +united light, yet there is no group which a telescope will not +resolve, and the dearest friends are separated by impassable +gulfs. The coöperation is involuntary, and is put upon us by the +Genius of Life, who reserves this as a part of his prerogative. 'Tis +fine for us to talk: we sit and muse, and are serene, and complete; +but the moment we meet with anybody, each becomes a fraction. +<p> +Though the stuff of tragedy and of romances is in a moral union of two +superior persons, whose confidence in each other for long years, out +of sight, and in sight, and against all appearances, is at last +justified by victorious proof of probity to gods and men, causing +joyful emotions, tears, and glory,—though there be for heroes this +<i>moral union</i>, yet they, too, are as far off as ever from an +intellectual union, and the moral union is for comparatively low and +external purposes, like the coöperation of a ship's company, or of a +fire-club. But how insular and pathetically solitary are all the +people we know! Nor dare they tell what they think of each other, when +they meet in the street. We have a fine right, to be sure, to taunt +men of the world with superficial and treacherous courtesies! +<p> +Such is the tragic necessity which strict science finds underneath our +domestic and neighborly life, irresistibly driving each adult soul as +with whips into the desert, and making our warm covenants sentimental +and momentary. We must infer that the ends of thought were +peremptory, if they were to be secured at such ruinous cost. They are +deeper than can be told, and belong to the immensities and +eternities. They reach down to that depth where society itself +originates and disappears,—where the question is, Which is first, man +or men?—where the individual is lost in his source. +<p> +But this banishment to the rocks and echoes no metaphysics can make +right or tolerable. This result is so against nature, such a +half-view, that it must be corrected by a common sense and +experience. "A man is born by the side of his father, and there he +remains." A man must be clothed with society, or we shall feel a +certain bareness and poverty, as of a displaced and unfurnished +member. He is to be dressed in arts and institutions, as well as +body-garments. Now and then a man exquisitely made can live alone, +and must but coop up most men, and you undo them. "The king lived and +ate in his hall with men, and understood men," said Selden. When a +young barrister said to the late Mr. Mason, "I keep my chamber to read +law." "Read law!" replied the veteran, "'tis in the courtroom you +must read law." Nor is the rule otherwise for literature. If you would +learn to write, 'tis in the street you must learn it. Both for the +vehicle and for the aims of fine arts, you must frequent the public +square. The people, and not the college, is the writer's home. A +scholar is a candle, which the love and desire of all men will +light. Never his lands or his rents, but the power to charm the +disguised soul that sits veiled under this bearded and that rosy +visage is his rent and ration. His products are as needful as those of +the baker or the weaver. Society cannot do without cultivated men. As +soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher wants become +imperative. +<p> +'Tis hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our own top; but through +sympathy we are capable of energy and endurance. Concert exasperates +people to a certain fury of performance they can rarely reach +alone. Here is the use of society: it is so easy with the great to be +great! so easy to come up to an existing standard!—as easy as it is +to the lover to swim to his maiden, through waves so grim before. The +benefits of affection are immense; and the one event which never loses +its romance is the alighting of superior persons at our gate. +<p> +It by no means follows that we are not fit for society, because +<i>soirées</i> are tedious, and because the <i>soirée</i> finds us +tedious. A backwoodsman, who had been sent to the university, told +me, that when he heard the best-bred young men at the law-school talk +together, he reckoned himself a boor; but whenever he caught them +apart, and had one to himself alone, then they were the boors, and he +the better man. And if we recall the rare hours when we encountered +the best persons, we then found ourselves, and then first society +seemed to exist. That was society, though in the transom of a brig, +or on the Florida Keys. +<p> +A cold, sluggish blood thinks it has not facts enough to the purpose, +and must decline its turn in the conversation. But they who speak have +no more,—have less. 'Tis not new facts that avail, but the heat to +dissolve everybody's facts. Heat puts you in right relation with +magazines of facts. The capital defect of cold, arid natures is the +want of animal spirits. They seem a power incredible, as if God +should raise the dead. The recluse witnesses what others perform by +their aid with a kind of fear. It is as much out of his possibility, +as the prowess of Coeur-de-Lion, or an Irishman's day's work on the +railroad. 'Tis said, the present and the future are always +rivals. Animal spirits constitute the power of the present, and their +feats are like the structure of a pyramid. Their result is a lord, a +general, or a boon-companion. Before these, what a base mendicant is +Memory with his leathern badge! But this genial heat is latent in all +constitutions, and is disengaged only by the friction of society. As +Bacon said of manners, "To obtain them, it only needs not to despise +them," so we say of animal spirits, that they are the spontaneous +product of health and of a social habit. "For behavior, men learn it, +as they take diseases, one of another." +<p> +But the people are to be taken in very small doses. If solitude is +proud, so is society vulgar. In society, high advantages are set down +to the individual as disadvantages. We sink as easily as we rise, +through sympathy. So many men whom I know are degraded by their +sympathies, their native aims being high enough, but their relation +all too tender to the gross people about them. Men cannot afford to +live together on their merits, and they adjust themselves by their +demerits,—by their love of gossip, or sheer tolerance and animal +good-nature. They untune and dissipate the brave aspirant. +<p> +The remedy is, to reinforce each of these moods from the +other. Conversation will not corrupt us, if we come to the assembly in +our own garb and speech, and with the energy of health to select what +is ours and reject what is not. Society we must have; but let it be +society, and not exchanging news, or eating from the same dish. Is it +society to sit in one of your chairs? I cannot go to the houses of my +nearest relatives, because I do not wish to be alone. Society exists +by chemical affinity, and not otherwise. +<p> +Put any company of people together with freedom for conversation, and +a rapid self-distribution takes place into sets and pairs. The best +are accused of exclusiveness. It would be more true to say, they +separate as oil from water, as children from old people, without love +or hatred in the matter, each seeking his like; and any interference +with the affinities would produce constraint and suffocation. All +conversation is a magnetic experiment. I know that my friend can talk +eloquently; you know that he cannot articulate a sentence: we have +seen him in different company. Assort your party, or invite none. Put +Stubbs and Byron, Quintilian and Aunt Miriam, into pairs, and you make +them all wretched. 'Tis an extempore Sing-Sing built in a +parlor. Leave them to seek their own mates, and they will be as merry +as sparrows. +<p> +A higher civility will reëstablish in our customs a certain reverence +which we have lost. What to do with these brisk young men who break +through all fences, and make themselves at home in every house? I find +out in an instant if my companion does not want me, and ropes cannot +hold me when my welcome is gone. One would think that the affinities +would pronounce themselves with a surer reciprocity. +<p> +Here again, as so often, Nature delights to put us between extreme +antagonisms, and our safety is in the skill with which we keep the +diagonal line. Solitude is impracticable, and society fatal. We must +keep our head in the one, and our hands in the other. The conditions +are met, if we keep our independence, yet do not lose our +sympathy. These wonderful horses need to be driven by fine hands. We +require such a solitude as shall hold us to its revelations when we +are in the street and in palaces; for most men are cowed in society, +and say good things to you in private, but will not stand to them in +public. But let us not be the victims of words. Society and solitude +are deceptive names. It is not the circumstance of seeing more or +fewer people, but the readiness of sympathy, that imports; and a sound +mind will derive its principles from insight, with ever a purer ascent +to the sufficient and absolute right, and will accept society as the +natural element in which they are to be applied. + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> + +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="15">AKIN BY MARRIAGE.</a> +</h2> +<p align="center"> +[Continued.] +<br><br> +<p> +CHAPTER III +<p> +When little Helen was not far from nine years old, her mother, (as she +had learned to call Mrs. Bugbee,) whose health for a long time had +been failing, fell sick and took to her bed. Sometimes, for a brief +space, she would seem to mend a little; and a council of doctors, +convened to consider her case,—though each member differed from all +the others touching the nature of her malady,—unanimously declared +she would ultimately recover. But her disease, whatever it was, proved +to be her mortal illness; for the very next night she came suddenly to +her end. Her loss was a heavy one, especially to her own household. +She had always been a quiet person, of rather pensive humor, whose +native diffidence caused her to shrink from observation; and after +Amelia's death she was rarely seen abroad, except at meeting, on +Sundays, or when she went to visit the poor, the sick, or the +grief-stricken. It was at home that her worth was most apparent; +for plain domestic virtues, such as hers, seldom gain wide +distinction. Her children's sorrow was deep and lasting, and the badge +of mourning which her husband wore for many months after her death was +a truthful symbol of unaffected grief. From the beginning, he was +warmly attached to his wife, whose affection for him was very great +indeed. It would have been strange if he had been unhappy, when she, +who made his tastes her study, also made it the business of her life +to please him. Besides, his cheerful temper enabled him to make light +of more grievous misfortunes than the getting of a loving wife and +thrifty helpmeet ten years older than himself. +<p> +When a widower, like the Doctor, is but fifty, with the look of a much +younger man, people are apt to talk about the chances of his marrying +again. Before Mrs. Bugbee had been dead a twelve-month, rumors were as +plenty as blackberries that the Doctor had been seen, late on Sunday +evenings, leaving this house, or that house, the dwelling-place of +some marriageable lady; and if he had finally espoused all whom the +gossips reported he was going to marry, he would have had as many +wives as any Turkish pasha or Mormon elder. It was doubtless true that +he called at certain places more frequently than had been his custom +in Mrs. Bugbee's lifetime. This, he assured Cornelia, to whom the +reports I have mentioned occasioned some uneasiness, was because he +was more often summoned to attend, in a professional way, at those +places, than he had ever been of old; which was true enough, I dare +say, for more spinsters and widows were taken ailing about this time +than had ever been ill at once before. Be that as it may, certain +arrangements which the Doctor presently made in his domestic affairs +did not seem to foretoken an immediate change of condition. +<p> +Miss Statira Blake, whom the Doctor engaged as housekeeper, was the +youngest daughter of an honest shoemaker, who formerly flourished at +Belfield Green, where he was noted for industry, a fondness for +reading, a tenacious memory, a ready wit, and a fluent tongue. In +politics he was a radical, and in religion a schismatic. The little +knot of Presbyterian Federalist magnates, who used to assemble at the +tavern to discuss affairs of church and state over mugs of flip and +tumblers of sling, regarded him with feelings of terror and +aversion. The doughty little cobbler made nothing of attacking them +single-handed, and putting them utterly to rout; for he was a dabster +at debate, and entertained as strong a liking for polemics as for +books. Nay, he was a thorn in the side of the parson himself, for +whom he used to lie in wait with knotty questions,—snares set to +entrap the worthy divine, in the hope of beguiling him into a +controversy respecting some abstruse point of doctrine, in which the +cobbler, who had every verse of the Bible at his tongue's end, was not +apt to come off second best. +<p> +But one day, Tommy Blake, being at a raising where plenty of liquor +was furnished, (as the fashion used to be,) slipped and fell from a +high beam, and was carried home groaning with a skinful of broken +bones. He died the next day, poor man, and his bedridden widow +survived the shock of witnessing his dreadful agonies and death but a +very little while. Her daughters, two young girls, were left destitute +and friendless. But Major Bugbee, to whom the cobbler's wife had been +remotely akin, and who was at that time first selectman of the town, +took the orphans with him to his house, where they tarried till he +found good places for them. Roxana, the elder girl, went to live with +a reputable farmer's wife, whose only son she afterwards +married. Statira remained under the shelter of the good Major's +hospitable roof much longer than her sister did, and would have been +welcome to stay, but she was not one of those who like to eat the +bread of dependence. With the approval of the selectmen, she bound +herself an indentured apprentice to Billy Tuthill, the little lame +tailor, for whom she worked faithfully four years, until she had +served out her time and was mistress of her trade, even to the +recondite mystery of cutting a double-breasted swallow-tail coat by +rule and measure. Then, at eighteen, she set up business for herself, +going from house to house as her customers required, working by the +day. Her services were speedily in great demand, and she was never out +of employment. Many a worthy citizen of Belfield well remembers his +first jacket-and-trowsers, the handiwork of Tira Blake. The Sunday +breeches of half the farmers who came to meeting used to be the +product of her skilful labor. Thus for many years (refusing meanwhile +several good offers of marriage) she continued to ply her needle and +shears, working steadily and cheerfully in her vocation, earning good +wages and spending but little, until the thrifty sempstress was +counted well to do, and held in esteem according. Sometimes, when she +got weary, and thought a change of labor would do her good, she would +engage with some lucky dame to help do housework for a month or +two. She was a famous hand at pickling, preserving, and making all +manner of toothsome knick-knacks and dainties. Nor was she deficient +in the pleasure walks of the culinary art. Betsey Pratt, the +tavernkeeper's wife, a special crony of Statira's, used always to send +for her whenever she was in straits, or when, on some grand occasion, +a dinner or supper was to be prepared and served up in more than +ordinary style. So learned was she in all the devices of the pantry +and kitchen, that many a young woman in the parish would have given +half her setting-out, and her whole store of printed cookery-books, to +know by heart Tira Blake's unwritten lore of rules and recipes. So, +wherever she went, she was welcome, albeit not a few stood in fear of +her; for though, when well treated, she was as good-humored as a +kitten, when provoked, especially by a slight or affront, her wrath +was dangerous. Her tongue was sharper than her needle, and her +pickles were not more piquant than her sarcastic wit. Tira, the older +people used to remark, was Tommy Blake's own daughter; and truly, she +did inherit many of her father's qualities, both good and bad, and not +a few of his crotchets and opinions. In fine, she was a shrewd, +sensible, Yankee old maid, who, as she herself was wont to say, was as +well able to take care of 'number one' as e'er a man in town. +<p> +Statira never forgot Major Bugbee's kindness to her in her lonely +orphanhood. She preserved for him and for every member of his family +a grateful affection; but her special favorite was James, the Doctor's +brother, who was a little younger than she, and who repaid this +partiality with hearty good-will and esteem. When he grew up and +married, his house became one of Statira's homes; the other being at +her sister's house, which was too remote from Belfield Green to be at +all times convenient. So she had rooms, which she called alike her +own, at both these places, in each of which she kept a part of her +wardrobe and a portion of her other goods and chattels. The children +of both families called her Aunt Statira, but, if the truth were +known, she loved little Frank Bugbee, James's only son, better than +she did the whole brood of her sister Roxy's flaxen-pated +offspring. Nay, she loved him better than all the world besides. +Statira used to call James her right-hand man, asking for his advice +in every matter of importance, and usually acting in accordance with +it. So, when Doctor Bugbee invited her to take charge of his household +affairs, Cornelia joining in the request with earnest importunity, she +did not at once return a favorable reply, though strongly inclined +thereto, but waited until she had consulted James and his wife, who +advised her to accept the proffered trust, giving many sound and +excellent reasons why she ought to do so. +<p> +Accordingly, a few months after Mrs. Bugbee's death, Statira began to +sway the sceptre where she had once found refuge from the poor-house; +for though Cornelia remained the titular mistress of the mansion, +Statira was the actual ruler, invested with all the real power. +Cornelia gladly resigned into her more experienced hands the reins of +government, and betook herself to occupations more congenial to her +tastes than housekeeping. Whenever, afterwards, she made a languid +offer to perform some light domestic duty, Statira was accustomed to +reply in such wise that the most perfect concord was maintained +between them. "No, my dear," the latter would say, "do you just leave +these things to me. If there a'n't help enough in the house to do the +work, your pa'll get 'em; and as for overseein', one's better than +two." But sometimes, when little Helen proffered her assistance, Tira +let the child try her hand, taking great pains to instruct her in +housewifery, warmly praising her successful essays, and finding +excuses for every failure. It was not long before a cordial friendship +subsisted between the teacher and her pupil. +<p> +The Doctor, of course, experienced great contentment at beholding his +children made happy, his house well kept and ordered, his table spread +with plentiful supplies of savory victuals, and all his domestic +concerns managed with sagacity and prudence, by one upon whose +goodwill and ability to promote his welfare he could rely with +implicit confidence. Even the servants shared in the general +satisfaction; for though, under Tira's vigorous rule, no task or duty +could be safely shunned or slighted, she proved a kind and even an +indulgent mistress to those who showed themselves worthy of her +favor. Old Violet, the mother of Dinah, the little black girl +elsewhere mentioned, yielded at once to Tira Blake the same respectful +obedience that she and her ancestors, for more than a century in due +succession, had been wont to render only to dames of the ancient +Bugbee line. Dinah herself, now a well-grown damsel, black, but +comely, who, during Cornelia's maladministration, had been suffered to +follow too much the devices and desires of her own heart, setting at +naught alike the entreaties and reproofs of her mistress and her +mother's angry scoldings,—even Dinah submitted without a murmur to +Tira's wholesome authority, and abandoned all her evil courses. +Bildad Royce, a crotchety hired-man, whom the Doctor kept to do the +chores and till the garden, albeit at first inclined to be captious, +accorded to the new housekeeper the meed of his approbation. +<p> +"I like her well enough to hope she'll stay, mum," quoth he, in reply +to an inquisitive neighbor. "And for my part, Miss Prouty," he added, +nodding and winking at his questioner, "I'd like to see it fixed so +she'd alwus stay; and if the Doctor <i>doos</i> think he can't do no +better'n to have her bimeby, when the time comes, who's a right to say +a word agin it?" +<p> +"Goodness me!" exclaimed the unwary Mrs. Prouty,—"do you mean to say +you think he's got any idea of such a thing, Bildad?" +<p> +"Yes, I <i>don't</i> mean to say I think he's got any idee of sich a thing, +Bildad," replied Bildad himself, who took great delight in mystifying +people, and who sometimes, in order to express the most unqualified +negation, was accustomed to employ this apparently ambiguous form of +speech. "I said for <i>my</i> part, Miss Prouty,—for <i>my</i> part. As for the +Doctor, he'll prob'bly have his own notions, and foller 'em." +<p> +Besides these already mentioned, there was another person, who sat so +often at the Doctor's board and spent so many hours beneath his roof, +that, for the nonce, I shall reckon her among his family. Indeed, +Laura Stebbins was almost as much at home in the Bugbee mansion as at +the parsonage, and she used to regard the Doctor and his wife with an +affection quite filial in kind and very ardent in degree. For this she +had abundant reason, the good couple always treating her with the +utmost kindness, frequently making her presents of clothes and things +which she needed, besides gifts of less use and value. These tokens of +her friends' good-will she used to receive with many sprightly +demonstrations of thankfulness; sometimes, in her transports of +gratitude, distributing between the Doctor and his wife a number of +delicious kisses, and telling the latter that her husband was the best +and most generous of men. After Mrs. Bugbee's death, the Doctor's +manner, as was to be expected, became more grave and sober, and he +very wisely thought proper to treat Laura with a kindness less +familiar than before, which perceiving with the quickness of her sex, +she also practised a like reserve. But notwithstanding this prudent +change in his demeanor, his good-will for Laura was in no wise +abated. At all events, the friendship between Cornelia and Laura +suffered no decay or diminution. Indeed, it increased in fervency and +strength. For Laura, having finished her course of study at the +Belfield Academy, had now more time to devote to Cornelia than when +she had had lessons to get and recitations to attend. The parsonage +stood next to the Bugbee mansion, and in the paling between the two +gardens there was a wicket, through which Cornelia, Laura, and Helen +used to run to and fro a dozen times a day. The females of the +Doctor's family made nothing of scudding, bareheaded, across to the +parsonage by this convenient back-way, and bolting into the kitchen +without so much as knocking at the door; and Laura's habits at the +Bugbee mansion were still more familiar. Mrs. Jaynes, though not the +most affable of womankind, gave this close intimacy much favor and +encouragement; for she bore in mind that Cornelia's father was the +richest and most influential member of her husband's church and +parish. +<p> +At first, Laura was a little shy of the plain-spoken old maid, for +whose person, manners, and opinions she had often heard Mrs. Jaynes +express, in private, a most bitter dislike. But Statira had been +regnant in the Bugbee mansion less than a week, when Laura began to +make timid advances towards a mutual good understanding, of which for +a while Statira affected to take no heed; for having formed a +resolution to maintain a strict reserve towards every inmate of the +parsonage, she was not disposed to break it so soon, even in favor of +Laura, whose winsome overtures she found it difficult to resist. +<p> +"If it wa'n't for her bein' Miss Jaynes's sister," said she, one day, +to Cornelia, who had been praising her friend,—"if it wa'n't for that +one thing, I should like her remarkable well,—a good deal more'n +common." +<p> +"Pray, what have you got such a spite against the Jayneses for?" asked +Cornelia. +<p> +"What do you mean by askin' such a question as that, Cornele?" said +Tira, in a tone of stern reproof. "Who's got a spite against 'em? Not +I, by a good deal! As for the parson himself, he's a well-meanin' man, +and does as near right as he knows how. If you could say as much as +that for everybody, there wouldn't be any need of parsons any more." +<p> +"But you don't like Mrs. Jaynes," persisted Cornelia. +<p> +"I ha'n't got a spite against her, Cornele,—though, I confess, I +don't love the woman," replied Statira. "But I always treat her well; +though, to be sure, I don't curchy so low and keep smilin' so much as +most folks do, when they meet a minister's wife and have talk with +her. Even when she comes here a-borrowin' things she knows will be +giv' to her when she asks for 'em, which makes it so near to beggin' +that she ought to be ashamed on't, which I only give to her because +it's your father's wish for me to do so, and the things are his'n; but +I always treat her well, Cornele." +<p> +"But why don't you like her, Tira?" asked Helen. +<p> +"My dear, I'll tell you," said Statira; "for I don't want you to think +I'm set against any person unreasonable and without cause. You see +Miss Jaynes is a nateral-born beggar. I don't say it with any +ill-will, but it's a fact. She takes to beggin' as naterally as a +goslin' takes to a puddle; and when she first come to town she +commenced a-beggin', and has kep' it up ever since. She used to tackle +me the same as she does everybody else, askin' me to give somethin' to +this, and to that, and to t'other pet humbug of her'n, but I never +would do it; and when she found she could'nt worry me into it, like +the rest of 'em, it set her very bitter against me; and I heard of her +tellin' I'd treated her with rudeness, which I'd always treated her +civilly, only when I said 'No,' she found coaxin' and palaverin' +wouldn't stir me. So it went on for a year or two, till, one fall, I +was stayin' here to your ma's,—Cornele, I guess you remember the +time,—helpin' of her make up her quinces and apples. We was jest in +the midst of bilin' cider, with one biler on the stove and the biggest +brass kittle full in the fireplace, when in comes boltin' Miss Jaynes, +dressed up as fine as a fiddle. She set right down in the kitchen, and +your ma rolled her sleeves down and took off her apurn, lookin' kind +o' het and worried. After a few words, Miss Jaynes took a paper out +of her pocket, and says she to your ma, 'Miss Bugbee,' says she, 'I'm +a just startin' forth on the Lord's business, and I come to you as the +helpmate and pardner of one of his richest stewards in this +vineyard.'—'What is it now?' says your ma, lookin' out of one eye at +the brass kittle, and speakin' more impatient than I ever heard her +speak to a minister's wife before. Well, I can't spend time to tell +all that Miss Jaynes said in answer, but it seemed some of the big +folks in New York had started a new society, and its object was to +provide, as near as ever I could find out, such kind of necessary +notions for indigent young men studyin' to be ministers as they +couldn't well afford to buy for themselves,—such as steel-bowed specs +for the near-sighted ones, and white cravats, black silk gloves, and +linen-cambric handkerchiefs for 'em all,—in order, as Miss Jaynes +said, these young fellers might keep up a respectable appearance, and +not give a chance for the world's people to get a contemptible idee of +the ministry, on account of the shabby looks of the young men that had +laid out to foller that holy callin'. She said it was a cause that +ought to lay near the heart of every evangelical Christian man, and +especially the women. 'We mothers in Israel,' says Miss Jaynes, 'ought +to feel for these young Davids that have gone forth to give battle to +the Goliaths of sin that are a-stalkin' and struttin' round all over +the land.' She said the society was goin' to be a great institution, +with an office to New York, with an executive committee and three +secretaries in attendance there, and was a-goin' to employ a great +number of clergymen, out of a parish, to travel as agents collecting +funds; 'but, 'says she,' I've a better tack for collectin' than most +people, and I've concluded to canvass this town myself for donations +to this noble and worthy cause; and I've come to you, Miss Bugbee,' +says she, 'to lead off with your accustomed liberality.'—Well, what +does your ma do, but go into her room, to her draw, I suppose, and +fetch out a five-dollar bill, and give it to Miss Jaynes, which I'd +'a' had to work a week, stitchin' from mornin' to night, to have earnt +that five-dollar bill; though, of course, your ma had a right to burn +it up, if she'd 'a' been a mind to; only it made me ache to see it go +so, when there was thousands of poor starvin' ragged orphans needin' +it so bad. All to once Miss Jaynes wheeled and spoke to me: 'Well, +Miss Tira,' says she, 'can I have a dollar from you?'—'No, ma'am,' +says I.—'I supposed not,' says she; which would have been sassy in +anybody but the parson's wife. But I held my tongue, and out she went, +takin' no more notice of me than she did of Vi'let, nor half so +much,—for I see her kind o' look towards the old woman, as if she was +half a mind to ask her for a fourpence-ha'penny. Well, that was the +last on't for a spell, until after New Year's. I was stayin' then at +your Uncle James's, and one afternoon your ma sent for your Aunt +Eunice and me to come over and take tea. So we went over, and there +was several of the neighbors invited in,—Squire Bramhall's wife, and +them your ma used to go with most, and amongst the rest, of course, +Miss Jaynes. There had just before that been a donation party, New +Year's night, to the parson's, and the Dorcas Society had bought Miss +Jaynes a nice new Brussels carpet for her parlor, all cut and fitted +and made up. In the course of the afternoon Miss Bramhall spoke and +asked if the new carpet was put down, and if it fitted well. 'Oh, +beautiful!' says she, 'it fits the room like a glove; somebody must +have had pretty good eyes to took the measure so correct, and I not +know anything what was a-comin'; and I hope,' says she, 'ladies, +you'll take an early opportunity to drop in and see it; for there +a'n't one of you but what I'm under obligation to for this touchin' +token of your love,' (that's what she called it,)—'except,' says she, +of a sudden, 'except Miss Blake, whom, really, I hadn't noticed +before!'—I tell ye, Cornele, my ebenezer was up at this; for you +can't tell how mean and spiteful she spoke and looked, pretendin' as +if I was so insignificant a critter she hadn't taken notice of my +bein' there before, which, to be sure, she hadn't even bid me good +afternoon; and for my part, I hadn't put myself forward among such +women as was there, though I didn't feel beneath 'em, nor they didn't +think so, except Miss Jaynes.—Then she went on. 'Miss Blake,' says +she, 'I believe didn't mean no slight for not helpin' towards the +carpet; for she never gives to anything, as I know of,' says +she. 'I've often asked her for various objects, and have been as often +refused. The last time,' says she, 'I did expect to get somethin'; for +I asked only for a dollar to that noble society for providin' young +men, a-strugglin' to prepare themselves for usefulness in the +ministry, with some of the common necessaries of life, but she refused +me. I expect,' says she, a-sneerin' in such a way that I couldn't +stand it any longer, 'I expect Miss Blake is a-savin' all her money to +buy her settin'-out and furniture with; for I suppose,' says she, +lookin' more spiteful than ever, 'I suppose Miss Blake thinks that as +long as there's life there's hope for a husband.'—I happen to know +what all the ladies thought of this speech, for every one of 'em +afterwards told me; but, if you'll believe me, one or two of the +youngest of 'em kind of pretended to smile at the joke on't, when Miss +Jaynes looked round as if she expected 'em to laugh; for she thought, +I suppose, I was really and truly no account, bein' a cobbler's +daughter and a tailoress,—and that when the minister's wife insulted +me, I dars'n't reply, and all hands would stand by and applaud. But +she found out her mistake, and she begun to think so, when she see how +grave your ma and all the rest of the older ladies looked, for they +knew what was comin'. I'd bit my lips up till now, and held in out of +respect to the place and the company, but I thought it was due to +myself to speak at last. Says I, 'Miss Jaynes, I've always treated you +with civility and the respect due to your place; though I own I ha'n't +felt free to give my hard-earned wages away to objects I didn't know +much about, when, with my limited means, I could find places to bestow +what little I could spare without huntin' 'em up. I don't mean to +boast,' says I, 'of my benevolence, and I don't have gilt-framed +diplomas hung up in my room to certify to it, to be seen and read of +all men, as the manner of some is,—but,' says I, 'I <i>will</i> say +that I've given this year twenty-five dollars to the Orphan Asylum, to +Hartford, and I've a five-dollar gold-piece in my puss,' says I, 'that +I can spare, and will give that more to the same charity, for the +privilege of tellin' before these ladies, that heard me accused of +being stingy, why I don't give to you when you ask me to, and +especially why I didn't give the last time you asked me. I would like +to tell why I didn't help sew in the Dorcas Society, to buy the new +carpet,' says I, 'but I don't want to hurt anybody's feelin's that +ha'n't hurt mine, and I'll forbear.'—By this time Miss Jaynes was +pale as a sheet. 'I'm sure,' says she, 'I don't care why you don't +choose to give, and I don't suppose any one else does. It's your own +affair,' says she, 'and you a'n't compelled to give unless you're a +mind to.'—'You should have thought of that before you twitted me,' +says I, 'before all this company.'—'Oh, Tira, never mind,' says Miss +Bramhall, 'let it all go!' But up spoke your Aunt Eunice, and says +she, 'It's no more than fair to hear Tira's reasons, after what's been +said.'" +<p> +"Good!" said little Helen; "hurrah for Aunt Eunice!" +<p> +"And your ma," resumed Statira, "I knew by her looks she was on my +side, though, it bein' her own house, she felt less free to say as +much as your Aunt Eunice did.—'In the first place,' says I, 'if I did +want to keep my money to buy furniture with, in case I should get a +husband, I expect I've a right to, for 'ta'n't likely,' says I, 'I +shall be lucky enough to have my carpets giv' to me. But that wa'n't +the reason I didn't put my name down for a dollar on that +subscription. One reason was, I knew the upshot on't would be that +somebody would be put up to suggestin' that the money should go for a +life-membership in the society for Miss Jaynes,' says I; 'and I don't +like to encourage anybody in goin' round beggin' for money to buy her +own promotion to a high seat in the synagogue.'—You ought to seen +Miss Jaynes's face then! It was redder'n any beet, for I'd hit the +nail square on the head, as it happened, and the ladies could scurcely +keep from smilin'.—'Then,' says I, 'I shouldn't be my father's +daughter, if I'd give a cent for a preacher that isn't smart enough to +get his own livin' and pay for his own clothes and eddication. To ask +poor women to pay for an able-bodied man's expenses,' says I, 'seems +to me like turnin' the thing wrong end foremost. A young feller that +a'n't smart enough to find himself in victuals and clothes won't be of +much help in the Lord's vineyard,' says I." +<p> +"And what did Mrs. Jaynes say?" asked little Helen, when Tira finally +came to a pause. +<p> +"Well, really, my dear," replied Miss Blake, "the woman had nothin' to +say, and so she said it. When I got through my speech I handed the +five-dollar gold-piece to your Aunt Eunice, to send to the Asylum, and +that ended it; for just then Dinah come in and said tea was ready, and +we all went out. It was rather stiff for a while, and after tea we all +went home; and for three long years Miss Jaynes never opened her face +to me, until I came here to live, this time. Now she finds it's for +her interest to make up, and so she tries to be as good as pie. But +though I mean to be civil, I'm no hypocrite, and I can't be all honey +and cream to them I don't like; and besides, it a'n't right to be." +<p> +"But you ought not to blame Laura because her sister affronted you," +said Helen. +<p> +"I know that, my dear," replied Miss Blake; "and if I've hurt the +girl's feelin's, I'm sorry for't. She's tried hard to be friends with +me, but I've pushed her off; for, not bein' much acquainted, I was +jealous, at first, that Miss Jaynes had put her up to it, to try to +get round me in some way." +<p> +"Never!" cried Cornelia,—"my Laura is incapable of such baseness!" +<p> +"Well," said Statira, smiling, "come to know her, I guess you can't +find much guile in her, that's a fact. If I did her wrong by +mistrustin' her without cause, I'll try to make amends. It a'n't in me +to speak ha'sh even to a dog, if the critter looks up into my face and +wags his tail in honest good-nater. And I'll say this for Laura +Stebbins, anyhow, if she <i>is</i> Miss Jaynes's sister,—she's got +the most takin' ways of 'most any grown-up person I ever see." +<p> +The reflection is painful to a generous mind, that, by harboring +unjust suspicions of another, one has been led to repel friendly +advances with indifference or disdain. In order to assuage some +remorseful pangs, Miss Blake began from this time to treat Laura with +distinguished favor. On the other hand, Laura, delighted at this +pleasant change in Miss Blake's demeanor, sought frequent +opportunities of testifying her joy and gratitude. In this manner an +intimacy began, which ripened at length into a firm and enduring +friendship. Laura soon commenced the practice of applying to her more +experienced friend for advice and direction in almost every matter, +great or small, and of confiding to her trust divers secrets and +confessions which she would never have ventured to repose even in +Cornelia's faithful bosom. This prudent habit Tira encouraged. +<p> +"I know, my dear," said she, one day, "I know what it is to be almost +alone in the world, and what a comfort it is to have somebody you can +rely on to tell your griefs and troubles to, and, as it were, get 'em +to help you bear 'em. So, my dear child, whenever you want to get my +notions on any point, just come right straight to me, if you feel like +it. I may not be able to give you the best advice, for I a'n't so +wise as you seem to think I be; however, I ha'n't lived nigh fifty +years in the world for naught, I trust, and without havin' learnt some +things worth knowin'; and though my counsel mayn't be worth much, +still you shall have the best I can give." +<p> +"Oh, thank you, thank you!" cried Laura, with such a burst of +passionate emotion that Miss Blake's eyes watered at the sight of +it. "My dear, dear, dear good friend! you don't know how glad I shall +be, if you will let me do as you say, and tell me what to do, and +scold me, and admonish and warn me! Oh, it will be such happiness to +have somebody to tell all my <i>real</i> secrets and troubles to! I do +so need such a friend sometimes!" +<p> +"Don't I know it, you poor dear?" said Miss Blake, wiping her +eyes. "Ha'n't I been through the same straits myself? None but them +that's been a young gal themselves, an orphan without a mother to +confide in and to warn and guide 'em, knows what it is. But I do, my +dear; and though I shall be a pretty poor substitute for an own +mother, I'll do the best I can." +<p> +"Tira," said Laura, with a tearful and blushing cheek held up to the +good spinster's, "kiss me, won't you?—you never have." +<p> +"My dear," said Miss Blake, preparing to comply with this request by +wiping her lips with her apron, "you see I a'n't one of the kissin' +sort, and I scurcely ever kiss a grown-up person; but here's my hand, +and here's a kiss,"—with an old-fashioned smack that might have been +heard in the next room,—"for a token that you may always come to me +as freely as if I was your mother, relyin' upon my givin' you my +honest advice and opinion concernin' any affair that you may ask for +counsel upon. And furthermore, as girls naterally have a wish that the +very things they need some one to direct 'em the most in sha'n't be +known except by them they tell the secret to, I promise you, my dear, +that I'll be as close as a freemason concernin' any privacy that you +may trust me with, about any offer or courtin' matter of any kind." +<p> +"Oh, I shall never have any such secrets," said Laura, blushing; "my +sister never lets the beaux come to see me, you know. I'm going to be +an old maid." +<p> +"Well, perhaps you will be," said Miss Blake; "only they gen'ally +don't make old maids of such lookin' girls as you be." +<p> +But though Miss Blake took Laura into favor, she was by no means +inclined to do the same by Mrs. Jaynes, who, having found to her cost +that the ill-will of the humble sempstress was not to be lightly +contemned, was now plainly anxious to conciliate her. But Statira was +proof against all the wheedling and flattery of the parson's wife, +behaving towards her always with the same cool civility, and with +great self-control,—using none of the frequent opportunities afforded +her to make some taunt, or fling, or reproachful allusion to +Mrs. Jaynes's former conduct. Once, to be sure, when urged by the +parson's wife and a committee of the Dorcas Society to invite that +respectable body to convene at the Bugbee mansion for labor and +refreshment, Statira returned a reply so plainly spoken that it was +deemed rude and ungracious. +<p> +"Cornelia is mistress of this house, Miss Jaynes," said she, "and if +she belonged to your society, and wanted to have its weekly meetin's +here in turn, I'd do my best to give 'em somethin' good to eat and +drink. But as she has left the matter to me, I say 'No,' without any +misgivin' or doubt; and for fear I may be called stingy or unsociable, +I'll tell the reason why I say so,—and besides, it's due to you to +tell it. There's poor women, even in this town, put to it to get +employment by which they can earn bread for themselves and their +children. They can't go out to do housework, for they've got young +ones too little to carry with 'em, and maybe a whole family of +'em. Takin' in sewin' is their only resource. Well, ma'am, for ladies, +well-to-do and rich, to get together, under pretence of good works and +charity, and take away work from these poor women, by offerin' to do +it cheaper, underbiddin' of 'em for jobs, which I've known the thing +to be done, and then settin' over their ill-gotten tasks, sewin', and +gabblin' slander all the afternoon, to get money to buy velvet +pulpit-cushions or gilt chandeliers with, or to help pay some +missionary's passage to the Tongoo Islands, is, in my opinion, a +humbug, and, what's worse, a downright breach of the Golden Rule. At +any rate, with my notions, it would be hypocrisy in me to join in, and +that's why I don't invite the society here. I don't know but I have +spoke too strong; if so, I'm sorry; but I've had to earn my own +livin', ever since I was a girl, with my needle, and I know how hard +the lot of them is that have to do so too. Besides, I can't help +thinkin', what, perhaps, you never thought of, yourselves, ladies, +that every person, who, while they can just as well turn their hands +to other business, yet, for their own whim, or pleasure, or +convenience, or profit, chooses to do work, of which there a'n't +enough now in the world to keep in employment them that must get such +work to do, or else beg, or sin, or starve,—when I think, I say, that +every such person helps some poor cretur into the grave, or the jail, +or a place worse than both, I feel that strong talk isn't out of +place; and I've known this very Dorcas Society to send to Hartford and +get shirts to make, under price, and spend their blood-money +afterwards to buy a new carpet for the minister's parlor. That was a +fact, Miss Jaynes, though perhaps it wa'n't polite in me to speak +on't; and so for fear of worse, I'll say no more." +<p> +When this speech of his housekeeper came to the Doctor's ears, he +expressed so warm an approval of its sentiments, that several who +heard him began to be confirmed in suspicions they had previously +entertained, the nature of which may be inferred from a remark which +Mrs. Prouty confided to the ear of a trusty friend and crony. "Now do +you mind what I say, Miss Baker," said she, shaking her snuffy +forefinger in Mrs. Baker's face; "Doctor Bugbee'll marry Tira Blake +yet. Now do you just stick a pin there." +<p> +But the revolving seasons twice went their annual round, the great +weeping-willow-tree in the burying-ground twice put forth its tender +foliage in the early spring, and twice in autumn strewed with yellow +leaves the mound of Mrs. Bugbee's grave, while the predictions of +many, who, like Mrs. Prouty, had foretold the Doctor's second wedding, +still remained without fulfilment. Nay, at the end of two years after +his wife's death, Doctor Bugbee seemed to be no more disposed to +matrimony than in the first days of his bereavement. There were, to be +sure, floating on the current of village gossip, certain rumors that +he was soon to take a second wife; but as none of these reports agreed +touching the name of the lady, each contradicted all the others, and +so none were of much account. Besides, there was nothing in the +Doctor's appearance or behavior that seemed to warrant any of these +idle stories. It is the way with many hopeful widowers (as everybody +knows) to become, after an interval of decorous sadness, more brisk +and gay than even in their youthful days; bestowing unusual care upon +their attire and the adornment of their persons, and endeavoring, by a +courteous and gallant demeanor towards every unmarried lady, to +signify the great esteem in which they hold the female sex. But these +signs, and all others which betoken an ardent desire to win the +favor of the fair, were wanting in the Doctor's aspect and +deportment. Though, as my reader knows, he was by nature a man of +lively temper, he was now grown more sedate than he had ever been +before; and instead of attiring himself more sprucely than of old, he +neglected his apparel to such a degree, that, although few would have +noticed the untidy change, Statira was filled with continual alarms, +lest some invidious housewife should perceive it, and lay the blame at +her door. Except when called abroad to perform some professional duty, +he spent his time at home, although his family observed that he +secluded himself in his office, among his books and gallipots, more +than had been his wont, and that he sometimes indulged in moods of +silent abstraction, which had never been noticed in his manner until +of late. But these changes of demeanor seemed to betoken an enduring +sorrow for the loss of his wife, rather than to indicate a desire or +an intention to choose a successor to her. My readers, therefore, will +not be surprised to learn, by a plain averment of the simple truth, +that not one of all the score of ladies, whose names had been coupled +with his own, would Doctor Bugbee have married, if he could, and that +to none of them had he ever given any good reason for believing that +she stood especially high in his esteem. +<p> + [To be continued in the next Number.] + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> + +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="16">WHERE WILL IT END?</a> +</h2> +<br><br> +<p> +Wise men of every name and nation, whether poets, philosophers, +statesmen, or divines, have been trying to explain the puzzles of +human condition, since the world began. For three thousand years, at +least, they have been at this problem, and it is far enough from being +solved yet. Its anomalies seem to have been expressly contrived by +Nature to elude our curiosity and defy our cunning. And no part of it +has she arranged so craftily as that web of institutions, habits, +manners, and customs, in which we find ourselves enmeshed as soon as +we begin to have any perception at all, and which, slight and almost +invisible as it may seem, it is so hard to struggle with and so +impossible to break through. It may be true, according to the poetical +Platonism of Wordsworth, that "heaven lies about us in our infancy"; +but we very soon leave it far behind us, and, as we approach manhood, +sadly discover that we have grown up into a jurisdiction of a very +different kind. +<p> +In almost every region of the earth, indeed, it is literally true that +"shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy." As +his faculties develope, he becomes more and more conscious of the +deepening shadows, as well as of the grim walls that cast them on his +soul, and his opening intelligence is earliest exercised in divining +who built them first, and why they exist at all. The infant Chinese, +the baby Calmuck, the suckling Hottentot, we must suppose, rest +unconsciously in the calm of the heaven from which they, too, have +emigrated, as well as the sturdy new-born Briton, or the freest and +most independent little Yankee that is native and to the manner born +of this great country of our own. But all alike grow gradually into a +consciousness of walls, which, though invisible, are none the less +impassable, and of chains, though light as air, yet stronger than +brass or iron. And everywhere is the machinery ready, though different +in its frame and operation in different torture-chambers, to crush out +the budding skepticism, and to mould the mind into the monotonous +decency of general conformity. Foe or Fetish, King or Kaiser, Deity +itself or the vicegerents it has appointed in its stead, are +answerable for it all. God himself has looked upon it, and it is very +good, and there is no appeal from that approval of the Heavenly +vision. +<p> +In almost every country in the world this deification of institutions +has been promoted by their antiquity. As nobody can remember when they +were not, and as no authentic records exist of their first +establishment, their genealogy can be traced direct to Heaven without +danger of positive disproof. Thus royal races and hereditary +aristocracies and privileged priesthoods established themselves so +firmly in the opinion of Europe, as well as of Asia, and still retain +so much of their <i>prestige</i> there, notwithstanding the turnings +and overturnings of the last two centuries. This northern half of the +great American continent, however, seems to have been kept back by +Nature as a <i>tabula rasa</i>, a clean blackboard, on which the great +problem of civil government might be worked out, without any of the +incongruous drawbacks which have cast perplexity and despair upon +those who have undertaken its solution in the elder world. All the +elements of the demonstration were of the most favorable +nature. Settled by races who had inherited or achieved whatever of +constitutional liberty existed in the world, with no hereditary +monarch, or governing oligarchy, or established religion on the soil, +with every opportunity to avoid all the vices and to better all the +virtues of the old polities, the era before which all history had been +appointed to prepare the way seemed to have arrived, when the just +relations of personal liberty and civil government were to be +established forever. +<p> +And how magnificent the field on which the trophy of this final +victory of a true civilization was to be erected! No empire or +kingdom, at least since imperial Rome perished from the earth, ever +unrolled a surface so vast and so variegated, so manifold in its +fertilities and so various in its aspects of beauty and +sublimity. From the Northern wastes, where the hunter and the trapper +pursue by force or guile the fur-bearing animals, to the ever-perfumed +latitudes of the lemon and the myrtle,—from the stormy Atlantic, +where the skiff of the fisherman rocks fearlessly under the menace of +beetling crags amid the foam of angry breakers, to where the solemn +surge of the Pacific pours itself around our Western continent, boon +Nature has spread out fields which ask only the magic touch of Labor +to wave with every harvest and blush with every fruitage. Majestic +forests crown the hills, asking to be transformed into homes for man +on the solid earth, or into the moving miracles in which he flies on +wings of wind or flame over the ocean to the ends of the +earth. Exhaustless mineral treasures offer themselves to his hand, +scarce hidden beneath the soil, or lying carelessly upon the +surface,—coal, and lead, and copper, and the "all-worshipped ore" of +gold itself; while quarries, reaching to the centre, from many a +rugged hill-top, barren of all beside, court the architect and the +sculptor, ready to give shape to their dreams of beauty in the palace +or in the statue. +<p> +The soil, too, is fitted by the influences of every sky for the +production of every harvest that can bring food, comfort, wealth, and +luxury to man. Every family of the grasses, every cereal that can +strengthen the heart, every fruit that can delight the taste, every +fibre that can be woven into raiment or persuaded into the thousand +shapes of human necessity, asks but a gentle solicitation to pour its +abundance bounteously into the bosom of the husbandman. And men have +multiplied under conditions thus auspicious to life, until they swarm +on the Atlantic slope, are fast filling up the great valley of the +Mississippi, and gradually flow over upon the descent towards the +Pacific. The three millions, who formed the population of the Thirteen +States that set the British empire at defiance, have grown up into a +nation of nearly, if not quite, ten times that strength, within the +duration of active lives not yet finished. And in freedom from +unmanageable debt, in abundance and certainty of revenue, in the +materials for naval armaments, in the elements of which armies are +made up, in everything that goes to form national wealth, power, and +strength, the United States, it would seem, even as they are now, +might stand against the world in arms, or in the arts of peace. Are +not these results proofs irrefragable of the wisdom of the government +under which they have come to pass? +<p> +When the eyes of the thoughtful inquirer turn from the general +prospect of the national greatness and strength, to the geographical +divisions of the country, to examine the relative proportions of these +gifts contributed by each, he begins to be aware that there are +anomalies in the moral and political condition even of this youngest +of nations, not unlike what have perplexed him in his observation of +her elder sisters. He beholds the Southern region, embracing within +its circuit three hundred thousand more square miles than the domain +of the North, dowered with a soil incomparably more fertile, watered +by mighty rivers fit to float the argosies of the world, placed nearer +the sun and canopied by more propitious skies, with every element of +prosperity and wealth showered upon it with Nature's fullest and most +unwithdrawing hand, and sees, that, notwithstanding all this, the +share of public wealth and strength drawn thence is almost +inappreciable by the side of what is poured into the common stock by +the strenuous sterility of the North. With every opportunity and means +that Nature can supply for commerce, with navigable rivers searching +its remotest corners, with admirable harbors in which the navies of +the world might ride, with the chief articles of export for its staple +productions, it still depends upon its Northern partner to fetch and +carry all that it produces, and the little that it consumes. Possessed +of all the raw materials of manufactures and the arts, its inhabitants +look to the North for everything they need from the cradle to the +coffin. Essentially agricultural in its constitution, with every +blessing Nature can bestow upon it, the gross value of all its +productions is less by millions than that of the simple grass of the +field gathered into Northern barns. With all the means and materials +of wealth, the South is poor. With every advantage for gathering +strength and self-reliance, it is weak and dependent.—Why this +difference between the two? +<p> +The <i>why</i> is not far to seek. It is to be found in the reward +which Labor bestows on those that pay it due reverence in the one +case, and the punishment it inflicts on those offering it outrage and +insult in the other. All wealth proceeding forth from Labor, the land +where it is honored and its ministers respected and rewarded must +needs rejoice in the greatest abundance of its gifts. Where, on the +contrary, its exercise is regarded as the badge of dishonor and the +vile office of the refuse and offscouring of the race, its largess +must be proportionably meagre and scanty. The key of the enigma is to +be found in the constitution of human nature. A man in fetters cannot +do the task-work that one whose limbs are unshackled looks upon as a +pastime. A man urged by the prospect of winning an improved condition +for himself and his children by the skill of his brain and the +industry of his hand must needs achieve results such as no fear of +torture can extort from one denied the holy stimulus of hope. Hence +the difference so often noticed between tracts lying side by side, +separated only by a river or an imaginary line; on one side of which, +thrift and comfort and gathering wealth, growing villages, smiling +farms, convenient habitations, school-houses, and churches make the +landscape beautiful; while on the other, slovenly husbandry, +dilapidated mansions, sordid huts, perilous wastes, horrible roads, +the rare spire, and rarer village school betray all the nakedness of +the land. It is the magic of motive that calls forth all this wealth +and beauty to bless the most sterile soil stirred by willing and +intelligent labor; while the reversing of that spell scatters squalor +and poverty and misery over lands endowed by Nature with the highest +fertility, spreading their leprous infection from the laborer to his +lord. All this is in strict accordance with the laws of God, as +expounded by man in his books on political economy. +<p> +Not so, however, with the stranger phenomenon to be discerned +inextricably connected with this anomaly, but not, apparently, +naturally and inevitably flowing from it. That the denial of his +natural and civil rights to the laborer who sows and reaps the +harvests of the Southern country should be avenged upon his enslaver +in the scanty yielding of the earth, and in the unthrift, the vices, +and the wretchedness which are the only crops that spring +spontaneously from soil blasted by slavery, is nothing strange. It is +only the statement of the truism in moral and in political economy, +that true prosperity can never grow up from wrong and wickedness. That +pauperism, and ignorance, and vice, that reckless habits, and debasing +customs, and barbarous manners should come of an organized degradation +of labor, and of cruelty and injustice crystallized into an +institution, is an inevitable necessity, and strictly according to the +nature of things. But that the stronger half of the nation should +suffer the weaker to rule over it in virtue of its weakness, that the +richer region should submit to the political tyranny of its +impoverished moiety because of that very poverty, is indeed a marvel +and a mystery. That the intelligent, educated, and civilized portion +of a race should consent to the sway of their ignorant, illiterate, +and barbarian companions in the commonwealth, and this by reason of +that uncouth barbarism, is an astonishment, and should be a hissing to +all beholders everywhere. It would be so to ourselves, were we not so +used to the fact, had it not so grown into our essence and ingrained +itself with our nature as to seem a vital organism of our being. Of +all the anomalies in morals and in politics which the history of +civilized man affords, this is surely the most abnormous and the most +unreasonable. +<p> +The entire history of the United States is but the record of the +evidence of this fact. What event in our annals is there that Slavery +has not set her brand upon it to mark it as her own? In the very +moment of the nation's birth, like the evil fairy of the nursery tale, +she was present to curse it with her fatal words. The spell then wound +up has gone on increasing in power, until the scanty formulas which +seemed in those days of infancy as if they would fade out of the +parchment into which they had been foisted, and leave no trace that +they ever were, have blotted out all beside, and statesmen and judges +read nothing there but the awful and all-pervading name of Slavery. +Once intrenched among the institutions of the country, this baleful +power has advanced from one position to another, never losing ground, +but establishing itself at each successive point more impregnably than +before, until it has us at an advantage that encourages it to demand +the surrender of our rights, our self-respect, and our honor. What was +once whispered in the secret chamber of council is now proclaimed upon +the housetops; what was once done by indirection and guile is now +carried with the high hand, in the face of day, at the mouth of the +cannon and by the edge of the sabre of the nation. Doctrines and +designs which a few years since could find no mouthpiece out of a +bar-room, or the piratical den of a filibuster, are now clothed with +power by the authentic response of the bench of our highest +judicatory, and obsequiously iterated from the oracular recesses of +the National Palace. +<p> +And the events which now fill the scene are but due successors in the +train that has swept over the stage ever since the nineteenth century +opened the procession with the purchase of Louisiana. The acquisition +of that vast territory, important as it was in a national point of +view,—but coveted by the South mainly as the fruitful mother of +slave-holding States, and for the precedent it established, that the +Constitution was a barrier only to what should impede, never to what +might promote, the interests of Slavery,—was the first great stride +she made as she stalked to her design. The admission of Missouri as a +slaveholding State, granted after a struggle that shook American +society to the centre, and then only on the memorable promises now +broken to the ear as well as to the hope, was the next vantage-ground +seized and maintained. The nearly contemporary purchase of Florida, +though in design and in effect as revolutionary an action as that of +Louisiana, excited comparatively little opposition. It was but the +following up of an acknowledged victory by the Slave Power. The long +and bloody wars in her miserable swamps, waged against the +humanity of savages that gave shelter to the fugitives from her +tyranny,—slave-hunts, merely, on a national scale and at the common +expense,—followed next in the march of events. Then Texas loomed in +the distance, and, after years of gradual approach and covert +advances, was first wrested from Mexico. Slavery next indissolubly +chained to her, and then, by a <i>coup d'état</i> of astonishing impudence, +was added, by a flourish of John Tyler's pen, in the very article of +his political dissolution, to "the Area of Freedom!" Next came the war +with Mexico, lying in its pretences, bloody in its conduct, triumphant +in its results, for it won vast regions suitable for Slavery now, and +taught the way to win larger conquests when her ever-hungry maw should +crave them. What need to recount the Fugitive-Slave Bill, and the +other "Compromises" of 1850? or to recite the base repeal of the +Missouri Compromise, showing the slaveholder's regard for promises to +be as sacred as that of a pettifogger for justice or of a dicer for an +oath? or to point to the plains of Kansas, red with the blood of her +sons and blackened with the cinders of her towns, while the President +of the United States held the sword of the nation at her throat to +compel her to submission? +<p> +Success, perpetual and transcendent, such as has always waited on +Slavery in all her attempts to mould the history of the country and to +compel the course of its events to do her bidding, naturally excites a +measure of curiosity if not of admiration, in the mind of every +observer. Have the slave-owners thus gone on from victory to victory +and from strength to strength by reason of their multitude, of their +wealth, of their public services, of their intelligence, of their +wisdom, of their genius, or of their virtue? Success in gigantic +crime sometimes implies a strength and energy which compel a kind of +respect even from those that hate it most. The right supremacy of the +power that thus sways our destiny clearly does not reside in the +overwhelming numbers of those that bear rule. The entire sum of all +who have any direct connection with Slavery, as owners or hirers, is +less than THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND,—not half as many as the +inhabitants of the single city of New York! And yet even this number +exaggerates the numerical force of the dominant element in our +affairs. To approximate to the true result, it would be fair to strike +from the gross sum those owning or employing less than ten slaves, in +order to arrive at the number of slave-owners who really compose the +ruling influence of the nation. This would leave but a small fraction +over NINETY THOUSAND, men, women, and children, owning slaves enough +to unite them in a common interest. And from this should be deducted +the women and minors, actually owning slaves in their own right, but +who have no voice in public affairs. These taken away, and the +absentees flying to Europe or the North from the moral contaminations +and material discomforts inseparable from Slavery, and not much more +than FIFTY THOUSAND voting men will remain to represent this mighty +and all-controlling power!—a fact as astounding as it is +incontrovertible. +<p> +Oligarchies are nothing new in the history of the world. The +government of the many by the few is the rule, and not the exception, +in the politics of the times that have been and of those that now +are. But the concentration of the power that determines the policy, +makes the laws, and appoints the ministers of a mighty nation, in the +hands of less than the five-hundredth part of its members, is an +improvement on the essence of the elder aristocracies; while the +usurpation of the title of the Model Republic and of the Pattern +Democracy, under which we offer ourselves to the admiration and +imitation of less happy nations, is certainly a refinement on their +nomenclature. +<p> +This prerogative of power, too, is elsewhere conceded by the multitude +to their rulers generally for some especial fitness, real or +imaginary, for the office they have assumed. Some services of their +own or of their ancestors to the state, some superiority, natural or +acquired, of parts or skill, at least some specialty of high culture +and elegant breeding, a quick sense of honor, a jealousy of insult to +the public, an impatience of personal stain,—some or all of these +qualities, appealing to the gratitude or to the imagination of the +masses, have usually been supposed to inhere in the class they permit +to rule over them. By virtue of some or all of these things, its +members have had allowed to them their privileges and their +precedency, their rights of exemption and of preeminence, their voice +potential in the councils of the state, and their claim to be foremost +in its defence in the hour of its danger. Some ray of imagination +there is, which, falling on the knightly shields and heraldic devices +that symbolize their conceded superiority, at least dazzles the eyes +and delights the fancy of the crowd, so as to blind them to the +inhering vices and essential fallacies of the Order to whose will they +bow. +<p> +But no such consolations of delusion remain to us, as we stand face to +face with the Power which holds our destinies in its hand. None of +these blear illusions can cheat our eyes with any such false +presentments. No antiquity hallows, no public services consecrate, no +gifts of lofty culture adorn, no graces of noble breeding embellish +the coarse and sordid oligarchy that gives law to us. And in the +blighting shadow of Slavery letters die and art cannot live. What book +has the South ever given to the libraries of the world? What work of +art has she ever added to its galleries? What artist has she produced +that did not instinctively fly, like Allston, to regions in which +genius could breathe and art was possible? What statesman has she +reared, since Jefferson died and Madison ceased to write, save those +intrepid discoverers who have taught that Slavery is the corner-stone +of republican institutions, and the vital element of Freedom herself? +What divine, excepting the godly men whose theologic skill has +attained to the doctrine that Slavery is of the essence of the Gospel +of Jesus Christ? What moralist, besides those ethic doctors who teach +that it is according to the Divine Justice that the stronger race +should strip the weaker of every civil, social, and moral right? The +unrighteous partiality, extorted by the threats of Carolina and +Georgia in 1788, which gives them a disproportionate representation +because of their property in men, and the unity of interest which +makes them always act in behalf of Slavery as one man, have made them +thus omnipotent. The North, distracted by a thousand interests, has +always been at the mercy of whatever barbarian chief in the capital +could throw his slave whip into the trembling scale of party. The +government having been always, since this century began, at least, the +creature and the tool of the slaveholders, the whole patronage of the +nation, and the treasury filled chiefly by Northern commerce, have +been at their command to help manipulate and mould plastic Northern +consciences into practicable shapes. When the slave interest, +consisting, at its own largest account of itself, of less than THREE +HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND souls, has <i>thirty</i> members of the +Senate, while the free-labor interest, consisting of at least +TWENTY-FOUR MILLIONS, SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND souls, has but +<i>thirty-two</i>, and when the former has a delegation of some score +of members to represent its slaves in the House, besides its own fair +proportion, can we marvel that it has achieved the mastery over us, +which is written in black and bloody characters on so many pages of +our history? +<p> +Such having been the absolute sway Slavery has exercised over the +facts of our history, what has been its influence upon the characters +of the men with whom it has had to do? Of all the productions of a +nation, its men are what prove its quality the most surely. How have +the men of America stood this test? Have those in the high places, +they who have been called to wait at the altar before all the people, +maintained the dignity of character and secured the general reverence +which marked and waited upon their predecessors in the days of our +small things? The population of the United States has multiplied +itself nearly tenfold, while its wealth has increased in a still +greater proportion, since the peace of 'Eighty-Three. Have the +Representative Men of the nation been made or maintained great and +magnanimous, too? Or is that other anomaly, which has so perplexed the +curious foreigner, an admitted fact, that in proportion as the country +has waxed great and powerful, its public men have dwindled from giants +in the last century to dwarfs in this? Alas, to ask the question is to +answer it. Compare Franklin, and Adams, and Jay, met at Paris to +negotiate the treaty of peace which was to seal the recognition of +their country as an equal sister in the family of nations, with +Buchanan, and Soulé, and Mason, convened at Ostend to plot the larceny +of Cuba! Sages and lawgivers, consulting for the welfare of a world +and a race, on the one hand, and buccaneers conspiring for the pillage +of a sugar-island on the other! +<p> +What men, too, did not Washington and Adams call around them in the +Cabinet!—how representative of great ideas! how historical! how +immortal! How many of our readers can name the names of their +successors of the present day? Inflated obscurities, bloated +insignificances, who knows or cares whence they came or what they are? +We know whose bidding they were appointed to obey, and what manner of +work they are ready to perform. And shall we dare extend our profane +comparisons even higher than the Cabinet? Shall we bring the shadowy +majesty of Washington's august idea alongside the microscopic +realities of to-day? Let us be more merciful, and take our departure +from the middle term between the Old and the New, occupied by Andrew +Jackson, whose iron will and doggedness of purpose give definite +character, if not awful dignity, to his image. In his time, the Slave +Power, though always the secret spring which set events in motion, +began to let its workings be seen more openly than ever before. And +from his time forward, what a graduated line of still diminishing +shadows have glided successively through the portals of the White +House! From Van Buren to Tyler, from Tyler to Polk, from Polk to +Fillmore, from Fillmore to Pierce! "Fine by degrees and beautifully +less," until it at last reached the vanishing point! +<p> +The baleful influence thus ever shed by Slavery on our national +history and our public men has not yet spent its malignant forces. It +has, indeed, reached a height which a few years ago it was thought the +wildest fanaticism to predict; but its fatal power will not be stayed +in the mid-sweep of its career. The Ordinance of 1787 torn to shreds +and scattered to the winds,—the line drawn in 1820, which the +slaveholders plighted their faith Slavery should never overstep, +insolently as well as infamously obliterated,—Slavery presiding in +the Cabinet, seated on the Supreme Bench, absolute in the halls of +Congress,—no man can say what shape its next aggression may not take +to itself. A direct attack on the freedom of the press and the liberty +of speech at the North, where alone either exists, were no more +incredible than the later insolences of its tyranny. The battle not +yet over in Kansas, for the compulsory establishment of Slavery there +by the interposition of the Federal arm, will be renewed in every +Territory as it is ripening into a State. Already warning voices are +heard in the air, presaging such a conflict in Oregon. Parasites +everywhere instinctively feel that a zeal for the establishment of +Slavery where it has been abolished, or its introduction where it had +been prohibited, is the highest recommendation to the Executive favor. +The rehabilitation of the African slave-trade is seriously proposed +and will be furiously urged, and nothing can hinder its accomplishment +but its interference with the domestic manufactures of the breeding +Slave States. The pirate Walker is already mustering his forces for +another incursion into Nicaragua, and rumors are rife that General +Houston designs wresting yet another Texas from Mexico. Mighty events +are at hand, even at the door; and the mission of them all will be to +fix Slavery firmly and forever on the throne of this nation. +<p> +Is the success of this conspiracy to be final and eternal? Are the +States which name themselves, in simplicity or in irony, the Free +States, to be always the satrapies of a central power like this? Are +we forever to submit to be cheated out of our national rights by an +oligarchy as despicable as it is detestable, because it clothes itself +in the forms of democracy, and allows us the ceremonies of choice, the +name of power, and the permission to register the edicts of the +sovereign? We, who broke the sceptre of King George, and set our feet +on the supremacy of the British Parliament, surrender ourselves, bound +hand and foot in bonds of our own weaving, into the hands of the +slaveholding Philistines! We, who scorned the rule of the aristocracy +of English acres, submit without a murmur, or with an ineffectual +resistance, to the aristocracy of American flesh and blood! Is our +spirit effectually broken? is the brand of meanness and compromise +burnt in uneffaceably upon our souls? and are we never to be roused, +by any indignities, to fervent resentment and effectual resistance? +The answer to these grave questions lies with ourselves alone. One +hundred thousand, or three hundred thousand men, however crafty and +unscrupulous, cannot forever keep under their rule more than twenty +millions, as much their superiors in wealth and intelligence as in +numbers, except by their own consent. If the growing millions are to +be driven with cartwhips along the pathway of their history by the +dwindling thousands, they have none to blame for it but themselves. +If they like to have their laws framed and expounded, their presidents +appointed, their foreign policy dictated, their domestic interests +tampered with, their war and peace made for them, their national fame +and personal honor tarnished, and the lie given to all their boastings +before the old despotisms, by this insignificant fraction of their +number,—scarcely visible to the naked eye in the assembly of the +whole people,—none can gainsay or resist their pleasure. +<p> +But will the many always thus submit themselves to the domination of +the few? We believe that the days of this ignominious subjection are +already numbered. Signs in heaven and on earth tell us that one of +those movements has begun to be felt in the Northern mind, which +perplex tyrannies everywhere with the fear of change. The insults and +wrongs so long heaped upon the North by the South begin to be +felt. The torpid giant moves uneasily beneath his mountain-load of +indignities. The people of the North begin to feel that they support a +government for the benefit of their natural enemies; for, of all +antipathies, that of slave labor to free is the most deadly and +irreconcilable. There never was a time when the relations of the North +and the South, as complicated by Slavery, were so well understood and +so deeply resented as now. In fields, in farmhouses, and in workshops, +there is a spirit aroused which can never be laid or exorcised till it +has done its task. We see its work in the great uprising of the Free +States against the Slave States in the late national election. Though +trickery and corruption cheated it of its end, the thunder of its +protest struck terror into the hearts of the tyrants. We hear its +echo, as it comes back from the Slave States themselves, in the +exceeding bitter cry of the whites for deliverance from the bondage +which the slavery of the blacks has brought upon them also. We +discern the confession of its might in the very extravagances and +violences of the Slave Power. It is its conscious and admitted +weakness that has made Texas and Mexico and Cuba, and our own +Northwestern territory, necessary to be devoured. It is desperation, +and not strength, that has made the bludgeon and the bowie-knife +integral parts of the national legislation. It has the American +Government, the American Press, and the American Church, in its +national organizations, on its side; but the Humanity and the +Christianity of the Nation and the World abhor and execrate it. They +that be against it are more than they that be for it. +<p> +It rages, for its time is short. And its rage is the fiercer because +of the symptoms of rebellion against its despotism which it discerns +among the white men of the South, who from poverty or from principle +have no share in its sway. When we speak of the South as +distinguished from the North by elements of inherent hostility, we +speak only of the governing faction, and not of the millions of +nominally free men who are scarcely less its thralls than the black +slaves themselves. This unhappy class of our countrymen are the first +to feel the blight which Slavery spreads around it, because they are +the nearest to its noxious power. The subjects of no European +despotism are under a closer <i>espionage,</i> or a more organized +system of terrorism, than are they. The slaveholders, having the +wealth, and nearly all the education that the South can boast of, +employ these mighty instruments of power to create the public +sentiment and to control the public affairs of their region, so as +best to secure their own supremacy. No word of dissent to the +institutions under which they live, no syllable of dissatisfaction, +even, with any of the excesses they stimulate, can be breathed in +safety. A Christian minister in Tennessee relates an act of fiendish +cruelty inflicted upon a slave by one of the members of his church, +and he is forced to leave his charge, if not to fly the +country. Another in South Carolina presumes to express in conversation +his disapprobation of the murderous assault of Brooks on Senator +Sumner, and his pastoral relations are broken up on the instant, as if +he had been guilty of gross crime or flagrant heresy. Professor +Hedrick, in North Carolina, ventures to utter a preference for the +Northern candidate in the last presidential campaign, and he is +summarily ejected from his chair, and virtually banished from his +native State. Mr. Underwood, of Virginia, dares to attend the +convention of the party he preferred, and he is forbidden to return to +his home on pain of death. The blackness of darkness and the stillness +of death are thus forced to brood over that land which God formed so +fair, and made to be so happy. +<p> +That such a tyranny should excite an antagonistic spirit of resistance +is inevitable from the constitution of man and the character of +God. The sporadic cases of protest and of resistance to the +slaveholding aristocracy, which lift themselves occasionally above the +dead level of the surrounding despotism, are representative +cases. They stand for much more than their single selves. They prove +that there is a wide-spread spirit of discontent, informing great +regions of the slave-land, which must one day find or force an +opportunity of making itself heard and felt. This we have just seen in +the great movement in Missouri, the very nursing-mother of +Border-Ruffianism itself, which narrowly missed making Emancipation +the policy of the majority of the voters there. Such a result is the +product of no sudden culture. It must have been long and slowly +growing up. And how could it be otherwise? There must be intelligence +enough among the non-slaveholding whites to see the difference there +is between themselves and persons of the same condition in the Free +States. Why can they have no free schools? Why is it necessary that a +missionary society be formed at the North to furnish them with such +ministers as the slave-master can approve? Why can they not support +their own ministers, and have a Gospel of Free Labor preached to them, +if they choose? Why are they hindered from taking such newspapers as +they please? Why are they subjected to a censorship of the press, +which dictates to them what they may or may not read, and which +punishes booksellers with exile and ruin for keeping for sale what +they want to buy? Why must Northern publishers expurgate and +emasculate the literature of the world before it is permitted to reach +them? Why is it that the value of acres increases in a geometrical +ratio, as they stretch away towards the North Star from the frontier +of Slavery? These questions must suggest their sufficient answer to +thousands of hearts, and be preparing the way for the insurrection of +which the slaveholders stand in the deadliest fear,—that of the +whites at their gates, who can do with them and their institutions +what seems to them good, when once they know their power, and choose +to put it forth. The unity of interest of the non-slaveholders of the +South with the people of the Free States is perfect, and it must one +day combine them in a unity of action. +<p> +The exact time when the millions of the North and of the South shall +rise upon this puny mastership, and snatch from its hands the control +of their own affairs, we cannot tell,—nor yet the authentic shape +which that righteous insurrection will take unto itself. But we know +that when the great body of any nation is thoroughly aroused, and +fully in earnest to abate a mischief or to right a wrong, nothing can +resist its energy or defeat its purpose. It will provide the way, when +its will is once thoroughly excited. Men look out upon the world they +live in, and it seems as if a change for the better were hopeless and +impossible. The great statesmen, the eminent divines, the reverend +judges, the learned lawyers, the wealthy landholders and merchants are +all leagued together to repel innovation. But the earth still moves +in its orbit around the sun; decay and change and death pursue their +inevitable course; the child is born and grows up; the strong man +grows old and dies; the law of flux and efflux never ceases, and lo! +ere men are aware of it, all things have become new. Fresh eyes look +upon the world, and it is changed. Where are now Calhoun, and Clay, +and Webster? Where will shortly be Cass, and Buchanan, and Benton, and +their like? Vanished from the stage of affairs, if not from the face +of Nature. Who are to take their places? God knows. But we know that +the school in which men are now in training for the arena is very +different from the one which formed the past and passing generations +of politicians. Great ideas are abroad, challenging the encounter of +youth. Angels wrestle with the men of this generation, as with the +Patriarch of old, and it is our own fault if a blessing be not +extorted ere they take their flight. Principles, like those which in +the earlier days of the republic elevated men into statesmen, are now +again in the field, chasing the policies which have dwarfed their sons +into politicians. These things are portentous of change,—perhaps +sudden, but, however delayed, inevitable. +<p> +And this change, whatever the outward shape in which it may incarnate +itself, in the fulness of time, will come of changed ideas, opinions, +and feelings in the general mind and heart. All institutions, even +those of the oldest of despotisms, exist by the permission and consent +of those who live under them. Change the ideas of the thronging +multitudes by the banks of the Neva, or on the shores of the +Bosphorus, and they will be changed into Republicans and Christians in +the twinkling of an eye. Not merely the Kingdom of Heaven, but the +kingdoms of this world, are within us. Ideas are their substance; +institutions and customs but the shadows they cast into the visible +sphere. Mould the substance anew, and the projected shadow must +represent the altered shape within. Hence the dread despots feel, and +none more than the petty despots of the plantation, of whatever may +throw the light of intelligence across the mental sight of their +slaves. Men endure the ills they have, either because they think them +blessings, or because they fear lest, should they seek to fly them, it +might be to others that they know not of. The present Bonaparte holds +France in a chain because she is willing that he should. Let her but +breathe upon the padlock, and, like that in the fable, it will fade +into air, and he and his dynasty will vanish with it. So the people of +the North submit to the domination of the South because they are used +to it, and are doubtful as to what may replace it. Whenever the +millions, North and South, whom Slavery grinds under her heel, shall +be resolutely minded that her usurpation shall cease, it will +disappear, and forever. As soon as the stone is thrown the giant will +die, and men will marvel that they endured him so long. But this can +only come to pass by virtue of a change yet to be wrought in the +hearts and minds of men. Ideas everywhere are royal;—here they are +imperial. It is the great office of genius, and eloquence, and sacred +function, and conspicuous station, and personal influence to herald +their approach and to prepare the way before them, that they may +assert their state and give holy laws to the listening nation. Thus a +glorious form and pressure may be given to the coming age. Thus the +ideal of a true republic, of a government of laws made and executed by +the people, of which bards have sung and prophets dreamed, and for +which martyrs have suffered and heroes died, may yet be possible to +us, and the great experiment of this Western World be indeed a Model, +instead of a Warning to the nations. + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> + +<table border="0"> +<tr> +<td width="33%"> + +</td> +<td width="67%"> +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="17">MY PORTRAIT GALLERY.</a> +</h2> +<br><br> +<p> + Oft round my hall of portraiture I gaze,<br> + By Memory reared, the artist wise and holy,<br> + From stainless quarries of deep-buried days.<br> + There, as I muse in soothing melancholy,<br> + Your faces glow in more than mortal youth,<br> + Companions of my prime, now vanished wholly,—<br> + The loud, impetuous boy, the low-voiced maiden.<br> + Ah, never master that drew mortal breath<br> + Can match thy portraits, just and generous Death,<br> + Whose brush with sweet regretful tints is laden!<br> + Thou paintest that which struggled here below<br> + Half understood, or understood for woe,<br> + And, with a sweet forewarning,<br> + Mak'st round the sacred front an aureole glow<br> + Woven of that light that rose on Easter morning. +</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + +<br><br><hr> + +<br><br><br> + +<h2 align="center"> +<a name="19">LITERARY NOTICES.</a> +</h2> +<br><br> + +<i><a name="19a">Homoeopathic Domestic Physician</a></i>, etc., etc. By J. H. PULTE, +M.D., Author of "Woman's Medical Guide," etc. Twenty-fourth +thousand. Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach, Keys, & Co. London: James Epps, +170, Piccadilly, 1857. +<p> +Of course the reader understands the following notice to be written by +a venerable practitioner, who carries a gold-headed cane, and does not +believe in any medical authority later than Sydenham. Listen to him, +then, and remember that if anything in the way of answer, or +remonstrance, or controversial advertisement is sent to the +head-quarters of this periodical, it will go directly into the basket, +which, entering, a manuscript leaves all hope behind. The "old salts" +of the "Atlantic" do not go for non-committal and neutrality, or any +of that kind of nonsense. Our oracle with the gold stick must have +the ground to himself, or keep his wisdom for another set of +readers. A quarrel between "Senex" and "Fairplay" would be amusing, +but expensive. We have no space for it; and the old gentleman, though +he can use his cane smartly for one of his age, positively declines +the game of single-stick. Hear him. +<p> +—The book mentioned above lies before us with its valves open, +helpless as an oyster on its shell, inviting the critical pungent, the +professional acid, and the judicial impaling trident. We will be +merciful. This fat little literary mollusk is well-conditioned, of +fair aspect, and seemingly good of its kind. Twenty-four thousand +individuals,—we have its title-page as authority,—more or less +lineal descendants of Solomon, have become the fortunate possessors of +this plethoric guide to earthly immortality. They might have done +worse; for the work is well printed, well arranged, and +typographically creditable to the great publishing-house which honors +Cincinnati by its intelligent enterprise. The purchasers have done +very wisely in buying a book which will not hurt their eyes. Mr. Otis +Clapp, bibliopolist, has the work, and will be pleased to supply it to +an indefinite number of the family above referred to. +<p> +—Men live in the immediate neighborhood of a great menagerie, the +doors of which are always open. The beasts of prey that come out are +called diseases. They feed upon us, and between their teeth we must +all pass sooner or later,—all but a few, who are otherwise taken care +of. When these animals attack a man, most of them give him a scratch +or a bite, and let him go. Some hold on a little while; some are +carried about for weeks or months, until the carrier drops down, or +they drop off. By and by one is sure to come along that drags down the +strongest, and makes an end of him. +<p> +Most people know little or nothing of these beasts, until all at once +they find themselves attacked by one of them. They are therefore +liable to be frightened by those that are not dangerous, and careless +with those that are destructive. They do not know what will soothe, +and what will exasperate them. They do not even know the dens of many +of them, though they are close to their own dwellings. +<p> +A physician is one that has lived among these beasts, and studied +their aspects and habits. He knows them all well, and looks them in +the face, and lays his hand on their backs daily. They seem, as it +were, to know him, and to greet him with such <i>risus sardonicus</i> +as they can muster. He knows that his friends and himself have all +got to be eaten up at last by them, and his friends have the same +belief. Yet they want him near them at all times, and with them when +they are set upon by any of these their natural enemies. He goes, +knowing pretty well what he can do and what he cannot. +<p> +He can talk to them in a quiet and sensible way about these terrible +beings, concerning which they are so ignorant, and liable to harbor +such foolish fancies. He can frighten away some of the lesser kind of +animals with certain ill-smelling preparations he carries about +him. Once in a while he can draw the teeth of some of the biggest, or +throttle them. He can point out their dens, and so keep many from +falling into their jaws. +<p> +This is a great deal to promise or perform, but it is not all that is +expected of him. Sick people are very apt to be both fools and +cowards. Many of them confess the fact in the frankest possible +way. If you doubt it, ask the next dentist about the wisdom and +courage of average manhood under the dispensation of a bad tooth. As a +tooth is to a liver, so are the dentists' patients to the doctors', in +the want of the two excellences above mentioned. +<p> +Those not over-wise human beings called patients are frequently a +little unreasonable. They come with a small scratch, which Nature +will heal very nicely in a few days, and insist on its being closed at +once with some kind of joiner's glue. They want their little coughs +cured, so that they may breathe at their ease, when they have no lungs +left that are worth mentioning. They would have called in Luke the +physician to John the Baptist, when his head was in the charger, and +asked for a balsam that would cure cuts. This kind of thing cannot be +done. But it is very profitable to lie about it, and say that it can +be done. The people who make a business of this lying, and profiting +by it, are called quacks. +<p> +—But as patients wish to believe in all manner of "cures," and as all +doctors love to believe in the power of their remedies and as nothing +is more open to self-deception than medical experience, the whole +matter of therapeutics has always been made a great deal more of than +the case would justify. It has been an inflated currency,—fifty +pretences on paper, to one fact of true, ringing metal. +<p> +Many of the older books are full of absurd nostrums. A century ago, +Huxham gave messes to his patients containing more than four hundred +ingredients. Remedies were ordered that must have been suggested by +the imagination; things odious, abominable, unmentionable; flesh of +vipers, powder of dead men's bones, and other horrors, best mused in +expressive silence. Go to the little book of Robert Boyle,—wise man, +philosopher, revered of cures for the most formidable diseases, many +of them of this fantastic character, that disease should seem to have +been a thing that one could turn off at will, like gas or water in our +houses. Only there were rather too many specifics in those days. For +if one has "an excellent approved remedy" that never fails, it seems +unnecessary to print a list of twenty others for the same +purpose. This is wanton excess; it is gilding the golden pill, and +throwing fresh perfume on the Mistura Assafoetidæ. +<p> +As the observation of nature has extended, and as mankind have +approached the state of only <i>semi</i>-barbarism in which they now +exist, there has been an improvement. The materia medica has been +weeded; much that was worthless and revolting has been thrown +overboard; simplicity has been introduced into prescriptions; and the +whole business of <i>drugging</i> the sick has undergone a most +salutary reform. The great fact has been practically recognized, that +the movements of life in disease obey laws which, under the +circumstances, are on the whole salutary, and only require a limited +and occasional interference by any special disturbing agents. The list +of specifics has been reduced to a very brief catalogue, and the +delusion which had exaggerated the power of drugging for so many +generations has been tempered down by sound and systematic +observation. +<p> +Homoeopathy came, and with one harlequin bound leaped out of its +century backwards into the region of quagmires and fogs and mirages, +from which true medical science was painfully emerging. All the +trumpery of exploded pharmacopoeias was revived under new names. Even +the domain of the loathsome has been recently invaded, and simpletons +are told in the book before us to swallow serpents' poison; nay, it is +said that the <i>pediculis capitis</i> is actually prescribed in +infusion,—hunted down in his capillary forest, and transferred to the +digestive organs of those he once fed upon. +<p> +It falsely alleged one axiom as the basis of existing medical +practice, namely, <i>Contraria contrarüs curantur</i>,—"Contraries +are cured by contraries." No such principle was ever acted upon, +exclusively, as the basis of medical practice. The man who does not +admit it as <i>one</i> of the principles of practice would, on +<i>medical</i> principles, refuse a drop of cold water to cool the +tongue of Dives in fiery torments. The only unconditional principle +ever recognized by medical science has been, that diseases are to be +treated by the remedies that experience shows to be useful. The +universal use of both <i>cold</i> and <i>hot</i> external and internal +remedies in various inflammatory states puts the garrote at once on +the babbling throat of the senseless assertion of the homaeopathists, +and stultifies for all time the nickname "allopathy." +<p> +It falsely alleged a second axiom, <i>Similia similibus +curantur</i>,—"Like is cured by like,"—as the basis of its own +practice; for it does not keep to any such rule, as every page of the +book before us abundantly shows. +<p> +It subjected credulous mankind to the last of indignities, in forcing +it to listen to that doctrine of infinitesimals and potencies which is +at once the most epigrammatic of paradoxes, and the crowning exploit +of pseudo-scientific audacity. +<p> +It proceeded to prove itself true by juggling statistics; some of the +most famous of which, we may remark, are very well shown up by +Professor Worthington Hooker, in a recent essay. And having done all +these things, it sat down in the shadow of a brazen bust of its +founder, and invited mankind to join in the Barmecide feast it had +spread on the coffin of Science; who, however, proved not to have been +buried in it,—indeed, not to have been buried at all. +<p> +Of course, it had, and has, a certain success. Its infinitesimal +treatment being a nullity, patients are never hurt by drugs, <i>when +it is adhered to</i>. It pleases the imagination. It is image-worship, +relic-wearing, holy-water-sprinkling, transferred from the spiritual +world to that of the body. Poets accept it; sensitive and spiritual +women become sisters of charity in its service. It does not offend the +palate, and so spares the nursery those scenes of single combat in +which infants were wont to yield at length to the pressure of the +spoon and the imminence of asphyxia. It gives the ignorant, who have +such an inveterate itch for dabbling in physic, a book and a doll's +medicine-chest, and lets them play doctors and doctresses without fear +of having to call in the coroner. And just so long as unskilful and +untaught people cannot tell coincidences from cause and effect in +medical practice,—which to do, the wise and experienced know how +difficult!—so long it will have plenty of "facts" to fall back +upon. Who can blame a man for being satisfied with the argument, "I +was ill, and am well,—great is Hahnemann!"? Only this argument serves +all impostors and impositions. It is not of much value, but it is +irresistible, and therefore quackery is immortal. +<p> +Homaeopathy is one of its many phases; the most imaginative, the most +elegant, and, it is fair to say, the least noxious in its direct +agencies. "It is melancholy,"—we use the recent words of the +world-honored physician of the Queen's household, Sir John +Forbes,—"to be forced to make admissions in favor of a system so +utterly false and despicable as Homaeopathy." Yet we must own that it +may have been indirectly useful, as the older farce of the weapon +ointment certainly was, in teaching medical practitioners to place +more reliance upon nature. Most scientific men see through its +deceptions at a glance. It may be practised by shrewd men and by +honest ones; rarely, it must be feared, by those who are both shrewd +and honest. As a psychological experiment on the weakness of +cultivated minds, it is the best trick of the century. +<p> +—Here the old gentleman took his cane and walked out to cool himself. + +<br><br><br> +<h3> +FOREIGN. +</h3> +<p> +It is an old remark of Lessing, often repeated, but nevertheless true, +that Frenchmen, as a general rule, are sadly deficient in the mental +powers suited to <i>objective</i> observation, and therefore eminently +disqualified for reliable reports of travels. Among the host of French +writing travellers or travelling writers, on whatever foreign +countries, there have always been very few who looked at foreign +countries, nations, institutions, and achievements, with anything like +fairness of judgment and capacity of understanding. For an average +Frenchman, Molière's renowned juxtaposition of +<blockquote> + "Paris, la cour, le monde, l'univers," +</blockquote> +<p> +is a gospel down to this day; and no country can so justly complain of +being constantly misunderstood and misrepresented by French tourists +as ours. The more difficult it is for a Frenchman not to glance +through colored spectacles from the Palais Royal at whatever does not +belong to "the Great Nation," the more praise those few of them +deserve who give to the world correct and impartial impressions of +travel and reliable ethnological works. +<p> +Such is the case with two works which we are glad to recommend to our +readers. The first is +<br><br><br> + +<i><a name="19b">La Norwège</a></i>, par LOUIS ENAULT. Paris: Hachette. 1857. +<p> +Norway, though a member of the European family, with a population once +so influential in the world's history, is comparatively the least +known of all civilized countries to the world at large, and what +little we know of it is of a very recent date,—Stephens's and Leopold +von Buch's works being not much more than a quarter of a century old, +while Bayard Taylor's lively sketches in the "New York Tribune" are +almost wet still, and not yet complete. The latter and M. Enault's +book, when compared with each other, leave not the slightest doubt +that each observes carefully and conscientiously in his own way, that +both possess peculiar gifts for studying and describing correctly what +there is worth studying and describing in this <i>terra incognita</i>, and +that we can rely on both. Mr. Taylor is more picturesque, lively, +fascinating, and drastic; M. Enault more thorough, quiet, and reserved +in the expression of his opinions. The parts seem to be +interchanged,—the Frenchman exhibiting more of the Anglo-Saxon, the +American more of the French genius; but both confirm each other's +statements admirably, and should be read side by side. If our readers +wish to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the workings of the +laws and institutions, with the statistical, economical, and +geographical facts, the society and manners, the later history and +future prospects of Norway, they will find here a work trustworthy in +every respect. +<br><br><br> + +<i><a name="19c">Les Anglais et l'Inde</a></i>, +avec Notes, Pièces justificatives et +Tableaux statistiques, par E. DE VALBEZEN. Paris. 1857. +<p> +This is no narrative of travel, though evidently written by one who +has been for a considerable time an eyewitness of Indian affairs, and +by a man of acute mind and quick and comprehensive perception, +thoroughly versed in the history and condition of India. It is a +treatise on all those topics bearing upon the present political, +social, and commercial state of things there, beginning with the +exposition of the English governmental institutions there existing, +describing the country, its productions and resources, its various +populations, its social relations, its agriculture, commerce, and +wealth, and concluding with statistical and other documents in support +of the author's statements. It gives a nearly systematical and +complete picture of Indian affairs, enabling the reader to understand +the present situation of the country and its foreign rulers, and to +form a judgment on all corresponding topics. The style is classical, +though somewhat concise and epigrammatic, giving proof everywhere of a +mind that forms its own conclusions and takes independent, +statesmanlike views. The author refrains from obtruding his own +opinions on the reader, leaving things to speak for themselves. He is +not ostensibly antagonistic to the English, as we should expect from a +true Frenchman,—is no cordial hater of "<i>perfide Albion</i>." You +cannot, from his book, with any show of reason, infer that he is a +Jesuit, a French missionary, a merchant, a governmental employé, or a +simple traveller; but you feel instinctively that he is wide-awake, +shrewd, and reserved, and that you may trust his reports in the +main. He refers, for proof of his statements, mostly to English +documents, and does not try to preoccupy your mind. Particularly +noteworthy is what he says of the political economy of India; he +controverts effectively the prevailing opinion that it is the richest +country in the world,—showing its real poverty, in spite of its great +natural resources, and the almost hopeless task of improving these +resources. For the American merchant this is a very readable book, +warning him to refrain from too hastily investing his capital and +enterprise in Indian commerce,—India being the most insecure of all +countries for foreign commercial undertakings; and in general, there +are so many entirely new and startling revelations in it, that, to any +one interested in Indian matters, it well repays reading. +<br><br><br> + +<i><a name="19d">Histoire de la Révolution Française</a></i>, (1789-1799,) Par +THÉOD. H. BARRAU. Paris: Hachette. 1857. +<p> +We cannot vouch that we have here a new, original history of this +important epoch, based on an independent study of historical sources; +but it is the very first history of the French Revolution we have +known, not written in a partisan spirit, and bent on falsifying the +facts in order to make political capital or to flatter national +prejudices. It bears no evidence of any tendency whatever,—perhaps +only because, with its more than five hundred pages, it is too short +for that. +<br><br><br> + +<i><a name="19e">Histoire de France au XVI. Siècle</a></i>, par MICHÉLET. Tom. 10. +<i>Henri IV. et Richelieu</i>. +<p> +Michélet is too well known as a truly Republican historiographer and +truly humane and noble writer, and the former volumes of this history +have been too long before the public, to require for this volume a +particular recommendation. It begins with the last <i>décade</i> of the +sixteenth century, and concludes with the year 1626. We are no +particular admirers of Michélet's historical style and method of +delineation, but we acknowledge his sense of historical justice, his +unprejudiced mind, and his Republicanism, even when treating a subject +so delicate, and so dear to Frenchmen, as Henry IV. Doing justice to +whatever was really admirable in the character of this much beloved +king, he overthrows a good many superstitious ideas current concerning +him even down to our days. He shows that the Utopian, though +benevolent project, ascribed to Henry, of establishing an everlasting +peace by revising the map of Europe and constituting a political +equilibrium between the several European powers, never in fact existed +in the king's mind, nor even in Sully's, whom he equally divests of +much unfounded glory and fictitious greatness. No doubt, but for his +fickleness and inconsistency, Henry could have done a good deal toward +realizing such ideas and reforming European politics; but it is saying +too much for Henry's influence on the popular opinions of Europe, to +affirm, what Michélet gives us to understand, that he could have +combined the nations of Europe against all their depraved rulers +together. +<br><br><br> + +<i><a name="19f">La Liberté</a></i>, par ÉMILE DE GIRARDIN. Paris. 1857. +<p> +This book contains a discussion between the author and M. de +Lourdoueix, ex-editor of the "Gazette de France," written in the form +of letters, on the various topics connected with the notion of +Liberty. Girardin is, no doubt, the most genial of all living French +writers on Socialism and Politics. He belongs neither to the fanatical +school of Communists and Social Equalizers by force and "<i>par ordre +da Mufti</i>," nor to the class of pliable tools of Imperial or Royal +Autocracy. He is the only writer who, in the face of the prevailing +restrictions upon the press in France, dares to speak out his whole +mind, and to preach the Age of Reason in Politics and in the Social +System. He is full of new ideas, which should, we think, be very +attractive to American readers; and it is, indeed, strange that his +writings are so little read and reviewed on this side of the +ocean. His ideas on general education, on the total extinction of +authority or government, on the abolition of public punishments of +every kind, on the doing away with standing armies, war, and tyranny, +and on making the State a great Assurance Company against all +imaginable misfortunes and their consequences, are a fair index of the +best philosophemes of the European mind since the last Revolution. We +do not say that we approve every one of his issues and conclusions, +but we insist most earnestly, that this book and similar ones, bearing +testimony to what the political and social thinkers of the day in +Europe are revolving in their minds, should be read and reviewed under +the light of American institutions and ideas. The reader enjoys in the +present book the great advantage of seeing the ideas of the Social +Reformers discussed <i>pro</i> and <i>contra</i>,—M. Lourdoueix being +their obstinate adversary. +<br><br><br> + +<i><a name="19g">Mémoires de M. Joseph Prudhomme</a></i>, par HENRI MONNIER. 2 +vols. Paris. 1857. +<p> +This is not what is commonly called <i>mémoires</i>,—to wit, +historical recollections modified by the subjective impressions of +eyewitnesses to the past; it is rather a novel or romance in the form +of <i>mémoires</i>, ridiculing the predominant <i>bourgeoisie</i> of +the Old World, and sketching the whole life of a <i>bourgeois</i>, +from infancy to green old age. For readers, who, through travel in +Europe and acquaintance with French literature and tastes, are enabled +to understand the many nice allusions contained in this novel, it is a +very entertaining book. +<br><br><br> + +1. <i><a name="19h">Kraft und Stoff</a></i>. By G. BÜCHNER. Fourth edition. 1857. +<br> +2. <i>Materie und Geist</i>. By the same. 1857. +<p> +It is certainly a remarkable sign of the times, that a book treating +of purely scientific matters,—physiological facts and ideas,—like +the first of these, of which the second is the complement, should in a +very few years have attained to its fourth edition in Germany. All +those works on Natural Science, by Alexander von Humboldt, Oersted, Du +Bois-Raymond, Cotta, Vogt, Moleschott, Büchner, Rossmässler, Ule, +Müller, and others, which have appeared since the Revolution of 1848, +uniting a more popular and intelligible style with a purely scientific +treatment of the matter-of-fact, irrespective of the religious and +political dogmas that conflict with the results of natural science, +have met with decided success in Germany and France. They are +extensively read and appreciated, even by the less educated and +learned classes. Among these works, that of Büchner ranks high, and +it is therefore strange that we have seen it hitherto reviewed in no +American journal. This may serve us as an excuse for noticing this +fourth edition, though it is little improved over the former ones. It +exhibits the last results of the science of physiology, in a +scientific, but rather popular method of exposition. There is quite a +hive of new ideas and intuitions contained in it,—ideas conflicting, +it is true, with many received dogmas, and irreconcilable with +orthodoxy; but it is of no use to shut our eyes to these ideas, as +though the danger threatening from this side could be averted by +imitating the policy of the ostrich. They should be faced and +examined; the danger is far greater from ignoring them. It is +impossible that ideas, largely entertained and cultivated by a nation +so expert in thinking, so versed in science and literature as the +Germans, should have no interest for the great, intelligent American +public. Natural Science may be said to form, at present, an integral +portion of the religion of the Germans. It is, at least, a matter of +ethnological and historical interest to learn in what regions of +thought and speculation our German contemporaries are at home, and +wherein they find their mental happiness and delight. +<br><br><br> + +<i><a name="19i">Die deutsche komische und humoristische Dichtung seit Beginn des +16. Jahrhunderts bis auf unsere Zeit</a></i>. Von IGNAZ HUB. Nürnberg: +Ebner. 1857. +<p> +Two volumes of this interesting work are coming out at the same +time,—one containing the second of the five parts into which the +prose anthology is divided, with comical and humorous pieces from the +sixteenth century, (for instance, extracts from "Fortunatus," the +"Historia" of Dr. J. Faust, "Die Schildbürger," Desid, Erasmus's +"Gespräche," etc.,)—the other containing a collection of poetry of +the same kind, belonging to the present century, and forming part of +the third volume, with pieces by Uhland, Eichendorff, Rückert, +Sapphir, Wm. Müller, Immermann, Palten, Hoffmann, Kopisch, Heine, +Lenau, Möricke, Grün, Wackernagel, and many others. The anthology is +accompanied with biographical and historical notes, and explanations +of provincialisms and such words as to the American reader of German +would be likely to be otherwise unintelligible; so that he may thus, +without too much trouble, satisfactorily enjoy this treasury of +entertainment. The Germans may well be proud of such literary riches, +in which England alone surpasses them. +<br><br><br> + +<i><a name="19j">Thüringer Naturen, Charakter-und Sittenbilder in +Erzählungen</a></i>. Von OTTO LUDWIG. Erster Band. <i>Die Heiterethei und +ihr Widerspiel</i>. Frankfurt. 1857. +<p> +This is one of the numerous imitations of the celebrated +"Dorfgeschichten," by Berthold Auerbach. The latter introduced, in a +time of literary poverty, a wide range of new subjects for epical +treatment,—the life of German peasants, with their simple, healthy, +vigorous natures undepraved by a spurious civilization. In painting +these sinewy figures, full of a character of their own, he was very +felicitous, had an enormous success, and drew a host of less gifted +followers after him. Herr Ludwig is one of these. We shall not despair +of his becoming, at some future time, a second Auerbach; but he is not +one yet. There is, in this work, too much spreading out and +extenuation of a material which, in itself not very rich and varied, +requires great skill to mould into an epic form. But the author has a +remarkable power of drawing true, lifelike characters, and developing +them psychologically. It is refreshing to see that the German literary +taste is becoming gradually more <i>realistic,</i> pure, and natural, +turning its back on the romantic school of the French. +<br><br><br> + +<i><a name="19k">May Carols.</a></i> By AUBREY DE VERE. London. +1857. +<p> +The name of Aubrey de Vere has for some years past been familiar to +the lovers of poetry, as that of a scholarly and genial poet. His +successive volumes have shown a steady growth in poetic power and +elevation of spirit. While gaining a firmer mastery over the +instruments of poetry he has struck from them a deeper, fuller, and +more significant tone. In this his last volume, which has lately +appeared, his verse is brought completely into the service of the +Church. The "May Carols" are poems celebrating the Virgin Mary in her +month of May. For that month, and for the Roman church, Mr. De Vere +has done in this volume what Keble did for the festivals of the year, +and the English church, in his "Christian Year." Catholicism in +England has produced no poet since the days of Crashaw so sincere in +his piety, so sweet in his melody, so pure in spirit as De Vere. And +the volume is not for Roman Catholic readers alone. Others may be +touched by its religious fervor, and charmed with its beauties of +description or of feeling. It is full and redolent of spring. The +sweetness of the May air flows through many of its verses,—of that +season when +<blockquote> + + Trees, that from winter's gray eclipse<br> + Of late but pushed their topmost plume,<br> + Or felt with green-touched finger-tips<br> + For spring, their perfect robes assume. +<p> + While, vague no more, the mountains stand<br> + With quivering line or hazy hue;<br> + But drawn with finer, firmer, hand,<br> + And settling into deeper blue. +</blockquote> +<p> +Mr. De Vere is an exquisite student of nature, with fine perceptions +that have been finely cultivated. Take this picture of the lark:— +<blockquote> + From his cold nest the skylark springs;<br> + Sings, pauses, sings; shoots up anew;<br> + Attains his topmost height, and sings<br> + Quiescent in his vault of blue. +</blockquote> +<p> +And here is a description of the later spring:— +<blockquote> + Brow-bound with myrtle and with gold,<br> + Spring, sacred now from blasts and blights,<br> + Lifts in a firm, untrembling hold<br> + Her chalice of fulfilled delights. +<p> + Confirmed around her queenly lip<br> + The smile late wavering, on she moves;<br> + And seems through deepening tides to step<br> + Of steadier joys and larger loves. +</blockquote> +<p> +The little volume contains many passages such as these. We have space +to quote but one of the poems complete, to show the manner in which +Mr. De Vere unites the real, the symbolic, and the external, with the +spiritual. Like most of his poems, it is marked by artistic finish and +grace, and many of the lines have a natural beauty of unsought +alliteration and assonance. +<blockquote> + + When all the breathless woods aloof<br> + Lie hushed in noontide's deep repose<br> + The dove, sun-warmed on yonder roof,<br> + With what a grave content she coos! +<p> + One note for her! Deep streams run smooth:<br> + The ecstatic song of transience tells.<br> + O, what a depth of loving truth<br> + In thy divine contentment dwells! +<p> + All day with down-dropt lids I sat<br> + In trance; the present scene foregone.<br> + When Hesper rose, on Ararat,<br> + Methought, not English hills, he shone. +<p> + Back to the Ark, the waters o'er,<br> + The primal dove pursued her flight:<br> + A branch of that blest tree she bore<br> + Which feeds the Church with holy light. +<p> + I heard her rustling through the air<br> + With sliding plume,—no sound beside,<br> + Save the sea-sobbings everywhere,<br> + And sighs of the subsiding tide. +</blockquote> +<hr> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2, DECEMBER, 1857***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 10138-h.txt or 10138-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/3/10138">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/3/10138</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: November 19, 2003 [eBook #10138] +[Date last updated: April 30, 2005] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 1, +ISSUE 2, DECEMBER, 1857*** + + +E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Bob Blair, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. I.--DECEMBER, 1857.--NO. II. + + + + + + + +FLORENTINE MOSAICS. + +[Concluded.] + + +VI. + +THE CARMINE. + +The only part of this ancient church which escaped destruction by fire +in 1771 was, most fortunately, the famous Brancacci chapel. Here are +the frescos by Masolino da Panicale, who died in the early part of the +fifteenth century,--the Preaching of Saint Peter, and the Healing of +the Sick. His scholar, Masaccio, (1402-1443,) continued the series, +the completion of which was entrusted to Filippino Lippi, son of Fra +Filippo. + +No one can doubt that the hearty determination evinced by Masolino and +Masaccio to deal with actual life, to grapple to their souls the +visible forms of humanity, and to reproduce the types afterwards in +new, vivid, breathing combinations of dignity and intelligent action, +must have had an immense effect upon the course of Art. To judge by +the few and somewhat injured specimens of these masters which are +accessible, it is obvious that they had much more to do in forming the +great schools of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, than a painter +of such delicate, but limited genius as that of Fra Angelico could +possibly have. Certainly, the courage and accuracy exhibited in the +nude forms of Adam and Eve expelled from paradise, and the expressive +grace in the group of Saint Paul conversing with Saint Peter in +prison, where so much knowledge and power of action are combined with +so much beauty, all show an immense advance over the best works of the +preceding three quarters of a century. + +Besides the great intrinsic merits of these paintings, the Brancacci +chapel is especially interesting from the direct and unquestionable +effect which it is known to have had upon younger painters. Here +Raphael and Michel Angelo, in their youth, and Benvenuto Cellini +passed many hours, copying and recopying what were then the first +masterpieces of painting, the traces of which study are distinctly +visible in their later productions; and here, too, according to +Cellini, the famous punch in the nose befell Buonarotti, by which his +well-known physiognomy acquired its marked peculiarity. Torregiani, +painter and sculptor of secondary importance, but a bully of the first +class,--a man who was in the habit of knocking about the artists whom +he could not equal, and of breaking both their models and their +heads,--had been accustomed to copy in the Brancacci chapel, among the +rest. He had been much annoyed, according to his own account, by +Michel Angelo's habit of laughing at the efforts of artists inferior +in skill to himself, and had determined to punish him. One day, +Buonarotti came into the chapel as usual, and whistled and sneered at +a copy which Torregiani was making. The aggrieved artist, a man of +large proportions, very truculent of aspect, with a loud voice and a +savage frown, sprang upon his critic, and dealt him such a blow upon +the nose, that the bone and cartilage yielded under his hand, +according to his own account, as if they had been made of +dough,--_"come se fosse stato un cialdone."_ This was when both +were very young men; but Torregiani, when relating the story many +years afterwards, always congratulated himself that Buonarotti would +bear the mark of the blow all his life. It may be added, that the +bully met a hard fate afterwards. Having executed a statue in Spain +for a grandee, he was very much outraged by receiving only thirty +scudi as his reward, and accordingly smashed the statue to pieces with +a sledge-hammer. In revenge, the Spaniard accused him of heresy, so +that the unlucky artist was condemned to the flames by the +Inquisition, and only escaped that horrible death by starving himself +in prison before the execution. + + +VII. + +SANTA TRINITA. + +In the chapel of the Sassetti, in this church, is a good set of +frescos by Dominic Ghirlandaio, representing passages from the life of +Saint Francis. They are not so masterly as his compositions in the +Santa Maria Novella. Moreover, they are badly placed, badly lighted, +and badly injured. They are in a northwestern corner, where light +never comes that comes to all. The dramatic power and Flemish skill in +portraiture of the man are, however, very visible, even in the +darkness. No painter of his century approached him in animated +grouping and powerful physiognomizing. Dignified, noble, powerful, and +natural, he is the exact counterpart of Fra Angelico, among the +_Quattrocentisti_. Two great, distinct systems,--the shallow, +shrinking, timid, but rapturously devotional, piously sentimental +school, of which Beato Angelico was _facile princeps_, painfully +adventuring out of the close atmosphere of the _miniatori_ into +the broader light and more gairish colors of the actual, and falling +back, hesitating and distrustful; and the hardy, healthy, audacious +naturalists, wreaking strong and warm human emotions upon vigorous +expression and confident attitude;--these two widely separated streams +of Art, remote from each other in origin, and fed by various rills, in +their course through the century, were to meet in one ocean at its +close. This was then the fulness of perfection, the age of Angelo and +Raphael, Leonardo and Correggio. + + +VIII. + +SAN MARCO. + +Fra Beato Angelico, who was a brother of this Dominican house, has +filled nearly the whole monastery with the works of his +hand. Considering the date of his birth, 1387, and his conventual +life, he was hardly less wonderful than his wonderful epoch. Here is +the same convent, the same city; while instead merely of the works of +Cimabue, Giotto, and Orgagna, there are masterpieces by all the +painters who ever lived to study;--yet imagine the snuffy old monk who +will show you about the edifice, or any of his brethren, coming out +with a series of masterpieces! One might as well expect a new +Savonarola, who was likewise a friar in this establishment, to preach +against Pio Nono, and to get himself burned in the Piazza for his +pains. + +In the old chapter-house is a very large, and for the angelic Frater a +very hazardous performance,--a Crucifixion. The heads here are full +of feeling and feebleness, except those of Mary Mother and Mary +Magdalen, which are both very touching and tender. There is, however, +an absolute impotence to reproduce the actual, to deal with groups of +humanity upon a liberal scale. There is his usual want of +discrimination, too, in physiognomy; for if the seraphic and +intellectual head of the penitent thief were transferred to the +shoulders of the Saviour in exchange for his own, no one could dispute +that it would be an improvement. + +Up stairs is a very sweet Annunciation. The subdued, demure, somewhat +astonished joy of the Virgin is poetically rendered, both in face and +attitude, and the figure of the angel has much grace. A small, but +beautiful composition, the Coronation of the Virgin, is perhaps the +most impressive of the whole series. + +Below is a series of frescos by a very second-rate artist, +Poccetti. Among them is a portrait of Savonarola; but as the reformer +was burned half a century before Poccetti was born, it has not even +the merit of authenticity. It was from this house that Savonarola was +taken to be imprisoned and executed in 1498. There seems something +unsatisfactory about Savonarola. One naturally sympathizes with the +bold denouncer of Alexander VI.; but there was a lack of benevolence +in his head and his heart. Without that anterior depression of the +sinciput, he could hardly have permitted two friends to walk into the +fire in his stead, as they were about to do in the stupendous and +horrible farce enacted in the Piazza Gran Duca. There was no lack of +self-esteem either in the man or his head. Without it, he would +scarcely have thought so highly of his rather washy scheme for +reorganizing the democratic government, and so very humbly of the +genius of Dante, Petrarch, and others, whose works he condemned to the +flames. A fraternal regard, too, for such great artists as Fra +Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo,--both members of his own convent, and +the latter a personal friend,--might have prevented his organizing +that famous holocaust of paintings, that wretched iconoclasm, by which +he signalized his brief period of popularity and power. In weighing, +gauging, and measuring such a man, one ought to remember, that if he +could have had his way and carried out all his schemes, he would have +abolished Borgianism certainly, and perhaps the papacy, but that he +would have substituted the rhapsodical reign of a single demagogue, +perpetually seeing visions and dreaming dreams for the direction of +his fellow-citizens, who were all to be governed by the hallucinations +of this puritan Mahomet. + + +IX. + +THE MEDICI CHAPEL. + +The famous cemetery of the Medici, the Sagrestia Nuova, is a ponderous +and dismal toy. It is a huge mass of expensive, solemn, and insipid +magnificence, erected over the carcasses of as contemptible a family +as ever rioted above the earth, or rotted under it. The only man of +the race, Cosmo il Vecchio, who deserves any healthy admiration, +although he was the real assassin of Florentine and Italian freedom, +and has thus earned the nickname of _Pater Patriae,_ is not buried +here. The series of mighty dead begins with the infamous Cosmo, first +grand duke, the contemporary of Philip II. of Spain, and his +counterpart in character and crime. Then there is Ferdinando I., whose +most signal achievement was not eating the poisoned pie prepared by +the fair hands of Bianca Capello. There are other Ferdinandos, and +other Cosmos,--all grand-ducal and _pater-patrial,_ as Medici +should be. + +The chapel is a vast lump of Florentine mosaic, octagonal, a hundred +feet or so in diameter, and about twice as high. The cupola has some +brand-new frescos, by Benvenuto. "Anthropophagi, whose heads do grow +beneath their shoulders," may enjoy these pictures upon domes. For +common mortals it is not agreeable to remain very long upside down, +even to contemplate masterpieces, which these certainly are not. + +The walls of the chapel are all incrusted with gorgeous marbles and +precious stones, from malachite, porphyry, lapis-lazuli, chalcedony, +agate, to all the finer and more expensive gems which shone in Aaron's +ephod. When one considers that an ear-ring or a brooch, half an inch +long, of Florentine mosaic work, costs five or six dollars, and that +here is a great church of the same material and workmanship as a +breastpin, one may imagine it to have been somewhat expensive. + +The Sagrestia Nuova was built by Michel Angelo, to hold his monuments +to Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Urbino, and grandson of Lorenzo the +Magnificent, and to Julian de' Medici, son of Lorenzo Magnifico. + +It is not edifying to think of the creative soul and plastic hands of +Buonarotti employed in rendering worship to such creatures. This +Lorenzo is chiefly known as having married Madeleine de Boulogne, and +as having died, as well as his wife, of a nameless disorder, +immediately after they had engendered the renowned Catharine de' +Medici, whose hideous life was worthy of its corrupt and poisoned +source. + +Did Michel Angelo look upon his subject as a purely imaginary one? +Surely he must have had some definite form before his mental vision; +for although sculpture cannot, like painting, tell an elaborate story, +still each figure must have a moral and a meaning, must show cause for +its existence, and indicate a possible function, or the mind of the +spectator is left empty and craving. + +Here, at the tomb of Lorenzo, are three masterly figures. An heroic, +martial, deeply contemplative figure sits in grand repose. A +statesman, a sage, a patriot, a warrior, with countenance immersed in +solemn thought, and head supported and partly hidden by his hand, is +brooding over great recollections and mighty deeds. Was this Lorenzo, +the husband of Madeleine, the father of Catharine? Certainly the mind +at once dethrones him from his supremacy upon his own tomb, and +substitutes an Epaminondas, a Cromwell, a Washington,--what it +wills. 'Tis a godlike apparition, and need be called by no mortal +name. We feel unwilling to invade the repose of that majestic reverie +by vulgar invocation. The hero, nameless as he must ever remain, sits +there in no questionable shape, nor can we penetrate the sanctuary of +that marble soul. Till we can summon Michel, with his chisel, to add +the finishing strokes to the grave, silent face of the naked figure +reclining below the tomb, or to supply the lacking left hand to the +colossal form of female beauty sitting upon the opposite sepulchre, we +must continue to burst in ignorance. Sooner shall the ponderous +marble jaws of the tomb open, that Lorenzo may come forth to claim his +right to the trophy, than any admirer of human genius will doubt that +the shade of some real hero was present to the mind's eye of the +sculptor, when he tore these stately forms out of the enclosing rock. + +A colossal hero sits, serene and solemn, upon a sepulchre. Beneath him +recline two vast mourning figures, one of each sex. One longs to +challenge converse with the male figure, with the unfinished +Sphinx-like face, who is stretched there at his harmonious length, +like an ancient river-god without his urn. There is nothing appalling +or chilling in his expression, nor does he seem to mourn without +hope. 'Tis a stately recumbent figure, of wonderful anatomy, without +any exaggeration of muscle, and, accordingly, his name is----Twilight! + +Why Twilight should grieve at the tomb of Lorenzo, grandson of Lorenzo +Magnifico, any more than the grandfather would have done, does not +seem very clear, even to Twilight himself, who seems, after all, in a +very crepuscular state upon the subject. The mistiness is much aided +by the glimmering expression of his half-finished features. + +But if Twilight should be pensive at the demise of Lorenzo, is there +any reason why Aurora should weep outright upon the same occasion? +This Aurora, however, weeping and stately, all nobleness and all +tears, is a magnificent creation, fashioned with the audacious +accuracy which has been granted to few modern sculptors. The figure +and face are most beautiful, and rise above all puny criticism; and as +one looks upon that sublime and wailing form, that noble and nameless +child of a divine genius, the flippant question dies on the lip, and +we seek not to disturb that passionate and beautiful image of woman's +grief by idle curiosity or useless speculation. + +The monument, upon the opposite side, to Julian, third son of Lorenzo +Magnifico, is of very much the same character. Here are also two +mourning figures. One is a sleeping and wonderfully beautiful female +shape, colossal, in a position less adapted to repose than to the +display of the sculptor's power and her own perfections. This is +Night. A stupendously sculptured male figure, in a reclining attitude, +and exhibiting, I suppose, as much learning in his _torso_ as +does the famous figure in the Elgin marbles, strikes one as the most +triumphant statue of modern times. + +The figure of Julian is not agreeable. The neck, long and twisted, +suggests an heroic ostrich in a Roman breastplate. The attitude, too, +is ungraceful. The hero sits with his knees projecting beyond the +perpendicular, so that his legs seem to be doubling under him, a +position deficient in grace and dignity. + +It is superfluous to say that the spectator must invent for himself +the allegory which he may choose to see embodied in this stony +trio. It is not enough to be told the words of the charade,--Julian, +Night, Morning. One can never spell out the meaning by putting +together the group with the aid of such a key. Night is Night, +obviously, because she is asleep. For an equally profound reason, Day +is Day, because he is not asleep; and both, looked at in this vulgar +light, are creations as imaginative as Simon Snug, with his lantern, +representing moonshine. If the figures should arise and walk across +the chapel, changing places with the couple opposite them, as if in a +sepulchral quadrille, would the allegory become more intelligible? +Could not Day or Night move from Julian's monument, and take up the +same position at Lorenzo's tomb, or "Ninny's tomb," or any other tomb? +Was Lorenzo any more to Aurora than Julian, that she should weep for +him only? + +Therefore one must invent for one's self the fable of those immortal +groups. Each spectator must pluck out, unaided, the heart of their +mystery. Those matchless colossal forms, which the foolish chroniclers +of the time have baptized Night and Morning, speak an unknown language +to the crowd. They are mute as Sphinx to souls which cannot supply the +music and the poetry which fell from their marble lips upon the ear of +him who created them. + + +X. + +PALAZZO RICCARDI. + +The ancient residence of Cosmo Vecchio and his successors is a +magnificent example of that vast and terrible architecture peculiar to +Florence. This has always been a city, not of streets, but of +fortresses. Each block is one house, but a house of the size of a +citadel; while the corridors and apartments are like casemates and +bastions, so gloomy and savage is their expression. Ancient Florence, +the city of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries, the +Florence of the nobles, the Florence of the Ghibellines, the Florence +in which nearly every house was a castle, with frowning towers +hundreds of feet high, machicolated battlements, donjon keeps, +oubliettes, and all other appurtenances of a feudal stronghold, exists +no longer. With the expulsion of the imperial faction, and the advent +of the municipal Guelphs,--that proudest, boldest, most successful, +and most unreasonable _bourgeoisie_ which ever assumed organized +life,--the nobles were curtailed of all their privileges. Their city +castles, too, were shorn of their towers, which were limited to just +so many ells, cloth measure, by the haughty shopkeepers who had +displaced the grandees. The first third of the thirteenth century--the +epoch of the memorable Buondelmonti street fight which lasted thirty +years--was the period in which this dreadful architecture was fixed +upon Florence. Then was the time in which the chains, fastened in +those huge rings which still dangle from the grim house-fronts, were +stretched across the street; thus enclosing and fettering a compact +mass of combatants in an iron embrace, while from the rare and narrow +murder-windows in the walls, and from the beetling roofs, descended +the hail of iron and stone and scalding pitch and red-hot coals to +refresh the struggling throng below. + +After this epoch, and with the expiration of the imperial house of the +Hohenstaufen, the nobles here, as in Switzerland, sought to popularize +themselves, to become municipal. + + + Der Adel steigt von seinen alten Burgen, + Und schwoert den Staedten seinen Buerger-Eid, + + +said the prophetic old Attinghausen, in his dying moments. The change +was even more extraordinary in Florence. The expulsion of some of the +patrician families was absolute. Others were allowed to participate +with the plebeians in the struggle for civic honors, and for the +wealth earned in commerce, manufactures, and handicraft. It became a +severe and not uncommon punishment to degrade offending individuals or +families into the ranks of nobility, and thus deprive them of their +civil rights. Hundreds of low-born persons have, in a single day, been +declared noble, and thus disfranchised. And the example of Florence +was often followed by other cities. + +The result was twofold upon the aristocracy. Those who municipalized +themselves became more enlightened, more lettered, more refined, and, +at the same time, less chivalrous and less martial than their +ancestors. The characters of buccaneer, land-pirate, knight-errant +could not be conveniently united with those of banker, exchange +broker, dealer in dry goods, and general commission agents. + +The consequence was that the fighting business became a specialty, and +fell into the hands of private companies. Florence, like Venice, and +other Italian republics, jobbed her wars. The work was done by the +Hawkwoods, the Sforzas, the Bracciones, and other chiefs of the +celebrated free companies, black bands, lance societies, who +understood no other profession, but who were as accomplished in the +arts of their own guild as were any of the five major and seven minor +crafts into which the Florentine burgesses were divided. + +This proved a bad thing for the liberties of Florence in the end. The +chieftains of these military clubs, usually from the lowest ranks, +with no capacity but for bloodshed, and no revenue but rapine, often +ended their career by obtaining the seigniory of some petty republic, +a small town, or a handful of hamlets, whose liberty they crushed with +their own iron, and with the gold obtained, in exchange for their +blood, from the city bankers. In the course of time such seigniories +often rolled together, and assumed a menacing shape to all who valued +municipal liberty. Sforza--whose peasant father threw his axe into a +tree, resolving, if it fell, to join, as a common soldier, the roving +band which had just invited him; if it adhered to the wood, to remain +at home a laboring hind--becomes Duke of Milan, and is encouraged in +his usurpation by Cosmo Vecchio, who still gives himself the airs of +first-citizen of Florence. + +The serpent, the well-known cognizance of the Visconti, had already +coiled itself around all those fair and clustering cities which were +once the Lombard republics, and had poisoned their vigorous life. The +Ezzelinos, Carraras, Gonzagas, Scalas, had crushed the spirit of +liberty in the neighborhood of Venice. All this had been accomplished +by means of mercenary adventurers, guided only by the love of plunder; +while those two luxurious and stately republics--the one an oligarchy, +the other a democracy--looked on from their marble palaces, enjoying +the refreshing bloodshowers in which their own golden harvests were so +rapidly ripening. + +Meanwhile a gigantic despotism was maturing, which was eventually to +crush the power, glory, wealth, and freedom of Italy. + +This _palazzo_ of Cosmo the Elder is a good type of Florentine +architecture at its ultimate epoch, just as Cosmo himself was the +largest expression of the Florentine citizen in the last and over-ripe +stage. + +The Medici family, unheard of in the thirteenth century, obscure and +plebeian in the middle of the fourteenth, and wealthy bankers and +leaders of the democratic party at its close, culminated in the early +part of the fifteenth in the person of Cosmo. The _Pater +Patriae,_--so called, because, having at last absorbed all the +authority, he could afford to affect some of the benignity of a +parent, and to treat his fellow-citizens, not as men, but as little +children,--the Father of his Country had acquired, by means of his +great fortune and large financial connections, an immense control over +the destinies of Florence and Italy. But he was still a private +citizen in externals. There was, at least, elevation of taste, +refinement of sentiment in Cosmo's conception of a great citizen. His +habits of life were elegant, but frugal. He built churches, palaces, +villas. He employed all the great architects of the age. He adorned +these edifices with masterpieces from the pencils and chisels of the +wonderful _Quattrocentisti_, whose productions alone would have +given Florence an immortal name in Art history. Yet he preserved a +perfect simplicity of equipage and apparel. In this regard, faithful +to the traditions of the republic, which his family had really changed +from a democracy to a ploutarchy, he had the good taste to scorn the +vulgar pomp of kings,--"the horses led, and grooms besmeared with +gold,"--all the theatrical paraphernalia and plebeian tinsel "which +dazzle the crowd and set them all agape"; but his expenditures were +those of an intellectual and accomplished oligarch. He was worthy, in +many respects, to be the chief of those haughty merchants and +manufacturers, who wielded more power, through the length of their +purses and the cultivation of their brains, than did all the +contemporaneous and illiterate barons of the rest of Christendom, by +dint of castle-storming and cattle-stealing. + +In an age when other nobles were proud of being unable to write their +own names, or to read them when others wrote them, the great princes +and citizens of Florence protected and cultivated art, science, and +letters. Every citizen received a liberal education. Poets and +philosophers sat in the councils of the republic. Philosophy, +metaphysics, and the restoration of ancient learning occupied the +minds and diminished the revenues of its greater and inferior +burghers. In this respect, the Medici, and their abetters of the +fifteenth century, discharged a portion of the debt which they had +incurred to humanity. They robbed Italy of her freedom, but they gave +her back the philosophy of Plato. They reduced the generality of +Florentine citizens, who were once omnipotent, to a nullity; but they +had at least, the sense to cherish Donatello and Ghiberti, +Brunelleschi and Gozzoli, Ficino and Politian. + +It is singular, too, with what comparatively small means the Medici +were enabled to do such great things. Cosmo, unquestionably the +greatest and most successful citizen that ever lived,--for he almost +rivalled Pericles in position, if not in talent, while he surpassed +him in good fortune,--was, during his lifetime, the virtual sovereign +of the most enlightened and wealthy and powerful republic that had +existed in modern times. He built the church of San Marco, the church +of San Lorenzo, the cloister of San Verdiano. On the hill of Fiesole he +erected a church and a convent. At Jerusalem he built a church and a +hospital for pilgrims. All this was for religion, the republic, and +the world. For himself he constructed four splendid villas, at +Careggi, Fiesole, Caffaggiolo, and Trebbio, and in the city the +magnificent palace in the Via Larga, now called the Riccardi. + +In thirty-seven years, from 1434 to 1471, he and his successors +expended eight millions of francs (663,755 gold florins) in buildings +and charities,--a sum which may be represented by as many, or, as some +would reckon, twice as many, dollars at the present day. Nevertheless, +the income of Cosmo was never more than 600,000 francs, (50,000 gold +florins,) while his fortune was never thought to exceed three millions +of francs, or six hundred thousand dollars. Being invested in +commerce, his property yielded, and ought to have yielded, an income +of twenty _per cent_. Nevertheless, an inventory made in 1469 +showed, that, after twenty-nine years, he left to his son Pietro a +fortune but just about equal in amount to that which he had himself +received from his father. + +With six hundred thousand dollars for his whole capital, then, Cosmo +was able to play his magnificent part in the world's history; while +the Duke of Milan, son of the peasant Sforza, sometimes expended more +than that sum in a single year. So much difference was there between +the position and requirements of an educated and opulent +first-citizen, and a low-born military _parvenu_, whom, however, +Cosmo was most earnest to encourage and to strengthen in his designs +against the liberties of Lombardy. + +This Riccardi palace, as Cosmo observed after his poor son Peter had +become bed-ridden with the gout, was a marvellously large mansion for +so small a family as one old man and one cripple. It is chiefly +interesting, now, for the frescos with which Benozzo Gozzoli has +adorned the chapel. The same cause which has preserved these beautiful +paintings so fresh, four centuries long, has unfortunately always +prevented their being seen to any advantage. The absence of light, +which has kept the colors from fading, is most provoking, when one +wishes to admire the works of a great master, whose productions are so +rare. + +Gozzoli, who lived and worked through the middle of the fifteenth +century, is chiefly known by his large and graceful compositions in +the Pisan Campo Santo. These masterpieces are fast crumbling into +mildewed rubbish. He had as much vigor and audacity as Ghirlandaio, +with more grace and freshness of invention. He has, however, nothing +of his dramatic power. His genius is rather idyllic and +romantic. Although some of the figures in these Medici palace frescos +are thought to be family portraits, still they hardly seem very +lifelike. The subjects selected are a Nativity, and an Adoration of +the Magi. In the neighborhood of the window is a choir of angels +singing Hosanna, full of freshness and vernal grace. The long +procession of kings riding to pay their homage, "with tedious pomp and +rich retinue long," has given the artist an opportunity of exhibiting +more power in perspective and fore-shortening than one could expect at +that epoch. There are mules and horses, caparisoned and bedizened; +some led by grinning blackamoors, others ridden by showy kings, +effulgent in brocade, glittering spurs, and gleaming cuirasses. Here +are horsemen travelling straight towards the spectator,--there, a +group, in an exactly opposite direction, is forcing its way into the +picture,--while hunters with hound and horn are pursuing the stag on +the neighboring hills, and idle spectators stand around, gaping and +dazzled; all drawn with a free and accurate pencil, and colored with +much brilliancy;--a triumphant and masterly composition, hidden in a +dark corner of what has now become a great dusty building, filled with +public offices. + + +XI. + +FIESOLE. + +Here sits on her hill the weird old Etrurian nurse of Florence, +withered, superannuated, feeble, warming her palsied limbs in the sun, +and looking vacantly down upon the beautiful child whose cradle she +rocked. Fiesole is perhaps the oldest Italian city. The inhabitants of +middle and lower Italy were Pelasgians by origin, like the earlier +races of Greece. The Etrurians were an aboriginal stock,--that is to +say, as far as anything can be definitely stated regarding their +original establishment in the peninsula; for they, too, doubtless +came, at some remote epoch, from beyond the Altai mountains. + +In their arts they seem to have been original,--at least, until at a +later period they began to imitate the culture of Greece. They were +the only ancient Italian people who had the art-capacity; and they +supplied the wants of royal Rome, just as Greece afterwards supplied +the republic and the empire with the far more elevated creations of +her plastic genius. + +The great works undertaken by the Tarquins, if there ever were +Tarquins, were in the hands of Etrurian architects and sculptors. The +admirable system of subterranean drainage in Rome, by which the swampy +hollows among the seven hills were converted into stately streets, and +the stupendous _cloaca maxima_, the buried arches of which have +sustained for more than two thousand years, without flinching, the +weight of superincumbent Rome, were Etrurian performances, commenced +six centuries before Christ. + +It would appear that this people had rather a tendency to the useful, +than to the beautiful. Unable to assimilate the elements of beauty and +grace furnished by more genial races, this mystic and vanished nation +was rather prone to the stupendously and minutely practical, than +devoted to the beautiful for its own sake. + +At Fiesole, the vast Cyclopean walls, still fixed and firm as the +everlasting hills, in their parallelopipedal layers, attest the +grandeur of the ancient city. Here are walls built, probably, before +the foundation of Rome, and yet steadfast as the Apennines. There are +also a broken ring or two of an amphitheatre; for the Etrurians +preceded and instructed the Romans in gladiatorial shows. It is +suggestive to seat one's self upon these solid granite seats, where +twenty-five hundred years ago some grave Etrurian citizen, wrapped in +his mantle of Tyrrhenian purple, his straight-nosed wife at his side, +with serpent bracelet and enamelled brooch, and a hopeful family +clustering playfully at their knees, looked placidly on, while slaves +were baiting and butchering each other in the arena below. + +The Duomo is an edifice of the Romanesque period, and contains some +masterpieces by Mino da Fiesole. On a fine day, however, the church is +too dismal, and the scene outside too glowing and golden, to permit +any compromise between nature and Mino. The view from the Franciscan +convent upon the brow of the hill, site of the ancient acropolis, is +on the whole the very best which can be obtained of Florence and the +Val d' Arno. All the verdurous, gently rolling hills which are heaped +about Firenze la bella are visible at once. There, stretched languidly +upon those piles of velvet cushions, reposes the luxurious, jewelled, +tiara-crowned city, like Cleopatra on her couch. Nothing, save an +Oriental or Italian city on the sea-coast, can present a more +beautiful picture. The hills are tossed about so softly, the sunshine +comes down in its golden shower so voluptuously, the yellow Arno moves +along its channel so noiselessly, the chains of villages, villas, +convents, and palaces are strung together with such a profuse and +careless grace, wreathing themselves from hill to hill, and around +every coigne of vantage, the forests of olive and the festoons of vine +are so poetical and suggestive, that we wonder not that civilized man +has found this an attractive abode for twenty-five centuries. + +Florence is stone dead. 'Tis but a polished tortoise-shell, of which +the living inhabitant has long since crumbled to dust; but it still +gleams in the sun with wondrous radiance. + +Just at your feet, as you stand on the convent terrace, is the Villa +Mozzi, where, not long ago, were found buried jars of Roman coins of +the republican era, hidden there by Catiline, at the epoch of his +memorable conspiracy. Upon the same spot was the favorite residence of +Lorenzo Magnifico; concerning whose probable ponderings, as he sat +upon his terrace, with his legs dangling over Florence, much may be +learned from the guide-book of the immortal Murray, so that he who +runs may read and philosophize. + +Looking at Florence from the hill-top, one is more impressed than ever +with the appropriateness of its name. _The City of Flowers_ is +itself a flower, and, as you gaze upon it from a height, you see how +it opens from its calyx. The many bright villages, gay gardens, +palaces, and convents which encircle the city, are not to be regarded +separately, but as one whole. The germ and heart of Florence, the +compressed and half hidden Piazza, with its dome, campanile, and long, +slender towers, shooting forth like the stamens and pistils, is +closely folded and sombre, while the vast and beautiful corolla +spreads its brilliant and fragrant circumference, petal upon petal, +for miles and miles around. + + + + + +THE BATTLE OF LEPANTO. + + +It was two hours before dawn on Sunday, the memorable seventh of +October, 1571, when the fleet weighed anchor. The wind had become +lighter, but it was still contrary, and the galleys were indebted for +their progress much more to their oars than to their sails. By sunrise +they were abreast of the Curzolares, a cluster of huge rocks, or rocky +islets, which, on the north, defends the entrance of the Gulf of +Lepanto. The fleet moved laboriously along, while every eye was +strained to catch the first glimpse of the hostile navy. At length the +watch from the foretop of the _Real_ called out, "A sail!" and +soon after announced that the whole Ottoman fleet was in +sight. Several others, climbing up the rigging, confirmed his report; +and in a few moments more word was sent to the same effect by Andrew +Doria, who commanded on the right. There was no longer any doubt; and +Don John, ordering his pendant to be displayed at the mizzen-peak, +unfurled the great standard of the League, given by the pope, and +directed a gun to be fired, the signal for battle. The report, as it +ran along the rocky shores, fell cheerily on the ears of the +confederates, who, raising their eyes towards the consecrated banner, +filled the air with their shouts. + +The principal captains now came on board the _Real_ to receive +the last orders of the commander-in-chief. Even at this late hour +there were some who ventured to intimate their doubts of the +expediency of engaging the enemy in a position where he had a decided +advantage. But Don John cut short the discussion. "Gentlemen," he +said, "this is the time for combat, not for counsel." He then +continued the dispositions he was making for the assault. + +He had already given to each commander of a galley written +instructions as to the manner in which the line of battle was to be +formed, in case of meeting the enemy. The armada was now formed in +that order. It extended on a front of three miles. Far on the right a +squadron of sixty-four galleys was commanded by the Genoese, Andrew +Doria, a name of terror to the Moslems. The centre, or _battle_, as it +was called, consisting of sixty-three galleys, was led by John of +Austria, who was supported on the one side by Colonna, the +captain-general of the pope, and on the other by the Venetian +captain-general, Veniero. Immediately in the rear was the galley of +the _Comendador_ Requesens, who still remained near the person of his +former pupil; though a difference which arose between them on +the voyage, fortunately now healed, showed that the young +commander-in-chief was wholly independent of his teacher in the art of +war. The left wing was commanded by the noble Venetian, Barberigo, +whose vessels stretched along the Aetolian shore, which, to prevent his +being turned by the enemy, he approached as near as, in his ignorance +of the coast, he dared to venture. Finally, the reserve, consisting of +thirty-five galleys, was given to the brave Marquis of Santa Cruz, +with directions to act on any part where he thought his presence most +needed. The smaller craft, some of which had now arrived, seem to have +taken little part in the action, which was thus left to the galleys. + +Each commander was to occupy so much space with his galley as to allow +room for manoeuvring it to advantage, and yet not enough to enable the +enemy to break the line. He was directed to single out his adversary, +to close at once with him, and board as soon as possible. The beaks +of the galleys were pronounced to be a hindrance rather than a help in +action. They were rarely strong enough to resist a shock from the +enemy; and they much interfered with the working and firing of the +guns. Don John had the beak of his vessel cut away; and the example +was speedily followed throughout the fleet, and, as it is said, with +eminently good effect. It may seem strange that this discovery should +have been reserved for the crisis of a battle. + +When the officers had received their last instructions, they returned +to their respective vessels; and Don John, going on board of a light +frigate, passed rapidly through that part of the armada lying on his +right, while he commanded Requesens to do the same with the vessels on +his left. His object was to feel the temper of his men, and rouse +their mettle by a few words of encouragement. The Venetians he +reminded of their recent injuries. The hour for vengeance, he told +them, had arrived. To the Spaniards, and other confederates, he said, +"You have come to fight the battle of the Cross,--to conquer or +die. But whether you die or conquer, do your duty this day, and you +will secure a glorious immortality." His words were received with a +burst of enthusiasm which went to the heart of the commander, and +assured him that he could rely on his men in the hour of trial. On his +return to his vessel, he saw Veniero on his quarter-deck, and they +exchanged salutations in as friendly a manner as if no difference had +existed between them. At a time like this, both these brave men were +willing to forget all personal animosity, in a common feeling of +devotion to the great cause in which they were engaged. + +The Ottoman fleet came on slowly and with difficulty. For, strange to +say, the wind, which had hitherto been adverse to the Christians, +after lulling for a time, suddenly shifted to the opposite quarter, +and blew in the face of the enemy. As the day advanced, moreover, the +sun, which had shone in the eyes of the confederates, gradually shot +its rays into those of the Moslems. Both circumstances were of good +omen to the Christians, and the first was regarded as nothing short of +a direct interposition of Heaven. Thus ploughing its way along, the +Turkish armament, as it came nearer into view, showed itself in +greater strength than had been anticipated by the allies. It consisted +of nearly two hundred and fifty royal galleys, most of them of the +largest class, besides a number of smaller vessels in the rear, which, +like those of the allies, appear scarcely to have come into +action. The men on board, including those of every description, were +computed at not less than a hundred and twenty thousand. The galleys +spread out, as usual with the Turks, in the form of a regular +half-moon, covering a wider extent of surface than the combined +fleets, which they somewhat exceeded in numbers. They presented, +indeed, as they drew nearer, a magnificent array, with their gilded +and gaudily painted prows, and their myriads of pennons and streamers +fluttering gayly in the breeze, while the rays of the morning sun +glanced on the polished scymitars of Damascus, and on the superb +aigrettes of jewels which sparkled in the turbans of the Ottoman +chiefs. + +In the centre of the extended line, and directly opposite to the +station occupied by the captain-general of the League, was the huge +galley of Ali Pasha. The right of the armada was commanded by Mehemet +Siroco, viceroy of Egypt, a circumspect as well as courageous leader; +the left by Uluch Ali, dey of Algiers, the redoubtable corsair of the +Mediterranean. Ali Pasha had experienced a similar difficulty with Don +John, as several of his officers had strongly urged the inexpediency +of engaging so formidable an armament as that of the allies. But Ali, +like his rival, was young and ambitious. He had been sent by his +master to fight the enemy; and no remonstrances, not even those of +Mehemet Siroco, for whom he had great respect, could turn him from his +purpose. + +He had, moreover, received intelligence that the allied fleet was much +inferior in strength to what it proved. In this error he was +fortified by the first appearance of the Christians; for the extremity +of their left wing, commanded by Barberigo, stretching behind the +Aetolian shore, was hidden from his view. As he drew nearer, and saw +the whole extent of the Christian lines, it is said his countenance +fell. If so, he still did not abate one jot of his resolution. He +spoke to those around him with the same confidence as before of the +result of the battle. He urged his rowers to strain every effort. Ali +was a man of more humanity than often belonged to his nation. His +galley-slaves were all, or nearly all, Christian captives; and he +addressed them in this neat and pithy manner: "If your countrymen win +this day, Allah give you the benefit of it! Yet if I win it, you +shall have your freedom. If you feel that I do well by you, do then +the like by me." + +As the Turkish admiral drew nearer, he made a change in his order of +battle by separating his wings farther from his centre, thus +conforming to the dispositions of the allies. Before he had come +within cannon-shot, he fired a gun by way of challenge to his +enemy. It was answered by another from the galley of John of +Austria. A second gun discharged by Ali was as promptly replied to by +the Christian commander. The distance between the two fleets was now +rapidly diminishing. At this solemn hour a death-like silence reigned +throughout the armament of the confederates. Men seemed to hold their +breath, as if absorbed in the expectation of some great +catastrophe. The day was magnificent. A light breeze, still adverse +to the Turks, played on the waters, somewhat fretted by contrary +winds. It was nearly noon; and as the sun, mounting through a +cloudless sky, rose to the zenith, he seemed to pause, as if to look +down on the beautiful scene, where the multitude of galleys, moving +over the water, showed like a holiday spectacle rather than a +preparation for mortal combat. + +The illusion was soon dispelled by the fierce yells which rose on the +air from the Turkish armada. It was the customary war-cry with which +the Moslems entered into battle. Very different was the scene on board +of the Christian galleys. Don John might be there seen, armed +cap-a-pie, standing on the prow of the _Real_, anxiously awaiting +the coming conflict. In this conspicuous position, kneeling down, he +raised his eyes to heaven, and humbly prayed that the Almighty would +be with his people on that day. His example was speedily followed by +the whole fleet. Officers and men, all falling on their knees, and +turning their eyes to the consecrated banner which floated from the +_Real_, put up a petition like that of their commander. They +then received absolution from the priests, of whom there were some in +each vessel; and each man, as he rose to his feet, gathered new +strength from the assurance that the Lord of Hosts would fight on his +side. + +When the foremost vessels of the Turks had come within cannon-shot, +they opened a fire on the Christians. The firing soon ran along the +whole of the Turkish line, and was kept up without interruption as it +advanced. Don John gave orders for trumpet and atabal to sound the +signal for action; and a simultaneous discharge followed from such of +the guns in the combined fleet as could bear on the enemy. Don John +had caused the _galeazzas_ to be towed some half a mile ahead of +the fleet, where they might intercept the advance of the Turks. As the +latter came abreast of them, the huge galleys delivered their +broadsides right and left, and their heavy ordnance produced a +startling effect. Ali Pasha gave orders for his galleys to open on +either side, and pass without engaging these monsters of the deep, of +which he had had no experience. Even so their heavy guns did +considerable damage to the nearest vessels, and created some confusion +in the pasha's line of battle. They were, however, but unwieldy craft, +and, having accomplished their object, seem to have taken no further +part in the combat. The action began on the left wing of the allies, +which Mehemet Siroco was desirous of turning. This had been +anticipated by Barberigo, the Venetian admiral, who commanded in that +quarter. To prevent it, as we have seen, he lay with his vessels as +near the coast as he dared. Siroco, better acquainted with the +soundings, saw there was space enough for him to pass, and darting by +with all the speed that oars and wind could give him, he succeeded in +doubling on his enemy. Thus placed between two fires, the extreme of +the Christian left fought at terrible disadvantage. No less than eight +galleys went to the bottom. Several more were captured. The brave +Barberigo, throwing himself into the heat of the fight, without +availing himself of his defensive armor, was pierced in the eye by an +arrow, and though reluctant to leave the glory of the field to +another, was borne to his cabin. The combat still continued with +unabated fury on the part of the Venetians. They fought like men who +felt that the war was theirs, and who were animated not only by the +thirst for glory, but for revenge. + +Far on the Christian right, a manoeuvre similar to that so +successfully executed by Siroco was attempted by Uluch Ali, the +viceroy of Algiers. Profiting by his superiority of numbers, he +endeavored to turn the right wing of the confederates. It was in this +quarter that Andrew Doria commanded. He also had foreseen this +movement of his enemy, and he succeeded in foiling it. It was a trial +of skill between the two most accomplished seamen in the +Mediterranean. Doria extended his line so far to the right, indeed, +to prevent being surrounded, that Don John was obliged to remind him +that he left the centre much too exposed. His dispositions were so far +unfortunate for himself that his own line was thus weakened and +afforded some vulnerable points to his assailant. These were soon +detected by the eagle eye of Uluch Ali; and like the king of birds +swooping on his prey, he fell on some galleys separated by a +considerable interval from their companions, and, sinking more than +one, carried off the great _Capitana_ of Malta in triumph as his +prize. + +While the combat thus opened disastrously to the allies both on the +right and on the left, in the centre they may be said to have fought +with doubtful fortune. Don John had led his division gallantly +forward. But the object on which he was intent was an encounter with +Ali Pasha, the foe most worthy of his sword. The Turkish commander had +the same combat no less at heart. The galleys of both were easily +recognized, not only from their position, but from their superior size +and richer decoration. The one, moreover, displayed the holy banner +of the League; the other, the great Ottoman standard. This, like the +ancient standard of the caliphs, was held sacred in its character. It +was covered with texts from the Koran, emblazoned in letters of gold, +with the name of Allah inscribed upon it no less than twenty-eight +thousand nine hundred times. It was the banner of the Sultan, having +passed from father to son since the foundation of the imperial +dynasty, and was never seen in the field unless the Grand-Seignior or +his lieutenant was there in person. + +Both the Christian and the Moslem chief urged on their rowers to the +top of their speed. Their galleys soon shot ahead of the rest of the +line, driven through the boiling surges as by the force of a tornado, +and closing with a shock that made every timber crack, and the two +vessels quiver to their very keels. So powerful, indeed, was the +impetus they received, that the pasha's galley, which was considerably +the larger and loftier of the two, was thrown so far upon its opponent +that the prow reached the fourth bench of rowers. As soon as the +vessels were disengaged from each other, and those on board had +recovered from the shock, the work of death began. Don John's chief +strength consisted in some three hundred Spanish arquebusiers, culled +from the flower of his infantry. Ali, on the other hand, was provided +with the like number of janissaries. He was also followed by a +smaller vessel, in which two hundred more were stationed as a _corps +de reserve_. He had, moreover, a hundred archers on board. The bow +was still much in use with the Turks, as with the other Moslems. + +The pasha opened at once on his enemy a terrible fire of cannon and +musketry. It was returned with equal spirit, and much more effect; for +the Turkish marksmen were observed to shoot over the heads of their +adversaries. Their galley was unprovided with the defences which +protected the sides of the Spanish vessels; and the troops, huddled +together on their lofty prow, presented an easy mark to their enemies' +balls. But though numbers of them fell at every discharge, their +places were soon supplied by those in reserve. Their incessant fire, +moreover, wasted the strength of the Spaniards; and as both Christian +and Mussulman fought with indomitable spirit, it seemed doubtful to +which side the victory would incline. + +The affair was made more complicated by the entrance of other parties +into the conflict. Both Ali and Don John were supported by some of the +most valiant captains in their fleets. Next to the Spanish commander, +as we have seen, were Colonna and the veteran Veniero, who, at the age +of seventy-six, performed feats of arms worthy of a paladin of +romance. Thus a little squadron of combatants gathered around the +principal leaders, who sometimes found themselves assailed by several +enemies at the same time. Still the chiefs did not lose sight of one +another, but beating off their inferior foes as well as they could, +each refusing to loosen his hold, clung with mortal grasp to his +antagonist. + +Thus the fight raged along the whole extent of the entrance of the +Gulf of Lepanto. If the eye of the spectator could have penetrated the +cloud of smoke that enveloped the combatants, and have embraced the +whole scene at a glance, he would have beheld them broken up into +small detachments, engaged in conflict with one another, wholly +independently of the rest, and indeed ignorant of all that was doing +in other quarters. The volumes of vapor, rolling heavily over the +waters, effectually shut out from sight whatever was passing at any +considerable distance, unless when a fresher breeze dispelled the +smoke for a moment, or the flashes of the heavy guns threw a transient +gleam over the dark canopy of battle. The contest exhibited few of +those enlarged combinations and skilful manoeuvres to be expected in a +great naval encounter. It was rather an assemblage of petty actions, +resembling those on land. The galleys, grappling together, presented a +level arena, on which soldier and galley-slave fought hand to hand, +and the fate of the engagement was generally decided by boarding. As +in most hand-to-hand contests, there was an enormous waste of +life. The decks were loaded with corpses, Christian and Moslem lying +promiscuously together in the embrace of death. Instances are given +where every man on board was slain or wounded. It was a ghastly +spectacle, where blood flowed in rivulets down the sides of the +vessels, staining the waters of the Gulf for miles around. + +It seemed as if some hurricane had swept over the sea, and covered it +with the wreck of the noble armaments which a moment before were so +proudly riding on its bosom. Little had they now to remind one of +their late magnificent array, with their hulls battered and defaced, +their masts and spars gone or fearfully splintered by the shot, their +canvas cut into shreds and floating wildly on the breeze, while +thousands of wounded and drowning men were clinging to the floating +fragments, and calling piteously for help. Such was the wild uproar +which had succeeded to the Sabbath-like stillness that two hours +before had reigned over these beautiful solitudes! + +The left wing of the confederates, commanded by Barberigo, had been +sorely pressed by the Turks, as we have seen, at the beginning of the +fight. Barberigo himself had been mortally wounded. His line had been +turned. Several of his galleys had been sunk. But the Venetians +gathered courage from despair. By incredible efforts they succeeded in +beating off their enemies. They became the assailants in their +turn. Sword in hand, they carried one vessel after another. The +Capuchin, with uplifted crucifix, was seen to head the attack, and to +lead the boarders to the assault. The Christian galley-slaves, in some +instances, broke their fetters and joined their countrymen against +their masters. Fortunately, the vessel of Mehemet Siroco, the Moslem +admiral, was sunk; and though extricated from the water himself, it +was only to perish by the sword of his conqueror, Juan Contarini. The +Venetian could find no mercy for the Turk. + +The fall of their commander gave the final blow to his +followers. Without further attempt to prolong the fight, they fled +before the avenging swords of the Venetians. Those nearest the land +endeavored to escape by running their vessels ashore, where they +abandoned them as prizes to the Christians. Yet many of the fugitives, +before gaining the shore, perished miserably in the waves. Barberigo, +the Venetian admiral, who was still lingering in agony, heard the +tidings of the enemy's defeat, and exclaiming, "I die contented," he +breathed his last. + +Meanwhile the combat had been going forward in the centre between the +two commanders-in-chief, Don John and Ali Pasha, whose galleys blazed +with an incessant fire of artillery and musketry that enveloped them +like "a martyr's robe of flames." Both parties fought with equal +spirit, though not with equal fortune. Twice the Spaniards had boarded +their enemy, and both times they had been repulsed with loss. Still +their superiority in the use of their fire-arms would have given them +a decided advantage over their opponents, if the loss thus inflicted +had not been speedily repaired by fresh reinforcements. More than once +the contest between the two chieftains was interrupted by the arrival +of others to take part in the fray. They soon, however, returned to +one another, as if unwilling to waste their strength on a meaner +enemy. Through the whole engagement both commanders exposed themselves +to danger as freely as any common soldier. Even Philip must have +admitted that in such a contest it would have been difficult for his +brother to find with honor a place of safety. Don John received a +wound in the foot. It was a slight one, however, and he would not +allow it to be attended to till the action was over. + +At length the men were mustered, and a third time the trumpets sounded +to the assault. It was more successful than those preceding. The +Spaniards threw themselves boldly into the Turkish galley. They were +met by the janissaries with the same spirit as before. Ali Pasha led +them on. Unfortunately, at this moment he was struck by a musket-ball +in the head, and stretched senseless on the gangway. His men fought +worthily of their ancient renown. But they missed the accustomed voice +of their commander. After a short, but ineffectual struggle against +the fiery impetuosity of the Spaniards, they were overpowered and +threw down their arms. The decks were loaded with the bodies of the +dead and the dying. Beneath these was discovered the Turkish +commander-in-chief, sorely wounded, but perhaps not mortally. He was +drawn forth by some Castilian soldiers, who, recognizing his person, +would at once have despatched him. But the wounded chief, having +rallied from the first effects of his blow, had presence of mind +enough to divert them from their purpose by pointing out the place +below where he had deposited his money and jewels, and they hastened +to profit by the disclosure before the treasure should fall into the +hands of their comrades. + +Ali was not so successful with another soldier, who came up soon +after, brandishing his sword, and preparing to plunge it into the body +of the prostrate commander. It was in vain that the latter endeavored +to turn the ruffian from his purpose. He was a convict,--one of those +galley-slaves whom Don John had caused to be unchained from the oar, +and furnished with arms. He could not believe that any treasure would +be worth so much to him as the head of the pasha. Without further +hesitation he dealt him a blow which severed it from his shoulders. +Then returning to his galley, he laid the bloody trophy before Don +John. But he had miscalculated on his recompense. His commander gazed +on it with a look of pity mingled with horror. He may have thought of +the generous conduct of Ali to his Christian captives, and have felt +that he deserved a better fate. He coldly inquired "of what use such a +present could be to him," and then ordered it to be thrown into the +sea. Far from being obeyed, it is said the head was stuck on a pike +and raised aloft on board the captive galley. At the same time the +banner of the Crescent was pulled down, while that of the Cross run up +in its place proclaimed the downfall of the pasha. + +The sight of the sacred ensign was welcomed by the Christians with a +shout of "Victory!" which rose high above the din of battle. The +tidings of the death of Ali soon passed from mouth to mouth, giving +fresh heart to the confederates, but falling like a knell on the ears +of the Moslems. Their confidence was gone. Their fire slackened. Their +efforts grew weaker and weaker. They were too far from shore to seek +an asylum there, like their comrades on the right. They had no +resource but to prolong the combat or to surrender. Most preferred the +latter. Many vessels were carried by boarding, others sunk by the +victorious Christians. Before four hours had elapsed, the centre, like +the right wing of the Moslems, might be said to be annihilated. + +Still the fight was lingering on the right of the confederates, where, +it will be remembered, Uluch Ali, the Algerine chief, had profited by +Doria's error in extending his line so far as greatly to weaken +it. His adversary, attacking it on its most vulnerable quarter, had +succeeded, as we have seen, in capturing and destroying several +vessels, and would have inflicted still heavier losses on his enemy, +had it not been for the seasonable succor received from the Marquis of +Santa Cruz. This brave officer, who commanded the reserve, had already +been of much service to Don John, when the _Real_ was assailed by +several Turkish galleys at once, during his combat with Ali Pasha; the +Marquis having arrived at this juncture, and beating off the +assailants, one of whom he afterwards captured, the commander-in-chief +was enabled to resume his engagement with the pasha. + +No sooner did Santa Cruz learn the critical situation of Doria, than, +supported by Cardona, general of the Sicilian squadron, he pushed +forward to his relief. Dashing into the midst of the _melee_, +they fell like a thunderbolt on the Algerine galleys. Few attempted to +withstand the shock. But in their haste to avoid it, they were +encountered by Doria and his Genoese. Thus beset on all sides, Uluch +Ali was compelled to abandon his prizes and provide for his own safety +by flight. He cut adrift the Maltese _Capitana_, which he had +lashed to his stern, and on which three hundred corpses attested the +desperate character of her defence. As tidings reached him of the +discomfiture of the centre and the death of his commander, he felt +that nothing remained but to make the best of his way from the fatal +scene of action, and save as many of his own ships as he could. And +there were no ships in the Turkish fleet superior to his, or manned by +men under more perfect discipline; for they were the famous corsairs +of the Mediterranean, who had been rocked from infancy on its waters. + +Throwing out his signals for retreat, the Algerine was soon to be +seen, at the head of his squadron, standing towards the north, under +as much canvas as remained to him after the battle, and urged forward +through the deep by the whole strength of his oarsmen. Doria and Santa +Cruz followed quickly in his wake. But he was borne on the wings of +the wind, and soon distanced his pursuers. Don John, having disposed +of his own assailants, was coming to the support of Doria, and now +joined in the pursuit of the viceroy. A rocky headland, stretching far +into the sea, lay in the path of the fugitive, and his enemies hoped +to intercept him there. Some few of his vessels stranded on the +rocks. But the rest, near forty in number, standing more boldly out to +sea, safely doubled the promontory. Then quickening their flight, +they gradually faded from the horizon, their white sails, the last +thing visible, showing in the distance like a flock of Arctic sea-fowl +on their way to their native homes. The confederates explained the +inferior sailing of their own galleys by the circumstance of their +rowers, who had been allowed to bear arms in the fight, being crippled +by their wounds. + +The battle had lasted more than four hours. The sky, which had been +almost without a cloud through the day, began now to be overcast, and +showed signs of a coming storm. Before seeking a place of shelter for +himself and his prizes, Don John reconnoitred the scene of action. He +met with several vessels in too damaged a state for further +service. These mostly belonging to the enemy, after saving what was of +any value on board, he ordered to be burnt. He selected the +neighboring port of Petala, as affording the most secure and +accessible harbor for the night. Before he had arrived there, the +tempest began to mutter and darkness was on the water. Yet the +darkness rendered the more visible the blazing wrecks, which, sending +up streams of fire mingled with showers of sparks, looked like +volcanoes on the deep. + +Long and loud were the congratulations now paid to the young +commander-in-chief by his brave companions in arms, on the success of +the day. The hours passed blithely with officers and men, while they +recounted one to another their manifold achievements. But feelings of +gloom mingled with their gayety, as they gathered tidings of the loss +of friends who had bought this victory with their blood. + +It was, indeed, a sanguinary battle, surpassing in this particular any +sea-fight of modern times. The loss fell much the most heavily on the +enemy. There is the usual discrepancy about numbers; but it may be +safe to estimate the Turkish loss at about twenty-four thousand slain, +and five thousand prisoners. But what gave most joy to the hearts of +the conquerors was the liberation of twelve thousand Christian +captives, who had been chained to the oar on board the Moslem galleys, +and who now came forth with tears streaming down their haggard cheeks, +to bless their deliverers. + +The loss of the allies was comparatively small,--less than eight +thousand. That it was so much less than that of their enemies may be +referred in part to their superiority in the use of firearms; in part, +also, to their exclusive use of these, instead of employing bows and +arrows, weapons much less effective, but on which the Turks, like the +other Moslem nations, seem to have greatly relied. Lastly, the Turks +were the vanquished party, and in their heavier loss suffered the +almost invariable lot of the vanquished. + +As to their armada, it may almost be said to have been +annihilated. Not more than forty galleys escaped, out of near two +hundred and fifty which had entered into the action. One hundred and +thirty were taken and divided among the conquerors. The remainder, +sunk or burned, were swallowed up by the waves. To counterbalance all +this, the confederates are said to have lost not more than fifteen +galleys, though a much larger number doubtless were rendered unfit for +service. This disparity affords good evidence of the inferiority of +the Turks in the construction of their vessels, as well as in the +nautical skill required to manage them. A large amount of booty, in +the form of gold, jewels, and brocade, was found on board several of +the prizes. The galley of the commander-in-chief alone is stated to +have contained one hundred and seventy thousand gold sequins,--a large +sum, but not large enough, it seems, to buy off his life. + +The losses of the combatants cannot be fairly presented without taking +into the account the quality as well as the number of the slain. The +number of persons of consideration, both Christians and Moslems, who +embarked in the expedition, was very great. The roll of slaughter +showed that in the race of glory they gave little heed to their +personal safety. The officer second in command among the Venetians, +the commander-in-chief of the Turkish armament, and the commander of +its right wing, all fell in the battle. Many a high-born cavalier +closed at Lepanto a long career of honorable service. More than one, +on the other hand, dated the commencement of their career from this +day. Such was the case with Alexander Farnese, the young prince of +Parma. Though somewhat older than his uncle, John of Austria, +difference of birth had placed a wide distance in their conditions; +the one filling the post of commander-in-chief, the other only that of +a private adventurer. Yet even so he succeeded in winning great renown +by his achievements. The galley in which he sailed was lying, yard-arm +to yard-arm, alongside of a Turkish galley, with which it was hotly +engaged. In the midst of the action, the young Farnese sprang on board +of the enemy, and with his stout broadsword hewed down all who opposed +him, opening a path into which his comrades poured one after another; +and after a short, but murderous contest, he succeeded in carrying the +vessel. As Farnese's galley lay just astern of Don John's, the latter +could witness the achievement of his nephew, which filled him with an +admiration he did not affect to conceal. The intrepidity he displayed +on this occasion gave augury of his character in later life, when he +succeeded his uncle in command, and surpassed him in military renown. + +Another youth was in that sea-fight, who, then humble and unknown, was +destined one day to win laurels of a purer and more enviable kind than +those which grow on the battle-field. This was Cervantes, who, at the +age of twenty-four, was serving on board the fleet as a common +soldier. He was confined to his bed by a fever; but, notwithstanding +the remonstrances of his captain, insisted, on the morning of the +action, not only on bearing arms, but on being stationed at the post +of danger. And well did he perform his duty there, as was shown by two +wounds on the breast, and another in the hand, by which he lost the +use of it. Fortunately, it was the left hand. The right yet remained, +to record those immortal productions which were to be familiar as +household words, not only in his own land, but in every quarter of the +civilized world. + +A fierce storm of thunder and lightning raged for four-and-twenty +hours after the battle, during which the fleet rode safely at anchor +in the harbor of Petala. It remained there three days longer. Don John +profited by the time to visit the different galleys and ascertain +their condition. He informed himself of the conduct of the troops, and +was liberal of his praises to those who deserved them. With the sick +and the wounded he showed the greatest sympathy, endeavoring to +alleviate their sufferings, and furnishing them with whatever his +galley contained that could minister to their comfort. With so +generous and sympathetic a nature, it is not wonderful that he should +have established himself in the hearts of his soldiers. + +But the proofs of this kindly temper were not confined to his own +followers. Among the prisoners were two sons of Ali, the Turkish +commander-in-chief. One was seventeen, the other only thirteen years +of age. Thus early had their father desired to initiate them in a +profession which, beyond all others, opened the way to eminence in +Turkey. They were not on board of his galley, and when they were +informed of his death, they were inconsolable. To this sorrow was now +to be added the doom of slavery. + +As they were led into the presence of Don John, the youths prostrated +themselves on the deck of his vessel. But raising them up, he +affectionately embraced them. He said all he could to console them +under their troubles. He caused them to be treated with the +consideration due to their rank. His secretary, Juan de Soto, +surrendered his quarters to them. They were provided with the richest +apparel that could be found among the spoil. Their table was served +with the same delicacies as that of the commander-in-chief; and his +gentlemen of the chamber showed the same deference to them as to +himself. His kindness did not stop with these acts of chivalrous +courtesy. He received a letter from their sister Fatima, containing a +touching appeal to Don John's humanity, and soliciting the release of +her orphan brothers. He had sent a courier to give their friends in +Constantinople the assurance of their personal safety; "which," adds +the lady, "is held by all this court as an act of great +courtesy,--_gran gentilezza_; and there is no one here who does +not admire the goodness and magnanimity of your Highness." She +enforced her petition with a rich present, for which she gracefully +apologized, as intended to express her own feelings, though far below +his deserts. + +The young princes, in the division of the spoil, were assigned to the +pope. But Don John succeeded in obtaining their liberation. +Unfortunately, the elder died--of a broken heart, it is said--at +Naples. The younger was sent home, with three of his attendants, for +whom he had an especial regard. Don John declined the present, which +he gave to Fatima's brother. In a letter to the Turkish princess, he +remarked, that "he had done this, not because he undervalued her +beautiful gift, but because it had ever been the habit of his royal +ancestors freely to grant favors to those who stood in need of their +protection, but not to receive aught by way of recompense." + + + + +THE WIND AND STREAM. + + + A brook came stealing from the ground; + You scarcely saw its silvery gleam + Among the herbs that hung around + The borders of that winding stream,-- + A pretty stream, a placid stream, + A softly gliding, bashful stream. + + A breeze came wandering from the sky, + Light as the whispers of a dream; + He put the o'erhanging grasses by, + And gayly stooped to kiss the stream,-- + The pretty stream, the flattered stream, + The shy, yet unreluctant stream. + + The water, as the wind passed o'er, + Shot upward many a glancing beam, + Dimpled and quivered more and more, + And tripped along a livelier stream,-- + The flattered stream, the simpering stream, + The fond, delighted, silly stream. + + Away the airy wanderer flew + To where the fields with blossoms teem, + To sparkling springs and rivers blue, + And left alone that little stream,-- + The flattered stream, the cheated stream, + The sad, forsaken, lonely stream. + + That careless wind no more came back; + He wanders yet the fields, I deem; + But on its melancholy track + Complaining went that little stream,-- + The cheated stream, the hopeless stream, + The ever murmuring, moaning stream. + + + + +TURKEY TRACKS. + + +Don't open your eyes, Polder! You think I am going to tell you about +some of my Minnesota experiences; how I used to scamper over the +prairies on my Indian pony, and lie in wait for wild turkeys on the +edge of an oak opening. That is pretty sport, too, to creep under an +oak with low-hanging boughs, and in the silence of a glowing +autumn-day linger by the hour together in a trance of warm stillness, +watching the light tracery of shadow and sun on that smooth sward, +only now and then roused by the fleet rush of a deer through the wood, +or the brisk chatter of a plume-tailed squirrel, till one hears a +distant, sharp, clucking chuckle, and in an instant more pulls the +trigger, and upsets a grand old cock, every bronzed feather glittering +in the sunshine, and now splashed with scarlet blood, the delicate +underwing ground into down as he rolls and flutters; for the first +shot rarely kills at once with an amateur; there's too much +excitement. Splendid sport, that! but I'm not going into it +second-hand. I promised to tell you a story, now the skipper's fast, +and the night is too warm to think of sleep down in that wretched +bunk;--what another torture Dante might have lavished on his Inferno, +if he'd ever slept in a fishing-smack! No. The moonlight makes me +sentimental! Did I ever tell you about a month I spent up in +Centreville, the year I came home from Germany? That was +turkey-hunting with a vengeance! + +You see, my pretty cousin Peggy married Peter Smith, who owns +paper-mills in Centreville, and has exiled herself into deep country +for life; a circumstance I disapprove, because I like Peggy, and +manufacturers always bore me, though Peter is a clever fellow enough; +but madam was an old flame of mine, and I have a lingering tenderness +for her yet. I wish she was nearer town. Just that year Peggy had +been very ill indeed, and Kate, her sister, had gone up to nurse +her. When I came home Peggy was getting better, and sent for me to +come up and make a visitation there in June. I hadn't seen Kate for +seven years,--not since she was thirteen; our education +intervened. She had gone through that grading process and come out. By +Jupiter! when she met me at the door of Smith's pretty, +English-looking cottage, I took my hat off, she was so like that +little Brazilian princess we used to see in the _cortege_ of the +court at Paris. What was her name? Never mind that! Kate had just +such large, expressive eyes, just such masses of shiny black hair, +just such a little nose,--turned up undeniably, but all the more +piquant. And her teeth! good gracious! she smiled like a flash of +lightning,--dark and sallow as she was. But she was cross, or stiff, +or something, to me for a long time. Peggy only appeared after dinner, +looking pale and lovely enough in her loose wrapper to make Peter act +excessively like----a young married man, and to make me wish myself at +an invisible distance, doing something beside picking up Kate's +things, that she always dropped on the floor whenever she sewed. +Peggy saw I was bored, so she requested me one day to walk down to the +poultry-yard and ask about her chickens; she pretended a great deal of +anxiety, and Peter had sprained his ankle. + +"Kate will go with you," said she. + +"No, she won't!" ejaculated that young woman. + +"Thank you," said I, making a minuet bow, and off I went to the +farm-house. Such a pretty walk it was, too! through a thicket of +birches, down a little hill-side into a hollow full of hoary +chestnut-trees, across a bubbling, dancing brook, and you came out +upon the tiniest orchard in the world, a one-storied house with a red +porch, and a great sweet-brier bush thereby; while up the hill-side +behind stretched a high picket fence, enclosing huge trees, part of +the same brook I had crossed here dammed into a pond, and a +chicken-house of pretentious height and aspect,--one of those model +institutions that are the ruin of gentlemen-farmers and the delight of +women. I had to go into the farm-kitchen for the poultry-yard key. +The door stood open, and I stepped in cautiously, lest I should come +unaware upon some domestic scene not intended to be visible to the +naked eye. And a scene I did come upon, fit for Retzsch to +outline;--the cleanest kitchen, a dresser of white wood under one +window, and the farmer's daughter, Melinda Tucker, moulding bread +thereat in a ponderous tray; her deep red hair,--yes, it was red and +comely! of the deepest bay, full of gilded reflections, and +accompanied by the fair, rose-flushed skin, blue eyes, and scarlet +lips that belong to such hair,--which, as I began to say, was puckered +into a thousand curves trying to curl, and knotted strictly against a +pretty head, while her calico frock-sleeves were pinned-back to the +shoulders, baring such a dimpled pair of arms,--how they did fly up +and down in the tray! I stood still contemplating the picture, and +presently seeing her begin to strip the dough from her pink fingers +and mould it into a mass, I ventured to knock. If you had seen her +start and blush, Polder! But when she saw me, she grew as cool as you +please, and called her mother. Down came Mrs. Tucker, a talking +Yankee. You don't know what that is. Listen, then. + +"Well, good day, sir! I'xpect it's Mister Greene, Miss Smith's +cousin. Well, you be! Don't favor her much though; she's kinder dark +complected. She ha'n't got round yet, hes she? Dew tell! She's +dre'ful delicate. I do'no' as ever I see a woman so sickly's she looks +ter be sence that 'ere fever. She's real spry when she's so's to be +crawlin',--I'xpect too spry to be 'hulsome. Well, he tells me you've +ben 'crost the water. 'Ta'n't jest like this over there, I +guess. Pretty sightly places they be though, a'n't they? I've seen +picturs in Melindy's jography, looks as ef 'twa'n't so woodsy over +there as 'tis in these parts, 'specially out West. He's got folks out +to Indianny, an' we sot out fur to go a-cousinin', five year back, an' +we got out there inter the dre'fullest woodsy region ever ye see, +where 'twa'n't trees, it was 'sketers; husband he couldn't see none +out of his eyes for a hull day, and I thought I should caterpillar +every time I heerd one of 'em toot; they sartainly was the beater-ee!" + +"The key, if you please!" I meekly interposed. Mrs. Tucker was fast +stunning me! + +"Law yis! Melindy, you go git that 'ere key; it's a-hangin' up'side o' +the lookin'glass in the back shed, under that bunch o' onions father +strung up yisterday. Got the bread sot to rise, hev ye? well, git +yer bunnet an' go out to the coop with Mr. Greene, 'n' show him the +turkeys an' the chickens, 'n' tell what dre'ful luck we hev hed. I +never did see sech luck! the crows they keep a-comin' an' snippin' up +the little creturs jest as soon's they're hatched; an' the old turkey +hen't sot under the grapevine she got two hen's eggs under her, 'n' +they come out fust, so she quit--" + +Here I bolted out of the door, (a storm at sea did not deafen one like +that!) Melindy following, in silence such as our blessed New England +poet has immortalized,--silence that + + + "--Like a poultice comes, + To heal the blows of sound." + + +Indeed, I did not discover that Melindy could talk that day; she was +very silent, very incommunicative. I inspected the fowls, and tried to +look wise, but I perceived a strangled laugh twisting Melindy's face +when I innocently inquired if she found catnip of much benefit to the +little chickens; a natural question enough, for the yard was full of +it, and I had seen Hannah give it to the baby. (Hannah is my sister.) +I could only see two little turkeys,--both on the floor of the +second-story parlor in the chicken-house, both flat on their backs and +gasping. Melindy did not know what ailed them; so I picked them up, +slung them in my pocket-handkerchief, and took them home for Peggy to +manipulate. I heard Melindy chuckle as I walked off, swinging them; +and to be sure, when I brought the creatures in to Peggy, one of them +kicked and lay still, and the other gasped worse than ever. + +"What can we do?" asked Peggy, in the most plaintive voice, as the +feeble "week! week!" of the little turkey was gasped out, more feebly +every time. + +"Give it some whiskey-punch!" growled Peter, whose strict temperance +principles were shocked by the remedies prescribed for Peggy's ague. + +"So I would," said Kate, demurely. + +Now if Peggy had one trait more striking than another, it was her +perfect, simple faith in what people said; irony was a mystery to her; +lying, a myth,--something on a par with murder. She thought Kate meant +so; and reaching out for the pretty wicker-flask that contained her +daily ration of old Scotch whiskey, she dropped a little drop into a +spoon, diluted it with water, and was going to give it to the turkey +in all seriousness, when Kate exclaimed,-- + +"Peggy! when will you learn common sense? Who ever heard of giving +whiskey to a turkey?" + +"Why, you told me to, Kate!" + +"Oh, give it to the thing!" growled Peter; "it will die, of course." + +"I shall give it!" said Peggy, resolutely; "it does _me_ good, +and I will try." + +So I held the little creature up, while Peggy carefully tipped the +dose down its throat. How it choked, kicked, and began again with +"week! week!" when it meant "strong!" but it revived. Peggy held it in +the sun till it grew warm, gave it a drop more, fed it with +bread-crumbs from her own plate, and laid it on the south +window-sill. There it lay when we went to tea; when we came back, it +lay on the floor, dead; either it was tipsy, or it had tried its new +strength too soon, and, rolling off, had broken its neck! Poor Peggy! + +There were six more hatched the next day, though, and I held many +consultations with Melindy about their welfare. Truth to tell, Kate +continued so cool to me, Peter's sprained ankle lasted so long, and +Peggy could so well spare me from the little matrimonial +_tete-a-tetes_ that I interrupted, (I believe they didn't mind +Kate!) that I took wonderfully to the chickens. Mrs. Tucker gave me +rye-bread and milk of the best; "father" instructed me in the +mysteries of cattle-driving; and Melindy, and Joe, and I, used to go +strawberrying, or after "posies," almost every day. Melindy was a very +pretty girl, and it was very good fun to see her blue eyes open and +her red lips laugh over my European experiences. Really, I began to be +of some importance at the farm-house, and to take airs upon myself, I +suppose; but I was not conscious of the fact at the time. + +After a week or two, Melindy and I began to have bad luck with the +turkeys. I found two drenched and shivering, after a hail-and-thunder +storm, and setting them in a basket on the cooking-stove hearth, went +to help Melindy "dress her bow-pot," as she called arranging a vase of +flowers, and when I came back the little turkeys were singed; they +died a few hours after. Two more were trodden on by a great Shanghai +rooster, who was so tall he could not see where he set his feet down; +and of the remaining pair, one disappeared mysteriously,--supposed to +be rats; and one falling into the duck-pond, Melindy began to dry it +in her apron, and I went to help her; I thought, as I was rubbing the +thing down with the apron, while she held it, that I had found one of +her soft dimpled hands, and I gave the luckless turkey such a tender +pressure that it uttered a miserable squeak and departed this +life. Melindy all but cried. I laughed irresistibly. So there were no +more turkeys. Peggy began to wonder what they should do for the proper +Thanksgiving dinner, and Peter turned restlessly on his sofa, quite +convinced that everything was going to rack and ruin because he had a +sprained ankle. + +"Can't we buy some young turkeys?" timidly suggested Peggy. + +"Of course, if one knew who had them to sell," retorted Peter. + +"I know," said I; "Mrs. Amzi Peters, up on the hill over Taunton, has +got some." + +"Who told you about Mrs. Peters's turkeys, Cousin Sam?" said Peggy, +wondering. + +"Melindy," said I, quite innocently. + +Peter whistled, Peggy laughed, Kate darted a keen glance at me under +her long lashes. + +"I know the way there," said mademoiselle, in a suspiciously bland +tone. "Can't you drive there with me, Cousin Sam, and get some more?" + +"I shall be charmed," said I. + +Peter rang the bell and ordered the horse to be ready in the +single-seated wagon, after dinner. I was going right down to the +farm-house to console Melindy, and take her a book she wanted to read, +for no fine lady of all my New York acquaintance enjoyed a good book +more than she did; but Cousin Kate asked me to wind some yarn for her, +and was so brilliant, so amiable, so altogether charming, I quite +forgot Melindy till dinner-time, and then, when that was over, there +was a basket to be found, and we were off,--turkey-hunting! Down +hill-sides overhung with tasselled chestnut-boughs; through pine-woods +where neither horse nor wagon intruded any noise of hoof or wheel upon +the odorous silence, as we rolled over the sand, past green meadows, +and sloping orchards; over little bright brooks that chattered +musically to the bobolinks on the fence-posts, and were echoed by +those sacerdotal gentlemen in such liquid, bubbling, rollicking, +uproarious bursts of singing as made one think of Anacreon's +grasshopper + + + "Drunk with morning's dewy wine." + + +All these we passed, and at length drew up before Mrs. Peters's +house. I had been here before, on a strawberrying stroll with +Melindy,--(across lots it was not far,)--and having been asked in +then, and entertained the lady with a recital of some foreign exploit, +garnished for the occasion, of course she recognized me with clamorous +hospitality. + +"Why how do yew do, Mister Greene? I declare I ha'n't done a-thinkin' +of that 'ere story you told us the day you was here, 'long o' +Melindy." (Kate gave an ominous little cough.) "I was a-tellin' +husband yesterday 't I never see sech a master hand for stories as you +be. Well, yis, we hev _got_ turkeys, young 'uns; but my stars! I +don't know no more where they be than nothin'; they've strayed away +into the woods, I guess, and I do'no' as the boys can skeer 'em up; +besides, the boys is to school; h'm--yis! Where did you and Melindy +go that day arter berries?" + +"Up in the pine-lot, ma'am. You think you can't let us have the +turkeys?" + +"Dew tell ef you went up there! It's near about the sightliest place I +ever see. Well, no,--I don't see how's to ketch them turkeys. Miss +Bemont, she't lives over on Woodchuck Hill, she's got a lot o' little +turkeys in a coop; I guess you'd better go 'long over there, an' ef +you can't get none o' her'n, by that time our boys'll be to hum, an' +I'll set 'em arter our'n; they'll buckle right to; it's good sport +huntin' little turkeys; an' I guess you'll hev to stop, comin' home, +so's to let me know ef you'll hev 'em." + +Off we drove. I stood in mortal fear of Mrs. Peters's tongue,--and +Kate's comments; but she did not make any; she was even more charming +than before. Presently we came to the pine-lot, where Melindy and I +had been, and I drew the reins. I wanted to see Kate's enjoyment of a +scene that Kensett or Church should have made immortal long ago:--a +wide stretch of hill and valley, quivering with cornfields, rolled +away in pasture lands, thick with sturdy woods, or dotted over with +old apple-trees, whose dense leaves caught the slant sunshine, glowing +on their tops, and deepening to a dark, velvety green below, and far, +far away, on the broad blue sky, the lurid splendors of a +thunder-cloud, capped with pearly summits, tower upon tower, sharply +defined against the pure ether, while in its purple base forked +lightnings sped to and fro, and revealed depths of waiting tempest +that could not yet descend. Kate looked on, and over the superb +picture. + +"How magnificent!" was all she said, in a deep, low tone, her dark +cheek flushing with the words. Melindy and I had looked off there +together. "It's real good land to farm," had been the sweet little +rustic's comment. How charming are nature and simplicity! + +Presently we came to Mrs. Bemont's, a brown house in a cluster of +maples; the door-yard full of chickens, turkeys, ducks, and +geese. Kate took the reins, and I knocked. Mrs. Bemont herself +appeared, wiping her red, puckered hands on a long brown towel. + +"Can you let me have some of your young turkeys, ma'am?" said I, +insinuatingly. + +"Well, I do'no';--want to eat 'em or raise 'em?" + +"Both, I believe," was my meek answer. + +"I do'no' 'bout lettin' on 'em go; 'ta'n't no gret good to sell 'em +after all the risks is over; they git their own livin' pretty much +now, an' they'll be wuth twice as much by'm'by." + +"I suppose so; but Mrs. Smith's turkeys have all died, and she likes +to raise them." + +"Dew tell, ef you han't come from Miss Peter Smith's! Well, she'd +oughter do gret things with that 'ere meetin'-'us o' her'n for the +chickens; it's kinder genteel-lookin', and I spose they've got means; +they've got ability. Gentility without ability I do despise; but where +'t'a'n't so, 't'a'n't no matter; but I'xpect it don't ensure the +faowls none, doos it?" + +"I rather think not," said I, laughing; "that is the reason we want +some of yours." + +"Well, I should think you could hev some on 'em. What be you +calc'latin' to give?" + +"Whatever you say. I do not know at all the market price." + +"Good land! 't'a'n't never no use to try to dicker with city folks; +they a'n't use to't. I'xpect you can hev 'em for two York shillin' +apiece." + +"But how will you catch them?" + +"Oh, I'll ketch 'em, easy!" + +She went into the house and reappeared presently with a pan of Indian +meal and water, called the chickens, and in a moment they were all +crowding in and over the unexpected supper. + +"Now you jes' take a bit o' string an' tie that 'ere turkey's legs +together; 'twon't stir, I'll ensure it!" + +Strange to say, the innocent creature stood still and eat, while I +tied it up; all unconscious till it tumbled neck and heels into the +pan, producing a start and scatter of brief duration. Kate had left +the wagon, and was shaking with laughter over this extraordinary +goodness on the turkeys' part, and before long our basket was full of +struggling, kicking, squeaking things, "werry promiscuous," in +Mr. Weller's phrase. Mrs. Bemont was paid, and while she was giving me +the change,-- + +"Oh!" said she, "you're goin' right to Miss Tucker's, a'n't ye?--got +to drop the turkeys;--won't you tell Miss Tucker 't George is comin' +home tomorrer, an' he's ben to Californy. She know'd us allers, and +Melindy 'n' George used ter be dre'ful thick 'fore he went off, a good +spell back, when they was nigh about childern; so I guess you'd better +tell 'em." + +"Confound these turkeys!" muttered I, as I jumped over the basket. + +"Why?" said Kate, "I suspect they are confounded enough already!" + +"They make such a noise, Kate!" + +So they did; "week! week! week!" all the way, like a colony from some +spring-waked pool. + + + "Their song might be compared + To the croaking of frogs in a pond!" + + +The drive was lovelier than before. The road crept and curled down +the hill, now covered from side to side with the interlacing boughs of +grand old chestnuts; now barriered on the edge of a ravine with broken +fragments and boulders of granite, garlanded by heavy vines; now +skirting orchards full of promise; and all the way companied by a tiny +brook, veiled deeply in alder and hazel thickets, and making in its +shadowy channel perpetual muffled music, like a child singing in the +twilight to reassure its half-fearful heart. Kate's face was softened +and full of rich expression; her pink ribbons threw a delicate tinge +of bloom upon the rounded cheek and pensive eyelid; the air was pure +balm, and a cool breath from the receding showers of the distant +thunderstorm just freshened the odors of wood and field. I began to +feel suspiciously that sentimental, but through it all came +persevering "week! week! week!" from the basket at my feet. Did I +make a fine remark on the beauties of nature, "Week!" echoed the +turkeys. Did Kate praise some tint or shape by the way, "Week! week!" +was the feeble response. Did we get deep in poetry, romance, or +metaphysics, through the most brilliant quotation, the sublimest +climax, the most acute distinction, came in "Week! week! week!" I +began to feel as if the old story of transmigration were true, and the +souls of half a dozen quaint and ancient satirists had got into the +turkeys. I could not endure it! Was I to be squeaked out of all my +wisdom, and knowledge, and device, after this fashion? Never! I +began, too, to discover a dawning smile upon Kate's face; she turned +her head away, and I placed the turkey-basket on my knees, hoping a +change of position might quiet its contents. Never was man more at +fault! they were no way stilled by my magnetism; on the contrary, they +threw their sarcastic utterances into my teeth, as it were, and shamed +me to my very face. I forgot entirely to go round by Mrs. Peters's. I +took a cross-road directly homeward; a pause--a lull--took place among +the turkeys. + +"How sweet and mystical this hour is!" said I to Kate, in a +high-flown manner; "it is indeed + + + "'An hour when lips delay to speak, + Oppressed with silence deep and pure; + When passion pauses--'" + + +"Week! week! week!" chimed in those confounded turkeys. Kate burst +into a helpless fit of laughter. What could I do? I had to laugh +myself, since I must not choke the turkeys. + +"Excuse me, Cousin Sam," said Kate, in a laughter-wearied tone, "I +could not help it; turkeys and sentimentality do not agree--always!" +adding the last word maliciously, as I sprang out to open the +farm-house gate, and disclosed Melindy, framed in the buttery window, +skimming milk; a picture worthy of Wilkie. I delivered over my +captives to Joe, and stalked into the kitchen to give Mrs. Bemont's +message. Melindy came out; but as soon as I began to tell her mother +where I got that message, Miss Melindy, with the _sang froid_ of +a duchess, turned back to her skimming,--or appeared to. I gained +nothing by that move. + +Peggy and Peter received us benignly; so universal a solvent is +success, even in turkey-hunting! I meant to have gone down to the +farm-house after tea, and inquired about the safety of my prizes, but +Kate wanted to play chess. Peter couldn't, and Peggy wouldn't; I had +to, of course, and we played late. Kate had such pretty hands; long +taper fingers, rounded to the tiniest rosy points; no dimples, but +full muscles, firm and exquisitely moulded; and the dainty way in +which she handled her men was half the game to me;--I lost it; I +played wretchedly. The next day Kate went with me to see the turkeys; +so she did the day after. We were forgetting Melindy, I am afraid, for +it was a week before I remembered I had promised her a new magazine. I +recollected myself; then, with a sort of shame, rolled up the number, +and went off to the farm-house. It seems Kate was there, busy in the +garret, unpacking a bureau that had been stored there, with some of +Peggy's foreign purchases, for summer wear, in the drawers. I did not +know that. I found Melindy spreading yeast-cakes to dry on a table, +just by the north end of the house; a hop-vine in full blossom made a +sort of porch-roof over the window by which she stood. + +"I've brought your book, Melindy," said I. + +"Thank you, sir," returned she, crisply. + +"How pretty you look to-day." condescendingly remarked I. + +"I don't thank you for that, sir;-- + + + "'Praise to the face + Is open disgrace!'" + + +was all the response. + +"Why, Melindy! what makes you so cross?" inquired I, in a tone meant +to be tenderly reproachful,--in the mean time attempting to possess +myself of her hand; for, to be honest, Polder, I had been a little +sweet to the girl before Kate drove her out of my head. The hand was +snatched away. I tried indifference. + +"How are the turkeys to-day. Melindy?" + +Here Joe, an _enfant terrible,_ came upon the scene suddenly. + +"Them turkeys eats a lot, Mister Greene. Melindy says there's one on +'em struts jes' like you, 'n' makes as much gabble." + +"Gobble! gobble! gobble!" echoed an old turkey from somewhere; I +thought it was overhead, but I saw nothing. Melindy threw her apron +over her face and laughed till her arms grew red. I picked up my hat +and walked off. For three days I kept out of that part of the Smith +demesne, I assure you! Kate began to grow mocking and derisive; she +teased me from morning till night, and the more she teased me, the +more I adored her. I was getting desperate, when one Sunday night Kate +asked me to walk down to the farm-house with her after tea, as +Mrs. Tucker was sick, and she had something to take to her. We found +the old woman sitting up in the kitchen, and as full of talk as ever, +though an unlucky rheumatism kept her otherwise quiet. + +"How do the turkeys come on, Mrs. Tucker?" said I, by way of +conversation. + +"Well, I declare, you han't heerd about them turkeys, hev ye? You see +they was doin' fine, and father he went off to salt for a spell, so's +to see'f 'twouldn't stop a complaint he's got,--I do'no' but it's a +spine in the back,--makes him kinder' faint by spells, so's he loses +his conscientiousness all to once; so he left the chickens 'n' things +for Melindy to boss, 'n' she got somethin' else into her head, 'n' she +left the door open one night, and them ten turkeys they up and run +away, I'xpect they took to the woods, 'fore Melindy brought to mind +how't she hadn't shut the door. She's set out fur to hunt 'em. I +shouldn't wonder'f she was out now, seein' it's arter sundown." + +"She a'n't nuther!" roared the terrible Joe, from behind the door, +where he had retreated at my coming. "She's settin' on a flour-barrel +down by the well, an' George Bemont's a-huggin' on her" + +Good gracious! what a slap Mrs. Tucker fetched that unlucky child, +with a long brown towel that hung at hand! and how he howled! while +Kate exploded with laughter, in spite of her struggles to keep quiet. + +"He _is_ the dre'fullest boy!" whined Mrs. Tucker. "Melindy tells +how he sassed you 'tother day, Mr. Greene. I shall hev to tewtor that +boy; he's got to hev the rod, I guess!" + +I bade Mrs. Tucker good night, for Kate was already out of the door, +and, before I knew what she was about, had taken a by-path in sight of +the well; and there, to be sure, sat Melindy, on a prostrate +flour-barrel that was rolled to the foot of the big apple-tree, +twirling her fingers in pretty embarrassment, and held on her insecure +perch by the stout arm of George Bemont, a handsome brown fellow, +evidently very well content just now. + +"Pretty,--isn't it?" said Kate. + +"Very,--quite pastoral," sniffed I. + +We were sitting round the open door an hour after, listening to a +whippoorwill, and watching the slow moon rise over a hilly range just +east of Centreville, when that elvish little "week! week!" piped out +of the wood that lay behind the house. + +"That is hopeful," said Kate; "I think Melindy and George must have +tracked the turkeys to their haunt, and scared them homeward." + +"George--who?" said Peggy. + +"George Bemont; it seems he is--what is your Connecticut +phrase?--sparkin' Melindy." + +"I'm very glad; he is a clever fellow," said Peter. + +"And she is such a very pretty girl," continued Peggy,--"so +intelligent and graceful; don't you think so, Sam?" + +"Aw, yes, well enough for a rustic," said I, languidly. "I never could +endure red hair, though!" + +Kate stopped on the door-sill; she had risen to go up stairs. + +"Gobble! gobble! gobble!" mocked she. I had heard that once before! +Peter and Peggy roared;--they knew it all;--I was sold! + +"Cure me of Kate Stevens?" Of course it did. I never saw her again +without wanting to fight shy, I was so sure of an allusion to +turkeys. No, I took the first down train. There are more pretty girls +in New York, twice over, than there are in Centreville, I console +myself; but, by George! Polder, Kate Stevens was charming!--Look out +there! don't meddle with the skipper's coils of rope! can't you sleep +on deck without a pillow? + + + + + +ROBIN HOOD. + + +There is no one of the royal heroes of England that enjoys a more +enviable reputation than the bold outlaw of Barnsdale and +Sherwood. His chance for a substantial immortality is at least as good +as that of stout Lion-Heart, wild Prince Hal, or merry Charles. His +fame began with the yeomanry full five hundred years ago, was +constantly increasing for two or three centuries, has extended to all +classes of society, and, with some changes of aspect, is as great as +ever. Bishops, sheriffs, and game-keepers, the only enemies he ever +had, have relinquished their ancient grudges, and Englishmen would be +almost as loath to surrender his exploits as any part of the national +glory. His free life in the woods, his unerring eye and strong arm, +his open hand and love of fair play, his never forgotten courtesy, his +respect for women and devotion to Mary, form a picture eminently +healthful and agreeable to the imagination, and commend him to the +hearty favor of all genial minds. + +But securely established as Robin Hood is in popular esteem, his +historical position is by no means well ascertained, and his actual +existence has been a subject of shrewd doubt and discussion. "A tale +of Robin Hood" is an old proverb for the idlest of stories; yet all +the materials at our command for making up an opinion on these +questions are precisely of this description. They consist, that is to +say, of a few ballads of unknown antiquity. These ballads, or others +like them, are clearly the authority upon which the statements of the +earlier chroniclers who take notice of Robin Hood are founded. They +are also, to all appearance, the original source of the numerous and +wide-spread traditions concerning him; which, unless the contrary can +be shown, must be regarded, according to the almost universal rule in +such cases, as having been suggested by the very legends to which, in +the vulgar belief, they afford an irresistible confirmation. + +Various periods, ranging from the time of Richard the First to near +the end of the reign of Edward the Second, have been selected by +different writers as the age of Robin Hood; but (excepting always the +most ancient ballads, which may possibly be placed within these +limits) no mention whatever is made of him in literature before the +latter half of the reign of Edward the Third. "Rhymes of Robin Hood" +are then spoken of by the author of "Piers Ploughman" (assigned to +about 1362) as better known to idle fellows than pious songs, and from +the manner of the allusion it is a just inference that such rhymes +were at that time no novelties. The next notice is in Wyntown's +Scottish Chronicle, written about 1420, where the following lines +occur--without any connection, and in the form of an entry--under the +year 1283:-- + + + "Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude + Wayth-men ware commendyd gude: + In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale + Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale."[1] + + +At last we encounter Robin Hood in what may be called history; first +of all in a passage of the "Scotichronicon," often quoted, and highly +curious as containing the earliest theory upon this subject. The +"Scotichronicon" was written partly by Fordun, canon of Aberdeen, +between 1377 and 1384, and partly by his pupil Bower, abbot of +St. Columba, about 1450. Fordun has the character of a man of judgment +and research, and any statement or opinion delivered by him would be +entitled to respect. Of Bower not so much can be said. He largely +interpolated the work of his master, and sometimes with the absurdest +fictions.[2] _Among his interpolations_, and forming, it is +important to observe, _no part of the original text_, is a +passage translated as follows. It is inserted immediately after +Fordun's account of the defeat of Simon de Montfort, and the +punishments inflicted on his adherents. + +"At this time, [_sc_. 1266,] from the number of those who had +been deprived of their estates arose the celebrated bandit Robert +Hood, (with Little John and their accomplices,) whose achievements the +foolish vulgar delight to celebrate in comedies and tragedies, while +the ballads upon his adventures sung by the jesters and minstrels are +preferred to all others. + +"Some things to his honor are also related, as appears from this. Once +on a time, when, having incurred the anger of the king and the prince, +he could hear mass nowhere but in Barnsdale, while he was devoutly +occupied with the service, (for this was his wont, nor would he ever +suffer it to be interrupted for the most pressing occasion,) he was +surprised by a certain sheriff and officers of the king, who had often +troubled him before, in the secret place in the woods where he was +engaged in worship as aforesaid. Some of his men, who had taken the +alarm, came to him and begged him to fly with all speed. This, out of +reverence for the host, which he was then most devoutly adoring, he +positively refused to do. But while the rest of his followers were +trembling for their lives, Robert, confiding in Him whom he +worshipped, fell on his enemies with a few who chanced to be with him, +and easily got the better of them; and having enriched himself with +their plunder and ransom, he was led from that time forth to hold +ministers of the church and masses in greater veneration than ever, +mindful of the common saying, that + + + "'God hears the man who often hears the mass.'" + + +In another place Bower writes to the same effect: "In this year [1266] +the dispossessed barons of England and the royalists were engaged in +fierce hostilities. Among the former, Roger Mortimer occupied the +Welsh marches, and John Daynil the Isle of Ely. Robert Hood was now +living in outlawry among the woodland copses and thickets." + +Mair, a Scottish writer of the first quarter of the sixteenth century, +the next historian who takes cognizance of our hero, and the only +other that requires any attention, has a passage which may be +considered in connection with the foregoing. In his "Historia Majoris +Britanniae" he remarks, under the reign of Richard the First: "About +this time [1189-99], as I conjecture, the notorious robbers, Robert +Hood of England and Little John, lurked in the woods, spoiling the +goods only of rich men. They slew nobody but those who attacked them, +or offered resistance in defence of their property. Robert maintained +by his plunder a hundred archers, so skilful in fight that four +hundred brave men feared to attack them. He suffered no woman to be +maltreated, and never robbed the poor, but assisted them abundantly +with the wealth which he took from abbots." + +It appears, then, that contemporaneous history is absolutely silent +concerning Robin Hood; that, excepting the casual allusion in "Piers +Ploughman," he is first mentioned by a rhyming chronicler who wrote +one hundred years after the latest date at which he can possibly be +supposed to have lived, and then by two prose chroniclers who wrote +about one hundred and twenty-five years and two hundred years +respectively after that date; and it is further manifest that all +three of these chroniclers had no other authority for their statements +than traditional tales similar to those which have come down to our +day. When, therefore, Thierry, relying upon these chronicles and +kindred popular legends, unhesitatingly adopts the conjecture of Mair, +and describes Robin Hood as the hero of the Saxon serfs, the chief of +a troop of Saxon banditti, that continued, even to the reign of Coeur +de Lion, a determined resistance against the Norman invaders,[3]--and +when another able and plausible writer accepts and maintains, with +equal confidence, the hypothesis of Bower, and exhibits the renowned +outlaw as an adherent of Simon de Montfort, who, after the fatal +battle of Evesham, kept up a vigorous guerilla warfare against the +officers of the tyrant Henry the Third, and of his successor,[4] we +must regard these representations, which were conjectural three or +four centuries ago, as conjectures still, and even as arbitrary +conjectures, unless one or the other can be proved from the only +_authorities_ we have, the ballads, to have a peculiar intrinsic +probability. That neither of them possesses this intrinsic probability +may easily be shown; but first it will be advisable to notice another +theory, which is more plausibly founded on internal evidence, and +claims to be confirmed by documents of unimpeachable validity. + +This theory has been propounded by the Rev. John Hunter, in one of his +"Critical and Historical Tracts."[5] Mr. Hunter admits that Robin +Hood "lives only as a hero of song"; that he is not found in authentic +contemporary chronicles; and that, when we find him mentioned in +history, "the information was derived from the ballads, and is not +independent of them or correlative with them." While making these +admissions, he accords a considerable degree of credibility to the +ballads, and particularly to the "Lytell Geste," the last two +_fits_ of which he regards as giving a tolerably accurate account +of real occurrences. + +In this part of the story King Edward is represented as coming to +Nottingham to take Robin Hood. He traverses Lancashire and a part of +Yorkshire, and finds his forests nearly stripped of their deer, but +can get no trace of the author of these extensive depredations. At +last, by the advice of one of his foresters, assuming with several of +his knights the dress of a monk, he proceeds from Nottingham to +Sherwood, and there soon encounters the object of his search. He +submits to plunder as a matter of course, and then announces himself +as a messenger sent to invite Robin Hood to the royal presence. The +outlaw receives this message with great respect. There is no man in +the world, he says, whom he loves so much as his king. The monk is +invited to remain and dine; and after the repast an exhibition of +archery is ordered, in which a bad shot is to be punished by a buffet +from the hand of the chieftain. Robin, having himself once failed of +the mark, requests the monk to administer the penalty. He receives a +staggering blow, which rouses his suspicions, recognizes the king on +an attentive consideration of his countenance, entreats grace for +himself and his followers, and is freely pardoned on condition that he +and they shall enter into the king's service. To this he agrees, and +for fifteen months resides at court. At the end of this time he has +lost all his followers but two, and spent all his money, and feels +that he shall pine to death with sorrow in such a life. He returns +accordingly to the greenwood, collects his old followers around him, +and for twenty-two years maintains his independence in defiance of the +power of Edward. + +Without asserting the literal verity of all the particulars of this +narrative, Mr. Hunter attempts to show that it contains a substratum +of fact. Edward the First, he informs us, was never in Lancashire +after he became king; and if Edward the Third was ever there at all, +it was not in the early years of his reign. But Edward the Second did +make one single progress in Lancashire, and this in the year 1323. +During this progress the king spent some time at Nottingham, and took +particular note of the condition of his forests, and among these of +the forest of Sherwood. Supposing now that the incidents detailed in +the "Lytell Geste" really took place at this time, Robin Hood must +have entered into the royal service before the end of the year +1353. It is a singular, and in the opinion of Mr. Hunter a very +pregnant coincidence, that in certain Exchequer documents, containing +accounts of expenses in the king's household, the name of Robyn Hode +(or Robert Hood) is found several times, beginning with the 24th of +March, 1324, among the "porters of the chamber" of the king. He +received, with Simon Hood and others, the wages of three pence a +day. In August of the following year Robin Hood suffers deduction from +his pay for non-attendance, his absences grow frequent, and on the 22d +of November he is discharged with a present of five shillings, +"_poar cas qil ne poait pluis travailler_."[6] + +It remains still for Mr. Hunter to account for the existence of a band +of seven score of outlaws in the reign of Edward the Second, in or +about Yorkshire. The stormy and troublous reigns of the Plantagenets +make this a matter of no difficulty. Running his finger down the long +list of rebellions and commotions, he finds that early in 1322 England +was convulsed by the insurrection of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the +king's near relation, supported by many powerful noblemen. The Earl's +chief seat was the castle of Pontefract, in the West Riding of +Yorkshire. He is said to have been popular, and it would be a fair +inference that many of his troops were raised in this part of England. +King Edward easily got the better of the rebels, and took exemplary +vengeance upon them. Many of the leaders were at once put to death, +and the lives of all their partisans were in danger. Is it impossible, +then, asks Mr. Hunter, that some who had been in the army of the Earl +secreted themselves in the woods, and turned their skill in archery +against the king's subjects or the king's deer? "that these were the +men who for so long a time haunted Barnsdale and Sherwood, and that +Robin Hood was one of them, a chief amongst them, being really of a +rank originally somewhat superior to the rest?" + +We have, then, three different hypotheses concerning Robin Hood: one +placing him in the reign of Richard the First, another in that of +Henry the Third, and the last under Edward the Second, and all +describing him as a political foe to the established government. To +all of these hypotheses there are two very obvious and decisive +objections. The first is, that Robin Hood, as already remarked, is not +so much as named in contemporary history. Whether as the unsubdued +leader of the Saxon peasantry, or insurgent against the tyranny of +Henry or Edward, it is inconceivable that we should not hear something +of him from the chroniclers. If, as Thierry says, "he had chosen +Hereward for his model," it is unexplained and inexplicable why his +historical fate has been so different from that of Hereward. The hero +of the Camp of Refuge fills an ample place in the annals of his day; +his achievements are also handed down in a prose romance, which +presents many points of resemblance to the ballads of Robin Hood. It +would have been no wonder, if the vulgar legends about Hereward had +utterly perished; but it is altogether anomalous that a popular +champion[7] who attained so extraordinary a notoriety in song, a man +living from one hundred to two hundred and fifty years later than +Hereward, should be passed over without one word of notice from any +authoritative historian.[8] That this would not be so we are most +fortunately able to demonstrate by reference to a real case which +furnishes a singularly exact parallel to the present,--that of the +famous outlaw, Adam Gordon. In the year 1267, says the continuator of +Matthew Paris, a soldier by the name of Adam Gordon, who had lost his +estates with other adherents of Simon de Montfort, and refused to seek +the mercy of the king, established himself with others in like +circumstances near a woody and tortuous road between the village of +Wilton and the castle of Farnham, from which position he made forays +into the country round about, directing his attacks especially against +those who were of the king's party. Prince Edward had heard much of +the prowess and honorable character of this man, and desired to have +some personal knowledge of him. He succeeded in surprising Gordon +with a superior force, and engaged him in single combat, forbidding +any of his own followers to interfere. They fought a long time, and +the prince was so filled with admiration of the courage and spirit of +his antagonist, that he promised him life and fortune on condition of +his surrendering. To these terms Gordon acceded, his estates were +restored, and Edward found him ever after an attached and faithful +servant.[9] The story is romantic, and yet Adam Gordon was not made +the subject of ballads. _Caruit vate sacro_. The contemporary +historians, however, all have a paragraph for him. He is celebrated +by Wikes, the Chronicle of Dunstaple, the Waverley Annals, and we know +not where else besides. + +But these theories are open to an objection stronger even than the +silence of history. They are contradicted by the spirit of the +ballads. No line of these songs breathes political animosity. There is +no suggestion or reminiscence of wrong, from invading Norman, or from +the established sovereign. On the contrary, Robin loved no man in the +world so well as his king. What the tone of these ballads would have +been, had Robin Hood been any sort of partisan, we may judge from the +mournful and indignant strains which were poured out on the fall of De +Montfort. We should have heard of the fatal field of Hastings, of the +perfidy of Henry, of the sanguinary revenge of Edward,--and not of +matches at archery and encounters at quarter-staff, the plundering of +rich abbots and squabbles with the sheriff. The Robin Hood of our +ballads is neither patriot under ban, nor proscribed rebel. An outlaw +indeed he is, but an "outlaw for venyson," like Adam Bell, and one who +superadds to deer-stealing the irregularity of a genteel +highway-robbery. + +Thus much of these conjectures in general. To recur to the particular +evidence by which Mr. Hunter's theory is supported, this consists +principally in the name of Robin Hood being found among the king's +servants shortly after Edward the Second returned from his visit to +the north of his dominions. But the value of this coincidence depends +entirely upon the rarity of the name.[10] Now Hood, as Mr. Hunter +himself remarks, is a well-established hereditary name in the reigns +of the Edwards. We find it very frequently in the indexes to the +Record Publications, and this although it does not belong to the +higher class of people. That Robert was an ordinary Christian name +requires no proof; and if it was, the combination of Robert Hood must +have been frequent also. We have taken no extraordinary pains to hunt +up this combination, for really the matter is altogether too trivial +to justify the expense of time; but since to some minds much may +depend on the coincidence in question, we will cite several Robin +Hoods in the reigns of the Edwards. + +28th Ed. I. Robert Hood, a citizen of London, says Mr. Hunter, +supplied the king's household with beer. + +30th Ed. I. Robert Hood is sued for three acres of pasture land in +Throckley, Northumberland. (_Rot. Orig. Abbrev._) + +7th Ed. II. Robert Hood is surety for a burgess returned for +Lostwithiel, Cornwall. (_Parliamentary Writs_.) + +9th Ed. II. Robert Hood is a citizen of Wakefield, Yorkshire, whom Mr. +Hunter (p. 47) "may be justly charged with carrying supposition too +far" in striving to identify with Robin the porter. + +10th Ed. III. A Robert Hood, of Howden, York, is mentioned in the +_Calendarium Rot. Patent_. + +Adding the Robin Hood of the 17th Ed. II. we have six persons of that +name mentioned within a period of less than forty years, and this +circumstance does not dispose us to receive with great favor any +argument that may be founded upon one individual case of its +occurrence. But there is no end to the absurdities which flow from +this supposition. We are to believe that the weak and timid prince, +that had severely punished his kinsman and his nobles, freely pardoned +a yeoman, who, after serving with the rebels, had for twenty months +made free with the king's deer and robbed on the highway,--and not +only pardoned him, but received him into service _near his +person_. We are further to believe that the man who had led so +daring and jovial a life, and had so generously dispensed the pillage +of opulent monks, willingly entered into this service, doffed his +Lincoln green for the Plantagenet plush, and _consented_ to be +enrolled among royal flunkies for three pence a day. And again, +admitting all this, we are finally obliged by Mr. Hunter's document to +concede that the stalworth archer (who, according to the ballad, +maintained himself two-and-twenty years in the wood) was worn out by +his duties as "proud porter" in less than two years, and was +discharged a superannuated lackey, with five shillings in his pocket, +_"poar cas qil ne poait pluis travailler"!_ + +To those who are well acquainted with ancient popular poetry the +adventure of King Edward and Robin Hood will seem the least eligible +portion of this circle of story for the foundation of an historical +theory. The ballad of King Edward and Robin Hood is but one version of +an extremely multiform legend, of which the tales of "King Edward and +the Shepherd" and "King Edward and the Hermit" are other specimens; +and any one who will take the trouble to examine will be convinced +that all these stories are one and the same thing, the personages +being varied for the sake of novelty, and the name of a recent or of +the reigning monarch substituted in successive ages for that of a +predecessor. + +Rejecting, then, as nugatory, every attempt to assign Robin Hood a +definite position in history, what view shall we adopt? Are all these +traditions absolute fictions, and is he himself a pure creation of the +imagination? Might not the ballads under consideration have a basis in +the exploits of a real person, living in the forests, _somewhere_ and +_at some time?_ Or, denying individual existence to Robin Hood, and +particular truth to the adventures ascribed to him, may we not regard +him as the ideal of the outlaw class, a class so numerous in all the +countries of Europe in the Middle Ages? We are perfectly contented to +form no opinion upon the subject; but if compelled to express one, we +should say that this last supposition (which is no novelty) possessed +decidedly more likelihood than any other. Its plausibility will be +confirmed by attending to the apparent signification of the name Robin +Hood. The natural refuge and stronghold of the outlaw was the +woods. Hence he is termed by Latin writers _silvatious,_ by the +Normans _forestier_. The Anglo-Saxon robber or highwayman is called a +woodrover _wealdgenga,_ and the Norse word for outlaw is exactly +equivalent.[11] It has often been suggested that Robin Hood is a +corruption, or dialectic form, of Robin of the Wood; and when we +remember that _wood_ is pronounced _hood_ in some parts of +England,[12] (as _whoop_ is pronounced _hoop_ everywhere,) and that +the outlaw bears in so many languages a name descriptive of his +habitation, this notion will not seem an idle fancy. + +Various circumstances, however, have disposed writers of learning to +look farther for a solution of the question before us. Mr. Wright +propounds an hypothesis that Robin Hood "one among the personages of +the early mythology of the Teutonic peoples"; and a German +scholar,[13] in an exceedingly interesting article which throws much +light on the history of English sports, has endeavored to show +specifically that he is in name and substance one with the god +Woden. The arguments by which these views are supported, though in +their present shape very far from convincing, are entitled to a +respectful consideration. + +The most important of these arguments are those which are based on the +peculiar connection between Robin Hood and the month of +May. Mr. Wright has justly remarked, that either an express mention of +this month, or a vivid description of the season, in the older +ballads, shows that the feats of the hero were generally performed +during this part of the year. Thus, the adventure of "Robin Hood and +the Monk" befell on "a morning of May." "Robin Hood and the Potter" +and "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne" begin, like "Robin Hood and the +Monk," with a description of the season when leaves are long, blossoms +are shooting, and the small birds are singing; and this season, though +called summer, is at the same time spoken of as May in "Robin Hood and +the Monk," which, from the description there given, it needs must be. +The liberation of Cloudesly by Adam Bel and Clym of the Clough is also +achieved "on a merry morning of May." + +Robin Hood is, moreover, intimately associated with the month of May +through the games which were celebrated at that time of the year. The +history of these games is unfortunately very defective, and hardly +extends farther back than the beginning of the sixteenth century. By +that time their primitive character seems to have been corrupted, or +at least their significance was so far forgotten, that distinct +pastimes and ceremonials were capriciously intermixed. At the +beginning of the sixteenth century the May sports in vogue were, +besides a contest of archery, four _pageants_,--the Kingham, or +election of a Lord and Lady of the May, otherwise called Summer King +and Queen, the Morris-Dance, the Hobby-Horse, and the "Robin Hood." +Though these pageants were diverse in their origin, they had, at the +epoch of which we write, begun to be confounded; and the Morris +exhibited a tendency to absorb and blend them all, as, from its +character, being a procession interspersed with dancing, it easily +might do. We shall hardly find the Morris pure and simple in the +English May-game; but from a comparison of the two earliest +representations which we have of this sport, the Flemish print given +by Douce in his "Illustrations of Shakspeare," and Tollett's +celebrated painted window, (described in Johnson and Steevens's +Shakspeare,) we may form an idea of what was essential and what +adventitious in the English spectacle. The Lady is evidently the +central personage in both. She is, we presume, the same as the Queen +of May, who is the oldest of all the characters in the May games, and +the apparent successor to the Goddess of Spring in the Roman +Floralia. In the English Morris she is called simply The Lady, or more +frequently Maid Marian, a name which, to our apprehension, means Lady +of the May, and nothing more.[14] A fool and a taborer seem also to +have been indispensable; but the other dancers had neither names nor +peculiar offices, and were unlimited in number. The Morris, then, +though it lost in allegorical significance, would gain considerably in +spirit and variety by combining with the other shows. Was it not +natural, therefore, and in fact inevitable, that the old favorites of +the populace, Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, and Little John, should in the +course of time displace three of the anonymous performers in the show? +This they had pretty effectually done at the beginning of the +sixteenth century; and the Lady, who had accepted the more precise +designation of Maid Marian, was after that generally regarded as the +consort of Robin Hood, though she sometimes appeared in the Morris +without him. In like manner, the Hobby-Horse was quite early adopted +into the Morris, of which it formed no original part, and at last even +a Dragon was annexed to the company. Under these circumstances we +cannot be surprised to find the principal performers in the May +pageants passing the one into the other,--to find the May King, whose +occupation was gone when the gallant outlaw had supplanted him in the +favor of the Lady, assuming the part of the Hobby-Horse,[15] Robin +Hood usurping the title of King of the May,[16] and the Hobby-Horse +entering into a contest with the Dragon, as St. George. + +We feel obliged to regard this interchange of functions among the +characters in the English May-pageants as fortuitous, notwithstanding +the coincidence of the May King sometimes appearing on horseback in +Germany, and notwithstanding our conviction that Kuhn is right in +maintaining that the May King, the Hobby-Horse, and the Dragon-Slayer +are symbols of one mythical idea. This idea we are compelled by want +of space barely to state, with the certainty of doing injustice to the +learning and ingenuity with which the author has supported his +views. Kuhn has shown it to be extremely probable, first, that the +Christmas games, which both in Germany and England have a close +resemblance to those of Spring, are to be considered as a prelude to +the May sports, and that they both originally symbolized the victory +of Summer over Winter,[17] which, beginning at the winter solstice, is +completed in the second month of spring; secondly, that the conquering +Summer is represented by the May King, or by the Hobby-Horse (as also +by the Dragon-Slayer, whether St. George, Siegfried, Apollo, or the +Sanskrit Indras); and thirdly, that the Hobby-Horse in particular +represents the god Woden, who, as well as Mars [18] among the Romans, +is the god at once of Spring and of Victory. + +The essential point, all this being admitted, is now to establish the +identity of Robin Hood and the Hobby-Horse. This we think we have +shown cannot be done by reasoning founded on the early history of the +games under consideration. Kuhn relies principally upon two modern +accounts of Christmas pageants. In one of these pageants there is +introduced a man on horseback, who carries in his hands a bow and +arrows. The other furnishes nothing peculiar except a name: the +ceremony is called a _hoodening,_ and the hobby-horse a +_hooden_. In the rider with bow and arrows Kuhn sees Robin Hood +and the Hobby-Horse, and in the name _hooden_ (which is explained +by the authority he quotes to mean wooden) he discovers a provincial +form of wooden, which connects the outlaw and the divinity.[19] It +will be generally agreed that these slender premises are totally +inadequate to support the weighty conclusion that is rested upon them. + +Why the adventures of Robin Hood should be specially assigned, as they +are in the old ballads, to the month of May, remains unexplained. We +have no exquisite reason to offer, but we may perhaps find reason good +enough in the delicious stanzas with which some of these ballads +begin. + + + "In summer when the shawes be sheen, + And leaves be large and long, + It is full merry in fair forest + To hear the fowles song; + To see the deer draw to the dale, + And leave the hilles hee, + And shadow them in the leaves green + Under the green-wood tree." + + +The poetical character of the season affords all the explanation that +is required. + +Nor need the occurrence of exhibitions of archery and of the Robin +Hood plays and pageants, at this time of the year, occasion any +difficulty. Repeated statutes, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth +century, enjoined practice with the bow, and ordered that the leisure +time of holidays should be employed for this purpose. Under Henry the +Eighth the custom was still kept up, and those who partook in this +exercise often gave it a spirit by assuming the style and character of +Robin Hood and his associates. In like manner the society of archers +in Elizabeth's time took the name of Arthur and his Knights; all which +was very natural then, and would be now. None of all the merrymakings +in merry England surpassed the May festival. The return of the sun +stimulated the populace to the accumulation of all sorts of +amusements. In addition to the traditional and appropriate sports of +the season, there were, as Stowe tells us, divers warlike shows, with +good archers, morris-dancers, and other devices for pastime all day +long, and towards evening stage-plays and bonfires in the streets. A +Play of Robin Hood was considered "very proper for a May-game"; but if +Robin Hood was peculiarly prominent in these entertainments, the +obvious reason would appear to be that he was the hero of that loved +green-wood to which all the world resorted, when the cold obstruction +of winter was broken up, "to do observance for a morn of May." + +We do not, therefore, attribute much value to the theory of +Mr. Wright, that the May festival was, in its earliest form, "a +religious celebration, though, like such festivals in general, it +possessed a double character, that of a religious ceremony, and of an +opportunity for the performance of warlike games; that, at such +festivals, the songs would take the character of the amusements on the +occasion, and would most likely celebrate warlike deeds,--perhaps the +myths of the patron whom superstition supposed to preside over them; +that, as the character of the exercises changed, the attributes of the +patron would change also, and he who was once celebrated as working +wonders with his good axe or his elf-made sword might afterwards +assume the character of a skilful bowman; that the scene of his +actions would likewise change, and the person whose weapons were the +bane of dragons and giants, who sought them in the wildernesses they +infested, might become the enemy only of the sheriff and his officers, +under the 'grene-wode lefe.'" It is unnecessary to point out that the +language we have quoted contains, beyond the statement that warlike +exercises were anciently combined with religious rites, a very +slightly founded surmise, and nothing more. + +Another circumstance, which weighs much with Mr. Wright, goes but a +very little way with us in demonstrating the mythological character of +Robin Hood. This is the frequency with which his name is attached to +mounds, wells, and stones, such as in the popular creed are connected +with fairies, dwarfs, or giants. There is scarcely a county in England +which does not possess some monument of this description. "Cairns on +Blackdown in Somersetshire, and barrows near to Whitby in Yorkshire +and Ludlow in Shropshire, are termed Robin Hood's pricks or butts; +lofty natural eminences in Gloucestershire and Derbyshire are Robin +Hood's hills; a huge rock near Matlock is Robin Hood's Tor; ancient +boundary-stones, as in Lincolnshire, are Robin Hood's crosses; a +presumed loggan, or rocking-stone, in Yorkshire, is Robin Hood's +penny-stone; a fountain near Nottingham, another between Doncaster and +Wakefield, and one in Lancashire, are Robin Hood's wells; a cave in +Nottinghamshire is his stable; a rude natural rock in Hope Dale is his +chair; a chasm at Chatsworth is his leap; Blackstone Edge, in +Lancashire, is his bed."[20] In fact, his name bids fair to overrun +every remarkable object of the sort which has not been already +appropriated to King Arthur or the Devil; with the latter of whom, at +least, it is presumed, that, however ancient, he will not dispute +precedence. + +"The legends of the peasantry," quoth Mr. Wright, "are the shadows of +a very remote antiquity." This proposition, thus broadly stated, we +deny. Nothing is more deceptive than popular legends; and the +"legends" we speak of, if they are to bear that name, have no claim to +antiquity at all. They do not go beyond the ballads. They are palpably +of subsequent and comparatively recent origin. It was absolutely +impossible that they should arise while Robin Hood was a living +reality to the people. The archer of Sherwood who could barely stand +King Edward's buffet, and was felled by the Potter, was no man to be +playing with rocking-stones. This trick of naming must have begun in +the decline of his fame; for there was a time when his popularity +drooped, and his existence was just not doubted,--not elaborately +maintained by learned historians, and antiquarians deeply read in the +Public Records. And what do these names prove? The vulgar passion for +bestowing them is notorious and universal. We Americans are too young +to be well provided with heroes that might serve this purpose. We have +no imaginative peasantry to invent legends, no ignorant peasantry to +believe them. But we have the good fortune to possess the Devil in +common with the rest of the world; and we take it upon us to say, that +there is not a mountain district in the land, which has been opened to +summer travellers, where a "Devil's Bridge," a "Devil's Punch-bowl," +or some object with the like designation, will not be pointed out.[21] + +We have taken no notice of the later fortunes of Robin Hood in his +true and original character of a hero of romance. Towards the end of +the sixteenth century Anthony Munday attempted to revive the decaying +popularity of this king of good fellows, who had won all his honors as +a simple yeoman, by representing him in the play of "The Downfall of +Robert, Earl of Huntington" as a nobleman in disguise, outlawed by the +machinations of his steward. This pleasing and successful drama is +Robin's sole patent to that title of Earl of Huntington, in +confirmation of which Dr. Stukeley fabricated a pedigree that +transcends even the absurdities of heraldry, and some unknown forger +an epitaph beneath the skill of a Chatterton. Those who desire a full +acquaintance with the fabulous history of Robin Hood will seek it in +the well-known volumes of Ritson, or in those of his recent editor, +Gutch, who does not make up by superior discrimination for his +inferiority in other respects to that industrious antiquary. + + +[Footnote 1: A writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ (July, 1847, +p. 134) has cited an allusion to Robin Hood, of a date intermediate +between the passages from Wyntown and the one about to be cited from +Bower. In the year 1439, a petition was presented to Parliament +against one Piers Venables of Aston, in Derbyshire, "who having no +liflode, ne sufficeante of goodes, gadered and assembled unto him many +misdoers, beynge of his clothynge, and, in manere of insurrection, +wente into the wodes in that countrie, like as it hadde be _Robyn +Hude and his meyne_."--_Rot. Parl._ v. 16.] + +[Footnote 2: "Legendis non raro incredilibibus aliisque plusquam +anilibus neniis."--Hearne, _Scotichronicon_, p. xxix.] + +[Footnote 3: In his _Histoire de la Conquete de l'Angleterre par les +Normands_, livr. xi. Thierry was anticipated in his theory by +Barry, in a dissertation cited by Mr. Wright in his Essays: _These +de Litterature sur les Vicissitudes et les Transformations du Cycle +populaire de Robin Hood_. Paris, 1832.] + +[Footnote 4: _London, and Westminster Review_, vol. xxxiii. p. 424.] + +[Footnote 5: No 4. _The Ballad Hero, Robin Hood_. June, 1852.] + +[Footnote 6: Hunter, pp. 28, 35-38] + +[Footnote 7: Mr. Hunter thinks it necessary to prove that it was +formerly a usage in England to celebrate real events in popular +song. We submit that it has been still more customary to celebrate +them in history, when they were of public importance. The case of +private and domestic stories is different.] + +[Footnote 8: Most remarkable of all would this be, should we adopt the +views of Mr. Hunter, because we know, from the incidental testimony of +_Piers Ploughman_, that only forty years after the date fixed +upon for the outlaw's submission "rhymes of Robin Hood" were in the +mouth of every tavern lounger; and yet no chronicler can spare him a +word.] + +[Footnote 9: Matthew Paris, London, 1640, p. 1002] + +[Footnote 10: Mr. Hunter had previously instituted a similar argument +in the case of Adam Bell, and doubtless the reasoning might be +extended to Will Scathlock and Little John. With a little more +rummaging of old account-books we shall be enabled to "comprehend all +vagrom men." It is a pity that the Sheriff of Nottingham could not +have availed himself of the services of our "detective."] + +[Footnote 11: See Wright's _Essays,_ ii. 207. "The name of +Witikind, the famous opponent of Charlemagne, who always fled before +his sight, concealed himself in the forests, and returned again in his +absence, is no more than _uitu chint,_ in Old High Dutch, and +signifies the _son of the wood,_ an appellation which he could +never have received at his birth, since it denotes an exile or +outlaw. Indeed, the name Witikind, though such a person seems to have +existed, appears to be the representative of all the defenders of his +country against the invaders."] + +[Footnote 12: Thus, in Kent, the Hobby-Horse is called _hooden,_ +i.e. wooden. It is curious that Orlando, in _As You Like It,_ +(who represents the outlaw Gamelyn in the _Tale of Gamelyn,_ a +tale which clearly belongs to the cycle of Robin Hood,) should be the +son of Sir Rowland de Bois. Robin de Bois (says a writer in _Notes +and Queries,_ vi. 597) occurs in one of Sue's novels "as a +well-known mythical character, whose name is employed by French +mothers to frighten their children."] + +[Footnote 13: Kuhn, in Haupt's _Zeitschrift fuer deutsches +Alterthum,_ v. 472. The idea of a northern myth will of course +excite the alarm of all sensible, patriotic Englishmen, (e.g. Mr. +Hunter, at page 3 of his tract,) and the bare suggestion of Woden will +be received, in the same quarters, with an explosion of scorn. And +yet we find the famous shot of Elgill, one of the mythical personages +of the Scandinavians, (and perhaps to be regarded as one of the forms +of Woden,) attributed in the ballad of _Adam Bel_ to William of +Cloudesly, who may be considered as Robin Hood under another name.] + +[Footnote: 14. Unless importance is to be attached to +the consideration that May is the Virgin's +month.] + +[Footnote 15: As in Tollett's window.] + +[Footnote 16: In Lord Hailes's _Extracts from the Book of the +Universal Kirk._] + +[Footnote 17: More openly exhibited in the mock battle between Summer +and Winter celebrated by the Scandinavians in honor of May, a custom +still retained in the Isle of Man, where the month is every year +ushered in with a contest between the Queen of Summer and the Queen of +Winter. (Brand's _Antiquities,_ by Ellis, i. 222, 257.) A similar +ceremony in Germany, occurring at Christmas, is noticed by Kuhn, +p. 478.] + +[Footnote 18: Hence the spring begins with March. The connection with +Mars suggests a possible etymology for the Morris,--which is usually +explained, for want of something better, as a Morisco or Moorish +dance. There is some resemblance between the Morris and the Salic +dance. The Salic games are said to have been instituted by the Veian +king Morrius, a name pointing to Mars, the divinity of the +Salli.--Kuhn, 488-493.] + +[Footnote 19: The name Robin also appears to Kuhn worthy of notice, +since the horseman in the May pageant is in some parts of Germany +called Ruprecht (Rupert, Robert).] + +[Footnote 20: _Edinburgh Review,_ vol. 86, p. 123.] + +[Footnote 21: See some sensible remarks in the _Gentleman's +Magazine_ for March, 1793, by D. H., that is, says the courteous +Ritson, by Gough, "the scurrilous and malignant editor of that +degraded publication."] + + + + +THE GHOST REDIVIVUS. + + +One of those violent, though shortlived storms, which occasionally +rage in southern climates, had blown all night in the neighborhood of +the little town of San Cipriano, situated in a wild valley of the +Apennines opening towards the sea. Under the olive-woods that cover +those steep hills lay the olive-berries strewed thick and wide; here +and there a branch heavy-laden with half-ripe fruit, torn by the blast +from its parent tree, stretched its prostrate length upon the +ground. An abundant premature harvest had fallen, but at present there +were no means of collecting it; for the deluging rains of the night +had soaked the ground, the grass, the dead leaves, the fruit itself, +and the rain was still falling heavily. If gathered in that state, the +olives are sure to rot. + +_"Pazienza!"_ in such disasters exclaim the inhabitants of the +_Riviera_, with a melancholy shrug of the shoulders. And they +needs must have patience until the weather clears and the ground +dries, before they can secure such of the olives as may happily be +uninjured. + +On the day we speak of, the 21st of December, 1852, the proprietors of +olive-grounds in San Cipriano wore very blank faces; they talked sadly +of the falling prices of the fruit and oil, and the olive-pickers +crossed their hands and looked vacantly at the gray sky. + +In the spacious kitchen of Doctor Morani were assembled a body of +young rosy lasses in laced bodices, and short, bright-colored +petticoats, come down from the neighboring mountains for the +olive-gathering, much as Irish laborers cross over to England for the +hay-making season. These girls arrive in troops from their native +villages among the hills, carrying on their heads a sackful of the +flour of dried beans and a lesser quantity of dried chestnuts. They +offer their services to the inhabitants of the valley at the rate of +four pence English a day; about three pence less than the sum demanded +by the women of the place. But the pretty mountaineers ask, in +addition to their modest wages, a shelter for the night, a little +straw or hay for their beds, and a small daily portion of oil and salt +to season the bean-flour and chestnuts, which constitute their sole +food. They are then perfectly contented. + +The old Doctor had hired several of these damsels to assist in getting +in his olive crop, with the customary additional compact to spin some +of the unwrought flax of the household when bad weather prevented +their out-of-door work, as well as regularly in the evening between +early dusk and bed-time. Happy those to whose lot it fell to be +employed by Dr. Morani! Besides not beating down their wages to the +utmost, it was the Doctor's wont, out of the exuberance of a +warm-hearted, joyous nature, unchilled even by his sixty winters, to +give to his serving men and maidens not only kind words and +encouraging looks, but also what made him perhaps still more popular, +humorous jokes and droll stories. + +The Doctor, indeed, concealed something of the philosopher under the +garb of a wag. His quaint sayings and doings were frequently quoted +with great relish among this rural population. He had a way of his own +of shooting facts and truths into the uncultivated understandings of +these laborers,--facts and truths that never otherwise could have +penetrated so far; he feathered his philosophical or moral arrows with +a jest, and they stuck fast. + +Signora Martina, his wife, was a good soul, and, though a strict +housewife, was yet not so thrifty but that she could allow a little of +her abundance to overflow on those in her service; and these crumbs +from her table added many delicious bits to the bean-flour +repasts. So, as we have said, happy the mountain girls taken into +Dr. Morani's service! But specially blest among the blest this year +were two sisters, to whom was allotted a bed, a real bed, to sleep +upon! How came they to be furnished with such a luxury? Why, this +season the Doctor had hired more than the usual number of pickers. The +outbuilding given them to sleep in was thus too small to accommodate +all, so two were taken into the house, and a diminutive closet, +generally used by the family as a bath-room, was turned into a +bed-room for the lucky couple. Now for a description of the bed. Over +the bath was placed an ironing-board, and upon this a mattress quite +as narrow, almost as hard, and far less smooth than the narrow plank +on which it lay. The width of the bed was just sufficient to admit the +two sisters, packed close, each lying on her side. As to turning, that +was simply out of the question; but "poor labor in sweet slumber +lock'd" lay from night till morning without once dreaming of change of +position. + +Signora Martina, the first day or two, expressed some fear lest they +might not rest well; but both girls averred they never in their lives +had known so luxurious a bed,--and never should again, unless their +good fortune brought them back another year to enjoy this sybarite +couch at Dr. Morani's. + +Though irrelevant to our story, this short digression may serve to +illustrate the Arcadian simplicity of habits prevailing in these +mountainous districts, and affords one more illustration of the axiom, +not more trite than true, that human enjoyment and luxury are all +comparative. + +Well! the wet afternoon was wearing on, beguiled by the young girls as +best it might be, with the spindle and distaff, and incessant chatter +and laugh, save when they joined their voices in some popular +chant. Signora Martina was delivering fresh flax to the spinners; +Marietta, the maid, was busy about the fire, in provident forethought +for supper; and Beppo, a barefooted, weather-beaten individual, was +bringing in the wood he had been sawing this rainy day, which +interfered with his more usual business at that season. For Beppo was +one of the men whose task it was to climb the olive-trees and shake +down the olives for the women gathering below. He was distinguished +among many as a skilful and valiant climber; nor had his laurels been +earned without perils and wounds. Occasionally he fell, and +occasionally broke a bone or two,--episodes that had their +compensation. Beppo, then, on this particular rainy afternoon, came +in with a flat basket full of newly cut wood on his head, respectfully +saluted the _Padrona_, and, after throwing down his load in a +corner of the kitchen, leisurely turned his basket topsy-turvy, seated +himself upon it, and prepared to take his part in the general +conversation. + +At this moment the Doctor himself entered, his cloak and hat dripping. + +"Heugh! heugh!" he exclaimed, in a voice of disgust, as his wife +helped him out of his covering; "what weather!" He went towards the +fire, and spread out his hands to catch the heat of the glowing +embers, on which sat a saucepan. "Horrid weather! The wind played the +very mischief with us last night!" + +"Many branches broken, Padrone?" asked Beppo, eagerly. + +"Branches, eh? Aye, aye; saw away; burn away; don't be afraid of a +supply failing," said the Doctor, dryly. + +"Oh, Santa Maria!" sighed Signora Martina, in sad presentiment. + +"Plenty of firewood, my dear soul, for two years," went on the +Doctor. "The big tree near the pigeon-house is head down, root up, +torn, smashed, prostrate, while good-for-nothing saplings are +standing." + +"Oh Lord! such a tree! that never failed, bad year or good year, to +give us a sack of olives, and often more!" cried Signora Martina, +piteously. "More than three generations old it was!" And she began +actually to weep. "Oil selling for nothing, and the tree, the best of +trees, to be blown down!" + +"Take care," said the Doctor, "take care of repining! Little +misfortunes are like a rash, which carries off bad humors from a too +robust body. Suppose the storm had laid my head low, and turned up my +toes; what then, eh, little girls?" turning to the group of young +creatures standing with their eyes very wide open at the recital of +the misdeeds of the turbulent wind, and now as suddenly off into a +laugh at the image of the Doctor's decease so represented. "Ah! you +giggling set! Happy you that have no branches to be broken, and no +olive-pickers to pay! _Per Bacco!_ you are well off, if you only +knew it!" + +He walked over to where his weeping wife sat, laid his hand on her +head, and stooping, kissed her brow. The girls laughed again. + +"Be quiet, all of you! Do you think that only smooth brows and bright +cheeks ought to be kissed? Be good loving wives, and I promise you +your husbands will be blind to your wrinkles. I could not be happy +without the sight of this well-known face; it is the record of +happiness for me. I wish you all our luck, my dears!" + +All simpered or laughed, and Martina's brow smoothed. + +"Now I see that I can still make you smile at misfortune," continued +the Doctor, "I will tell you something comforting. As I came along, I +met Paolo, the olive-merchant, who offered me a franc more a sack than +he did to any one else, because he knows our olives are of a superior +quality." + +Signora Martina smiled rather a grim smile at this compliment to her +olives. + +"But I told him," went on Doctor Morani, with a certain look of pride, +"that we were not going to sell; we intended to make oil for +ourselves. And so we will, Martina, with the olives that have been +blown down, hoping the best for those still on the trees. Now let us +talk of something more pleasant. Pasqualina, suppose you tell us a +story; you are our best hand, I believe." + +"I am sure, Signor Dottore, I have nothing worth your listening to," +answered Pasqualina, blushing. + +"Tell us about the ghost your uncle saw," suggested another of the +girls. + +"A ghost!" cried the Doctor. "Any one here seen a ghost? I wish I +could have such a chance! What was it like?" + +"I did not see it myself; I do but believe what my uncle told me," +said Pasqualina, with a gravity that had a shade of resentment. + +"If one is only to speak of what one has seen," urged the prompter of +the uncle's ghost-story, "tell the Padrone of the witch that bewitched +your sister." + +"Ah! and so we have witches too?" groaned the Doctor. + +"As to that," resumed Pasqualina, with a dignified look, "I can't help +believing my own eyes, and those of all the people of our village." + +"Well," exclaimed Doctor Morani, "let us hear all about the witch." + +"You know, all of you," said Pasqualina, "what bad fits my sister had, +and how she was cured by the miraculous Madonna del Laghetto. So my +sister had no more fits, till Madalena, a spiteful old woman, and whom +everybody in the village knows to be a witch, mumbled some of her +spells and----" + +"Hallo!" cried the Doctor, "do you mean that witches have more power +than the Madonna?" + +"Oh! Signor Dottore, you put things so strangely! just listen to the +truth. So this old woman came and mumbled some of her spells, and then +my poor sister fell down again, and has since had fits as bad as +ever. But my father and brother were not going to take it so easily, +and they beat the bad old witch till she couldn't move, and had to be +carried to the hospital. I hope she may die, with all my heart I do!" + +"You had better hope she will get well," observed the Doctor, coolly; +"for if she should happen to die, my good Pasqualina, it would be very +possible that your father and brother might be sent to the galleys." + +Here Pasqualina set up a howl. + +"Do not afflict yourself just now," resumed Doctor Morani; "for, with +all their good-will, they have not quite killed the woman. I saw her +myself at the hospital; she is getting better, and when cured, I shall +take care that she does not return among such a set of savages as +flourish in your village, Signorina Pasqualina. Excuse my +boldness,"--and the Doctor took off his skull-cap, in playful +obeisance to the young girl,--"only advise your family another time to +be less ready with their hands and their belief in every species of +absurdity. Did not Father Tommaso tell you but yesterday, that it was +not right to believe in ghosts or witches, save and except the +peculiar one or two it is his business to know about, and who lived +some thousand years ago? There have been none since, believe me." + +"Strange things do happen, however," observed Signora Martina, +thoughtfully,--"things that neither priest nor lawyer can +explain. What was that thing which appeared, twenty years ago, on the +tower of San Ciprano?" The Signora's voice sent a shudder through all +the women present. + +"A trick, and a stupid trick," persisted her husband. + +"Not at all a trick, Doctor," said Martina, shaking her head. + +"Did you see it yourself, Martina?" + +"No; but I saw those who did with their own two blessed eyes." + +"The Padrona is quite right," said Beppo, without leaving his +basket. "I, for one, saw it." + +This assertion produced such a hubbub as sent the Doctor growling from +the room, and left Signora Martina at liberty to comply with the +general petition for the story. + +"It was twenty-five years last Easter since Hans Reuter came to San +Cipriano with Carlo Boschi, the son of old Pietro, of our town. Carlo +had gone away three years before to seek his fortune. He went to +Switzerland, it seems, a distant country beyond the mountains, where +the language is different from ours, and where it is said"--(here +Martina lowered her voice)--"the people do not follow our holy +religion, and are called, therefore, Protestants and heretics. They +are industrious, notwithstanding, and clever in certain arts and +manufactures, and it was from some of them that Carlo learned the +watchmaking trade. After staying away three years, one fine day he +came back, bringing with him one of these Swiss, Hans Reuter; and the +two, being great friends, set up a shop together, where they made and +sold watches and jewelry. There was not business enough in San +Cipriano to maintain them, but they made it out by selling at +wholesale in the neighboring towns. + +"For years all went smoothly with the partners, and their good luck +began to be wondered at, when one morning their shop was not open at +the usual hour. What was the matter? what had happened? there was +Carlo Boschi knocking and shouting to Hans, and all in vain. I must +tell you that Carlo lived elsewhere, and Hans had the care of the +premises at night, sleeping in a little room at the back of the +shop. The neighbors went out and advised Carlo to force the door. Very +well. When they got in, they found Hans bound hand and foot, and so +closely gagged that he was almost stifled. As soon as he could speak, +he said that just after he had shut up the previous evening, there +was a knock at the door. He had scarcely opened it, when he was seized +by two ruffians with blackened faces, who threw him down, gagged and +tied him, and then coolly proceeded to ransack every place, packed up +every bit of jewelry, every watch, and every piece of money, and then +decamped with their booty, locking the door on the outside. The +robbery took place on the third and last day of the Easter Fair, +exactly when there was the greatest noise and bustle from the breaking +up of booths, such an uproar of singing, brawling, and rolling of +carts, and such a stream of people going in every direction, as made +it easy for the thieves to escape detection. The police took a great +many depositions, and made a great fuss; but there the matter ended. + +"To say the truth, it was like looking for a bird in a forest, +considering the number of strangers who had attended the fair; +besides, the police, you know, at that time, were too busy dogging and +hunting down Liberals to care for tracking only thieves. That, +however, is no business of mine or yours; and perhaps it would have +done no good to poor Hans, even if the criminals had been discovered. +He had got a great shock; he could not recover his spirits. Every one +felt for him, because he was a kind, sociable man, as well as +industrious; the only fault he had was being a Protestant. What that +was no one exactly knew; but it was a great sin and a great pity, it +seems. Sure it is that Hans never went to confession, or to the +communion. However, as time passed and brought no tidings of the +robbers, the poor man grew more thin and careworn every day. He would +talk for hours about Switzerland, about his own village, his father's +house, his parents and relations. He had left them so thoughtlessly, +he said, he had scarcely felt a regret; yet now a yearning grew within +him to look once more upon those dear faces, and the verdant mountains +of his country,--upon its cool, rushing streams, wide, green pastures, +and the cows that grazed on them. He used to tell us, that, when he +was alone, he heard their bells in the distance, and they seemed to +call him home. My husband did not like all this, and said Hans ought +to go at once, or it would be too late. But Hans delayed and delayed, +in the hope of recovering some of his stolen property, till one day he +was taken very ill and had to be carried to the hospital. The Doctor +attended him two or three times every day, and on the third was +summoned in a great hurry. Morani went and had a long conversation +with the poor dying fellow, and then Padre Michele of the Capuchin +Convent was sent for. It was some time before the good monk could be +found, and then it took still longer, he being old and very infirm, +before he could get to the hospital. When he did, it was too late; +poor Hans was dead. + +"This was a sad business; for, if the Padre had come in time, at all +events Hans's soul would have been safe, and his body buried in +consecrated ground. My husband went to the Rector and told his +Reverence that Hans had renounced his errors, and had made a full +profession of the Catholic faith to him; but his Reverence shook his +head, and said that was not the same thing as if Padre Michele had +received Hans into the true fold. Then my husband said it was a pity +Hans should suffer because the Padre had been out of the way; but his +Reverence always answered, 'No,' and so 'No' it was. The clergy were +not to attend, and the body was to be put into the ground just as you +might bury a dog. What could my husband do more? So he went his way +to his patients. It happened that he had to see several, far in the +country, and so did not come home till late at night. + +"You all know the tower which stands upon the green knoll high above +the town. It is a relic of very old times, when San Cipriano had +fortifications. It has been a ruin for more than a century,--a mere +shell, open to the sky, encircling a wide space of ground. A few days +before Hans's death, the Doctor had taken it into his head he would +like to hire this tower of the municipality, to which it belongs, to +make a garden within its walls. He had been to examine the place a +week previous, and had brought home the key of the gate, being +determined to take it. Now this very day after Hans died, and while my +husband was away on his round of country visits, the Syndic sent to +ask for the key, and I, thinking no harm, gave it. And now what do you +think the Syndic wanted the key for? Just to dig a hole for poor +Hans. Yes, the body was carried up there, and buried out of sight as +quickly as possible. + +"When the Doctor came home he was in a mighty passion with +everybody;--with the Rector, for refusing Hans a place in the +burial-ground; with the Syndic, for allowing the tower to be used for +such a purpose; and most of all with me, for giving the key without +asking why or wherefore. + +"However, what was done could not be undone, and so no more was said +about the matter. It might have been a week after, when some girls who +had set out before daylight to go to the wood for leaves, came back +much terrified, declaring they had seen an apparition on the tower +wall. Not one had dared to go on to the wood, but all ran back to the +town and spread the alarm. A dozen persons, at least, came to our +house to tell us about it, and I promise you my husband did not call +it a stupid trick, as he did today. He looked very grave, and +exclaimed, 'I don't wonder at it. No doubt it is poor Hans, who does +not like to lie in unconsecrated ground. Don't come to me,--it's none +of my business,--I have only to do with the living,--the dead belong +to the clergy,--this is the Rector's affair. If ever a ghost had a +right to walk, it is in such a case as this, when a poor, honest +fellow is denied Christian burial because an old monk's legs refuse to +carry him fast enough. Had Padre Michele been a younger man, all +would have been right.' + +"There was quite a general commotion in the town, and at last, after a +day or two, some of the young men determined they would go and watch +the next night, to see if the thing appeared, or if it was mere +women's nonsense, and they went accordingly." + +"I was one of the party," interrupted Beppo, taking the narrative out +of his Padrona's mouth, stirred by the high-wrought excitement of his +recollections. "I went with ten others, and I had a good loaded gun +with me. We hid ourselves behind some bushes, and watched and +watched. Nothing appeared, until the girls, who had agreed to come at +their usual hour for going to the wood, passed by; then, just at that +moment, I swear I saw it. I felt all,--I can't tell how,--a sort of +hot cold, and as if my legs were water. I don't know how I managed to +raise my gun,--I did it quite dreaming like; it went off with the +biggest noise ever a gun made, and the bullet must have gone through +the very head of the ghost, for it waved its thin arms fearfully. All +the rest ran away, but I could not move a peg. Then a terrible voice +roared out, 'I shall not forget thee, my friend! I will visit thee +again before thy last hour! Now begone!'" + +Beppo ceased speaking, and a shuddering silence fell on the +listeners. Martina alone ventured on the awe-struck whisper of "What +was it like, Beppo?" + +"A tall, white figure; its arms spread out like a cross,--so," replied +Beppo, rising from his basket, the better to personate the +ghost. "_Jesu Maria!_" he shrieked, "there it is! O Lord, have +mercy on us!" + +And sure enough, standing against the door was a tall, white figure, +its arms spread out like the limbs of a cross. Screams, both shrill +and discordant, filled the room,--Martini, Beppo, Marietta, and the +girls tumbling and rushing about distraught with terror. Such a +mad-like scene! There was a trembling and a shaking of the white +figure for a moment, then down it went in a heap to the floor, and out +came the substantial proportions of Doctor Morani, looming formidable +in the dusky light of the expiring embers. The sound of his +well-known vigorous laugh resounded through the kitchen, as he flung a +bunch of pine branches on the fire. The next moment a bright flame +shot up, and the light as by magic brought the scared group to their +senses. Each looked into the faces of the others with an expression +of rising merriment struggling with ghastly fear, and first a +long-drawn breath of relief, and then a burst of laughter broke from +all. + +"What a fright you have given us, Padrone!" Beppo was the first to +say. + +"I hope so," replied the Doctor,--"it has only paid you off for the +one you gave me twenty years ago." + +"I!--you!--but how, caro Padrone?" + +"Ah! you haven't yet, I assure you, recognized your old acquaintance, +the identical ghost which you favored with a bullet. Would you like to +see it once more?" + +"_Pazienza!_" exclaimed Beppo, "for once,--twice;--but three +times,--no, that is more than enough. I am satisfied with what I have +seen." + +"Do you know what you have seen?" resumed the Doctor. "Very well, +listen to me. When the Rector refused to let poor Hans lie in the same +ground with many of our townspeople who (God rest their souls!) had +lived scarcely so honest a life as he had done, I was far from +imagining that he was to be thrust into the tower, of all places in +the world, and just when it was well known I had bargained for +it. 'That's the way I am to be used, is it?' thought I. I'll play you +a trick, my friends, worth two of yours,--one that will make you glad +to give honest Hans hospitality in your churchyard.' + +"I waited a few days, till the moon should rise late, so as to be +shining about one or two in the morning, the time when the girls set +off for the woods. I provided myself with a sheet, and took care to +be in the tower before midnight. I tied two long sticks together in +the shape of a cross, stuck my hat on the top, and threw the linen +over the whole; and a capital ghost it was. Then I got under the +drapery, pushing up the stick, so as to give the idea of a gigantic +human figure with extended arms. I had no fear of being discovered, +for the Syndic had the key still in his possession, and I had made +good my entrance through a gap in the wall sufficiently well concealed +by brambles. I suppose I need not tell you, young women, how brave +your mothers were. My ghostship heard of the young men's project, and +encouraged them, never thinking there was one among them so stupid as +to carry a gun to fight a ghost with; for how can you shoot a ghost, +when it has neither flesh nor blood? It was impossible to suspect any +one of being such a monstrous blockhead; so I was rather disagreeably +startled at hearing the crack of a gun, and feeling the tingling of a +bullet whizzing past my ear. You nearly made me into a real ghost, +friend Beppo; for I assure you, you are a capital shot. Ever since +that memorable aim, I have entertained the deepest respect for you as +a marksman; it was not your fault that I am here now to make this +confession. I ducked my head below the wall in case a volley was to +follow the signal gun. When I peeped again, there remained one +solitary figure before the tower, immovable as a stone pillar. O noble +Beppo, it was thou! + +"'I must get rid of this fellow one way or other,' thought I, 'but not +by shaking my stick-covered sheet, or I shall have another bullet.' So +I raised myself breasthigh above the wall, made a trumpet of my hands, +and roared out the fearful promise I have kept this evening. As soon +as I saw my enemy's back, I left my station, and never played the +ghost again." + +"A pretty folly for a man of forty!" cried Signora Martina, still +smarting under her late fright. "Why, a boy would be well whipped for +such a trick. There's no knowing what to believe in a man like you, no +saying when you are in earnest or in fun." + +After a moment's silence, the lady asked in a softer tone, "Now do +tell me, Morani, is it true that poor Hans recanted before he died?" + +"My dear, if Padre Michele had been in time, we should have been sure +of the fact. You see the Rector did not think I knew enough of +theology to decide. I am a submissive child of the Church," replied +the husband. "As for the ghost, I took care to provide against +forgetting my folly. On the top shelf of the laboratory I hung up the +bullet-pierced hat; and the bullet itself I ticketed with the date and +kept in my desk. Who wants to see the ghost's hat?"--and the Doctor +drew a hat from under the sheet still lying on the floor, and +exhibited it to the curious eyes of all present, making them admire +the neat hole in it. The bullet itself he took out of his waistcoat +pocket, and holding it towards Beppo, asked, "Hadn't it a mark?" + +"Yes, sir, I cut a cross on it," replied the abashed climber of +olive-trees; "and by all the Saints, there it is still! Pasqualina, +my girl," turning to her, "your uncle's ghost will turn out to be +somebody." + +"Bravo! Beppo," cried the Doctor. + +"Knowing what you know by experience, suppose you hint to any one +inclined to spectre-shooting, that he runs the risk of killing a live +man, and having two ghosts on his hands,--the ghost of the poor devil +shot, and one of himself hanged for murder. As for you, young girls, +remember that when you go forth to meet the perils of dark mornings, +you are more likely to encounter dangers from flesh and blood than +from spirits." + + + + +THE GOLDEN MILE-STONE. + + +[The _Milliorium Aureum,_ or Golden Mile-Stone, was a gilt marble +pillar in the Forum at Rome, from which, as a central point, the great +roads of the empire diverged through the several gates of the city, +and the distances were measured.] + + + Leafless are the trees; their purple branches + Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral + Rising silent + In the Red Sea of the winter sunset. + + From the hundred chimneys of the village, + Like the Afreet in the Arabian story, + Smoky columns + Tower aloft into the air of amber. + + At the window winks the flickering fire-light; + Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer, + Social watch-fires, + Answering one another through the darkness. + + On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing, + And, like Ariel in the cloven pine-tree, + For its freedom + Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in them. + + By the fireside there are old men seated, + Seeing ruined cities in the ashes, + Asking sadly + Of the Past what it can ne'er restore them. + + By the fireside there are youthful dreamers, + Building castles fair with stately stairways, + Asking blindly + Of the Future what it cannot give them. + + By the fireside tragedies are acted + In whose scenes appear two actors only, + Wife and husband, + And above them God, the sole spectator. + + By the fireside there are peace and comfort, + Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces, + Waiting, watching + For a well-known footstep in the passage. + + Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile-Stone,-- + Is the central point from which he measures + Every distance + Through the gateways of the world around him. + + In his farthest wanderings still he sees it; + Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind, + As he heard them + When he sat with those who were, but are not. + + Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, + Nor the march of the encroaching city, + Drives an exile + From the hearth of his ancestral homestead! + + We may build more splendid habitations, + Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures, + But we cannot + Buy with gold the old associations. + + + + + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + + +EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL. + +I really believe some people save their bright thoughts, as being too +precious for conversation. What do you think an admiring friend said +the other day to one that was talking good things,--good enough to +print? "Why," said he, "you are wasting merchantable literature, a +cash article, at the rate, as nearly as I can tell, of fifty dollars +an hour." The talker took him to the window and asked him to look out +and tell what he saw. + +"Nothing but a very dusty street," he said, "and a man driving a +sprinkling-machine through it." + +"Why don't you tell the man he is wasting that water? What would be +the state of the highways of life, if we did not drive our +_thought-sprinklers_ through them with the valves open, +sometimes? + +"Besides, there is another thing about this talking, which you +forget. It shapes our thoughts for us;--the waves of conversation roll +them as the surf rolls the pebbles on the shore. Let me modify the +image a little. I rough out my thoughts in talk as an artist models in +clay. Spoken language is so plastic,--you can pat and coax, and spread +and shave, and rub out, and fill up, and stick on so easily, when you +work that soft material, that there is nothing like it for +modelling. Out of it come the shapes which you turn into marble or +bronze in your immortal books, if you happen to write such. Or, to use +another illustration, writing or printing is like shooting with a +rifle; you may hit your reader's mind, or miss it;--but talking is +like playing at a mark with the pipe of an engine; if it is within +reach, and you have time enough, you can't help hitting it." + +The company agreed that this last illustration was of superior +excellence, or, in the phrase used by them, "Fust-rate." I +acknowledged the compliment, but gently rebuked the expression. +"Fust-rate," "prime," "a prime article," "a superior piece +of goods," "a handsome garment," "a gent in a flowered vest,"--all +such expressions are final. They blast the lineage of him or her who +utters them, for generations up and down. There is one other phrase +which will soon come to be decisive of a man's social _status_, if it +is not already: "That tells the whole story." It is an expression +which vulgar and conceited people particularly affect, and which +well-meaning ones, who know better, catch from them. It is intended to +stop all debate, like the previous question in the General Court. Only +it don't; simply because "that" does not usually tell the whole, nor +one half of the whole story. + +----It is an odd idea, that almost all our people have had a +professional education. To become a doctor a man must study some +three years and hear a thousand lectures, more or less. Just how much +study it takes to make a lawyer I cannot say, but probably not more +than this. Now most decent people hear one hundred lectures or sermons +(discourses) on theology every year,--and this, twenty, thirty, fifty +years together. They read a great many religious books besides. The +clergy, however, rarely hear any sermons except what they preach +themselves. A dull preacher might be conceived, therefore, to lapse +into a state of _quasi_ heathenism, simply for want of religious +instruction. And on the other hand, an attentive and intelligent +hearer, listening to a succession of wise teachers, might become +actually better educated in theology than any one of them. We are all +theological students, and more of us qualified as doctors of divinity +than have received degrees at any of the universities. + +It is not strange, therefore, that very good people should often find +it difficult, if not impossible, to keep their attention fixed upon a +sermon treating feebly a subject which they have thought vigorously +about for years, and heard able men discuss scores of times. I have +often noticed, however, that a hopelessly dull discourse acts +_inductively_, as electricians would say, in developing strong +mental currents. I am ashamed to think with what accompaniments and +variations and _fioriture_ I have sometimes followed the droning +of a heavy speaker,--not willingly,--for my habit is reverential,--but +as a necessary result of a slight continuous impression on the senses +and the mind, which kept both in action without furnishing the food +they required to work upon. If you ever saw a crow with a king-bird +after him, you will get an image of a dull speaker and a lively +listener. The bird in sable plumage flaps heavily along his +straight-forward course, while the other sails round him, over him, +under him, leaves him, comes back again, tweaks out a black feather, +shoots away once more, never losing sight of him, and finally reaches +the crow's perch at the same time the crow does, having cut a perfect +labyrinth of loops and knots and spirals while the slow fowl was +painfully working from one end of his straight line to the other. + +[I think these remarks were received rather coolly. A temporary +boarder from the country, consisting of a somewhat more than +middle-aged female, with a parchment forehead and a dry little +"frisette" shingling it, a sallow neck with a necklace of gold beads, a +black dress too rusty for recent grief, and contours in basso-rilievo, +left the table prematurely, and was reported to have been very +virulent about what I said. So I went to my good old minister, and +repeated the remarks, as nearly as I could remember them, to him. He +laughed good-naturedly, and said there was considerable truth in +them. He thought he could tell when people's minds were wandering, by +their looks. In the earlier years of his ministry he had sometimes +noticed this, when he was preaching;--very little of late +years. Sometimes, when his colleague was preaching, he observed this +kind of inattention; but after all, it was not so very unnatural. I +will say, by the way, that it is a rule I have long followed, to tell +my worst thoughts to my minister, and my best thoughts to the young +people I talk with.] + +----I want to make a literary confession now, which I believe nobody +has made before me. You know very well that I write verses sometimes, +because I have read some of them at this table. (The company +assented,--two or three of them in a resigned sort of way, as I +thought, as if they supposed I had an epic in my pocket, and was going +to read half a dozen books or so for their benefit.)--I continued. Of +course I write some lines or passages which are better than others; +some which, compared with the others, might be called relatively +excellent. It is in the nature of things that I should consider these +relatively excellent lines or passages as absolutely good. So much +must be pardoned to humanity. Now I never wrote a "good" line in my +life, but the moment after it was written it seemed a hundred years +old. Very commonly I had a sudden conviction that I had seen it +somewhere. Possibly I may have sometimes unconsciously stolen it, but +I do not remember that I ever once detected any historical truth in +these sudden convictions of the antiquity of my new thought or +phrase. I have learned utterly to distrust them, and never allow them +to bully me out of a thought or line. + +This is the philosophy of it. (Here the number of the company was +diminished by a small secession.) Any new formula which suddenly +emerges in our consciousness has its roots in long trains of thought; +it is virtually old when it first makes its appearance among the +recognized growths of our intellect. Any crystalline group of musical +words has had a long and still period to form in. Here is one theory. + +But there is a larger law which perhaps comprehends these facts. It is +this. The rapidity with which ideas grow old in our memories is in a +direct ratio to the squares of their importance. Their apparent age +runs up miraculously, like the value of diamonds, as they increase in +magnitude. A great calamity, for instance, is as old as the trilobites +an hour after it has happened. It stains backward through all the +leaves we have turned over in the book of life, before its blot of +tears or of blood is dry on the page we are turning. For this we seem +to have lived; it was foreshadowed in dreams that we leaped out of in +the cold sweat of terror; in the "dissolving views" of dark +day-visions; all omens pointed to it; all paths led to it. After the +tossing half-forgetfulness of the first sleep that follows such an +event, it comes upon us afresh, as a surprise, at waking; in a few +moments it is old again,--old as eternity. + +[I wish I had not said all this then and there. I might have known +better. The pale schoolmistress, in her mourning dress, was looking +at me, as I noticed, with a wild sort of expression. All at once the +blood dropped out of her cheeks as the mercury drops from a broken +barometer-tube, and she melted away from her seat like an image of +snow; a slung-shot could not have brought her down better. God forgive +me! + +After this little episode, I continued, to some few that remained +balancing teaspoons on the edges of cups, twirling knives, or tilting +upon the hind legs of their chairs until their heads reached the wall, +where they left gratuitous advertisements of various popular +cosmetics.] + +When a person is suddenly thrust into any strange, new position of +trial, he finds the place fits him as if he had been measured for +it. He has committed a great crime, for instance, and is sent to the +State Prison. The traditions, prescriptions, limitations, privileges, +all the sharp conditions of his new life, stamp themselves upon his +consciousness as the signet on soft wax;--a single pressure is +enough. Let me strengthen the image a little. Did you ever happen to +see that most soft-spoken and velvet-handed steam-engine at the Mint? +The smooth piston slides backward and forward as a lady might slip her +delicate finger in and out of a ring. The engine lays one of +_its_ fingers calmly, but firmly, upon a bit of metal; it is a +coin now, and will remember that touch, and tell a new race about it, +when the date upon it is crusted over with twenty centuries. So it is +that a great silent-moving misery puts a new stamp on us in an hour or +a moment,--as sharp an impression as if it had taken half a lifetime +to engrave it. + +It is awful to be in the hands of the wholesale professional dealers +in misfortune; undertakers and jailers magnetize you in a moment, and +you pass out of the individual life you were living into the +rhythmical movements of their horrible machinery. Do the worst thing +you can, or suffer the worst that can be thought of, you find yourself +in a category of humanity that stretches back as far as Cain, and with +an expert at your elbow that has studied your case all out beforehand, +and is waiting for you with his implements of hemp or mahogany. I +believe, if a man were to be burned in any of our cities to-morrow for +heresy, there would be found a master of ceremonies that knew just how +many fagots were necessary, and the best way of arranging the whole +matter. + +----So we have not won the Good-wood cup; _au contraire_, we were +a "bad fifth," if not worse than that; and trying it again, and the +third time, has not yet bettered the matter. Now I am as patriotic as +any of my fellow-citizens,--too patriotic in fact, for I have got into +hot water by loving too much of my country; in short, if any man, +whose fighting weight is not more than eight stone four pounds, +disputes it, I am ready to discuss the point with him. I should have +gloried to see the stars and stripes in front at the finish. I love my +country, and I love horses. Stubbs's old mezzotint of Eclipse hangs +over my desk, and Herring's portrait of Plenipotentiary,--whom I saw +run at Epsom,--over my fireplace. Did I not elope from school to see +Revenge, and Prospect, and Little John, and Peacemaker run over the +race-course where now yon suburban village flourishes, in the year +eighteen hundred and ever-so-few? Though I never owned a horse, have I +not been the proprietor of six equine females, of which one was the +prettiest little "Morgin" that ever stepped? Listen, then, to an +opinion I have often expressed long before this venture of ours in +England. Horse-_racing_ is not a republican institution; +horse-_trotting_ is. Only very rich persons can keep race-horses, +and everybody knows they are kept mainly as gambling implements. All +that matter about blood and speed we won't discuss; we understand all +that; useful, very,--_of_ course,--great obligations to the +Godolphin "Arabian," and the rest. I say racing horses are +essentially gambling implements, as much as roulette tables. Now I am +not preaching at this moment; I may read you one of my sermons some +other morning; but I maintain that gambling, on the great scale, is +not republican. It belongs to two phases of society,--a cankered +over-civilization, such as exists in rich aristocracies, and the +reckless life of borderers and adventurers, or the semi-barbarism of a +civilization resolved into its primitive elements. Real republicanism +is stern and severe; its essence is not in forms of government, but in +the omnipotence of public opinion which grows out of it. This public +opinion cannot prevent gambling with dice or stocks, but it can and +does compel it to keep comparatively quiet. But horse-racing is the +most public way of gambling; and with all its immense attractions to +the sense and the feelings,--to which I plead very susceptible,--the +disguise is too thin that covers it, and everybody knows what it +means. Its supporters are the Southern gentry,--fine fellows, no +doubt, but not republicans exactly, as we understand the term,--a few +Northern millionnaires more or less thoroughly millioned, who do not +represent the real people, and the mob of sporting men, the best of +whom are commonly idlers, and the worst very bad neighbors to have +near one in a crowd, or to meet in a dark alley. In England, on the +other hand, with its aristocratic institutions, racing is a natural +growth enough; the passion for it spreads downwards through all +classes, from the Queen to the costermonger. London is like a shelled +corn-cob on the Derby day, and there is not a clerk who could raise +the money to hire a saddle with an old hack under it that can sit down +on his office-stool the next day without wincing. + +Now just compare the racer with the trotter for a moment. The racer is +incidentally useful, but essentially something to bet upon, as much as +the thimble-rigger's "little joker." The trotter is essentially and +daily useful, and only incidentally a tool for sporting men. + +What better reason do you want for the fact that the racer is most +cultivated and reaches his greatest perfection in England, and that +the trotting horses of America beat the world? And why should we have +expected that the pick--if it was the pick--of our few and far-between +racing stables should beat the pick of England and France? Throw over +the fallacious time-test, and there was nothing to show for it but a +natural kind of patriotic feeling, which we all have, with a +thoroughly provincial conceit, which some of us must plead guilty to. + +We may beat yet. As an American, I hope we shall. As a moralist and +occasional sermonizer, I am not so anxious about it. Wherever the +trotting horse goes, he carries in his train brisk omnibuses, lively +bakers' carts, and therefore hot rolls, the jolly butcher's wagon, the +cheerful gig, the wholesome afternoon drive with wife and child,--all +the forms of moral excellence, except truth, which does not agree with +any kind of horse-flesh. The racer brings with him gambling, cursing, +swearing, drinking, the eating of oysters, and a distaste for mob-caps +and the middle-aged virtues. + +And by the way, let me beg you not to call a _trotting match_ a +_race_, and not to speak of a "thorough-bred" as a "_blooded_" horse, +unless he has been recently phlebotomized. I consent to your saying +"blood horse," if you like. Also, if, next year, we send out Posterior +and Posterioress, the winners of the great national four-mile race in +7 18-1/2, and they happen to get beaten, pay your bets, and behave +like men and gentlemen about it, if you know how. + +[I felt a great deal better after blowing off the ill-temper condensed +in the above paragraph. To brag little,--to show--well,--to crow +gently, if in luck,--to pay up, to own up, and to shut up, if beaten, +are the virtues of a sporting man, and I can't say that I think we +have shown them in any great perfection of late.] + +----Apropos of horses. Do you know how important good jockeying is to +authors? Judicious management; letting the public see your animal +just enough, and not too much; holding him up hard when the market is +too full of him; letting him out at just the right buying intervals; +always gently feeling his mouth; never slacking and never jerking the +rein;--this is what I mean by jockeying. + +----When an author has a number of books out, a cunning hand will keep +them all spinning, as Signor Blitz does his dinner-plates; fetching +each one up, as it begins to "wabble," by an advertisement, a puff, or +a quotation. + +----Whenever the extracts from a living writer begin to multiply fast in +the papers, without obvious reason, there is a new book or a new +edition coming. The extracts are _ground-bait_. + +----Literary life is full of curious phenomena. I don't know that there +is anything more noticeable than what we may call _conventional +reputations_. There is a tacit understanding in every community of +men of letters that they will not disturb the popular fallacy +respecting this or that electro-gilded celebrity. There are various +reasons for this forbearance: one is old; one is rich; one is +good-natured; one is such a favorite with the pit that it would not be +safe to hiss him from the manager's box. The venerable augurs of the +literary or scientific temple may smile faintly when one of the tribe +is mentioned; but the farce is in general kept up as well as the +Chinese comic scene of entreating and imploring a man to stay with +you, with the implied compact between you that he shall by no means +think of doing it. A poor wretch he must be who would wantonly sit +down on one of these bandbox reputations. A Prince-Rupert's-drop, +which is a tear of unannealed glass, lasts indefinitely, if you keep +it from meddling hands; but break its tail off, and it explodes and +resolves itself into powder. These celebrities I speak of are the +Prince-Rupert's-drops of the learned and polite world. See how the +papers treat them! What an array of pleasant kaleidoscopic phrases, +that can be arranged in ever so many charming patterns, is at their +service! How kind the "Critical Notices"--where small authorship +comes to pick up chips of praise, fragrant, sugary, and sappy--always +are to them! Well, life would be nothing without paper-credit and +other fictions; so let them pass current. Don't steal their chips; +don't puncture their swimming-bladders; don't come down on their +pasteboard boxes; don't break the ends of their brittle and unstable +reputations, you fellows who all feel sure that your names will be +household words a thousand years from now. + +"A thousand years is a good while," said the old gentleman who sits +opposite, thoughtfully. + +----Where have I been for the last three or four days? Down at the +Island, deer-shooting.--How many did I bag? I brought home one buck +shot.--The Island is where? No matter. It is the most splendid domain +that any man looks upon in these latitudes. Blue sea around it, and +running up into its heart, so that the little boat slumbers like a +baby in lap, while the tall ships are stripping naked to fight the +hurricane outside, and storm-stay-sails banging and flying in ribbons. +Trees, in stretches of miles; beeches, oaks, most numerous;--many of +them hung with moss, looking like bearded Druids; some coiled in the +clasp of huge, dark-stemmed grape-vines. Open patches where the sun +gets in and goes to sleep, and the winds come so finely +sifted that they are as soft as swan's down. Rocks scattered +about,--Stonehenge-like monoliths. Fresh-water lakes; one of them, +Mary's lake, crystal-clear, full of flashing pickerel lying under the +lily-pads like tigers in the jungle. Six pounds of ditto one morning +for breakfast. EGO _fecit_. + +The divinity-student looked as if he would like to question my +Latin. No, sir, I said,--you need not trouble yourself. There is a +higher law in grammar, not to be put down by Andrews and +Stoddard. Then I went on. + +Such hospitality as that island has seen there has not been the like +of in these our New England sovereignties. There is nothing in the +shape of kindness and courtesy that can make life beautiful, which has +not found its home in that ocean-principality. It has welcomed all who +were worthy of welcome, from the pale clergyman who came to breathe +the sea-air with its medicinal salt and iodine, to the great statesman +who turned his back on the affairs of empire, and smoothed his +Olympian forehead, and flashed his white teeth in merriment over +the long table, where his wit was the keenest and his story the best. + +[I don't believe any man ever talked like that in this world. I don't +believe _I_ talked just so; but the fact is, in reporting one's +conversation, one cannot help _Blair_-ing it up more or less, +ironing out crumpled paragraphs, starching limp ones, and crimping and +plaiting a little sometimes; it is as natural as prinking at the +looking-glass.] + +----How can a man help writing poetry in such a place? Everybody does +write poetry that goes there. In the state archives, kept in the +library of the Lord of the Isle, are whole volumes of unpublished +verse,--some by well-known hands, and others, quite as good, by the +last people you would think of as versifiers,--men who could pension +off all the genuine poets in the country, and buy ten acres of Boston +common, if it was for sale, with what they had left. Of course I had +to write my little copy of verses with the rest; here it is, if you +will hear me read it. When the sun is in the west, vessels sailing in +an easterly direction look bright or dark to one who observes them +from the north or south, according to the tack they are sailing +upon. Watching them from one of the windows of the great mansion, I +saw these perpetual changes, and moralized thus:-- + + + As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green + To the billows of foam-crested blue, + Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen, + Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue: + Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray + As the chaff in the stroke of the flail; + Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way, + The sun gleaming bright on her sail. + + Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,-- + Of breakers that whiten and roar; + How little he cares, if in shadow or sun + They see him that gaze from the shore! + He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, + To the rock that is under his lee, + As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, + O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. + + Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves + Where life and its ventures are laid, + The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves + May see us in sunshine or shade; + Yet true to our course, though our shadow grow dark, + We'll trim our broad sail as before, + And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, + Nor ask how we look from the shore! + + +----Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good +mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything +is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse +their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt +itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad. We frequently see +persons in insane hospitals, sent there in consequence of what are +called _religious_ mental disturbances. I confess that I think +better of them than of many who hold the same notions, and keep their +wits and appear to enjoy life very well, outside of the asylums. Any +decent person ought to go mad, if he really holds such or such +opinions. It is very much to his discredit in every point of view, if +he does not. What is the use of my saying what some of these opinions +are? Perhaps more than one of you hold such as I should think ought to +send you straight over to Somerville, if you have any logic in your +heads or any human feeling in your hearts. Anything that is brutal, +cruel, heathenish, that makes life hopeless for the most of mankind +and perhaps for entire races,--anything that assumes the necessity of +the extermination of instincts which were given to be regulated,--no +matter by what name you call it,--no matter whether a fakir, or a +monk, or a deacon believes it,--if received, ought to produce insanity +in every well-regulated mind. That condition becomes a normal one, +under the circumstances. I am very much ashamed of some people for +retaining their reason, when they know perfectly well that if they +were not the most stupid or the most selfish of human beings, they +would become _non-compotes_ at once. + +[Nobody understood this but the theological student and the +schoolmistress. They looked intelligently at each other; but whether +they were thinking about my paradox or not, I am not clear.--It would +be natural enough. Stranger things have happened. Love and Death enter +boarding-houses without asking the price of board, or whether there is +room for them. Alas, these young people are poor and pallid! Love +_should_ be both rich and rosy, but _must_ be either rich or +rosy. Talk about military duty! What is that to the warfare of a +married maid-of-all-work, with the title of mistress, and an American +female constitution, which collapses just in the middle third of life, +and comes out vulcanised India-rubber, if it happen to live through +the period when health and strength are most wanted?] + +----Have I ever acted in private theatricals? Often. I have +played the part of the "Poor Gentleman," before a great many +audiences,--more, I trust, than I shall ever face again. I did not +wear a stage-costume, nor a wig, nor moustaches of burnt cork; but I +was placarded and announced as a public performer, and at the proper +hour I came forward with the ballet-dancer's smile upon my +countenance, and made my bow and acted my part. I have seen my name +stuck up in letters so big that I was ashamed to show myself in the +place by daylight. I have gone to a town with a sober literary essay +in my pocket, and seen myself everywhere announced as the most +desperate of _buffos_,--one who was obliged to restrain himself +in the full exercise of his powers, from prudential considerations. I +have been through as many hardships as Ulysses, in the pursuit of my +histrionic vocation. I have travelled in cars until the conductors all +knew me like a brother. I have run off the rails, and stuck all night +in snowdrifts, and sat behind females that would have the window open +when one could not wink without his eyelids freezing together. Perhaps +I shall give you some of my experiences one of these days;--I will not +now, for I have something else for you. + +Private theatricals, as I have figured in them in country +lyceum-halls, are one thing,--and private theatricals, as they may be +seen in certain gilded and frescoed saloons of our metropolis, are +another. Yes, it is pleasant to see real gentlemen and ladies, who do +not think it necessary to mouth, and rant, and stride, like most of +our stage heroes and heroines, in the characters which show off their +graces and talents; most of all to see a fresh, unrouged, unspoiled, +highbred young maiden, with a lithe figure, and a pleasant voice, +acting in those love-dramas that make us young again to look upon, +when real youth and beauty will play them for us. + +----Of course I wrote the prologue I was asked to write. I did not see +the play, though. I knew there was a young lady in it, and that +somebody was in love with her, and she was in love with him, and +somebody (an old tutor, I believe) wanted to interfere, and, very +naturally, the young lady was too sharp for him. The play of course +ends charmingly; there is a general reconciliation, and all concerned +form a line and take each others' hands, as people always do after +they have made up their quarrels,--and then the curtain falls,--if it +does not stick, as it commonly does at private theatrical exhibitions, +in which case a boy is detailed to pull it down, which he does, +blushing violently. + +Now, then, for my prologue. I am not going to change my caesuras and +cadences for anybody; so if you do not like the heroic, or iambic +trimeter brachycatalectic, you had better not wait to hear it. + + +THIS IS IT. + +A Prologue? Well, of course the ladies know;-- + +I have my doubts. No matter,--here we go! + + + What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach: + _Pro_ means beforehand; _logos_ stands for speech. + 'Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings, + The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings;-- + Prologues in metre are to other _pros_ + As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. + + "The world's a stage,"--as Shakspeare said, one day; + The stage a world--was what he meant to say. + The outside world's a blunder, that is clear; + The real world that Nature meant is here. + Here every foundling finds its lost mamma; + Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa; + Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid, + The cheats are taken in the traps they laid; + One after one the troubles all are past + Till the fifth act comes right side up at last, + When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all, + Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall. + --Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, + And black-browed ruffians always come to grief. + --When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech, + And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach, + Cries, "Help, kyind Heaven!" and drops upon her knees + On the green--baize,--beneath the (canvas) trees,-- + See to her side avenging Valor fly:-- + "Ha! Villain! Draw! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die!" + --When the poor hero flounders in despair, + Some dear lost uncle turns up millionnaire,-- + Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy, + Sobs on his neck, "My boy! My Boy!! MY BOY!!!" + + Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night + Of love that conquers in disaster's spite. + Ladies, attend! While woful cares and doubt + Wrong the soft passion in the world without, + Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere, + One thing is certain: Love will triumph here! + + Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule,-- + The world's great masters, when you're out of school,-- + Learn the brief moral of our evening's play: + Man has his will,--but woman has her way! + While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire, + Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire,-- + The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves + Beats the black giant with his score of slaves. + All earthly powers confess your sovereign art + But that one rebel,--woman's wilful heart. + All foes you master; but a woman's wit + Lets daylight through you ere you know you're hit. + So, just to picture what her art can do, + Hear an old story made as good as new. + + Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade, + Alike was famous for his arm and blade. + One day a prisoner Justice had to kill + Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. + Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, + Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. + His falchion lightened with a sudden gleam, + As the pike's armor flashes in the stream. + He sheathed his blade; he turned as if to go; + The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. + "Why strikest not? Perform thy murderous act," + The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.) + "Friend, I _have_ struck," the artist straight replied; + "Wait but one moment, and yourself decide." + He held his snuff-box,--"Now then, if you please!" + The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze, + Off his head tumbled,--bowled along the floor,-- + Bounced down the steps;--the prisoner said no more! + + Woman! thy falchion is a glittering eye; + If death lurks in it, oh, how sweet to die! + Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head; + We die with love, and never dream we're dead! + + +The prologue went off very well, as I hear. No alterations were +suggested by the lady to whom it was sent, for as far as I +know. Sometimes people criticize the poems one sends them, and +suggest all sorts of improvements. Who was that silly body that +wanted Burns to alter "Scots wha hae," so as to lengthen the last +line, thus?-- + + + "_Edward!_". Chains and slavery! + + +Here is a little poem I sent a short time since to a committee for a +certain celebration. I understood that it was to be a festive and +convivial occasion, and ordered myself accordingly. It seems the +president of the day was what is called a "teetotaller." I received a +note from him in the following words, containing the copy subjoined, +with the emendations annexed to it: + + +"Dear Sir,--Your poem gives good satisfaction to the committee. The +sentiments expressed with reference to liquor are not, however, those +generally entertained by this community. I have therefore consulted +the clergyman of this place, who has made some slight changes, which +he thinks will remove all objections, and keep the valuable portions +of the poem. Please to inform me of your charge for said poem. Our +means are limited, etc., etc., etc. + +"Yours with respect." + + +HERE IT IS,--WITH THE _SLIGHT ALTERATIONS!_ + + + Come! fill a fresh bumper,--for why should we go + + logwood + While the <nectar> still reddens our cups as they flow? + + decoction + Pour out the <rich juices> still bright with the sun, + + dye-stuff + Till o'er the brimmed crystal the <rubies> shall run. + + half-ripened apples + The <purple-globed-clusters> their life-dews have bled; + + taste sugar of lead + How sweet is the <breath> of the <fragrance they shed>! + + rank poisons _wines!!!_ + For summer's <last roses> lie hid in the <wines> + + stable-boys smoking long-nines. + That were garnered by <maidens who laughed through the vines.> + + scowl howl scoff sneer + Then a <smile>, and a <glass>, and a <toast>, and a <cheer>, + + strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer! + For <all the good-wine, and we've some of it here> + + In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, + + Down, down, with the tyrant that masters us all! + <Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all!> + + +The company said I had been shabbily treated, and advised me to charge +the committee double,--which I did. But as I never got my pay, I don't +know that it made much difference. I am a very particular person about +having all I write printed as I write it, I require to see a proof, a +revise, a re-revise, and a double re-revise, or fourth-proof rectified +impression of all my productions, especially verse. Manuscripts are +such puzzles! Why, I was reading some lines near the end of the last +number of this journal, when I came across one beginning + + + "The _stream_ flashes by,"-- + + +Now as no stream had been mentioned, I was perplexed to know what it +meant. It proved, on inquiry, to be only a misprint for "dream." +Think of it! No wonder so many poets die young. + +I have nothing more to report at this time, except two pieces of +advice I gave to the young women at table. One relates to a vulgarism +of language, which I grieve to say is sometimes heard even from female +lips. The other is of more serious purport, and applies to such as +contemplate a change of condition,--matrimony, in fact. + +--The woman who "calc'lates" is lost. + +--Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust. + + + + + +THOMAS CARLYLE. + + +THOMAS CARLYLE is a name which no man of this generation should +pronounce without respect; for it belongs to one of the high-priests +of modern literature, to whom all contemporary minds are indebted, and +by whose intellect and influence a new spiritual cultus has been +established in the realm of letters. It is yet impossible to estimate +either the present value or the remote issues of the work which he has +accomplished. We see that a revolution in all the departments of +thought, feeling, and literary enterprise has been silently achieved +amongst us, but we are yet ignorant of its full bearing, and of the +final goal to which it is hurrying us. One thing, however, is clear +respecting it: that it was not forced in the hot-bed of any possible +fanaticism, but that it grew fairly out of the soil, a genuine product +of the time and its circumstances. It was, indeed, a new manifestation +of the hidden forces and vitalities of what we call Protestantism,--an +assertion by the living soul of its right to be heard once more in a +world which seemed to ignore its existence, and had set up a ghastly +skeleton of dry bones for its oracle and God. It was that necessary +return to health, earnestness, and virtuous endeavor which Kreeshna +speaks of in the Hindoo Geeta: "Whenever vice and corruption have +sapped the foundations of the world, and men have lost their sense of +good and evil, I, Kreeshna, make myself manifest for the restoration +of order, and the establishment of justice, virtue, and piety." And so +this literary revolution, of which we are speaking, brought us from +frivolity to earnestness, from unbelief and all the dire negations +which it engenders, to a sublime faith in human duty and the +providence of God. + +We have no room here to trace either the foreign or the native +influences which, operating as antagonism or as inspiration upon the +minds of Coleridge, Carlyle, and others, produced finally these great +and memorable results. It is but justice, however, to recognize +Coleridge as the pioneer of the new era. His fine metaphysical +intellect and grand imagination, nurtured and matured in the German +schools of philosophy and theology, reproduced the speculations of +their great thinkers in a form and coloring which could not fail to be +attractive to all seeking and sincere minds in England. The French +Revolution and the Encyclopedists had already prepared the ground for +the reception of new thought and revelation. Hence Coleridge, as +writer and speaker, drew towards his centre all the young and ardent +men of his time,--and among others, the subject of the present +article. Carlyle, however, does not seem to have profited much by the +spoken discourses of the master; and in his "Life of Sterling" he +gives an exceedingly graphic, cynical, and amusing account of the +oracular meetings at Highgate, where the philosopher sat in his great +easy-chair, surrounded by his disciples and devotees, uttering, amid +floods of unintelligible, mystic eloquence, those radiant thoughts and +startling truths which warrant his claim to genius, if not to +greatness. It is curious to observe how at this early period of +Carlyle's life, when all the talent and learning of England bowed at +these levees before the gigantic speculator and dreamer, he, perhaps +alone, stood aloof from the motley throng of worshippers,--_with_ +them, but not _of_ them,--coolly analyzing every sentence +delivered by the oracle, and sufficiently learned in the divine lore +to separate the gold from the dross. What was good and productive he +was ready to recognize and assimilate; leaving the opium pomps and +splendors of the discourse, and all the Oriental imagery with which +the speaker decorated his bathos, to those who could find profit +therein. It is still more curious and sorrowful to see this great +Coleridge, endowed with such high gifts, of so various learning, and +possessing so marvellous and plastic a power over all the forms of +language, forsaking the true for the false inspiration, and relying +upon a vile drug to stimulate his large and lazy intellect into +action. Carlyle seems to have regarded him at this period as a sort of +fallen demigod; and although he sneers, with an almost Mephistophelean +distortion of visage, at the philosopher's half inarticulate drawling +of speech, at his snuffy, nasal utterance of the ever-recurring +"_omnject_" and "_sumnject_" yet gleams of sympathy and +affection, not unmixed with sorrow, appear here and there in what he +says concerning him. And indeed, although the immense fame of +Coleridge is scarcely warranted by his printed performances, he was, +nevertheless, worthy both of affection and homage. For whilst we pity +the weakness and disease of his moral nature, under the influence of +that dark and terribly enchanting weed, we cannot forget either his +personal amiabilities or the great service which he rendered to +letters and to society. Carlyle himself would be the last man to deny +this laurel to the brows of "the poet, the philosopher, and the +divine," as Charles Lamb calls him; and it is certain that the +thinking of Coleridge helped to fashion Carlyle's mind, and not +unlikely that it directed him to a profounder study of German writers +than he had hitherto given to them. + +Coleridge had already formed a school both of divinity and +philosophy. He had his disciples, as well as those far-off gazers who +looked upon him with amazement and trembling, not knowing what to make +of the phenomenon, or whether to regard him as friend or foe to the +old dispensation and the established order of things. He had written +books and poems, preached Unitarian sermons, recanted, and preached +philosophy and Church-of-Englandism. To the dazzled eyes of all +ordinary mortals, content to chew the cud of parish sermons, and +swallow, Sunday after Sunday, the articles of common belief, he seemed +an eccentric comet. But a better astronomy recognized him as a fixed +star, for he was unmistakable by that fitting Few whose verdict is +both history and immortality. + +But a greater than Coleridge, destined to assume a more commanding +position, and exercise a still wider power over the minds of his age, +arose in Thomas Carlyle. The son of a Scotch farmer, he had in his +youth a hard student's life of it, and many severe struggles to win +the education which is the groundwork of his greatness. His father was +a man of keen penetration, who saw into the heart of things, and +possessed such strong intellect and sterling common sense that the +country people said "he always hit the nail on the head and clinched +it." His mother was a good, pious woman, who loved the Bible, and +Luther's "Table Talk," and Luther,--walking humbly and sincerely +before God, her Heavenly Father. Carlyle was brought up in the +religion of his fathers and his country; and it is easy to see in his +writings how deep a root this solemn and earnest belief had struck +down into his mind and character. He readily confesses how much he +owes to his mother's early teaching, to her beautiful and beneficent +example of goodness and holiness; and he ever speaks of her with +affection and reverence. We once saw him at a friend's house take up a +folio edition of the "Table Talk" alluded to, and turn over the pages +with a gentle and loving hand, reading here and there his mother's +favorite passages,--now speaking of the great historic value of the +book, and again of its more private value, as his mother's constant +companion and solace. It was touching to see this pitiless intellect, +which had bruised and broken the idols of so many faiths, to which +Luther himself was recommended only by his bravery and self-reliance +and the grandeur of his aims,--it was touching, we say, and suggestive +also of many things, to behold the strong, stern man paying homage to +language whose spirit was dead to him, out of pure love for his dear +mother, and veneration also for the great heart in which that spirit +was once alive that fought so grand and terrible a battle. Carlyle +likes to talk of Luther, and, as his "Hero-Worship" shows, loves his +character. A great, fiery, angry gladiator, with something of the +bully in him,--as what controversialist has not, from Luther to +Erasmus, to Milton, to Carlyle himself?--a dread image-breaker, +implacable as Cromwell, but higher and nobler than he, with the +tenderness of a woman in his inmost heart, full of music, and glory, +and spirituality, and power; his speech genuine and idiomatic, not +battles only, but conquests; and all his highest, best, and gentlest +thoughts robed in the divine garments of religion and poetry;--such +was Luther, and as such Carlyle delights to behold him. Are they not +akin? We assuredly think so. For the blood of this aristocracy +refuses to mix with that of churls and bastards, and flows pure and +uncontaminated from century to century, descending in all its richness +and vigor from Piromis to Piromis. The ancient philosopher knew this +secret well enough when he said a Parthian and a Libyan might be +related, although they had no common parental blood; and that a man is +not necessarily my brother because he is born of the same womb. + +We find that Carlyle in his student-life manifested many of those +strong moral characteristics which are the attributes of all his +heroes. An indomitable courage and persistency meet us everywhere in +his pages,--persistency, and also careful painstaking, and patience in +sifting facts and gathering results. He disciplined himself to this +end in early youth, and never allowed any study or work to conquer +him. Speaking to us once in private upon the necessity of persevering +effort in order to any kind of success in life, he said, "When I was a +student, I resolved to make myself master of Newton's 'Principia,' and +although I had not at that time knowledge enough of mathematics to +make the task other than a Hercules-labor to me, yet I read and +wrought unceasingly, through all obstructions and difficulties, until +I had accomplished it; and no Tamerlane conqueror ever felt half so +happy as I did when the terrible book lay subdued and vanquished +before me." This trifling anecdote is a key to Carlyle's character. To +achieve his object, he exhausts all the means within his command; +never shuffles through his work, but does it faithfully and sincerely, +with a man's heart and hand. This outward sincerity in the conduct of +his executive faculty has its counterpart in the inmost recesses of +his nature. We feel that this man and falsehood are impossible +companions, and our faith in his integrity is perfect and absolute. +Herein lies his power; and here also lies the power of all men who +have ever moved the world. For it is in the nature of truth to +conserve itself, whilst falsehood is centrifugal, and flies off into +inanity and nothingness. It is by the cardinal virtue of sincerity +alone--the truthfulness of deed to thought, of effect to cause--that +man and nature are sustained. God is truth; and he who is most +faithful to truth is not only likest to God, but is made a +participator in the divine nature. For without truth there is neither +power, vitality, nor permanence. + +Carlyle was fortunate that he was comparatively poor, and never +tempted, therefore, as a student, to dissipate his fine talents in the +gay pursuits of university life. Not that there would have been any +likelihood of his running into the excesses of ordinary students, but +we are pleased and thankful to reflect that he suffered no kind of +loss or harm in those days of his novitiate. It is one of the many +consolations of poverty that it protects young men from snares and +vices to which the rich are exposed; and our poor student in his +garret was preserved faithful to his vocation, and laid up day by day +those stores of knowledge, experience, and heavenly wisdom which he +has since turned to so good account. It would be deeply interesting, +if we could learn the exact position of Carlyle's mind at this time, +with respect to those profound problems of human nature and destiny +which have occupied the greatest men in all ages, ceaselessly and +pertinaciously urging their dark and solemn questions, and refusing to +depart until their riddles were in some sort solved. That Carlyle was +haunted by these questions, and by the pitiless Sphinx herself who +guards the portals of life and death,--that he had to meet her face to +face, staring at him with her stony, passionless eyes,--that he had to +grapple and struggle with her for victory,--there are proofs abundant +in his writings. The details of the struggle, however, are not given +us; it is the result only that we know. But it is evident that the +progress of his mind from the bog-region of orthodoxy to the high +realms of thought and faith was a slow proceeding,--not rolled onward +as with the chariot-wheels of a fierce and sudden revolution, but +gradually developed in a long series of births, growths, and deaths. +The theological phraseology sticks to him, indeed, even to the present +time, although he puts it to new uses; and it acquires in his hands a +power and significance which it possessed only when, of old, it was +representative of the divine. + +Carlyle was matured in solitude. Emerson found him, in the year 1833, +on the occasion of his first visit to England, living at +Craigenputtock, a farm in Nithsdale, far away from all civilization, +and "no one to talk to but the minister of the parish." He, good man, +could make but little of his solitary friend, and must many a time +have been startled out of his canonicals by the strange, alien +speeches which he heard. It is a pity that this minister had not had +some of the Boswell faculty in him, that he might have reported what +we should all be so glad to hear. Over that period of his life, +however, the curtain falls at present, to be lifted only, if ever, by +Carlyle himself. Through the want of companionship, he fell back +naturally upon books and his own thoughts. Here he wrote some of his +finest critical essays for the reviews, and that "rag of a book," as +he calls it, the "Life of Schiller." The essays show a catholic, but +conservative spirit, and are full of deep thought. They exhibit also +a profoundly philosophical mind, and a power of analysis which is +almost unique in letters. They are pervaded likewise by an earnestness +and solemnity which are perfectly Hebraic; and each performance is +presented in a style decorated with all the costly jewels of +imagination and fancy,--a style of far purer and more genuine English +than any of his subsequent writings, which are often marred, indeed, +by gross exaggerations, and still grosser violations of good taste and +the chastities of language. What made these writings, however, so +notable at the time, and so memorable since, was that sincerity and +deep religious feeling of the writer which we have already alluded +to. Here were new elements introduced into the current literature, +destined to revivify it, and to propagate themselves, as by seminal +vitality, in myriad minds and forms. These utterances were both +prophetic and creative, and took all sincere minds captive. Dry and +arid in comparison as Egyptian deserts, lay all around him the +writings of his contemporaries. No living waters flowed through them; +all was sand, and parch, and darkness. The contrast was immense: a +living soul and a dead corpse! Since the era of the Commonwealth,--the +holy, learned, intellectual, and earnest age of Taylor, Barrow, +Milton, Fuller,--no such pen of fire had wrought its miracles amongst +us. Writers spoke from the intellect, believed in the intellect, and +divorced it from the soul and the moral nature. Science, history, +ethics, religion, whenever treated of in literary form, were +mechanized, and shone not with any spiritual illumination. There was +abundance of lawyer-like ability,--but of genius, and its accompanying +divine afflatus, little. Carlyle is full of genius; and this is +evidenced not only by the fine aroma of his language, but by the +depths of his insight, his wondrous historical pictures,--living +cartoons of persons, events, and epochs, which he paints often in +single sentences,--and the rich mosaic of truths with which every page +of his writings is inlaid. + +That German literature, with which at this time Carlyle had been more +or less acquainted for ten years, had done much to foster and develop +his genius there can be no doubt; although the book which first +created a storm in his mind, and awoke him to the consciousness of his +own abundant faculty, was the "Confessions" of Rousseau,--a fact which +is well worthy of record and remembrance. He speaks subsequently of +poor Jean Jacques with much sympathy and sorrow; not as the greatest +man of his time and country, but as the sincerest,--a smitten, +struggling spirit,-- + + + "An infant crying in the night, + An infant crying for the light, + And with no language but a cry." + + +From Rousseau, and his strange thoughts, and wild, ardent eloquence, +the transition to German literature was easy. Some one had told +Carlyle that he would find in this literature what he had so long +sought after,--truth and rest,--and he gladly learned the language, +and addressed himself to the study of its masters; with what success +all the world knows, for he has grafted their thoughts upon his own, +and whoever now speaks is more or less consciously impregnated by his +influence. Who the man was that sent Carlyle to them does not appear, +and so far as he is concerned it is of little moment to inquire; but +the fact constitutes the grand epoch in Carlyle's life, and his true +history dates from that period. + +It was natural that he should be deeply moved on his introduction to +German literature. He went to it with an open and receptive nature, +and with an earnestness of purpose which could not fail to be +productive. Jean Paul, the beautiful!--the good man, and the wise +teacher, with poetic stuff in him sufficient to have floated an argosy +of modern writers,--this great, imaginative Jean Paul was for a long +time Carlyle's idol, whom he reverently and affectionately studied. He +has written a fine paper about him in his "Miscellanies," and we trace +his influence not only in Carlyle's thought and sentiment, but in the +very form of their utterance. He was, indeed, warped by him, at one +period, clear out of his orbit, and wrote as he inspired. The +dazzling sunbursts of Richter's imagination, however,--its gigantic +procession of imagery, moving along in sublime and magnificent marches +from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth,--the array, symbolism, and +embodiment of his manifold ideas, ceased in the end to enslave, though +they still captivated Carlyle's mind; and he turns from him to the +thinkers who deal with God's geometry, and penetrate into the abysses +of being,--to primordial Kant, and his behemoth brother, Fichte. Nor +does Hegel, or Schelling, or Schlegel, or Novalis escape his pursuit, +but he hunts them all down, and takes what is needful to him, out of +them, as his trophy. Schiller is his king of singers, although he does +not much admire his "Philosophical Letters," or his "Aesthetic +Letters." But his grandest modern man is the calm and plastic Goethe, +and the homage he renders him is worthy of a better and a holier +idol. Goethe's "Autobiography," in so far as it relates to his early +days, is a bad book; and Wordsworth might well say of the "Wilhelm +Meister," that "it was full of all manner of fornication, like the +crossing of flies in the air." Goethe, however, is not to be judged by +any fragmentary estimate of him, but as an intellectual whole; for he +represented the intellect, and grasped with his selfish and cosmical +mind all the provinces of thought, learning, art, science, and +government, for purely intellectual purposes. This entrance into, and +breaking up of, the minds of these distinguished persons was, however, +a fine discipline for Carlyle, who is fully aware of its value; and +whilst holding communion with these great men, who by their genius and +insight seemed to apprehend the essential truth of things at a glance, +it is not wonderful that he should have been so merciless in his +denunciations of the mere logic-ability of English writers, as he +shows himself in the essays of that period. Logic, useful as it is, as +a help to reasoning, is but the dead body of thought, as Novalis +designates it, and has no place in the inspired regions where the +prophets and the bards reside. + +Carlyle's fame, however, had not reached its culminating point when +Emerson visited him. The English are a slow, unimpressionable people, +not given to hasty judgments, nor too much nor too sudden praise; +requiring first to take the true altitude of a man, to measure him by +severe tests; often grudging him his proper and natural advantages and +talents, buffeting and abusing him in a merciless and sometimes an +unreasoning and unreasonable manner, allowing him now and then, +however, a sunbeam for his consolation, until at last they come to a +settled understanding of him, and he is generously praised and abused +into the sanctuary of their worthies. This was not the case, however, +at present, with Carlyle; for although he had the highest recognitions +from some of those who constitute the flower and chivalry of England, +he was far better known and more widely read in America than in his +own country. Emerson, then a young man, with a great destiny before +him, was attracted by his writings, and carried a letter of +introduction to him at Craigenputtock. "He was tall and gaunt, with a +cliff-like brow; self-possessed, and holding his extraordinary powers +of conversation in easy command; clinging to his northern accent with +evident relish; full of lively anecdote, and with a streaming humor +which floated everything he looked upon." He is the same man, in his +best moods, in the year 1857, as he was in 1833. His person, except +that he stoops slightly, is tall, and very little changed. He is +thinner, and the once ruddy hues of his cheek are dying away like +faint streaks of light in the twilight sky of a summer evening. But he +is strong and hearty on the whole; although the excitement of +continuous writing keeps him in a perpetual fever, deranges his liver, +and makes him at times acrid and savage as a sick giant. Hence his +increased pugnacity of late,--his fierceness, and angry hammering of +all things sacred and profane. It is but physical and temporary, +however, all this, and does not affect his healthy and serene +moments. For no man lives who possesses greater kindness and +affection, or more good, noble, and humane qualities. All who know him +love him, although they may have much to pardon in him; not in a +social or moral sense, however, but in an intellectual one. His talk +is as rich as ever,--perhaps richer; for his mind has increased its +stores, and the old fire of geniality still burns in his great and +loving heart. Perhaps his conversation is better than his printed +discourse. We have never heard anything like it. It is all alive, as +if each word had a soul in it. + +How characteristic is all that Emerson tells us of him in his "English +Traits"!--a book, by the way, concerning which no adequate word has +yet been spoken; the best book ever written upon England, and which no +brave young Englishman can read, and ever after commit either a mean +or a bad action. We are therefore doubly thankful to Emerson, both for +what he says of England, and for what he relates of Carlyle, whose +independent speech upon all subjects is one of his chief charms. He +reads "Blackwood," for example, and has enjoyed many a racy, vigorous +article in its pages; but it does not satisfy him, and he calls it +"Sand Magazine." "Fraser's" is a little better, but not good enough to +be worthy of a higher nomenclature than "Mud Magazine." Excessive +praise of any one's talents drives him into admiration of the parts of +his own learned pig, now wallowing in the stye. The best thing he knew +about America was that there a man could have meat for his labor. He +did not read Plato, and he disparaged Socrates. Mirabeau was a hero; +Gibbon the splendid bridge from the old world to the new. It is +interesting also to hear that "Tristram Shandy" was one of the first +books he read after "Robinson Crusoe," and that Robertson's "America" +was an early favorite. Rousseau's "Confessions" had discovered to him +that he was not a dunce. Speaking of English pauperism, he said that +government should direct poor men what to do. "Poor Irish folks come +wandering over these moors. My dame makes it a rule to give to every +son of Adam bread to eat, and supplies his wants to the next +house. But here are thousands of acres which might give them all meat, +and nobody to bid those poor Irish go to the moor and till it. They +burned the stacks, and so found a way to force the rich people to +attend to them." Here is the germ of his book on "Chartism." Emerson +and he talk of the immortality of the soul, seated on the hill-tops +near Old Criffel, and looking down "into Wordsworth's country." +Carlyle had the natural disinclination of every nimble spirit to +bruise itself against walls, and did not like to place himself where +no step can be taken; but he was honest and true, and cognizant of the +subtile links that bind ages together, and saw how every event affects +all the future. "Christ died on the tree; that built Dunscore Kirk +yonder; that brought you and me together. Time has only a relative +existence." + +Such is Emerson's account of his first visit to our author, whose eyes +were already turned towards London as the heart of the world, whither +he subsequently went, and where he now abides. + +From Craigenputtock, with its savage rocks and moorlands, its +sheepwalk solitudes, its isolation and distance from all the +advantages of civil and intellectual life, to London and the living +solitude of its unnumberable inhabitants, its activities, polity, and +world-wide ramifications of commerce, learning, science, literature, +and art, was a change of great magnitude, whose true proportions it +took time to estimate. Carlyle, however, was not afraid of the huge +mechanism of London life, but took to it bravely and kindly, and was +soon at home amidst the everlasting whirl and clamor, the roar and +thunder of its revolutions. For although a scholar, and bred in +seclusion, he was also a genuine man of the world, and well acquainted +with its rough ways and Plutonic wisdom. This knowledge, combined with +his strong "common sense,"--as poor Dr. Beattie calls it, fighting for +its supremacy with canine ferocity,--gave Carlyle high vantage-ground +in his writings. He could meet the world with its own weapons, and +was cunning enough at that fence, as the world was very shortly +sensible. He was saved, therefore, from the contumely which vulgar +minds are always ready to bestow upon saints and mystics who sit aloof +from them, high enthroned amidst the truths and solemnities of +God. The secluded and ascetic life of most scholars, highly favorable +as it undoubtedly is to contemplation and internal development, has +likewise its disadvantages, and puts them, as being undisciplined in +the ways of life, at great odds, when they come to the actual and +practical battle. A man should be armed at all points, and not subject +himself, like good George Fox, Jacob Behmen, and other holy men, to +the taunts of the mob, on account of any awkward gait, mannerism, or +ignorance of men and affairs. Paul had none of these absurdities about +him; but was an accomplished person, as well as a divine speaker. His +doctrine of being all things to all men, that he might win souls to +Christ, is, like good manners and politeness, a part of that mundane +philosophy which obtains in every society, both as theory and +performance; not, however, in its literal meaning, which would involve +all sorts of hypocrisy and lies as its accessories, but in the sense +of ability to meet all kinds of men on their own grounds and with +their own enginery of warfare. + +Strength, whether of mind or body, is sure to command respect, even +though it be used against ourselves; for we Anglo-Saxons are all +pugilists. A man, therefore, who accredits his metal by the work he +accomplishes, will be readily enough heard when he comes to speak and +labor upon higher platforms. This was the case with Carlyle; and when +he published that new Book of Job, that weird and marvellous Pilgrim's +Progress of a modern cultivated soul, the "Sartor Resartus," in +"Fraser's Magazine," strange, wild, and incomprehensible as it was to +most men, they did not put it contemptuously aside, but pondered it, +laughed at it, trembled over it and its dread apocalyptical visions +and revelations, respecting its earnestness and eloquence, although +not comprehending what manner of writing it essentially was. Carlyle +enjoyed the perplexity of his readers and reviewers, neither of whom, +with the exception of men like Sterling, and a writer in one of the +Quarterlies, seemed to know what they were talking about when they +spoke of it. The criticisms upon it were exceedingly comical in many +instances, and the author put the most notable of these together, and +always alluded to them with roars of laughter. The book has never yet +received justice at the hands of any literary tribunal. It requires, +indeed, a large amount of culture to appreciate it, either as a work +of art, or as a living flame-painting of spiritual struggle and +revelation. In his previous writings he had insisted upon the +sacredness and infinite value of the human soul,--upon the wonder and +mystery of life, and its dread surroundings,--upon the divine +significance of the universe, with its star pomp, and overhanging +immensities,--and upon the primal necessity for each man to stand with +awe and reverence in this august and solemn presence, if he would hope +to receive any glimpses of its meaning, or live a true and divine life +in the world; and in the "Sartor" he has embodied and illustrated this +in the person and actions of his hero. He saw that religion had become +secular; that it was reduced to a mere Sunday holiday and Vanity Fair, +taking no vital hold of the lives of men, and radiating, therefore, +none of its blessed and beautiful influences about their feet and +ways; that human life itself, with all its adornments of beauty and +poetry, was in danger of paralysis and death; that love and faith, +truth, duty, and holiness, were fast losing their divine attributes in +the common estimation, and were hurrying downwards with tears and a +sad threnody into gloom and darkness. Carlyle saw all this, and knew +that it was the reaction of that intellectual idolatry which brought +the eighteenth century to a close; knew also that there was only one +remedy which could restore men to life and health,--namely, the +quickening once again of their spiritual nature. He felt, also, that +it was his mission to attempt this miracle; and hence the prophetic +fire and vehemence of his words. No man, and especially no earnest +man, can read him without feeling himself arrested as by the grip of a +giant,--without trembling before his stern questions, inculcations, +and admonitions. There is a God, O Man! and not a blind chance, as +governor of this world. Thy soul has infinite relations with this +God, which thou canst never realize in thy being, or manifest in thy +practical life, save by a devout reverence for him, and his +miraculous, awful universe. This reverence, this deep, abiding +religious feeling, is the only link which binds us to the +Infinite. That severed, broken, or destroyed, and man is an alien and +an orphan; lost to him forever is the key to all spiritual mystery, to +the hieroglyph of the soul, to the symbolism of nature, of time, and +of eternity. Such, as we understand it, is Carlyle's teaching. But +this is not all. Man is to be man in that high sense we have spoken +his robes of immortality around him, as if God had done with him for +all practical purposes, and he with God,--but for action,--action in a +world which is to prove his power, his beneficence, his usefulness. +That spiritual fashioning by the Great Fashioner of all things is so +ordained that we ourselves may become fashioners, workers, makers. For +it is given to no man to be an idle cumberer of the ground, but to +dig, and sow, and plant, and reap the fruits of his labor for the +garner. This is man's first duty, and the diviner he is the more +divinely will he execute it. + +That such a gospel as this could find utterance in the pages of the +"Edinburgh Review" is curious enough; and it is scarcely less +surprising that the "Sartor Resartus" should make its first appearance +in the somewhat narrow and conservative pages of Fraser. Carlyle has +clearly written his own struggles in this book,--his struggles and his +conquests. From the "Everlasting No,"--that dreadful realm of +enchantment, where all the forms of nature are frozen forever in dumb +imprisonment and despair,--the great vaulted firmament no longer +serene and holy and loving as God's curtain for his children's +slumbers, but flaming in starry portents, and dropping down over the +earth like a funeral pall; through this region of life-semblance and +death-reality the lonely and aching pilgrim wanders,--questioning +without reply,--wailing, broken, self-consuming,--looking with eager +eyes for the waters of immortality, and finding nothing but pools of +salt and Marahs of bitterness. Herein is no Calvary, no +Cross-symbolism, by whose miraculous power he is relieved of his +infinite burden of sorrow, starting onward with hope and joy in his +heart; nor does he ever find his Calvary until the deeps of his +spiritual nature are broken up and flooded with celestial light, as he +knocks reverently at the portals of heaven for communion with his +Father who is in heaven. Then bursts upon him a new significance from +all things; he sees that the great world is but a fable of divine +truth, hiding its secrets from all but the initiated and the worthy, +and that faith, and trust, and worship are the cipher, which unlocks +them all. He thus arrives at the plains of heaven in the region of the +"Everlasting Yes." His own soul lies naked and resolved before +him,--its unspeakable greatness, its meaning, faculty, and +destiny. Work, and dutiful obedience to the laws of work, are the +outlets of his power; and herein he finds peace and rest to his soul. + +That Carlyle is not only an earnest, but a profoundly religious man, +these attempted elucidations of his teachings will abundantly +show. His religion, however, is very far remote from what is called +religion in this day. He has no patience with second-hand +beliefs,--with articles of faith ready-made for the having. +Whatsoever is accepted by men because it is the tradition of their +fathers, and not a deep conviction arrived at by legitimate search, is +to him of no avail; and all merely historical and intellectual faith, +standing outside the man, and not absorbed in the life as a vital, +moving, and spiritual power, he places also amongst the chaff for +burning. This world is a serious world, and human life and business +are also serious matters,--not to be trifled with, nor cheated by +shams and hypocrisies, but to be dealt with in all truth, soberness, +and sincerity. No one can thus deal with it who is not himself +possessed of these qualities, and the result of a life is the test of +what virtue there is in it. False men leave no mark. It is truth +alone which does the masonry of the world,--which founds empires, and +builds cities, and establishes laws, commerce, and civilization. And +in private life the same law abides, indestructible as God. Carlyle's +teaching tends altogether in this direction; and whilst he belongs to +no church and no creed, he is tolerant of all, and of everything that +is heartily and unfeignedly believed in by his fellows. He is no +Catholic; and yet for years he read little else than the forty volumes +of the "Acta Sanctorum," and found, he says, all Christian history +there, and much of profane history. Neither is he a Mahometan; but he +nevertheless makes a hero of Mahomet, whom he loves for his Ishmaelite +fierceness, bravery, and religious sincerity,--and because he taught +deism, or the belief in one God, instead of the old polytheism, or the +belief in many gods,--and gave half the East his very good book, +called the Koran, for his followers to live and die by. + +Whether this large catholicism, this worship of heroes, is the best of +what now remains of religion on earth is certainly questionable +enough; and if we regard it in no other light than merely as an +idolatry of persons, there is an easy answer ready for it. But +considering that religion is now so far dead that it consists in +little else than formalities, and that its divine truth is no longer +such to half the great world, which lies, indeed, in dire atrophy and +wickedness,--and if we further consider and agree that the awakened +human soul is the divinest thing on earth, and partakes of the divine +nature itself, and that its manifestations are also divine in +whomsoever it is embodied, we can see some apology for its adoption; +inasmuch as it is the divine likeness to which reverence and homage +are rendered, and not the person merely, but only so far as he is the +medium of its showing. Christianity, however, will assuredly survive, +although doubtless in a new form, preserving all the integrity of its +message,--and be once more faith and life to men, when the present +old, established, decaying cultus shall be venerated only as history. + +Carlyle clings to the Christian formulary and the old Christian life +in spite of himself. He is almost fanatical in his attachment to the +mediaeval times,--to the ancient worship, its ceremonial, music, and +architecture, its monastic government, its saints and martyrs. And the +reason, as he shows in the "Past and Present," is, that all this array +of devotion, this pomp and ceremony, this music and painting, this +gorgeous and sublime architecture, this fasting and praying, were +_real_,--faithful manifestations of a religion which to that +people was truly genuine and holy. They who built the cathedrals of +Europe, adorned them with carvings, pictures, and those stately +windows with their storied illuminations which at this day are often +miracles of beauty and of art, were not frivolous modern +conventicle-builders, but poets as grand as Milton, and sculptors +whose genius might front that of Michel Angelo. It was no dead belief +in a dead religion which designed and executed these matchless +temples. Man and Religion were both alive in those days; and the +worship of God was so profound a prostration of the inmost spirit +before his majesty and glory, that the souls of the artists seem to +have been inspired, and to have received their archetypes in heavenly +visions. Such temples it is neither in the devotion nor the faculty of +the modern Western world to conceive or construct. Carlyle knows all +this, and he falls back in loving admiration upon those old times and +their worthies, despising the filigree materials of which the men of +to-day are for the most part composed. He revels in that picture of +monastic life, also, which is preserved in the record of Jocelyn de +Brakelonde. He sees all men at work there, each at his proper +vocation;--and he praises them, because they fear God and do their +duty. He finds them the same men, although with better and devouter +hearts, as we are at this day. Time makes no difference in this +verdant human nature, which shows ever the same in Catholic +monasteries as in Puritan meeting-houses. We have a wise preachment, +however, from that Past, to the Present, in Carlyle's book, which is +one of his best efforts, and contains isolated passages which for +wisdom and beauty, and chastity of utterance, he has never exceeded. + +We have no space to speak here of all his books with anything like +critical integrity. The greatest amongst them, however, is, perhaps, +his "French Revolution, a History,"--which is no history, but a vivid +painting of characters and events as they moved along in tumultuous +procession. No one can appreciate this book who is not acquainted +with the history in its details beforehand. Emerson once related to us +a striking anecdote connected with this work, which gives us another +glimpse of Carlyle's character. He had just completed, after infinite +labor, one of the three volumes of his History, which he left exposed +on his study table when he went to bed. Next morning he sought in vain +for the manuscript, and had wellnigh concluded with Robert Hall, who +was once in a similar dilemma, that the Devil had run away with it, +when the servant-girl, on being questioned, confessed that she had +burnt it to kindle the fire. Carlyle neither stamped nor raved, but +sat down without a word and rewrote it. + +In summing up the present results of Carlyle's labor, foolish men of +the world and small critics have not failed to ask what it all amounts +to,--what the great Demiurgus is aiming at in his weary battle of +life; and the question is significant enough,--one more proof of that +Egyptian darkness of vision which he is here to dispel. "He pulls down +the old," say they; "but what does he give us in place of it? Why does +he not strike out a system of his own? And after all, there is nothing +new in him." Such is the idle talk of the day, and such are the men +who either guide the people, or seek to guide them. Poor ignorant +souls! who do not know the beginning of the knowledge which Carlyle +teaches, nor its infinite importance to life and all its +concerns:--this, namely, as we have said before, that the soul should +first of all be wakened to the consciousness of its own miraculous +being, that it may be penetrated by the miracles of the universe, and +rise by aspiration and faith to the knowledge and worship of God, in +whom are all things; that this attitude of the soul, and its +accompanying wisdom, will beget the strength, purity, virtue, and +truth which can alone restore order and beauty upon the earth; that +all "systems," and mechanical, outward means and appliances to the +end, will but increase the Babel of confusion, as things unfitted to +it, and altogether extraneous and hopeless. "Systems!" It is living, +truthful men we want; these will make their own systems; and let those +who doubt the truth humbly watch and wait until it is manifest to +them, or go on their own arid and sorrowful ways in what peace they +can find there. + +The catholic spirit of Carlyle's works cannot be better illustrated +than by the fact that he has received letters from all sorts and +conditions of men, Methodists and Shakers, Churchmen and Romanists, +Deists and Infidels, all claiming his fellowship, and thinking they +find their peculiarities of thought in him. This is owing partly, +perhaps, to the fact that in his earlier writings he masked his +sentiments both in Hebraic and Christian phraseology; and partly to +the lack of vision in his admirers, who could not distinguish a new +thought in an old garment. His "Cromwell" deceived not a few in this +respect; and we were once asked in earnest, by a man who should have +been better informed, if Carlyle was a Puritan. Whatever he may be +called, or believed to be, one thing is certain concerning him: that +he is a true and valiant man,--all out a man!--and that literature and +the world are deeply indebted to him. His mission, like that of Jeremy +Collier in a still baser age, was to purge our literature of its +falsehood, to recreate it, and to make men once more believe in the +divine, and live in it. So earnest a man has not appeared since the +days of Luther, nor any one whose thoughts are so suggestive, +germinal, and propagative. All our later writers are tinged with his +thought, and he has to answer for such men as Kingsley, Newman, +Froude, and others who will not answer for him, nor acknowledge him. + +In private life Carlyle is amiable, and often high and beautiful in +his demeanor. He talks much, and, as we have said, well; impatient, +at times, of interruption, and at other times readily listening to +those who have anything to say. But he hates babblers, and cant, and +sham, and has no mercy for them, but sweeps them away in the whirlwind +and terror of his wrath. He receives distinguished men, in the +evening, at his house in Chelsea; but he rarely visits. He used +occasionally to grace the saloons of Lady Blessington, in the palmy +days of her life, when she attracted around her all noble and +beautiful persons, who were distinguished by their attainments in +literature, science, or art; but he rarely leaves his home now for +such a purpose. He is at present engaged in his "Life of Frederick the +Great," whom he will hardly make a hero of, and with whom, we learn, +he is already very heartily disgusted. The first volume will shortly +appear. + +And now we must close this imperfect paper,--reserving for a future +occasion some personal reminiscences of him, which may prove both +interesting and illustrative. + + + + +THE BUTTON-ROSE. + + +CHAPTER I. + +I fear I have not what is called "a taste for flowers." To be sure, my +cottage home is half buried in tall shrubs, some of which are +flowering, and some are not. A giant woodbine has wrapped the whole +front in its rich green mantle; and the porch is roofed and the +windows curtained with luxuriant honeysuckles and climbing +wild-roses. But, though I have tried for it many times, I never yet +had a successful bed of flowers. My next neighbor, Mrs. Smith, is "a +lady of great taste"; and when she leads me proudly through her trim +alleys edged with box, and displays her hyacinths and tulips, her +heliotropes, cactuses, and gladioluses, her choice roses, "so +extremely double," and all the rare plants which adorn her parterre, I +conclude it must be that I have no taste at all. I beg her to save me +seeds and bulbs, get fresh directions for laying down, and +inoculating, grafting, and potting, and go home with my head full of +improvements. But the next summer comes round with no change, except +that the old denizens of the soil (like my maids and my children) have +grown more wild and audacious than ever, and I find no place for beds +of flowers. I must e'en give it up; I have no taste for flowers, in +the common sense of the words. In fact, they awaken in me no +sentiment, no associations, as they stand, marshalled for show, "in +beds and curious knots"; and I do not like the care of them. + +Yet let me find these daughters of the early year in their native +haunts, scattered about on hillside and in woody dingle, half hidden +by green leaves, starting up like fairies in secluded nooks, nestling +at the root of some old tree, or leaning over to peep into some glassy +bit of water, and no heart thrills quicker than mine at the +sight. There they seem to me to enjoy a sweet wild life of their own; +nodding and smiling in the sunshine or verdant gloom, caring not to +see or to be seen. Some of the loveliest of my early recollections are +of rambles after flowers. There was a certain "little pink and yellow +flower" (so described to me by one of my young cousins) after which I +searched a whole summer with unabated eagerness. I was fairly haunted +by its ideal image. Henry von Ofterdingen never sought with intenser +desire for his wondrous blue flower, nor more vainly; for I never +found it. One day, this same cousin and myself, while wandering in +the woods, found ourselves on the summit of a little rocky precipice, +and at its foot, lo! in full bloom, a splendid variety of the orchis, +(a flower I had never seen before,) looking to my astonished eyes like +an enchanted princess in a fairy tale. With a scream of joy we both +sprang for the prize. Harriet seized it first, but after gazing at it +a moment with a quiet smile, presented it to me. "Kings may be blest, +but I was glorious!" I never felt so rich before or since. + +But there was one flower,--and I must confess that I made acquaintance +with it in a garden, but at an age when I thought all things grew out +of the blessed earth of their own sweet will,--which, as it is the +first I remember to have loved, has maintained the right of priority +in my affections to this day. Nay, many an object of deep, absorbing +interest, more than one glowing friendship, has meantime passed away, +leaving no memorial but sad and bitter thoughts; while this wee flower +still lives and makes glad a little green nook in my heart. It was a +Button-Rose of the smallest species, the outspread blossom scarce +exceeding in size a shilling-piece. It stood in my grandfather's +garden,--that garden which, at my first sight of it, (I was then about +five years old,) seemed to me boundless in extent, and beautiful +beyond aught that I had seen or thought before. It was a large, +old-fashioned kitchen-garden, adorned and enriched, however, as then +the custom was, with flowers and fruit-trees. Several fine old +pear-trees and a few of the choicest varieties of plum and cherry were +scattered over it; currants and gooseberries lined the fences; the +main alley, running through its whole extent, was thickly bordered by +lilacs, syringas, and roses, with many showy flowers intermixed, and +terminated in a very pleasant grape-arbor. Behind this rose a steep +green hill covered with an apple-orchard, through which a little +thread of a footpath wound up to another arbor which stood on the +summit relieved against the sky. It was but little after sunrise, the +first morning of my visit, when I timidly opened the garden gate and +stood in full view of these glories. All was dewy, glittering, +fragrant, musical as a morn in Eden. For a while I stood still, in a +kind of enchantment. Venturing, at length, a few steps forward, +gazing eagerly from side to side, I was suddenly arrested by the most +marvellously beautiful object my eyes had ever seen,--no other than +the little Button-Rose of our story! So small, so perfect! It filled +my infant sense with its loveliness. It grew in a very pretty china +vase, as if more precious than the other flowers. Several blossoms +were fully expanded, and many tiny buds were showing their crimson +tips. As I stood lost in rapture over this little miracle of beauty, a +humming-bird, the smallest of its fairy tribe, darted into sight, and +hung for an instant, its ruby crest and green and golden plumage +flashing in the sun, over my new-found treasure. Were it not that the +emotions of a few such moments are stamped indelibly on the memory, we +should have no conception in maturer life of the intenseness of +childish enjoyment. Oh for one drop of that fresh morning dew, that +pure nectar of life, in which I then bathed with an unconscious bliss! +Methinks I would give many days of sober, thoughtful, _rational_ +enjoyment for one hour of the eager rapture which thrilled my being as +I stood in that enchanted garden, gazing upon my little rose, and that +gay creature of the elements, that winged blossom, that living +fragment of a rainbow, that glanced and quivered and murmured over it. + +But, dear as the Button-Rose is to my memory, I should hardly think of +obtruding it on the notice of others, were it not for a little tale of +human interest connected with it. While I yet stood motionless in the +ecstasy of my first wonder, a young man and woman entered the garden, +chatting and laughing in a very lively manner. The lady was my Aunt +Caroline, then in the fresh bloom of seventeen; the young man I had +never seen before. Seeing me standing alone in the walk, my aunt +called me; but as I shrunk away shy and blushing at sight of the +stranger, she came forward and took hold of my hand. + +"This is our little Katy, Cousin Harry," said she, leading me towards +him. + +"Our little Katy's most obedient!" replied he, taking off his +broad-brimmed straw hat, and making a flourishing bow nearly to the +ground. + +"Don't be afraid of him, Katy dear; he's nobody," said my aunt, +laughing. + +At these encouraging words I glanced up at the merry pair, and thought +them almost as pretty as the rose and hummingbird. My Aunt Caroline's +beauty was of a somewhat peculiar character,--if beauty that can be +called which was rather spirit, brilliancy, geniality of expression, +than symmetrical mould of features. The large, full eye was of the +deepest violet hue; the finely arched forehead, a little too boldly +cast for feminine beauty, was shaded by masses of rich chestnut hair; +the mouth,--but who could describe that mouth? Even in repose, some +arch thought seemed ever at play among its changeful curves; and when +she spoke or laughed, its wonderful mobility and sweetness of +expression threw a perfect witchery over her face. She was quite +short, and, if the truth must be told, a little too stout in figure; +but this was in a great measure redeemed by a beautifully moulded +neck, on which her head turned with the quickness and grace of a wild +pigeon. Every motion was rapid and decided, and her whole aspect +beamed with genius, gayety, and a cordial friendliness, which took the +heart at first sight. And then, her voice, her laugh!--not so low as +Shakspeare commends in woman, but clear, musical, true-hearted, making +one glad like the song of the lark at sunrise. + +Cousin Harry was a very tall, very pale, very black-haired and +black-eyed young gentleman, with a high, open brow, and a very +fascinating smile. + +The remainder of the garden scene was to me but little more than dumb +show. Perhaps it was more vividly remembered for that very reason. I +recollect being busy filling a little basket with strawberries, while +I watched with a pleased, childish curiosity the two young people, as +they passed many times up and down the gravelled walk between the rows +of flowers. I was not far from the Button-Rose, and I had nearly +filled my basket, when my aunt came to the spot and stooped over the +little plant. Her face was towards me, and I saw several large tears +fall from her eyes upon the leaves. She broke off the most beautiful +blossom, and tying it up with some sprigs of mignonette, presented it +to Cousin Harry. They then left the garden. + +The next day I heard it said that Cousin Harry was gone away. The +little rose was brought into the house and installed in the bow-window +of my aunt's room, where it was watched and tended by us both with the +greatest care. + +Some time after this, the news came that Cousin Harry was married. The +next morning I missed my little favorite from the window. My aunt was +reading when I waked. + +"Oh, Aunty!" I cried, "where is our little rose?" + +"It was too much trouble, Katy," said she, quietly; "I have put it +into the garden." + +"But isn't it going to stand in our window any more?" + +"No, dear, I am tired of it." + +"Oh, do bring it back! I will take the whole care of it," said I, +beginning to cry. + +"Katy," said my aunt, taking me into her lap, and looking steadily, +but kindly, into my face, "listen to me. I do not wish to have that +rose in my room any more; and if you love me, you will never mention +it again." + +Something in her manner prevented my uttering a word more in behalf of +the poor little exile. As soon as I was dressed, I ran down into the +garden to visit it. It looked very lonely, I thought; I could hardly +bear to leave it. The day following, it disappeared from the garden, +and old Nanny, the housemaid, told me that my aunt had given it +away. I never saw it again. + +Thus ended my personal acquaintance with the little Button-Rose. But +that first strong impression on my fancy was indelible. The flower +still lived in my memory, surrounded by associations which gave it a +mystic charm. By degrees I ceased to miss it from the window; but that +strange garden scene grew more and more vivid, and became a cabinet +picture in one of the little inner chambers of memory, where I often +pondered it with a delicious sense of mystery. The rose and +humming-bird seemed to me the chief actors in the magic pantomime, and +they were some way connected with my dear Aunt Linny and the +black-eyed young man; but what it all meant was the great puzzle of my +busy little brain. It has sometimes been a matter of curious +speculation to me, what share that diminutive flower had in the +development of my mind and character. With it, so it seems to me, +began the first dawn of a conscious inner life. I can still recollect +with wonderful distinctness what I have thought and felt since that +date, while all the preceding years are vague and shadowy as an +ill-remembered dream. From them I can only conjure up, as it were, my +outward form,--a happy animal existence, with which scarce a feeling +of self is connected; but from the time when I bore a part in this +little fragment of a romance the current of identity flows on +unbroken. From that light waking touch, perchance, the whole +subsequent development took form and tone.--But, gentle reader, your +pardon! This is nothing to my story. + + +CHAPTER II. + +Ten years had slipped away, and I was now in my sixteenth year. Of +course, my little cabinet picture had been joined by many others. It +was now but one in an extensive gallery; and the modest little gem, +dimmed with dust, and hidden by larger pieces, had not been thought of +for many a day. + +External circumstances had remained much the same with us; only one +great change, the death of my dear grandmother, having occurred in the +family. My aunt presided over her father's household, and the +admirable order and good taste which pervaded every department bore +witness how well she understood combining the elements of a home. + +Aunt Linny, now twenty-seven years of age, had lost nothing of her +former attractiveness. The brilliant, impulsive girl had but ripened +into the still more lovely woman. Her cheek was not faded nor her eye +dimmed. There was the same frankness, the same heart in her glance, +her smile, the warm pressure of her hand, but tempered by experience, +reflection, and self-control. One felt that she could be loved and +trusted with the whole heart and judgment. Her personal attractions, +and yet more the charm of her sensible, genial, and racy conversation, +brought to our house many pleasant visitors, and made her the +sparkling centre of every circle into which she could be drawn. But it +was rarely that she could be beguiled from home; for, since her +mother's death, she had devoted herself heart and soul to her widowed +father. + +The relation between myself and my aunt was somewhat peculiar. Neither +of us having associates of our own age in the family, I had become her +companion, and even friend, to a degree which would have been +impossible in other circumstances. She had scarcely outgrown the +freshness and simplicity of childhood when I first came to live with +her, and my mind and feelings had expanded rapidly under the constant +stimulus of a nature so full of rich life; so that at the date I now +speak of, we lived together more as sisters than as aunt and niece. An +inexpressible charm rests on those days, when we read, wrote, rambled +together, shared the same room, and had every pleasure, every trouble +in common. All show of authority over me had gradually melted away; +but her influence with me was still unbounded, for I loved her with +the passionate earnestness of a first, full-hearted friendship.--But +to proceed with my story. + +One sweet afternoon in early summer, we two were sitting alone. The +windows towards the garden were open, and the breath of lilacs and +roses stole in. I had been reading to her some verses of my own, +celebrating the praise of first love as an imperishable sentiment. My +fancy had just been crazed with the poetry of L.E.L., who was then +shining as the "bright particular star" in the literary heavens. + +"The lines are very pretty," said my aunt, "but I trust it's only +poetizing, Kate; I should be sorry indeed to have you join the school +of romantic misses who think first love such a killing matter." + +"But, Aunty," I cried, "what a horribly prosy, matter-of-fact affair +life would be in any other view! I believe poetry itself would become +extinct." + +"So, then, if a woman is disappointed in first love, she is bound to +die for the benefit of poetry!" + +"But just think, Aunt Linny--if Ophelia, instead of going mad so +prettily, and dying in a way to break everybody's heart, had soberly +set herself to consider that there were as fine fish yet in the sea as +ever were caught, and that it was best, therefore, to cheer up and +wait for better times! Frightful!" + +"Never trouble your little head, Kate, with fear that there will not +be Ophelias enough, as long as the world stands. But I wouldn't be +one, if I were you, unless I could bespeak a Shakspeare to do me into +poetry. That would be an inducement, I allow. How would you fancy +being a Sukey Fay, Kate?" + +"Oh, the poor old wretch, with her rags and dirt and gin-bottle! Has +she a story?" + +"Just as romantic a one as Ophelia, only she lacks a poet. But, in +sober truth, Katy, why is there not as true poetry in battling with +feeling as in yielding to it? To me there seems something far more +lofty and beautiful in bearing to live, under certain circumstances, +than in daring to die." + +"If you only spoke experimentally, dear Aunty! Oh that Plato, or John +Milton, or Sir Philip Sydney would reappear, and lay all his genius +and glory at your feet! I wonder if you'd be of the same mind then!" + +"And then, of course, this sublime suitor must die, or desert me, to +show how I would behave under the trial.--Katy," continued my aunt, +after a little pause, with a smile and slight blush, "I have half a +mind to tell you a little romance of my early days, when I was just +your age. It may be useful to you at this point of your life." + +"Is it possible?" cried I,--"a romance of your early days! Quick, let +me hear!" + +"I shouldn't have called it a romance, Katy; for as a story, it is +just nothing. It has no interest except as marking the beginning of +my education,--the education, I mean, of real life." + +"But let me hear; there's some spice of poetry in it, I know." + +"Well, then, it's like many another story of early fancy. In my +childhood I had a playmate. Our fathers' houses stood but a few rods +apart, and the families lived in habits of the closest intimacy. From +my earliest remembrance, the brave little boy, four years older than +I, was my sworn friend and protector; and as we increased in years, an +affection warm and frank as that of brother and sister grew up between +us. A love of nature and of poetry, and a certain earnestness and +enthusiasm of character, which separated us both from other children, +drew us closely together. At fifteen he left us to fit for college at +a distant school, and thenceforward he was at home only for brief +visits, till he was graduated with distinguished honor at the age of +twenty-one. During those six years of separation our relation to each +other had suffered no change. We had corresponded with tolerable +regularity, and I had felt a sister's pride in his talents and +literary honors. When, therefore, he returned home to recruit his +health, which had been seriously impaired by study and confinement, I +welcomed him with great joy, and with all the frankness of former +times. + +"Again we read, chatted, and rambled together. I found him unchanged +in character, but improved, cultivated, to a degree which delighted, +almost awed me. When he read our favorite authors with his rich, +musical voice, and descanted on their beauties with discriminating +taste and fervent poetic feeling, a new light fell on the +page. Through his eyes I learned to behold in nature a richness, a +grace, a harmony, a meaning, only vaguely felt before. It was as if I +had just received the key to a mysterious cipher, unlocking deep and +beautiful truths in earth and sea and sky, by which they were invested +with a life and splendor till now unseen. But it was his noble +sentiments, his generous human sympathies, his ardent aspirations +after honorable distinction to be won by toil and self-denial, which +woke my heart as by an electric touch. My own unshaped, half-conscious +aims and aspirations, stirred with life, took wing and soared with his +into the pure upper air. Ah! it was a bright, beautiful dream, Kate, +the life of those few months. I never once thought of love, nor of the +possibility of separation. All flowed so naturally from our life-long +intimacy, that I had not the slightest suspicion of the change which +had come over me. But the hour of waking was at hand. We had looked +forward to the settled summer weather for a marked improvement in his +health. But June had come and he still seemed very delicate. His +physician prescribed travelling and change of climate; and though his +high spirits had deceived me as to his real danger, I urged him to +go. He left us to visit an elder brother residing in one of the Middle +States. Ten years this very month!" added Aunt Linny, with an absent +air. + +"Ten years ago this very month," I exclaimed, "did my distinguished +self arrive at this venerable mansion. What a singular conjunction of +events! No doubt our horoscopes would reveal some strange entanglement +of destinies at this point. Perchance I, even I, was 'the star malign' +whose rising disturbed the harmonious movement of the spheres!" + +"No doubt of it; the birth of a mouse once caused an earthquake, you +know." + +"But could I have seen him? Did I arrive before he had left?" + +"Oh, yes, very likely; but of course you can have no recollection of +him, such a chit as you were then." + +"What was his name?" I cried, eagerly. A long-silent chord of memory +began to give forth a vague, uncertain murmur. + +"Oh, no matter, Kate. I would a little rather you shouldn't know. It +doesn't affect the moral of the story, which was all I had in view in +relating it." + +"A plague take the moral, Aunty! The romance is what I want; and +what's that without 'the magic of a name'?" + +"Excuse me." + +"Tell me his Christian name, then,--just for a peg to hang my ideas +on; that is, if it's meat for romance. If it is Isaac or Jonathan, you +needn't mention it." + +"Well, then, you tease,--I called him Cousin Harry." + +"Cousin Harry!" I screamed, starting forward, and staring at her with +eyes wide open. + +"Yes; but what ails you, child? You glare upon me like a maniac." + +"Hush! hush! don't speak!" said I. + +As I sunk back, in a sort of dream, into the rocking-chair in which I +had been idling, the garden caught my eye through the open window. The +gate overarched with honeysuckle, the long alley with its fragrant +flowering border, the grape arbor, the steep green hill behind, lay +before me in the still, rich beauty of June. In a twinkling, memory +had swept the dust from my little cabinet picture, and let in upon it +a sudden light. The ten intervening years vanished like a dream, and +that long-forgotten garden scene started up, vivid as in the hour when +it actually passed before my eyes. The clue to that mystery which had +so spellbound my childish fancy was at length found. I sat for a time +in silence, lost in a delicious, confused reverie. + +"The Button-Rose was a gift from him, then?" were my first words. + +"What, Kate?" said Aunt Linny, now opening her large blue eyes with a +strange look. + +"Did you give away the flower-pot too? That was so pretty! Whom did +you give it to?" + +"Incredible!" she exclaimed, coloring, and with the strongest +expression of surprise. "Truly, little pitchers have not been +slandered!" + +"But the wonderful humming-bird, Aunty! What had that to do with it?" + +"Kate," said my aunt, "you talk like one in sleep. Wake up, and let me +know what all this means." + +"I see it all now!" I rattled on, more to myself than her. "First +young love,--parting gift,--Cousin Harry proves fickle,--Aunt Linny +banishes the Button-Rose from her window,--takes to books, and +educating naughty nieces, and doing good to everybody,--'bearing to +live,' as more heroic than 'daring to die,'--in ten years gets so that +she can speak of it with composure, as a lesson to romantic +girls. So?" + +"Even so, Katy!" she replied, quietly; "and to that early +disappointment I owe more than to anything that ever befell me." + +She said this with a smile; but her voice trembled a little, and I +perceived that a soft dew had gathered over her eyes. By an +irresistible impulse I rose, and stealing softly behind her, clasped +my arms round her neck, and kissing her forehead whispered, "Forgive +me, sweet Aunty!" + +"Not a bit of harm, Katy," she replied, drawing me down for a warm +kiss. "But what a gypsy you must be," she added, in her usually +lively tone, "to have trudged along so many years with this precious +little bundle, and said never a word to anybody!" + +"I've not thought of it myself, these ever so many years," said I, +"and it seems like witchwork that it should all have come to me at +this moment." + +I then related to her my childish reminiscences and speculations, +which amused her not a little. Her hearty, mirthful zest showed that +the theme was not a disquieting one. I now begged her to proceed with +her story. + +"But stay a moment," said I; "let me fetch our garden bonnets, that we +may enjoy it in the very scene of the romance." + +"Ah, Kate, you are bent on making a heroine of me!" was the reply, as +she took her seat in the grape arbor; "but there are really no +materials. I shall finish in fifteen minutes by my watch, and you'll +drop me as an Ophelia, I venture to say. Cousin Harry had left us, as +I told you, to visit his brother. For some months his letters were +very frequent, and as the time approached for his return they grew +increasingly cheerful, and--Katy, I cannot but excuse myself in part, +when I recall the magic charm of those letters. But no matter; all of +a sudden they ceased, and for several weeks not a word was heard from +him by his own family. At length, when my anxiety had become wellnigh +intolerable, there came a brief letter to his father, announcing his +marriage with the sister of his brother's wife, and his decision to +enter into business with his brother." + +"Did you know anything of the young lady?" + +"He had once or twice mentioned her in his letters as a beautiful, +amiable creature, whose education had been shamefully neglected. Her +kindness to him in his illness and loneliness, added to her natural +charms, won his heart, no doubt many a wise man has been caught in +that snare." + +"But what base conduct towards you!" + +"Not at all, my dear! My dream had suffused his words with its own +coloring,--that was all. As soon as reason could make her voice heard, +I acquitted him of all blame. His feelings towards me had been those +of a brother,--no more." + +"But why, then, did he cease to write? why not share his new +happiness with so dear a friend?" + +"That was not unnatural, after what he had said of the young lady's +deficiencies. Probably the awkwardness of the thing led him to defer +writing from time to time, till he had become so absorbed in his +domestic relations and his business, that he had ceased to think of +it. Life's early dewdrops often exhale in that way, Kate!" + +"Then life is a hateful stupidity!" + +"Yes; if it could be morning all day, and childhood could outlast our +whole lives, it would be very charming. But life has jewels that don't +exhale, Kate, but sparkle brightest in the hottest sun. These lie +deep in the earth, and to dig them out requires more than a child's +strength of heart and arm. One must be well inured to toil and weather +before he can win these treasures; but when once he wears these in his +bosom he doesn't sigh for dewdrops." + +"Well, let me hear how you were inured." + +"The news of this marriage revealed to me, as by a flash of lightning, +my whole inner world of feeling. When I knew that he was forever lost, +I first knew what he had become to me. The pangs of disappointment, of +self-humiliation,--I hardly know which were the stronger,--were like +poisoned arrows in my heart. It was my first trouble, and I had to +bear it in silence and alone. Not for worlds would I have had it +guessed that I had cherished an unreturned affection, and it would +have killed me to hear him blamed. Towards him I had, in my most +secret heart, no emotion of resentment or reproach. A feeling of +dreary loss, of a long, weary life from which all the flowers had +vanished, a sort of tender self-pity, filled my heart. It is not worth +while to detail the whole process by which I gradually forced myself +out of this miserable state. One thing helped me much. As soon as the +first bitterness of my heart was passed, I saw clearly that the +indulgence of such a sentiment towards one who was now the husband of +another could not be innocent. It must not be merely concealed; it +must be torn up, root and branch. With this steadily before my mind +as the central point of my efforts, I worked my way step by +step. First came the removal of the numerous little mementos of those +happy days in dreamland, the sight of which softened my heart into +weakness and vain regret. Next I threw aside my favorite works of +imagination and feeling, and for two years read scarcely a book which +did not severely task my mind. I devoted myself more to my mother, and +interested myself in the poor and sick. Last, not least, I resolved on +taking the whole charge of your education, Katy; and of my various +specifics, I think I would recommend the training of such an elf as +the 'sovereignest remedy' for first love. The luxuriant growth of your +character interested, stimulated, kept me perpetually on the alert. I +soon began to work _con amore_ at this task; my spirits caught at +times the contagious gayety of yours; my poor heart was refreshed by +your warm childish love. In short, I began to live again. But, ah! +dear Kate, it was a long, stern conflict. Many, many months, yes, +years, passed by, ere those troubled waters became clear and +still. But I held firmly on my way, and the full reward came at +last. By degrees I had created within and around me a new world of +interest and activity, in which this little whirlpool of morbid +feeling became an insignificant point. I was conscious of the birth of +new energies, of a bolder and steadier sweep of thought, of fuller +sympathies, of that settled quiet and harmony of soul which are to be +gained only in the school of self-discipline. That dream of my youth +now lies like a soft cloud far off in the horizon, beautiful with the +morning tints of memory, but casting no shadow." + +She paused; then added, in a lively tone: "Well, Kate, the fifteen +minutes are not out, and yet my story is done. Think you now it would +really have been better to go a-swinging on a willow-tree over a pond, +and so have made a good poetical end?" + +"Oh, I am so glad you were not such a goose as to make a swan of +yourself, like poor Ophelia!" said I, throwing my arms around her, and +giving her half a dozen kisses. "But tell me truly, was I indeed such +a blessing to you, 'the very cherubim that did preserve thee'? To +think of the repentance I have wasted over my childish naughtiness, +when it was all inspired by your good angel! I shall take heed to this +hint." + +"Do so, Kate, and your good angel will doubtless inspire in me a +suitable response." + +"But tell me now, Aunt Linny, who the living man was. Was he a real +cousin?" + +"I may as well tell you, Kate, or you will get it from your +'familiar.' You have heard of our rich cousin in Cuba, Henry +Morrison?" + +"Oh, yes; I have heard grandfather speak of him. So, then, he was +Cousin Harry! I should like one chance at his hair, for all his +goodness. Did you ever meet again?" + +"Never. His father's family soon removed to a distant place, so that +there was no necessity for visiting the old home. But I have always +heard him spoken of as an upright merchant and a cultivated and +generous man. He has resided several years in Cuba. A year or two +since, he went to Europe for his wife's health, and there she +died. Rumor now reports him as about to become the husband of an +Englishwoman of high connections. I should be very glad to see him +once more.--But come now, Kate, let's have a decennial celebration of +our two anniversaries. Lay the tea-table in the grape arbor, and then +invite grandpapa to a feast of strawberries and cream." + +I hastily ornamented our rural banquet-hall with long branches of +roses and honeysuckles in full bloom, stuck into the leafy roof. As we +sat chatting and laughing over our simple treat, a humming-bird darted +several times in and out. "A messenger!" whispered I to Aunt +Linny. "Depend upon it, Cousin Harry didn't marry the English lady." + + +CHAPTER III. + +The next morning I slept late. Fancy had all night been busy, +combining her old and new materials into many a wild shape. After my +aunt had risen at her usual early hour, I fell into one of those balmy +morning-naps which make up for a whole night's unrest. I dreamed +still, but the visions floated by with that sweet changeful play which +soothes rather than fatigues the brain. The principal objects were +always the same; but the combination shifted every instant, as by the +turn of a kaleidoscope. At length they arranged themselves in a +lovely miniature scene in a convex mirror. There bloomed the little +Button-Rose in the centre, and above it the humming-bird glanced and +murmured, and now and then darted his slender bill deep into the bosom +of the flowers. With hands clasped above this central object, as if +exchanging vows upon an altar, stood the young human pair. Of a +sudden, old Cornelius Agrippa was in the room, robed in a black +scholar's-gown, over which his snowy beard descended nearly to his +knees. Stretching forth a long white wand, he touched the picture, and +immediately a wedding procession began to move out of the magic +crystal, the figures, as they emerged, assuming the size of +life. First tripped a numerous train of white-robed little maidens, +scattering flowers; then came a priest in surplice and bands, holding +before him a great open service-book; after him, the bridal pair, +attended by their friends. But by an odd trick of fancy, the +bridegroom, who looked very stately and happy, appeared with the china +flower-pot containing the Button-Rose balanced on the end of his nose! +Awaked by my own laughter at this comical sight, I opened my eyes and +found Aunt Linny sitting on the bedside and laughing with me. + +"I should have waked you before, Katy," said she, "if you had not +seemed to be enjoying yourself so much. Come, unfold your dream. I +presume it will save me the trouble of telling you the contents of +this wonderful epistle which I hold in my hand." + +"It's from Cousin Harry! Huzza!" cried I, springing up to snatch it. + +But she held it out of my reach. "Softly! good Mistress +Fortuneteller," said she. "Read me the letter without seeing it, and +then I shall know that you can tell the interpretation thereof." + +"Of course it's from Cousin Harry. That's what the humming-bird came +to say last night. As for the contents,--he's not married,--his heart +turns to the sister-friend of his youth,--he yearns to look into her +lustrous orbs once more,--she alone, he finds, is the completion of +his _'Ich'_. He hastens across the dark blue sea; soon will she +behold him at her feet." + +"Alas, poor gypsy, thou hast lost thy silver penny this time. The +letter is indeed from Cousin Harry, and that of itself is one of +life's wonders. But it is addressed with all propriety to his +'venerable uncle.' He arrived from Europe a month since, and being now +on a tour for health and pleasure, proposes to make a hasty call on +his relatives and visit the old homestead. He brings his bride with +him. Now, Kate, be stirring; they will be here to-night, and we must +look our prettiest." + +"The hateful, prosy man! I'll not do anything to make his visit +agreeable," said I, pettishly. + +"Why, Kate, what are you conjuring up in your foolish little noddle?" + +"Oh, I supposed an _eclaircissement_ would come round somehow, +and we should finish the romance in style." + +"Why, Kate, do you really wish to get rid of me?" + +"No, indeed! I wouldn't have you accept his old withered heart for the +world. But I wanted you to have the triumph of rejecting it. 'Indeed, +my dear cousin,'--thus you should have said,--'I shall always be +interested in you as a kinsman, but I can never love you.'" + +"Kate is crazed!" she exclaimed, in a voice of despair. "Why, dear +child, there is not a shadow of foundation for this nonsense. I am +heartily glad at the thought of seeing my cousin once more, and all +the gladder that he brings a wife with him. Will you read the letter?" + +I read it twice, and then asked,--"Where does he mention his wife?" + +"Why, there,--don't you see? 'I shall bring with me a young lady, +whom, though a stranger and a foreigner, I trust you will be pleased +to welcome.' Isn't that plain?" + +The inference seemed sufficiently natural; but the slight uncertainty +was the basis of many entertaining dreams through the day. I resolved +to hold fast my faith in romance till the last moment. Towards +evening, when the parlors and guest-chambers had received the last +touches, when the silver had been polished, the sponge-cake and tarts +baked, and our own toilette made,--when, in short, nothing remained to +be done, my excitement and impatience rose to the highest pitch. I +ran repeatedly down the avenue, and finally mounted with a +pocket-telescope to the top of the house for a more extensive survey. + +"See you aught, Sister Annie?" called my aunt from below. + +"Nothing yet, good Fatima!--spin out thy prayers a little +longer. Stay! a cloud of dust, a horseman!--no doubt an outrider +hastening on to announce his approach. Ah! he passes, the stupid +clown! Another! Nay, that was only a Derby wagon; the stars forbid +that our deliverer should come in a Derby! But now, hush! there's a +_bona fide_ barouche, two black horses, black driver and +all. Almost at the turn! O gentle Ethiopian, tarry! this is the +castle! Go, then, false man! Fatima, thy last hope is past! No, they +stop! the gentleman looks out! he waves his hand this way! Aunt +Linny, 'tis he! the carriage is coming up the avenue!" So saying, I +threw down the telescope and flew to her room. + +"You are right, Kate, it must be he," said she, glancing through the +window, and then following me quietly down stairs. + +The carriage stopped, and we all went down the steps to receive our +long absent relative. A tall, pale gentleman in black sprang out and +came hurriedly towards us. He looked much older than I had expected; +but the next instant the flash of his black eye, and the eloquent +smile which lighted up his pensive countenance as with a sunbeam, +brought back the Cousin Harry of ten years ago. He returned my +grandfather's truly paternal greeting with the most affectionate +cordiality; but with scarce a reply to my aunt's frank welcome, gave +her his arm, and made a movement towards the house. + +"But, cousin," said she, smiling, "what gem have you there, hidden in +the carriage, too precious to be seen? We have a place in our hearts +for the fair stranger, I assure you." + +"Ah, poor thing! I had quite forgotten her," said he, coloring and +laughing, as he turned towards the carriage. + +Aunt Linny and I exchanged mirthful glances at this treatment of a +bride; but the next instant he had lifted out and led towards us a +small female personage, who, when her green veil was thrown aside, +proved to be a lovely girl of some seven or eight years. + +"Permit me," said he, smiling, "to present Miss Caroline Morrison, +'sole daughter of my house and heart.'" + +"But the stranger, the foreign lady?" inquired Aunt Linny, as she +kissed and welcomed the child. + +"Why, this is she,--this young Cuban! Whom else did you look for?" +was the reply, in a tone of surprise, and, as it seemed to me, of +slight vexation. + +"We expected a lady with a few more years on her head," interposed +grandpapa; "but the little pet is just as welcome. There, Katy, this +curly-pate will answer as well as a wax doll for you." + +The dear old gentleman could never realize that I was grown up to be a +woman. Of course, I was now introduced in due form, and we went +together up the steps. + +"How pleasant, how familiar all things look!" said our visitor, +pausing and gazing round him. "Why, uncle, you must have had your +house, and yourself, and everything about you insured against old +age. Nothing has changed except to improve. I see the very picture I +carried with me ten years ago." + +The tears stood in my grandfather's eyes. "You have forgotten one +great change, dear nephew," said he; "against that we could find no +insurance." + +"How could I forget?" was the answer, in a low tone, full of feeling, +his own eyes filling with moisture. "My dear aunt! I shed many tears +with and for you, when I heard of her death." He looked extremely +amiable at this moment; I knew that I should love him. + +My aunt smiled through her tears, and said, very sweetly, "The thought +of her should cheer, and not cloud our meeting. Her presence never +brought me sorrow, nor does her remembrance. Come, dear," she added, +cheerfully, taking the child's hand, "come in and rest your poor +little tired self. Kate, find the white kitten for her. A prettier one +you never saw in France or Cuba, Miss Carrie,--that's what papa calls +you, I suppose?" + +"It used to be my name," said the little smiler; "but papa always +calls me Linny now, because he thinks it sweeter." + + * * * * * + +"What say you to the humming-bird now?" I whispered to my aunt, as we +were a moment alone in the tea-room. + +"Kate, I wish you were fifty miles off at this moment! It was no good +angel that deluded me into telling you that foolish tale last +evening. Indeed, Kate," added she, earnestly, "you will seriously +compromise me, if you are not more careful. Promise me that you will +not make one more allusion of this kind, even to me, while they +remain!" + +"But I may give you just a look, now and then?" + +"Do you wish me to repent having trusted you, Kate?" + +"I promise, aunty,--by my faith in first love!" + +"Nonsense! Go, call them to tea." + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Our kinsman had been easily persuaded to remain with us a week, and a +charming week it had been to all of us. He had visited all the West +India Islands, and the most interesting portions of England and the +Continent. My grandfather, who, as the commander of his own +merchant-ship, had formerly visited many foreign countries, was +delighted to refresh his recollections of distant scenes, and to live +over again his adventures by sea and land. The conversation of our +guest with his uncle was richly instructive and entertaining; for he +had a lively appreciation of national and individual character, and +could illustrate them by a world of amusing anecdote. The old +veteran's early fondness for his nephew revived in full force, and his +enjoyment was alloyed only by the dread of a new separation. "What +shall I do when you are gone, Harry!" was his frequent exclamation; +and then he would sigh and shake his head, and wish he had one son +left. + +But the richest treat for my aunt and me was reserved till the late +evening, when the dear patriarch had retired to rest. Those warm, +balmy nights on the piazza, with the moonlight quivering through the +vines, and turning the terraced lawn with fantastic mixture of light +and shadow into a fairy scene, while the cultivated traveller +discoursed of all things beautiful in nature and art, were full of +witchery. Mont Blanc at sunrise, the wild scenery of the Simplon, the +exhumed streets of Pompeii, the Colosseum by moonlight, those wondrous +galleries of painting and sculpture of which I had read as I had read +of the palace of Aladdin and the gardens of the genii,--the living man +before me had seen all these! I looked upon him as an ambassador from +the world of poetry. But even this interested me less than the tone of +high and manly sentiment by which his conversation was pervaded, the +feeling reminiscences of endeared friendships formed in those far-off +lands, the brief glimpses of deep sorrows bravely borne; and I watched +with a sweet, sly pleasure my aunt's quiet surrender to the old spell. + +"It makes me very happy, Kate," said she one day, "to have found my +cousin and friend again. I am glad to feel that friendships springing +from the pure and good feelings of the heart are not so transient as I +have sometimes been tempted to think them. They may be buried for +years under a drift of new interests; but give them air, and they will +live again." + +"What is that remark of Byron about young ladies' friendship? Take +care, take care!" said I, shaking my head, gravely; "receive the +warning of a calm observer!" + +"Oh, no, Kate! this visit is but a little green oasis in the +desert. In a day or two we shall separate, probably forever; but both, +I doubt not, will be happier through life for this brief reunion. His +plan is to make his future residence in France." + +At the end of the week our kinsman left us for a fortnight's visit to +the metropolis. Intending to give us a call on his return south, he +willingly complied with our desire to leave his little girl with +us. As we were sitting together in my aunt's room after his departure, +the child brought her a small packet which her father had intrusted to +her. "I believe," said the little smiler, "he said it was a story for +you to read. Won't you please to read it to me?" She took it with a +look of surprise and curiosity, and immediately opened it and began to +read. But her color soon began to vary, her hand trembled, and +presently laying down the sheets in her lap, she sat lost in thought. + +"It seems a moving story!" I remarked, dryly. + +"Kate, this is the strangest affair!--But I can't tell you now; I must +read it first alone." + +She left the room, and I heard the key turn in the lock as she entered +another chamber. In about an hour she came out very composedly, and +said nothing more on the subject. + +After our little guest was asleep at night, I could restrain myself no +longer. "You are treating me shabbily, aunty," said I. "See if I am +ever a good girl again to please you!" + +"You shall know it all, Katy; I only wished to think it over first by +myself. There, take the letter; but make no note or comment till I +mention it again." + + * * * * * + +The letter of Cousin Harry seemed to me rather matter-of-fact, I must +confess, till near the end, where he spoke of a little nosegay which +he enclosed, and which would speak to her of dear old times. + +"But where is the nosegay, aunty?" + +With a beautiful flush, as if the sunset of that vanished day were +reddening the sky of memory, she drew a small packet from her bosom, +and in it I found a withered rose-bud tied up with a shrivelled sprig +of mignonette. + +I am afraid that my Aunt Linny's answer was a great deal more proper +than I should have wished; and yet, with all its emphatic expressions +of duty towards her father and the impossibility of leaving him, there +must have been something between the lines which I could not read. I +have since discovered that all such epistles have their real meaning +concealed in some kind of more rarefied sympathetic ink, which betrays +itself only under the burning hands of a lover. + +"So, then," said Aunt Linny, as she was sealing this letter, "you see, +Katy, that your romance has come to an untimely end." + +I turned round her averted face with both my hands, and looked in her +eyes till she blushed and laughed in spite of herself. + +"My knowledge of symptoms is not large," said I, "but I have a +conviction that his health will now endure a northern climate." + +"Let's talk no more of this!" said she, putting me aside with a gentle +gravity, which checked my nonsense. But as I was unable to detect in +her, on this or the following day, the slightest depression of +spirits, I shrewdly guessed that our anticipations of the result were +not very dissimilar. + +The next return post brought, not the expected letter, but our hero +himself. I was really amazed at the change in his appearance. Erect, +elastic, his face radiant with expression, he looked years younger +than at his first arrival. I caught Aunt Linny's eloquent glance of +surprise and pleasure as they met. For a moment the bridal pair of my +dream stood living before me; then vanished even more suddenly than +that fancy show of the old magician. When we again met, two or three +hours after, my aunt's serene smile and dewy eyes told me that all was +right. + + * * * * * + +In a month the wedding took place, and the "happy pair" started off on +a few weeks' excursion. As I was helping my aunt exchange her bridal +for her travelling attire, I whispered, "What say you to my doctrine +of first love, aunty?" + +"That it finds its best refutation in my experience. No, believe me, +dearest Katy, the true jewel of life is a spirit that can rule itself, +that can subject even the strongest, dearest impulses to reason and +duty. Without it, indeed," she added, with a soft earnestness, +"affection towards the worthiest object becomes an unworthy +sentiment--And besides, Kate,"--here her eye gleamed with girlish +mirth--"you see, if I had made love my all, I should have missed it +all. Not even Cousin Harry's constancy would have been proof against a +withered, whining, sentimental old maid." + +"Well, you will allow that it's a great paradox, aunty! If you believe +in my doctrine, it turns out a mere delusion; if you don't believe in +it, 'tis sure to come true." + +"Take care, then, and disbelieve in it with all your might!" said she, +laughing, and kissing me, as we left her room,--my room alone +henceforth. A shadow seemed to fill it, as she passed the threshold. + + + + +OUR BIRDS, AND THEIR WAYS. + + +Among our summer birds, the vast majority are but transient visitors, +born and bred far to the northward, and returning thither every +year. The North, then, is their proper domicile, their legal "place of +residence," which they have never renounced, but only temporarily +desert, for special reasons. Their sojourn with us, or farther south, +is merely an exile by stress of climate, like the flitting of the +Southern planters from the rice-fields to the mountains in summer, or +the pleasure tour or watering-place visit customary with the citizens +of Boston and New York. + +The lower orders, such as the humming-bird with his insect-like +stomach and sucking-tube, and so on up through the warblers and +flycatchers, more strictly bound by the necessities of their life, +closely follow the sun,--while the upper-ten-thousand, the robins, +cedar-birds, sparrows, etc., like man, omnivorous in their diet and +their attendant _chevaliers d'industrie_, the rapacious birds, +allow themselves greater latitude, and go and come occasionally at all +seasons, though in general tending to the south in winter and north in +summer. But precedence before all is due to permanent residents, with +whom our intercourse is not of this transitory and fair-weather +sort. Such are the crow, the blue jay, the chickadee, the partridge, +and the quail, who may be called regular inhabitants, though perhaps +all of them wander occasionally from one district to another. Besides +these, perhaps some of the hawks and owls remain here throughout the +year. But the species I have named are the only ones that occur to me +as equally numerous at all seasons in the immediate vicinity of +Boston, and never out of town, whether you take the census in May or +in January. + +In spite of our uninterrupted acquaintance with them, however, there +are still many of the nearest questions concerning these birds for +which I find no sufficient answers. Even to the first question--How do +they get their living?--there are only vague replies in the books. + +There is the crow, for example. I have seen crows in the neighborhood +of Boston every week of the year, and in not very different +numbers. My friend the ornithologist said to me last winter, "You will +see that they will be off as soon as the ground is well covered with +snow." But on the contrary, when the snow came, and after it had lain +deep on the fields for many days, I saw more than before,--probably +because they found it easier to get food in the neighborhood of the +houses and cultivated grounds. + +A crow must require certainly half a pound of animal food, or its +equivalent, daily, in order to keep from starving. Yet they not only +do not starve that I hear of, but seem to keep in as good case in +winter as in summer, though what they find to eat is not immediately +apparent. The vague traditional suggestion of "carrion," as of dead +horses and the like, does not help us much. Some scraps doubtless may +be left lying about, but any reliable stores of this kind are hardly +to be looked for in this neighborhood. A few scattered kernels of +corn, perhaps on a pinch a few berries, he may pick up; though I +suspect the crow is somewhat human in his tastes, and, besides animal +food, affects only the cereals. The frogs are deep in the mud. Now +and then a squirrel or a mouse may be had; but they are mostly dozing +in their holes. As for larger game, rabbits and the like, the crow is +hardly nimble enough for them, nor are his claws well adapted for +seizing; anything of this kind he will scarcely get, except as the +leavings of the weasel or skunk. These he will not refuse; for though +he is of a different species from the carrion crow of Europe, with +whom he was formerly confounded, yet he is of similar, though perhaps +less extreme, tastes as to his food. But when the ground is freshly +covered with snow, all supplies of this sort would seem to be cut off, +for the time at least. Yet who ever found a starved crow, or even saw +one driven by hunger from any of his accustomed caution? He is ever +the same alert, vivacious, harsh-tongued wanderer over the white +fields as over the summer meadows. + +A partial solution of the mystery is to be found in the habit which +the bird has in common with most of the crow kind, of depositing any +surplus food in a place of safety for future use. A tame crow that I +saw last year was constantly employed in this way. As soon as his +hunger was satisfied, if a piece of meat was given to him, he flew off +to some remote spot, and there covered it up with twigs and leaves. I +was told that the woods were full of these caches of his. Bits of +bread and the like he was too well-fed to care much about, but he +would generally go through the form of covering them, at your very +feet, with a little rubbish, not taking the trouble to hide them. +Meanwhile his hunting went on as if he still had his living to get, +and he would watch for field-mice, or come flying in from the woods +with a squirrel swinging from his claws, either for variety's sake, or +because he had really forgotten the stores he had laid up. Scattered +magazines of this kind, established in times of accidental plenty, may +render life during our winters possible to the crow. + +But why should he give himself so much trouble to subsist here, when a +few hours' work with those broad wings would bear him to a land of +tropical abundance? The crow, it seems, is not a mere eating and +drinking machine, drawn hither and thither by the balance of supply +and demand, but has his motives of another sort. Is it, perhaps, some +local attachment, so that a crow hatched in Brookline, for example, +would be more loath than another to quit that neighborhood,--a sort of +crow patriotism, akin to that which keeps the Greenlanders slowly +starving of cold and hunger on that awful coast of theirs. + +It is not probable, however, that the crow allows himself to suffer +much from these causes; he is far too knowing for that, and shows his +position at the head of the bird kind by an almost total emancipation +from scruples and prejudices, and by the facility with which he adapts +himself to special cases. Instinct works by formulas, which, as it +were, make up the animal, so that the ant and the bee are atoms of +incarnate constructiveness and acquisitiveness, and nothing else. And +as intelligence, when its action is too narrowly concentrated, whether +upon pin-making or money-making, tends to degenerate into mere +instinct,--so instinct, when it begins to compare, and to except, and +to vary its action according to circumstances, shows itself in the act +of passing into intelligence. This marks the superiority of the crow +over birds it often resembles in its actions. Most birds are +wary. The crow is wary, and something more. Other shy birds, for +instance ducks, avoid every strange object. The crow considers whether +there be anything dangerous in the strangeness. An ordinary scarecrow +will not keep our crow from anything worth a little risk. He fathoms +the scarecrow, compares its behavior, under various circumstances, +with that of the usual wearer of its garments, and decides to take the +risk. To protect his corn, the farmer takes advantage of this very +discursiveness, and stretches round the field a simple line, nothing +in itself, but hinting at some undeveloped mischief which the bird +cannot penetrate. + +Again, the crow is sometimes looked upon as a mere marauder; but this +description also is much too narrow for him. He is anxious only for +his dinner, and swallows seed-corn and noxious grubs with perfect +impartiality. He is not a mere pirate, living by plunder alone, but +rather like the old Phoenician sea-farer, indifferently honest or +robber as occasion serves,--and robber not from fierceness of +disposition, but merely from utter unscrupulousness as to means. + +This is shown in his docility. A hawk or an eagle is never tamed, but +a crow is more easily and completely tamable than the gentlest +singing-bird. The one I have just spoken of, though hardly six months +from the nest, would allow himself to be handled by his owner, and +would suffer even a stranger to touch him. When I first came near the +house, he greeted me with a suppressed caw, and flew along some +hundred yards just over my head, looking down, first with one eye and +then with the other, to get a complete view of the stranger. Next +morning I became aware, when but half awake, of a sort of mewing sound +in the neighborhood, and at last looking around, I saw through the +window, which opened to the floor, my new acquaintance perched on the +porch roof, which was at the same level, turning his head from side to +side, and eyeing me through the glass with divers queer contortions +and gesticulations, reminding me of some odd, old, dried-up French +dancing-master, and with a varied succession of croakings, now high, +now low, evidently bent upon attracting my attention. When he had +succeeded, he flew off with loud, joyous caws to the top of the house, +where I heard him rolling nuts or acorns from the ridge, and flying to +catch them before they fell off. + +Their independence of seasons is shown also in their habit of +associating in about equal numbers throughout the year. In the spring +the flocks are more noticeable, hovering about some grove of pines, +flying straight up in the air and swooping down again with an +uninterrupted cawing,--seemingly a sort of crow ball, with a view to +match-making. Afterwards they become more silent, and apparently more +solitary, but still fly out to their feeding-grounds morning and +evening; and if you sit down in the woods near one of their nests, the +uneasy choking chuckle, ending at last in the outright cawing of the +disturbed owner, will generally be answered from every point, and crow +after crow come edging up from tree to tree to see what is the matter. + +Though all of the crow tribe are notorious for their harsh voices, yet +if the power of mimicry be considered as a mark of superiority, the +crow has claims to high rank in this department also. The closest +imitators of the human voice are birds of this family: for instance, +the Mino bird. Our crow also is a vocal mimic, and that not in the +matter-of-course way of the mocking-bird, but, as it were, more +individual and spontaneous. He is not merely an imitator of the human +voice, like the parrots, (and a better one as regards tone,) nor of +other birds, like the thrushes, but combines both. The tame crow +already mentioned very readily undertook extempore imitations of +words, and with considerable success. I once heard a crow imitate the +warbling of a small bird, in a tone so entirely at variance with his +ordinary voice, that, though assured by one who had heard him before, +that it was a crow and nothing else, it was only on the clearest proof +that I could satisfy myself of the fact. It seemed to be quite an +original and individual performance. + +The blue jay is a near relative of the crow, and, like him, +omnivorous, harsh-voiced, predaceous, a robber of birds' nests; so +that if you hear the robins during their nesting-time making an +unusual clamor about the house, the chances are you will get a glimpse +of this brilliant marauder, sneaking away with a troop of them in +pursuit. His usual voice is a harsh scream, but he has some low +flute-like notes not without melody. The presence of a hawk, or more +particularly an owl in the woods, is often made known by the screaming +of the jays, who flock together about him with ever-increasing noise, +like a troop of jackals about a lion, pressing in upon him closer and +closer in a paroxysm of excitement, while the owl, thus taken at +disadvantage, sidles along his bough seeking concealment, and at +length softly flaps off to some more undisturbed retreat. + +The blue jay is a shy bird, but he is enough of a crow to take a risk +where anything is to be had for it, and in winter will come close to +the house for food. In his choice of a nesting-place he seems at first +sight to show less than his usual caution; for, though the nest is a +very conspicuous one, it is generally made in a pine sapling not far +from the ground, and often on a path or other opening in the +woods. But perhaps, in the somewhat remote situations where he builds, +the danger is less from below than from birds of prey sailing +overhead. I once found a blue jay's nest on a path in the woods +somewhat frequented by me, but not often trodden by any one else, and +passed it twice on different days, and saw the bird sitting, but took +some pains not to alarm her. The next time, and the next, she was not +there; and on examination I found the nest empty, though with no marks +of having been robbed. There was not time for the eggs to have +hatched, and it was plain, that, finding herself observed, she had +carried them off. + +As a general thing, the severity of our winters does not seem much to +affect the birds that stay with us. I have found chickadees and some +of the smaller sparrows apparently frozen to death, but the +extravasation of blood usual in such cases leaves us in doubt whether +some accident may not have first disabled the bird; and if dead birds +are more often found in winter than in summer, it may be only that the +body keeps longer, and, from the absence of grass and leaves, and the +white covering of the ground, is more readily seen. At all events, +such specimens are not usually emaciated, and sometimes they are in +remarkably good case, which, considering the rapid circulation and the +corresponding waste of the body, shows that the cold had not affected +their activity and their power of obtaining food. + +The truth is, that birds are remarkably well guarded against cold by +their quick circulation, their dense covering of down and feathers, +and the ease with which they can protect their extremities. The +chickadee is never so lively as in clear, cold weather;--not that he +is absolutely insensible to cold; for on those days, rare in this +neighborhood, when the mercury falls to fifteen degrees or more below +zero, the chickadee shows by his behavior that he, too, feels it to be +an exceptional state of things. Of such a morning I have seen a small +flock of them collected on the sunny side of a thick hemlock, rather +silent and quiet, with ruffled plumage, like balls of gray fur, +waiting, with an occasional chirp, for the sun's rays to begin to warm +them up, and meanwhile not depressed, but only a little sobered in +their deportment, and ready, if the cold continued, to get used to +that too. + +The matter of food-supply during the winter for the smaller birds is +more easily understood than in the case of the crow. The seeds of +grasses and the taller summer flowers, and of the birches, alders, and +maples, furnish supplies that are not interfered with by cold or snow; +also the buds of various trees and shrubs,--for the buds do not first +come into existence in the spring, as our city friends suppose, but +are to be found all winter. Nor is insect-life suspended at this +season to the extent that a careless observer might suppose. A sunny, +sheltered nook, at any time during the winter, will show you a variety +of two-winged flies, and several species of spiders, often in +considerable abundance, and as brisk as ever. And the numbers of eggs, +and larvae, and of the lurking tenants of crevices in tree-bark and +dead wood, may be guessed by the incessant and assuredly not aimless +activity of the chickadees and gold-crests and their associates. + +This winter activity of the birds ought to be taken into account by +those who accuse them of mischief-doing in summer. In winter, at +least, no mischief can be done; there is no fruit to steal; and even +sap-sucking, if such a practice at any time be not altogether +fabulous, certainly cannot be carried on now. Nothing can be destroyed +now except the farmer's enemies, or at best neutrals. Yet the birds +keep at work all the time. + +The only bird that occurs to me as a proved sufferer from famine in +the winter is the quail. This is the most limited in its range of all +our birds. Not only does it not migrate, (or only exceptionally,) but +it does not even wander much,--the same covey keeping all the year, +and even year after year, to the same feeding-ground. Nor does it ever +seek its food upon trees, like the partridge, but solely upon the +ground. + +The quail is our nearest representative of the common barn-yard +fowl. This it resembles in many respects, and among others, in its +habit of going a-foot, except when the covey crosses from one feeding +or roosting ground to another, or when the cock-bird mounts upon a +rail-fence or stone-wall to sound his call in the spring. This +persistence exposes the quail to hardship when the ground is covered +with snow, and the fruit of the skunk-cabbage and all the berries and +grain are inaccessible. He takes refuge at such times in the +smilax-thickets, whose dense, matted covering leaves an open +feeding-ground below. But a snowy winter always tells upon their +numbers in any neighborhood. Whole coveys are said to have been found +dead, frozen stiff, under the bush where they had huddled together for +warmth; and even before this extremity, their hardships lay them open +to their enemies, and the fox and the weasel, and the farmer's boy +with his box-trap, destroy them by wholesale. The deep snows of 1856 +and 1857 have nearly exterminated them hereabouts; and I was told at +Vergennes, in Vermont, that there were quails there many years ago, +but that they had now entirely disappeared. + +The appearance and disappearance of species within our experience +teach us that Nature's lists are not filled once for all, but that the +changes which geology shows in past ages continue into the +present. Sometimes we can trace the immediate cause, or rather +occasion, as in the case of the quail's congeners, the pinnated +grouse, and the wild turkey, both of them inhabitants of all parts of +the State in the early times. The pinnated grouse has been seen near +Boston within the present century, but is now exterminated, I believe, +except in Martha's Vineyard. The wild turkey was to be found not long +since in Berkshire, but probably it has become extinct there +too. Sometimes, for no reason that we can see, certain species forsake +their old abodes, as the purple martin, which within the last +quarter-century has receded some twenty miles from the seaboard,--or +appear where they were before unknown, as the cliff swallow, which was +first seen in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, but within +about the same space of time has become as common hereabouts as any of +the genus. In examples so conspicuous the movement is obvious enough; +but in the case of rarer species, for instance, the olive-sided +flycatcher, who can tell whether, when first observed, it was new to +naturalists merely, or to this part of the country, or to the earth +generally? The distinction sometimes made in such cases between +accidental influences and the regular course of nature is a +superficial one. The regular course of nature is in itself a series of +accidental influences; that is, the particular occasion is subservient +to a general law with which it does not seem at first sight to have +any connection. A severe winter may be sufficient to kill the quails, +just as the ancient morass was sufficient to drown the mastodon. But +the question is, why these causes began to operate just at these +times. We may as well stop with the evident fact, that the unresting +circulation is forever going on in the universe. + +But if the quail, who is here very near his northern limits, has a +hard time of it in the winter, and is threatened with such "removal" +as we treat the Indians to, his relative, the partridge, our other +gallinaceous or hen-like bird, is of a tougher fibre, as you see when +you come upon his star-like tracks across the path, eight or nine +inches apart, and struck sharp and deep in the snow, or closer +together among the bushes, where he stretched up for barberries or +buds, and ending on either side with a series of fine parallel cuts, +where the sharp-pointed quills struck the snow as he rose,--a picture +of vigor and success. He knows how to take care of himself, and to +find both food and shelter in the evergreens, when the snow lies fresh +upon the ground. There, in some sunny glade among the pines, he will +ensconce himself in the thickest branches, and whir off as you come +near, sailing down the opening with his body balancing from side to +side. + +The partridge is altogether a wilder and more solitary bird than the +quail, and does not frequent cultivated fields, nor make his nest in +the orchard, as the quail does, but prefers the shelf of some rocky +ledge under the shadow of the pines in remote woods. He is one of the +few birds found in the forest; for it is a mistake to suppose that +birds abound in the forest, or avoid the neighborhood of man. On the +contrary, you may pass days and weeks in our northern woods without +seeing more than half a dozen species, of which the partridge is +pretty sure to be one. All birds increase in numbers about +settlements,--even the crow, though he is a forest bird too. Hence, +no doubt, has arisen the notion that the crow (supposed to be of the +same species with the European) made his appearance in this country +first on the Atlantic coast, and gradually spread westward, passing +through the State of New York about the time of the Revolution. I was +told some years since by a resident of Chicago, that the quails had +increased eight-fold in that vicinity since he came there. The fact +is, that the bird population, like the human, in the absence of +counteracting causes, will continue to expand in precise ratio to the +supply of food. The partridge goes farther north than the quail, and +is found throughout the United States. With us he affects high and +rocky ground, but northward he keeps at a lower level. At the White +Mountains, the regions of this species and of the Canada grouse or +spruce partridge are as well defined in height as those of the maples +and the "black growth." Still farther north I have observed that our +partridge frequents the lowest marshy ground, thus equalizing his +climate in every latitude. + +There are few of our land-birds that flock together in summer, and few +that are solitary in winter,--none that I recollect, except birds of +prey. And not only do birds of the same kind associate, but certain +species are almost always found together. Thus, the chickadee, the +golden-crested wren, the white-breasted nuthatch, and, less +constantly, the brown creeper and the downy woodpecker, form a little +winter clique, of which you do not often see one of the members +without one or more of the others. No sound in nature more cheery and +refreshing than the alternating calls of a little troop of this kind +echoing through the glades of the woods on a still, sunny day in +winter: the vivacious chatter of the chickadee, the slender, contented +pipe of the gold-crest, and the emphatic, business-like _hank_ of the +nuthatch, as they drift leisurely along from tree to tree. The winter +seems to be the season of holiday enjoyment to the chickadee, and he +is never so evidently and conspicuously contented as in very cold +weather. In summer he withdraws to the thickets, and becomes less +noisy and active. His plumage becomes dull, and his brisk note changes +to a fine, delicate _pee-peh-wy_, or oftenest a mere whisper. They are +so much less noticeable at this season that one might suppose they had +followed their gold-crest companions to the North, as some of them +doubtless do, but their nests are not uncommon with us. Fearless as +the chickadee is in winter,--so fearless, that, if you stand still, he +will alight upon your head or shoulder,--in summer he becomes cautious +about his nest, and will desert it, if much watched. They build here, +generally, in a partly decayed white-birch or apple-tree, excavating a +hole eighteen inches or two feet deep,--the chips being carefully +carried off a short distance, so as not to betray the workman,--and +lining the bottom of it with a felting of soft materials, generally +rabbits' fur, of which I have taken from one hole as much as could be +conveniently grasped with the hand. + +Besides the species that we regularly count upon in winter, there are +more or less irregular visitors at this season, some of them summer +birds also,--as the purple finch, cedar-bird, gold-finch, robin, the +flicker, or pigeon woodpecker, and the yellow-bellied and hairy +woodpeckers. Others, again, linger on from the autumn, and sometimes +through the winter,--as the snow-bird, song-sparrow, tree-sparrow. +Still others are seen only in winter,--as the brown and shore larks, +the crossbills, redpolls, snow-buntings, pine grosbeak, and some of +the hawks and owls; and of these some are merely accidental,--as the +pine grosbeak, which in 1836 appeared here in great numbers in +October, and remained until May. This beautiful and gentle bird (a +sweet songster too) is doubtless a permanent resident within the +United States, for I have seen them at the White Mountains in +August. What impels them to these occasional wanderings it is +difficult to guess; it is obviously not mere stress of weather; for in +1836, as I have remarked, they came early in autumn and continued +resident until late in the spring; and their food, being mainly the +buds of resinous trees, must have been as easy to get elsewhere as +here. Their coming, like the crow's staying, is a mystery to us. + +I have spoken only of the land-birds; but the position of our city, so +embraced by the sea, affords unusual opportunities for observing the +sea-birds also. All winter long, from the most crowded thoroughfares +of the city, any one, who has leisure enough to raise his eyes over +the level of the roofs to the tranquil air above, may see the gulls +passing to and fro between the harbor and the flats at the mouth of +Charles River. The gulls, and particularly that cosmopolite, the +herring gull, are met with in this neighborhood throughout the year, +though in summer most of them go farther north to breed. On a still, +sunny day in winter, you may see them high in the air over the river, +calmly soaring in wide circles, a hundred perhaps at a time, or +pluming themselves leisurely on the edge of a hole in the ice. When +the wind is violent from the west, they come in over the city from the +bay outside, strong-winged and undaunted, breasting the gale, now +high, now low, but always working to windward, until they reach the +shelter of the inland waters. + +In the spring they come in greater numbers, and other species arrive: +the great saddle-back, from the similarity of coloring almost to be +mistaken for the white-headed eagle, as he sits among the broken ice +at the edge of the channel; and the beautiful little Bonaparte's gull. + +The ducks, too, still resort to our rivermouth, in spite of the +railroads and the tall chimneys by which their old feeding-grounds are +surrounded. As long as the channel is open, you may see the +golden-eyes, or "whistlers," in extended lines, visible only as a row +of bright specks, as their white breasts rise and fall on the waves; +and farther than you can see them, you may hear the whistle of their +wings as they rise. Spring and fall the "black ducks" still come to +find the brackish waters which they like, and to fill their crops with +the seeds of the eel-grass and the mixed food of the flats. In the +late twilight you may sometimes catch sight of a flock speeding in, +silent and swift, over the Mill-dam, or hear their sonorous quacking +from their feeding-ground. + +At least, these things were,--and not long since,--though I cannot +answer for a year or two back. The birds long retain the tradition of +the old places, and strive to keep their hold upon them; but we are +building them out year by year. The memory is still fresh of flocks of +teal by the "Green Stores" on the Neck; but the teal and the "Stores" +are gone, and perhaps the last black duck has quacked on the river, +and the last whistler taken his final flight. Some of us, who are not +yet old men, have killed "brown-backs" and "yellow-legs" on the +marshes that lie along to the west and south of the city, now cut up +by the railroads; and you may yet see from the cars an occasional +long-booted individual, whose hopes still live on the tales of the +past, stalking through the sedge with "superfluous gun," or patiently +watching his troop of one-legged wooden decoys. + +The sea keeps its own climate, and keeps its highways open, after all +on the land is shut up by frost. The sea-birds, accordingly, seem to +lead an existence more independent of latitude and of seasons. In +midwinter, when the seashore watering-places are forsaken by men, you +may find Nahant or Nantasket Beach more thronged with bipeds of this +sort than by the featherless kind in summer. The Long Beach of Nahant +at that season is lined sometimes by an almost continuous flock of +sea-ducks, and a constant passing and repassing are kept up between +Lynn Bay and the surf outside. + +Early of a winter's morning at Nantasket I once saw a flock of geese, +many hundreds in number, coming in from the Bay to cross the land in +their line of migration. They advanced with a vast, irregular front +extending far along the horizon, their multitudinous _honking_ +softened into music by the distance. As they neared the beach the +clamor increased and the line broke up in apparent confusion, circling +round and round for some minutes in what seemed aimless +uncertainty. Gradually the cloud of birds resolved itself into a +number of open triangles, each of which with its deeper-voiced leader +took its way inland; as if they trusted to their general sense of +direction while flying over the water, but on coming to encounter the +dangers of the land, preferred to delegate the responsibility. This +done, all is left to the leader; if he is shot, it is said the whole +flock seem bewildered, and often alight without regard to place or to +their safety. The selection of the leader must therefore be a matter +of deliberation with them; and this, no doubt, was going on in the +flock I saw at Nantasket during their pause at the edge of the +beach. The leader is probably always an old bird. I have noticed +sometimes that his _honking_ is more steady and in a deeper tone, +and that it is answered in a higher key along the line. + + + +THE INDIAN REVOLT. + + +For the first time in the history of the English dominion in India, +its power has been shaken from within its own possessions, and by its +own subjects. Whatever attacks have been made upon it heretofore have +been from without, and its career of conquest has been the result to +which they have led. But now no external enemy threatens it, and the +English in India have found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly +engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with a portion of their subjects, +not so much for dominion as for life. There had been signs and +warnings, indeed, of the coming storm; but the feeling of security in +possession and the confidence of moral strength were so strong, that +the signs had been neglected and the warnings disregarded. + +No one in our time has played the part of Cassandra with more +foresight and vehemence than the late Sir Charles Napier. He saw the +quarter in which the storm was gathering, and he affirmed that +it was at hand. In 1850, after a short period of service as +commander-in-chief of the forces in India, he resigned his place, +owing to a difference between himself and the government, and +immediately afterwards prepared a memoir in justification of his +course, accompanied with remarks upon the general administration of +affairs in that country. It was written with all his accustomed +clearness of mind, vigor of expression, and intensity of personal +feeling,--but it was not published until after his death, which took +place in 1853, when it appeared under the editorship of his brother, +Lieutenant-General Sir W.F.P. Napier, with the title of "Defects, +Civil and Military, of the Indian Government." Its interest is +greatly enhanced when read by the light of recent events. It is in +great part occupied with a narrative of the exhibition of a mutinous +spirit which appeared in 1849 in some thirty Sepoy battalions, in +regard to a reduction of their pay, and of the means taken to check +and subdue it. On the third page is a sentence which read now is of +terrible import: "Mutiny with [among?] the Sepoys is the _most_ +formidable danger menacing our Indian empire." And a few pages farther +on occurs the following striking passage: "The ablest and most +experienced civil and military servants of the East India Company +consider mutiny as one of the greatest, if not _the_ greatest danger +threatening India,--a danger also that may come unexpectedly, and, if +the first symptoms be not carefully treated, with a power to shake +Leadenhall." + +The anticipated mutiny has now come, its first symptoms were treated +with utter want of judgment, and its power is shaking the whole fabric +of the English rule in India. + +One day toward the end of January last, a workman employed in the +magazine at Barrackpore, an important station about seventeen miles +from Calcutta, stopped to ask a Sepoy for some water from his +drinking-vessel. Being refused, because he was of low caste, and his +touch would defile the vessel, he said, with a sneer, "What caste are +you of, who bite pig's grease and cow's fat on your cartridges?" +Practice with the new Enfield rifle had just been introduced, and the +cartridges were greased for use in order not to foul the gun. The +rumor spread among the Sepoys that there was a trick played upon +them,--that this was but a device to pollute them and destroy their +caste, and the first step toward a general and forcible conversion of +the soldiers to Christianity. The groundlessness of the idea upon +which this alarm was founded afforded no hindrance to its ready +reception, nor was the absurdity of the design attributed to the +ruling powers apparent to the obscured and timid intellect of the +Sepoys. The consequences of loss of caste are so feared,--and are in +reality of so trying a nature,--that upon this point the sensitiveness +of the Sepoy is always extreme, and his suspicions are easily +aroused. Their superstitions and religious customs "interfere in many +strange ways with their military duties." "The brave men of the 35th +Native Infantry," says Sir Charles Napier, "lost caste because they +did their duty at Jelalabad; that is, they fought like soldiers, and +ate what could be had to sustain their strength for battle." But they +are under a double rule, of religious and of military discipline,--and +if the two come into conflict, the latter is likely to give way. + +The discontent at Barrackpore soon manifested itself in ways not to be +mistaken. There were incendiary fires within the lines. It was +discovered that messengers had been sent to regiments at other +stations, with incitements to insubordination. The officer in command +at Barrackpore, General Hearsay, addressed the troops on parade, +explained to them that the cartridges were not prepared with the +obnoxious materials supposed, and set forth the groundlessness of +their suspicions. The address was well received at first, but had no +permanent effect. The ill-feeling spread to other troops and other +stations. The government seems to have taken no measure of precaution +in view of the impending trouble, and contented itself with +despatching telegraphic messages to the more distant stations, where +the new rifle-practice was being introduced, ordering that the native +troops were "to have no practice ammunition served out to them, but +only to watch the firing of the Europeans." On the 26th of February, +the 19th regiment, then stationed at Berhampore, refused to receive +the cartridges that were served out, and were prevented from open +violence only by the presence of a superior English force. After great +delay, it was determined that this regiment should be disbanded. The +authorities were not even yet alarmed; they were uneasy, but even +their uneasiness does not seem to have been shared by the majority of +the English residents in India. It was not until the 3d of April that +the sentence passed upon the 19th regiment was executed. The affair +was dallied with, and inefficiency and dilatoriness prevailed +everywhere. + +But meanwhile the disaffection was spreading. The order for confining +the use of the new cartridges to the Europeans seems to have been +looked upon by the native regiments as a confirmation of their +suspicions with regard to them. The more daring and evil-disposed of +the soldiers stimulated the alarm, and roused the prejudices of their +more timid and unreasoning companions. No general plan of revolt +seems to have been formed, but the materials of discontent were +gradually being concentrated; the inflammable spirits of the Sepoys +were ready to burst into a blaze. Strong and judicious measures, +promptly put into action, might even now have allayed the excitement +and dissipated the danger. But the imbecile commander-in-chief was +enjoying himself and shirking care in the mountains; and Lord Canning +and his advisers at Calcutta seem to have preferred to allow to take +the initiative in their own way. Generally throughout Northern India +the common routine of affairs went on at the different stations, and +the ill-feeling and insubordination among the Sepoys scarcely +disturbed the established quiet and monotony of Anglo-Indian life. +But the storm was rising,--and the following extracts from a letter, +hitherto unpublished, written on the 30th of May, by an officer of +great distinction, and now in high command before Delhi, will show the +manner of its breaking. + +"A fortnight ago no community in the world could have been living in +greater security of life and property than ours. Clouds there were +that indicated to thoughtful minds a coming storm, and in the most +dangerous quarter; but the actual outbreak was a matter of an hour, +and has fallen on us like a judgment from Heaven,--sudden, +irresistible as yet, terrible in its effects, and still spreading from +place to place. I dare say you may have observed among the Indian news +of late months, that here and there throughout the country mutinies of +native regiments had been taking place. They had, however, been +isolated cases, and the government thought it did enough to check the +spirit of disaffection by disbanding the corps involved. The failure +of the remedy was, however, complete, and, instead of having to deal +now with mutinies of separate regiments, we stand face to face with a +general mutiny of the Sepoy army of Bengal. To those who have thought +most deeply of the perils of the English empire in India this has +always seemed the monster one. It was thought to have been guarded +against by the strong ties of mercenary interest that bound the army +to the state, and there was, probably, but one class of feelings that +would have been strong enough to have broken these ties,--those, +namely, of religious sympathy or prejudice. The overt ground of the +general mutiny was offence to caste feelings, given by the +introduction into the army of certain cartridges said to have been +prepared with hog's lard and cow's fat. The men must bite off the ends +of these cartridges; so the Mahometans are defiled by the unclean +animal, and the Hindoos by the contact of the dead cow. Of course the +cartridges are _not_ prepared as stated, and they form the mere +handle for designing men to work with. They are, I believe, equally +innocent of lard and fat; but that a general dread of being +Christianized has by some means or other been created is without +doubt, though there is still much that is mysterious in the process by +which it has been instilled into the Sepoy mind, and I question if the +government itself has any accurate information on the subject. + +"It was on the 10th of the present month [May] that the outburst of +the mutinous spirit took place in our own neighborhood,--at +Meerut. The immediate cause was the punishment of eighty-five troopers +of the 3d Light Cavalry, who had refused to use the obnoxious +cartridges, and had been sentenced by a native court-martial to ten +years' imprisonment. On Saturday, the 9th, the men were put in irons, +in presence of their comrades, and marched off to jail. On Sunday, +the 10th, just at the time of evening service, the mutiny broke +out. Three regiments left their lines, fell upon every European, man, +woman, or child, they met or could find, murdered them all, burnt half +the houses in the station, and, after working such a night of mischief +and horror as devils might have delighted in, marched off to Delhi +_en masse_, where three other regiments ripe for mutiny were +stationed. On the junction of the two brigades, the horrors of Meerut +were repeated in the imperial city, and every European who could be +found was massacred with revolting barbarity. In fact, the spirit was +that of a servile war. Annihilation of the ruling race was felt to be +the only chance of safety or impunity; so no one of the ruling race +was spared. Many, however, effected their escape, and, after all sorts +of perils and sufferings, succeeded in reaching military stations +containing European troops. * * * + +"From the crisis of the mutiny our local anxieties have lessened. The +country round is in utter confusion. Bands of robbers are murdering +and plundering defenceless people. Civil government has practically +ceased from the land. The most loathsome irresolution and incapacity +have been exhibited in some of the highest quarters. A full month will +elapse before the mutineers are checked by any organized resistance. +A force is, or is supposed to be, marching on Delhi; but the outbreak +occurred on the 10th of May, and this day is the first of June, and +Delhi has seen no British colors and heard no British guns as +yet. * * * + +"As to the empire, it will be all the stronger after this storm. It is +not five or six thousand mutinous mercenaries, or ten times the +number, that will change the destiny of England in India. Though we +small fragments of the great machine may fall at our posts, there is +that vitality in the English people that will bound stronger against +misfortunes, and build up the damaged fabric anew." + +So far the letter from which we have quoted.--It was not until the 8th +of June that an English force appeared before the walls of Delhi. For +four weeks the mutineers had been left in undisturbed possession of +the city, a possession which was of incalculable advantage to them by +adding to their moral strength the prestige of a name which has always +been associated with the sceptre of Indian empire. The masters of +Delhi are the masters not only of a city, but of a deeply rooted +tradition of supremacy. The delay had told. Almost every day in the +latter half of May was marked by a new mutiny in different military +stations, widely separated from each other, throughout the +North-Western Provinces and Bengal. The tidings of the possession of +Delhi by the mutineers stimulated the daring madness of regiments that +had been touched by disaffection. Some mutinied from mere panic, some +from bitterness of hate. Some fled away quietly with their arms, to +join the force that had now swelled to an army in the city of the +Great Moghul; some repeated the atrocities of Meerut, and set up a +separate standard of revolt, to which all the disaffected and all the +worst characters of the district flocked, to gratify their lust for +revenge of real or fancied wrongs, or their baser passions for plunder +and unmeaning cruelty. The malignity of a subtle, acute, +semi-civilized race, unrestrained by law or by moral feeling, broke +out in its most frightful forms. Cowardice possessed of strength never +wreaked more horrible sufferings upon its victims, and the bloody and +barbarous annals of Indian history show no more bloody and barbarous +page. + +The course of English life in those stations where the worst cruelties +and the bitterest sufferings have been inflicted on the unhappy +Europeans has been for a long time so peaceful and undisturbed, it has +gone on for the most part in such pleasant and easy quiet and with +such absolute security, that the agony of sudden alarm and unwarned +violence has added its bitterness to the overwhelming horror. It is +not as in border settlements, where the inhabitants choose their lot +knowing that they are exposed to the incursions of savage +enemies,--but it is as if on a night in one of the most peaceful of +long-settled towns, troops of men, with a sort of civilization that +renders their attack worse than that of savages, should be let loose +to work their worst will of lust and cruelty. The details are too +recent, too horrible, and as yet too broken and irregular, to be +recounted here. + +Although, at the first sally of the mutineers from Delhi against the +force that had at length arrived, a considerable advantage was gained +by the Europeans, this advantage was followed up by no decisive +blow. The number of troops was too small to attempt an assault against +an army of thirty thousand men, each man of whom was a trained +soldier. The English force was unprovided with any sufficient siege +battery. It could do little more than encamp, throw up intrenchments +for its own defence, and wait for attacks to be made upon it,--attacks +which it usually repulsed with great loss to the attackers. The month +of June is the hottest month of the year at Delhi; the average height +of the thermometer being 92 deg.. There, in such weather, the force must +sit still, watch the pouring in of reinforcements and supplies to the +city which it was too small to invest, and hear from day to day fresh +tidings of disaster and revolt on every hand,--tidings of evil which +there could scarcely be any hope of checking, until this central point +of the mutiny had fallen before the British arms. A position more +dispiriting can scarcely be imagined; and to all these causes for +despondency were added the incompetency and fatuity of the Indian +government, and the procrastination of the home government in the +forwarding of the necessary reinforcements. + +Delhi has been often besieged, but seldom has a siege been laid to it +that at first sight would have appeared more desperate than this. The +city is strong in its artificial defences, and Nature lends her force +to the native troops within the walls. If they could hold out through +the summer, September was likely to be as great a general for them as +the famous two upon whom the Czar relied in the Crimea. A wall of gray +stone, strengthened by the modern science of English engineers, and +nearly seven miles in circumference, surrounds the city upon three +sides, while the fourth is defended by a wide offset of the Jumna, and +by a portion of the high, embattled, red stone wall of the palace, +which almost equals the city wall in strength, and is itself more than +a mile in length. Few cities in the East present a more striking +aspect from without. Over the battlements of the walls rise the +slender minarets and shining domes of the mosques, the pavilions and +the towers of the gates, the balustraded roofs of the higher and finer +houses, the light foliage of acacias, and the dark crests of tall +date-palms. It is a new city, only two hundred and twenty-six years +old. Shah Jehan, its founder, was fond of splendor in building, was +lavish of expense, and was eager to make his city imperial in +appearance as in name. The great mosque that he built here is the +noblest and most beautiful in all India. His palace might be set in +comparison with that of Aladdin; it was the fulfilment of an Oriental +voluptuary's dream. All that Eastern taste could devise of beauty, +that Eastern lavishness could fancy of adornment, or voluptuousness +demand of luxury, was brought together and displayed here. But its day +of splendor was not long; and now, instead of furnishing a home to a +court, which, if wicked, was at least magnificent, it is the abode of +demoralized pensioners, who, having lost the reality, retain the pride +and the vices of power. For years it has been utterly given over to +dirt and to decay. Its beautiful halls and chambers, rich with marbles +and mosaics, its "Pearl" _musjid_, its delicious gardens, its +shady summer-houses, its fountains, and all its walks and +pleasure-grounds, are neglected, abused, and occupied by the filthy +retainers of an effete court. + +The city stands partly on the sandy border of the river, partly on a +low range of rocks. With its suburbs it may contain about one hundred +and sixty thousand inhabitants, a little more than half of whom are +Hindoos, and the remainder nominally Mahometans, in creed. Around the +wall stretches a wide, barren, irregular plain, covered, mile after +mile, with the ruins of earlier Delhis, and the tombs of the great or +the rich men of the Mahometan dynasty. There is no other such +monumental plain as this in the world. It is as full of traditions and +historic memories as of ruins; and in this respect, as in many others, +Delhi bears a striking resemblance to Rome,--for the Roman Campagna is +the only field which in its crowd of memories may be compared with it, +and the imperial city of India holds in the Mahometan mind much the +same place that Rome occupies in that of the Christian. + +Before these pages are printed it is not unlikely that the news of the +fall of Delhi will have reached us. The troops of the besiegers +amounted in the middle of August to about five thousand five hundred +men. Other troops near them, and reinforcements on the way, may by the +end of the month have increased their force to ten thousand. At the +last accounts a siege train was expected to arrive on the 3d of +September, and an assault might be made very shortly afterwards. But +September is an unhealthy month, and there may be delays. _Dehli +door ust_,--"Delhi is far off,"--is a favorite Indian proverb. But +the chances are in favor of its being now in British hands.[1] +With its fall the war will be virtually ended,--for the reconquest of +the disturbed territories will be a matter of little difficulty, when +undertaken with the aid of the twenty thousand English troops who will +arrive in India before the end of the year. + +The settlement of the country, after these long disturbances, cannot +be expected to take place at once; civil government has been too much +interrupted to resume immediately its ordinary operation. But as this +great revolt has had in very small degree the character of a popular +rising, and as the vast mass of natives are in general not +discontented with the English rule, order will be reestablished with +comparative rapidity, and the course of life will before many months +resume much of its accustomed aspect. + +The struggle of the trained and ambitious classes against the English +power will but have served to confirm it. The revolt overcome, the +last great danger menacing English security in India will have +disappeared. England will have learnt much from the trials she has had +to pass through, and that essential changes will take place within a +few years in the constitution of the Indian government there can be no +doubt. But it is to be remembered that for the past thirty years, +English rule in India has been, with all its defects, an enlightened +and beneficent rule. The crimes with which it has been charged, the +crimes of which it has been guilty, are small in amount, compared with +the good it has effected. Moreover, they are not the result of +inherent vices in the system of government, so much as of the +character of exceptional individuals employed to carry out that +system, and of the native character itself.--But on these points we do +not propose now to enter. + +If the close of this revolt be not stained with retaliating cruelties, +if English soldiers remember mercy, then the whole history of this +time will be a proud addition to the annals of England. For though it +will display the incompetency and the folly of her governments, it +will show how these were remedied by the energy and spirit of +individuals; it will tell of the daring and gallantry of her men, of +their patient endurance, of their undaunted courage, and it will tell, +too, with a voice full of tears, of the sorrows, and of the brave and +tender hearts, and of the unshaken religious faith supporting them to +the end, of the women who died in the hands of their enemies. The +names of Havelock and Lawrence will be reckoned in the list of +England's worthies, and the story of the garrison of Cawnpore will be +treasured up forever among England's saddest and most touching +memories. + + +[Footnote 1: It is earnestly to be hoped that the officers in command +of the British force will not yield to the savage suggestions and +incitements of the English press, with regard to the fate of +Delhi. The tone of feeling which has been shown in many quarters in +England has been utterly disgraceful. Indiscriminate cruelty and +brutality are no fitting vengeance for the Hindoo and Mussulman +barbarities. The sack of Delhi and the massacre of its people would +bring the English conquerors down to the level of the conquered. Great +sins cry out for great punishments,--but let the punishment fall on +the guilty, and not involve the innocent. The strength of English rule +in India must be in her justice, in her severity,--but not in the +force and irresistible violence of her passions. To destroy the city +would be to destroy one of the great ornaments of her empire,--to +murder the people would be to commence the new period of her rule with +a revolting crime. + +"For five days," says the historian, "Tamerlane remained a tranquil +spectator of the sack and conflagration of Delhi and the massacre of +its inhabitants, while he was celebrating a feast in honor of his +victory. When the troops were wearied with slaughter, and nothing was +left to plunder, he gave orders for the prosecution of his march, and +on the day of his departure he offered up to the Divine Majesty the +sincere and humble tribute of grateful praise." + +"It is said that Nadir Shah, during the massacre that he had +commanded, sat in gloomy silence in the little mosque of +Rokn-u-doulah, which stands at the present day in the Great +Bazaar. Here the Emperor and his nobles at length took courage to +present themselves. They stood before him with downcast eyes, until +Nadir commanded them to speak, when the Emperor burst into tears and +entreated Nadir to spare his subjects."] + + + + +SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. + + + Of all the rides since the birth of time, + Told in story or sung in rhyme,-- + On Apuleius's Golden Ass, + Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass, + Witch astride of a human hack, + Islam's prophet on Al-Borak,-- + The strangest ride that ever was sped + Was Ireson's out from Marblehead! + Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart + By the women of Marblehead! + + Body of turkey, head of owl, + Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl, + Feathered and ruffled in every part, + Captain Ireson stood in the cart. + Scores of women, old and young, + Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, + Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane, + Shouting and singing the shrill refrain: + "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, + Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt + By the women o' Morble'ead!" + + Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, + Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, + Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase + Bacchus round some antique vase, + Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, + Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, + With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, + Over and over the Maenads sang: + "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, + Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt + By the women o' Morble'ead!" + + Small pity for him!--He sailed away + From a leaking ship in Chaleur Bay,-- + Sailed away from a sinking wreck, + With his own town's-people on her deck! + "Lay by! lay by!" they called to him. + Back he answered, "Sink or swim! + Brag of your catch of fish again!" + And off he sailed through the fog and rain! + Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart + By the women of Marblehead! + + Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur + That wreck shall lie forevermore. + Mother and sister, wife and maid, + Looked from the rocks of Marblehead + Over the moaning and rainy sea, + Looked for the coming that might not be! + What did the winds and the sea-birds say + Of the cruel captain who sailed away?-- + Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart + By the women of Marblehead! + + Through the street, on either side, + Up flew windows, doors swung wide; + Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray, + Treble lent the fish-horn's bray. + Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound, + Hulks of old sailors run aground, + Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane, + And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain: + "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, + Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt + By the women o' Morble'ead!" + + Sweetly along the Salem road + Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. + Little the wicked skipper knew + Of the fields so green and the sky so blue. + Riding there in his sorry trim, + Like an Indian idol glum and grim, + Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear + Of voices shouting far and near: + "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, + Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt + By the women o' Morble'ead!" + + "Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried,-- + "What to me is this noisy ride? + What is the shame that clothes the skin, + To the nameless horror that lives within? + Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck + And hear a cry from a reeling deck! + Hate me and curse me,--I only dread + The hand of God and the face of the dead!" + Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart + By the women of Marblehead! + + Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea + Said, "God has touched him!--why should we?" + Said an old wife mourning her only son, + "Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!" + So with soft relentings and rude excuse, + Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, + And gave him cloak to hide him in, + And left him alone with his shame and sin. + Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, + Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart + By the women of Marblehead! + + + + +SOLITUDE AND SOCIETY. + + +I fell in with a humorist, on my travels, who had in his chamber a +cast of the Rondanini Medusa, and who assured me that the name which +that fine work of art bore in the catalogues was a misnomer, as he was +convinced that the sculptor who carved it intended it for Memory, the +mother of the Muses. In the conversation that followed, my new friend +made some extraordinary confessions. "Do you not see," he said, "the +penalty of learning, and that each of these scholars whom you have met +at S., though he were to be the last man, would, like the executioner +in Hood's poem, guillotine the last but one?" He added many lively +remarks, but his evident earnestness engaged my attention, and, in the +weeks that followed, we became better acquainted. He had great +abilities, a genial temper, and no vices; but he had one defect,--he +could not speak in the tone of the people. There was some paralysis on +his will, that, when he met men on common terms, he spoke weakly, and +from the point, like a flighty girl. His consciousness of the fault +made it worse. He envied every daysman and drover in the tavern their +manly speech. He coveted Mirabeau's _don terrible de la +familiarite_, believing that he whose sympathy goes lowest is the +man from whom kings have the most to fear. For himself, he declared +that he could not get enough alone to write a letter to a friend. He +left the city; he hid himself in pastures. The solitary river was not +solitary enough; the sun and moon put him out. When he bought a house, +the first thing he did was to plant trees. He could not enough conceal +himself. Set a hedge here; set oaks there,--trees behind trees; above +all, set evergreens, for they will keep a secret all the year +round. The most agreeable compliment you could pay him was, to say +that you had not observed him in a house or a street where you had met +him. Whilst he suffered at being seen where he was, he consoled +himself with the delicious thought of the inconceivable number of +places where he was not. All he wished of his tailor was, to provide +that sober mean of color and cut which would never detain the eye for +a moment. He went to Vienna, to Smyrna, to London. In all the variety +of costumes, a carnival, a kaleidoscope of clothes, to his horror he +could never discover a man in the street who wore anything like his +own dress. He would have given his soul for the ring of Gyges. His +dismay at his visibility had blunted the fears of mortality. "Do you +think," he said, "I am in such great terror of being shot,--I, who am +only waiting to shuffle off my corporeal jacket, to slip away into the +back stars, and put diameters of the solar system and sidereal orbits +between me and all souls,--there to wear out ages in solitude, and +forget memory itself, if it be possible?" He had a remorse running to +despair of his social _gaucheries_, and walked miles and miles to +get the twitchings out of his face, the starts and shrugs out of his +arms and shoulders. "God may forgive sins," he said, "but awkwardness +has no forgiveness in heaven or earth." He admired in Newton, not so +much his theory of the moon, as his letter to Collins, in which he +forbade him to insert his name with the solution of the problem in the +"Philosophical Transactions": "It would perhaps increase my +acquaintance, the thing which I chiefly study to decline." + +These conversations led me somewhat later to the knowledge of similar +cases, existing elsewhere, and to the discovery that they are not of +very infrequent occurrence. Few substances are found pure in +nature. Those constitutions which can bear in open day the rough +dealing of the world must be of that mean and average structure,--such +as iron and salt, atmospheric air, and water. But there are metals, +like potassium and sodium, which, to be kept pure, must be kept under +naphtha. Such are the talents determined on some specialty, which a +culminating civilization fosters in the heart of great cities and in +royal chambers. Nature protects her own work. To the culture of the +world, an Archimedes, a Newton is indispensable; so she guards them by +a certain aridity. If these had been good fellows, fond of dancing, +Port, and clubs, we should have had no "Theory of the Sphere," and no +"Principia." They had that necessity of isolation which genius +feels. Each must stand on his glass tripod, if he would keep his +electricity. Even Swedenborg, whose theory of the universe is based on +affection, and who reprobates to weariness the danger and vice of pure +intellect, is constrained to make an extraordinary exception: "There +are also angels who do not live consociated, but separate, house and +house; these dwell in the midst of heaven, because they are the best +of angels." + +We have known many fine geniuses have that imperfection that they +cannot do anything useful, not so much as write one clean +sentence. 'Tis worse, and tragic, that no man is fit for society who +has fine traits. At a distance, he is admired; but bring him hand to +hand, he is a cripple. One protects himself by solitude, and one by +courtesy, and one by an acid, worldly manner,--each concealing how he +can the thinness of his skin and his incapacity for strict +association. But there is no remedy that can reach the heart of the +disease, but either habits of self-reliance that should go in practice +to making the man independent of the human race, or else a religion of +love. Now he hardly seems entitled to marry; for how can he protect a +woman, who cannot protect himself? + +We pray to be conventional. But the wary Heaven takes care you shall +not be, if there is anything good in you. Dante was very bad company, +and was never invited to dinner. Michel Angelo had a sad, sour time of +it. The ministers of beauty are rarely beautiful in coaches and +saloons. Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself. Yet +each of these potentates saw well the reason of his exclusion. +Solitary was he? Why, yes; but his society was limited only +by the amount of brain Nature appropriated in that age to carry on the +government of the world. "If I stay," said Dante, when there was +question of going to Rome, "who will go? and if I go, who will stay?" + +But the necessity of solitude is deeper than we have said, and is +organic. I have seen many a philosopher whose world is large enough +for only one person. He affects to be a good companion; but we are +still surprising his secret, that he means and needs to impose his +system on all the rest. The determination of each is _from_ all +the others, like that of each tree up into free space. 'Tis no wonder, +when each has his whole head, our societies should be so small. Like +President Tyler, our party falls from us every day, and we must ride +in a sulky at last. Dear heart! take it sadly home to thee, there is +no cooeperation. We begin with friendships, and all our youth is a +reconnoitring and recruiting of the holy fraternity that shall combine +for the salvation of men. But so the remoter stars seem a nebula of +united light, yet there is no group which a telescope will not +resolve, and the dearest friends are separated by impassable +gulfs. The cooeperation is involuntary, and is put upon us by the +Genius of Life, who reserves this as a part of his prerogative. 'Tis +fine for us to talk: we sit and muse, and are serene, and complete; +but the moment we meet with anybody, each becomes a fraction. + +Though the stuff of tragedy and of romances is in a moral union of two +superior persons, whose confidence in each other for long years, out +of sight, and in sight, and against all appearances, is at last +justified by victorious proof of probity to gods and men, causing +joyful emotions, tears, and glory,--though there be for heroes this +_moral union_, yet they, too, are as far off as ever from an +intellectual union, and the moral union is for comparatively low and +external purposes, like the cooeperation of a ship's company, or of a +fire-club. But how insular and pathetically solitary are all the +people we know! Nor dare they tell what they think of each other, when +they meet in the street. We have a fine right, to be sure, to taunt +men of the world with superficial and treacherous courtesies! + +Such is the tragic necessity which strict science finds underneath our +domestic and neighborly life, irresistibly driving each adult soul as +with whips into the desert, and making our warm covenants sentimental +and momentary. We must infer that the ends of thought were +peremptory, if they were to be secured at such ruinous cost. They are +deeper than can be told, and belong to the immensities and +eternities. They reach down to that depth where society itself +originates and disappears,--where the question is, Which is first, man +or men?--where the individual is lost in his source. + +But this banishment to the rocks and echoes no metaphysics can make +right or tolerable. This result is so against nature, such a +half-view, that it must be corrected by a common sense and +experience. "A man is born by the side of his father, and there he +remains." A man must be clothed with society, or we shall feel a +certain bareness and poverty, as of a displaced and unfurnished +member. He is to be dressed in arts and institutions, as well as +body-garments. Now and then a man exquisitely made can live alone, +and must but coop up most men, and you undo them. "The king lived and +ate in his hall with men, and understood men," said Selden. When a +young barrister said to the late Mr. Mason, "I keep my chamber to read +law." "Read law!" replied the veteran, "'tis in the courtroom you +must read law." Nor is the rule otherwise for literature. If you would +learn to write, 'tis in the street you must learn it. Both for the +vehicle and for the aims of fine arts, you must frequent the public +square. The people, and not the college, is the writer's home. A +scholar is a candle, which the love and desire of all men will +light. Never his lands or his rents, but the power to charm the +disguised soul that sits veiled under this bearded and that rosy +visage is his rent and ration. His products are as needful as those of +the baker or the weaver. Society cannot do without cultivated men. As +soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher wants become +imperative. + +'Tis hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our own top; but through +sympathy we are capable of energy and endurance. Concert exasperates +people to a certain fury of performance they can rarely reach +alone. Here is the use of society: it is so easy with the great to be +great! so easy to come up to an existing standard!--as easy as it is +to the lover to swim to his maiden, through waves so grim before. The +benefits of affection are immense; and the one event which never loses +its romance is the alighting of superior persons at our gate. + +It by no means follows that we are not fit for society, because +_soirees_ are tedious, and because the _soiree_ finds us +tedious. A backwoodsman, who had been sent to the university, told +me, that when he heard the best-bred young men at the law-school talk +together, he reckoned himself a boor; but whenever he caught them +apart, and had one to himself alone, then they were the boors, and he +the better man. And if we recall the rare hours when we encountered +the best persons, we then found ourselves, and then first society +seemed to exist. That was society, though in the transom of a brig, +or on the Florida Keys. + +A cold, sluggish blood thinks it has not facts enough to the purpose, +and must decline its turn in the conversation. But they who speak have +no more,--have less. 'Tis not new facts that avail, but the heat to +dissolve everybody's facts. Heat puts you in right relation with +magazines of facts. The capital defect of cold, arid natures is the +want of animal spirits. They seem a power incredible, as if God +should raise the dead. The recluse witnesses what others perform by +their aid with a kind of fear. It is as much out of his possibility, +as the prowess of Coeur-de-Lion, or an Irishman's day's work on the +railroad. 'Tis said, the present and the future are always +rivals. Animal spirits constitute the power of the present, and their +feats are like the structure of a pyramid. Their result is a lord, a +general, or a boon-companion. Before these, what a base mendicant is +Memory with his leathern badge! But this genial heat is latent in all +constitutions, and is disengaged only by the friction of society. As +Bacon said of manners, "To obtain them, it only needs not to despise +them," so we say of animal spirits, that they are the spontaneous +product of health and of a social habit. "For behavior, men learn it, +as they take diseases, one of another." + +But the people are to be taken in very small doses. If solitude is +proud, so is society vulgar. In society, high advantages are set down +to the individual as disadvantages. We sink as easily as we rise, +through sympathy. So many men whom I know are degraded by their +sympathies, their native aims being high enough, but their relation +all too tender to the gross people about them. Men cannot afford to +live together on their merits, and they adjust themselves by their +demerits,--by their love of gossip, or sheer tolerance and animal +good-nature. They untune and dissipate the brave aspirant. + +The remedy is, to reinforce each of these moods from the +other. Conversation will not corrupt us, if we come to the assembly in +our own garb and speech, and with the energy of health to select what +is ours and reject what is not. Society we must have; but let it be +society, and not exchanging news, or eating from the same dish. Is it +society to sit in one of your chairs? I cannot go to the houses of my +nearest relatives, because I do not wish to be alone. Society exists +by chemical affinity, and not otherwise. + +Put any company of people together with freedom for conversation, and +a rapid self-distribution takes place into sets and pairs. The best +are accused of exclusiveness. It would be more true to say, they +separate as oil from water, as children from old people, without love +or hatred in the matter, each seeking his like; and any interference +with the affinities would produce constraint and suffocation. All +conversation is a magnetic experiment. I know that my friend can talk +eloquently; you know that he cannot articulate a sentence: we have +seen him in different company. Assort your party, or invite none. Put +Stubbs and Byron, Quintilian and Aunt Miriam, into pairs, and you make +them all wretched. 'Tis an extempore Sing-Sing built in a +parlor. Leave them to seek their own mates, and they will be as merry +as sparrows. + +A higher civility will reestablish in our customs a certain reverence +which we have lost. What to do with these brisk young men who break +through all fences, and make themselves at home in every house? I find +out in an instant if my companion does not want me, and ropes cannot +hold me when my welcome is gone. One would think that the affinities +would pronounce themselves with a surer reciprocity. + +Here again, as so often, Nature delights to put us between extreme +antagonisms, and our safety is in the skill with which we keep the +diagonal line. Solitude is impracticable, and society fatal. We must +keep our head in the one, and our hands in the other. The conditions +are met, if we keep our independence, yet do not lose our +sympathy. These wonderful horses need to be driven by fine hands. We +require such a solitude as shall hold us to its revelations when we +are in the street and in palaces; for most men are cowed in society, +and say good things to you in private, but will not stand to them in +public. But let us not be the victims of words. Society and solitude +are deceptive names. It is not the circumstance of seeing more or +fewer people, but the readiness of sympathy, that imports; and a sound +mind will derive its principles from insight, with ever a purer ascent +to the sufficient and absolute right, and will accept society as the +natural element in which they are to be applied. + + + + +AKIN BY MARRIAGE. + +[Continued.] + + +CHAPTER III + +When little Helen was not far from nine years old, her mother, (as she +had learned to call Mrs. Bugbee,) whose health for a long time had +been failing, fell sick and took to her bed. Sometimes, for a brief +space, she would seem to mend a little; and a council of doctors, +convened to consider her case,--though each member differed from all +the others touching the nature of her malady,--unanimously declared +she would ultimately recover. But her disease, whatever it was, proved +to be her mortal illness; for the very next night she came suddenly to +her end. Her loss was a heavy one, especially to her own household. +She had always been a quiet person, of rather pensive humor, whose +native diffidence caused her to shrink from observation; and after +Amelia's death she was rarely seen abroad, except at meeting, on +Sundays, or when she went to visit the poor, the sick, or the +grief-stricken. It was at home that her worth was most apparent; +for plain domestic virtues, such as hers, seldom gain wide +distinction. Her children's sorrow was deep and lasting, and the badge +of mourning which her husband wore for many months after her death was +a truthful symbol of unaffected grief. From the beginning, he was +warmly attached to his wife, whose affection for him was very great +indeed. It would have been strange if he had been unhappy, when she, +who made his tastes her study, also made it the business of her life +to please him. Besides, his cheerful temper enabled him to make light +of more grievous misfortunes than the getting of a loving wife and +thrifty helpmeet ten years older than himself. + +When a widower, like the Doctor, is but fifty, with the look of a much +younger man, people are apt to talk about the chances of his marrying +again. Before Mrs. Bugbee had been dead a twelve-month, rumors were as +plenty as blackberries that the Doctor had been seen, late on Sunday +evenings, leaving this house, or that house, the dwelling-place of +some marriageable lady; and if he had finally espoused all whom the +gossips reported he was going to marry, he would have had as many +wives as any Turkish pasha or Mormon elder. It was doubtless true that +he called at certain places more frequently than had been his custom +in Mrs. Bugbee's lifetime. This, he assured Cornelia, to whom the +reports I have mentioned occasioned some uneasiness, was because he +was more often summoned to attend, in a professional way, at those +places, than he had ever been of old; which was true enough, I dare +say, for more spinsters and widows were taken ailing about this time +than had ever been ill at once before. Be that as it may, certain +arrangements which the Doctor presently made in his domestic affairs +did not seem to foretoken an immediate change of condition. + +Miss Statira Blake, whom the Doctor engaged as housekeeper, was the +youngest daughter of an honest shoemaker, who formerly flourished at +Belfield Green, where he was noted for industry, a fondness for +reading, a tenacious memory, a ready wit, and a fluent tongue. In +politics he was a radical, and in religion a schismatic. The little +knot of Presbyterian Federalist magnates, who used to assemble at the +tavern to discuss affairs of church and state over mugs of flip and +tumblers of sling, regarded him with feelings of terror and +aversion. The doughty little cobbler made nothing of attacking them +single-handed, and putting them utterly to rout; for he was a dabster +at debate, and entertained as strong a liking for polemics as for +books. Nay, he was a thorn in the side of the parson himself, for +whom he used to lie in wait with knotty questions,--snares set to +entrap the worthy divine, in the hope of beguiling him into a +controversy respecting some abstruse point of doctrine, in which the +cobbler, who had every verse of the Bible at his tongue's end, was not +apt to come off second best. + +But one day, Tommy Blake, being at a raising where plenty of liquor +was furnished, (as the fashion used to be,) slipped and fell from a +high beam, and was carried home groaning with a skinful of broken +bones. He died the next day, poor man, and his bedridden widow +survived the shock of witnessing his dreadful agonies and death but a +very little while. Her daughters, two young girls, were left destitute +and friendless. But Major Bugbee, to whom the cobbler's wife had been +remotely akin, and who was at that time first selectman of the town, +took the orphans with him to his house, where they tarried till he +found good places for them. Roxana, the elder girl, went to live with +a reputable farmer's wife, whose only son she afterwards +married. Statira remained under the shelter of the good Major's +hospitable roof much longer than her sister did, and would have been +welcome to stay, but she was not one of those who like to eat the +bread of dependence. With the approval of the selectmen, she bound +herself an indentured apprentice to Billy Tuthill, the little lame +tailor, for whom she worked faithfully four years, until she had +served out her time and was mistress of her trade, even to the +recondite mystery of cutting a double-breasted swallow-tail coat by +rule and measure. Then, at eighteen, she set up business for herself, +going from house to house as her customers required, working by the +day. Her services were speedily in great demand, and she was never out +of employment. Many a worthy citizen of Belfield well remembers his +first jacket-and-trowsers, the handiwork of Tira Blake. The Sunday +breeches of half the farmers who came to meeting used to be the +product of her skilful labor. Thus for many years (refusing meanwhile +several good offers of marriage) she continued to ply her needle and +shears, working steadily and cheerfully in her vocation, earning good +wages and spending but little, until the thrifty sempstress was +counted well to do, and held in esteem according. Sometimes, when she +got weary, and thought a change of labor would do her good, she would +engage with some lucky dame to help do housework for a month or +two. She was a famous hand at pickling, preserving, and making all +manner of toothsome knick-knacks and dainties. Nor was she deficient +in the pleasure walks of the culinary art. Betsey Pratt, the +tavernkeeper's wife, a special crony of Statira's, used always to send +for her whenever she was in straits, or when, on some grand occasion, +a dinner or supper was to be prepared and served up in more than +ordinary style. So learned was she in all the devices of the pantry +and kitchen, that many a young woman in the parish would have given +half her setting-out, and her whole store of printed cookery-books, to +know by heart Tira Blake's unwritten lore of rules and recipes. So, +wherever she went, she was welcome, albeit not a few stood in fear of +her; for though, when well treated, she was as good-humored as a +kitten, when provoked, especially by a slight or affront, her wrath +was dangerous. Her tongue was sharper than her needle, and her +pickles were not more piquant than her sarcastic wit. Tira, the older +people used to remark, was Tommy Blake's own daughter; and truly, she +did inherit many of her father's qualities, both good and bad, and not +a few of his crotchets and opinions. In fine, she was a shrewd, +sensible, Yankee old maid, who, as she herself was wont to say, was as +well able to take care of 'number one' as e'er a man in town. + +Statira never forgot Major Bugbee's kindness to her in her lonely +orphanhood. She preserved for him and for every member of his family +a grateful affection; but her special favorite was James, the Doctor's +brother, who was a little younger than she, and who repaid this +partiality with hearty good-will and esteem. When he grew up and +married, his house became one of Statira's homes; the other being at +her sister's house, which was too remote from Belfield Green to be at +all times convenient. So she had rooms, which she called alike her +own, at both these places, in each of which she kept a part of her +wardrobe and a portion of her other goods and chattels. The children +of both families called her Aunt Statira, but, if the truth were +known, she loved little Frank Bugbee, James's only son, better than +she did the whole brood of her sister Roxy's flaxen-pated +offspring. Nay, she loved him better than all the world besides. +Statira used to call James her right-hand man, asking for his advice +in every matter of importance, and usually acting in accordance with +it. So, when Doctor Bugbee invited her to take charge of his household +affairs, Cornelia joining in the request with earnest importunity, she +did not at once return a favorable reply, though strongly inclined +thereto, but waited until she had consulted James and his wife, who +advised her to accept the proffered trust, giving many sound and +excellent reasons why she ought to do so. + +Accordingly, a few months after Mrs. Bugbee's death, Statira began to +sway the sceptre where she had once found refuge from the poor-house; +for though Cornelia remained the titular mistress of the mansion, +Statira was the actual ruler, invested with all the real power. +Cornelia gladly resigned into her more experienced hands the reins of +government, and betook herself to occupations more congenial to her +tastes than housekeeping. Whenever, afterwards, she made a languid +offer to perform some light domestic duty, Statira was accustomed to +reply in such wise that the most perfect concord was maintained +between them. "No, my dear," the latter would say, "do you just leave +these things to me. If there a'n't help enough in the house to do the +work, your pa'll get 'em; and as for overseein', one's better than +two." But sometimes, when little Helen proffered her assistance, Tira +let the child try her hand, taking great pains to instruct her in +housewifery, warmly praising her successful essays, and finding +excuses for every failure. It was not long before a cordial friendship +subsisted between the teacher and her pupil. + +The Doctor, of course, experienced great contentment at beholding his +children made happy, his house well kept and ordered, his table spread +with plentiful supplies of savory victuals, and all his domestic +concerns managed with sagacity and prudence, by one upon whose +goodwill and ability to promote his welfare he could rely with +implicit confidence. Even the servants shared in the general +satisfaction; for though, under Tira's vigorous rule, no task or duty +could be safely shunned or slighted, she proved a kind and even an +indulgent mistress to those who showed themselves worthy of her +favor. Old Violet, the mother of Dinah, the little black girl +elsewhere mentioned, yielded at once to Tira Blake the same respectful +obedience that she and her ancestors, for more than a century in due +succession, had been wont to render only to dames of the ancient +Bugbee line. Dinah herself, now a well-grown damsel, black, but +comely, who, during Cornelia's maladministration, had been suffered to +follow too much the devices and desires of her own heart, setting at +naught alike the entreaties and reproofs of her mistress and her +mother's angry scoldings,--even Dinah submitted without a murmur to +Tira's wholesome authority, and abandoned all her evil courses. +Bildad Royce, a crotchety hired-man, whom the Doctor kept to do the +chores and till the garden, albeit at first inclined to be captious, +accorded to the new housekeeper the meed of his approbation. + +"I like her well enough to hope she'll stay, mum," quoth he, in reply +to an inquisitive neighbor. "And for my part, Miss Prouty," he added, +nodding and winking at his questioner, "I'd like to see it fixed so +she'd alwus stay; and if the Doctor _doos_ think he can't do no +better'n to have her bimeby, when the time comes, who's a right to say +a word agin it?" + +"Goodness me!" exclaimed the unwary Mrs. Prouty,--"do you mean to say +you think he's got any idea of such a thing, Bildad?" + +"Yes, I _don't_ mean to say I think he's got any idee of sich a thing, +Bildad," replied Bildad himself, who took great delight in mystifying +people, and who sometimes, in order to express the most unqualified +negation, was accustomed to employ this apparently ambiguous form of +speech. "I said for _my_ part, Miss Prouty,--for _my_ part. As for the +Doctor, he'll prob'bly have his own notions, and foller 'em." + +Besides these already mentioned, there was another person, who sat so +often at the Doctor's board and spent so many hours beneath his roof, +that, for the nonce, I shall reckon her among his family. Indeed, +Laura Stebbins was almost as much at home in the Bugbee mansion as at +the parsonage, and she used to regard the Doctor and his wife with an +affection quite filial in kind and very ardent in degree. For this she +had abundant reason, the good couple always treating her with the +utmost kindness, frequently making her presents of clothes and things +which she needed, besides gifts of less use and value. These tokens of +her friends' good-will she used to receive with many sprightly +demonstrations of thankfulness; sometimes, in her transports of +gratitude, distributing between the Doctor and his wife a number of +delicious kisses, and telling the latter that her husband was the best +and most generous of men. After Mrs. Bugbee's death, the Doctor's +manner, as was to be expected, became more grave and sober, and he +very wisely thought proper to treat Laura with a kindness less +familiar than before, which perceiving with the quickness of her sex, +she also practised a like reserve. But notwithstanding this prudent +change in his demeanor, his good-will for Laura was in no wise +abated. At all events, the friendship between Cornelia and Laura +suffered no decay or diminution. Indeed, it increased in fervency and +strength. For Laura, having finished her course of study at the +Belfield Academy, had now more time to devote to Cornelia than when +she had had lessons to get and recitations to attend. The parsonage +stood next to the Bugbee mansion, and in the paling between the two +gardens there was a wicket, through which Cornelia, Laura, and Helen +used to run to and fro a dozen times a day. The females of the +Doctor's family made nothing of scudding, bareheaded, across to the +parsonage by this convenient back-way, and bolting into the kitchen +without so much as knocking at the door; and Laura's habits at the +Bugbee mansion were still more familiar. Mrs. Jaynes, though not the +most affable of womankind, gave this close intimacy much favor and +encouragement; for she bore in mind that Cornelia's father was the +richest and most influential member of her husband's church and +parish. + +At first, Laura was a little shy of the plain-spoken old maid, for +whose person, manners, and opinions she had often heard Mrs. Jaynes +express, in private, a most bitter dislike. But Statira had been +regnant in the Bugbee mansion less than a week, when Laura began to +make timid advances towards a mutual good understanding, of which for +a while Statira affected to take no heed; for having formed a +resolution to maintain a strict reserve towards every inmate of the +parsonage, she was not disposed to break it so soon, even in favor of +Laura, whose winsome overtures she found it difficult to resist. + +"If it wa'n't for her bein' Miss Jaynes's sister," said she, one day, +to Cornelia, who had been praising her friend,--"if it wa'n't for that +one thing, I should like her remarkable well,--a good deal more'n +common." + +"Pray, what have you got such a spite against the Jayneses for?" asked +Cornelia. + +"What do you mean by askin' such a question as that, Cornele?" said +Tira, in a tone of stern reproof. "Who's got a spite against 'em? Not +I, by a good deal! As for the parson himself, he's a well-meanin' man, +and does as near right as he knows how. If you could say as much as +that for everybody, there wouldn't be any need of parsons any more." + +"But you don't like Mrs. Jaynes," persisted Cornelia. + +"I ha'n't got a spite against her, Cornele,--though, I confess, I +don't love the woman," replied Statira. "But I always treat her well; +though, to be sure, I don't curchy so low and keep smilin' so much as +most folks do, when they meet a minister's wife and have talk with +her. Even when she comes here a-borrowin' things she knows will be +giv' to her when she asks for 'em, which makes it so near to beggin' +that she ought to be ashamed on't, which I only give to her because +it's your father's wish for me to do so, and the things are his'n; but +I always treat her well, Cornele." + +"But why don't you like her, Tira?" asked Helen. + +"My dear, I'll tell you," said Statira; "for I don't want you to think +I'm set against any person unreasonable and without cause. You see +Miss Jaynes is a nateral-born beggar. I don't say it with any +ill-will, but it's a fact. She takes to beggin' as naterally as a +goslin' takes to a puddle; and when she first come to town she +commenced a-beggin', and has kep' it up ever since. She used to tackle +me the same as she does everybody else, askin' me to give somethin' to +this, and to that, and to t'other pet humbug of her'n, but I never +would do it; and when she found she could'nt worry me into it, like +the rest of 'em, it set her very bitter against me; and I heard of her +tellin' I'd treated her with rudeness, which I'd always treated her +civilly, only when I said 'No,' she found coaxin' and palaverin' +wouldn't stir me. So it went on for a year or two, till, one fall, I +was stayin' here to your ma's,--Cornele, I guess you remember the +time,--helpin' of her make up her quinces and apples. We was jest in +the midst of bilin' cider, with one biler on the stove and the biggest +brass kittle full in the fireplace, when in comes boltin' Miss Jaynes, +dressed up as fine as a fiddle. She set right down in the kitchen, and +your ma rolled her sleeves down and took off her apurn, lookin' kind +o' het and worried. After a few words, Miss Jaynes took a paper out +of her pocket, and says she to your ma, 'Miss Bugbee,' says she, 'I'm +a just startin' forth on the Lord's business, and I come to you as the +helpmate and pardner of one of his richest stewards in this +vineyard.'--'What is it now?' says your ma, lookin' out of one eye at +the brass kittle, and speakin' more impatient than I ever heard her +speak to a minister's wife before. Well, I can't spend time to tell +all that Miss Jaynes said in answer, but it seemed some of the big +folks in New York had started a new society, and its object was to +provide, as near as ever I could find out, such kind of necessary +notions for indigent young men studyin' to be ministers as they +couldn't well afford to buy for themselves,--such as steel-bowed specs +for the near-sighted ones, and white cravats, black silk gloves, and +linen-cambric handkerchiefs for 'em all,--in order, as Miss Jaynes +said, these young fellers might keep up a respectable appearance, and +not give a chance for the world's people to get a contemptible idee of +the ministry, on account of the shabby looks of the young men that had +laid out to foller that holy callin'. She said it was a cause that +ought to lay near the heart of every evangelical Christian man, and +especially the women. 'We mothers in Israel,' says Miss Jaynes, 'ought +to feel for these young Davids that have gone forth to give battle to +the Goliaths of sin that are a-stalkin' and struttin' round all over +the land.' She said the society was goin' to be a great institution, +with an office to New York, with an executive committee and three +secretaries in attendance there, and was a-goin' to employ a great +number of clergymen, out of a parish, to travel as agents collecting +funds; 'but,' says she, 'I've a better tack for collectin' than most +people, and I've concluded to canvass this town myself for donations +to this noble and worthy cause; and I've come to you, Miss Bugbee,' +says she, 'to lead off with your accustomed liberality.'--Well, what +does your ma do, but go into her room, to her draw, I suppose, and +fetch out a five-dollar bill, and give it to Miss Jaynes, which I'd +'a' had to work a week, stitchin' from mornin' to night, to have earnt +that five-dollar bill; though, of course, your ma had a right to burn +it up, if she'd 'a' been a mind to; only it made me ache to see it go +so, when there was thousands of poor starvin' ragged orphans needin' +it so bad. All to once Miss Jaynes wheeled and spoke to me: 'Well, +Miss Tira,' says she, 'can I have a dollar from you?'--'No, ma'am,' +says I.--'I supposed not,' says she; which would have been sassy in +anybody but the parson's wife. But I held my tongue, and out she went, +takin' no more notice of me than she did of Vi'let, nor half so +much,--for I see her kind o' look towards the old woman, as if she was +half a mind to ask her for a fourpence-ha'penny. Well, that was the +last on't for a spell, until after New Year's. I was stayin' then at +your Uncle James's, and one afternoon your ma sent for your Aunt +Eunice and me to come over and take tea. So we went over, and there +was several of the neighbors invited in,--Squire Bramhall's wife, and +them your ma used to go with most, and amongst the rest, of course, +Miss Jaynes. There had just before that been a donation party, New +Year's night, to the parson's, and the Dorcas Society had bought Miss +Jaynes a nice new Brussels carpet for her parlor, all cut and fitted +and made up. In the course of the afternoon Miss Bramhall spoke and +asked if the new carpet was put down, and if it fitted well. 'Oh, +beautiful!' says she, 'it fits the room like a glove; somebody must +have had pretty good eyes to took the measure so correct, and I not +know anything what was a-comin'; and I hope,' says she, 'ladies, +you'll take an early opportunity to drop in and see it; for there +a'n't one of you but what I'm under obligation to for this touchin' +token of your love,' (that's what she called it,)--'except,' says she, +of a sudden, 'except Miss Blake, whom, really, I hadn't noticed +before!'--I tell ye, Cornele, my ebenezer was up at this; for you +can't tell how mean and spiteful she spoke and looked, pretendin' as +if I was so insignificant a critter she hadn't taken notice of my +bein' there before, which, to be sure, she hadn't even bid me good +afternoon; and for my part, I hadn't put myself forward among such +women as was there, though I didn't feel beneath 'em, nor they didn't +think so, except Miss Jaynes.--Then she went on. 'Miss Blake,' says +she, 'I believe didn't mean no slight for not helpin' towards the +carpet; for she never gives to anything, as I know of,' says +she. 'I've often asked her for various objects, and have been as often +refused. The last time,' says she, 'I did expect to get somethin'; for +I asked only for a dollar to that noble society for providin' young +men, a-strugglin' to prepare themselves for usefulness in the +ministry, with some of the common necessaries of life, but she refused +me. I expect,' says she, a-sneerin' in such a way that I couldn't +stand it any longer, 'I expect Miss Blake is a-savin' all her money to +buy her settin'-out and furniture with; for I suppose,' says she, +lookin' more spiteful than ever, 'I suppose Miss Blake thinks that as +long as there's life there's hope for a husband.'--I happen to know +what all the ladies thought of this speech, for every one of 'em +afterwards told me; but, if you'll believe me, one or two of the +youngest of 'em kind of pretended to smile at the joke on't, when Miss +Jaynes looked round as if she expected 'em to laugh; for she thought, +I suppose, I was really and truly no account, bein' a cobbler's +daughter and a tailoress,--and that when the minister's wife insulted +me, I dars'n't reply, and all hands would stand by and applaud. But +she found out her mistake, and she begun to think so, when she see how +grave your ma and all the rest of the older ladies looked, for they +knew what was comin'. I'd bit my lips up till now, and held in out of +respect to the place and the company, but I thought it was due to +myself to speak at last. Says I, 'Miss Jaynes, I've always treated you +with civility and the respect due to your place; though I own I ha'n't +felt free to give my hard-earned wages away to objects I didn't know +much about, when, with my limited means, I could find places to bestow +what little I could spare without huntin' 'em up. I don't mean to +boast,' says I, 'of my benevolence, and I don't have gilt-framed +diplomas hung up in my room to certify to it, to be seen and read of +all men, as the manner of some is,--but,' says I, 'I _will_ say +that I've given this year twenty-five dollars to the Orphan Asylum, to +Hartford, and I've a five-dollar gold-piece in my puss,' says I, 'that +I can spare, and will give that more to the same charity, for the +privilege of tellin' before these ladies, that heard me accused of +being stingy, why I don't give to you when you ask me to, and +especially why I didn't give the last time you asked me. I would like +to tell why I didn't help sew in the Dorcas Society, to buy the new +carpet,' says I, 'but I don't want to hurt anybody's feelin's that +ha'n't hurt mine, and I'll forbear.'--By this time Miss Jaynes was +pale as a sheet. 'I'm sure,' says she, 'I don't care why you don't +choose to give, and I don't suppose any one else does. It's your own +affair,' says she, 'and you a'n't compelled to give unless you're a +mind to.'--'You should have thought of that before you twitted me,' +says I, 'before all this company.'--'Oh, Tira, never mind,' says Miss +Bramhall, 'let it all go!' But up spoke your Aunt Eunice, and says +she, 'It's no more than fair to hear Tira's reasons, after what's been +said.'" + +"Good!" said little Helen; "hurrah for Aunt Eunice!" + +"And your ma," resumed Statira, "I knew by her looks she was on my +side, though, it bein' her own house, she felt less free to say as +much as your Aunt Eunice did.--'In the first place,' says I, 'if I did +want to keep my money to buy furniture with, in case I should get a +husband, I expect I've a right to, for 'ta'n't likely,' says I, 'I +shall be lucky enough to have my carpets giv' to me. But that wa'n't +the reason I didn't put my name down for a dollar on that +subscription. One reason was, I knew the upshot on't would be that +somebody would be put up to suggestin' that the money should go for a +life-membership in the society for Miss Jaynes,' says I; 'and I don't +like to encourage anybody in goin' round beggin' for money to buy her +own promotion to a high seat in the synagogue.'--You ought to seen +Miss Jaynes's face then! It was redder'n any beet, for I'd hit the +nail square on the head, as it happened, and the ladies could scurcely +keep from smilin'.--'Then,' says I, 'I shouldn't be my father's +daughter, if I'd give a cent for a preacher that isn't smart enough to +get his own livin' and pay for his own clothes and eddication. To ask +poor women to pay for an able-bodied man's expenses,' says I, 'seems +to me like turnin' the thing wrong end foremost. A young feller that +a'n't smart enough to find himself in victuals and clothes won't be of +much help in the Lord's vineyard,' says I." + +"And what did Mrs. Jaynes say?" asked little Helen, when Tira finally +came to a pause. + +"Well, really, my dear," replied Miss Blake, "the woman had nothin' to +say, and so she said it. When I got through my speech I handed the +five-dollar gold-piece to your Aunt Eunice, to send to the Asylum, and +that ended it; for just then Dinah come in and said tea was ready, and +we all went out. It was rather stiff for a while, and after tea we all +went home; and for three long years Miss Jaynes never opened her face +to me, until I came here to live, this time. Now she finds it's for +her interest to make up, and so she tries to be as good as pie. But +though I mean to be civil, I'm no hypocrite, and I can't be all honey +and cream to them I don't like; and besides, it a'n't right to be." + +"But you ought not to blame Laura because her sister affronted you," +said Helen. + +"I know that, my dear," replied Miss Blake; "and if I've hurt the +girl's feelin's, I'm sorry for't. She's tried hard to be friends with +me, but I've pushed her off; for, not bein' much acquainted, I was +jealous, at first, that Miss Jaynes had put her up to it, to try to +get round me in some way." + +"Never!" cried Cornelia,--"my Laura is incapable of such baseness!" + +"Well," said Statira, smiling, "come to know her, I guess you can't +find much guile in her, that's a fact. If I did her wrong by +mistrustin' her without cause, I'll try to make amends. It a'n't in me +to speak ha'sh even to a dog, if the critter looks up into my face and +wags his tail in honest good-nater. And I'll say this for Laura +Stebbins, anyhow, if she _is_ Miss Jaynes's sister,--she's got +the most takin' ways of 'most any grown-up person I ever see." + +The reflection is painful to a generous mind, that, by harboring +unjust suspicions of another, one has been led to repel friendly +advances with indifference or disdain. In order to assuage some +remorseful pangs, Miss Blake began from this time to treat Laura with +distinguished favor. On the other hand, Laura, delighted at this +pleasant change in Miss Blake's demeanor, sought frequent +opportunities of testifying her joy and gratitude. In this manner an +intimacy began, which ripened at length into a firm and enduring +friendship. Laura soon commenced the practice of applying to her more +experienced friend for advice and direction in almost every matter, +great or small, and of confiding to her trust divers secrets and +confessions which she would never have ventured to repose even in +Cornelia's faithful bosom. This prudent habit Tira encouraged. + +"I know, my dear," said she, one day, "I know what it is to be almost +alone in the world, and what a comfort it is to have somebody you can +rely on to tell your griefs and troubles to, and, as it were, get 'em +to help you bear 'em. So, my dear child, whenever you want to get my +notions on any point, just come right straight to me, if you feel like +it. I may not be able to give you the best advice, for I a'n't so +wise as you seem to think I be; however, I ha'n't lived nigh fifty +years in the world for naught, I trust, and without havin' learnt some +things worth knowin'; and though my counsel mayn't be worth much, +still you shall have the best I can give." + +"Oh, thank you, thank you!" cried Laura, with such a burst of +passionate emotion that Miss Blake's eyes watered at the sight of +it. "My dear, dear, dear good friend! you don't know how glad I shall +be, if you will let me do as you say, and tell me what to do, and +scold me, and admonish and warn me! Oh, it will be such happiness to +have somebody to tell all my _real_ secrets and troubles to! I do +so need such a friend sometimes!" + +"Don't I know it, you poor dear?" said Miss Blake, wiping her +eyes. "Ha'n't I been through the same straits myself? None but them +that's been a young gal themselves, an orphan without a mother to +confide in and to warn and guide 'em, knows what it is. But I do, my +dear; and though I shall be a pretty poor substitute for an own +mother, I'll do the best I can." + +"Tira," said Laura, with a tearful and blushing cheek held up to the +good spinster's, "kiss me, won't you?--you never have." + +"My dear," said Miss Blake, preparing to comply with this request by +wiping her lips with her apron, "you see I a'n't one of the kissin' +sort, and I scurcely ever kiss a grown-up person; but here's my hand, +and here's a kiss,"--with an old-fashioned smack that might have been +heard in the next room,--"for a token that you may always come to me +as freely as if I was your mother, relyin' upon my givin' you my +honest advice and opinion concernin' any affair that you may ask for +counsel upon. And furthermore, as girls naterally have a wish that the +very things they need some one to direct 'em the most in sha'n't be +known except by them they tell the secret to, I promise you, my dear, +that I'll be as close as a freemason concernin' any privacy that you +may trust me with, about any offer or courtin' matter of any kind." + +"Oh, I shall never have any such secrets," said Laura, blushing; "my +sister never lets the beaux come to see me, you know. I'm going to be +an old maid." + +"Well, perhaps you will be," said Miss Blake; "only they gen'ally +don't make old maids of such lookin' girls as you be." + +But though Miss Blake took Laura into favor, she was by no means +inclined to do the same by Mrs. Jaynes, who, having found to her cost +that the ill-will of the humble sempstress was not to be lightly +contemned, was now plainly anxious to conciliate her. But Statira was +proof against all the wheedling and flattery of the parson's wife, +behaving towards her always with the same cool civility, and with +great self-control,--using none of the frequent opportunities afforded +her to make some taunt, or fling, or reproachful allusion to +Mrs. Jaynes's former conduct. Once, to be sure, when urged by the +parson's wife and a committee of the Dorcas Society to invite that +respectable body to convene at the Bugbee mansion for labor and +refreshment, Statira returned a reply so plainly spoken that it was +deemed rude and ungracious. + +"Cornelia is mistress of this house, Miss Jaynes," said she, "and if +she belonged to your society, and wanted to have its weekly meetin's +here in turn, I'd do my best to give 'em somethin' good to eat and +drink. But as she has left the matter to me, I say 'No,' without any +misgivin' or doubt; and for fear I may be called stingy or unsociable, +I'll tell the reason why I say so,--and besides, it's due to you to +tell it. There's poor women, even in this town, put to it to get +employment by which they can earn bread for themselves and their +children. They can't go out to do housework, for they've got young +ones too little to carry with 'em, and maybe a whole family of +'em. Takin' in sewin' is their only resource. Well, ma'am, for ladies, +well-to-do and rich, to get together, under pretence of good works and +charity, and take away work from these poor women, by offerin' to do +it cheaper, underbiddin' of 'em for jobs, which I've known the thing +to be done, and then settin' over their ill-gotten tasks, sewin', and +gabblin' slander all the afternoon, to get money to buy velvet +pulpit-cushions or gilt chandeliers with, or to help pay some +missionary's passage to the Tongoo Islands, is, in my opinion, a +humbug, and, what's worse, a downright breach of the Golden Rule. At +any rate, with my notions, it would be hypocrisy in me to join in, and +that's why I don't invite the society here. I don't know but I have +spoke too strong; if so, I'm sorry; but I've had to earn my own +livin', ever since I was a girl, with my needle, and I know how hard +the lot of them is that have to do so too. Besides, I can't help +thinkin', what, perhaps, you never thought of, yourselves, ladies, +that every person, who, while they can just as well turn their hands +to other business, yet, for their own whim, or pleasure, or +convenience, or profit, chooses to do work, of which there a'n't +enough now in the world to keep in employment them that must get such +work to do, or else beg, or sin, or starve,--when I think, I say, that +every such person helps some poor cretur into the grave, or the jail, +or a place worse than both, I feel that strong talk isn't out of +place; and I've known this very Dorcas Society to send to Hartford and +get shirts to make, under price, and spend their blood-money +afterwards to buy a new carpet for the minister's parlor. That was a +fact, Miss Jaynes, though perhaps it wa'n't polite in me to speak +on't; and so for fear of worse, I'll say no more." + +When this speech of his housekeeper came to the Doctor's ears, he +expressed so warm an approval of its sentiments, that several who +heard him began to be confirmed in suspicions they had previously +entertained, the nature of which may be inferred from a remark which +Mrs. Prouty confided to the ear of a trusty friend and crony. "Now do +you mind what I say, Miss Baker," said she, shaking her snuffy +forefinger in Mrs. Baker's face; "Doctor Bugbee'll marry Tira Blake +yet. Now do you just stick a pin there." + +But the revolving seasons twice went their annual round, the great +weeping-willow-tree in the burying-ground twice put forth its tender +foliage in the early spring, and twice in autumn strewed with yellow +leaves the mound of Mrs. Bugbee's grave, while the predictions of +many, who, like Mrs. Prouty, had foretold the Doctor's second wedding, +still remained without fulfilment. Nay, at the end of two years after +his wife's death, Doctor Bugbee seemed to be no more disposed to +matrimony than in the first days of his bereavement. There were, to be +sure, floating on the current of village gossip, certain rumors that +he was soon to take a second wife; but as none of these reports agreed +touching the name of the lady, each contradicted all the others, and +so none were of much account. Besides, there was nothing in the +Doctor's appearance or behavior that seemed to warrant any of these +idle stories. It is the way with many hopeful widowers (as everybody +knows) to become, after an interval of decorous sadness, more brisk +and gay than even in their youthful days; bestowing unusual care upon +their attire and the adornment of their persons, and endeavoring, by a +courteous and gallant demeanor towards every unmarried lady, to +signify the great esteem in which they hold the female sex. But these +signs, and all others which betoken an ardent desire to win the +favor of the fair, were wanting in the Doctor's aspect and +deportment. Though, as my reader knows, he was by nature a man of +lively temper, he was now grown more sedate than he had ever been +before; and instead of attiring himself more sprucely than of old, he +neglected his apparel to such a degree, that, although few would have +noticed the untidy change, Statira was filled with continual alarms, +lest some invidious housewife should perceive it, and lay the blame at +her door. Except when called abroad to perform some professional duty, +he spent his time at home, although his family observed that he +secluded himself in his office, among his books and gallipots, more +than had been his wont, and that he sometimes indulged in moods of +silent abstraction, which had never been noticed in his manner until +of late. But these changes of demeanor seemed to betoken an enduring +sorrow for the loss of his wife, rather than to indicate a desire or +an intention to choose a successor to her. My readers, therefore, will +not be surprised to learn, by a plain averment of the simple truth, +that not one of all the score of ladies, whose names had been coupled +with his own, would Doctor Bugbee have married, if he could, and that +to none of them had he ever given any good reason for believing that +she stood especially high in his esteem. + + [To be continued in the next Number.] + + + + +WHERE WILL IT END? + + +Wise men of every name and nation, whether poets, philosophers, +statesmen, or divines, have been trying to explain the puzzles of +human condition, since the world began. For three thousand years, at +least, they have been at this problem, and it is far enough from being +solved yet. Its anomalies seem to have been expressly contrived by +Nature to elude our curiosity and defy our cunning. And no part of it +has she arranged so craftily as that web of institutions, habits, +manners, and customs, in which we find ourselves enmeshed as soon as +we begin to have any perception at all, and which, slight and almost +invisible as it may seem, it is so hard to struggle with and so +impossible to break through. It may be true, according to the poetical +Platonism of Wordsworth, that "heaven lies about us in our infancy"; +but we very soon leave it far behind us, and, as we approach manhood, +sadly discover that we have grown up into a jurisdiction of a very +different kind. + +In almost every region of the earth, indeed, it is literally true that +"shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy." As +his faculties develope, he becomes more and more conscious of the +deepening shadows, as well as of the grim walls that cast them on his +soul, and his opening intelligence is earliest exercised in divining +who built them first, and why they exist at all. The infant Chinese, +the baby Calmuck, the suckling Hottentot, we must suppose, rest +unconsciously in the calm of the heaven from which they, too, have +emigrated, as well as the sturdy new-born Briton, or the freest and +most independent little Yankee that is native and to the manner born +of this great country of our own. But all alike grow gradually into a +consciousness of walls, which, though invisible, are none the less +impassable, and of chains, though light as air, yet stronger than +brass or iron. And everywhere is the machinery ready, though different +in its frame and operation in different torture-chambers, to crush out +the budding skepticism, and to mould the mind into the monotonous +decency of general conformity. Foe or Fetish, King or Kaiser, Deity +itself or the vicegerents it has appointed in its stead, are +answerable for it all. God himself has looked upon it, and it is very +good, and there is no appeal from that approval of the Heavenly +vision. + +In almost every country in the world this deification of institutions +has been promoted by their antiquity. As nobody can remember when they +were not, and as no authentic records exist of their first +establishment, their genealogy can be traced direct to Heaven without +danger of positive disproof. Thus royal races and hereditary +aristocracies and privileged priesthoods established themselves so +firmly in the opinion of Europe, as well as of Asia, and still retain +so much of their _prestige_ there, notwithstanding the turnings +and overturnings of the last two centuries. This northern half of the +great American continent, however, seems to have been kept back by +Nature as a _tabula rasa_, a clean blackboard, on which the great +problem of civil government might be worked out, without any of the +incongruous drawbacks which have cast perplexity and despair upon +those who have undertaken its solution in the elder world. All the +elements of the demonstration were of the most favorable +nature. Settled by races who had inherited or achieved whatever of +constitutional liberty existed in the world, with no hereditary +monarch, or governing oligarchy, or established religion on the soil, +with every opportunity to avoid all the vices and to better all the +virtues of the old polities, the era before which all history had been +appointed to prepare the way seemed to have arrived, when the just +relations of personal liberty and civil government were to be +established forever. + +And how magnificent the field on which the trophy of this final +victory of a true civilization was to be erected! No empire or +kingdom, at least since imperial Rome perished from the earth, ever +unrolled a surface so vast and so variegated, so manifold in its +fertilities and so various in its aspects of beauty and +sublimity. From the Northern wastes, where the hunter and the trapper +pursue by force or guile the fur-bearing animals, to the ever-perfumed +latitudes of the lemon and the myrtle,--from the stormy Atlantic, +where the skiff of the fisherman rocks fearlessly under the menace of +beetling crags amid the foam of angry breakers, to where the solemn +surge of the Pacific pours itself around our Western continent, boon +Nature has spread out fields which ask only the magic touch of Labor +to wave with every harvest and blush with every fruitage. Majestic +forests crown the hills, asking to be transformed into homes for man +on the solid earth, or into the moving miracles in which he flies on +wings of wind or flame over the ocean to the ends of the +earth. Exhaustless mineral treasures offer themselves to his hand, +scarce hidden beneath the soil, or lying carelessly upon the +surface,--coal, and lead, and copper, and the "all-worshipped ore" of +gold itself; while quarries, reaching to the centre, from many a +rugged hill-top, barren of all beside, court the architect and the +sculptor, ready to give shape to their dreams of beauty in the palace +or in the statue. + +The soil, too, is fitted by the influences of every sky for the +production of every harvest that can bring food, comfort, wealth, and +luxury to man. Every family of the grasses, every cereal that can +strengthen the heart, every fruit that can delight the taste, every +fibre that can be woven into raiment or persuaded into the thousand +shapes of human necessity, asks but a gentle solicitation to pour its +abundance bounteously into the bosom of the husbandman. And men have +multiplied under conditions thus auspicious to life, until they swarm +on the Atlantic slope, are fast filling up the great valley of the +Mississippi, and gradually flow over upon the descent towards the +Pacific. The three millions, who formed the population of the Thirteen +States that set the British empire at defiance, have grown up into a +nation of nearly, if not quite, ten times that strength, within the +duration of active lives not yet finished. And in freedom from +unmanageable debt, in abundance and certainty of revenue, in the +materials for naval armaments, in the elements of which armies are +made up, in everything that goes to form national wealth, power, and +strength, the United States, it would seem, even as they are now, +might stand against the world in arms, or in the arts of peace. Are +not these results proofs irrefragable of the wisdom of the government +under which they have come to pass? + +When the eyes of the thoughtful inquirer turn from the general +prospect of the national greatness and strength, to the geographical +divisions of the country, to examine the relative proportions of these +gifts contributed by each, he begins to be aware that there are +anomalies in the moral and political condition even of this youngest +of nations, not unlike what have perplexed him in his observation of +her elder sisters. He beholds the Southern region, embracing within +its circuit three hundred thousand more square miles than the domain +of the North, dowered with a soil incomparably more fertile, watered +by mighty rivers fit to float the argosies of the world, placed nearer +the sun and canopied by more propitious skies, with every element of +prosperity and wealth showered upon it with Nature's fullest and most +unwithdrawing hand, and sees, that, notwithstanding all this, the +share of public wealth and strength drawn thence is almost +inappreciable by the side of what is poured into the common stock by +the strenuous sterility of the North. With every opportunity and means +that Nature can supply for commerce, with navigable rivers searching +its remotest corners, with admirable harbors in which the navies of +the world might ride, with the chief articles of export for its staple +productions, it still depends upon its Northern partner to fetch and +carry all that it produces, and the little that it consumes. Possessed +of all the raw materials of manufactures and the arts, its inhabitants +look to the North for everything they need from the cradle to the +coffin. Essentially agricultural in its constitution, with every +blessing Nature can bestow upon it, the gross value of all its +productions is less by millions than that of the simple grass of the +field gathered into Northern barns. With all the means and materials +of wealth, the South is poor. With every advantage for gathering +strength and self-reliance, it is weak and dependent.--Why this +difference between the two? + +The _why_ is not far to seek. It is to be found in the reward +which Labor bestows on those that pay it due reverence in the one +case, and the punishment it inflicts on those offering it outrage and +insult in the other. All wealth proceeding forth from Labor, the land +where it is honored and its ministers respected and rewarded must +needs rejoice in the greatest abundance of its gifts. Where, on the +contrary, its exercise is regarded as the badge of dishonor and the +vile office of the refuse and offscouring of the race, its largess +must be proportionably meagre and scanty. The key of the enigma is to +be found in the constitution of human nature. A man in fetters cannot +do the task-work that one whose limbs are unshackled looks upon as a +pastime. A man urged by the prospect of winning an improved condition +for himself and his children by the skill of his brain and the +industry of his hand must needs achieve results such as no fear of +torture can extort from one denied the holy stimulus of hope. Hence +the difference so often noticed between tracts lying side by side, +separated only by a river or an imaginary line; on one side of which, +thrift and comfort and gathering wealth, growing villages, smiling +farms, convenient habitations, school-houses, and churches make the +landscape beautiful; while on the other, slovenly husbandry, +dilapidated mansions, sordid huts, perilous wastes, horrible roads, +the rare spire, and rarer village school betray all the nakedness of +the land. It is the magic of motive that calls forth all this wealth +and beauty to bless the most sterile soil stirred by willing and +intelligent labor; while the reversing of that spell scatters squalor +and poverty and misery over lands endowed by Nature with the highest +fertility, spreading their leprous infection from the laborer to his +lord. All this is in strict accordance with the laws of God, as +expounded by man in his books on political economy. + +Not so, however, with the stranger phenomenon to be discerned +inextricably connected with this anomaly, but not, apparently, +naturally and inevitably flowing from it. That the denial of his +natural and civil rights to the laborer who sows and reaps the +harvests of the Southern country should be avenged upon his enslaver +in the scanty yielding of the earth, and in the unthrift, the vices, +and the wretchedness which are the only crops that spring +spontaneously from soil blasted by slavery, is nothing strange. It is +only the statement of the truism in moral and in political economy, +that true prosperity can never grow up from wrong and wickedness. That +pauperism, and ignorance, and vice, that reckless habits, and debasing +customs, and barbarous manners should come of an organized degradation +of labor, and of cruelty and injustice crystallized into an +institution, is an inevitable necessity, and strictly according to the +nature of things. But that the stronger half of the nation should +suffer the weaker to rule over it in virtue of its weakness, that the +richer region should submit to the political tyranny of its +impoverished moiety because of that very poverty, is indeed a marvel +and a mystery. That the intelligent, educated, and civilized portion +of a race should consent to the sway of their ignorant, illiterate, +and barbarian companions in the commonwealth, and this by reason of +that uncouth barbarism, is an astonishment, and should be a hissing to +all beholders everywhere. It would be so to ourselves, were we not so +used to the fact, had it not so grown into our essence and ingrained +itself with our nature as to seem a vital organism of our being. Of +all the anomalies in morals and in politics which the history of +civilized man affords, this is surely the most abnormous and the most +unreasonable. + +The entire history of the United States is but the record of the +evidence of this fact. What event in our annals is there that Slavery +has not set her brand upon it to mark it as her own? In the very +moment of the nation's birth, like the evil fairy of the nursery tale, +she was present to curse it with her fatal words. The spell then wound +up has gone on increasing in power, until the scanty formulas which +seemed in those days of infancy as if they would fade out of the +parchment into which they had been foisted, and leave no trace that +they ever were, have blotted out all beside, and statesmen and judges +read nothing there but the awful and all-pervading name of Slavery. +Once intrenched among the institutions of the country, this baleful +power has advanced from one position to another, never losing ground, +but establishing itself at each successive point more impregnably than +before, until it has us at an advantage that encourages it to demand +the surrender of our rights, our self-respect, and our honor. What was +once whispered in the secret chamber of council is now proclaimed upon +the housetops; what was once done by indirection and guile is now +carried with the high hand, in the face of day, at the mouth of the +cannon and by the edge of the sabre of the nation. Doctrines and +designs which a few years since could find no mouthpiece out of a +bar-room, or the piratical den of a filibuster, are now clothed with +power by the authentic response of the bench of our highest +judicatory, and obsequiously iterated from the oracular recesses of +the National Palace. + +And the events which now fill the scene are but due successors in the +train that has swept over the stage ever since the nineteenth century +opened the procession with the purchase of Louisiana. The acquisition +of that vast territory, important as it was in a national point of +view,--but coveted by the South mainly as the fruitful mother of +slave-holding States, and for the precedent it established, that the +Constitution was a barrier only to what should impede, never to what +might promote, the interests of Slavery,--was the first great stride +she made as she stalked to her design. The admission of Missouri as a +slaveholding State, granted after a struggle that shook American +society to the centre, and then only on the memorable promises now +broken to the ear as well as to the hope, was the next vantage-ground +seized and maintained. The nearly contemporary purchase of Florida, +though in design and in effect as revolutionary an action as that of +Louisiana, excited comparatively little opposition. It was but the +following up of an acknowledged victory by the Slave Power. The long +and bloody wars in her miserable swamps, waged against the +humanity of savages that gave shelter to the fugitives from her +tyranny,--slave-hunts, merely, on a national scale and at the common +expense,--followed next in the march of events. Then Texas loomed in +the distance, and, after years of gradual approach and covert +advances, was first wrested from Mexico. Slavery next indissolubly +chained to her, and then, by a _coup d'etat_ of astonishing impudence, +was added, by a flourish of John Tyler's pen, in the very article of +his political dissolution, to "the Area of Freedom!" Next came the war +with Mexico, lying in its pretences, bloody in its conduct, triumphant +in its results, for it won vast regions suitable for Slavery now, and +taught the way to win larger conquests when her ever-hungry maw should +crave them. What need to recount the Fugitive-Slave Bill, and the +other "Compromises" of 1850? or to recite the base repeal of the +Missouri Compromise, showing the slaveholder's regard for promises to +be as sacred as that of a pettifogger for justice or of a dicer for an +oath? or to point to the plains of Kansas, red with the blood of her +sons and blackened with the cinders of her towns, while the President +of the United States held the sword of the nation at her throat to +compel her to submission? + +Success, perpetual and transcendent, such as has always waited on +Slavery in all her attempts to mould the history of the country and to +compel the course of its events to do her bidding, naturally excites a +measure of curiosity if not of admiration, in the mind of every +observer. Have the slave-owners thus gone on from victory to victory +and from strength to strength by reason of their multitude, of their +wealth, of their public services, of their intelligence, of their +wisdom, of their genius, or of their virtue? Success in gigantic +crime sometimes implies a strength and energy which compel a kind of +respect even from those that hate it most. The right supremacy of the +power that thus sways our destiny clearly does not reside in the +overwhelming numbers of those that bear rule. The entire sum of all +who have any direct connection with Slavery, as owners or hirers, is +less than THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND,--not half as many as the +inhabitants of the single city of New York! And yet even this number +exaggerates the numerical force of the dominant element in our +affairs. To approximate to the true result, it would be fair to strike +from the gross sum those owning or employing less than ten slaves, in +order to arrive at the number of slave-owners who really compose the +ruling influence of the nation. This would leave but a small fraction +over NINETY THOUSAND, men, women, and children, owning slaves enough +to unite them in a common interest. And from this should be deducted +the women and minors, actually owning slaves in their own right, but +who have no voice in public affairs. These taken away, and the +absentees flying to Europe or the North from the moral contaminations +and material discomforts inseparable from Slavery, and not much more +than FIFTY THOUSAND voting men will remain to represent this mighty +and all-controlling power!--a fact as astounding as it is +incontrovertible. + +Oligarchies are nothing new in the history of the world. The +government of the many by the few is the rule, and not the exception, +in the politics of the times that have been and of those that now +are. But the concentration of the power that determines the policy, +makes the laws, and appoints the ministers of a mighty nation, in the +hands of less than the five-hundredth part of its members, is an +improvement on the essence of the elder aristocracies; while the +usurpation of the title of the Model Republic and of the Pattern +Democracy, under which we offer ourselves to the admiration and +imitation of less happy nations, is certainly a refinement on their +nomenclature. + +This prerogative of power, too, is elsewhere conceded by the multitude +to their rulers generally for some especial fitness, real or +imaginary, for the office they have assumed. Some services of their +own or of their ancestors to the state, some superiority, natural or +acquired, of parts or skill, at least some specialty of high culture +and elegant breeding, a quick sense of honor, a jealousy of insult to +the public, an impatience of personal stain,--some or all of these +qualities, appealing to the gratitude or to the imagination of the +masses, have usually been supposed to inhere in the class they permit +to rule over them. By virtue of some or all of these things, its +members have had allowed to them their privileges and their +precedency, their rights of exemption and of preeminence, their voice +potential in the councils of the state, and their claim to be foremost +in its defence in the hour of its danger. Some ray of imagination +there is, which, falling on the knightly shields and heraldic devices +that symbolize their conceded superiority, at least dazzles the eyes +and delights the fancy of the crowd, so as to blind them to the +inhering vices and essential fallacies of the Order to whose will they +bow. + +But no such consolations of delusion remain to us, as we stand face to +face with the Power which holds our destinies in its hand. None of +these blear illusions can cheat our eyes with any such false +presentments. No antiquity hallows, no public services consecrate, no +gifts of lofty culture adorn, no graces of noble breeding embellish +the coarse and sordid oligarchy that gives law to us. And in the +blighting shadow of Slavery letters die and art cannot live. What book +has the South ever given to the libraries of the world? What work of +art has she ever added to its galleries? What artist has she produced +that did not instinctively fly, like Allston, to regions in which +genius could breathe and art was possible? What statesman has she +reared, since Jefferson died and Madison ceased to write, save those +intrepid discoverers who have taught that Slavery is the corner-stone +of republican institutions, and the vital element of Freedom herself? +What divine, excepting the godly men whose theologic skill has +attained to the doctrine that Slavery is of the essence of the Gospel +of Jesus Christ? What moralist, besides those ethic doctors who teach +that it is according to the Divine Justice that the stronger race +should strip the weaker of every civil, social, and moral right? The +unrighteous partiality, extorted by the threats of Carolina and +Georgia in 1788, which gives them a disproportionate representation +because of their property in men, and the unity of interest which +makes them always act in behalf of Slavery as one man, have made them +thus omnipotent. The North, distracted by a thousand interests, has +always been at the mercy of whatever barbarian chief in the capital +could throw his slave whip into the trembling scale of party. The +government having been always, since this century began, at least, the +creature and the tool of the slaveholders, the whole patronage of the +nation, and the treasury filled chiefly by Northern commerce, have +been at their command to help manipulate and mould plastic Northern +consciences into practicable shapes. When the slave interest, +consisting, at its own largest account of itself, of less than THREE +HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND souls, has _thirty_ members of the +Senate, while the free-labor interest, consisting of at least +TWENTY-FOUR MILLIONS, SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND souls, has but +_thirty-two_, and when the former has a delegation of some score +of members to represent its slaves in the House, besides its own fair +proportion, can we marvel that it has achieved the mastery over us, +which is written in black and bloody characters on so many pages of +our history? + +Such having been the absolute sway Slavery has exercised over the +facts of our history, what has been its influence upon the characters +of the men with whom it has had to do? Of all the productions of a +nation, its men are what prove its quality the most surely. How have +the men of America stood this test? Have those in the high places, +they who have been called to wait at the altar before all the people, +maintained the dignity of character and secured the general reverence +which marked and waited upon their predecessors in the days of our +small things? The population of the United States has multiplied +itself nearly tenfold, while its wealth has increased in a still +greater proportion, since the peace of 'Eighty-Three. Have the +Representative Men of the nation been made or maintained great and +magnanimous, too? Or is that other anomaly, which has so perplexed the +curious foreigner, an admitted fact, that in proportion as the country +has waxed great and powerful, its public men have dwindled from giants +in the last century to dwarfs in this? Alas, to ask the question is to +answer it. Compare Franklin, and Adams, and Jay, met at Paris to +negotiate the treaty of peace which was to seal the recognition of +their country as an equal sister in the family of nations, with +Buchanan, and Soule, and Mason, convened at Ostend to plot the larceny +of Cuba! Sages and lawgivers, consulting for the welfare of a world +and a race, on the one hand, and buccaneers conspiring for the pillage +of a sugar-island on the other! + +What men, too, did not Washington and Adams call around them in the +Cabinet!--how representative of great ideas! how historical! how +immortal! How many of our readers can name the names of their +successors of the present day? Inflated obscurities, bloated +insignificances, who knows or cares whence they came or what they are? +We know whose bidding they were appointed to obey, and what manner of +work they are ready to perform. And shall we dare extend our profane +comparisons even higher than the Cabinet? Shall we bring the shadowy +majesty of Washington's august idea alongside the microscopic +realities of to-day? Let us be more merciful, and take our departure +from the middle term between the Old and the New, occupied by Andrew +Jackson, whose iron will and doggedness of purpose give definite +character, if not awful dignity, to his image. In his time, the Slave +Power, though always the secret spring which set events in motion, +began to let its workings be seen more openly than ever before. And +from his time forward, what a graduated line of still diminishing +shadows have glided successively through the portals of the White +House! From Van Buren to Tyler, from Tyler to Polk, from Polk to +Fillmore, from Fillmore to Pierce! "Fine by degrees and beautifully +less," until it at last reached the vanishing point! + +The baleful influence thus ever shed by Slavery on our national +history and our public men has not yet spent its malignant forces. It +has, indeed, reached a height which a few years ago it was thought the +wildest fanaticism to predict; but its fatal power will not be stayed +in the mid-sweep of its career. The Ordinance of 1787 torn to shreds +and scattered to the winds,--the line drawn in 1820, which the +slaveholders plighted their faith Slavery should never overstep, +insolently as well as infamously obliterated,--Slavery presiding in +the Cabinet, seated on the Supreme Bench, absolute in the halls of +Congress,--no man can say what shape its next aggression may not take +to itself. A direct attack on the freedom of the press and the liberty +of speech at the North, where alone either exists, were no more +incredible than the later insolences of its tyranny. The battle not +yet over in Kansas, for the compulsory establishment of Slavery there +by the interposition of the Federal arm, will be renewed in every +Territory as it is ripening into a State. Already warning voices are +heard in the air, presaging such a conflict in Oregon. Parasites +everywhere instinctively feel that a zeal for the establishment of +Slavery where it has been abolished, or its introduction where it had +been prohibited, is the highest recommendation to the Executive favor. +The rehabilitation of the African slave-trade is seriously proposed +and will be furiously urged, and nothing can hinder its accomplishment +but its interference with the domestic manufactures of the breeding +Slave States. The pirate Walker is already mustering his forces for +another incursion into Nicaragua, and rumors are rife that General +Houston designs wresting yet another Texas from Mexico. Mighty events +are at hand, even at the door; and the mission of them all will be to +fix Slavery firmly and forever on the throne of this nation. + +Is the success of this conspiracy to be final and eternal? Are the +States which name themselves, in simplicity or in irony, the Free +States, to be always the satrapies of a central power like this? Are +we forever to submit to be cheated out of our national rights by an +oligarchy as despicable as it is detestable, because it clothes itself +in the forms of democracy, and allows us the ceremonies of choice, the +name of power, and the permission to register the edicts of the +sovereign? We, who broke the sceptre of King George, and set our feet +on the supremacy of the British Parliament, surrender ourselves, bound +hand and foot in bonds of our own weaving, into the hands of the +slaveholding Philistines! We, who scorned the rule of the aristocracy +of English acres, submit without a murmur, or with an ineffectual +resistance, to the aristocracy of American flesh and blood! Is our +spirit effectually broken? is the brand of meanness and compromise +burnt in uneffaceably upon our souls? and are we never to be roused, +by any indignities, to fervent resentment and effectual resistance? +The answer to these grave questions lies with ourselves alone. One +hundred thousand, or three hundred thousand men, however crafty and +unscrupulous, cannot forever keep under their rule more than twenty +millions, as much their superiors in wealth and intelligence as in +numbers, except by their own consent. If the growing millions are to +be driven with cartwhips along the pathway of their history by the +dwindling thousands, they have none to blame for it but themselves. +If they like to have their laws framed and expounded, their presidents +appointed, their foreign policy dictated, their domestic interests +tampered with, their war and peace made for them, their national fame +and personal honor tarnished, and the lie given to all their boastings +before the old despotisms, by this insignificant fraction of their +number,--scarcely visible to the naked eye in the assembly of the +whole people,--none can gainsay or resist their pleasure. + +But will the many always thus submit themselves to the domination of +the few? We believe that the days of this ignominious subjection are +already numbered. Signs in heaven and on earth tell us that one of +those movements has begun to be felt in the Northern mind, which +perplex tyrannies everywhere with the fear of change. The insults and +wrongs so long heaped upon the North by the South begin to be +felt. The torpid giant moves uneasily beneath his mountain-load of +indignities. The people of the North begin to feel that they support a +government for the benefit of their natural enemies; for, of all +antipathies, that of slave labor to free is the most deadly and +irreconcilable. There never was a time when the relations of the North +and the South, as complicated by Slavery, were so well understood and +so deeply resented as now. In fields, in farmhouses, and in workshops, +there is a spirit aroused which can never be laid or exorcised till it +has done its task. We see its work in the great uprising of the Free +States against the Slave States in the late national election. Though +trickery and corruption cheated it of its end, the thunder of its +protest struck terror into the hearts of the tyrants. We hear its +echo, as it comes back from the Slave States themselves, in the +exceeding bitter cry of the whites for deliverance from the bondage +which the slavery of the blacks has brought upon them also. We +discern the confession of its might in the very extravagances and +violences of the Slave Power. It is its conscious and admitted +weakness that has made Texas and Mexico and Cuba, and our own +Northwestern territory, necessary to be devoured. It is desperation, +and not strength, that has made the bludgeon and the bowie-knife +integral parts of the national legislation. It has the American +Government, the American Press, and the American Church, in its +national organizations, on its side; but the Humanity and the +Christianity of the Nation and the World abhor and execrate it. They +that be against it are more than they that be for it. + +It rages, for its time is short. And its rage is the fiercer because +of the symptoms of rebellion against its despotism which it discerns +among the white men of the South, who from poverty or from principle +have no share in its sway. When we speak of the South as +distinguished from the North by elements of inherent hostility, we +speak only of the governing faction, and not of the millions of +nominally free men who are scarcely less its thralls than the black +slaves themselves. This unhappy class of our countrymen are the first +to feel the blight which Slavery spreads around it, because they are +the nearest to its noxious power. The subjects of no European +despotism are under a closer _espionage,_ or a more organized +system of terrorism, than are they. The slaveholders, having the +wealth, and nearly all the education that the South can boast of, +employ these mighty instruments of power to create the public +sentiment and to control the public affairs of their region, so as +best to secure their own supremacy. No word of dissent to the +institutions under which they live, no syllable of dissatisfaction, +even, with any of the excesses they stimulate, can be breathed in +safety. A Christian minister in Tennessee relates an act of fiendish +cruelty inflicted upon a slave by one of the members of his church, +and he is forced to leave his charge, if not to fly the +country. Another in South Carolina presumes to express in conversation +his disapprobation of the murderous assault of Brooks on Senator +Sumner, and his pastoral relations are broken up on the instant, as if +he had been guilty of gross crime or flagrant heresy. Professor +Hedrick, in North Carolina, ventures to utter a preference for the +Northern candidate in the last presidential campaign, and he is +summarily ejected from his chair, and virtually banished from his +native State. Mr. Underwood, of Virginia, dares to attend the +convention of the party he preferred, and he is forbidden to return to +his home on pain of death. The blackness of darkness and the stillness +of death are thus forced to brood over that land which God formed so +fair, and made to be so happy. + +That such a tyranny should excite an antagonistic spirit of resistance +is inevitable from the constitution of man and the character of +God. The sporadic cases of protest and of resistance to the +slaveholding aristocracy, which lift themselves occasionally above the +dead level of the surrounding despotism, are representative +cases. They stand for much more than their single selves. They prove +that there is a wide-spread spirit of discontent, informing great +regions of the slave-land, which must one day find or force an +opportunity of making itself heard and felt. This we have just seen in +the great movement in Missouri, the very nursing-mother of +Border-Ruffianism itself, which narrowly missed making Emancipation +the policy of the majority of the voters there. Such a result is the +product of no sudden culture. It must have been long and slowly +growing up. And how could it be otherwise? There must be intelligence +enough among the non-slaveholding whites to see the difference there +is between themselves and persons of the same condition in the Free +States. Why can they have no free schools? Why is it necessary that a +missionary society be formed at the North to furnish them with such +ministers as the slave-master can approve? Why can they not support +their own ministers, and have a Gospel of Free Labor preached to them, +if they choose? Why are they hindered from taking such newspapers as +they please? Why are they subjected to a censorship of the press, +which dictates to them what they may or may not read, and which +punishes booksellers with exile and ruin for keeping for sale what +they want to buy? Why must Northern publishers expurgate and +emasculate the literature of the world before it is permitted to reach +them? Why is it that the value of acres increases in a geometrical +ratio, as they stretch away towards the North Star from the frontier +of Slavery? These questions must suggest their sufficient answer to +thousands of hearts, and be preparing the way for the insurrection of +which the slaveholders stand in the deadliest fear,--that of the +whites at their gates, who can do with them and their institutions +what seems to them good, when once they know their power, and choose +to put it forth. The unity of interest of the non-slaveholders of the +South with the people of the Free States is perfect, and it must one +day combine them in a unity of action. + +The exact time when the millions of the North and of the South shall +rise upon this puny mastership, and snatch from its hands the control +of their own affairs, we cannot tell,--nor yet the authentic shape +which that righteous insurrection will take unto itself. But we know +that when the great body of any nation is thoroughly aroused, and +fully in earnest to abate a mischief or to right a wrong, nothing can +resist its energy or defeat its purpose. It will provide the way, when +its will is once thoroughly excited. Men look out upon the world they +live in, and it seems as if a change for the better were hopeless and +impossible. The great statesmen, the eminent divines, the reverend +judges, the learned lawyers, the wealthy landholders and merchants are +all leagued together to repel innovation. But the earth still moves +in its orbit around the sun; decay and change and death pursue their +inevitable course; the child is born and grows up; the strong man +grows old and dies; the law of flux and efflux never ceases, and lo! +ere men are aware of it, all things have become new. Fresh eyes look +upon the world, and it is changed. Where are now Calhoun, and Clay, +and Webster? Where will shortly be Cass, and Buchanan, and Benton, and +their like? Vanished from the stage of affairs, if not from the face +of Nature. Who are to take their places? God knows. But we know that +the school in which men are now in training for the arena is very +different from the one which formed the past and passing generations +of politicians. Great ideas are abroad, challenging the encounter of +youth. Angels wrestle with the men of this generation, as with the +Patriarch of old, and it is our own fault if a blessing be not +extorted ere they take their flight. Principles, like those which in +the earlier days of the republic elevated men into statesmen, are now +again in the field, chasing the policies which have dwarfed their sons +into politicians. These things are portentous of change,--perhaps +sudden, but, however delayed, inevitable. + +And this change, whatever the outward shape in which it may incarnate +itself, in the fulness of time, will come of changed ideas, opinions, +and feelings in the general mind and heart. All institutions, even +those of the oldest of despotisms, exist by the permission and consent +of those who live under them. Change the ideas of the thronging +multitudes by the banks of the Neva, or on the shores of the +Bosphorus, and they will be changed into Republicans and Christians in +the twinkling of an eye. Not merely the Kingdom of Heaven, but the +kingdoms of this world, are within us. Ideas are their substance; +institutions and customs but the shadows they cast into the visible +sphere. Mould the substance anew, and the projected shadow must +represent the altered shape within. Hence the dread despots feel, and +none more than the petty despots of the plantation, of whatever may +throw the light of intelligence across the mental sight of their +slaves. Men endure the ills they have, either because they think them +blessings, or because they fear lest, should they seek to fly them, it +might be to others that they know not of. The present Bonaparte holds +France in a chain because she is willing that he should. Let her but +breathe upon the padlock, and, like that in the fable, it will fade +into air, and he and his dynasty will vanish with it. So the people of +the North submit to the domination of the South because they are used +to it, and are doubtful as to what may replace it. Whenever the +millions, North and South, whom Slavery grinds under her heel, shall +be resolutely minded that her usurpation shall cease, it will +disappear, and forever. As soon as the stone is thrown the giant will +die, and men will marvel that they endured him so long. But this can +only come to pass by virtue of a change yet to be wrought in the +hearts and minds of men. Ideas everywhere are royal;--here they are +imperial. It is the great office of genius, and eloquence, and sacred +function, and conspicuous station, and personal influence to herald +their approach and to prepare the way before them, that they may +assert their state and give holy laws to the listening nation. Thus a +glorious form and pressure may be given to the coming age. Thus the +ideal of a true republic, of a government of laws made and executed by +the people, of which bards have sung and prophets dreamed, and for +which martyrs have suffered and heroes died, may yet be possible to +us, and the great experiment of this Western World be indeed a Model, +instead of a Warning to the nations. + + + + +MY PORTRAIT GALLERY. + + + Oft round my hall of portraiture I gaze, + By Memory reared, the artist wise and holy, + From stainless quarries of deep-buried days. + There, as I muse in soothing melancholy, + Your faces glow in more than mortal youth, + Companions of my prime, now vanished wholly,-- + The loud, impetuous boy, the low-voiced maiden. + Ah, never master that drew mortal breath + Can match thy portraits, just and generous Death, + Whose brush with sweet regretful tints is laden! + Thou paintest that which struggled here below + Half understood, or understood for woe, + And, with a sweet forewarning, + Mak'st round the sacred front an aureole glow + Woven of that light that rose on Easter morning. + + + + +LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Homoeopathic Domestic Physician_, etc., etc. By J. H. PULTE, +M.D., Author of "Woman's Medical Guide," etc. Twenty-fourth +thousand. Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach, Keys, & Co. London: James Epps, +170, Piccadilly, 1857. + +Of course the reader understands the following notice to be written by +a venerable practitioner, who carries a gold-headed cane, and does not +believe in any medical authority later than Sydenham. Listen to him, +then, and remember that if anything in the way of answer, or +remonstrance, or controversial advertisement is sent to the +head-quarters of this periodical, it will go directly into the basket, +which, entering, a manuscript leaves all hope behind. The "old salts" +of the "Atlantic" do not go for non-committal and neutrality, or any +of that kind of nonsense. Our oracle with the gold stick must have +the ground to himself, or keep his wisdom for another set of +readers. A quarrel between "Senex" and "Fairplay" would be amusing, +but expensive. We have no space for it; and the old gentleman, though +he can use his cane smartly for one of his age, positively declines +the game of single-stick. Hear him. + +--The book mentioned above lies before us with its valves open, +helpless as an oyster on its shell, inviting the critical pungent, the +professional acid, and the judicial impaling trident. We will be +merciful. This fat little literary mollusk is well-conditioned, of +fair aspect, and seemingly good of its kind. Twenty-four thousand +individuals,--we have its title-page as authority,--more or less +lineal descendants of Solomon, have become the fortunate possessors of +this plethoric guide to earthly immortality. They might have done +worse; for the work is well printed, well arranged, and +typographically creditable to the great publishing-house which honors +Cincinnati by its intelligent enterprise. The purchasers have done +very wisely in buying a book which will not hurt their eyes. Mr. Otis +Clapp, bibliopolist, has the work, and will be pleased to supply it to +an indefinite number of the family above referred to. + +--Men live in the immediate neighborhood of a great menagerie, the +doors of which are always open. The beasts of prey that come out are +called diseases. They feed upon us, and between their teeth we must +all pass sooner or later,--all but a few, who are otherwise taken care +of. When these animals attack a man, most of them give him a scratch +or a bite, and let him go. Some hold on a little while; some are +carried about for weeks or months, until the carrier drops down, or +they drop off. By and by one is sure to come along that drags down the +strongest, and makes an end of him. + +Most people know little or nothing of these beasts, until all at once +they find themselves attacked by one of them. They are therefore +liable to be frightened by those that are not dangerous, and careless +with those that are destructive. They do not know what will soothe, +and what will exasperate them. They do not even know the dens of many +of them, though they are close to their own dwellings. + +A physician is one that has lived among these beasts, and studied +their aspects and habits. He knows them all well, and looks them in +the face, and lays his hand on their backs daily. They seem, as it +were, to know him, and to greet him with such _risus sardonicus_ +as they can muster. He knows that his friends and himself have all +got to be eaten up at last by them, and his friends have the same +belief. Yet they want him near them at all times, and with them when +they are set upon by any of these their natural enemies. He goes, +knowing pretty well what he can do and what he cannot. + +He can talk to them in a quiet and sensible way about these terrible +beings, concerning which they are so ignorant, and liable to harbor +such foolish fancies. He can frighten away some of the lesser kind of +animals with certain ill-smelling preparations he carries about +him. Once in a while he can draw the teeth of some of the biggest, or +throttle them. He can point out their dens, and so keep many from +falling into their jaws. + +This is a great deal to promise or perform, but it is not all that is +expected of him. Sick people are very apt to be both fools and +cowards. Many of them confess the fact in the frankest possible +way. If you doubt it, ask the next dentist about the wisdom and +courage of average manhood under the dispensation of a bad tooth. As a +tooth is to a liver, so are the dentists' patients to the doctors', in +the want of the two excellences above mentioned. + +Those not over-wise human beings called patients are frequently a +little unreasonable. They come with a small scratch, which Nature +will heal very nicely in a few days, and insist on its being closed at +once with some kind of joiner's glue. They want their little coughs +cured, so that they may breathe at their ease, when they have no lungs +left that are worth mentioning. They would have called in Luke the +physician to John the Baptist, when his head was in the charger, and +asked for a balsam that would cure cuts. This kind of thing cannot be +done. But it is very profitable to lie about it, and say that it can +be done. The people who make a business of this lying, and profiting +by it, are called quacks. + +--But as patients wish to believe in all manner of "cures," and as all +doctors love to believe in the power of their remedies and as nothing +is more open to self-deception than medical experience, the whole +matter of therapeutics has always been made a great deal more of than +the case would justify. It has been an inflated currency,--fifty +pretences on paper, to one fact of true, ringing metal. + +Many of the older books are full of absurd nostrums. A century ago, +Huxham gave messes to his patients containing more than four hundred +ingredients. Remedies were ordered that must have been suggested by +the imagination; things odious, abominable, unmentionable; flesh of +vipers, powder of dead men's bones, and other horrors, best mused in +expressive silence. Go to the little book of Robert Boyle,--wise man, +philosopher, revered of cures for the most formidable diseases, many +of them of this fantastic character, that disease should seem to have +been a thing that one could turn off at will, like gas or water in our +houses. Only there were rather too many specifics in those days. For +if one has "an excellent approved remedy" that never fails, it seems +unnecessary to print a list of twenty others for the same +purpose. This is wanton excess; it is gilding the golden pill, and +throwing fresh perfume on the Mistura Assafoetidae. + +As the observation of nature has extended, and as mankind have +approached the state of only _semi_-barbarism in which they now +exist, there has been an improvement. The materia medica has been +weeded; much that was worthless and revolting has been thrown +overboard; simplicity has been introduced into prescriptions; and the +whole business of _drugging_ the sick has undergone a most +salutary reform. The great fact has been practically recognized, that +the movements of life in disease obey laws which, under the +circumstances, are on the whole salutary, and only require a limited +and occasional interference by any special disturbing agents. The list +of specifics has been reduced to a very brief catalogue, and the +delusion which had exaggerated the power of drugging for so many +generations has been tempered down by sound and systematic +observation. + +Homoeopathy came, and with one harlequin bound leaped out of its +century backwards into the region of quagmires and fogs and mirages, +from which true medical science was painfully emerging. All the +trumpery of exploded pharmacopoeias was revived under new names. Even +the domain of the loathsome has been recently invaded, and simpletons +are told in the book before us to swallow serpents' poison; nay, it is +said that the _pediculis capitis_ is actually prescribed in +infusion,--hunted down in his capillary forest, and transferred to the +digestive organs of those he once fed upon. + +It falsely alleged one axiom as the basis of existing medical +practice, namely, _Contraria contrarues curantur_,--"Contraries +are cured by contraries." No such principle was ever acted upon, +exclusively, as the basis of medical practice. The man who does not +admit it as _one_ of the principles of practice would, on +_medical_ principles, refuse a drop of cold water to cool the +tongue of Dives in fiery torments. The only unconditional principle +ever recognized by medical science has been, that diseases are to be +treated by the remedies that experience shows to be useful. The +universal use of both _cold_ and _hot_ external and internal +remedies in various inflammatory states puts the garrote at once on +the babbling throat of the senseless assertion of the homaeopathists, +and stultifies for all time the nickname "allopathy." + +It falsely alleged a second axiom, _Similia similibus +curantur_,--"Like is cured by like,"--as the basis of its own +practice; for it does not keep to any such rule, as every page of the +book before us abundantly shows. + +It subjected credulous mankind to the last of indignities, in forcing +it to listen to that doctrine of infinitesimals and potencies which is +at once the most epigrammatic of paradoxes, and the crowning exploit +of pseudo-scientific audacity. + +It proceeded to prove itself true by juggling statistics; some of the +most famous of which, we may remark, are very well shown up by +Professor Worthington Hooker, in a recent essay. And having done all +these things, it sat down in the shadow of a brazen bust of its +founder, and invited mankind to join in the Barmecide feast it had +spread on the coffin of Science; who, however, proved not to have been +buried in it,--indeed, not to have been buried at all. + +Of course, it had, and has, a certain success. Its infinitesimal +treatment being a nullity, patients are never hurt by drugs, _when +it is adhered to_. It pleases the imagination. It is image-worship, +relic-wearing, holy-water-sprinkling, transferred from the spiritual +world to that of the body. Poets accept it; sensitive and spiritual +women become sisters of charity in its service. It does not offend the +palate, and so spares the nursery those scenes of single combat in +which infants were wont to yield at length to the pressure of the +spoon and the imminence of asphyxia. It gives the ignorant, who have +such an inveterate itch for dabbling in physic, a book and a doll's +medicine-chest, and lets them play doctors and doctresses without fear +of having to call in the coroner. And just so long as unskilful and +untaught people cannot tell coincidences from cause and effect in +medical practice,--which to do, the wise and experienced know how +difficult!--so long it will have plenty of "facts" to fall back +upon. Who can blame a man for being satisfied with the argument, "I +was ill, and am well,--great is Hahnemann!"? Only this argument serves +all impostors and impositions. It is not of much value, but it is +irresistible, and therefore quackery is immortal. + +Homaeopathy is one of its many phases; the most imaginative, the most +elegant, and, it is fair to say, the least noxious in its direct +agencies. "It is melancholy,"--we use the recent words of the +world-honored physician of the Queen's household, Sir John +Forbes,--"to be forced to make admissions in favor of a system so +utterly false and despicable as Homaeopathy." Yet we must own that it +may have been indirectly useful, as the older farce of the weapon +ointment certainly was, in teaching medical practitioners to place +more reliance upon nature. Most scientific men see through its +deceptions at a glance. It may be practised by shrewd men and by +honest ones; rarely, it must be feared, by those who are both shrewd +and honest. As a psychological experiment on the weakness of +cultivated minds, it is the best trick of the century. + +--Here the old gentleman took his cane and walked out to cool himself. + + + +FOREIGN. + +It is an old remark of Lessing, often repeated, but nevertheless true, +that Frenchmen, as a general rule, are sadly deficient in the mental +powers suited to _objective_ observation, and therefore eminently +disqualified for reliable reports of travels. Among the host of French +writing travellers or travelling writers, on whatever foreign +countries, there have always been very few who looked at foreign +countries, nations, institutions, and achievements, with anything like +fairness of judgment and capacity of understanding. For an average +Frenchman, Moliere's renowned juxtaposition of + + "Paris, la cour, le monde, l'univers," + +is a gospel down to this day; and no country can so justly complain of +being constantly misunderstood and misrepresented by French tourists +as ours. The more difficult it is for a Frenchman not to glance +through colored spectacles from the Palais Royal at whatever does not +belong to "the Great Nation," the more praise those few of them +deserve who give to the world correct and impartial impressions of +travel and reliable ethnological works. + +Such is the case with two works which we are glad to recommend to our +readers. The first is + + +_La Norwege_, par LOUIS ENAULT. Paris: Hachette. 1857. + +Norway, though a member of the European family, with a population once +so influential in the world's history, is comparatively the least +known of all civilized countries to the world at large, and what +little we know of it is of a very recent date,--Stephens's and Leopold +von Buch's works being not much more than a quarter of a century old, +while Bayard Taylor's lively sketches in the "New York Tribune" are +almost wet still, and not yet complete. The latter and M. Enault's +book, when compared with each other, leave not the slightest doubt +that each observes carefully and conscientiously in his own way, that +both possess peculiar gifts for studying and describing correctly what +there is worth studying and describing in this _terra incognita_, and +that we can rely on both. Mr. Taylor is more picturesque, lively, +fascinating, and drastic; M. Enault more thorough, quiet, and reserved +in the expression of his opinions. The parts seem to be +interchanged,--the Frenchman exhibiting more of the Anglo-Saxon, the +American more of the French genius; but both confirm each other's +statements admirably, and should be read side by side. If our readers +wish to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the workings of the +laws and institutions, with the statistical, economical, and +geographical facts, the society and manners, the later history and +future prospects of Norway, they will find here a work trustworthy in +every respect. + + +_Les Anglais et l'Inde_, avec Notes, Pieces justificatives et +Tableaux statistiques, par E. DE VALBEZEN. Paris. 1857. + +This is no narrative of travel, though evidently written by one who +has been for a considerable time an eyewitness of Indian affairs, and +by a man of acute mind and quick and comprehensive perception, +thoroughly versed in the history and condition of India. It is a +treatise on all those topics bearing upon the present political, +social, and commercial state of things there, beginning with the +exposition of the English governmental institutions there existing, +describing the country, its productions and resources, its various +populations, its social relations, its agriculture, commerce, and +wealth, and concluding with statistical and other documents in support +of the author's statements. It gives a nearly systematical and +complete picture of Indian affairs, enabling the reader to understand +the present situation of the country and its foreign rulers, and to +form a judgment on all corresponding topics. The style is classical, +though somewhat concise and epigrammatic, giving proof everywhere of a +mind that forms its own conclusions and takes independent, +statesmanlike views. The author refrains from obtruding his own +opinions on the reader, leaving things to speak for themselves. He is +not ostensibly antagonistic to the English, as we should expect from a +true Frenchman,--is no cordial hater of "_perfide Albion_." You +cannot, from his book, with any show of reason, infer that he is a +Jesuit, a French missionary, a merchant, a governmental employe, or a +simple traveller; but you feel instinctively that he is wide-awake, +shrewd, and reserved, and that you may trust his reports in the +main. He refers, for proof of his statements, mostly to English +documents, and does not try to preoccupy your mind. Particularly +noteworthy is what he says of the political economy of India; he +controverts effectively the prevailing opinion that it is the richest +country in the world,--showing its real poverty, in spite of its great +natural resources, and the almost hopeless task of improving these +resources. For the American merchant this is a very readable book, +warning him to refrain from too hastily investing his capital and +enterprise in Indian commerce,--India being the most insecure of all +countries for foreign commercial undertakings; and in general, there +are so many entirely new and startling revelations in it, that, to any +one interested in Indian matters, it well repays reading. + + +_Histoire de la Revolution Francaise_, (1789-1799,) Par +THEOD. H. BARRAU. Paris: Hachette. 1857. + +We cannot vouch that we have here a new, original history of this +important epoch, based on an independent study of historical sources; +but it is the very first history of the French Revolution we have +known, not written in a partisan spirit, and bent on falsifying the +facts in order to make political capital or to flatter national +prejudices. It bears no evidence of any tendency whatever,--perhaps +only because, with its more than five hundred pages, it is too short +for that. + + +_Histoire de France au XVI. Siecle_, par MICHELET. Tom. 10. +_Henri IV. et Richelieu_. + +Michelet is too well known as a truly Republican historiographer and +truly humane and noble writer, and the former volumes of this history +have been too long before the public, to require for this volume a +particular recommendation. It begins with the last _decade_ of the +sixteenth century, and concludes with the year 1626. We are no +particular admirers of Michelet's historical style and method of +delineation, but we acknowledge his sense of historical justice, his +unprejudiced mind, and his Republicanism, even when treating a subject +so delicate, and so dear to Frenchmen, as Henry IV. Doing justice to +whatever was really admirable in the character of this much beloved +king, he overthrows a good many superstitious ideas current concerning +him even down to our days. He shows that the Utopian, though +benevolent project, ascribed to Henry, of establishing an everlasting +peace by revising the map of Europe and constituting a political +equilibrium between the several European powers, never in fact existed +in the king's mind, nor even in Sully's, whom he equally divests of +much unfounded glory and fictitious greatness. No doubt, but for his +fickleness and inconsistency, Henry could have done a good deal toward +realizing such ideas and reforming European politics; but it is saying +too much for Henry's influence on the popular opinions of Europe, to +affirm, what Michelet gives us to understand, that he could have +combined the nations of Europe against all their depraved rulers +together. + + +_La Liberte_, par EMILE DE GIRARDIN. Paris. 1857. + +This book contains a discussion between the author and M. de +Lourdoueix, ex-editor of the "Gazette de France," written in the form +of letters, on the various topics connected with the notion of +Liberty. Girardin is, no doubt, the most genial of all living French +writers on Socialism and Politics. He belongs neither to the fanatical +school of Communists and Social Equalizers by force and "_par ordre +da Mufti_," nor to the class of pliable tools of Imperial or Royal +Autocracy. He is the only writer who, in the face of the prevailing +restrictions upon the press in France, dares to speak out his whole +mind, and to preach the Age of Reason in Politics and in the Social +System. He is full of new ideas, which should, we think, be very +attractive to American readers; and it is, indeed, strange that his +writings are so little read and reviewed on this side of the +ocean. His ideas on general education, on the total extinction of +authority or government, on the abolition of public punishments of +every kind, on the doing away with standing armies, war, and tyranny, +and on making the State a great Assurance Company against all +imaginable misfortunes and their consequences, are a fair index of the +best philosophemes of the European mind since the last Revolution. We +do not say that we approve every one of his issues and conclusions, +but we insist most earnestly, that this book and similar ones, bearing +testimony to what the political and social thinkers of the day in +Europe are revolving in their minds, should be read and reviewed under +the light of American institutions and ideas. The reader enjoys in the +present book the great advantage of seeing the ideas of the Social +Reformers discussed _pro_ and _contra_,--M. Lourdoueix being +their obstinate adversary. + + +_Memoires de M. Joseph Prudhomme_, par HENRI MONNIER. 2 +vols. Paris. 1857. + +This is not what is commonly called _memoires_,--to wit, +historical recollections modified by the subjective impressions of +eyewitnesses to the past; it is rather a novel or romance in the form +of _memoires_, ridiculing the predominant _bourgeoisie_ of +the Old World, and sketching the whole life of a _bourgeois_, +from infancy to green old age. For readers, who, through travel in +Europe and acquaintance with French literature and tastes, are enabled +to understand the many nice allusions contained in this novel, it is a +very entertaining book. + + +1. _Kraft und Stoff_. By G. BUeCHNER. Fourth edition. 1857. + +2. _Materie und Geist_. By the same. 1857. + +It is certainly a remarkable sign of the times, that a book treating +of purely scientific matters,--physiological facts and ideas,--like +the first of these, of which the second is the complement, should in a +very few years have attained to its fourth edition in Germany. All +those works on Natural Science, by Alexander von Humboldt, Oersted, Du +Bois-Raymond, Cotta, Vogt, Moleschott, Buechner, Rossmaessler, Ule, +Mueller, and others, which have appeared since the Revolution of 1848, +uniting a more popular and intelligible style with a purely scientific +treatment of the matter-of-fact, irrespective of the religious and +political dogmas that conflict with the results of natural science, +have met with decided success in Germany and France. They are +extensively read and appreciated, even by the less educated and +learned classes. Among these works, that of Buechner ranks high, and +it is therefore strange that we have seen it hitherto reviewed in no +American journal. This may serve us as an excuse for noticing this +fourth edition, though it is little improved over the former ones. It +exhibits the last results of the science of physiology, in a +scientific, but rather popular method of exposition. There is quite a +hive of new ideas and intuitions contained in it,--ideas conflicting, +it is true, with many received dogmas, and irreconcilable with +orthodoxy; but it is of no use to shut our eyes to these ideas, as +though the danger threatening from this side could be averted by +imitating the policy of the ostrich. They should be faced and +examined; the danger is far greater from ignoring them. It is +impossible that ideas, largely entertained and cultivated by a nation +so expert in thinking, so versed in science and literature as the +Germans, should have no interest for the great, intelligent American +public. Natural Science may be said to form, at present, an integral +portion of the religion of the Germans. It is, at least, a matter of +ethnological and historical interest to learn in what regions of +thought and speculation our German contemporaries are at home, and +wherein they find their mental happiness and delight. + + +_Die deutsche komische und humoristische Dichtung seit Beginn des +16. Jahrhunderts bis auf unsere Zeit_. Von IGNAZ HUB. Nuernberg: +Ebner. 1857. + +Two volumes of this interesting work are coming out at the same +time,--one containing the second of the five parts into which the +prose anthology is divided, with comical and humorous pieces from the +sixteenth century, (for instance, extracts from "Fortunatus," the +"Historia" of Dr. J. Faust, "Die Schildbuerger," Desid, Erasmus's +"Gespraeche," etc.,)--the other containing a collection of poetry of +the same kind, belonging to the present century, and forming part of +the third volume, with pieces by Uhland, Eichendorff, Rueckert, +Sapphir, Wm. Mueller, Immermann, Palten, Hoffmann, Kopisch, Heine, +Lenau, Moericke, Gruen, Wackernagel, and many others. The anthology is +accompanied with biographical and historical notes, and explanations +of provincialisms and such words as to the American reader of German +would be likely to be otherwise unintelligible; so that he may thus, +without too much trouble, satisfactorily enjoy this treasury of +entertainment. The Germans may well be proud of such literary riches, +in which England alone surpasses them. + + +_Thueringer Naturen, Charakter-und Sittenbilder in +Erzaehlungen_. Von OTTO LUDWIG. Erster Band. _Die Heiterethei und +ihr Widerspiel_. Frankfurt. 1857. + +This is one of the numerous imitations of the celebrated +"Dorfgeschichten," by Berthold Auerbach. The latter introduced, in a +time of literary poverty, a wide range of new subjects for epical +treatment,--the life of German peasants, with their simple, healthy, +vigorous natures undepraved by a spurious civilization. In painting +these sinewy figures, full of a character of their own, he was very +felicitous, had an enormous success, and drew a host of less gifted +followers after him. Herr Ludwig is one of these. We shall not despair +of his becoming, at some future time, a second Auerbach; but he is not +one yet. There is, in this work, too much spreading out and +extenuation of a material which, in itself not very rich and varied, +requires great skill to mould into an epic form. But the author has a +remarkable power of drawing true, lifelike characters, and developing +them psychologically. It is refreshing to see that the German literary +taste is becoming gradually more _realistic,_ pure, and natural, +turning its back on the romantic school of the French. + + +_May Carols._ By AUBREY DE VERE. London. +1857. + +The name of Aubrey de Vere has for some years past been familiar to +the lovers of poetry, as that of a scholarly and genial poet. His +successive volumes have shown a steady growth in poetic power and +elevation of spirit. While gaining a firmer mastery over the +instruments of poetry he has struck from them a deeper, fuller, and +more significant tone. In this his last volume, which has lately +appeared, his verse is brought completely into the service of the +Church. The "May Carols" are poems celebrating the Virgin Mary in her +month of May. For that month, and for the Roman church, Mr. De Vere +has done in this volume what Keble did for the festivals of the year, +and the English church, in his "Christian Year." Catholicism in +England has produced no poet since the days of Crashaw so sincere in +his piety, so sweet in his melody, so pure in spirit as De Vere. And +the volume is not for Roman Catholic readers alone. Others may be +touched by its religious fervor, and charmed with its beauties of +description or of feeling. It is full and redolent of spring. The +sweetness of the May air flows through many of its verses,--of that +season when + + + Trees, that from winter's gray eclipse + Of late but pushed their topmost plume, + Or felt with green-touched finger-tips + For spring, their perfect robes assume. + + While, vague no more, the mountains stand + With quivering line or hazy hue; + But drawn with finer, firmer, hand, + And settling into deeper blue. + + +Mr. De Vere is an exquisite student of nature, with fine perceptions +that have been finely cultivated. Take this picture of the lark:-- + + + From his cold nest the skylark springs; + Sings, pauses, sings; shoots up anew; + Attains his topmost height, and sings + Quiescent in his vault of blue. + + +And here is a description of the later spring:-- + + + Brow-bound with myrtle and with gold, + Spring, sacred now from blasts and blights, + Lifts in a firm, untrembling hold + Her chalice of fulfilled delights. + + Confirmed around her queenly lip + The smile late wavering, on she moves; + And seems through deepening tides to step + Of steadier joys and larger loves. + + +The little volume contains many passages such as these. We have space +to quote but one of the poems complete, to show the manner in which +Mr. De Vere unites the real, the symbolic, and the external, with the +spiritual. Like most of his poems, it is marked by artistic finish and +grace, and many of the lines have a natural beauty of unsought +alliteration and assonance. + + + When all the breathless woods aloof + Lie hushed in noontide's deep repose + The dove, sun-warmed on yonder roof, + With what a grave content she coos! + + One note for her! Deep streams run smooth: + The ecstatic song of transience tells. + O, what a depth of loving truth + In thy divine contentment dwells! + + All day with down-dropt lids I sat + In trance; the present scene foregone. + When Hesper rose, on Ararat, + Methought, not English hills, he shone. + + Back to the Ark, the waters o'er, + The primal dove pursued her flight: + A branch of that blest tree she bore + Which feeds the Church with holy light. + + I heard her rustling through the air + With sliding plume,--no sound beside, + Save the sea-sobbings everywhere, + And sighs of the subsiding tide. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 1, +ISSUE 2, DECEMBER, 1857*** + + +******* This file should be named 10138.txt or 10138.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/3/10138 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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